Dr. Spencer G. Welch to Cordelia Strother Welch, June 29, 1862

Camp near Richmond, Va.,        

June 29, 1862.

I was correct in my last letter to you when I predicted that the great battle had commenced (Chickahominy or Gaines Mills). The conflict raged with great fury after I finished writing, and it lasted from three o'clock until ten that night. The cannonading was so continuous at one time that I could scarcely hear the musketry at all. There was one incessant boom and roar for three hours without any cessation. Next morning (28th) the battle began anew, but there was not nearly so much cannonading, because our men rushed upon the Yankees and took their cannon. The musketry, though, was terrific. It reminded me of myriads of hailstones falling upon a house top. I could see the smoke and the bombs burst in the air, and could hear the shouts of our men as they would capture the Yankee batteries.

Our brigade took the advance in the morning when the battle commenced, and after we routed them we did not get a chance to fight them again until we had driven them about eight or ten miles from where we started them. They rallied there and made a stand, but our troops rushed at them again and drove them to—God only knows where! A Yankee officer (a prisoner) told me they had no idea General Jackson was anywhere about here, and he acknowledged that General McClellan was completely outwitted. I tell you the Yankee "Napoleon” has been badly defeated.

Our colonel surprised his men by his bravery. My brother Billie is greatly mortified because he was too sick to be in the fight. He is still hardly able to walk. Our regiment had eight killed and forty wounded. Orr's Regiment and the First South Carolina were badly cut up in an attempt to capture a battery. (The former had 81 killed and 234 wounded, and the latter 20 killed and 125 wounded).

I was on the ground yesterday (Saturday) where some of the hardest fighting took place. The dead were lying everywhere and were very thick in some places. One of our regiments had camped in some woods there and the men were lying among the dead Yankees and seemed unconcerned.

The most saddening sight was the wounded at the hospitals, which were in various places on the battlefield. Not only are the houses full, but even the yards are covered with them. There are so many that most of them are much neglected. The people of Richmond are hauling them away as fast as possible. At one place I saw the Yankee wounded and their own surgeon attending to them. There are no crops or fences anywhere, and I saw nothing which had escaped the Yankees except one little Guinea fowl. I thought our army was bad enough, but the country over which the Yankees have been looks like some barren waste. On my way to the battlefield I met a negro who recognized me and told me that your brother Edwin was wounded in the breast and had gone to Richmond. I fear there is some truth in it.

SOURCE: Dr. Spenser G. Welch, A Confederate Surgeon's Letters to His Wife, p. 15-7

Major Charles Wright Wills: May 14, 1865

Near Hanover, C. H., Va., May 14, 1865.

Only made nine miles to-day on account of the Pamunky river here being bad. We camp to-night in the Hanover "slashes," one mile east of the birthplace of Henry Clay, and about two miles from the residence of Patrick Henry. The court house is where the latter delivered his famous speech against the clergy. Henry's house is built of brick, imported, and was built in 1776. We passed the place where McClellan's famous seven days' fight commenced. The whole country is waste. I hear a country legend here that Clay was the illegitimate son of Patrick Henry. The court house was built in 1735.

SOURCE: Charles Wright Wills, Army Life of an Illinois Soldier, p. 381

Diary of Private Louis Leon: June 25, 1862

Reported fighting near Richmond.

SOURCE: Louis Leon, Diary of a Tar Heel Confederate Soldier, p. 7

Diary of Private Louis Leon: June 30, 1862

Heard firing at Richmond. We are eight miles from there, and in reserve.

SOURCE: Louis Leon, Diary of a Tar Heel Confederate Soldier, p. 8

Diary of Gideon Welles: Thursday, July 2, 1863

A telegram this morning advises me of the death of General R. C. Hale, the brother of Mrs. Welles, at Reedsville in the County of Mifflin, Pennsylvania. He was the efficient Quartermaster-General of Pennsylvania, a good officer and capable and upright man. The public never had a more faithful and honest officer.

Met Sumner and went with him to the War Department. The President was there, and we read dispatches received from General Meade. There was a smart fight, but without results, near Gettysburg yesterday. A rumor is here that we have captured six thousand prisoners, and on calling again this evening at the War Department I saw a telegram which confirms it. General Reynolds is reported killed. The tone of Meade's dispatch is good.

Met the elder Blair this evening at his son's, the Postmaster-General. The old gentleman has been compelled to leave his pleasant home at Silver Spring, his house being in range of fire and Rebel raiders at his door. He tells me McClellan wrote Stanton after the seven days' fight near Richmond that he (Stanton) had sacrificed that army. Stanton replied cringingly, and in a most supplicating manner, assuring McClellan he, Stanton, was his true friend. Mr. F. P. Blair assures me he has seen the letters. He also says he has positive, unequivocal testimony that Stanton acted with the Secessionists early in the War and favored a division of the Union. He mentions a conversation at John Lee's house, where Stanton set forth the advantages that would follow from a division.

Mr. Montgomery Blair said Stanton was talking Secession to one class, and holding different language to another; that while in Buchanan's Cabinet he communicated Toucey's treason to Jake Howard and secretly urged the arrest of Toucey. During the winter of 1860 and 1861, Stanton was betraying the Buchanan Administration to Seward, disclosing its condition and secrets, and that for his treachery to his then associates and his becoming the tool of Seward, he was finally brought into the present Cabinet.

These things I have heard from others also, and there have been some facts and circumstances to corroborate them within my own knowledge. Mr. Seward, who has no very strong convictions and will never sacrifice his life for an opinion, had no belief that the insurrection would be serious or of long continuance. Familiar with the fierce denunciations and contentions of parties in New York, where he had, from his prominent position and strong adherents, been accustomed to excite and direct, and then modify, the excesses roused by anti-Masonry and anti-rent outbreaks by pliable and liberal action, he entertained no doubt that he should have equal success in bringing about a satisfactory result in national affairs by meeting exaction with concessions. He was strengthened in this by the fact that there was no adequate cause for a civil war, or for the inflammatory, excited, and acrimonious language which flowed from his heated associates in Congress. Through the infidelity of Stanton he learned the feelings and designs of the Buchanan Administration, which were not of the ultra character of the more impassioned Secession leaders. One of the Cabinet already paid court to him; Dix¹ and some others he knew were not disunionists; and, never wanting faith in his own skill and management, he intended, if his opponents would not go with him, as the last alternative to go with them and call a convention to remodel the Constitution. Until some weeks after Mr. Lincoln's inauguration Seward never doubted that he could by some expedient — a convention or otherwise — allay the storm. Some who ultimately went into the Rebellion also hoped it. Both he and they overestimated his power and influence. Stanton in the winter of 1861 whispered in his ear state secrets, it was understood, because Seward was to be first in the Cabinet of Lincoln, who was already elected. The Blairs charge Stanton with infidelity to party and to country from mere selfish considerations, and with being by nature treacherous and wholly unreliable. Were any overwhelming adversity to befall the country, they look upon him as ready to betray it.

______________

¹ John A. Dix, Secretary of the Treasury In 1861.

SOURCE: Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, Vol. 1: 1861 – March 30, 1864, p. 354-6

Diary of Lieutenant-Colonel Rutherford B. Hayes: Thursday, July 10, 1862

. . . I wrote this morning a cheerful letter to Mother. I think often these days of the sad loss six years ago; my dear, dear sister, — so —. But it is perhaps for the best. How she would suffer during this struggle!

I have just read the Commercial's story of the six days' battles. What dreadful fighting, suffering, weariness, and exhaustion were there! The letters in the paper of the 5th are agonizing in the extreme. The telegraphic news diminishes our loss in the battles before Richmond, and gives, I think, exaggerated reports of the enemy's loss. They are said to have lost from thirty to sixty thousand!!

SOURCE: Charles Richard Williams, editor, Diary and Letters of Rutherford Birchard Hayes, Volume 2, p. 299-300

Diary of Lieutenant-Colonel Rutherford B. Hayes: Tuesday, July 8, 1862

Camp Jones. — A fine breezy day on this mountain top. Bathed three miles from here in Glade Creek. I find this sitting still or advancing age (good joke!) is getting me into old gentlemen's habits. My breath is shorter than it used to be; I get tired easier and the like.

Very little additional from Richmond, but that little is encouraging. Our forces have not, I think, been discouraged or in any degree lost confidence, by reason of anything that has occurred before Richmond. Our losses are not greater than the enemy's — probably not so great. The Rebel reports here are that our loss is thirty-eight thousand killed and wounded and two thousand prisoners; that they left fourteen thousand dead on the field! This is all wild guessing; but it indicates dreadful and probably nearly equal losses on both sides.

SOURCE: Charles Richard Williams, editor, Diary and Letters of Rutherford Birchard Hayes, Volume 2, p. 299

Diary of Lieutenant-Colonel Rutherford B. Hayes: Monday, July 7, 1862

Camp Jones, Flat Top. — The warmest day of the season. The men are building great bowers over their company streets, giving them roomy and airy shelters. At evening they dance under them, and in the daytime they drill in the bayonet exercise and manual of arms. All wish to remain in this camp until some movement is begun which will show us the enemy, or the way out of this country. We shall try to get water by digging wells.

The news of today looks favorable. McClellan seems to have suffered no defeat. He has changed front; been forced (perhaps) to the rear, sustained heavy losses; but his army is in good condition, and has probably inflicted as much injury on the enemy as it has suffered. This is so much better than I anticipated that I feel relieved and satisfied. The taking of Richmond is postponed, but I think it will happen in time to forestall foreign intervention.

There is little or no large game here. We see a great many striped squirrels (chipmunks), doves, quails, a few pigeons and pheasants, and a great many rattlesnakes. I sent Birch the rattles of a seventeen-year-old yesterday. They count three years for the button and a year for each rattle.

There is a pretentious headboard in the graveyard between here and headquarters with the inscription “Anna Eliza Brammer, borned ——“

SOURCE: Charles Richard Williams, editor, Diary and Letters of Rutherford Birchard Hayes, Volume 2, p. 298-9

Lieutenant-Colonel Rutherford B. Hayes to Lucy Webb Hayes, July 6, 1862

Flat Top Mountain, July 6, 1862.

Dearest: — Sunday afternoon about 4 P. M. — hotter than ever. I have just finished reading your letter written last Sunday at Chillicothe. I am very glad you are so happily homed at Uncle Scott's. It is far better- up on that beautiful hill with such kind friends, young and old, than in a hot and dirty city. You cannot think oftener of me than I do of you and the dear ones around you; no, nor more lovingly.

I knew you would be troubled when Fremont was relieved from duty, and perhaps still more when you hear of McClellan's repulse before Richmond. These things appear to postpone the termination of the war; but are such disasters as must be looked for in such a contest. We must make up our minds that we have a heavy work, and that reverses must frequently occur.

We have no right to complain of our lot. We have a beautiful and healthy camp, with the enemy in front, strong enough to keep us busy holding our position, without much danger of losing it. It is the common opinion that if the reverse before Richmond has been serious, we shall be sent to eastern Virginia, and I may add that it is the universal wish that we may see some of the movements that are going on there.

Drs. Joe and Jim are both very well and with little to do. Our loss by sickness during the last three months is only three.

Dr. Joe and I sent early in June to your address nine hundred and fifty dollars. Did you get it? It is important we should know if it has failed to reach you. As letters miscarry sometimes, be sure to speak of it in two or three letters.

I got from Mr. Stephenson a Harper and Atlantic for July today. All reading matter is in the greatest demand. . . .

It is not of much consequence to Boggs whether he returns or not; yet he ought to be allowed to do it. If a soldier is well enough to be a nurse he can be useful with his regiment. If he can neither nurse nor march, he can get his pay or a discharge easier here than elsewhere. But we will do our best for the man.

Think of it, the Fourth was a lovely day but we sat around a fire in the evening and slept under blanket and coverlid. . . .

Good-bye, darling. Don't get downhearted about the war and our separation. It will all come right, and then how happy we shall be — happier than if we had not known this year's experience.

Affectionately ever, your

R.

Mrs. Hayes.

SOURCE: Charles Richard Williams, editor, Diary and Letters of Rutherford Birchard Hayes, Volume 2, p. 297-8

Diary of Lieutenant-Colonel Rutherford B. Hayes: Sunday, July 6, 1862

Camp Jones, Flat Top Mountain. — . . . It seems on reflection that McClellan has been forced back in seven days — six of them days of fighting — about fifteen to twenty-five miles; that he has probably not lost very heavily in artillery or stores; that the weight of the attacks on him have [has] been too heavy and have [has] forced him back. Well, then, our columns must be rapidly made heavier. We shall see!

. . . Nothing new from Richmond today. What is the condition there? Is our army merely pushed back by superior numbers or has it been defeated?

SOURCE: Charles Richard Williams, editor, Diary and Letters of Rutherford Birchard Hayes, Volume 2, p. 297

Diary of Lieutenant-Colonel Rutherford B. Hayes: Saturday, July 5, 1862

A fine, warm day. I rode with Avery and an escort of twelve dragoons under Captain Harrison (a Union doctor of Monroe County), to look for a new camping ground, ten or twelve miles from here, at or near Jumping Branch, on the pike leading from Raleigh to Packs Ferry. The village last winter was the rendezvous of the enemy who were threatening Raleigh and was burnt, except two or three houses, by Major Comly to get rid of the nest. We dined with an intelligent Union farmer, a Mr. Upton, whose house was spared. A good spring for the men's use and a tolerable stream for the animals and washing. But no camping ground which we would take in exchange for Flat Top as long as water can be got here.

While at Mr. Upton's, we heard from an artilleryman that after we left camp news was received at headquarters that McClellan had entered Richmond yesterday! Prior advices led us strongly to hope, almost to believe, it was true. We all said we believed it. How suddenly McClellan loomed up into a great general — a future (not distant future) President! We thought of a speedy end of the war and a return home; of the loved ones' happiness at home! I could toast McClellan, “slow but sure,” “better late than never,” and the like.

On reaching camp our hopes were cruelly dashed. The only dispatches received, meagre, ambiguous, and obscure, indicate disaster rather than victory! That after six days’ hard fighting McClellan has lost fifteen to twenty thousand [men] and is twenty or thirty miles further distant from Richmond than when the battle began! No disaster is told other than this; but if it is true that he has been beaten back to a point thirty-five or forty miles from Richmond, we are where I feared we were on the third. But these dispatches are so deceptive as to complicated and extensive movements that I must hear further before I give up to such gloomy anticipations. But I am anxious!

SOURCE: Charles Richard Williams, editor, Diary and Letters of Rutherford Birchard Hayes, Volume 2, p. 296-7

Diary of Lieutenant-Colonel Rutherford B. Hayes: Friday, July 4, 1862

Flat Top. — A fine day. No demonstrations in camp except a National salute and a little drunkenness. Quietness of the Sabbath reigned.

The Commercial of the first puts a different face on the news of McClellan's recent movements near Richmond. The change of position seems to have been well planned — a wise change — and it is not certain that any disaster befell us during its execution. There was fierce fighting and heavy loss, but it is quite possible that the enemy suffered more than we did.

My orderly, Gray, good old veteran Irish soldier, “drunk and disorderly” yesterday. All right; he shall be released today.

SOURCE: Charles Richard Williams, editor, Diary and Letters of Rutherford Birchard Hayes, Volume 2, p. 296

Diary of Lieutenant-Colonel Rutherford B. Hayes: Thursday, July 3, 1862

Camp Jones. — A fine bright day. General Cox is trying to get our army transferred to General Pope's command in eastern Virginia.

The dispatches received this beautiful afternoon fill me with sorrow. We have an obscure account of the late battle or battles at Richmond. There is an effort to conceal the extent of the disaster, but the impression left is that McClellan's grand army has been defeated before Richmond!!  If so, and the enemy is active and energetic, they will drive him out of the Peninsula, gather fresh energy everywhere, and push us to the wall in all directions. Foreign nations will intervene and the Southern Confederacy be established.

Now for courage and clear-headed sagacity. Nothing else will save us. Let slavery be destroyed and this sore disaster may yet do good.

SOURCE: Charles Richard Williams, editor, Diary and Letters of Rutherford Birchard Hayes, Volume 2, p. 295-6

Diary of Lieutenant-Colonel Rutherford B. Hayes: Wednesday, July 2, 1862

Camp Jones. — Rained all night; weather cold. Water must again be abundant. Gradually cleared off about 3 or 4 P. M.

Dispatches state that McClellan has swung his right wing around and pushed his left towards James River, touching the river at Turkey Island, fifteen miles from Richmond. Is this a voluntary change of plan, or is it a movement forced by an attack? These questions find no satisfactory response in the dispatches. Some things look as if we had sustained a reverse. (1.) It is said the move was “necessitated by an attack in great force on Thursday.” (2.) All communication with Washington was cut off for two or three days. (3.) We have had repeated reports that the enemy had turned our right wing. (4.) The singular denial of rumors that our army had sustained a defeat, viz., that “no information received indicated a serious disaster.” (5.) The general mystery about the movement.

It may have been according to a change of plan. I like the new position. If we are there uninjured, with the aid of gunboats and transports on James River, we ought soon to cripple the enemy at Richmond.

SOURCE: Charles Richard Williams, editor, Diary and Letters of Rutherford Birchard Hayes, Volume 2, p. 295

Diary of John Beauchamp Jones: December 7, 1862

Last night was bitter cold, and this morning there was ice on my wash-stand, within five feet of the fire. Is this the “sunny South” the North is fighting to possess? How much suffering must be in the armies now encamped in Virginia! I suppose there are not less than 250,000 men in arms on the plains of Virginia, and many of them who survive the war will have cause to remember last night. Some must have perished, and thousands, no doubt, had frozen limbs. It is terrible, and few are aware that the greatest destruction of life, in such a war as this, is not produced by wounds received in battle, but by disease, contracted from exposure, etc., in inclement seasons. But the deadly bullet claims its victims. A friend just returned from the battle-field of June, near the city, whither he repaired to recover the remains of a relative, says the scene is still one of horror. So great was the slaughter (27th June) that we were unable to bury our own dead for several days, for the battle raged a whole week, and when the work was completed, the weather having been extremely hot, it was too late to inter the enemy effectually, so the earth was merely thrown over them, forming mounds, which the rains and the wind have since leveled. And now the ground is thickly strewn with the bleaching bones of the invaders. The flesh is gone, but their garments remain. He says he passed through a wood, not a tree of which escaped the missiles of the contending hosts. Most of the trees left standing are dead, being often perforated by scores of Minie-balls, but thousands were prostrated by cannon-balls and shells. It will long remain a scene of desolation, a monument of the folly and wickedness of man.

And what are we fighting for? What does the Northern Government propose to accomplish by the invasion? Is it supposed that six or eight million of free people can be exterminated? How many butchers would be required to accomplish the beneficent feat? More, many more, than can be sent hither. The Southern people, in such a cause, would fight to the last, and when the men all fell, the women and children would snatch their arms and slay the oppressors. Without complete annihilation, it is the merest nonsense to suppose our property can be confiscated.

But if a forced reconstruction of the Union were consummated, does the North suppose any advantage would result to that section? In the Union we could not be compelled to trade with them again. Nor would intercourse of any kind be re-established. Their ships would be destroyed, and their people could never come among us but at the risk of ill treatment. They could not maintain a standing army of half a million, and they could not disarm us in such an extensive territory.

The best plan, the only plan, to redeem the past and enjoy blessings in the future, is to cease this bootless warfare and be the first to recognize our independence. We are exasperated with Europe, and like the old colonel in Bulwer's play, we can like a brave foe after fighting him. Let the North do this, and we will trade with its people, I have no doubt, and a mutual respect will grow up in time, resulting, probably, in combinations against European powers in their enterprises against governments on this continent.

SOURCE: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 1, p. 205-7

John L. Motley to Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr., August 31, 1862

Vienna, August 31, 1862.

My Dear Holmes: Bare, bare, bare of news, events, objects of the slightest interest to you or any one else, what need have I to apologize for silence? Naked, but not ashamed, I involve myself in my virtue, while you, if, like kind fortune, you will still wag your swift pen at me, — si celerem quatis pennam, — will find me ever grateful, or even trying to be resigned if you do not. I have not written for about four months. Even to my little Mary I am obliged now to write themes instead of letters. By this mail I send her one “on the advantages of silence.” If you should happen to meet her, ask her to show it to you that you may see to what a depth of imbecility your old friend has descended. I have yours of the 27th of April and the 20th of June. I am deeply grateful for them. I have just been reading them both over, and you will be glad to know that now, after the lapse of fifty years, which is about the distance from the first date at the rate we are living at, there is no false coloring, no judgment turned inside out, no blundering prophecy, no elation or no despondency which subsequent events have come to rebuke.

Writing as you do to me out of the kindness of your heart and the fullness of your head, you willingly run the risk of making blunders for the sake of giving me, in your vivid and intense way, a rapid image of the passing moment. I strain my eyes across the Atlantic through the stereoscope you so kindly provide me, and for an instant or two I am with you. I think very often of your Wendell. He typifies so well to me the metamorphosis of young America from what it was in our days. Consule Planco. There, within less than a twelvemonth after leaving college, the young poet, philosopher, artist, has become a man, robustus acri militia puer, has gone through such scenes as Ball's Bluff, Fair Oaks, and the seven days before Richmond, and, even while I write, is still engaged, perchance, in other portentous events, and it is scarcely a year since you and I went together to the State House to talk with the governor about his commission. These things would hardly be so startling if it was the mere case of a young man entering the army and joining a marching regiment. But when a whole community suddenly transmutes itself into an army, and the “stay-at-home rangers” are remembered on the fingers and pointed at with the same, what a change must be made in the national character!

Pfui liber den Buben

Hinter den Ofen,

Hinter den Sttthlen,

Hinter den Sophen,

as the chivalrous Koerner sang.

I had a very well-written letter the other day from a young cousin of mine, Julius Lothrop by name, now serving as sergeant in the Massachusetts Twenty-fourth. I need not say how I grieved to hear that Lowell had lost another nephew, and a near relative to your wife, too. You mentioned him in your very last letter as having gained health and strength by his campaigning. There is something most touching in the fact that those two youths, Putnam and Lowell, both scions of our most honored families, and both distinguished among their equals for talent, character, accomplishment, and virtue, for all that makes youth venerable, should have been among the earliest victims of this infernal conspiracy of slaveholders. I know not if such a thought is likely to comfort the mourners, but it is nevertheless most certain that when such seed is sown the harvest to be reaped by the country will be almost priceless. Of this I entertain no doubt whatever. God knows I was never an optimist, but in the great result of this tremendous struggle I can foresee nothing but good. The courage and the determination of both sides being equal, the victory must be to the largest army and navy and the longest purse.

What has so long held back the imprisoned power of the North during all these dreary years of the slave domination of our Republic was, after all, a moral principle. It was pushed to excess till it became a vice, but it was still the feeling of patriotism and an exaggerated idea of public faith. There is even a lingering band or two to be broken yet before the great spirit of the North is completely disenthralled. But I hope I am not mistaken in thinking that they have become weaker than packthread.

SOURCE: George William Curtis, editor, The Correspondence of John Lothrop Motley in Two Volumes, Library Edition, Volume 2, p. 276-9

John L. Motley to Mary Lothrop Motley, August 26, 1862

Legation of the United States, Vienna,

August 26, 1862.

My Darling Little Mary: I am writing to you a mere apology for a letter. I wrote a letter to your dear grandmama by the last steamer, and, I believe, to you, but I am not sure. I am writing at my office in town, where I have the newspapers up to the 12th of August, which your mother and Lily have not yet seen. Here I have just read in them the details of the late fight in Virginia, in which the Massachusetts Second seems to have so much distinguished itself, and to have suffered so severely. I see with great regret that my old friend and classmate Dr. Shurtleff has lost a son in the fight. The details are still meager, but I have seen enough to feel sure that our men behaved brilliantly, and I can have no doubt of our ultimate success. I have just seen Hayward, whom I dare say you have seen in Hertford Street. He had had a long talk with M. Duvergier d'Hauranne, one of Louis Philippe's old ministers, which gentleman had just heard the whole story of the Richmond battles from the French princes. They described them exactly according to the accounts of the Northern newspapers, which they pronounced perfectly accurate, said that nothing could exceed the courage displayed on both sides, and that the movement to James River had been managed in such a very masterly manner by McClellan. All this I had no doubt of, but I like to hear what outsiders say to each other. Hayward also read me a note from Lord March, Governor-General of Canada, who says that English officers present at the late battles, and since returned to Canada, pronounce the accounts given in the Northern papers as perfectly accurate.

I have not a word to say of news. We dribble on in the even tenor of our Vöslau ways. Hayward is coming out to dine to-morrow,¹ and Saturday or Sunday we expect a visit of a few days from Mr. and Mrs. Hughes (Tom Brown) and Miss Stanley (Arthur Stanley's sister). We hope to have some comfort in talking with them, as Hughes is as stanch a friend to our cause as exists in Europe. Of course we never talk or think of anything else night or day.

Good-by, and God bless you, my darling. I promise to write again next week.

Your affectionate

Papa.

_______________

1 From Mr. Hayward's “Letters,” ii. 82: “I also passed a day with the Motleys at their villa, and found him more unreasonable than ever, vowing that the restoration of the Union in its entirety was as sure as the sun in heaven.”

SOURCE: George William Curtis, editor, The Correspondence of John Lothrop Motley in Two Volumes, Library Edition, Volume 2, p. 265-7

Diary of John Beauchamp Jones: July 14, 1862

Jackson and Ewell and Stuart are after Pope, but I learn they are not allowed to attempt any enterprise for some weeks yet. Fatal error, I fear. For we have advices at the department that Pope has not now exceeding 20,000 men, but that all the rolling stock of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad is ordered West to bring reinforcements. Besides, the United States Government is calling for 600,000 additional men. Then again, McClellan and Burnside will form a junction with Pope, and we will be outnumbered. But the President and Gen. Lee know best what is to be done. We have lost many of the flower of Southern chivalry in the late conflicts.

SOURCE: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 1, p. 143

Diary of John Beauchamp Jones: July 17, 1862

The people are too jubilant, I fear, over our recent successes near the city. A great many skulkers from the army are seen daily in the streets, and it is said there are 3000 men here subject to conscript duty, who have not been enrolled. The business of purchasing substitutes is prevailing alarmingly.

SOURCE: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 1, p. 144

Diary of John Beauchamp Jones: July 4, 1862

Lee does not follow up his blows on the whipped enemy, and some sage critics censure him for it. But he knows that the fatal blow has been dealt this “grand army” of the North. The serpent has been killed, though its tail still exhibits some spasmodic motions. It will die, so far as the Peninsula is concerned, after sunset, or when it thunders.

The commanding general neither sleeps nor slumbers. Already the process of reorganizing Jackson's corps has been commenced for a blow at or near the enemy's capital Let Lincoln beware the hour of retribution.

The enemy's losses in the seven days' battles around Richmond, in killed, wounded, sick, and desertions, are estimated at 50,000 men, and their losses in cannon, stores, etc., at some $50,000,000. Their own papers say the work is to be begun anew, and subjugation is put off six months, which is equivalent to a loss of $500,000,000 inflicted by Lee's victory.

By their emancipation and confiscation measures, the Yankees have made this a war of extermination, and added new zeal and resolution to our brave defenders. All hope of a reconstruction of the Union is relinquished by the few, comparatively, in the South, who still clung to the delusion. It is well. If the enemy had pursued a different course we should never have had the same unanimity. If they had made war only on men in arms, and spared private property, according to the usages of civilized nations, there would, at least, have been a neutral party in the South, and never the same energy and determination to contest the last inch of soil with the cruel invader. Now they will find that 3,000,000 of troops cannot subjugate us, and if subjugated, that a standing army of half a million would be reipaired to keep us in subjection.

SOURCE: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 1, p. 141-2