Diary of Private Lewis C. Paxson, Sunday, March 15, 1863

Very busy as usual getting out reports. Faverow gone home with messenger. Tarbell, McCoy's Co., relieved from guard. Corporal Daniel Phelps buried.

SOURCE: Lewis C. Paxson, Diary of Lewis C. Paxson: Stockton, N.J., 1862-1865, p. 14

Diary of 2nd Lieutenant Benjamin F. Pearson, January 13, 1863

Rained moderately untill 12 Oc night, when it commenced to pour it down in torrants & continued incessantly all the night long At 9½ Oc morning I was required to report with 10 men & a Corporal at head quarters for Picket duty & at the hour we started out I stationed my pickets & placed my videtts I then took a little exploring ramble beyont to see if I could make any discovery but discovered no enemy & returned by the way of my post on Sunday night & found my watch kee that I then had lost the last time I was on picket At 10 Ос night Lieut Stanton & one of his men of the 3rd Iowa Cavelry came to apprize me that there was a squad of rebble cavelry had aproched his videtts but their horses had neighed & the rebbles put back my man & I was in anxious expectation from that till day but they came not at 3 Oc afternoon I was at the burrying of Thos W Coddington private from near Hillsborough Iowa Chaplain Ingalls informed me that he died verry happy

SOURCE: Edgar R. Harlan, Currator, Annals of Iowa, 3rd Series, Vol. 15, No. 2, October 1925, p. 104

Diary of Major Joseph Stockton, May 21, 1863

Skirmishing, as usual. Quite a number of officers were sitting together just before dark eating their supper of coffee and hard tack, when the bugler of the regiment, who was sitting near, was shot through the heart and killed instantly. No one could tell where the shot came from. He was just raising his spoon to his mouth, when he fell over, dead. We buried him that night, performing a soldier's burial, but a number of the officers and men had service over the dead, and we all sang a hymn. Who knows who may be living tomorrow night.

SOURCE: Joseph Stockton, War Diary (1862-5) of Brevet Brigadier General Joseph Stockton, p. 16

Diary of 5th Sergeant Lawrence Van Alstyne: December 26, 1862

Leroy was buried early this morning. My part in it was to form the company and march it by the left flank to the grave. For fear this may not be plain I will add, that the captain and orderly are always at the right of the line when the company is in line for any purpose and that end of the line is the right flank. The tallest men are on the right also and so on down to the shortest, which is Will Hamilton and Charles Tweedy, who are on the left, or the left flank as it is called. This arrangement brings the officers in the rear going to the grave, but when all is over the captain takes command and marches the company back by the right. I got through without a break and feel as if I was an old soldier instead of a new one. But it is a solemn affair. Leroy was a favorite with us and his death and this, our first military funeral, has had a quieting effect on all. Last night the chaplain and some officers, good singers all, came in and we almost raised the roof singing patriotic songs. Speeches were made and we ended up with three cheers that must have waked the alligators out in the swamp. Sweet potatoes and other things are beginning to come in and as they sell for most nothing we are living high. But we are in bad shape as a whole. Mumps have appeared and twenty-four new cases were found to-day. Colonel Smith, our lieutenant-colonel, has been up the river to try and find out if better quarters could not be had and has not succeeded. He is mad clear through, and when asked where we were to go, said to hell, for all he could find out.

SOURCE:  Lawrence Van Alstyne, Diary of an Enlisted Man, pp. 76-7