Rutherford B. Hayes to Lucy Webb Hayes, July 30, 1865

CLEVELAND, July 30, 1865.

DEAR LUCY:— The Twenty-third goes out in fine feather. Perhaps no regiment from Ohio is so fortunate in its reception and last days. I wish you could have been here. We rode in the procession yesterday to the dedication [of the monument to the dead of the regiment]. Hastings, Miss Hastings, and Mrs. Comly in the carriage I was in-next after the band.

Mother [Webb] and Joe go tomorrow to Niagara. On return they go to see the boys [Birchard and Webb] at Fremont. Boys very happy there and very good, the cause of happiness to others.

As ever, darling, your

R.

MRS. HAYES.

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

Diary of 5th Sergeant Alexander G. Downing: Monday, July 10, 1865

The men of the Fifteenth and Seventeenth Army Corps are raising a subscription for the purpose of erecting a monument in memory of the lamented Gen. James B. McPherson,¹ the old commander of the two corps, who was killed in the battle of Atlanta on the 22d day of July, 1864. I gave $5.00 myself, the whole company raising $75.00.

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¹ Major-General McPherson was a noble man, a Christian gentleman, kind to the officers and men in his command, and the men of his two corps placed him equal to any of the generals in the army. East or West. — A. G. D.

Source: Alexander G. Downing, Edited by Olynthus B., Clark, Downing’s Civil War Diary, p. 286