October 18th.–To-day Lord Lyons drove out with Mr. Seward to inspect the Federal camps, which are now in such order as to be worthy of a visit. It is reported in all the papers that I am going to England, but I have not the smallest intention of giving my enemies here such a treat at present. As Monsieur de Beaumont of the French Legation said, “I presume you are going to remain in Washington for the rest of your life, because I see it stated in the New York journals that you are leaving us in a day or two.”

Bird’s Point, October 18, 1861

We yesterday drew our overcoats, and splendid ones they are. The cloth is light blue and they reach nearly to our feet. They have capes on them that come over a fellow’s head nicely nights. The weather is about like you have I expect, but I know we will be very comfortable with the clothing we have in any weather. I wouldn’t have the war end before next spring for anything, for I want to try a winter out doors. Every one of the Canton boys is in excellent health and all very well satisfied. The boys are receiving letters almost every day that read “we have heard that so and so is sick,” and this morning John Wallace got one that said that Sam Nutt and three others were shot while on guard. You may know that such reports are always lies unless you see it with the names in the papers long before a letter would reach you from here. John Wallace is just one of the best boys in the camp. It would do you good to see how contentedly the boys all take things. There is more life and fun in our tent every night than we ever had at home. Sam and Fred Norcott make more noise and sport in an evening than all Canton can furnish in a week. We love and respect all our officers but one, and he is the best officer we have, but a little too much regular army about him. Our captain is what the girls would call a “dear old fellow,” though he does have his own way every time. It seems to be the right way always so we think the world of him. They are just burying some poor fellow. We have had several deaths in the regiment lately. They do not play the prettiest dead marches here. I have been detached from the company for a week acting as sheriff of a court martial. Colonel Marsh, Colonel Logan, Colonel Tuttle of the Iowa 2d, and a couple of captains form the court. I have four men a day to guard the prisoners and two orderlies to send errands for me, so I play big injun strongly. The prisoner murdered a comrade while we were down at Norfolk. Smote him on the head with a club. He is from Company B of our regiment. That company, besides this case, had a man shot dead the other day by one of their own company. An accident. This morning they had a man stabbed, and day before yesterday they confined one of their men for trying to kill two others. For all this they are really a good company of men. We had a review Tuesday this week of 6 regiments, 2 batteries and 400 or 500 cavalry. Very fine. I suppose you saw an account of the Pekin company of our regiment killing four or five Rebels that made an attack on them while they were guarding a bridge. Ten of them stood their ground against a large party, and held the ground too. We buried two secesh and they carried off four. We lost none. The best fight yet was ten miles below here the other day between 26 of our men and 160 Rebels. You’ve seen it in the papers. Sam Nutt and John Wallace stood guard two nights before at the place where the first fight was. Oh heavens, I hope I can date my next from somewhere else.

October 18.–Rebel soldiers made their appearance again on London and Bolivar Heights, and renewed the attack upon Major Gould’s command with their artillery. Major Gould immediately responded with canister, fired from the 32-pounder columbiad captured on the 15th, and succeeded in driving them back, but not until they had burned the mill at which the National troops had seized the grain, and taken the miller prisoner, whom they accused of giving information to the National troops.–N. Y. Times, Oct. 19.

–Colonel Stahel, of the Eighth regiment of New York Volunteers, accompanied by Prince Salm Salm and several officers of his staff, made a reconnoissance in the direction of Fairfax Court House, in Virginia.–(Doc. 97.)

October 18, 1861

A Chronological History of the Civil War in America¹

• Pacific Telegraph Line completed to Great Salt Lake City. Brigham Young, the Mormon chief, sent a congratulatory dispatch to President Lincoln.

1. A Chronological History of the Civil War in America by Richard Swainson Fisher, New York, Johnson and Ward, 1863

THURSDAY 17

This has been another rather sick day with me, but I have not had much fever. My cough continues bad, did not sleep at all last night. My cough and the moskeetoes took up all my attention, did not go out except to walk down to Charleys on 11th St and back. The “Military” seem to be doing very little. The Rebels have been allowed to construct Batteries on the Virginia side of the Potomac for some months past at their leisure, and the Potomac is now said to be “closed.” I think that something will have to be done.

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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.

Hdqrs. 4th Reg. C. V., Camp Ingalls.

Dear Miss Woolsey: Your kind note is just received.

A week ago our hospital was in wretched condition, but, thanks to the Sanitary Commission! we are at present provided with nearly everything we want. If anything is needed, it is a few more sheets, as we have some fever patients who require frequent change of bedclothes. The surgeon suggests that more pillows are needed and that a little Indian meal for gruel would be very acceptable.

There are 51 in the regimental hospital today–2 dangerously ill, and 30 on the sick list in the camp. . . . Should we find ourselves really in need of further aid from the Sanitary Commission I will let you know promptly, either by a note or by calling on you when I come in town.

Yours gratefully,

Edward Ashley Walker.

Chaplain 4th C. V.

Mother to Eliza Woolsey Howland at Fishkill.

New York, Thursday, Oct. 17th.

My dear Eliza: I must write a line to you this afternoon, not only to congratulate you and dear Joe upon being together again in your own pleasant home but to tell you how charmed I am at the prospect of seeing you here. We began to pack up immediately on the receipt of our last letter from Washington and came down from Lenox as soon as possible, reaching home yesterday in time for a six o’clock dinner. I wrote to old William we were coming and he had everything very nice and clean. . . . Mary received our letter last night, telling her we should be in town, so that this morning the first thing, Georgy–who had gone right out to Mary –and Carry rushed in upon us, and right glad were we to see Georgy again, and to find her looking so well; not entirely grey-headed and wrinkled with age from the cares and anxieties of her Washington campaign, as we expected! but really looking better and certainly fatter, than when she left home. It is delightful to hear her account of things, and it will be very charming when you are here with us too, to join in the pow-wows. We are all eager listeners to Washington doings, and I cannot bear to be out of the room a minute while Georgy is talking. . . .

Do give my kind remembrance to Thomson and his wife; I have a great respect for him. I hope you will come to us as soon as you can. We shall be all ready for you, except the “nicknacks,” and I don’t mean to take any of them out. I found William had opened Joe’s likeness, and set it out, as a delicate little attention to the family! Hatty waits to take my note.

Ever affectionately yours,

Mother.

OCTOBER 17th.—Hurlbut has been released from prison. Mr. Hunter has a letter (intercepted) from Raymond, editor of the New York Times, addressed to him since the battle of Manassas.

Warsaw, October 17th. Yesterday we made our longest march, making twenty-five miles, and encamped three miles north of this place.

It is a problem, why riding in a column should be so much more wearisome than riding alone, but so it undeniably is. Men who would think little of a sixty-mile ride were quite broken down by to-day’s march.

As soon as we reached camp, the General asked for volunteers from the staff to ride over to Warsaw: of course the whole staff volunteered. On the way we met General Sigel. This very able and enterprising officer is a pleasant, scholarly-looking gentleman, his studious air being increased by the spectacles he always wears. His figure is light, active, and graceful, and he is an excellent horseman. The country has few better heads than his. Always on the alert, he is full of resources, and no difficulties daunt him. Hunter, Pope, and McKinstry are behind, waiting for tea and coffee, beans and flour, and army-wagons. Sigel gathered the ox-team and the farmers’ wagons and brought his division forward with no food for his men but fresh beef. His advance-guard is already across the Osage, and in a day or two his whole division will be over.

Guided by General Sigel, we rode down to the ford across the Osage. The river here is broad and rapid, and its banks are immense bare cliffs rising one hundred feet perpendicularly from the water’s edge. The ford is crooked, uncertain, and never practicable except for horsemen. The ferry is an old flat-boat drawn across by a rope, and the ascent up the farther bank is steep and rocky. It will not answer to leave in our rear this river, liable to be changed by a night’s rain into a fierce torrent, with no other means of crossing it than the rickety ferry. A bridge must at once be built, strong and firm, a safe road for the army in case of disaster. So decides the General. And as we look upon the swift-running river and its rocky shores, cold and gloomy in the twilight, every one agrees that the General is right. His decision has since been strongly supported, for to-day two soldiers of the Fremont Hussars were drowned in trying to cross the ford, and the water is now rising rapidly.

This morning we moved into Warsaw, and for the first time the staff is billeted in the Secession houses of the town; but the General clings to his tent. Our mess is quartered in the house of the county judge, who says his sympathies are with the South. But the poor man is so frightened, that we pity and protect him.

Bridge-building is now the sole purpose of the army. There is no saw-mill here, nor any lumber. The forest must be cut down and fashioned into a bridge, as well as the tools and the skill at command will permit. Details are already told off from the sharp-shooters, the cadets, and even the body-guard, and the banks of the river now resound with the quick blows of their axes.

Fremont’s Hundred Days in Missouri was published in three installments in The Atlantic Monthly. The anonymous author appears to have been a member of Fremont’s staff with a disdainful bias towards Missourians, even those who were pro-Union.

October 17, 1861. Camp Tompkins, near New River, two and one-half miles above Gauley Bridge, at General Rosecrans’ Headquarters. – A threatening morning, a steady rain, fall fashion, in the afternoon. Received a letter by Mr. Schooley, dated 9th, from Lucy. Ruddy had been sick with a chill and Lucy not so well. Dear wife! She is troubled in her present trials that I am absent, but stoutly insists that she can bear up, that she is “a good soldier’s wife.” She sends me pants, etc., etc. A great many papers today in the court-martial line. Dr. Menzies called. Somewhat gloomy but not more so than is his wont.

Camp Tompkins, Near Gauley Bridge,
October 17, 1861.

Dearest: – I am practicing law again. My office is pleasantly located in a romantic valley on the premises of Colonel Tompkins of the Rebel army. His mansion is an elegant modern house, and by some strange good luck it has been occupied by his family and escaped uninjured while hundreds of humbler homes have been ruined. Mrs. Tompkins has kept on the good side of our leaders, and has thus far kept the property safe.

The Twenty-third is seven miles or so up the valley of New River. I was there last evening. Dr. Joe has been sick a couple of days but is getting well. Very few escape sickness, but with any sort of care it is not dangerous. Not more than one case in a hundred has thus far proved fatal.

Colonel Matthews has gone home for a few days. You will see him, I hope. If he succeeds in one of the objects of his trip, I shall probably visit you for a few days within six weeks or so.

Our campaign here is ended, I think without doubt. We hear stories which are repeated in your papers which look a little as if there might be an attempt to cut off our communications down the Kanawha, but 1 suspect there is very small foundation for them. We are strongly posted. No force would dare attack us. To cut off supplies is the most that will be thought of, and any attempts to do that must meet with little success, if I am rightly informed about things.

We have had the finest of fall weather for several (it seems many) days. The glorious mountains all around us are of every hue, changing to a deeper red and brown as the frosts cut the foliage. I talk so much of the scenery, you will suspect me to be daft. In fact I never have enjoyed nature so much. Being in the open air a great part of each day and surrounded by magnificent scenery, I do get heady I suspect on the subject. I have told you many a time that we were camped in the prettiest place you ever saw. I must here repeat it. The scenery on New River and around the junction of Gauley and New River where they form the Kanawha, is finer than any mere mountain and river views we saw last summer. The music and sights belonging to the camps of ten thousand men add to the effect.

Our band has improved and the choir in McIlrath’s Company would draw [an] audience anywhere. The companies, many of them, sound their calls with the bugle, which with the echoes heightens the general charm.

I wish you and the boys were over in the Tompkins house. How you would be happy and wouldn’t I? I do hope you will keep well, all of you. Kiss the little fellows all around and the big boy Birch too. Tell Webby the horse Webb is in excellent plight. I suppose “Birch” (the horse) has got home. Love to Grandma and all.

Affectionately,

R. B. Hayes.

Mrs. Hayes.

Thursday, 17th–Our daily routine in camp is as follows: Reveille at 4 a. m., breakfast call at 5, drill at 9 and dinner call at noon; drill call at 2 p. m., dress parade at 5, supper at 5:30, tattoo at 8 and taps at 9, when every man not on duty must be in his bunk and all lights out.

Thursday, October 17.—We passed the Capes about 10 A.M., running within two miles and a half of Cape Henry. This cape is composed of sand-hills shelving down to the beach, with nothing but a lighthouse and two small houses to be seen anywhere in the vicinity. The point is in possession of the rebels. We passed the gunboat Daylight keeping the blockade, and guarding the lightship. We saw a great many duck flying about us. About 12 we came in sight of the Rip Raps, and soon after of Fortress Monroe. The Rip Raps, a few miles off, look like a mass of stones dumped down in a heap, and on coming nearer to them, one finds that the opinion he formed of them at first sight was correct. They embrace perhaps an acre and a half to two acres, and are formed entirely of granite rocks dropped in utter disorder and confusion into the middle of Hampton Roads, and at about a mile and a half from Fortress Monroe. There are one or two small houses on it for laborers, but a more desolate hole I cannot imagine. The fortress itself cannot be seen until you are quite near it, on account of the shore being so low. We could see only two sides of it from the sea, the houses and trees on the shore hiding the rest of it. I saw the famous Sewall’s Point for the first time. The batteries are not visible, being on the other side of the point. The masts of our ships at Newport News could also be seen, some 8 miles distant. We left our ship, the Ocean Express, here, and turned round and started for Annapolis, where we were to take our troops on board. We steamed up the Chesapeake to within about 40 miles of Annapolis, and then anchored on account of the fog. We passed the mouth of the Potomac, and also those celebrated Points –

17th. Phoebe Haynes was in camp. Sang.

Letter from Captain Lyon to Mrs. Lyon.

“De Soto–October 17, 1861.

“We are forty miles from St. Louis, southwest, and just leaving for Pilot Knob, forty-two miles farther southwest. We are in ‘Secessia.’ Last night we slept on the ground with our arms by us. We had the whole regiment in line three times during the night, by reason of alarms. By reason of this practice we could form the line in three minutes. A bridge on a railroad we traveled on was burned on Monday by the rebels, and they had a little fight there with a small guard from the 11th Wisconsin, one killed on our side. I do not believe the enemy are near us in force. Where we go there will be four or five thousand troops when we get there.”

October 17.–Brigadier-General William Nelson, by proclamation, called upon “the people of Northeastern Kentucky, now in array against their National and State Governments,” to “return home, lay down their arms, and live in peace,” promising to all such as shall do so a “complete amnesty for what has passed.”– (Doc. 93.)

–Major Gavitt’s Indiana Cavalry, and five companies of infantry under Colonel Alexander of the Twenty-first Illinois regiment, having reinforced Captain Hawkins’ party near Fredericton, Missouri, they attacked and completely routed the force of rebels in their vicinity. In apprehension of the approach of a larger force of rebels, the Union force at night fell back to Pilot Knob.–(Doc. 94.)

–Major Weight reached Lynn Creek, Missouri. On his march from Rolla he had three severe skirmishes with the enemy, upon whom he inflicted a considerable loss.–Missouri Democrat, Oct. 20.

–Colonel Guthrie, in command of the National forces at Charleston, Western Virginia, issued a proclamation giving the citizens of that place assurance of protection in all lawful pursuits, and calling upon them to meet on the 19th instant to organize anew their municipal government.–(Doc. 95.)

–C. G. Memminger, the “Confederate” Secretary of the Treasury, issued a circular to the commissioners appointed to receive subscriptions to the Produce Loan, in answer to the Southern planters, who had appealed to the “Confederate” Government “either to purchase the entire cotton crop of the year, or to make an advance upon its hypothecated value,” To these proposals Mr. Memminger declined to accede.–(Doc. 96.)+

October 17, 1861

A Chronological History of the Civil War in America¹

• Rebel army retired from Halifax Court House and also from Leesburg, Va.

1. A Chronological History of the Civil War in America by Richard Swainson Fisher, New York, Johnson and Ward, 1863

On reaching home we found everything in the nicest order, gas lighted, bright fires, plenty of flowers, a delicious supper, and Thomson and his whole family, and Mechie (the gardener) with his arms full of pears and grapes, waiting to welcome us. They were all glad to have us back, and seemed unable to do enough for us. Mrs. Thomson and the gardener’s niece helped Moritz, and we lived like princes for the few days on the products of the place without lifting our hands.

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 16, 1861.

I have not been out today but kept close in the house feeling quite miserable and coughing about half the time. We have had “calls” very frequent. Mr [Vanlbickel?] and Mr Blackburn from Lyons were here sometime, Dr Barnes of the 27th, and a good many Ladies. The Door bell has been ringing half the time. I have taken pills and castor oil, have not had so much fever today as I did yesterday, think I will get well soon.

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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.

Head-Quarters Camp of Instruction,
Benton Barracks, (near St. Louis, Mo.,) Oct 16 1861

Brig Genl L. Thomas

Sir

I am exceedingly embarrassed in the matter of Staff officers. I am entitled to 2 Aids and you know I need them. Yet I have none.

I now ask that Geo S. Pierce distinguished in the fight at Springfield, and educated at West Point, of Dubuque Iowa, be appointed a Captain or Lieutenant in the Regular Army and be ordered to my Command.

I again ask that young Elbert be detailed as another Aid. I beg for immediate response to this letter. I study only the good of the Service. Things look worse and worse here. The enemy in force within 30 or 40 miles and I do not know who Commands our forces. I think probable Ironton is take by Genl Thomson. I have sent out almost every gun (small arms) within my command which is limited to this county

Truly yours
Saml R. Curtis
Brig Geni Cdg

Oct 27

I send this back to the Secy of War. Since I wrote we have whipped Thompson and drove out of the region but it was done by using force that was ordered away and by my taking the responsibility to neglect the order to withdraw the force. But I hope the Hon Secy will perceive the delicacy and danger of my position and relieve me [of] such occasion. I have served many years and was never arrested and never reproached until my connection with this command.

OCTOBER 16th.—Col. M. applied to me to-day for a passport to Maryland, bringing a strong letter from Mr. Hunter, and also a note from Col. Bledsoe, Chief of the Bureau of War. He seemed thunderstruck when I informed him that Gen. Winder had obtained an order from the Secretary of War to detain him. A few moments after Gen. Winder came with a couple of his detectives (all from Baltimore) and arrested him. Subsequently he was released on parole of honor, not to leave the city without Gen. Winder’s permission. I apprehend bad consequences from this proceeding. It may prevent other high-toned Marylanders from espousing our side of this contest.

Daily Times [Leavenworth, Ks],
October 16, 1861

The Ohio State Journal, of the 8^th instant, publishes an account of the descent of the U. S. Marshal upon a “Castle” of the Knights of the Golden Circle. The “Castle” was located in Marion, Ohio, where there is said to be a large number of the Knights. The Journal also states that Columbus is filled with them, and calls upon the citizens to arouse and crush them out.

The existence of the Marion Commandery was made known by one Samuel Cheney, who joined the order for the purpose of exposing it. The following is one of the obligations said to be administered to the initiated:

“And I further promise and swear in the presence of Almighty God, and the members of the Golden Circle, that I will not rest or sleep until Abraham Lincoln, now President, shall be removed out of the Presidential chair, and I will wade in blood up to my knees, as soon as Jefferson Davis sees proper to march with his army to take the City of Washington and the White House, to do the same. So help me God, and keep me steadfast to do the same.”

Wednesday, October 16.—Nothing of any interest happened to-day. The morning was pleasant, and the afternoon cloudy. We stopped our engines at 6 p.m. and drifted, being about twenty miles from the Capes.

16th. A letter by the kindness of Mrs. Haynes. Stood guard for Delos a little while.