Diary of Private Lewis C. Paxson, Monday, January 19, 1863

I received watch, books, etc., from Lake City. Train arrived in evening. I slept on floor. Some of Barrett's company returned.

SOURCE: Lewis C. Paxson, Diary of Lewis C. Paxson: Stockton, N.J., 1862-1865, p. 11

Diary of Private Lewis C. Paxson, Wednesday, January 21, 1863

Singing book and lessons, $2. Train left.

SOURCE: Lewis C. Paxson, Diary of Lewis C. Paxson: Stockton, N.J., 1862-1865, p. 11

Diary of Private Lewis C. Paxson, Thursday, January 22, 1863

We received our song books, The Academy Vocalist. A scene about them.

SOURCE: Lewis C. Paxson, Diary of Lewis C. Paxson: Stockton, N.J., 1862-1865, p. 11

Diary of Lucy Larcom, May 9, 1861

I had set myself to reading Maury's "Physical Geography of the Sea," after a long deferring; but now that he has come out as a rank rebel against his country, I cannot feel any interest in his theories, ingenious as they are said to be. Like poor, wise, fallen Bacon, his ideas may prove something to the world, "after some years have passed over," but one is not fond of being taught by traitors.

SOURCE: Daniel Dulany Addison, “Lucy Larcom: Life, Letters, and Diary,” p. 91

Diary of Lucy Larcom, June 14, 1861

Still the same old weariness of study; "weariness of the flesh." Books are treasures, but one may work among treasures even, digging and delving, till there is little enjoyment in them. And the greater pain is, that, by becoming numb to the beautiful and true, in any form, one does not feel its power entirely, anywhere. So I felt this morning, which I stole from my books. I sat on a ledge in a distant field, all around me beautiful with June, and no sight or sound of human care in sight. I sat there like a prisoner, whose chains had dropped for the moment, but the weight and pain of them lingered still. Yet I began to feel what it is to be free, and how sweet and soothing nature always is, before I rose to return. I think it would not take me long to get accustomed to freedom, and to rejoice in it with exceeding joy.

SOURCE: Daniel Dulany Addison, “Lucy Larcom: Life, Letters, and Diary,” pp. 94-5

Diary of Private John C. West, Sunday, May 24, 1863

Left Richmond yesterday about 6:30 o'clock a. m. Found a number of the Texas Brigade and a few of my regiment on the cars and soon became acquainted with them. The trip was monotonous, as usual, until we reached Gordonsville, where the crowd was so great that twenty of us had to stand on the platform. General J. E. B. Stuart was aboard and appeared to be very fond of ladies and flowers. He is of medium size, well formed, fair complexion, blue eyes, whiskers and mustache of sun-burnt reddish color, usually accompanying fair skin. I had quite a pleasant time on the platform watching the attempts of the proscribed to get a seat in the cars and their repulse by the provost guard. The cars were for the accommodation of ladies and commissioned officers. I never knew soldiers of any grade to be put in the same category with women before. I happened, however, to meet Tom Lipscomb, my old college classmate, who is now a major, who managed to get me in under his wing. We had a long talk about Columbia and old college days. He informed me that Lamar Stark, my wife's brother, was a prisoner confined in the old capitol in Washington city. We reached Mitchell's Station at 4 o'clock p. m.; walked five miles, a hot walk, to camp on the Rapidan, near Raccoon Ford. My regiment, the Fourth Texas, has a delightful camping place in a grove of large chestnut trees, on a hillside. We have no tents and the ground is hard and rocky, but we are all satisfied, and one day's observation has led me to believe that no army on earth can whip these men. They may be cut to pieces and killed, but routed and whipped, never! I called on Colonel B. F. Carter this morning and had quite a pleasant interview. He is a calm, determined man, and one of the finest officers in the division. To-day was the regular time for inspection and review. One barefooted and ragged hero came to Colonel Carter's Tent with the inquiry, "Colonel, do you want the barefooted men to turn out today?" to which the Colonel replied negatively, with a smile. I went out to the review which took place in an open field about 600 yards from camp. There were some ladies on horseback on the field. Their presence was cheering and grateful. They were all dressed in black, as were more than two-thirds of the women in the Confederacy. On returning to camp I called on Major Bass, of the First Texas, and gave him $25.00, which I had received for him from Lieutenant Ochiltree, at Shreveport, Louisiana, to be handed to Bass if I did not need it.

I received two haversacks to-day, miserably weak and slazy, made of thin cotton cloth. I have only taken a change of underwear, towel, soap and Bible and Milton's Paradise Lost. I have sent all the rest to Richmond with my carpet sack, to be left at Mrs. Mary E. Fisher's, on Franklin street, half way between Sixth and Seventh.

I wrote a letter to mother and one to wife to-day and read the 104th Psalm. I opened to it by chance, and it contained just what I felt.

SOURCE: John Camden West, A Texan in Search of a Fight: Being the Diary and Letters of a Private Soldier in Hood’s Texas Brigade, pp. 52-4

Diary of George Templeton Strong, March 6, 1860

. . . Looking further into Darwin’s Origin of Species this evening. Though people who don’t like its conclusions generally speak of it as profound and as a formidable attack on received notions, I timidly incline to think it a shallow book, though laboriously and honestly written.

Darwin cannot understand why Omnipotent Power and Wisdom should have created so many thousand various types of organic life, allied to each other by various complex relations and differing in points of detail for which we can assign no reason. He wants to shew that the original creative act was on the smallest scale and produced only some one organism of the humblest rank but capable of development into the fauna and flora of the earth, from moss to oak and from monad to man, under his law of progress and natural selection. To him, as to the physicists of the last one hundred years, the notion of a supernatural creative power is repugnant and offen¬ sive. He wants to account for the wonderful, magnificent harmonies and relations of the varied species of life that exist on earth by reducing the original agency of supernatural power in their creation to a minimum. This feeling sticks out at page 483, where he asks triumphantly. Do people “really believe that . . . certain elemental atoms have been commanded suddenly to flash into living tissues?” (That passage is the keynote of the whole book.)

I must say I find it just as easy to answer that question in the affirmative as to admit that certain elemental atoms of lime, silex, carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, and so forth are daily and hourly “commanded to flash into” organic wood fibre, cellulose, parenchyma, and so on. The latter miracle is being performed on the largest scale this minute wherever vegetation is in progress; the former seems to occur only at long intervals. I can see no other distinction between them. One is familiar to our senses, the other is proved by deduction. They are a priori equally credible, or incredible, whichever Mr. Darwin pleases. The inorganic world has its own internal harmonies and relations quite as distinct and unmistakeable as the organic. But no law of progressive development can be inferred from them. Mr. Darwin would not venture to maintain that iodine and bromine are developments of chlorine or vice versa, that some one little dirty, obscure or obsolete element was parent and progenitor of osmium, iridium, ruthenium, and all the rest of the platinum group. Very possible that these so-called elements may be hereafter decomposed and proved to be composite, but we have no right to assume that they will be, and until analysis reduces the inorganic world to a series of compounds of only two primal entities, it will testify against Darwin’s theory.

SOURCE: Allan Nevins and Milton Halset Thomas, Editors, Diary of George Templeton Strong, Vol. 3, pp. 13-4

Diary of Lucy Larcom, March 2, 1861

What does cause depression of spirits? Heavy head and heavy heart, and no sufficient reason for either, that I know of. I am out of doors every day, and have nothing unusual to trouble me; yet every interval of thought is clouded; there is no rebound, no rejoicing as it is my nature to rejoice, and as all things teach me to do. We are strange phenomena to ourselves, when we will stop to gaze at ourselves; but that I do not believe in; there are pleasanter subjects, and self is a mere speck on the great horizon of life.

A new volume of poems by T. B. Aldrich, just read, impresses me especially with its daintiness and studied beauty. There are true flashes of poetry, but most carefully trimmed and subdued, so as to shine artistically. I believe the best poetry of our times is growing too artistic; the study is too visible. If freedom and naturalness are lost out of poetry, everything worth having is lost.

SOURCE: Daniel Dulany Addison, “Lucy Larcom: Life, Letters, and Diary,” pp. 84-5

Diary of Private Lewis C. Paxson: Friday, November 21, 1862

Baker and I were out prospecting; caught one muskrat; set two traps. I sent a letter and $2 for some books at St. Paul.

SOURCE: Lewis C. Paxson, Diary of Lewis C. Paxson: Stockton, N.J., 1862-1865, p. 9

Diary of Lucy Larcom, December 25, 1860

Christmas, 1860. Two or three books I have read lately. Mrs. Jameson's "Legends of the Madonna" is full of that fine appreciation of the deepest beauty, even in the imperfect creations of art, where the creation had in it the breath of spirit life, so peculiar to this gifted woman.

If I were going to travel in Europe, I should want, next to a large historical knowledge, an intimate acquaintance with the writings of Mrs. Jameson, to appreciate the treasures of medieval art.

Whittier's "Home Ballads," dear for friendship's sake, though not directly a gift from him, as were some of the former volumes. I wonder if that is what makes me like the songs in the "Panorama," some of them better than anything in this new volume, although I know that this is more perfect as poetry. I doubt if he will ever write anything that I shall like so well as the "Summer by the Lakeside," in that volume: it is so full of my first acquaintance with the mountains, and the ripening of my acquaintance with him, my poet-friend. How many blessings that friendship has brought me! among them, a glimpse into a true home, a realizing of such brotherly and sisterly love as is seldom seen outside of books, and best of all, the friendship of dear Lizzie, his sole home-flower, the meek lily blossom that cheers and beautifies his life. Heaven spare them long to each other, and their friendship to me!

But the "Ballads are full of beauty and of a strong and steady trust, which grows more firmly into his character and poetry, as the years pass over him. "My Psalm," with its reality, its earnest depth of feeling, makes other like poems, Longfellow's "Psalm of Life," for instance, seem weak and affected. I like, too, the keenness and kindness of the Whitefield poem, in which he has preserved the memory of a Sabbath evening walk I took with him.

Dr. Croswell's poems contain many possibilities of poetry, and some realities; but there always seems to me a close air, as if the church windows were shut, in reading anything written by a devout Episcopalian. Still, there was true Christianity in the man, and it is also in the book.

SOURCE: Daniel Dulany Addison, “Lucy Larcom: Life, Letters, and Diary,” p. 79-81

Diary of Private John C. West, Sunday, April 19, 1863

I rested well last night but had the most hideous dreams all night; Mrs. Brownnigg came in early this morning and asked me into her room; I went and found the fire very comfortable; the doctor came to see me and seems to think I am all right now, but must be careful about my diet; says some good brandy is exactly what I need to recruit on; so I missed it by leaving mine at home. Major Holman called to see me this morning; says he will see my transportation fixed all right; offers relief from the loss of my pocketbook; the doctor does likewise; Mrs. Brownnigg offers me money also. I ate nice toast and drank genuine coffee for breakfast; had chicken soup for dinner; spent most of the day in reading one of Bulwer's novels, entitled, "A Strange Story"; have read fifty or sixty pages, but am not much interested yet. My intention now is to leave here so as to remain at Alexandria the shortest time possible. I learn to-day that Mr. A, my hotel landlord, is tired of soldiers, especially sick ones, and grumbles terribly when one gets out of money at his hotel. If this is true, he is not a true man. I would rather be under obligations to the devil.

Little Bettie Brownnigg is quite a nice girl. Hallie Bacon, several years younger, is in a fair way to be spoiled. There is a young lady, Miss Nora Gregg, staying with Mrs. Brownnigg; she seems to be a clever good girl and is finishing my sock, which wife expected Miss Nannie Norton, of Richmond, Va., to knit for me; she has knit thirty pairs of socks in the last two months; she has a most magnificent suit of soft brown hair.

SOURCE: John Camden West, A Texan in Search of a Fight: Being the Diary and Letters of a Private Soldier in Hood’s Texas Brigade, p. 19-20

Diary of Private John C. West, Wednesday, April 22, 1863

Got up this morning feeling pretty well and concluded to leave to-morrow; went up town and mailed a letter to my wife; saw Dr. Johnson and got a certificate from him accounting for my delay, and a mixture of chalk and laudanum to take on the road; had a long talk with the doctor and Rev. Mr. Wilson about the Downs and Sparks, citizens of Waco; the doctor refused to charge me anything. I borrowed seventy-five dollars from Major Holman and gave him my note. Have been reading Bulwer's “Strange Story" a good deal to-day. Mrs. Weir came in this evening and talked very kindly to me; wants me to stay longer, but I must go; every man ought to go. Witnessed a cock fight in the streets a few minutes ago and rather enjoyed it; wonder how my chickens come on at home, and what my dear wife and dear little Stark and Mary are doing now. Mrs. Bacon has just brought me a pocketbook, and she and Mrs. Brownnigg and Mrs. Weir have offered me money. Miss Gregg has brought me a toddy and I must drink it. Oh! these women!

"The world was sad, the garden was a wild,

 And man, the hermit, sighed till woman smiled."

SOURCE: John Camden West, A Texan in Search of a Fight: Being the Diary and Letters of a Private Soldier in Hood’s Texas Brigade, p. 22-3

Diary of Private John C. West, Thursday, April 23, 1863

Got up early this morning and read Bulwer's "Strange Story" until called to breakfast; after breakfast went to the cars and started to Shreveport; the track is laid for sixteen miles to Jonesville; we traveled over this at very good speed, jolting and swinging a good deal; at Jonesville we took a stage and dragged along for five miles very slowly, but after changing horses got on very well to Mrs. Eppe's, where we had the only nice meal I have found at any place on the road; reached Shreveport about 3:30 p. m.; stopped at the Veranda; went to the quartermaster and got transportation to Alexandria; went down to see the gunboat, Missouri, now being built. I do not understand technicalities well enough to describe her; she is about 120 feet long and the most solid, massive piece of work I ever saw, covered with railroad iron. I started out with Lieutenant Ochiltree to find a private boarding house; found one; don't know the name of the proprietress; charges two dollars per day; sent our baggage around; took a seat in front of quartermaster's office to look at the ladies passing, and other interesting sights; saw some really pretty ones and felt better for it; started home to supper and stopped to take a drink, saw a fight between a red-headed member of the Fourth Texas, from Navarro county, and a citizen of Shreveport; Fourth Texas was worsted and was carried off to the guard house; I went on to supper; after supper discovered a Baptist church on opposite side of the street lighted up; went over and found the minister and two men and four women holding prayer meeting; staid until the meeting closed and concluded that the Shreveport church was in a luke-warm condition; after church I stood in the street and heard a hopeful widow sing some very pretty songs; went back to my boarding house.

SOURCE: John Camden West, A Texan in Search of a Fight: Being the Diary and Letters of a Private Soldier in Hood’s Texas Brigade, p. 23-4

Diary of Private John C. West, Monday, April 27, 1863

After the stage arrived on yesterday evening, I learned that it had come from only about fifty miles below and is not going to Alexandria any more, but is only going forty miles in that direction in order to bring up the stock, etc., on the line. The rumor is that the Federals are in possession of Alexandria; all the troops are retreating in this direction.

I have spent a very disagreeable day; it has been raining all day and kept me confined to the house; I am in a quandary; don't know what to do or where to go; am staying at a Frenchman's house at two dollars and a half per day; have no friend or acquaintance to consult and am utterly at a loss whether to go back to Shreveport or to make an effort to go forward; am afraid to try the latter plan for fear of getting out of money too far from home; think I shall start back to-morrow night.

Read Lycidas' "L'Allegro" and "Il Penseroso" to-day, and a few chapters in "Old Mortality;" one of the longest and most disagreeable days I ever spent in my life; O, for peace and a quiet day with my dear wife and little darlings.

SOURCE: John Camden West, A Texan in Search of a Fight: Being the Diary and Letters of a Private Soldier in Hood’s Texas Brigade, p. 26-7

Diary of Private John C. West, Tuesday, April 28, 1863

Have spent another long and weary day and suffered all that is incident to a position of suspense and uncertainty; cannot tell what may await me yet, but thus far in the last three days have spent the most disagreeable period of my life. Read "Old Mortality" awhile this morning; walked up town; saw a good many drunken officers and a great deal of drinking; saw a game of billiards on a table without pockets; sixty points instead of one hundred make a game; came to my boarding house and read "Old Mortality" and tried to take a nap, but was too nervous to sleep. The stage from Mansfield has just arrived; I trust it will take a regular trip back and start early; anything to get out of this dead, still state of uncertainty; I would rather go into battle to-morrow than to remain in this position; it gives me too much time to think of home; there is no happiness in this. My French landlady mended my suspenders and made me a cup of coffee this afternoon; she seems to be a kind-hearted creature. We have just had a shower of rain and there is a most beautiful rainbow in the east.

SOURCE: John Camden West, A Texan in Search of a Fight: Being the Diary and Letters of a Private Soldier in Hood’s Texas Brigade, p. 27-8

Congressman Horace Mann to E. W. Clap, January 5, 1851

WASHINGTON, Jan. 5, 1851.

To E. W. CLAP, Walpole, Mass.

MY DEAR SIR, — . . . After a week of factious opposition, we have at last, this morning, passed a vote, by a large majority, to do the handsome thing to Kossuth. The South and the "Old Hunkers" have been in a tight place." How could they vote to honor one fugitive from slavery, and chain and send back another? If an Austrian "commissioner" should issue his warrant for Kossuth, and he should kill the marshal, would he, like the Christiana rioters, be guilty of treason?

You see my book* has been prosecuted, in the name of the publishers, for libel. If the greater the truth, the greater the libel, the book must plead guilty. Regards to you all.

As ever, very truly yours,

HORACE MANN.

_______________

* "Of Antislavery Documents and Speeches," which is to be republished with some additional matter.

SOURCE: Mary Tyler Peabody Mann, Life of Horace Mann, p. 345

Diary of Corporal John Worrell Northrop: Wednesday, June 1, 1864

Scalding heat during forenoon; heavy showers follow. Water is running through camp like a flood. Prisoners reported missing, rations suspended; Rebels are making a stir on the outside.

Finished "Paradise Lost"; called on Harriman. He supplied us with Pollock's "ourse of Time." We had read this, but it is now more acceptable. In our view it is a work of more natural thought and imbibes less of the unnatural. Milton has soulstirring passages, alive with truth, significant expression and beautiful simplicity. Then he goes deeply into themes beyond most conceptions; we don't wish to not, unless this is "Paradise Lost." Confederacy when he said:

follow him, or cannot, have Did he mean the Southern

"Devils with devils damned firm concord hold."

Did he mean the North when he wrote:

"Men only disagree of creatures rational,

Though under hope of heavenly grace"

how they should save the Union?

The following lines express a truth in human experience:

"God proclaiming peace,

Yet men live in hatred, enmity and strife

Among themselves, and levy cruel wars

Wasting the earth, each other to destroy,

As if man had not hellish foes enough besides,

That day and night for his destruction wait."

Milton seems to have designed to impress the thought that man had hellish foes distinct from his race, awaiting his destruction, which originated through rebellious war in heaven. I think the causes of our troubles lie in our lack of knowledge and misconception of our social relations, wicked ambition, foolish pride, and that these lines better fit an earthly than a heavenly realm.

The usual monotony except an unusual amount of firing by sentry. Prisoners arrive daily from both our great armies. Men crowd near them to get news and hardtack; occasionally old friends meet. About half the camp draw raw meal; we are of that half this week; have the trouble of cooking it without salt or seasoning or wood, half the time. We stir it in water, bake it on plates held over a splinter fire with a stiff stick, or boil it into mush or dumplings, baking or boiling as long as fuel lasts.

SOURCE: John Worrell Northrop, Chronicles from the Diary of a War Prisoner in Andersonville and Other Military Prisons of the South in 1864, p. 70-1

Diary of George Templeton Strong: January 5, 1860

With Ellie to the Artists’ “Reception” in Dodworth’s Rooms; a vast crowd. Discovered Mrs. D. C. Murray and Mrs. John Weeks, General Dix, Wenzler, Stone, Rossiter, Mrs. Field (commonly distinguished as “the murderess,” being mixed up a little with the Due de Praslin affair),¹ the Rev. Mr. Frothingham, Lewis Rutherfurd, and others. Many bad pictures on the walls, and some few good ones. Eastman Johnson and Charles Dix are making progress. Wenzler has a lovely portrait of one of Dr. Potts’s daughters. Stone’s portrait of my two little men was there, and people praised it—to me.

Monday the second was kept for New Year’s Day. It was a fine specimen of crisp frosty weather, with a serene sky and a cutting wind from the northwest. I set forth at eleven o’clock in my own particular hack, en grand seigneur, and effected more than twenty calls, beginning with Mrs. Samuel Whitlock in 37th Street. My lowest south latitude was Dr. Berrian’s and the Lydigs’. There were no incidents. Bishop Potter’s drawing-room was perhaps the dullest place I visited. The Bishop is always kindly and cordial, but nature has given him no organ for the secretion of the small talk appropriate to a five minutes’ call. He feels the deficiency and is nervous and uncomfortable. Very nice at Mrs. George F. Jones’s, and at Mrs. William Schermerhorn’s. At Mrs. Peter A. Schermerhorn’s, in University Place, I discovered the mamma and Miss Ellen, both very gracious. At Mrs. William Astor’s, Miss Ward (the granddaughter of the house; Sam Ward’s daughter by his first wife) talked of her friend Miss Annie Leavenworth. . . . Mrs. Edgar was charming in her little bit of a house, the “Petit Trianon.” Poor Mrs. Douglas Cruger seems growing old, is less vivacious and less garrulous. At Mrs. Serena Fearing’s I was honored with a revelation of the baby that was produced last summer.

Pleasant visit to Mrs. Christine Griffin, nee Kean—where little Miss Mary was looking her loveliest. That little creature will make havoc in society a year or two hence, when she "comes out.” She is very beautiful and seems full of life and intelligence. Mrs. Isaac Wright in Waverley Place, with her brood of four noble children rampaging about her, was good to see. . . .

Home at six, tired after a pleasant day’s work. We had a comfortable session at dinner with Dr. Peters and Mrs. Georgey Peters, Miss Annie Leavenworth, Miss Josephine Strong, Walter Cutting, Richard Hunt, Murray Hoffman, George C. Anthon, Jem Ruggles, and Jack Ehninger. Dinner was successful.

_______________

* Henry M. Field, brother of Cyrus W. and David Dudley Field, had married (May, I85i) Laure Desportes, who was innocently involved in the famous Choiseul-Praslin murder case in France. Rachel Field has told the story in All This and Heaven Too (1938).

SOURCE: Allan Nevins and Milton Halset Thomas, Editors, Diary of George Templeton Strong, Vol. 3, p. 2-3

Diary of George Templeton Strong: January 10, 1860

House of Representatives not yet organized, no Speaker elected and government at a deadlock. Members spend their time during the interval between the ballotings in speech-making about John Brown, fugitive slaves, Hinton Rowan Helper’s Impending Crisis, and the irrepressible nigger generally. That black but comely biped is becoming a bore to me. No doubt he is a man and a brother, but his monopoly of attention is detrimental to the rest of the family; and I don’t believe he cares much about having his wrongs redressed or his rights asserted. Our politicians are playing on Northern love of justice and a more or less morbid Northern philanthropy for their own selfish ends by putting themselves forward as Cuffee’s champion. But the South is so utterly barbaric and absurd that I’m constantly tempted to ally myself with Cheever and George Curtis.²

_______________

² The Rev. George B. Cheever, author of God Against Slavery (1857); George William Curtis, now attacking slavery in his speeches and writings.

SOURCE: Allan Nevins and Milton Halset Thomas, Editors, Diary of George Templeton Strong, Vol. 3, p. 3-4

Diary of Private Ephraim Shelby Dodd: Tuesday, February 17, 1863

Received twenty-four boxes, saddles, bridles, halters, etc. Sent to Camp. Got a detail and put them all in a house and locked them up. We took charge of the Clerk's Office to sleep in, tied our horses in Court Yard and got our forage from the farmers around. Secured boarding at Maj. Holden's, a clever gentleman and nice family; has one grown daughter, Miss Emma, a nice young lady. Remained here Wednesday, 18th-Monday, 23rd. During this time had nothing to do but write letters, visit MY GIRL THAT PAWS IVORY, and make acquaintances. Among them Miss Lou Hill I prize highest. We had prayer meeting and church. I purchased four books and left them with Miss Emma: Mormon's at Home, Pilgrim's Progress, Bayard Taylor's Travels and Bible Union Dictionary.

SOURCE: Ephraim Shelby Dodd, Diary of Ephraim Shelby Dodd: Member of Company D Terry's Texas Rangers, p. 8