Lumpkin's Mill. Christmas! Christmas! resounded through the
camp this morning; everyone turning the gay reminiscence of the past in their
minds and hoping again to enjoy. Laid quiet during the day. Ate a Christmas
dinner of dumplings and unleavened bread. The howitzers ordered to prepare to
march, going in charge of a provision train to Memphis. Troubled with bad cold.
SOURCE: Jenkin Lloyd
Jones, An Artilleryman's Diary, p. 21
Near Memphis, Tenn. Slept out-doors. Awoke at 5 A. M. A beautiful
morning. Byhalia, unlike Tallaloosa, was a bright and lively little village, with
a large school house, church, lodge room, with a scientific laboratory, out of
which the boys jay-hawked numerous books, writing utensils, etc. etc. Picked up
two horses and two mules. The owner of the horses came and pleaded hard, but
could receive no other satisfaction than a receipt from Lieutenant Clark. He
was reported to be a rank Secesh, as well as everybody else.
We started with the
1st Brigade in rear of the train at 9 A. M. Twenty-eight miles from Memphis,
passed a house where a woman stood in the yard, bravely holding the Stars and
Stripes in her hand (to protect her chickens I suppose). Marched along quietly;
nothing of importance save the appropriation of considerable molasses along the
road until half an hour of sundown when a small party of guerrillas dashed up
in our rear, discharging some fifteen or twenty pieces, then legging it before
their fire could be returned. We halted, the cannoneers sprang to their posts,
got their equipments, when the 48th Indiana formed their line. But it was all
over with. They were gone, and we started on.
Two of the balls
took effect, wounding two boys of the 48th Indiana in the arms. An assistant
adjutant general and surgeon [who] had wandered a little from the train, were
taken also by a few of Jackson's cavalry, divested of their accoutrements and
horses, then paroled.
7 P. M. Drew up
three-fourths of an hour to feed our horses, then started on, travelled till 10
P. M. Came into camp seven miles from Memphis.
SOURCE: Jenkin Lloyd
Jones, An Artilleryman's Diary, pp. 22-3
Memphis. We passed into Memphis as fast as the
necessary detentions would permit, through a very beautiful country and
handsome buildings. Passed through the town at about sundown, came into park
alongside of the other sections on the south of the town. Watered our horses at
the wharves about one and one half miles north, passing through the town.
Memphis presented a more lively appearance than I expected under the present
circumstances.
SOURCE: Jenkin Lloyd
Jones, An Artilleryman's Diary, p. 23
Memphis. Awakened by the morning gun at the fort; fell
in for roll call, Sergeant Hamilton acting orderly. Saw a Memphis Bulletin of
the 30th, the first newspaper since that bearing the date of the 12th. Watered
my horses, then rode into the fort with Colburn. Met Milton Campbell of the
23rd Wisconsin Regiment. The Regiment had gone down the river, leaving
twenty-nine convalescents behind. The boys were furnished with a pass to go to
town, others taking leg bail, by night. Several heavy heads. Drew six days'
rations.
SOURCE: Jenkin Lloyd
Jones, An Artilleryman's Diary, p. 23
Germantown, Tenn. The train took up the line of march back. Our
Section being in the center started at 9 A. M., passing through town up Main
Street. It was an amusing sight, nearly two-thirds of the soldiers were drunk,
having run Memphis as they pleased almost for the last twenty-four hours. We
followed the Memphis and Charleston R. R. Came into park at Germantown at dark,
having travelled fifteen miles. Partook of a soldier's supper, made our bed
neath the starry canopy of heaven, and laid down, ending the year as we began
it, by sleeping. Thus endeth the year 1862.
SOURCE: Jenkin Lloyd
Jones, An Artilleryman's Diary, p. 23-4
Streets almost impassible for footmen. I called in a verry pretty residence surrounded with beautifull shrubery & had a social chat with two young ladys by the name of Head they have a brother in the Rebble army. I received a letter from Emma with encouraging information about my son Amandus, he is seeking the Saviour & is in a fare way to be up soon, though I have been much depressed in mind I feel greatly relieved & am hoping & praying for my son I answered the letter. A fleet passed down from Memphis with parts of Grants Armey the 15th & 16th Reg Iowa Vol was on board & the fiew minutes they layed here I improved & injoyed with the boys some from Keosauqua & vicinity
SOURCE: Edgar R. Harlan, Currator, Annals of Iowa, 3rd Series, Vol. 15, No. 2, October 1925, p. 106
At 8½ Oc we started
from our moorings at the boat landing in ft Pickering Memphis Tenn we left
Seargent R Murdock & 6 privates from our Co Gin hospital & our 1st Lieut
Wm M McCreary was taken from the hospital last evening & put in a packet
for St Louis where he intends going into hospital he has been quite poorly
since the 1st of Dec not one day able for duty & from our election of Co
officers on the 14th of Aug he was not one hour with us untill the 1st of Oct
& was quite unwell by times between the 1st of Oct & the 1st of Dec. He
has now resigned & there will be another Lieut to appoint at ¼ to 3 Oc afternoon we landed at Hellena
Arkansas it is a low muddy place with numerous ponds of filthy green looking
watter, it is small villedge built of frame
SOURCE: Edgar R.
Harlan, Currator, Annals of Iowa, 3rd Series, Vol. 15, No. 2,
October 1925, pp. 101-2
Struck out tents
early this morning and marched to Colliersville, a distance of seven miles from
Lafayette and twenty-four from Memphis. As soon as we had stacked our arms and
broken ranks, John Cumbersworth and I went out a mile and a half from camp
and got a fine hog. While we were skinning it our orderly-sergeant, Sullivan,
Jesse Walker and Mike Walsh were captured not more than a quarter of a mile
distant, by a band of rebel cavalry. Sullivan turned and ran and several shots
were fired after him, which we heard plainly but we thought it was the boys
shooting hogs. When we got into camp Bob Dew and Charlie Berry came in with
their paroles, they having been caught by the same company. Five paroled from
Co. K in one day. Five such days' work will muster Co. K out of service. The
17th Ill. at present musters about three hundred and fifty men. On guard
tonight; storming fearfully.
SOURCE: Seth James
Wells, The Siege of Vicksburg: From the Diary of Seth J. Wells,
Including Weeks of Preparation and of Occupation After the Surrender, p. 25
WILL McClellan
display unity in conception, and vigor in execution? That is the question. He
seems very energetic and active in organizing the army; but he ought to take
the field very soon. He ought to leave Washington, and have his headquarters in
the camp among the soldiers. The life in the tent will inspire him. It alone
inspired Frederick II and Napoleon. Too much organization may become as
mischievous as the no organization under Scott. Time, time is everything. The
levies will fight well; may only McClellan not be carried away by the notion
and the attempt to create what is called a perfect army on European pattern.
Such an attempt would be ruinous to the cause. It is altogether impossible to
create such an army on the European model, and no necessity exists for it. The rebel
army is no European one. Civil wars have altogether different military
exigencies, and the great tactics for a civil war are wholly different from the
tactics, etc., needed in a regular war. Napoleon differently fought the
Vendeans, and differently the Austrians, and the other coalesced armies. May
only McClellan not become intoxicated before he puts the cup to his lips.
Fremont disavowed by
Lincoln and the administration. This looks bad. I have no considerable
confidence in Fremont's high capacities, and believe that his head is turned a
little; but in this question he was right in principle, and right in legality.
A commander of an army operating separately has the exercise of full powers of
war.
The Blairs are not
to be accused; I read the letter from F. Blair to his brother. It is the letter
of a patriot, but not of an intriguer. Fremont establishes an absurd rule
concerning the breach of military discipline, and shows by it his ignorance and
narrow-mindedness. So Fremont, and other bungling martinets, assert that nobody
has the right to criticise the actions of his commander.
Fremont is ignorant
of history, and those around him who put in his head such absurd notions are a
pack of mean and servile spit-lickers. An officer ought to obey orders without
hesitation, and if he does not he is to be court-martialed and shot. But it is
perfectly allowable to criticise them; it is in human nature—it was, is, and
will be done in all armies; see in Curtius and other historians of Alexander of
Macedon. It was continually done under Napoleon. In Russia, in 1812, the
criticism made by almost all the officers forced Alexander I. to leave the
army, and to put Kutousoff over Barclay. In the last Italian campaign Austrian
officers criticised loudly Giulay, their commander, etc., etc.
Conspiracy to
destroy Fremont on account of his slave proclamation. The conspirators are the
Missouri slave-holders: Senator Brodhead, old Bates, Scott, McClellan, and
their staffs. Some jealousy against him in the Cabinet, but Seward rather on
Fremont's side.
McClellan makes his
father-in-law, a man of very secondary capacity, the chief of
the staff of the army. It seems that McClellan ignores what a highly
responsible position it is, and what a special and transcendent capacity must
be that of a chief of the staff—the more so when of an army of several hundreds
of thousands. I do not look for a Berthier, a Gneisenau, a Diebitsch, or
Gortschakoff, but a Marcy will not do.
Colonel Lebedeef,
from the staff of the Emperor Alexander II., and professor in the School of the
Staff at St. Petersburg, saw here everything, spoke with our generals, and his
conclusion is that in military capacity McDowell is by far superior to
McClellan. Strange, if true, and foreboding no good.
Mr. Lincoln begins
to call a demagogue any one who does not admire all the doings of his
administration. Are we already so far?
McClellan under
fatal influences of the rampant pro-slavery men, and of partisans of the South,
as is a Barlow. All the former associations of McClellan have been of the worst
kind—Breckinridgians. But perhaps he will throw them off. He is young, and the
elevation of his position, his standing before the civilized world, will
inspire and purify him, I hope. Nay, I ardently wish he may go to the camp, to
the camp.
McClellan published
a slave-catching order. Oh that he may discard those bad men around him!
Struggles with evils, above all with domestic, internal evils, absorb a great
part of every nation's life. Such struggles constitute its development, are the
landmarks of its progress and decline.
The like struggles
deserve more the attention of the observer, the philosopher, than all kinds of
external wars. And, besides, most of such external wars result from the
internal condition of a nation. At any rate, their success or unsuccess almost
wholly depends upon its capacity to overcome internal evils. A nation even
under a despotic rule may overcome and repel an invasion, as long as the
struggle against the internal evils has not broken the harmony between the
ruler and the nation. Here the internal evil has torn a part of the
constitutional structure; may only the necessary harmony between this high-minded
people and the representative of the transient constitutional formula not be
destroyed. The people move onward, the formula vacillates, and seems to fear to
make any bold step.
If the cause of the
freemen of the North succumbs, then humanity is humiliated. This high-spirited
exclamation belongs to Tassara, the Minister from Spain. Not the diplomat, but
the nobly inspired man uttered it.
But for the
authoritative influence of General Scott, and the absence of any foresight and
energy on the part of the administration, the rebels would be almost wholly
without military leaders, without naval officers. The Johnsons, Magruders,
Tatnalls, Buchanans, ought to have been arrested for treason the moment they
announced their intention to resign.
Mr. Seward has many
excellent personal qualities, besides his unquestionable eminent capacity for
business and argument; but why is he neutralizing so much good in him by the
passion to be all in all, to meddle with everything, to play the knowing one in
military affairs, he being in all such matters as innocent as a lamb? It is not
a field on which Seward's hazarded generalizations can be of any earthly use;
but they must confuse all.
Seward is free from
that coarse, semi-barbarous know-nothingism which rules paramount, not the
genuine people, but the would-be something, the half-civilized gentlemen.
Above all, know-nothingism pervades all around Scott, who is himself its grand
master, and it nestles there par excellence in more than
one way. It is, however, to be seen how far this pure American—Scott military
wisdom is something real, transcendent. Up to this day, the pure Americanism,
West Point schoolboy's conceit, have not produced much. The defences of
Washington, so much clarioned as being the product of a high conception and of
engineering skill,—these defences are very questionable when appreciated by a
genuine military eye. A Russian officer of the military engineers, one who was
in the Crimea and at Sebastopol, after having surveyed these defences here,
told me that the Russian soldiers who defended Sebastopol, and who learned what
ought to be defences, would prefer to fight outside than inside of the
Washington forts, bastions, defences, etc., etc., etc.
Doubtless many
foreigners coming to this country are not much, but the greatest number are
soldiers who saw service and fire, and could be of some use at the side of
Scott's West Point greenness and presumption.
If we are worsted,
then the fate of the men of faith in principles will be that of Sisyphus, and
the coming generation for half a century will have uphill work.
If not McClellan
himself, some intriguers around him already dream, nay, even attempt to form a
pure military, that is, a reckless, unprincipled, unpatriotic party. These men
foment the irritation between the arrogance of the thus-called regular army,
and the pure abnegation of the volunteers. Oh, for battles! Oh, for battles!
Fremont wished at
once to attack Fort Pillow and the city of Memphis. It was a bold move, but the
concerted civil and military wisdom grouped around the President opposed
this truly great military conception.
Mr. Lincoln is pulled
in all directions. His intentions are excellent, and he would have made an
excellent President for quiet times. But this civil war imperatively demands a
man of foresight, of prompt decision, of Jacksonian will and energy. These
qualities may be latent in Lincoln, but do not yet come to daylight. Mr.
Lincoln has no experience of men and events, and no knowledge of the past.
Seward's influence over Lincoln may be explained by the fact that Lincoln
considers Seward as the alpha and omega of every kind of knowledge and
information.
I still hope,
perhaps against hope, that if Lincoln is what the masses believe him to be, a
strong mind, then all may come out well. Strong minds, lifted by events into
elevated regions, expand more and more; their "mind's eye" pierces
through clouds, and even through rocks; they become inspired, and inspiration
compensates the deficiency or want of information acquired by studies. Weak
minds, when transported into higher regions, become confused and dizzy. Which
of the two will be Mr. Lincoln's fate?
The administration
hesitates to give to the struggle a character of emancipation; but the people
hesitate not, and take Fremont to their heart.
As the concrete
humanity, so single nations have epochs of gestation, and epochs of normal
activity, of growth, of full life, of manhood. Americans are now in the
stage of manhood.
Col. Romanoff, of
the Russian military engineer corps, who was in the Crimean war, saw here the
men and the army, saw and conversed with the generals. Col. R. is of opinion
that McDowell is by far superior to McClellan, and would make a better
commander.
It is said that
McClellan refuses to move until he has an army of 300,000 men and 600 guns. Has
he not studied Napoleon's wars? Napoleon scarcely ever had half such a number
in hand; and when at Wagram, where he had about 180,000 men, himself in the
centre, Davoust and Massena on the flanks, nevertheless the handling of such a
mass was too heavy even for his, Napoleon's, genius.
The country is—to
use an Americanism—in a pretty fix, if this McClellan turns out to be a
mistake. I hope for the best. 600 guns! But 100 guns in a line cover a mile.
What will he do with 600? Lose them in forests, marshes, and bad roads; whence
it is unhappily a fact that McClellan read only a little of military history,
misunderstood what he read, and now attempts to realize hallucinations, as a
boy attempts to imitate the exploits of an Orlando. It is dreadful to think of
it. I prefer to trust his assertion that, once organized, he soon, very soon,
will deal heavy and quick blows to the rebels.
I saw some
manœuvrings, and am astonished that no artillery is distributed among the
regiments of infantry. When the rank and file see the guns on their side, the
soldiers consider them as a part of themselves and of the regiment; they fight
better in the company of guns; they stand by them and defend them as they
defend their colors. Such a distribution of guns would strengthen the body of
the volunteers. But it seems that McClellan has no confidence in the volunteers.
Were this true, it would denote a small, very small mind. Let us hope it is not
so. One of his generals—a martinet of the first class—told me that McClellan
waits for the organization of the regulars, to have them for
the defence of the guns. If so, it is sheer nonsense. These narrow-minded West
Point martinets will become the ruin of McClellan.
McClellan could now
take the field. Oh, why has he established his headquarters in the city, among
flunkeys, wiseacres, and spit-lickers? Were he among the troops, he would be
already in Manassas. The people are uneasy and fretting about this inaction,
and the people see what is right and necessary.
Gen. Banks, a true
and devoted patriot, is sacrificed by the stupidity of what they call here the
staff of the great army, but which collectively, with its chief, is only a mass
of conceit and ignorance few, as General Williams, excepted. Banks is in the
face of the enemy, and has no cavalry and no artillery; and here are immense
reviews to amuse women and fools.
Mr. Mercier, the
French Minister, visited a considerable part of the free States, and his
opinions are now more clear and firm; above all, he is very friendly to
our side. He is sagacious and good.
Missouri is in great
confusion—three parts of it lost. Fremont is not to be accused of all the
mischief, but, from effect to cause, the accusation ascends to General Scott.
Gen. Scott insisted
to have Gen. Harney appointed to the command of Missouri, and hated Lyon. If,
even after Harney's recall, Lyon had been appointed, Lyon would be alive and
Missouri safe. But hatred, anxiety of rank, and stupidity, united their
efforts, and prevailed. Oh American people! to depend upon such inveterate
blunderers!
Were McClellan in
the camp, he would have no flatterers, no antechambers filled with flunkeys;
but the rebels would not so easily get news of his plans as they did in the
affair on Munson's Hill.
The Orleans are
here. I warned the government against admitting the Count de Paris, saying that
it would be a deliberate breach of good comity towards Louis
Napoleon, and towards the Bonapartes, who prove to be our friends; I told that
no European government would commit itself in such a manner, not even if
connected by ties of blood with the Orleans. At the start, Mr. Seward heeded a
little my advice, but finally he could not resist the vanity to display
untimely spread-eagleism, and the Orleans are in our service. Brave boys! It is
a noble, generous, high-minded, if not an altogether wise, action.
If a mind is not nobly
inspired and strong, then the exercise of power makes it crotchety and
dissimulative in contact with men.
To my disgust, I witness
this all around me.
The American people,
its institutions, the Union—all have lost their virginity, their political
innocence. A revolution in the institutions, in the mode of life, in notions
begun—it is going on, will grow and mature, either for good or evil. Civil war,
this most terrible but most maturing passion, has put an end to the boyhood and
to the youth of the American people. Whatever may be the end, one thing is sure
that the substance and the form will be modified; nay, perhaps, both wholly
changed. A new generation of citizens will grow and come out from this smoke of
the civil war.
The Potomac closed
by the rebels! Mischief and shame! Natural fruits of the dilatory war policy—Scott's
fault. Months ago the navy wished to prevent it, to shell out the rebels, to
keep our troops in the principal positions. Scott opposed; and still he has
almost paramount influence. McClellan complains against Scott, and Lincoln and
Seward flatter McClellan, but look up to Scott as to a supernatural military
wisdom. Oh, poor nation!
In Europe clouds
gather over Mexico. Whatever it eventually may come to, I suggested to Mr.
Seward to lay aside the Monroe doctrine, not to meddle for or against Mexico,
but to earnestly protest against any eventual European interference in the
internal condition of the political institutions of Mexico.
Continual secondary,
international complications, naturally growing out from the maritime question;
so with the Dutch cheesemongers, with Spain, with England - all easily to be
settled; they generate fuss and trouble, but will make no fire.
Gen. Scott's
partisans complain that McClellan is very disrespectful in his dealings with
Gen. Scott. I wonder not.. McClellan is probably hampered by the narrow routine
notions of Scott. McClellan feels that Scott prevents energetic and prompt
action; that he, McClellan, in every step is obliged to fight Gen. Scott's
inertia; and McClellan grows impatient, and shows it to Scott.
SOURCE: Adam
Gurowski, Diary from March 4, 1861, to November 12, 1862, pp. 92-103
We struck tents yesterday morning and marched into Memphis, bivouacked on the wharf until dark and then embarked on board the steamer "Platte Valley." We will not leave until the whole division (Quimby's), has embarked. Our destination is Lake Providence. Fortunately we are the only regiment on board and are comfortably fixed. Was assigned to my duties as major. Our steamer went five miles below Memphis for wood. River very high and overflowing the country in many places. Raining hard every few days. Marching will be difficult.
SOURCE: Joseph Stockton, War Diary (1862-5) of Brevet Brigadier General Joseph Stockton, p. 9
On board transport "Platte Valley." We left Memphis on the 3rd as we supposed for Lake Providence, but when we got within twenty-five miles of that place orders came for us to disembark at General Woodfall's plantation and march through the country to Red River. After we had disembarked and taken everything off the boats, General Quimby and staff, together with the brigade commander, went out to reconnoiter the country and found it all under water and overflowed; they tried several directions, and some of the staff rode some miles from the river, but found it impossible to march more than a mile or so. We are encamped in a graveyard and my bunk is a flat tombstone; the men sleep on top of the graves to keep them out of the water. The division is encamped along the levee, as it is the only place that is dry. The whole division remained in camp on the plantation while General Quimby went down to Lake Providence for further orders. He returned on the night of the 6th with orders to re-embark on board the same transport and steam up the river for Helena. I understand that our destination from Helena is to go through the Yazoo Pass from the Mississippi to the Yazoo River, then down the river to the rear of Vicksburg and try to cut the railroad leading from Jackson to Vicksburg. Our pilots say it is impossible and impracticable, but we are bound to try. The Yazoo is considered one of the most sickly regions in the South. Its name signifies "River of Death," but I trust the high state of water may relieve it of its unhealthy propensities and spare us our men. We were glad we had not to undertake our march, as it would have resulted in using our men for no purpose, as progress would have been next to impossible. I rode out myself to see what the country was like and got mired several times. Once I thought I should have to abandon my horse, but after hard work he succeeded in extricating himself. Had he not been so powerful I fear he would have had to succumb. On Sunday, the 8th, we had religious service on board the transport in the cabin; there was a general attendance. Captain Whittle of G Company is the leading spirit with the chaplain in all religious services. He is a brave, good man.
SOURCE: Joseph Stockton, War Diary (1862-5) of Brevet Brigadier General Joseph Stockton, p. 9
A bad, rainy day all day long. Yesterday afternoon, my young friend, Lieutenant J. E. B. Stuart,20 came out, with his wife and child and spent the night with us. He starts today for Memphis, on his way to Va., having just come from Fort Reilly,21 on leave for 6 months.
Mr. Wm. Glasgow Jr. gave me some plants w[hi]ch. he brought from the Hot Springs of Washetaw.
1. Native grape, resembling the Isabella, but thought to be better.
2. Native Muscadine grape.
3. Yeopan — Evergreen shrub producing red berries (supposed the same shrub used for Tea, near Norfolk[)].
20 James E. B. Stuart of Virginia: graduate of West Point in 1854 ; Indian fighter; lieutenant in the U. S. Army until he resigned when Virginia seceded; then major-general in the Confederate Army until he died of wounds in 1864.
21 This should be Fort Riley which was near Junction City, Kansas.
22 A marginal note telling where he set the plants.
23 Alexander H. H. Stuart of Virginia: Whig congressman, 1841-1843 ; secretary of the Interior, 1850-1853; unionist until Virginia seceded ; leader in the reconciliation movement after the War; debarred member-elect of Congress in 1865.
SOURCE: Howard K. Beale, Editor, Annual Report of The American Historical Association For The Year 1930, Vol. 4, The Diary Of Edward Bates, pp. 10
Evacuated Fort
Stockton today. Marched into Memphis through mud nearly knee deep. Slept in an
old building near the railroad depot. Heard today of Adjutant Bacon's death. He
was one of the best soldiers ever met. Our regiment has met with a serious
loss, one that cannot well be replaced. "Peace to his ashes."
SOURCE: Joseph
Stockton, War Diary (1862-5) of Brevet Brigadier General Joseph
Stockton, p. 7
Went into quarters
in the navy yard at Memphis. Quarters very good. Men under shelter. The machine
shop is used as barracks for the regiment. Officers use the offices around the
yard. Weather very cold and hard work to keep warm. I use a carpenter's bench
as my dining table and bed at night. Sheets are a luxury not to be thought of.
Regiment goes on provost duty. Mail communications, my regular letters and
papers are not following us around as on the march. We have not had any pay for
a long time and all are very hard up. I got a draft for $75 cashed and divided
it among my men. They were all very grateful for it. Memphis is at present a
hard place, filled with soldiers. I regret to say many drunken officers are to
be seen, while with the men it is almost too common to be mentioned. Orders
came to destroy liquor wherever found and our regiment has destroyed a great
many barrels. You might as well try to dam the Mississippi river as to keep the
men from getting liquor.
SOURCE: Joseph
Stockton, War Diary (1862-5) of Brevet Brigadier General Joseph
Stockton, p. 7-8
We are fairly packed
on board a small transport; so thickly are we crowded in, it is almost
impossible to stir; yet all will stir. Every man seems to think his very
existence depends on movement. As I sit here on my knapsack, my back against
the railing, inkstand between my feet to prevent it being kicked over, a
continuous stream of restless, uneasy men is pouring around, on and over me,
which, added to the motion of the vessel, makes writing difficult. We left
Cairo yesterday at five o'clock in the afternoon, and steamed down the river a
few miles below Cumberland, Kentucky, and anchored for the night.
The captain dare not
run his vessel in the night, it being dark and cloudy, and the Mississippi being
the most dangerous river in the world to navigate. We expect to reach Memphis
early in the morning, and will then learn our final destination.
Having crossed the
Mississippi at Dubuque, some three hundred miles above Cairo, I was somewhat
disappointed, as it did not appear to be any wider at Cairo than at Dubuque,
but, by close observation, I discovered that what it lacked in width was made
up in velocity and depth.
At Dubuque, too, the
water is clear as crystal; from St. Louis down it is the color of chocolate.
The banks of the river are uninhabited and uninhabitable most of the way. Every
spring and fall they overflow from ten to thirty miles, and then this mighty
mass of water will not be confined. The river channel is constantly changing.
The light, loose soil of the valley cannot withstand the tremendous power of
the resistless floods that are hurled from the north upon its yielding bosom.
This is one cause of disaster. The sand bars change so often it is impossible
to keep track of them.
SOURCE: David Lane,
A Soldier's Diary: The Story of a Volunteer, 1862-1865, p. 47-8
We are still in the
harbor at Memphis awaiting orders. Eight hundred and fifty wounded men were
brought to this place yesterday from Vicksburg. Grant is still hammering away
at that seemingly impregnable fortress. The weather is extremely hot, which
renders our situation, huddled together as we are, very uncomfortable.
Yesterday we steamed up the river about a mile to a fine grove, and all went on
shore while the crew gave the old boat a thorough cleaning. This morning our
surgeon ordered us all on shore as a "sanitary measure." We marched
off by companies, each company going where it chose, but to different points.
We went to Court House Square and disbanded. It was like being transferred from
a gloomy prison to "smiling fields and shady groves.” The square contains
about five acres; is enclosed by an iron fence; is thickly set with trees of
different varieties the brave old oak, with its spreading branches and
delicious shade; the gorgeous magnolia, the tree of paradise; the orange and
lemon, with an almost endless variety of evergreens. Near the center of the
square is a bust of General Jackson, cut in marble.
On one side of the
pedestal is inscribed those memorable words of that grand old patriot: "The
Federal Union; it Must Be Preserved." I noticed the word
"Federal" was partly obliterated, and inquired the cause. A citizen
told me it was done by a Rebel Colonel at the beginning of the war; that his
men, still cherishing some regard for the hero of New Orleans, took him outside
the city and shot him. At four o'clock we were marched on board our prison
ship.
SOURCE: David Lane,
A Soldier's Diary: The Story of a Volunteer, 1862-1865, p. 48-9
Started on our march to Memphis. Quimby's [sic] division are to guard a train of 600 empty wagons. The day's march was a terrible one. Raining and roads muddy, and cut by the wagon trains many of which were filled with sick soldiers taken from the hospitals at Oxford and Holly Springs. Several poor fellows died and were buried alongside the road, their winding sheet a blanket and no ceremony but the digging of the grave, the body put in, filled up and the burial party hurrying away to get to their position. Poor fellows, they died for their country as much as if they were killed in battle.
SOURCE: Joseph Stockton, War Diary (1862-5) of Brevet Brigadier General Joseph Stockton, p. 6
Marched into Memphis, encamped in the southern part of the city near Fort Pickering—one of the meanest places we ever encamped in, no water or wood near. Glad to get a chance to lie down as our tramp has been a hard one. A snow flurry during the night.
SOURCE: Joseph Stockton, War Diary (1862-5) of Brevet Brigadier General Joseph Stockton, p. 7
This morning a squad
of twenty men, under the command of Lieutenant Fergus, is sent out on a scout
to Eastport, Tennessee river, and another squad, under the command of a
noncommissioned officer, is sent to Cheatam's Landing, seventeen miles from Raw
Hide. e make the point by noon; find Company F, Captain Knowlton, in camp here.
Returning, we bring through a prisoner captured by Company F, who reports
Forrest in Memphis and Longstreet in Knoxville.
SOURCE: Daniel Leib
Ambrose, History of the Seventh Regiment Illinois Volunteer Infantry,
p. 230
Clear; but rained copiously last night.
A letter from Gen. Lee indicates that the “Bureau of Conscription” fails to replenish the army.
The rich men and slave-owners are but too successful in getting out, and in keeping out of the service. The Governor, who commissions magistrates, is exempting some fifty daily, and these, in many instances, are not only young men, but speculators. And nearly every landed proprietor has given bonds to furnish meal, etc. to obtain exemption. Thus corruption is eating to the heart of the cause, and I fear the result of the contest between speculation and patriotism. Mr. Seddon says he has striven to make the conscription officers do their duty, and was not aware that so many farmers had gotten exemption. He promises to do all in his power to obtain recruits, and will so use the strictly local troops as to render the Reserves more active.
What that means we shall soon see. A dispatch from Mobile says Fort Morgan is in the possession of the enemy! Per contra, a dispatch from the same place says Memphis is in the possession of Forrest.
SOURCE: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 2, p. 272
