Diary of Private Edward W. Crippin, March 17, 1862

Monday morning clear & pleasant. Nothing doing until 1 P. M. when Three Gun Boats the Benton in the center lashed together dropped down to within long range of the upper Battery—Two others on the opposite side of the river. A tremendous heavy fire was now opened from the 5 Gun Boats and 8 mortars Which was responded to with considerable spirit—but without any effect. A cannon on board the St. Louis exploded during the heat of the action killing 2 and wounding 6, was all the men we lost during the action. The effect of our firing on their Battery can not now be ascertained, but we know of several Guns being dismounted.¹

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¹ For these movements see War Records, Series I., vol. VIII., pp. 115-117.

SOURCE: Transactions of the Illinois State Historical Society for the Year 1909, p. 238

Diary of Private Edward W. Crippin, March 24, 1862

Monday weather clear Col. Buford left the McGill went down the River in a tug to make a Balloon reconnoissance. A tree fell across one of the Gun Boats to Day and killed 1 man and wounding 7

SOURCE: Transactions of the Illinois State Historical Society for the Year 1909, p. 239

Diary of Private Seth J. Wells, Friday, March 20, 1863

I was up at reveille as usual and went down to the ditch. To my surprise I saw a big oak just outside the channel washed up by the roots. The tree was about three feet in diameter. Another of nearly the same size washed out before noon. I went fishing this morning. We can see fish weighing from forty to one hundred pounds, working up against the current. I threw my spear at them, but they were too far off. I saw a laughable incident this evening in front of McPherson's headquarters. Some of the boys were trying to fasten a yawl to a tree and float down to where the fish were showing themselves in an eddy. The first time they missed the tree and went whirlnig into the center of the channel and came very near upsetting. They finally brought it to, and after a good deal of hard work, got it into position for another trial. This time they were successful, caught a projecting limb and pulled themselves into the eddy formed by rushing around the tree. After they had made themselves fast by a long rope, they undertook to get out of the eddy, which proved no easy job, for as soon as one end was pushed into the current the boat would whirl around and back up into its former position. While on the whirl it threw off one man's hat. McPherson and officers and nearly the whole regiment were out watching them, and the cheering was loud enough to raise the dead. It was nearly dark when they got out of their predicament. I worked nearly all day on the company's papers.

SOURCE: Seth James Wells, The Siege of Vicksburg: From the Diary of Seth J. Wells, Including Weeks of Preparation and of Occupation After the Surrender, pp. 46-7

Diary of Private John J. Wyeth, March 26, 1863

No drills or excitement for two days, excepting a slight conflagration yesterday. Millar's tent caught fire and was destroyed; and last night many more were blown down by a high wind, with plenty of rain.

SOURCE: John Jasper Wyeth, Leaves from a Diary Written While Serving in Co. E, 44 Mass. Dep’t of North Carolina from September 1862 to June 1863, p. 44

Daniel Webster to Richard M. Blatchford, September 15, 1851

Marshfield, Green Harbor, September 15, 1851.        

Monday morning, eight o'clock.

MY DEAR FRIEND, — Since I wrote you last, I have gone through sudden and various changes in regard to my health. Things wore on, much as they had been going, until the first of this month. Then excessively hot weather set in, and gave a new turn to matters. Saturday the 6th, Sunday the 7th, and Monday the 8th were intolerable days for heat. On Saturday, although I did not step over the threshold, my eyes became strongly affected, much after the catarrh fashion, and this continued. Monday afternoon the weather appearing to cool a little, and the cars not passing till six o'clock, I ventured on board for Boston. We were unlucky. The engine was thrown off the track by running over cattle; it was midnight before we got in. I took a heavy cold, and the next day was quite ill all day. Wednesday afternoon I broke away by violence, and came hither by way of the Hingham boat. While in Boston, Dr. Jeffries advised me to leave off all medicine for a time, which I did, and have not yet resumed the taking of any. These things, or some of them, have caused a very sudden improvement. My feet became at once quite well, nor have I felt any great influence of catarrh, since I have been here. On Thursday, I caught thirty very fine Tautog, under Sunk Rock. It was just the day for them; mild, still, and a little cloudy. On such a day, and just at the commencement of flood tide, throw your hook into their den, and the chiefs will all contend for it. I took one seven pound fellow. On Saturday, I went out in the Lapwing with Fletcher, and some of his Boston friends. We had no great luck, and it came on to rain, during a perfect calm, so that we did not escape a wetting. I took little harm from it.

Saturday night wind and weather changed, and we have had it quite cold. This morning the wind is east, and at sunrise the mercury stood 51°. I doubt whether I shall leave the house to-day. Mr. Lanman came with me from New Hampshire, has been here, and went off this morning for New York. Mrs. Webster, Miss Kate Le Roy, and myself constitute the parlour part of the household.

I received an invitation from the City Government to attend the railroad celebration, which I declined. The President wrote me on the 10th, that he should not be here, but a telegraphic despatch announced, Saturday evening, that he would leave Washington this morning for Boston.

Mrs. Webster and I propose to go to town to-morrow, to see the fashions a little, and spend two or three days. Then one more short stay at this place, will bring us to October.

Marshfield looks finely, and every thing is right but the potatoes. The rot has taken them. The barns are crowded full of hay and grain, the fields have quite an English green about them, and the cattle are up to their knees in fresh grown grass. N. B. Since writing so far, I have yours, saying you have flown off to Niagara.

Yours truly,

DAN'L WEBSTER.

SOURCE: Fletcher Webster, Editor, The Private Correspondence of Daniel Webster, Vol. 2, pp. 471-2

Diary of Private Edward W. Crippin, Monday, February 3, 1862

Camp Cairo, Illinois.  Storm has abated. The troops that were enbarking yesterday will all leave to day. One soldier was drowned yesterday evening by being shoved overboard Gens. McClernand & Grant & Staffs respectively leave to day. Col. Buford is in command until noon to day. Gen. Paine will then assume command of the Three Posts with Head Quarters here. To inclement for Dress Parade.

SOURCE: Transactions of the Illinois State Historical Society for the Year 1909, p. 235

Diary of Private John J. Wyeth, March 5, 1863

It has cleared up and is quite cold. We sent off a large mail this morning. Last night we came very near having our barracks destroyed. The funnel of one of the stoves dropped against the roof, igniting the boards, and as we had all turned in, it burned through the roof before it was discovered by a sentry. After burning a hole five feet square we mastered it, and turned in again.

SOURCE: John Jasper Wyeth, Leaves from a Diary Written While Serving in Co. E, 44 Mass. Dep’t of North Carolina from September 1862 to June 1863, p. 41

Diary of Private Lewis C. Paxson, Wednesday, February 11, 1863

I cut a pile of wood. Cold. Clarence A. Hubbard had his ankle dislocated and leg broken just above, while pallisading.

SOURCE: Lewis C. Paxson, Diary of Lewis C. Paxson: Stockton, N.J., 1862-1865, p. 12

Diary of 5th Sergeant Lawrence Van Alstyne, January 1, 1863

The Arago did call for our mail and the body of Lieutenant Sterling was put on board to go to his family in Poughkeepsie. We gave the old ship three cheers, and then some one sang out three cheers for the lice you gave us. John Van Hoovenburg died last night. We made a box for him out of such boards as we could find. Though we did our best, his bare feet showed through the cracks. But that made no difference to poor Johnnie. The chaplain was with him to the end, says he was happy and ready to go. This is how we spend our New Year's day. We wish each other a happy New Year though just as if we were home and had a good prospect of one. After the funeral Walter Loucks and I went up the river quite a distance, so far it seemed as if our legs would not carry us back. Negro huts are scattered along. I suppose white people cannot live here and so the darkeys have it all. Some cultivate patches of ground and in one garden we saw peas in bloom. We bought a loaf of bread and a bottle of molasses of an old woman, and though the bread was not what it might have been, it tasted good. There are some orange trees, but no oranges. The darkies say they will blossom in about a month. A man in Company E, a sort of poet, who was always writing songs for the boys to sing, was cutting wood to-day and the axe flew off the handle and cut the whole four fingers from the right hand. There were no witnesses and some there are who say he did it so as to get a discharge. The doctor has dressed the hand and he is going about in great pain just now.

SOURCE:  Lawrence Van Alstyne, Diary of an Enlisted Man, p. 78

Diary of 5th Sergeant Lawrence Van Alstyne, January 18, 1863

Yesterday the chaplain's tent for public worship came and this morning we were all gathered there and the chaplain was praying, when snap went something in the top and down came the tent upon us. He didn't have time to say "Amen," to say nothing of the benediction. In the afternoon Isaac T. Winans, Jim Story and I went to see Walter and found him in a good bed and in a warm room. He is much better, but his wrists are swollen yet and look as if the joints had been pulled apart.

SOURCE:  Lawrence Van Alstyne, Diary of an Enlisted Man, p. 83

Diary of 2nd Lieutenant Benjamin F. Pearson, December 5, 1862

Forenoon we was on battallion drill after noon Co drill, no Dress perade about sunset just when the 23 Mo Inft dismissed their dress perade one of their boys snapped his gun at the croud not knowing it was loaded it went of killed one man dead dangerously wounded one & one slightly Evening I attended preaching by one of the 1st Iowa Cavalry to the paroled prisoners text to be spiritually minded is life & peace

SOURCE: Edgar R. Harlan, Currator, Annals of Iowa, 3rd Series, Vol. 15, No. 2, October 1925, p. 97

Diary of Lieutenant-Colonel John Beatty, October 5, 1861

Some of the Indiana regiments are utterly beyond discipline. The men are good, stout, hearty, intelligent fellows, and will make excellent soldiers; but they have now no regard for their officers, and, as a rule, do as they please. They came straggling back yesterday from the top of Cheat unofficered, and in the most unsoldierly manner. As one of these stray Indianians was coming into camp, he saw a snake in the river and cocked his gun. He was near the quarters of the Sixth Ohio, and many men were on the opposite side of the stream, among them a lieutenant, who called to the Indianian and begged him for God's sake not to fire; but the latter, unmindful of what was said, blazed away. The ball, striking the water, glanced and hit the lieutenant in the breast, killing him almost instantly.

SOURCE: John Beatty, The Citizen-soldier: Or, Memoirs of a Volunteer, p. 75

Diary of Lieutenant-Colonel John Beatty, October 6, 1861

The Third and Sixth Ohio, with Loomis' battery, left camp at half-past three in the afternoon, and took the Huntersville turnpike for Big Springs, where Lee's army has been encamped for some months. At nine o'clock we reached Logan's Mill, where the column halted for the night. It had rained heavily for some hours, and was still raining. The boys went into camp thoroughly wet, and very hungry and tired; but they soon had a hundred fires kindled, and, gathering around these, prepared and ate supper.

I never looked upon a wilder or more interesting scene. The valley is blazing with camp-fires; the men flit around them like shadows. Now some indomitable spirit, determined that neither rain nor weather shall get him down, strikes up:

Oh! say, can you see by the dawn's early light,

What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming,

Whose broad stripes and bright stars, through the perilous fight,

O'er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming?

A hundred voices join in, and the very mountains, which loom up in the fire-light like great walls, whose tops are lost in the darkness, resound with a rude melody befiting so wild a night and so wild a scene. But the songs are not all patriotic. Love and fun make contribution also, and a voice, which may be that of the invincible Irishman, Corporal Casey, sings:

’T was a windy night, about two o'clock in the morning,

 An Irish lad, so tight, all the wind and weather scorning,

 At Judy Callaghan's door, sitting upon the paling,

 His love tale he did pour, and this is part of his wailing:

 Only say you'll be mistress Brallaghan;

 Don't say nay, charming Judy Callaghan.

A score of voices pick up the chorus, and the hills and mountains seem to join in the Corporal's appeal to the charming Judy:

Only say you'll be mistress Brallaghan;

Don't say nay, charming Judy Callaghan.

Lieutenant Root is in command of Loomis' battery. Just before reaching Logan's one of his provision wagons tumbled down a precipice, severely injuring three men and breaking the wagon in pieces.

SOURCE: John Beatty, The Citizen-soldier: Or, Memoirs of a Volunteer, pp. 75-7

Diary of Private Jenkin Lloyd Jones: Tuesday, October 21, 1862

Corinth. Finished policing around the guns. In the afternoon after the Company was formed for drill, as Orderly Hayward was returning after reporting to the Captain, his horse stumbled, falling on him, spraining his right ankle and fracturing the cap bone.

SOURCE: Jenkin Lloyd Jones, An Artilleryman's Diary, p. 10

Diary of Private Jenkin Lloyd Jones: Wednesday, October 22, 1862

Corinth. While on drill in the afternoon, I, in attempting to mount, lost my balance and fell, the hind wheel of the caisson running over my left ankle, luckily without any dislocation. After drill I was taken to the hospital, my foot being very painful during the night.

SOURCE: Jenkin Lloyd Jones, An Artilleryman's Diary, p. 10

Diary of Corporal John Worrell Northrop: Friday, June 17, 1864

The night of the 11th a well caved in; two men asleep slid in; one was killed. Soon after coming in, we learned that one of the dealers, or "raiders" bore the name of Cary. He was at Belle Isle and is charged with being the cause of several deaths. Today he was pointed out to us and we recognized Sullivan of our company (76th N. Y.) who deserted October 10, 1863, near the Rapidan River south of Mitchell, Va. He was a substitute from Buffalo, a "gambling, fighting, bad tempered fellow, feared in the company. He thinks we suspect him, and tonight sends word by Mooney, who knew him in Canada, that if we do not expose him, Company F shall never be disturbed by raiders.

SOURCE: John Worrell Northrop, Chronicles from the Diary of a War Prisoner in Andersonville and Other Military Prisons of the South in 1864, p. 76

Diary of Major Joseph Stockton, March 14, 1863

The past few days have been attended with some excitement in various ways. In the first place, there has been a "revival" among the division, the different regimental chaplains being interested in it, particularly an Indiana chaplain, who is a regular camp-meeting Methodist and understands his business. Quite number have participated and I sincerely trust with good results. The men had quite a hunt for a large eagle that flew over our camp, but it was soon lost to sight. We embarked on board the transport "Empire City," Captain Hazlitt. The boat is terribly crowded, our own regiment and part of the 11th Ohio Battery on board. There was a disturbance on board by the latter attempting to take possession of the boat, but it was soon quieted. Last night one of the battery was drowned by falling off the boat as he was carrying a bag of grain on board. Poor fellow, he could not be saved; the current of the river was too swift. We are now on our way for the Yazoo Pass and now as far as Moon Lake.

SOURCE: Joseph Stockton, War Diary (1862-5) of Brevet Brigadier General Joseph Stockton, p. 9-10

Diary of Lieutenant-Colonel John Beatty: August 18, 1861

The name of our camp is properly Elk Water, not Elk Fork. The little stream which comes down to the river, from which the camp derives its name, is called Elk Water, because tradition affirms that in early days the elk frequented the little valley through which it runs.

The fog has been going up from the mountains, and the rain coming down in the valley. The river roars a little louder than usual, and its water is a little less clear.

The party sent in pursuit of the bushwhacker has returned. Found no one.

Two men were seen this evening, armed with rifles, prowling among the bushes near the place where the affair of last night occurred. They were fired upon, but escaped.

An accident, which particularly interests my old company, occurred a few minutes ago. John Heskett, Jeff Long, and four or five other men, were detailed from Company I for picket duty. Heskett and Long are intimate friends, and were playing together, the one with a knife and the other with a pocket pistol. The pistol was discharged accidentally, and the ball struck Heskett in the neck, inflicting a serious wound, but whether fatal or not the surgeon can not yet tell. The affair has cast a shadow over the company. Young Heskett bears himself bravely. Long is inconsolable, and begs the boys to shoot him.

SOURCE: John Beatty, The Citizen-soldier: Or, Memoirs of a Volunteer, p. 57-8

Diary of Lieutenant-Colonel John Beatty: August 21, 1861

Francis Union was shot and killed by one of our own sentinels last night, the ball entering just under the nose. This resulted from the cowardice of the soldier who fired. He was afraid to give the neccesary challenge: four simple words: "Halt! who comes there?" would have saved a life. This illustrates the danger there is in visiting pickets at night. If the sentinel halts the man, the man may fire at the sentinel. The latter, if timid, therefore makes sure of the first shot, and does not challenge. We buried the dead soldier with all the honors due one of his rank, on a beautiful hill in the rear of our fortifications. He was with me on the mountain chopping, a few days ago, strong, healthy, vigorous, and young. No more hard work for him!

SOURCE: John Beatty, The Citizen-soldier: Or, Memoirs of a Volunteer, p. 62-3

Secretary Seward’s Condition Improving.

We are gratified to learn that Secretary SEWARD is much better to-day, and that the somewhat alarming reports about him in circulation last evening are without foundation.

SOURCE: “Secretary Seward’s Condition Improving,” National Republican, Washington, D. C., Friday Evening, April 7, 1862, p. 2, col. 4