1st Lieutenant Charles Wright Wills: April 5, 1862

April 5, 1862, — One of our boys has just returned from Madrid and says he saw our gunboat Cairo there. She slipped by the batteries at Island No. 10 in the storm last night. Mosquitoes here already.

SOURCE: Charles Wright Wills, Army Life of an Illinois Soldier, p. 78

Diary of Private Charles Wright Wills: June 13, 1861

Cairo. I am converted to the belief that Cairo is not such a bad place after all. The record shows that less deaths have occurred here in seven weeks among 3,000 men, than in Villa Ridge (a higher, and much dryer place with abundant shade and spring water), in five weeks among 1,000. There has been but one death here by disease in that time, and that with miserable hospital accommodations. The soldiers lie like the d---1 about Cairo. The days are hot of course, but we do nothing now between 8 a. m. and 9 p. m. but cook and eat, so that amounts to not near as much as working all day at home. The mosquitoes and bugs are furious from 6 p. m. to 11, but we are drilling from 7 p. m. to nearly 9, and from that to 11 we save ourselves by smoking, which we all do pretty steadily. The nights after 11 are splendidly cool, so much so that we can cover ourselves entirely in our blankets, which is a block game on the mosquitoes, and sleep like logs. I believe those Camp Mather boys are hard sticks from the accounts we get of their fingers sticking to chickens, vegetables, etc. The citizens here say that the boys have not taken a thing without permission, or insulted a citizen. “Bully for us.”

We had a little fun yesterday. At 8 p. m. we (the Peoria and Pekin companies) were ordered to get ready for marching in ten minutes. So ready we got (but had to leave knapsacks, canteens and blankets) and were marched down to the “City of Alton,” which had on board a six pounder and one 12 pound howitzer. We cast off, fired a salute of two guns and steamed down the Mississippi. After five miles the colonel (Oglesby) called us together, told us that he was out on a reconoitering expedition, and his information led him to think we should be forced into a little fight before we got back. We were then ordered to load and keep in our places by our guns. At Columbus we saw a secesh flag waving but passed on a couple of miles farther where he expected to find a secesh force. Failed and turned back. At Columbus the flag was still waving and the stores all closed, and quite a crowd collected on the levee, but one gun though, that we could see. The colonel ordered the flag down. They said they wouldn't do it. He said he would do it himself then. They answered, “We'd like to see you try it.” We were drawn up then round the cabin deck guards next the shore in two ranks, with guns at “ready,” and the captain jumped ashore and hauled down the serpent. We were all sure of a skirmish but missed it. Flag was about 15x7, with eight stars and three stripes. I send you some scraps of it. They raised another flag one hour after we left and sent us word to “Come and take it.” The ride on the river was the best treat I've had for two years.

SOURCE: Charles Wright Wills, Army Life of an Illinois Soldier, p. 17-9

Diary of 2nd Lieutenant George G. Smith: May 17, 1864

That General Smith was a joker was conceded by everybody, our friends, the enemy, as well as the union army. When we were in Alexandria I was on guard at the pontoon bridge. An Irishman, stood at the end of the bridge, smoking a clay pipe. Smith returning from a scouting expedition at the head of his forces, rode up to the Irishman coolly took the pipe out of his mouth and put it in his own, and rode on smoking contentedly as though nothing had happened. The Irishman laughed heartily, well pleased with the joke. Many stories were reported of his pleasantries with the enemy while covering our retreat from Alexandria. At one time coming down the plank road he left a baggage wagon on the road and placed a company in ambush within easy range. The rebel hangers on in the rear spied it and made for it on the gallop with a yell. At the proper time the ambush rose up and many saddles were emptied and riderless horses were seen cantering through the woods. The force was nearly all killed or taken prisoners. At two times cannon were left with similar results. Marched into Simsport about noon. The day was hot and the roads were dusty so that our clothes were saturated with mud as well as sweat. It was my practice, during the whole time I was in the army to bathe whenever an opportunity presented itself, and so here was a good one The water in the rivers and ponds we had been passing were generally almost milk warm and I thought this would be, so without further ado I plunged in. “O my! Holy Moses, how cold it was!” I could hardly swim to shore. But I did, and got out too but I did not go in any more that day. The reason of the water being so cold was on account of the rise in the Mississippi river at this time of the year, called the June rise. It is caused by the melting snows in the Rocky mountains, at the head waters of the Missouri and in the Northern part of Minnesota, where the Mississippi rises, and it is a little strange, that water is nearly as cold when it reaches the Gulf of Mexico as it is when it leaves the snows of the Rocky mountains. When this mighty river is high it backs up the Red river and discharges its surplus waters through the Atchaffalaya Bayou into the Gulf of Mexico, so that bayou is really one of the mouths of the Mississippi. It was my turn to go on picket guard that night, so we crossed the bayou on a steamer and went up that stream about a mile and posted the pickets in the woods across the bottom where we fought mosquitoes all night. It was a question which was the worse, the mosquitoes or the rebels. I was not feeling very well from the effects of my bath, so after the guard was posted I hunted the dryest place I could find and laid down, but the conditions were not very favorable for a good night's rest. It did not however last forever.

SOURCE: Abstracted from George G. Smith, Leaves from a Soldier's Diary, p. 117-9

Diary of William Howard Russell: May 29, 1861

Dined in the evening with M. Aristide Miltenberger, where I met His Excellency Mr. Moore, the Governor of Louisiana, his military secretary, and a small party.

It is a strange country, indeed; one of the evils which afflicts the Louisianians, they say, is the preponderance and influence of South Carolinian Jews, and Jews generally, such as Moise, Mordecai, Josephs, and Judah Benjamin, and others. The subtlety and keenness of the Caucasian intellect give men a high place among a people who admire ability and dexterity, and are at the same time reckless of means and averse to labor. The Governor is supposed to be somewhat under the influence of the Hebrews, but he is a man quite competent to think and to act for himself, — a plain, sincere ruler of a Slave State, and an upholder of the patriarchal institute. After dinner we accompanied Madam Milten-berger (who affords in her own person a very complete refutation of the dogma that American women furnish no examples of the charms which surround their English sisters in the transit from the prime of life towards middle age), in a drive along the shell road to the lake and canal; the most remarkable object being a long wall lined with a glorious growth of orange-trees: clouds of mosquitoes effectually interfered with an enjoyment of the drive.

SOURCE: William Howard Russell, My Diary North and South, p. 242