Diary of Private Richard R. Hancock: Monday, December 2, 1861

Our General took up four pieces of artillery and soon shelled Col. Haskins' Kentuckians out of their encampment, causing them to strike tents precipitately and retire out of sight, after which Zollicoffer returned to Mr. West's.

In the meantime our commander was building ferryboats at Mill Springs as rapidly as possible, by means of which he hoped soon to be able to cross to a good position in the bend of the river, on the north bank, opposite Mill Springs. Some lumber and a saw-mill, which were found at Mill Springs, aided materially in constructing boats.

SOURCE: Richard R. Hancock, Hancock's Diary: Or, A History of the Second Tennessee Confederate Cavalry, p. 88-9

Diary of Corporal David L. Day: December 20, 1861

We are having cold weather; freezing quite hard at night, and making our lodgings in these little rag houses anything but comfortable. I have been with a detail of men down to the wharf unloading and storing army supplies. Annapolis is a depot of supplies, and immense quantities are landed here and sent by rail to Washington. A person never having given the subject of army preparation and supplies much thought, would be astonished at the immense quantities he would see here, and would begin to calculate how long it would be before Uncle Sam would be bankrupt. Large warehouses are filled and breaking down under the weight of flour, beef, pork, bread, sugar, coffee, clothing, ammunition, etc., while the wharves and adjacent grounds are filled with hay, oats, lumber, coal, guns, mortars, gun-carriages, pontoons and other appendages of an army. I presume the cost of feeding and clothing an army of half a million of-men is not really so much as the same number of men would cost at home, but the army being consumers, instead of producers, the balance will eventually be found on the debit page of the ledger.

SOURCE: David L. Day, My Diary of Rambles with the 25th Mass. Volunteer Infantry, p. 15

Diary of Colonel Rutherford B. Hayes: December 28, 1862

On Christmas my wife's cousins, Lieutenant Nelson and privates Ed and Ike Cook and Jim McKell¹ dined with me; all of Company D, Eighty-ninth Regiment. A. M. of that day the regiment fired by battalion and file. P. M. I offered a turkey to the marksman who would hit his head, and a bottle of wine and a tumbler to next best shot, and a bottle of wine to third best. A bright, warm day and a jolly one — a merry Christmas indeed.

[The] 26th and 27th, mild days and cloudy but only a few drops of rain. Dr. Kellogg spent the 26th with us — surgeon on General Scammon's staff. Talked free-thinking talk with him in a joking vein. A clever gentleman. Major Carey stopped [the] 27th with us — of the Twelfth. Told a good one; the Thirty-fourth got a good lot of lumber; put a sentinel over it. After dark the Twelfth got up a relief — relieved the Thirty-four sentinel and carried off the lumber!

_______________

¹ Willie McKell. He died at Andersonville 1864. — This written on margin by Mr. Hayes.

SOURCE: Charles Richard Williams, editor, Diary and Letters of Rutherford Birchard Hayes, Volume 2, p. 380

Colonel Rutherford B. Hayes to Lucy Webb Hayes, Monday Morning, December 8, 1862

Camp Maskell, December, 8, 1862. Monday morning.

Dearest: — I have been here a week yesterday. The knocking about among the men, getting out lumber, building cabins, ditching and cleaning camp and sich, agrees with me spiritually and physically. We have pretty good living and splendid appetites and digestion. . . .

Comly is reading a novel, McIlrath a newspaper, Dr. Joe is visiting, and I am writing you before a huge log fire in a great old-fashioned fireplace. I wish you were here. It's really jolly living so; you would be delighted with it. I love you ever so much. Kiss the boys. Love to Grandma.

Affectionately, your

R.

Mrs. Hayes.

SOURCE: Charles Richard Williams, editor, Diary and Letters of Rutherford Birchard Hayes, Volume 2, p. 372-3

Diary of Colonel Rutherford B. Hayes: Monday, December 8, 1862

A cold morning, but a bright warm sun melts the snow on all the low ground. Lieutenant Smith says some of our prisoners at South Mountain heard my speech as we went into the fight. He says the colonel rode up, his eyes shining like a cat's, [and said:] “Now boys, remember you are the Twenty-third, and give them hell. In these woods the Rebels don't know but we are ten thousand; and if we fight, and when we charge yell, we are as good as ten thousand, by ——.”

WANTS.

A paymaster. Not paid since August and then only to June 30.

A Sawmill — or lumber (ten thousand feet); none yet, except eighteen hundred feet and old drift, etc., etc.

Window sash and nails.

Mess stores at Charleston and Gallipolis; privilege to send.

SOURCE: Charles Richard Williams, editor, Diary and Letters of Rutherford Birchard Hayes, Volume 2, p. 372