Nothing new at all today, a little skirmishing over the River. Some Rebels killed and sixteen prisoners taken and brought in here last night. I have not been out and have not been on Pa. Ave for some days past.
SOURCE: Horatio
Nelson Taft, The
Diary of Horatio Nelson Taft, 1861-1865. Volume 1, January 1,1861-April 11,
1862, Library of Congress, Manuscript Division, Washington D. C.
Cloudy today and snow towards evening. Dispatch rcd today by the War Dept that Burnside had taken Roanoke Island with many prisoners, particulars perhaps tomorrow. Went up to the RR Depot after dinner and then up the Ave to Willards Hotel. Quite a crowd there, a great many army officers. The Statuelike Dragoons were stationed all along the Ave not, as the corrispondant of the London Times (Russell) says, to prevent a “rising” of the people, but to prevent fast driving and to keep order in the streets.
SOURCE: Horatio
Nelson Taft, The
Diary of Horatio Nelson Taft, 1861-1865. Volume 1, January 1,1861-April 11,
1862, Library of Congress, Manuscript Division, Washington D. C.
The City is quite wild with Excitement today at the reported capture of Fort Donoldson with 15000 prisoners. It is not yet confirmed. We all hope & rejoice. Good news also from Genl Lander, he has made an important capture of rebel officers & Stores near Winchester V.A.
Capt White of the 27th came over from Camp today and gave us a call, he returned this evening. Union Stock has raised astonishingly within three or four days past. We have been sometime getting ready to fight and now the “ball” is open. No obstruction now but Bad roads. Spent the evening at home, it has snowed all day.
SOURCE: Horatio
Nelson Taft, The
Diary of Horatio Nelson Taft, 1861-1865. Volume 1, January 1,1861-April 11,
1862, Library of Congress, Manuscript Division, Washington D. C.
After a day or two of great anxiety we have today rcd ample confirmation of the reports in reference to the great Victory at Fort Donoldson, 15000 prisoners, 4 Generals, and an immense quantity of Military Stores. I[t] must have been a most desperate fight. We have no particulars to be relied on but it is reported that the Rebels lost 10000 killed and wounded. It is also reported that Savannah is taken. The Streets here were gladed with ice this morning. This afternoon it has rained. Snow going off fast. Called into our next neighbor Forneys tonight with my wife.
SOURCE: Horatio
Nelson Taft, The
Diary of Horatio Nelson Taft, 1861-1865. Volume 1, January 1,1861-April 11,
1862, Library of Congress, Manuscript Division, Washington D. C.
Bright and pleasant.
Stayed with my next
door neighbors at their request last night—all females. It was quiet; and so
far the United States pickets and guards have preserved perfect order.
The cheers that
greeted President Lincoln were mostly from the negroes and Federals comprising
the great mass of humanity. The white citizens felt annoyed that the city
should be held mostly by negro troops. If this measure were not unavoidable, it
was impolitic if conciliation be the purpose.
Mr. Lincoln, after
driving to the mansion lately occupied by Mr. Davis, Confederate States
President, where he rested, returned, I believe, to the fleet at Rocketts.
This morning
thousands of negroes and many white females are besieging the public officers
for provisions. I do not observe any getting them, and their faces begin to
express disappointment.
It is said all the
negro men, not entering the army, will be put to work, rebuilding bridges,
repairing railroads, etc.
I have seen a New
York Herald of the 3d, with dispatches of the 1st and 2d inst. from Mr.
Lincoln, who was at City Point during the progress of the battle. He sums up
with estimate of 12,000 prisoners captured, and 50 guns.
The rumor of a
success by Gen. Lee on Monday is still credited. Per contra, it is reported
that President Davis is not only a captive, but will soon be exhibited in
Capitol Square.
The Rev. Mr.
Dashiell, who visited us to-day, said it was reported and believed that 6000
South Carolina troops threw down their arms; and that a large number of
Mississippians deserted giving such information to the enemy as betrayed our
weak points, etc.
Three P.M. I feel
that this Diary is near its end.
The burnt district
includes all the banks, money-changers, and principal speculators and
extortioners. This seems like a decree from above!
Four P.M. The Square
is nearly vacated by the negroes. An officer told me they intended to put them
in the army in a few days, and that the Northern people did not really like
negro equality any better than we did.
Two rumors prevail:
that Lee gained a victory on Monday, and that Lee has capitulated, with 35,000
men.
The policy of the
conquerors here, I believe, is still undecided, and occupies the attention of
Mr. Lincoln and his cabinet.
SOURCE: John
Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate
States Capital, Volume 2, p. 471-2
Cloudy and misty. It
is reported that Gen. Johnston has surrendered his army in North Carolina,
following the example of Gen. Lee. But no salutes have been fired in honor of
the event. The President (Davis) is supposed to be flying toward the
Mississippi River, but this is merely conjectural. Undoubtedly the war is at an
end, and the Confederate States Government will be immediately extinct—its
members fugitives. From the tone of leading Northern papers, we have reason to
believe President Lincoln will call Congress together, and proclaim an amnesty,
etc.
Judge Campbell said
to Mr. Hart (clerk in the Confederate States War Department) yesterday that
there would be no arrests, and no oath would be required. Yet ex-Captain Warner
was arrested yesterday, charged with ill treating Federal prisoners, with
registering a false name, and as a dangerous character. I know the contrary of
all this; for he has been persecuted by the Confederate States authorities for
a year, and forced to resign his commission.
My application to
Gen. Shepley for permission to remove my family to the Eastern Shore, where
they have relatives and friends, and may find subsistence, still hangs fire.
Every day I am told to call the next
day, as it has not been acted upon.
SOURCE: John
Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate
States Capital, Volume 2, p. 474-5
Night cold. ice 2 inches off. at 7. road bad 4 miles slow. rest of march fast. 1 pris. taken. 25 Rebs seen by scout. Make 12 miles. troops from Pine Bluffs with us 106th & 126th Ill. Inft & 1 sec of Negro battery
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. 572
Inft in camp all day, forage party find plenty. 9. Wis Party bring in two prisoners Col Mackey & 3 of staff with guard of 50 cav cross river to get news of cav. Pantoon boats canvass. Fagan with 2500 reported at Montocello
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. 572
Inft in camp all day. A wounded Reb found in the brush near the bridge. at 12. M, Col Mackey returns. was out and camped 10 miles, heard nothing of Cav. At 1. P. M. go to see the Prisoners 25 in no. 1 spunky sergt. 2 little boys only temporairly detained. Cav return at 4 P. M. with 20 Prisoners & 95 head of cattle had been within 15 miles of Camden 2 last days pleasant.
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. 572
Start back at 7. Morning drizzly Very hard marching. one Pris taken by the 9. Wis. dressed in uniform will say who or what he is. drizzly rain nearly all day.
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. 572
Still dark and
gloomy with a drissling rain. Our Regt.
returned about 8½ O'clock had no brush with the Enemy took 600 or 700 bushels
wheat & 4 secesh prisoners. Battalion Drill this afternoon
Camp McClernand Cairo Ills.
Nothing of an
exciting character has transpired to day O & Co. of Light Artillery left
camp cairo this afternoon where bound tis not known with us. Hickman &
Brown were with the Regt. found Wm Sullivan today.
SOURCE: Transactions
of the Illinois State Historical Society for the Year 1909, p. 229
Rienzi. We awoke in
a wet bed, it having rained very hard the latter part of the night. We received
orders to march for Jacinto at 3 A. M. but countermanded before doing any harm
save the usual harnessing up by the drivers about 9 A. M. The prisoners
captured at Danville, twenty-three in number, including two captains, were
marched to headquarters.
SOURCE: Jenkin Lloyd
Jones, An Artilleryman's Diary, p. 6
Scalding heat during
forenoon; heavy showers follow. Water is running through camp like a flood.
Prisoners reported missing, rations suspended; Rebels are making a stir on the
outside.
Finished
"Paradise Lost"; called on Harriman. He supplied us with Pollock's
"ourse of Time." We had read this, but it is now more acceptable. In
our view it is a work of more natural thought and imbibes less of the
unnatural. Milton has soulstirring passages, alive with truth, significant
expression and beautiful simplicity. Then he goes deeply into themes beyond
most conceptions; we don't wish to not, unless this is "Paradise
Lost." Confederacy when he said:
follow him, or
cannot, have Did he mean the Southern
"Devils with devils damned firm concord
hold."
Did he mean the North when he wrote:
"Men only disagree of creatures
rational,
Though under hope of heavenly grace"
how they should save the Union?
The following lines express a truth in human experience:
"God proclaiming peace,
Yet men live in hatred, enmity and strife
Among themselves, and levy cruel wars
Wasting the earth, each other to destroy,
As if man had not hellish foes enough
besides,
That day and night for his destruction
wait."
Milton seems to have
designed to impress the thought that man had hellish foes distinct from his
race, awaiting his destruction, which originated through rebellious war in
heaven. I think the causes of our troubles lie in our lack of knowledge and
misconception of our social relations, wicked ambition, foolish pride, and that
these lines better fit an earthly than a heavenly realm.
The usual monotony
except an unusual amount of firing by sentry. Prisoners arrive daily from both
our great armies. Men crowd near them to get news and hardtack; occasionally
old friends meet. About half the camp draw raw meal; we are of that half this
week; have the trouble of cooking it without salt or seasoning or wood, half
the time. We stir it in water, bake it on plates held over a splinter fire with
a stiff stick, or boil it into mush or dumplings, baking or boiling as long as
fuel lasts.
SOURCE: John Worrell
Northrop, Chronicles from the Diary of a War Prisoner in Andersonville
and Other Military Prisons of the South in 1864, p. 70-1
Heavy showers all
day to near evening. The ground is soaked; thousands walk or lay in mud without
covering unless they are among those who have some frail shelter, the latter
being but a small percentage of the whole. I feel fortunate to share the frail
shelter of worthy comrades. It does much to ward off sun and storm; but our bed
in the sand is exposed. We dig trenches to prevent water from running over it,
still it soaks through. Water comes from the upper part in swift brooklets,
sweeping every pool of foulness below. I will record, and hope I may not refer
to it again, this fact: Men unable to go to the swamp sinks, have holes dug
close by where they lay. The rains wash these away or overflow them, and the
filthy contents are carried into our resting places. These violent storms
render the condition of the sick more sad. I met J. B. Hawks of Michigan, and
Peter Shaffer, 22nd N. Y. cavalry, who resides in Nelson, N. Y., today. Shaffer
was taken May 8th on a cavalry raid, was robbed of everything except his
clothes, including $50.
SOURCE: John Worrell
Northrop, Chronicles from the Diary of a War Prisoner in Andersonville
and Other Military Prisons of the South in 1864, p. 71
A cold rain
continued during the night. What would the good folks at home say could they
see this camp this cool, wet morning—men lying in the wet sand? Could they have
heard the coughing of thousands as I heard it when I walked the camp to shake
off the cold that chilled wet clothing, would they not say: Now that so much
has been imperiled for the country, let us make it a glory and a blessing to
ages, an honor to ourselves, our institutions the abode of liberty, a beacon
that shall light the world and silence the wrath of treason? There are 20,000
within a space so small that a strangling cough can be heard from one side to
the other.
Report that nine men
tunneled out and one guard escaped with them. The tunnel is found and being
filled. Col. Parsons was inside; he thinks exchange is agreed upon, but
can't be effected
for our forces cover the point in the cartel. Were that all we should soon be
relieved. He is quite familiar with a few of us and expressed a feeling that he
would resign his command were it possible. He was sent for duty here because
the most of his command are prisoners. Earlier in the war he was twice a
prisoner, captured by Burnside's men, and was well treated. He says men are
sent here without any provision made for shelter, and he has no orders or means to
furnish it; that it is not the fault of the local commissary that we are left
to suffer. Wirz is the jailor, a morose, inclement tempered man. It requires
but little to get him in a rage. He is called "the old Dutch Captain";
is generally hated. Men caught in attempting escape are unreasonably punished
by wearing ball and chain, bucking and gagging, putting in stocks, hanging by
thumbs, by lash and close confinement.
Prisoners in today
report the two armies on to Richmond, Lee with his right, Grant with his left;
Kilpatrick 25 miles in the rear of Atlanta tearing up roads.
SOURCE: John Worrell
Northrop, Chronicles from the Diary of a War Prisoner in Andersonville
and Other Military Prisons of the South in 1864, p. 71-2
Wirz, Gen. John H.
Winder, commissary general of prisoners, Howell Cobb and several minor
personages came inside on horseback and rode partly through the prison and
along the stockade over the dead line as far as possible. Winder is said to be
invested with full authority over prison matters. Howell Cobb was the Secretary
of the United States Treasury under Buchanan, just prior to the secession of
Georgia, and was the provisional president of the so-called Confederacy, before
Davis.
SOURCE: John Worrell
Northrop, Chronicles from the Diary of a War Prisoner in Andersonville
and Other Military Prisons of the South in 1864, p. 72
The impression is
growing that the situation is more and more unfavorable every day. Hospitals
are overflowing with sick and no more admittance, though crowds throng at the
gate daily; deaths are rapidly increasing. The numbers laying about, helpless
and speechless, are growing daily. Thompson reported a particular case to the
gate, asking help, and got the answer: "You Yanks help yourselves."
Sergeants of detachments have reported so many cases of insane, helpless and
entirely naked men, and got no satisfaction, that they ceased to do so.
A much worn Atlantic
Monthly of 1861, fell into my hands which I read with interest;
"Concerning Veal," by the author of "Recreations of a Country
Parson," and "Nat Turner, the Slave Insurrectionist of 1831,"
who aroused all Virginia to defend slavery. I noticed today a man with the
whole lower part of his body buried in dirt as a remedy for scurvy.
SOURCE: John Worrell
Northrop, Chronicles from the Diary of a War Prisoner in Andersonville
and Other Military Prisons of the South in 1864, p. 72-3
A week of rain. Five
hundred more prisoners, twenty being marines, captured as late as May 27th.
Since yesterday morning the number of deaths are put at 110 inside the prison.
They are being carried out on wagons six at a time, for burial. They are thrown
on as if they were logs of wood; the driver takes a stand between them and as
he moves, the limpsy bodies bump and knock about.
A wreckless tempered
man struck one of his companions with a club, inflicting a fatal wound on the
back of his head, fracturing his skull. The quarrel arose over which should
have the first right to the fire for cooking. The man is insensible. A crowd
gathered around the assailant and gave him a course of buck and gag, the same
club being used for the gag. Thirty of us go to the gate and ask permission to
go out under guard to get poles and brush to build shelter for the sick laying
on the streets and in the swamp in deplorable condition. We were refused,
harshly cursed and ordered away by Capt. Wirz. The opinion is strong that it is
the Confederate policy to destroy as many of us as possible, but in a way to
evade the censure of the world. There seems to be a studied disregard of the
rights of prisoners. It is said that Gen. Winder boasted exultingly that his
prison policy would kill as many men as Joe Johnston would in his opposition to
Sherman. The hot headed leadership of the South, the mad spirit with which they
plunged into war, the unholy purpose for which it is waged, furnish precedents
for such belief. The means is justified by the end, assuming that the end were
justifiable. At best the better instincts of humanity, or fear of the power of
civilization, seems to be all there is in our favor to save us from butchery or
utter starvation. The foulness of this physical corruption and the fiendish
conduct by which it is produced, fitly represent the animus of their cause. No
men were ever more implicitly trusted by the masses than the leaders of the
South; no people were ever more treacherously led to trouble. We can now see
how foolish and infernal human nature can be, how perverted man's sense of
right may be! We also see how men can be degraded, pressed to the very dust and
filth with worms, and still retain a sense of justice! Our hearts are void of
malice.
SOURCE: John Worrell
Northrop, Chronicles from the Diary of a War Prisoner in Andersonville
and Other Military Prisons of the South in 1864, p. 73
Four days I have
been ill. Among new men bloody flux and dysentery prevail; this is my trouble.
I am better today; a fine breeze lifts me. From last date it has rained every
day. We have news from my regiment. Adjutant Carpenter was killed in a charge,
both Col. Grover and Lieut. Col. Cook are disabled; Capt. J. L. Goddard, of my
company, in command. The movement of trains toward Americus is on account of
wounded Confederates being taken to Americus from battlefields about Atlanta.
All doctors absent; no sick call for a week. The dead are daily drawn out by
wagon loads.
On the 8th a
Catholic priest said to us he supposed we were badly treated, but there are as
kind hearted people about here as anywhere; that officers have it their own
way; thought our government unwilling to exchange, but if better provisions
could not be made for us, something ought to be done. Priests, though
frequently in, have little to say. They are said to be using their doctrinal
influence to get men to swear allegiance to the Confederacy. I do not accept
this as true, though one of Erin's sons frequently visited, who said to me that
he refused to renounce Uncle Sam, yesterday went out with the priest and has
not returned.
I am out of conceit
with many reports which originate in camp. I have no faith in innocent liars
who tell so much news. For instance: Lincoln is going to give two for one to
get us out; "is going to throw the nigger overboard to please
Rebels"; that Secretary Stanton has said that "none but dead beats
and coffee boilers are taken prisoners, and the army is better off without
them." Likely some Rebel started this story, but it had weight among some.
Indignant crowds gather and vent their curses on Stanton. Grant is cursed by some,
so is the President and the Cabinet; for these gossipers have but little depth
of thought and are easily moved by groundless rumors. It is cheering to know
many on whose eyes are no scales, logically rebutting these stories and laying
the blame of our abuse on the Rebel authorities, where it belongs. A small
ration of rice today.
SOURCE: John Worrell
Northrop, Chronicles from the Diary of a War Prisoner in Andersonville
and Other Military Prisons of the South in 1864, p. 73-4
Northeast storm
badly affects weak men. I know of twenty who since yesterday have sunk to utter
helplessness; others have died within a few hours. Their clothes are besmeared
with wet sand and soaked with water. The sand where we lay is wet as dough. Our
rations are so insufficient that we are continually hungry. Got boiled rice
again at night, totally unfit to eat. Several bushels are poured into large
kettles, greasy and nasty, and cooked with less care than if it were hog feed.
I believe hogs would loathe it. If it is merely economy to feed us so, it is
crowding them down closely to the provision line. Rumors of the renomination of
Lincoln and the nomination of Fremont on a side line. It is a Rebel lie or a
Yankee blunder, much talked about. If it is so, the action of the Fremont wing
is disapproved. I never strongly believed in Fremont, but the cause he essayed
to represent, he will not see sacrificed for per
Northeast storm.
Badly affects weak ultra anti-slavery men add themselves to the pro-slavery
party North, and defeat the policy of the government? They cannot succeed; they
can only defeat. The feeling here is for Lincoln. Twelve men escape; it is
reported six guards are gone. Tunnels are found and being filled. Rice and meal
rations.
SOURCE: John Worrell
Northrop, Chronicles from the Diary of a War Prisoner in Andersonville
and Other Military Prisons of the South in 1864, p. 74-5
