Saturday, 14th–We came in from picket this morning, having been relieved by the Thirteenth Iowa. We do not have much idle time here, for besides keeping our camp and clothing clean, we have picket duty and fatigue duty on the fortifications.

14th. Wrote a letter home. Mail came bringing home letters and Independent. Issued rations to four companies, to go the next morning on expedition five days. Moved the Second Battalion again half a mile. After work had a gay time finding our tent. Wandered all through the woods.

Saturday, 14th.—Started for Cumberland Gap, 10 A. M. After marching five miles became so sick could go no farther. Dr. Fowler said I would have to get back to Morristown as best I could. An omnibus coming by, I got in and rode back to Morristown.

(Note: picture is of an unidentified Confederate soldier.)

June 14th.–All things are against us. Memphis gone. Mississippi fleet annihilated, and we hear it all as stolidly apathetic as if it were a story of the English war against China which happened a year or so ago.

The sons of Mrs. John Julius Pringle have come. They were left at school in the North. A young Huger is with them. They seem to have had adventures enough. Walked, waded, rowed in boats, if boats they could find; swam rivers when boats there were none; brave lads are they. One can but admire their pluck and energy. Mrs. Fisher, of Philadelphia, née Middleton, gave them money to make the attempt to get home.

Stuart’s cavalry have rushed through McClellan’s lines and burned five of his transports. Jackson has been reenforced by 16,000 men, and they hope the enemy will be drawn from around Richmond, and the valley be the seat of war.

John Chesnut is in Whiting’s brigade, which has been sent to Stonewall. Mem’s son is with the Boykin Rangers; Company A, No. 1, we call it. And she has persistently wept ever since she heard the news. It is no child’s play, she says, when you are with Stonewall. He doesn’t play at soldiering. He doesn’t take care of his men at all. He only goes to kill the Yankees.

Wade Hampton is here, shot in the foot, but he knows no more about France than he does of the man in the moon. Wet blanket he is just now. Johnston badly wounded. Lee is King of Spades. They are all once more digging for dear life. Unless we can reenforce Stonewall, the game is up. Our chiefs contrive to dampen and destroy the enthusiasm of all who go near them. So much entrenching and falling back destroys the morale of any army. This everlasting retreating, it kills the hearts of the men. Then we are scant of powder.

James Chesnut is awfully proud of Le Conte’s powder manufactory here. Le Conte knows how to do it. James Chesnut provides him the means to carry out his plans.

Colonel Venable doesn’t mince matters: “If we do not deal a blow, a blow that will be felt, it will be soon all up with us. The Southwest will be lost to us. We can not afford to shilly-shally much longer.”

Thousands are enlisting on the other side in New Orleans. Butler holds out inducements. To be sure, they are principally foreigners who want to escape starvation. Tennessee we may count on as gone, since we abandoned her at Corinth, Fort Pillow, and Memphis. A man must be sent there, or it is all gone now.

“You call a spade by that name, it seems, and not an agricultural implement?” “They call Mars Robert ‘Old Spade Lee.’ He keeps them digging so.” “General Lee is a noble Virginian. Respect something in this world. Cæsar–call him Old Spade Cæsar? As a soldier, he was as much above suspicion, as he required his wife to be, as Cæsar’s wife, you know. If I remember Cæsar’s Commentaries, he owns up to a lot of entrenching. You let Mars Robert alone. He knows what he is about.” [continue reading…]

Harriet Roosevelt Woolsey to her sisters on the Virginia Peninsula, Georgeanna Woolsey and Eliza Howland.

New York, June.

Dear Girls: I write more for the sake of sending a letter by Dr. Draper, than because there is anything to tell you about. . . . I think Abby looks miserable and needs rest. I don’t believe even you, “the working sisters,” as Dr. Ferris calls you, do as much as Abby does, for there is certainly something that pays in giving nice little things to soldiers and having them so grateful to you and seeing them get well under your care,–there is an excitement in it all which cannot be got out of homely unbleached cotton, yards and yards and hundreds of square yards of shirts. . . .

Think of my having a chance of becoming a nurse up at the Mott Hospital in Fifty-first street. Mrs. Ferris offered me a place of that kind, out of consideration for my merits and the one hundred dollars Uncle E. had given them the week before, but I foolishly gave in to the family row. They had me laid out and buried twenty times over of malignant typhoid, diphtheria, and other ills which flesh is heir to.

. . . Carry is engaged in finding a summer retreat for the family. . . . The combinations absolutely necessary are: sea and mountain air, a place near the city with speedy communication, and no New Yorkers.

I send Charley’s wine, Dr. Draper having offered to take anything for us.

The following material contains wording that is offensive to many in the world of today. However, the work is provided unedited for its historical content and context.

Camp near Boonville, Miss., June 13, 1862.

This is the fourth camp that we have had to call as above. We have lived all around the burg, but to-morrow we leave. We have just got nicely arranged here after working hard all day, and now an order comes to move brigade headquarters back to Rienzi, nearly 10 miles toward Corinth. Bah! how sick it makes me to write that name. I haven’t seen the place yet, and have no desire to. I feel about once a week as though a little skirmish would do me good, but I don’t see any use in getting mad because they won’t give me a chance to fight. I couldn’t feel any more out of the war at home than I do here. The enemy have all gone further into Dixie and we’re left the undisputed occupants of this neck. Our headquarters here are about 25 miles south of Corinth, and we have pickets at Baldwin, 15 miles south of this. Pope’s whole division has moved back to just this side of Corinth except our brigade, so here we are, maybe 1,200 effective men, doing outpost duty nearly 40 miles in advance of the army. Yesterday the colonel, his A. D. C. and myself rode around our entire picket line, I mean the part of our brigade that is guarding the M. & O. R. R. There is only one regiment doing this, and they are strung out so that our ride was full 40 miles. When we were within two miles of our camp, coming in, I was galloping along ahead of the colonel, maybe 50 yards (’twas 10 p.m.) and I thought I heard a “halt,” but was so sure there were no pickets there (full a dozen miles inside of our corps’ pickets) that I didn’t mind it until bang, went an old musket, and the bullet zipped considerably over my head. I halted. They were some infantry pickets whose regiment was close by in the woods (some two miles). Well, we hadn’t the countersign and they wern’t going to let us pass. The colonel swore, I was awful hungry, and I cussed, the A. D. C. raved, but the picket sergeant was immovable. At last we coaxed him to send us in with a guard to his colonel. He sent six men with us as guard, and the cuss gave orders to shoot us if we tried to run. The chap that shot was one of the guard, and he told me that he shot over my head on purpose after he had halloed “halt” several times. They didn’t know there was cavalry outside of them and said they’d shot us sure if they hadn’t seen the glimmer of my straps in the moonlight. We got their colonel up, took a toddy with him and—home. Did I ever tell you about my darkey, “Charley”? We got him at Cape Girardeau. [continue reading…]

JUNE 13th.—Gen. Lee is satisfied with the present posture of affairs–and McClellan has no idea of attacking us now. He don’t say what he means to do himself.

Friday, 13th–It came the Eleventh Iowa’s turn to go on picket today. The teams still have to go to Pittsburg Landing, twenty-two miles from Corinth, for provisions and ammunition for the army.

13th. Issued rations in the morning. Moved camp over the river west. Pitched our tent in a splendid grove in a secesh corn field. Found some mulberries.

Friday, 13th.—Arrived at Knoxville, 12 M. Left for Morristown at 2 P. M.; arrived 5 P. M.

(Note: picture is of an unidentified Confederate soldier.)

June 13th.–Decca’s wedding. It took place last year. We were all lying on the bed or sofas taking it coolly as to undress. Mrs. Singleton had the floor. They were engaged before they went up to Charlottesville; Alexander was on Gregg’s staff, and Gregg was not hard on him; Decca was the worst in love girl she ever saw. “Letters came while we were at the hospital, from Alex, urging her to let him marry her at once. In war times human events, life especially, are very uncertain.

“For several days consecutively she cried without ceasing, and then she consented. The rooms at the hospital were all crowded. Decca and I slept together in the same room. It was arranged by letter that the marriage should take place; a luncheon at her grandfather Minor’s, and then she was to depart with Alex for a few days at Richmond. That was to be their brief slice of honeymoon.

“The day came. The wedding-breakfast was ready, so was the bride in all her bridal array; but no Alex, no bridegroom. Alas! such is the uncertainty of a soldier’s life. The bride said nothing, but she wept like a water-nymph. At dinner she plucked up heart, and at my earnest request was about to join us. And then the cry, ‘ The bridegroom cometh.’ He brought his best man and other friends. We had a jolly dinner. ‘Circumstances over which he had no control’ had kept him away.

“His father sat next to Decca and talked to her all the time as if she had been already married. It was a piece of absent-mindedness on his part, pure and simple, but it was very trying, and the girl had had much to stand that morning, you can well understand. Immediately after dinner the belated bridegroom proposed a walk; so they went for a brief stroll up the mountain. Decca, upon her return, said to me: ‘Send for Robert Barnwell. I mean to be married to-day.’

“‘Impossible. No spare room in the house. No getting away from here; the trains all gone. Don’t you know this hospital place is crammed to the ceiling?’ ‘Alex says I promised to marry him to-day. It is not his fault; he could not come before.’ I shook my head. ‘I don’t care,’ said the positive little thing, ‘I promised Alex to marry him to-day and I will. Send for the Rev. Robert Barnwell.’ We found Robert after a world of trouble, and the bride, lovely in Swiss muslin, was married.

“Then I proposed they should take another walk, and I went to one of my sister nurses and begged her to take me in for the night, as I wished to resign my room to the young couple. At daylight next day they took the train for Richmond.” Such is the small allowance of honeymoon permitted in war time.

Beauregard’s telegram: he can not leave the army of the West. His health is bad. No doubt the sea breezes would restore him, but–he can not come now. Such a lovely name–Gustave Tautant Beauregard. But Jackson and Johnston and Smith and Jones will do–and Lee, how short and sweet.

“Every day,” says Mem, “they come here in shoals– men to say we can not hold Richmond, and we can not hold Charleston much longer. Wretches, beasts! Why do you come here? Why don’t you stay there and fight? Don’t you see that you own yourselves cowards by coming away in the very face of a battle ? If you are not liars as to the danger, you are cowards to run away from it.” Thus roars the practical Mem, growing more furious at each word. These Jeremiahs laugh. They think she means others, not the present company.

Tom Huger resigned his place in the United States Navy and came to us. The Iroquois was his ship in the old navy. They say, as he stood in the rigging, after he was shot in the leg, when his ship was leading the attack upon the Iroquois, his old crew in the Iroquois cheered him, and when his body was borne in, the Federals took off their caps in respect for his gallant conduct. When he was dying, Meta Huger said to him: “An officer wants to see you: he is one of the enemy.” “Let him come in; I have no enemies now.” But when he heard the man’s name:

“No, no. I do not want to see a Southern man who is now in Lincoln’s navy.” The officers of the United States Navy attended his funeral.

While we were lying at White House in the Wilson Small, one day, Mr. Olmsted came to G. with the statement that “young Mr. Mitchell of New York, who had come down to help in the Commission’s Quarter-master’s department, was ill on the supply boat Elizabeth.” G. went across the plank to him at once, and found a most attractive six or seven feet of future brother-in-law cramped into an uncomfortable little hole of a cabin. This was E. M.’s first introduction to the family; he was looked after a little, and sent home in a returning hospital ship to recruit. Mr. Olmsted had his father’s private instructions to keep him out of the army.

Abby Howland Woolsey a little later, writes:

Mr. Mitchell called yesterday afternoon to say good-bye and to offer to take anything to Georgy. Dr. Agnew had sent for him in a great hurry to go back as quartermaster on the Elm City. He had promised to go back on three or four days’ notice, and had hoped to spend those at the seaside, where his physician had told him he ought to go. We had nothing for Georgy, the Elm City lying at Jersey City, it would not have been convenient anyhow–but Carry took to his house in 9th street a letter to Georgy and a large bundle of candy for himself.–(C’s first present to her future husband).

June 13.—Since the water ran off, we have, of course, been attacked by swamp fever. H. succumbed first, then Annie, Max next, and then I. Luckily, the new Dr. Y. had brought quinine with him, and we took heroic doses. Such fever never burned in my veins before or sapped strength so rapidly, though probably the want of good food was a factor. The two or three other professional men have left. Dr. Y. alone remains. The roads now being dry enough, H. and Max started on horseback, in different directions, to make an exhaustive search for supplies. H. got back this evening with no supplies.

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.)

JUNE 11th, 12th.—Gen. Smith, the New York street commissioner, had been urged as commander-in-chief.

Thursday, 12th–The farmers living about here are cutting their wheat; some have already begun stacking. Wheat here is good, with some especially fine fields, but some fields were entirely destroyed during the siege of Corinth. The corn is not as good on account of the cold, wet spring.

12th. Another false alarm. Whole brigade in arms. Scouted about some. Nothing unusual. Grazed my horse.

June 12.—We are more successful in Virginia than elsewhere. The whole Mississippi River, except Vicksburg and its environs, is now in the hands of the enemy, and that place must surrender, though it holds out most nobly, amidst the most inveterate efforts to take it. Memphis has fallen! How my spirit chafes and grieves over our losses! O God, let us not be given over a “hissing and a reproach to our enemies.”

Thursday, 12th.—Preparing for a march; took train for Knoxville at 6 P. M.

(Note: picture is of an unidentified Confederate soldier.)

June 12th, 1862.—We have good news from the army of Northern Virginia; General Robert Lee has been appointed Commander in Chief. President Davis says there is not a more able officer in the Confederacy.

I finished my hundredth pair of socks today, usually I knit at night. We do not need a light to knit, but I wanted to finish this pair to complete the hundredth. I am learning to spin. The next pair I knit will be yarn of my own manufacture. Aunt Robinson, who taught me to knit, has completed three hundred pairs of socks and some stockings for herself. I do not believe I would ever have the patience to knit such long legs.

I am going boating this evening with Cousin Florence and Jewel Holland and Hattie. McBride is a pretty lake.

Susan Bradford is 16 years old when this entry was made.

June 12th.–New England’s Butler, best known to us as “Beast” Butler, is famous or infamous now. His amazing order to his soldiers at New Orleans and comments on it are in everybody’s mouth. We hardly expected from Massachusetts behavior to shame a Comanche.

One happy moment has come into Mrs. Preston’s life. I watched her face to-day as she read the morning papers. Willie’s battery is lauded to the skies. Every paper gave him a paragraph of praise.

South Carolina was at Beauregard’s feet after Fort Sumter. Since Shiloh, she has gotten up, and looks askance rather when his name is mentioned. And without Price or Beauregard who takes charge of the Western forces? “Can we hold out if England and France hold off?” cries Mem. “No, our time has come.”

“For shame, faint heart! Our people are brave, our cause is just; our spirit and our patient endurance beyond reproach.” Here came in Mary Cantey’s voice: “I may not have any logic, any sense. I give it up. My woman’s instinct tells me, all the same, that slavery’s time has come. If we don’t end it, they will.”

After all this, tried to read Uncle Tom, but could not; too sickening; think of a man sending his little son to beat a human being tied to a tree. It is as bad as Squeers beating Smike. Flesh and blood revolt; you must skip that; it is too bad.

Mr. Preston told a story of Joe Johnston as a boy. A party of boys at Abingdon were out on a spree, more boys than horses; so Joe Johnston rode behind John Preston, who is his cousin. While going over the mountains they tried to change horses and got behind a servant who was in charge of them all. The servant’s horse kicked up, threw Joe Johnston, and broke his leg; a bone showed itself. “Hello, boys! come here and look: the confounded bone has come clear through,” called out Joe, coolly.

They had to carry him on their shoulders, relieving guard. As one party grew tired, another took him up. They knew he must suffer fearfully, but he never said so. He was as cool and quiet after his hurt as before. He was pretty roughly handled, but they could not help it. His father was in a towering rage because his son’s leg was to be set by a country doctor, and it might be crooked in the process. At Chickahominy, brave but unlucky Joe had already eleven wounds.

Wednesday, 11th–I was on guard today at General Todd’s headquarters. The weather is very hot. The teams all went to the river for provisions. We are establishing a good camp at this place. We raised our wedge tents up from the ground and built bunks for our beds instead of lying down on the ground.^[1]

[1] This was the first time that we built bunks for our beds, raised up from the ground.–A. G. D

June 11th.

Last evening mother and Miriam went to the Arsenal to see if they would be allowed to do anything for the prisoners. General Williams received them, and fascinated Miriam by his manner, as usual. Poor Miriam is always being fascinated, according to her own account. He sent for little Nathan Castle and Willie Garig, and left them alone in the room with them, showing his confidence and delicacy by walking away. The poor young men were very grateful to be remembered; one had his eyes too full of tears to speak. Mr. Garig told Miriam that when the story of her refusing the escort was told in camp, the woods rang with shouts of “Three cheers for Miss Morgan!” They said they were treated very well, and had no want, except clean clothes, and to let their mothers know they were well and content.

I have been hard at work mending three or four suits of the boys’ clothing for those poor young men. Some needed thread and needle very much, but it was the best we could do. So I packed them all up – not forgetting a row of pins – and sent Tiche off with the bundle, perched real Congo fashion on her many-colored head-handkerchief, which was tied in the most superb Creole style in honor of the occasion.

11th. Moved camp nearer the river on the edge of the woods on account of water. Issued rations to eight companies. Rather tired at night. Went fishing after supper with Major and Brownell. Caught no fish, pleasant time.

June 11th, 1862.—A letter from Sister Mag; the trip was a safe one and much pleasanter than she had anticipated; Grandpa and Grandma well and glad to see them; Eddie loved Grandpa right away and wants to follow him everywhere he goes. Now for the best part; Brother Amos is safe and sound. I had a letter from Cousin Joe in the same mail. He was almost broken-hearted when Cousin Sallie would not let him volunteer at the first when his schoolmates did, but Cousin Sallie told him he was all she had in the world, his father was dead; he did not have to go until he was eighteen and she wanted him to go to Chapel Hill, study as hard as he cound until the week before his eighteenth birthday and then come home and join the army. He did not want to do this but he has always been a most devoted son and he yielded his wishes to hers. He is coming back now to join Colonel Scott’s Battalion and he is happy.

Susan Bradford is 16 years old when this entry was made.