Diary of John Beauchamp Jones: March 4, 1862

We shall have stirring times here. Our troops are to be marched through Richmond immediately, for the defense of Yorktown — the same town surrendered by Lord Cornwallis to Washington. But its fall or its successful defense now will signify nothing.

SOURCE: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 1, p. 113

Diary of John Beauchamp Jones: March 5, 1862

Martial law has been proclaimed.

SOURCE: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 1, p. 113

Diary of John Beauchamp Jones: March 6, 1862

Some consternation among the citizens — they dislike martial law.

SOURCE: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 1, p. 113

Diary of John Beauchamp Jones: March 7, 1862

Gen. Winder has established a guard with fixed bayonets at the door of the passport office. They let in only a few at a time, and these, when they get their passports, pass out by the rear door, it being impossible for them to return through the crowd.

SOURCE: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 1, p. 113

Diary of John Beauchamp Jones: March 8, 1862

Gen. Winder has appointed Capt. Godwin Provost Marshal.

SOURCE: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 1, p. 113

Diary of John Beauchamp Jones: March 9, 1862

Gen. Winder has appointed Col. Porter Provost Marshal, — Godwin not being high enough in rank, I suppose.

SOURCE: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 1, p. 113

Diary of John Beauchamp Jones: March 10, 1862

One of the friends of the Secretary of War came to me to-day, and proposed to have some new passports printed, with the likeness of Mr. Benjamin engraved on them. He said, I think, the engraving had already been made. I denounced the project as absurd, and said there were some five or ten thousand printed passports on hand.

SOURCE: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 1, p. 113

Diary of Mary Boykin Chesnut: December 19, 1864

The deep waters are closing over us and we are in this house, like the outsiders at the time of the flood. We care for none of these things. We eat, drink, laugh, dance, in lightness of heart.

Doctor Trezevant came to tell me the dismal news. How he piled on the agony! Desolation, mismanagement, despair. General Young, with the flower of Hampton's cavalry, is in Columbia. Horses can not be found to mount them. Neither the Governor of Georgia nor the Governor of South Carolina is moving hand or foot. They have given up. The Yankees claim another victory for Thomas.¹ Hope it may prove like most of their victories, brag and bluster. Can't say why, maybe I am benumbed, but I do not feel so intensely miserable.

_______________

¹ Reference is here made to the battle between Hood and Thomas at Nashville, the result of which was the breaking up of Hood's army as a fighting force.

SOURCES: Mary Boykin Chesnut, Edited by Isabella D. Martin and Myrta Lockett Avary, A Diary From Dixie, p. 339-40

Diary of Judith Brockenbrough McGuire: July 30, 1863

Our good President has again appointed a day for fasting and prayer.

The Florida and Alabama are performing wonderful feats, and are worrying the North excessively. Many a cargo has been lost to the Northern merchant princes by their skill, and I trust that the Government vessels feel their power.

Several members of our household have gone to the mountains in pursuit of health — Mr. —— among the rest. Mrs. P., of Amelia, is here, cheering the house by her sprightliness; and last night we had Mr. Randolph Tucker, who is a delightful companion — so intellectual, cheerful, and God-fearing!

The army is unusually quiet at all points. Does it portend a storm? Many changes are going on in “our village.” The half-English, half-Yankee Wades are gone at last, to our great relief. I dare say she shakes the dust from her feet, as a testimony against the South; for she certainly has suffered very much here, and she will not have as many difficulties there, with her Yankee Colonel father. She professes to out-rebel the rebels, and to be the most intense Southern woman of us all; but I rather think that she deceives herself, and unless I mistake her character very much indeed, I think when she gets among her own people she will tell them all she knows of our hopes, fears, and difficulties. Poor thing! I am glad she is gone to those persons on whom she has a natural claim for protection.

SOURCE: Judith W. McGuire, Diary of a Southern Refugee, During the War, p. 235-6

Charlotte Cross Wigfall to Louise Wigfall, December 5, 1863

Gen. Hood is in town and Dr. Darby has gone to Europe to procure a leg for the General with the money contributed by the Texas Brigade. Gen. Hood looks remarkably well and bears his misfortune with the greatest cheerfulness.

SOURCE: Louise Wigfall Wright, A Southern Girl in ’61, p. 161

Diary of Sarah Morgan: August 17, 1862

Another Sunday. Strange that the time, which should seem so endless, flies so rapidly! Miriam complains that Sunday comes every day; but though that seems a little too much, I insist that it comes twice a week. Let time fly, though; for each day brings us so much nearer our destiny, which I long to know.

Thursday, we heard from a lady just from town that our house was standing the day before, which somewhat consoled us for the loss of our silver and clothing; but yesterday came the tidings of new afflictions. I declare we have acted out the first chapter of Job, all except that verse about the death of his sons and daughters. God shield us from that! I do not mind the rest. “While he was yet speaking, another came in and said, ‘Thy brethren and kinsmen gathered together to wrest thine abode from the hand of the Philistines which pressed sore upon thee; when lo! the Philistines sallied forth with fire and sword, and laid thine habitation waste and desolate, and I only am escaped to tell thee.’” Yes! the Yankees, fearing the Confederates might slip in unseen, resolved to have full view of their movements, so put the torch to all eastward, from Colonel Matta's to the Advocate. That would lay open a fine tract of country, alone; but unfortunately, it is said that once started, it was not so easy to control the flames, which spread considerably beyond their appointed limits. Some say it went as far as Florida Street; if so, we are lost, as that is a half-square below us. For several days the fire has been burning, but very little can be learned of the particulars. I am sorry for Colonel Matta. Such a fine brown stone front, the finest in town. Poor Minna! poverty will hardly agree with her. As for our home, I hope against hope. I will not believe it is burnt, until somebody declares having been present on that occasion. Yet so many frame houses on that square must have readily caught fire from the sparks.

Wicked as it may seem, I would rather have all I own burned, than in the possession of the negroes. Fancy my magenta organdie on a dark beauty! Bah! I think the sight would enrage me! Miss Jones's trials are enough to drive her crazy. She had the pleasure of having four officers in her house, men who sported epaulets and red sashes, accompanied by a negro woman, at whose disposal all articles were placed. The worthy companion of these “gentlemen” walked around selecting things with the most natural airs and graces. “This,” she would say, “we must have. And some of these books, you know; and all the preserves, and these chairs and tables, and all the clothes, of course; and yes! the rest of these things.” So she would go on, the “gentlemen” assuring her she had only to choose what she wanted, and that they would have them removed immediately. Madame thought they really must have the wine, and those handsome cut-glass goblets. I hardly think I could have endured such a scene; to see all I owned given to negroes, without even an accusation being brought against me of disloyalty.¹ One officer departed with a fine velvet cloak on his arm; another took such a bundle of Miss Jones's clothes, that he had to have it lifted by some one else on his horse, and rode off holding it with difficulty. This I heard from herself, yesterday, as I spent the day with Lilly and mother at Mr. Elder's, where she is now staying. Can anything more disgraceful be imagined? They all console me by saying there is no one in Baton Rouge who could possibly wear my dresses without adding a considerable piece to the belt. But that is nonsense. Another pull at the corset strings would bring them easily to the size I have been reduced by nature and bones. Besides, O horror! Suppose, instead, they should let in a piece of another color? That would annihilate me! Pshaw! I do not care for the dresses, if they had only left me those little articles of father's and Harry's. But that is hard to forgive.

_______________

¹ The Act of July 16th, 1862, authorized the confiscation of property only in the cases of rebels whose disloyalty was established. — W. D.

SOURCE: Sarah Morgan Dawson, A Confederate Girl's Diary, p. 176-9

Diary of Corporal Alexander G. Downing: Friday, December 16, 1864

Left this morning at 8 o'clock for King's bridge over the Ogeechee river at a point fifteen miles from Savannah, where we again went into camp. All the torpedoes having been removed from the river, small boats can now come up to the bridge and land. Two boats came up with mail and some other articles. There were four tons of mail for the army. All is quiet along the line, but we have no rations yet. We still have plenty of rice with the hull on, but all the mortars upon the plantation have now been gathered together and the cavalry have put all the negroes of the plantation at work hulling rice.

Source: Alexander G. Downing, Edited by Olynthus B., Clark, Downing’s Civil War Diary, p. 238

Captain Charles Fessenden Morse, November 11, 1862

Camp Near Sharpsburgh, Md.,

November 11, 1862.

We had an interesting little reunion and supper at my tent last evening. Yesterday morning, Bob Shaw and I rode into Hagerstown where the First Massachusetts Cavalry are stationed, about fourteen miles from here. We found our friends there getting ready for a move, having a preliminary inspection of men, horses, etc., they having received orders to join Pleasanton. By dint of a little persuasion, we got Curtis and Higginson to ride back with us. We had already arranged a supper to which the five captains in the regiment had been invited; Cogswell, Bangs, Robeson, Shaw, and myself. We sat down immediately after “tattoo” and had a jolly time; there were seven of us, all original “Seconds.” Of course, there were innumerable recollections recalled, many of them sad, but a great many very pleasant; old times were talked over and the many changes that had befallen us since our first Camp Andrew experience. The supper was very good; a capital soup, followed by roast quail and “fixings,” claret, coffee, cigars, etc., all done up in pretty good shape for camp. An occasion like this makes up for many vexations, and we all appreciate it.

Last night we received the news that Andrews had been appointed Brigadier-General and assigned to Banks; so we have lost our second Colonel, as honest and faithful a man as ever lived. He is one of the officers in the army who has worked his way up himself, and has been promoted purely on account of his own merit without political influence or wire-pulling. By this promotion and the death of Lieutenant-Colonel Savage, Quincy becomes Colonel, Cogswell, Lieutenant-Colonel, and Mudge, Major. I shall be third Captain and have the colors, Savage's original place. Sawyer will be tenth Captain; at Camp Andrew he was tenth Second Lieutenant, twenty grades he has gone through.

That was a very good article you sent me, taken from the “Advertiser,” about Colonel Savage. It was evidently written by some one who knew him well. It was perfectly true and did not exaggerate his good qualities an atom. He was nearer to being a perfect man than any one I ever knew.

SOURCE: Charles Fessenden Morse, Letters Written During the Civil War, 1861-1865, p. 104-5

Major Wilder Dwight: October 30, 1861

Camp Near Seneca, October 30, 1861.

We still keep the camping-ground in which we were when I last wrote, and we are enjoying the brightest of October days. There is a general impression that winter-quarters, or some such depressing movement, is to be the fate of the grand Army of the Potomac

Yesterday Captain Cary took a letter from Colonel Gordon to General Evans in command at Leesburg. The Colonel was a West Point friend of General Evans, and wrote to ask the fate of our friends of the Twentieth. Captain Cary took a white handkerchief on a stick as his flag of truce, and crossed the river in a skiff. He went up and down the river, but could find no picket anywhere. After wandering about with his flag for three hours, he came to a farm-house. The man was a Union man. He said he had been twice arrested, and refused to take the letter. He told Cary that he had seen no soldiers for a week, and thought there were none nearer than Leesburg, but he advised the Captain to go back, as he said his flag of truce would not be respected. Cary made up his mind to return. I confess I was very glad indeed to see him back, and considered the

expedition a very risky one. . . . .

We have a beautiful camping-ground here, and are getting it into perfect order for muster to-morrow. The last day of October is our semi-monthly muster and inspection.

SOURCE: Elizabeth Amelia Dwight, Editor, Life and Letters of Wilder Dwight: Lieut.-Col. Second Mass. Inf. Vols., p. 132-3

Brigadier-General Benjamin F. Butler to Blanche Butler, Sunday October 22, 1860

LoweLL, Oct. 22, 1860

MY GOOD GIRL: You know that I am not a constant correspondent, but I am now taking your mother's place. You need not feel alarm about your mother's eyes, as I believe the weakness to be temporary only. At least she was quite well enough last Friday evening to go with me to the Prince's Ball¹ at Boston. Aunt Harriet went with us; both were much pleased, as ladies always are, with beautiful dresses, fine music, and a gay throng. I was obliged to go down to the review of the Military.² I suppose you hardly saw the Prince; as a sight you have not lost much. He looks somewhat like your cousin Hal Read, but is not quite so intelligent in the face.

Pray do not pain me by hearing that you are homesick. A girl of good sense like you to be homesick! Never say it. Never feel it, never think it. The change, the novelty of your situation, will soon wear away, and with your duties well done, as I know they will be, you will be sustained by the pride of a well-earned joy in your return. You say the girls, your associates, seem strange to you. May they not find the same strange appearance in you? You say you think they do not like you much, and you do not like them much. Is not this because of the strangeness, and because you do not understand and know each other. It is one of the objects I desired to gain by sending you to Georgetown that you should see other manners, other customs and ways, than those around you at home. However good these may be, the difficulty is that one used to a single range of thoughts and modes of life soon comes to think all others inferior, while in fact they may be better, and are only different. This is a provincialism, and one of which I am sorry to say that Massachusetts people are most frequently guilty.

By no means give up your own manners simply because others of your associates are different. Try and see which are best, but do not cling to your own simply because they are yours. In the matter of pronunciation of which you wrote, hold fast your own, subject to your teachers. Do not adopt the flat drawl of the South. That is a patois. Avoid it. All educated people speak a language alike. T’is true Mr. Clay, said cheer for chair, but that from a defect of early association. Full, distinct, and clear utterance with a kindly modulated voice, will add a new accomplishment to a young lady, who is as perfect as Blanche in the eye of

FATHER

_______________

¹ H. R. H. the Prince of Wales, then on a visit to the United States.

² General Butler was Brigadier General of the Massachusetts militia, having received his commission in 1857.

SOURCE: Jessie Ames Marshall, Editor, Private and Official Correspondence of Gen. Benjamin F. Butler During the Period of the Civil War, Volume 1: April 1860 – June 1862, p. 3-4

Major-General John A. Dix to Major-General George B. McClellan, September 5, 1861

HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF PENNSYLVANIA,

Baltimore, Md., September 5, 1861.

Maj. Gen. G. B. MCCLELLAN,

Commanding Army of the Potomac.

GENERAL: Fort McHenry which has not sufficient space for the convenient accommodation of the number of men necessary to man its guns is crowded with prisoners. Beside our own criminals awaiting trial or under sentence we have eleven State prisoners. To this number six more will be added to-morrow. I do not think this a suitable place for them if we had ample room. It is too near the seat of war which may possibly be extended to us. It is also too near a great town in which there are multitudes who sympathize with them who are constantly applying for interviews and who must be admitted with the hazard of becoming the media of improper communications, or who go away with the feeling that they have been harshly treated because they have been denied access to their friends.

It is very desirable that an end should be put to these dangers on the one hand and annoyances on the other. If as is supposed Fort Lafayette is crowded may they not be provided for at Fort Delaware? There are several prisoners here who are under indictment. The Government decided that they should not be sent away. I concur in the correctness of the reasoning, but is there any impropriety if their safety requires it in taking them temporarily beyond the jurisdiction of the court by which they must be tried to be remanded when the court is ready for their trial? I confess I do not see that any principle is violated. I certainly do not think them perfectly safe here considering the population by which they are surrounded and the opportunities for evading the vigilance of their guards.

*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *

I am, very respectfully, your obedient servant.

 JOHN A. DIX,

 Major-General. Commanding.

[Indorsement.]

SOURCES: The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Series 2, Volume 1 (Serial No. 114), p. 592-3; Morgan Dix, Memoirs of John Adams Dix, Volume 2, p. 29 which dates this letter as September 5, 1861;

Major-General George G. McClellan to Major-General John A. Dix, September 5, 1861

HEADQUARTERS ARMY OF THE POTOMAC,

September 5, 1861.

Respectfully referred to the general commanding with a recommendation that the seventeen prisoners referred to by General Dix be transferred to some other place for' safekeeping; and I beg to repeat my suggestion that some other suitable place be selected for keeping prisoners at war that may be captured in future. For present purposes it seems to me that Fort Independence, Boston Harbor, or Fort Adams, Newport, might suffice.

 GEO. B. McCLELLAN,

Major-General, U.S. Army.

SOURCES: The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Series 2, Volume 1 (Serial No. 114), p. 593

Lieutenant-Colonel Rutherford B. Hayes to Lucy Webb Hayes: Saturday March 1, 1862

Cincinnati — No, Fayetteville, Virginia,

Saturday, March 1, 1862.

Dear L—: — I reached here in good condition last night. Find Dr. Joe very well. How he loves the boys! All things look bright and cheerful.

Colonel Scammon goes home today. People seem glad to see me, and I am glad to see the Twenty-third again. They greet me a good deal as the boys did at home.

Darling, you will be pleased to know, and so I tell you, I never loved you more than I do as I think of you on my late visit, and I never admired you so much. You are glad I feel so? Yes; well, that's “pretty dood.” No time to write much. Love to Grandma and kisses for all the boys.

I brought all the grub in my haversack except three biscuits clear here. More welcome here than on the road. Ask Dr. Jim to see that my Commercial and Joe's Gazette are sent. They don't come.

Affectionately,

R.

Mrs. Hayes.

SOURCE: Charles Richard Williams, editor, Diary and Letters of Rutherford Birchard Hayes, Volume 2, p. 201-2

Diary of John Beauchamp Jones: March 2, 1862

Gen. Jos. E. Johnston has certainly made a skillful retrograde movement in the face of the enemy at Manassas. He has been keeping McClellan and his 210,000 men at bay for a long time with about 40,000. After the abandonment of his works it was a long time before the enemy knew he had retrograded. They approached very cautiously, and found that they had been awed by a few Quaker guns — logs of wood in position, and so painted as to resemble cannon. Lord, how the Yankee press will quiz McClellan!

SOURCE: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 1, p. 113

Diary of Mary Boykin Chesnut: December 14, 1864

And now the young ones are in bed and I am wide awake. It is an odd thing; in all my life how many persons have I seen in love? Not a half-dozen. And I am a tolerably close observer, a faithful watcher have I been from my youth upward of men and manners. Society has been for me only an enlarged field for character study.

Flirtation is the business of society; that is, playing at love-making. It begins in vanity, it ends in vanity. It is spurred on by idleness and a want of any other excitement. Flattery, battledore and shuttlecock, how in this game flattery is dashed backward and forward. It is so soothing to self-conceit. If it begins and ends in vanity, vexation of spirit supervenes sometimes. They do occasionally burn their fingers awfully, playing with fire, but there are no hearts broken. Each party in a flirtation has secured a sympathetic listener, to whom he or she can talk of himself or herself—somebody who, for the time, admires one exclusively, and, as the French say, excessivement. It is a pleasant, but very foolish game, and so to bed.

Hood and Thomas have had a fearful fight, with carnage and loss of generals excessive in proportion to numbers. That means they were leading and urging their men up to the enemy. I know how Bartow and Barnard Bee were killed bringing up their men. One of Mr. Chesnut's sins thrown in his teeth by the Legislature of South Carolina was that he procured the promotion of Gist, “State Rights” Gist, by his influence in Richmond. What have these comfortable, stay-at-home patriots to say of General Gist now? “And how could man die better than facing fearful odds,” etc.

So Fort McAlister has fallen! Good-by, Savannah! Our Governor announces himself a follower of Joe Brown, of Georgia. Another famous Joe.

SOURCES: Mary Boykin Chesnut, Edited by Isabella D. Martin and Myrta Lockett Avary, A Diary From Dixie, p. 338-9