Have gone into camp. My headquarters here. My brigade is
Twenty-third Ohio, Fifth Virginia, Colonel Ziegler, Thirteenth Virginia
Cavalry, Colonel Brown, Captain Gilmore's Cavalry, Lieutenant Gonseman's ditto,
and Lieutenant ——; also Captain Simmond's Battery. Gonseman at Loup and
Tompkins Farm. Gilmore, here. Battery at Gauley Bridge; Twenty-third here.
Thirteenth at Coal's Mouth and Hurricane Bridge; Fifth at Ceredo.
The boys will never forget their visit to papa and the
Twenty-third. It will be a romatic memory. Webb was a greater favorite than
Birch. Mischievous but kind-hearted and affectionate. Birch more scholarly and
more commanding. Dear boys, how I love them! They were with me nearly two
months in my log cabin camp. Great happiness in log cabins.
SOURCE: Charles Richard Williams, editor, Diary and
Letters of Rutherford Birchard Hayes, Volume 2, p. 395
