Showing posts with label Adelbert Ames. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Adelbert Ames. Show all posts

Tuesday, January 31, 2017

Governor John A. Andrew to Brigadier-General Benjamin F. Butler, April 25, 1861

Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Executive Department, Council Chamber,
BosToN, Apr. 25, '61
Gen. B. F. BUTLER

GENERAL: I have received through Major Ames a despatch transmitted from Perryville, detailing the proceedings at Annapolis from the time of your arrival off that port until the hour when Major Ames left you to return to Philadelphia. I wish to repeat the assurance of my entire satisfaction with the action you have taken with a single exception. If I rightly understood the telegraphic despatch, I think that your action in tendering to Governor Hicks the assistance of our Massachusetts troops to suppress a threatened servile insurrection among the hostile people of Maryland was unnecessary. I hope that the fuller despatches, which are on their way from you, may show the reasons why I should modify my opinion concerning that particular instance; but in general I think that the matter of servile insurrection among the community in arms against the Federal Union is no longer to be regarded by our troops in a political, but solely in a military point of view, and is to be contemplated as one of the inherent weaknesses of the enemy, from the disastrous operations of which we are under no obligation of a military character to guard them, in order that they may be enabled to improve the security which our arms would afford, so as to prosecute with more energy their traitorous attacks upon a federal government and capitol. The mode in which such outbreaks are to be considered should depend entirely upon the loyalty or disloyalty of the community in which they occur; and, in the vicinity of Annapolis, I can on this occasion perceive no reason of military policy why a force summoned to the defence of the federal government, at this moment of all others, should be offered to be diverted from its immediate duty to help rebels who stand with arms in their hands, obstructing its progress toward the city of Washington. I entertain no doubt that whenever we shall have an opportunity to interchange our views personally on this subject we shall arrive at entire concordance of opinion.

Yours faithfully,
John A. ANDREw

SOURCE: Jessie Ames Marshall, Editor, Private and Official Correspondence of Gen. Benjamin F. Butler During the Period of the Civil War, Volume 1: April 1860 – June 1862, p. 37-8

Tuesday, February 16, 2016

Diary of Mary Boykin Chesnut: July 26, 1865

I do not write often now, not for want of something to say, but from a loathing of all I see and hear, and why dwell upon those things?

Colonel Chesnut, poor old man, is worse — grows more restless. He seems to be wild with “homesickness.” He wants to be at Mulberry. When there he can not see the mighty giants of the forest, the huge, old, wide-spreading oaks, but he says he feels that he is there so soon as he hears the carriage rattling across the bridge at the Beaver Dam.

I am reading French with Johnny — anything to keep him quiet. We gave a dinner to his company, the small remnant of them, at Mulberry house. About twenty idle negroes, trained servants, came without leave or license and assisted. So there was no expense. They gave their time and labor for a good day's feeding. I think they love to be at the old place.

Then I went up to nurse Kate Withers. That lovely girl, barely eighteen, died of typhoid fever. Tanny wanted his sweet little sister to have a dress for Mary Boykin's wedding, where she was to be one of the bridesmaids. So Tanny took his horses, rode one, and led the other thirty miles in the broiling sun to Columbia, where he sold the led horse and came back with a roll of Swiss muslin. As he entered the door, he saw Kate lying there dying. She died praying that she might die. She was weary of earth and wanted to be at peace. I saw her die and saw her put in her coffin. No words of mine can tell how unhappy I am. Six young soldiers, her friends, were her pall-bearers. As they marched out with that burden sad were their faces.

Princess Bright Eyes writes: “Our soldier boys returned, want us to continue our weekly dances.” Another maiden fair indites: “Here we have a Yankee garrison. We are told the officers find this the dullest place they were ever in. They want the ladies to get up some amusement for them. They also want to get into society.”

From Isabella in Columbia: “General Hampton is home again. He looks crushed. How can he be otherwise? His beautiful home is in ruins, and ever present with him must be the memory of the death tragedy which closed forever the eyes of his glorious boy, Preston! Now! there strikes up a serenade to General Ames, the Yankee commander, by a military band, of course. . . . Your last letters have been of the meagerest. What is the matter ?'”

SOURCES: Mary Boykin Chesnut, Edited by Isabella D. Martin and Myrta Lockett Avary, A Diary From Dixie, p. 403-4

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Adelbert Ames

AMES, ADELBERT, brev. maj.-gen. U.S.A., b. Me., 1835. W. Pt., 1861. 1st lieut. 5th Art. May 14, 1861; brev. maj. July 21, 1861, for Bull Run; brev. lieut.-col. for Malvern Hill, July 1, 1862; col. 20th Me. Vols. Aug. 29, 1862; brig.-gen. U.S. Vols. May 20, 1863, for Chancellorsville; brev. col. July 1, 1863, for Gettysburg; com. div. or brigade 18th Corps in the operations before Petersburg, and engaged at Port Walthall Junction, May 7, and Cold Harbor, June I, 1864; capt. 5th Art. June 11, 1864; com. div. 10th Corps, Oct. 10 to Dec. 2, 1864, in actions of Darbytown, Oct. 13 and 27; com. div. 24th Corps in assault and capture of Fort Fisher, and in operations in N.C. Jan.-Apr. 1865, for which brev. maj.-gen. vols, and brig.-gen. U.S.A.; com. div. 10th Corps Apr.-May, 1865; lieut.-col. 24th Inf. July 28, 1866. U.S. senator from Mpi. 1871; prov. gov. Mpi. June, 1868-9.

SOURCE: Francis S. Drake, Dictionary of American Biography, p. 24