Saturday, August 8, 2026

Extracts from the journal of Commander Semmes, C.S. Navy, commanding C.S.S. Sumter

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Thursday, August 8.—Weather clear, with an occasional rain squall. Wind light and variable, but always from the eastward, following the sun as the chariot follows the steed. Making good speed through the water, but we have experienced in the last twenty-four hours an adverse current of about 1 mile per hour, setting W. N. W. [...]

War of the Rebellion: from the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies and Navies

Mary Chesnut’s Diary: “We mean to stand by our President and to stop all fault-finding with the powers that be, if we can and where we can, be the fault-finders generals or Cabinet Ministers.”

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August 8th.–To-day I saw a sword captured at Manassas. The man who brought the sword, in the early part of the fray, was taken prisoner by the Yankees. They stripped him, possessed themselves of his sleeve-buttons, and were in the act of depriving him of his boots when the rout began and the play was [...]

Civil War Day-by-Day

“What a blackness of darkness, of falsehood and misrepresentation lies behind all this.”—Woolsey family letter; Jane Stuart Woolsey to a friend in Paris.

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Brevoort Place, August 8th, 1861. Your response to my patriotic fervors gave me a sort of chill. We did not seem en rapport. . . . We are heartily ready to record our faith that the war is worth what it may cost, although the end may be only–only! the preservation of the Government, and [...]

Woolsey family letters during the War for the Union

I believe that with three thousand additional troops Pickens can be easily taken, certainly with five thousand.

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HEADQUARTERS SECOND BRIGADE, C. S. TROOPS, Near Pensacola, Fla., August 8, 1861. Hon. L. P. WALKER, Secretary of War: DEAR SIR: Perhaps you would like to hear from this place, once of so much importance. The departure of General W. H. T. Walker and the sickness of Colonel Clayton have for a time placed me [...]

War of the Rebellion: from the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies and Navies

Don’t write gloomy letters.

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Daily Chronicle & Sentinel [Augusta, GA], August 8, 1861 Those who have relatives or dear friends in the army ought not to write gloomy or discouraging letters to camp. The soldier has food for sad and gloomy fits, in his own quiet meditations, without being assisted by despondent missives from home. Write the soldiers cheerful [...]

Miscellaneous document sources, News of the Day

The regiment “…got off in the course of the night, leaving me here in charge of about forty men who were too sick to be moved.”–Journal of Surgeon Alfred L. Castleman.

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August, 8th.–”I am monarch of all I survey.” Last night, intelligence being received that an attack was expected on Washington ; we were ordered to move there instanter, and at once the regiment was in motion. It got off in the course of the night, leaving me here in charge of about forty men who [...]

Journal of Surgeon Alfred L Castleman.

“The flag was shot through three times, and the flag-staff was shot off whilst in his hands.”–Memorials of Elisha Franklin Paxton.

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The following is taken from the Lexington “Gazette,” dated August 8,1861: ”It is due to our worthy fellow-citizen, Mr. E. F. Paxton, or rather it is due to the county of Rockbridge, to claim credit for Mr. Paxton’s conduct, which he has been too modest to claim for himself. A correspondent of one of the [...]

Elisha Franklin Paxton – Letters from camp and field while an officer in the Confederate Army

Civil War Day-By-Day

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August 8, 1861 A Chronological History of the Civil War in America1 Rebels routed at Lovettsville, Va. Of?ce of the Democratic Standard, a secession paper, at Concord, N. H., cleaned out by a mob, and the materials burned in the street. A Chronological History of the Civil War in America by Richard Swainson Fisher, New [...]

Civil War Day-by-Day