Diary of Corporal Alexander G. Downing: Tuesday, October 25, 1864

Still lying in camp. The supply train of the Fifteenth Army Corps returned with rations late this evening, but the supply train of the Seventeenth Corps has not yet come in. It is reported that the army of the Tennessee is going on a march of four hundred miles. The route is supposed to be down through the States of Alabama and Mississippi and then up through to Memphis, Tennessee.¹ We are to take rations for thirty days and clothing for sixty days. The armies of the Ohio and of the Cumberland, it is said, are to garrison Atlanta² and also to hold the railroad between Atlanta and Nashville. The Twenty-third Army Corps moved out today to Cedar Bluffs.

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¹ This was the first hint at “marching through Georgia,” but the camp rumor had it Alabama and Mississippi. — Ed.

² We learned later that it was Chattanooga instead of Atlanta, and that the two armies were to be united under the command of General Thomas. — A. G. D.

Source: Alexander G. Downing, Edited by Olynthus B., Clark, Downing’s Civil War Diary, p. 224

Diary of Mary Boykin Chesnut: February 17, 1864

Found everything in Main Street twenty per cent dearer. They say it is due to the new currency bill.

I asked my husband: “Is General Johnston ordered to reenforce Polk? They said he did not understand the order.” “After five days' delay,” he replied. “They say Sherman is marching to Mobile.¹ When they once get inside of our armies what is to molest them, unless it be women with broomsticks?” General Johnston writes that “the Governor of Georgia refuses him provisions and the use of his roads.” The Governor of Georgia writes: '”The roads are open to him and in capital condition. I have furnished him abundantly with provisions from time to time, as he desired them.” I suppose both of these letters are placed away side by side in our archives.

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¹ General Polk, commanding about 24,000 men scattered throughout Mississippi and Alabama, found it impossible to check the advance of Sherman at the head of some 40,000, and moved from Meridian south to protect Mobile. February 16, 1864, Sherman took possession of Meridian.

SOURCE: Mary Boykin Chesnut, Edited by Isabella D. Martin and Myrta Lockett Avary, A Diary From Dixie, p. 290-1

Isaac W. Hayne to James Buchanan, January 31, 1861

WASHINGTON, January 31, 1861.

SIR: I had the honor to hold a short interview with you on the 14th instant, informal and unofficial. Having previously been informed that you desired that whatever was official should be, on both sides, conducted by written communications, I did not at that time present my credentials, but verbally informed you that I bore a letter from the governor of South Carolina, in regard to the occupation of Fort Sumter, which I would deliver the next day under cover of a written communication from myself. The next day, before such communication could be made, I was waited upon by a senator from Alabama, who stated that he came on the part of all the senators then in Washington from the States which had already seceded from the United States, or would certainly have done so before the first day of February next. The senator from Alabama urged that he and they were interested in the subject of my mission in almost an equal degree with the authorities of South Carolina. He said that hostilities commenced between South Carolina and your government would necessarily involve the States represented by themselves in civil strife: and fearing that the action of South Carolina might complicate the relations of your government to the seceded and seceding States, and thereby interfere with a peaceful solution of existing difficulties, these senators requested that I would withhold my message to yourself until a consultation among themselves could be had. To this I agreed, and the result of the consultation was the letter of these senators addressed to me, dated January 15, a copy of which is in your possession. To this letter I replied on the 17th, and a copy of that reply is likewise in your possession. This correspondence, as I am informed, was made the subject of a communication from Senators Fitzpatrick, Mallory, and Slidell, addressed to you, and your attention called to the contents. These gentlemen received on the — day of January a reply to their application, conveyed in a letter addressed to them dated — —, signed by the Hon. J. Holt, Secretary of War ad interim. Of this letter you of course have a copy. This letter from Mr. Holt was communicated to me under cover of a letter from all the senators of the seceded and seceding States who still remained in Washington, and of this letter, too, I am informed you have been furnished with a copy.

This reply of yours, through the Secretary of War ad interim, to the application made by the senators was entirely unsatisfactory to me. It appeared to me to be not only a rejection in advance of the main proposition made by these senators, to wit: that “an arrangement should be agreed on” between the authorities of South Carolina and your government, “at least until the 15th of February next,” by which time South Carolina and the States represented by the senators  “might in convention devise a wise, just, and peaceable solution of existing difficulties.” “In the meantime,” they say, “we think,” that is, these senators, “that your State (South Carolina) should suffer Major Anderson to obtain necessary supplies of food, fuel, or water, and enjoy free communication, by post or special messenger, with the President, upon the understanding that the President will not send him reenforcements during the same period;” but, besides this rejection of the main proposition, there was, in Mr. Holt’s letter, a distinct refusal to make any stipulation on the subject of re-enforcement, even for the short time that might be required to communicate with my government. This reply to the senators was, as I have stated, altogether unsatisfactory to me, and I felt sure would be so to the authorities whom I represented. It was not, however, addressed to me, or to the authorities of South Carolina; and as South Carolina had addressed nothing to your government, and had asked nothing at your hands, I looked not to Mr. Holt's letter, but to the note addressed to me by the senators of the seceded and seceding States. I had consented to withhold my message at their instance, provided they could get assurances satisfactory to them that no re-enforcemcnts would be sent to Fort Sumter in the interval, and that the peace should not be disturbed by any act of hostility.

The senators expressed in their note to me of the 23d instant their entire confidence “that no re-enforcements will be sent to Fort Sumter, nor will the public peace be disturbed within the period requisite for full communication between you (myself) and your (my) government,” and renewed their request that I would withhold the communication with which I stood charged, and await further instructions.

This I have done. The further instructions arrived on the 30th instant, and bear date the 26th. I now have the honor to make to you my first communication as special envoy from the government of South Carolina. You will find enclosed the original communication to the President of the United States from the governor of South Carolina, with which I was charged in Charleston on the 12th day of January instant, the day on which it bears date. I am now instructed by the governor Of South Carolina to say that his opinion as to the propriety of the demand which is contained in this letter “has not only been confirmed by the circumstances which your (my) mission has developed but is now increased to a conviction of its necessity. The safety of the State requires that the position of the President should be distinctly understood. The safety of all seceding States requires it as much as the safety of South Carolina. If it be so that Fort Sumter is held as Property, then, as property, the rights, whatever they may be, of the United States can be ascertained, and for the satisfaction of these rights the pledge of the State of South Carolina you are (I am) authorized to give.” “If Fort Sumter is not held as property, it is held,” say my instructions, “as a military post, and such a post within the limits of South Carolina will not be tolerated.” You will perceive that it is upon the presumption that it is solely as property that you continue to hold Fort Sumter that I have been selected for the performance of the duty upon which I have entered. I do not come as a military man to demand the surrender of a fortress, but as the legal officer of the State — its attorney general — to claim for the State the exercise of its undoubted right of eminent domain, and to pledge the State to make good all injury to the rights of property which arise from the exercise of the claim.

South Carolina, as a separate, independent sovereign, assumes the right to take into her own possession everything within her limits essential to maintain her honor or her safety, irrespective of the question of property, subject only to the moral duty requiring that compensation should be made to the owner. This right she cannot permit to be drawn into discussion. As to compensation for any property, whether of an individual or a government, which she may deem it necessary for her honor or safety to take into her possession, her past history gives ample guarantee that it will be made, upon a fair accounting, to the last dollar.

The proposition now is that her law officer should, under authority of the governor and his council, distinctly pledge the faith of South Carolina to make such compensation in regard to Fort Sumter, and its appurtenances and contents, to the full extent of the money value of the property of the United States delivered over to the authorities of South Carolina by your command. I will not suppose that a pledge like this can be considered insufficient security. Is not the money value of the property of the United States in this fort, situated where it cannot be made available to the United States for any one purpose for which it was originally constructed, worth more to the United States than the property itself? Why then, as property, insist on holding it by an armed garrison? Yet such has been the ground upon which you have invariably placed your occupancy of this fort by troops — beginning prospectively with your annual message of the 4th December, again in your special message of the 9th January, and still more emphatically in your message of the 28th January. The same position is set forth in your reply to the senators, through the Secretary of War ad interim. It is there virtually conceded that Fort Sumter “is held merely as property of the United States, which you deem it your duty to protect and preserve.” Again, it is submitted that the continuance of an armed possession actually jeopards the property you desire to protect. It is impossible but that such a possession, if continued long enough, must lead to collision. No people not completely abject and pusillanimous could submit indefinitely to the armed occupation Of a fortress in the midst of the harbor of its principal city, and commanding the ingress and egress Of every ship that enters the port — the daily ferry-boats that ply upon its waters moving but at the sufferance of aliens. An attack upon this fort would scarcely improve it as property, whatever the result; and if captured, it would no longer be the subject of account. To protect Fort Sumter merely as property, it is submitted that an armed occupancy is not only unnecessary, but that it is manifestly the worst possible means which can be resorted to for such an object.

Your reply to the senators, through Mr. Holt, declares it to be your sole object “to act strictly on the defensive, and to authorize no movement against South Carolina, unless justified by a hostile movement on their part.” Yet, in reply to the proposition of the senators — that no re-enforcements should be sent to Fort Sumter, provided South Carolina agrees that during the same period no attack should be made — you say “it is impossible for me (your Secretary) to give you (the senators) any such assurance;” that “it would be manifest violation of his (your) duty, to place himself (yourself) under engagements that he (you) would not perform the duty, either for an indefinite or a limited period.” In your message of the 28th instant, in expressing yourself in regard to a similar proposition, you say: “However strong may be my desire to enter into such an agreement, I am convinced that I do not possess the power. Congress, and Congress alone, under the war-making power, can exercise the discretion of agreeing to abstain ‘from any and all acts calculated to produce a collision of arms’ between this and any other government. It would, therefore, be a usurpation for the Executive to attempt to restrain their hands by an agreement in regard to matters over which he has no constitutional control. If he were thus to act, they might pass laws which he should be bound to obey, though in conflict with his agreement.” The proposition, it is suggested, was addressed to you under the laws as they now are, and was not intended to refer to a new condition of things arising under new legislation. It was addressed to the executive discretion, acting under existing laws. If Congress should, under the war-making power, or in any other way, legislate in a manner to affect the peace of South Carolina, her interests, or her rights, it would not be accomplished in secret; South Carolina would have timely notice, and she would, I trust, endeavor to meet the emergency.

It is added, in the letter of Mr. Holt, that “ at the present moment it is not deemed necessary to re-enforce Major Anderson, because he makes no such request, and feels quite secure in his position;” “but should his safety require it, every effort will be made to supply re-enforccments.” This would seem to ignore the other branch of the proposition made by the senators, viz: that no attack was to be made on Fort Sumter during the period suggested, and that Major Anderson should enjoy the facilities of communication, &c., &c. I advert to this point, however, for the purpose of saying that to send re-enforcements to Fort Sumter could not serve as a means of protecting and Warning Mulberry; for, as must be known to your government, it would inevitably lead to immediate hostilities, in which property on all sides would necessarily suffer. South Carolina has every disposition to preserve the public peace, and feels, I am sure, in full force, those high “ Christian and moral duties" referred to by your Secretary; and it is submitted that on her part there is scarcely any consideration of mere property, apart from honor and safety, which could induce her to do aught to jeopard that peace, still less to inaugurate a protracted and bloody civil war. She rests her position on something higher than mere property. It is a consideration of her own dignity as a sovereign, and the safety of her people, which prompts her to demand that this property should not longer be used as a military post by a government she no longer acknowledges. She feels this to be an imperative duty. It has, in fact, become an absolute necessity of her condition.

Repudiating, as you do, the idea of coercion, avowing peaceful intentions, and expressing a patriot's horror for civil war and bloody strife among those who once were brethren, it is hoped that, on further consideration, you will not, on a mere question of property, refuse the reasonable demand of South Carolina, which honor and necessity alike compel her to vindicate. Should you disappoint this hope, the responsibility for the result surely does not rest with her. If the evils of war are to be encountered, especially the calamities of civil war, an elevated statesmanship would seem to require that it should be accepted as the unavoidable alternative of something still more disastrous, such as national dishonor, or measures materially affecting the safety or permanent interests of a people; that it should be a choice deliberately made, and entered upon as war, and of set purpose. But that war should be the incident or accident attendant on a policy professedly peaceful, and not required to effect the object which is avowed, as the only end intended, can only be excused where there has been no warning given as to the consequences.

I am further instructed to say that South Carolina cannot, by her silence, appear to acquiesce in the imputation that she was guilty of an act of unprovoked aggression in firing on the “Star of the West.” Though an unarmed vessel, she was filled with armed men, entering her territory against her will with the purpose of re-enforcing a garrison held within her limits against her protest. She forbears to recriminate by discussing the question of the propriety of attempting such a re-enforcement at all, as well as of the disguised and secret manner in which it was intended to be effected; and on this occasion she will say nothing as to the manner in which Fort Sumter was taken into the possession of its present occupants. The interposition of the senators who have addressed you was a circumstance unexpected by my government, and unsolicited certainly by me. The governor, while he appreciates the high and generous motives by which they were prompted, and while he fully approves the delay which, in deference to them, has taken place in the presentation of this demand, feels that it cannot longer be withheld.

I conclude with an extract from the instructions just received by me from the government of South Carolina. “The letter of the President, through Mr. Holt, may be received as the reply to the question you were instructed to ask, as to his assertion of his right to send re-enforcements to Fort Sumter. You were instructed to say to him, if he asserted that right, that the State of South Carolina regarded such a right, when asserted, or with an attempt at its exercise, as a declaration of war. If the President intends it shall not be so understood, it is proper, to avoid any misconception hereafter, that he should be informed of the manner in which the governor will feel bound to regard it. If the President, when you have stated the reasons which prompt the governor in making the demand for the delivery of Fort Sumter, shall refuse to deliver the fort upon the pledge you have been authorized to make, you will communicate that refusal without delay to the governor. If the President shall not be prepared to give you an immediate answer, you will communicate to him that his answer may be transmitted within a reasonable time to the governor at this place, (Charleston, South Carolina.) The governor does not consider it necessary that you (I) should remain longer in Washington than is necessary to execute this, the closing duty of your (my) mission in the manner now indicated to you, (me.) As soon as the governor shall receive from you information that you have closed your mission, and the reply, whatever it may be, of the President, he will consider the conduct which will be necessary on his part.”

Allow me to request that you would as soon as possible inform me whether, under these instructions, I need await your answer in Washington. And if not, I would be pleased to convey from you to my government information as to the time when an answer may be expected in Charleston.

With consideration, I have the honor to be, very respectfully,

ISAAC W. HAYNE,

Special Envoy.

His EXCELLENCY JAMES BUCHANAN, President.

SOURCE: John Bassett Moore, Editor, Works of James Buchanan, Volume 11, p. 132-7

John Albert Broadus to Miss Cornelia Taliaferro, October 25, 1860

GREENVILLE, S. C., Oct. 25, 1860: We now number thirty-one students, adding one more from Mississippi to a statement which will probably appear in the “Herald” of to-day. We feel encouraged by the increase, and by the general character of the students, and the spirit they manifest. My class in New Testament Greek numbers sixteen. They are nearly all graduates of colleges and universities, but the standard of graduation, and often of instruction, is deplorably low in most of the institutions of the land, and I find it necessary to spend a good part of the session in teaching Greek in general, classic Greek, which they ought to have learned at college. But I can better afford to do this since they go over a large portion of the New Testament in the English class. The difference in other theological seminaries is, not that they have students better prepared, but that they make little or no effort to remedy the evil. . .  I have two of last year's students reading, once a week, some selections from the Greek Fathers; and Brother Boyce is doing something similar this year, with some of the Latin Fathers. This would be impracticable in a seminary where there was a curriculum, the same for all. . .

I am glad to say that my health continues about as good as in September. If I can be careful still, I trust I shall be able to go steadily through the session. But it is not easy to be careful.

Please remember me most respectfully to your honored grandmother, to your uncle, and all the family. Mr. Barbour may be interested in the opinion (though of course he is better posted on the whole subject than I am) which I formed upon the statements of gentlemen here, that in the event of Lincoln's election, South Carolina will certainly not secede alone, but will gladly join any one other State, and that her secession leaders will move heaven and earth to aid their sympathizers in Alabama and Virginia with the hope of such a result. Very many people here are as much opposed to a dissolution of the Union as you or I, but there can be little doubt that a majority of the voters in the State would be in favor of seceding with any other State.

Two or three books that I think would please you are, “Five Sermons on St. Paul,” by A. Monod (from the French); “Memoir of Kingman Nott”; “Angus' Bible Handbook.” All small volumes.

SOURCE: Archibald Thomas Robertson, Life and Letters of John Albert Broadus, p. 176-177

In The Review Queue: Politics and Power in a Slave Society

Politics and Power in a Slave Society:
Alabama 1800-1860

By J. Mills Thornton

More than three decades after its initial publication, J. Mills Thornton's Politics and Power in a Slave Society remains the definitive study of political culture in antebellum Alabama. Controversial when it first appeared, the book argues against a view of prewar Alabama as an aristocratic society governed by a planter elite. Instead, Thornton claims that Alabama was an aggressively democratic state, and that this very egalitarianism set the stage for secession.

White Alabamians had first-hand experiences with slavery, and these encounters warned them to guard against the imposition of economic or social reforms that might limit their equality. Playing upon their fears, the leaders of the southern rights movement warned that national consolidation presented the danger that fanatic northern reformers would force alien values upon Alabama and its residents. These threats gained traction when national reforms of the 1850s gave state government a more active role in the everyday life of Alabama citizens; and ambitious young politicians were able to carry the state into secession in 1861.

ISBN 978-0807159149, Louisiana State University Press, © 2015, Paperback, 492 pages, Maps, Graphs, Footnotes, Bibliographic Note & Index. $35.00.  To purchase a copy of this book click HERE.

Diary of Corporal Alexander G. Downing: Sunday, May 22, 1864

We started at 5:30 this morning and marched till 2 o'clock, when we again went into bivouac. Our brigade today was just in front of the rear. We passed through some very fine country with well-improved farms. Today we bade old Tennessee farewell and entered Alabama.

What a cruel thing this war is! May God hasten the day when it will be brought to a close and our nation enjoy peace once more. Here in the army we have to march on Sunday as other days. A soldier has to go through a great many hardships not thought of by others.

Source: Alexander G. Downing, Edited by Olynthus B., Clark, Downing’s Civil War Diary, p. 189-90

Diary of William Howard Russell: March 16, 1861

The entrance to New York, as it was seen by us on 16th March, is not remarkable for beauty or picturesque scenery, and I incurred the ire of several passengers, because I could not consistently say it was very pretty. It was difficult to distinguish through the snow the villas and country houses, which are said to be so charming in summer. But beyond these rose a forest of masts close by a low shore of brick houses and blue roofs, above the level of which again spires of churches and domes and cupolas announced a great city. On our left, at the narrowest part of the entrance, there was a very powerful casemated work of fine close stone, in three tiers, something like Fort Paul at Sebastopol, built close to the water's edge, and armed on all the faces, — apparently a tetragon with bastions. Extensive works were going on at the ground above it, which rises rapidly from the water to a height of more than a hundred feet, and the rudiments of an extensive work and heavily armed earthen parapets could be seen from the channel. On the right hand, crossing its fire with that of the batteries and works on our left, there was another regular stone fort with fortified enceinte; and higher up the channel, as it widens to the city on the same side, I could make out a smaller fort on the water's edge. The situation of the city renders it susceptible of powerful defence from the seaside; and even now it would be hazardous to run the gauntlet of the batteries, unless in powerful iron-clad ships favored by wind and tide, which could hold the place at their mercy. Against a wooden fleet New York is now all but secure, save under exceptional circumstances in favor of the assailants.

It was dark as the steamer hauled up alongside the wharf on the New Jersey side of the river; but ere the sun set, I could form some idea of the activity and industry of the people from the enormous ferry-boats moving backwards and forwards like arks on the water, impelled by the great walking-beam engines, the crowded stream full of merchantmen, steamers, and small craft, the smoke of the factories, the tall chimneys, — the net-work of boats and rafts, — all the evidences of commercial life in full development. What a swarming, eager crowd on the quay-wall! What a wonderful ragged regiment of laborers and porters, hailing us in broken or Hibernianized English! “These are all Irish and Germans,” anxiously explained a New Yorker. “I'll bet fifty dollars there's not a native-born American among them.”

With Anglo-Saxon disregard of official insignia, American Custom House officers dress very much like their British brethren, without any sign of authority as faint as even the brass button and crown, so that the stranger is somewhat uneasy when he sees unauthorized-looking people taking liberties with his plunder, especially after the admonitions he has received on board ship to look sharp about his things as soon as he lands. I was provided with an introduction to one of the principal officers, and he facilitated my egress, and at last I was bundled out through a gate into a dark alley, ankle deep in melted snow and mud, where I was at once engaged in a brisk encounter with my Irish porterhood, and, after a long struggle, succeeded in stowing my effects in and about a remarkable specimen of the hackney-coach of the last century, very high in the axle, and weak in the springs, which plashed down towards the river through a crowd of men shouting out, “You haven't paid me yet, yer honor. You haven't given anything to your own man that's been waiting here the last six months for your honor!” “I’m the man that put the lugidge up, sir,” &c, &c. The coach darted on board a great steam ferry-boat, which had on deck a number of similar vehicles and omnibuses; and the gliding, shifting lights, and the deep, strong breathing of the engine, told me I was moving and afloat before I was otherwise aware of it. A few minutes brought us over to the lights on the New York side, — a jerk or two up a steep incline, — and we were rattling over a most abominable pavement, plunging into mudholes, squashing through snow-heaps in ill-lighted, narrow streets of low, mean-looking, wooden houses, of which an unusual proportion appeared to be lager-bier saloons, whiskey-shops, oyster-houses, and billiard and smoking establishments.

The crowd on the pavement were very much what a stranger would be likely to see in a very bad part of London, Antwerp, or Hamburg, with a dash of the noisy exuberance which proceeds from the high animal spirits that defy police regulations and are superior to police force, called “rowdyism.” The drive was long and tortuous; but by degrees the character of the thoroughfares and streets improved. At last we turned into a wide street with very tall houses, alternating with far humbler erections, blazing with lights, gay with shop-windows, thronged in spite of the mud with well-dressed people, and pervaded by strings of omnibuses, — Oxford Street was nothing to it for length. At intervals there towered up a block of brickwork and stucco, with long rows of windows lighted up tier above tier, and a swarming crowd passing in and out of the portals, which were recognized as the barrack-like glory of American civilization, — a Broadway monster hotel. More oyster-shops, lager-bier saloons, concert-rooms of astounding denominations, with external decorations very much in the style of the booths at Bartholomew Fair, — churches, restaurants, confectioners, private houses! again another series, — they cannot go on expanding forever. The coach at last drives into a large square, and lands me at the Clarendon Hotel.

Whilst I was crossing the sea, the President's Inaugural Message, the composition of which is generally attributed to Mr. Seward, had been delivered, and had reached Europe, and the causes which were at work in destroying the cohesion of the Union had acquired greater strength and violence.

Whatever force "the declaration of causes which induced the Secession of South Carolina" might have for Carolinians, it could not influence a foreigner who knew nothing at all of the rights, sovereignty, and individual independence of a state, which, however, had no right to make war or peace, to coin money, or enter into treaty obligations with any other country. The South Carolinian was nothing to us, quoad South Carolina — he was merely a citizen of the United States, and we knew no more of him in any other capacity than a French authority would know of a British subject as a Yorkshireman or a Munsterman.

But the moving force of revolution is neither reason nor justice — it is most frequently passion  — it is often interest. The American, when he seeks to prove that the Southern States have no right to revolt from a confederacy of states created by revolt, has by the principles on which he justifies his own revolution, placed between himself and the European a great gulf in the level of argument. According to the deeds and words of Americans, it is difficult to see why South Carolina should not use the rights claimed for each of the thirteen colonies, “to alter and abolish a form of government when it becomes destructive of the ends for which it is established, and to institute a new one.” And the people must be left to decide the question as regards their own government for themselves, or the principle is worthless. The arguments, however, which are now going on are fast tending towards the ultima ratio regum. At present I find public attention is concentrated on the two Federal forts, Pickens and Sumter, called after two officers of the revolutionary armies in the old war. As Alabama and South Carolina have gone out, they now demand the possession of these forts, as of the soil of their several states and attached to their sovereignty. On the other hand, the Government of Mr. Lincoln considers it has no right to give up anything belonging to the Federal Government, but evidently desires to temporize and evade any decision which might precipitate an attack on the forts by the batteries and forces prepared to act against them. There is not sufficient garrison in either for an adequate defence, and the difficulty of procuring supplies is very great. Under the circumstances every one is asking what the Government is going to do? The Southern people have declared they will resist any attempt to supply or reinforce the garrisons, and in Charleston, at least, have shown they mean to keep their word. It is a strange situation. The Federal Government, afraid to speak, and unable to act, is leaving its soldiers to do as they please. In some instances, officers of rank, such as General Twiggs, have surrendered everything to the State authorities, and the treachery and secession of many officers in the army and navy no doubt paralyze and intimidate the civilians at the head of affairs.

SOURCE: William Howard Russell, My Diary North and South, p. 7-10

Diary of Mary Boykin Chesnut: March 8, 1861

Judge Campbell,¹ of the United States Supreme Court, has resigned. Lord! how he must have hated to do it. How other men who are resigning high positions must hate to do it. Now we may be sure the bridge is broken. And yet in the Alabama Convention they say Reconstructionists abound and are busy. Met a distinguished gentleman that I knew when he was in more affluent circumstances. I was willing enough to speak to him, but when he saw me advancing for that purpose, to avoid me, he suddenly dodged around a corner — William, Mrs. de Saussure's former coachman. I remember him on his box, driving a handsome pair of bays, dressed sumptuously in blue broadcloth and brass buttons; a stout, respectable, fine-looking, middle-aged mulatto. He was very high and mighty. Night after night we used to meet him as fiddler-in-chief of all our parties. He sat in solemn dignity, making faces over his bow, and patting his foot with an emphasis that shook the floor. We gave him five dollars a night; that was his price. His mistress never refused to let him play for any party. He had stable-boys in abundance. He was far above any physical fear for his sleek and well-fed person. How majestically he scraped his foot as a sign that he was tuned up and ready to begin!  Now he is a shabby creature indeed. He must have felt his fallen fortunes when he met me — one who knew him in his prosperity. He ran away, this stately yellow gentleman, from wife and children, home and comfort. My Molly asked him “Why? Miss Liza was good to you, I know.” I wonder who owns him now; he looked forlorn. Governor Moore brought in, to be presented to me, the President of the Alabama Convention. It seems I had known him before; he had danced with me at a dancing-school ball when I was in short frocks, with sash, flounces, and a wreath of roses. He was one of those clever boys of our neighborhood, in whom my father saw promise of better things, and so helped him in every way to rise, with books, counsel, sympathy. I was enjoying his conversation immensely, for he was praising my father² without stint, when the Judge came in, breathing fire and fury. Congress has incurred his displeasure. We are abusing one another as fiercely as ever we have abused Yankees. It is disheartening.

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¹ John Archibald Campbell, who had settled in Montgomery and was appointed Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court by President Pierce in 1853. Before he resigned, he exerted all his influence to prevent Civil War and opposed secession, although he believed that States had a right to secede.

² Mrs. Chesnut's father was Stephen Decatur Miller, who was born in South Carolina in 1787, and died in Mississippi in 1838. He was elected to Congress in 1816, as an Anti-Calhoun Democrat, and from 1828 to 1830 was Governor of South Carolina. He favored Nullification, and in 1830 was elected United States Senator from South Carolina, but resigned three years afterward in consequence of ill health. In 1835 he removed to Mississippi and engaged in cotton growing.

SOURCE: Mary Boykin Chesnut, Edited by Isabella D. Martin and Myrta Lockett Avary, A Diary From Dixie, p. 14-6

Charles Eliot Norton to Arthur H. Clough, December 11, 1860

Shady Hill, 11 December, 1860.

. . . Confusion and alarm are the order of the day with us. The movement for the breaking-up of the Union has acquired a most unexpected force. No one could have supposed beforehand that the South would be so blind to its own interests, so deaf to every claim of safety and honour, as to take such a course as it has done since the election a month ago. This course if followed out must bring ruin to the Southern States, and prolonged distress to the North. We are waiting on chance and accident to bring events. Everything in our future is uncertain, everything is possible. The South is in great part mad. Deus vult perdere. There is no counsel anywhere; no policy proposed. Every man is anxious; no one pretends to foresee the issue out of trouble. I have little hope that the Union can be preserved. The North cannot concede to the demands of the South, and even if it could and did, I doubt whether the result would be conciliation. The question is now fairly put, whether Slavery shall rule, and a nominal Union be preserved for a few years longer; or Freedom rule and the Union be broken up. The motives which the Southern leaders put forward for disunion are mere pretexts; their real motives are disappointed ambition, irritated pride, and the sense that power which they have so long held has now passed out of their hands.

There is little use in speculating on the consequences of disunion. If but one or two States secede, if the terrorism now established in South Carolina, Georgia, Mississippi, and Alabama, and which has strength to control every expression of sentiment opposed to disunion, — if this terrorism be broken through, and a chance be given for the conservative opinion in these States to manifest itself, it is possible that secession may take place without violence. But if, on the other hand, the excited feeling now prevalent should extend and gather force, peaceable secession becomes hardly possible, and all the horrors of servile insurrection and civil war loom up vaguely in the not distant future.

At present there is universal alarm; general financial pressure, great commercial embarrassment. The course of trade between the North and the South is interrupted; many manufacturing establishments are closed or working on short time; there are many failures, and many workmen thrown out of employment. This general embarrassment of business is shared in by foreign commerce, and must be sympathetically felt in England. The prospects of the next cotton crop are most uncertain.

The North stands in a perfectly fair position. It waits for action on the part of the South. It has little to regret in its past course, and nothing to recede from. It would not undo the election of Mr. Lincoln if it could; for it recognizes the fact that the election affords no excuse for the course taken by the South, that there was nothing aggressive in it and nothing dangerous to real Southern interests. It feels that this is but the crisis of a quarrel which is not one of parties but of principles, and it is on the whole satisfied that the dispute should be brought to a head, and its settlement no longer deferred. It is, however, both astonished and disappointed to find that the South should prefer to take all the risks of ruin to holding fast to the securities afforded to its institutions and to all the prosperity established by the Union. It is a sad thing, most sad indeed, to see the reckless flinging away of such blessings as we have hitherto enjoyed; most sad to contemplate as a near probability the destruction of our national existence; saddest of all to believe that the South is bringing awful calamities upon itself. But on the other hand there is a comfort in the belief that, whatever be the result of present troubles, the solution of Slavery will be found in it; and that the nature of these difficulties, the principles involved in them, and the trials that accompany them, will develop a higher tone of feeling and a nobler standard of character than have been common with us of late.

All we have to do at the North is to stand firm to those principles which we have asserted and which we believe to be just, — to have faith that though the heavens fall, liberty and right shall not fail, and that though confusion and distress prevail for the time in the affairs of men there is no chance and no anarchy in the universe.

We are reaping the whirlwind, — but when reaped the air will be clearer and more healthy.

I write hastily, for it is almost the mail hour, and I want to send this to you to-day. But even were I to write at length and with all deliberation, I could do no more than show you more fully the condition of anxious expectancy in which we wait from day to day, and of general distress among the commercial community.

Of course in these circumstances there is little interest felt in other than public affairs. It is a bad time for literature; the publishers are drawing in their undertakings; — and among other postponements is that of your poems. So much do our personal concerns depend on political issues. The only new book of interest is Emerson's.¹ It was published a day or two since and could not have appeared at a fitter time, for it is full of counsels to rebuke cowardice, to confirm the moral principles of men, and to base them firmly on the unshaken foundations of eternal laws. It is a book to be read more than once. It is full of real wisdom, but the wisdom is mingled with the individual notions of its author, which are not always wise. . . .

_______________

¹ The Conduct of Life.

SOURCE: Sara Norton and  M. A. DeWolfe Howe, Letters of Charles Eliot Norton, Volume 1, p. 212-5

General Pierre G. T. Beauregard to General John Bell Hood, November 17, 1864

HEADQUARTERS MILITARY DIVISION OF THE WEST,

Tuscumbia, Ala., November 17, 1864.

General J. B. HOOD,

Commanding Army of Tennessee, &c.:

GENERAL: General Beauregard directs me to say that he desires you will take the offensive at the earliest practicable moment and deal the enemy rapid and vigorous blows, striking him while thus dispersed, and by this means distract Sherman's advance into Georgia. To relieve you from any embarrassment whilst operating in North Alabama and Middle Tennessee, he authorizes you to issue all such orders in General Taylor's department as you may deem necessary to secure the efficient and successful administration and operation of your army, sending General Taylor, or whoever may be in command, copies of all orders. He wishes you to send forthwith to Major-General Wheeler one brigade of cavalry of Jackson's division, and the balance of that division as soon as it can be spared, should Sherman advance into Georgia, and also to advise General Wheeler that in such case Clanton's brigade is subject to his orders. The headquarters of this military division will be removed in the morning from this place to Montgomery, Ala.

1 am, general, respectfully, your obedient servant,

 GEORGE WM. BRENT,

 Colonel and Assistant Adjutant-General.

SOURCES: The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Series I, Volume 45, Part 1 (Serial No. 93), p. 1215; John Bell Hood, Advance and Retreat, p. 277

Brigadier-General Thomas Kilby Smith to Eliza Walter Smith, January 18, 1864

Headquarters First Brigade,

Fourth Div., Seventeenth Army Corps,

Department Of The Tennessee,

In The Field, January 18, 1864.

My Dear Mother:

Here I find myself isolé, and until further orders must so remain. The government of the army is strictly monarchical, almost a pure despotism. An eminent English jurist asserts that there is no such thing as martial law, or in other words, that martial law may be defined to be the will of the general in command. A true soldier, the instant he enlists or accepts a commission, surrenders all freedom of action, almost all freedom of thought. Every personal feeling is superseded by the interests of the cause to which he devotes himself. He goes wherever ordered, he performs whatever he is commanded, he suffers whatever he is enjoined ; he becomes a mere passive instrument for the most part incapable of resistance. The graduation of ranks is only a graduation in slavery. I desire to become a good and practical soldier and strategist, one whose labor and conduct no enemy will ever laugh at in battle, no friend ever find insufficient, as such, to serve my country so long as she may need my services or until they cease to be valuable.

As for this country I am in, I feel perfectly incapable of conveying an adequate idea of the dreary lonely nakedness that surrounds me. The curse of Babylon has fallen upon it. It is “a desolation, a dry land and a wilderness." I have in former letters adverted to the peculiar geological formation of the chain of bluffs upon a portion of which I am now encamped. The chain is about three hundred miles in length, always on the east side of the Mississippi, and as some geologist asserts has been blown up, formed like snowdrifts by the action of the wind in former ages. Be this as it may, the face of the country upon them has very much the appearance of a succession of snow-drifts upon which a sudden thaw has begun to act. The top soil has no tenacity, although fertile, and when broken for cultivation, yields like sugar or salt to the action of the elements. The country is not undulating but broken in precipitous hills; deep ravines, gorges, and defiles mark the ways. Upon the hillsides not too steep for the passage of the plough, where have been the old cotton-fields, the land lies in hillocks, resembling newly-made graves. And as the area upon which the great staple could be produced is extensive, one may ride for many miles over what, with little stretch of imagination, may be considered an immense graveyard. To add to the gloom and desolation, are the charred remains of burned dwellings, cotton sheds and cotton-gin houses, gardens and peach orchards laid open and waste, negro quarters unroofed, long lines of earthworks and fortifications, trenches and rifle-pits, traversing roadways, cutting in their passage hamlet or dwelling, plantation and wilderness. Huge flocks of buzzards, ravens and carrion crows, continually wheel, circle, and hover over the war-worn land. The bleaching bones of many a mule and horse show where they have held high carnival, and for them much dainty picking still remains, as the spring rains wash off the scanty covering of the soldiers who have gone to rest along the banks of the Yazoo. The patriot veteran who packs an '' Enfield " is as a general rule superficially buried in his blanket, if he falls in battle, on the spot where he falls, unless, wounded, he crawls to a sheltered nook to find a grave — happy, then, if he's buried at all. Many a corpse I've seen swelled up and black, with its eyes picked out, which, while it was a man, had dragged itself for shelter and out of sight, and been overlooked by the burial fatigues. This, as father used to say, is a digression. Off from the cultivated lands are canebrakes, dense jungles of fishing poles of all sizes. The little reed of which they make pipe stems that grows as thick on the ground as wheat stalks in a field, and the great pole thirty feet high and as thick as your wrist. Occasional forests, and there some of the trees are majestic and beautiful; not a few of them evergreen, one, the name of which I cannot get, with a bright green spiked leaf bearing a beautiful bright red berry, grows large and branching and shows finely. The magnolia is evergreen. I send specimens of both in the box, though I fear they will wither before they will reach you; also some of the moss that attaches itself to every tree that grows, and some that don't, or rather, has done growing and are dead. Through this country I have penetrated in all directions where there are roadways and where there are none, and sometimes have had a high old time in finding my way. The better portion of the inhabitants have abandoned — some refugees at the North, some in the rebel army, some fled to Georgia and Alabama, the few that remain are the poorest sort of white trash. This element, as a general rule, is Union in sentiment. They possess strange characteristics common to the class wherever I have met them in Tennessee, Arkansas, or Mississippi, but not in Louisiana. They are ignorant, and rather dirty, I mean uncleanly, in their habits, always miserably poor and miserably clad, and yet, the women especially, possessed of a certain unaccountable refinement and gentleness almost approaching gentility. The children are pretty, even with the unkempt head and grimy features. Men and women always have delicate hands and feet, the high instep and Arab arch is the general rule. There 's blood somewhere run to seed. There is great suffering among the people of all classes, and the end is not yet. I enclose you one or two intercepted letters.

In the jungles and canebreaks and the thickets of the forest there are many cattle and hogs running wild; some are Texas cattle that have escaped from the droves of the rebels while they were in occupation; some have escaped from our own droves; some have belonged to the planters, and have been run off to prevent their falling into the hands of either party, and so long have they been neglected that at last they have become wild, almost like buffalo, or elk, and run like the devil at the sight of man on foot or horseback. These animals we sometimes circumvent, and I make up expeditions for that purpose, taking out wagon-trains, shooting and butchering the beef and pork, and hauling it in dead. The wildness of the animals gives these forays the excitement of grand battles and hunts. The meat is excellent, and my mess table since I have been here well supplied. Thrice since I have been here I have journeyed to headquarters at Vicksburg, and twice have been visited by the general commanding, McPherson; with these intervals, I have been without companionship. In the evenings I sit quite alone, except I have a terrier puppy I brought with me from Natchez, who seems disposed to become social. Last winter at Young's Point, and indeed ever since I have been in the field till now, I have been most fortunate in social commune. General Sherman has been a host to me, and while he was within ten miles I was never at a loss for somebody to talk to. General Stuart was a very fascinating man, and I have never been very far away from General Grant and staff. But now I am quite alone, and for two months have hardly heard the sound of a woman's voice. My horses are a great comfort to me, and, thank God, are all well; I am much blessed in horseflesh. Captain is gay as a lark; no better little horse ever trod on iron. He's as game to-day as a little peacock. My other horses you never saw. They are superb and sublime. Bell is confessedly the finest horse in the army, East or West. J. L. is well and growing. He starts to-morrow morning at three o'clock upon an expedition to the Yazoo River to give battle to some wild ducks. I have no faith in the expedition.

My command of infantry will all re-enlist as veterans; the major part of my cavalry. General Sherman, I learn to-day by telegraph from Vicksburg, was there for a short time. I did not see him. I have a telegraph office and operator for my own use, and am in communication with Vicksburg and the other headquarters over a considerable extent of country. I can tell you nothing further that I think would interest you concerning my inner life here, so far away for the time being, and for certain purposes I am an independent chieftain leading a wild enough life. “No one to love, none to caress.”

SOURCE: Walter George Smith, Life and letters of Thomas Kilby Smith, p. 350-4

Colonel Thomas Kilby Smith to his Daughter, May 30, 1863

Walnut Hills, Near Vicksburg, Miss., May 30, 1863.

My Darling:

I have carried your last letter, 26th April, in my breast pocket close to my heart for many a day with intent to answer; it is quite yellow with the damp of rain and night dews, and what had well-nigh been bloody sweat, for it has been with me on the long marches and on the hard-fought fields. But thanks to your prayers, I am spared this glorious moonlight night to answer it.

I do not think, my dear daughter, that you read Schiller yet. Do you know you quote him almost verbatim to me? You say you think “I must be tired of war and drilling soldiers.” You might have gone on and written “the camp's stir and crowd and ceaseless larum, the neighing war-horse, the air-shattering trumpet, the unvaried, still returning, hour of duty, word of command and exercise of arms,” and then a little further —

"O! day thrice lovely! when he becomes

A fellow man among his fellow men,

The colors are unfurled, the cavalcade

Marshals, and now the buzz is hushed, and hark!

Now the soft peace march beats, home, brothers, home;

The caps and helmets are all garlanded

With green boughs, the last plundering of the fields;

The City gates fly open of themselves,

They need no longer the petard to tear them;

The ramparts are all filled with men and women;

With peaceful men and women that send onwards

Kisses and welcomings upon the air,

Which they make breezy with affectionate gestures;

From all the towers rings out the merry peal,

The joyous vespers of a bloody day.

O! happy man, O! fortunate! for whom

The well-known door, the faithful arms are open,

The faithful, tender arms with mute embracing."

Yes, daughter, most gladly would I give the “blood-stained laurel for the first violet of the leafless spring,” plucked in those quiet fields where you are wandering. You give a beautiful description of your new home. Well you may say “Alabama.” I must tell you the circumstance from which that State derived its name. According to tradition, a tribe of Indians, driven southward by the advance of civilization, after many weeks of toilsome march, one day at sunset reached a lovely country, a sanctuary, unviolated by the remorseless white man, on the banks of a broad, calmly flowing river, where their canoes might ply, as they hoped, unmolested for ages, in the skirts of a forest where the deer were sporting like tame kids. The chief struck the pole of his tent into the earth, exclaiming, “Alabama! Alabama!” (here we rest). Maybe, if I live, I shall come where you are, some day, to rest a little while, to lie still in the cool halls and have you read to me, or sing to me, bathe my furrowed brow or smooth away my sunburned hair. A little while to rest would be sweet to me, for I'm tired, very, very weary, but there are many hundreds of long miles between us and we must not be too sanguine in our hopes.

Where do you suppose I am now? Sitting in a tent, in the woods, among the tallest trees you ever saw, not very far from the fortifications of Vicksburg. All the time by night and day the cannon are pouring death and destruction upon the doomed city, yet its garrison gallantly holds out. On two successive days we tried to take it by assault, failing, because from the nature of the ground and the skill of their engineers, their works are well-nigh impregnable; and more than two thousand brave soldiers have paid the penalty of the attempt with their lives. Now we invest the city, and if reinforcements do not come to them in sufficient numbers to overpower us, we shall starve them out. Already are they reduced to one fourth rations; their soldiers have a quarter of a pound of corn meal and no meat for a day's allowance. On some parts of the fortifications water is scarce, the weather is warm, and the sun scorching. They have been obliged to drive cattle and horses outside, because they have nothing to feed them on. There are a great many women and children in the city, and these have been compelled to retire to caves and holes in the ground to protect themselves from the ceaseless falling of shot and shell. As a special favor, three hundred of these women were permitted to cross the river to De Soto, a little way from where my old camp at Young's Point was, and there they remain under guard from the soldiers, without shelter of any kind and with very little, if any, food. Many of these are highly educated and refined ladies; others of like character who were fortunate enough to be outside the city walls are mendicants to the government they affect to despise so much, and now pensioners upon its bounty for food for themselves and children. But this is only part of the horrors of war. God grant, that you, my dear daughter, may never be called upon to view such scenes as I have witnessed. He has cursed the land and let loose the demon who demands blood, tears, and death as his sacrifice. Dearest, you must always thank God that your lines are cast in pleasant places; you must remember how many and bountiful are the blessings showered upon you.

I must tell you a little anecdote of my own experience, and in order to appreciate it, you must know that the route we marched over to reach this point had already been traversed by three armies, that everything eatable, and almost all to wear, had been pillaged from the houses that lined the road, for it is the habit of the soldier to take what he wants wherever he finds it; and in hot pursuit, or quick retreat, or on the eve of impending battle, there is no one to gainsay him in his desires. Well, so it happened that I halted my brigade at Willow Springs to bivouac for the night, and at the earnest request of a lady, the wife of a physician, made their house my headquarters, for the presence of the commanding officer is guarantee of protection. I had been seated upon the porch but a short time, when a sweet little girl of perhaps seven summers brought me a rose, and as I patted her head and fondled her, for she was very pretty and interesting, she lisped out, ‘If I had only a cracker and some water I would go to bed, but I'm very hungry and I can't sleep.” “Why, my dear, haven't you had your supper?” “No, sir. I haven't had anything to eat all day, but if I just had a cracker and a little water, I could lie down.” My supply wagon hadn't come up, but there was about a biscuit of hardtack in pieces in my haversack, and this I gave the little child, who sat at my feet and ate it all with such famishing hunger. Oh! it would have made your heart bleed to see these lambs, so visited for the sins of their fathers, these suffering, innocent little ones, no food, no shelter, no shoes, scarce raiment enough to cover their nakedness, though born to affluence. How long, Oh, Lord! how long?

As we came along the road, particularly after leaving Judge Perkins's, and skirted along Lake St. Joseph, one of the most beautiful sheets of water in the world, we passed magnificent plantations, principalities; and upon each of them a palace, gorgeously furnished with mirrors and velvet carpets, sumptuous furniture and upholstery of Eastern magnificence, with all the adjuncts of garden and greenhouse, dovecote, statuary, mausoleum, and Italian marbles in richest sculpture, marking the burial place of their dead. The roadside for miles and miles was strewn with all this in mutilation, carpets and curtains, grand pianos broken in pieces, pearl and ivory keys and strings all scattered, choice paintings cut from the frames, carried a little way, then torn and scattered to the winds, fences down, gardens trampled, the year's harvest gone utterly, frightened negroes peering from behind their quarters, far down the woodland glen, the relics of the flock, bleating piteously, soon the prey of the straggling soldier, the palaces burned or reft of all the beautiful that wealth and art and science could produce, the tomb desecrated and put to vile uses, and exquisite gardens the purlieus of the camp. Yet while we sigh for and repine at all this desolation and ruin, we can but reflect that he, for whose grandeur and magnificence all this wealth has been lavished, who has subsidized the world to minister to his taste and convenience, is a fugitive, perhaps in a foreign land, certainly with a paid substitute, who for gold is willing to raise his unholy hand to tear asunder the fair fabric that guaranteed him all this opulence and luxury; and the lesson, so severe, perhaps, is needed. Yet we cannot forget it is written that offences must come, but woe be to them by whom they come.

SOURCE: Walter George Smith, Life and letters of Thomas Kilby Smith, p. 299-303

Lieutenant-General William J. Hardee to Jefferson Davis, September 4, 1864 – 11:30 a.m.

LOVEJOY'S STATION, GA., September 4, 1864 – 11.30 a.m.

His Excellency President DAVIS, Richmond, Va.:

Unless this army is speedily and heavily re-enforced Georgia and Alabama will be overrun. I see no other means to avert this calamity. Never in my opinion was our liberty in such danger. What can you do for us?

 W. J. HARDEE,

Lieutenant-General.

SOURCES: John Bell Hood, Advance and Retreat, p. 245; The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Series I, Volume 38, Part 5 (Serial No. 76), p. 1018

Colonel Thomas Kilby Smith to Elizabeth Budd Smith, March 21, 1862

HEADQUARTERS 54TH REGIMENT O. V. U. S. A.,

2D BRIGADE, 1ST DIV., TENNESSEE EXPEDITION,

ENCAMPED NEAR PITTSBURGH, TENN., March 21, 1862.

You will have been made very anxious about me by the one or two letters I regretted writing immediately after they were sent; but we had every hope of an engagement with the enemy, every reason to expect it would come off within a few hours, and in the excitement of the moment I deemed it my duty to write you just then. But the enemy retires as we advance, and up to this time refuse to give us a battle. Since writing last we have encamped and marched in Alabama and Mississippi, and are now encamped within a few miles of Pittsburgh, a point on the Tennessee River, above Savannah. Our camp is high, and I hope will prove healthy. The First Division, under General Sherman, has the advance, and the Second Brigade has the advance of the Division. I am second in command in the brigade, and therefore next to the first regiment in the whole army. The army will doubtless be from one hundred thousand to one hundred and fifty thousand strong, so that I have great reason to be satisfied. I have reason to believe that the 54th is well thought of.

The service of my regiment has been very active, though we have had no general engagement, marching, changing camp often, with scout and picket duty, has kept them constantly on the “qui vive.”  I find the life of a soldier full of excitement, and to me perfectly fascinating. My mind and body are constantly at work. I hope good will result to the country from the efforts we are now making, but every one here is opposed to us. The people almost without exception are “secesh.” I have taken a great many prisoners, some of them men of wealth, who do not hesitate to declare their traitorous feelings. An army of occupation will give us the control of trade, however, and restore to the Northwest the commerce of the Mississippi.

SOURCE: Walter George Smith, Life and letters of Thomas Kilby Smith, p. 190-1

Braxton Bragg’s General Orders No. 128

GENERAL ORDERS No. 128.

HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT No. 2,

Sparta, Tenn., September 5, 1862.

I. The signal triumph of our arms in Virginia over the combined forces of McClellan and Pope had hardly been announced to the whole of this command before we are again called upon to rejoice and give thanks to God for a victory as brilliant and complete achieved in our own campaign by the troops under Maj. Gen. E. Kirby Smith at Richmond, Ky., on the 30th ultimo. The enemy, under Major-General Nelson, was completely routed, with the commander wounded, one general killed, and one captured, with 3,000 other prisoners. Not the least important of the fruits secured was the whole of the enemy's artillery, small-arms, and transportation.

II. Comrades, our campaign opens most auspiciously and promises complete success. Your general is happy and proud to witness the tone and conduct of his army. Contented and cheerful under privations and strictly regardful of the rights of citizens, you have achieved a victory over yourselves which insures success against every foe. The enemy is in full retreat, with consternation and demoralization devastating his ranks. To secure the full fruits of this condition we must press on vigorously and unceasingly. You will be called on to make greater sacrifices still, to suffer other, perhaps greater, privations, but your generals will share them and a grateful people will reward you. Alabamians, your State is redeemed. An arrogant foe no longer treads her soil. Tennesseeans, the restoration of your capital and State government is almost accomplished without firing a gun. You return to your invaded homes conquerors and heroes. Kentuckians, the first great blow has been struck for your freedom. The manacles will soon fall from your limbs, when we know you will arise and strike for your freedom, your women, and your altars. Soldiers from the Gulf, South Carolina, Georgia, and Arkansas, we share the happiness of our more fortunate brothers, and will press on with them, rejoicing in the hope that a brighter future is in store for the fruitful fields, happy homes, and fair daughters of our own sunny South.

BRAXTON BRAGG,

General, Commanding.

SOURCE: The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Series I, Volume 16, Part 1 (Serial No. 22), p. 936-7

Major General William T. Sherman to Ellen Ewing Sherman, March 12, 1864

MEMPHIS, March 12, 1864.

. . . Of all the expeditions sent out this spring mine has been best conducted and most successful simply because of the secrecy and expedition with which it was planned and executed. Had the enemy been informed of these in advance by our prying correspondents I might have shared the fate of Seymour.² He did not go forty miles from his base, whereas I went one hundred and eighty-two miles. I have written Grant a long letter and begged him to adhere to his resolution not to stay at Washington. He would not stand the intrigues of politicians a week. He now occupies a dazzling height and it will require more courage to withstand the pressure than a dozen battles. I wonder if you kept a certain despatch Halleck made me from Corinth in June 1862 and my answer from Moscow. I foretold to Halleck his loss, and the fact that the man who won the Mississippi would be the man. I wish you would hunt it up — I know I saw it among your papers — and show it to Phil to satisfy him, however extravagant my early assertions may have seemed, how they are verified by time. I feel that whilst my mind naturally slights the events actually transpiring in my presence it sees as clear as any one's the results to be evolved by time. Now Halleck has more reserve book-learning and knowledge of men than Grant, and is therefore better qualified for his present post; whereas the latter by his honesty, simplicity, candor and reliance on friends, is better suited to act with soldiers. I would rather occupy my present relation to the military world than any other command and therefore must serve out this campaign which is to be the test. All that has gone before is mere skirmishing. The war now begins, and with heavy well-disciplined masses the issue must be settled in hard fought battles. I think we can whip them in Alabama and it may be Georgia. . . . No amount of poverty or adversity seems to shake their faith: niggers gone, wealth and luxury gone, money worthless, starvation in view within a period of two or three years, and causes enough to make the bravest tremble. Yet I see no signs of let up — some few deserters, plenty tired of war, but the masses determined to fight it out. . . .

² In the previous month General Truman Seymour had met defeat in Florida.

SOURCES: M. A. DeWolfe Howe, Editor, Home Letters of General Sherman, p. 286-8.  A full copy of this letter can be found in the William T Sherman Family papers (SHR), University of Notre Dame Archives (UNDA), Notre Dame, IN 46556, Folder CSHR 2/12

Major General William T. Sherman to Senator John Sherman, April 11, 1864

[NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE, April 11, 1864]

Of course I have enough to do, but more to think about. We have now been two years and more at war, and have reached a period when we should consider the war as fairly begun. Don't you delude yourself that it is even approaching an end. For a shrewd people we have less sense even than the Mexicans, paying fabulous bounties for a parcel of boys and old men, and swelling our muster-rolls, but adding nothing to our real fighting strength. Instead of enlarging, we are all cutting down our organizations. I shall have the fragments of seven corps on the Tennessee, but over thirty thousand animals have died, and it is going to be a terrible job to replace them, and to accumulate to the front the necessary food for mules and men in time; but though assured that the country for a long distance into Georgia and Alabama is stripped as it is on this side, yet at the right time I shall go ahead, and, if necessary, feed on anything. I shall not be behindhand when the grand beginning is announced. I can tell you nothing more.

. . . I expect soon to have a new howl against me. The pressure to go in our cars to the front was so great and the difficulty of getting to Chattanooga so momentous, that I ordered absolutely no citizen, private freight, or anything but freight purely military to be taken till the wants of the troops were supplied. . . .

It will require the conjoined energies of the whole nation to meet the shock this spring, and it may be the end will be made certain, but still the long, persistent struggle with half a million of men far more desperate than our old Indians is yet to come. . . .

I enclose you a letter of instructions I made to my adjutant Sawyer, who remained at my headquarters, Huntsville, when I went to Meridian. I should not object to have this letter printed, as it is something new and is true. Sawyer tells me it had a powerful effect on the people of Huntsville. As the letter is equally applicable to large districts still to be gone over, its publication would do no harm except to turn the Richmond press against me, as the prince of barbarians.

Yours in haste,

W. T. SHERMAN

SOURCE: Rachel Sherman Thorndike, Editor, The Sherman Letters: Correspondence Between General and Senator Sherman from 1837 to 1891, p. 227-8

Southern Items

The Montgomery Advertiser, of the 5th estimates the number of troops in the Rebel army from Alabama, at 17,000.  Governor Moore, in his October message, puts it at 30,000.  Which statement is true?

The Quincy (Fla.) Dispatch of the 8th instant says the British steamer Gladiator, which recently ran the Federal blockade, is safely moored in a Florida port.  Her cargo of arms is valued at two millions of dollars.

The Pensacola Observer, of the 9th, says that about one dozen slaves recently escaped to Fort Pickens.

The Marshall (Texas) Republican of the 14th inst., leans of large mortality among the Texas troops on the Potomac.

The Richmond Dispatch, of the 15th inst., has advises from New Mexico, from private sources, dated from the 19th ult., stating that General Sibley had taken possession, by proclamation , of New Mexico and Arizona, and declared martial law therein.

We here from New Orleans that the French residents in that city are anxious to escape, that they have held a meeting to take measures to effect this and that they have put themselves in communication with the Union troops at Ship Island.

– Published in The Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, February 1, 1862, p. 4

Diary of Alexander G. Downing: Monday, June 9, 1862

It is dry and hot. We are at work building fortifications here on a large scale, Corinth being an important point for either army to hold, as it is the key to Mississippi and Alabama. The bulk of the Army of the Tennessee is left here, while detachments of the original hundred thousand under Halleck are being sent to other commands to act as reinforcements.

Source: Alexander G. Downing, Edited by Olynthus B., Clark, Downing’s Civil War Diary, p. 53

Major General William T. Sherman to Senator John Sherman, January 28, 1864

ON BOARD JULIET,

Bound for Vicksburg in a fog,

Friday, Jan. 28,1864.

Dear Brother:

I have organized a cavalry force to sweep down from Memphis towards Mobile, and have gathered together out of my garrisons a very pretty force of twenty thousand men which I shall command in person, and move from Vicksburg down east in connection with the cavalry named, to reach Meridian and break up the railroad connections there. This will have the effect to disconnect Mississippi from the eastern Southern States, arid without this single remaining link they cannot keep any army of importance west of the Alabama River. Our armies are now at the lowest point, and so many are going home as re-enlisted veterans that I shall have a less force than should attempt it; but this is the time and I shall attempt it. It seems my luck to have to take the initiative and to come in at desperate times, but thus far having done a full share of the real achievements of this war, I need not fear accidents. . . .

You who attach more importance to popular fame would be delighted to see in what estimation I am held by the people of Memphis, Tenn., and all along this mighty river. I could not well decline an offer of a public dinner in Memphis, but I dreaded it more than I did the assault on Vicksburg. I had to speak, and sent you the report that best suited me, viz., that in the "Argus." The report of the bulletin which may reach the Northern press is disjointed and not so correct. Indeed, I cannot speak from notes or keep myself strictly to the point, but ’tis said that the effect of my crude speeches is good. . . .

I know that for us to assume that slavery is killed, not by a predetermined act of ours, but as the natural, logical, and legal consequence of the acts of its self-constituted admirers, we gain strength and the enemy loses it. I think it is the true doctoring for the time being. The South has made the interests of slavery the issue of the war. If they lose the war, they lose slavery. Instead of our being abolitionists, it is thereby proven that they are the abolitionists. . . .

The Mississippi is a substantial conquest; we should next get the Red River, then the Alabama, and last push into Georgia. . . .

Your affectionate brother,

W. T. SHERMAN

SOURCE: Rachel Sherman Thorndike, Editor, The Sherman Letters: Correspondence Between General and Senator Sherman from 1837 to 1891, p. 221-2