New Year’s Day. God prosper the New Year to those I love. Church with Ellie and Johnny; an effective sermon by Higby. Thereafter we took a cold “constitutional” up the Fifth Avenue to Forty-second Street, a rather vigorous winter day, still and sharp. Tonight is overcast, with promise of snow tomorrow.
SOURCE: Allan Nevins and Milton Halset Thomas, Editors, Diary of George Templeton Strong, Vol. 3, p. 2
A nice enough day,
did not go to church. worked part of the day on Pay rolls. Evening spent at the
house of Mr Goins in co with Mr Miller, in camp at 9, P. M. and drink Egg
nog.
SOURCE: “Diary of
John S. Morgan, Company G, Thirty-Third Iowa Infantry,” Annals of Iowa, Vol. XIII, No. 8, Third Series, Des Moines, April
1923, p. 570
Encamped at
Germantown, Tennessee, last night. Weather is grand and as I marched along at
the head of my company I could not but think of the last New Year when visiting
my friends and paying the compliments of the season, how different it was from
today, yet I truly confess that I feel happier here in doing whatever duty
assigned us, going wherever orders send us. As yet we have not had a real
battle. I know the men long for the first big fight but I am contented to take
it as it comes—it will come and from all appearances soon, and I fear those who
most hanker after it will not relish it so much.
SOURCE: Joseph
Stockton, War Diary (1862-5) of Brevet Brigadier General Joseph
Stockton, p. 7
COLUMBUS, December 27, 1867.
MY DARLING:—Am here waiting for my traps and calamities—I should say our—which will be here this afternoon and I hope to get them all in the house tomorrow. The carpets and other things I wish to get ready to put down and put in; but really very little in that way can be done without you. I have an impression we shall feel very homelike here when we do settle.
Love to all. I shall come up [to Fremont] in time for dinner New Year's day, if not before.
SOURCE: Charles Richard Williams, editor, Diary and Letters of Rutherford Birchard Hayes, Volume 3, p. 50
Snowed a few inches
in depth during the night clear and cool morning.
The new year begins
with the new rumor that Gen. Hood has turned upon Gen. Thomas and beaten him.
This is believed by many. Hood's army was not destroyed, and he retreated from
before Nashville with some 20,000 men. Doubtless he lost many cannon; but the Federal
accounts of his disaster were probably much exaggerated.
The cabinet still
remains.
The President is
considered really a man of ability, and eminently qualified to preside over the
Confederate States, if independence were attained and we had peace. But he is
probably not equal to the role he is now called upon to play. He has not the
broad intellect requisite for the gigantic measures needed in such a crisis,
nor the health and physique for the labors devolving on him. Besides he is too
much of a politician still to discard his old prejudices, and persists in
keeping aloof from him, and from commanding positions, all the great statesmen
and patriots who contributed most in the work of preparing the minds of the
people for resistance to Northern domination. And the consequence is that many
of these influential men are laboring to break down his administration, or else
preparing the people for a return to the old Union. The disaffection is intense
and wide-spread among the politicians of 1860, and consternation and despair
are expanding among the people. Nearly all desire to see Gen. Lee at the head
of affairs; and the President is resolved to yield the position to no man
during his term of service. Nor would Gen. Lee take it.
The proposition to
organize an army of negroes gains friends; because the owners of the slaves are
no longer willing to fight themselves, at least they are not as "eager for
the fray" as they were in 1861; and the armies must be replenished, or
else the slaves will certainly be lost.
Thus we begin the
new year—Heaven only knows how we shall end it! I trust we may be in a better
condition then. Of one thing I am certain, the PEOPLE are capable of achieving
independence, if they only had capable men in all departments of the
government.
The President was at
St. Paul's to-day, with a knit woolen cap on his head. Dr. Minnegerode preached
a sermon against the croakers. His son has been appointed a midshipman by the President.
SOURCE: John
Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate
States Capital, Volume 2, p. 371-2
We have spent three days in front of the enemy, and, notwithstanding the fact that we have been under the fire of one of their batteries and of their sharp-shooters all of the time, the Forty-first has not lost a single man. Yesterday we were out on picket, and were compelled to lie behind logs to prevent the enemy's sharp-shooters from picking us off. We lay in this position for twenty-four hours. Half of the time the rain was pouring down in torrents, but at day-light the rain closed, and the weather changed to freezing cold. We certainly passed a very disagreeable time during this day, for if we attempted to straighten our frozen and cramped limbs by rising to the erect position, the instant bang and whiz of a minnie-bullet about our ears proved the experiment was dangerous. [Donelson repeated.] I noticed that some of our fighting men at home were the first to get behind some convenient log and the last to leave its friendly shelter. As for myself, I make no pretensions to bravery at home or abroad, and I freely acknowledge that I laid very close to my log. The fact is, a bullet, which whistles like it had a shuck tied to it, does not give out a very musical sound to my ears.
SOURCE: Edwin L. Drake, Editor, The Annals of the Army of Tennessee and Early Western History, Vol. 1, p. 16-7
Yesterday passed off in comparative quiet; a few shot and
shell thrown from our batteries into the lines of the enemy, and a few rounds
from their sharp-shooters in return, was all that disturbed the Sabbath-like
stillness of the first day of the year. The enemy were engaged in burying their
dead, under flag of truce, and I understand that they have a big job of it. In
Sunday's and Monday's fighting we killed, wounded and captured near fifteen
hundred,* and sustained a very slight loss. The Third and Thirtieth Tennessee
and the First Louisiana regiments were the troops who bore the brunt of the
fight, and right nobly did they do their duty against the fearful odds.
* U. S. Official Report, 1929.
SOURCE: Edwin L. Drake, Editor, The Annals of the Army of Tennessee and Early Western History, Vol. 1, p. 17
Made complimentary call with my family on the President at 11 A.M. By special request I went some fifteen minutes before the time specified, but there were sixty or eighty carriages in advance of us. The persons who got up the programme were evidently wholly unfit for the business. Instead of giving the first half-hour to the Cabinet and the several legations, and then to Army and Navy officers, Members of Congress, etc., in succession, numbers, including Members of Congress, and they embrace everybody, all the members of their respective boarding-houses, all their acquaintances, immediate and remote, who were in Washington, were there at an early hour. Consequently there was neither order nor system. After a delay of about twenty minutes we were landed in the Executive Mansion, which was already filled to overflowing in the hall and anterooms. While moving in the crowd, near the entrance to the Red Room, some of the officials signed to us and threw open the door to the Blue Room, or reception-room, which we entered, much relieved; but on turning, we found the President and his family immediately behind us. The affair passed off very well. A great want of order and system prevails on these occasions, owing to the ignorance and want of order of the marshal. No one having any conception of discipline or forethought directs or counsels those in charge. We left in a very short time, and the company began to flock in upon us at our house before twelve, and until past four a pretty steady stream came and went, naval and army officers, foreign ministers, Senators and Representatives, bureau officers and clerks, civilians and strangers. Pleasant but fatiguing, and the day was murky and the roads intolerable.
Mr. Seward left on Saturday. The rest of the members received, as did many other officials.
Henry Winter Davis, a conspicuous Member of the last Congress and a Maryland politician of notoriety, died on Saturday. He was eloquent, possessed genius, had acquirements, was eccentric, ambitious, unreliable, and greatly given to intrigue. In politics he was a centralist, regardless of constitutional limitations. I do not consider his death a great public loss. He was restless and active, but not useful. Still there will be a class of extreme Radicals who will deplore his death as a calamity and eulogize his memory.
When at the Executive Mansion the memory of the late President crowded upon my mind. He would have enjoyed the day, which was so much in contrast with all those he had experienced during his presidency.
SOURCE: Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, Vol. 2: April 1, 1864 — December 31, 1866, p. 408-9
WASHINGTON, December 19, 1866.
DEAR UNCLE:— We have decided to accept an invitation to spend Christmas in New Orleans. It is probable we shall return by way of Fremont and be there about New Year's day. [Senator] Wade and wife are going with others; probably, also Buckland and wife. We shall probably send Rud to Fremont by Ashley or Trowbridge or somebody. I will be more specific perhaps before I close this. The excursion will go via Lynchburg, Knoxville, Chattanooga, Nashville, and Memphis, [and] spend two days at New Orleans.
As this was the
first day of the new year there was a general inspection of horses, arms, etc.
SOURCE: Richard R.
Hancock, Hancock's Diary: Or, A History of the Second Tennessee Confederate
Cavalry, p. 105
Sixty-four is
ushered in bleak and rough. The year has died, but its blood-wrought history
will live co-equal with time. The war clouds have hung long over a stricken
people bringing sadness and tears to many a hearthstone; but the voice of the
boys in blue now rolling from the tented field is positive. Shivering around
the camp fires they say we will give the lie to modern democracy; we will show
them that we are not tired of this "abolition war,” that we will not leave
the field while one hostile foe assails the flag.
“The mustering
officer!”—“The mustering officer!" is now the universal cry. Colonel, can
you not toll him out here? some one asks; "you know, Colonel, that he
always goes where they have the best and the most for the 'neck'" utters
one. But we will be compelled to wait his pleasure, for the colonel, as it
happens, don't work with men in that style.
This month we have
done nothing but move our camp once, and drill. Had to send all our baggage
away. Hereafter nothing more will be hauled for us in wagons. There are rumors
flying about that we will soon leave here.
The date admonishes me of passing time and accumulating years. Our country is still in the great struggle for national unity and national life; but progress has been made during the year that has just terminated, and it seems to me the Rebellion is not far from its close. The years that I have been here have been oppressive, wearisome, and exhaustive, but I have labored willingly, if sometimes sadly, in the cause of my country and of mankind.
What mischief has the press performed and is still doing in the Rebel States by stimulating the people to crime by appeals to their manhood, to their courage, to all that they hold dear, to prosecute the war against the most benignant government that a people ever had! Violent misrepresentation and abuse, such as first led them to rebel, are still continued. The suppression for a period of the Rebel press in Richmond, Charleston, and one or two other points would do more than armies in putting an end to this unnatural war.
Mr. Solicitor Chandler, who has charge of the cases of fraud at the Philadelphia Navy Yard, made a report and spent some time with me this morning.
1 M. F. Merritt of Connecticut, a personal friend of Secretary Welles.
SOURCE: Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, Vol. 2: April 1, 1864 — December 31, 1866, p. 218-9
The new year dawns peacefully, but not with a nation at peace. 1862 has been a year of blood, and 1863 may be likewise, for the loyal soldiers, with their bayonets, stand beneath the Union's battle-flag, all over this land, eager to follow it down where treason lifts its hydra-head ready to engage in the carnival of blood. To-day we are reminded that Lincoln's great proclamation takes effect. A chained race is declared free.
The Seventh's boys are now discussing the expediency of this proclamation. We discover that it has its advocates and its opposers among the members of the Seventh, some being fanatical in its praise, and others bitter in its denunciation, but the time will come when all will view this proclamation as the most powerful blow against the slave-holder's rebellion.
THE NEW YEAR.
By the blessing of God we have entered the portals of another year. Who knows what storms within it hide? Who can tell how many of us will enter on another year? but let us not despond; let us look with bright hopes to the future, going manfully forward, overcoming all obstacles in our path. We know the hardships, privations and dangers through which we have passed the last year, perils by sea and perils by land, meeting death in a thousand forms, but by an unseen hand have been brought safely through. It has now been fifteen months since our regiment was organized, and we then thought that by this time the trouble would be over and the rebellion would have become a thing of the past. But not so; it seems to have taken deeper root and there is no telling when it will end. It is true our armies have met with many successes and have also met with some reverses; the army of the Potomac has met with nothing but disaster from the first and will probably meet with nothing else until let alone by the war office at Washington. The enemy has a number of cruisers afloat making havoc with our merchant marine, and every success of their army inspires them with fresh hope and courage. I am reminded of what my new-found friend here in town told me a few days after we came here, that I would, if nothing happened to me, serve out my three years and could then re-enlist. I thought then the man was crazy, now I am not quite sure but he was the better prophet of the two.
SOURCE: David L. Day, My Diary of Rambles with the 25th Mass. Volunteer Infantry, p. 85
