A clear fine day. In the morning I walked, or climbed
rather, to the top of the hill near the camp, just east of us. On the top I
could see east of me the camp of the Forty-seventh [Ohio] at Tompkins farm, the
camp of the Fourth Virginia, and other camps on the west side of Kanawha to the
west, and the road to Fayette south. A hard scramble but I stood it well. My
arm is still weak and easily hurt. Queer feeling, to think I can reach up to
grasp a limb of a tree, and find it impossible to raise my hand above my head.
In the afternoon I walked with Captain Haven up to Gauley Bridge. He explained
to me the dwarf and giant laurel and the beautiful holly. The dwarf laurel grows
from three to five feet high, is usually in thickets, and has an oval leaf. The
giant laurel grows fifteen or twenty feet high and has a long leaf. The holly
grows as high as apple trees and has a prickly leaf.
I give Colonel Comly drill and discipline, Major McIlrath,
supplies of all sorts, and I attend to general interests of the regiment. I
have sinks dug, look to camp drainage, and the like. The exercise agrees with
me.
SOURCE: Charles Richard Williams, editor, Diary and
Letters of Rutherford Birchard Hayes, Volume 2, p. 370
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