December 4th.–To Arlington, where Senator Ira Harris presented flags–that is, standards–to a cavalry regiment called after his name; the President, Mrs. Lincoln, ministers, generals, and a large gathering present. Mr. Harris made a very long and a very fierce speech; it could not be said Ira furor brevis est; and Colonel Davies, in taking the standard, was earnest and lengthy in reply. Then a barrister presented colour No. 2 in a speech full of poetical quotations, to which Major Kilpatrick made an excellent answer. Though it was strange enough to hear a political disquisition on the causes of the rebellion from a soldier in full uniform, the proceedings were highly theatrical and very effective. “Take, then, this flag,” &c.–”Defendit with your,” &c.–” Yes, sir, we will guard this sacred emblem with –,” &c. The regiment then went through some evolutions, which were brought to an untimely end by a feu de joie from the infantry in the rear, which instantly broke up the squadrons, and sent them kicking, plunging, and falling over the field, to the great amusement of the crowd.

Dined with Lord Lyons, where was Mr. Gait, Financial Minister of Canada; Mr. Stewart, who has arrived to replace Mr. Irvine, and others. In our rooms, a grand financial discussion took place in honour of Mr. Gait, between Mr. Butler Duncan and others, the former maintaining that a general issue of national paper was inevitable. A very clever American maintained that the North will be split into two great parties by the result of the victory which they are certain to gain over the South–that the Democrats will offer the South concessions more liberal than they could ever dream of, and that both will unite against the Abolitionists and Black Republicans.

Tuesday, 3d–Nothing of importance. It is quite noticeable that the men are now holding their heads erect without wearing the “dog collars” around their necks.

3rd. Reached Camp Denison where were encamped 8,000 troops.

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 3, 1861.

This has been the coldest day of the season yet. M. this morning stood at 28. Have been in the office all day. No particular news afloat. Went down to the Ave after dinner, bot some Carpeting of “Barnes and Mitchel,” 20 yards for dining room and 28 yards stairs Carpet. Wife went down and selected it. Called at Willards. Saw Hugh Hastings of Albany and some other gentlemen who I knew from NY. Came home about 7 o’c., read the Presidents Message which was delivered to Congress today. A plain, practical document.

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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 3d.—Several members of Congress came into my office and denounced the policy which the government seemed to have adopted of permitting Yankees, and those who sympathize with them, to be continually running over to the enemy with information of our condition, and thus inviting attacks and raids at points where we are utterly defenseless. They seemed surprised when I told them that I not only agreed with them entirely, but that I had really written most of the articles they had read in the press denunciatory of the policy they condemned. I informed them, moreover, that I had long since refused to sign any such passports as they alluded to, at the risk of being removed. They said they believed the President, in his multiplicity of employments, was not aware of the extent of the practice, and the evil effects it was certain to entail on the country; and it was their purpose to wait upon him and remonstrate against the pernicious practice of Mr. Benjamin.

December, 3d.–There is a rumor here to-day that our troops are in possession of both Savannah and Pensacola. I do not believe it.

What do our leaders mean to do with us this winter? Here we are, the 3d December, a cold, freezing, windy day, in our open tents, without intimation of what we are going to do– with no more preparation for winter quarters than we had a month ago. Are we to be kept in this condition all winter? We are getting tired of McClellan’s want of vim. How long is he going to be “getting ready?” All is conjecture, except that the wind howls dreadfully around our tents this cold night.

This morning the three divisions of the army here sent out five hundred to a thousand men each, to beat the bush. This moment comes the statement that they woke up about four hundred rebel cavalry, surrounded them, and that they are even now endeavoring to fight their way out; that they have killed about fifteen of our men; that we have taken about two hundred prisoners, and are fishing in the dark for the rest. All this may be true, but I am getting to be a great doubter of the truth of anything I hear in camp. We shall know all about it to-morrow.

December 3rd.–Drove down to the Capitol, and was introduced to the floor of the Senate by Senator Wilson, and arrived just as Mr. Forney commenced reading the President’s message, which was listened to with considerable interest. At dinner, Colonel D’Utassy, of the Garibaldi legion, who gives a curious account of his career. A Hungarian by birth, he went over from the Austrian service, and served under Bern; was wounded and taken prisoner at Temesvar, and escaped from Spielberg, through the kindness of Count Bennigsen, making his way to Semlin, in the disguise of a servant, where Mr. Fonblanque, the British consul, protected him. Thence he went to Kossuth at Shumla, finally proceeded to Constantinople, where he was engaged to instruct the Turkish cavalry; turned up in the Ionian Islands, where he was engaged by the late Sir H. Ward, as a sort of secretary and interpreter, in which capacity he also served Sir G. Le Marchant. In the United States he was earning his livelihood as a fencing, dancing, and language master; and when the war broke out he exerted himself to raise a regiment, and succeeded in completing his number in seventeen days, being all the time obliged to support himself by his lessons. I tell his tale as he told it to me.

One of our friends, of a sporting turn, dropped in tonight, followed by a gentleman dressed in immaculate black, and of staid deportment, whose name I did not exactly catch, but fancied it was that of a senator of some reputation. As the stranger sat next me, and was rubbing his knees nervously, I thought I would commence conversation.

“It appears, sir, that affairs in the south-west are not so promising. May I ask you what is your opinion of the present prospects of the Federals in Missouri?” [continue reading…]

Monday, 2d–It turned warm today and the snow is all gone. I was on guard for the first time here at the barracks. We have to walk the beats with our overcoats on. A man on this, the west side, of the camp was engaged in cleaning his rifle today, when by some movement it was accidentally discharged and hit and killed a soldier on the other side of the grounds.

2nd. Wrote and sent a package to Fannie. Bid the friends good-bye and left for Camp Denison. A noisy time–boys drunk– slept in caboose.

Monday, December 2, 1861.

While I was writing last night there really was a Rebel gunboat came up the river and fired into Fort Holt. Impudent, wasn’t it? The Fort replied, and Fort Cairo also shot a couple of shells over our heads toward the rascals, but they fell short. We could see the troops at Fort Holt out under arms for an hour. Taylor’s battery went off down the Norfolk road at a slashing pace to try and get a shot at the boat but was too late.

It is very cold this morning and snowing again. We are perfectly comfortable, though.

The Troops Brigaded.

Dec. 2. The troops encamped around here have been formed into three brigades, and will be commanded by Brigadier Generals Foster, Reno and Parke; the whole to be under command of Gen. A. E. Burnside and known as Burnside’s coast division. Our regiment has been assigned the right of the first brigade, comprising the 25th, 23d, 24th and 27th Massachusetts and 10th Connecticut regiments, under command of Brig. Gen. John G. Foster, U. S. A. I think we are fortunate in our commander, as he appears to me like a man who understands his business. Gen. Foster is a regular army officer, ranking as captain of engineer! He served in the Mexican war, and was with Major Anderson at the storming and surrender of Fort Sumpter. He has recently been commissioned brigadier general of volunteers. Judging from appearances, I have great faith in him as an able commander.

MONDAY 2

A fine cool day again. The great event has been the convening of Congress. A quorum was present and a great crowd was there. No particular news today. Young H N Jr is makeing an effort to get the place of Page in the “House.” Went down to the Ave this evening, bot Harpers Mag. and Frank Leslies Pictorial. Called at Barnes & Mitchels, came home by seven o’clock and staid there.

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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 2d.—Gen. Lee has now been ordered South for the defense of Charleston and Savannah, and those cities are safe! Give a great man a field worthy of his powers, and he can demonstrate the extent of his abilities; but dwarf him in an insignificant position, and the veriest fool will look upon him with contempt. Gen. Lee in the streets here bore the aspect of a discontented man, for he saw that everything was going wrong; but now his eye flashes with zeal and hope. Give him time and opportunity, and he will hurl back the invader from his native land; yes, and he will commend the chalice of invasion to the lips of the North ; but not this year—it is too late for that.

December 2nd.–Congress opened to-day. The Senate did nothing. In the House of Representatives some Buncombe resolutions were passed about Captain Wilkes, who has become a hero–”a great interpreter of international law,” and also recommending that Messrs. Mason and Slidell be confined in felons’ cells, in retaliation for Colonel Corcoran’s treatment by the Confederates. M. Blondel, the Belgian minister, who was at the court of Greece during the Russian war, told me that when the French and English fleets lay in the Piraeus, a United States vessel, commanded, he thinks, by Captain Stringham, publicly received M. Persani, the Russian ambassador, on board, hoisted and saluted the Russian flag in the harbour, whereupon the French Admiral, Barbier de Tinan, proposed to the English Admiral to go on board the United States vessel and seize the ambassador, which the British officer refused to do.

December 1.–Dr Carr is dead. He had a stroke of paralysis two weeks ago and for several days he has been unconscious. The choir of our church, of which he was leader for so long, and some of the young people came and stood around his bed and sang, “Jesus, Lover of My Soul.” They did not know whether he was conscious or not, but they thought so because the tears ran down his cheeks from his closed eyelids, though he could not speak or move. The funeral was from the church and Dr Daggett’s text was, “The Beloved Physician.”

Sunday, 1st–We had a big snowstorm last night. It came my turn to go on camp guard for the first time. It takes some five hundred men to go around the camp.

Dec. 1st. Sunday. Spent in camp and at Uncle’s. Was paid off.

SUNDAY, DECEMBER 1

This has been a fine cool day, no frost but a fresh wind. Wife and the boys went to church. Julia went to the Episcopal church with Miss Hartly, it was Doct Pinckneys church. I have been in the house nearly all day reading &c. Went down town this evening, was at the “National” an hour or so, met several members of Congress who are here ready for the morrow. This will be a very important Session, the most important perhaps that has been convened for half a Century at least.

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.

Bird’s Point, Mo., December 1, 1861.

This, the beginning of winter, is the warmest and altogether the most pleasant day we have had for several weeks. During our whole trip to Bloomfield and back we had splendid weather, but ever since our return it has been at least very unsplendid. The climax was reached day before yesterday and capped with several inches of snow. I was up the river 15 miles at the time with a party loading a flatboat with logs for our huts. We had a sweet time of it and lots of fun. The mud was from six inches to a foot deep, and by the time we got the logs to the boat they were coated with mud two inches thick, and before we got a dozen logs on the boat we had a second coat on us, from top to toe of mud. It snowed and rained all the time we worked but I heard no complaint from the men, and in fact I have never seen so much fun anywhere as we had that day. There is any amount of game where we were, the boys said that were out, and they brought to camp several skinned “deer.” I tried some of the “venison” but it tasted strangely like hog.

Of course drill is discontinued for the present, and as working on the quarters is almost impossible we sit and lie in the tent and gas and joke and eat and plan devilment. We have a barrel of apples now, lots of pecans and tobacco and not a thing to trouble us. The enemy have quit coming around here and we can stroll six or seven miles without danger if we get past our pickets safely. There was a great deal of firing down at Columbus yesterday and I heard some more this morning. I don’t know whether the gunboats are down or not. It may be the Rebels are practicing with their big guns; or maybe they are firing a salute over the fall of Fort Pickens. It will be a great joke if they take that, won’t it? [continue reading…]

DECEMBER 1st.—The people here begin to murmur at the idea that they are questioned about their loyalty, and often arrested, by Baltimore petty larceny detectives, who, if they were patriotic themselves (as they are all able-bodied men), would be in the army, fighting for the redemption of Maryland.

December 1st, 1861.—Father was reading what I had written about the Battle of Manassas and he said, “My baby has forgotten to write of school plans. They should be recorded by all means. In years to come you will read of it with great interest and it should have come before the account of the battle.” As he thinks it is not too late to tell of it I will write it here, though I do not like to think of it. I was so opposed to it at first and so disappointed when I had to give it up. In June, last, Grandpa wrote to Mother, urging her to send me to Raleigh to school. Mother was educated in that city and many of her old friends still live there. I would probably have their children as classmates. Grandpa, himself, would take me to Raleigh and see to all details necessary. His plan was for me to go on to Enfield with cousin Johnnie, who was then at home on a furlough and would see me safely in his hands. I could visit Grandma and himself until school opened. He said Raleigh was so far in the interior that there would be no danger of the enemy reaching it and he could think of no safer place in these days of war. He went on to say he thought the war would be over in sixty days; a great many people think so. Father was opposed to this but Mother thought well of it and though I hated the thought of leaving them, Mother told such entrancing tales of school life in Raleigh, that I soon became reconciled. Then, too, I dearly love to please Grandpa. Mother graduated with first honors and her father was so delighted that he gave her that lovely set of jet and gold, which I have always admired. I thought to myself, I, too, can study hard and perhaps I can get first honors and Father and Mother may be proud of their “ugly duckling” yet. Though the blockade is much more effective than we had any idea it would or could be, it was still an easy matter to fit out a school girl.

In the fall of 1860 uncle Arvah had bought an unusually large stock of goods and when, in the following January, Florida seceded, he wired his commission merchants in New York, to buy such goods as he was in the habit of supplying himself with, to the value of the cotton in his name, which they held in their possession. When these goods arrived, and they were shipped immediately, the bills of lading showed one hundred and forty-two thousand dollars worth of merchandise. So Mother had no difficulty in finding pretty materials; she and Lulu made my dresses and Mrs. Manning made my underwear. They were so beautifully made that I told sister Mag it was almost like her bridal trousseau. My traveling dress was brown, a soft, rough-surfaced material of wool, with small flecks of gold color woven in. There is a long cape, lined with satin of the same shade as the dress, quilted in small diamonds. My hat is of beaver felt, the color of the dress, three fluffy little ostrich tips are fastened in with a gold arrow. The cape, too, is fastened with three gold clasps. Such a pretty dress. But I will not wear it to North Carolina, for as soon as I had made up my mind to go things began to happen. The Battle of Manassas did not seem to alarm them but when the enemy attacked the coast of North Carolina, Father and Mother were quite positive that I must stay at home. So, war interferes with everything, even with education. It may be all for the best, I am sure it is, since Cousin Richard was killed. I believe what made Father and Mother change their minds is the discovery that the enemy are sending spies through the country to cut off telegraphic communication, when they get ready to attack. It would be dreadful to be cut off from your own home folks.

Susan Bradford is 15 years old when this entry was made.

Ebbitt House, December 1, ‘61

We saw yesterday a nice dodge for enlarging your tent and making the back one more private. It is pitching the two tents three or four feet apart and spreading the fly over the intermediate vestibule. Chaplain Edward Walker of the 4th Connecticut, whom we went to see yesterday, had his two tents arranged so, and the effect was very pretty. In the front one he had the regimental library (a very nice one) and the back one was his own, and between them was the little vestibule floored like the others and boarded at the sides to keep out the cold, and in it he had his stove and washing apparatus, and from its ceiling hung a pretty wire basket filled with moss and wild flowers! a charming little bit of New England country life in the midst of civil war. He is a nice fellow, one of Dr. Leonard Bacon’s Congregational boys and just the one for an army Chaplain–so cheerful and strong, and honest and kind-hearted. . . . He went with us through the camp and to the hospital, where we left them some supplies, including a lot of hair pillows which we had made from Abby’s material.

G. lately drove Chaplain Wrage’s wife out to her husband’s camp, carrying socks, pillows, comforters, farina, etc. to the hospital. The camp was very German and dirty; no New England faculty shown in keeping it warm and clean, and the little German bowers looked dreary in the freezing weather. The Colonel, who addresses us as “my ladies” in a polite note, is under arrest for stealing; the Lieutenant-Colonel and Quartermaster are fools, and the men suffer in consequence.

Winchester, December 1, 1861.

I have received your last letter, and am sorry that you write so despondently of the future. It would be sad, indeed, for me to think that day would ever come when the dear wife and little ones whose happiness and comfort have been the chief aim of my life, should be dependent. You would not be more grieved, I am sure, than I would be at such a prospect, and its reality could not distress you more than it would me, if I should be alive to witness it. But, Love, it does not become either of us to harass ourselves with trouble which the future has in store for us. Mine at present is not blessed with as many comforts as I have seen in times past; but it is the case with many thousands who feel impelled with a sense of patriotism and duty to bear it in patience, and I shall try to follow their example. When I sent the message to your father I knew that what he would have to give you out of his estate would be abundant to furnish a comfortable support for you and your children, whatever misfortune may befall my life or my property, and I desired, if it had not been done, that it might be secured to you as your own. The widow and orphan of many a gallant man destined to fall before this struggle ends, though deserving, have not, I apprehend, such a prospect of a comfortable provision as you have. So, Love, the best consolation I can offer you is that there are others whose future is as dark as yours, and that yours is not so bad but that it might be worse. It grieves me, I am sure, as much as it does you, and we must both make up our minds, as the surest guaranty of happiness, to bear the present in patience and cheerfulness, and cherish a hope of another time, when we shall be together again, loving and happy as we used to be. If I survive this war, I have no fear of being unable to earn, by my own industry and energy, a comfortable support for my household. If fate determines that I must perish in the contest, then I trust that He whose supreme wisdom and goodness tempers the wind to the shorn, lamb will shield from want the widow and orphans left dependent upon His providence. This is the first day of winter, and as yet we have had no snow. It has for some time been quite cold, and the water often frozen over. I have not as yet suffered much from exposure, and think I shall stand the winter well. With the assistance of four or five blankets, and bed made of some hay and leaves laid on split timber raised off the ground, I sleep quite warm. I hear nothing said of winter quarters, and so far there seems to be no determination to provide them. I think it would be as well to go into winter quarters, for the weather and the roads will soon be such as to make active operations utterly impracticable.

December 1st.

L. came in a few evenings ago. He was at Conway last summer, and able to contradict an absurd story that was going the rounds,–that Charley and Joe having joined the army, Mother had given up housekeeping and gone into the hospitals, and all the daughters were children of the regiment!

Dr. Carmalt called too. He is very quiet, but good-looking, and ready to laugh at poor jokes, which is much in his favor. . . . I never told you what a nice dressing-gown the one you left for Abby was; and though she was immensely disgusted at your having given it, she wears it every night and looks comfortable and warm, which is what she did not look, with her flannel petticoat over her shoulders.