Diary of Luman Harris Tenney: Thursday, August 14, 1862

Put some stripes on my pants, and gave my poor wardrobe a good looking over and repairing. Should not like playing old bachelor for life — not any. Like company and society too well. In the afternoon orders came for the 2nd Ohio to be ready to march at 8 P. M. with 5 days' rations. Under way at nine P. M. 1st Brigade and 6th and 9th Kansas marched from town at ten with the 2nd Ohio in the rear. The dismounted men and 9th Wisconsin rode in the wagons. Marched all night. I got Major's permission and rode in baggage wagon. Most sick with the bloody flux. All were ignorant of our destination, but supposed and hoped to fight.

SOURCE: Frances Andrews Tenney, War Diary Of Luman Harris Tenney, p. 25

Major Wilder Dwight: November 19, 1861

Camp Near Seneca, November 19, 1861.

By every rule of gratitude, after receiving father's long and cheerful letter this morning, this letter should be written to him. But, as the countryman said of his wife, that what was her'n was his'n, and what was his'n was his own, so I fancy I shall talk as freely to both, though I write to only one. Did I not get a letter off on Sunday? I think so. That was a day of bright-blue cold. I gave up church because I had not the heart to keep the men even in a devout shiver for an hour. Yesterday I got a little pull back again. I had fully made up my mind to be perfectly well, so it shook my confidence a trifle. I had to keep busy in order to regain it. The day looked rather gloomy. The Adjutant was taken sick, and the Sergeant-Major. So I had to detail raw hands. Three captains were on their backs. The infernal malaria seemed to have wilted every one. Drills were dull, and the hospital over busy. There was a general cheerlessness overhanging every one.

Just at this moment what does the perverse generalship of our inapposite brigadier but send me an order: “There will be a review and inspection of this brigade in the large field hitherto known as a division review-ground near Darnestown.” There was hopelessness. Colonel and Lieutenant-Colonel both away; Adjutant and half the captains off duty; myself just between wind and water; every one dumpish. It never rains without pouring. The band leader and the drum-major reported themselves sick at parade. Whew-w-w-w-w! I think it all had a tonic and astringent effect on me. ––– sympathized with me in my efforts to repair disasters in season for a grand review. I told her that, though things didn't look very bright, yet I had always noticed one thing, a dark morning kept growing better, and I was going to get up with that faith. I made my arrangements busily last evening.

This morning was jolly cold. I was busy about all the little formalities and precisions which belong to such occasions, settling them with the various officers to whom the duties belonged. The Acting Adjutant had a little delay which bothered me, but at about ten o'clock the line was formed, — the men all in overcoats, — with full equipment. The morning had mellowed into Indian-summer. After all, the Massachusetts Second did look finely. We marched off briskly to Darnestown, about a mile and a half. The regiment arrived at the large field a few moments late, — the fault of a green adjutant. No great matter, but an annoyance. The rest of the brigade was in line, — my place was on the right. I formed the regiment a little in rear of the line, then rode up to General Abercrombie, who said he wished the whole brigade line changed. This gave me a chance to move our regiment right out in line of battle. I advanced them, and they moved with excellent precision, keeping their line exactly. It was a refreshing turn. The regiment saluted, and then marched round in review, passing round the whole field, and saluting the General, who was at the centre, opposite the front of our line. The regiment marched well, — the distances all well kept, — and wheeled into line again finely. So far, well. Then an inspection, which is a tedious process. The General noticed, what is certainly true, that the men looked peaked, dwindled, pined. But their soldierly appearance was undeniable. As if to cap the climax of our day's work, the General turns to me and says, “Put the battalion through a short drill, and then you can take them home.” I might have mentioned that I rose this morning pretty well except a raging headache, and, on the whole, felt brisk. I did not much feel like shouting through a battalion-drill, however. Still, I did it. We did it pretty well, too, on the whole. Shall I tell you what we did? You will understand it exactly. The battalion, as formed for inspection, was in open column of companies, right in front. I first threw them forward into line, which went well, then double-columned on the centre, countermarched and deployed, then repeated that movement at a double-quick, then broke the line to the left, and wheeled again to the right into line, then broke to the right by companies, closed in mass and formed divisions, then column forward and round by two wheels, closed in mass to their old front, then halted and deployed column on the first division at a double-quick, bringing them on their original line. Then, after a rest, broke by right of companies to the rear, and so marched home, having weathered the day. Now, isn't that a lucid story? Don't you like it? It's just what I did, anyway, and isn't a bad drill for the inexperience of a headachy major. I got home soon after two, having had a hard day for a regiment so much pulled down as ours. I put in several good words for us with the Brigadier, and I am in hopes to whiskey and quinine, or, better still, to transport our regiment into its old health and vigor. But certain it is, that hard work, exposure, and Potomac damp have wrought their perfect work, and we “need a change,” as the saying is. Besides, there is this constant picket duty on the river, watching through damp nights for enemies that haven't a purpose of coming. It is the hardest kind of duty, and the most useless, or rather the least obviously useful, and the least exhilarating. I was reading, this morning, an order from head-quarters about “amputations.” “Pshaw !” I exclaimed, to the edification of our surgeon. “If they want to be practically useful, let them pronounce about diarrhoea and chills: there are no amputations in civil war.” With such dismal pleasantries we relieve the depression of our sinking spirits. But I have the pleasure to know, or to feel sure, that we are only harvesting now the crop of an early sowing, and that things grow better. I am very well again this evening. Colonel Andrews now grows obviously better. The Adjutant will go to a house to-morrow for two or three days' rest, and I am inclined to hope that things have just got to their worst with us.

Perhaps I am giving you an over-dark view. Don't let your imagination run away with it. We are only debilitated, that's all. Nothing dangerous, but annoying. I am only thankful that I am so well, and only troubled that there is so little I can do for the regiment.

Send us your warm clothes as fast as they are ready in respectable quantities

Tell father I join in his hurrahs, except that I caution him to wait for exploit and achievement before he congratulates his boys, or canonizes their mother on their account. It is very humdrum duty they are doing now. It asks only willingness and endeavor, — a good, earnest disposition. If it shall turn out that they can have strength for better things by and by, sha'n't I be glad! To-day I am only tranquil and hopeful. Our Thanksgiving day will be a great success. I fancy nearly a hundred turkeys: a great many geese and chickens will smoke on our mess-pans! Then the plum-puddings! Already the cooks are rehearsing that delicacy in many forms, in anticipation of the grand and decisive movement on Thursday. I think that thankfulness of heart and generosity of good cheer will so exalt and inspirit the regiment that we shall know no more depression or invalidism. At all events, the preparation has a wholesome cheerfulness in it. General Abercrombie to-day said, “No winter-quarters.” This was direct from McClellan. He also intimated that we may go South. That rumor seems to gather and not fade, as most do. It has life in it still, and perhaps it may bring itself to pass pretty soon.

I am making a long story of my short experiences; but it is pleasant to write, and, but for a little consideration left for you, I might write on for an hour. As it is, I will write an affectionate good-night, and go to bed. Before I go, don't let me forget to admonish you to tell Mr. ––– that those drawers are as warm as the love of woman, and as constant as the love of man. Tell him they are my hope and faith in this great November tribulation. I will recollect him Thanksgiving day.

We have a bright Wednesday morning. I find a chance to send this by Lieutenant Choate, who goes home on a short “sick-leave,” so I must' close up promptly. What a joke the capture of Mason and Slidell is! There is fun in it. Whether there is, also, international law, or not, I don't know. The luck seems really to have turned lately, and to be going against rebels and traitors. I was very much pleased to read Howard's letter. It looks as if he were where he would have a good chance to make a soldier, and to be an active one too. What an oddity this whole life seems to me every now and then, when I think of it. Changes and chances are very rapid. Verily, to be an American is to be everything by turns, and nothing long.

Speaking of “nothing long,” what do you think of this letter? The camp looks white and frosty from my tent, as I look out this morning. I think I will go to breakfast and warm up a little. As to my health, it seems firm again to-day, and I have every reason for content. Love to all at home.

P. S. — I have reason to believe that the General was quite well pleased with the review. That is a comfort, under the circumstances.

SOURCE: Elizabeth Amelia Dwight, Editor, Life and Letters of Wilder Dwight: Lieut.-Col. Second Mass. Inf. Vols., p. 148-52

Major Wilder Dwight: November 14, 1861

camp Near Seneca, November 14, 1861.

I should have written a line at a shorter interval from my last if I had not been full of work. I decided to move my camp on Tuesday morning, and have given the last two days to making the men comfortable in their new quarters. By some strange mishap, we got upon an unlucky piece of ground for our camp. We were assailed by diarrhoea, — officers and men. But I think I have made a fortunate selection of a new ground, and I am myself feeling much better. Our whole mess was under the weather. As I am left alone in command, I have been obliged to snatch odds and ends of time to be a little sick in. Now, however, we are out upon high, open ground, and have fine, clear sunshine, and we are all well again. I do not wish either to complain or be elate, but I have, this morning, a tranquil satisfaction in obstacles overcome, and sunshine achieved. You know there are times when everything seems to get going wrong. The Colonel seemed to leave the regiment just at that moment. But now we start again.

We never had a more regular, neat, and comely camp than we have to-day. Of course I enjoy that, and I am trying to keep the machine in good order

If there were no one waiting for me, I should try and scribble this sheet full, but, in the end, you would know only that reveille and tattoo succeed one another naturally; that our camp is pleasant, and, I hope, healthy; and that to be major commanding a regiment is a busy life, but, on the whole, a happy one, as lives go. Love to all.

SOURCE: Elizabeth Amelia Dwight, Editor, Life and Letters of Wilder Dwight: Lieut.-Col. Second Mass. Inf. Vols., p. 141-2

Diary of Corporal Alexander G. Downing: Thursday, July 14, 1864

I am with a large number of sick in a ward over a vacant store building. For the last four days I have had the camp diarrhea, and have become so weak that I have to lie on my cot all the time.¹ But we have a good doctor in this ward.

_______________

¹ Mr. Downing has an entry in his diary for every day, but wrote them at a later date, after he was convalescing. — Ed.

Source: Alexander G. Downing, Edited by Olynthus B., Clark, Downing’s Civil War Diary, p. 205

Captain William Francis Bartlett to Harriett Plummer Bartlett, Sunday Evening, April 20, 1862

Sunday Eve.

Camp Before Yorktown, April 20, 1862.

Dear Mother: — It is just six months ago to-night since we crossed over to Harrison's Island and Ball's Bluff. We are having very hard duty just now, and shall have for some time. We are camped in the same swamp, within three quarters of a mile from the enemy's works. We have to go out every third day and picket the whole brigade, close to them. Day before yesterday we were out; we go again to-morrow. We were firing all day, whenever we saw anything to shoot at. We had one of our men badly wounded in the breast. Last night we were turned out twice by a brisk volley of musketry, which seemed just on the edge of the camp. Our pickets were driven in, and the firing lasted about fifteen minutes. Some of the bullets dropped into the camp. They were driven back without our going out. We were turned out again at two, and stood in the rain and mud. This morning we expected a quiet day, although the camp was all water and mud; raining hard. About ten, sharp firing commenced, and we had to fall in, and our two brigades were marched out to the front, where the other brigade was on picket. We expected that we were in for a fight, as Sunday is the favorite day. We lay out in the woods all day in the rain, and came in to-night without doing anything; they did not see fit to attack. We keep up a continual shelling of their works. To-morrow we take our turn again. I suppose we shall be turned out once or twice to-night; that's why I am in no hurry to go to bed, as I want to wait until after the first turn-out. I hope it won't rain to-morrow while we are out. I am fortunate in being so well, many of the officers being sick with diarrhoea.

We may have a week or more of this sort of duty before the grand attack. It is very unpleasant duty. No glory in being shot by a picket behind a tree. It is regular Indian fighting. I have not been exposed much. I got a letter from you day before yesterday. I expect to hear the rattle of musketry every minute, but I am going to try and get some sleep. This is the hard part of a soldier's life; the battle would be a holiday as a relief from this. It will be pleasant to look back on this, if I ever get back, and hear the rain beat on the cupola and think of the nights I have lain out in it in the woods, listening to the pickets firing and the shells bursting, wet and dirty. When it doesn't rain it is very hot. Night before last, I lay in the woods under the sky, without anything over me except my overcoat. The great trouble here is from wood-ticks; they get on to you and bury their head in you, and you can't pull them out without pulling their heads off, which makes a bad sore. The only way is to cut them out. I have only had one fasten on me yet, although I have stopped four or five before they got hold. These trouble us a great deal more than the rebel bullets. I must stop here, as it is getting late. It is a certain thing that we shall be turned out under arms about the time I get to sleep.

Good night. Love to all.

W.

SOURCE: Francis Winthrop Palfrey, Memoir of William Francis Bartlett, p. 39-40

Brigadier-General Thomas Kilby Smith, August 11, 1865

Headquarters Post Of Mobile,

Mobile, Ala., Aug. 11, 1865.

The chronic complaint with which my system is poisoned, will never be eradicated; the diarrhoea at times is beyond anything you ever saw or dreamed of, and from day to day I look at myself in the glass with wonder and amazement that I am still alive. Change, radical change of air, may possibly alleviate; it is worth the trial. Under the most favorable circumstances, I should die in two weeks in Ohio, and will not come back in warm weather to make the experiment.

The weather here is very warm. We have no epidemic as yet, but I hear of yellow fever in New Orleans. I will do what I can to keep it out; as long as the nights remain warm there is no danger. A little strange, is it not, that in a Southern climate warm weather is a guarantee against infection?

SOURCE: Walter George Smith, Life and letters of Thomas Kilby Smith, p. 408

Brigadier-General James A. Garfield to Corydon E. Fuller, September 5, 1862

Howland Springs, Trumbull Co., O.,

September 5, 1862.

My Dear Corydon: — Your kind letter of the 25th ult. was received a few days ago. I was exceedingly glad to hear from you. I have not heard from you for a long time, only by way of your paper, a copy of which has from time to time found its way into camp and reached me. I ought to have left the field two months ago, but I had hoped to ward off disease, but for being put on that miserable Court Martial, where I was shut up for near forty days in a hot room, where I could get no exercise; and at last I broke down. It was doubted by some whether I could live to get home. I lost forty-three pounds of flesh, and was so weak that I had to lie on a couch in the court the last ten days of my attendance. I had the jaundice very badly, and the chronic diarrhœa. I am getting better; indeed, I am nearly free from disease, but I am very weak. I have come away here to a quiet farmer's home, where there is a medicinal spring, and I could get rest away from the school and the crowd of visitors.

I hope to be able to take the field again in a few weeks. I have just received a telegram from Secretary Stanton, ordering me to report at Washington in person for orders, as soon as I am well enough. It is rumored that I am to have a larger command, but what and where I do not know. The doctor says I will not be fit for duty before the first of October, but I am very restive under this restraint, I assure you.

After so many months of preparation, there now seems to be a hope of active work, and it is a great trial to me to have to lie here and do nothing. Crete and Trot are with me, and but for the war I should be very glad to enjoy their society once more. Trot is twenty-six months old, and I have lived with her but eight months of that time.

On the 2nd inst. I was nominated to Congress from this district. I had taken no part in the canvass, and did not even attend the convention. It was a spontaneous act of the people.

The Eclectic is doing well. We have nearly two hundred students. I hope you may not fail in your paper. Can I aid you in any way? Let me know. Give my love to Mary. Crete joins me in love to you both. Let me hear from you again. Direct to Hiram, and if I am gone it will be forwarded to me.

With much love, I am, as of yore,

Your brother,

James.

SOURCE: Corydon Eustathius Fuller, Reminiscences of James A. Garfield: With Notes Preliminary and Collateral, p. 330

Colonel Thomas Kilby Smith to Elizabeth Budd Smith, August 8, 1862

HEADQUARTERS 54TH REGT. O. V. INF.,

CAMP NEAR MEMPHIS, Aug. 8, 1862.

Your letter of the 1st inst. has just been received. I cannot understand why eight days should be consumed in the transit of mail matter when the individual requires only two to pass over the same ground. The army, however, is always scolding the mails, and perhaps without reason. We ought to be thankful for any intelligence, however tardy.

Our tents are pitched in pleasant places near the city, plenty of shade and pure water. The health of my men would improve if they would practise self-denial in food; but the temptation in the shape of green corn, fresh fruit and vegetables is too much for their frail nature to withstand. If I can get them safely through September, they will be in good training for a fall and winter campaign. My own diarrhoea has never left me — I suppose never will. I have lost flesh and strength, but I do not suffer save from the inconvenience and loss of rest at night. Sometimes it is checked slightly, but I think it is chronic and beyond the power of medicine. No furloughs or leaves of absence are granted from this division of the army, on account of sickness or for any other cause. I have asked furloughs for officers and men who have died, and whose lives, I am assured by the surgeons, might have been saved by change of air and alleviation from the miseries of the camp, but never with any success. I would not ask a furlough for myself, I would not take one if offered; but it would be worse than useless to ask. It will be long before I shall see family or friend. This hard, pitiless war will never come to an end in my lifetime. Last night three of my officers, who were badly wounded at Shiloh, returned. Two of them were shot very severely, one having his kidney, lung, and liver pierced with a Minie-ball; and yet, strange to say, he is here to-day reported for duty, while men who got only flesh wounds died. I thought they would not return to their regiment, but they felt the peculiar fascination that few are able to resist. Their welcome by their old comrades in arms was very affecting. Strong men embraced and wept. Those who had stood shoulder to shoulder during the two terrible days of that bloody battle, were hooped with steel, with bands stronger than steel; and those who might have been discharged, the scars of whose honorable wounds were yet raw, forsook friends and the comforts of home to come to their regiment, to the society of their companions. This is the great impelling feeling, though duty, patriotism, and “death's couriers, Fame and Honor, called them to the field again.” No officer whose honor is dear to him can be away now; absence from post is a burning shame and will be a lasting disgrace.

It is not probable that Sherman will be ordered to Vicksburg for some time, if at all. Meanwhile the drill and the discipline of the troops is rigidly enforced. Brig.-Gen. Morgan L. Smith, under whose command the “54th” is brigaded, is a martinet almost to tyranny.

I do not deem it beyond the range of the probabilities of this war that Cincinnati be attacked. Buell will have his hands full to prevent it. The city would be a tempting prize to soldiers.

You had better have an eye on this matter in the making of your fall arrangements. I don't want to write that which will give you uneasiness. I do not regard it as at all certain that Bragg would push his columns up between Curtis and Buell; but it is certain that there is a good deal of disaffection in Kentucky. If Richmond is evacuated — and disease and want of commissary stores may compel this — then desperate men in large guerilla bands may precipitate themselves upon a city so far as I know undefended. The South is a united people; they have over one million and a half of fighting men, their soldiers are better drilled and better disciplined than ours, they are better armed and fight as well, and above all it is far easier for them to keep their regiments filled up to the maximum number, than it is for us. Every man, who is able to fight, is willing to fight. The women, the children, the old, the feeble, take pride in the army, and cheer those on to glory whom they think are winning it in the defence of their homes, their firesides, and the heritage of their fathers.

I saw a sweet little girl the other day the very image of Bettie and very much like her in manners; of course I courted and petted her, notwithstanding she was a most bitter little “Secesh.” It was most amusing to hear her philippics, but I could not help loving her for Bettie's sake, and the little witch, as evidence that I had won her favor, though a “Yank,” came with her father to my camp. She is the first child I have spoken to for six long months, if I make an exception of the occasional pickaninny, an insect with which this sunny South abounds. It was very amusing on the march to see whole flocks of them, generally nude, by the roadside in the care of some ancient mother of the herd.

Enclosed please find an effusion from the pen of Col. Tom Worthington, a brother of the General, with whom I have become quite intimate; the lines were almost if not quite impromptu, written and handed me just after the battle, though since, I believe, published. The allusion to the azalia is very happy; the whole air was redolent with their perfume on the day of the battle, and more than once I caught a handful of them, while my horse was treading among the dead.

This afternoon I am invited to a grand review of the 8th Missouri, and to meet all the field officers of the division at General Sherman's headquarters. Within two or three days we present General Sherman with a sword, and I am expected to make the presentation speech at a grand dinner, at which I suppose nearly all the officers, certainly all the field and staff, will be present. As I remarked of General Smith, so Sherman is a martinet, but he is a soldier, every inch, and as brave as they make them. I fought by his side all day from seven o'clock in the morning till dark on Monday, sat by him when his horse was shot, and saw his hand grazed by a cannon ball. He's every inch a soldier and a gentleman and a chieftain. Colonel Worthington don't like him, which is strange, for they are both West Pointers, but the fact is the Colonel is a little jealous that he has not a higher command.

My prince of horses, Bellfounder, is in splendid health, his neigh rings out long and loud whenever he sees me. You shall ride him if he ever gets home.

SOURCE: Walter George Smith, Life and letters of Thomas Kilby Smith, p. 232-5

Colonel Thomas Kilby Smith to Elizabeth Budd Smith, July 11, 1862

HEADQUARTERS 54TH REGT. O.V. INF.,

CAMP “JUPITER AMMON,” July 11, 1862.

MY DEAR WIFE:

I am here at an important point on the State line of Mississippi and Tennessee at what is called “Ammon's Bridge.” I have a separate command of infantry, artillery, and cavalry under my sole control, so that for the present I feel pretty independent. I conduct my camp as I please and scout and patrol the country to suit myself. I came down for an engagement with a detachment of cavalry, known as “Jackson's Cavalry,” but they would not stay for me. It has been my constant ill fortune always to fail in getting an engagement when I have been alone in command. I have been in plenty of skirmishes, but never in one on my own hook.

The first opportunity I ever had for distinction, was when I made the march through the swamp to “Gauss” just two days before the battle of Shiloh and of which I gave you description. I went down alone with my regiment to trap a body of cavalry, passing at night six miles beyond our own lines and within one half mile of the enemies' camp. We lay in sight of their camp fires all night and could hear them talking. I was balked in my manoeuvre, however, by delay on the part of the 5th Ohio Cavalry, who had been detailed to act in concert with me, but who failed in keeping time, and my quarry made its escape by another ford. I feel anxious to fight one battle of my own. All this is uninteresting to you, of course. I am encamped now at a very pretty place. The woods right on the banks of Wolf River that abounds with fish; and it is a swift-running stream with sandy bottom. I have also a remarkably fine cold spring, giving abundance of delicious water, and here I expect to stay for some days. I hope to recuperate, for I have been much troubled with diarrhoea, which I fear has become chronic. I have never been relieved even for a day since the affair at Shiloh; save this trouble, my health is fair. The weather is becoming very warm, we can only make marches early in the morning or late in the evening. Our horses wilt down — nothing but negroes and slaves can stand labor in this climate. On my last march to Holly Springs, I was encamped for four days just on the edge of a large cotton field. In that vicinity cotton has been the great crop, but this year there as elsewhere the cotton fields have mostly been planted with corn. The corn here is very large, tasseled out, roasting ears, almost ripe. Blue grass, herd grass, clover, or timothy won't grow here. Oats and wheat hardly worth gathering, but potatoes, corn, cotton, sweet potatoes and fruits of all kinds, particularly peaches and apples, thrive wonderfully. I never saw such blackberries as I have seen here, growing on vines twenty feet or more high, so high that the topmost branches could not be reached by a man on horseback, and the berry almost fabulous in size, an inch and a half long, perfectly sweet and without core. A man could easily pick half a bushel in an hour, and I suppose we had twenty bushels a day brought into camp while near the patch. Almost all our Northern fruits, I doubt not, would grow with equal profusion if properly cultivated here. Most of the people I meet here are well bred, but not always well educated. They are invariably and persistently secession in their politics, but generally opposed to the war. It is absurd to think of conquering an union, and I believe that an attempt to subjugate these people will be equally futile. There is a bitterness, a rancor of hostility, particularly on the part of their women and children, of which you can have no conception. I have never for one moment changed my views in this regard, so often expressed to you, and in your hearing, before the breaking out of hostilities. The war will teach them to respect the courage of the North, but it has made two peoples, and millions of lives must be sacrificed before its termination. Governor Tod has appealed to the people of Ohio for five thousand. He had better go to drafting. Ohio must contribute fifty thousand, and those right speedily. The resources of this country have always been underrated; this is another absurdity. Their people live far better than we in Ohio out of the cities. I know this to be a fact, for I am daily an eye-witness. A man here with twelve or fifteen hundred acres is a prince. His slaves fare better than our working farmers. His soil is more kindly, his climate better, and better than all, he understands the science of living. He enjoys life more than we do, and so do his wife and children; and they all know this. They are determined to be independent, and they will be. There is no house I go to but where I find the spinning wheel and loom at work. Their hills are covered with sheep and cattle, their valleys literally seas of corn. As long as the Northerner's foot is on the soil just so long there will be some one to dispute its possession, inch by inch, and meanwhile they will find resources for themselves in food and raiment. It is a magnificent country, such timber I never saw. The white oaks would gladden the eyes of the Coleraine coopers. I have noticed many a one eight, perhaps nine feet in diameter at the base, straight, rifted, and running up without catface or flaw, sixty, seventy, eighty feet to the first limb; beeches, hickory, holly, chestnut, all in the same proportions; and that most gorgeous and beautiful tree, the magnolia, in all its pride of blossom, each bloom perfect in beauty, velvety in leaf and blossom and fragrant as the spicy gales from Araby, or a pond lily or attar of roses, or a fresh pineapple, any or all combined, the tree graceful and majestic, proud in bearing so lovely a bloom. The flora of the country is truly beautiful. I am not enough of a botanist to know, nor have I the memory to bear in mind the name of the plants I do know, that are made to bloom in our greenhouses, and here grow wild; but through the woods and along the roadside many and many a one I see growing in wild and splendid luxuriance, wasting their blushes and “fragrance on the desert air,” that a prince might envy and covet for his garden. I do not remember whether I made mention to you of the azalias that were just bursting into bloom on the 6th and 7th of April, and that while sore pressed in the heat of battle, I was absurd enough to gather a handful of them; but so it was. The whole woods at a certain part of the battlefield were bedecked with them and the whole air laden with their perfume. Col. Tom Worthington got off a very pretty poem about the subject.

Kiss all my dear little ones and read them my letters, that is, if you can manage to decipher the pencil. Some day, perhaps, if God spares our lives, I shall be able to entertain them with stories of my campaign in the sunny South, tell them of the beautiful singing birds, the wonderful butterflies and gorgeous beetles, of the planter's life and of the flocks of little niggers all quite naked, that run to the fences and gaze on us as we march by, and of the wenches in the cotton field that throw down the shovel and the hoe and begin to dance like Tam O' Shanter witches, if our band strikes up; and of the beautiful broad piazzas and cool wide-spreading lawns of the rich planters' houses. Some day we'll have a heap to talk about.

I have no very late news from Richmond, but what we have got has had a tendency to depress our spirits a good deal. We feel McClellan will be outgeneralled after all. If he does not succeed in taking Richmond, we are in for a ten years' war at least. Some of those poor people in the South are heartily sick of it, while we shall plant their soil thick with graves of our own dead.

SOURCE: Walter George Smith, Life and letters of Thomas Kilby Smith, p. 221-4

Colonel Thomas Kilby Smith to Elizabeth Budd Smith, June 29, 1862

HEADQUARTERS 54TH REGT. O. V. INF.,

CAMP NEAR MOSCOW, TENN., Sunday, June 29,1862.

My last letter to you was dated from Lagrange yesterday week, and written so hurriedly, for I was just on the eve of march, that I think it must have been unintelligible. We are so hurried from point to point, the mails so uncertain, and facilities and opportunity for writing so scant, that it really becomes a task, or rather I should say enterprise hard to succeed in, the getting of a letter from camp to one's friends. I wrote, if I recollect, that we had marched from Chewalla to Lagrange, that from thence my brigade had made a hurried descent upon Holly Springs, one of the principal cities of Mississippi, where we expected to meet the enemy in considerable force; that they fled at our approach; and that, returning from that point to Lagrange, we found marching orders for Memphis, for which march I was prepared when I wrote that letter. Our course lay through a country more fertile and more highly cultivated than any we had met, but the weather being hot and dry, and the road exceedingly dusty, our troops were made to suffer very much. We accomplished nineteen miles the first day, and were halted at a town called Lafayette. From thence we dispatched a train of fifty wagons to Memphis for provisions, our rations having given out. These returned in safety, but a train of cars, which was started laden with returning soldiers, was intercepted by a force of cavalry, thrown from the track, and Colonel . . . with a number of soldiers taken prisoner. This circumstance, together with intelligence that Breckenridge had concentrated a force at Holly Springs, determined a counter-march with a view of attacking him at that point, and therefore our troops were brought where we now are, some ten miles from Lagrange and twenty-five from Holly Springs, where we shall probably go to-morrow.

The weather is becoming very warm, many of my command are suffering from the effects of the heat and the privations and discomforts to which they are necessarily subjected. With the exception of camp dysentery and diarrhoea, whatever it may be called, my own health is pretty good. The bowel complaint is of a very singular nature, and not to be combated with the ordinary remedies. I have suffered from it ever since the battle of Shiloh, more or less at different times.

Major Fisher has been very sick, he is now convalescent. We shall have a summer campaign right here in the cotton states. A furlough or leave of absence is a thing utterly impossible, therefore I make up my mind to stick it out. I had hoped after the evacuation of Corinth that there were hopes of a close of the war, but these hopes have proved delusions. McClellan is slow, we are much disappointed in his movements. As a consequence, Beauregard and Breckenridge are rallying in the South. The people to a man and woman are decidedly and unanimously "Secesh." We have no friends here but the slaves. The war will be a ten years' war at the least. Ohio must lose fifty thousand men for her quota before it is closed, and the sooner the draft is made upon her, the better I shall be pleased. . . . The war is terrible in its effects here. Homes destroyed, families ruptured, parted, never to meet again; fields and farms desolated, country ravaged, people starving. God has cursed the land. When can their evils be stayed?

There are beautiful forests and broad savannahs here; all fruits and cereals flourish; a land for milk and honey; if peace could come, plenty would follow. The insect life here is wonderful; such innumerable bugs and spiders, moths and winged and crawling things you never could imagine without seeing, while lizards and chameleons, of all sizes and colors, are constantly in pursuit of their game. It is no unusual thing for me to drive the lizards off my cot before I lie down at nights, and every night the spiders crawl over me by myriads. I have been bitten by spiders but once or twice, and with no serious effects, but I do suffer from lice, fleas, bedbugs, and wood-ticks.

My horses are all in tolerably good condition, though they miss their hay. There is no hay grown in this country — its place is supplied with blades of corn. Oats do not thrive here, either, and Northern horses feel the difference. Mine carry me very well notwithstanding, up to this time.

I like your strictures upon the newspapers, and am glad you understand them. Newspaper articles, unless they appear over the signatures of well-known and perfectly responsible parties, are regarded by the army, both off1cers and privates, worthless for information upon any current event, especially matters connected with the service. Mere puffs, they generally emanate from paid correspondents or scribblers, whose object is to write a man into notoriety, as they would publish a patent medicine or advertise a sale at auction.

You would all doubtless like to know more of me and my surroundings than I have it in my power to write. The faculty of description and vigor of memory may make many a fortune for the striving actor in scenes such as these transpiring about me. Every day is an incident, every night in reality a dream of romance. The moonlight, the forest, the bugle, the sentry, the alarm, the march, stealthy and catlike, stealing on the foe, or with loud alarm of drum and fife and flaunting of flag, dashing down to intimidate; the bivouac, the encampment, the gathering around the camp fires, the bottle, the pipe, the tale, the jest, all that you read of in novels, only a good deal more so, all these are my daily life. If one battle would suffice, but many and many a battle must be fought, rivers of blood must yet flow, before we can herald peace.

Well, dear children, Mamma will read this letter or a part of it to you, and while reading it, you must reflect that father is far down South on the line between Tennessee and Mississippi, in a large forest, on the banks of Wolf River, in a hot climate, where the cotton grows; that he is sitting under the shade of his tent, writing to you, surrounded by soldiers, and all the pomp and panoply of war, that he is battling or about going into battle to secure you the same rights and the same good government that was secured to him and his fathers by our Revolutionary forefathers, and you must pray for the success of his cause, and for his deliverance from the evil, and if he should fall in the battle, you must pray for the good of his soul, but always be tender and kind to your mother, your aunt, your teachers and friends.

God bless you all.

SOURCE: Walter George Smith, Life and letters of Thomas Kilby Smith, p. 217-20

Colonel Thomas Kilby Smith to Mrs. Eliza Walter Smith, May 1, 1862

HEADQUARTERS 54TH REGIMENT O. V. INF.,

CAMP PEA RIDGE, TENN., May 1, 1862.

Very great injustice has been done Ohio troops. They have always spoken well of my regiment, however, even the Chicago and other Illinois papers. There were so many heroes on the field that it was diff1cult to select any one par excellence. My regiment suffered more in killed and wounded than any other in the army. I lost more than half rank and file of all I took into battle. The battlefield of Shiloh is drenched with the best blood of the regiment. My command was very gallant, and I am proud of it, or rather what is left of it, for it has dwindled to the merest handful. It is spoken of in the official dispatches, which will be published some time hereafter. We marched to this point yesterday and the day before. We are now but a short distance, less than half a day's march from Corinth, and hope to join battle in a few days. I think your son will be heard of in that battle, though Smith is a hard name to contend with. You would be amused at the vicissitudes I have had to contend with from my most unfortunate cognomen. The fellow who pretended to be able to lift the world if he could find a lever long enough, would have stared aghast at a proposition to lift the name of “Smith” out of the slough of obscurity with a lever double the length of that he required to lift the earth.

Soldiering is a pretty hard life, take it one day with another. You don't get anything good to eat or to drink, and you learn to go without sleep, and you are always going somewhere, or on the eve of doing something, and you are never clean and comfortable, and always cross; but, as a whole, I believe I had rather rough it and fight a battle every other day than go back to the terrible servitude which has been my lot for the past twelve years. My health has been very good till the past two or three weeks. We camped on the battlefield, which was a vast charnel-house. The night of Monday of the battle, I slept on the ground in the rain, and when I awoke in the morning found I had gone to bed between two rebel corpses, one on each side of me, and that I had tied my horse so close to a third that he could not lie down without lying on it. If such things are horrible, this battlefield is too horrible to be described, as was the burial, or attempted burial, of the dead; but it is astonishing to note how soon one gets used to these things, perfectly seared or hardened to suffering in every shape, the mutilated stump, the ghastly mortal wound. One bagged rebels as if they were partridges. I think my regiment killed more than a thousand of them. I was going to say that the smell of the battlefield for two or three days afterwards was terrible beyond description, that we were camped upon it, and had to live in it for twenty-two days, and that it produced a kind of dysenteric diarrhoea that afflicted me, and with which I was a great deal prostrated. I have now regained my wonted vigor, and, notwithstanding your predictions to the contrary, believe I go through about as much as any one else. After the next battle, if we have time and get through safely, I will try and write you a more detailed account of my past life here, but just now I cannot write.

SOURCE: Walter George Smith, Life and letters of Thomas Kilby Smith, p. 199-201

Brigadier General George G. Meade to Margaretta Sergeant Meade, June 26 1862

CAMP NEAR NEW BRIDGE, VA., June 26, 1862.

Everything is quiet on our part of the line. Yesterday Heintzelman, on the left, made an advance, which of course was disputed, resulting in brisk skirmishing, with some loss in killed and wounded on both sides. Heintzelman gained his point, however, and maintained it. We were under arms all day, ready to take part in a general action, if one should result. In the meantime, the batteries opposite to us have been throwing their shot and shell at us, but without inflicting any injury. There is a report that the great "Stonewall" Jackson with his army has left Gordonsville and is coming to Richmond, to turn our right flank. His withdrawal from the Valley of Virginia would indicate weakness of the army here, for he would never leave so important a field, and where he had been doing good service, unless it was a matter of great importance to strengthen their Richmond army. This report, in connection with the fact that they keep up a great drumming and bugling in front of us, to make us believe they are in great force, leads me to doubt whether their army is as strong as represented, and whether they do actually outnumber us, as some believe.

I yesterday rode to the extreme right of our lines, where our cavalry are stationed, watching the whole country, to apprise us of any advance. At one of the outposts, Reynolds, whom I was accompanying on a tour of inspection, sent for the officer in command of the detachment to give him some instructions, when I found he was our old neighbor, Benoni Lockwood, who seemed really glad to see me. The adjutant of the Fourth Pennsylvania Cavalry, now serving with our division, is your relative, Will Biddle. The health of the army, at least of our division, is very fair — some little bilious attacks and diarrhoea, but nothing serious. We have an abundance of good food; no army in the world was ever better supplied and cared for than ours is, all reports to the contrary notwithstanding.

SOURCE: George Meade, The Life and Letters of George Gordon Meade, Vol. 1, p. 278-9

The 16th Regiment

We are asked so frequently whether we have had anything late from our brother, Add. H., that the following extract from a brief letter received from him yesterday, dated Camp near Pittsburg, April 24th, may be of interest:

“Mr. Parker, our sutler, going direct to Davenport, I send my trunk by him, that you my store it away in a safe place.  We are ‘stripping’ in a manner, for another fight. – Our regiment is going on the advance line to-morrow, and in case of any strong attack by the enemy we should be compelled to fall back, and in that event lose our baggage.  I have a satchel, in which to carry under clothing, &c., but will miss my trunk very much.  Col. C. goes away to0day, to stay a month, or twenty days at the shortest, to settle up his Government business, leaving me in command of the regiment.  I have had the diarrhea for eight or ten days, and cannot get rid of it except temporarily.  Yesterday afternoon I was sicker than I ever was in my life before.  This morning I am so weak I can hardly stand.”

The chronic diarrhea is one of the worst enemies of our soldiers in the South have to contend with, and will be far more fatal to many of them than the bullets of the enemy.  Add should either resign his position or leave until his health is recruited.  A few weeks of good nursing might save his life.

– Published in The Davenport Daily Gazette, Davenport, Iowa, Friday Morning, May 2, 1862, p. 1

Diary of Alexander G. Downing: Thursday, July 17, 1862

It rained all last night and everybody is thankful, as it has become so dry and dusty. There are a few cases of sickness in our regiment, due to the extremely hot weather — a few cases of typhoid fever and some are suffering from chronic diarrhea.

Source: Alexander G. Downing, Edited by Olynthus B., Clark, Downing’s Civil War Diary, p. 57-8

Sanitary Condition of the 7th [sic] Iowa Regiment

Mr. G. L. T. Dille, of Co. C, 8th Iowa Regiment, who has recently returned discharged on account of ill health has handed us the following statement of the sanitary condition of the regiment was may be of interest to some of our readers.

SEDALIA, MO., Jan. 12, 1862.

The number of sick in the regimental Hospital from the 12th to the 31st of October averaged 12 per day.  For the month of November the average was 48 per day, and for December 22.  For January up to the 12th, 36.  This is besides the sick in the quarters which would average as many again as in the hospital, from 80 to 100 per day would be a fair average of those unfit for duty.

There has been 26 deaths in the regiment from various diseases, principally Billious Diarrhea, Typhoid and Lung fevers.

The prospect now bids fair for an improvement in the health.  Our physicians both becoming sick and absent has been a great drawback to us.

JAS. McCONNELL, Steward.

W. H. BARKER, Ward Master.

Washington Press

– Published in The Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, February 1, 1862, p. 2

EDITOR’S NOTE:  The regiment in this article was mistakenly headlined 7th Iowa Infantry, but all persons named within it are members of the 8th Iowa Infantry.

Obituary: Warren G. Middleswart

Died in the hospital at Corinth Miss. April 18th 1863 of Chronic Diarrhea W. G. Middleswart, aged 25 years 6 months.

Bro. Middleswart was a member of Capt. L. Bennett’s Co. 39th regiment Iowa Vol.

He felt it to be his duty to go in to the service of his Country, and after having enlisted though falling sick, he was unwilling to recall his name, and was sworn into the army when unable to sit up in his bed. He was a member of the M. E. church in Oceola, and was a consistent Christian, taking an active part in all the enterprises of the Church. Especially was he faithful in, and fond of the Sabbath School. Many who read this will doubtless drop a tear, when they remember that Warren will be seen there no more. After an illness of about three months, he was discharged from the militant church and army below, to join the blood-washed throng in heaven.

“Servant of God, well done;
They glorious warfare’s past;
The battle’s fought, the race is won,
And thou art crowned at last.
O, happy, happy soul!
In ectacies [sic] of praise,
Long as eternal ages roll,
Thou see’st thy Savior’s face.

E.B.H.

– Published in The Union Sentinel, Osceola, Iowa, Saturday, May 2, 1863