Headquarters 7th Illinois Cavalry Camp, on Hamburg and Corinth Road, May 3, 1862. I arrived here yesterday in safety. Stayed in Peoria the Monday night that I started, and was in Cairo at 9 p.m. Wednesday. Woke up Thursday morning on a boat at Paducah and devoted the day to admiring the Tennessee river. Stopped [...]
MAY 3d.—I fear there is something in the rumor that Norfolk and Portsmouth and Yorktown and the Peninsula will be given up. The Secretaries of War and Navy are going down to Norfolk.
May 3d. A serious accident occurred this evening, resulting in wounding more than twenty men. The men were heaving up anchor when the ship swung off with the current, bringing up on the cable with such violence as to whirl the men from the bars, breaking the pawls of the capstan, and the bars throwing [...]
MAY 2d.—An iniquitous looking prisoner was brought in to-day from Orange C. H., by the name of Robert Stewart. The evidence against him is as follows: He is a Pennsylvanian, though a resident of Virginia for a number of years, and owns a farm in Orange County. Since the series of disasters, and the seeming [...]
May 2d. In the midst of the excitement the U. S. steam transport Rhode Island came in with a large mail, which gladdened many a heart as they read letters from friends at home. This afternoon a collision took place between the Brooklyn and a gunboat, the latter drifting afoul of the former, when she [...]
MAY 1st.—The ladies shower loaves of bread and slices of ham on the passing troops.
May 1st. To-day General Butler’s troops arrived to the number of some three thousand, in various craft: first came the Mississippi, a large screw steamer, literally so thronged with soldiers that they were hanging to the jibboom and almost every other conceivable part of the ship; after her the Miami; then a large ship and [...]
[A page torn out] I was right in that prophecy. For this was not the Will Pinckney I saw last. So woebegone! so subdued, careworn, and sad! No trace of his once merry self. He is good-looking, which he never was before. But I would rather never have seen him than have found him so [...]
APRIL 30th.—Troops from the South are coming in and marching down the Peninsula.
April 30th. At 2 P. M., a steamer came up and landed the prisoners from the forts. This day, between the hours of ten and twelve o’clock, the carpenter of the fleet held a survey on this ship, and reported her not seaworthy, on account of a shot under her starboard counter.
April 30th.–The last day of this month of calamities. Lovell left the women and children to be shelled, and took the army to a safe place. I do not understand why we do not send the women and children to the safe place and let the army stay where the fighting is to be. Armies [...]
APRIL 29th.—Major Griswold is here, and so is a new batch of Marylanders.
April 29th. We have been lying quietly at our anchorage here for two or three days, negotiating about the city and its flag and transfer. The river is alive with steamers which our people have taken possession of, and are gliding about seemingly practicing for duty by-and-by; among others, a fine steamer, the Tennessee, has [...]
April 29th.–A grand smash, the news from New Orleans fatal to us. Met Mr. Weston. He wanted to know where he could find a place of safety for two hundred negroes. I looked into his face to see if he were in earnest; then to see if he were sane. There was a certain set [...]
APRIL 28th.—We have rumors of an important cabinet meeting, wherein it was resolved to advise or command Gen. Johnston to evacuate Yorktown and retire toward Richmond! Also that Norfolk is to be given up! I don’t believe it; Lee’s name is not mentioned.
APRIL 27th.—Gen. Lee is calm—but the work of preparation goes on night and day.
April 27th. What a day! Last night came a dispatch that New Orleans was under British protection, and could not be bombarded; consequently, the enemy’s gunboats would probably be here this morning, such few as had succeeded in passing the Forts; from nine to fifteen, it was said. And the Forts, they said, had not [...]
April 27th.–New Orleans gone¹ and with it the Confederacy. That Mississippi ruins us if lost. The Confederacy has been done to death by the politicians. What wonder we are lost. The soldiers have done their duty. All honor to the army. Statesmen as busy as bees about their own places, or their personal honor, too [...]
APRIL 26th.—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 carté blanche as a condition of his acceptance of the [...]
April 26th. The Mayor of the city has surrendered it to Flag-officer Farragut, and a battalion of marines, under Capt. J. L. Broome, went ashore to raise the Stars and Stripes, but were opposed by the citizens and returned to the ship. In the afternoon we went up to Carrollton and captured sixty or eighty [...]
April 26th, 1862. There is no word in the English language that can express the state in which we are, and have been, these last three days. Day before yesterday, news came early in the morning of three of the enemy’s boats passing the Forts, and then the excitement began. It increased rapidly on hearing [...]
April 26th.–Doleful dumps, alarm-bells ringing. Telegrams say the mortar fleet has passed the forts at New Orleans. Down into the very depths of despair are we.
APRIL 25th.—Gen. Wise, through the influence of Gen. Lee, who is a Christian gentleman as well as a consummate general, has been ordered into the field. He will have a brigade, but not with Beauregard. The President has unbounded confidence in Lee’s capacity, modest as he is. Another change! Provost Marshal Godwin, for rebuking the [...]
April 25th. Left our anchorage early and proceeded up the river, keeping constantly on the alert for a battery which had been reported in this vicinity. We found the batteries some five or six miles below New Orleans called the Chalmette batteries, and consisting of some ten to fifteen guns. They opened upon us before [...]
APRIL 24th.—Webster has been tried, condemned, and hung. Is it not shameful that martial law should be playing such fantastic tricks before high heaven, when the enemy’s guns are booming within hearing of the capital? Note: this hanging actually occurred on April 29, 1862.