Diary of Lieutenant-Colonel John Beatty, January 31, 1862

Had dress parade this evening, at which the Colonel officiated, it being his first appearance since his return.

Ascertaining that he had not sent in his resignation, I wrote him a note calling attention to the promise made on the 29th instant, and suggesting that it would be well to terminate an unpleasant matter without unnecessary delay.

We had a case of disappointed love in the regiment last night. A sergeant of Captain Mitchell's company was engaged to a girl of Athens county. They were to be married upon his return from the war, and until within a month have been corresponding regularly. Suddenly and without explanation she ceased to write, why he could not imagine. He never, however, doubted that she would be faithful to him. His anxiety to hear from home increased, until finally he learned from her brother, a soldier of the Eighteenth Ohio, that she was married. Strong, healthy, good-looking fellow that he was, this intelligence prostrated him completely, and made him crazy as a loon. He imagined that he was in hell, thought Dr. Seyes the devil, and so violent did he become that they had to bind him.

This morning he is more calm, but still deranged. He thought the straws in his bunk were thorns, and would pluck at them with his fingers and exclaim: "My God, ain't they sharp?" Captain Mitchell called, and the boys said: "Sergeant, don't you know him?" "Yes," he replied, "he is one of the devils." The Captain said: "Sergeant, don't you know where you are?" "Of course I do; I'm in hell." When they were binding him he said: "That's right; heap on the coals; put me in the hottest place." While Dr. Seyes was preparing something to quiet him—laudanum, perhaps he said: "Bring on your poison; I'll take it."

The boys, while living roughly, exposed to hardships and dangers, think more of their sweethearts than ever before, and are constantly recurring, in their talk, to the comfortable homes and pleasant scenes from which they are for the present separated.

SOURCE: John Beatty, The Citizen-soldier: Or, Memoirs of a Volunteer, pp. 98-100

Diary of Private John C. West, Saturday, April 18, 1863

I spent a very uncomfortable night; a dull, steady pain all night; had taken twenty drops of laudanum; had no matches and did not wish to disturb my companions; I did not sleep more than an hour; my friends left this morning for Alexandria via Shreveport; I could have gone with them if my physician, Dr. Johnson, had kept his promise and given me medicine yesterday evening that would have insured a night's rest, but he was detained in the country by an urgent case; General Chambers thinks Texas ought to give three hundred and twenty acres of land for every new born boy; the doctor came in about 8 o'clock in the morning, left three pills for me to take at intervals of two hours and a powder to be taken at bed time; I am getting on very well and will leave here on Monday, I think; I have just discovered that my pocketbook is lost, containing about sixty dollars; I am satisfied that I lost it off the top of the stage between here and the twelve mile stand this side of Rusk; I have had advertisements struck off to this effect, headed, "Lost! Lost!! the Last Red!!!" and asked the stage driver to have them posted on the road every five or six miles; since my pocketbook is gone I feel bound to accept the kind invitation of Mrs. Brownnigg, formerly Octavia Calhoun, to take a room in her house; she has just sent me a nice breakfast, and I have sent her word that I will come down.

I am at Mrs. Brownnigg's in a comfortable room; do not feel as if I were in the way as there is plenty of house room; Mrs. Bacon, formerly Anna Haralson, is here; she arrived yesterday and started to Georgia with Mr. Bacon, but became disgusted with the trip; she and Mrs. Brownnigg both treat me as kindly as though I were a brother, and I know my precious wife would feel very well satisfied if I could receive such treatment every time I am away from her, but there is no attention that approaches the gentle and delicate touch of a wife's hand, and there is no wife whose tenderness and sympathy can equal that of my Mary; I must forego the pleasure of her gentle words and smiles for a season, until the kindness of Providence brings us together again; I am located as well here as I could possibly be at home and may God and good angels guard my benefactors.

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. 17-9