Diary of John Beauchamp Jones: March 6, 1863

I have meditated on this day, as the anniversary of my birth, and the shortening lapse of time between me and eternity. I am now fifty-three years of age. Hitherto I have dismissed from my mind, if not with actual indifference, yet with far more unconcern than at present, the recurring birthdays which plunged me farther in the vale of years. But now I cannot conceal from myself, if so disposed, that I am getting to be an old man. My hair is gray — but nevertheless my form is still erect, and my step is brisk enough. My fancies, tastes, and enjoyments have not changed perceptibly; and I can and often do write without glasses. I desire to live after this war is over, if it be the will of God — if not, I hope to exist in a better world.

We have no news of interest to-day. A letter says the noncombatants, even the women and children, heedless of danger, were voluntary spectators of the bombardment of Vicksburg the other day. The shells often exploded near them, and behind them, but the-fascination was so great that they remained on the ground; even one had an arm carried away by a ball! Can such a people be subjugated?

Houses (furnished) are beginning to be offered more plentifully than ever before; their occupants and owners finding their ordinary incomes insufficient for subsistence. I suppose they mean to find in the country an escape from famine prices prevailing in the city.

There is a rumor this evening of the fall of Vicksburg; but that rumor has been whispered here several times during the last few months. No one believes it. When Vicksburg falls, many an invader will perish in its ruins.

SOURCE: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 1, p. 269

Diary of Luman Harris Tenney: Wednesday, October 1, 1862

Up at 5 o'clock. Commenced work at 5:25. Divided into three reliefs. I took charge for four hours. Boys went for provisions to a house three miles and got some breakfast at an empty house. Kept at work — after breakfasting at 10 — till noon. Then marched homewards. Bivouacked 2 miles west of Carthage. Slept with A. B. N. My birthday anniversary (twentyone) . Charge of advance guard.

SOURCE: Frances Andrews Tenney, War Diary Of Luman Harris Tenney, p. 35

Diary of Brigadier-General William F. Bartlett: Sunday, August 7, 1864

Beautiful Sabbath morning, 11 A. M. I wonder if they are at church now at home. It must have been an anxious week for them, but they don't dream of what I have been suffering, fortunately for them. Doctor gives me some new pills; my liver is deranged. Read Moore; wish I had my little Church Service here, I could be reading the same lesson that Agnes is this morning. Hattie's birth-day, I believe. I should like to be at home to-day. Began to carve out a pipe yesterday.

SOURCE: Francis Winthrop Palfrey, Memoir of William Francis Bartlett, p. 123

Diary of Luman Harris Tenney: Thursday, September 11, 1862

Went down to the post commissary to get provisions. Saw Delos and went down with him to see Charlie. He agreed upon proposal to fill out a program Fred had sent on for the celebration of the 10th, Charlie's birthday, and anniversary of our enlistment. Issued rations during the day. Charlie came up in the evening and read what he had written. Liked it well. A complete farce to fool the boys. No mail for me in the evening.

SOURCE: Frances Andrews Tenney, War Diary Of Luman Harris Tenney, p. 31

Diary of Corporal Charles H. Lynch: February 8, 1865

While everything is quiet with us, time goes on. This is my birthday, twenty years old. Weather cold at this time.

SOURCE: Charles H. Lynch, The Civil War Diary, 1862-1865, of Charles H. Lynch 18th Conn. Vol's, p. 140

Diary of 4th Sergeant John S. Morgan: Wednesday, March 4, 1863

Started early, landed at 10 A. M. at Jones plantation (deserted). Had Battalin drill in cornfield. Rebels left this place sunday advanced in the afternoon about 8 miles down the stream, but lay within 3 miles from our starting point in morning 22 years old today. Weather fine.

SOURCE: “Diary of John S. Morgan, Company G, 33rd Iowa Infantry,” Annals of Iowa, 3rd Series, Vol. 13, No. 7, January 1923, p. 484

Lieutenant-Colonel Rutherford B. Hayes to Sophia Birchard Hayes, April 2, 1862

Camp Hayes, Raleigh, Virginia, April 2, 1862.

Dear Mother: — I received your letter yesterday, just one day after it was written. Very glad you are so well and happy. You do not seem to me so near seventy years old. I think of you as no older than you always were. I hope you may see other happy birthdays.

Our men stationed here, nine companies, were paid for the third time yesterday. They send home about thirty thousand dollars. Many families will be made glad by it. A small proportion of our men have families of their own. The money goes chiefly to parents and other relatives. . . .

I send you two letters showing the business [we] are in. General Beckley is the nabob of this county; commanded a regiment of Rebels until we came and scattered [it]. He is now on his parole at home. The other is from an old lady, the wife of the Baptist preacher here. Her husband preached Secession and on our coming fled South.

We are all in the best of health. Love to Sophia and Mrs. Wasson.

Your affectionate son,

Rutherford.

P. S. — The total amount sent home from our regiment figures up thirty-five thousand dollars.

Mrs. Sophia Hayes.

SOURCE: Charles Richard Williams, editor, Diary and Letters of Rutherford Birchard Hayes, Volume 2, p. 221-2

Diary of Judith Brockenbrough McGuire: March 19, 1863

My birthday. While in Richmond, this morning, brother J. and myself called on some friends, among others our relative Mrs. Isabella Harrison, who has lately been celebrating the marriage of her only son, and took us into the next room for a lunch of wine and fruit-cake. We had never, during two years, thought of fruit-cake, and found it delightful. The fruit consisted of dried currants and cherries from her garden, at her elegant James River home, Brandon, now necessarily deserted. She fortunately was enabled to bring her furniture to Richmond, and is the only refugee that I know who is surrounded by home comforts.

SOURCE: Judith W. McGuire, Diary of a Southern Refugee, During the War, p. 200-1

Diary of Corporal Alexander G. Downing: Monday, August 15, 1864

It is quite warm. All is quiet. There is nothing new from the front. A large number of men left the hospital this morning for the front. I would like to go, too, but the doctor tells me that I can do more good by staying here and caring for the sick. This is my birthday — twenty-two years old today.

Source: Alexander G. Downing, Edited by Olynthus B., Clark, Downing’s Civil War Diary, p. 210

John Lothrop Motley to Anna Lothrop Mobley, November 11, 1861

Vienna, November 11, 1861.

My Dearest Mother: This is your birthday, and I cannot help writing a line to wish you joy and many happy and healthy returns of it. I am delighted to hear such good accounts of you and A—. I suppose by this time that you are established in town. I received your letter, conjointly with the governor's, of October 12. We are far from comfortable yet. We are at the hotel called the Archduke Charles, where we are pretty well off, but the difficulty of finding apartments is something beyond expression. We have finally decided upon a rather small one, just vacated by the secretary of legation, Mr. Lippitt — a very intelligent man, a classmate of Lowell and Story. He has been here eight years, and is married to a lady of the place, daughter of a banker. He is very useful to me, and is quite sympathetic with my political views. I have had two interviews with Count Rechberg, the Minister of Foreign Affairs. He received me with great cordiality, and informed me that my appointment had given very great pleasure to the emperor and the government, and that I was very well known to them by reputation. I am to have my formal audience of the emperor day after to-morrow; but I am already accredited by delivering an official copy of my letter of credence to the Minister of Foreign Affairs. I have made the acquaintance of several of my colleagues. We dine with the English ambassador, Lord Bloomfield, to-morrow. He was secretary of embassy at St. Petersburg twenty years ago, when I was secretary of legation, and he received me like an old acquaintance. Lady Bloomfield is very amiable and friendly, and very kind and helpful to Mary in her puzzling commencements in official life. There is always much bother and boredom at setting off. When we have once shaken down into the ruts we shall go on well enough, no doubt. But our thoughts are ever at home. I never knew how intensely anxious I was till now that I am so far away. I get the telegrams in advance of the press through my bankers, and Mary always begins to weep and wail before I open them. I do wish we could receive one good piece of news. But I am not disheartened. I feel perfect confidence that the great result cannot be but good and noble. As I am not an optimist by nature, and far from being constitutionally hopeful, there is no harm in my expressing myself thus. We are going through a fiery furnace, but we shall come forth purified. God bless you, my dearest mother. My love to the governor and all, great and small.

Your affectionate son,

J. L. M.

SOURCE: George William Curtis, editor, The Correspondence of John Lothrop Motley in Two Volumes, Library Edition, Volume 2, p. 209-11

Diary of Margaret Junkin Preston: May 19, 1864

My birthday. I feel the pressure of years upon me in this respect, that all life seems sadder; hope's wings droop; illusions vanish. Yet am I a slow learner of the solemn lessons thus taught me. Letters from Frank; the Cadets have had a severe time of it. Several have died of their wounds; forty-five were wounded. They are now ordered on to Richmond, by the Secretary of War, and I expect nothing else than that they are in for the remainder of the war, and my husband with them. We hear nothing but tales of blood. Today comes another report of a fight between Lee and Grant, and the details of Beauregard's success at Richmond. Pickett's Division stormed the enemy's breastworks, and have 700 or 800 killed and wounded. E. C. is in this Division; we know not whether he has fallen, and are afraid to hear. People busy here scraping lint; the schools dismissed in order that the children may help. . . .

SOURCE: Elizabeth Preston Allan, The Life and Letters of Margaret Junkin Preston, p. 181

Diary of Margaret Junkin Preston: February 29, 1864

G. and H. at Sally White's birthday party; H. said they had “white mush” on the table; on inquiry, I found it was ice-cream! Not having made any ice-cream since war-times, the child had never seen any, and so called it white mush. The only luxury I long for is real coffee. I have drunk wheat coffee for more than two years, till I am made a dyspeptic by it. Coffee has sold at $16 a pound. Tea is now $40 per pound.

SOURCE: Elizabeth Preston Allan, The Life and Letters of Margaret Junkin Preston, p. 178

Diary of Margaret Junkin Preston: May 19, 1863

My birthday. I would record my thankfulness to God for His special favors to me through the past year. I would commit into His wise and gracious hands all the future. I would set before myself three special things for the coining year; an aiming after spiritual-mindedness; the cultivation of a spirit of prayer; and the daily keeping in view God's glory.

SOURCE: Elizabeth Preston Allan, The Life and Letters of Margaret Junkin Preston, p. 166

Brigadier-General John A. Rawlins to Mary Emeline Hurlburt Rawlins, February 13, 1864

Nashville, February 13, 1864

. . . This is my thirty-third birthday. In looking back to my earliest remembrance of events, how full of anxiety and fears, of cherished but disappointed hopes my life has been, and still withal how fortunate in the realization of my most extravagant youthful dreams! In some things I flatter myself I have held my own. I entered life poor, and am in that position now. I had the warm love of my parents, and have now, never having for a moment estranged them from me. In my young heart of high hopes they inculcated principles of virtue, honesty and patriotism. In the light of these I have sought ever to walk, but that I have many times deviated, it were sinful to deny. Yet beyond the reach of their pure rays and the whispering of conscience I have never wandered. In youth I had many friends, who in numbers and warmth of affection have multiplied as the sphere of my acquaintance has extended. With only such an education as a sparsely settled country afforded, I passed creditably from manual to mental labor, from the plough to the bar, and from civil to military life, thereby exchanging the sweets of peace for the bitterness of war. I have attained in rank the highest grade but one in the army, and been honorably connected with the most important successes of our arms, passing unharmed, although exposed in person, through the battles of Belmont, Fort Donelson, Shiloh, the siege of Corinth, the battles in the campaign and siege of Vicksburg, and in those about Chattanooga. In my domestic relations I have been peculiarly fortunate and most happy, not without sorrow, however, death having entered and for a while cast a gloom of sadness over my home. This was the loss of my first wife whom I loved so well for her amiability of manner, gentleness, sweetness of disposition and virtue. Few of earth's daughters were so lovely; none in Heaven stands nearer the throne. . . .

SOURCE: James H. Wilson, The Life of John A. Rawlins, p. 398-9

Diary of Major Rutherford B. Hayes: October 4, 1861

My birthday. At Camp Scammon, one and one-half miles from Camp Sewell. A warm day with clouds gathering. General Schenck has assumed command of our brigade — Twenty-third and Thirtieth [Regiments]. Dined with General Schenck — a birthday dinner. His birthday also — he fifty-one.

SOURCE: Charles Richard Williams, editor, Diary and Letters of Rutherford Birchard Hayes, Volume 2, p. 108