Left Richmond
yesterday about 6:30 o'clock a. m. Found a number of the Texas Brigade and a
few of my regiment on the cars and soon became acquainted with them. The trip
was monotonous, as usual, until we reached Gordonsville, where the crowd was so
great that twenty of us had to stand on the platform. General J. E. B. Stuart
was aboard and appeared to be very fond of ladies and flowers. He is of medium
size, well formed, fair complexion, blue eyes, whiskers and mustache of
sun-burnt reddish color, usually accompanying fair skin. I had quite a pleasant
time on the platform watching the attempts of the proscribed to get a seat in
the cars and their repulse by the provost guard. The cars were for the
accommodation of ladies and commissioned officers. I never knew soldiers of any
grade to be put in the same category with women before. I happened, however, to
meet Tom Lipscomb, my old college classmate, who is now a major, who managed to
get me in under his wing. We had a long talk about Columbia and old college
days. He informed me that Lamar Stark, my wife's brother, was a prisoner
confined in the old capitol in Washington city. We reached Mitchell's Station
at 4 o'clock p. m.; walked five miles, a hot walk, to camp on the Rapidan,
near Raccoon Ford. My regiment, the Fourth Texas, has a delightful camping
place in a grove of large chestnut trees, on a hillside. We have no tents and
the ground is hard and rocky, but we are all satisfied, and one day's
observation has led me to believe that no army on earth can whip these men.
They may be cut to pieces and killed, but routed and whipped, never! I called
on Colonel B. F. Carter this morning and had quite a pleasant interview. He is
a calm, determined man, and one of the finest officers in the division. To-day
was the regular time for inspection and review. One barefooted and ragged hero
came to Colonel Carter's Tent with the inquiry, "Colonel, do you want the
barefooted men to turn out today?" to which the Colonel replied
negatively, with a smile. I went out to the review which took place in an open
field about 600 yards from camp. There were some ladies on horseback on the
field. Their presence was cheering and grateful. They were all dressed in
black, as were more than two-thirds
of the women in the Confederacy. On returning to camp I called on Major Bass,
of the First Texas, and gave him $25.00, which I had received for him from
Lieutenant Ochiltree, at Shreveport, Louisiana, to be handed to Bass if I did
not need it.
I received two
haversacks to-day, miserably weak and slazy, made of thin cotton cloth. I have
only taken a change of underwear, towel, soap and Bible and Milton's Paradise
Lost. I have sent all the rest to Richmond with my carpet sack, to be left
at Mrs. Mary E. Fisher's, on Franklin street, half way between Sixth and
Seventh.
I wrote a letter to
mother and one to wife to-day and read the 104th Psalm. I opened to it by chance,
and it contained just what I felt.
SOURCE: John Camden
West, A Texan in Search of a Fight: Being the Diary and Letters of a
Private Soldier in Hood’s Texas Brigade, pp. 52-4
