I have this moment
(10½ A.M.) arrived here at the General's Headquarters and finding him gone down
town improve the minutes till he returns by sending a word to you. I am
perfectly well, and in the best spirits—have had a very quick, pleasant and
fortunate trip though with just enough "roughness" to make it spicy:
met nor heard of any guerrillas on the road, save the evidences of where they
had recently been along, and have had good luck and good company all the way. I
was very sorry to write you so hurriedly from Nashville and Chattanooga, but it
was something to do that: and you must take it for granted once for all . . .
that when I write thus, and if I do not always write often, it is because one
cannot always do as they would "in the field."
I met Fullerton,† as
I mentioned, at Chattanooga, a fortunate encounter and very jolly for us both.
His (4th) Corps arrived there that (Sunday) morning and was passing through
westward while we were there, which was only for an hour. My note thence to you
was written in the open air, sitting on my valise with a pile of other baggage,
on a piece of paper lent me by a friend. By the way Margie's‡ nice portfolio is
locked, and I don't find the key yet—but I'll get it opened soon. Tell M. that
I found time to open my valise and make a formal presentation of the sword; tell
her it was done in the presence of hundreds if not thousands of officers and
soldiers (entre nous they were all minding their own business and the
"presence" means a radius of a ½ mile) that I made an eloquent and
inspiring speech, but omitted to mention the donor's name, and that the gallant
Colonel was so overcome by his feelings that he made no reply at all but to say
that (being in a hurry) he would postpone that to another
occasion.
I do not yet know
what my duties will be, nor will till I see the General, but find that they
will not be those of Judge Advocate, for there are none such to do, now at
least, on this staff. So much the better. Gen. Sherman asked for me, and if he
can't find something for me to do I'm mistaken and it's none of my business
anyhow.
Don't
"you'uns" fret about Hood, not a bit. The story is that he has
crossed the Tennessee, -for which if true we are understood to be very much obliged
to him. Lt. Col. Kittoe,1 (Med. Director on Gen. S's staff) just
said to me that Hood's late movement north had been a faux pas,
and of more good to us than him; and if I was a prophet I should tell you,
probably, that within the next fortnight Hood will hear news from below that
may make him wish he had staid there. However, once for all, for obvious
reasons, I do not expect to deal in predictions. Letters sometimes miscarry,
and predictions sometimes do harm where it was not intended.
I am glad to find
that my "transportation"—one valise and one roll of bedding—is
universally pronounced very moderate and entirely within bounds; also my French
cot is greatly admired for convenience and compactness. I was indebted to it
last night for a comfortable bed at Kingston in a room 10 ft. 5 in. x 9 ft. 3
in. (by measurement), which had bare walls and floor for furniture and which
four of us were very lucky to get control of. More than that, seventeen of us,
officers en route for Headquarters were thoroughly grateful to the Agent of the
U. S. Sanitary Commission at Kingston for a most welcome supper, after all
other chances had failed, served on tin plates and tin cups, and consisting of
fat bacon, boiled beef (cold) in "chunks," dried apple sauce and
baked beans, with what was understood to be coffee, and being brown and warm,
was undoubtedly such. So a meeting was duly organized, and as Chairman of a
"Committee on Resolution" I submitted one the original draft of which
is inclosed and which was adopted nem.
con.
After the rest left
I wanted to pay the Agent something—he wouldn't touch it. I then insisted that
I had a right to subscribe to the funds of the Sanitary Commission at Kingston
as well as at New York, for the benefit of the soldiers, but he couldn't see
that either, and refused positively anything whatever under any pretext. What
must these men do for the soldiers when their kindness comes so welcome to
officers.
. . . I cannot tell
you how I rejoice to have entered the service. I understand perfectly well, did
so before, and cannot do so more truly hereafter, what its realities are. I
have no boyish impulse or nonsense about it, but the satisfaction of hoping to
do a manly part and share the risks which these men take. It was a singular
thing to be and travel with the men I was with, most of them, as it happened,
younger than I, who have been in the service one, two and three years, and to
whom the names of events and places which to us are only historic, are the
mementoes of their own experience. I have been fortunate in meeting in almost
every case, quiet, manly pleasant fellows who made no pretense, and had no brag
about them. I have uniformly been received and treated with frank and pleasant
courtesy, and though I felt like being very quiet with men who had seen and
done what I have only read of, nothing in their manner or words claimed any
merit. Of course this was right and all that; but it is creditable too.
I have even more
reason than I knew of to be glad of an appointment on Sherman's Staff, among
others, it implies facilities in the way of sending and getting letters and
packages which I might not have elsewhere.
At Nashville I was
lucky to be just in time to come down with one of the General's special
messengers, bringing down his mail and sundry boxes, etc., for his staff-a good
fellow, quick, ready and smart, as well as knowing his place. I have made a
friend of him and shall need his services.
As I wrote before,
address all letters and everything for me to "Headquarters of The Military
Division of the Mississippi, Nashville,
Tenn." They will be all attended to there. And remember that when an army
and its Headquarters are moving, it is no easy matter always either to send
things from or to the same, even for the General himself. The Headquarters
which are here today may be somewhere else tomorrow (will be somewhere else very soon)—and even our special messenger
had to telegraph ahead from Chattanooga Sunday morning to Rome, to learn by a
dispatch which met us at Kingston, whether we should come here or go on direct
to Atlanta to find these same "Headquarters." So you must not think
it strange if you hear from me irregularly, and what troubles me is that I can
hear from you only at intervals. But well you know that while I am here hoping
to serve my country it is you who are to me the visible embodiment of what
hallows that name.
It is plain enough
and sad enough to see that this region is and has been the seat of war. I wish
I had time to describe to you the scenes I have already looked on,—I do not
mean, of course, any of the active scenes of war, but its visible results.
Houses in towns and by the roadside of which only charred timbers and ruins are
left; buildings converted into fortifications by embankments, and their brick
walls pierced for musketry; and all along the railroad from Greysville, Ga., to
near Kingston the half burnt ties, and bent and twisted rails lying by the
newly built track, as well as the new watertanks and new timber, etc., in
bridges, telling of the destruction which only two or three weeks ago Hood
vainly thought would "coop up" Sherman and result in all sorts of
terrible things. But somehow it didn't work. I do not wonder at the intense and
universal admiration his soldiers feel for "Uncle Billy."
I find another thing
everywhere, that so far as I can learn by inquiry, and from conversation both
with and between others, one in ten would be a large estimate of the McClellan
men in the army. This is true even of the New Jersey regiments, of which there
are three or four in this army.
I must close this to
be sure of sending it back by today's messenger. I will write whenever I can,
and how I hope and long to hear from you and all of the dear ones at home. Give
them my dear love, and kind words to friends who may inquire for me. Pray for
me that I may do my duty to God and man; trust in God, and believe me ever and
always in truest devotion
* It was Maj.
Hitchcock's habit to write on letter paper bearing this printed heading, here reproduced
once for all.
† Bvt. Brig.
Gen. Joseph S. Fullerton, Chief of Staff, Fourth Army Corps.
‡Mrs. Hitchcock's
younger sister, Margaret Collier, afterwards Mrs. Ethan Allen Hitchcock.
1 Edward D. Kittoe.
SOURCE: M. A.
DeWolfe Howe, Editor, Marching With
Sherman, Passages from the Letters and Campaign Diaries of Henry Hitchcock,
Major and Assistant Adjutant General of Volunteers, November 1864—May 1865,
pp. 15-19
