March 2022

“This morning the fort and town were found to be evacuated.”–Army Life of an Illinois Soldier, Charles Wright Wills.

0 comments
Army Life of an Illinois Soldier, Charles Wright Wills, (8th Illinois Infantry)

New Madrid, “by Jingo;” March 14, 1863. Night before last we received four heavy guns from Cairo and two or three of these infantry regiments planted them during the night within a half mile of the enemy’s main fort and within three-fourths of a mile where their gunboats lay. The seceshers discovered it at daylight [...]

A Diary From Dixie

0 comments
A Diary From Dixie by Mary Boykin Miller Chesnut.

March 14th.–Thank God for a ship! It has run the blockade with arms and ammunition. There are no negro sexual relations half so shocking as Mormonism. And yet the United States Government makes no bones of receiving Mormons into its sacred heart. Mr. Venable said England held her hand over “the malignant and the turbaned [...]

A Diary From Dixie

0 comments
A Diary From Dixie by Mary Boykin Miller Chesnut.

March 13th.–Mr. Chesnut fretting and fuming. From the poor old blind bishop downward everybody is besetting him to let off students, theological and other, from going into the army. One comfort is that the boys will go. Mr. Chesnut answers: “Wait until you have saved your country before you make preachers and scholars. When you [...]

Journal of Surgeon Alfred L. Castleman.

0 comments
Journal of Surgeon Alfred L Castleman.

13th.–A sad day is this. The effects of General _____’s vindictive meddling with the Medical Department are beginning to manifest themselves. When he took from me my well-trained hospital attendants and my experienced druggist, on the 5th inst, there were appointed in their places, men, worthless in the ranks, and without knowledge of the important [...]

“On Tuesday evening the long roll was beaten again, and we took our position, the enemy having advanced his whole force within two or three miles of us.”–Letters from Elisha Franklin Paxton.

0 comments
Elisha Franklin Paxton – Letters from camp and field while an officer in the Confederate Army

Strasburg, March 13, 1862. I doubt not you have heard of many bloody battles, actual and anticipated, about Winchester for the last few days, and, if you credited every flying rumor, have been somewhat apprehensive of my safety. You will then, I doubt not, be surprised to hear that we have had no fight; none [...]

A Diary From Dixie

0 comments
A Diary From Dixie by Mary Boykin Miller Chesnut.

March 12th.–In the naval battle the other day we had twenty-five guns in all. The enemy had fifty-four in the Cumberland, forty-four in the St. Lawrence, besides a fleet of gunboats, filled with rifled cannon. Why not? They can have as many as they please. “No pent-up Utica contracts their powers;” the whole boundless world [...]

“these people have a sovereign contempt for the barbarians of the ‘Arkansaw’…,”–Army Life of an Illinois Soldier, Charles Wright Wills.

0 comments
Army Life of an Illinois Soldier, Charles Wright Wills, (8th Illinois Infantry)

Yet near New Madrid, March 12, 1862. The enemy are separated from us by only a few cornfields, the country is perfectly plain; we can see from our tent door the smoke stacks of their gunboat, and the music of their bands mingles with our own and yet ’tis confounded dull. I received a letter [...]