11th.–Sent off ambulances to-day to commence bringing forward the sick of my regiment, and whilst they were gone, after having put my hospital in good order for their reception, I stepped over again to Commodore Jones’ house to see how the guards stationed there had succeeded in carrying out their orders. Till I entered the house, I thought I had seen evidences of extreme vandalism, but the wanton destruction here beggars everything I have before witnessed. Furniture broken; feather beds opened, and their contents emptied over house and yard; even those beautiful family pictures were ground to atoms and thrown to the winds. But I need not describe here, for the impression is deeply stamped in memory, more durable and more accurate than words and letters can ever make. Everything destructable was destroyed. [1]
In handling over the papers I picked up the Commodore’s “Journal of a cruise in the U. S. ship Relief–bearing the broad pennant of Commodore Jones–Thos. A. Downer, Esq., Commander,” which I have preserved, and also a letter from a son of Commodore Tatnall (late of the rebel Merrimac) to Commodore Jones, written from the Meditterranean, asking to be relieved from duty there, and to be permitted to return to America.[2]
As it will be a matter of interest to me, in future, to study my predictions as to the course and conduct of this war–to rejoice and be vain over those which prove correct, and to laugh at or be ashamed of those which prove false, I shall continue to record them as I have begun; and here I enter one in which I hope to take interest a long time hence. As I have constantly predicted, we have had no fight here nor shall we have; and I now very much doubt whether we shall have a fight even at Manassas, and for this reason: “After all the feints of the enemy here to draw Gen. Banks from Harper’s Ferry had failed, they, seeing that we have got foot-hold in North Carolina, will fall back on their fortifications at Centerville and Manassas, and then presenting a bold front with a small body, will cover the withdrawal of the larger part of their force, which they will distribute in Kentucky, Missouri, Tennessee and Western Virginia, and I very much doubt whether they will retain enough at Manassas to make a respectable fight. Kentucky and Tennessee are to become the theatre of war; and if I am not greatly mistaken, Kentucky will have trying times between this and the first of January. I hope that Gen. McClellan is taking the same view of things, and is preparing to meet it.” What I have here marked as a quotation is a copied from a letter this day written to a friend on the prospects of the war.
[1] It is worthy of remark here, that thus whilst this wanton destruction was going on, a half a mile away, everything on the place of Mr. Johnson, (a loyalist, whose house and garden were in the very midst of the encampments,) though unguarded was unmolested ; every article he had to dispose of was bought and paid for, at high prices, by the soldiers. Even thus early could we read the soldier’s aversion to guarding, or having guarded the property of rebels.
[2] This letter I handed to a lady connection of the Tatnall family, who was with me at the time, and she found means of restoring it to them.