Diary of 2nd Lieutenant Benjamin F. Pearson, February 25, 1863

Dark with heavy raine hard thunder, & sharp lightning.     it commenced about midnight last night & has continued almost incessant since. After 9 Oc last night we had orders to return with the stea Mariner to helena immediately to take on more comisary stores, & by 11 Oe we ware there loaded up & at 9 Oc this A M we started back & tied up again in Moon Lake by 11 A M the boats of the fleete kept fired up & some of them was plying about in the lake all day, & the Iron Clads & 1 transport & one of the Mosketo fleete gun boats passed out of the lake into the cut off At 5 Oc P. M we ware again Ordered to Helena. Our boat is the comisary for the division, we started at once & arived at ¼ before 7 Oc. Afternoon I took a ramble out through the rain & mud & down to the mouth of the cut off.

SOURCE: Edgar R. Harlan, Currator, Annals of Iowa, 3rd Series, Vol. 15, No. 2, October 1925, p. 112

Diary of 2nd Lieutenant Benjamin F. Pearson, January 26, 1863

Raining almost incessantly we ware all ready & packed up, & expected to be ordered in line to march down to the boats at early dawn, the teams ware buisey moving down Com[missary] Long['s] store & about noon they ware stopped & a short time after, the orders we had received to march with our brigade was countermanded & fortunately for us we are this rainey night comfortable in our cabbans I received a letter dated 12th from my Daughter & I bless the Lord, my son is some better & I feel more at ease in my mind

SOURCE: Edgar R. Harlan, Currator, Annals of Iowa, 3rd Series, Vol. 15, No. 2, October 1925, p. 106

Diary of John Beauchamp Jones: October 13, 1863

Gen. Lee's cavalry are picking up some prisoners, several hundreds having already been sent to Richmond. It is said the advance of his army has been delayed several weeks for want of commissary stores, while Commissary-General Northrop's or Major Ruffin's agent Moffitt, it is alleged, has been selling beef (gross) to the butchers at 50 cents per pound, after buying or impressing at from 16 to 20 cents.

Gen. Lee writes that a scout (from Washington ?) informs him that Gen. Gilmore has been ordered to take Charleston at all hazards, and, failing in the attempt, to make a flank movement and seize upon Branchville; which he (Gen. Lee) deems an unlikely feat.

What a change! The young professors and tutors who shouldered their pens and became clerks in the departments are now resigning, and seeking employment in country schools remote from the horrid sounds of war so prevalent in the vicinity of the Capitol, and since they were ordered to volunteer in the local companies, which will probably have some sharp practice in the field. They are intent, however, on “teaching the young idea how to shoot.” The young chiefs of bureaus, being fixed “for life,” did not volunteer.

SOURCE: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 2, p. 70-1