Meadow BLUFF, May 25, 1864.
DEAREST:—We are preparing for another move. It will require
a week's time, I conjecture, to get shoes, etc., etc. It looks as if the route
would be through Lewisburg, White Sulphur, Covington, Jackson River, etc., to
Staunton. The major came up this morning with a few recruits and numbers of the
sick, now recovered. They bring a bright new flag which I can see floating in
front of [the] Twenty-third headquarters. I suspect it to be your gift. Three
hundred more of the Thirty-sixth also came up. The Fifth and Thirteenth are
coming, so I shall have my own proper brigade all together soon.....
Brigdon carried the brigade flag. It was knocked out of his
hands by a ball striking the staff only a few inches from where he held it. It
was torn twice also by balls.
I see the papers call this “Averell's raid.” Very funny! The
cavalry part of it was a total failure. General Averell only got to the
railroad at points where we had first got in. He was driven back at Saltville
and Wytheville. Captain Gilmore is pleased.
He says the Second Virginia was the best of any of them! . . .
I am now on most intimate and cordial terms with General
Crook. He is a most capital commander. His one fault is a too reckless exposure
of himself in action and on the march — not a bad fault in some circumstances.
I shall probably send my valise back to Gallipolis from here
to Mr. James Taylor. It will contain a leather case with Roman candles for the
boys, a sabre will go with it for one of them, a wooden-soled shoe, such as we
destroyed great numbers of at Dublin, and very little else. If it is lost, no
matter. . . .
SOURCE: Charles Richard Williams, editor, Diary and
Letters of Rutherford Birchard Hayes, Volume 2, p. 465-6