Colonel Rutherford B. Hayes to Lucy Webb Hayes, Wednesday, November 2, 1864

CAMP AT CEDAR CREEK, VIRGINIA, NOVEMBER 2, 1864.

MY DARLING: — We get trains through from Martinsburg regularly once in four days. We return them as often. I try to write you by every regular train. We hope to get mails with each train.

We have had most charming weather all the fall. Our camps are healthful and pleasant, but we all are looking forward to the "going into winter quarters" with impatience. We suppose a week or two more here will finish the campaign. Then a week or two of disagreeable marching and delays and then rest.

My tent and "fixin's” are as cozy as practicable. If my darling could share them with me, I could be quite content. I never was so anxious to be with you. This has been one of the happy periods with me. I have had only one shadow over me. You know Captain Hastings was severely wounded at the battle of Winchester, September 19. For three or four weeks he has been in a most critical condition. I have had a feeling that he would get well. I still hope, but all agree that his chance is very slight. He may live a month or die at any time. He is the best man whose friendship I have formed since the beginning of the war.

Doctor is well and has a great deal of enjoyment. We still think we shall have no more heavy fighting this fall. General Duffie was captured by Mosby! He was to marry Miss Jeffries soon (the younger).

R.

MRS. HAYES.

SOURCE: Charles Richard Williams, editor, Diary and Letters of Rutherford Birchard Hayes, Volume 2, p. 532-3

Diary of Colonel Rutherford B. Hayes: October 31, 1863

On the 28th General Kelley reviewed the Third Brigade, [and] General Duffie's cavalry. A beautiful day; a fine spectacle. I had only nine companies of the Twenty-third here — a small affair. General Kelley is a gentlemanly man of fifty to sixty; not an educated man — nothing particularly noticeable about him. [The] 29th, the three generals with their young ladies, Miss Jones, Miss Scammon, and Miss Smith and staffs went to Fayette. I [am] left in command here at Charleston. [The] 29th, got into new quarters — wall-tents on boards.

SOURCE: Charles Richard Williams, editor, Diary and Letters of Rutherford Birchard Hayes, Volume 2, p. 443

Colonel Rutherford B. Hayes to Lucy Webb Hayes, October 30, 1863

Charleston, October 30, 1863.

Dearest: — General Kelley was here and reviewed the troops on Wednesday. General Duffie's review was a beautiful and interesting sight. Generals Kelley, Scammon, and Duffie with their staffs have gone to Fayette — Miss Scammon, Miss Jones and Miss Smith with them. I am now in command of their troops here pro tem., and Avery and I run the machine on the town side.

We have got the regiment and brigade tents on stockade for winter weather. They look well and will be comfortable. Mrs. Comly is in the house, and Mrs. Graves will vacate the rest in a day or two. It now looks favorably for our family arrangements to be carried out as we planned them. Can tell certainly after General Kelley leaves.

Uncle is so urgent for Birtie's staying longer with him that I wish to consent unless you are very anxious to the contrary. Birch says he would like to see us all but prefers to stay longer at Fremont. — Love to all.

Affectionately,

R. B. Hayes.

Mrs. Hayes.

SOURCE: Charles Richard Williams, editor, Diary and Letters of Rutherford Birchard Hayes, Volume 2, p. 443

Diary of Colonel Rutherford B. Hayes, October 21, 1863

General Duffie with about one thousand men, cavalry, and two guns of Simmonds’ off last night; supposed to be after the railroad bridge again.

Lee followed Meade until he was near the defenses of Washington, when Lee is reported retiring again.

SOURCE: Charles Richard Williams, editor, Diary and Letters of Rutherford Birchard Hayes, Volume 2, p. 441

Colonel Charles Russell Lowell to Josephine Shaw Lowell, August 24, 1864 – 5 A. M.

Near Halltown, Aug. 24, 5 A. M.

We have had the rear-guard nearly every mile of the way down, — have had no real heavy fighting, but a great deal of firing; have got off very well, losing in the whole brigade not over seventy-five. I have had my usual bad luck with horses — Ruksh was wounded on Friday in the nigh fore leg, pastern joint; the ball went in, and came out apparently about one third of the way round, but I have got him along to this point and may save him. Monday morning I was on Will's “Dick,” and his off hind leg was broken and we left him, and yesterday I tried Billy,and a bullet went through his neck, — it will not hurt him at all, however, — will add to his value in Mr. Forbes's eyes at least a thousand dollars.¹ Berold is so foolish about bullets and shell now (feels so splendidly well in fact) that I really can't ride him under fire, so it's probable you '11 see him again. I'm training the gray and shall try to use him habitually, — as I mustn't risk Billy again. Please don't speak of my bad luck with horses, it seems foolish, — of course I shall have to write Mr. Forbes. I think I shall write Charley Perkins to sell that farm, — I don't see how we shall keep ourselves in horses otherwise.²

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¹ Ruksh and Berold were fine horses, both of a bright sorrel, Ruksh very tall and with a look of distinction.

“And Ruksh, his horse,

Followed him like a faithful hound at heel.

Ruksh, whose renown was noised through all the earth,

The horse which Rustum, in a foray once,

Did in Bokhara by the river find,

A colt beneath his dam, and drove him home

And reared him; a bright bay with lofty crest,

Dight with a saddle-cloth of broidered green

Crusted with gold.”

“Sohrab and Rustum,” Matthew Arnold.

Mrs. Lowell, during her life in camp, rode Berold, and kept him, later, in peaceful fields, until his death many years after the war.

Billy was the favourite horse of Colonel Lowell's friend and most trusted major, William H. Forbes, then in prison at Columbia. Dick also belonged to him, but his father had given Colonel Lowell permission to use them if necessary.

The unnamed action, so destructive to the colonel's mounts, — risks to the rider, who ignores them, can be imagined, — was on August 22.

General Torbert, in his report, says that on that day a rapid advance of the enemy, with strong infantry skirmishers, was held in check by General Duffie's West Virginian Cavalry and Lowell's brigade of the First Division and part of Wilson's Second Division, until the First Division could withdraw towards Shepherdstown, and the trains get to the rear.

² Just before Lowell was called to take charge of the Mt. Savage iron-works, he had bought a farm in Dixon, Illinois. His wife later gave it to that town.

SOURCE: Edward Waldo Emerson, Life and Letters of Charles Russell Lowell, p. 325-6, 458-9