Southern Mothers

Planters and others wishing to send donations of food, cotton or anything else, to the southern mothers, Memphis, are requested to send them to the care of Sample, Mitchell & Co., who will take them to their destination.

S. C. LAW, Pres’t S. S. M.

MARY E. POPE, Secretary.

SOURCE: Memphis Daily Appeal, Memphis Tennessee, Wednesday, September 4, 1861, p. 4

Diary of Private Louis Leon: June 3, 1862

Raining all day, but have a good time with the ladies in this neighborhood. They treated my comrade and myself only as Southern ladies know how to treat their soldiers—with respect and something good to eat.

SOURCE: Louis Leon, Diary of a Tar Heel Confederate Soldier, p. 6

Diary of Private Daniel L. Ambrose: Saturday Morning, February 27, 1862

We remain in camp here until the twenty-seventh; during this time we are unable to note anything of much interest, but the Seventh will long remember Clarksville; their comfortable quarters and pleasant life while there; also the citizens, especially the ladies of rebel proclivities, who were oft-times heard chanting their songs—songs that made music in the wind that swept along the Cumberland's shore. But ah! it was music for a desperate cause.

SOURCES: Daniel Leib Ambrose, History of the Seventh Regiment Illinois Volunteer Infantry, p. 44

Captain Charles Wright Wills: July 17, 1864

June 17, 1864.

After erecting some good works at Roswell (the best we have yet built), capable of holding at least 25,000 men, we were provided with three days’ rations and cartridges “ad libitum,” for another of what an Augusta paper calls “Sherman leap-frog-like advance.” Our corps is the extreme left of the army. We moved out this morning, our brigade in advance of our division, and Osterhaus and Smith's Divisions following on the Decatur road. Did I tell you in my last among the “locals,” that these Roswell factories have been turning out 35,000 yards per day of jeans, etc., for the Confederate Army, that there is the greatest abundance of blackberries and whortleberries here, that one of the 48th Illinois was drowned in the Chattahoochie while bathing, and that of several hundred factory girls I have seen, hardly one who is passably handsome? Some fine fat ones, and a few neat feet, but they are not “clipper built,” and lack “get up” and “figure heads.”

We moved six miles without meeting a Rebel, and then only a squadron of cavalry that lacked a devilish sight of being “chivalry,” for they more than ran without just cause. We only went two miles farther and then bivouacked. Our brigade was thrown half a mile in front and across the road. We put up a rail barricade across the road and a temporary rail-work along our front, and then abandoned ourselves to the longings of our breadbaskets, and desisted not until every man was in himself a miniature blackberry patch. The boys brought me pint after pint of great black fellows they had picked in the shade of dense woods or on a steep bank, and I assure you they disappeared without an exception. This road, the last 10 days, has been filled with refugee citizens running from the Yankees. An old gentleman in whose yard the reserve pickets have stacked their arms, told me that all the men of his acquaintance over 45 years old are, and always have been, Unionists, and are to-day ready and willing to give up slavery for our cause. I have been a deluded believer in the hoax of fine “Georgia plantations,” but I assure you I am now thoroughly convalescent. I haven't seen five farm houses equal to Mrs. James ———, and only one that showed evidences of taste. That was where I saw the Rebel General Iverson dead among the flowers. The country is all hilly, and the soil, where there is any, is only fit for turnips. The timber is all scrub oak and pine, and some more viney bushes peculiar to the climate.

I notice some of the white moss hanging from the trees, like that there was so much of at Black river. The 16th Corps is on our right moving on a parallel road, and the 23d joins them. I don't know whether our other corps have crossed yet or not.

SOURCE: Charles Wright Wills, Army Life of an Illinois Soldier, p. 280-1

Captain Charles Wright Wills: July 14, 1864

July 14, 1864.

Another hot day. We marched down to the river at Roswell and crossed it, and have gone into camp on the bank a mile above town.

This Roswell is a beautiful little town, such splendid trees all through it. Our cavalry four or five days ago destroyed some very large factories here. Judging from the ruins, they were more extensive than anything of the kind I ever before saw. About 1,000 women were employed in them; 700 of them were taken by our folks and sent to Marietta; I don't know what for. Can't hear of any enemy here.

SOURCE: Charles Wright Wills, Army Life of an Illinois Soldier, p. 279

Diary of Captain Luman Harris Tenney: April 18, 1865

Had a very good night's rest. Up early. Pleasant visit with an Indiana man. Several Southern ladies on board the boat. Great gloom in Washington. Excitement very high. Went to White House and viewed the President's remains in state. Everybody on the alert to discover the conspirators. Drew pay for January and February. Took the evening train via Harrisburg. Read papers and slept. The whole nation in mourning. All business places draped.

SOURCE: Frances Andrews Tenney, War Diary Of Luman Harris Tenney, p. 161

In The Review Queue: They Were Her Property

They Were Her Property:

White Women as Slave Owners

in the American South

By Stephanie E. Jones-Rogers

Bridging women’s history, the history of the South, and African American history, this book makes a bold argument about the role of white women in American slavery. Historian Stephanie E. Jones-Rogers draws on a variety of sources to show that slave‑owning women were sophisticated economic actors who directly engaged in and benefited from the South’s slave market. Because women typically inherited more slaves than land, enslaved people were often their primary source of wealth. Not only did white women often refuse to cede ownership of their slaves to their husbands, they employed management techniques that were as effective and brutal as those used by slave‑owning men. White women actively participated in the slave market, profited from it, and used it for economic and social empowerment. By examining the economically entangled lives of enslaved people and slave‑owning women, Jones-Rogers presents a narrative that forces us to rethink the economics and social conventions of slaveholding America.

About the Author

Stephanie E. Jones-Rogers is Assistant Professor of History at the University of California, Berkeley.

ISBN 978-0300218664, Yale University Press, © 2019, Hardcover, 320 pages, Photographs & Illustrations, End Notes, Bibliography & Index. $30.00.  To purchase this book click HERE.

Diary of John Beauchamp Jones: October 26, 1863

No news from our armies. The President was in Mobile two days-ago.

Gen. Rosecrans has been removed from his command, and Grant put in his place. Meade, it is said in Northern papers, will also be decapitated, for letting Lee get back without loss. Also Dalgren, at Charleston, has been relieved. And yet the Northern papers announce that Richmond will soon and suddenly be taken, and an unexpected joy be spread throughout the North, and a corresponding despondency throughout the South.

The weather is cloudy and cold. The papers announce that all clerks appointed since October 11th, 1862, by order of the Secretary of War, are liable to conscription. This cannot be true; for I know a Secretary who has just appointed two of his cousins to the best clerkships in the department—both of conscript age. But Secretaries know how to evade the law, and “whip the devil round the stump.”

How long will it be after peace before the sectional hatred intensified by this war can abate? A lady near by, the other night, while surveying her dilapidated shoes, and the tattered sleeping-gowns of her children, burst forth as follows: “I pray that I may live to see the United States involved in a war with some foreign power, which will make refugees of her people, and lay her cities in ashes! I want the people ruined who would ruin the South. It will be a just retribution!”

SOURCE: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 2, p. 82

Captain Charles Wright Wills: May 23, 1864

May 23, 1864.

Weather is getting very hot. We have made 21 miles today, and the distance, heat and dust have made it by far the hardest march we have had for a year. Excepting about six miles of dense pine woods the country we have passed through has been beautiful, quite rolling, but fertile and well improved. In the midst of the pine woods we stopped to rest at Hollis' Mill, a sweet looking little 17-year old lady here told me she was and always had been Union, and that nearly all the poor folks here are Union. In answer to some questions about the roads and country, she said, “Well, now, I was born and raised right here, and never was anywhere, and never see anybody, and I just don't know anything at all.”

I never saw so many stragglers as to-day. For 12 miles no water was to be had; then we came to a spring, a very large one, say 4 or 5 hogsheads a minute. All the officers in the army could not have kept the men in ranks. Saw no cases of sunstroke, but two of my men from heat turned blue with rush of blood to the head, and had to leave the ranks. Some think we are moving on Montgomery, Ala. Our orders say we need not hope for railroad communications for 20 days; I think that Atlanta is our point, although we were 50 miles from there this morning and 60 to-night. The planters in this country own thousands of negroes, and they've run them all off down this road. They are about two days ahead of us, and the poor people say as thick on the road as we are. Have passed several to-day who escaped from their masters.

Four miles southeast of Van Wirt, Ga.,

SOURCE: Charles Wright Wills, Army Life of an Illinois Soldier, p. 245-6

Diary of 1st Sergeant John L. Ransom: November 30, 1864

Doctortown Station, No. 5.—Ha! Ha! My boy, you are a prisoner of war again. Once more with a blasted rebel standing guard over me, and it all happened in this wise: Just before dark I went up to that house I spoke of in my writings yesterday. Walked boldly up and rapped at the door; and what was my complete astonishment when a white woman answered my rapping. Asked me what I wanted, and I told her something to eat. Told me to come in and set down. She was a dark looking woman and could easily be mistaken from my hiding place of the day for a negro. Began asking me questions. Told her I was a rebel soldier, had been in the hospital sick and was trying to reach home in the adjoining county. Was very talkative; told how her husband had been killed at Atlanta, &c. She would go out and in from a shanty kitchen in her preparation of my supper. I looked out through a window and saw a little darky riding away from the house, a few minutes after I went inside Thought I had walked into a trap, and was very uneasy. Still the woman talked and worked, and I talked, telling as smoothe lies as I knew how. For a full hour and a half sat there, and she all the time getting supper. Made up my. mind that I was the same as captured, and so put on a bold face and made the best of it. Was very well satisfied with my escapade anyway, if I could only get a whack at that supper before the circus commenced. Well, after a while heard some hounds coming through the woods and towards the house. Looked at the woman and her face pleaded guilty, just as if she had done something very mean. The back door of the house was open and pretty soon half a dozen large blood hounds bounded into the room and began snuffing me over; about this time the woman began to cry. Told her I understood the whole thing and she need not make a scene over it. Said she knew I was a Yankee and had sent for some men at Doctortown. Then five horsemen surrounded the house, dismounted and four of them came in with guns cocked prepared for a desperate encounter. I said: “good evening, gentlemen.” “Good evening,” said the foremost, '”we are looking for a runaway yankee prowling around here.” “Well,” says I, “you needn't look any farther, you have found him.” “Yes, I see,” was the answer. They all sat down, and just then the woman said “supper is ready and to draw nigh.” Drawed as nigh as I could to that supper and proceeded to take vengeance on the woman. The fellows proved to be home guards stationed here at Doctortown. The woman had mounted the negro boy on a horse just as soon as I made my appearance at the house and sent for them. They proved to be good fellows. Talked there at the house a full hour on the fortunes of war, &c, Told them of my long imprisonment and escape and all about myself. After a while we got ready to start for this place. One rebel rode in front, one on each side and two in the rear of me. Was informed that if I tried to run they would shoot me. Told them no danger of my running, as I could hardly walk. They soon saw that such was the case after going a little way, and sent back one of the men to borrow the woman's horse. Was put on the animal's back and we reached Doctortown not far from midnight. As we were leaving the house the woman gave me a bundle; said in it was a shirt and stockings. Told her she had injured me enough and I would take them. No false delicy will prevent my taking a shirt. And so my adventure has ended and have enjoyed it hugely. Had plenty to eat with the exception of the two days, and at the last had a horseback ride. How well I was reminded of my last ride when first taken prisoner and at the time I got the coverlid. In the bundle was a good white shirt, pair of stockings, and a chunk of dried beef of two pounds or so. One of the captors gave me ten dollars in Confederate money. Now am in an old vacant building and guarded and it is the middle of the afternoon. Many citizens have visited me and I tell the guard he ought to charge admission; money in it. Some of the callers bring food and are allowed to give it to me, and am stocked with more than can conveniently carry. Have had a good wash up, put on my clean white shirt with standing collar, and new stockings and am happy. Doctortown is a small village with probably six or eight hundred population, and nigger young ones by the scores. Am treated kindly and well, and judge from conversations that I hear, that the battles are very disastrous to the rebels and that the war is pretty well over. All the negroes are hard pressed, fortifying every available point to contest the advance of the Union Army. This is cheering news to me. My escape has given me confidence in myself, and I shall try it again the first opportunity. A woman has just given me a bottle of milk and two dollars in money. thanked her with my heart in my mouth. Having been captured and brought to this place, am here waiting for them to get instructions as to what they shall do with me. They say I will probably be sent to the prison at Blackshear, which is forty or fifty miles away Think I should be content to stay here with plenty to eat. Am in a good clean room in a dwelling. Can talk with any one who chooses to come and see me. The room was locked during the night, and this morning was thrown open, and I can wander through three rooms. Guard is off a few rods where he can see all around the house. Occasionally I go out doors and am having a good time. Later. — Have seen a Savannah paper which says Sherman and his hosts are marching toward that city, and for the citizens to rally to repel the invader. My swollen ankle is being rubbed today with ointment furnished by an old darky. I tell you there are humane people the world over, who will not see even an enemy suffer if they can help it. While I have seen some of the worst people in the South, I have also seen some of the very best, and those, too, who were purely southern people and rebels. There are many pleasant associations connected with my prison life, as well as some directly to the opposite.

SOURCE: John L. Ransom, Andersonville Diary, p. 127-9

Captain Charles Wright Wills: May 7, 1864, 12 p.m.

Near LaFayette, Ga., 12 m., May 7, 1864.

Have just got into camp and washed my face. Four divisions filing into the road ahead of us, delayed us five whole hours, and their trains have made us seven hours marching 8 miles. Somebody says we are 19 miles from Rome. The boys have started a new dodge on the citizens. One of my men told me of playing it last night. When we camped for the night he went to a house and inquiring about the neighbors found out one who had relatives North; and something of the family history. Then he called on this party and represented himself as belonging to the northern branch of the family, got to kiss the young lady cousins, had a pleasant time generally, and returned with his haversack full of knicknacks, and the pictures of his cousins, with whom he had promised to correspond. At one house on the road to-day 10 or 12 women had congregated to see the troops pass. An officer stopped at the house just as our regiment came up, and the boys commenced yelling at him, “Come out of that, Yank;” you could have heard them two miles. Never saw a man so mortified. Colonel Wright tells me we are about seven miles from the Rebels at some ridge. We will get into position to-morrow and fight next day — that is, they would, if I were not present. We camped in a “whale” of a sweet potato patch, and the boys have about dug up the seed and gobbled it.

SOURCE: Charles Wright Wills, Army Life of an Illinois Soldier, p. 236

Captain Charles Wright Wills: February 7, 1864

Scottsboro, Ala., February 7, 1864.

This has indeed been a day of rest. More like a home Sabbath, than the Lord's day often seems, here in the “show business.” None of my company have been on duty, and as the day has been bright and warm, the men have been nearly all out in front of the quarters; all looking natty and clean and healthy, sunning themselves real country-Sunday fashion. Seems to me that I grow prouder every day of being captain over these men. If I could only get 30 good, healthy recruits, I expect I'd have to be “hooped.” The boys brought a fiddle in with them yesterday from our Lebanon march, and as nearly all of them play, “more or less,” it has seen but little rest to-day. Every man I have present (42) is for duty, and if there are any soldiers in the army who can outmarch them, or do duty better, “I want them for Babcockses,” as the boys say. Frank Post was in my tent to-day, and informed me that in her last letter, Laura told him that some horrible stories of my cruelty to women and children while in command of the mounted detachment, were in circulation at home. He wanted me to trace the author of them, but I respectfully begged to be excused. The person who told such stuff, falsifies; for I never killed a fly, or stepped on a worm, or kicked a dog, or threw a stone at a cat, and know I wouldn't treat a woman or child worse, if they were Rebels. I do take a little private satisfaction in knowing that I have never said a word, except respectfully, to any woman in the Confederacy, that I have ever touched a cent's worth of private property for my own use. We, with 600 more of our brigade, had to take horses and rations from a poor set of people, but that was no more our fault than the war is. Those pretty crystals I sent you by Lieutenant Dorrance, are “Iceland Spar,” which is, I believe, the only stone which possesses the power of double refraction. If you put a thin piece of it over a black mark on paper, and look closely, you will see two marks; try this piece which I enclose. I took a lesson in chess last night, played a couple of games. Don't [think] I would ever make a player. Colonel Dickerman is at present commanding the brigade, and Major Willison the regiment, Lieutenant Colonel Wright being on detached service as a division inspector general. Mattison is in his quartermaster department almost constantly, and Dorrance's absence leaves me quite alone. Dorrance was in a way, good company. Always in a good humor and talking. Real accommodating, too, if carefully handled.

I went to the nearest house to camp to-day, to beg a little piece of tallow to soften a pair of marching boots. I sat down by a fire, in company with three young women, all cleanly dressed and powdered to death. Their ages were from 18 to 24. Each of them had a quid of tobacco in her cheek about the size of my stone inkstand, and if they didn't make the extract fly worse than I ever saw it in a country grocery, shoot me. These women here have so disgusted me with the use of tobacco that I have determined to abandon it. Well, we are again under orders to march at a moment's notice. Received them about noon to-day, and expect to start in the morning. It is intimated that we go to Chattanooga, first, and then either to Dalton, Knoxville, or garrison Chattanooga, and let its present occupants go. I was much pleased to get the orders, for above all things, do hate a permanent camp. I enjoy the tramping, the mud, the cold, and being tired, and everything mean there is about soldiering, except being hungry. That beats me to a fraction. If I could only go without eating three or four days at a time I would pass as a soldier, but bless me, missing a meal is worse than drawing a tooth. I never tried it as long as I have been in the army, but it seems to me that putting me on quarter rations would be equivalent to putting me in a hospital bed.

Hurrah for the march. No such place for real fun elsewhere. We have our regular races, and tough ones they are, too, sometimes. Each regiment takes its turn in having the advance, one day at a time. Say, to-day we have the lead, then to-morrow we will march behind all the rest, and the next day the regiment which succeeded us in the lead will fall behind us, etc. It is a great deal easier to march in front than in the rear, because in passing defile, or crossing streams on single logs, all of the time that is lost falls, finally, on the rearmost regiment, and after it crosses it sometimes has to double-quick it a mile or more to catch up again. A common time step or 90 to the minute, in front with a brigade of 1,500 over the average of these roads, makes the rear in order to keep up, take more than quick time, or over 112 steps to the minute, during their marching time. So you can imagine our races, though fun to the advance, make the rear work—no laughing matter. The point of the race is for the advance regiment to move so fast that the others will break up, tired out, and straggle. Yesterday the 97th Indiana coming in had the lead and undertook to run us. We had the rear, but by not waiting to cross on logs, but wading through creeks up to our knees or middles kept at their heels for 8 miles without a rest. ’Twas raining all the time and the roads were awful slippery. Our brigade tried hard to run us down at first, but now none of them doubt our ability to march with any regiment. When the men are resting along the road they have a great fashion of making remarks about any strange soldier or citizen who passes. As we were resting on the 5th inst., a bare-footed, sick-looking soldier came hobbling through. One man said, “He's sick, don't say anything to him;” another said, “No, he's shod a little too rough;” another, “Yes, and he interferes;” another, “Keep still he's slipping upon something;” another, “He's showing us how Fanny Elssler went over a looking glass;” another, “Come here and I'll take the pegs out of your shoes,” etc. Wouldn't that be interesting to the passerby?

SOURCE: Charles Wright Wills, Army Life of an Illinois Soldier, p. 213-6

Captain Charles Wright Wills: September 26, 1863

Messengers Ferry, Big Black River, Miss.,

September 26, 1863.

Pass in your congratulations. We are under marching orders for Chattanooga. Our whole corps is going. We steam o'er sand-bars to Memphis, and then will probably “foot it,” though may go by cars as far as Corinth. From Memphis the march will be some 450 miles. We will pass through my favorite portion of Dixie, the Tennessee valley in North Alabama. We are all much rejoiced at the idea of leaving a country where there is no enemy save mosquitoes and chiggers and ague. We keep up the form of picketing; but I find it decidedly uninteresting to do such duty, knowing that coons and owls will cause all our alarms. Aside from knowing there is no enemy near, the picket duty is delightful here. I have seldom passed a more pleasant night than the one before last. The moon is about full, and our picket line (the post under my charge), about one and a half miles long, runs along the river bank through most beautiful little magnolia and beech groves and open grass plots. But a knowledge that there are guerrillas in the country is necessary to a thorough appreciation of picket duty. We are camped on the Messenger plantation. The owner thereof was very wealthy. Worth $1,000,000.00. Had some 500 negroes, etc. He armed and uniformed a secesh regiment at his own expense, and was, and is yet probably, a Rebel to the core. He fled at the approach of our troops, leaving his wife to manage for him. General Osterhaus called on her and asked her if she desired Federal protection. She said she didn't ask anything of him or any of his crew. The general told her she had just an hour to select and load two wagons with kitchen furniture and start across the river. She moved, was gone about a month, begged permission to return and is now eating government rations, which she is too poor to pay for.

SOURCE: Charles Wright Wills, Army Life of an Illinois Soldier, p. 190

Diary of 2nd Lieutenant Luman Harris Tenney: January 17, 1864

Found a dugout at noon. Rol and I went ahead and engaged dinner. Pulled on in P. M. Ab and I in canoe. Stayed over night at a Union man's. Courtship scene. None of Tenn., her women, institutions and privileges for me.

SOURCE: Frances Andrews Tenney, War Diary Of Luman Harris Tenney, p. 105

Diary of 2nd Lieutenant Luman Harris Tenney: January 21, 1864

It is astonishing how much the people of E. Tenn. have put up with, and how ignorant and coarse they are. Have seen but one young lady in Tenn. whose clothes have fitted her and who has acted the lady. 27 miles from Chattanooga. Great time at dinner at one Shoemakers — rebel. Guard there — impudent. Got into Chattanooga at 4 P. M. Good time with the Co. Rough night. Routed twice.

SOURCE: Frances Andrews Tenney, War Diary Of Luman Harris Tenney, p. 105

Captain Charles Wright Wills: June 4, 1863

Middleton, Tenn., June 4, 1863.

We made another little change yesterday. The regiment is now guarding the M. C. & R. R. from Grand Junction to Pocahontas. We are in detachments of two companies each. H Company is with mine. We marched 23 miles to make this point yesterday, and arrived at 10 o'clock p. m. We only made four miles after dark, and the road was so horrible and the woods so thick we had much difficulty in finding it at all. We occupy the depot and have strengthened it by a revetment of fascines, so that we consider ourselves perfectly safe if attacked by even ten times our number of infantry. Artillery would scoop us. This little town had when the war commenced some 40 houses; now it boasts of not more than 12 or 15, though a number of extra chimneys add so much to the picturesqueness of the scene, that I can excuse the houses for "going out." This country has literally been scraped, swept and scoured. The guerrillas first ran the Union men off, and then when we came here the Unionists returned, took up arms and drove out all the secesh families. You can hear of murders being committed in every neighborhood by either one party or the other. It will take at least 8,000 years for this people alone to make this country what Illinois is now, on the average, and at least 1,000 to bring it up to the standard of poor, God-forsaken Lewistown township. I have never been so comfortably situated in the army, except when with Colonel Mizner, as I am now. The boys have rigged up nice bunks in the depot wareroom, which are dry and comfortable, have good water, light guard duty, and the citizens bring in to us their extra vegetables, etc., and trade them for our surplus rations. The boys give one pound of coffee for two dozen eggs, or two pounds of butter; sell them bacon for 15 cents per pound, etc. Two very fine elderly ladies pleading for a horse to-day, told stories of tremendous length about how "Union" their husbands were prior to their deaths. I'd almost rather give up my head than have two women of their age begging of me for anything that way. I have the telegraph room for myself and have fixed it up nicely. I know well enough that it is too good to last long and shall resign it without a sigh, and if ordered to Vicksburg, with a cheer. I fixed up our last camp as well as I could in hopes that my pains would bring us marching orders, and we got them, but the direction was wrong. This is so much better that it must surely win. Maybe you don't know that there is a superstition (almost) among soldiers that arranging a camp particularly nice and comfortable brings marching orders.

SOURCE: Charles Wright Wills, Army Life of an Illinois Soldier, p. 177-9

Diary of 2nd Lieutenant Luman Harris Tenney: September 3, 1863

After breakfast and feeding, moved to Lenoir. Stopped two hours in the shade near the big springs. Several Union men from over the river, Blount County, anxious for us to cross over. Camped in the woods on a high bank of river. Many girls out to see us. Several came up and took coffee with the boys, highly pleased. People all seem to be loyal. Lenoir old rebel. Confiscated corn, sugar, etc. Splendid crops along the river. Uneducated, homely girls and women.

SOURCE: Frances Andrews Tenney, War Diary Of Luman Harris Tenney, p. 86

1st Lieutenant Charles Wright Wills: May 19, 1862

Near Corinth, Miss., May 19 ,1862.

Our regiment now is acting as a kind of rear guard for Pope's division. The enemy's cavalry in bodies of from 1,000 down have been running around our left flank and threatening to interfere with our trains. Every day we send out six companies to patrol between here and the river and forward. Yesterday (Sunday) I was out. We went to Red Sulphur Springs, one of the most romantic, beautiful places I have ever seen. There are about 40 double cottages for families, and stables, kennels and quarters for the servants, hounds and horses. The buildings are in good repair, though the place has not been frequented much for the last three or four years. White Sulphur Springs are four miles from the Red and more fashionable. I am going there to-morrow. There were about a dozen real ladies at the springs yesterday, and they were quite sociable and so interesting that I could not help staying an hour after the column left We were the first of our soldiers that the party had seen and they were much surprised that our boys behaved so well. None of them had ever been North, and they occupied about all the time I was with them in asking questions, principally though, about the conduct of our army. About a mile before we got to the springs we passed a house where there were as many as six young ladies in full dress. The major sent me to make some inquiries of the man of the house, and I noticed the party were in something of a flurry but ascribed it to the presence of our men. Of course Sunday was an excuse for the finery and there being so many together. After we had advanced a little way one of our captains took a squad, went ahead and passed himself for a Rebel officer just from Corinth. By his figuring he found out that at this house I have spoken of they were expecting some Rebel officers and men, 14 in all, from Corinth to dinner and a visit. We set a trap for them, but they heard of us through the citizens and sloped. They came within a mile of us and then their tracks showed they had gone off through the woods and a swamp on a run. We got one of their horses, a beauty, fully equipped. It being a hot day the owner had strapped his coat on his valise and not having time to take it off we got it. A dozen of our boys went back and ate the dinner, but without the company of the ladies who had flown. Our line has now closed to within two and one-half miles around the north and east sides of Corinth. Our men have thrown up breastworks within that distance along nearly the whole line. The cannons play on each other occasionally, say as an average four times a day, a half hour each time. Our line is, I think, nine or ten miles long; am not sure. The Rebels are suffering for rations, not more than half rations having been served for the last ten days. Hundreds are deserting from them. One battalion that was raised in this county, over 500 men, have all deserted but about 90. The commander himself ran off. Of a 100 men that deserted from them probably five come within our lines. The rest all go to their homes. If Porter takes Mobile, and Farragut and Davis get Memphis, I think in ten days afterward there will not be enough Rebels left in Corinth to oppose our regiment. There is no doubt that they have more men now than we have but they lack discipline. Success at the points above named will leave them without any railroad communication whatever or telegraph either. I'm afraid that our gunboats got the worst of that little affair at Pillow the other day. An army is the slowest moving animal. Here we've been over a month making 20 miles. I think I shall run off to McClernand's division this p. m. and see some of the 17th and 8th boys.

SOURCE: Charles Wright Wills, Army Life of an Illinois Soldier, p. 90-1

Diary of John Beauchamp Jones: May 7, 1863

A scout came in to-day with the vexatious intelligence that a body of hostile cavalry is still in Louisa County. And later in the day we have information that the Mattapony bridge was burned last night! Thus again is communication interrupted between Gen. Lee and the city! Our wounded cannot be brought to the hospitals here, nor supplies sent to them! It really does seem as if an organization of Union men here were co-operating with the enemy, else they never could disappear and reappear so often with impunity. Every one is asking what Gens. Elzey and Winder are doing — and echo answers, What?

There is a great pressure for passports to leave the country. Mr. Benjamin writes an indignant letter to the Secretary against Gen. Whiting, at Wilmington, for detaining a Mr. Flanner's steamer, laden with cotton for some of the nationalities — Mr. B. intimates a foreign or neutral power. But when once away from our shore, many of these vessels steer for New York, depositing large sums “for those whom it may concern.”

Mr. J. B. Campbell, attorney for J. E. Hertz (Jew), writes a long letter to “J. A. Campbell, Assistant Secretary of War,” urging the payment of the slight sum of $25,200 for ninety kegs of bicarbonate of soda seized by the agent of the department! The true value is about $250!

At two o'clock this afternoon a note was received by the Secretary of War from Lieut.-Gen. Longstreet (still in the city), stating that the President last night desired him to go to Gen. Lee immediately; but the general, during the day, has become convinced that he should not leave the city until communications are reestablished with Gen. Lee, and the city in a condition of defense against the sudden dash of one or two columns of the enemy — an event, he thinks, meditated by the Yankees! And the persistency of the Federal cavalry in hanging round the city in spite of all the generals here, and the many companies, battalions, and regiments vainly sent out in quest of them, would seem to indicate such purpose.

But the raids in the West don't seem to flourish so well. We have an official dispatch from Gen. Bragg, stating that Gen. Forrest has captured 1600 of the enemy's cavalry in a body, near Rome, Georgia.

There are amusing scenes among the horrors of war, as the following, taken from a paper to-day, shows:

“Taking the Oath under Protest. — A few weeks ago a laughable incident occurred in the neighborhood of Nashville, which is worthy of record. A saucy, dashing young girl, of the Southern persuasion, was, with a number of other ladies, brought into the presence of Gen. Rosecrans, in order that their Southern ardor might be checked by the administration of the oath of loyalty. The bold, bright-eyed Juno in question, objected to take the oath, saying that her mother had taught her that it was unlady-like to swear; her sense of morality forbid her to swear, and swear she could and would not. The officer insisted that the lady must take an oath before she left his presence.

“’Well, general,’” said bright eyes, ‘if I must swear, I will; but all sins of the oath must rest on your shoulders, for I swear on your compulsion: “G-d d-m[n] every Yankee to H--1!’”

“And the defiant beauty tossed her dark curls and swept out of the presence unmolested.” —Nashville Union.

7 O'clock P.m. The report that the bridge over the Mattapony had been burned by the enemy was false — invented probably by a spy or emissary, who has enjoyed the freedom of the city under the Dogberrys and Vergises imported hither to preserve the government. A number of trains containing our wounded men, guarded by a detachment of troops, have arrived at the Fredericksburg depot. An officer just arrived from the army says we have taken 15,000 prisoners. If this be so, the loss of the enemy during the week in Virginia will not be less than 40,000. Our loss in killed and wounded is estimated at from 8 to 10,000 — we lost a few hundred prisoners. We have taken, it is said, 53 guns, and lost 14.

I think the reports to-day of squadrons of the enemy's cavalry seen in the surrounding counties are not reliable — they were probably our own men in quest of the enemy.

SOURCE: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 1, p. 312-4

Diary of John Beauchamp Jones: April 4, 1863

It is the belief of some that the riot was a premeditated affair, stimulated from the North, and executed through the instrumentality of emissaries. Some of the women, and others, have been arrested.

We have news of the capture of another of the enemy's gunboats, in Berwick Bay, Louisiana, with five guns. It is said to have been done by cavalry.

A dispatch just received from Charleston states that the enemy's monitors were approaching the forts, seven in number, and that the attack was commencing. This is joyful news to our people, so confident are they that Gen. Beauregard will beat them.

SOURCE: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 1, p. 286-7