Showing posts with label Maryland Heights. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Maryland Heights. Show all posts

Thursday, March 21, 2024

Diary of Private Theodore Reichardt, Saturday, October 19, 1861

Gen. Banks and staff honored our battery drill with their presence. Col. Geary of the Twenty-eighth Pennsylvania, and Capt. Tompkins, with the right section, had a fight with the rebels at Harper's Ferry and Bolivar Heights. Our right section, occupying Maryland Heights, fired into Bolivar and on a rebel battery on Loudon Heights. Even the drivers served an old iron gun. Col. Geary's troops, crossing the river in scows, carried the fight to Bolivar Heights. No loss of men in the right section.

SOURCE: Theodore Reichardt, Diary of Battery A, First Regiment Rhode Island Light Artillery, p. 24

Monday, October 30, 2023

Diary of Private Theodore Reichardt, Monday, July 29, 1861

Arrived at Sandy Hook by two o'clock P. M. Relieved the First Battery, the pieces being turned over to us. They started for home in the evening. Our camp is one mile from Weavertown. The right section under Lieut. Vaughan, took position on Maryland Heights, which command Loudon Heights and Harper's Ferry. Gen. Banks is in command of this department. From this time, up to the thirteenth of August, nothing exciting occurred. Battery drill in the morning and the manual of the piece in the afternoon. Extremely hot weather during daytime. Capt. Reynolds went home on a furlough.

SOURCE: Theodore Reichardt, Diary of Battery A, First Regiment Rhode Island Light Artillery, p. 16

Sunday, January 9, 2022

WASHINGTON, Sept. 25 [1862].

Hon. Eli Thayer’s scheme for colonization by armed men of Southern States meets with much favor by the President, Secretary of war and others.  It has been discussed several times in Cabinet meetings, and will probably soon receive formal official sanction.

The project contemplates an expedition of 10,000 colonists enlisted for 6 months and supplies with transportation, subsistence, arms and a guard by the government, whose business it shall be to hold, occupy and possess the public lands of Florida and other lands belonging to rebels, and seized under the law of the last session of Congress for non-payment of direct tax.

Mr. Thayer promises, if allowed to carry out his plan entire, to bring Florida into the Union as a free State by the first February next.  Texas and Virginia are already talked of as States to be subjected to the same process.

This, like the proclamation of this morning, will be another step in the path of a more vigorous policy which the Administration, in its proclamation of freedom, advertised that it should henceforth pursue.

Surgeon General Hammond has returned from the battle-field of Antietam, where he has been stopping at McClellan’s headquarters.  He thinks the whole number of Union killed will come within 1,200, and from a careful inspection of hospitals and lists of those brought off, judges that the wounded will not exceed 6,000.  Maj. Davis, Assistant Inspector General, informed him that he himself had caused to be buried 3,000 of the rebel dead left on the field from which he estimates their wounded to be at least 10,000.

S[u]rgeon General Hammond saw, as a part of the fruits of our victory, twenty-seven standards, which we captured from the rebel regiments, and also reports among our spoils twenty or thirty thousand small arms, mostly those left by the enemy along the line of their retreat.

A man signing himself R. P. Noble communicated to this evening’s Star a statement, which he professes to make on direct information, that Col. Ford did not evacuate Maryland Heights until he had received the fourth and peremptory order from Col. Miles to do so—and besides, his long range ammunition has been exhausted.  He asks a suspension of opinion.

SOURCES:  The Union Sentinel, Osceola, Iowa, Saturday, October 18, 1862, p. 2, the right side of the article was caught be the seam of the bound newspaper volume and torn on the right side of the column leaving only an average of about 3 to 4 words per line. I was able to do a search on Newspapers.com and found the same article in the Muscatine Weekly Journal, Muscatine Iowa, Friday, October 3, 1862 p. 1. It is this article that I have here transcribed.

Thursday, July 12, 2018

Brigadier-General Daniel Tyler, about August 1863

I ask the acceptance of this resignation. Capt. Lusk has been in most of the battles including the First Bull Run, from Beaufort to the death of Major-Gen. Stevens, whose Staff he was on from the date of Gen. Stevens's promotion to his death. Capt. Lusk, so soon as he heard of the occupation of Maryland Heights, left New-York City, came to Point of Rocks, and walked to Harper's Ferry, and volunteered for duty at a moment when I was much in need of his services, and to make him available I recommended him for the appointment of Asst. Adjt.Genl. and he was appointed accordingly, with the expectation that when the prospect of fighting at that point was over, his resignation would be accepted. Under the circumstances, as Capt. Lusk is on the point of commencing a professional life in the City of New-York, I ask the acceptance of his resignation, knowing that there never will be an emergency like that at Gettysburg and Maryland Heights, that Capt. Lusk will not be found at the front.

SOURCE: William Chittenden Lusk, Editor, War Letters of William Thompson Lusk, p. 294

Thursday, June 14, 2018

Lieutenant-Colonel William T. Lusk to Elizabeth Adams Lusk, July 20, 1863

Headquarters Del. Dept.
Wilmington, Del., July 20th, 1863.
My dear Mother:

You have heard before now, I suppose, that I was in New-York a few days last week. I saw Horace then, but the excitement of the riots excluded all other topics of conversation.

Lilly was kind enough to write me a letter which I shall gladly answer, as I have time enough now to remember all correspondents that remember me. If nothing else, I have abundant opportunities to read and write. After the draft has been enforced in this State, the necessity for Martial Law will probably have passed away. Then I hope either to have more active service, or to get relieved altogether. My summer experience will lead me to enjoy with the greater zest, the coming winter.

Gen. Tyler has behaved most handsomely I think, for when he was ordered to Maryland Heights, it was with the understanding that he was to have an important command, if not that of the Middle Department itself. But the loss of Milroy's Army, the advance of Hooker, and consequent assignment of French to the Heights, the troubles in Baltimore, one and all operated to break up all plans, and to leave him in his present position. I have not heard him utter, for all, a single word of complaint, though necessarily his position must be very irksome to him.

Aunt Maria, Uncle Phelps and Nellie were in NewYork for a few hours while I was there, but I did not know it until it was too late. Mr. ——, who lives opposite my Uncle's, sent for me to come and see him. He proposed that I should take charge of a patrol to protect their part of the town. I turned to young —— and suggested that he would make one of the patrol. "No," says the young man, "but I'll furnish a porter from father's store as a substitute." Indeed thought I, with such heroic youths, there is no need of doing anything here. I can let this part of the city take care of itself.

Your affec. Son,
Will.

SOURCE: William Chittenden Lusk, Editor, War Letters of William Thompson Lusk, p. 290-1

Friday, June 1, 2018

Lieutenant-Colonel William T. Lusk to Elizabeth Adams Lusk, July 10, 1863

Headquarters Delaware Department,
Wilmington, Del., July 10th, 1863.
My dear Mother:

I know I ought to be thankful in my present pleasant position, but somehow or other I was not born to enjoy sinecures. Doing nothing makes me very fretful. I had a capital good time while on Maryland Heights, feeling well repaid for my trip thither, but after leaving, I have been bored to death with the ennui of city soldiering. To be sure we are feted, and take our places among the Princes of Delaware, still, my dear mother, it was not for this I left home, and I cannot, with all the idle time on my hands, avoid regretting the pleasant summer plans we had arranged in old Conn. It is six years since I have strolled about the streets of Norwich the whole summer long. Norwich was never more beautiful than now. So I suppose I feel disappointed at being so peacefully employed at the seat of war. Still here we are, General and Staff — persons of distinction — Ahem! I am on hand in case I am called for. I don't owe my position to Gov. Buckingham, and I expect to get home to my studies in the fall. Good things, all of them! Besides this, I am raising whiskers. I am reading Kinglake's “Crimea.” I have given up smoking. Think of that! You see, at first, when I found there was little to do, I smoked vigorously to pass away time. But when the cigar was smoked, there was an end to the amusement, so I then determined to break off smoking altogether, and, to make it exciting, I kept a handful of cigars in my pocket so that the temptation might be frequently incurred. Whenever I longed for a fragrant Havana, I would take one in fingers, and then sitting back in my chair, reason philosophically on the pernicious effects of tobacco. On reaching the point of conviction, I would return it to my pocket unlighted. This, you see, has afforded me a very excellent pastime.

Occasionally Bishop Lee's benignant face shines upon us. Everyone worships the Bishop here, and how he deserves it, you know well.

Am very sorry for Capt. Nichols. The opposition is a mistake. However I should as soon think of breaking my heart for a Bedlamite Hag, as for one who rejected me on the grounds of prudence. So perhaps Nichols is not so unlucky as he thinks himself. Now that I have practically abandoned military life, I have a fancy Gov. Buckingham made a mistake in persistently ignoring my claims to promotion. I fancy I would have done him more credit than some of his appointments. This may be vanity.

Written in haste with
affectionate intent,
W. T. Lusk.

SOURCE: William Chittenden Lusk, Editor, War Letters of William Thompson Lusk, p. 285-7

Tuesday, May 29, 2018

Diary of 2nd Lieutenant Luman Harris Tenney: August 26, 1864

Moved out at daylight. Overtook the command before it reached Boonsboro. Called on Bayard and Babcock. Was up on Maryland Heights day before yesterday. Camped at Boonsboro.

SOURCE: Frances Andrews Tenney, War Diary Of Luman Harris Tenney, p. 129