Diary of 1st Sergeant John L. Ransom: February 8, 1864

Butler reported as commissioner on exchange and the rebels declare that they would never recognize him and would rather that we should all die here than negotiate with the Beast Congress still in session over in the city and we watch the papers eagerly for something relative to us. They Holy Sabbath day and the church bells ringing for morning service. Don't think I shall attend this morning; it is such a long walk and then I look so bad; have nothing fit to wear. A man stabbed a few minutes ago by his tent mate, killing him instantly. They had all along been the best friends until a dispute arose, and one of them drew a knife and killed his comrade. Strong talk of lynching the murderer. Have not heard the particulars. Corp. McCartin is missing from the island and am confident from what I have seen that he has escaped and by the help of Lieut. Bossieux. No endeavors are being made to look him up, still he offers a reward for his apprehension. They are both members of the secret craft.

SOURCE: John L. Ransom, Andersonville Diary, p. 30-1

Diary of Lieutenant-Colonel Rutherford B. Hayes: Monday July 21, 1862

We are target firing now. The Enfields are a little better sighted than the muskets; the muskets have most power and the longest range. Company C does rather the best shooting, Companies E and A coming next.

A zouave at the Flat Top camp found tied to a tree with five bullet holes through him! Naked too! An enemy's cavalry patrol seen two miles outside of our pickets. Secesh, ten or twelve in number.

SOURCE: Charles Richard Williams, editor, Diary and Letters of Rutherford Birchard Hayes, Volume 2, p. 307

Major-General John A. Dix: General Orders, No. 97, December 14, 1864

Head-quarters, Department of the East, New York City,

December 14,1864.

General Orders, No. 97:

Information having been received at these head-quarters that the rebel raiders who were guilty of murder and robbery at St. Alban's have been discharged from arrest at Montreal, and that other marauding enterprises of a like character are in preparation in Canada, the commanding General deems it due to the people of the frontier towns to adopt the most prompt and efficient measures for the security of their lives and property. All military commanders on the frontiers are therefore instructed, in case farther acts of depredation and murder are attempted, whether by marauders or persons acting under pretended commissions from the rebel authorities at Richmond, to shoot down the perpetrators, if possible, while in the commission of their crimes; or if it be necessary with a view to their capture to cross the boundary between the United States and Canada, said commanders are hereby directed to pursue them wherever they may take refuge; and, in the event of their capture, they are under no circumstances to be surrendered, but are to be sent to these head-quarters for trial and punishment by martial law.

The Major-general commanding the Department will not hesitate to exercise to the fullest extent the authority he possesses under the law of nations in regard to persons organizing hostile expeditions within neutral territory, and fleeing to it for an asylum after committing acts of depredation within our own, such an exercise of authority having become indispensable to protect our cities and towns from incendiarism and our people from robbery and murder.

It is earnestly hoped that the inhabitants of our frontier districts will abstain from all acts of retaliation on account of the outrages committed by rebel marauders, and that the proper measures of redress will be left to the military authorities.

John A. Dix, Major-general.

SOURCE: Morgan Dix, Memoirs of John Adams Dix, Volume 2, p. 112

Diary of William Howard Russell: May 28, 1861

On dropping in at the Consulate to-day, I found the skippers of several English vessels who are anxious to clear out, lest they be detained by the Federal cruisers. The United States steam frigates Brooklyn and Niagara have been for some days past blockading Pass á l’outre. One citizen made a remarkable proposition to Mr. Mure. He came in to borrow an ensign of the Royal Yacht Squadron for the purpose, he said, of hoisting it on board his yacht, and running down to have a look at the Yankee ships. Mr. Mure had no flag to lend; whereupon he asked for a description by which he could get one made. On being applied to, I asked “whether the gentleman was a member of the Squadron?” “Oh, no,” said he, “but my yacht was built in England, and I wrote over some time ago to say I would join the squadron.” I ventured to tell him that it by no means followed he was a member, and that if he went out with the flag and could not show by his papers he had a right to carry it, the yacht would be seized. However, he was quite satisfied that he had an English yacht, and a right to hoist an English flag, and went off to an outfitter's to order a facsimile of the squadron ensign, and subsequently cruised among the blockading vessels.

We hear Mr. Ewell was attacked by an Union mob in Tennessee, his luggage was broken open and plundered, and he narrowly escaped personal injury. Per contra, “charges of abolitionism,” continue to multiply here, and are almost as numerous as the coroner's inquests, not to speak of the difficulties which sometimes attain the magnitude of murder.

I dined with a large party at the Lake, who had invited me as their guest, among whom were Mr. Slidell, Governor Hebert, Mr. Hunt, Mr. Norton, Mr. Fellows, and others. I observed in New York that every man had his own solution of the cause of the present difficulty, and contradicted plumply his neighbor the moment he attempted to propound his own theory. Here I found every one agreed as to the righteousness of the quarrel, but all differed as to the best mode of action for the South to pursue. Nor was there any approach to unanimity as the evening waxed older. Incidentally we had wild tales of Southern life, some good songs curiously intermingled with political discussions, and what the Northerners call hyphileutin talk.

When I was in the Consulate to-day, a tall and well-dressed, but not very prepossessing-looking man, entered to speak to Mr. Mure on business, and was introduced to me at his own request. His name was mentioned incidentally to-night, and I heard a passage in his life not of an agreeable character, to say the least of it. A good many years ago there was a ball at New Orleans, at which this gentleman was present; he paid particular attention to a lady, who, however, preferred the society of one of the company, and in the course of the evening an altercation occurred respecting an engagement to dance, in which violent language was exchanged, and a push or blow given by the favored partner to his rival, who left the room, and, as it is stated, proceeded to a cutler's shop, where he procured a powerful dagger-knife. Armed with this, he returned, and sent in a message to the gentleman with whom he had quarrelled. Suspecting nothing, the latter came into the antechamber, the assassin rushed upon him, stabbed him to the heart, and left him weltering in his blood. Another version of the story was, that he waited for his victim till he came into the cloak-room, and struck him as he was in the act of putting on his overcoat. After a long delay, the criminal was tried. The defence put forward on his behalf was that he had seized a knife in the heat of the moment when the quarrel took place, and had slain his adversary in a moment of passion; but evidence, as I understand, went strongly to prove that a considerable interval elapsed between the time of the dispute and the commission of the murder. The prisoner had the assistance of able and ingenious counsel; he was acquitted. His acquittal was mainly due to the judicious disposition of a large sum of money; each juror; when he retired to dinner previous to consulting over the verdict, was enabled to find the sum of 1000 dollars under his plate; nor was it clear that the judge and sheriff had not participated in the bounty; in fact, I heard a dispute as to the exact amount which it is supposed the murderer had to pay. He now occupies, under the Confederate Government, the post at New Orleans which he lately held as representative of the Government of the United States.

After dinner I went in company of some of my hosts to the Boston Club, which has, I need not say, no connection with the city of that name. More fires, the tocsin sounding, and so to bed.

SOURCE: William Howard Russell, My Diary North and South, p. 240-2

Diary of 5th Sergeant Alexander G. Downing: Friday, February 24, 1865

We started on our march at 7 this morning, our division again taking the advance. We marched twenty miles, and all the way in a fearful northeast rain, accompanied by a high wind. The country is getting very rough. Some of our foragers have been horribly butchered by the rebels' cavalry during the last few days. Such atrocities as we have witnessed make the horrors of the battlefield seem like tender mercies. In one instance one of our couriers was found hanged on the roadside with a paper attached to his person bearing the words: “Death to all foragers.” At another place we found three men shot dead with a similar notice on their bodies. Yesterday our cavalry in the direction of Chesterfield found twenty-one of our infantry lying dead in a ravine with their throats cut. There was no note giving a reason for the frightful murders.

Source: Alexander G. Downing, Edited by Olynthus B., Clark, Downing’s Civil War Diary, p. 256

Colonel Charles Russell Lowell to John M. Forbes, August 12, 1863

Centreville, Aug. 12, '63.

I am very sorry that the conscription is being made such a farce — somebody must be neglecting his duty shamefully.

I agree with you that we are likely to get more aid from blacks than from conscripts, — States seem to me likely to fall short of their quotas, even when the second class is reached. Might not an impulse be given to recruiting contrabands in territory still recognized as rebel by enlisting State enterprise? For example, let Massachusetts organize a skeleton Brigade (as in case of Colonel Wilde), and for every two thousand men obtained receive credit for one thousand on her quota and take the $300 per man (or any less sum the Government would allow) to pay expenses of getting the two men. I know there are grave objections to such a scheme, but I believe the work of recruiting would go on with far more success.

I feel all that you say about “inglorious warfare,” but it is “all in the day's work,” Mr. Forbes, — and has to be done. You must not exaggerate the danger. Mosby is more keen to plunder than to murder, — he always runs when he can.¹ As to insignia of rank, I never encourage my officers to wear any conspicuously, nor do I think most of them are distinguishable at 100 yards. I have my private feeling about the matter, — and if I am to be shot from behind a fence would still rather be in uniform than out of it. I never express this feeling to my officers, however, Mr. Forbes.

_______________

¹ A letter of General Lee to General Stuart shows that, before the “Partisan Rangers” had been four months at work, the military advantages to the Confederacy of their keeping a large force around Washington already began to be outweighed by the obvious evils which must result where discipline was lax, and the soldier kept what horses, clothing, arms, and valuables he took. General Lee, writing on August 18, 1863, observes that Mosby seems to have a large number of men, yet to strike with very few; and “his attention seems more directed to the capture of sutlers' wagons, etc., than to the injury of the enemy's communications and outposts. The capture and destruction of wagon-trains is advantageous, but the supply of the Federal Army is carried on by the railroad.  . . . I do not know the cause for undertaking his expeditions with so few men, whether it is from policy, or the difficulty of collecting them. I have heard of his men, among them officers, being in rear of this army, selling captured goods, sutlers' stores, etc. This had better be attended to by others. It has also been reported to me that many deserters from the army had joined him.  . . . If this is true, I am sure it must be without the knowledge of Major Mosby.” {Rebellion Record.)

The official correspondence of General King with headquarters at Washington, and Colonel Lowell's reports, always brief, business-like and conservative, show that August was an active month. Besides Mosby's plundering incursions and picket attacks, he had a new guerrilla foe to deal with in White, as appears in the following extracts from official sources: —

Centreville, Aug. 1, 1863.

Col. J. H. Taylor, Chief Of Staff, Washington, — Colonel Lowell goes to Washington to-day to report, as ordered. He returned from an expedition last night, bringing in about twenty horses captured from Mosby, and all the prisoners taken by Mosby at Fairfax. The gang scattered in all directions, and thus eluded pursuit.

Rufus King, Brigadier-General.

Mosby reports to General Stuart that, on August 11, he captured nineteen wagons, with teams and many stores; also twenty-five prisoners.

On August 12, Colonel Lowell reported to Washington the recent capture of sutlers' trains by Mosby's and White's men, and that he had sent out parties to look for them, and adds:

“I sent in 61 horses on Monday and 55 more to-day, most of them United States horses, some captured, some collected to the northwest of here, and some near Maple Valley.”

August 15. Colonel Lowell advised from Washington to try to find and attack White near Dranesville.

August 20. Colonel Lowell reports his search for guerrillas, lasting two or three days, following up all traces — “could not get a fight out of White” — picked up ten prisoners. Reports that White is seldom with his battalion (about two hundred and fifty strong), but passes about the country with a strong escort. “White is looking up recruits and deserters. He has now six companies, with over 700 men on his rolls, and prisoners say that he expects to take that number with him when he leaves the country.”

August 25. General King reports to Washington that one hundred rebel cavalry attacked a party of the Thirteenth N. Y. Cavalry [this was a part of Colonel Lowell's brigade] and ran off one hundred horses.

August 30. General King reports that a party of infantry and cavalry, sent out to Dranesville, found few guerrillas, but learned that White was at Broad Run enforcing the conscription, and that Mosby had been recently wounded and carried beyond the mountains.

September 3. General Humphreys writes to Colonel Lowell, commanding at Centreville, as to White's movements, and adds, “A Richmond paper of 1st Sept. states that Mosby received two serious wounds in the fight near Fairfax Court House, and has been taken to his father's residence near Amherst.”

SOURCE: Edward Waldo Emerson, Life and Letters of Charles Russell Lowell, p. 295-6, 439-42

Lieutenant-Colonel Rutherford B. Hayes to Sophia Birchard Hayes, November 25, 1861

Camp Union, Fayetteville, Virginia,

November 25, 1861.

Dear Mother: — I have just read your letter written at Delaware, and am glad to know you are so happy with Arcena and the other kind friends. You may feel relieved of the anxiety you have had about me.

After several days of severe marching, camping on the ground without tents, once in the rain and once on the snow, we have returned from a fruitless chase after Floyd's Rebel army, and are now comfortably housed in the deserted dwellings of a beautiful village. We have no reports of any enemy near us and are preparing for winter. We should quarter here if the roads to the head of navigation would allow. As it is we shall probably go to a steamboat landing on the Kanawha. Snow is now three or four inches deep and still falling. We are on high ground — perhaps a thousand feet above the Kanawha River — and twelve miles from Gauley Mountain.

Our troops are very healthy. We have here in my regiment six hundred and sixty-two men of whom only three are seriously ill. Perhaps fifteen others are complaining so as to be excused from guard duty. The fever which took down so many of our men has almost disappeared. . . .

This is a rugged mountain region, with large rushing rivers of pure clear water (we drink it at Cincinnati polluted by the Olentangy and Scioto) and full of the grandest scenery I have ever beheld. I rode yesterday over Cotton Hill and along New River a distance of thirty miles. I was alone most of the day, and could enjoy scenes made still wilder by the wintry storm.

We do not yet hear of any murders by bushwhackers in this part of Virginia, and can go where we choose without apprehension of danger. We meet very few men. The poor women excite our sympathy constantly. A great share of the calamities of war fall on the women. I see women unused to hard labor gathering corn to keep starvation from the door. I am now in command of the post here, and a large part of my time is occupied in hearing tales of distress and trying to soften the ills the armies have brought into this country. Fortunately a very small amount of salt, sugar, coffee, rice, and bacon goes a great ways where all these things are luxuries no longer procurable in the ordinary way. We try to pay for the mischief we do in destroying corn, hay, etc., etc., in this way.

We are well supplied with everything. But clothes are worn out, lost, etc., very rapidly in these rough marches. People disposed to give can't go amiss in sending shoes, boots, stockings, thick shirts and drawers, mittens or gloves, and blankets. Other knickknacks are of small account.

Give my love to Arcena, Sophia, and to Mrs. Kilbourn.

Affectionately,

R. B. Hayes.

SOURCE: Charles Richard Williams, editor, Diary and Letters of Rutherford Birchard Hayes, Volume 2, p. 146-7

John Brown Jr. to Jason Brown et al, August 16, 1856

Camp Of U. S. Cavalry, Near Lecompton, Kansas,

Aug. 16, 1856.

Dear Brother Jason And Others, — Agreeably with my promise to write often, I have sent you lately not less than four letters, — one or two by private hands, the others by mail. Events of the most stirring character are now passing within hearing distance. I should think more than two hundred shots have been fired within the past half hour, and within a mile of our camp. Have just learned that some eighty of our Free-State men have “pitched into” a proslavery camp this side of Lecompton, which was commanded by a notorious proslavery scoundrel named Titus, one of the Buford party from Alabama. A dense volume of smoke is now rising in the vicinity of his house. The firing has ceased, and we are most impatient to learn the result.

During the past month the Ruffians have been actively at work, and have made not less than five intrenched camps, where they have in different parts of the Territory established themselves in armed bands, well provided with provisions, arms, and ammunition. From these camps they sally out, steal horses, and rob Free-State settlers (in several cases murdering them), and then slip back into their camp with their plunder. Last week a body of our men made a descent upon Franklin,¹ and after a skirmishing fight of about three hours took their barracks, and recovered some sixty guns and a cannon, of which our men had been robbed some months since, on the road from Westport. Our loss was one man killed and two severely wounded, but it is thought they will recover. The enemy were in a log building, from which they kept up a sharp fire, while they themselves were quite unexposed. Our men then had recourse to a system of tactics not laid down in Scott. They procured a wagon loaded with hay, and running it down against the building set it on fire, when the rascals immediately surrendered. Yesterday our men had invested another of their fortified camps on Washington Creek, a south branch of the Wakarusa; and it was expected that an attack would be made upon it last night.

Hurrah for our side! A messenger has just come in, stating that on the approach of our men, some two hundred and fifty or three hundred in number, at Washington Creek yesterday, towards evening, the enemy broke and fled, leaving behind, to fall into the hands of our men, a lot of provisions and a hundred stand of arms. But this is not all. The notorious Colonel Titus, who only a day or two since was heard to declare that “Free-State men had only two weeks longer to remain in Kansas,” went out last night on a marauding expedition, in which he took six prisoners and a lot of horses. This morning our men followed him closely and fell upon his camp, killed two of his men, liberated the prisoners he had taken, took him and ten other prisoners, set fire to his house, and with a lot of arms, tents, provisions, etc., returned, having in the fight had only one of our men seriously wounded.

_______________

¹ Four miles south of Lawrence. The fights that followed are those mentioned by Atchison on page 309.

SOURCE: Franklin B. Sanborn, The Life and Letters of John Brown, p. 311-2

Governor Samuel J. Kirkwood to Allen Hale, William Cochran and Thomas Moorman, August 8, 1863

State Of Iowa, Executive Office,

August 8, 1863.

Messrs. Allen Hale, Wm. Cochran and Thos. Moorman.

South English, Iowa.

Gentlemen: — I have learned with regret the unfortunate occurrence at your place on Saturday last, and also that there is danger of further conflict and disturbance in consequence. I of course cannot determine where the fault is, or who are the parties responsible, but it is very clear that this is a matter to be determined by the court and not by a mob. If it shall turn out that Tally was unlawfully killed, the law must show who is the guilty person, and must inflict the punishment If a mob of his friends are permitted to determine who is guilty, and to inflict punishment, it is just as probable that the innocent will suffer as the guilty. Such proceedings unsettle society and render every man's life and property insecure.

I have sent to the sheriff of Washington county forty stands of arms and ammunition for the same, for you. These arms are intended only and strictly for the defense of your people against any lawless attack on your town by a mob, and for the purpose of aiding the lawful authorities in enforcing the laws and maintaining the public peace. They must not be used for any other purpose, or in any other manner. You must keep your people strictly on the defensive, and clearly within the law. You must not resist the execution of legal process, but must aid in enforcing and executing it. If you are attacked by a mob of rioters and lawless men you will of course defend yourselves.

The public mind is much excited by the acts of mischievous and designing men, and it becomes law abiding and peaceful citizens not to add to this excitement. Act prudently, coolly and lawfully.

I trust the threatened danger may pass over without further disturbance.

I have written the sheriff of your county to act in this matter. Until his arrival I must trust to your judgment and discretion, upon his arrival act under his authority.

Very respectfully,

SAMUEL J. KLRKWOOD.

SOURCE: Henry Warren Lathrop, The Life and Times of Samuel J. Kirkwood, Iowa's War Governor, p. 248-9

Proclamation of Governor Samuel J. Kirkwood, March 23, 1863

PROCLAMATION BY THE GOVERNOR.

Executive Office Of Iowa,

Iowa City, March 23, 1863.

To the People Of Iowa:

There is reason to believe that a very considerable number of men, some of whom have been in the Rebel army, and others of whom have, as guerrillas, been engaged in plundering and murdering Union men in the State of Missouri, have taken refuge in this State to escape the punishment due to their crimes, and that instead of seeking to merit a pardon of past offences by living peaceably and quietly among us, as becomes good citizens, many of them are endeavoring to array a portion of our people in armed resistance to the laws. And I very deeply regret to say there is reason to believe that some of our people have been found weak enough to aid them in their mischievous designs.

These men, by bold and fierce denunciations of certain acts of the President and of the Congress of the United States as unconstitutional, and by industriously teaching that the citizen may lawfully resist by force what he deems an unconstitutional act or law, and in other ways are seeking to array such as may be duped and deceived by their artful and wicked machinations into armed resistance to the General Government, and to inaugurate civil war within our limits, thus exposing their dupes to the punishment due to traitors, and our State to the storm of war, which has swept as with fire the State of Missouri. These men are endeavoring to induce our soldiers in the field to desert their colors, thus exposing them to the penalty of desertion, which is death, and are endeavoring to induce our citizens to violate the law by resisting the arrest of deserters, and a conscription in this State, if ordered, thereby exposing themselves to the punishment due such criminal acts.

It is my duty to, and I therefore do, warn these men that their courses are fraught with peril to themselves and the peace and good order of the State, and if persisted in to the extremity they intend will certainly bring punishment; and I also warn all the good people of the State, as they value peace and good order, and would avoid the horrors of civil war, not to be misled by these wicked and designing men, who, having nothing to lose, hope for plunder and profit in the license of civil war. The laws of the General Government will be enforced among us at any cost and at all hazards, and the men who array themselves in armed resistance to the laws will certainly be overpowered and punished. As long as those who have sought shelter in Iowa from other States behave as quiet and peaceable citizens, I have no disposition to interfere with or molest them; but it cannot be tolerated that these men who have been compelled to flee from their own State for fear of punishment for crimes committed against, the laws of their own State, or of the United States, should, while enjoying the protection of our laws, be permitted to bring among our peaceful homes, and upon our peaceful people, all the horrors they have brought upon the State from which they have fled. We owe it not only to ourselves and our families, but much more to the families of those who have left us to defend on the battlefield the life of our country that we preserve peace and good order at home. It must be a bitter reflection to our gallant soldiers that while they are enduring the hardships and dangers of a soldier's life in defense of their country, bad men at home are plotting to bring on their unprotected families the dangers of civil war.

Moved by these considerations, I have this day notified the proper authorities of the United States and of the State of Missouri that many criminals against their laws are in Iowa engaged, as I believe, in inciting rebellion, and that I shall insist on their arrest and removal when necessary, and their trial for their crime if their conduct shall continue to be such as is dangerous to the peace and safety of the State; and I enjoin upon all good citizens who know that such men are among them that they especially notice their demeanor and conduct, and if it be seditious and dangerous that they furnish the United States District Attorney or the United States Marshal, or either of the Congressional District Provost Marshals, to be appointed, or myself, with their names and affidavits, showing their criminality before their coming to this State, and their conduct since, to the end that our State may be relieved of the danger of their presence.

Samuel J. Kirkwood.

SOURCE: Henry Warren Lathrop, The Life and Times of Samuel J. Kirkwood, Iowa's War Governor, p. 238-40

Baltimore, March 7 [1862].

Private James H. Kuhns, of the 2d Md. Regiment, will be hung at Fort McHenry for the murder of Lieut. J. Davis Whitsen.

– Published in The Davenport Daily Gazette, Davenport, Iowa, Saturday Morning, March 8, 1862, p. 1