Rutherford B. Hayes to Sardis Birchard, August 17, 1867

SPRINGFIELD, OHIO, August 17, 1867.

DEAR UNCLE:—I write from here not knowing if I shall have time to do so at home. I go home to spend Sunday today. Thus far all goes pleasantly. Luckily my best speech was to my best audience, and where I would have preferred it, at Dayton. Nobody with me yet. I expect Buck [land] next week.

Yours,

R. B. HAYES.

S. BIRCHARD.

SOURCE: Charles Richard Williams, editor, Diary and Letters of Rutherford Birchard Hayes, Volume 3, p. 47

Rutherford B. Hayes to Lucy Webb Hayes, Sunday, August 25, 1867

PORTSMOUTH, August 25, 1867, Sunday.

MY DARLING:—I could not get to Chillicothe today. Had a great crowd yesterday. In the middle of my speech a terrific rain-storm broke us up. At night we had a fine meeting. "Old Ben" [Wade] made a glorious negro suffrage [speech], frequently rough, but great.

Mrs. Buckland is with Buck. We all enjoy it. Spoke at night three times the last week as well as daily. Am quite hoarse but it [the hoarseness] wears off entirely as I warm up. Love to Rud. Oceans to yourself.

Affectionately,

R.

MRS. HAYES.

SOURCE: Charles Richard Williams, editor, Diary and Letters of Rutherford Birchard Hayes, Volume 3, p. 47

Congressman Rutherford B. Hayes to Sardis Birchard, June 20, 1867

CINCINNATTI, June 20, 1867.

DEAR UNCLE:—I shall probably go to Columbus about the middle of next week and get around to Fremont from there Friday or Saturday, and will leave with Buckland for Washington Sunday night or Monday morning. I want to suggest the propriety of taking Birch and Webb with me to Washington. I shall stay but a short time. The expense will be a hundred dollars or so, but as this is probably my last of public life, I would particularly like to take the boys. Do not speak of it to them unless you approve.

I do not regret the new step [candidacy for governor]. It gets me out of worries that I shall be glad to be rid of. All agreeable here. Love to the boys.

Sincerely,

R. B. HAYES.

S. BIRCHARD.

SOURCE: Charles Richard Williams, editor, Diary and Letters of Rutherford Birchard Hayes, Volume 3, p. 45

Congressman Rutherford B. Hayes to Sardis Birchard, January 27 , 1867

WASHINGTON, D. C., January 27, 1867.

DEAR UNCLE:—Buck[land] and I are both a little shaky on the Randall Bill. I will bear watching quite as much as he will. I think we shall both light on your side of the question but our state of mind is, as you used to say, "between souse and suggerly."* I am confident, however, that the bill will not pass at this session.

I hear the boys are at home. I suppose they will (the two big ones) return to your house after this week's doings and that Lucy and Rud will return here soon. I leave it all to her.

Sincerely,

R. B. HAYES.

S. BIRCHARD.

_______________

* Undoubtedly colloquial for "between south and southerly." Lexicographers have failed to record these forms.

SOURCE: Charles Richard Williams, editor, Diary and Letters of Rutherford Birchard Hayes, Volume 3, p. 38

Congressman Rutherford B. Hayes to Sardis Birchard, February 22, 1867

WASHINGTON, February 22, 1867.

DEAR UNCLE:—Enclosed is the account of Carpenter's Lincoln. I have the picture and will also have Marshall's, and will one of these days express them both to you. As one is framed, be careful in opening them.

I send you a rather curious phrenological estimate of the Congressmen on the Pacific Railroad excursion (Buck[land] and myself included) with portraits. It is curious as showing that Mr. [Samuel R.] Wells, who is a respectable person, and who professes to judge people on the principles of what he calls the sciences of phrenology and physiology, really gets his impressions just as you and I do, from their manners, conduct, and conversation. He is evidently not influenced a particle by temperament or head and features. He is singularly and laughably wrong in Buck's case. The only interest in the whole thing is that it shows the impression that a tolerably good observer gets on a short acquaintance with us.

We are getting on just right in politics here. The Commercial regrets my course one day, but the next day proved I was right.

Sincerely,

R. B. HAYES.

S. BIRCHARD.

_______________

Francis Bicknell Carpenter's First Reading of the
Emancipation Proclamation of President Lincoln

SOURCE: Charles Richard Williams, editor, Diary and Letters of Rutherford Birchard Hayes, Volume 3, p. 41

Congressman Rutherford B. Hayes to Sardis Birchard, December 19, 1866

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.

Sincerely,

R. B. HAYES.

S. BIRCHARD.

SOURCE: Charles Richard Williams, editor, Diary and Letters of Rutherford Birchard Hayes, Volume 3, p. 36-7

Rutherford B. Hayes to Lucy Webb Hayes, July 9, 1865

CINCINNATI, July 9, 1865.

MY DEAREST:— I have got a large, airy third-story room on the southeast corner of Fourth and Walnut, and find myself remarkably well camped. A little hot, and somewhat lonely of nights. Thus far I find occupation enough with correspondence, listening to all sorts of applications, and hunting up old acquaintances. . . .

General Buckland here today, also Senator Sherman. "Politics a bad trade" runs in my head often. Guess we'll quit. . . .

Affectionately,

R.

MRS. HAYES.

SOURCE: Charles Richard Williams, editor, Diary and Letters of Rutherford Birchard Hayes, Volume 3, p. 2

Brigadier-General William T. Sherman to Ellen Ewing Sherman, April 3, 1862

Pittsburg Landing, Tenn.

Camp.  April 3, 1862.

Dearest Ellen,

I have really neglected writing for some days.  I don’t know why, but I daily become more and more disposed to stop writing.  There is so much writing that I am sick & tired of it & put it off on Hammond who is sick cross and troublesome.  I have plenty of aids but the writing part is not very full.  I have been pretty busy, in examining Roads & Rivers.  We have now near 60,000 men here, and Bragg has command at Corinth only 18 miles off, with 80 Regiments and more coming.  On our Part McCook, Thomas & Nelsons Divisions are coming from Nashville and are expected about Monday, this is Thursday when I Suppose we must advance to attack Corinth or some other point on the Memphis & Charleston Road.  The weather is now springlike, apples & peaches in blossom and trees beginning to leave.  Bluebirds singing and spring weather upon the hillsides.  This part of the Tennessee differs somewhat from that up at Bellefonte.  There the Alleghany Mountains still characterized the Country whereas here the hills are lower & rounded covered with oak, hickory & dogwood, not unlike the Hills down Hocking.  The people have mostly fled, abandoning their houses, and Such as remain are of a neutral tint not Knowing which side will turn up victors.  That enthusiastic love of the Union of which you read in the newspapers as a form of expression easily written, but is not true.  The poor farmers certainly do want peace, & protection, but all the wealthier classes hate us Yankees with a pure unadulterated hate.  They fear the Gunboats which throw heavy shells and are invulnerable to their rifles & shotguns, and await our coming back from the River.

I have been troubles some days by a Slight diarrhea but am well enough for work.  My Division is very raw and needs much instruction.  Brigade commanders are McDowell, Stuart, Hildebrand & Buckland.  Genl. Grant commands in chief, and we have a host of other Generals, so that I am content to be in a mixed crowd.

I don’t pretend to look ahead far and do not wish to guide events.  They are too momentous to be a subject of personal ambition.

We are constantly in the presence of the enemys pickets, but I am satisfied that they will await our coming at Corinth or some point of the Charleston Road.  If we don’t get away soon the leaves will be out and the whole country an ambush.

Our letters come very irregularly I have nothing from you for more than a week but I know you are well and happy at home and that is a great source of consolation.  My love to all

Yrs. ever

W. T. Sherman

SOURCES: William Tecumseh Sherman Family Papers, Archives of the University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, Indiana, Box 1, Folder 144, image #’s 03-0046 & 03-0047; M. A. DeWolfe Howe, Editor, Home Letters of General Sherman, p. 219-20; Brooks D. Simpson, Jean V. Berlin, Editors, Sherman's Civil War: Selected Correspondence of William T. Sherman, 1860-1865, p. 170-1; 

Lieutenant-Colonel Rutherford B. Hayes to Sardis Birchard, April 23, 1862

April 23. – Since writing the foregoing I have received Commercials of 17th and 18th containing the doings of Buckland and the Seventy-second. They did well. It is absurd to find fault with men for breaking away under such circumstances. The guilty officers ought to be punished — probably Grant or Prentiss, or both. — H.

S. Birchard.

SOURCE: Charles Richard Williams, editor, Diary and Letters of Rutherford Birchard Hayes, Volume 2, p. 234

Lieutenant-Colonel Rutherford B. Hayes to Sardis Birchard, April 22, 1862

Camp South Of Raleigh, Virginia, April 22, 1862.

Dear Uncle: — The ugly chap on the enclosed bill is Governor Letcher of Virginia. He is entitled to our lasting gratitude. He is doing more for us in this State than any two brigadiers I can think of. He has in all the counties, not occupied by our troops, little squads of volunteers busily engaged in hunting up and “squadding in,” as they call it, all persons capable of military duty. Thousands who wish to escape this draft are now hiding in the mountains or seeking refuge in our lines. Meantime the rascals are plundering and burning in all directions, making friends for the Union wherever they go. The defeat of the enemy in eastern Virginia sends this cobhouse tumbling very fast.

We left Raleigh last week and have been struggling against storms and freshets ever since. Today it has snowed, rained, sleeted, and turned off bright but gusty a dozen times. Camp muddy, tents wet, but all glad to be started.

I have for the present an independent command of the Twenty-third Regiment, a section of McMullen's Battery, and a small body of horse. We are the advance of Fremont's column. We are directed to move by “easy marches” forward south. The design being, I suppose, to overtake us in force by the time we meet any considerable body of the enemy. We meet and hear of small bodies of enemy now constantly, but as yet nothing capable of serious resistance.

I see that Buckland's Seventy-second was in the great battle at Pittsburg. Glad they are not reported as sharing the disgrace which seems to attach to some of the other new regiments. There was shocking neglect there, I should guess. Generals, not the regiments, ought to be disgraced. A sudden surprise by a great army with cavalry and artillery can't be had without gross negligence. The regiments surprised ought not [to] be held up to scorn if they are stricken with a panic in such a case. A few thousand men can slip up unperceived sometimes, but for an army of fifty or sixty thousand men to do it — pshaw! it's absurd. What happened to Buckland's regiment? Send your newspapers of Fremont giving letters from the regiment.

I see that your friend McPherson* is one of the distinguished. Good.

Colonel Scammon is back with the brigade, Thirtieth, Thirty-fourth, and a regiment of cavalry.

Good-bye,

R. B. Hayes.

_______________

* James B. McPherson, a native of Sandusky County. He was at that time chief engineer on General Grant's staff. A brilliant and able officer who rose to the position of corps commander. He was killed in battle at Atlanta, July 22, 1864, — the officer highest in rank and command killed during the war. His grave is at Clyde, Ohio, marked by an imposing monument. One of the entrances to Spiegel Grove bears his name.

SOURCE: Charles Richard Williams, editor, Diary and Letters of Rutherford Birchard Hayes, Volume 2, p. 233