Diary of Corporal Charles H. Lynch: September 12, 1864

Cold cloudy morning. Ordered to the east side of the town, to make camp. Shelter tents put up. Picket line established out near the Shenandoah River. The fords must be guarded. Must keep a sharp lookout for Mosby and his guerillas. They know every foot of this country and all the fording places, so it is reported to us. A cold rain has come. I am detailed for picket. Have charge of the outpost, near the river. Captain Tiffany in command of our regiment. The town and vicinity in command of our Brigade Commander, Colonel Rodgers, 2d Maryland Regiment. Many army wagons are parked here.

SOURCE: Charles H. Lynch, The Civil War Diary, 1862-1865, of Charles H. Lynch 18th Conn. Vol's, p. 124

Major-General John A. Dix to Colonel Randolph B. Marcy, October 21, 1861

HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF PENNSYLVANIA,

Baltimore, Md., October 21, 1861.

Col. R. B. MARCY, Inspector-General, Army of the Potomac:

COLONEL: It has occurred to me that it might be interesting to you to know the system adopted in Baltimore to secure the inhabitants from annoyance by the bad conduct of our soldiers and to keep our men within their encampments.

A few days after I took command, the latter part of July, some 300 of our men had escaped from their regiments, and were disgracing the service by their drunkenness and disorderly conduct in the city, where most of them were secreted. I immediately issued an order to the police to arrest all soldiers found in Baltimore without passes signed by the captains of the companies and the colonels of the regiments to which they belonged, and I adopted very stringent rules in regard to permits to soldiers to leave their camps. In about ten days the absentees were all hunted up in the streets and in their hiding places and brought back to their regiments. Since that time there has been no repetition of these disorderly scenes. All soldiers arrested in the city are taken to the exterior stations of the police, and guards are sent for them every morning and evening. During the month of September, of about 7,000 men in and around the city, only 140 were taken in custody by the police, and of this number 59 belonged to the Second Regiment Maryland Volunteers, which was recruited in Baltimore.

The city has never been so free from disorder, disturbance, and crime as it has been during the last sixty days, and during the whole time not a single soldier has been employed in aid of the police. Much is no doubt due to the presence of a military force, and it is due to the regiments under my command to say that the orderly conduct both of officers and men has produced an improved feeling among large numbers of citizens who have been exceedingly hostile to the Government. I may say this most emphatically of the Sixth Regiment Michigan Volunteers and the eighth ward, the most disloyal in the city, within which the regiment is stationed, at the McKim mansion.

I am, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

JOHN A. DIX,

Major-General, Commanding.

SOURCES: The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Series I, Volume 5 (Serial No. 5), p. 623-4; Morgan Dix, Memoirs of John Adams Dix, Volume 2, p. 33-4

Colonel Charles Russell Lowell to Josephine Shaw Lowell, August 30, 1864 – 8 a.m.

Summit Point, Aug. 30, 8 A. M.

If we ever do have any money to help the Government with, I would rather put it in the 5-20 Bonds than in those 7-30 fellows, — I don't believe in the policy or wisdom of the latter, and prefer not to encourage them by my support! Before I got your letter, I had already written Charley Perkins to sell my land at $200 (?), though that is too cheap for such a pretty place. By the way, I am literally a “penniless colonel,” — I have not a single cent left, except a silver dime-piece which an officer gave me a day or two ago for luck. The Rebs will be disgusted if they ever have occasion to “go through me.” I do wish George,¹ or somebody, would write a candid article showing that the great weakness of this Administration has been from first to last in every department a want of confidence in the people, in their earnestness, their steadfastness, their superiority to low motives and to dodges, their clear-sightedness, &c. I think the whole Cabinet have been more or less tricky, — or rather have had faith in the necessity of trickiness, — and the people are certainly tired of this.

I was interrupted here and sent out to drive in the enemy 's picket in front of us. We have brought back five prisoners, killed two lieutenants and three privates, — Captain Rumery and two privates very slightly wounded, and two men of Second Maryland killed. Successful, but not pleasant, — the only object being to get prisoners, and from them to get information. We now have orders to move camp at once. Good-bye, I don't think it's pleasant telling you about our work, and I think I shan't tell any more, — it doesn't give you any better idea of my whereabouts or my whatabouts.

_______________

¹ George William Curtis

SOURCE: Edward Waldo Emerson, Life and Letters of Charles Russell Lowell, p. 330-2, 460

Baltimore, March 7 [1862].

Private James H. Kuhns, of the 2d Md. Regiment, will be hung at Fort McHenry for the murder of Lieut. J. Davis Whitsen.

– Published in The Davenport Daily Gazette, Davenport, Iowa, Saturday Morning, March 8, 1862, p. 1