1st Lieutenant Charles Wright Wills: May 24, 1862

Near Corinth, Miss., May 24, 1862.

I returned last night from a two day's scout. Our orders were to scour the country along the Tennessee river to near Eastport and return through Iuka, Burnsville and Glendale. A Michigan colonel commanded the party and skipped Iuka three miles. There were little bands of Rebels in sight nearly all the time we were in that vicinity, so that I could not gallop off to the place alone, and of course the colonel wouldn't let me have men to go with me.

We rode all day yesterday through a steady rain and over roads that were for miles obstructed by felled trees and bridges burned. We came back through Pope's division yesterday. Think he is as about as well fortified as Beauregard can be. ’Tis astonishing how much ditching he has done within a week. Has also cut down enough trees (to make his left unapproachable) to last all of Illinois ten years for firewood. There's no site for a Bull Run here. Confederate scrip goes among the people here freely. If a man refuses to take it they lynch him. Not the citizens but soldiers do the dirty work. The people here all say that the seceded States will have to go back where they started from.

SOURCE: Charles Wright Wills, Army Life of an Illinois Soldier, p. 91-2

Lieutenant-Colonel Rutherford B. Hayes to Lucy Webb Hayes, June 3, 1862

Flat Top Mountain, June 3, 1862.

Dearest:  — I am made happy by your letter of the 24th and the picture of Webb. Enclosed I send Webb a letter from Lieutenant Kennedy.

I am not surprised that you have been some puzzled to make out our movements and position from the confused accounts you see in the papers. Our log-book would run about this way: Flat Top Mountain, twenty miles south of Raleigh, is the boundary line between America and Dixie — between western Virginia, either loyal or subdued, and western Virginia, rebellious and unconquered. [Here follows an account of the movements and activities of the regiment during May, which is a repetition in brief of previous letters and Diary entries.] Here we are safe as a bug in a rug — the enemy more afraid of us than we are of them — and some of us do fear them quite enough. My opinion was, we ought to have fought Marshall at Princeton, but it is not quite certain.

All our regiments have behaved reasonably well except [the] Thirty-fourth, Piatt's Zouaves, and Paxton's Cavalry. Don't abuse them, but they were pretty shabby. The zouaves were scattered seventy miles, reporting us all cut to pieces, etc., etc. Enough of war.

The misfortune of our situation is, we have not half force enough for our work. If we go forward the enemy can come in behind us and destroy valuable stores, cut off our supplies, and cut through to the Ohio River, — for we are not strong enough to leave a guard behind us.

We look with the greatest interest to the great armies. Banks' big scare will do good. It helps us to about fifty thousand new men.

I nearly forgot to tell you how we were all struck by lightning on Saturday. We had a severe thunder-storm while at supper. We were outside of the tent discussing lightning — the rapidity of sound, etc., etc., Avery and Dr. McCurdy both facing me, Dr. Joe about a rod off, when there came a flash and shock and roar. The sentinel near us staggered but did not fall. Dr. McCurdy and Avery both felt a pricking sensation on the forehead. I felt as if a stone had hit me in the head. Captain Drake's arm was benumbed for a few minutes. My horse was nearly knocked down. Some horses were knocked down. Five trees near by were hit, and perhaps one hundred men more or less shocked, but strange to say “nobody hurt.”

All things still look well for a favorable conclusion to the war. I do not expect to see it ended so speedily as many suppose, but patience will carry us through.

I thought of you before I got up this morning, saying to myself, “Darling Lucy, I love you so much,” and so I do.

Affectionately,

R.

Mrs. Hayes.

SOURCE: Charles Richard Williams, editor, Diary and Letters of Rutherford Birchard Hayes, Volume 2, p. 285-6

Excerpt from Eliza McHatton Ripley’s “From Flag to Flag,”

Several days after the evacuation we ventured to enter the gates of our sweet little city, on errands of mercy, mingled with no little curiosity to see the condition in which it had been left by its unwelcome and turbulent visitors. The tall, broad-spreading shade-trees that lined the streets had been felled and thrown across all the leading thoroughfares, impeding travel so that our landau made many ineffectual attempts to thread its way. At last I descended and walked the dusty, littered, shadeless streets from square to square. Seeing the front door of the late Judge Morgan's house thrown wide open, and knowing that his widow and daughters, after asking protection for their property of the commanding general, had left before the battle, I entered. No words can tell the scene that those deserted rooms presented. The grand portraits, heirlooms of that aristocratic family, men of the Revolutionary period, high-bred dames of a long-past generation in short bodices, puffed sleeves, towering headdresses, and quaint golden chains — ancestors long since dead, not only valuable as likenesses that could not be duplicated, but acknowledged works of art — these portraits hung upon the walls, slashed by swords clear across from side to side, stabbed and mutilated in every brutal way! The contents of store-closets had been poured over the floors; molasses and vinegar, and everything that defaces and stains, had been smeared over walls and furniture. Up-stairs, armoires with mirror-doors had been smashed in with heavy axes or hammers, and the dainty dresses of the young ladies torn and crushed with studied, painstaking malignity, while china, toilet articles, and bits of glass that ornamented the rooms were thrown upon the beds and broken and ground into a mass of fragments; desks were wrenched open, and the contents scattered not only through the house, but out upon the streets, to be wafted in all directions; parts of their private letters as well as letters from the desks of other violated homes, and family records torn from numberless bibles, were found on the sidewalks of the town, and even on the public roads beyond town limits!

Judge Morgan's was the only vacated house I entered. It was enough: I was too heart-sick and indignant to seek another evidence of the lengths to which a conquering army can go in pitiless, unmeaning destruction, when nothing can result from such vandalism but hatred and revenge.

SOURCE: Eliza McHatton Ripley, From Flag to Flag: A Woman's Adventures and Experiences in the South During the War, in Mexico and in Cuba, p. 49-50

Diary of Corporal Charles H. Lynch: June 15, 1864

Up and early on the march this hot morning. Going up the narrow road over the mountains we make very slow progress. The Rebs and bushwhackers have cut down large trees and fell them across the road. The Pioneer Corps are having hard work to clear the road. As we pass slowly along the bodies of dead Rebs are lying beside the road, having been killed by the advance scouts. They looked frightful, with their long black beards and white faces, in death. The road is very narrow and winding as we go on up the mountains. At the side of the road one can look away down into the valley and ravines. Army wagons can be seen down among the trees. We suppose they must have broken down and been pushed over to get them out of the way. It was cause enough to set the boys talking and to help make them forget their own troubles. A hard, tiresome march over the mountains, stopping for the night between the Peaks of Otter, having marched only fourteen miles. Orders are to keep very quiet and not make any fires. Must go without our coffee for the night.

SOURCE: Charles H. Lynch, The Civil War Diary, 1862-1865, of Charles H. Lynch 18th Conn. Vol's, p. 77