Still on sick list.
Flag of truce at Picket port, News (?) 2,000 Rebs outside the lines desiring to
come in and take the Oath.
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. 570
Camp McClernand Cairo. usual routine of camp duties Our Regt. has rec'd marching orders this evening a 6 O'clock it marched to the landing the men armed and equipped and supplied with 2 Days rations Shipped on the Alec Scott and company with the Iron Gun Boat went up the Mississippi destination unknown but generally believed to be Cape Girardeau Two of our Co. slipped through the guard to day—Wm Sullivan and Robt. Felan. Three more rec'd passes all of whom were not here when the Regt. started. The 2nd Lieut of each co. have been to take care of the camp & those that are on the sick list. Lieut Allen the only com. Officer who accompanied our Co, Capt. Parke has not yet returned. One of the men Joel Knip who was granted a pass to town to day-was found on the levy at one of the Groggerys pretty well set up about 9 O'clock this evening and brought into camp no tidings of the others.
SOURCE: Transactions of the Illinois State Historical Society for the Year 1909, p. 228
Morning Drill. near
20 on the sick list this morning Bad news from Mo. Lexington has been taken by
Gen Price. Private Hobbs in Guard House at Cairo for sleeping on his Post, last
night while guarding prisoners. 4 prisoners brought in this evening—from near
Norfolk Mo. taken after a pretty hard fight—in which 12 of the Enemy were
killed—and a lot of arms taken, One of the prisoners has a pretty severe cut
across the shoulder.
SOURCE: Transactions
of the Illinois State Historical Society for the Year 1909, p. 227
February 6, 1863.
We are just now through with the hardest and coldest north east storm that we have had since I came to the Department of the South. Living through this is evidence of considerable constitution. The storm politely waited for us to finish an expedition but the two together have succeeded in running our sick list up to 129 in today's report. This morning a poor fellow died of congestion of the lungs, before the surgeon saw him. In this case, as in nearly all the autopsies I have made I find extensive adhesions which have resulted from former pleurisy. There are, at this moment, not less than a dozen severe cases of pleuro-pneumonia among our sick. I find it true that these people are more subject than the whites to pulmonary diseases. And here I must put a fact of dispraise to the colored people as I find them. They, as a rule, show remarkable indifference to the sufferings of those not immediately related by the ties of consanguinity. I do not believe this to be a want of affection in the race, but due to long influence of inhuman teaching and treatment. I believe the development of individual responsibility and the inducement to rise, will abolish this want of feeling and respect for each other.
GENERAL: Yours of the 7th instant, with copy of letter to Governor Andrew Johnson, is before me, and it is with extreme satisfaction that I note the decided manner in which the case is laid down to Governor Johnson.
This outside pressure has become intolerable and must be met with firmness, or the Army may as well be disbanded.
With importunate citizens on one side and meddlesome reporters for papers on the other, I can scarce find time to attend to the appropriate duties of my position. By the way, cannot something be done to rid our camps of this latter class? I have really reached that point that I am afraid to address my staff officer above a whisper in my own tent. My most trivial remarks to my officers are caught up, magnified, and embellished, and appear in print as my "expressed opinions," much to the surprise of myself and those to whom my remarks were addressed, thus keeping me continually in a false position with my superior officers and the country.
So far as a forward movement is concerned, I have never urged it; do not now urge it; but on the contrary believe that in the present condition of my command (having a large sick list) it would be most decidedly imprudent. I am nevertheless ready to obey your order to advance, come when it may. That is a question for my superiors, and not for me, to determine.
After eight days of labor on the part of Captain Everett, he has returned the regimental monthly returns to the respective commanders, to be forwarded direct to your headquarters; Captain Everett having declared his inability to obtain from any one regiment anything like a passable document, or even the data upon which he could frame one.
My consolidated morning reports will be commenced on the 10th and promptly continued as per orders every ten days, and forwarded upon the days upon which they are made.
Please furnish the regimental commanders with blanks in time for the close of the present month, when, perhaps, by "line upon line and precept upon precept," they may be brought to produce a more businesslike sheet in future.
SOURCE: The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Series I, Volume 4 (Serial No. 4), p. 347-8
SIR: I lose not a
moment in communicating through you to the general commanding the Western
Division the condition of affairs at this post. I had hoped that the picture
sketched to me of matters here might not have been realized, but I am compelled
to think it not too highly colored. Under all the circumstances, I doubt not
General Alcorn has made the best of things, his camp being merely one large
hospital, with scarce men enough on duty to care for the sick and maintain a
feeble guard around them, with insufficient pickets at prominent points. Over
one-half the entire command are on the sick list, with very grave types of
different diseases. Those remaining and reported for duty have not enough
really well men to do more than first stated. The Kentucky Battalion of
Infantry, numbering 547, have only 45 cases reported sick. The measles have
made their appearance, and the battalion will average 20 new cases per day,
judging from to-day's report. The morning brigade report, herewith inclosed,
shows only 716 for duty out of a total of 2,237. Of this number, you will see
that the Kentucky Battalion furnishes 376, one-third of whom only are armed,
with no equipments.
Of cavalry we
have nothing to count on, save Captain Meriwether's company of untutored
recruits. Captain Huey's company of cavalry is entirely unarmed. Captain
Wilcox's company not yet recovered from the Eddyville affair.
On the score of
artillery I have merely to say, that there is not an organized squad for a
single gun that could be taken into action. There are five pieces of artillery—two
6-pounders, two 9, one 12—none of which I think fit for service on account of
the wretched manner in which they are mounted; a total ignorance of all
mechanical principles evidenced in the construction of the carriages. The guns
seem to be pretty fair. On the subject of clothing and equipments, equipage,
&c., I can only say that I find nothing more encouraging. The commissary
department is pretty well supplied; the quartermaster's department entirely deficient.
I have thus
fairly sketched the condition of things. Major Hewett will be able to give you
some particulars that I have not time now to do, but will write by the next
mail. I have commenced at the root of things, and mean to work out the best
result I can. I write not thus discouragingly in any spirit of complaint, but
to lay before the commanding general the plain facts of the case. They are
plainly these: I have no force here available for any purpose save protecting
the sick and depot. I have reason to think that the enemy are in full
possession of this fact, and are calculating on it. I have no force with which
to operate in any direction, and our people are suffering terribly within the
lines assigned me for my operations. In front and on my left they need a check.
The defenses of the Cumberland cannot I believe be perfected, unmolested,
unless my position is strengthened for this purpose.
A movement has
taken place at Henderson. A courier reached me to-night with the inclosed paper*
from a committee at Henderson. The Union men have been very busy here to-day.
They are too open-mouthed, and must be checked. The stage is waiting, and I
have not time to say more than this. I deem it absolutely necessary that I
should as soon as possible be re-enforced. A cavalry force is indispensably
necessary to cover my front and prevent the removal of a large amount of wheat,
flour, corn, and hogs, now drafted daily on heavily by scouting parties. Of the
latter item, there are not less than 50,000 hogs. This service would require
the whole time of not less than 500 cavalry. For practical purposes I am
without infantry and artillery, and desire that a due proportion of both be at
once sent. I beg you to say to General Johnston that I need the assistance of
some graduates, for artillery especially. Could I not have the services of the
two young men mentioned by General Buckner? (See him.) I will prepare full
estimates for all my wants and forward them.
I beg you to
pardon this hurried communication. I have not had time to read it over. Major
Hewett will give you facts as to a landing at Eddyville by our people.
Clear and warmer.
Gen. Beauregard has not been removed from his command,—it would be too great a shock to popular sentiment.
The iron-clads went out this morning and proceeded down the river, supported by Custis Lee's brigade of local troops, including the Departmental Battalion, marching a dozen miles in the sun and dust. More will be on the sick list.
SOURCE: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 2, p. 236
ON THE SICK LIST.
Since the affair over on the railroad, I have been on the sick list and have suffered severely with chills and fever and from other causes. I am not yet able to do much and I fear I shall not be able to go on many more excursions with the boys. The regiment has been out nearly every day, and has suffered a loss of more than 200 men, killed, wounded and prisoners. In the fight at Drury's Bluff, two mornings ago, we lost heavily, some 150 men being killed, wounded or taken prisoners. Heckman's brigade was almost annihilated. He was taken prisoner together with Capt. Belger, who lost four pieces of his battery, and Col. Lee, with nearly the whole of the 27th Massachusetts regiment, besides a good many officers and men of the 23d Massachusetts and 9th New Jersey.
VISITORS.
We had been here only two days when our common sense and judgment were still further imposed upon by three of our former officers from the News, soliciting enlistments. They probably thought that a fifty mile march and being in a strange city had perhaps taken the stiffening out of us somewhat, but they were not long in finding out that that was a delusion. Capt. Parkhurst laughed at them, telling them they had come to the wrong market to peddle their wares; the boy's crowded around them, giving them scarcely breathing room, and jokingly told them they had picked some chickens the night before, but had got no tar, but perhaps molasses would answer for a substitute. Finding they had come on a fool's errand, they then wanted Surgeon Hoyt to put as many of us on the sick list is possible, thereby increasing the working force at the News. The surgeon told them that men who could make a fifty mile march, carrying heavy knapsacks, were not supposed to be very seriously indisposed. Finding the leopard hadn't changed his spots, they left, taking with them two captives.
SOURCE: David L. Day, My Diary of Rambles with the
25th Mass. Volunteer Infantry, p. 114
