Diary of Private John C. West, Friday, May 22, 1863

Left Raleigh about 9 o'clock yesterday morning. The road from Raleigh to Weldon is the most crooked and through the most broken country I ever saw. Every foot of it is over an embankment or through a deep cut. The land along the route is all poor and barren and yet there are some beautiful residences and the people seem to be doing well. How they live I cannot tell. There were occasionally fine apple orchards and clover fields. I had the good fortune to meet up with Mr. Carpenter, a member of the North Carolina legislature. He was a pleasant companion and had some genuine whiskey, having married the heiress of a distiller. I made also the acquaintance of an old gentleman named Miller, who was on his way to Richmond to see two wounded nephews, one of whom had lost an arm; he also had some whiskey, which he said came from the drug store and must be good. He had also some cakes, good ham and fresh butter, which I enjoyed very much. He is a Baptist and is acquainted with Mr. Lemmond, of Waco, Texas. We reached Weldon about 5 o'clock in the afternoon, and as the cars were not to start until 9 o'clock, I concluded to take a stroll. I obtained a drink of the coldest water I ever drank and observed the address of Captain H. A. Troutman on a box, which put me on the lookout for him. I soon met him and we had a long talk on old college times. He had married a Miss Napier. John Neely is dead; Miss Lou is married to Ed. McClure. Billy Clifton has become a devout Baptist. Charley Boyd, John McLemore and Lucius Gaston are all killed; murdered by fanatical vandals; ten thousand mercenaries cannot pay for such men as these. They helped to make and adorn the character of a noble people. They were all my college friends. We loved each other and cherished common hopes of a happy future.

I went to supper with Troutman. He boards with the post commissary, who, of course, gets a little of everything. We had light rolls, scrambled eggs, genuine coffee, salmon, etc., for supper. The commissary is run by Mr. Peterson, brother of Judge Peterson, of San Antonio, Texas. We left Weldon at 9 o'clock and jogged along slowly until about 3 o'clock a. m., when we reached Petersburg. I shouldered my carpet-bag, overcoat and blanket and walked a mile to the depot. Cars left Petersburg about 5 o'clock a. m., and ran so slowly that I had ample time to inspect the country. When we came within eight miles of Richmond I observed a large amount of timber felled on either side of the road and fortifications thrown up to prevent the advance of the Yanks. When we came within three miles of Richmond one of the bars which connects the cars broke, and we were detained for half an hour or more, but another engine very opportunely came up behind us and pushed us on to Richmond. I found it a much more beautiful place than I had anticipated. The scenery in crossing James River is especially attractive. I put up at the American Hotel and spent the day in wandering "up and down" and "going to and fro" in it. I called on Miss Wigfall, Mrs. Chestnut, Miss Nannie Norton (who was absent), Miss Mary Fisher, Mr. and Mrs. Barnwell and met there Mrs. Carter. Called at the Cabinet Quarters and delivered to C. S. Senator Hon. James Chestnut, a letter (from Hon. Guy M. Bryan, of Texas) to the president. I went to the Ballard House to see Hon. H. P. Brewster, of Texas; was unable to find him. Delivered Mr. Carter's letter to Mr. Winston, who was too busy to notice me, so I retired. I gave him also the letter to Mrs. Benton. Dined with Colonel and Mrs. Chestnut, in company with Billy Preston, who is now major of artillery. Had fish and corn bread, rice and lettuce for dinner, with iced whiskey to wash it down. After dinner went to the Spotswood Hotel, met Captain Rice and Jimmy Winn, also Minnie Moses, whom I have not seen for eight years. He is a clerk in some of the departments. I returned to Miss Mary Fisher's in the afternoon and left my overcoat in her charge. I am too tired to make comments, though I have seen a great deal to write about. I am writing this in the public room of the American Hotel about 11 o'clock at night. They have charged me $7.50 for supper, night's lodging and breakfast.

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. 49-52

Governor Rutherford B. Hayes to Guy M. Bryan, November 9, 1868

WASHINGTON, November 9, 1868.

DEAR GUY:—I came here last night chiefly to attend to your cause. The President has just given me an order for the pardon of yourself and brothers. I congratulate you all.

I concur fully with the sentiments of your letter. I hope you will all agree to one further amendment of the Constitution, viz., the basis of representation to be voters. This I deem very essential. Don't commit yourself against it until I can write you fully.

I return home tomorrow. All Cincinnati friends are well. Regards to your wife.

As ever,

R. B. HAYES.

GUY M. BRYAN,
        Texas.

SOURCE: Charles Richard Williams, editor, Diary and Letters of Rutherford Birchard Hayes, Volume 3, p. 55-6

Governor Rutherford B. Hayes to Guy M. Bryan, January 21, 1869

COLUMBUS, January 21, 1869.

MY DEAR GUY:—Your New Year's letter made me happy. Time is rapidly getting our political differences out of the way. We shall hardly be as wide apart again as we were ten years ago. Personally, we never were divided. Hereafter I hope we shall meet in as complete accord as need be for close friendship. I was at Gambier Monday to see the inauguration of a new president. The enclosed gives you a report of it. Altogether a good time. I spoke of you to numbers of old friends who have friendly recollections of auld lang syne. Hurd, Buttles, Jones, etc., always ask about you.

Excuse this. I am writing in the office with too many interruptions to write consecutively.

My regards to your wife and children. I hope to see you again soon.

As ever,

R.

GUY M. BRYAN,
        Texas.
Private.

SOURCE: Charles Richard Williams, editor, Diary and Letters of Rutherford Birchard Hayes, Volume 3, p. 57-8

Congressman Rutherford B. Hayes to Guy F. Bryan, October 1, 1866

CINCINNATI, October 1, 1866.

MY DEAR GUY:— Your letter of the 18th came duly to hand. It finds me in the midst of an unusually exciting political struggle. The election is next week. I am a candidate for re-election and expect to succeed by a large majority. I will bore you with only a few words on politics.

I think the election will show that the people are resolved to adopt the Congressional plan of Reconstruction. It does not "disfranchise" anybody in the So uth. It disqualifies for holding office those who have been leaders the old office-holders. All young men are qualified although implicated in the Rebellion. The disqualification probably applies to no man in your State who is now under twenty-seven or eight years of age. Recollect too that the disqualification can be removed in any case by a two-thirds vote of the Senate and House. That vote will be obtained in all cases in a few years, if peace and loyalty are restored in the South. You have, of course, seen our plan. I send you one of my electioneering speeches which contains the different sections, and let me frankly say that if we carry these elections, this plan contains the best terms you will ever get — and they should be promptly accepted. The young men are with us almost universally. The life and energy of the North is with us. If the elections are against us, we shall submit. If they are for us, the Democracy will submit. We shall be united in any event. Do not be again deceived with the hope of Democratic help in a further struggle. I hope you will give the Congressional plan a fair hearing. If we succeed you must adopt it, if you regard your own welfare.

I am very much obliged by the photographs album of particular friends and near relatives. My wife is in love with the fine faces of your children. I can readily believe all you say of your boy.

I have three boys living- my three eldest. We lost two boys—both under two years. Birchie, aged thirteen is in all respects a noble and promising boy. Webb aged ten and Rud aged eight are good boys also. They are all absent from home now. The two big boys with their uncle at Fremont and Ruddy at Chillicothe. My mother now aged seventy-five is at Columbus in good health. Uncle often talks of you and would give a good deal to see you. If you come North, do try to visit him as well as myself. My brother-in-law (whom you know), Dr. Webb, is travelling in Europe. My wife's mother died a few weeks ago. With no small children and no old person about the house, my family seems small. I hope I shall see you soon.

I am sure you did all that friendship required to meet General Fullerton. I count upon the constancy and sincerity of your feelings by what I know of my own towards you. The only things he could have said to you was to give you my views of the future duty of the South. If we succeed in the elections now pending, don't be deceived by Andy Johnson. The North will be far better united during the next struggle, if unhappily there is one, than during the last. Johnson and his office-holders will be "a mere snap-a flash in the pan." Ten thousand majority in Ohio is as good for practical purposes as a unanimous vote. We shall be united in action. We shall submit, if the majority is clearly against us. Our adversaries will submit, if it is otherwise. My last word is, don't let Andy Johnson deceive you. He don't know the Northern people.

As ever,

R.

GUY M. BRYAN,
        Texas.

SOURCE: Charles Richard Williams, editor, Diary and Letters of Rutherford Birchard Hayes, Volume 3, p. 32-3

Congressman Rutherford B. Hayes to Guy M. Bryan, November 5, 1866

CINCINNATI, November 5, 1866.

DEAR GUY:— I would have sent the enclosed letter as to Stephen's affair before, but I have been absent attending in the last sickness and at the funeral of my mother at Columbus and Delaware. She died without pain in the possession of her faculties to the last, and confident of the future. She was almost seventy-five years of age. Uncle Birchard was with her and the most of her grandchildren.

My regards to your wife and little folks.

As ever,

R. B. HAYES.

GUY M. BRYAN,
        Texas.

SOURCE: Charles Richard Williams, editor, Diary and Letters of Rutherford Birchard Hayes, Volume 3, p. 35

Congressman Rutherford B. Hayes to Guy M. Bryan, February 15, 1866

WASHINGTON, D. C., February 15, 1866.

DEAR GUY:— Enclosed you will find Stephen's papers. The reason I didn't write again [was that] I discovered on another visit after writing you that you had previously been pardoned.

There is really no reason to feel any uneasiness because of the delays in acting upon the cases of the different Southern States. Those which send Union men will be represented in Congress, and fully restored without any severe or degrading conditions. There is a great deal of nonsense on all sides, but no substantial interests are likely to be sacrificed. I am told that the Committee on Reconstruction will report favorably on Tennessee at an early day.

I really can't tell about land sales. We hear some hard stories about the treatment Northern people get in many parts of the South. This for a time will naturally discourage the purchase of lands.

I am in much haste. Love to yours.

As ever, your friend,

R. B. HAYES.

GUY M. BRYAN,
        Texas.

SOURCE: Charles Richard Williams, editor, Diary and Letters of Rutherford Birchard Hayes, Volume 3, p. 17-8

Diary of Lieutenant-Colonel Rutherford B. Hayes: Friday, July 18, 1862

Camp Green Meadows. — Rained last night and drizzled all this morning. . . . I feel dourish today; inaction is taking the soul out of us.

I am really jolly over the Rebel Morgan's raid into the bluegrass region of Kentucky. If it turns out a mere raid, as I suppose it will, the thing will do great good. The twitter into which it throws Cincinnati and Ohio will aid us in getting volunteers. The burning and destroying the property of the old-fashioned, conservative Kentuckians will wake them up, will stiffen their sinews, give them backbone, and make grittier Union men of them. If they should burn Garrett Davis’ house, he will be sounder on confiscation and the like. In short, if it does not amount to an uprising, it will be a godsend to the Union cause. It has done good in Cincinnati already. It has committed numbers who were sliding into Secesh to the true side. Good for Morgan, as I understand the facts at this writing!

Had a good drill. The exercise and excitement drove away the blues. After drill a fine concert of the glee club of Company A. As they sang “That Good Old Word, Good-bye,” I thought of the pleasant circle that used to sing it on Gulf Prairie, Brazoria County, Texas. And now so broken! And my classmate and friend, Guy M. Bryan — where is he? In the Rebel army! As honorable and true as ever, but a Rebel! What strange and sad things this war produces! But he is true and patriotic wherever he is. Success to him personally!

SOURCE: Charles Richard Williams, editor, Diary and Letters of Rutherford Birchard Hayes, Volume 2, p. 306

Rutherford B. Hayes to Sardis Birchard, May 12, 1861

CINCINNATI, May 12, 1861.

DEAR UNCLE: —  . . . The St. Louis and other news revives the war talk. We are likely, I think, to have a great deal of it before the thing is ended. Bryan writes me a long friendly secession letter, one-sided and partial, but earnest and honest Perhaps he would say the same of my reply to it. I wish I could have a good talk with you about these days. I may be carried off by the war fever, and would like to hear you on it. Of course, I mean to take part, if there seems a real necessity for it, but I am tempted to do so, notwithstanding my unmilitary education and habits, on general enthusiasm and glittering generalities. But for some pretty decided obstacles, I should have done so before now.

All well at home. Lucy hates to leave the city in these stirring times. We hear that some of the Fremont men are at the camp near Milford. I shall see them one of these days, if this is so.

Sincerely,

R. B. HAYES.

S. BIRCHARD.

 SOURCE: Charles Richard Williams, editor, Diary and Letters of Rutherford Birchard Hayes, Volume 2, p. 17

Rutherford B. Hayes to Guy M. Bryan, May 8, 1861

CINCINNATI, May 8, 1861.

DEAR GUY: — I have just received and read your letter of the 27th ult. It does me good to hear from you again. I have thought of you often since these troubles began. Curiously enough, having a bad cold and a slight fever, I dreamed of many things last night. Among others I dreamed of seeing you at the Burnet House; that you wore on your cap some sort of secession emblem and that you were in danger of getting into difficulty with some soldiers who were in the rotunda, and that it was after some effort that I succeeded in getting you rid of them. I should have written you soon even if I had not heard from you.

Your predictions as to the course of things have indeed been very exactly fulfilled. I can recollect distinctly many conversations had twelve, perhaps even fifteen, years ago in which you pointed out the probable result of the agitation of slavery. I have hoped that we could live together notwithstanding slavery, but for some time past the hope has been a faint one. I now have next to no hope of a restoration of the old Union. If you are correct in your view of the facts, there is no hope whatever. In such case, a continued union is not desirable were it possible. I do not differ widely from you as to the possibility of conquering the South, nor as to the expediency of doing it even if it were practicable. If it is the settled and final judgment of any slave State that she cannot live in the Union, I should not think it wise or desirable to retain her by force, even if it could be done.

But am I, therefore, to oppose the war? If it were a war of conquest merely, certainly I should oppose it, and on the grounds you urge. But the war is forced on us. We cannot escape it. While in your State, and in others, perhaps in all the cotton-growing States, a decided and controlling public judgment has deliberately declared against remaining in the Union, it is quite certain that in several States rebellious citizens are bent on forcing out of the Union States whose people are not in favor of secession; that the general Government is assailed, its property taken, its authority defied in places and in a way not supported by any fairly expressed popular verdict. Undoubtedly the design to capture Washington is entertained by the Government of the Southern Confederacy. Undoubtedly that Confederacy has not by its acts sought a peaceful separation. Everything has been done by force. If force had been employed to meet force, I believe several States now out of the Union would have remained in it. We have an example before us. Two weeks ago Maryland was fast going out; now, aided by the power of the general Government, the Union men seem again to be in the ascendant. The same is true of Delaware, Kentucky, Missouri, and western Virginia, with perhaps allowances in some quarters.

I do not, of course, undertake to predict what will be the ultimate object of the war. I trust it will not be merely the conquest of unwilling peoples. Its present object, and its obvious present effect, is to defend the rights of the Union, and to strengthen the Union men in the doubtful States. We were becoming a disgraced, demoralized people. We are now united and strong.

If peaceful separation were to be attempted, it would fail. We should fight about the terms of it. The question of boundary alone would compel a war. After a war we shall make peace. It will henceforth be known that a State disappointed in an election can't secede, except at the risk of fearful war. What is left to us will be ours. The war for the purposes indicated — viz., for the defence of the capital, for the maintenance of the authority of the Government and the rights of the United States, I think is necessary, wise, and just. I know you honestly differ from me. I know that thousands — the great body of the people in some States, perhaps, — agree with you, and if we were only dealing with you and such as you, there would be no war between us. But if Kentucky, Virginia, and other States similarly situated leave the Union, it will be because they are forced or dragged out; and our Government ought not to permit it, if it can be prevented even by war.

I read your letter to Judge Matthews. We agree in the main respecting these questions. I shall be pleased to read it to George [Jones] when we meet. He has two brothers who have volunteered and gone to Washington. Lorin Andrews, President of Kenyon, our classmate, is colonel of a regiment. My brotherin-law, Dr. [James D.] Webb, has gone as a surgeon. I shall not take any active part, probably, unless Kentucky goes out. If so the war will be brought to our own doors and I shall be in it. If I felt I had any peculiar military capacity I should probably have gone to Washington with the rest. I trust the war will be short and that in terms, just to all, peace will be restored. I apprehend, and it is, I think, generally thought, that the war will [not] be a long one. Our whole people are in it. Your acquaintances Pugh, Pendleton, and Groesbeck, are all for prosecuting it with the utmost vigor. Vallandigham is silent, the only man I have heard of in any party. He has not been mobbed and is in no danger of it. I will try to send you Bishop McIlvaine's address on the war. It will give you our side of the matter.

We shall, of course, not agree about the war. We shall, I am sure, remain friends. There are good points about all such wars. People forget self. The virtues of magnanimity, courage, patriotism, etc., etc., are called into life. People are more generous, more sympathetic, better, than when engaged in the more selfish pursuits of peace. The same exhibition of virtue is witnessed on your side. May there be as much of this, the better side of war, enjoyed on both sides, and as little of the horrors of war suffered, as possible, and may we soon have an honorable and enduring peace!

My regards to your wife and boy. Lucy and the boys send much love.

As ever,

R. B. HAYES.

P. S. — My eldest thinks God will be sorely puzzled what to do. He hears prayers for our side at church, and his grandmother tells him that there are good people praying for the other side, and he asks: "How can He answer the prayers of both?"

GUY M. BRYAN,

Texas.

 SOURCE: Charles Richard Williams, editor, Diary and Letters of Rutherford Birchard Hayes, Volume 2, p. 13-6