1st Lieutenant William T. Sherman to John Sherman, May 23, 1843

FORT MOULTRIE, S. C., May 23, 1843.

My Dear Brother:

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Leaving the seasons to look after themselves, I'll try and give you an idea of how our days pass in a garrison like this. Here at Fort Moultrie we have about 250 soldiers, divided into four companies. These are quartered some inside the wall, some outside. All the unmarried officers—

eight of us—live inside; all the married, five, outside. This being the headquarters of the regiment, we have the Colonel and his band of about fifteen instruments. Every morning at daylight all get up at reveille, attend a drill, either as infantry or artillery, at sunrise; breakfast at seven, have a dress parade at eight, and half an hour after the new guard takes the place of the old one,—а new officer relieving the old one. After that each one kills time to suit himself till reveille of next morning commences the new routine. Thus it is every fair day except Sunday, when we have an extra quantity of music, parade, and inspection in honor of the day and to keep our men in superfine order at church. Thus, you see that every day at nine o'clock and after we have nothing to do but amuse ourselves. Some read, some write, some loaf, and some go to the city. For the latter class a barge is in attendance, going and coming. Although six miles from a city, we have all its advantages, whilst separated from its annoying noises, taxes, and expenses. . . . During the past winter I have been at North Carolina twice, at Savannah once, and at Charleston some hundred times. The fact is, in the summer time we are so enveloped with citizens that we have to make acquaintances whether or no. When they move to Charleston and the country, they send invitations which must be accepted, or give offence. The consequence was that two or more of us had to go constantly as representatives of the whole,—always in rotation, unless duty or pleasure coincided, when a greater number would cross the water. These parties are very various, from the highly aristocratic and fashionable, with sword and epaulettes, or horse-racing, picnicing, boating, fishing, swimming, and God knows what not. A life of this kind does well enough for a while, but soon surfeits with its flippancy,—mingling with people in whom you feel no permanent interest, smirks and smiles when you feel savage, tight boots when your fancy would prefer slippers. I want relief, and unless they can invent a new Florida war I'll come back and spend a few months with you in Ohio. But as my visits have been, heretofore, in the spring and summer, I'll wait for the fall this time, when I hope once more to see you all at home and Mansfield both. . . .

Your affectionate brother,

W. T. SHERMAN.

SOURCE: Rachel Sherman Thorndike, Editor, The Sherman Letters: Correspondence Between General and Senator Sherman from 1837 to 1891, pp. 22-4

Diary of 2nd Lieutenant John S. Morgan, Sunday, January 8, 1865

Short light showers at intervals Genls R—s arrest of horse race proves to be 4 men all released Monday following. Rebels at Picket Port 170, to come in this week, others reported in camp 8 miles this side of Jenken's Ferry. (The 170 is reliable)

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 1st Sergeant John S. Morgan: Sunday, January 8, 1865

Short light showers at intervals Genls R-s arrest of horse race proves to be 4 men all released Monday following. Rebels at Picket Port 170, to come in this week, others reported in camp 8 miles this side of Jenken's Ferry. (The 170. is reliable)

SOURCE: “Diary of John S. Morgan, Company G, 33rd Iowa Infantry,” Annals of Iowa, 3rd Series, Vol. 13, No. 8, April 1923, p. 570

Diary of William Howard Russell: June 9, 1861

A thunder-storm, which lasted all the morning and afternoon till three o'clock. When it cleared I drove, in company with Mr. Burnside and his friends, to dinner with Mr. Duncan Kenner, who lives some ten or twelve miles above Houmas. He is one of the sporting men of the South, well known on the Charleston race-course, and keeps a large stable of racehorses and brood mares, under the management of an Englishman. The jocks were negro lads; and when we arrived, about half a dozen of them were giving the colts a run in the paddock. The calveless legs and hollow thighs of the negro adapt him admirably for the pigskin; and these little fellows sat their horses so well, one might have thought, till the turn in the course displayed their black faces and grinning mouths, he was looking at a set of John Scott's young gentlemen out training.

The Carolinians are true sportsmen, and in the South the Charleston races create almost as much sensation as our Derby at home. One of the guests at Mr. Kenner's knew all about the winners of Epsom Oaks, and Ascot, and took delight in showing his knowledge of the “Racing Calendar.”

It is observable, however, that the Creoles do not exhibit any great enthusiasm for horse-racing, but that they apply themselves rather to cultivate their plantations and to domestic duties; and it is even remarkable that they do not stand prominently forward in the State Legislature, or aspire to high political influence and position, although their numbers and wealth would fairly entitle them to both. The population of small settlers, scarcely removed from pauperism, along the river banks, is courted by men who obtain larger political influence than the great land-owners, as the latter consider it beneath them to have recourse to the arts of the demagogue.

SOURCE: William Howard Russell, My Diary North and South, p. 286-7

Diary of Sir Arthur James Lyon Fremantle: Tuesday, June 23, 1863

Lawley and I went to inspect the site of Mr Mason's (the Southern Commissioner in London) once pretty house — a melancholy scene. It had been charmingly situated near the outskirts of the town, and by all accounts must have been a delightful little place. When Lawley saw it seven months ago, it was then only a ruin; but since that time Northern vengeance (as directed by General Milroy) has satiated itself by destroying almost the very foundations of the house of this arch-traitor, as they call him. Literally not one stone remains standing upon another; and the debris seems to have been carted away, for there is now a big hole where the principal part of the house stood. Troops have evidently been encamped upon the ground, which was strewed with fragments of Yankee clothing, accoutrements, &c.

I understand that Winchester used to be a most agreeable little town, and its society extremely pleasant. Many of its houses are now destroyed or converted into hospitals; the rest look miserable and dilapidated. Its female inhabitants (for the able-bodied males are all absent in the army) are familiar with the bloody realities of war. As many as 5000 wounded have been accommodated here at one time. All the ladies are accustomed to the bursting of shells and the sight of fighting, and all are turned into hospital nurses or cooks.

From the utter impossibility of procuring corn, I was forced to take the horses out grazing a mile beyond the town for four hours in the morning and two in the afternoon. As one mustn't lose sight of them for a moment, this occupied me all day, while Lawley wrote in the house. In the evening we went to visit two wounded officers in Mrs ——'s house, a major and a captain in the Louisianian Brigade which stormed the forts last Sunday week. I am afraid the captain will die. Both are shot through the body, but are cheery. They served under Stonewall Jackson until his death, and they venerate his name, though they both agree that he has got an efficient successor in Ewell, his former companion in arms; and they confirmed a great deal of what General Johnston had told me as to Jackson having been so much indebted to Ewell for several of his victories. They gave us an animated account of the spirits and feeling of the army. At no period of the war, they say, have the men been so well equipped, so well clothed, so eager for a fight, or so confident of success — a very different state of affairs from that which characterised the Maryland invasion of last year, when half of the army were barefooted stragglers, and many of the remainder unwilling and reluctant to cross the Potomac.

Miss —— told me to-day that dancing and horseracing are forbidden by the Episcopal Church in this part of Virginia.

SOURCE: Sir Arthur James Lyon Fremantle, Three Months in the Southern States: April-June, 1863, p. 234-6