Diary of Corporal Lawrence Van Alstyne: November 1, 1862

Have sent home my diary and am beginning another. I must be more brief, for the great mass just sent off covers but little ground and will tire the patience of any who read it. A cold I took the night we lay in Baltimore seems determined to make me sick. I have quite a sore throat and some days feel as if I must give up. Dr. Cook of the 150th has seen me and thinks I should be reported to our doctor. There is talk of our going farther south and I hope we may, for the ground is getting pretty cold here.

SOURCE:  Lawrence Van Alstyne, Diary of an Enlisted Man, p. 57

Diary of John Beauchamp Jones: March 31, 1865

Raining; rained all night. My health improving, but prudence requires me to still keep within the house.

The reports of terrific fighting near Peterburg on Wednesday evening have not been confirmed. Although Gen. Lee's dispatch shows they were not quite without foundation, I have no doubt there was a false alarm on both sides, and a large amount of ammunition vainly expended.

HEADQUARTERS, March 30th, 1865.

 

GEN. J. C. BRECKINRIDGE, SECRETARY OF WAR.

 

Gen. Gordon reports that the enemy, at 11 A.M. yesterday, advanced against a part of his lines, defended by Brig.-Gen. Lewis, but was repulsed.

 

The fire of artillery and mortars continued for several hours with considerable activity.

 

No damage on our lines reported.

R. E. LEE.

We are sinking our gun-boats at Chaffin's Bluff, to obstruct the passage of the enemy's fleet, expected soon to advance.

Congress passed two acts, and proper ones, to which the Executive has yet paid no attention whatever, viz.: the abolition of the Bureau of Conscription, and of all Provost Marshals, their guards, etc. not attached to armies in the field. If the new Secretary has consented to be burdened with the responsibility of this contumacy and violation of the Constitution, it will break his back, and ruin our already desperate cause.

Four P.M.—Since writing the above, I learn that an order has been published abolishing the "Bureau of Conscription."

Gov. Vance has written to know why the government wants the track of the North Carolina Railroad altered to the width of those in Virginia, and has been answered: 1st, to facilitate the transportation of supplies to Gen. Lee's army from North Carolina; and 2d, in the event of disaster, to enable the government to run all the locomotives, cars, etc. of the Virginia roads into North Carolina.

SOURCE: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 2, p. 463

Diary of 1st Sergeant John S. Morgan, Monday, January 2, 1865

Not very well today. drill the co part of the time this P. M. Recd mail, a letter from Mattie

SOURCE: “Diary of John S. Morgan, Company G, Thirty-Third Iowa Infantry,” Annals of Iowa, Vol. XIII, No. 8, Third Series, Des Moines, April 1923, p. 570

Diary of Private Edward W. Crippin, Saturday, October 5, 1861

morning clear & nice Health of camp improving only 3 of our Comp. now in the Hospital. Capt. Parke making arrangements for going home—has drawn his pay from the Pay Master. Drilling as usual both forenoon and afternoon

SOURCE: Transactions of the Illinois State Historical Society for the Year 1909, p. 228

Diary of Private Edward W. Crippin, October 8, 1861

clear & pleasant looks like Indian Summer. Health of camp decidedly improving. Our comp numbers increasing on Dress Parade

SOURCE: Transactions of the Illinois State Historical Society for the Year 1909, p. 228

Diary of Private John C. West, Wednesday, April 15, 1863

I went to the supper table last night too sick to eat anything; left the table and laid down on a lounge until the hotel keeper could show me a room; I retired early and slept well; got up this morning all right, but did not go to the breakfast table; took a lunch from my own haversack; walked out in town; went to the ten-pin alley and spent an hour rolling; had not played a game before for eight years, and enjoyed it very much; smoked a cigar, a notable scarcity in these times, and returned to the hotel, where I wrote a letter to Judge Devine, and one to my dear wife; may heaven's choicest blessings rest upon her and my sweet children; went to the dinner table and found the landlady apologizing for some defect and two young females discussing the merits of the Episcopal and Baptist faith; got through dinner somehow and walked down to the quartermaster's office; got the Vicksburg Whig; stretched myself out on the counter; read and took a nap; got up; went to the armory and would have enjoyed looking over the work very much but felt sick; it produces four Mississippi rifles per day at $30.00 a piece on contract with the state; I am now sitting at the foot of the hill below the armory.

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. 16-7

Diary of Private Seth J. Wells: November 8, 1862

We struck our tents and started for Grand Junction about 10 o'clock. The boys are in fine health and spirits. We marched about nine miles and camped by a clear spring.

SOURCE: Seth James Wells, The Siege of Vicksburg: From the Diary of Seth J. Wells, Including Weeks of Preparation and of Occupation After the Surrender, p. 12

Diary of Private William S. White, October 28, 1861

Our Captain, Robert C. Stanard, died to-day at Camp Deep Creek, of disease contracted in the army. He was a man of warm impulses and generous heart.

Remained in Williamsburg about ten days, when I concluded to call on my Gloucester friends once more, as it would be worse than folly to return to my command in such ill health.

Hired a buggy in Williamsburg and went to "Bigler's Wharf," on the York River; there hired a boat and crossed over the river to Cappahoosic Wharf. At this place I found a member of my company who lived some half a mile from the wharf.

Remained at his father's, Captain Andrews, (a Captain of artillery in the war of 1812) for several days, eating oysters and rolling ten-pins.

Captain Andrews is a jolly specimen of an old Virginia gentleman, whose motto seems to be Dum Vivimus Vivamus.

From Captain Andrews's I went to "Waverly," where I most pleasantly spent ten days, after having been joined by my brother, Rev. Thomas W. White, who insisted on my getting a discharge from the army. Concluded to return to my command, he and I going to Cappahoosic Wharf, he taking the up boat for West Point and I waiting for the down boat for Yorktown. Whilst on the wharf, I was again taken with a severe chill, and remembering my friend, Captain Andrews, I crawled, rather than walked, to his house. I was then seriously ill, but had every attention possible; my physician being Dr. Francis Jones, brother of the owner of Waverly. Dr. Frank, seeming to take a fancy to me, told me if I would come to his house, where he could pay me especial attention, he would promise to get me all right in a week. As soon as I could sit up, I took him at his word, and he put me through a regular course of medicine, watching carefully everything I eat. Kind hearted old Virginian; I wonder if it will ever be in my power to repay him and other dear friends in this good old county for kindnesses to me? When I commenced improving, I felt a longing desire to get back to camp, and accordingly returned to Yorktown in the latter part of November. My company officers now are: Captain, Edgar F. Moseley; First Lieutenant, John M. West; Senior Second Lieutenant, Benjamin H. Smith; Junior Second Lieutenant, Henry C. Carter.

Found they were stationed some twenty miles from Yorktown, and next day started to hunt them up. Hearing they were at Young's Mill, I went to that place, but found the First and Second detachments had returned to their camp, at Deep Creek, on the east side of Warwick River, whilst the Third and Fourth detachments were on picket duty at Watt's Creek, six miles from Newport News. Joined them at that place, having been absent three months. None of the boys ever expected to see me again, and they wondered but the more when I told them that since I had left them I had swallowed enough quinine pills to reach from Newport News to Bristol, Tennessee, were they to catch hold hands.

We remained at Watt's Creek very quietly for a few days, but one night the Yankees brought up a gun-boat and gave us a terrific shelling; when we got up and "dusted."

My mess, composed of Andrew, Dick and Mac. Venable, Gordon McCabe, Clifford Gordon, Kit Chandler, and myself, owned a stubborn mule and a good cart, driven by a little black "Cuffee" whose appellative distinction was "Bob." Now, "Bob" and the mule came into our possession under peculiar circumstances in fact, we "pressed" them into service on some of our trips and kept them to haul our plunder. Bob was as black as the boots of the Duke of Inferno and as sharp as a steel-trap; consequently, we endeavored to give his youthful mind a religious tendency: yet Bob would gamble. Not that he cared for the intricacies of rouge et noir, ecarté, German Hazard, or King Faro, or even that subtlest of all games, "Old Sledge." No, no; he de voted his leisure time to swindling the city camp cooks out of their spare change at the noble game of "Five Corns."

George Washington (Todd) had never heard of that little game, or there would have been a Corn Exchange in Richmond long before the war.

It seems that they shuffled the corns up in their capacious paws and threw them on a table or blanket, betting on the smooth side or pithy side coming uppermost.

Night reigned—so did "Bob," surrounded by his sable satellites, making night hideous with their wrangling.

Say dar, nigger, wha' you take dem corns for? My bet. I win'd dat."

Boom!-boom!—and two nail-keg gunboat shells come screaming over our heads, disappearing into the woods, crashing down forest oaks and leaving a fiery trail behind them.

"Hi -what dat? Golly!" and up jumped Bob, leaving his bank and running into our tent. "Say, Marse Andrew, time to git, ain't it?"

"We must wait for orders, Bob.”

"I woodd'n wate for no orders, I woodd'n; I'd go now," said Bob, as he tremblingly slunk back into his house. But the Demon of Play had left Bob and grim Terror held high carnival within his woolly head.

Boom! Boom!! Boom!!! and as many shells came searching through the midnight air in quest of mischief.

And Bob knelt him down and prayed long and loud: "O-h! Lord, Marse, God'l Mity, lem me orf dis hear one time, an' I'll play dem five corns no more. Mity sorry I dun it now." And Robert ever afterward eschewed the alluring game. Returned to our camp at Land's End, on the west side of Warwick river.

SOURCE: William S. White, A Diary of the War; or What I Saw of It, p. 107-10

Diary of Private William S. White, December 1861

Our Third and Fourth Detachments are camped for the winter at Land's End, under the command of Lieutenant John M. West, and supported by the Fourteenth Virginia Infantry, Colonel Hodges commanding. The third gun is stationed immediately on the James River where the Warwick empties into it, and the fourth gun one-and-a-half miles up the Warwick River, supported by Company "K," Fourteenth Virginia Infantry, Captain Claiborne, of Halifax county, Va., commanding. We have comfortable log cabins, built by our own men, with glass windows, plank floors, kitchen attached, etc., and our cuisine bears favorable comparison with home fare. Time does not hang very heavily on my hands, for I am now drilling a company of infantry from Halifax county, Captain Edward Young's, in artillery tactics, previous to their making a change into that branch of the service. Then we get up an occasional game of ball, or chess, or an old hare hunt, or send reformed Bob to the York River after oysters, we preferring the flavor of York River oysters to those of Warwick River.

Fortunately we have managed to scrape up quite a goodly number of books, and being in close communication with Richmond, we hear from our friends daily.

Soon the spring campaign will open, and then farewell to the quiet pleasures of "Rebel Hall," farewell to the old messmates, for many changes will take place upon the reorganization of our army during the spring. No more winters during the war will be spent as comfortably and carelessly as this[.] Soon it will be a struggle for life, and God only knows how it will all end.

My health has but little improved, but I had rather die in the army than live out.

SOURCE: William S. White, A Diary of the War; or What I Saw of It, p. 110

Diary of Private Lewis C. Paxson: Friday, October 17, 1862

Carr sick. I worked at post return blanks, etc., late in the evening. I forgot to notify the orderlies about going for potatoes. Slept in tent. Indian summer.

SOURCE: Lewis C. Paxson, Diary of Lewis C. Paxson: Stockton, N.J., 1862-1865, p. 7

Diary of Lieutenant-Colonel John Beatty: July 29, 1861

Was slightly unwell this morning; but about noon accompanied General Reynolds, Colonel Wagner, Colonel Heffron, and a squad of cavalry, up the valley, and returned somewhat tired, but quite well. Lieutenant-Colonel Owen was also of the party. He is fifty or fifty-five years old, a thin, spare man, of very ordinary personal appearance, but of fine scientific and literary attainments. For some years he was a professor in a Southern military school. He has held the position of State Geologist of Indiana, and is the son of the celebrated Robert J. Owen, who founded the Communist Society at New Harmony, Indiana. Every sprig, leaf, and stem on the route suggested to Colonel Owen something to talk about, and he proved to be a very entertaining companion.

General Reynolds is a graduate of West Point, and has the theory of war completely; but whether he has the broad, practical common sense, more important than book knowledge, time will determine. As yet he is an untried quantity, and, therefore, unknown.

SOURCE: John Beatty, The Citizen-soldier: Or, Memoirs of a Volunteer, p. 35-7

Diary of Lieutenant-Colonel John Beatty: July 31, 1861

The Fifteenth Indiana, Colonel Wagner, moved up the valley eight miles.

The sickly months are now on us. Considerable dysentery among the men, and many reported unfit for duty.

My limbs are stiff and sore from yesterday's exercise, but my adventure proves to have been a lucky one. The mountain path I stumbled on was unknown to us before, and we find, on inquiry, that it leads over the ridges. The enemy might, by taking this path, follow it up during the day, encamp almost within our picket lines without being discovered, and then, under cover of night, or in the early morning, come down upon us while we were in our beds. It will be picketed hereafter.

A private of Company E wrote home that he had killed two secessionists. A Zanesville paper published the letter. When the boys of his company read it they obtained spades, called on the soldier who had drawn so heavily on the credulity of his friends, and told him they had come to bury the dead. The poor fellow protested, apologized, and excused himself as best he could, but all to no purpose. He is never likely to hear the last of it.

I am reminded that when coming from Bellaire to Fetterman, a soldier doing guard duty on the railroad said that a few mornings before he had gone out, killed two secessionists who were just sitting down to breakfast, and then eaten the breakfast himself.

SOURCE: John Beatty, The Citizen-soldier: Or, Memoirs of a Volunteer, p. 39-40

Diary of Private W. J. Davidson, June 9, 1863

Still at our camp of the 6th inst., with plenty of wood and abundance of good spring and lake water; no improvement in the rations. Yesterday I went to Yazoo and bought rice, sugar and molasses, upon which the mess is living high. No news of the enemy, but cannonading is heard every day in the direction of Vicksburg. Heavy bodies of troops are arriving every day at Jackson, and it is thought that we will make an advance before long. The health of our brigade is pretty good.

SOURCE: Edwin L. Drake, Editor, The Annals of the Army of Tennessee and Early Western History, Vol. 1, p. 215

Diary of 2nd Lieutenant Benjamin F. Pearson, August 20, 1862

we drilled some the Capt & 1st Lieut absent the 1st Lieutenant has been sick for several days.

SOURCE: Edgar R. Harlan, Currator, Annals of Iowa, 3rd Series, Vol. 15, No. 2, October 1925, p. 87

Diary of Captain Joseph Stockton, December 12, 1862

Was quite unwell for a day or so. Nothing of particular interest occurred. Foraging parties were sent out to gather all the provisions and vegetables they could, as scurvy was making its appearance in a slight form. Visited the University of Mississippi with Doctor Powell. Buildings were fine and well built, grounds handsome and I saw the finest astronomical apparatus, they say, that there is in the country; also a splendid collection of minerals purchased of a Mr. Budd in New York. Weather beautiful.

SOURCE: Joseph Stockton, War Diary (1862-5) of Brevet Brigadier General Joseph Stockton, p. 6

Dr. Spencer G. Welch to Cordelia Strother Welch, October 25, 1864

Near Petersburg, Va.,        

October 25, 1864.

I have a bright fire this morning. There is a nice chimney to my tent, which makes it almost as comfortable as a house. The regiment is on the extreme right of our lines, but is several miles from the field infirmary where I am stationed. The brigades are frequently shifted about, but I trust ours will remain where it is, because there is plenty of wood near by.

Everything is very quiet on the lines. I suppose you have heard of the defeat of General Early again in the Valley. He has not yet gained a single victory worth mentioning, and it is time we had a new commander there. We have a great many good fighters, but so few good generals. I am anxious to hear something from General Hood, for if he can whip Sherman at Atlanta the situation may be entirely changed.

The health of all the men appears to be about as good as if they were at home under shelter and with suitable diet. Our troops seem as happy and lively as men could be, although they get nothing to eat now but bread and meat. We have eaten nearly all the beef Hampton captured recently in rear of Grant's army, but we have received some from North Carolina which is very nice and tender.

Your brother Edwin is to be appointed a lieutenant in the Fourteenth Regiment. I took dinner with him yesterday. Lieutenant Petty, with whom he messes, had just received a box from home, and I fared sumptuously. My box has not yet arrived. Boxes now take about two weeks to reach here. Your brother had received his new suit from home. Billie is well and hearty, but he needs a new coat. These government coats are too thin for exposed duty.

I have a nice little Yankee axe, which is so light that it can be carried in a knapsack, but it just suits a soldier for use in putting up his little shelter tent or for making a fire. All the Yankees have these little axes, and many of our men have supplied themselves with them, as they have with almost everything else the Yankees possess.

Are you making preparations to come out here this winter? Colonel Hunt will have his wife to come out again, and a great many other officers are arranging for their wives to come on soon. Some of them are here already, but I think it best for you to wait until winter puts a stop to military operations. When we left the Rappahannock River last fall some of the officers carried their wives along by having them wrap up well and putting them in the ambulance; and if you were here and we had to move I could easily take you along that way. I want you to come just as soon as circumstances will permit, but this war has taught me to bear with patience those things which cannot be avoided and not to be upset when my wishes cannot be gratified.

SOURCE: Dr. Spencer G. Welch, A Confederate Surgeon's Letters to His Wife, p. 110-2

Dr. Seth Rogers to his daughter Dolly, April 12, 1863

April 12.

Should one inquire for my health tonight, I might adopt the reply of a soldier yesterday: "Not superior, thank God." A good night's sleep will restore all that was lost under the tramp of couriers and rattle of sabres on the piazza during the whole of last night. Why couriers should carry sabres except to be in harmony with the general spirit of the War Department, I cannot conceive. There would be precisely as much sense in my being tripped up by mine at the bedside of the sick or at the operating table. Ample preparations were made for the repulse of a large invading force and no force invaded. I guess we are all a little sorry, since it seems like flying in the face of Providence to leave unused for skirmishing these wonderful pine barrens. I thought General Saxton looked a little disappointed about it when he came out this morning. General Hunter, who ought to be holding Charleston today, was with him. Were I not so sleepy I would crowd in a few curses here on the mismanagement which has resulted in the withdrawal of our forces from before Charleston.

SOURCE: Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, Volume 43, October, 1909—June, 1910: February 1910. p. 387-8

Diary of Private Richard R. Hancock: Thursday, January 2, 1862

Colonel McNairy started home on a furlough on account of ill health, leaving Captain Allison in command of the battalion.

Allison received orders to cross the river and report to Zollicoffer's headquarters as soon as his men could cook three days' rations. We did not have three days’ rations, but we cooked what we had, went to the river and commenced crossing, when, on learning that we did not have the requisite amount of rations, Zollicoffer ordered Allison to go back to camps and cook the rations, which he ordered the brigade commissary to furnish. As soon as we had cooked our rations Allison crossed the river and reported to our General that the First Battalion was ready to move. Our Captain soon after returned and reported that the order to cross the river was countermanded.

Mr. Andy Bogle, from Cannon County, Tennessee, came in a carriage after Clabe Francis, a member of Allison's Company, who was sick.

SOURCE: Richard R. Hancock, Hancock's Diary: Or, A History of the Second Tennessee Confederate Cavalry, p. 105

Dr. Spencer G. Welch to Cordelia Strother Welch, October 8, 1862

Berkeley County, Va.,        

October 8, 1862.

When I left Charlestown yesterday morning the weather was delightful and I felt so buoyant and fresh that it caused me to walk too fast, and to-day I am very sore and stiff. I found four letters from you, and they were a treat, for I had had no intelligence from you since July. I never get homesick in camp when I hear that you and George are well.

Our army has been here for three weeks. We are fourteen miles from Charlestown and ten miles northeast of Winchester. There is smallpox in Winchester, and General Lee has ordered the entire army vaccinated.

The weather is dry and pleasant and the men are in better health than I have ever seen them. This rich valley is full of provisions and the army is well fed. It is said that vast quantities of provisions of every kind are being sent from this valley into the interior to prevent the Yankees from getting them, and that when we have eaten out everything in this region we shall retire toward the interior. We have at present no prospect whatever of a fight. If our victory at Sharpsburg had been complete, doubtless we should now be in Pennsylvania.

Dr. Chapman got sick at Richmond, and we have heard nothing from him since. He had become so disagreeable that we had enough of him.

I have tried to be very faithful to my duty since I have been in the army, and I get along finely with the other doctors.

I will close this letter, so good-by, my dear wife and little boy.

SOURCE: Dr. Spenser G. Welch, A Confederate Surgeon's Letters to His Wife, p. 33-5

Dr. Spencer G. Welch to Cordelia Strother Welch, November 13, 1862

Berryville, Clark County, Va.,        

November 13, 1862.

Our brigade is now camped in the suburbs of Berryville and is doing picket duty; however, in three days more another brigade will relieve us. The rest of the division is within five miles of Winchester. There seems to be no prospect of a fight at this time, although our men continue to take prisoners occasionally. The largest number brought in at one time was 104.

The weather is still quite cold, but the health of the brigade remains good. But few men reported sick this morning. We still hear of a case of smallpox occasionally, but the army is well vaccinated and I am satisfied that we are all immune. We have plenty to eat. For breakfast this morning we had biscuit (and they were shortened too), fried bacon and fried cabbage. For dinner we had boiled beef and dumplings, with biscuit and boiled eggs. Dr. Kilgore and I dined in Berryville yesterday with a Dr. Counsellor. The dinner was fine and the table was graced by his charming wife.

I still have about thirty dollars, but our quartermaster has gone to Richmond to get several months' pay for us. Please send my suit to me, for I wish to give the one I am now wearing to my servant, Wilson. He also needs a pair of shoes. In your last letter you ask if I have the night-cap which your aunt made for me. I lost it one morning before day, when preparing for battle. Take good care of George.

SOURCE: Dr. Spenser G. Welch, A Confederate Surgeon's Letters to His Wife, p. 35-6