Diary of Judith Brockenbrough McGuire: April 27, 1864

Another day and night have passed, and nothing of importance has occurred to the country. We are expecting movements in every direction. O God! direct our leaders!

Our daughter M.^[1] is with us, quite sick; her husband^[2] has just arrived from North Carolina, where he is attached to General Whiting's command.

­_______________

^[1] Mary Eleanor Mercer McGuire Johns

^[2] John Johns

SOURCE: Judith W. McGuire, Diary of a Southern Refugee, During the War, p. 260

Diary of Sarah Morgan: Monday, November 10, 1862

In spite of its being Sunday, no sooner was dinner concluded yesterday than we adjourned, as usual, to the sugar-house to see how much damage we could do. Each took from a negro his long paddle, and for more than half an hour skimmed the kettles industriously, to the amazement of half a dozen strange soldiers who came to see the extraordinary process of sugar-making. At one time the two boys taking possession of the two other paddles, not a negro was at the kettles, but stood inspecting our work. The hardest part we found to be discharging the batteries, which none of us could do without their assistance.

We had no sooner relinquished our paddles than some one announced two gentlemen at the house. While we were discussing the possibility of changing our dresses before being seen, enter Mr. Enders and Gibbes Morgan¹ of Fenner's battery. No retreat being possible, we looked charmed and self-possessed in spite of plain calicoes and sticky hands. . . . Mr. Enders very conveniently forgot to bring my nuage. He says he started expressly to do so, but reflecting that I might then have no inducement to pay that visit to Port Hudson, he left it for another time. . . . We arranged a visit to Gibbes, and Mr. Enders made me promise to call at General Beale's headquarters for a pass. “They will want you to go to the Provost Marshal's for it, but you just come to General Beale's, and send a courier for me, and I will bring it myself!” — and half in fun, half in earnest, I promised.

_______________

¹ H. Gibbes Morgan, a cousin.

SOURCE: Sarah Morgan Dawson, A Confederate Girl's Diary, p. 278-9

Captain Charles Fessenden Morse: April 6, 1863

Headquarters Twelfth Army Corps,

April 6, 1863.

I wish you could have seen the great military display there was near here yesterday. You probably have seen by the papers that President Abe is paying a visit to the army; he came down in the great snow-storm Saturday night. Well, yesterday was appointed for a grand review of all the cavalry and horse artillery in the army. All the Major-Generals and many of the Brigadiers with their staffs were invited to be present. Our cortege left these headquarters about half-past ten. We made a pretty good show by ourselves; there were five general officers, namely; Major-General Slocum, Brigadier-Generals Williams, Ruger, Knipe and Jackson, with their staffs and escorts, all in full fig. We rode about seven miles to the reviewing ground and got there just as the President, General Hooker and their large retinue arrived; the artillery fired the salute and the review commenced.

In the centre opposite the troops, looking sick and worn out, dressed in a plain black suit with the tallest of stove-pipe hats, was the President, seated on a fine horse with rich trimmings. On his right and left were Generals Hooker and Stoneman, and clustering around on all sides were Major and Brigadier-Generals too numerous to mention.

You know the story of a man who threw a bootjack out of a hotel window in Washington, last winter, and hit six brigadiers and a dog, and said, “It wasn't a good night for brigadiers, either.” Yesterday was a good day for them. Who would have thought, five years ago, that such a sight as this would ever be possible in democratic, republican America. I doubt if any country has ever seen so large a collection of officers of high rank; there could not have been less than a thousand officers of all grades in the cavalcade, and now-a-days most every one dresses well; so you can imagine that such a crowd, well mounted on handsome horses with rich housings, was a gallant and gay sight. The cavalry was in two lines, each about two miles long; there were nearly ten thousand of them. I never have seen anything like such a number of horsemen together before. Generally they looked very well; the best regiments in appearance were the First and Second United States and the First Massachusetts and the First Rhode Island. There were four batteries of horse artillery, and the last one went by "flying." You know the term, “horse artillery,” is given to those batteries where all the gunners are mounted; this enables them to keep up with the cavalry.

SOURCE: Charles Fessenden Morse, Letters Written During the Civil War, 1861-1865, p. 124-5

Major Wilder Dwight: Monday Night, December 6, 1861

camp Near Frederick, December 6, 1861.

All well. Had a glorious march to Frederick, and have a perfect camping-ground. Will write as soon as I get to rights.

SOURCE: Elizabeth Amelia Dwight, Editor, Life and Letters of Wilder Dwight: Lieut.-Col. Second Mass. Inf. Vols., p. 165

Brigadier-General Benjamin F. Butler to Governor John A. Andrew, April 20, 1861 – 1½ A.M.

PHILADELPHIA, April 20th, 1½ A.M.

GovERNOR ANDREw, 71 Charles Street, BosTON

Another despatch says all but 120 of Jones regiment have arrived at Washington. This I do not credit. My first despatch was right — its details can be relied on. I would respectfully suggest that the Boston Light Artillery, with their horses and entire equipage for field duty, be put on ship board as quick as can be done, and the importance of this movement will be made quite apparent as soon as it is accomplished.

B. F. BUTLER, Brig. Genl.

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. 18

Diary of Major-General John A. Dix: May 6, 1863

Another day of intense anxiety and suspense. We are without any official information, and the inference is that the Government has none to give. Every kind of rumor is afloat. It would seem that Hooker has beaten Lee, and that Lee has beaten Hooker; that we have taken Fredericksburg, and that the rebels have taken it also; that we have 4500 prisoners, and the rebels 5400; that Hooker has cut off Lee's retreat, and Lee has cut off Sedgwick's retreat, and Sedgwick has cut off everybody's retreat generally, but has retreated himself, although his retreat was cut off; that Longstreet has left Suffolk to re-enforce Lee, but that Longstreet has not left Suffolk at all, and, again, that he has never been there. In short, all is utter confusion. Everything seems to be everywhere, and everybody all over, and there is no getting at any truth.

SOURCE: Morgan Dix, Memoirs of John Adams Dix, Volume 2, p. 57

Diary of 5th Sergeant Alexander G. Downing: Friday, February 24, 1865

We started on our march at 7 this morning, our division again taking the advance. We marched twenty miles, and all the way in a fearful northeast rain, accompanied by a high wind. The country is getting very rough. Some of our foragers have been horribly butchered by the rebels' cavalry during the last few days. Such atrocities as we have witnessed make the horrors of the battlefield seem like tender mercies. In one instance one of our couriers was found hanged on the roadside with a paper attached to his person bearing the words: “Death to all foragers.” At another place we found three men shot dead with a similar notice on their bodies. Yesterday our cavalry in the direction of Chesterfield found twenty-one of our infantry lying dead in a ravine with their throats cut. There was no note giving a reason for the frightful murders.

Source: Alexander G. Downing, Edited by Olynthus B., Clark, Downing’s Civil War Diary, p. 256

Diary of Lieutenant-Colonel Rutherford B. Hayes: March 19, 1862

Camp Hayes, Raleigh, Virginia. — Before breakfast. A lovely day. Captain Haven returned last night after an extensive scout; burned seven empty houses — occupants gone bushwhacking. Burned none with women in them.

About noon a gentleman rode up and inquired for the colonel commanding. He turned out to be Clifton W. Tayleure, a local editor, formerly of Baltimore American, lately of Richmond Enquirer. Left Richmond a week ago to avoid the draft. All between eighteen and forty-five to be drafted to fill up the old regiments; all between sixteen and eighteen and forty-five and fifty-five to be enrolled as home guards to protect the homes and guard the slaves. He is a South Carolinian by birth; lived there until he was fifteen; came North; has been a “local” in various cities since; has a family in Baltimore; went to Richmond to look after property in August last; couldn't get away before; got off by passes procured by good luck, etc., etc.; is a Union man by preference, principle, etc., etc. This is his story. He is about thirty-three years of age, of prepossessing appearance, intelligent and agreeable. Gives us interesting accounts of things in the Capital of Secession. Says the trades-people are anxious for peace — ready for the restoration of the old Union. He seems to be truthful. I shall give him a pass to General Cox there to be dealt with as the general sees fit. — Will he visit them (Colonel Jones and General Cox) and report himself, or will he hurry by?

SOURCE: Charles Richard Williams, editor, Diary and Letters of Rutherford Birchard Hayes, Volume 2, p. 212-3

Diary of Sir Arthur James Lyon Fremantle: Wednesday, April 15, 1863

I slept well last night in spite of the tics and fleas, and we started at 5.30 P.M. After passing a dead rattlesnake eight feet long, we reached water at 7 A.M.

At 9 A.M. we espied the cavalcade of General Magruder passing us by a parallel track about half a mile distant. McCarthy and I jumped out of the carriage, and I ran across the prairie to cut him off, which I just succeeded in doing by borrowing the spare horse of the last man in the train.

I galloped up to the front, and found the General riding with a lady who was introduced to me as Mrs. –––, an undeniably pretty woman, wife to an officer on Magruder's staff, and she is naturally the object of intense attention to all the good-looking officers who accompany the General through this desert.

General Magruder, who commands in Texas, is a fine soldierlike man, of about fifty-five, with broad shoulders, a florid complexion, and bright eyes. He wears his whiskers and mustaches in the English fashion, and he was dressed in the Confederate grey uniform. He was kind enough to beg that I would turn back and accompany him in his tour through Texas. He had heard of my arrival, and was fully determined I should do this. He asked after several officers of my regiment whom he had known when he was on the Canadian frontier. He is a Virginian, a great talker, and has always been a great ally of English officers.

He insisted that M'Carthy and I should turn and dine with him, promising to provide us with horses to catch up Mr. Sargent.

After we had agreed to do this, I had a long and agreeable conversation with the General, who spoke of the Puritans with intense disgust, and of the first importation of them as “that pestiferous crew of the Mayflower;” but he is by no means rancorous against individual Yankees. He spoke very favourably of M'Clellan, whom he knew to be a gentleman, clever, and personally brave, though he might lack moral courage to face responsibility. Magruder had commanded the Confederate troops at Yorktown which opposed M'Clellan's advance. He told me the different dodges he had resorted to, to blind and deceive the latter as to his (Magruder's) strength; and he spoke of the intense relief and amusement with which he had at length seen M'Clellan with his magnified army begin to break ground before miserable earthworks, defended only by 8000 men. Hooker was in his regiment, and was “essentially a mean man and a liar.” Of Lee and Longstreet he spoke in terms of the highest admiration.

Magruder was an artilleryman, and has been a good deal in Europe; and having been much stationed on the Canadian frontier, he became acquainted with many British officers, particularly those in the 7th Hussars and Guards.

He had gained much credit from his recent successes at Galveston and Sabine Pass, in which he had the temerity to attack heavily-armed vessels of war with wretched river steamers manned by Texan cavalrymen.

His principal reason for visiting Brownsville was to settle about the cotton trade. He had issued an edict that half the value of cotton exported must be imported in goods for the benefit of the country (government stores). The President had condemned this order as illegal and despotic.

The officers on Magruder's Staff are a very goodlooking, gentlemanlike set of men. Their names are — Major Pendleton, Major Wray, Captain De Ponté, Captain Alston, Captain Turner, Lieutenant-Colonel M'Neil, Captain Dwyer, Dr Benien, Lieutenant Stanard, Lieutenant Yancey, and Major Magruder. The latter is nephew to the General, and is a particularly good-looking young fellow. They all live with their chief on an extremely agreeable footing, and form a very pleasant society. At dinner I was put in the post of honour, which is always fought for with much acrimony — viz., the right of Mrs. ——. After dinner we had numerous songs. Both the General and his nephew sang; so also did Captain Alston, whose corpulent frame, however, was too much for the feeble camp-stool, which caused his sudden disappearance in the midst of a song with a loud crash. Captain Dwyer played the fiddle very well, and an aged and slightly-elevated militia general brewed the punch and made several "elegant" speeches. The latter was a rough-faced old hero, and gloried in the name of M'Guffin. On these festive occasions General Magruder wears a red woollen cap, and fills the president's chair with great aptitude.

It was 11.30 before I could tear myself away from this agreeable party; but at length I effected my exit amidst a profusion of kind expressions, and laden with heaps of letters of introduction.

SOURCE: Sir Arthur James Lyon Fremantle, Three months in the southern states: April-June, 1863, p. 29-33

Diary of William Howard Russell: May 2, 1861

Breakfasted with Mr. Hodgson, where I met Mr. Locke, Mr. Ward, Mr. Green, and Mrs. Hodgson and her sister. There were in attendance some good-looking little negro boys and men dressed in liveries, which smacked of our host's Orientalism; and they must have heard our discussion, or rather allusion, to the question which would decide whether we thought they are human beings or black two-legged cattle, with some interest, unless indeed the boast of their masters, that slavery elevates the character and civilizes the mind of a negro, is another of the false, pretences on which the institution is rested by its advocates. The native African, poor wretch, avoids being carried into slavery totis viribus, and it would argue ill for the effect on his mind of becoming a slave, if he prefers a piece of gaudy calico even to his loin-cloth and feather head-dress. This question of civilizing the African in slavery, is answered in the assertion of the slave owners themselves, that if the negroes were left to their own devices by emancipation, they would become the worst sort of barbarians — a veritable Quasheedom, the like of which was never thought of by Mr. Thomas Carlyle. I doubt if the aboriginal is not as civilized, in the true sense of the word, as any negro, after three degrees of descent in servitude, whom I have seen on any of the plantations — even though the latter have leather shoes and fustian or cloth raiment and felt hat, and sings about the Jordan. He is exempted from any bloody raid indeed, but he is liable to be carried from his village and borne from one captivity to an other, and his family are exposed to the same exile in America as in Africa. The extreme anger with which any unfavorable comment is met publicly, shows the sensitiveness of the slave owners. Privately, they affect philosophy; and the blue books, and reports of Education Commissions and Mining Committees, furnish them with an inexhaustible source of argument, if you once admit that the summum bonum lies in a certain rotundity of person, and a regular supply of coarse food. A long conversation on the old topics — old to me, but of only a few weeks’ birth. People are swimming with the tide. Here are many men, who would willingly stand aside if they could, and see the battle between the Yankees, whom they hate, and the Secessionists. But there are no women in this party. Wo betide the Northern Pyrrhus, whose head is within reach of a Southern tile and a Southern woman's arm!

I revisited some of the big houses afterwards, and found the merchants not cheerful, but fierce and resolute. There is a considerable population of Irish and Germans in Savannah, who to a man are in favor of the Confederacy, and will fight to support it. Indeed, it is expected they will do so, and there is a pressure brought to bear on them by their employers which they cannot well resist. The negroes will be forced into the place the whites hitherto occupied as laborers — only a few useful mechanics will be kept, and the white population will be obliged by a moral force drafting to go to the wars. The kingdom of cotton is most essentially of this world, and it will be fought for vigorously. On the quays of Savannah, and in the warehouses, there is not a man who doubts that he ought to strike his hardest for it, or apprehends failure. And then, what a career is before them! All the world asking for cotton, and England dependent on it. What a change since Whitney first set his cotton-gin to work in this state close by us! Georgia, as a vast country only partially reclaimed, yet looks to a magnificent future. In her past history the Florida wars, and the treatment of the unfortunate Cherokee Indians, who were expelled from their lands as late as 1838, show the people who descended from old Oglethorpe's band were fierce and tyrannical, and apt at aggression, nor will slavery improve them. I do not speak of the cultivated and hospitable citizens of the large towns, but of the bulk of the slaveless whites.

SOURCE: William Howard Russell, My Diary North and South, p. 157-8

Diary of John Beauchamp Jones: April 26, 1862

Gen. Lee is doing good service in bringing forward reinforcements from the South against the day of trial — and an awful day awaits us. It is understood that he made fully known to the President his appreciation of the desperate condition of affairs, and demanded carte blanche as a condition of his acceptance of the position of commanding general. The President wisely agreed to the terms.

SOURCE: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 1, p. 121

Diary of Mary Boykin Chesnut: April 7, 1865

Richmond has fallen and I have no heart to write about it. Grant broke through our lines and Sherman cut through them. Stoneman is this side of Danville. They are too many for us. Everything is lost in Richmond, even our archives. Blue black is our horizon. Hood says we shall all be obliged to go West — to Texas, I mean, for our own part of the country will be overrun.

Yes, a solitude and a wild waste it may become, but, as to that, we can rough it in the bush at home.

De Fontaine, in his newspaper, continues the old cry. “Now Richmond is given up,” he says, “it was too heavy a load to carry, and we are stronger than ever.” “Stronger than ever?” Nine-tenths of our army are under ground and where is another army to come from? Will they wait until we grow one?

SOURCES: Mary Boykin Chesnut, Edited by Isabella D. Martin and Myrta Lockett Avary, A Diary From Dixie, p. 377

Diary of Judith Brockenbrough McGuire: April 25, 1864

Our family in statu quo. The country in great excitement. We have lately had a splendid little victory at Plymouth, North Carolina. We have also had successes in Florida, at Shreveport, and other places in the South and South-west. The God of battles is helping us, or how could we thus succeed? This city is quite excited by Mr. Memminger having ordered off the Note-signing Department, consisting entirely of ladies, to Columbia, South Carolina. It has caused much distress, for many of them, whose living depends on the salary, can't possibly go. Mothers cannot leave their children, nor wives their husbands. No one seems to understand the motive which prompted the order. It seems to be very arbitrary. It is thought by some persons that all the departments will be ordered off. I trust not; for I, among many others, would be obliged to resign, and I cannot imagine how we would live without the salary. I see no reason to believe that any such move is intended, and I will not be unhappy about it. “Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.”

The enemy threatens Richmond, and is coming against it with an immense army. They boast that they can and will have it this summer; but, with the help of God, we hope to drive them back again. Our Government is making every effort to defeat them. I don't think that any one doubts our ability to do it; but the awful loss of life necessary upon the fights is what we dread.

SOURCE: Judith W. McGuire, Diary of a Southern Refugee, During the War, p. 259-60

Diary of Sarah Morgan: Sunday, November 9, 1862

I hardly know how these last days have passed. I have an indistinct recollection of rides in cane-wagons to the most distant field, coming back perched on the top of the cane singing, “Dye my petticoats,” to the great amusement of the General who followed on horseback. Anna and Miriam, comfortably reposing in corners, were too busy to join in, as their whole time and attention were entirely devoted to the consumption of cane. It was only by singing rough impromptus on Mr. Harold and Captain Bradford that I roused them from their task long enough to join in a chorus of “Forty Thousand Chinese.” I would not have changed my perch, four mules, and black driver, for Queen Victoria's coach and six.

And to think old Abe wants to deprive us of all that fun! No more cotton, sugar-cane, or rice! No more old black aunties or uncles! No more rides in mule teams, no more songs in the cane-field, no more steaming kettles, no more black faces and shining teeth around the furnace fires! If Lincoln could spend the grinding season on a plantation, he would recall his proclamation. As it is, he has only proved himself a fool, without injuring us. Why, last evening I took old Wilson's place at the bagasse shoot, and kept the rollers free from cane until I had thrown down enough to fill several carts, and had my hands as black as his. What cruelty to slaves! And black Frank thinks me cruel, too, when he meets me with a patronizing grin, and shows me the nicest vats of candy, and peels cane for me. Oh! very cruel! And so does Jules, when he wipes the handle of his paddle on his apron, to give “Mamselle” a chance to skim the kettles and learn how to work! Yes! and so do all the rest who meet us with a courtesy and “Howd’y, young Missus!” Last night we girls sat on the wood just in front of the furnace — rather Miriam and Anna did, while I sat in their laps — and with some twenty of all ages crowded around, we sang away to their great amusement. Poor oppressed devils! Why did you not chunk us with the burning logs instead of looking happy, and laughing like fools? Really, some good old Abolitionist is needed here, to tell them how miserable they are. Can't Mass' Abe spare a few to enlighten his brethren?

SOURCE: Sarah Morgan Dawson, A Confederate Girl's Diary, p. 277-8

Diary of 5th Sergeant Alexander G. Downing: Thursday, February 23, 1865

We broke camp at 7 o'clock this morning and marched ten miles, going into bivouac at Liberty Hill. At noon we crossed the Wateree river, at Perry's ferry, on a pontoon bridge which the Fifteenth Corps had laid and crossed on just ahead of us. Our division led the advance in the Seventeenth Corps, the other two divisions going into bivouac four miles in our rear.

Source: Alexander G. Downing, Edited by Olynthus B., Clark, Downing’s Civil War Diary, p. 256

Captain Charles Fessenden Morse: April 5, 1863

Headquarters Twelfth Army Corps,

April 5, 1863.

Again everything has the appearance of winter. Last night a furious storm of wind, snow and hail set in, and continued till near noon to-day. It will melt very fast, of course, but the roads, which before were nearly dry, will go back to their former state of mud. I got caught in the storm last night; I had been over to the cavalry with Tom Robeson; when we came back, the wind, hail and dust were directly in our faces and were perfectly blinding; the wind blew such a gale that the horses could hardly breast up against it.

I wouldn't have believed, two months ago, that popular feeling would be so unanimously for war. They have at last waked up to the fact that we've got to fight these rebels till we crush them, let it take one year or ten, and that there is no peace now but in dishonor and eternal disgrace. Who would have thought when the war broke out, that such sentiments could have been publicly uttered in Baltimore and Washington, as have been spoken at the late Union meeting there!

SOURCE: Charles Fessenden Morse, Letters Written During the Civil War, 1861-1865, p. 123

Major Wilder Dwight: Monday Night, December 2, 1861

camp Near Seneca, December 2, 1861,

Monday Night.

There is no reason why I should write, except that Colonel Andrews is going, and can take the letter. It is a harsh, cloudy, wind-driven night; and we have detained the canal-boat till morning. We are waiting our orders to march to Frederick. It looks like snow, and altogether there is a cheerful prospect of a march before us! I expect to awake in a snow-storm.

I am awaiting, with some interest, the President's Message. I shall like to see how he will pronounce a policy. One thing seems to me to be clear. He must leave all political questions to a military solution and settlement. Congress must do the same.

There is a method in events which must result, I think, in a wise and practical solution of the negro question.

You recollect the cloister life of the Emperor Charles the Fifth, — the abrupt transition of the proud king from a vast and absolute sway to the solitude and asceticism and self-mortification of the cloister. I want to read the cloister life of King Cotton, — his exile, poverty, and penance. There will be a story of most instructive contrast. It is a story soon to be written. I wonder, too, how Congress will bear our “inactivity” this winter. Clear it is that we must be inactive. The mere movement of a division, with its artillery and supply-train and baggage, is a distinct teaching that active field operations are impossible before spring, on this line. So you may continue to think of me as perfectly safe, and as hoping for liveliness with the buds of spring. We shall have tried almost every phase of army experience before we get home, I fancy I shall be an early riser to-morrow morning, and so must bid you good night.

SOURCE: Elizabeth Amelia Dwight, Editor, Life and Letters of Wilder Dwight: Lieut.-Col. Second Mass. Inf. Vols., p. 163-4

Governor Thomas H. Hicks to Brigadier-General Benjamin F. Butler, April 20, 1861

State of Maryland, Executive Chamber, ANNAPOLIS, Apr. 20th, 1861

To the Commander of the Volunteer troops on board the Steamer

SIR: I would most earnestly advise that you do not land your men at Annapolis. The excitement is very great, and I think it prudent that you should take your men elsewhere. I have declared to the Secretary of War advising against your landing your men here.

Very respectfully,

THOS. H. HICKS,

Gov. of Md.

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. 18

Major-General John A. Dix to Major General Henry W. Halleck, April 19, 1863

FORT MONROE, VA., April 19, 1863.

I deem it due to the forces at Suffolk to notice briefly their gallant conduct during the last six days. On Tuesday General Peck's right was attacked and the enemy's advance was gallantly met by Colonel Foster's light troops, driving him back to the line of his pickets; Anderson's division was engaged at the same time on the water front with our gunboats and batteries, and suffered materially. On Wednesday a rebel battery of 20-pounder rifled guns was effectually silenced, and an attack on the Smith Briggs, an armed quartermaster's boat, was repulsed. Repeated attempts have been made on our lines but have all been foiled. The storming of the enemy's battery near the West Branch of the Nansemond by General Getty and the gunboats under Lieutenant Lamson of the Navy, and the capture of six guns and 200 prisoners closes the operations of the six days against the enemy's large force very satisfactory.

 JOHN A. DIX,

Major-General.

Maj. Gen. H. W. HALLECK,

General-in-Chief.

SOURCES: Morgan Dix, Memoirs of John Adams Dix, Volume 2, p. 56; The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Series I, Volume 18 (Serial No. 26), p. 268

Dr. Joseph T. Webb to Lucy Webb Hayes, March 12, 1862

About thirty miles from here, on New River, lives an old man (Richmond) and several sons. His boys are all grown and living to themselves, some four and five miles from the old man. They have lived out there many years and for this country are all rich. Besides being wealthy they are all very powerful (physically) and are the leaders, as it were, of society. They have the best horses, cattle, etc. of any one out here. They are noted for their fine horses. They are all strong Union men, and have been very much angered by the Rebels taking their cattle, sheep, etc. — stealing them. A few days since some Rebel cavalry concluded they would arrest the squire and take his horses. Accordingly day before yesterday, just at daybreak, three Rebel cavalry called at the squire's and took him prisoner. They also took three of his fine horses. They put the squire on a horse behind one of the cavalrymen, and started off with him. After they had gone some ten miles, they came to a noted Rebel's house, and all cheered at the capture of the squire. This was too much for him, and he determined to make his escape. They had gone but a short distance when the Rebel behind whom he was riding fell back behind the other two some distance. Now was the time for the squire. So drawing a long knife from his pocket, he caught the Rebel by his hair, drew him back, and cut his throat. Both fell off the horse together. As they fell he plunged the knife into the Rebel's bowels. Then he took the Rebel's gun, and got behind a tree when one of the others returned, and the squire shot him dead. The third took to his heels and left the squire victor of the field. There is no mistake about this; he came to camp with their two guns. His knife and coat-sleeve is covered with blood. Richmond is a trump and two hundred such men would clean out this country of Rebels.

SOURCE: Charles Richard Williams, editor, Diary and Letters of Rutherford Birchard Hayes, Volume 2, p. 212