December 27th.–This morning Mr. Seward sent in his reply to Lord Russell’s despatch–”grandis et verbosa epistola.” The result destroys my prophecies, for, after all, the Southern Commissioners or Ambassadors are to be given up. Yesterday, indeed, in an under-current of whispers among the desponding friends of the South, there went a rumour that the Government had resolved to yield. What a collapse! What a bitter mortification! I had scarcely finished the perusal of an article in a Washington paper,–which, let it be understood, is an organ of Mr. Lincoln, –stating that “Mason and Slidell would not be surrendered, and assuring the people they need entertain no apprehension of such a dishonourable concession,” when I learned beyond all possibility of doubt, that Mr. Seward had handed in his despatch, placing the Commissioners at the disposal of the British Minister. A copy of the despatch will be published in the National Intelligencer to-morrow morning at an early hour, in time to go to Europe by the steamer which leaves New York.

After dinner, those who were in the secret were amused by hearing the arguments which were started between one or two Americans and some English in the company, in consequence of a positive statement from a gentleman who came in, that Mason and Slidell had been surrendered. I have resolved to go to Boston, being satisfied that a great popular excitement and uprising will, in all probability, take place on the discharge of the Commissioners from Fort Warren. What will my friend, the general, say, who told me yesterday “he would snap his sword, and throw the pieces into the White House, if they were given up?”

Christmas.

Dec. 26. Christmas went off very pleasantly and apparently to the satisfaction of all. Drills were suspended and all went in for a good time. The Irishmen had their Christmas box, the Germans their song and lager, while ball playing and other athletic sports used up the day, and music and dancing were the order of the evening. Santa Claus came with a Christmas dinner for a few, but more of us he passed by; however, I think the old gentleman has got a store for us somewhere on the way.

Our camp was visited by a number of ladies and gentlemen from the city, who were guests at headquarters, Chaplain James doing the polite, and entertaining them as best he could. No farther south than this, I was surprised to hear the chaplain tell of the ignorance of these people in regard to northern people and their institutions. One lady, noticing a box of letters in the chaplain’s tent, said she thought he must have a very large correspondence to have so many letters. He told her those were soldiers’ letters going home to their friends. “Why,” she asked, “are there many of your soldiers who can write?” He informed her that there were not a half dozen men in the regiment but could read and write. He told her that free schools were an institution at the north. No man was so poor but he could educate his children, and the man who neglected their education was regarded as little better than the brutes. The lady appeared quite astonished and said she thought our free schools were only for the rich.

Thursday, 26th–By orders Company E boarded the cars this morning for Lookout Station farther on, about twelve miles from California. I bade my bunk-mate, James Fossett, goodby at the hospital, where he is confined with inflammatory rheumatism. His suffering is something intense, and he is unable to turn himself in bed, but I left him in the hands of a good nurse.

THURSDAY 26

Another moderate day, went to the office as usual. About 10 a.m. Col Ira Merrick from Lyons called with Ed Dickerson. E. went on to Baltimore and I went to the Capitol with the Col, visited both Houses of Congress. The Col came up to Dinner with us in the evening, he was taken quite ill with a dizziness in the head and is quite ill yet. We have spent the evening at home. Matty Hartly has spent the evening with Julia. Mr & Mis [Barlte?] called and spent an hour or so. Nothing new today.

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The three diary manuscript volumes, Washington during the Civil War: The Diary of Horatio Nelson Taft, 1861-1865, are available online at The Library of   Congress.

DECEMBER 26th.—I have been requested by several members of Congress to prepare a bill, establishing a passport office by law. I will attempt it; but it cannot pass, unless it be done in spite of the opposition of the Secretary, who knows how to use his patronage so as to bind members to his interest. He learned that at Washington.

December 26.

Dear Girls: We had a great day yesterday. Of course, Mother and the girls and Charley broke through the rule we had prescribed for ourselves, not to give Christmas presents, and launched upon Jane and me wholly unprepared, a flood of pretty and useful things. . . . We dined at Mary’s, and there Mother was made happy by a superb dish of moss, growing and trailing over, and set in a carved walnut table or stand which Mary brought from Germany. . . . Our children’s “Christmas tree” went off very successfully. Little May came over early and did the honors as nicely as could be to the arriving guests, introducing them all to each other and providing amusement. There were the three little Howlands and their mamma, the Prentisses and theirs, Mally and Willy Smith and theirs, little Kernochan, little Parker boy, and Mary and Helen Skinner with the Rhinelander children. The tree was in the back parlor with the doors closed and windows darkened, and the effect was very pretty when the candles and the lanterns were all ready and the doors were thrown open, and the tree blazed out in its own light. Each child had half a dozen little things and was delighted, choosing, when left to him or herself, the most hideous Chinese toys only intended as decorations. Then there were ice cream and jelly, which the older people helped eat, and Mr. Prentiss came in, and the children gradually went away–and we subsided into quiet.

December 26th.–No answer yet. There can be but one. Press people, soldiers, sailors, ministers, senators, Congress men, people in the street, the voices of the bar-room–all are agreed. “Give them up? Never! We’ll die first!” Senator Sumner, M. De Beaumont, M. De Geoffroy, of the French Legation, dined with me, in company with General Van Vliet, Mr. Anderson, and Mr. Lamy, &c.; and in the evening Major Anson, M.P., Mr. Johnson, Captain Irwin, U.S.A., Lt. Wise, U.S.N., joined our party, and after much evasion of the subject, the English despatch and Mr. Seward’s decision turned up and caused some discussion. Mr. Sumner, who is Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations of the Senate, and in that capacity is in intimate rapport with the President, either is, or affects to be, incredulous respecting the nature of Lord Russell’s despatch this evening, and argues that, at the very utmost, the Trent affair can only be a matter for mediation, and not for any peremptory demand, as the law of nations has no exact precedent to bear upon the case, and that there are so many instances in which Sir W. Scott’s (Lord Stowell’s) decisions in principle appear to justify Captain Wilkes. All along he has held this language, and has maintained that at the very worst there is plenty of time for protocols, despatches, and references, and more than once he has said to me, “I hope you will keep the peace; help us to do so,”–the peace having been already broken by Captain Wilkes and the Government.

Winchester, December 26,1861.

I applied to-day for a furlough, but was much disappointed to find that an order has been made that none shall be granted. I was promising myself much happiness in spending a few days with you at New Year’s, and am much grieved that it has to be deferred–I hope, however, not very long. I will come as soon as I can get permission. Fair weather cannot last much longer, and winter must soon set in, which will stop active operations, and then I suppose I can get leave to go home for a while. I will make this note short so as to try and get it in to-day’s mail. Your box just came to hand as I left the camp this morning, for which accept many thanks. Good-bye, dearest.

Dec. 26, 1861.—The foul weather cleared off bright and cool in time for Christmas. There is a midwinter lull in the movement of troops. In the evening we went to the grand bazaar in the St. Louis Hotel, got up to clothe the soldiers. This bazaar has furnished the gayest, most fashionable war-work yet, and has kept social circles in a flutter of pleasant, heroic excitement all through December. Everything beautiful or rare garnered in the homes of the rich was given for exhibition, and in some cases for raffle and sale. There were many fine paintings, statues, bronzes, engravings, gems, laces—in fact, heirlooms, and bric-á-brac of all sorts. There were many lovely Creole girls present, in exquisite toilets, passing to and fro through the decorated rooms, listening to the band clash out the Anvil Chorus.

This morning I joined the B.’s and their party in a visit to the new fortifications below the city. It all looks formidable enough, but of course I am no judge of military defenses. We passed over the battle-ground where Jackson fought the English, and thinking of how he dealt with treason, one could almost fancy his unquiet ghost stalking about.

Note: To protect Mrs. Miller’s job as a teacher in post-civil war New Orleans, her diary was published anonymously, edited by G. W. Cable, names were changed and initials were generally used instead of full names—and even the initials differed from the real person’s initials. (Read Dora Richards Miller’s biographical sketch.)

Through the remainder of the month nothing of special interest occurred. The same daily routine of business. Through order of Quartermaster Thayer, the quartermaster and commissary sergeants formed a mess by themselves. Christmas lost my pocketbook containing upwards of five dollars.

Wednesday, 25th–This is a beautiful day, the snow having nearly all disappeared. The boys had a fine time today, this being our first Christmas experience in the army. There was no roast turkey with cranberry sauce and we all missed mother’s mince pies, cake and doughnuts. But we bought some pies and cakes of the citizens here, which with our regular army rations made a good dinner and something like a square meal. In the evening some of us boys went to the tavern to get our suppers, costing twenty-five cents apiece, and we had hot biscuit and honey in the bargain.

WEDNESDAY 25

This has been “Christmas day” and a very pleasant day, not cold enough to freeze, but the air clear and braceing. I have spent the day at home fixing up things and did not go out till evening when I spent a couple of hours at Chas room with Mr Copersmith, Mis Wells and Chas & Sallie. It has been quite a noisey day about the house. Our three boys and the Two Lincoln boys have been very busy fireing off Crackers & Pistols. Willie & Thomas Lincoln staid to Dinner at 4 o’clock. Julia has been practiceing some with her pistol.

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The three diary manuscript volumes, Washington during the Civil War: The Diary of Horatio Nelson Taft, 1861-1865, are available online at The Library of   Congress.

DECEMBER 25th.—Mr. Ely, the Yankee member of Congress, who has been in confinement here since the battle of Manassas, has been exchanged for Mr. Faulkner, late Minister to France, who was captured on his return from Europe. Mr. Ely smiled at the brown paper on which I had written his passport. I told him it was Southern manufacture, and although at present in a crude condition, it was in the process of improvement, and that “necessity was the mother of invention.” The necessity imposed on us by the blockade would ultimately redound to our advantage, and might injure the country inflicting it by diminishing its own products. He smiled again, and said he had no doubt we should rise to the dignity of white paper.

December 25th, 1861.—Christmas night! No festive gathering tonight. We did not have a Christmas tree. Mattie and Eddie hung up their stockings but they had so many things they might better have hung up a two bushel sack. I found a number of gifts on the lightstand beside my bed, when I awoke this morning. The grown folks had presents, too, but somehow the flavor of Christmas was not there. The servants and all the hands on the plantation came as usual and Father had fixed for them, just, as is always done. He says they are just children and must have their pleasure the same as ever.

They shouted, “Crismus gif,” they sang and danced, they had the “Sweetened Dram.” Gifts were not lacking, good wishes were spoken just the same but, was it in my imagination, or was there really a difference?

Uncle William and Aunt Mary came and brought the children but Uncle Richard and Aunt Nancy did not come—their sorrow was too fresh and keen. Cousin Rob came and of course Cousin William and Cousin Sarah came but we missed the others. Aunt Sue is sick and that, too, cast a gloom over the day. Sister Mag had a letter this morning from Brother Amos. She had not heard for some time and this was written somewhat after the fashion of my diary. Of course he wrote a lot of her and Eddie, with messages for the rest of us. He also told her why the letter was so long delayed. The snow is deep there now as the Howell Guards are stationed at Evansport, on the Potomac and they cannot mail a letter every day. He thinks it is funny that they enlisted first as a Cavalry company, then they were Infantry and now they are serving as Artillery, manning a battery of big guns. [continue reading…]

Christmas Day we spent with Joseph again in camp, going round by Alexandria to pick up Chaplain Hopkins and take him with us. We had taken some goodies and little traps with us for the men in the hospitals in Alexandria and were glad to find the nice arrangements that had already been made by Madame M. She had got Col. Davies to detail some of the 16th men to bring her Christmas greens, and had dressed all the wards with festoons and garlands, little flags, mottoes, etc., besides arranging for a grand Christmas dinner for her “boys.”

The Mansion House Hospital too was resplendent with bright tissue papers and evergreens and Dr. Sheldon showed us with great pride his kitchen and store-room arrangements, which are excellent in every respect. Fifty roast turkeys were preparing for the Christmas feast, sixteen large loaf-cakes iced to perfection and decorated with the most approved filigree work, pies without number, cream puffs, cranberry sauce, puddings of all sorts, etc., etc.–altogether the most Christmas-like scene we have looked upon, and all arranged with the greatest order and cleanliness.

Among the little things we took out were Mother’s and Jane’s socks, which we gave to men likely to go back soon to their regiments. The only boy without mittens got Mrs. Smith’s.

After our own camp dinner, at which the Colonel and the Doctor joined us, we sat round the last and best chimney yet built, and talked about old times five or six months ago, which now seem like so many years. J. says his Christmas Eve was dreary enough in his tent, and they all agreed that our coming was the only thing that prevented their Christmas Day from being so too.

December 25th.–Lord Lyons, who had invited the English in Washington to dinner, gave a small quiet entertainment, from which he retired early.

Christmas.

Dec. 24. Tomorrow will be Christmas, and the boys in all the camps are making great preparations for the coming event. The camps are being put in order and decorated with evergreens. Some of them are trimmed in good taste and look very neat and pretty. The boys are all looking forward to a good time; I hope they will not be disappointed. Santa Claus is expected here tonight with our Christmas dinners, but he may be delayed and not get here for a week to come.

Tuesday, 24th–We raised a flag pole today and ran up the Stars and Stripes high in the air, amidst cheering and singing the old song, “Columbia.”

“Long may it wave,
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave !”

This afternoon we went over town and compelled all the secessionists to take the oath. Quite a number of the boys are sick with bad colds, the result of the hard exposure coming up on the stock cars the other night.

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 24, 1861.

A fine Cool day, just freezing. Everybody preparing for “Christmas.” Turkeys from $1.75 to $4.00 a piece, rather “strong” that. Office not open tomorrow, it will be a general hubbub all over the City. The day will open with guns and fire crackers. Were it not for the shoulder straps one meets on the Ave and at the Hotels, the War would almost be lost sight of. The Army of at least a quarter of a million of men near this City remain very quiet. The long trains of Army wagons how[ev]er remind one that there is Something unusual going on. The boys stockings are stuffed with nuts, candy, fire crackers &c., past 11 o’clock.

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The three diary manuscript volumes, Washington during the Civil War: The Diary of Horatio Nelson Taft, 1861-1865, are available online at The Library of   Congress.

DECEMBER 24th.—I am at work on the resolution passed by Congress. The Secretary sent it to me, with an order to prepare the list of names, and saying that he would explain the grounds upon which they were permitted to depart. I can only give the number registered in this office.

Monday, December 24, 1861.

My dear Girls: Col. D. is a godsend! I was in despair at the thought of not getting some little Christmas box off so as to reach you to-morrow, when lo! he appeared, like an angel of mercy and offered to take anything we might have to send. So of course we gathered together our duds, which we had set aside as an impossibility as Christmas gifts, to take their chance in reaching you for New Year, and have just sent off the bonnet box filled with love and best wishes in all the chinks, mixed in with the sugar-plums and covering over everything, to make all acceptable to our noble-hearted girls, who are “extending their benevolence to all within their reach.” . . . I have sent Joe a cake, which you must dress with its wreath and flag, for him to take down to camp. . . . We are going to give little May a Christmas tree and have a beauty now standing in the middle parlor ready to be decorated. It is a very large one, and will take the whole of a box of one hundred colored candles which I have been arranging in little colored tin candlesticks with sharp points which fasten on to the branches. We have also a number of small colored lanterns and a great variety of beautiful and cunning toys. This is to be my Christmas gift to the children. . . .

Tybee Island, Dec. 24, ‘61.

You speak of our hospital as a matter of course; and we are, by and by, to have one, as yet uncommenced; but we owe the medical department no thanks for this when we get it. Dr. Cooper, Medical Director of the expedition, a sensible man, urged the necessity of a hospital; Surgeon-General Finley thought otherwise – “in this mild southern climate tents would do very well for men to have fevers in.” It would suit my views of the fitness of things to have Surgeon-General Finley exposed in scanty apparel to a three days’ Texas norther, by way of enlarging his views of southern climates. . . .

I was just laying the foundations of a log hospital for our men at Port Royal when we were ordered here, and, as I have no compunction about committing any crime short of high treason for a hospital, I had effected a neat little larceny of a lot of windows and sawn lumber which were to work in so sweetly. It was a sad reverse to abandon it!

One great trouble has been to keep our sick men, with their lowered vitality, warm in tents. There is a popular prejudice against cannon balls which I assure you is wholly unfounded. My experience is that there are few pleasanter things to have in the family than hot shot. It would raise the cockles of your heart some of these wretchedly cold nights, to walk between the two long rows of men in my large hospital-tent just after they have been put to bed, each with his cup of hot tea and his warm thirty-two pound shot at his feet, and to see and feel the radiant stack of cherry-red balls in the middle of the floor. This is troublesome and laborious to manage, however, and we greatly need some little sheet-iron stoves. I sent for some a good while since, which should be here shortly. Your inquiry about medicines is a sagacious one, and shows that you have not neglected your hospital-walking opportunities. My dear unsophisticated friend, permit me to indoctrinate you in a dainty device whereof the mind of undepartmental man hath not conceived. Know that there is one supply-table of medicines for hospital use and another for field use. Some very important, almost essential, medicines are not furnished for field service; when your patient needs them he is to go to the hospital. Very good–where is the hospital for us? Now, before we left Washington, with a perfectly clear notion of what was likely to befall us in the way of fevers, and out of the way of hospitals, I made a special requisition for some things not in the field supply table, such as serpentaria, and some of the salts of iron, and went in person to urge it through the purveyor’s office. No use.

Ask any sensible, steady-going old doctor how he would feel with a lively fever clientele upon his hands, and no serpentaria or its equivalent.

I declare, it seemed to me like a special providence that in my pretty extensive “perusings” about these parts, I picked up, here and there, from rebel batteries and deserted houses, both serpentaria and many other needed medicines which have turned to the best account. . . .

If you should hear some day that some rebel Major-General had been rescued from impending death by hemorrhage by the application of Liq. Ferri Persulphat. in the hands of the surgeon of the 7th C. V., you may lay it all to that little bottle which was not the least wonderful content of that wonderful basket sent to Annapolis. The Tennyson and Barber inspired me with emotions too various and complicated here to describe; the bologna cheered and invigorated; the Castile soothed and tranquilized my soul; but at the sight of the Liquor Ferri Persulphatis! – – – what shall I say, except to repeat the words of our own Royston– “a halloo of smothered shouts ran through every vein!” and whenever since, I have started upon any expedition giving promise of bullets, I have popped the bottle into my pocket, hoping to use it upon some damaged rebel.

Our tents, flimsy speculator’s ware at best, are now in a most deplorable state. I am distressed to think of the possibility of a long rainy season overtaking us with no other shelter. . . .

This island upon which we are now encamped, though a lonely wilderness enough and several days farther from home than that which we have left, is on the whole more interesting, as it seems to offer “a right smart chance” of a fight. At any time we can, and often we do, get ourselves shelled from Pulaski by walking upon a certain stretch of the beach. This afternoon a rifled shell came squealing along in its odd way and plumped into the ground without exploding, a few yards from where my brother and I stood. The rascals seem to have defective fuses, and as yet they have hurt no one. By creeping along under bushes we get within Sharps’ rifle range of the great grim fort, and look right into its embrasures. Don’t mention that fact just now. . . . Every day, about the time Pulaski begins her afternoon shelling, “Old Tatnal”[1] runs down his fleet and gnashes his teeth at us from a safe distance, but doesn’t come within range of our new battery or the gunboats. We hear cannon practice at Savannah occasionally, and from one quarter or another great guns growl every few hours. On the whole, a lively place. . . .

Our jolly German neighbors have begun upon their Christmas eve with such rolling choruses right behind my tent, that I must step out to see. . . . –I find that they have a row of Christmas trees through their camp, all a-twinkle with candles, and hung with “hard-tack” curiously cut into confectionary shapes, and with slices of salt pork and beef. Sedate, heavy-bearded Teutons are sedulously making these arrangements, retiring a few paces to observe through severely studious spectacles the effect of each new pendant.

We have all the foliage orthodox for Christmas here, including holly and mistletoe with berries of scarlet and white wax. The jungly unscarred forest of this island is superb. . . . The purple grey depths of the wood all flicker with scarlet grosbeaks like flames of fire, and quaint grey and brown northern birds flit in and out with the knowing air of travelled birds, and plan the nests they will build next summer, in spite of bombs and bayonets, in New England elms and alders. . . .

I owe something to Captain Howland for keeping up my spirits, for, sometimes when I think how utterly these wretched Carolinians throw their best and their all into their bad cause as if they believed in and loved it, and then see, with a sort of dismay, how few, comparatively, of our first-rate men have come personally to the fight with self-sacrifice and out of pure love of the cause, I think of Captain Howland and take comfort of him at least.

[1] “Old Tatnal” originated the expression, “Blood is thicker than water,” when as flag officer of the U. S. squadron in ‘57, he came to the assistance of the English commander in Chinese waters. In 1861 he turned traitor to his flag.

December 24th.–This evening came in a telegram from Europe with news which cast the deepest gloom over all our little English circle. Prince Albert dead! At first no one believed it; then it was remembered that private letters by the last mail had spoken despondingly of his state of health, and that the “little cold” of which we had heard was described in graver terms. Prince Albert dead! “Oh, it may be Prince Alfred,” said some; and sad as it would be for the Queen and the public to lose the Sailor Prince, the loss could not be so great as that which we all felt to be next to the greatest. The preparations which we had made for a little festivity to welcome in Christmas morning were chilled by the news, and the eve was not of the joyous character which Englishmen delight to give it, for the sorrow which fell on all hearts in England had spanned the Atlantic, and bade us mourn in common with the country at home.

Monday, 23d–We arrived at California about sunup, almost frozen; it cleared off during the night and a cold northwest wind was blowing. Leaving the train we entered the several churches in town and built fires to warm by, Company E going into a Catholic church, where the sexton and his wife brought us some hot coffee. We then put into winter quarters, occupying vacant houses and storerooms and made all the “secesh” skedaddle. The companies in quarters here are B, E, G, K and H, under command of Lieut. Col. William Hall. We just learned why it was that we were rushed up here last night. It had been reported at Jefferson City that a train with “secesh” prisoners was to pass through this place today, bound for St. Louis, and that their sympathizers in this locality were planning a raid on the train to liberate the prisoners.