Diary of Private Jenkin Lloyd Jones: Saturday, November 15, 1862

Davis Mills. Heard from home. Received two letters, from John and Thomas, which eased my anxiety. Listened to the first sermon [in camp].

SOURCE: Jenkin Lloyd Jones, An Artilleryman's Diary, p. 12

Diary of Musician David Lane, August 12, 1863

Cincinnati, Ohio. We arrived here at 9:30 this morning. My day's work is, at last, completed, at 9 p. m. This has been a busy day. In fact, I have not been idle or had much rest, by day or night, since July fourth, and yet I am fresh and vigorous as in days of old. The sick and wounded all removed the worst cases to the General Hospital in this city, the convalescents to Camp Denison, eighteen miles out, while a few return to their regiments.

The Seventeenth passed through here today, and is now in camp near Covington, on the opposite bank of the river.

I expect to join them in the morning, and look for a handful of letters.

People call the weather here very hot, but it is not Mississippi heat, and I enjoy it. The mornings and evenings are delightfully cool, while there it is constant, relentless heat both day and night. Here a coat is comfortable in the morning—there one needs no cover day or night.

SOURCE: David Lane, A Soldier's Diary: The Story of a Volunteer, 1862-1865, pp. 76-7

Diary of Musician David Lane, August 20, 1863

Camp Parks, Ky. I received a letter from a friend in Michigan last evening, saying: "If you were in Michigan, or could see the situation from the standpoint of the North, you would be less hopeful of the speedy termination of the war." If by "speedy" is meant a single campaign, as was promised us one year ago, I do not now believe in it, but nothing but the most signal failure can change my faith in the ultimate success of our cause.

We have steadily gained ground from the first. The series of reverses that attended our arms the first year of the war has forced our government to accept the inevitable, seemingly against its will. I do not forget the violent opposition to the Emancipation and Confiscation Acts, passed by Congress in December, 1861, by Northern men of undoubted loyalty, nor the President's timid recommendations in his inaugural address to that Congress. I remember well that reverses and disasters attended all our efforts until the government was compelled, as by an overruling Providence, to free the slaves of rebels, which includes them all; and that from the moment these measures became the fixed policy of the government, reverses ceased. It is not the issue of a battle or campaign that gives me hope, but the successes that have attended our arms all through the month of July were attended by such peculiar circumstances as to force upon me the conviction, "There IS a destiny that shapes our ends, rough hew them as we will."

SOURCE: David Lane, A Soldier's Diary: The Story of a Volunteer, 1862-1865, pp. 80-1

Diary of Musician David Lane, August 30, 1863

Crab Orchard, Ky. We arrived at 10 a. m., making ten miles from Lancaster this morning. Crab Orchard is a lovely town of about one thousand inhabitants. We are encamped about one mile south of the village, in a lovely spot, shut in on all sides by high hills and forests. To the south, far in the distance, the Cumberland Mountains raise their blue peaks as landmarks to guide us on our course when next we move.

From what I see and hear of the surrounding country, the boys will have to depend on their rations for food.

Soldiers are strange beings. No sooner were our knapsacks unslung than every man of us went to work as though his very life depended on present exertions. We staked out streets, gathered stakes and poles with which to erect our tents, and now, at 3 p. m., behold! a city has arisen, like a mushroom, from the ground. Everything is done as though it were to be permanent, when no man knows how long we may remain or how soon we may move on.

Part of our route from Camp Parks lay through a country made historic by the chivalric deeds of Daniel Boone. We passed his old log fort, and the high bluff from which he hurled an Indian and dashed him in pieces on the rocks below. At the foot of the bluff is the cave in which he secreted himself when hard pressed by savages. His name is chiseled in the rock above the entrance. The place is now being strongly fortified.

We had a lively skirmish in Company G this morning. About a week ago the Brigade Surgeon ordered quinine and whiskey to be issued to every man in the brigade, twice daily. During our march the quinine had been omitted, but whiskey was dealt out freely.

Solon Crandall—the boy who picked the peaches while under fire at South Mountain—is naturally pugnacious, and whiskey makes him more so. This morning, while under the influence of his "ration," he undertook the difficult task of "running" Company G.

Captain Tyler, hearing the "racket," emerged from his tent and inquired the cause. At this Solon, being a firm believer in "non-intervention," waxed wroth. In reply he told the Captain, "It's none of your business. Understand, I am running this company, and if you don't go back to your tent and mind your own business, I'll have you arrested and sent to the bull pen. At this the Captain "closed" with his rival in a rough-and-tumble fight, in which the Captain, supported by a Sergeant, gained the day.

I have the most comfortable quarters now I have ever had. Our tent is composed of five pieces of canvas, each piece the size of our small tents—two for the top, or roof, the eaves three feet from the ground. The sides and ends are made to open one at a time or all at once, according to the weather. Three of us tent together, and we have plenty of room. We have bunks made of boards, raised two feet from the ground. This, with plenty of straw, makes a voluptuous bed. I received a letter from home last evening, dated August 13th. Oh, these vexatious postal delays; they are the bane of my life. I wonder if postmasters are human beings, with live hearts inside their jackets, beating in sympathetic unison with other hearts. I wonder did they ever watch and wait, day after day, until hope was well-nigh dead, conscious that love had sped its message and was anxiously awaiting a return. A letter from home! What thrilling emotions of pleasure; what unfathomable depths of joy it brings the recipient. It is not altogether the words, be they many or few, but the remembrances they call forth; the recognition of the well-known handwriting; old associations and past scenes are brought forth from the storehouse of the memory and held up to view. The joy of meeting—the agony of parting—all are lived over again.

We are having brigade inspection today, which is suggestive of a move, but our artillery has not turned up yet, and we will not take the field without it.

The health of our men has improved wonderfully since we reached Kentucky. A more rugged, hearty set of men I never saw than the few who are left. But, as I look around upon the noble fellows, now drawn up in line for inspection, a feeling of sadness steals over me. One short year ago nine hundred ninety-eight as brave, true men as ever shouldered gun marched forth to battle in their country's cause. Of all that noble band, only two hundred in line today. Where are the absent ones? Some, it is true, are home on furlough, but not all. They have left a bloody track from South Mountain's gory height through Antietam, Fredericksburg and Vicksburg to Jackson, Mississippi.

Oh, how I miss familiar faces!

SOURCE: David Lane, A Soldier's Diary: The Story of a Volunteer, 1862-1865, pp. 86-89

Diary of Private John C. West, Monday, May 4, 1863

Traveled all night Saturday night, having left Minden at dark, and all day Sunday; reached Vianna about 10 o'clock Sunday morning; the road was pretty rough, lying mainly through a hilly country, covered with large pines and red and white oak; reached the dinner stand about 4 o'clock and found it a very neat and comfortable place; was waited upon at the table by two young ladies. Had a tedious and disagreeable ride from this place to Monroe, which place we reached at 12 o'clock last night; took possession of the flatboat and rowed ourselves across the river; found the hotel crowded and could not get a room; spread down my blanket and slept on the piazza; got up this morning and wrote a letter to my dear wife before breakfast; after breakfast walked down to see the Anna, the boat we expected to go down the river in; found her a dirty little craft; went to the quartermaster's office to find out when the boat would leave; he could not tell for two or three hours yet; returned to the hotel; met Ormsby; he is in the postoffice department; he has a thousand pounds of postage stamps and is on his way to Texas.

I saw a very interesting game of poker between Captain R——— and a professional gambler; it was twenty dollars ante, and the pile grew fast and soon reached twenty-five hundred dollars, and everybody went out of the game except Captain R——— and the professional, who was a very rough looking customer, reminding me of descriptions I have read of pirates in yellow covered novels; he was weather-beaten and fierce looking; Capt. R——— was only about twenty years of age, with a beardless face as smooth as a woman's. A dispute arose and each man seized the pile (paper money) with his left hand and drew his pistol with his right; they rose at arm's length and stood glaring at each other like tigers; one looked like a black wolf, the other like a spotted leopard; the crowd retired from the table; it was one of the most fearful and magnificent pictures I ever saw. They were finally persuaded to lay their pistols and the money on the table in charge of chosen friends; the door was locked and a messenger was dispatched five miles in the country to bring Colonel ———, a noted local celebrity—a planter who stood high in social as well as sporting circles. We waited three hours; he came, and after hearing the testimony gave the pile to "old rough and ready," and Captain Ryielded gracefully, a wiser but a poorer man.

After dinner a stranger named Peck gave me a letter to carry across the river and also enough tobacco to smoke me to Natchez. I loafed about until the steamboat started at 5 o'clock in the afternoon; took passage in her to Trinity, costing me $15 besides transportation furnished by the Confederate States. I am now on boat enjoying the beautiful scenery on the river; wish my dear wife was here to participate in my pleasure; such a sunset! it is a vision for a poet.

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. 31-3

Diary of Musician David Lane, July 20, 1863

Vicksburg is ours; Johnson defeated and his forces scattered; our work in Mississippi is performed, and we have taken up the line of march for some other distant field.

We left Jackson at 3 a. m. today for Haines Bluff, where we take transports for some point north or east. I think I will be glad to put in the balance of my work a little farther north, although I would not hesitate to go anywhere, so I might contribute my mite toward putting down this rebellion. But, other things being equal, I would choose to be where we could get pure water, and, what I prize more than all else, hear from my loved family with some degree of regularity. It has been a sore trial, and hard to bear, to be compelled to wait for days and weeks for tidings from a sick and suffering wife.

We marched twelve miles this forenoon, and have halted for dinner. Fifteen miles must be made this afternoon to obtain water. It is a tough march, but necessity compels. It would seem that, in an emergency like this, when our lives depend upon our "staying power," some unseen hand sustains us. As for myself, I have never borne hard marches so well as in Mississippi.

I see by the papers there is much talk of the Rebels carrying the war into the North. Well, let them go. "Whom the gods would destroy they first make mad." I am not sure but it is the only thing that can unite the North; certainly it will hasten the downfall of the Confederacy.

SOURCE: David Lane, A Soldier's Diary: The Story of a Volunteer, 1862-1865, p. 69-70

Diary of Musician David Lane, July 23, 1863

Haines Bluff, Miss.  We arrived at our old camp yesterday—twenty days from the time we left it—the toughest twenty days of our experience. A dirtier, more ragged and drilled-out lot of men I hope never to see. The first thing I did, after eating a little hardtack and drinking a cup of coffee, was to bolt for the spring, build a fire, boil my shirt, pants and socks, scrub myself from head to heels, put on my clothing wet—though not much wetter than before and return to camp a cleaner, therefore a better man. There have been times when we could not get water to wash our hands and face, to say nothing of our clothing, for a week or more.

It was dark when I returned to camp, but fires were burning brightly in every direction, and around them were gathered groups of men silently reading letters. I hastened to the Orderly and asked him "Have you anything for me?" "Yes, I have four letters for you." My heart gave one great bound of gladness, and, grasping them tightly, I hastened to the nearest fire to learn what news from home. Rumors of a great battle, fought and won by Meade, had been in circulation several days, but no one knew whether true or false. These letters from my wife confirmed them. The threatened invasion took place, was crushed, and Lee was suffered to recross the Potomac at his leisure, as he was allowed to do after Antietam.

SOURCE: David Lane, A Soldier's Diary: The Story of a Volunteer, 1862-1865, p. 70-1

Diary of Musician David Lane, July 30, 1863

Another letter from my poor, suffering wife. As I think of her sorrows, cares and perplexities, I cannot force back the thought that will unbidden rise, can so much be required of us; such great sacrifices, not only of property, but our cherished plans, embracing the future welfare of our children, in fact, all of earthly good, while others are exempt—have no part or lot in it—who would not even know that war existed were they not led to inquire the cause of such unexampled prosperity and, when rebellion at home stares them in the face, and the "fire in the rear" so often threatened really breaks forth, loudly call for soldiers to come and protect their precious lives and property?

Where are those Union Leagues, who were going to "unite the loyal people of the North and subdue Copperheads?" Where are those patriots who could not leave their business to go to the war, but would "take care of the Rebels at home?" But a little cool reflection banishes such thoughts. I have to act only for myself, and answer only to my own conscience.

SOURCE: David Lane, A Soldier's Diary: The Story of a Volunteer, 1862-1865, p. 72-3

Diary of Private Lewis C. Paxson: Friday, November 21, 1862

Baker and I were out prospecting; caught one muskrat; set two traps. I sent a letter and $2 for some books at St. Paul.

SOURCE: Lewis C. Paxson, Diary of Lewis C. Paxson: Stockton, N.J., 1862-1865, p. 9

Diary of Corporal Lawrence Van Alstyne: Monday, November 17, 1862

On shore again. The well ones are drilling and the sick are enjoying themselves any way they can. Mail came to-day and I have a long letter from home. Every mail out takes one from me and often more. I have so many correspondents, I seldom fail to get one or more letters by each mail. On the bank or shore, up and down as far as I have seen, are negro shanties which look as if put up for a few days only. They dig oysters and find a ready sale to the thousands upon thousands of soldiers that are encamped on the plains as far as the eye can reach. This gathering means something, but just what, we none of us know, A case of black measles is reported on board ship and if true we may be in for a siege of it. I hope I may get entirely well before it hits me. Jaundice is quite common too, and many men I see are as yellow as can be and look much worse than they appear to feel.

SOURCE:  Lawrence Van Alstyne, Diary of an Enlisted Man, p. 62-3

Diary of Horatio Nelson Taft, Saturday, February 1, 1862

Nothing of any particular note has occured today. The ground was covered with Snow this morning, but it has thawed all day. Went down after dinner and with the three boys and got them all new boots with which they were highly pleased, paid $4.25 for the lot. Got “Bud” also a pair of pants $2.50, paid the Baker $4.25, Milkman $1.90. Got my Drawings today, shall put in my application in two or three days. I have not been out since dark, have been reading the papers, writing &c. Wife rc^d a letter from her Uncle Sullivan & [Mis Rec^d Cook?]. It is now ½ past ten. The boys went to bed at 8. Wife busy mending as usual evenings. Julia is writing off Poetry from a newspaper and I am going to bed.

SOURCE: Horatio Nelson Taft, The Diary of Horatio Nelson Taft, 1861-1865. Volume 1, January 1,1861-April 11, 1862, Library of Congress, Manuscript Division, Washington D. C.

Diary of Horatio Nelson Taft, Tuesday, February 4, 1862

Colder, but not much frost. M. stands 26 tonight. Cha^s got letter from Frank, he is now on a RRoad. I got a letter from Brother C R. Mat[ty] Hartly has been spending the day here. Less excitement in the City now about the small pox. I suppose people have got used to it. I have been revaccinated but without any effect. Cloudy and damp today. Nothing new in the papers today. Indications in the U.S. Senate that Mr Bright will be Expelled.

SOURCE: Horatio Nelson Taft, The Diary of Horatio Nelson Taft, 1861-1865. Volume 1, January 1,1861-April 11, 1862, Library of Congress, Manuscript Division, Washington D. C.

Diary of Horatio Nelson Taft, Thursday, February 6, 1862

No news yet. All quiet. Misty day, snow all gone, more mud. In the office as usual. Went down this evening and got the NY papers & Frank Leslie for the boys. Mailed some letters for wife & Julia. Have been reading all the evening. Have put some oyster shells into the coal stove, it is said they will clear the stove of clinkers, we will see.

SOURCE: Horatio Nelson Taft, The Diary of Horatio Nelson Taft, 1861-1865. Volume 1, January 1,1861-April 11, 1862, Library of Congress, Manuscript Division, Washington D. C.

Diary of Private John C. West, Wednesday, April 22, 1863

Got up this morning feeling pretty well and concluded to leave to-morrow; went up town and mailed a letter to my wife; saw Dr. Johnson and got a certificate from him accounting for my delay, and a mixture of chalk and laudanum to take on the road; had a long talk with the doctor and Rev. Mr. Wilson about the Downs and Sparks, citizens of Waco; the doctor refused to charge me anything. I borrowed seventy-five dollars from Major Holman and gave him my note. Have been reading Bulwer's “Strange Story" a good deal to-day. Mrs. Weir came in this evening and talked very kindly to me; wants me to stay longer, but I must go; every man ought to go. Witnessed a cock fight in the streets a few minutes ago and rather enjoyed it; wonder how my chickens come on at home, and what my dear wife and dear little Stark and Mary are doing now. Mrs. Bacon has just brought me a pocketbook, and she and Mrs. Brownnigg and Mrs. Weir have offered me money. Miss Gregg has brought me a toddy and I must drink it. Oh! these women!

"The world was sad, the garden was a wild,

 And man, the hermit, sighed till woman smiled."

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. 22-3

Diary of Private Lewis C. Paxson: Sunday, November 2, 1862

I sent letter to pupils at Spring Mills, Locke's Mills. Two messengers left on the mules, Billy and Dixie.

SOURCE: Lewis C. Paxson, Diary of Lewis C. Paxson: Stockton, N.J., 1862-1865, p. 8

Diary of Private Lewis C. Paxson: Saturday, November 8, 1862

I finished a letter to my sister Caroline. A man fell through the scaffolding. Doughnuts by baker, 15.

SOURCE: Lewis C. Paxson, Diary of Lewis C. Paxson: Stockton, N.J., 1862-1865, p. 8

Diary of Private Lewis C. Paxson: Tuesday, November 11, 1862

I worked in office as usual. Gave two letters to the P. M.

SOURCE: Lewis C. Paxson, Diary of Lewis C. Paxson: Stockton, N.J., 1862-1865, p. 8

Diary of Private Lewis C. Paxson: Saturday, November 15, 1862

Mail arrived, 8 for me. Snowy. S. V. Carr gone to Breckenridge. Sent a letter and Indian scalp to father.

SOURCE: Lewis C. Paxson, Diary of Lewis C. Paxson: Stockton, N.J., 1862-1865, p. 8

Diary of Corporal Lawrence Van Alstyne: Friday, November 14, 1862

Dr. Andrus is going to-day. He says I ought not to think of leaving here yet. But he does not forbid it, so if I get a chance I shall try it. I have burned my big pile of letters and discarded every thing my knapsack was stuffed with except what belongs to Uncle Sam.

3 p. m. Mail in and a five-dollar bill came in a letter from home. I went right out and bought a pair of boots with it, which beat the low shoes I have so far worn.

7 p.m. On board the steamer Louisiana. I had a hard time getting here, making two miles in twenty minutes with my gun and accoutrements all on. Dr. Andrus went and as soon as the chance came I sneaked out and started. I was just in time, as the gang-plank was being pulled aboard when I came to it. Dr. Andrus was on deck and saw me and had them wait until I was on board. Then he scolded some and made me get into a berth where he covered me up in blankets and made me drink a cup of hot stuff which he prepared. I was nearly roasted by this treatment, but I am away from the hospital and on the way to be with the boys again and so did not complain.

SOURCE:  Lawrence Van Alstyne, Diary of an Enlisted Man, p. 60

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