Sent off ambulances
to-day to commence bringing forward the sick of my regiment, and whilst they
were gone, after having put my hospital in good order for their reception, I
stepped over again to Commodore Jones' house to see how the guards stationed
there had succeeded in carrying out their orders. Till I entered the house, I
thought I had seen evidences of extreme vandalism, but the wanton destruction
here beggars everything I have before witnessed. Furniture broken; feather beds
opened, and their contents emptied over house and yard; even those beautiful
family pictures were ground to atoms and thrown to the winds. But I need not
describe here, for the impression is deeply stamped in memory, more durable and
more accurate than words and letters can ever make. Everything destructable was
destroyed.*
In handling over the
papers I picked up the Commodore's "Journal of a cruise in the U. S. ship
Relief-bearing the broad pennant of Commodore Jones-Thos. A. Downer, Esq.,
Commander," which I have preserved, and also a letter from a son of
Commodore Tatnall (late of the rebel Merrimac) to Commodore Jones, written from
the Meditterranean, asking to be relieved from duty there, and to be permitted
to return to America.†
As it will be a
matter of interest to me, in future, to study my predictions as to the course
and conduct of this war-to rejoice and be vain over those which prove correct,
and to laugh at or be ashamed of those which prove false, I shall continue to
record them as I have begun; and here I enter one in which I hope to take
interest a long time hence. As I have constantly predicted, we have had no
fight here nor shall we have; and I now very much doubt whether we shall have a
fight even at Manassas, and for this reason: "After all the feints of the
enemy here to draw Gen. Banks from Harper's Ferry had failed, they, seeing that
we have got foot-hold in North Carolina, will fall back on their fortifications
at Centerville and Manassas, and then presenting a bold front with a small
body, will cover the withdrawal of the larger part of their force, which they
will distribute in Kentucky, Missouri, Tennessee and Western Virginia, and I
very much doubt whether they will retain enough at Manassas to make a
respectable fight. Kentucky and Tennessee are to become the theatre of war; and
if I am not greatly mistaken, Kentucky will have trying times between this and
the first of January. I hope that Gen. McClellan is taking the same view of
things, and is preparing to meet it." What I have here marked as a
quotation is a copied from a letter this day written to a friend on the
prospects of the war.
_______________
* It is worthy of
remark here, that thus whilst this wanton destruction was going on, a half a
mile away, everything on the place of Mr. Johnson, (a loyalist, whose house and
garden were in the very midst of the encampments,) though unguarded was
unmolested; every article he had to dispose of was bought and paid for, at high
prices, by the soldiers. Even thus early could we read the soldier's aversion
to guarding, or having guarded the property of rebels.
† This letter I
handed to a lady connection of the Tatnall family, who was with me at the time,
and she found means of restoring it to them.
SOURCE: Alfred L.
Castleman, The Army of the Potomac. Behind the Scenes. A Diary of
Unwritten History; From the Organization of the Army, by General George B.
McClellan, to the close of the Campaign in Virginia about the First Day
January, 1863, p. 42-3
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