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Cornell University Library 
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 A war diary of events In the ™a'',..9j„,\SB 
 
 olin 
 
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WAR DIARY 
 
 OF EVENTS 
 
 IN THE 
 
 WAR OF THE GREAT REBELLION. 
 1 863-1 865. 
 
 BY 
 
 GEORGE H. GORDON, 
 
 LATE COLONEL SECOND MASSACHUSETTS INFANTRY, BRIGADIER -GENERAL, AND BREVET 
 
 MAJOR-GENERAL U. S. VOLUNTEERS IN THE WAR; AUTHOR OF " THE ARMY OF 
 
 VIRGINIA" (p6pe's campaign), *' THE SECOND MASSACHUSETTS, AND 
 
 STONEWALL JACKSON;" MEMBER OF THE MASSACHUSETTS 
 
 MILITARY HISTORICAL SOOETY. 
 
 BOSTON: 
 JAMES R. OSGOOD AND COMPANY. 
 1882. 
 
CORNELL^ 
 [UNIVERSITY 
 LIBRARY^ 
 
 Copyright, 1882, 
 By George H. Gordon. 
 
 All rights reserved. 
 
 University Press: 
 John Wilson and Son, Cambridge. 
 
PEEFACE. 
 
 CoNFOEMiNG to my original plan, to record only those 
 battles and events of the War of the Great Eebellion in, 
 which I was engaged, or with which I was immediately 
 connected, I have, in these pages from my Diary, con- 
 tinued the narrative from its previous ending in the 
 Army of Virginia with Pope's campaign in 1862 (only 
 omitting the Battle of Antietam, the history of which is 
 yet to be written), to the close, in 1865. In two pam- 
 phlets, and in the " Second Massachusetts and Stonewall 
 Jackson" (printed for private circulation), now being 
 revised and prepared for publication in a single volume, 
 will be found a similar record, beginning with the organi- 
 zation of the Second Massachusetts Eegiment in 1861, 
 and ending .with the battle of Cedar Mountain in the fall 
 of 1862, — thus connecting the two parts of my narrative, 
 and making the record of my Diary complete, with the 
 single exception above noted. 
 
 The reader of the present volume should not forget that 
 the actual feeling and spirit which existed during the War 
 of the Eebellion is to be found in narratives of occurrences 
 at the time. 
 
 If I am accused of needlessly reviving unhappy memo- 
 ries, I reply that I am constrained to follow my notes, and 
 
IV PEEFACE. 
 
 could not, if I would, after the fashion ' 
 gently intimate that in rebelling against 
 in 1861 the South was pardonably in ei 
 wrong-headed, for the simple reason that 
 no such sentiment existed. 
 
 But the war ended long ago, and year b; 
 and bitter feelings it excited have given place to mutual 
 respect and fellowship, until the soldiers on both sides 
 acknowledge and rejoice in the valor displayed by North 
 and South on many battle-fields. 
 
 If these pages should recall old animosities, or open 
 anew wounds that time has healed, I shall regret exceed- 
 ingly that my simple desire to present many interesting 
 details of the period of the Great Eebellion has so 
 utterly miscarried. 
 
 " TJndeT the god and the dew, 
 Waiting the Judgment-day, 
 Love and tears for the ' Blue,' 
 Tears and love for the ' Gray.' " 
 
 G. H. G. 
 
 Boston, February, 1882. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 On the Potomac 1 
 
 II. 
 On the James 32 
 
 in. 
 
 At West Point, Virginia 55 
 
 IV. 
 On the Peninsula 87 
 
 V. 
 
 Appeoaching Richmond 115 
 
 With the Abmt of the Potomac 139 
 
 VI. 
 
 With the Aemt op the Potomac {eontintied) 153 
 
 South Cabolina " 175 
 
 VII. 
 Sea Islands opp Charleston 179 
 
 vm. 
 
 Sba Islands opp Charleston (^continued) 254 
 
VI CONTENTS. 
 
 IX. PAG.; 
 
 Hilton Head 290 
 
 Ploeida 293 
 
 The Mississippi River 30' 
 
 X. 
 
 Mobile Bay 332 
 
 Army op the Potomac . . ... . . • 351 
 
 New York City . . ... . . . • 355 
 
 XI. 
 
 District op Eastern Virginia . . 357 
 
 XII. 
 
 District op Eastern Virginia (contintiei) . .... 385 
 
iList of ISlapg antr Sllustrationsi* 
 
 PAGE 
 
 West Point, Virginia (faciug) 56 
 
 Charleston, South Carolina, and the Sea Islands 
 
 adjacent „ 210 
 
 The District op Eastern Virginia . . „ 358 
 
 Episcopal Church, Hampton, Virginia . ... 171 
 
 Fort Sumter . . 180 
 
 Gunboat on the Mississippi River . . 309 
 
A WAR DIARY. 
 
 CHAPTEE I. 
 
 SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR. — ON THE POTOMAC. 
 
 THE battle of Antietam (or Sharpsburg, as we called it 
 then) was over; and on the 21st of September, 1862, 
 my division of the Twelfth Corps" was at Sandy Hook, in 
 Maryland, awaiting an order to cross into Virginia in pur- 
 suit of Lee. The perils and labors of the previous week 
 were such as I had never before known, and at first I 
 found difficulty in recalling the incidents in their proper 
 order. Gradually, however, this confusion disappeared, and 
 I was able to retrace the whole course of the battle. It was 
 only seven days since we had marched in triumph through 
 the loyal town of Frederick, in Maryland, and out upon 
 the road which, after running northwesterly through Boons- 
 borough and Middletown, divided into two branches, one 
 leading to Williamsport on the north, and the other to 
 Sharpsburg on the south. Between Middletown and Boons- 
 borough, on a spur of the Blue Eidge known as South 
 Mountain, which is crossed by three parallel roads run- 
 ning east and west at gaps, as they are called, the Eebel 
 army made its first stand in Maryland. Thither we 
 had hurried through the night, without a halt, until a 
 little before daybreak of the fifteenth. We were to sup- 
 port Bumside in his effort to charge the enemy and 
 
 X 
 
2 A WAK DIAKY. 
 
 drive him from his position towards the Potomac. At 
 daylight I reached the front, and found that during the 
 night the Eebel army, abandoning their dead and wounded, 
 had fallen back across Antietam Creek, satisfied with the 
 heavy fighting of the day before at the gaps, where we 
 had been victorious. Two or three hours went by, and we 
 pushed on in pursuit. McClellan rode past our corps, and 
 was cheered lustily. I shook hands with him, and rode 
 a short distance by his side. He seemed anxious to over- 
 take the enemy, and said he should feel much obliged if 
 they would only stop long enough to let him whip them. 
 We hurried on during the day, encamping, or rather halt- 
 ing, at night near where Antietam Creek empties into the 
 Potomac. Behind the creek was Sharpsburg. 
 
 Early in the morning of the sixteenth, we were aroused 
 and ordered to march forward and attack the enemy, who 
 was supposed to be in position behind the creek. Our line 
 of battle was formed in sight of Lee's army ; but the day 
 wore on and no attack was made, although the answering 
 growls of artillery continued all day. Night came, and we 
 lay down upon piles of straw ; not to sleep, however, for 
 before my eyes were closed, I was ordered to prepare to 
 march immediately towards the right of our line and re- 
 inforce General Hooker. Our corps, formed in compact 
 masses, was soon in motion. We marched nearly all 
 night. Our route carried us across Antietam Creek, to- 
 wards the extreme right, where Hooker had preceded us 
 and had taken a position. We halted about two hours 
 before daybfeak. Around us were stacks of straw, of 
 which we gladly availed ourselves for a few moments' 
 slumber. We knew that we were near the enemy, and 
 that we should soon meet him, flushed with many victories 
 over both McClellan and Pope, in his first efforts to main- 
 tain himself on the left bank of the Potomac ; but I, for 
 
ON THE POTOMAC. 3 
 
 one, was so worn out with fatigue, so overpowered with 
 sleep, and had become so passive under the experiences 
 of the past campaigns of the year, that I slept. 
 
 That mellowing of the darkness, a precursor of the com- 
 ing day, was scarcely visible on the seventeenth, when we 
 were aroused by fierce exchanges of musketry. The long 
 night-march, the deep .slumber so rudely broken, the be- 
 ginning of the deadly battle in that dim light of the early 
 morning, — aU combined to form a picture which I can 
 never forget. We rose to our feet, fornied in columns, and 
 moved to a point from which it seemed probable we should 
 be sent to the front to aid Hooker if he required help. 
 
 General Mansfield, who had been assigned to the com- 
 mand of our corps (Banks had been put on other duty 
 when Pope retired), was a reputable man and an expe- 
 rienced officer, who had been wounded in previous wars. 
 He ordered certain precautionary dispositions, that aid 
 might be sent without delay to any quarter; and then, 
 with the thoughtfulness of an old soldier, directed me to 
 allow my troops to use a momentary interval of rest in 
 making coffee if time sufficed, and if not, then the men 
 could " kick over their camp-kettles and move forward." 
 Instead of preserving the compact columns into which the 
 regiments of my brigade had been thrown, I scattered 
 them to lessen danger from the enemy's shells now howl- 
 ing around us. The sun had not yet risen, and the forms 
 of tree and forest were yet indistinct, when I looked in the 
 direction where the Second Massachusetts Eegiment had 
 gathered around a cheerful fire, over which the water in 
 camp-kettles was beginning to bubble. I saw Major 
 Dwight writing in his saddle, on a small scrap of paper. In 
 reply to my question he cheerily said, " Oh, I am writing 
 to my niother." The words, " Dear mother, it is a misty, 
 moisty morning," with which he hegan this last touching 
 
4 A WAR DIAKY. 
 
 line to the one he loved best on earth, were found upon his 
 person, a few hours later, when he lay mortally wounded. 
 The coffee was not ready when the order, " Forward into 
 action ! " sent the men to their feet. They advanced amidst 
 shell and round shot, with such intervals as should insure 
 a proper deployment without huddling ; and the terrific 
 and glorious battle of Antietam Creek was begun. The 
 details of that fearful struggle belong to the historian ; I 
 cannot give them here. From sunrise to sunset we fought, 
 swaying to and fro with varying fortune, until our lines 
 moved forward in final triumph, and the sun, whose rising 
 we had seen with so much apprehension, now, as it sank, 
 lit up our victorious flags. 
 
 But what a field of carnage lay about us ! Neither time 
 nor change can dim the remembrance of these fields peo- 
 pled with corpses ; can shut out the sight too horrible to 
 be real, and yet too real to forget, of that bloody pathway, 
 or of that whole brigade of Eebel dead, with its skirmish 
 line in front, its troops in rear. In the dim light our 
 guards came upon it, at the most advanced point that it 
 was deemed prudent to take at night. " A line of battle 
 here on duty ! " exclaimed the officer in command ; " there 
 must be some mistake, for I was told that this would be 
 my front, and here is a whole brigade of men. Who are 
 they. Sergeant ? Do you know them ? Ask them from 
 what corps they came." 
 
 For some moments both officers and men were staggered 
 at this mystery. That confusion might arise along our 
 front, at such a time, was possible enough ; but that at 
 such a place a whole brigade of guards could be found 
 buried in sleep, almost in presence of the enemy, filled 
 them with amazement. 
 
 The sergeant now vainly attempted to arouse the man 
 nearest him, with his foot ; he stooped, shook the man, and 
 
ON THE POTOMAC. 5 
 
 cried out, " Halloo ! I say ! wake up ! " Then the trutli 
 beginning to dawn upon him, he put his hand upon the 
 head, the face, and found it cold ; he listened, but heard 
 no sound of Hfe. Another : no answer ! nor from another 
 stiQ, nor yet from any of those silent men lying there, 
 stiff and stark, in the pale moonlight on that battle-field. 
 Along the plain, over the hiH, the line extended ; until, 
 lost in obscurity, nothing but dark masses appeared. 
 Throughout the night the moon filled the scene with 
 mystic images and unreal shapes. If phantoms from 
 the spirit world could ever come forth to bewilder mortals, 
 sure never was there time or place or sight so seasonable. 
 It was a marvel to the Kving, and so continued until the 
 moon faded before the duU light of day, and the awful 
 truth was revealed. A whole brigade of Eebel dead lay 
 there, a ghastly battle line, as if they too were keeping 
 watch upon the field. 
 
 Poor Dwight, the Major of the Second Massachusetts ■ 
 Infantry, was mortally wounded about noon of the seven- 
 teenth, before a wooded knoll which held the Dunkard 
 church. Colonel Andrews and Dwight were together, 
 scarcely sheltered from a murderous fire by a fence of com- 
 mon posts and rails, when a musket ball entered near the 
 latter's hip, lodged in his body, and he fell, crying, " They 
 have done for me ! " When the line fell back, Dwight was 
 left upon the field. There, alone, he finished that letter 
 begun at the camp-fire at daylight, with, " I am wounded 
 so as to be helpless. Good-by, if so it must be." As soon 
 as possible he was brought back to our lines in a blanket, 
 suffering intense pain, and yet so cheery and brave that he 
 gave back my words of sympathy with, " Don't mind me ! 
 only whip the enemy." When an attempt was made to 
 remove him to the rude hospital, the brave sufferer con- 
 trolled himself, although every muscle was rigid with tor- 
 
& 
 
 fa A -WAE DIAKY. 
 
 ture. He only said quietly, " This carrying is more easily 
 commanded than borne; it is pretty painful." He lin- 
 gered about two days ; during his last hours he was coura- 
 geous and tranquil. To unflinching pluck he added an 
 ardent patriotism, and a soul filled. with a noble loyalty to 
 his country. He believed that the war would not only 
 kindle, but stimulate into activity, exalted sentiments in 
 his countrymen. Not for gold, not for fame, not for po- 
 litical reward did Wilder Dwight sacrifice a becoming 
 ambition in his cherished profession of the law, in which, 
 though young, he was full of promise. " Few men have 
 spent their lives better, have done more good in their time, 
 or died a more fitting death," are words written to me at 
 the time by one of the most eminent members of the bar, 
 who knew Dwight well. I know the loss to the Second 
 Massachusetts was great ; but to his home ! — it is irre- 
 parable. Our victory was gained by the desolation of 
 many firesides ; the joy of the nation brought mourning to 
 the people. 
 
 But little more than one year ago we were near this 
 place, before Harper's Ferry, under the shadow of these 
 rocky heights, with nearly one thousand men in the ranks 
 of the Second Massachusetts Eegiment of Infantry. To- 
 day it numbers scarcely two hundred ; and yet its losses, 
 grave as they have been, do not mark its greatest change. 
 But six of those officers who marched away from Massa- 
 chusetts, in July of 1861, are here to-day to thank God 
 for their preservation at Antietam. 
 
 On the 23d of September, 1862, I occupied Maryland 
 Heights with my division, for the defence of Harper's 
 Perry ; the main line stretching above us as far as Wil- 
 liamsport. Over the river the enemy was taking it more 
 leisurely than we thought proper, after his flight across 
 the Potomac. In the mean time, the President had called 
 
ON THE POTOMAC. 7 
 
 for more troops, and issued his proclamation of freedom to 
 the slaves. This measure was believed to be essential to 
 a more vigorous prosecution of the war. Had we been apa- 
 thetic thus far ? We may, it is true, have thought more 
 of Constitutional constructions than of the construction of 
 enormous and well disciplined armies, may have had inore 
 fear of being called Abolitionists than of being whipped ; 
 we may not have appreciated that if the South, in order to 
 form a more perfect Union by rebellion, was willing to es- 
 tablish its government on the corner-stone of slavery, we, 
 to hold fast the whole Union, had never been willing to 
 establish it on the corner-stone of freedom ; we had not, 
 perhaps, rightly appreciated that the Constitution was made 
 for the country, not the country for the Constitution, and 
 that it was a thousand times better that it should be broken 
 in every line and precept than that the South should be 
 permitted to break up the Union itself : we can re-estab- 
 lish the Constitution if it should be necessary to do so ; but 
 if it is once severed, we cannot reunite the nation. We had 
 suffered under these distractions, the South had not ; it had 
 not sought in divergent and paralyzing ways to carry out a 
 feeble purpose, — feeble, because held in check by a peaceful 
 instrument called a constitution. The principles of the peo- 
 ple's party, as I read them in the papers of that day, caused 
 no inspiration of vengeance, such as our armies needed to 
 insure success. In Maryland, by the side of Antietam Creek, 
 we went to battle to protect our homes. For another ad- 
 vance iuto Virginia the army needed, I thought, a new in- 
 spiration from a proclamation for the freedom of the slave. 
 
 It would be vain to deny that at this period there was 
 a despondent feeling in the army. After all the sufferings 
 and reverses of nearly two years, the end seemed no nearer 
 now than when our army, a rabble of undisciplined fugi- 
 tives, crowded over the long bridge into Washington, after 
 
8 A WAB DIARY. 
 
 the first battle of Bull Eun. With doubts of the future 
 came doubts of the poKty of our government. " This is 
 its first great strain," said the faint-hearted, " and it can- 
 not survive. On a calm day and over unrufiled seas the 
 ship will float happily into port, but she will founder in a 
 storm." Among many who expressed these views was a 
 brother of the famous Henry Ward Beecher, a man whom 
 I found here as chaplain of a New York regiment, and who 
 had been a settled (or unsettled minister as he said) in 
 Elmira, New York. Very odd, like all the Beechers, he 
 was nevertheless fascinating in conversation. In polities 
 he was a Democrat of the old school. He even now, with 
 the proclamation of freedom ringing in his ears, did not 
 hesitate to declare that the negro girl in a log-house near my 
 tent did not belong to the same human family with him- 
 self As an atom in the armies contending for the estab- 
 lishment of equal rights and equal brotherhood, he avowed 
 that he was himself by no means a republican, and that he 
 thought the republic a failure. " The Democratic party," 
 he urged, " forced into our governmental polity in 1832-33 
 an element that overcame in man all reverence for law, 
 human or divine, all reverence for obedience as a principle 
 in life." Obedience, he thought, lay at the bottom of all 
 national as well as all spiritual progress. " I have made," 
 he continued, "my calculations; others may make their 
 own. I sit with my instrument pointed towards the heav- 
 ens ; it is almost the hour for the eclipse. I shall rejoice if 
 I am mistaken ; but soon I look to see a shadow stealing 
 over this splendid luminary, never to be removed." 
 
 By the side of this desponding observer there were many 
 more hopeful watchers of the same phenomena-, who denied 
 this forecast of coming events, and utterly refused to be- 
 lieve these gloomy predictions of our future ruin. 
 
 By the sixteenth we had begun forward movements 
 
ON THE POTOMAC. 9 
 
 from Harper's Ferry and Martinsburg to Charlestown, which 
 we entered with little resistance. The condition of my 
 command at this town would not have filled the heart of the 
 observer with thanksgiving for temporal blessings, or with 
 regrets that he could not participate in our luxurious life. 
 If he could have looked upon the dim light that came from 
 the little canvas kennels where ten thousand poor fellows, 
 many of them without blankets, were trying to keep warm 
 in these chilly October days, or peer into an adjoining barn 
 filled with sick men dying from typhoid fever, with neither 
 proper medicine nor food, it would have been plain that 
 with all its excitements this life was a vexatious and a 
 pei'plexing one, — a hard life, and one with aU its glories 
 better to think of than to endure. 
 
 By the 24th of October there were many signs of bad 
 weather, precursors of wintry days in which the camps 
 would be wet, the soldiers uncomfortable, and every- 
 thing cold and cheerless. Our position on the mountain 
 was a very exposed one ; but this was necessary in order 
 that we should overlook Jlarper's Ferry, the bridge, and 
 the ford, and cover our troops in Virginia in case of need. 
 Six miles from the river hostile pickets confronted each 
 other on the road to Charlestown ; beyond, at Winchester, 
 the enemy was said to be in force. From our lofty en- 
 campment I could see, in a clear day, the dust of his wagons 
 and the smoke of his camp-fires. Our position was strongly 
 guarded. The Potomac cuts the Blue Eidge in twain where 
 it washes the ruins of Harper's Ferry. Ages have passed 
 since these waters began to roll at the foot of these heights ; 
 from the river's brink to the mountain summits the falling 
 rock has ma3e a gentle slope, which is now covered with 
 dark pines. Besides the Maryland Heights and the Loudon 
 Heights on the other side, there is another height in Vir- 
 ginia, lower than the others, which forms part of the system 
 
10 A WAR DUKY. 
 
 of our defences. Where the Shenandoah flows into the 
 river at Harper's Ferry, the land rises to the crest of a 
 ridge, which forms the western hank of the Potomac. 
 This ridge between the two rivers, known as Bolivar 
 Heights, is occupied by our troops. In peaceful days 
 these splendid rivers and these lofty hills were extolled by 
 travellers as the most picturesc[ue in our country; and 
 even a scoffing officer of my staff was moved to growl out 
 that the view was " darned magnificent." In these grand 
 days of war a new glory was added to the scene. The 
 ruins of Harper's Ferry, the charred wreck of the superb 
 railroad bridge, the army of wood-choppers felling trees 
 for defences and clearing away for fortifications on Mary- 
 land Heights, with my own tent in a little shelf of the cliff 
 and my division of sixteen thousand men in a picturesque 
 group below, form a picture of rare beauty. 
 
 Up the river as far as Williamsport, and down to Alex- 
 andria we were guarding Maryland from invasion, my 
 own line extending eight miles above until it met that of 
 Fitz John Porter. It was a pleasure in a clear day to ride 
 along that picket line. One mile above Harper's Ferry a 
 dam turned the waters of the Potomac into a canal, which 
 supplied the Government works at the arsenal ; the river 
 below is a sad and unsightly jumble of rocks, but above, it 
 is as smooth as glass, as it placidly flows between green 
 banks fringed with pine trees. Nothing more poetic than 
 picket duty here in fine weather can be conceived. 
 
 So long a line as this of McClellan on the Potomac was 
 necessarily attenuated ; and, mortifying as it was to us, it 
 was not strange that Stuart succeeded in making his raid 
 into Pennsylvania. We cannot blame any one that this 
 raid was begun ; but blame is certainly due to some one 
 that it did not end with Stuart's capture. It seemed to us 
 to be the most foolhardy piece of business we had ever 
 
ON THE POTOMAC. 11 
 
 known ; had the Eebels made a raid in balloons we could 
 not have been more amazed. Between seven and eight in 
 the evening of Friday, Oct. 1, the Eebel cavalry reached 
 Chambersburg, and it was at noon of the nineteenth before 
 they arrived at the Potomac again to recross into Virginia, 
 having in two days passed to the rear of the Army of the 
 Potomac. 
 
 By the 27th of October the movement into Virginia be- 
 gan. Burnside moved first, and we were under orders to 
 follow. The newspapers, echoing the cry of an ignorant and 
 inconsiderate people, clamored for a winter campaign. The 
 weather was most unpropitious, and although the leaves 
 had not begun to fall, November-libe winds blew cold and 
 cheerless, as if foreboding a protracted storm. But the 
 American people demanded a movement, it was said ! Ah, 
 if those who demanded it were only obliged to make it ! 
 While the campaigns of the last two years were beginning 
 to tell upon the old soldiers, the cold, wet, and inevitable 
 exposure of camp, with the depression of attendant home- 
 sickness, was hurrying raw recruits in fearful numbers to 
 the hospital and the grave. That dreadful scourge, typhoid 
 fever, notwithstanding all the precautions my position 
 enabled me to provide, had begun to develop its premoni- 
 tory symptoms of headache and strange pains, and the sur- 
 geon prescribed medicines and rest; and this, too, at the 
 very moment when the whole army was under orders to 
 move into Virginia on the twenty-fifth, at ten A. M. 
 
 On the twenty-ninth, while our troops were moving 
 across the river and being massed on the west bank of the 
 Potomac, I marched at nine P. M. with my brigade to hold 
 the Potomac river from Antietam Creek to the mouth of 
 the Opequan, — arriving at Antietam in the night, and oc- 
 cupying on the morning of the thirtieth Antietam ford, 
 where I relieved General Fitz John Porter's command, and 
 
12 A WAE DUET. 
 
 stretched my own up the river as far as I could. Having 
 established my headquarters at Sharpsburg, I proceeded 
 to study the river, that I might bestow my small com- 
 mand of infantry, one regiment of cavalry and artillery, 
 where they could oppose a crossing by the enemy. On the 
 thirty-first the day began with a ride to Knoxville to relieve 
 a colonel there, and order him to Hagerstown ; then to the 
 Shepherdstown ford, where orders were given for a change 
 in the arrangement of guards, and for a vital amendment 
 in the performance of picket duty ; to Mercersville, where ■ 
 I conferred with a few loyal Virginians at an old hotel in 
 a dark room upstairs, and from whence I sent a scout to 
 Bunker Hill in Virginia, and made arrangements to cap- 
 ture pickets ; studied the river, its fords, its banks, and its 
 courses, and the best place for batteries for effective work ; 
 sent out general orders containing governing rules for 
 maintenance of guards, — in the doing of which I rode 
 thirty miles, and exhausted the daylight. 
 
 This was but an epitome of eveiy day, varied only by 
 alarming rumors and startling despatches. On the 14th 
 of j!fovember. General Slocum at Harper's Ferry advised 
 me that all the reports brought to him went to prove 
 that Stonewall Jackson returned to Winchester last Mon- 
 day with a large force, and that A. P. Hill's command 
 returned to a point between Winchester and Berryville 
 on Tuesday, — all of which pointed to a raid into Mary- 
 land at some point above my position, or an attack on 
 his own ; and if the latter should occur he would endea- 
 vor to concentrate on Maryland Heights ; but if the former, 
 then (in the event of a crossing at Shepherdstown or An- 
 tietam Iron Works) he would advise me to try to reach 
 him through Solomon's Gap, and if this were not possible 
 to fall back to Hagerstown. It was very thoughtful of 
 Slocum to write of the rumors that were flying about, even 
 
ON THE POTOMAC. 13 
 
 though he knew (as he wrote to me) that I was not under 
 his command, and to suggest for my consideration a plan 
 for a time of action when there might be no opportunity 
 for reflection. 
 
 The fifteenth brought with it no relief, but more dis- 
 quieting rumors. Scouts were sent to Martinsburg; 
 roads from fords to the eastward were examined, and a 
 startling report came through General MoreU from Gen- 
 eral Kenly at Hagerstown that Wade Hampton, command- 
 ing a Rebel cavalry brigade, was in Martinsburg yesterday ; 
 that his scouts, dressed as Federal cavalry, were patrolling 
 the road between there and the river ; and that Jackson, 
 with an estimated force of forty thousand men, was at 
 Bunker HUl, preparing to turn our right on the upper 
 Potomac. On the sixteenth, one hundred Eebel cavalry, 
 disguised in Federal uniforms, entered Shepherdstown, 
 heralding — so rumor had it — the presence of Jackson at 
 Winchester and its vicinity. But on the seventeenth a 
 heavy rain rendered the fording for the time more difficult, 
 if not impossible, — a great relief to my anxiety and to my 
 labors. 
 
 While the whole army of the Potomac, save Slocum's com- 
 mand and mine, was advancing under Burnside to near the 
 farthest southern point reached by us in Pope's campaign, 
 it might have been supposed that the country between the 
 Potomac and Manassas would have been free from the en- 
 emy; and yet here was this ubiquitous Jackson turning 
 from his southward march to reappear at Winchester with 
 his reputed army of forty thousand, extending his pickets 
 to the river, and keeping me daily and sometimes nightly 
 in the saddle, riding over twenty-six mUes of territory in 
 the endeavor to hold many fords easily passable and often 
 used by the Eebels on marauding excursions. 
 
 At this time there arose a great commotion about us. 
 
14 A WAK DIAEY. 
 
 and, as it often happens, from a very inadequate cause. 
 The sound of cannon somewhere on the Potomac, followed 
 by the usual report of an attack, alarmed all the towns 
 within twenty miles of the river. At Chambersburg, 
 empty cars were hurried in to' remove Government stores • 
 at Hagerstown wagons were packed, and every measure 
 taken for flight from an expected raid. The rumor of an 
 attack arose as follows : -^ 
 
 About nine o'clock on the morning of the 19th of No- 
 vember, a citizen, one Dunn, employed on the canal, handed 
 to the commander of the Twenty-seventh Indiana Eegi- 
 ment of my brigade a note from the canal superintendent, 
 in which was represented that it would enhance the pub- 
 lic interest if this man could be permitted to move his 
 family and furniture from the Virginia to the Maryland 
 side of the Potomac. Dunn's expressed wish to cross at 
 the guard-lock, about one mile above dam No. 4, with four 
 or five men and a scow, was granted upon the sole condi- 
 tion that an officer should attend at the point of debarka- 
 tion to prevent the transportation of contraband of war. 
 At the lock a small guard of cavalry connected with the 
 infantry pickets. The scow reached the opposite bank, and 
 the work of loading was about completed at half-past eleven 
 A.M., when suddenly a squad of Eebel cavalry appeared ; 
 Dunn made his escape, but the remainder of the party were, 
 captured. 4-t twelve, noon, a small skiff pulled by a single 
 boatman crossed to the Maryland shore. The boatman, who 
 turned out to be the father-in-law of Dunn, represented 
 that the raiders had fled, leaving the scow and fjirniture un- 
 touched, and he asked for assistance to bring it across the 
 rixer. It did not appear that this ruSe aroused in the officer 
 who had witnessed it any suspicion of deception. That 
 an officer in command of troops, established to prevent all 
 intercourse across a river dividing a hostile from a friendly 
 
ON THE POTOMAC. 15 
 
 territory, could or ought to believe this capture to be the re- 
 sult of treachery, was a reflection upon the judgment of the 
 commander of the Twenty-seventh Indiana which his sub- 
 ordinate repelled with indignation. A second crossing was 
 permitted ; and this time with three men, who had hardly 
 landed when they too were surrounded by the same squad 
 of Eebels, and all but one, a brave and plucky fellow 
 named Cookus, captured. Cookus plunged into the river 
 and struck • out vigorously for the Maryland shore. Two- 
 thirds of the way across he was hit by a bullet and sank 
 dead to the bottom of the river. This affray, like the for- 
 mer, took place in clear view of the officer of the Twenty- 
 seventh and of the cavalry pickets, who returned the fire 
 of the enemy's long-range rifles with their revolvers. At 
 two P.M. this artless officer, with a firm belief that he had 
 confronted the inevitable, returned to his regiment. The 
 result of this disobedience of my positive order interdict- 
 ing communication with the enemy was the capture of 
 seven men and the killing of one. 
 
 It was now quite clear that the Marylander was a traitor, 
 and his whole scheme a game into which the too credulous 
 officer at dam No. 4 had fallen ; what might foUow was 
 doubtful. Strong field-works were thrown up to cover the 
 fords in front of the Second Massachusetts and the One 
 Hundred and Seventh New York. Before the Thirteenth 
 New Jersey indications were so alarming, signal fires and 
 clouds of dust in the air, that two pieces of artillery were 
 moved nearer the river on their front. From the keeper of 
 the little old dark-roomed tavern of which I have spoken, 
 a thoroughly loyal man, we received positive information 
 that, despite these signs and rumors, there were no Eebels 
 this side of the pickets at Bunker Hill in Virginia, and 
 that squads of Eebel cavalry seen within the river towns 
 were hunting up conscripts ; as also that it was a general 
 
16 A WAE DUEY. 
 
 impression over the other side that Jackson was moving 
 out of the valley. The sources whence this man derived 
 his information were more trustworthy than ours. On 
 both sides of the Potomac there were men as true as these 
 in uniform under my command, whose information of 
 Eebel movements and purposes was the more reliable; 
 because, to hatred of the war the loyal Southerner added 
 a hatred of those neighbors who, contributing to its exist- 
 ence, denounced him to the authorities and directed the 
 Eebel commissary to his grain-bin, his smoke-house, and 
 his barn. Our Northern troops, whose homes and property 
 were; far removed from the actual theatre of military opera- 
 tions, moved on in marches and through campaigns with- 
 out that bitterness or hatred for his enemy which is bom 
 of cruelty or oppression, and in which home, wife, child, 
 or all, may have been involved. It was not strange that 
 constant appeals were made to me by loyal citizens of 
 Maryland and Virginia, for permission to engage in a foray 
 against their neighbors. Among these, the most earnest 
 was the master of the little old tavern by the canal, who 
 took the iirst opportunity, when he heard of Dunn's treach- 
 ery and Burke's ruse, to confer with one of my officers upon 
 a plan for the capture of Burke. 
 
 Among the leaders of that class of irregulars known as 
 guerillas, none had ever been more offensive than " Old 
 Burke." In harrying Union men, whether he robbed them, 
 burned their dwellings, or shot them in cold blood, he had 
 no equal. The bitter hatred felt on our side of the river 
 for this leader was increased by what had happened to 
 Dunn and his companions ; for not only were those killed 
 and captured in that unfortunate affair citizens of Mary- 
 land, but they were Union men (all save Dunn) trying to 
 avoid a possible conscription. It was Old Burke with an 
 active lieutenant, one Leopold, who had made this capture ; 
 
ON THE POTOJIAC. 17 
 
 The conference took place at the tavern, where at the 
 time Chaplin, the keeper, was engaged in an interesting 
 game of pool, which he immediately sacrificed and led the 
 way to a small back-room, where in subdued tones he ojEfered 
 to cross the river, and in command of fifty citizens to be 
 recruited on the Virginia side, and armed with revolvers 
 and rifles, to seize Burke, Leopold, their men and horses, 
 and bring the captives and booty to our side. So exas- 
 perated it was represented were the people, and deter- 
 mined, that no other assistance was desired from my troops 
 than the withdrawal of our cavalry pickets for a short time, 
 during which the loyal Marylanders would cross without 
 the known sanction or approval of any one. 
 
 It was not thought best to allow citizens, however loyal 
 they might be, to engage in a foray in which personal 
 vengeance was a strong incentive; and therefore permis- 
 sion was refused, though the purposes in view were con- 
 sidered. Submission to this outrage was not to be thought 
 of, and a project for the capture of these Eebels was planned, 
 to be carried into execution by troops from the Second Mas- 
 sachusetts. The scheme was approved, and a swift and 
 thorough retribution followed. I will remark, in passing, 
 that reports made at the time of the disaster reflected so 
 severely on the conduct of the major and the captain of 
 the Twenty-seventh Indiana, who had rendered it possible, 
 that an investigation was ordered; in which it appeared 
 that not Dunn alone, but the canal agent and his son 
 were dangerous men and Eebel sympathizers, and it was 
 said that Old Burke had been a partner of the canal agent. 
 The disobedience by the Federal officers was followed by 
 arrest and court-martial, and, as we shall now proceed to 
 relate, Burke, Leopold, & Co. were surprised and put to 
 death. 
 
 The plan in detail for crossing the river and approaching 
 
 2 
 
IS A WAR DIAEY. 
 
 the houses in Shepherdstown frequented by Burke and 
 his gang, was the work of my adjutant-general. With an 
 accurate sketch of the ground before him, five citizens care- 
 fully selected as guides were questioned about the crossings, 
 the town, the streets, the fields, and the approaches ; and 
 from this information was made' an accurate map of Shep- 
 herdstown, and the houses to be searched. The night of 
 the 24th of October was selected for the expedition. The 
 boats on our side being old and leaky, they were soaked in 
 the canal. Pickets were notified, and artiRerymen cautioned 
 to keep silent if an unusual noise were heard on their front. 
 Seventy-five men with officers from the Second Massachu- 
 setts Eegiment were detailed, and liberal supplies of rope, 
 candles, and matches provided. Thus far Captain Scott, 
 my adjutant-general, had formed his plans without con- 
 ference with Captain Cogswell, who volunteered to go 
 as temporary commander, — an offer which was gladly 
 accepted. Nearly all the men selected were of the old 
 stock, and they were to be led by Eobeson and Grafton as 
 lieutenants. Ten o'clock at night was the hour designa- 
 ted for starting, and Johnson's lock, about a mile above 
 Sharpsburg, the jdace. Three quarters of an hour was 
 allowed for reaching the house, or houses, where the gue- 
 rillas were supposed to be, and the remainder of the night 
 for the return. 
 
 At a little before ten the command had reached the 
 place of rendezvous. The guides were all there. The 
 men crossed the canal gates to the river side, and silently 
 launched the old creaking boats with shrunken sides show- 
 ing yawning seams above the water-line. The moon had 
 sunk, but the starlight was bright. Everything was pro- 
 pitious. Eeliable information that Jackson had left Win- 
 chester to join Lee, removed all apprehension from that 
 quarter. While the men were about entering the boats, a 
 
ON THE POTOMAC. 19 
 
 bright blaze like a ball of fire shot up from the opposite 
 shore, — an answering signal, it was said by some of the 
 men, to a light from our side. The boats were so small 
 that they could carry but fifteen men at a time, and, not- 
 withstanding the soaking, they leaked badly. In less than 
 an hour the men were over. No one had been aroused. 
 The houses were dark ; no sound of life was heard in the 
 streets. Field, forest, tree, and river were buried in as deep 
 repose under the starlight as if there had never been an 
 alarm on the Potomac. 
 
 Old Burke and his comrades had been seen in Shepherds- 
 town during the day ; so miich a guide revealed, who had 
 visited the house of the old man's brother-in-law. This in- 
 formation gave great satisfaction, and increased the anxiety 
 of the men to come up with the game. On the pike road 
 from Shepherdstown to Martinsburg, a little more than a 
 mile away, was the house where it was expected Burke 
 would be found. A circuitous route was taken to reach 
 it. Leaving five men and a corporal with the boats, the 
 rest struck off down the river for half a mile, where the 
 guides turned abruptly to the right, over fields and meadows, 
 a straight line to the road from Hardscrabble to Smithfield. 
 Here, as at all gaps, fences were removed and a guard was 
 stationed, in case of pursuit by the enemy. One-half mile 
 further they advanced rapidly over fields, hills, and val- 
 leys, till the Martinsburg pike was reached, and then the 
 house where Burke and his party were supposed to be : it 
 was one of two within deep gardens, and surrounded by 
 shady trees. The raiders approached in silence. It was 
 half-past eleven.' Lieutenant Eobeson with twenty men 
 was detailed to surround one of the houses. While he 
 moved cautiously to his work, the rest gained noiselessly 
 the lower part of the garden of the other house. Some 
 horses tied to a fence, perceiving the approach of men, 
 
20 A WAB DIARY. 
 
 whinnied vigorously. This was alarming: the troops 
 halted ; some one whispered a low hush. Moments passed ; 
 no lights were seen ; it was manifest that the people had 
 not been aroused. The officers held a whispered consulta- 
 tion, and moved noiselessly onward. Before them was a 
 gate opening into a • lawn, within which, dark in the dim 
 starlight, was the house. Now a further division took 
 place. With one guide the adjutant-general took post in 
 front of the house, while another guide and the soldiers 
 with the officers passed round to the left for an entrance. 
 Concealed in the shadows, those in front awaited develop- 
 ments. Before an entrance was efifectfid, the inmates were 
 aroused. There was a noise within, and two shots were 
 heard in quick succession ; .then more bustle, and some 
 Union soldiers appeared in front. More of them, however, 
 were forcing their way within. There was no light ; and 
 now the adjutant's candles came into the game. A match 
 was struck ; there was a momentary flash followed by slow 
 ignition, in which the men peered through the murky light 
 into unknown places from which a murderous fire might be 
 expected. Each man cocked his musket and held it ready. 
 The lighted candle showed a large room, with not a human 
 occupant. A search was made, which revealed five men 
 well armed, who with much resistance and irritating lan- 
 guage were disarmed and bound. They were important 
 captives, for guerillas. Leopold, Burke's lieutenant, and 
 one Hippsley, who disputed the honor of killing the swim- 
 ming Marylander Cookus, with two of Burke's sons and 
 (as described by the actors in that event) a villain named 
 O'Brien, made up the whole gang. Great were the 'con- 
 gratulations upon the success of the raid ; further silence 
 was unnecessary. 
 
 Among many revelations of fact and feeling it now came 
 out that in the two shots heard some one had been wounded ; 
 
ON THE POTOMAC. 21 
 
 but whom or how seriously it was not known until just 
 before departure, when a search on the lawn revealed the 
 dead body of a man with a buUet through his heart, — 
 a thin, bad-faced man, stark and ghastly in the starlight, 
 motioiiless, dead, in the dress of a Confederate officer, with 
 the insignia of a captain's rank. Upon the body a revol- 
 ver was found, with every barrel loaded, and each cap pro- 
 tected by wax, and letters to his chief. General Stuart, 
 the most important of which was one from a Miss Lee, 
 discoursing upon my proclamation to Eebels, wherein I 
 had ordered rebellious tongues to keep silence, and to cease 
 the utterance of infernal treason. " What shall we do," 
 she asks, " if he [General Gordon] comes over here [Vir- 
 ginia], for I am sure we can't stop talking, and must show 
 our contempt for what we feel?" Besides these, documents 
 were found which disclosed the name and rank of the 
 dead man. A commission, and an autograph letter from 
 Lee's chief cavalry officer containing instructions to Cap- 
 tain Burke to remain at Sharpsburg as long as it was safe, 
 and then to report to him at Culpeper, revealed that at 
 last Old Burke was dead. Yes, looking down upon his 
 body, his sons saw and recognized their father, the chief 
 of Stuart's scouts. Burke lost his life in an attempt to flee. 
 He ran towards the fields while the raiders were surround- 
 ing the house ; was ordered to halt, refused, and was shot 
 dead with an Enfield rifle. 
 
 Meanwhile Lieutenant Eobeson had surrounded the ad- 
 joining house, and as yet was in ignorance that the object 
 of the expedition had been attained. Afterward Captain 
 Scott followed the road leading northward through the 
 town, accompanied by his men leading the captured horses, 
 to search the house of one Bead, designated in his plan ; 
 but not finding Cogswell there, he retraced his steps, and 
 learned that the commander of the expedition was anxious 
 
22 A WAE DURY. 
 
 to recross the Potomac with his prisoners and his booty. 
 Dimly in the night Scott pointed out the houses of Win- 
 termyer, Wice, Read, Eeutsch, Mixon, McKinstry, and 
 MuUer, and urged that as a search of these houses was 
 also contemplated, it should he made then ; but the com- 
 mander thought otherwise, and was content to let well 
 enough alone. Much had been already gained, — nay, more 
 even than was hoped for by the most sanguine. Burke, the 
 bold leader of many a guerilla raid, the daring scout, the 
 persecutor of Union men, the terror of the neighborhood, — 
 Burke, whose loss to the Southern cause was almost irre- 
 parable, was lying where he fell, the ground red with his 
 heart's blood. Further operations might well be postponed 
 wisely reasoned Cogswell, as he gave the order for a re- 
 turn march to the river, with his bound captives (a sullen 
 band), the horses, and the arms. The command marched 
 rapidly, being in fine spirits over their success, and de- 
 livered the prisoners to the provost marshal in Sharpsburg 
 at five o'clock in the morning. 
 
 After a refreshing sleep, my irrepressible adjutant- 
 general awoke to sigh over a conjectural loss of property 
 supposed to have been within easy grasp on the preceding 
 night at Shepherdstown, including, — and his mind dwelt 
 much on this, — a superb horse, Burke's own charger, 
 given him by his chief, Stuart (it was estimated to be 
 worth the large sum of eight hundred dollars) ; and also 
 such minor articles as thirteen revolvers, as many carbines, 
 and untold guns, — all concealed in different houses within 
 the town. From conception to execution was an easy 
 step ; and so quickly taken, that, at two in the afternoon, 
 thirty cavalrymen, with the adjutant at their head, had 
 crossed the river at Blackburn's ford, thrown pickets out 
 on all the roads, surrounded aU the suspected houses, and 
 hailed Captain Cogswell, who had made his appearance 
 
ON THE POTOMAC. 23 
 
 on the scene with seventy-five infantry from the Second. 
 While Burke's house and those adjoining were undergoing 
 a thorough search, the hearts of these youthful and aspiring 
 chieftains expanded with rapacity. Operations thus far 
 had been limited to the poorer and meaner houses in the 
 suhurhs ; while within the village were the wealth, the 
 business, the aristocracy of Shepherdstown. Such an 
 opportunity must not be lost ; it was too good, and might 
 never return. The cavalry were formed, sabres drawn, " for- 
 ward " ordered, and down the pike they w^nt, scabbards 
 rattling, horses dashing, and the deuce to pay generally. 
 Shepherdstown was their own ; there was no resistance ; 
 rather was there welcome. One comely young woman, — 
 beautiful, too, the historian of that glorious hour records, 
 — waved the star-spangled banner over the invaders' heads 
 as they sped ostentatiously on. Although the wicked did 
 not flee, men and boys in the way of this unopposed drag- 
 onnade did, and a single horseman disappeared over the 
 crest of a distant hill on the Smithfield road. And there 
 were captures, too. Old Eeutsch was seized, while gazing 
 with wonder and with admiration, it was hoped, upon the 
 scene, not because he had committed any overt act of hos- 
 tility, but rather because he was the owner of a suspected 
 house near Burke's. A hospital of Eebels, wounded on 
 Antietam battle-field was captured ; and six nurses, one 
 hospital steward, two lieutenants, and fourteen sick men 
 were paroled. The infantry led, and the cavalry brought 
 up the rear as the expedition returned. 
 
 Such exploits, although they strongly tended to bind the 
 officers of the Second Eegiment of Massachusetts infantry to 
 its fortunes, in the hope that they might survive to share 
 its glories, made stUl more conspicuous the allurements of 
 the cavalry service, in which like centaurs the troopers 
 swiftly descended upon their enemy with a clatter and 
 
24 A WAK DIAKY. 
 
 momentum which challenged the admiration of the be 
 holder. Oh, the stateHness of the cavalry ! Ah, the ease 
 the freedom of a trooper ! and the drudgery of the infantry 
 its inglorious fagging ! Whether it was the work of tha 
 cavalry raid or not that infected him we shall never know 
 but Captain Henry S. Eussell of the Second at this timi 
 accepted a majority in a new regiment of Massachusett 
 horse. 
 
 Jackson's movements having allayed aU apprehension 
 on the Potomac, camp-life subsided into a duU routine 
 varied only by amusements, of which the officers (espe 
 cially of the Second) partook with a reasonable enthusiasm 
 There was a horse-race in which sorry nags were entere( 
 for a prize, affording hearty sport fuU of entertaining inci 
 dents, and a rollicking day memorable in that campaigr 
 
 The entries were made by and E , of horses no 
 
 only unknown to the turf, but until that hour probabl; 
 never before entered for a race. Near the camp of th 
 Second the course was marked off, and thither hied man; 
 officers who in some way or other had all procured mounts 
 As a privileged functionary, the adjutant-general had ap 
 propriated for the occasion my horse " Ashby," — a Eebe 
 capture and famous racer, whose speed the commissary 
 general challenged, having a good opinion of his own nag 
 and being somewhat excited by the novelty of the occasion 
 At the word they were off, Ashby leading, the commissar; 
 and. my aid following, with the satisfaction of being del 
 uged with mud, until the adjutant pulled up at least hal 
 a mile ahead of the field. ' 
 
 Arrived at the ground there was a delay, which gave ai 
 opportunity to pay a visit to the camp of the Thirteent 
 New Jersey, of my brigade. There some fifteen or twent; 
 men of that regiment were found engaged in attemptin 
 with muskets to convert two steers into rations. At te: 
 
ON THE POTOMAC. 25 
 
 paces the men fired into the animals' heads ; but the effect 
 was discouraging. Both received the bullets, somewhere in 
 their capacious skulls, with that sublime indifference which 
 has elevated stoicism into a philosophy. But the marks- 
 manship ! — that could not fail of ridicule. Was this to 
 be taken as the average shooting of this regiment ? Were 
 the Kebels as safe at ten paces ? Had the N"ew Jersey 
 marksmen with muskets absolutely missed an ox at ten 
 paces ? Such chaffing was exasperating. A new warrior 
 entered the field; he came to vindicate the good name of 
 his regiment. The head of one of the unhappy beeves 
 was filled with strange suspicions, and he turned rapidly 
 from man and musket, until he achieved his purpose and 
 placed himself in a perfect range between the slayer and 
 the officers of the Second. It was, however, apparent that 
 this was of no consequence to the sportsman ; for he raised 
 his musket, with an utter indifference to the dodging to 
 which he subjected for some minutes the very respectable 
 body of commissioned officera thus threatened with immo- 
 lation. At length he sighted the animal's head ; fired, 
 and down went the bullock as if his legs had been knocked 
 from under, — dead at last, with two bullets in his head. 
 The regimental butcher now approached to cut the ani- 
 mal's throat, when, mirabile dictu ! this most iU-used beast 
 rose to his feet, and with his companion dashed toward the 
 surrounding beholders, among whom, brave and modest, 
 with a soldierly pride in holding a lieutenant's commission 
 
 in the Second, was one B , of corpulent form, who 
 
 had been affectionately and fitly dubbed with an unctu- 
 ous title. 
 
 That an incident which would scarcely create a smile if 
 a lean man were the hero, becomes ludicrous to the last 
 degree when a fat man is the subject, is proved by the 
 melancholy which attaches to the perplexities of Don 
 
26 A "WAE DIARY. 
 
 Quixote and tlie mirthfulness which attended his squii 
 Sancho Panza. Far be it from me to attempt to detrac 
 from the solemn interest which clings to lean heroes, or t 
 the fictions of spare novelists. I admit that there are use 
 for thin people in this world, that they are facts, possibl 
 necessities ; but I challenge criticism when I aver tha 
 a short fat man running "for life from a dead ox can giv 
 more exquisite enjoyment than a tall thin man in motio: 
 under the same circumstances. Even as Falstaff ran am 
 roared when he was pursued by the followers of the Priac 
 
 at Gadshill, so did our bulky B , when he saw th 
 
 animal coming, make his short legs fly like paddles of a: 
 over-driven steamer, shouting the whUe as loud as he coul 
 roar, " Stop that dead ox ! stop him ! stop him ! " Th 
 group of horsemen also scattered in confusion ; my old Rebe 
 Ashby, sympathizing with the general hilarity, turned am 
 ran with all his might (a large quantity), bearing my ad 
 jutant-general half a mile away to a farm house, where wit 
 much exertion he was pulled up. 
 
 At length the course was prepared, and everything read; 
 for the race, even to walking the horses over the track, — 
 
 stretch of turf near the pike. Although ^"s horse hai 
 
 rather the best finish of the two, the betting was even ; fo 
 
 there was a sanguine feeling that E 's superior skil 
 
 as a jockey would overmatch the odds. Of the animaL 
 
 it was known that bought his of the surgeon, am 
 
 beyond this he had no known history; but E 's anima 
 
 had a pedigree. She was an old horse, bought of Surgeo; 
 Leland, who bought her of Daggett, hospital steward, wh 
 picked her up. In appearance she was lean and lank] 
 
 while 's animal was sleek and comely. wa 
 
 dressed in a fancy knit-jacket, striped with varied hue! 
 
 and a woollen cap ; while E , disdaining colors, relie 
 
 on a mule whip of huge length and tension. At last th 
 
ON THE POTOMAC. 27 
 
 animals were brouglit up for a start, when E so prac- 
 tised upon with false pretences that at length, in 
 
 sheer desperation, the latter ran the race alone, and claimed 
 
 the prize ; but finally yielded to E 's objection that he 
 
 did not get the word "Go." Persuaded to try it again, 
 
 fairly won, despite the continued prodding and 
 
 lashing inflicted by E upon the horse which was 
 
 Doctor Leland's, who got her from Daggett, who picked 
 her up. 
 
 And then came social dinners, of which none could com- 
 pare with those given by the surgeon of the brigade, in his 
 excellent dining-hall (a large hospital tent), and with his 
 selection of wines, — not supplied we would remark, by 
 the Christian or Sanitary Commission. A very lively and 
 entertaining record remains of one of these surgical enter- 
 tainments given on Sunday, at which, our of&cers arrived 
 while the surgeon in charge, and all his attendants, were 
 present at divine service in two hospital tents. The ser- 
 mon, an excellent one, — and very suggestive too of the com- 
 ing dinner, in its topic of "heavenly joys," — so excited the 
 guests that they joined heartily in the singing, inspected 
 the hospitals after service had closed, and raved over one 
 of the lady volunteer nurses, — so sweet, attractive, and 
 wonderfully good-looking, that she had become obnoxious 
 
 to Miss D , the lady superior, who was imbued with 
 
 a belief that only lanky and scrawny women made good 
 nurses. Impatiently expected and long awaited, the din- 
 ner-hour arrived, before the host had fairly entered upon a 
 Eussian campaign, after despatching several in Italy, India, 
 and China, — bringing in due course before admiring eyes 
 and palates soups which tormented the appetite, 'bouill& 
 wonderfully seasoned and garnished, an immense Bologna 
 sausage reclining upon a dewy head of cabbage and hashed 
 turnip, roasts of mutton, chickens undecapitated, quails. 
 
28 A WAR DUKY. 
 
 apples stuffed, peaches, and puddings, over which last, from 
 utter dissolution of appetite, only sympathetic sighs could 
 be breathed by those who had become mourners long before. 
 With coffee, the entertainment closed. Of the sherry 
 which introduced it, of the wine which was interspersed 
 through it, and of the. real Havanas which followed it, — 
 of these, and of the impressions a sense of the fulness of 
 the feast created, no utterance of appreciation was possible. 
 It only remained to endeavor to repay the attentions. The 
 doctor was invited to attend a shooting match ; a ratting 
 main, in which a staff terrier was pledged to kill twelve rats 
 in as many minutes ; a cock fight, in which a bird from Dam 
 No. 4 would stand against the field ; Thanksgiving races, 
 and a Thanksgiving dinner after the Puritafi style. 
 
 Of a different kind, but as entertaining as any of the 
 amusements described, was the administration of affairs 
 by the senior colonel of my brigade (a Western officer of 
 acknowledged valor, but utterly ignoring discipline in his 
 command), during my temporary absence. Upon those 
 broad planes of Western equality there is no distinction 
 between those who have worked up and those who are 
 working to get up. Western society frowns upon all who 
 put on airs. Even where the inclination existed, it was 
 found to be difficult to put in practice the rules governing 
 the intercourse of a commissioned oflicer with his men, as 
 laid down and practised in all armies composed of regulars. 
 Merely the title of colonel, major, or captain, could no more 
 translate its possessor into the sphere of a commander than 
 it could obliterate the boon companionship of other days 
 to those who had been fellow- workmen at the same bench, 
 on the same board, or in the same field. The officers of 
 my staff were therefore somewhat astonished at the fa- 
 miliar manner in which " Old S ," as they irreverently 
 
 spoke of him, treated his command. From a private 
 
ON THE POTOMAC. 29 
 
 soldier, the adjutant's clerk, he borrowed slippers; from 
 another, hectic novels, which he not only devoured, but 
 also read aloud to the staff. Of reputable persons, men or 
 women, he averred that they were "clean-footed;" of his 
 appetite, that he had eaten his " whole length" of sausages 
 at a meal ; to a young woman applying for a pass an ap- 
 proval was sent by his orderly, conditioned upon her per- 
 sonal appeal. In his military administration, he resolved 
 to command respect by refusing resolutely to approve all 
 applications, no matter how important. In this mopd he 
 disapproved of two applications for leaves of absence, based 
 upon a surgeon's certificate that " a change of climate was 
 necessary to prevent permanent disability," because the 
 certificate did not add : " If the officers remain, they will 
 be permanently disabled," — all of which was so nice that 
 the point escaped the critic, upon a second application by 
 the same parties upon the same certificate. On another 
 occasion, an appKcation made by a private of the 107th 
 New York for a furlough to receive a legacy of three 
 thousand pounds, coming to him from an estate in England, 
 was disapproved with the endorsement, " These things are 
 getting to be altogether too common." 
 
 It was soon time, however, to cease keeping guard on 
 the Potomac, and to leave the fields upon which so recently 
 nearly two hundred thousand men had met in the bloody 
 battle of Antietam. Again the husbandman may work his 
 farm with none to molest, unless perchance he strike too 
 rudely some unexploded shell, or find himself embarrassed 
 by the shallow graves of the countless dead. The Grand 
 Army is in motion. Bumside is following Lee in his efforts 
 to put behind him the rivers he so e^erly crossed in his 
 attempts to destroy Pope's army and capture "Washington ; 
 Slocum is preparing from Harper's Perry to beat up his 
 
30 A WAR DlAEY. 
 
 front beyond the Bolivar Heights towards Winchester 
 Williams, the commander of our division, has settled dowr 
 to solid comfoit among the pines at the foot of Maryland 
 Heights, near the John Brown schoolhouse, as he used tc 
 call it, when it was found that this was the place where 
 that Brown had hid his rifles for his raid on Harper's Ferry 
 A picturesque spot it was, and near it Williams had buii 
 three log houses, — one for an office, one for a mess-room 
 and one for himself and his daughters who were visiting 
 him. 
 
 From this abode of comfort the commander of our di 
 vision was emerging daily to inspect his brigades, whei 
 there came on the ninth of December an order, rudel] 
 summoning him from his corner, to march with his divi 
 sion via Harper's Ferry through Hillsborough to join thi 
 reserve of the Army of the Potomac. 
 
 On the 14th of February, 1863, eight miles from Acquii 
 Creek, I found ample time to ponder over the disaster o 
 Fredericksburg under Burnside, and the hope of Chancel 
 lorsville under Hooker. A more atrocious season neve 
 visited an army in camp. Snow followed rain with drear; 
 alternation. Both men and animals suffered fearfully, th 
 latter especially, inasmuch as they were not protected b; 
 blankets. From my hut I could see poor half-frozen mules 
 crouching and shivering, their backs covered with sno\s 
 tethered to wagon-wheels, — their only shelter by night o 
 by day, in storm or shine. While every effort was made t 
 secure multiplied details of the condition of the troops, tha 
 of our animals was overlooked ; often when the half-starve 
 mule had whinnied out his thanks for a cover, a hasty oi 
 der sent the army through muddy and almost impassabl 
 roads to a new site of bleakness. 
 
 Meanwhile, General Hooker was boasting of what h 
 meant to do in the spring. 
 
ON THE POTOMAC. 31 
 
 On the 28tli of Tebruary, I left Stafford Court House in 
 Virginia, after a vain struggle with trials, duties, and expo- 
 sures, for proper food and medical treatment, that I might 
 perchance recover from a severe attack of typhoid fever with 
 which I had been wrestling, — the first sickness in two years 
 of campaigning. When I returned to my brigade in time 
 for the battle of Chancellorsville, I found that the command 
 of it, in the belief that my return would be deilayed, had 
 been assigned to another commander; and that my choice 
 lay between a new brigade which Hooker offered, or a di- 
 vision in the Department of Virginia under General Dix 
 The latter, after much reflection, I accepted. 
 
32 A WAB DUKY. 
 
 CHAPTEE II. 
 
 ON THE JAMES. 
 
 TN the double darkness of night and a thick sea-fog, I 
 ■■■ embarked at Baltimore, on the 28th of April, on a 
 steamer bound for Fortress Monroe and Norfolk. I was 
 to lead a division of Federal troops against Longstreet's 
 forces then operating within the Department of Virginia 
 and North Carolina. This department was under the com- 
 mand of Major-General John A. Dix. In vain I looked 
 into the strange faces of my fellow-passengers for a friendly 
 recognition ; there was no one I knew on board, although 
 naturally we all soon became acquainted, and were busily 
 discussing the varying fortunes of the war. The clerk of 
 the boat had a great many curious things to say. I found 
 him describing his experiences to two of the passengers. 
 He was descanting on the constant use demanded of this 
 line of steamers; the absolute impossibility of a rest for 
 cleaning or repairs ; the variety of freight with which they 
 were laden, — from the living who sought the dead on the 
 battle-field, to the dead returned to the living; Govern- 
 ment rations and Government troops ; green-hides and 
 dead bodies. 
 
 " You wiU find, I fear, " said the clerk, " that the present 
 condition of this boat justifies what I have said ; while at 
 the same time the requirements of the Government fully 
 exculpate the owners. Our work never ceases ; we have 
 no rest on Sunday ; we cannot air the mattresses, nor can 
 we clean the boat or the boilers. In McClellan's peninsu- 
 lar campaign we were used for hospital service ; our cabins 
 
ON THE JAMES. 33 
 
 were filled with the sick, the dying, and the wounded. As 
 it chooses, so does the War Department dispose of us ; as 
 it wills, it fixes our compensation ; and only the poor privi- 
 lege remains to us of carrying freight on private account, 
 — if there is any room left, — and of taking passage money 
 from citizens and soldiers when they are not travelling 
 under orders." 
 
 In this search for the dead, who were torn from pits and 
 trenches where their comrades had hastily thrown them, 
 there was much food for reflection ; and those who had seen 
 the long narrow boxes containing the remains of those 
 who were to be restored to loving friends, as it was firmly 
 believed, for a re-burial in the .quiet home, had felt a doubt 
 whether identification was often possible. And the clerk, 
 whose heart had become hardened to almost every scene of 
 suffering, lowered his voice to something like solemnity, as 
 he expressed his doubts whether the bodies recovered were 
 really those whose loss was mourned by friends. " Indeed, 
 who can tell ? " said one of the passengers. " At Fair Oaks 
 and at Malvern, I myself saw the killed buried in heaps, 
 mutilated, unrecognizable. Besides," he added, "a body 
 exposed to the air for a day or two becomes unrecogniza- 
 ble ; and even if it were otherwise, and identity secured by 
 stakes driven at the heads, there is wide room for serious 
 errors in the inevitable hurry and confusion." 
 
 That these unhappy suspicions were too well founded is 
 weU known to those who have wandered over battle-fields ; 
 and yet, in spite of this uncertainty, the task of recovering 
 individual bodies was undertaken by a class of men whose 
 profits depended on the strength of their assurances of the 
 certainty of identification. On the battle-field of Antietam I 
 had conferred with one of these wretches, — a thin, sharp- 
 featured, unsanctified Yankee, who, introducing himself as 
 interested in the families of dead soldiers, desired to be 
 
34 A WAR DIARY. 
 
 informed whether a dead soldier was entitled to a coffin, as 
 part of his contract with the Government for his services. 
 " He is not," I replied, " entitled to a coffin as a matter of 
 contract, although the Government generally supplies a 
 coffin for the re-burial of a deceased soldier ; but there may- 
 be times, as on the battle-field, when it would be impossible 
 to give a soldier any other covering than his blanket." 
 
 " But," said the Yankee, "when they can give a soldier a 
 coffin, they do it ? " 
 
 " Certainly," I replied. 
 
 " "Well, you can do it here, can't you ? " 
 
 "Oh, yes; I can!" 
 
 " Well, that 's what I want to know. I 've come down 
 here to get some bodies of soldiers killed in the battle of 
 Antietam, and I want to know if you wiU order ten coffins 
 to be made for me to take them home in ? " 
 
 " Are you employed to recover these bodies ? " I asked. 
 
 " Yes ; I get something. I could n't afford, you know, to 
 do this for nothing." 
 
 " Then it is your occupation ? " 
 
 "Well, yes." 
 
 " And you want the Government to furnish you with 
 ten coffins to help you carry on your calling ? " 
 
 " Yes, — to carry home the soldiers." 
 
 "Well, sir, after the Government has once buried the 
 bodies of soldiers, it does not dig them up to furnish coffins 
 to a contractor to carry them home." 
 
 The Yankee could n't understand this, and expatiated on 
 the duty of the Government and the care with which he 
 packed bodies ; enlarging upon the certainty of his explora- 
 tions, since a stake, with the name inscribed on it, was al- 
 ways opposite the head. He was convinced that though the 
 war might not have been caused for his personal emolument, 
 his services were yet of signal importance in its prosecution. 
 
ON THE JAMES. 35 
 
 At early dawn the ramparts of the extensive fortification 
 of Fortress Monroe loomed up as we slowly approached the 
 landing. In a few moments I had received a hearty greet- 
 ing from General Dix ; and in a few more had been in- 
 formed of the situation. Suffolk, Virginia, was still strongly 
 threatened by the enemy under Longstreet, who was estab- 
 lishing batteries of siege-pieces on the left bank of the Nan- 
 semond; whence our gunboats had just been withdrawn 
 by the admiral, as being unable to cope with the heavier 
 metal of the enemy. "New embrasures for more guns 
 had been discovered in the Confederate works, and our 
 men had heard the enemy cheering his reinforcements. 
 General Dix estimated Longstreet's force, present and to 
 arrive, at sixty thousand men ; but he did not believe that 
 this demonstration was to resist a probable march of the 
 Federal army towards Eichmond from Suffolk ; nor that 
 General Hooker, who was then preparing for his fate at 
 Chancellorsville, would be seriously opposed until he drew 
 near Eichmond. There, General Dix thought, the great 
 battle would be fought ; there the whole available Confed- 
 erate force would be gathered ; for even at that time If orth 
 Carolina had been evacuated by the enemy. 
 
 I found that I was to report to General Peck, at Suffolk, 
 and take part in the supposed pending assault on that 
 place. While delayed by the non-arrival of my horses and 
 luggage, which were to meet me at Fortress Monroe, I 
 passed an agreeable hour with a distinguished party from 
 Washington, who had arrived in the steamer " Carrie Mar- 
 tin," after a flying visit to Acquia Creek, where Hooker and 
 the Army of the Potomac had been visited. Under the 
 guidance of the Secretary of State, the Swedish and Eussian 
 ambassadors, with many ladies, had looked upon that su- 
 perb old Army of the Potomac as it was preparing with its 
 new and untried leaders to crush the life out of the Army 
 
36 A WAR DUEY. 
 
 of Northern Virginia, under Lee. The steamer was decked 
 with colors. The national flags of Sweden and Eussia 
 entwined their folds with the Stars and Stripes. There 
 was no token that the disgrace of Chancellorsville was to 
 be eriablazoned on its folds. 
 
 At five o'clock in the evening, the transport containing 
 my military equipage had arrived ; so that I was trans- 
 ferred to the steamer " City of Hudson," and we left the 
 wharf for Norfolk, with a motley group of soldiers, citi- 
 zens, and those women, who, belying the virtues of their 
 sex, thronged the captured places of the South. 
 
 Turning from a review of my fellow-passengers, I found 
 my time most agreeably occupied in looking out upon a 
 scene of many stirring adventures. We saw Sewall's Point, 
 whence Confederate batteries had thrown shells three miles 
 to the Rip Eaps near Fortress Monroe ; and Craney Island, 
 with the remains of a large and strong Confederate fort, 
 once intended to guard the approaches to Elizabeth Eiver, 
 but from whose silent embrasures the spiked guns had 
 been removed. We passed the buoy which marked the 
 last resting-place of the Confederate ram " Merrimac ; " then 
 came the wreck of the " Congress," on whose historic deck 
 the brave Union sailors fought this monster clad in iron, 
 until, in the unequal contest, our brave tars surrendered 
 only when the waters of the bay closed over their noble 
 vessel. On this spot was enacted the thrilling drama of, 
 the little monitor, and the death of the great leviathan; 
 while away in the distance, guarding all access and ap- 
 proach from the Confederate stronghold up the James, we 
 saw our fleet of gunboats and iron-clads with the Stars and 
 Stripes floating over their decks. There was the "Saga- 
 mond" and the "Lehigh,'' whose round iron turrets held 
 those monster guns which defied the heaviest metal of the 
 enemy ; there, too, the armored " Galena" and two wooden 
 
ON THE JAMES. 37 
 
 vessels, the " Minnesota" and the " Ossipee," — all block- 
 ading the mouth of the James, and threatening with de- 
 struction any Confederate iron-clads that might have the 
 hardihood to confront them. 
 
 Passing swiftly onward by the large and commodious 
 marine hospital, and by the fort off Norfolk Point, filled 
 with several hundreds of Confederate prisoners, officers and 
 privates ; by the English man-of-war " Desperate," at an- 
 chor off the city, we landed at the wharf I was surprised 
 at the size of the city of Norfolk, at its fine houses, its 
 churches, its air of wealth and refinement. The principal 
 hotel is a large and new-looking building, but its accommo- 
 dations were wretched. On the lower floor were a large 
 parlor, a great hall, and two biUiard-rooms, in which a no- 
 tice was posted stating that gentlemen would refrain from 
 the discussion of politics in the rooms, halls, and on the 
 door-steps, lest the hotel should be closed up ! From the 
 feelings of the people, which I was told were those of ha- 
 tred to the North, it seemed to me wise to taboo all discus- 
 sion with Northern visitors, leaving to the citizens the poor 
 privilege of looking the spite they could not express. 
 
 In the evening I called upon General Viel^ who had been 
 in command of this city for about a year. Viel^ was my 
 classmate, but for many years his path and mine had 
 diverged. I found him in a comfortable mansion, from 
 whose weU-fumished rooms the owner with his family had 
 fled, engaged in opening a Confederate mail-bag recently 
 captured. Two of the letters he showed me in print in a 
 daily paper published in Norfolk, where, as he informed 
 me, the others would in time be found, until all had been 
 given to the public. In these letters there were admis- 
 sions of the great privations and the great destitution 
 which the war had imposed on the Southern people ; but 
 these were tempered with rejoicings at the promise that in 
 
38 A WAR DIAKY. 
 
 six months longer there would be peace. As I read the 
 tender words which a poor deluded Confederate soldier had 
 written to his wife and children, — words which they were 
 never to see, — I was touched and saddened. It is hard to 
 pity the actors while condemning the act ; and yet no one 
 can refuse his sympathy whenever a cry of agony is wrung 
 from any wife or child for that husband and father who 
 lies cold and silent on the battle-field awaiting an unknown 
 grave. 
 
 There was another class of correspondence, in which a 
 New York firm had engaged, that filled us with indigna- 
 tion. These honorable men were employed in the lucrative 
 business of receiving contraband correspondence from no- 
 torious Eebels, to be forwarded to Europe through our own 
 mails. This discovery was made through a note found in 
 the voluminous skirt which a captured blockade-running 
 female had so overloaded with freight as to excite the sus- 
 picions of our ofi&cers. I much regret that I did not make 
 a note of all the goods, dry and otherwise, which were 
 fished out of this receptacle, and piled in disorder before 
 the stricken female by her ruthless examiner. The sight 
 would have been amazing; for, although not sufficiently 
 extensive to have stocked a wholesale establishment, it 
 would have suggested a fair retail trade. But detection 
 did not quench that Di Vernon spirit which was exhibited 
 by many of the women of Norfolk. They were willing to 
 do all and dare all to aid their brethren in their cause'; 
 and, though broken by want and suffering, they had more 
 than once, with a conspicuous show of dagger and pistol 
 in their belt, demanded protection for that home which 
 in a few short months became so poor that its occupants 
 were fain humbly to beg from Union commissaries for 
 their daily food. 
 
 On the first of May, a meagre breakfast, a large hotel 
 
ON THE JAMES. 39 
 
 bill, and a few preliminaries for my departure were all 
 duly despatched ; when, with my military family and full 
 equipment of horses and servants, I entered the special 
 train of one passenger and one baggage car that steamed 
 off for Suffolk. For more than an hour we proceeded 
 slowly across the northern end of the Dismal Swamp, with 
 its shaggy life of dense brushwood covering the marshy 
 bottom; with its dead trees, scathed and whitened into 
 living monuments in that danlf spot, where all was sedgy 
 and pathless. Then crossing the Jericho canal, we wound 
 through the fortified line of redoubts and rifle-pits that 
 surrounded the town. Near the western redoubt General 
 Peck had established his headquarters ; and there I was 
 cordially received and invited to examine the works, offen- 
 sive and defensive. 
 
 The defences of Suffolk consisted of a series of connected 
 redoubts and rifle-pits. On the extreme west are Forts 
 Nansemond, Eosecrans, and South Quay battery ; and on 
 the north, south and east. Forts McClellan, Union, Dix, 
 Halleck, and Jericho. The entire fronts are swept by ar- 
 tillery and musketry. Those surprisingly strong works 
 were begun in September, 1862, under General Peck's 
 supervision: Up to that time Suffolk had been under the 
 command of General Mansfield, and had been guarded in 
 the usual manner, by pickets thrown out to the front and 
 on the main roads, by patrols of troops, and by gunboats 
 on the waters of the Kansemond Eiver. The dense pine 
 forests which then surrounded the place came almost up 
 to the town on the south, affording shelter for an attack- 
 ing force. 'Now, however, the timber had been removed, 
 and no cover was to be found nearer than half a mile, while 
 in some places the ground was uncovered and clear for 
 more than a mile. The trunks of felled trees furnished a 
 solid foundation for the breastworks and batteries, while 
 
40 A WAS. DIARY. 
 
 from the branches thousands of gabions and fascines filled 
 with well packed earth had been constructed. Barrels and 
 meal bags, packed with sand, added to the solidity of our 
 fortifications, and rendered harmless many of the enemy's 
 missiles ; for it is a well established fact that an Enfield 
 rifle-ball, fired at very short range into a sack of well 
 rammed sand, will penetrate only about five inches, and 
 then it is perfectly flattened. Our own regimental en- 
 campments were so near the rifle-pits of the enemy that 
 bullets whistled around our ears, tents were perforated, 
 and the men within them frequently wounded. Indeed, 
 so near were, some of the Confederate rifle-pits to our own 
 that it was perilous in the extreme to visit them by day- 
 light. 
 
 Ever since the eleventh of the previous month, — more 
 than twenty days, — the enemy had been looking longingly 
 at our lines. He came to enter Suffolk, and thus get con- 
 trol of the Nansemond Eiver ; to move on Norfolk, and open 
 the James to the ocean. By a vigorous use of the spade 
 in the hands of soldiers and " contrabands," Suffolk had been 
 made impregnable, and the enemy's plans were thwarted. 
 Hooker, we hoped, would give Longstreet cause to leave 
 us, and carry aid to his Fredericksburg brethren. General 
 Peck deserves great credit for his foresight, and for the skill 
 with which he had surrounded this town with defensive 
 and protective works ; for within them he had established 
 a camp for negroes called the Contraband Camp, which I 
 visited. After leaping a rifle-pit, and floundering through 
 a marsh, I found a collection of negroes, male and female, of 
 all sizes and colors, packed in houses of their own construc- 
 tion, — the whole bearing some resemblance to a village of 
 Hottentots. Pine clapboards formed the walls, roofs, and 
 doors of the houses, which were about six feet long by five 
 wide, and about six feet high. The front of each and the 
 
ON THE JAMES. 41 
 
 streets were ornamented with rows of young pines ; and in 
 the middle of the village was a square in which negroes 
 were running, skipping, and playing, with light hearts, 
 apparently little concerned that just beyond were their 
 enemies, — their old masters. The gayety and careless- 
 ness of this people in the midst of the mighty struggle 
 going on around them were remarkable, though no one had 
 greater interests at stake in it than they ; and in some few 
 cases it seemed to me that the seriousness of the circum- 
 stances was really appreciated by them. General Peck 
 colonized and cared for all that came within his lines. 
 He also encouraged them in giving free vent to their joy- 
 ous dispositions. In this respect there was a very strik- 
 ing contrast to the constrained solemnity presented by the 
 negroes of Beaufort, South Carolina, where the command- 
 ing officer had attempted to tone down a natural exuberance 
 of spirits, and make his negroes conform to a solemn and 
 serious bearing, more becoming, as he thought, to the moral 
 and intellectual state upon which they had entered. 
 
 On returning to our fortified lines, we heard the rapid 
 firing of artillery on the western front ; not the occasional 
 shots we had heard at intervals during the day, but a fast 
 and furious cannonade, towards which we moved hastily, 
 gaining the rear of the redoubt in time to be greeted by a 
 fusillade of musketry, as if several regiments were engaged. 
 The excitement increased by the constant dashing up and 
 
 away of orderlies, reporting, " General is at his front, 
 
 sir." — " General is with his command, sir," — " Gen- 
 eral will hold his command in readiness, sir," — and 
 
 by some young stafip officers, with their horses' mouths bloody 
 from cruel curbs, calling out, " We are here to report to 
 you. General." All this excitement, cannonading and fusil- 
 lading, breaking as it were out of a serene sky, was pic- 
 turesque ; indeed, it had quite the appearance of a minia- 
 
42 A WAK DIARY. 
 
 ture battle. The cause of all this mystery was apparent 
 when tranquillity was restored; then it appeared that a 
 zealous general had thrown forward three or four hundred 
 of his men, thinking to catch the enemy in retreat, and 
 perchance fall upon a small rear-guard, and that he had 
 been permitted to approach within easy and sure range, 
 when he encountered a severe fire from a reinforced line 
 of two or more Eebel brigades. Nothing was left us but 
 to fall back ; and this was done with a heavy loss in kiUed 
 and wounded, all of whom were left upon the field. Ten 
 men who seemed to have been Idlled we could readily 
 count, they lay there so still ; but near them were others 
 showing signs of life, one of whom raised his head, looked 
 about, and fell again, as if unable to get away without aid 
 from his comrades, and this could not be given until night, 
 by which time I had no doubt despatches to the N"ew York 
 dailies would report that " the object of the movement was 
 accomplished" Firing from our heavy guns continued 
 with diminishing frequency long after our return to head- 
 quarterSj and was prolonged into the night. The thunder of 
 artillery shook our house to its foundations ; the scream of 
 bullets and the boom of heavy siege-pieces in a fort but a 
 few rods from our door, rendered sleep impossible until 
 near daylight, when these sounds ceased, and I fell into a 
 refreshing slumber. 
 
 On the morning of the 2d of May I awoke to find at our 
 quarters a deserter from the enemy, a mild, gentle-looking 
 boy of eighteen or twenty, whose trousers, originally blue, 
 had, by much~ service and exposure, faded into slate color : 
 they came from Texas, the boy said, before the Eebel- 
 lion, and "was right smart pants then." A gray jacket 
 and slouched hat, an earthen mug for a* canteen strapped 
 through the handle around the waist, completed the picture. 
 He was as innocent and mild a youth as any of the thou- 
 
ON THK JAMES. 43 
 
 sands of victims of vicious and corrupt leaders. He frankly 
 avowed himself a deserter, af&rming that his whole com- 
 pany knew that he was going to desert ; and further inform- 
 ing us that General Piqjiett's division, in which he served, 
 ■was under orders to move. When I asked him if his com- 
 rades would desert if they knew they woidd be treated 
 well, and if they were tired of the war, he replied, with an 
 expression on his face far stronger than his words : " The 
 men are hopeless of success. And yet the officers say they 
 know the South will win ; but they cannot make the men 
 believe it." Upon this, he was subjected to a further exami- 
 nation by General Peck, before he was turned over to the 
 provost marshal for conveyance North. 
 
 But a few days before, a newly-made brigadier-general 
 had shot mortally Lieut-Colonel Kimball, in the streets of 
 Suffolk, without any special cause or even regret for the 
 act so far as I could perceive ; and although there may have 
 been some justification, none was offered, though it was 
 said that the colonel refused to allow Cochrane to pass his 
 encampment at night without giving the countersign. This 
 summary_method of enforcing his own wUl caused much 
 sorrow and excitement, which the mournful notes of the 
 dead march, as a funeral procession bearing the dead of 
 yesterday's fight passed our headquarters, did not allay. 
 While the dirge mingled with the occasional booming 
 of our heavy guns, the telegraph brought noiselessly to 
 General Peck the news in cipher that Hooker, with one 
 hundred and sixty thousand men, was in motion towards 
 Chancellorsville. 
 
 A division of old troops, recently under General Aber- 
 crombie near the city of Washington, sent here as rein- 
 forcements, was assigned to my command, and I took for 
 my headquarters a large hotel near the centre of the town, 
 occupied by women and children. The husband and father 
 
44 A WAR DIARY. 
 
 of this family, as also the whole class of inteUigent male 
 Secessionists in Suffolk, had been sent to Norfolk and 
 imprisoned. With many objections and some tears, the 
 women and children moved into another part of the house, 
 leaving for my use four or five very dirty rooms, some of 
 which had been leased to camp-foUowers, and were there- 
 fore a source of profit. To some extent I removed obstacles 
 in the way of my taking possession, by soothing the old 
 lady whom I pitied, flattering the young ones who smiled, 
 and by kicking out the camp-followers who were impudent. 
 There we had our first supper, of our own material and 
 from our own service. The remains of the old mess-chest 
 furnished one china cup and saucer, two tin cups without 
 saucers, three teaspoons, one tumbler and one wine-glass, 
 three plates of china and one of tin, three forks and three 
 knives, with which to proffer a very scanty hospitality if 
 the occasion should offer. 
 
 The next day we heard regiments from General Getty's 
 command moving, to the subdued tapping of drums, towards 
 a bridge laid the night before over the Nansemond, to enter 
 upon a reconnoissance in force, which should reveal the 
 effect on Longstreet of Hooker's movement towards Chan- 
 cellorsville. We held ourselves and ,our command in 
 readiness to move to Getty's assistance. 
 
 The reconnoissance goes on manfully. Within a dark, 
 encircling line of woods the enemy conceals his presence. 
 How soon and how suddenly a terrible fire may break out, 
 that will slaughter the approaching Federals, they cannot 
 know, for no scouts of ours have penetrated, no searching 
 shells have revealed, what they may contain. Hence our 
 lines approach with caution, and slowly. There is but little 
 cover : only npw and then a friendly ridge, towards which 
 the men rush, then fall and pause ; again to rise and run 
 and drop flat upon the earth, only to renew the forward 
 
ON THE JAMKS. 45 
 
 movement. Thus they approach a thicket, within which a 
 few houses and out-bmldings give shelter to a Eebel force, 
 with whom there is a skirmish till the enemy gives way, 
 and our own men proceed. By noon the Eebels seem to 
 have made a stand, after falling back about a mile ; and 
 they open with shot and shell from batteries in the woods. 
 Ah, if we could only teU what strength they have there in 
 that forest ! We may perhaps find out, for there is a batch 
 of prisoners approaching, one of them a heavy-looking man 
 of . about seven-and-twenty, — an Alabamian, who says 
 " whar " for " where," and seats himself cross-legged before 
 us in a free and easy way, with his cap on his head, blanket 
 folded in a roll worn like a scarf across his shoulders, with 
 haversack, gray trousers and coat. He was taken, he told 
 me, " by some of your boys " in the rear of the position we 
 occupy, while delivering a message from his captain " to 
 our boys " to fall back as " your boys were coming up ; " 
 and he was just passing through a little ravine to avoid the 
 flying bullets, when he saw " two or three of your boys " on 
 the crest of the ravine, and he called out, " Don't shoot, I '11 
 give up ! " and " so'he was taken and sent to the rear." The 
 Eebels have plenty to eat, the prisoner says, plenty of bacon, 
 — in proof of which he took a very palatable piece of the 
 latter from his haversack ; but he had no bread save " what 
 your boys gave me." He was of Law's brigade. Hood's 
 division, — a division containing " twenty-five hundred men 
 about ; " and he knew that Pickett's division was before us ; 
 that their boys were posted on each side of the road that 
 runs through the woods which our skirmishers have gained ; 
 that their artillery is behind an earth-work, with abatis 
 in front; that they have rifle-pits, and are very strong. 
 " Well ; we are just now going to charge and take them," 
 I said quickly. "Then," he replied without hesitation, 
 " there will be a big fight, sure." So, so ! I thought ; are 
 
46 A WAK DIAEY. 
 
 they indeed strongly intrenched in the woods, and would it 
 be death and defeat to our forces to charge them without 
 knowing more than can be gathered from glimpses through 
 the thick brushwood, or than can be inferred from the obsti- 
 nacy of the Eebels at this time ? If this prisoner has told 
 the truth, what a disaster we may avoid ; if he be false, 
 what an advantage forego ! The stake is important ; we 
 play with human pawns ! 
 
 This bushy, red-haired prisoner had been questioned by 
 General Peck, who seemed, despite his avowals, inclined 
 to order a forward movement to clear the woods, advance 
 upon the battery, and attempt its capture ; but before doing 
 so he invited my opinion, which was opposed to the move- 
 ment. I believed the Alabamian to be honest. I felt 
 confident that the enemy was strong in numbers and in 
 position, and that he had been only luring our men on to 
 their destruction ; in short, I believed the prisoner to have 
 spoken from actual knowledge when he declared " there 
 will be a big fight then, sure," and I felt positive that we 
 should avoid disaster by delay, for Hooker's movement 
 would divert the enemy from here. Again, inasmuch as 
 the force to defend Suffolk could not be augmented, and 
 our loss in case of reverse might — nay, would necessa- 
 rily — be considerable, we were not justified in attempt- 
 ing what if successful would be but little gain, and which 
 if disastrous might give Suffolk to the enemy. 
 
 General Getty agreeing with me. Peck at length coin- 
 cided with us, and decided to make no further advance. 
 Skirmishers on both sides became quiet; but our heavy 
 guns and their smaller ones kept on growling away while 
 our many wounded and dead were brought back in ambu- 
 lances and on stretchers, covered with blood. Moving up in 
 rear of the Federal line, as near as the proximity of the 
 enemy's sharpshooters made it advisable, I saw our skir- 
 
ON THE JAMES. 47 
 
 mishers lying flat on the edge of the wood, and near by the 
 body of Colonel Pdnggold of the One Hundred and Third 
 New York, who, having exposed himself unnecessarily but 
 fearlessly on his white horse, was shot by a Rebel marks- 
 man from a tree. The road was filled with cavalry, col- 
 umns of infantry and ambulances, and so remained till the 
 sun sank beneath the horizon and night covered us ; and 
 then the enemy turned from our front and marched away 
 towards Fredericksburg, where, as we learned from pris- 
 oners and negroes, fighting with Hooker had begun. At 
 daylight I galloped out in the direction of the retreat, fol- 
 lowing a reconnoitring party of cavalry and infantry. It 
 was the morning of the 4th of May. I pushed on over 
 the open ground beyond our rifle-pits, through a wooded 
 belt, over a second open field, mid way in which I came 
 to rifle-pits of the enemy, each large enough to hold six 
 or seven men; then through the woods again to cleared 
 ground, fringed at its further side by a dense forest. Here 
 I came upon chevaux defrise of strong and sharpened limbs 
 of pitch-pine trees, twelve feet in depth, and so completely 
 covering the front that we should have suffered grievously 
 before its lance-like points. This was Longstreet's first 
 obstruction ; but it was as nothing to the deep ditch, 
 breast high (a continuous rifle-pit, or intrenchment, with 
 parapet), connecting at important points stout embank- 
 ments for artillery, fifty yards in its rear. Thus not only 
 was the main road of our approach perfectly commanded 
 by a redoubt with embrasures for seven guns, but the al- 
 most impenetrable forest held it secure from efforts to take 
 it in flank. As I carefully examined the very thorough 
 manner in which this work had been executed, — the re- 
 vetements a wattling of oak-limbs flexible enough to be 
 woven between large stakes planted by the sides of the 
 openings, the parapet of logs enclosing well rammed earth,— 
 
48 A WAR DIARY. 
 
 and as I gazed upon the rifle-pits, forests, chmaux de frise, 
 and trenches, I could no longer wonder that the Alaba- 
 mian was sent to tell " our boys " to fall back, in the hope 
 that we might follow and partake of this Southern 
 hospitality. 
 
 I pushed on through these deserted fortifications, finding 
 everywhere evidence of the hasty departure of the enemy, 
 and — alas for the vandalism! — for many miles houses in 
 flames, that had been homes of the poorest whites of Vir- 
 ginia. Except that desolation invariably marks the course 
 of armies, it would be hard to tell why any of these hovels 
 were burned, or by whom such acts of barbarism were com- 
 mitted. A smart shower drove me into a poor cottage 
 where a woman and her two daughters, of about eleven and 
 sixteen years, were brooding over the surrounding desola- 
 tion. The awful presence of war, with its horrid incidents 
 of carnage and destruction, had so paralyzed the woman's 
 nature and susceptibilities that she was indifferent to the 
 result; while the girls, who were both shy and pretty, 
 made no concealment of the fact that their hearts were 
 with the Southern soldiers. Jesse, the woman's husband, 
 was not at home. " He has stood the draft three times for 
 our army," said his wife, " and he has escaped ; but lately 
 he got to know that they were going to take him away 
 anyhow, and so he just went away, I reckon. Yes, indeed, 
 we are poor enough ; but I have saved three of my hogs, 
 and Jesse has a horse, but he has been obliged to buy him 
 twice though, once from the Yankee army, and again from 
 our army of a man who claimed him and proved it. Jesse 
 paid two hundred and fifty dollars for him, bank money, 
 sure ; for he was a likely animal, very likely." Such a 
 cabin for a home ! and yet its owner could afford to pay 
 two hundred and fifty dollars for a horse, " bank money, 
 sure," while he utterly ignored the fact that the room in 
 
yjiy ±a.£i ua-inEia, 
 
 which he lived and ate and slept, with its two beds and two 
 doors, was windowless. "Jesse has been thinking and 
 talking for twelve years of putting in a window, but he has 
 not done it ; so we leave our doors open wide for light in 
 summer, and in winter we leave them part way open. But 
 the cracks have grown worse of late, and they light us 
 some." The oldiest daughter was a modest-looking, sensible 
 girl, with cheeks telling of robust health. And with an 
 education ? — ah, well, " the old man who taught school 
 away down somewhere, moved away when the war broke 
 out. They don't have meetings Sunday, often now, in that 
 part of the country, neither." How do they live? "Well, 
 Jesse often sells a load of fish, and with this we manage to 
 get along." And pay too, I fancied, for the nice and tidy 
 little apron the blooming daughter wore in the little log- 
 cabin on the Somerton road, where the old mother brooded 
 over her losses, smoked her pipe, and waited for Jesse. I 
 don't know why I became so sentimental over objects of 
 home affection, even though they were found in this 
 miserable cottage ; but I actually felt my heart touched by 
 the old cat who reeled along towards the fire-place, to 
 warm her poor bones by a few dying embers. " She has 
 been a first-rate cat in her day," said the old woman, " but 
 now her teeth are gone, and the children chaws meat for 
 her, and gives her gravies and sich "like. She is almost 
 done ; and it ain't right to kiU a poor old animal that has 
 served you well, jest because she is a little old." 
 
 Cat, cottage, and Jesse ; the old woman and her daugh- 
 ters, — all growing old together in the windowless cottage, 
 with its cracks and its doors, its one room and a ladder to 
 the loft, — pursued me, as I pushed on by burning houses, 
 prisoners in batches overtaken and captured in our pursuit, 
 by ambulances, wagons, and artillery, to within two miles 
 of Leesville, where I met the reconnoitering force retum- 
 
 4 
 
50 A WAR DIAKY. 
 
 ing ; the enemy had crossed the Black Water in safety and 
 had eluded us. Their strong defences fully enabled them 
 to conceal their departure, while our command was too 
 small to detain them by forcing a battle. 
 
 We have taken in all some two hundred prisoners ; and 
 they report that Longstreet moved out of his works in 
 the previous night, without a moment's warning ; indeed, 
 with so much precipitancy, that shirts were left drying on 
 the bushes, and in some cases cartridge boxes could not be 
 found in the darkness. We were informed, too, by our 
 prisoners, that many of their comrades lay concealed in the 
 woods, awaiting only an opportunity to surrender, take the 
 oath of allegiance, and be delivered from the trials and 
 fatigues of the war. Longstreet's rapid flight was due, they 
 said, to the rumor that " Hooker was giving Lee hell," and 
 to a call for immediate assistance, — all of which, for the 
 brief period in which we indulged this delusion, was pleas- 
 ing in the extreme. " God grant that these stories may be 
 true!" we cried: and, indeed, we found much more evi- 
 dence than was exhibited on the Somerton road that our 
 enemy's call was most urgent, or he would not have aban- 
 doned so promising an opportunity of catching us in the 
 traps he had set. 
 
 This was most apparent on the road which led to the 
 scene of Sunday's skirmish. It was here that our prisoner 
 had warned us by his honest words, " that there would be 
 a big fight there, sure." Now, to judge for myself, I 
 crossed, on the morning of the 5th of May, the Nansemond 
 Eiver, on a rickety bridge, whose central pier was a canal- 
 boat, rode beyond the line where I halted during the fight, 
 and entered the first line of Longstreet's intrenchments. 
 These were so situated near the brow of a steep hUl as to 
 sweep the summit, if it were gained by an assaulting col- 
 umn. Toward the rear were numerous batteries com- 
 
ON THE JASIES. 51 
 
 manding this position, while in front there were the same 
 accompaniments of abatis and rifle-pits as on the Somerton 
 road. Here I saw parts of burnt caissons and the wreck 
 of material, with trails of fire in the wood, all of which 
 were due to our shells in Simday's fight. But there were 
 yet more and heavier defences behind. In the dense forest 
 I came to a second line of intrenchments, so constructed 
 with salient and re-entering angles that Longstreet's infan- 
 try would have been protected from front or flank attack. 
 This work was about five hundred yards in the rear of the 
 first ; but it was not all About the same distance in rear 
 of the second another line was disclosed, just below the 
 crest of a hiU ; if haply we had overcome preceding obsta- 
 cles and had emerged from the woods, we should have 
 been received by a volley murderous enough to have frus- 
 trated our efforts. Beyond the third line I came to a space 
 enclosed by trunks of trees, planted in the ground. The 
 work was recent and well constructed. It appeared to me 
 to have been intended for an enclosure for horses, and 
 seemed to denote a prolonged stay. The same exhibition 
 of defensive works was said to have been found on the 
 other roads leading from Suffolk. I have thus far exam- 
 ined only two, but from these I was convinced of the sound- 
 ness of my advice to General Peck, on Sunday, that the spot 
 in front of our skirmishers was too strong to assault, and I 
 agreed with my Alabamian that " there would have been a 
 big fight there, sure." 
 
 As there remained but one more road of importance lead- 
 ing westerly and northerly from Suffolk, and as I was de- 
 sirous of seeing if these strong intrenchments surrounded 
 the town, I rode out some four or five miles on the Eden- 
 ton road, where I reached the defensive line of, first, 
 the usual rifie-pits, continuous and concealed in the skirt 
 of timber, and, next, about eight hundred yards to the 
 
52 A WAK DIARY. 
 
 rear, two earthworks for batteries, one behind the other ; 
 the foremost constructed for six guns, the other for one. 
 In front of the batteries were intrenchments for infantry, 
 with a ditch and parapet of earth and logs nine feet thick. 
 Both flanks of this line were protected by an impassable 
 swamp ; while along the front formidable abatis presented 
 a serious obstacle to our approach. I found here a regi- 
 ment of Union troops, with arms stacked, engaged in the 
 demolition of the works. Along the main road, for a dis- 
 tance of three hundred yards, was a by-path or lane, shaded 
 with fir trees, leading to a fine-looking old mansion, with 
 its storehouses, piggeries, barns, and cabins ; a place where 
 the fruits of peace were garnered, strangely contrasting 
 with the long line of Eebel works, the stacked arms, labor- 
 ing soldiers, the bodies of those killed in the reconnois- 
 sance, muffled drums, and files of mourning soldiers with 
 arms reversed. 
 
 This affair terminated our course of action at Suffolk, 
 and was the beginning of a series of operations contem- 
 plated by General Dix, for the first of which my com- 
 mand had been designated. Therefore, on the morning of 
 the 6 th of May, I went by rail to Norfolk, accompanied by 
 several hundred private soldiers, prisoners, in baggage cars. 
 The Eebel ofiicers were treated with more consideration 
 than were ours when prisoners of war ; they were seated 
 with me in the single passenger car of the train, a dozen of 
 them, long-haired, tobacco-chewing and tobacco-spitting 
 fellows, with dingy, soiled uniforms. 
 
 During many weary hours of delay the Confederate offi- 
 cers found amusement fn chaffing one another, in a brag- 
 ging and boisterous manner, upon how each was captured, 
 what they did, etc. ; that this one cried out, " Fight," and that 
 repHed, " No use ; " that one " pulled out his pistol, but our 
 cavalry was on both sides of them." And then followed a 
 
ON THE JAMES. 53 
 
 bragging description of the mode of capture by the most 
 loquacious Eebel : " I threw my pistol on the ground, and 
 it was picked up by one of the cavalry. 'You have a 
 Yankee pistol/ said he. — 'I have,' said I. ' And a 
 Yankee belt,' said he. — 'I have ! did you ever see that 
 pistol before ? ' 'Can't say,' said he. ' Well, I Captured 
 both, and you are only getting what belongs to you,' " said 
 I. Then followed high-toned conversation, of a sort not 
 unknown to the chivalry, — as to who was drunk, and 
 when he was drunk, and who was seedy, and how they 
 liked that peach brandy. 
 
 Such stalwart utterances naturally excited the Mun- 
 chausen propensities of a Yankee officer present, who, 
 turning to his neighbor, said : " I vow, it pleased me to see 
 him ! He captured three Eebels all by himself, — he did. 
 You don't believe it ? "Well, I tell you it is true ! He 
 went out alone, and came back marching them before him." 
 This imputation added new fuel to Eebel breath, and caused 
 an increased uproar, which I stopped by sending my aid to 
 inform the officer in charge of Eebel prisoners that all loud 
 talking must cease. 
 
 In two hours and twenty minutes we arrived at Nor- 
 folk, where we were met by a crowd of gazers, both male 
 and female, the latter of whom waved their handkerchiefs 
 at our Eebel prisoners in token of admiration, which I 
 fear soon subsided ; for, out of one hundred and ninety of 
 our captives, one hundred and fifteen took the oath of alle- 
 giance rather than be exchanged for further Confederate 
 service. The repentant riiany and the defiant few were 
 sent to Fortress Monroe in differeifb boats, but at the same 
 time ; so that, as the steamers moved off, the Eebels who 
 would not shook their, fists at those who would return to 
 their allegiance through the formality of an oath. 
 
 While my troops, wet and uncomfortable, were crowded 
 
54 A WAE DIARY. 
 
 on board transports, awaiting the arrival of batteries of 
 artillery that were assigned to my command, I secured a 
 tug from an accommodating Quartermaster, and landed at 
 Fortress Monroe for an interview with General Dix. The 
 General showed me papers received that day from Eich- 
 mond, in which Lee telegraphed President Davis that he 
 had gained a great victory ; that the enemy was retreating 
 across the Kappahannock, and so forth. " Can these South- 
 ern reports be true ? " I asked the General ; and he replied 
 that he feared they were. But at the same time he showed 
 me very different advices from Washington, even cheering 
 news, that raised my spirits, and I returned to Norfolk to 
 sail with my command at daylight on the moiTow. 
 
 On the morning of the 7th of M"ay I rose early, and was 
 soon on board a propeller, puf&ng away towards the ocean- 
 steamer " Spaulding," on which part of my troops had em- 
 barked. The whole division formed in two brigades, with 
 batteries of artillery, consisted of the 142d, 143d, 144th, 
 and 127th New York regiments of infantry in the first, 
 and the 141st New York and 40th Massachusetts regi- 
 ments in the second brigade. An hour of wheezing 
 brought me alongside, and I climbed the unsteady ladder, 
 edged my way through crowds of soldiers, and reached the 
 office of the captain. To my inquiry, " Are you ready ? " 
 the mate replied that they were awaiting orders from Nor- 
 folk. But the captain interfered with, " When you are 
 ready, sir." " I am ready now," I replied. Then the 
 anchor was raised, the wheels turned, and as we moved 
 out of the harbor I caught a glimpse of General Dix 
 watching us from the parapet of Fortress Monroe. 
 
AT WEST POINT, VIRGINIA. 55 
 
 CHAPTEE III. 
 
 AT WEST POINT, VIKGINU. 
 
 OUR destination was not revealed to us nntil we had 
 reached the light-ship, when the captain was directed 
 to open his sealed orders. This point in our progress 
 gained, we learned that at Yorktown further information 
 would be received ; thereupon we steamed rapidly up the 
 York Eiver to that ancient town famous in two revolu- 
 tionary epochs, in one of which it was captured by Yan- 
 kees, then rebels to the mother country, and in the other 
 by their descendants now loyally engaged in suppressing 
 rebellion. 
 
 At Yorktown a telegram was handed to me, which read, 
 " Go forward to West Point as fast as possible." This, then, 
 was our destination ; but the objects to be gained by holding 
 that peninsula where the Pamunkey and the Mattapony 
 unite as the York, were not revealed. I had little time to 
 observe the many fine-looking farms that lined the banks, 
 or to reflect upon the solitude that reigned supreme in the 
 wooded covers, clothed as they were in the beautiful livery 
 of spring, before the low landing at "West Point came in 
 sight, revealing many transports filled with troops lying off 
 the charred timbers of wharves destroyed by the Eebels 
 during McCIeUan's Peninsula campaign. Gunboats, too, 
 were there, casting their eyes to windward, and feeling the 
 shore at various places to rout out any concealed foe. The 
 troops were speedily disembarked on a new wharf impro- 
 
56 A WAK DIARY. 
 
 vised from the ruins of the old, with timbers from a deserted 
 house near by. 
 
 While these things were going on, I borrowed an orderly's 
 horse and rode rapidly to the front with cavalry, to find a 
 wide clearing about a mile and a half from the lauding, 
 traversed by the rail and county road from Kichmond, and 
 well adapted for defence. In less than an hour, more than 
 four thousand men were engaged in piling sleepers from 
 the railroad, throwing up earth for parapets, and cutting 
 down trees for abatis. Meanwhile, the cavalry having 
 dashed off to burn the bridge at White House over the Pa- 
 munkey, if they could get there, had encountered Eebel 
 pickets whom they had gallantly engaged. Hardly had the 
 smoke begun to rise above the tree-tops when an orderly 
 
 came galloping back for an ambulance for Lieutenant , 
 
 who was mortally wounded, he said, though it turned out 
 that the Lieutenant had broken his neck by a fall from 
 his horse. The men worked with such energy upon the 
 intrenchments that, though we came ashore only at one 
 o'clock in the afternoon, our front was well covered before 
 dark. General Dix came up, bringing with him Major Stew- 
 art of the Engineers. They examined the works with appro- 
 bation ; then I rode back to West Point with the General, 
 took tea with him on his steamer, and gave him that morn- 
 ing's Eichmond paper, taken from a captured prisoner, in 
 which Hooker was reported to be in an impregnable position 
 and receiving reinforcements. Another captive, a negro, 
 taken with a wagon-load of forage for the Eebel cavalry, 
 brought the news of the death of Stonewall Jackson. This 
 had been communicated to him, he said, by his master, — a 
 doubtful report, to be sure, but especially gratifying even 
 as a rumor, though I had but little time to investigate any- 
 thing else than the work on our front ; and this through 
 the whole night went on so manfully, despite a pouring 
 
V ,>i 
 
AT WEST POINT, VIRGINIA. 57 
 
 rain, that we had by daylight completed more than one third 
 of a mUe of intrenchments, and made good progress towards 
 an epaulement for a battery. The next thing to be done 
 was to clear the ground before us of aU obstructions within 
 range ; and this involved the destruction of negro huts and 
 stables, prettily embowered though they were amid peach, 
 cherry, and apple trees. They had belonged, I was told, to a 
 Kebel drover, who fattened cattle for the Eichmond market- 
 It was no time for sentiment, however ; so the torch and 
 the axe were applied to them, as also to a long row of 
 beautiful firs, shading the road to White House, until they 
 lay shapeless masses of green and prostrate trunks across 
 the road. 
 
 Only thirty mUes from Eichmond, — nearer than any 
 other land force ! My situation was an exposed one, re- 
 quiring the most watchful and anxious care ; and the more 
 so since the General commanding had reconsidered his de- 
 termination to withdraw my command if the enemy suc- 
 ceeded in driving Hooker back across the Eappahannock. 
 This change in his plans necessitated not only building 
 works for some newly arrived twenty-pounder Parrots, but 
 also strengthening my first hastily constructed lines with 
 flanks and faces, laying out advanced works, and protect- 
 ing the whole with abatis, as well as establishing pickets 
 well to the front for a distance of at least two miles. 
 
 This military occupation and destruction of property 
 seemed to have annihilated all sense of meum et tuwm in 
 my troops ; they shot pigs, calves, and cows, justifying 
 themselves by affirming that the pigs ran loose in the 
 woods, well knowing that the whole State of Virginia was 
 one vast pigpen. A dozen rascals pass by me leading a 
 cow, almost exhausted by lunging and charging in her 
 attempts to escape to the quiet of green pastures from the 
 fate which awaits her from hungry men. Seized by a 
 
58 A WAR DIAEY. 
 
 stalwart fellow by the horns, as she made a sudden charge 
 at a wall of soldiers, and held as in a vice, the poor crea- 
 ture would soon have been bereft of all earthly ties, had I 
 not interfered with these excited hunters by first ordering 
 the animal's release, and then by an inquiry upon what 
 authority they presumed to act. "I bought her, sir," 
 replied a half-fledged youth in uniform. "Bought her? 
 And of whom ? " — " Of a fellow down here." " And what 
 price did you pay the ' fellow down here ' ? " — " Twenty- 
 five cents, sir!" 
 
 Another peculiarity of soldiers is their unreasonable op- 
 position to rail-fences. They seem unable to occupy the 
 ground in harmony with a fence ! Where soldiers march, 
 rails become traditions of the past ; they disappear before 
 that form of advancing civilization. A poor negro, with 
 his wife and child, lived in a wretched hut near the troops, 
 by cultivating a little patch which he had protected with a 
 shaky fence. He was a slave, so he said, and had come from 
 
 Eichmond, " from Marse ." " The soldiers have taken 
 
 away your rails ? " I asked. " Yes, massa ; but I doant 
 car nuffin 'bout dat, I 'se so glad to see you 'se all here. I 
 lets de fence go, doant car nuffin at all 'bout dat ; and 
 when you all leaves I '11 take yer plank, and make a new 
 one. I 'se got my lot planted, too ; but I 'se rather see you 
 all here den have lot or garden ! De Eebs sez you all 
 whipped 'em lately, and dey spects to be whipped again ; 
 and I nebber heered 'em say so afore, I nebber did." 
 
 Assuring this simple fellow of protection in the future, 
 I completed the work of this day in a varied manner, — of 
 which I may mention orders to commanders to get their 
 men under arms at daylight ; preparations to move artillery 
 to the front in the morning ; pondering upon the signifi- 
 cance of a report that a corporal and four men had been 
 fired on by a party of fifteen Kebel infantry on the railroad 
 
AT WEST POINT, VIRGINIA. 59 
 
 track ; arranging plans to send a scout across the river to- 
 night to bring me information of a body of Eebel cavalry 
 said' to be in such position that I might capture them ; and 
 giving a stranded naval officer the countersign to enable 
 him to pass my pickets on the way to his vessel. This 
 officer was on his way back from an inland expedition of 
 his own device, in which he encountered a widow lady, 
 who " told conflicting stories," and from whom therefore, 
 with nautical ideas of reprisals, he sequestrated two horses, 
 towed them across the river, as he termed it, and now 
 turned them over to me with an avowal of his determina- 
 tion to proceed thirty miles up the river to-morrow to stop 
 an inland Rebel trade of which he had been apprised. 
 
 Hardly had I arisen in the morning, when I became 
 aware of one of the effects of this raid. A tremulous little 
 boy, about nine years old, brought me some letters, ad- 
 dressed to the commander of the Federal forces. One of 
 these was from a woman who styled herself "a lone female;" 
 she begged for the return of an aged horse of twenty 
 years, — her sole dependence, "upon which, and upon no 
 other, she could ride." Another letter was from a widow 
 with five fatherless children, asking for the return of an 
 old mule and two horses, her sole dependence for working 
 her land ; her oxen, and all other animal power save these, 
 having been taken from her by the Confederates. The 
 letters appealed to the " commander of the forces," on 
 grounds of sympathy for their wants, and asked that the 
 horrors of war might be mitigated by humane action on 
 the part of military commanders on each side. And their 
 appeal was not in vain. 
 
 This month of May, 1863, was a gloomy one. Hooker 
 had been defeated at Chancellorsville, and our disappoint- 
 ment was most bitter. Secretary Stanton telegraphed the 
 public, through General Dix, that no serious disaster had 
 
60 A WAE DIAEY. 
 
 overtaken Hooker, — as if the return of our shattered and 
 dismayed columns to their starting-point was not a disas- 
 ter ! The Secretary told us in the public print that Hooker 
 did not use more than one third of his force ; and yet, since 
 he retreated at night, it seemed as if Mr. Stanton thought 
 it a matter of congratulation that our troops came over 
 safe at aU ! Sedgwick was very hadly used, and was obliged 
 to retreat ; and yet this was " no disaster " ! Our army 
 was disheartened ; and this was " no disaster " ! Every 
 organ of the Administration had announced, and every sym- 
 pathizing politician had echoed for many weeks, " Hooker 
 has more men than he wants ! " and yet he suffered an 
 ignominious defeat. It was because Hooker did not use 
 his power that the gallant Sedgwick was compelled to 
 abandon the heights about Fredericksburg which he had 
 so hardly won. Alas ! Hooker's defence was more painful 
 than his defeat. It manifests a criminal weakness in the 
 commander, who, when secure in Washington, underesti- 
 mated the strength of the enemy. The army under Hooker 
 never had the heart which the Administration claimed and 
 the press averred ; they hoped for the best, but they feared 
 the worst. 
 
 This victory filled the souls of our enemies with glad- 
 ness: The Richmond papers found in it rich promise for 
 the future. President Davis, in raptures at such unlocked 
 for and auspicious results, congratulated his people, and in- 
 vited them to thank God for his mercies. Even the vener- 
 able brigadier, Ex-Governor Wise of Virginia, excited to 
 new effort under this soul-stirring achievement, meditated 
 an attack upon Major-General Keyes at Yorktown ; while, 
 to crown the whole of this business, the " New York Her- 
 ald," with significant audacity, urged Daniel Sickles as a 
 commander of our army ! 
 
 The return of my adjutant-general with a bandaged 
 
AT WEST POINT, VIRGINIA. 61 
 
 head, a bullet having struck him at Chancellorsville, and 
 the fact that he brought with him our faithful staff-dog, 
 filled headquarters with unusual happiness. Through 
 Pope's unfortunate march in Maryland, through the vic- 
 torious onslaught of South Mountain and Antietam, 
 through the cold winter of 1862 on the Potomac and at 
 Stafford Court House, this dog was ever a loving friend 
 and companion ; and she cheered and relieved more gloomy 
 hours than could have many a so-called nobler animal. 
 Nestling in my lap, or sleeping upon my bed as of old, for- 
 getting neither friend nor foe during her absence, she 
 showed human attributes in snarling at a servant who had 
 saved her life at Stafford Court House, by forcing her to 
 take a dose of castor oil. 
 
 More captives presented themselves at this time ; and 
 ^mong them three whom I discovered very early in the 
 morning at my door, blindfolded and guarded by cavalry. 
 One of these men, a spy in our service, just from Eich- 
 mond, where he had been nine months (so he told me 
 in a private interview which I granted at his request), 
 described his comrades as a Eebel soldier and a blockade- 
 runner ; and intimated that upon a close examination of 
 the latter I might be rewarded by evidence of his travel- 
 ling to and fro between both armies. He told me that 
 the Eebels were jubUant over their victory at Chancellors- 
 ville, and sad at the death of Stonewall Jackson ; that a 
 portion of D. H. Hill's command passed through Eich- 
 mond from Petersburgh to strengthen Lee, and that the 
 whole Eebel army was abundantly supplied with food, 
 clothing, and iron for their railways; that though they 
 had heard of Grant's capture of Jackson in Mississippi, 
 and expected to lose Vicksburg, they were confident of 
 victory at last ; that in the battle with Hooker they had 
 one hundred thousand men. All this the spy rattled off 
 
62 A WAE'DIAEY, 
 
 to me with such an air of infallibility that I diverted him 
 to the subject of my own immediate front, and learned that 
 five or six companies of Eebel cavalry were encamped at 
 Tunstall's Station, two of infantry at White House Bridge, 
 three more of cavalry extending across the Peninsula and 
 on the railroad at Lanesville and Indian Town, and that 
 their pickets were to be moved nearer mine, even to West 
 Point Church. I was also told by the spy of a plan to sur- 
 prise me here, and that for this purpose an effort would be 
 made to cross the river and enter my lines that night. 
 
 The blockade-runner's turn came next. He had been 
 shut up in Eichmond a weary while, he said but was for- 
 tunate enough to escape unobserved. All that he told about 
 military dispositions corroborated the spy's story ; and this 
 was not strange, as the two had travelled together, and 
 would have told a single tale. To see, then, how far the 
 spy's revelations were true, a search of the blockade-run- 
 ner's person was ordered. Two large rolls of money (one 
 in greenbacks, and one in Confederate bills), two gold 
 watches, one heavy gold chain, an account book, one to- 
 bacco box, a pipe, a knife, and other trifles were brought to 
 light ; but no papers of any importance were found, until a 
 further and more careful search in coat sleeves and linings 
 revealed a large number of letters written by Eebels in 
 the South to those of like complexion in Northern States, 
 from whom replies were expected to be delivered through 
 the same channel. It was either a piece of great imperti- 
 nence, or an unjustifiable reliance upon the stupidity of 
 Union troops, for this man to come voluntarily within my 
 lines, bearing upon his person such evidence of his guilt ; 
 but however that may have been, I fear that the writers 
 of these letters were justified in complaining of the slow- 
 ness of the mails. Some of the letters were addressed 
 tn Rnnthem nTiaoners at. thfi TJ'nrf-.Ti ■ anH t.TiAv wptp crnnrfl- 
 
AT WEST POINT, VIRGINIA. 63 
 
 edly expressed for the reason given within them, that " the 
 horrid Yankees publish captured correspondence ; " hut 
 they ventured nevertheless to beg their friends not to take 
 " the horrid oath of allegiance." Other writers gave free 
 swing to rejoicing over the victory at Chancellorsville ; 
 and though they mourned the death of Stonewall Jackson, 
 they expressed confidence in Lee and in his ultimate suc- 
 cess. One letter contained a slip cut from a Eebel paper, 
 in which there were lamentations over the condition of 
 things in Eichmond : almost all the houses were boarding- 
 houses ; there was no pleasant social life, and there was 
 no privacy. 
 
 The spy, having proved his innocence, was permitted 
 with the third member of the party, a soldier from the 
 Eebel army, to go without restraint; while the very in- 
 nocent blockade-runner, despite a plea of unintentional 
 wrong-doing, was dismissed to a cell at Fortress Monroe. 
 Every day now furnished new evidence that I had been 
 correctly informed of contemplated movements by the 
 enemy on this Peninsula. Scouts, sentinels, and patrols 
 agreed that there were unusual signs of activity around us. 
 Patrols were fired at, sentinels saw men flitting about, and 
 heard sounds as of chopping in the distance; while one 
 Eobinson, a farmer over the river, harbored a disguised 
 Eebel ofiBcer, who, after daily observing my works with 
 a glass, informed a "person, who communicated it to iny 
 scouts, that I had but about five thousand men, and was 
 throwing up works across the Peninsula. General Keyes 
 at Yorktown felt that something was brewing. He was 
 threatened by the venerable Wise ; and wished me, in case 
 I heard firing in that direction, to make a feint, as if to 
 cross the York at Brick House Point (where Franklin 
 lajided and made his demonstration to aid McClellan), and 
 attack in flank. 
 
64 A WAS DIARY. 
 
 To a resident of this place for the last nine years, — a 
 Mr. New, at whose house I made my headquarters, — the 
 condition of things in Richmond, as he observed them 
 some three or four weeks previous, appeared more hopeful 
 than would he gathered from other sources. From in- 
 formation derived from a dealer in pork and bacon, this 
 man learned that with ordinary caution the supply of 
 bacon in Richmond would last the Confederate army two 
 years ; that bacon and flour were coming in fast ; and that 
 prices for these articles had fallen very much. " Indeed," 
 said my informant, "there are men who have at this 
 time three crops of wheat on hand. And yet," he con- 
 tinued, as if suddenly reflecting that under the circum- 
 stances it might be as well to throw a sop to me, " I think 
 I saw in Eichmond evidence that the feeling of hostility 
 against the North is softening; that Northern men are 
 much more respected than forinerly; " and he was disposed 
 to agree with a Mr. Jones, a member of the Rebel Congress, 
 that " this difficulty would soon be settled." Poor man ! 
 he had thought much on this subject, for he had seen three 
 different armies pass his door, carrying with them the 
 devastation which armies always carry in their train. The 
 first came from Richmond to West Point by rail, going 
 thence in transports to Yorktown, — fifty thousand men, 
 he estimated, coming some days in two trains of never less 
 than fifteen loaded cars, and being altogether four weeks in 
 passing his house. With sad memories of his losses, and 
 painful reflections upon what my presence might bring to 
 him, he watched every detail of our occupation with a 
 dreary and foreboding look. The helpless gaze he fastened 
 upon every fugitive who came to me to be freed from the 
 masters with whom he was in the closest sympathy, told 
 only too strongly how bitter was the cup the slave-master 
 had filled. Yet daily did I experience the absolute neces- 
 
AT WEST POINT, VIRGINIA. 65 
 
 sity, as a measure of military precaution and success, of 
 using these slaves for our good. Far and wide did I send 
 for them to come in ; and I had so utilized an old Rebel 
 earthwork near 'the landing, built originally to cover the 
 enemy from our gunboats, that it enabled the poor negroes 
 to cross the river in safety. Two of them who came over 
 I allowed, at their earnest solicitation, to return the next 
 day for their wives and children ; and they did not deceive 
 me. They told me about their travels by night and con- 
 cealment by day, until they approached the old cabins 
 where anxious hearts awaited them ; about the adventures 
 attending their return, during which they overheard both 
 a plan to surprise my post, and an astonishingly accurate 
 estimate of my numbers. They also gave me information 
 by means of which I subsequently destroyed six hundred 
 bushels of the enemy's wheat and corn, and captured five 
 of his valuable horses. That we could place the most im- 
 plicit reliance upon their faithfulness was over and over 
 again confirmed by deeds of daring. One night, one of 
 my colored scouts returned from a tour which had taken, 
 him thirteen miles into a country filled with strong KebeL 
 picket stations. But it was not enough, he thought, to re- 
 port to me that fact ; he felt impelled to know more ; and 
 so, under cover of the darkness and the forest, he crept up 
 to the camps of guards, and counted sixteen men in each. 
 
 The effect of messages to the colored people to come 
 within our lines began to be more and more apparent in 
 the numbers of men, women, and children, with all sorts 
 of baggage that continued to crowd upon us. The men 
 found work in the quartermaster's department at eight dol- 
 lars a month and one ration, while the' women were em- 
 ployed on wages in washing and in cooking. As a natural 
 consequence, the old masters and mistresses were much 
 alarmed at the flight of chattels for the Jordan across which 
 
 6 
 
66 A WAE DIAKY. 
 
 lay the promised land of freedom, and were resorting to every 
 expedient to put off the final hour when they would have to 
 depend solely on their own resources, or starve. From dark- 
 ness to light, from slavery to freedom, with their " chillun" 
 and without them, the flight went on, until it seemed as 
 if the whole surrounding country must be stripped of 
 slaves. From her master's kitchen to mine was hut a 
 change of a few miles in space ; but what an immeasurable 
 alteration in the condition of. poor Betty, who came to me 
 one day with three or four women and a crowd of picka- 
 ninnies ! Alas for Beftty ! not one of these was her own ; 
 for her master, doubting her loyalty, forged stronger bonds 
 than manacles for her limbs in shutting out her three 
 children from all possibility of escape. But love of liberty 
 sent the slave-mother to the river bank, where the flutter 
 of a white rag summoned loyal men, by whom she was 
 borne within my lines, stiU hopeful of regaining her off- 
 spring. At breakfast Betty was jubilant over her newly- 
 gained liberty, and I fain would whisper that I trust 
 she found more enjoyable than I did the chip-lilse toast, 
 the thin, cold, tough steak, the burnt potatoes which 
 she denominated breakfast, though she seasoned it with 
 amusing pictures of the chagrin of her master (who mar- 
 ried her mistress, " and dat is de way he cum by us ; he 
 nebber dun owned no niggers,") when he discovered that 
 his chattels had fled. " De men, dey dun gone long ago ; 
 we women hab to do all de work. Marser laid out a big 
 farm dis year of corn, cotton, wheat, and cane ; de women 
 dey hab to plough, and work in de house, and do ebery 
 ting. And now he han't got no one, I dunno wat he'U do. 
 Dere's my boy! ^n't more'n so high [about three feet], 
 he makes him fly; takes great stick like cart-stick and 
 bangs him. He shot a nigger dead de odder day ; he fired, 
 nigger nebber kicked 'gain. I spec -he gits poor white folks 
 
AT WEST POINT, VIEGINIA. 67 
 
 now ; dey tole us we was fools to stay dere. A mean 
 white man is my marser : we 'joice very much ober you 
 alls comin'." Fortunately for my health, Betty failed on 
 dinner, and caused us to fall back on a negress, the wife 
 of a slave from the so-called " Ben Anderson place,'' a 
 mile or two down the York. 
 
 And stiU they came and '"joiced," though they left 
 mourners in the old home who would not be comforted. 
 There was no help for it, and slave-masters began to en- 
 dure the humiliation of begging for the return of their 
 slaves. On the 26th of May, I received a first appeal : it 
 
 came by letter from a Mr. G of King William County, 
 
 and was addressed to me as the General commanding the 
 post at West Point, " through the request of the old lady, 
 the bearer," and appealed to me " for the sake of humanity 
 to grant her request." The writer then went on to say : 
 
 "On the night of the nineteenth instant, five of my servants 
 left me for West Point -without any cause whatever. Amos, a 
 man whom I have been hiring for several years for the purpose 
 of his being with his family ; when he left he carried with him 
 two of his children, a hoy by the name of Amos, sometimes 
 called Dee, and a girl named MiUy, — both of which I raised 
 and am exceedingly attached to them, and my wife is equally 
 as much, or more so. Therefore, sir, I most respectfully request 
 you to return them to me, and also in behalf of their distressed 
 mother do I also make the request. She is left by her husband 
 Amos with four other small children. Another woman left me, 
 by the name of Henny, and left two small chUdren, one an 
 infant at the breast, and it would make your heart bleed to see 
 how the little child misses its mother ; it is crying night and 
 day, as its grandmother wUl teU you. Her business is to see 
 you and ask you to return her child to her. The name of the 
 other woman is Hannah ; she left no ohUd. Now, sir, I hope you 
 .wUl not think that I am asking the return of the above ser- 
 vants for the sake of profit. Indeed it is not so, the reasons are 
 
68 A -WAR DIARY. 
 
 these : first, my attachment for them, —they are a part of my 
 family ; and secondly my deplorable situation, which IwiU state. 
 You will observe that I have six small children left, and have 
 four small ones of my own, making ten in all ; and I have only 
 one servant left to aid me in supporting them. To be sure I have 
 another, but he is, I may say, an invalid, having an afflicted leg 
 and hand, and I am an infirm man, and am at a loss to know 
 how I am to make a support for them. These are the reasons, 
 which I am sure you wiU conclude are good ones." 
 
 To this sorrowful appeal I replied that I had received at 
 one of my outposts this morning his letter of the twenty- 
 sixth, asking for the return of five of his servants who left 
 him on the night of the nineteenth instant, and, as he 
 alleged, without any cause whatever ; among them a man, 
 Amos, whom he had been hiring for several years for 
 the purpose of keeping him with his family, and two of 
 his children, a boy and girl, both of whom he raised. My 
 letter then continued as follows : 
 
 " In desiring their return, you give as your reasons that you 
 and your wife, having raised them, are exceedingly attached to 
 them ; also that their distressed mother has been left by her hus- 
 band, Amos, with four other smaU children. And you further 
 state that another woman, named Henny, fled from your service, 
 leaving two small children, — one an infant at the breast, whose 
 distressing cries for its mother, you allege, would make my heart 
 bleed. And there is still another fugitive, Hannah. You fur- 
 ther allege that you do not ask the return of these servants for 
 profit, but because, first, you are exceedingly attached to them, 
 they being part of your family ; and, second, your deplorable sit- 
 uation, having the six colored children left, and four small ones 
 of your own, making ten in all. And still further, that you have 
 but one servant left — except an afflicted one who is not of much 
 service — to aid you in supporting them. For these reasons, 
 which you conclude I shall think good ones, you wish me to 
 return the colored people that have sought refuge here. 
 
 " Your servants, by escaping within my lines, are forever free. 
 
AT WEST POINT, VIRGINIA. 69 
 
 I have no right, even had I the inclinatiou, to remand them 
 again to a condition of slavery. This, though conclusive as to 
 the course to be pursued, does not meet the reasons you give 
 why they should be returned ; therefore I give a moment's atten- 
 tion to these. Your own and your wife's attachment to your 
 servants, you offer as a reason why I should return them. But, 
 sir, this attachment does not seem to be mutual. Your servants 
 have fled fcom your fond care ; your affection is unrequited ; and 
 your solace wiU certainly be found in the fact that the poor 
 negro has not only an aversion to remaining with your family, 
 but that, in the case of mother and children, it was strong enough 
 to tear a mother's love from her nursing babe. Upon what prin- 
 ciple of humanity should I take part in continuing a relation of 
 such aversion to the free colored people that were your slaves? 
 
 " Again. Your distressed situation you offer as a reason why I 
 should return these free colored people to you. Sympathizing 
 with you in your distress as every human being should, you 
 will be consoled by the knowledge )ihus brought home to you 
 that the accursed institution of slavery is almost swept from 
 your hearthstone ; that the day is dawning when neither mother 
 nor child will have to outrage Nature's laws to breathe the air 
 of Uberty ; and it wiU gladden your heart to know that wherever 
 our star-spangled banner waves, freedom follows. While pray- 
 ing for pardon for the sins of your people in causing this atro- 
 cious rebellion against a just Government, you wiU yet have the 
 proud consciousness of knowing that you have been an agent in 
 freeing the oppressed in our land ; and thus it may happen that 
 that sin, which is as scarlet, may be washed whiter than snow." 
 
 To have heeded this appeal, and delivered the fugitives, 
 would have been to deny the privileges I had offered, and 
 to doom the hopeless slave to a harder fate than before. 
 It was not to be thought of for a moment that I should be 
 blinded by this pretence of humanity to the real claim for 
 property which underlay these maudlin demonstrations. 
 Dee, a bright little fellow, found a home with Captain 
 Washburn, of the Fourth Cavalry, as his servant; and so 
 
70 A WAK DIAEY. 
 
 well contented was he, that when I told him how desolate 
 he had made his master's home, and how deep was the 
 affection his master had expressed for him, the unfeeling 
 little rascal had no regret for his conduct, no desire to 
 return. 
 
 Quickly following upon the heels of this, came another 
 exodus of negroes, singly and in families, white, black, and 
 blue, with all their children and with their household 
 goods, in all sorts of trunks, parcels, and boxes. I was 
 on my way to the front to direct additional precautions 
 for the safety of advance guards, when I encountered this 
 motley crowd, shouting with joy at their deliverance. Ko 
 manifestations of regret did they utter, no solicitude did 
 they express ; but with a perfect trust, mothers and chil- 
 dren laid down their weary loads, and waited to begin the 
 new life of freedom. One mother had four children with 
 her, another two, and so on ; whitish children with light 
 hair and blue eyes, and children black as night. The next 
 day they went down to Fortress Monroe, and thence wher- 
 ever they pleased. 
 
 An unwUling witness of these scenes was my landlord, 
 by coercion, who seemed dazed at what was going on. 
 He saw more than a hundred slaves set free after my 
 arrival, and all of them the property of his neighbors, — 
 negroes whom he had known in what he was pleased 
 to term the heyday of their happiness; and valuable 
 negroes too, some of them, he said, particularizing one for 
 whom he knew his master had been recently offered fif- 
 teen hundred dollars. This poor inn-keeper! He had 
 once been a rich man, but the war had made a change, 
 and I used to see him struggling with his unweeded gar- 
 den, feeding his remaining hog, or ploughing with his. lean 
 horse, master of nothing, ruled by Yankees, hopeless and 
 despondent. "What are you thinking of?" I asked him 
 
AT WEST POINT, VIRGINIA. 71 
 
 one evening as he was brooding over his desolation ; and 
 he replied, " I 'm almost crazy, sir ! the savings of years I 
 have lost. I try to work, but I have no heart in it, even 
 to save the little that 's left ; it 's no use. I can only think, 
 thirik, TmNK. I can recall the time," he continued, " when 
 the originators of this war came to my house to plead with 
 me for secession, saying, ' You are a public man ; we want 
 your views.' And I remember that I refused to c6nsider 
 the subject ; I told them that I had no views to give, but 
 that I would say that if they took Virginia out of the Union, 
 • they would see the day of ruin; that in the Union there 
 was strength. After that I was suspected of lukewarm- 
 ness, and sometimes accused even of sympathizing with 
 the North. What could I do ? " Then, looking uneasily 
 around and heaving a weary sigh, he added appeaHngly, 
 " What can I do now ? " All the comfort I could offer was 
 freely bestowed in assurances of ample protection in the 
 present, and all that it would be possible for me to give in 
 the future ; and in suggesting that he might find encour- 
 agement by looking upon this change as the work of God. 
 As I invited his attention to this consolation for the loss 
 of his temporal investments, he raised his eyes, and re- 
 marked with a ghastly smile, "That 's what my wife says 
 when she sees hundreds of slaves coming within your 
 lines to be freed; but," — with solemn earnestness, — 
 "some doubt it." 
 
 An incident that occurred at this time showed what foUy 
 it Would be to discourage the negroes from escaping to our 
 liues, and thereby reject their sometimes valuable assist- 
 ance. Colonel Burr Porter, of the Fortieth Massachusetts 
 Eegiment, had sent a negro scout to the front, where he 
 was making his way along a thickly wooded road, intent 
 on avoiding everybody, when he came so suddenly upon a 
 Dr. Eichards, — a notorious Eebel, — :- that his only mode 
 
72 A WAE DIAEY. 
 
 of escape was by his heels. Suspecting the darkey's move- 
 ments, the doctor called to him to stop, firing his pistol at 
 him at the same time to enforce his order. Fortunately 
 the scout, who was not hit, fled all the faster, until he 
 gained a thicket, into which he plunged, running and 
 scrambling until, breathless and exhausted, he fell sud- 
 denly into the hands of a squad of Kebel infantry. Es- 
 cape now was hopeless ; his only resource was in his wits. 
 Gasping for breath, he utilized his first pursuer most effect- 
 ually by crying out, " Don't stop me ! Dr. Eichards sent 
 me to tell you that the Yankees are coming on your flank,. 
 with a large column of men ; and he wants me, after tell- 
 ing you this, to go down on your other flank, and teU 
 some more of your pickets there to look out." The other 
 flank was in the direction of our front, where he would be 
 safe if those who held him only believed he was telling 
 the truth. Fortunately the message he bore was an urgent 
 one ; the occasion did not admit of prolonged discussion, 
 though it was long enough to make the poor fellow's heart 
 throb with apprehension. For a few moments the scout's 
 fate trembled in the balance. So well, however, did he 
 conceal the struggle within himself, that when he was 
 bidden to go ahead and give his message, he could detect 
 no doubts within his captors. But joy so overcame the 
 man at his unexpected good fortune, that when 'he sprang 
 forward, he did so with an alertness that for the first time 
 roused suspicions in a Kebel sergeant that all was not 
 right ; and he called to him to stop. There was but one 
 hope now, and that was flight. The scout acted so energet- 
 ically upon this conviction that he escaped unhurt, though 
 a biillet passed through his hat ; and he brought to us the 
 information that a regiment of Eebel infantry last night 
 crossed the Mattapony to the peninsula, and was now 
 within seven miles of my outposts. I thought this poor 
 
AT WEST POINT, VIKGINIA. 73 
 
 negro had proved his right to possess the freedom to use 
 for his own advancement those talents and faculties which 
 he had made so serviceable to us. 
 
 The 29th of May increased my stock of negroes by 
 fourteen, — old and young, crippled and able-bodied, — all 
 of whom had escaped from the clutches of slave-masters. 
 From them all I secured much valuable information. One 
 facetious old woman lamented the loss of flour, corn-meal, 
 and meat, which she had been obliged to leave behind ; she 
 feared they might fall into Eebel hands, and thus make 
 them a little less hungry. She asked that my troops and 
 gunboats might make a special trip to her domain to bring 
 away her edibles, — urging as a bait that I might capture 
 some Eebel pickets who were lying in wait to catch me. 
 Eepresenting the Eebel pickets as quite vigilant, though 
 entertaining a wholesome dread of gunboats, she thought 
 she could so direct the fire of our guns " dat some of dose big 
 shells 'H hit 'em, — dough day say if you'se all cum up dey 
 gWine to climb trees to 'vade your boat. I knows dey will 
 clar if you fire at 'em. And, oh lordy, won't dey run and 
 sweep away all de black folks to Eichmond ! Took my son 
 dis morning. ' Cum up ! ' dey say to him ; ' you bar ? go long ! 
 won't hab you telling Yankees eb'ryting.' " My stock oi 
 females has so largely increased, that I fear very much for 
 the peace of mind of Old Bob, — Captain Scott's servant, a 
 venerable darkey of more years than he knows, who, when 
 asked if he was a hundred, replied, "'Spec's I am, sir." 
 While the captain was at Washington recovering from his 
 Chancellorsville wound. Old Bob became infatuated with 
 a fair darkey there, though he felt himself sought after by 
 many of whom he did not become enamored. He said to 
 the captain, " I 'fraid some dose darkeys make me marry 
 'em." But Bob escaped, and recalled " de lub " of a former 
 charmer, to whom, though she would n't " put her name on 
 
74 A WAR DIARY. 
 
 de paper [a contract of marriage] wen I was dar, dough I 
 did it," he caused a letter to be written. This he brought 
 to the captain with the request, " Back dat, sir, ef you 
 please " [direct it]. 
 
 " To whom ? " asked the captain. 
 
 " Well," — in some confusion, — " put my name on it." 
 
 " But that won't reach any one ! To whom do you wish 
 to send it ? " 
 
 "Wy, toEm'ly!" 
 
 "Emily who?" 
 
 " I dun no, sir ! " 
 
 "Where is she?" 
 
 " Wy, dar in Washington ! " 
 
 "Where's* dar'?" 
 
 "Wy, Sandy BiU; he know!" So the letter went to 
 
 "Emily, care of Sandy Bill, care of Mr. J. W. E , 
 
 Washington," — the latter being the name of an of&cer 
 whom Bob had attended during the captain's recovery. 
 
 A cavalry command from the Army of the Potomac 
 crossed the river, and came within my lines on the twenty- 
 ninth. With but four hundred men, Kilpatrick had made, 
 so he informed me, a successful raid around Eichmond, 
 tearing up the railroads that lead to Louisa Court House, 
 burning bridges over the Pamunkey Eiver, and destroying, 
 in five Government stores bacon and corn of great value. 
 Among other deeds which he performed, was the capture 
 of a raUroad train; the steam- whistle was lashed down, 
 that it might sing its own requiem, and then it was sent 
 under a full head of steam towards a burning bridge, through 
 which it plunged into the river below, and found a watery 
 grave. We heard him, too, tell of his alleged entry within 
 the fortified lines of Eichmond, and his claim that he could 
 have entered the city itself without much difficulty ; and 
 that he would have done so, had he only had one brigade of 
 
AT WEST POINT, VIKGINU. 75 
 
 troops. Mistaken for Eebel cavalry near Eichmond, he saw 
 some pretty girls reaching out of windows in houses near 
 the roadside to kiss their hands, and wave their perfumed 
 handkerchiefe at the troops. As " I guess you make a mis- 
 take " greeted them from our ranks, their faces lengthened ; 
 and when the cry, " We are Yankees," followed, mouths 
 were compressed, windows closed, and blinds slammed, — 
 though not quick enough to shut out peals of laughter from 
 one young damsel, whose keen sense of the ludicrous was 
 awakened by such salutations from fair Southern women 
 to Yankee cavalry on a raid within the confines of the 
 city of Eichmond. 
 
 Within a mile or two of that city, a wag on the staff 
 made a recLuisition on the principal Eebel commissary in 
 Eichmond for bacon, and sent it to him by a colored man 
 passing that way. Without waiting for a reply, the col- 
 umn went on, and soon encountered four or five loads of 
 bacon, which the facetious raiders assumed had been sent 
 to fill the demand ; and they destroyed what was left after 
 taking as much as they could carry. A Eebel officer 
 came next, quietly jogging along, his mind at ease and 
 his thoughts on anything but Yankees, and was suddenly 
 pounced upon within the lines of the fortification of Eich- 
 mond. Astonished at the temerity of his captors, the 
 prisoner informed them that their own capture was but a 
 question of a few hours. The colonel having no guides, 
 followed his maps, which proved to be very accurate. 
 To secure his retreat he burned bridges behind him, and 
 whenever he came to a railroad he destroyed miles of it in 
 each direction. He made no fires, posted no pickets save 
 blind ones (men concealed* in the brush, who, allowing the 
 enemy to pass, follow after and' gobble them up),— thus 
 giving no clew to his position. When near the Chicka- 
 hominy bridge, over which the raiders passed to reach the 
 
76 A WAR DUKY. 
 
 left bank of the Mattapony, a fine specimen of the ".don't 
 know anything" rabid Secessionist was caught. It was 
 an old woman, of whom the colonel asked, " Can you tell 
 me, my good woman, where I will find the bridge which 
 crosses the Chickahominy ? " It was about half a mile 
 from the old woman's house. 
 
 " No, I duu'no nothing about any bridges." 
 
 " Did you ever hear that there were any bridges in this 
 country ? " 
 
 " No, could n't teU ef I ever did. 'Pears as though there 
 might have been some bridges round somewhar, but don't 
 know whar." 
 
 " Well ! " replied the colonel, " I know of one not half a 
 mile from your house, which I am going ,to burn ; and if 
 you will look in that direction, you will soon know where 
 one bridge was." 
 
 The bridge was a new one, made of green timber ; and, 
 obstinately refusing to burn, was consumed by means of a 
 load of hay captured on its way to the Eebel cavalry. The 
 glare of the burning hay and timbers illuminated the sur- 
 rounding country, and the old woman knew from that 
 moment where one bridge had been. 
 
 The next adventure of the merry raiders was an encounter 
 with a jolly Baptist parson, hunting for his runaway negro. 
 He was pushing along on horseback, and aimed, as he said, 
 to stop his slave from going into our lines. It was Sun- 
 day, and the parson said he had just finished his services, 
 and thought he was doing right. Within ten miles of 
 Eichmond they met an old negro, the owner of one thou- 
 sand acres of land, and of his wife and child ; but he was 
 a rabid Secessionist. 
 
 The raid occupied five continuous days and nights; 
 during this time the halts were few and brief The 
 command came back well mounted for the most part on 
 
AT WEST POINT, VIRGINIA. 77 
 
 fine horses, they having exchanged every one of those 
 on which they started for a fresh one. The country 
 through which the raiders passed was contiguous to that 
 which had been occupied in recent military movements ; 
 but no evidences of want were seen, and there were no 
 signs of the distress which our papers proclaimed to have 
 befallen the Eebels. Our men saw flourishing vegetation, 
 cattle, sheep, and fine warehouses filled with bacon enough 
 to feed the Fredericksburg army for at least five days, — 
 and this though they saw but a single d6p3t, and moved 
 over but a single line of march. Nor did they discover 
 signs of worn-out railroads. If there was want among the 
 people, it was concealed. Of material there seemed to 
 be enough for a long prosecution of the war. Making 
 due allowance for a tendency to exaggerate, to which both 
 cavalry and sailors are given in the presence of infantry 
 and marines, there was enough doubtless in this exploit 
 to command respect, enough perhaps to cause the Eebel 
 Stuart to look to laurels won in his raid to our rear after 
 Antietam. But, alas ! the grand object was not accom- 
 plished ; for Hooker, instead of taking advantage of burned 
 bridges and destroyed railways, was again in his old lines 
 on the northern bank of the Eappahannock. 
 
 Hooker's late fiasco was severely criticised by one Schalk, 
 who questioned his claim to generalship. It was alleged 
 that, after crossing the river, Hooker made but six miles 
 in thirty-six hours ; and that, while blatantly asserting what 
 he would do with the enemy when he was in a position 
 to do it, he took up a defensive line, and so resolved his 
 order of threatened Eebel annihilation into the most ridicu- 
 lous publicatioti of the day. One of my colonels, who took 
 a prominent part in the battle of Chancellorsville, told me 
 that the Eleventh Corps was in line of battle in the road 
 and had been there more than two days, but had neglected 
 
78 A WAB DIAET. 
 
 to throw up intrenchments. At four o'clock on the day of 
 the fight. Hooker and Howard rode along and examined 
 the line (it was the extreme right), and they knew it rested 
 upon no obstacle, was not strengthened either by troops in 
 Echelon, by batteries, or by intrenchments. At six o'clock 
 the enemy opened from a battery an enfilading fire on the 
 right of our line, and then advanced in columns with small 
 fronts. Thus they encountered our first line ; and it gave 
 way. The second line followed ; every one was taken by 
 surprise. Officers had sent in reports that the enemy was 
 massing in front ; but no change was made to meet the 
 sledge-hammer attack of strong columns upon one end of a 
 thin line. The day would have been saved by batteries 
 that could have cut up the enemy's advancing columns, by 
 strong intrenchments, or by a proper disposition of troops ; 
 but no preparations of the kind were made. 
 
 It was pleasant to turn from this disaster at the East to 
 brilliant reports from the West, where our cavalry raids 
 under Grierson surpassed anything the Eebels had ever ac- 
 complished. Through eight hundred, miles of the enemy's 
 country the brave colonel passed in safety, and brought to 
 us precise information of the destruction of bridges and 
 material, and the destitution of the people. Grant was 
 doing well there ; and our noble navy on the Mississippi ■ 
 did well. It began to seem as if the day of Kebel tri- 
 umphs would soon be over. 
 
 For the first time, the enemy made known his presence 
 on the York by an attack upon our mail-boat as she was 
 Hearing West Point, less than two miles from her wharf. 
 A cooler captain never commanded a river steamer under 
 close fire from artillery than stood there that afternoon on 
 the " Swan." Before us all she steamed along, with shells 
 exploding around her decks and over her machinery, as 
 unconcerned as if she were receiving a salute, and arrived 
 
AT WEST POINT, VIRGINIA. 79 
 
 safe at her wharf, defiantly floating the Stars and Stripes, 
 ■with but a slight hit from a shell in her how. To reach 
 the Eebel battery required the use of gunboats, and they 
 were ready even before I could send them a message. The 
 commander of the " Morse " was the first under way, 
 cleared for action, and firing as he approached the wooded 
 cover whence the Eebel artillery had opened so sud- 
 denly and without a single note of warning upon the 
 "Swan." Following in a tug, I gained the "Morse's" 
 deck, to witness beautiful shots from her one hundred- 
 pounder Parrot and nine-inch Dahlgrens, ventilating the 
 houses around the place whither the Eebel battery ap- 
 peared to have fled. No reply was made to our armed 
 steamer, even though our practice was continued for a time. 
 To prevent, if possible, a repetition of this outrage, and as 
 a lasting lesson to Eebel hunters of defenceless steamers, I 
 decided that the houses should be destroyed. From the 
 " Morse " and " Mystic " (which had joined her consort), 
 six boats' crews, provided with turpentine and protected 
 by sailors armed with rifles, pulled lustily for the shore and 
 landed. Only one man appeared, of all who lived within 
 that region, to beg that his property might be spared. But 
 he had come too late ; the fire had begun its work of ruin. 
 He said that he had implored the Eebels not to select that 
 spot for their guns, for it would bring destruction upon 
 him ; but his appeal was unheeded ; he was told to move 
 away. To sink an unarmed Yankee steamer, they brought 
 upon unoffending people misery and misfortune which they 
 could not make good. 
 
 When we returned to our post, a new moon silvered the 
 ripples in our wake, the hum of insects with its drowsy 
 music filled the air, and smoke curled upward from embers 
 where but a few hours before were homes filled with com- 
 fort. My heart ached for them ; but they were of the 
 
80 A WAR DIAKY. 
 
 Eebel people, of the rebellious Government ; and in the 
 crushing of that foul pestilence they had to taste of the 
 agonies of war. Up to that time, however, they had not 
 drunk deep enough of the bitterness of the cup ; they 
 were defiant, and would not admit that the war brought 
 suffering in its train. 
 
 In many ways this conclusion was brought home to me, 
 and never more forcibly than in my conversations with 
 Southern women. The wife of a Eebel colonel made an 
 application to me at this time to send a letter to her hus- 
 band through the fiag-of-truce boat from Fortress Monroe. 
 This lady doubted whether the city of New York contained 
 more comforts and wealth than did the city of Eichmond, 
 and she received with scornful dissent my prophecy that 
 we should come out conquerors in the end. Neverthe- 
 less, she cherished no personal feelings of animosity ; and 
 to prove it she sent me, by the fair hands of her sister, a 
 refreshing present of strawberries picked from her own 
 garden. 
 
 Under convoy of a gunboat, the mail steamer resumed 
 without molestation its usual trip to Yorktown, bringing to 
 me on the twenty-fourth a despatch stating that Major- 
 General Ord, having been assigned to duty within this de- 
 partment, had been designated as my successor. Although 
 I knew there was no other command for a major-general, 
 and that he had to be disposed of somewhere, I experi- 
 enced a degree of vexation which I am afraid I did not 
 conceal from my staff. Though such rewards for arduous 
 services tend to paralyze efforts, an oflQcer is compelled to 
 submit for the sake of the country ; albeit it seemed a mis- 
 fortune that the Government had not enough commands 
 for all its officers, or, as President Lincoln put it, "as 
 many holes as there are pegs to put into them." But to 
 make the best of it, and to provide against adverse criti- 
 
AT WEST POINT, VIRGINIA. 81 
 
 cism, P made a final inspection before the coming of my 
 superior in rank, who was expected upon the next arrival 
 of the mail-boat. I was perfectly satisfied, and had no 
 words for the troops but praise. The kitchens were taste- 
 fully ornamented with green foliage ; the tents of ofScers 
 and men were neat and clean, and every precaution had 
 been taken against sickness. Both in military discipline 
 and in soldierly appearance I had nothing to regret in 
 turning over such a command. 
 
 Although one does not resign the sceptre without emo- 
 tion, it was with somewhat of a complacent smile that I saw 
 my aid buckle on his sword, and repair to the wharf to 
 greet my successor. Betaking myself to my quarters, I sat 
 in state for the few brief moments that remained to me as 
 the commander of the United States forces at West Point in 
 Virginia. General Ord was announced. Kings have relin- 
 quished crowns to save their heads, preferring their caput to 
 a sceptre : but kings deposed have tasted of royal munifi- 
 cence in solemn state in silent castles with a show of former 
 grandeur. Barren, however, is the place of second in rank. 
 No more the sweet consciousness of the power of yester- 
 day ; no waiting on a look, a word ; no authority or act to 
 be rewarded by public applause ; no conciliatory presents 
 of strawberries and fish and first-fruits ; no such flattering 
 words as those uttered by a sagacious major, who toned 
 down my chagrin with the compliment, "that it was the 
 first time this command had felt a military will." With a 
 consciousness of degradation I regarded my usurper. We 
 walked together along the lines. I pointed out batteries, 
 traverses, and positions. I offered my own quarters to his 
 eminency, but he, with some bowels of mercy and to ease 
 my fall, signified his royal wiQ for another house; so I 
 shall awake again with the calf -bleating mom surrounded 
 by the ancient elements of power. In other ways the 
 
 6 
 
82 A WAE DIAEY. 
 
 General mollified me : he brought fresh fish from Fortress 
 Monroe, turned them into my mess, and supped with me 
 on my fried oysters. After tea we enjoyed our cfgars and 
 a pleasant chat. 
 
 Then we turned our attention to the present position of 
 military affairs and my location at West Point. General 
 Ord expressed in decided terms his opinion that my com- 
 mand was exposed to capture, without corresponding gain ; 
 that the service received no benefit from such isolation. 
 Our communication with Yorktown might at any moment 
 be prevented by batteries of large guns which the enemy 
 could bring to bear, and which the gunboats could not de- 
 feat or destroy. But more than all this, that we were use- 
 less here ; that the position was one which should either 
 be occupied as a base' by fifty thousand men, or be aban- 
 doned. I replied that I not only agreed with him, but 
 that I had made the same representations to General Dix ; 
 but that, undoubtedly for good reasons, he had not advised 
 me of his determination. So strongly persuaded was Ord 
 that this place should be abandoned, that he resolved to 
 leave in the morning for Fortress Monroe, and advise it, 
 both for the sake of safety and as a means of concentrat- 
 ing troops. 
 
 On the morning of the 26th of May the General exam- 
 ined my works. He found them strong and well planned, 
 but he thought the armament was not heavy enough. Ee- 
 turning in time for the boat, he went on board, while I 
 turned my attention to a reconnoissance just completed, 
 which revealed information of an intended attack upon 
 this post by two columns of the enemy ; one of which was 
 to estq,blish heavy batteries on the right bank of the Pa- 
 munkey, to sink our gunboats and shell my position ; while 
 the other contemplated an assault in front. Most impor- 
 tant corroborating infornjation of this movement, dropped 
 
AT WEST POINT, VIKGINIA. 83 
 
 by white people unwittingly into their servants' ears, was 
 brought to me by a negro scout; and this was subsequently 
 confirmed by colored people who came into my lines from 
 the neighborhood of the Eappahannock and the Mattapony. 
 They not only reported projected Eebel movements, but 
 they told me of the removal of grain and bacon to more 
 secure depots. To intimidate the negroes, to deter them 
 from escaping, their masters told them that we should doom 
 them to a more hopeless state of slavery in Cuba, where we 
 intended to send them to be sold. This frightful prospect 
 failed to arrest the flight of these faithful blacks. Sleeping 
 by day in swamps and travelling by night, they flocked 
 into my lines, bringing with them their wives and children, 
 and their bundles of worldly goods. 
 
 More information, confirming the rumored attack upon 
 this post, was continually brought in by scouts, so that 
 when we heard the boom of large guns up the Pamunkey 
 and the sound of bursting shells, we very naturally thought 
 that the anticipated attack was beginning. The men 
 ceased work upon bomb-proofs near the intrenchments, 
 and began to prepare to repel the assault. My staiF offi- 
 cers, however, brought the information that the commander 
 of one of our erratic gunboats was indulging in a little 
 promiscuous firing to try his range. The effect of the 
 discharge of heavy guns and bursting shells in the neigh- 
 borhood of an outpost did not bring comfort to the re- 
 sponsible commander thereof, especially when he was 
 momentarily expecting the opening guns of a fight. 
 
 On the 27th of May I received a note from General Dix, 
 stating that Ord had been ordered to Vicksburg, and that 
 he should either reinforce me with a brigade of infantry, or 
 withdraw from West Point ; and that to determine which 
 it should be, he was awaiting despatches from Washington. 
 That these were unfavorable to the plan of reinforcing, I 
 
84 A "WAR DIAEY. 
 
 knew from General Dix^ who, with Generals Keyes and 
 Peck, landed at my post on the afternoon of the 29th of 
 May. He informed me that the Eebels were massing aU 
 their forces in front of Hooker, and that no more troops 
 could be sent into his department ; and that he wished to 
 consider the question of my evacuating West Point. After 
 a long consultation it was decided that I should withdraw ; 
 that the movement should begin that night on steam trans- 
 ports, to be sent up from Fortress Monroe. This matter 
 concluded, the General and his party left, and I made 
 preparation for a rapid and secret embarkation. The safe 
 removal of the colored women and children of my colony 
 was provided for by sending them the next morning by the 
 mail-boat to Yorktown ; the men were to follow with the 
 troops. The fair Camilla, daughter of my landlord, was 
 really agitated at this disposal of the negroes, especially as 
 among them was her own female chattel, who wished to go 
 with the '"joicing" darkies. When she appealed to me to 
 forbid the woman's departure, I replied that I had no right 
 to command her to live here, or to live there ; that she was 
 free, — " as free, Miss Camilla, as yourself" " Never ! " she 
 ejaculated, with a scornful toss of her head and a quick, 
 spasmodic breath ; " she is mine, she was willed to me, and 
 she never can find a better mistress." " To use your own 
 word, ' never ! '" I replied ; " she is no one's ; she is free ; 
 and she must do as she thinks best." But this departure 
 of the maid-of-all-work harrowed my landlord most griev- 
 ously in his efforts to play the r61e of milk-maid; and 
 albeit " he was a Union man from the beginning " (in 
 my presence), he threatened this poor negress with a 
 pistol ! Yet he " always did hate slavery ! " 
 
 During the whole of the night of the 30th of May I gave 
 my personal attention to the loading of public property 
 
AT WEST POINT, VIRGINIA. 85 
 
 which it was not discovered that it had been spiked at 
 Torktown until it was haK-way to its destination at West 
 Point. The promised boats not arriving, I packed the 
 mail-boat and a coal-schooner, fortunately anchored here, 
 with ambulances, baggage, ammunition, and stores. This 
 work of supervision I continued during the thirty-first. 
 Two works for artillery were levelled; but this exposed 
 my own pieces, and so agitated my chief of artillery that 
 he at once discovered a Kebel gun on the right bank of the 
 Mattapony, within less than one thousand yards, and in a 
 fine position to shell the wharf from which the infantry 
 were to embark. To this startling announcement I gave 
 no credit, until I was assured that, upon using a tele- 
 scope, a thirty-two or twenty-four pounder gun, with the 
 carriage and men around it, was to be seen, — " not only 
 by me," said the officer, " but by several of the men." 
 This discovery of the Quixotic artillerist so affected the 
 imagination of a lively lieutenant of my provost guard, who 
 had been peering from an elevation behind a thick clump 
 of trees which no human eye could have penetrated, that 
 he remembered that early iu the morning he had seen a 
 tree fall on the suspected site, as if space were being made 
 for a battery. Several soldiers became victims of this 
 phantom of the imagination, until at length groups of offi- 
 cers and men, field and line, began to discover batteries, 
 cavalry, and infantry in every direction. " There," said a 
 colonel, gazing intently into the thick woods Itaing the 
 shore, — "there is, I think, sir, an earthwork; and cer- 
 tainly I can make out cavalry behind those trees." 
 
 " There are men there," now spoke out a signal officer, 
 " and they are white men, I think. Yes, they are, though 
 some of them look like negroes. Oh, now I see ! there are 
 colored men there too ! " 
 
86 A WAK DIABY. 
 
 "Yes, sir; they are! I was mistaken j they are all 
 negroes." 
 
 " Now look for a battery, and tell me what you find." 
 
 After a long look he dropped his glass with a laugh, ex- 
 claiming, " I 've found it, sir ! There it is, — a long pine 
 pole on a pair of forward cart-wheels ! " 
 
 The arrival of from sixteen to twenty fugitives at this 
 time, none of whom had seen any organized body moving 
 on the Pamunkey towards our post, convinced me that no 
 immediate peril was to be feared while we were in the 
 defenceless position of loading the transports; although, 
 as will appear hereafter, the hazard was much greater 
 than I apprehended it to be. 
 
 Towards evening of the thirty-first the promised steam- 
 ers hove in sight. Throughout the long night and into the 
 morning of the 1st of June cavalry, infantry, artillery, and 
 wagons were being transferred to the decks of the steam- 
 ers. From nightfall of the thirty-first to sunrise, and 
 untU late in the afternoon of the 1st of June, I stood on 
 the wharf. When the last soldier was on board, when the 
 last plank of public property had been removed, I went on 
 board a gunboat and took my place with the rear of the 
 fleet. The withdrawal had been eminently successful. 
 The pickets, the last to leave, gave no token of my move- 
 ments to lurking Eebels. Nor was any sympathizing in- 
 habitant suffered to go out. A complaining woman, who 
 appeared blindfolded at my headquarters, was held until 
 her reports would be harmless. Snatching a brief nap 
 on the gunboat after two days and nights of continuous 
 labor, I arrived at Yorktown, at eleven at night of the 1st 
 of June, when I got a refreshing sleep within the quarters 
 of the adjutant-general of General Keyes. 
 
ON THE PENINSULA. 87 
 
 CHAPTEE IV. 
 
 ON THE PENINSULA. 
 
 /^N the 2d of June, 1863, Yorktown from my point 
 ^^ of view consisted of a half-dozen dingy houses, old 
 camps, faded evergreens, a guardhouse protected hy a 
 single gun, a flag, and a sutler's store. The old military 
 lines of Lord CornwaUis lay within those of the Eebel 
 Magruder; and around them both were the forts, ■ roads, 
 and parallels of McClellan. 
 
 The zigzag approaches to McCleUan's parallels, just be- 
 hind which our batteries were placed, and which seemed 
 to me not more than one thousand yards from the Eebel 
 fort, began on the plain about a mile from Yorktown. The 
 one starting from the York Eiver was approached from 
 under cover of a bluff, and was well protected from the 
 Eebel fire at Gloucester Point battery. Now to approach 
 Yorktown harmless under this battery was a difficult prob- 
 lem. By courses of ditches or boyaux, always approaching 
 the Eebel works, moving in one direction far enough to 
 gain a decided advantage, then tacking as it were to an- 
 other stiU nearer, and so on to within one thousand yards, 
 the plain was passed, despite the shot and shell from 
 Gloucester Point and. other Eebel works. Where natural 
 ravines furnished cover they were enlarged and used; 
 creeks were bridged ; and thus positions were gained from 
 which the Eebels wisely fled. McClellan's works showed 
 skill and great regard for life. The grounds presented but 
 little trace of the work performed there. Near the trenches 
 
88 A WAK DIAEY. 
 
 were the remains of heaps of dead cattle said to have died 
 from poison. Two or three hundred of the sheep which 
 Kilpatrick secured in his raid were fattening on the plain 
 for soldiers' use. 
 
 An inspection of the Rebel works around the town, 
 which I approached from McOlellan's first position, showed 
 me a generally regular bastioned front with a wide ditch. 
 The scarp wall below the parapet was supported by trunks 
 of pine trees placed in juxtaposition to hold the loose soil 
 in its place. Abatis surround the work. A series of 
 such works, connected by a breast-height with a ditch for 
 riflemen, cross the Peninsula. The last of these was at 
 Lee's MOls on the James, and was said to be very strong. 
 On the river front at Yorktown there were disconnected 
 water batteries, to prevent landing. The interior of all 
 these works was well traversed, every gun being protected 
 on its flanks ; and the traverses were weU revetted. The 
 works were very strong, and it is a mistake to say that 
 they presented no obstacle to McClellan, and that he could 
 have taken them easily by assault. The distance around 
 the parapet of the fort at Yorktown was about a mile and 
 a half. 
 
 Of the Eebel defences near James River, the most for- 
 midable, with the exception of Yorktown, were at Lee's 
 Mnis, where rows of redoubts and rifle-pits anticipated 
 approach in all directions. General Keyes, who was with 
 McClellan in his campaign, pointed out to me his own 
 position, and directed my attention to the chimneys from 
 which his scouts viewed the Rebel lines, and to the posi- 
 tions where his guns bore upon the enemy's earthworks. 
 The distance from the York to the James is seven miles. 
 One continuous line of fortifications stood in the way of 
 our army's movement up the Peninsula. Situated behind 
 dense woods, concealed by ridges and thick pine forests, 
 
ON THE PENINSULA. 89 
 
 with rifle-pits filled with sharpshooters, with execrable 
 roads in the rainy season, I became more and more con- 
 vinced that the enemy's position offered a most formidable 
 obstacle to our advance ; and I am sure that in hold- 
 ing the enemy in check all along this line, and making 
 his attack where he coidd have the benefit of his gunboats, 
 McClellan acted wisely and with all possible celerity. 
 Two and three lines of Eebel earthworks commanding 
 the immediate front attested the desperate resistance in- 
 tended. That the defences of Yorktown were overcome 
 with such little loss may, perhaps, afford new proof of 
 McClellian's genius. 
 
 On our way back we rode by the mansion of one Lee, 
 called Lee's Hall It was bmlt of brick, and presented the 
 dingy and unthrifty appearance of most of the great Vir- 
 ginia estates. The fences had, of course, been destroyed, 
 making broader the broad fields of the estate. On a grassy 
 knoll in front, and within about twenty yards of the main 
 entrance, a field-work for artillery and riflemen had been 
 erected. The family, consisting of five or six persons, 
 hardly raised their eyes as we passed ; they sat in gloomy 
 array on the piazza, mourning over the fate of their be- 
 longings. Eoaming over the lawn, a few sleek cattle and 
 fine horses, feeding in blissful ignorance of surrounding 
 desolation, were protected by our cavalry, who had been 
 posted there by General Keyes both as a safeguard and 
 as a picket station. 
 
 A few days later I rode out by Wormley's Creek into 
 the poor and impoverished country beyond. The few 
 women I saw — for the men were for the most part in the 
 service of the Confederacy — were wretched, poverty- 
 stricken beings. At one place I came upon a log-hut. A 
 sick-looking woman gazed at us from the window, while 
 one more robust met us at the door, holding in her hands 
 
90 A WAR DIARY. 
 
 cards ■with which she had been preparing a shoddy com- 
 posed of wool, from an old soldier's coat of army blue, — 
 a remnant of the battle-field. It was to be mixed with a 
 little cotton of her own raising, to be spun into yarn for 
 socks. " Do you live here alone 1" I asked. 
 
 " Yes, we do. My son is in the Eebel army, as you 
 call it ; and I have not heard from him for certain for 
 more than a year. Sometimes a deserter comes here who 
 says he knew him." 
 
 " Have you no husband living ? " 
 
 " No, my husband is dead ; have nobody to do anything 
 for me ; my neighbors are as poor as I, and all suffering." 
 
 Her farm was unworked, and twice (greatest of crimes to 
 a poor Virginian) she had had her chickens stolen. I en- 
 deavored to console her with a promise that the healing 
 wings of peace should cover her this year; but her sad 
 eyes followed us, and the sick woman moaned after us, as 
 we rode along the obscure pathway, by the square-looking 
 fort which showed its ugly sides near the door of this 
 quiet abode. It was built, as the woman said, "by the 
 Secesh, or Eebels, as you call them." 
 
 On the 9 th of June I was once more ordered to move to 
 the front, and take post within the line of fortifications in 
 the rear of Williamsburg, about eleven miles from York- 
 town. This venerable place was .at the time under the 
 sway of " Old Wise," as he was called, — a brigadier in the 
 service of the Confederacy. With several thousand men 
 this valiant politician confronted our pickets on the Eich- 
 mond road. Neither Union nor Eebel forces occupied the 
 town ; it was called neutral ground, although the care of 
 the lunatic asylum, which happened to be there, had fallen 
 to us. Between Generals Keyes and Wise a furious war 
 of words had raged about the lunatics, — the former charg- 
 ing that the latter had exercised his military gifts in cap- 
 
ON THE PENINSULA. 91 
 
 turing United States nurses while engaged in their work of 
 humanity. Denying this, the Eebel general levelled against 
 Keyes thundering accusations of spoliation and robbery, 
 not of lunatic asylums alone, but of the goods and chattels 
 of the people of Virginia. In this sort of warfare Keyes 
 was overmatched ; but he had no occasion to grieve, for 
 the aspect of this grave quarrel between two opposing 
 generals in the field over a lunatic asylum was supremely 
 ridiculous. 
 
 At daylight my preparations began, with the usual crash 
 which precedes the movement of a military column, — 
 boxes to pack, camp-beds to roll up, papers to stow away, 
 and messing arrangements to complete. At half-past 
 twelve we were cheered by news of the fall of Vicksburg ; 
 which, though coming through Eebel sources to the captain 
 of a gunboat, and transmitted by various agents to our 
 " special correspondent," and at length promulgated by the 
 agent of the Associated Press, we believed, because we 
 wanted to believe it, and because we had been expecting 
 it. What every one knows to be true of troops on the 
 march was as true of the column which left Yorktown on 
 the 9th of June, 1863, as it ever has been and ever wOl 
 be in war, — and that is, it had hardly marched its own 
 length before it began to slough off part of its own mem- 
 bers. Stragglers from a nine-months' regiment adorned 
 the shade of every tree, lined the banks of every running 
 stream, lagged along the roadway, and dropped in heaps 
 of officers and men wherever they found inviting ground. 
 Of what use was it to labor with soldiers whose term of 
 enlistment — at first too short — was now to last but thir- 
 teen days more ? No appeal could be made to pride or 
 reputation, for had not Congress in its wisdom, by solemn 
 enactment, fixed the term of nine months as one of honor- 
 able service ? To question its sagacity in so doing, to pry 
 
92 A WAR DIAKT. 
 
 into the mysterious causes which influenced our Senators, 
 may have been impertinent ; but it is what I did on one 
 occasion, and from a great and shining Senatorial light 
 received the flippant answer that some Senators went in 
 for twelve, and some for six months, and on the whole the 
 Senate thought it best to split the difference ! 
 
 At the end of our first day's march we halted at Fort 
 Magruder, on the historic ground of the first battle of 
 Williamsburg. Here it was that Hancock made his mag- 
 nificent charge in that severe struggle which our troops 
 under Hooker encountered as McClellan toiled towards 
 Eichmond. The roads, imperfect as we found them, were 
 infinitely better than when that engagement took place. 
 How they were passable in rainy weather confounds me. 
 To check McClellan's march at this point (a level plain, 
 thickly wooded, with occasional clearings) the Eebels had 
 constructed a line of detached redoubts, extending from 
 the York to the James. The Federal approach to these 
 works was obstructed by thick timber, through which it 
 was necessary to pass for about five hundred yards before 
 coming upon the forts themselves. A dense underbrush of 
 thorny growth offered a terrible impediment to our columns 
 in the wood, while barricades and obstructions opposed 
 their progress on the two or three roadways that led 
 through it. The Eebels stoutly resisted efforts on our 
 left, and withdrew only when Hancock had gained their 
 left by his detour from our right. This position was strong, 
 and should have been held more stubbornly. Our brave 
 men fought with every disadvantage. Overcoming the 
 obstacles in the wood, they emerged therefrom but to meet 
 slashed timber, impassable abatis, steep ditches, stout re- 
 doubts, and a clear sweep of murderous artUlery as they 
 were struggling in the mazes of these devilish obstructions. 
 The brilliancy of Hancock's charge consisted in first feign- 
 
ON THE PENINSULA. 93 
 
 ing a retreat, which induced the enemy to leave his fortifi- 
 cations in pursuit, and then in turning upon the overjoyed 
 Eebels and scattering them like chaff before they could 
 regain their friendly shelter. He fairly whipped them, but 
 lost much of the effect of the pursuit, as the country to 
 the rear was obstructed by thick woods. 
 
 In command of our troops at this place I found Colonel 
 West, a most cautious and valuable officer, who was brought 
 up in the old army. He rode with me to find the best 
 ground for an encampment, and then gave us a dinner of 
 soup, fish, chicken, lamb, green peas, lettuce, and straw- 
 berries, — all of which were eaten on a real table, from 
 white crockery, in the presenqe of fourteen officers of his 
 mess. After an animated discussion, I went back to my 
 encampment, the site for which I had intrusted to my 
 engineer officer, with a confidence which was not mis- 
 placed ; for I found my wagons unloaded in a charming 
 nook just in front of the rifle-pits which our enemies had 
 excavated but little more than one year before. This 
 battle-field of Williamsburg was quiet now, but it bore on 
 its face the traces of a mighty struggle. E"ot many yards 
 from where I tossed uneasily, there in the thick underbrush, 
 were whitened bones of poor wretches who had died in a vain 
 attempt to dry their parched lips at the brook ; and nearer 
 I could dimly make out rows of headboards and shallow 
 graves, shreds of uniforms, scraps of leather, old canteens 
 and cartridge-boxes, cannon-balls, scathed trees, and many 
 relics of a battle-field. 
 
 It was with a feeling of relief that I heard the words, 
 " Four o'clock, sir, and breakfast 's ready,'' from my cook. 
 As may easily be imagined, this unseemly hour for break- 
 fast was not chosen without good reason. I had received 
 orders from General Dix to proceed as far as might seem 
 prudent to the front, to beat up the position of the Eebels, 
 
94 A WAR DIAEY. 
 
 and make things lively generally. For this purpose my 
 division was strengthened by two squadrons of cavalry, an 
 extra battery, and a regiment of Delaware infantry. At five 
 I gave the order to march, and moved into the outskirts of 
 Williamsburg. Scarcely a vestige of life was visible as we 
 tramped through this venerable town. It was deserted save 
 by a few Federal pickets; and these gazed sleepily from 
 their quarters in the quaint-looking old building, now a 
 guard-house, but once the hall where Patrick Henry made 
 his fiery address to the people during the days of our Eev- 
 olution. The hall is an unpretending building, with but 
 a single room on the ground floor. The once somewhat 
 famous Williamsburg College is a heap of ruins, upon which 
 Lord Botetourt in bronze gazes solemnly as if nothing to 
 speak of had happened about him. The old fellow is 
 said to have been an original settler here, in what is re- 
 garded by some as the oldest settled spot in Virginia. We 
 saw the much-discussed lunatic asylum, with its two or 
 three hundred inmates cared for by our charity and by our 
 nurses, and a deserted girls' school. 
 
 With utter indifference to the scowling whites, the scold- 
 ing lunatics, and the old ruins of Williamsburg, we pushed 
 rapidly forward, with skirmishers well deployed, until I 
 reached the classic spot — town shall I say ? — of " Six- 
 Mile Ordinary." I was for a time in doubt whether this 
 name signified that the distance was ordinarily six miles, 
 or that traveRers by stage would find a very ordinary house 
 of entertainment at the end of six miles. Here we captured 
 a Eebel, who, as he said, rode unconsciously into our lines ; 
 then without delay pushed on to the " Twelve-Mile Ordi- 
 nary," whose origin and title are probably derived from, are 
 allied to, and do not belie, its six-mile brother. Halting 
 the main column, I detached a force of infantry, cavalry, 
 and artillery, under command of the colonel of the 127th 
 
ON THE PENINSULA. 95 
 
 New York Infantry, with orders to proceed to Diascund 
 Bridge, and dislodge a small force of the enemy said to be 
 intrenched hehind a protecting stream in a strong position. 
 Late at night the command returned without having 
 accomplished anything. The colonel found the enemy, 
 was fired on, returned the fire, could not use his artillery, 
 and so came back with his men hungry (of course) and 
 worn out, and the enemy stOl holding Diascund Bridge. 
 On the floor of a small cottage near the roadside I slept ; 
 and the next morning started an expedition to Barhamsville, 
 distant about six or seven miles. This party returned in 
 due time, and reported that General Wise, with three regi- 
 ments of infantry, cavalry, and artOlery, left for SlatersviUe 
 as my force approached. This information was subse- 
 quently confirmed by a deserter, who said that Wise would 
 run to Eichmond if I would pursue him. 
 
 I had complaints from complaining people that my troops 
 were taking their cattle and mules, and that the owners 
 were poor and suffering ; so to those who were in need I 
 restored the mules. All who complained of suffering and 
 ■poverty and robbery, I reminded of even-handed justice 
 and the " poison'd chalice." And thus another night came, 
 and with it instructions to remain in this vicinity until 
 further orders. This march was a diversion for another 
 movement ordered by General Dix;; and I accordingly 
 threw put my troops in different directions, as if to move 
 forward. But to make more permanent dispositions, I left 
 my cavalry pickets here, and encamped the main force in 
 its rear in a desirable position. A prolonged stay made 
 necessary a change of the picket-line and a more extended 
 occupation of ground. The troops, therefore, advanced to 
 'a wooded front, where they unearthed a Eebel spy, who 
 ran with such speed that he dropped a carpet-bag contain- 
 ing two uniforms, — one blue like our own, and one a Eebel 
 
96 A WAK DIARY. 
 
 suit, — for use within the different lines. That he escaped 
 with life is due to the stupidity of the guard, who saw him 
 as he fled, but made no effort to stop him. From a negro, 
 the cook of an orderly sergeant of General Wise's com- 
 mand, I learned that the doughty governor was in full 
 retreat for Eichmond. 
 
 The time passed in this way until the 14th of June. This 
 was Sunday ; but not a Sunday of rest, devotion, church- 
 bells, and village harmonies. A day of despatches and 
 tumult rather, opening with a brief message from Colonel 
 Porter of the Fortieth Massachusetts Infantry, that he 
 had taken the position at Diascund Bridge without serious 
 resistance ; had thrown a small force on its Eichmond side, 
 and that a small body of the enemy still lingered in his 
 front. This was followed by a note from Lieutenant- 
 Colonel Lewis, operating to the front with the cavalry, 
 announcing that two of his men had been fired at by 
 bushwhackers while on duty on the York Eiver road ; that 
 one was killed, and the other seriously wounded, and that 
 he had sent troops to the scene of the outrage. A day or 
 two earlier the dead body of another of my command was 
 found near Barhamsville, killed by the guerillas which 
 infested that region. Orders were sent to Colonel Curtis, 
 who with his New York regiment held our rear at Six- 
 Mile Ordinary, to scour- the back road and country adja- 
 cent to Barhamsville, beat up the woods for guerillas, and 
 inform the people that I should hold them responsible for 
 all the evil done, if they harbored or concealed such out- 
 laws. And more than this : if such outrages were com- 
 mitted within my lines of occupation, that I should make 
 captives of the people, burn their houses, and lay waste 
 their fields. They were reminded that an assassin is not 
 a soldier, nor are the methods used by the assassin legiti- 
 mate in warfare ; that assassins are murderers, and as such 
 
ON THE PENINSULA. 97 
 
 Colonel Curtis received his orders as he was aoout cele- 
 brating divine service near his bivouac, and made prepara- 
 tions for an instantaneous march. His destination was 
 SlatersviUe, which is eight or ten miles beyond Barhams- 
 ville, and is near the famous "White House of McCleUan's 
 campaign. The facts that came to light showed that this 
 murder was meaner and more dastardly than such murders 
 generally are. The two men were fired upon from the 
 bushes, as they were watering their horses at their outpost, 
 by a party of men who suddenly rose up from theu- hiding- 
 place and fired, calling out, " Let the damned Yankees see 
 what bushwhackers can do ! " Three men, residents near 
 by, were seized by Colonel Lewis, apd sent to me- under 
 guard. A search within their houses brought to light 
 muskets and cartridges, the last containing balls and buck- 
 shot. Although the wounds inflicted were made by buck- 
 shot, the prisoners loudly protested their innocence ; even 
 the firing they had not heard. They did own those mus- 
 kets, but they were picked up on the roadside some months 
 before. They did own the buck and ball cartridges ; but 
 they were given them by soldiers, whether Yankee or Eebel 
 they could not say. Yes, there was a cartridge-box found 
 in one of their houses ; but it was given to one of their 
 sons, ten years of age, to play with ! One, in whose house 
 two or three guns were found, denied that any had been 
 there for some time. I sent these men as prisoners to York- 
 town, despite their suffering families. To be sure, I could 
 not prove that they fired the guns ; but if such deeds were 
 committed within the vicinity of their houses, and within 
 those houses guns found for which the same missiles that 
 kiUed my men were fitted, I must hold the residents re- 
 sponsible. A man should be steeled against tears, and 
 deaf to appeals for mercy, who has to sit in judgment upon 
 his own countrymen, condemn them as criminals, and turn 
 
 7 
 
98 A WAE DIAEY. 
 
 from their cries for leniency. " They are right honest peo- 
 ple,'' was the statement volunteered by the man and wife 
 at whose house I made my headquarters, and who had 
 lingered near, catching every word that dropped, "and 
 two of them are over sixty years of age." It was easy 
 to see that my involuntary hostess was much agitated. 
 That she herself was but indifferently honest, I made up 
 my own mind as I looked into her scowling, face ; and how 
 truly I read her will appear hereafter in an account of 
 a scheme which she and her husband concocted with a 
 party of Eebels to capture me at night under her roof. 
 As these men fell back into the hands of the guard, a 
 look of disappointment stole over the faces of those who 
 had evidently come prepa,red to execute a swift judgment 
 upon them. The comrades of the murdered men unroUed 
 from their saddles their long lariats, and fumbled at the 
 noose as they gazed longingly and professionally at the 
 necks of the prisoners, who they believed were to be hung 
 on the spot. 
 
 Hardly had the prisoners turned away, when a young 
 man in Eebel uniform, with one of my colonels by his side, 
 entered my apartment. " This, sir, is the young officer I 
 spoke of," said the colonel. 
 
 " Ah ! the one who wishes to give his parole ? " I in- 
 quired. 
 
 "No, sir," interrupted the young Eebel, with marked 
 composure ; "I did not wish to give my parole." 
 
 " Then you are my prisoner. Guard, take this Eebel to 
 the guardhouse." 
 
 " This is the young man," urged the colonel, " of whom I 
 spoke to you yesterday. He has returned home to visit 
 his family in affliction, and his father desired me to ask 
 you, if his son gave himself up, whether you would accept 
 his parole and let him remain at home." 
 
ON THE PENINSULA. 99 
 
 " And I consented," I replied ; " but he declares now in 
 my presence that he does not wish to give his parole." 
 
 " I did not, I said," again interrupted the Eebel. " When 
 my father sent to me in my place of concealment in the 
 woods, to come to the house, I found to my astonishment 
 that your soldiers were in the yard." 
 
 " Your father, then, is to blame," I replied. " He made 
 known to me that he desired your parole to be taken." 
 
 " Then I do desire it now," said the young Eebel ; " but 
 I wish you to understand that I did not willingly give my- 
 self up." 
 
 " Then, sir," I replied, " you may have your choice. 
 Eemain here a prisoner of war, or give your word under 
 oath that you will not communicate to our enemies any 
 information of our movements that may come to your 
 knowledge ; that you will remain closely at your home so 
 long as our troops are in this region ; and that you will 
 not take up arms against us until regularly exchanged." 
 
 This promise was given ; and the young man took his 
 leave, feigning, or really feeling, a regret which I believe 
 prevails at the South, that no dishonor leaves so deep a 
 stain as that of refusing one's life, if need be, in the war. 
 
 It was a most unfounded statement that the South hated 
 slavery, that they always had hated it, and would have 
 abolished it long ago but for the Northern Abolition party. 
 That lie is tracked to its lair at all events, and not the 
 most stupid of the Democracy dares say that now. "Hated 
 slavery ! " They loved it. To them it was the foundation 
 of their social system ; it was the right of knighthood to a 
 benighted race; it was a black idol to which the South 
 clung, and for which they fought. Though it "offended 
 every moral sentiment, it appealed to every passion within 
 their breasts, — to cupidity, to ease and indolence, and to 
 self-adulation. They were the chivalry, because their 
 
100 A WAK DIARY. 
 
 retainers were crushed into submission. And there were 
 men and women in the North who approved this state of 
 things. Near me at this time was one of those specimens 
 of Northern chivalry of Southern manufacture, — a New 
 York schoolmaster who had married a rich Virginian lady, 
 and adopted the sentiments of the chivalry. The school- 
 master's wife smiled upon me graciously as she hugged 
 her baby to her breast, and turned its bright eyes from the 
 cannon and infantry, which I had just been inspecting in 
 the front yard, towards the desolation and destruction 
 that surrounded her; and the pretty baby laughed, all 
 unconscious that a great drama was being enacted there. 
 The father, who had been in the Eebel service as a con- 
 script, looked gloomily and morosely out of gold-bowed 
 spectacles, as he spoke of the bitterness which this war 
 was creating between the two parts of the country. " Not 
 among the soldiers," I replied. " The spirit of a true chiv- 
 alry is opposed to hatred. An open enemy who accepts 
 the wager of battle is not the foe who invites implacable 
 hatred to his breast. "Where honorable feeling is gone, and 
 where the chivalric heart is lost ; where courage has fled, 
 and desire for gain stronger than honor possesses the craven 
 soul, — there a deep and lasting bitterness is found." 
 
 " You may be right," asseated the teacher. 
 
 " And do you not know," I continued, " that most strin- 
 gent orders alone prevent the soldiers of the two armies 
 from manifesting fraternal feeling ? Do they not even 
 now talk together across the Eappahannock, and come 
 together around the same camp-fire ? Have they not on 
 the battle-field, after the fight, tenderly cared for each 
 other's wounded ? It is only among those whose souls are 
 dried up by ambition and falsehood, — politicians, editors of 
 Eichmond newspapers, Jefferson Davis, Toombs, Brecken- 
 ridge, and Judah P. Benjamin, — it is only among such that 
 
ON THE PKKINSULA. 101 
 
 hatred and animosity are to be found. And now," I went 
 on, "let me make the prediction, that the Northern and 
 Southern States cannot be separated ; that we shall again 
 be united as never before in such close relations; that 
 there wiU be no confiscation' of your property, if you will 
 return to your allegiance, or even manifest your willingness' 
 to do so. CaU a convention, take yourselves out from 
 under the dominion of rich task-masters (your masters as 
 well as your slaves' masters), ask our good and kind Presi- 
 dent's permission to come back with protection for your- 
 selves and your property, and the war will cease. But you 
 shall not destroy this Government ; you shall not divide 
 this Union." 
 
 I left my New York friend and returned to my honest (!) 
 landlady, to find that, during my absence and before my 
 arrival at his house, the New York schoolmaster and his 
 rebellious family had expressed a wish for an interview. 
 "I have had one," I replied. "They feel a very strong 
 affection for you," said my viper landlady. Doubtless, I 
 thought. 
 
 The morning of the 18th of June opened with appeals 
 for help and for mercy. "Two ladies wish to see you, 
 General," says my landlord. " Let them enter," I replied. 
 Tears ! tears ! it is the old story. 
 
 " My house was burned yesterday, sir, by some of your 
 soldiers, and my two colts, all I have to use, taken away. 
 We had nothing whatever to do with the firing; we were 
 away from home at the time. Now, we are destitute." 
 
 "What firing?" I asked. 
 
 " The firing upon your soldiers." 
 
 So ! so ! I reflected for a moment ; then replied, " Your 
 house is near the spot where my men were murdered by 
 guerillas ? " 
 
 "Yes; but we were absent at the time, trying to get 
 
102 A WAK DIARY. 
 
 through your lines to come home, and you would not give 
 us a pass." 
 
 " Why," said the second speaker, " are we treated worse 
 than any other family around here? " 
 
 "Are you?" I said. 
 
 " Yes; we have no protector. My aged father is insulted, 
 all our servants are enticed away, and our wheat-fields 
 trampled down. I see no hope for us." 
 
 Those Dutch soldiers did not mean to be altogether 
 cheated out of this hanging, I thought to myself; and they 
 or their comrades have accepted this conflagration as a 
 compensation. The absence of the family has given this 
 house aU the more a suspicious appearance. " If my men 
 are murdered by your people firing from your houses," I 
 said aloud, " you may thank your Maker that it is only 
 your house that is destroyed. And now let me encourage 
 you still further, — but first I will send for your colts, and 
 you shall have them. AVTiy do you complain ? Is war 
 anything but desolation ? And are not you responsible ? 
 Did you think you could bring us among you ; inflame us 
 by resistance to lawful authority, by continued attempts 
 to destroy our Government, — and all this without any 
 suffering to yourselves 1 " 
 
 " What is our remedy ? " they asked. 
 
 " Stop this war," I replied. 
 
 " How ? " said one of them. 
 
 " Go with your husbands, your brothers, and your chil- 
 dren to your tyrant at Eichmond," I replied; "and ask 
 him if this is the protection his model Government affords ; 
 this the happy land to which Secession invited its dupes ; 
 if these are the blessings, these the hopes, you were invited 
 to partake ? " 
 
 " And what good would that do ? " said the first speaker. 
 
 "If none, then go north, go south; get together and 
 
ON THE PENINSULA. 103 
 
 influence your people to come back to the Constitution of 
 their country; to lay down their arms, — and then you can 
 have peace." 
 
 " But I am afraid we cannot do it," said my scowling 
 landlord, who with his wife, in seeming tearful inquiry, 
 were listeners. " I think our people will fight until not a 
 single man is left." 
 
 I know one, I thought, that will be left, as I gazed into 
 his quailing eye ; but I replied : " Then go on. The N"orth- 
 ern people never will give up this contest; they are fighting 
 for their country. Take what course you choose. To-day 
 I will help you and protect you, for I am in command ; 
 but I cannot answer for to-morrow." 
 
 In sorrow and in suffering these destitute supporters of 
 a Eebel cause went out to ,the burning embers of all that 
 was left of home. 
 
 In forward movements of cavalry to New Kent Court- 
 House, and in the occupation of Barhamsville, I found that 
 seizures of suspected persons became more numerous, and 
 my duty more painful as I extended my lines. In a long 
 batch of prisoners, white and colored, melting under this 
 hot sun at twelve noon, with his face fiushed, coat on arm, 
 trembling with unusual exertion and from advancing age, 
 here is that most respectable functionary the village doc- 
 tor, puf&ng under a tramp of ten weary and dusty miles. 
 With many others suspected and captured he has been sent 
 down from Diascund Bridge by Colonel Porter, and with 
 the rest he would have been- marched off to Yorktown had 
 not my attention- been aroused by, " There goes our doc- 
 tor." from my lynx-eyed landlady. "Stop those prison- 
 ers ! " I said to the orderly. " Send the doctor to me." 
 
 " Your name, sir ? " I asked. 
 
 " Doctor Hubbard is my name, sir ! " 
 
 " How long have you been a prisoner ? " 
 
104 A WAR DIAKT. 
 
 " I was arrested some four days ago, sir ! " 
 
 '' For what act were you arrested ? " 
 
 " I do not know ! " 
 
 " Where were you arrested ? " 
 
 " On the road to Diascund Bridge ! " 
 
 " Where were you going ? " 
 
 " I was visiting my patients, sir, and came suddenly 
 upon your troops. I did not know until theji that you 
 were in this part of the country." 
 
 (That speaks well for the secrecy of our movement, I 
 thought.) " Were you on horseback ? " 
 
 '' I was, sir." 
 
 " Where is your horse ? " 
 
 " Colonel Porter put his colored servant on him, and 
 made me travel on foot for the last four days." 
 
 " Do you not know why you were arrested, or what sus- 
 picions attach to you ? " 
 
 " I do not, unless from the fact that my horse was cov- 
 ered with sweat, and that I was riding rapidly." 
 
 " Why were you riding rapidly ? " 
 V. " WeU, sir, my son was wounded, and is concealed. I 
 had been visiting him as his father and his physician." 
 
 " Is your son in the Eebel army ? " 
 
 " He is in the Confederate army." 
 
 " Where was he wounded ? " 
 
 " In a fight with your men." 
 
 " Where is he concealed ? " 
 
 " You will excuse me. General, if I do not tell you." 
 
 " Yes, I will. I win not insist on an answer from a father. 
 Your family, Doctor, feel much distress at your absence. 
 I received a note from your wife yesterday, in which she 
 begs me to release you ; and I shall release you, upon your 
 parole that you wUl not communicate any information you 
 may receive of my movements to the enemy." 
 
ON THE PENINSULA. 105 
 
 " My sons, sir, — I have two in the army," — replied the 
 doctor, " went into service without my consent ; public 
 opinion drove them in." 
 
 " You may go home. Doctor ; but you carry with you the 
 consciousness that if you have in any manner, by word or 
 otherwise, aided this rebellion, you are now reaping the 
 fruits of your labor." 
 
 " I have tried to remain loyal," replied the doctor. " But 
 loyalty to you is disloyalty to Virginia ; and I suffer from 
 one or the other." 
 
 " Suffer then, sir, for the right," I replied ; " and you will 
 then know that in being loyal to your Government and to 
 my Government, you are not disloyal to Virginia." 
 
 " We would remain quiet," responded the doctor ; " but 
 Jefferson Davis is deaf to our entreaties to allow us to re- 
 main quiet. He refuses to take away the men who skulk 
 in the bushes and kill your soldiers. Though I have tried 
 to remain loyal, my servants have been taken away by 
 your troops; and I understood that President Lincoln 
 gave assurances to those who remained loyal, that their 
 slaves should be secured to them." 
 
 " Yes ; but the proof of your loyalty," I replied, " was to 
 consist in your electing a Union member of Congress from 
 your district. This was done in Norfolk, and there the 
 proclamation frees no slave. The strongest evidence of 
 loyalty in any Southern district was to be found — so 
 reasoned the President — in the election of a Union man 
 to the Congress of the United States ; and, on such proof, 
 their slaves were to be as free from interference under 
 the proclamation as is the personal property of citizens of 
 Massachusetts." 
 
 " I was not aware of that," replied Doctor Hubbard, mus- 
 ing for a moment, and then continuing with, " "Well, then, 
 aU we can do now is to remain quiet at home ; and ,1 
 
106 A WAE DIAEY. 
 
 pledge you my word that your confidence in me is not 
 misplaced." 
 
 " Before you leave. Doctor, I commend to you this subject 
 for reflection : Whether the occupation of your country by 
 our armies does not free your slaves in fact." 
 
 " How can that be. General ? " 
 
 " By martial law, under which we take your corn, your 
 horses, your cows, — your everything essential to our sal- 
 vation and your destruction. Thus your slaves are taken ; 
 and once taken, they are free ; and once free, they can 
 never be enslaved. Our martial law does not enslave, it 
 frees." 
 
 " Do you think this is possible without special procla- 
 mation ? " 
 
 " Undoubtedly it is ; and so I have always administered 
 the law martial, long before the President's proclamation • 
 calhng slaves together wherever found in a State in rebel- 
 lion, and freeing them as an act essential to our own pres- 
 ervation. My immediate commander, or the President of 
 the United States, could have countermanded my orders 
 and remanded slaves to their masters ; but he did not do 
 so." 
 
 " But you say the proclamation frees no slave in Nor- 
 folk?" 
 
 " Nor did it," I replied. " It did not in the President's 
 view, because he found there in the election his proof of 
 loyalty ; and it did not in mine, because there were no 
 slaves there for the proclamation to operate upon : they 
 were freed men when General Wool marched into Norfolk 
 at the head of his army of occupation." 
 
 " Then what was the use of the President's proclama- 
 tion ? " inq[uired the doctor. 
 
 " In my view, sir," I replied, " it was to tell the slave 
 that whenever and wherever the solid foot of Union troops 
 
01^ THE PENINSULA. 107 
 
 is planted in the South he is forever free ; to teach him 
 that, in addition to withholding all aid from his master, he 
 should give every assistance to the oqward march of Union 
 troops; that he should go to the Northern armies if he 
 could ; if not, that he should aid in getting the Northern 
 armies to come to him ; and that in either case freedom 
 followed. It was to tell you Southern people that your 
 longer continuance in this wicked rebellion would destroy 
 the very institution which caused you to rebel. And more 
 than this, it was to notify the civilized world that our war 
 was a war for freedom. You are at liberty to go when you 
 please. Think on this subject. Since General McCleUan 
 marched through here there have been no slaves among 
 you ; and may you live long enough to thank the Govern- 
 ment that sent General McCleUan." 
 
 Hardly had the doctor turned his face homeward, when 
 more cries for help were poured into my ears. " General, 
 my sister's son has been arrested," comes from my com- 
 plaining hostess ; and before I can inquire of the matter a 
 Mr. Taylor, following close upon her heels, wails out, 
 " General, my last horse has been taken." Bringing up the 
 rear, I acknowledge the salutation of the New York school- 
 master, who discourseth of his continuing woes with, 
 " General, I have got my horse ; but I can't take him home 
 without your consent." This woe-begone countenance has 
 the precedence, and I listen while the translated New 
 Yorker pleads : "I know I am an object of suspicion 
 among your soldiers, but I am almost distracted at the 
 losses my family are suffering. My wife's parents are old 
 and feeble, and would not survive removal from their 
 homes ; we remain here, therefore, on their account. Our 
 fences are destroyed, our fields are open to your horses and 
 mules, and they destroy our wheat and corn. Nor are 
 these the worst of the evils we are called upon to endure ; 
 
108 A WAR DIAEY. 
 
 our servants are enticed away from our house ; we have 
 not one left to help us." 
 
 " What ! " I interrupted, " in what manner or by whom 
 were your servants enticed from your house ? " 
 
 "They left us with regret, sir,'' was the reply; "the 
 women embraced my wife before leaving." 
 
 " Did not your father-in-law," I answered, " appeal to me 
 a day or two ago, in the presence of these very slaves, who, 
 having loaded his only cart with their bundles and their 
 rags, had attached to it a sorry-looking horse picked up by 
 the wayside, and proceeded thus to sever the pleasant and 
 affectionate ties which bound them to your household ? " 
 
 " I did not know of this," replied the schoolmaster. 
 
 " Well, sir, then I wiU tell you," I continued, " that your 
 aged relative invoked my aid to compel his negroes to re- 
 turn, for his appeal to them had been unheeded; but that 
 they absolutely refused either to return themselves, or to 
 restore the cart which they had abandoned, choosing rather 
 to pack their ragged bundles on their own shoulders, leav- 
 ing their gray-haired master to hitch himself into the 
 vehicle, if he were so disposed. This episode I witnessed; 
 sir ; and in it there was no enticing and no embraces of 
 affection." 
 
 " Well, sir," replied the schoolmaster, "we ask for and must 
 rely upon your protection ; so powerless am I and so dis- 
 tracted at times, that I fear I am not in my right mind." 
 
 It was indeed hard to sit quiet, listening to these monot- 
 onous complaints, while I knew that Lee was advancing to 
 invade Pennsylvania, and to remain in this miserable Pen- 
 insula while there was hard work about to begin for the 
 Army of the Potomac. One would rather be part of the 
 host that was to meet Lee, than be adjudicating on this 
 man's cow, that one's mule, and another's pigs. 
 
 The morning of the 18th of June brought with it hopes 
 
ON THE PENINSULA. 109 
 
 of our movement ; feeble to be sure, yet hopes. They were 
 sent in cipher by General Dix to Keyes at Yorktown, and 
 communicated to me there while I was laying the facts of 
 our discomforts — being as yet without our tents and camp 
 property — before the commanding general. As nearly as 
 could be deciphered, the despatch directed me to remain 
 where I was and to make my troops comfortable; at the 
 same time intimating that a movement towards Eichmond 
 in our direction, during the absence of Lee's army, was not 
 improbable. Whether Dix had men enough to make such 
 a campaign with success ; whether Lee was the man to 
 leave the gates of Eichmond open wide enough to drive all 
 the cows in, while he was absent on an invasion of the 
 N'orth, — I could only surmise. I learned, however, from 
 a batch of Northern papers, that General Lee was frighten- 
 ing the Northern people prodigiously, and teaching Penn- 
 sylvania in particular that a proper military organization 
 within its own limits is at all times essential for its own 
 safety. In compliance with the order to make ourselves 
 comfortable, I sent to the front the tents of our deserted 
 encainpment, from which we had marched one week before, 
 with the expectation that we should return there in four- 
 and-twenty hours. 
 
 Behind the Blue Eidge, with its passes under his control, 
 Lee has no apprehension for his flank ; and he may look 
 with scornful indifference at the empty and idle steamboats 
 on the Potomac, while his guns are booming at Winchester 
 and at Martinsburg, at Hagerstown and at Chambersburg. 
 Oh, Winchester, Martinsburg, and BuU Eun ! days of Patter- 
 son, of Banks, and of McDowell ! The Winchester of 1861, 
 of 1862, and of 1863 ; the Winchester that Patterson did 
 not attack, that Banks did not defend, now sacred to the 
 memory of Milroy ! And you, BuU Eun, with your bloody 
 and disgraceful prelude, your afterpiece of incompetency 
 
110 A WAE DIAEY. 
 
 and imbecility ! To watch wasted lands and empty barns 
 at Twelve-Mile Ordinary in Virginia, while the Eebel army 
 tramped through the fat grain-fields, luscious orchards, and 
 plethoric stables of Pennsylvania ; to grumble about shelter- 
 tents and bushwhackers while Lee was marching into the 
 heart of our country, — this furnished now the sole occu- 
 pation of as brave and well-disciplined a body of troops as 
 could be found in any corps in the Union army. 
 
 And stiU rumor with its hundred tongues assailed us 
 daily. From the 19th to the 21st of June, the camps were 
 filled with reports that reinforcements were on the way 
 from Yorktown, for a forward march towards Eichmond. 
 In the mean time scurvy warned us that our rations were 
 unwholesome, and that we were not properly sheltered at 
 night from the wet and cold. And yet we could not com- 
 plain ; for it often happens to others as it did to us, that, 
 accoutred as we started for a single day, we had been 
 compelled to remain since the 11th of June without one 
 tent for cover, and with only hard bread and salt meat for 
 food. 
 
 There was, however, no intermission to the usual reports 
 and complaints. Bushwhackers in ambush still fired on 
 and murdered my patrols, and there were no houses near 
 to burn in retribution. Indignant young womgn. With 
 blooming faces and oscillating curls, continued to alight 
 with considerable vigor from antiquated vehicles, and plead 
 with me for a pass for a slave, or for a mule. Another 
 addressed me with impudent composure, demanding a 
 permit to go to a house near Hickory Church, within 
 a mile of Burnt Ordinary, and, although a suppliant, 
 exclaimed that it surprised her " to see my soldiers here 
 again." 
 
 " Don't you like to see them ? " I said. 
 
 " Of course not," was the reply. 
 
ON THE PENINSULA. Ill 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 " Why not ? Why, because," — looking around as if to 
 frame a reply as crushingly frivolous as my question, — 
 " because I don't like to see sheep in the front door-yard." 
 This was uttered with an indignant glance at half-a-dozen 
 lean and scrawny animals, grazing within the bounds of a 
 rickety and tumble-down fence, which was called the yard 
 of the adjacent house. 
 
 I was not inclined to a war of words with this resentful 
 female ; nor had I the opportunity even if inclined, for she 
 bounced with her last word into her carriage, and. drove 
 wrathfully away. 
 
 Eumors of Lee's movements, with dire accompaniments 
 of raids into Pennsylvania, now came thick and fast. We 
 heard of State militia deserting their ranks and going home 
 rather than submit to be mustered into the United States 
 service for this emergency, leaving the defence of their own 
 State to troops rapidly arriving from New York and New 
 Jersey. Meanwhile we received orders from Fort Magru- 
 der to prepare to march with rations for five days, and my 
 command was increased by two brigades. This left but 
 little doubt that we were to march on Eichmond ; and it 
 was welcome news after the petty details of complainings 
 pouring in faster and more appealingly as the hour of our 
 departure approached. Orders from Generial Dix to prepare 
 to make the expected movement the next morning so over- 
 shadowed an imploring letter from a Virginian for the re- 
 turn of his mules, as the only means he had of cultivating 
 his land and keeping from distress and starvation a large 
 family, that I could not "make his case my own," nor 
 help him as he appealed to me to do. 
 
 There had as yet been but five hours of daylight, and I 
 had been overwhelmed with cares, when General Keyes 
 with an imposing staff arrived from Yorktown, to be in 
 
112 A WAE DIAEY. 
 
 readiness to move his command on the contemplated expe- 
 dition. The number of tents in my " front yard " was in- 
 creased ; and there was an increased number of occupants 
 of floors within the house. A great array of orderlies' 
 horses tied to my tumble-down fence, and a large squad of 
 cavalry picketed near by, announced to my landlord and 
 his wife that new draughts were to be made upon their 
 hospitality for one night's lodging at least. It happened 
 that this very night had been appointed for the attempt to 
 capture riie, to which I have referred. A gang of Confed- 
 erates, concealed in the woods at a convenient distance 
 from the house, were. at midnight to be guided to my apart- 
 ment by my amiable hosts ; silently and expeditiously they 
 were to overpower the few guards around my headquarters, 
 seize myself and staff, and make their escape before the 
 troops, who were encamped perhaps four hundred yards 
 to the rear, were aware of their presence. That this plan 
 existed, and would have been attempted but for the large 
 increase of my ordinary guards by the escort attending 
 General Keyes, was made known to me when my landlord 
 and his wife were not. in my power ; but its existence was 
 also revealed by the wife herself, who imparted it to her 
 neighbors, a loyal family who congratulated me on my es- 
 cape, and assured me of the truth of the story, while I rested 
 a moment'at their house on my return to Yorktown. But 
 if the increased force had not deterred them, the result 
 might not have been a success. The scowling faces of my 
 hosts, their too frequent application to go to a mill outside 
 the picket line, the captured uniforms and the skulking 
 Rebel in the woods, — all these had aroused my suspicions ; 
 and I had laid snares and pitfalls for prowling Eebels little 
 dreamed of by them. i 
 
 The day wore on, and night came, — one of refreshment, 
 I had promised myself, for the morrow's work, — when a 
 
ON THE PENINSULA. 113 
 
 new batch of prisoners (among them a Doctor S , just 
 
 from Eichmond, captured as he was attempting to pass my 
 pickets at Diascund Bridge) was brought in. The doctor 
 talked hopefully of the " independence of the South ; " of 
 "General Lee's great victory at Winchester;" of the im- 
 possibility of "Union again;" of the "fine clothing and 
 equipment of the Southern army ; " of the more " perfect 
 liberty at the South than at the North ; " and firmly, but 
 with some show of modesty, asserted as his opinion that 
 " success would crown Southern effort at last." This pre- 
 cious specimen of Southern chivalry showed as bad a face 
 as I had seen for many a day, and if I could read his soul 
 through such a villanous titlepage, he would do harm if 
 he could. 
 
 " Where shall I sleep ? " he asked. 
 
 " On the floor if you like." 
 
 " I have no bedding." 
 
 " Do you know the owner of this house ? " 
 
 " Oh, yes." 
 
 " Then awaken him and get bedding : I wiU dispose of 
 you in the morning." 
 
 The landlord cheerfully recognized my prisoner, and sup- 
 plied him with blankets, on which he slept, but carefully 
 watched by a guard which I appointed for that special 
 purpose. To find the doctor at an early hour the next 
 morning in close communication with my landlord did not 
 surprise me ; nor did it, to learn that he had been taking 
 notes of the numbers and disposition of troops around him ; 
 neither was I confounded that this amiable Eebel had been 
 heard to declare that "the damned Yankees would not 
 have taken him yesterday if he had had a gun to defend 
 himself," although when taken he was sneaking off in a 
 lamb-hke way. But all this did not operate to induce me 
 to send him under guard to Fortress Monroe as a prisoner 
 
 8 
 
114 A WAR DUEY. 
 
 SO much as his bad expression and his determined oppo- 
 sition to our Government. 
 
 "Can't I speak to the General?" I overheard him ask- 
 ing, as the ambulance door closed upon him. 
 
 " No, you can't," was the reply of his guard. 
 
 " He talked with me last night very kindly," urged the 
 doctor. 
 
 So he did, I said inaudibly, and you developed your in- 
 tentions in a manner quite satisfactory to him. 
 
 On the morning of the 24th of June we were to advance 
 to Barhamsville. It was in considerable gloom that we 
 began this march. ChancellorsviUe and Winchester were 
 fresh incur memory, — two inexcusable disasters, following 
 one on the other's heels, and giving us ample food for seri- 
 ous meditation. And then who should be intrusted with 
 the command of our armies ? In Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois 
 arme'd resistance was organizing against the Conscription 
 Act; Hooker was inactive; Lee was fortifying in Mary- 
 land, — and aU this in the third year of the war; Is it 
 strange that our thoughts were serious ? 
 
APPBOACHING BICHMOHD. J.i.0 
 
 CHAPTEE V. 
 
 APPROACHING RICHMOND. — WITH THE ARMY OF THE 
 POTOMAC. 
 
 IN" spite of all the vexations of starting, every com- 
 mander of troops will admit that, once mounted and 
 on the march, the most harassing cares give place to buoy- 
 ancy if not to exuberance of spirits. As I turned my face 
 towards Eichmond, I responded to my host's farewell and 
 invitation, " Call again, General," with at least a seeming 
 cordiality ; and greeted almost tenderly the good Doctor 
 Hubbard as he came to express his regrets at our depar- 
 ture, and to make one more effort to find that old horse 
 which was now his sole reliance. He was very sad, and 
 I gave him all the encouragement I could. Again I bore 
 a brief interruption from two young women, who, propelled 
 in a tip-cart by a single donkey, parleyed with me about a 
 wagon taken by somebody, from somewhere, at some time. 
 At one o'clock in the afternoon we encamped for the 
 night, two miles beyond BarhamsvOle. It rained fiercely. 
 The men were in the woods ; myself and staff in a dirty 
 and empty shanty adjacent. Keyes occupied the best 
 farm-house in the neighborhood ; but not for cojnfort, — it 
 was a ruse. " Hush ! " he uttered in bated breath ; " still as 
 death ! this house is not on the road we travel I am here 
 to deceive the enemy." Those who have always lived in 
 comfort can have but a faint notion of the pleasures of an 
 encampment at the end of a day's march, even in tem- 
 pestuous and cheerless weather. The feeling with which 
 Old Fifty-thousand-a-year gazed from his two-hundred- 
 
116 A WAE DIABY. 
 
 thousand-dollar mansion with a passing emotion of pity 
 for " our poor soldiers '' is entirely iUusory. Give a soldier 
 wood for a roaring blaze, dry straw for a bed if he can get 
 it, and if not, then hemlock boughs, and if neither, then 
 a dry spot for his blanket; add a plentiful supply of 
 rations, — and your true soldier wUl find cheer where to a 
 civilian the outlook would be dark and forbidding. Before 
 a merry camp-fire despondency gives place to levity, dul- 
 ness to animation ; hopes rise, the muscles grow hard, the 
 eye brightens, resolution is strengthened, until the worn 
 and cheerless soldier who threw off his canteen, cartridge- 
 box, and haversack, and faded into a sorry heap, becomes 
 erect, strong, and defiant. All this is born of food and fire, 
 of a pipe and a merry group. The dripping column that 
 toiled heavily on its march from BarhamsviUe on the 25th 
 of June, and halted in front of a dark and gloomy wood 
 for the night, were soon transformed into happy dwellers, 
 peopling the silent arches of the forest with song, or filling 
 its dark recesses with a convivial glow. Soldiers, too, are 
 mortal, with appetites pertaining to mortality. In common 
 with races less civilized, they have a keen instinct for food, 
 though they do not enjoy with the epicure the advantages 
 of Fulton or Quincy market ; hence, inroads on chickens, 
 hogs, and cattle that are nurtured on sacred' soil, and an 
 accurate knowledge of the situation of smoke and spring 
 house. Bank commands external respect : but rank, in 
 common with the lowest station, acknowledges demands of 
 hunger ; and rank, however exalted, will fail to secure the 
 bounties of the surrounding country, if it does not provide 
 against the wandering tribes that swarm over and into 
 every hamlet within miles of the march of a column of 
 troops. 
 
 It was a pleasing idea, that of dinner, as I watched the 
 leaping blaze from my camp-fire, and dried wet places. in 
 
APPBOAOHING BICHMOND. ii7 
 
 my clothing. It was a consoling thought that I had sta- 
 tioned a sentinel at yonder farm-house to protect the 
 dinner which the owner had consented to prepare. In 
 contemplation of my own meal, how I rejoiced as my be- 
 loved troops were preparing theirs ! To see them crowding 
 around the savory messes, to know that they were well fed 
 and happy, was delightful indeed. At last I notified my 
 staff that we would visit the Elysian fields of dinner. 
 
 " Which is the house, Mr. ? Go on, and show us 
 
 the way." 
 
 " This is it, hey ? I admire your taste ; it is the best- 
 looking house around here; and it was very prudent in 
 you, too, to post this sentinel at the door. These dogs 
 of soldiers are so sharp." 
 
 " This is Doctor Jones, General," said Mr. , as he 
 
 introduced a gentlemanly person as the master of the 
 mansion. 
 
 " Glad to see you. Doctor ; we have come to dine with 
 
 you." 
 
 " Why, General, I sent your dinner to you more than an 
 hour ago." 
 
 "Eh! what?" 
 
 "Did n't you send for it?" 
 
 " Send for it ! " I echoed, feebly. " I see it all ! Call up 
 that sentinel. Has any soldier carried off a dinner while 
 you have been on post ? " 
 
 "E"o, sir!" 
 
 " Did any dinner walk off alone in your presence ? " 
 
 "Did n't see it, sir." 
 
 " When did you send this — this dinner. Doctor ? " 
 
 "We cooked and sent it as quickly as possible after 
 your arrival." 
 
 "But this sentinel was posted as soon as we arrived, 
 was he not, Mr. ? " I said to my aid. 
 
118 A WAE DIAKY. 
 
 "I didn't post Mm until one hour after," replied the 
 conscience-stricken officer. 
 
 " And before lie appeared," said the doctor, " a soldier 
 came and said he was sent by the General to bring his 
 dinner to him." 
 
 " General who 1 " 
 
 " General Gordon." 
 
 " May that dinner choke that soldier ! " I muttered. My 
 aid was lost in meditation. But our dinner, — ah, our 
 dinner ! — that was gone forever ! 
 
 " Doctor, have you anything left to eat ? " 
 
 " I am afraid not. Three chickens were cooked, but the 
 soldiers came and carried them away. They also kiUed 
 my sitting hens, and hens with chickens ; took off my bee- 
 hives, and ate all I had in the house. So you will have a 
 mighty poor dinner, I 'm afraid, gentlemen." 
 
 And it was poor, but filling. Though the hungry officers 
 were not, the pickled mangoes were, nicely stuffed. The 
 doctor favored us at the table with his presence, but sev- 
 eral young ladies concealed in upper chambers, brooding 
 over secession and nursing hatred to Yankees, did not. In 
 a short after-dinner conversation my host declared the 
 Southern belief to be that we were waging this war for their 
 total subjugation, and that such belief rendered it impos- 
 sible for them to do anything but fight. He thought they 
 would come back to the Union as it was, if we would con- 
 sent. 
 
 " Let the South, in good faith, ask to come back," I re- 
 plied, " and then we will see what shall be done with the 
 subject that caused you to rebel." 
 
 "Were you not in command'at West Point a few days 
 ago ? " inquired the doctor. 
 
 "I was!" 
 
 " I think you were right lucky to get away as you did ; 
 
APPEOACHING KICHMOND. 119 
 
 we think you were smart atout it. The plan was this : 
 you were to have been attacked in force in a day or two. 
 The whole of Pickett's division, save one brigade which was 
 to attack you in front, was to go down on the left bank of 
 the Mattapony, and had started for that destination with 
 three siege-pieces, thirty-two-pounders. They were to 
 take strong positions within shelling distance of your 
 camp, and with the co-operation of the force under General 
 Wise, acting on the right bank of the Pamunkey, were to 
 shut up the York Eiver and prevent any aid coming to 
 you from that direction. You were to be attacked in front 
 with infantry, and shelled from both shores with artillery." 
 
 " Then I was fortunate to get away as I did ? " 
 
 " Yes ; we think it was a right smart thing in you to get 
 off as you did ; but they laugh at Old Wise a great deal 
 for letting you escape." 
 
 " I never could account," I replied, " for the remissness 
 of your commanders in allowing me to embark my troops 
 without taking advantage of my defenceless situation. For 
 more than twenty-four hours I was packing my men in 
 steamboats, which were lying at the wharf crowded with 
 troops, within musket range of Eebel batteries, or where 
 I supposed Eebel batteries might be." 
 
 " Well, they were there ! And Wise should have opened 
 upon you ; but he had orders to await the first gun from 
 Pickett's batteries ; and that signal not being given, he did 
 not open.fire, as he should have done." 
 
 " Did he know I was embarking my troops ? " I asked. 
 
 " Oh, yes ; he knew it about the middle of the first night 
 of your embarkation. We have not stopped laughing at 
 him since for allowing you to get away." 
 
 " Then you don't think much of Old Wise as a 
 soldier?" 
 
 " No; his brigade is called the 'life-insurance brigade •' 
 
120 A WAE DIAEY. 
 
 his men are seldom in danger. But you would have lost 
 right smartly, if you had delayed going any longer." 
 
 The doctor spoke in praise of General McCleUan, urg- 
 ing that the South thought him our ablest general. Did 
 I think he would be the next President ? the doctor asked. 
 Evading this question, I asked what the South thought of 
 Ben Butler, and if they would hang him if they could catch 
 him. 
 
 " They would ! " he replied. 
 
 " You do not like him much, then ? " 
 
 " Do you approve his course ? " asked thg doctor. 
 
 " He has been charged with much that is untrue," I an- 
 swered ; " and yet he voted, I believe, sixty times for Jef- 
 ferson Davis at the Charleston Convention. Is it for this 
 that Davis sets a price on his head ? If so, there are some 
 grounds for believing that the North would agree with the 
 South in thinking that he ought to be hanged." 
 
 Our conversation ended here, and we parted with, I 
 trust, mutual respect. I know of but few men. Northern 
 or Southern born, who would have been so amiable or so 
 considerate under such trying circumstances. 
 
 On the morning of the 26th of June the reveille sounded 
 at the faintest glimmer of day, and soon after the troops 
 filed into the road ready for a sixteen-mile march to Cum- 
 berland Landing. A drizzling rain, making everything 
 wet and sticky, cheerless fires expiring in abandoned 
 camps, the gloom of an indistinct Hght, the stillness of 
 the now uninviting forest, — aU these dismally contrasted 
 with last night's picture. After several hours of duU 
 tramping we came to a small group of houses, to which 
 one Slater, the occupant of the most conspicuous, had given 
 the unmelodious name of Slatersville. An old man and 
 woman, and two rather sprightly daughters, both violent 
 Eebels, occupied the Slater mansion. A guard of infantry 
 
APPEOACfflNG EICHMOND. 121 
 
 from a preceding division had prevented the usual depre- 
 dations, and on the arrival of my troops a new guard was 
 substituted, with orders to join the rear after the division 
 had passed. A few moments of conversation with the in- 
 mates gave the old woman an opportunity to inform me 
 that we " were fighting the flower of the world ; the flower 
 of the world, I tell ye.'' This she repeated as she puffed 
 at a long-stemmed pipe, and exposed her yellow teeth. 
 
 " You think so. Ma ! " said the eldest daughter, who, 
 though much excited, declared in a temperate way her 
 firm belief in the right of secession. " I am tired of the 
 war," she continued, " but I had rather die than survive 
 the dishonor of losing our cause. We are only anxious 
 to be let alone. We wonder that you want people to live 
 with you who do not wish to do so." 
 
 " We will gladly let you alone," I answered, " if you will 
 acknowledge the supremacy of the Union, lay down your 
 arms, and behave in the future as loyal people and not 
 as rebels." 
 
 A chorus of sneers accompanied a chorus of indignant 
 ejaculations in response ; among which I caught " flower 
 of the world " from the old woman ; " Hartford Convention," 
 she believed it was, from the elder sister; and faint echoes 
 of Virginia " saving unto herself the right of leaving the 
 Union when oppressed," from the old man. I bade them 
 farewell, with assurances of freedom from molestation 
 (their eyes brightened) through a guard of Massachusetts 
 troops (their eyes fell), and exemption from punishment 
 for the detection in their house of a telegraphic wire 
 communicating with Eichmond, and operated through an 
 instrument for which our cavalry made a vain search, — 
 " opening my trunk, my own private trunk," complained 
 the eldest daughter. 
 
 Late in the afternoon we arrived at Cumberland, and 
 
122 A WAR DIAEY. 
 
 met General Dix, who had come up by water on a steam- 
 heat. He sent for me immediately, and announced his 
 intention of moving to-morrow into Eichmond. Said 
 the General: "There is no force to oppose us; and by 
 a rapid movement we can enter." . I asked how many 
 troops he had, and what obstructions he would meet ; 
 as also what force of the enemy he would probably en- 
 counter. We were soon joined by Generals Keyes and 
 Terry, to whom the commanding general made known his 
 plans. It appeared to me that they were not received with 
 favor ; indeed, I doubt if in the private judgment of any 
 one they were approved at that conference. They were to 
 march the next day to White House, where Getty already 
 was with a division. Our cavalry had gone towards the 
 South Anna to destroy railway bridges. General Dix was 
 to go up to White House that night ; and from there, un- 
 less other counsels prevailed, we were to make what, with 
 my limited information, seemed to me an impracticable 
 effort to capture Eichmond. This movement was called 
 for by all the newspapers of the North ; it was echoed 
 in streets and in houses, in private and in public ; it was 
 accepted as a fact, and regarded as a dujy. Because it 
 would have been a good thing to do, it was urged as a 
 wise thing to be attempted. By such stages did public 
 opinion advance, until the Administration was affected, 
 and the failure to attempt became a crime. 
 
 White House, on the Pamunkey, is a place of historic 
 interest. In its front, one year previous, were gathered 
 countless steamers and transports for the use of the Army 
 of the Potomac. Around its precincts had ' hung the^ 
 young hopes of our troubled nation in its first efforts of 
 gigantic warfare. Here, too, was the famous raid, prelude 
 to the melancholy tragedy which followed. We arrived 
 here at eleven A. M., of the 27th of June, leaving Cumberland 
 
APPEOACHING RICHMOND. 123 
 
 at seven in the morning. Our wagons delayed us ; they 
 floundered through the villanously muddy roads, of which 
 Northern people could hardly conceive one year ago. A 
 number of troops were encamped on this wide plain. In 
 addition to those who marched from Torktown, there were 
 perhaps some ten or twelve thousand. Their shelter-tents 
 stretched far away in the distance. Transports and gun- 
 boats, as of old, were lying at anchor. The national flag 
 and national airs saluted sight and hearing. The railway 
 bridge across the Chickahominy was saved by our gun- 
 boats ; they arrived too unexpectedly for the sixty or seventy 
 Eebel cavalry on duty there to destroy it, and now it had 
 been planked over to render it passable for horse and foot. 
 I called upon General Dix, was cordially received, and 
 requested, with all the general officers (Keyes, Terry, and 
 Getty), to return at three P. M. to confer with him as to the 
 best mode of attempting to go to Eichmond, — a march of 
 about twenty-four miles from White House. The General 
 was a little anxious about Colonel Spear, of the cavalry, 
 who had been sent on a raid the day before. 
 
 At three o'clock the conference began. The best mode 
 of going to or near Eichmond was discussed. Bottom's 
 Bridge or Mechanicsville ? — one south, the other north of 
 the railway from this place. General Dix did not favor 
 Bottom's Bridge. It was too strong and too dangerous a 
 point to be let alone, and it afforded too serious an obstacle 
 to enable us to make a dash into Eichmond. The Mechan- 
 icsville route, though longer, he was inclined to consider 
 the better of the two. Opinions were asked. I had trav- 
 elled over neither, and therefore could give no opinion of 
 the roads themselves. I could only consider them strategi- 
 cally. I gave it as my opinion that if we advanced on 
 Eichmond we should cut loose from White House as a 
 base, move towards the railway communications north of 
 
124 A WAE DIAEY. 
 
 Eichmond, sever them, and then make our way towards 
 Acquia Creek, and join the Army of the Potomac to aid 
 in resisting Lee's invasion of the North. I argued that a 
 movement from this point north or south of the railway, 
 as proposed, was open to serious objections. I believed 
 Eichmond to be well protected with fortifications; that 
 our success there was extremely doubtful ; and that an at- 
 tack and repulse would invite the enemy to follow up and 
 seriously threaten our line of communications, unless we 
 used a large force to protect our flanks, in which case the 
 assaulting force would be smaU. " What do we want of 
 Eichmond ? " I said. " Is it wise to dash our heads against 
 its solid battlements ; to take the chances, even of its cap- 
 ture, when with this force we could increase Hooker's army 
 and destroy Lee, who is now rioting in Maryland ? When 
 we sever his line of communications we add greatly tb the 
 chances of his capture or entire destruction ; and then we 
 can surely and easily walk into Eichmond. Is it supposed 
 Lee will be fool enough to be diverted from his purpose 
 by any demonstration we can make in Eichmond ? " Much 
 general talking followed. I was sure, and General Dix 
 afterward acknowledged to me that he was also convinced, 
 that the plan to move on Eichmond was not favored by 
 one of his general officers. The proposed movement was 
 due to General Halleck, who ordered General Dix. to 
 menace Eichmond. 
 
 Colonel Spear had not returned, and the conference 
 broke up to await his arrival Later, the cavalry made its 
 appearance ; but I did not learn that it had been success- 
 ful in destroying the enemy's communications with Lee's 
 army. The report was that it had been driven back by a 
 large force stationed at an important bridge whose destruc- 
 tion was attempted. Spear captured about one hundred 
 prisoners on his raid, — among them Colonel Lee, a son 
 
APPROACHING RICHMOND. 125 
 
 of the Rebel General ; also thirty or forty haggage-wagona, 
 and (from a paymaster) twenty thousand dollars in Eebel 
 money. More troops were coming up the river. In all we 
 were to have about seventeen or eighteen thousand men. 
 The Eebels had made some little preparation to defend 
 this place, by erecting within a circular earthwork at the 
 extremity of the railway a battery on wheels, turreted 
 like a monitor. We found and destroyed the work, but 
 the battery had made off. 
 
 On the 28th of June we were still inactive. Rain 
 threatened ; more troops arrived, — some from Suffolk ; 
 one regiment from North Carolina reported, with two days' 
 rations, but without shelter-tents or cooking apparatus. 
 General Dix told me that he would have twenty thousand 
 men if all arrived that had been promised him; but in 
 what condition was another question. 
 
 " This would not give us men enough to besiege Rich- 
 mond," I said. 
 
 " Oh, no ! " the General replied ; " I wrote HaUeck that I 
 should never think of sitting down before Richmond. If 
 I could accomplish nothing with a dash, I did not mean to 
 try to do anything but menace the capital." 
 
 The General thought well of my proposition to move 
 towards the Virginia and Fredericksburg railway to destroy 
 bridges. Our cavalry demolished a bridge on the Virginia 
 Central by a gallant dash upon a company of North Caro- 
 lina infantry stationed there. While awaiting further 
 movements, we learned that Lee was in motion towards 
 WashiQgton, Baltimore, or Philadelphia, as he might choose. 
 
 At four o'clock in the afternoon of the twenty-ninth 
 General Keyes rode into my camp to say : " I am going to 
 see General Dix ; certain questions are to be decided. The 
 General wants you to be present." In the cabin of the 
 "Thomas" I met Generals Dix, Keyes, Terry, Getty, 
 
126 A WAR DIAKY. 
 
 Harlan, and Foster, Major Stewart of the engineers. Colonel 
 Van Buren, adjutant-general to General Dix, and Colonel 
 Thomas, cMef quartermaster. General Dix opened the 
 discussion as follows^ — 
 
 "At our last conference, gentlemen, we discussed the 
 roads upon which an advance to the city of Eichmond 
 should be made, in case we advanced ; now we are met to 
 discuss the question of an advance. Since our interview, 
 Colonel Spear has returned from his cavalry raid and 
 reconnoissance. . He brings information of the force of 
 the enemy, from which and from telegrams from General 
 Hooker, received through the War Department, I am sat- 
 isfied that the present available force defending Eichmond 
 is about twelve or fourteen thousand men. I am ordered 
 by the War Department, if possible, to menace Eichmond. 
 When all the troops arrive, I shall have less than twenty 
 thousand men ; probably all are here now, or near here. 
 General Foster, what is your opinion ? " 
 
 "As I am the youngest general, I should prefer the 
 opinion of an older officer,'' was the reply. 
 
 " It is customary," said General Keyes, " for the young- 
 est to give an opinion first ; but as I have made up my 
 mind, I have no objection to giving my opinion." 
 
 " Well, your opinion then, General," said General Dix. 
 
 " I think it inexpedient with this force to attack Eich- 
 mond." 
 
 " Yours, General Gordon ? " said General Dix, — I being 
 next in rank. 
 
 " I concur with General Keyes," I replied. 
 
 " General Terry ? " said General Dix. 
 
 " I think it inexpedient," was the answer. 
 
 "General Getty?" 
 
 " You have not men enough to keep open your commu- 
 nications. I think it inexpedient." 
 
APPROACHING EICHMOND. 127 
 
 "General Harlan?" 
 
 " I think the same." 
 
 "And General Foster ?" 
 
 " I am of the same opinion as all the others." 
 
 " I entirely concur in your opinions," said General Dix. 
 
 So that vote was unanimous. It was the opinion of 
 practical men on practical grounds against an attempt to 
 seize the strong works around Eichmond and possess the 
 city. Even if it be assumed that twenty thousand good 
 men would have accomplished the end in view, the problem 
 under the conditions presented to General Dix would not 
 have been of easy solution ; for many of his troops were 
 made up of regiments from North Carolina whose term of 
 service had expired, and who, while on their way north to 
 be mustered out, were requested to wait long enough to 
 lend a hand to General Dix. 
 
 After the official conference a general discussion fol- 
 lowed, in which I gave it as my opinion that the way to 
 take Eichmond was to. transfer our force to Washington, 
 and add it to that opposing Lee. This was no time, I 
 urged, to try experiments. A repulse of this column before 
 Eichmond would result in demoralization to the army 
 and to the country; and it would also give renewed 
 encouragement to the Eebels. Accordingly, at our unani- 
 mous suggestion, General Dix telegraphed General HaUeck 
 that it was the wish of all the general officers that their 
 commands be transferred to the Army of the Potomac to 
 aid in the repulse of Lee. 
 
 Prom Fortress Monroe we heard that General Meade 
 had replaced Hooker in command of the Army of the Poto- 
 mac; and we were glad to get the news. The Potomac 
 was at this time again blockaded by Eebels, and Lee's 
 army was within three miles of Harrisburg. In the mean 
 time, awaiting orders from Washington, our feeble move- 
 
128 A WAK DIARY. 
 
 ment went on. General Getty, with artillery, infantry, 
 and cavalry, was to leave the next day to burn the bridges 
 over the South Anna ; General Keyes was to make a diver- 
 sion towards Richmond ; my command was to be held in 
 reserve ; Colonel McKibben was to occupy White House 
 and neighborhood, and care for our flanks, during the six- 
 teen days that remained before his regiment was to be 
 mustered out of service. And it was to the credit of these 
 men that they applied to be retained, subject to the single 
 condition of being transferred to the Army of the Potomac 
 under Meade, until the Rebel forces then occupying their 
 homes in Pennsylvania should be driven across the Poto- 
 mac, — and this, with General HaUeck's approval, was 
 agreed to by General Dix. 
 
 At the same post in Oregon, on the eve of this great 
 rebellion, under the broad flag that had floated over the 
 military Academy at West Point, Colonel McKibben of the 
 Union, and General George E. Pickett of the Rebel army, 
 heard that the State troops of South Carolina had fired 
 upon the " Star of the West " in her attempt to convey 
 supplies to the United States troops in Fort Sumter. Ex- 
 cited to anger by this intelligence, Pickett, at that time a 
 captain of infantry, broke out with pardonable profanity : 
 
 " South Carolina," he exclaimed ; " she wiU now 
 
 try to drag Virginia out of the Union." But alas for na- 
 tional patriotism when tempted by the infamous doctrines 
 of Secession ! Pickett was a Virginian. When his State 
 rebelled against the Government, he plunged with her into 
 the abyss of civil war ; and now, as one of the most effi- 
 cient officers of the Rebel army, he was marshalling his 
 men for that magnificent but (thank God !) futile charge 
 which shattered the army and the Confederacy at Gettys- 
 burg. 
 
 On the morning of the 1st of July our movements were 
 
APPROACHING EICHMOND. 129 
 
 progressing. ' Keyes, with about six thousand men, was on 
 his way to Bottom's Bridge; Getty, with ten thousand, 
 had crossed the Pamunkey for the South Anna ; while my 
 command, increased by a brigade of troops just from North 
 Carolina under General Spinola, with a battery and cavalry, 
 was sent to Tunstall's Station and other approaches. Ef- 
 forts to destroy bridges and communications north of Eich- 
 mond, and to menace the capital, did not result as General 
 Dix had anticipated. Keyes's movements were feeble and 
 indecisive. At Baltimore Cross-roads he met a'regiment of 
 Kebel infantry, and after skirmishing with it for an hour 
 captured one prisoner, a private of D. H. Hill's division ; 
 whereupon he sent a despatch to Dix that he considered 
 this "a remarkable fact," asking if he should "go on or 
 fall back," — and then, without awaiting a reply, retired to 
 within four miles of White House. Here he entertained 
 General Dix with a series of despatches. " He had moved," 
 he wrote, " at such fearful pace that the Eebels had been 
 invited to attack him ; " and he predicted that they would 
 do so. Later in the evening this prediction seemed to be 
 verified: four discharges of artillery and rapid musketry 
 firing were heard. This Keyes reported to General Dix as 
 an attack on Colonel West, and he asked if he should " make 
 the ground I hold my battle-ground," intimating that he 
 might need reinforcements. Later at night I was summoned 
 to General Dix's headquarters, where a new batch of reports 
 had been received; and I was told that the enemy had 
 driven back General Keyes's advance, and that he was 
 in momentary expectation of a fire upon his headquarters, 
 where his second line was placed. It appeared from the 
 replies of the aid who brought the despatches that Keyes 
 thought himself to be in a very serious position, anticipat- 
 ing being driven to White House before morning by a force 
 which he estimated to be very large, and that he had sent 
 
130 A WAE DIAEY. 
 
 back unloaded his wagons of rations and forage. At sucli 
 probabilities General Dix was quite as much amused as 
 disturbed, expressing his belief that Keyes " would come 
 in here before daylight ; " and he directed me to harmonize 
 my dispositions to meet such an emergency, by strength- 
 ening weak points, establishing batteries, and warning 
 advanced guards. 
 
 Save a few discharges of artillery and volleys of mus- 
 ketry, nothing happened to disturb the serenity with which 
 I passed the night on a camp-stool, with the heavens for a 
 covering. The morning of the 30th of June was quiet and 
 peaceful. Keyes was in a confident, almost hilarious mood : 
 the enemy was not in his front, they had gone after Getty. 
 The morning of the 4th of July, 1863, found us engaged 
 with duties which forbade other demonstration than a 
 national salute and national airs at noon. While we were 
 watching the enemy and threatening him, and compelling 
 him to withhold many troops from Lee, General Dix received 
 despatches announcing that there had been three days' fight- 
 ing in Pennsylvania, with every prospect of a brilliant 
 victory for us. He had also received a copy of a despatch 
 from Jefferson Davis to Lee (captured by our forces), in 
 which Davis spoke dolefully of affairs at the West ; feared 
 that Bragg would be attacked by Eosecrans and have to 
 fall back to Tullahoma ; adding that General Joe Johnson 
 was asking for reinforcements, although all the reinforce- 
 ments he had asked for had been sent him ; he enumerated 
 the forces in and around Eichmond, declaring the intention 
 to be to capture Washington, and called Lee's attention to 
 the propitious time to make this move, when so many of 
 our troops were going out of service. 
 
 The importance of strengthening Meade's army in Penn- 
 sylvania by all available troops elsewhere was recognized 
 by the War Department and made known to General Dix, 
 
APPEOACHING EICHMOND. 131 
 
 who was ordered to send all the men he coiild spare to 
 Washington as soon as Getty should return. The _troops, 
 in their excitement over the probabilities of victory, gave 
 free vent to their feelings by cheering until they were 
 hoarse ; speech-making colonels were eloquent. The Fourth 
 of July was filled with high hopes. The hum. of happy 
 voices, the loud tones of excited speakers, and the sullen 
 boom of distant guns, where Getty was attacking the Eebel 
 bridges over the South Anna, united with murmurs from 
 river and plain as we waited for the opening of another 
 day. 
 
 Through the War Department on Sunday, the 5th of July, 
 it was communicated to General Dix that Meade had met 
 Lee, had successfully resisted his assaults, captured many 
 of his men, and turned him in flight towards Chambers- 
 burg. On the Fourth the President had informed the 
 nation of our glorious victory, and had reminded the people 
 of their duty to God, " from whom all blessings flow." So 
 much we knew, and it became clear that Lee's power to 
 invade was gone ; it seemed barely possible that his shat- 
 tered columns could reach the Potomac, towards which he 
 was flying. Secretary Stanton informed General Dix that 
 whether Lee succeeded in escaping or not depended much 
 on what we could do to cut the bridges connecting Richmond • 
 with Fredericksburg. General Dix could congratulate him- 
 self that the ten thousand men under Getty were even then 
 carrying out the Secretary's wishes ; for at that very moment 
 the boom of distant guns came to us from the direction of 
 Getty's column, rapid discharges succeeding each other for 
 an hour, at the end of which time they altogether ceased. 
 
 It was strange that we, who so idolized the memory of 
 the " Father of his Country," should meet in deadly strife 
 upon ground covered with mementos of his life ; but it was 
 stranger stUl that the descendants of that hero were seek- 
 
132 A WAR DIABY. 
 
 ing to destroy what their illustrious ancestor devoted his 
 life to create. Just beyond my picket line there stood a 
 quaint old brick church, built in 1703. It is caUed 
 St. Peter's Church, and is memorable because within its 
 walls George Washington was married to Martha Custis. 
 The form of the building is quadrangular. Through a 
 tower crowned by Peter's keys, and rising but little higher 
 than the roof, I made my entrance. Shaded by oaks of 
 giant stature and richest foliage, this old church of St. 
 Peter's, escaping the desolation of war in its more than 
 one hundred and fifty years of age, stands in its sweet 
 repose, a monument of the past. Perhaps the name of 
 Washington protected it ; for that name preserved here in 
 Virginia every memorial of the Father of his Country. Not 
 so was it, however, with his recreant descendants in their 
 fratricidal warfare; they doomed themselves and their 
 works to destruction. White House, owned by a son of 
 General Lee, was in ruins ; a pile of ragged bricks and 
 mortar marked its site on the Pamunkey. The Eebel 
 occupant of White House was here a prisoner at this very 
 moment, suffering from wounds. He had been brought in 
 on a litter, despite the representations of his attendant 
 physician, who predicted his certain death if he were 
 removed. 
 
 The evening of the 5th of July brought with it most 
 satisfactory despatches from the Secretary of War. Our 
 army defeated three assaults made on Wednesday, Thurs- 
 day, and Friday by the enemy, drove him back to Gettys- 
 burg, whence on Saturday Lee attempted, through a gap in 
 the hills, to escape to Chambersburg ; but was cut off by 
 Meade, who in an impregnable position was holding every 
 avenue of escape, save northerly, where he was watched by 
 the force that Couch had collected in Pennsylvania. " Why 
 should not Lee be captured or destroyed ? " we asked one 
 
APPROACHING KICHMOND. 133 
 
 another. The despatches said that a Florida brigade, with 
 its general at its head, colors and all, had come in and sur- 
 rendered to Meade. Too much confidence has ever destroyed 
 every great military leader. Lee, in his bold march into 
 Pennsylvania, committed a grave fault: his reckonings 
 ■were false, his hopes fallacious. Northern copperheads had 
 unwittingly done good. Lee had not then, as at Antietam, 
 one flank on the river, but was open to attacks in all 
 directions, — from the victorious force that pressed his 
 rear, the militia that threatened his flanks, and the out- 
 raged yeomen who swarmed from their plundered farms 
 to discomfit his stealing crew. 
 
 In what remained to be done near Gettysburg we all 
 were most anxious to aid ; and therefore we awaited with 
 much impatience Getty's return, when we were to march 
 towards Pennsylvania. Meanwhile rumors of Lee's escape 
 through the passes to Chambersburg grew stronger, and we 
 had to comfort ourselves with the obstacle which General 
 French interposed to a safe crossing of the Potomac by the 
 destruction of Lee's pontoon bridges, and on what Getty 
 might have effected to "impede his .march toward Eichmond 
 in the demolition of bridges and railways to the north of 
 that city. And even here our hope faded away from us ; 
 for on the afternoon of the sixth we heard with regret that 
 General Getty found the bridges across the South Anna too 
 strongly guarded by Eebel infantry and artillery in earth- 
 works to make headway against them, although he de- 
 stroyed the railways back of the bridges. This, with other 
 demonstrations, was of much service to us, as we learned 
 from one of Jefferson Davis's despatches, in which he said 
 that Eichmond had been seriously threatened, and he could 
 not therefore send reinforcements to Lee. 
 
 But our regrets were swallowed up in the overwhelming 
 joy with which, on the night of the seventh, we learned of 
 
134 A WAR PIAKY. 
 
 the surrender of Vicksburg. "Do not start at daylight," 
 wrote General Dix to me; "I have news from the War 
 Department that Vicksburg surrendered to the United 
 States forces on the 4th of July. Please come to my head- 
 quarters." At three o'clock in the morning, in conversation 
 with the General in command, he said : " I think you had 
 better start at daylight. I have sent a telegram to the War 
 Department, that, with an additional force of twenty thou- 
 sand men, I can go to Eichmond. I am reluctant to leave 
 here ; but as I have received no answer, I think that on the 
 whole you had better start." Before leaving, the General 
 gave me the important information — received through 
 Colonel Ludlow, our commissioner for exchange of pris- 
 oners — that', three days before, Stephens, the Vice-Presi- 
 dent of the Eebel Government, with a great show of 
 baggage, as if to make a long stay, came on board the 
 truce boat to be forwarded to Washington, with despatches 
 from "Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederacy, to 
 A Lincoln, President of the United States." Colonel 
 Ludlow telegraphed to Washiugton for instructions, and 
 received a reply that the "mission of Mr. Stephens is 
 inadmissible ; that the ordinary channels of communication 
 through military of&cials are open for all proper business 
 between the insurgents and the United States." So Mr. 
 Stephens, " much chagrined," as Colonel Ludlow said, turned 
 back aiid homeward hied to the leanness of Eebeldom. 
 " The events of the past few days," wrote Colonel Ludlow 
 to General Dix, " are disposing of the objects of Stephens's 
 mission faster than diplomacy can." The Eebel troops 
 were hardly fairly in our Northern land before the Eebel 
 President raised this puppet to fool his own people, or as 
 a scarecrow for ours. Meanwhile Lee was flying for his 
 burning pontoons, and seeking the shelter of the friendly 
 Potomac. 
 
APPROACHING EICHMOND. 135 
 
 At six o'clock in the morning the last of our troops were 
 in line, and the last steamer preparing to move away. 
 When my own column was ready, I gave the order " For- 
 ward ! " and took the road through New Kent Court-House 
 to Williamsburg and Yorktown. The day was dreary and 
 drizzly, the mud deep, the marching horrible ; but the men 
 buckled stoutly to it, inspired to fresh effort by the knowl- 
 edge that their chances of being the first to join Meade 
 depended upon the stoutness of their legs. Through the 
 woe-begone old town of New Kent Court-Hoiise, by its 
 deserted houses and lifeless streets, sloppy and slippery, 
 the long files of troops moved cheerfully, chaf&ng and 
 smoking, resting but a moment in front of an ancient 
 hostelry, from whose depths the reluctant visage of mine 
 host appeared, — old, shabby, and rheumatic, solemn in his 
 misery, and as hopeless in his aspect as was the deep' fog 
 and dripping rain overhead, while in his heart he held 
 news from Gettysburg and Yicksburg. 
 
 " I have nothing to eat, sir ! " he said, with his cracked 
 voice ; " nothing to eat ! " — and to this his withered frame 
 bore witness, while his tattered garments corroborated his 
 tale of misery, — " nothing but a httle side-meat I bought 
 in Eichmond, for which I paid many dollars a pound, and 
 which I make go as far as I can to save me from star- 
 vation." 
 
 " And how far can you make a little meat go ? " I 
 inquired. 
 
 "Well, sir, we poor people resort to shifts and expe- 
 dients which you at the North little dream of You don't 
 know, sir, until you try it, how small a bit of meat will 
 flavor a large amount of vegetables. We are poor, sir, very 
 poor ; and when what I have is gone, I don't know where 
 I shall look for more." 
 
 " Forward ! " to join the Army of the Potomac ; and on 
 
136 A WAE DIAKT. 
 
 moves our column to rest again at Slatersville, where the 
 ancient vixen, Mrs. Slater, greets us with, " Well, you hain't 
 taken Eichmond ! " I responded with a copy of the Phila- 
 delphia " Inquirer," which announced in prodigious capi- 
 tals " Lee's disastrous defeat in Pennsylvania." " I don't 
 believe a single word in that paper," she replied ; " Gen- 
 eral Lee can't be whipped back ! " I told her of Vicks- 
 burg ; and she was still a scoffer at the truth, saying she 
 had " heard such stories often before." We had but little 
 time to waste, hardly enough to admire the private equi- 
 page in which Mrs. Slater was taking an airing, — an ox 
 hitched to a cart, and driven by a negro, a valued steed 
 " worth four hundred dollars," and just from the plough- 
 " Forward ! " again, on a stout march to Twelve-Mile Ordi- 
 nary, where we arrived at about dusk, having accomplished 
 twenty-four miles over heavy and sticky roads, with no 
 other interruption than a message through a drunken 
 cavalry sergeant, who dashed up to me just after leaving 
 Slatersville to report that a General somebody sent him 
 forward to say that the enemy in strong force was on my 
 fiank, threatening our line of march. This proved, how- 
 ever, to be a false alarm. 
 
 Footsore and weary, at six o'clock in the morning of 
 the 9th of July we marched for Fort Magruder, arriv- 
 ing there at noon. We rested over night, resumed the 
 march on the tenth at five o'clock in the morning, and 
 halted at Yorktown four hours later, when I began the 
 embarkation of my division. Men, animals, guns, and 
 rations were crowded into cramped, wheezy, and degene- 
 rate steamers, to take the field when transportation by rail 
 or steamer should cease. One moment's interview at the 
 Fortress with General Dix, in whose presence it was 
 always sunshine, and I was again on the mail-boat for 
 Baltimore, to have a personal interview with General 
 
APPROACHING EICHMOND. 137 
 
 Halleck in Washington, — with my part, in this Depart- 
 ment, in the great Eebellion, for the time being at an end. 
 
 Breakfast at the Eutaw House on the 11th of July ; one 
 glance at Dr. Leland, my old surgeon of the Second Massa- 
 chusetts Eegiment, on his way to Gettysburg ; one well- 
 remembered laugh, and a few rapid inquiries ; one crowded 
 moment of memories which his presence recalled, — and I 
 entered the train for Washington. 
 
 General Halleck was commander-in-chief of the armies 
 of the United States. In person he was short and stout ; 
 his head was large, his eye bright, his expression sharp 
 and searching; his manners gruff and harsh. There are 
 some things not written about a commander-in-chief 
 which men learn from a glance at his face, his residence, 
 his aids, his surroundings, and his lackeys. Nothing was 
 said, and yet the very building which held General Hal- 
 leck seemed constantly to vociferate, " I hold the com- 
 mander-in-chief ! " The sentinel seemed to say, as he 
 walked to and fro, " I guard the commander-in-chief !" The 
 lackey's look said, " I open the door to admit you to the 
 commander-in-chief ! " The aids in the adjoining rooms 
 impressed one in the same way ; their pens spoke aloud 
 in the solemn silence, " I write the words, the very words, 
 of the commander-in-chief." The appearance of the chief 
 of staff of the commander-in-chief was imposing. " I am 
 that great chief to that great commander," he seemed to 
 say to the visitor. " I sit with him ; know his plans ; you 
 don't, — they are mighty. I can talk with him ; you can't. 
 Great is Halleck ! great is his chief of staff ! great his aids, 
 his house, his pens, his lackeys ! Hail ! aU, all hail ! " 
 
 Having addressed this magnate to know his will touch- 
 ing my division of "four thousand infantry just from 
 Yorktown," I was ordered to report at once to General 
 Heintzelman, who would send me .through Frederick, 
 Maryland, to General Meade. 
 
138 A WAE DIAEY. 
 
 The ease with which the travelling world take trains 
 for their destination is no criterion by which to judge of 
 the labor of transporting four thousand men and their 
 baggage from Washington to Frederick in time to fight 
 a battle. Had they seen the confusion worse confounded 
 which reigned at the Washington d^pSt at dusk of the day 
 of my arrivalj they would have been slow to decide that we 
 should get off anyhow, at any time. My division, how- 
 ever, was at length aboard ; my staff aud I were transferred 
 to a passenger car, containing a multitude of other of&cers, 
 for whom there was no room elsewhere, and we were in 
 motion between twelve and one o'clock at night. All 
 things considered, we had made fair progress. The troops 
 had marched from the Potomac River to the railway at 
 Washington the moment they had disembarked ; and their 
 re-embarkation began with the aid of General Heintzel- 
 man's staff and the quartermaster's men, who worked at 
 cross-purposes, and made active demonstrations of shout- 
 ing, swearing, and bellowing in inverse proportion to their 
 real efficiency. 
 
 At daylight of the twelfth I was aroused from an uneasy 
 slumber by a sudden shock. We had run into another 
 troop-train. Nobody was to blame for those crushed bodies 
 quivering under the weight of a heavy platform car ; no- 
 body to blame for a delay of six or seven hours, which 
 might have lost us the fight we were hurrying to reach! 
 It was twelve noon before we reached the Eelay House, 
 twenty-six miles from Washington, — twenty-six miles in 
 twelve hours ! Where we should have had the wings of 
 the dove, we found only the legs of the turtle. 
 
 Again in motion, our train of twenty-six or twenty-seven 
 crowded cars wound its way in slow, snake-like motion 
 around the long curves that mark the courses of the Balti- 
 more and Ohio railway. From every log-hut, hamlet, and 
 
■WITH THE AEMY OF THE POTOMAC. 139 
 
 village, the people greeted us with salutations. The old 
 men made speeches, and the old women waved flags. Our 
 progress through a loyal country was marked by the cheer- 
 ing voices and hearty God Mess you's of our friends. Hill- 
 sides, woods, and plains poured forth their people. No 
 wonder these men and women swarmed down to meet 
 and to cheer us. They had narrowly escaped knowing 
 all the horrors of war and seeing their own homes de- 
 vastated by the enemy. On a single track, and giving 
 place to regular passenger trains filled with Jews, sutlers, 
 and Gj-entiles, we were dragged along at a snail's pace until 
 daylight of .the thirteenth, when we stopped at Frederick 
 Junction, with more confidence in the ability of General 
 Heintzelman to load a train of troops, to reinforce an army 
 at the front, than to clear the road for its rapid passage to 
 its destination. 
 
 Frederick, Maryland ! I was familiar with the place ; 
 for here it was that, when in command of the Second Mas- 
 sachusetts Infantry, I had rested during the first winter 
 of the war ; whence I had gone out, in the ensuing March, 
 with the grand old Army of the Potomac, for a share in the 
 doings of 1862 ; through which I had moved in that same 
 year to the music of the musketry and cannon of South 
 Mountain. I now found myself in the same place again in 
 1863, pressing with the Army of the Potomac upon the 
 track of flying Eebels who had again advanced within our 
 borders. How strangely did the events of this war stamp 
 themselves upon this stanch old city of Frederick! Its 
 weU-remembered streets ; its homes of unswerving loyalty 
 and charming hospitality ; the old site of my encampment 
 in its winter quarters in the neighboring woods; the friendly 
 faces that bade me welcome ; and, more than these, the sad 
 'news of the death of two more gallant officers and many 
 men of my dear old regiment at Gettysburg, — all these 
 
140 A WAE DUKY. 
 
 filled me with -conflicting emotions during the moment of 
 time in which I made preparation to obey the telegraphic 
 summons just received from General Meade, to report to 
 him immediately in person. 
 
 A conflict seemed certain ; Lee was determined to fight. 
 His force was in line of battle within four miles of Wil- 
 liamsport, where he had issued an address to his troops, 
 calling upon them to fight, by all the hopes and ends they 
 so strongly desired to attain ; he spoke of their last battle 
 as not attended with their usual success, and expressed his 
 hopes that they would repair their losses and save the 
 Confederacy. Meade's position was strong; and on my 
 way to the front to report to him, I listened for the roar 
 that should begin the expected conflict. 
 
 Shall I ever forget the hearty God-speed which followed 
 
 me from the noble Mrs. D , with whom, uninvited, I 
 
 had breakfasted ? Shall I ever forget her stanch loyalty 
 amidst dissenters and traitors, her attendance upon the 
 sick, her defiance of Eebel troops during their occupation 
 of her city ; or her frank declarations of loyalty, although 
 her husband's parish dwindled, and her support was dimin- 
 ished thereby ? Hopeful and patriotic, cheering and defiant, 
 scorning all concealment, her example and precept strength- 
 ened the weak and gave renewed confidence to the strong. 
 " Come to me here if you are wounded," were her last 
 words, as I turned my horse's head in the direction of the 
 Army of the Potomac. 
 
 Passing my troops, who were pushing manfully forward, 
 I stopped for the night at the house of a sullen Secessionist,' 
 with a spiteful wife and daughter, and breakfasted there at 
 daylight, although that forty-year-old beldame assured me 
 that she " hoped to see Lee drive you all back again," and 
 then rode rapidly to within four miles of Funkstown, 
 where I found General Meade. His headquarters on the 
 
WITH THE AEMY OF THE POTOMAC. 141 
 
 14th of July, 1863, were established on a by-road in a 
 smaU piece of woods about opposite the centre of his army. 
 A few tent-flies for his staff, a single wall-tent for himself 
 (the allowance of a regimental field-of&cer), and a travelling 
 wagon for the adjutant-general's department, made up the 
 substance of headcLuarters, camp equipage, and baggage. 
 General Williams, Adjutant-General of the Army of the 
 Potomac from the beginning of the war, and General 
 Pleasanton, cavalry commander (old friends), greeted me 
 cordially. The latter introduced me to a studious-looking 
 old gentleman, in major-general's uniform, poring over a 
 map with intense application, as General Humphreys. My 
 inquiry for General Meade was answered by pointing to 
 a wall-tent, within which, on a camp-bed, the only article 
 of furniture, sat a major-general, talking to a youthful-look- 
 ing brigadier. I was received very politely, though with 
 something of a precise abruptness. General Meade was a 
 remarkably fine-looking man, with a bright, intelligent 
 countenance, piercing eye, face indicating power, straight in 
 figure, but not stiff. His nose entitled him to a place in 
 a gallery of military heroes. He was about six feet high, 
 and far more prepossessing than most of the representa- 
 tives of factions who have commanded the Army of the 
 Potomac. 
 
 " Glad to see you, sir ! " said the General. " Take a seat 
 on the camp-bed, there is no other," edging along to give 
 me room. 
 
 " I have brought you. General, from White House, Vir- 
 ginia, my division of about four thousand infantry. I have 
 travelled with great despatch, having left there on the 
 eighth, which makes but six days in transferring this com- 
 mand to you, ready to take the field ; alid of those six, four 
 of them were marching days." 
 
 "You would have done me more good by remaining near 
 
142 A WAE DIAET. 
 
 Eichmond," he replied; "the whole Eehel army crossed the 
 Potomac this morniDg." 
 
 " Indeed ! " I ejaculated ; then, after a moment's pause, 
 added : " we did not remain near Eichmond hecause General 
 Halleck ordered all those troops to be sent to you; and 
 mine have come in hot haste." 
 
 " We held a council yesterday," continued the General, 
 " and all my corps commanders were unanimously in favor 
 of not attacking the enemy. I was in favor of so doing ; 
 hut I did not feel like moving against the advice of my 
 corps commanders, for they do all the work. But I should 
 have moved this morning, at any rate." 
 
 After a few more words, he continued : " I do not pre- 
 tend to any great military knowledge or capacity ; but if 
 anybody had said to me while I was lying upon this camp- 
 bed, from which I was awakened in the middle of the 
 night to be informed that I was placed by the President in 
 command of this army, that in the time which has since 
 elapsed I should be able to clear the whole Eebel army 
 out of Pennsylvania, I should have thought him insane. I 
 do not care a straw what will be said about it ; I know it 
 to be much better to let the army go in their demorahzed 
 condition than to run the risk of a defeat, though I should 
 have attacked Lee this morning, and it was my wish to 
 do so yesterday." ^ 
 
 I saw, of course, that General Meade was much chagrined 
 at the escape of Lee ; and I inferred that the objections 
 urged by the corps commanders were not against fighting, 
 but to secure a little rest and repair, in which General 
 Meade reluctantly acquiesced for a day, — but the delay 
 was fatal. This is the impression I gathered from all that 
 was said, though I am aware some sentences may bear a 
 different interpretation. These conclusions, which were 
 
 1 Mouday, the thirteenth. 
 
WITH THE ARMY OP THE POTOMAC. 143 
 
 almost identical with those of McClellan at Antietam, were 
 supported by the same arguments. That a defeated army, 
 with a river at its back, has but one thing to do, and that 
 is not to give its victor long to think whether it will get on 
 the other side or not, flashed through my mind, — but my 
 tongue gave it no utterance. 
 
 " How long do your troops serve ? " asked the General 
 
 " For the war," I replied. 
 
 " I will send you with them temporarily to the Eleventh 
 Corps, to report to Howard," said the General. 
 
 Our interview being at an end, I took the road to Hagers- 
 town, where, when I arrived late in the afternoon, I learned 
 that Howard with his command had pushed on for Clear 
 Springs. As it was impossible, as well as not desirable, to 
 march my tired troops further until morning, I ordered 
 tents to be pitched outside the viQage, and used the remain- 
 ing daylight in inspecting the long lines of deserted Eebel 
 earthworks which showed themselves at short rifle-range 
 from my encampment. I found them to be about six 
 miles in length, resting on the Potomac on the right, and 
 following prominent ridges through corn and wheat fields, 
 over lawns, through door-yards, into forests and thickets, 
 wherever the situation invited, — until they touched the 
 Potomac on the left. Every road from Hagerstown to 
 WiUiamsport was thus crossed by jntrenchments and 
 covered by artillery. Sometimes the defences were of 
 two or three lines, as a prominent stone- wall or any invit- 
 ing natural barrier offered shelter to the assailed, or an 
 impediment to the assailant. Behind these works a thick 
 forest would have enabled the occupants to continue the 
 fight if they had been driven from their works, while in 
 front slashed timber offered a serious obstacle to approach. 
 The works were very strong, and the position happily 
 selected. Severe would have been our loss in its capture. 
 
J.1* A WAR DIAEY. 
 
 I estimated the force tliat occupied these -works at forty- 
 thousand men, though Lee may have had sixty thousand 
 there. In -wandering about I came in contact with many 
 Marylanders whose houses were within the Eebel lines, 
 and from whom I learned that Lee began his retreat on 
 Sunday night, the twelfth, that being the first time the 
 river was fordable; and that on Monday the thirteenth, 
 the day Meade would have attacked but for his corps 
 commanders, there was but a thin line of Eebels in the 
 intrenchments. 
 
 " I should have come over and told you of this, sir," said 
 an honest Maryland farmer to me, " for I knew all about 
 their movements from some of the Confederate officers that 
 boarded at my house. But my wife was not a-t home, and 
 I did not like to leave the house alone." 
 
 " What, leave the house alone ! Why, the Government 
 would have built you a palace for such information ! One 
 hundred thousand dollars would have been cheap for it ! " 
 
 "Well," he replied, "I could have done it; but my 
 family were all away, and I did n't like to leave the house 
 alone." 
 
 Was there ever such a simpleton ? A thoroughly loyal 
 man, but so apprehensive of possible discomforts as to stand 
 by an old log-house that might have cost ten dollars, even 
 to the sacrifice of an opportunity to destroy General Lee ! 
 A swollen river, barely fordable ; and on the heels of the 
 defeated army a triumphant host, held back by only a thin 
 line of skirmishers ! 
 
 " How did the Eebels appear ? " I inquired. 
 
 " The officers were much cast downj" he replied. " They 
 admitted a whipping ; said they had lost Vicksburg, and 
 that they would have retreated immediately from Gettys- 
 burg, but the height of water prevented. One of them told 
 me he thought they would all be captured." 
 
WITH THE AEMT OF THE POTOMAC. 145 
 
 Said one old farmer to me to-day : " I told them [the 
 Eebels], when they passed through here, that they would 
 get no further than into a small corner of Pennsylvania. 
 And I asked them what they were fighting for, and they 
 said their ' rights ; ' but they could not tell me of any rights 
 they had lost. I told them John Brown was hung for viola- 
 tion of law ; and that. those who fired on Fort Sumter should 
 suffer for the same violation of law." 
 
 If all that these men said was true, they were great 
 haters of Eehels, and very willing to fight them. 
 
 Our troops were in Williamsport, where they had arrived 
 in time to know that on the other side of the swollen waters 
 of the Potomac were all the Eebels that had not been 
 drowned. They had escaped, and nothing was left but to 
 mourn that Meade had not attacked them the day before ; 
 and that the scale of intelligence in the Maryland farmer 
 was so low that he preferred warding off a possible danger 
 to his log-cabin to giving us information that would have 
 enabled us to crush the Eebel army. 
 
 This crossing at Williamsport vividly reminded me that 
 more than one year earlier the country waited in breathless 
 anxiety for the safety of a little handful of men weighed 
 down with an enormous armful of baggage, who had been 
 driven to the banks of this then, as now, swollen river by 
 a force ten times its number, with whom it had bravely 
 contended for two entire days in one pitched battle, and 
 a running fight of more than thirty miles. I could well 
 recall how Ihis small force, working during three nights 
 and two days, placed by unceasing exertion this swollen 
 stream between itself and certain capture from the same 
 Eebel force which now was doing its best to save itself 
 from destruction. Just as we to-day by our attack would 
 have annihilated them, so they by their attack would then 
 have annihilated us. Just as they pleaded fatigue and the 
 
 10 
 
146 A WAS, DIAKT. 
 
 impossibility of marching further as an excuse, so did we 
 plead want of rest in extenuation of our inactivity. It is 
 said that Stonewall Jackson gave as an additional reason 
 why Banks was not destroyed, that, having broken the Sab- 
 bath by the battle of Winchester and lost his opportunity 
 to pray, he devoted Monday to religious exercises. We 
 may thank his devotional inflexibility, for it saved us. Dur- 
 ing the long night that ushered in that Monday morning 
 of the 26th of May, 1862, we stood on the Virginia side of 
 that swollen river, in sight of men and baggage, trains of 
 artillery and ordnance, of commissary and quartermasters' 
 stores, and the Shenandoah Valley debris of the armies of 
 Siegel, Shields, and Banks, — in sight of drowning mules, 
 struggling drivers, and wagons overturned in the hapless 
 attempt to ford its deep and rapid waters, — and yet effected 
 our passage without loss of men, and with insignificant 
 loss of property. If the Eebels under Lee were as thank- 
 ful to press the Virginia shore now, and leave Meade at 
 WUliamsport, as we were to reach Williamsport then and 
 leave Stonewall Jackson on the Virginia shore, they must 
 Have felt a joy which is not often tasted. 
 
 So did events repeat themselves in this war ; and so did 
 excuses and justifications. General Lee, who would have 
 claimed a victory over Meade as the just termination of his 
 own plans and judicious preparations, now that he had 
 been whipped, made excuses for his failure. He could not 
 fight (he wrote in his ofBcial report) the enemy where they 
 were with advantage, so he advanced towards the Potomac. 
 He would not have fought where he did in Pennsylvania, 
 but he came suddenly upon the whole of Meade's force 
 occupying the mountain passes, and he could not get away 
 with his heavy wagon-trains. He could not subsist his 
 men where he was; Meade was too watchful for that. 
 Accordingly he made the attack with Longstreet's com- 
 
WITH THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC. 147 
 
 mand on our left, and another against our right centre to 
 keep us from reinforcing our left. Before Longstreet there 
 was an important ridge ; and Lee thought, if that were 
 gained, our left would be crushed. On the first day of the 
 battle he secured the heights in front; but on the second 
 he failed, and was beaten. His artillery was useless then, 
 for his ammunition was almost exhausted ; therefore he 
 retreated. On the night of the fourth he began this move- 
 ment, and his rear left Gettysburg on the morning of the 
 lifth ; on the thirteenth he constructed a bridge at Falling 
 Waters, and crossed it with his army on the fourteenth, 
 confessedly whipped.* 
 
 While such momentous events were taking place in the 
 field, a tumultuous mob of Eebel sympathizers in the city 
 of New York were obstructing the Federal authorities in 
 their efforts to strengthen the Union army. An immense 
 body of rioters had possession of the city ; drafting was 
 stopped, the roUs destroyed, hotels threatened, houses in 
 flames, the "Tribune" office attacked. One company of 
 invalids was called out; they ji/red over the heads of the 
 mob, were disarmed, and driven from the streets ! This 
 was the first time that a threatened calamity to the Union ■ 
 offered a safe opportunity for asserting that "the draft 
 cannot be enforced ; that Lincoln has gone to the end of 
 his tether; that peace cannot be made during his ad- 
 ministration" ! This is what the Governor of New York 
 dared to proclaim then. 
 
 Lee and Davis had organized this matter weU. It was 
 the commonest, and yet the most successful, strategy to 
 lure an enemy in one direction, while an attack was made 
 in another thus left undefended. The militia of New York' 
 had been called to the front, and had been sent away most 
 expeditiously by a Democratic governor, while one com- 
 1 Lee's official report. 
 
148 A WAR DIAEY. 
 
 pany of invalids was firing over the heads of Eebels in 
 'New York, and while we were gathering up the thousands 
 'of our killed and wounded who fell on the field of Gettys- 
 burg ! In that third year of the war, when half the territory 
 of Virginia gi'oaned with its burden of slaughtered martyrs, 
 when half the homes of loyal States were in mourning, to 
 treat Eebels in New York with such tenderness, and at 
 the same time slaughter Eebels in Pennsylvania, — oh, 
 consistency ! 
 
 On the fifteenth, preparing to go to Clear Springs, Gen- 
 eral Howard greeted me with the information that the 
 whole army were to move towards Berlin ; which meant, 
 of course, another march into Virginia. I' had never met 
 Howard, though I think I could have called him by name 
 had I not seen his sleeveless arm, — a memento of the first 
 Bull Eun. He is a brave man, who trusts in God and 
 strong battalions ; is judicious withal, and not wanting in 
 tact. He is of medium size, has a frank and open counte- 
 nance, a cheerful smile, smooth, quiet voice, and impresses 
 one as an honest man. His clerical training (he was a, 
 clergyman before the war) is somewhat perceptible, though 
 he seemed without cant or manifestation of sanctity. He 
 was very courteous and affable ; was in some doubt as to 
 the command I should have in his corps, but finally left it 
 to be arranged to suit me wjien we arrived at Berlin, To 
 my expression of regret that Lee had not been attacked, he 
 replied that Sedgwick, Slocum, and Sykes were decidedly 
 opposed to it in council; that he asked permission of 
 Meade to move forward on Sunday night, the twelfth, and 
 turn Lee's left on Monday morning, which he thinks he 
 could have done, but that Meade replied that the move- 
 ments already contemplated would have the same effect. 
 From this I of course received the impression that Howard 
 did not in council advise against the attack, though Meade 
 
WITH THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC. 149 
 
 had told me that all his corps commanders were unani- 
 mously against it. I was further impressed with the belief 
 that if a corps had been precipitated, upon Lee on Monday 
 morning, Meade would have verified the information of the 
 man with a log-house, and would have caught the enemy 
 in a most deplorable condition. 
 
 Carl Schurz, who commanded a division in the Eleventh 
 Corps, called on me while Howard was present, and char- 
 acterized the failure to attack as the mistake of the war. 
 As I was to enter upon the coming campaign with Carl 
 Schurz, and as I was attracted by his well-known reputa- 
 tion as an orator at the West, I closely scrutinized his 
 person for an impression. He is taU, over six feet high, 
 stoops a Kttle, has sandy hair, an inquiring look, and a 
 restless and nervous manner. He is reticent in speech, 
 and always on the watch for an advantage ; has his own 
 plans, and will defeat yours if they interfere with his. He 
 is, too, a politician ; ever ready and willing to increase the 
 influences through which he moves and has his being. As 
 a clear and terse writer he has few superiors. He has the 
 art of putting things strongly, as HoWard found out after 
 Chancellorsville, when Schurz wrote him a letter of such 
 singular bitterness that, said Howard, " I thought I should 
 never survive it ; but I have." It was to make Howard 
 the scapegoat of the Eleventh Corps that Schurz wrote 
 that letter ; and it had an effect in producing trouble with 
 the German element, which only Howard's later successes 
 in the field allayed. 
 
 A quiet drive through an open country, with unob- 
 structed ways and good bridges, was more delightful and 
 less exasperating than were my attempts to push my way 
 to Berhn through the crowded baggage-trains, columns of 
 infantry, miles of cavalry and artillery, acres of quarter- 
 masters' and ordnance wagons, and aU the indescribable 
 
15.0 A WAR DIAEY. 
 
 appurtenances of material form and palpable substance 
 that impede an army. After being hopelessly mixed up 
 in Sedgwick's corps, in which were sandwiched the four- 
 wheeled nondescripts of the Sanitary and Christian com- 
 missions, I extricated myself but to find every road for 
 twenty miles a confused mass of human and animal life, 
 from which, by sheering and pushing and using strong 
 exhortations, I got clear, and encamped for the night on 
 the identical spot whence, in the previous autumn, I 
 marched with my brigade to fight the battle of Antietam. 
 Who could have predicted then that in less than one year 
 I should return by the same route to aid in another inva- 
 sion of Virginia ? "We received news that evening of our 
 military, successes among Southern traitors, and fearful 
 reports of the deeds of Northern traitors in New York. 
 The whole line of the Mississippi was ours ; Vicksburg and 
 Port Hudson captured ; Bragg flying before Eosecrans to 
 Atlanta ; Joe Johnson whipped by Sherman ; Fort Powha- 
 tan, on the James, taken; and New York under martial 
 law. These successes we could set off against desponding 
 rumors that our efficiency in the field had been impaired 
 by a recall of the New York militia, that the President had 
 stopped the enforcement of the Conscription Act at the wiU 
 of the mob, and that General Meade had received a curt 
 reproof from Halleck toirching Lee's escape. " Councils of 
 war never "fight," said that carpet chief; "you [Meade] 
 should have acted upon your own responsibility." That 
 what he had accomplished should be overlooked ; that he 
 should be censured for neglect and suspected of infirmity 
 of purpose ; and that Halleck should play the rQle of cen- 
 sor, — this was too much for Meade ; and he replied that 
 he relied only on himself, and asked to be relieved from 
 command. But to this end matters were not to be pushed. 
 Again had scolding messages and " Bunsby despatches " 
 
WITH THE AKMY OF THE POTOMAC. 151 
 
 aroused an unforeseen indignation. General Meade was 
 informed that the President did not wish to relieve him ; 
 that he only desired to spur him onward in his pursuit of 
 Lee. Meade accepted this Pickwickian construction, and 
 on the 16th of July threw his pontoons into the Potomac 
 at Berlin, to cross once more into Virginia. 
 
 The division assigned to me was commanded by General 
 Barlow at the Mttle of Gettysburg, and was composed of 
 two brigades of six regiments in each. Generals Adelbert 
 Ames and Schimmelfening commanded the brigades. The 
 division I brought here was incorporated with this com- 
 mand. The entire division as then made up consisted of 
 the 75th, 25th, and 107th Ohio, 17th Connecticut, 40th 
 Massachusetts, and 157th New York regiments, commanded 
 by Ames ; and the 41st, 54th, 127th, 142nd, 144th New 
 York and the 74th Pennsylvania regiments under Schim- 
 melfening. Howard's corps was Siegel's, and Siegel's was 
 Fremont's, in which there were many Germans, as the 
 names indicate. Both Ames and Schimmelfening were 
 highly praised by Howard. The material and staff of the 
 division had been transferred to my headquarters. The 
 color was a crescent on a white field ; the transportation, 
 one ambulance and two or three common wagons. Then 
 there were a division surgeon, a commissary of musters, 
 and all the necessary men and measures for a requisite mili- 
 tary and sanitary status. There were also a commissary 
 to provide food ; a quartermaster to supply wagons, forage, 
 horseshoes, and camp equipage ; a surgeon to see that regi- 
 mental surgeons did their duty, and an inspector to see 
 that everybody did his duty ; a bugler to blow troops up 
 and down, here and there, to march and halt, to fight and 
 cease fighting ; orderlies for messages and despatches ; aids 
 to execute ; signal of&cers, with flags by day and torches 
 by night. These, with an officer of ordnance and a chief 
 
152 A WAB DIAEY. 
 
 of artillery, made up the military family of a general of 
 division, and aided him in the keeping, marching, manceu- 
 vring, fighting, and preservation of his men. This division 
 formed part of the Eleventh Corps at Chancellorsville, 
 where it was rolled into a shred by Stonewall Jackson's 
 attack upon its right and rear ; it formed one third of the 
 same corps at Gettysburg, where it had just washed out 
 the stain of Chancellorsville ; and it was prepared, as one 
 of the eighteen or twenty units of motion which made up 
 the Army of the Potomac, to enforce its behests with a 
 determined will, and add another page, "over the Poto- 
 mac," to the history of the Great Eebellion. 
 
 A fussy Dutchman, the owner of my not regal mansion, 
 ■ came that evening to tell me of his woes. I heard, through 
 the din of orders, circulars, and bugle-calls, how this Dutch- 
 man had farms, paid taxes, had fits, and knew a blooming 
 widow with twenty-five thousand dollars, whom I, or he (I 
 have forgotten which), might marry for the asking. 
 
WITH THE AEMY OF THE POTOMAC. 153 
 
 CHAPTEE VI. 
 
 "WITH THE AEMY OF THE POTOMAC. — SOUTH CAEOLINA. 
 
 A T half-past two in the morning of the 19th of July, 
 ■^^^ 1863, we breakfasted ; and at four A. M., " Crossing 
 the Potomac ! " rang once more through the nation. 
 
 The cavalry sent up great columns of dust as they cov- 
 ered our flanks, while the infantry,- tattling stoutly with 
 fatigue, tramped along to halt at night, tear down fences, 
 and huild huge fires, grow jolly and refreshed over hot 
 coffee and pipes, laughter and song. Then came slumber, 
 before another day. 
 
 We passed LovettsviUe in Virginia, on the twentieth. 
 The presence of one hundred thousand men inspired 
 the many young men and women there with so much 
 respect for the Northern army that they flung our flag from 
 their house-tops, or waved it vigorously in the streets. And 
 this was no pretence of patriotism, for they had raised, so 
 we were told, a loyal troop of horse, which were paid and 
 fed as our own; Quakers, they told us they were, and 
 proud of their warlike display. " The war is going on as 
 I want it to go," said to me a loyal citizen of the town. 
 " I tell ye, I seen some long faces sence Vicksburg, Port 
 Hudson, and Lee's repulse at Gettysburg ; but the Eebels 
 don't admit disasters." 
 
 We pressed on after the pioneers, who with axes and 
 shovels levelled fences, bridged streams, made practicable 
 roads through fields for the infantry, who abandoned the 
 highways to our trains. We halted at Waterford for the 
 
154 A WAE DIAKY. 
 
 night, liear this town, and about three miles from Hamil- 
 ton, on the Leesburg and SnickersviUe pike, there dwelt a 
 Quaker, — a harmless man, with Union proclivities, and a 
 wife who was a full-blooded Virginian, but loyal for all 
 that. I halted there, and encamped the division in the 
 garden and fields. The wife waited on us at supper, talk- 
 ing the while with great volubility, — "I tell ye," clinching 
 her assertions ; and " Do tell ! " popping at mine. 
 
 " I 'm forty-three year old, and the mother of twelve chil- 
 dren, — eleven living, and all but one to home. Have some 
 more coffee ? Did ye ever drink Jeff-Davis coffee ? " 
 
 " Never," I replied. 
 
 " Do tell ! Well, you shall drink some Jeff-Davis coffee : 
 there now, did n't I tell ye you 'd like it ? " 
 
 " Confound the flies ! " I answered. 
 
 " Here, Amanda Susanna ; you take the brush, quick 
 now. Don't I expect to catch it with a fit of sickness, after 
 you 're gone ! " 
 
 " Are you not strong ? " I asked. 
 
 "/.? I 'm mighty slim, I tell ye." 
 
 Heavenly powers ! I thought ; is it possible so strong a 
 tongue can be set in an enfeebled body ; or that that active 
 frame can ever be brought to rest ? 
 
 Kelays of hungry officers besieged the house for food; 
 countless soldiers surrounded the dwelling, burned the 
 fences, milked the cows, slaughtered the pigs, stole the bee- 
 hives, and slept in the fields. But untiring and irrepres- 
 sible, just -what she was the night before and had been the 
 whole night through, — scolding and laughing, baking and 
 frying, — I fouiid my hostess at three o'clock in the morn- 
 ing, when she gave me my breakfast, and claimed to have 
 ■won her bet, "that the soldiers would suck all the cows dry 
 before breakfast." 
 
 " As goes Virginia, so go I," is the specious reasoning 
 
WITH THE AEMY OF THE POTOMAC. 155 
 
 of many of the faint-hearted hereabout, who, warned by 
 past disasters, weie making up their mouths to swallow a 
 yet more bitter pill. I encountered a fat citizen when I 
 halted for a rest, who, admitting that he was tired of the 
 war, and thought from our recent victories we were " fast 
 doing it up," found comfort in the fact that Seward was in 
 favor of an amnesty to all Southerners in arms, save the 
 leaders. This he thought statesmanlike ; he believed in 
 Seward's statesmanship. I replied that I was in favor of 
 such a settlement, and had no doubt the Northern people 
 were ; and an order which I had received before coming 
 into Virginia, that in taking forage from people south of 
 the Potomac we were to pay for it if the owner would take 
 the oath of allegiance, pointed to such a policy by our 
 Government. I did not believe, I urged, that we should 
 hold responsible or punish those who had thoughtlessly em- 
 braced the fallacy that the edict of a State could absolve its 
 citizens from their allegiance to the General Government. 
 And I pointed out to this respectable citizen that popular 
 opinion was always manufactured' by a few self-seeking 
 pohticians ; that the common mind was not logical, but 
 impulsive ; that what he called the will of Virginia was the 
 dictation of unprincipled politicians. "Why, sir," said I, 
 " in a week's time in your State I could get a popular vote 
 that the ourang-outang is morally and mentally superior 
 to the human race." 
 
 " You think mighty well of Virginia intelligence," said he. 
 
 " I think as well of it as of that of any other State," I 
 replied. " Not two days since an honest old Dutchman in 
 Maryland asked me if it were true that in Massachusetts 
 whites and negroes intermarried and lived on terms of per- 
 fect equaKty. Had the old Dutchman travelled much in 
 Virginia, he would have seen among you much to confirm 
 the opinion he evidently entertained about Massachusetts. 
 
156 A WAE DIAEY. 
 
 We do not love the negro in Massachusetts as you do 
 in Virginia." 
 
 " What State are you from ? " he asked. 
 
 " Prom a State that is accused of loving negroes little, but 
 of hating slavery much. I am from Massachusetts, thank 
 God!" 
 
 " Well, sir,'' he remarked, " we think Virginia did not 
 ■want war, and meant to settle up this difficulty without it. 
 She would have acted the part of the peacemaker , but you 
 would not give up Fort Sumter, and your President called 
 out an army to oppose us.'' 
 
 Will it be believed, when passion shall have subsided, 
 that six millions of people could have been plunged into 
 war by such false logic ? 
 
 At four P.M. we encamped at Goose Greek, where I hs- 
 tened unmoved to the pitiful wails of a fellow who would 
 not take the oath of allegiance, but had lost four of the 
 horses he had hidden in the woods, and sixty of the sheep 
 he had left in his pasture. He had to go with his State ; 
 so must his horses and sheep, — and that is into Union 
 hands, as he was soon to find. 
 
 But where is the object of our pursuit ? — where is the 
 great peacemaker, Lee ? Is he at Winchester ; and have 
 we outstripped him ? Are we indeed a " leetle ahead," as 
 the honest farmer said of the huntsman's dog in the wolf 
 chase ? General Meade has ordered us to remain here over 
 the morrow ; or, if we move, to change our position only. 
 GordonsviUe was supposed to be the objective point for 
 Lee, the Blue Eidge again his barrier, its passes his gates, 
 which he should defend and we should batter down. With 
 the exception of some bushwhacking Virginians who had 
 " gobbled up " two or three staff-officers at Middleburg, we 
 heard nothing of an enemy on our wing. But that famous 
 peacemaker Mosby was ridding us of some useless baggage 
 
WITH THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC. 157 
 
 m picking up men who fell to the rear of a marching col- 
 umn, pleading sickness, fatigue, anything, to fall out and 
 steal. The men he was welcome to ; but sutlers' wagons, — 
 that was another question. Therefore we gave chase, and 
 were gratified both at the rapidity with which the rob- 
 bers galloped some of our lazy, straggling infantry across 
 the fields, holding them by the collar and spurring their 
 own horses the while, and that we had secured the sut- 
 lers' wagons, minus the horses, plus the champagne. 
 
 "Such a run as that fellow Mosby gave them," said 
 General Schurz to me, " and such a fright ! they did not 
 know friend from foe. As I pursued Mosby," continued 
 the General, " I came on one of our worthless stragglers 
 standing in the middle of a stream. 
 
 " ' Don't shoot,' said he, ' I 'm your prisoner of war.' 
 
 " ' Well, then, come out ! ' 
 
 " ' Don't shoot,' he cried again, ' I 'm your prisoner of 
 war.' 
 
 "'Well, I tell you, come out !' 
 
 " ' Don't shoot,' he again vociferated. 
 
 " ' What do you belong to ? ' 
 
 "'The Eleventh Corps.' 
 
 "'Why! that 's my corps.' 
 
 " ' Well, don't shoot, I 'm your prisoner.' 
 
 "Why, you are one of our men," said the General; but 
 without appeasing the terrified fool, who continued to 
 insist that he was a " prisoner of war." 
 
 Meanwhile it was rumored. that Lee was at Winchester; 
 that we were out-marching our enemy, and might out- 
 strip him to Eichmond. But this would not do, for we 
 should thus uncover Washington. Uncover Washington ! 
 How suggestive these words ! — suggestive of Fredericks- 
 burg and McDowell, of Shields and Harrisburg, of Jack- 
 son's foot-race and McDowell's fool's errand, of Pope's 
 
158 A WAR DLAJIY. 
 
 tramp, of the disasters of Hooker and Burnside, and of 
 Meade's expectancy. My pickets connected with those of 
 the First Corps on the road to Middleburg, my head- 
 quarters being on the road to Aldie, at the little tumble- 
 down town of Mountsville, where the forced hospitality 
 which a rabid Virginia Secessionist gave to the Generals 
 of a Yankee army quartered within his house, on his fields, 
 in his orchards, or wherever they please, partook of the 
 ludicrous. The florid .Spanish welcome, "Take all I have, 
 it is yours !" if signifying all it purports and applied ac- 
 cordingly, would hardly leave the hapless Don in a worse 
 plight than did the more than one hundred thousand hearty 
 men and thousands of hungry animals who passed from 
 twenty-four to forty-eight hours with that host, who dis- 
 torted his face into a painful welcome. In the dreary 
 halls and dark, low-walled rooms of my headquarters my 
 scowling host eyed me furtively, peered over my shoulder 
 as I wrote, followed me with glances of hatred as I walked, 
 scanned me as I rode, or answered me with forced civility 
 as I spoke. This was one of the followers of Virginia's for- 
 tunes, who would not take the oath of allegiance, and was 
 therefore a prisoner in his own dwelling. Over his fields 
 the soldiers in blue were swarming, and above his tree- 
 tops curled the smoke of many camp-fires. 
 
 Lee was not watching us at Winchester, but was rushing 
 on madly for Eichmond ; in the mean time diverting us 
 with a pretence of coming through at Chester Gap, where 
 we attacked and easily drove him back (taking some 
 prisoners, and, as reported, a thousand head of cattle and 
 sheep), while with his main body he travelled through the 
 unthreatened gate at Thornton's Gap, whence, with his line 
 for men and supplies unobstructed, he was in a position to 
 open a new account with the Army of the Potomac. To do 
 what Lee was doing was his wish ; to defeat it was ours. 
 
WITH THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC. 159 
 
 From Mountsville on the road till twelve at midnight, 
 as rear-guard watching trains and defeating Mosby's at- 
 tempts to burn and capture baggage, — sixteen continuous 
 hours in the saddle and on foot, — my weary division 
 marched; then halted for the night, with no hope of 
 coming hospitality, to hear no 
 
 " Watch-dog's honest bark 
 Bay deep-mouthed welcome as we draw near home," 
 
 but, tired out and hungry, with uncertain prospect of sleep 
 or food: such the dark present of the soldier, lightened 
 'only by the consciousness of duty done. Our march ended, 
 we struggled through swamp and thick woods and fell into 
 slumber, too tired to be hungry, too exhausted to rest. We 
 had heard during the day sounds of distant cannonading 
 on our right wing, and had lost a man or two while at 
 Mountsville from bushwhackers, — one of them being 
 killed not a mile from my own headquarters, while guard- 
 ing Virginia property at the request of the owner ; and we 
 had now arrived here but to awake at half-past three in 
 the morning, breakfast on a cup of black coffee and fried 
 fresh meat, to press on for another weary day, and another 
 breakfast hour at half-past two in the morning, until, on 
 the 25th of July, we arrived at Warrenton Junction. Not 
 yet one year since I came and went with Pope through this 
 detestable hole, and came and went again ; the same unre- 
 lenting plain, the same mud-holes for wells, remains of old 
 camps, decayed animals, and debris of war still the same ! 
 Here were the remains of animals which were to live on 
 the country, but which, disobeying Pope's magnificent 
 order, died on it because it was the only thing they found 
 it practicable to do. Feebler and feebler these faithful 
 animals grew on Pope's forage, until at last, with not even 
 a saddle's weight, their muscles relaxed, and they took 
 
160 A WAR DIAKT. 
 
 tlieir last step, — a final expiring effort, — and fell to rise 
 no more. Here, near a tree, to which he was so securely 
 fastened that not a mouthful of food or water could he get, 
 we came upon the skeleton of a poor horse, unbridled, 
 unsaddled, deserted by the inhuman animal that rode him, 
 perishing most miserably of hunger and thirst. 
 
 At Warrenton, with one corps in advance at Bealton, the 
 Army of the Potomac had concentrated for action. On the 
 twenty-fourth, Longstreet entered Culpeper, en route for 
 Gordonsville. He was received as a conqueror ; the bidld- 
 ings decked with Eebel flags, the streets crowded with 
 Eebel sympathizers, the air filled with Eebel cheers, — 
 these greeted the ragged and barefooted crowd tramping 
 southward from their defeat at Gettysburg. Prices for 
 food were high. Flour was twenty dollars a barrel in 
 notes of the Confederate Government, and fifteen dollars 
 in notes . of a Eebel State ; in United States notes the 
 price was twelve dollars. For one bowl of bread and 
 milk one dollar was asked. In Pope's campaign we left 
 much paper money in Culpeper ; and now from prisoners, 
 from the dead, and from exchanges the amount had 
 increased. Two for one of ours was freely offered in 
 Confederate money ; while for gold there was no price in 
 Confederate paper. The absolute strength of one's convic- 
 tion is shown, it is said, in the money he is willing to 
 stake in its support ; the market is infallible. These, then, 
 were the fruits of Gettysburg, of Vicksburg and the Miss- 
 issippi, — two to one by Eebels on our success. 
 
 While he was at Warrenton, the public was busy with 
 General Meade. Letters, anonymous and acknowledged, 
 all censuring his failure to capture Lee after Gettysburg, 
 poured in upon him. "The question," said the General 
 to-day in the presence of General Slocum and myself, " was 
 not whether we should attack at all at Hagerstown, but 
 
WITH THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC. 161 
 
 whether an attack in force should be made without a recon- 
 noissance." Unfortunately, during the discussion the ene- 
 my fled ; and thus vials of wrath were opened upon the 
 General who turned back the Eebel horde at Gettysburg. 
 " Your course," said one, " will prove that engineer ofiicerg 
 in conducting campaigns are failures." Said another, " You 
 wUl fail as McClellan has failed." Even HaUeck's private 
 despatches to Meade, served up through the agency of a 
 telegraphic reporter, tickled the public ear with the bom- 
 bastic sententiousness " that councils of war never fight," 
 or were rolled with pretentious gravity over the public 
 tongue in affected alleviation of disappointment; and 
 although the real • despatch bore but small resemblance 
 to the telegraphic foundling, it was insolent enough, as 
 we have seen, to impel Meade to offer his resignation, 
 — the result of which, however, being that he received a 
 reply from his dyspeptic potentate more acrid than the 
 despatch. 
 
 It was clear enough now that we could neither intercept 
 Lee nor take him at a disadvantage ; therefore it only 
 remained to us to meet him wherever he would choose to 
 stand. While the main army hung about the Warrentons, 
 detachments were pushed out ten or twelve miles to the 
 front and the rear ; and my division was sent to Green- 
 wich. As we entered that quiet town and halted beneath 
 a grove which sheltered a picturesque stone church by the 
 roadside, I observed that the church, as well as a gate 
 opposite which shut off a veritable English lawn, surround- 
 ing a pretty cottage on the hillside, and two or three small 
 cottages in our front, were placarded as " the property of 
 a British subject," to whom several Union generals, among 
 them Meade and Kilpatrick, had given safeguards. I was 
 reflecting upon the awkwardness of the thing if all Green- 
 wich were owned by some sturdy Briton, and the effect 
 
 H 
 
162 A WAK DIARY. 
 
 upon the inalienable rights of foraging soldiers, when I 
 saw approaching a figure which I could not doubt was the 
 veritable British subject whose domain we had invaded. 
 He was a burly-looking man, mounted on a stout cob, 
 with an umbrella folded under his arm. Inquiring for the 
 General as he approached, he invited me to visit him, take 
 a glass of wine, make my headquarters at his house, and 
 (more important still) to give him a guard. " I am a Brit- 
 ish subject," he said, " and have protection ; this is all my 
 property, and I should like three sentinels." My British 
 friend, as I afterward discovered, had married a wife whose 
 estates, — one in Georgia and three in Virginia, — he oc- 
 cupied and defended, under the claim of exemption from 
 the seizures of war, as a British subject and a neutral. 
 However, glad to escape the intense heat, I accompanied 
 him to his house with my staff, where we were regaled 
 by a delicious draught of sherry and ice. Being intro- 
 duced to his family, -p consisting of his wife, children, and 
 a lady friend, all refined and disposed to be hospitable, 
 although of Southern birth, and of course rank Secessionists, 
 — we were soon quite at home, inquiring about each other's 
 friends and relatives, as similarity of name suggested kinship, 
 I could not doubt that these manifestations of hospitahty 
 were selfishly made for greater security from aggressions on 
 my British subject's hen-roosts, spring-house, grain-fields, 
 and fences ; but this was no reason why we should not enjoy 
 the time not occupied in proper military dispositions for 
 watchfulness and defence, particularly as the day, — the 
 Ist of August, — was extremely hot, the hottest we had felt. 
 From three o'clock in the morning we had been march- 
 ing on dusty roads ; many men had fallen out from ex- 
 haustion, and all had suffered ; but the bravest would not 
 succumb. 
 With other maUriel belonging to this division I had 
 
WITH 'the AKMY of THE POTOMAC. 163 
 
 received six soldiers who had been tried and sentenced to 
 be shot for the crime of desertion. AtWarrenton Junction 
 the sentences were to have been carried into execution. 
 The field had been selected, cof&ns made, and doom an- 
 nounced ; but a sudden movement ordered for the day had 
 caused a week's suspension, during 'which five of the fated 
 ones were recommended to the President for pardon. For 
 the sixth, however, a ringleader, the sentence was un- 
 changed ; and again my division was ordered to form on 
 the morrow to witness his execution. The hopelessness 
 of his reprieve had been communicated, the chaplain had 
 performed his last ofiice, the firing party had been detailed, 
 when again an order to march at five o'clock in the morn- 
 ing threatened another inhuman interruption, — which, 
 however, did not happen, as will appear. With the stout- 
 est of the troops this convict had marched sturdUy and 
 mianfuUy to Greenwich, following his coffin for fifteen 
 weary miles. Here, at the end of his last march, his last 
 hour on earth had come. A field near the camp had been 
 selected, and preparations made for a fitting termination of 
 the ghastly ceremony, when the British subject, who had 
 heard that his own field was to be devoted to this novel 
 use, bustled up to ask with puffy earnestness, " Is it true, 
 General, that you are going to shoot one of your men to- 
 day?" Then, without awaiting a reply, he continued, 
 " Now, my dear sir, you must not think any worse of me if 
 I say this execution is a dreadful thing ! And yet it is an 
 incident of the war ; why, sir, it is historical, and, — bless 
 my soul, sir ! — I want to see it ; and, if you do not think 
 it improper, I should like to take my little boys with me." 
 " If you are so inclined, you may," I replied. And in- 
 deed he did so incline, for he took a position as near to 
 the scene as he could with safety^ With umbrella under 
 his arm, a linen coat over his shoulders, a little dog in 
 
164 A WAR DIAEY. 
 
 front of him, and three small children (aged six, eight, and 
 ten) by his side, he was the first on the field and the last 
 to leave it. 
 
 Many years ago, hanging on the wall of an accustomed 
 haunt, I remember finding a strange fascination in a coarse 
 print of a military execution. Often have I stood spell- 
 bound before the picture. The condemned kneeling by 
 the side of his grave, the coffin, the blindfolded victim, the 
 platoon of soldiers with levelled muskets, the coming word, 
 and in the distance a horseman galloping towards the spot, 
 waving in his hand a pardon. Could he but fly ! and did 
 he reach there in time ? I could never forget the dreadfiU 
 reality, even with the consciousness that it was after all but 
 a painting, a creation perhaps of the imagination. But 
 this execution at Greenwich was not a dream. Here there 
 was no coloring. A sad, stern duty was before me, and 
 there was no reprieve. The hour had come ; and the divi- 
 sion was formed on three sides of a hoUow square, leaving 
 the fourth with an open grave and fresh earth on its edge, 
 when a mournful procession approached. Advancing 
 slowly, silently, a firing party of six soldiers preceded an 
 ambulance in which a soldier was seated upon his coffin, his 
 arms pinioned and his eyes cast down. The provost guard 
 followed. The ranks were motionless ; all eyes were fixed 
 upon the condemned. He was assisted to the ground, the 
 soldiers placed the coffin by the side of the grave, and then 
 the poor, unhappy victim knelt upon his coffin. Not a 
 sound was heard save the mournful prayer and solemn 
 tones of the death sentence. Not a man moved, as the 
 bandage which shut out forever the last ray of God's sun- 
 light was placed over the eyes of one poor fellow-being. 
 There was no pity and no hope. I turned my eyes up- 
 wards to the clouds : they formed a frightful pile, a mon- 
 ster Gqrgon looking down with mouth agape and hideous 
 
WITH THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC. 165 
 
 grin. The sharp " Eeady ! aim ! " and then the awful 
 choking suspense, relieved, — ah, how much relieved! — 
 by the ringing voUey which drowned that word of dread. 
 For an instant the form remained erect, still on its knees • 
 the next, a corpse rolled over its last receptacle to the 
 brink of a yawning grave. 
 
 On their way back to their encampments the troops 
 moved in column by the corpse. Death, so real, had set 
 its seal upon this human face ; death, so solemn, so earnest, 
 had driven a soul so completely from its human tenement 
 that I could hardly realize that this rigid form had ever 
 felt a human passion, or given way to human weakness. 
 When the last look had been taken and the field cleared 
 of troops, a small burial party lowered the body, filled the 
 grave with earth, covered the slight mound with a green 
 sod, and left the scene of this tragedy alone with the dead. 
 Of the six guns in the hands of the firing party but five 
 were loaded ; no one, therefore, could teU. who held the 
 blank. But four guns were discharged ; and from these 
 but two bullets struck the condemned man, — one passing 
 through his abdomen, another through his breast, near his 
 heart. He died without a struggle. He died, and left no 
 word, save that, as at last he realized the awful truth, he 
 begged that he might have an interview with myself or 
 General Meade. But this was humanely denied, for I was 
 only carrying out the will of General Meade, and he had 
 passed relentlessly upon his case. The law had been 
 defied ; and so, at last, the law was vindicated. 
 
 For the two following days we saw much of our English 
 host and his family. At his earnest solicitation, my staff 
 and I took many meals at his house. We had frequent 
 discussions upon the course the English Government had 
 pursued in this war, and we touched rather gingerly in the 
 presence of the ladies upon the causes of the EebeUion. 
 
166 A WAE DIAEY. 
 
 But the fact was that this restive subject of Her Majesty 
 was so much interested in compensation for losses by my 
 troops, that he could really discuss nothing else. Indeed, 
 he barely concealed the thought uppermost in his mind, 
 " How shall I get rid of these Yankees, get paid for my 
 losses, and at the same time conciliate Mosby, the Virginia 
 guerilla, and explain to him why I have invited Yankees 
 to my table ? " To amuse and entertain these people, we 
 had music from one of my bands in front of their house 
 at evening. 
 
 To my astonishment I was ordered to leave Greenwich. 
 Under the impression that we were to stay some time, I had 
 extended my pickets for six miles ; but now instructions 
 came to move back again towards Warrenton. This sudden 
 departure troubled my respectable English friend, who was 
 uneasy about the grain destroyed by the troops, and was 
 anxious to purchase from my commissary, paying in silver 
 and gold. He had, I discovered, been a resident of our 
 country for thirty years, and during the war had been im- 
 prisoned in Fort Warren for three months, having been 
 captured as a blockade-runner. The feeling he enter- 
 tained for us was therefore not one of affection ; and in 
 this he was in sympathy with his family, who refused one 
 evening to drink a glass of wine with me to the restoration 
 of the Union, although they were willing to drink to peace. 
 I had passed the evening pleasantly with this people, and 
 informed them of my intended departure the next day. I 
 could not refrain from saying to the female Secessionists, 
 with a little irritation perhaps, that peace could not be 
 found save under the broad shield of our Constitution; 
 that we, too, had Saxon blood in our veins ; that our people 
 were brave, our men and means inexhaustible ; that, like 
 them, we also had mourned and pledged and suffered ; and 
 that we could not therefore abandon the Union of these 
 
WITH THE AKMY OF THE POTOMAC. 167 
 
 States. This unhappy Briton had often asked blessings on 
 his soul in astonishment at my opinion of the course which 
 England had pursued in building ships to commit depreda- 
 tions on our commerce, in her persistent efforts to run our 
 blockade, and in her unfriendly comments upon our cause. 
 He had often gasped, and no-noed, and blessed his soul, sir, 
 and hoped not, as I told him that England's sympathies and 
 England's treasure had been used against us in behalf of 
 those whom she considered her more respectable Southern 
 relations ; and that our people were inclined to hold her 
 to a strict accountability for her misdeeds. But nothing 
 interfered with hearty farewells and a seemingly cordial 
 good-by as we parted to march at daylight. 
 
 On the 3d of August, at three o'clock in the morning, 
 we set our faces towards Warrenton, and by six o'clock 
 had reached Walnut Branch, at the crossing of the Cat- 
 lett's Station and Greenwich road, fiy an early start we 
 had got the benefit of all the coolness there was, — it 
 being a day of such dreadful heat that gasping was both 
 a necessity and a task, — and now set ourselves to work to 
 maintain a new line of pickets where it had been always 
 meant that I should establish them, but for the blunder of 
 somebody who sent me to Greenwich. Here I waited to see 
 what would be the next move. General Slocum had desired, 
 and General Meade had approved, the transfer of my divi- 
 sion and of myself to the Twelfth Corps, so that the future 
 seemed to hold for me in promise aU that I could desire. 
 Such were my expectations, when, like lightning from a clear 
 sky, came an order which severed my relations with the old 
 Army of the Potomac, and sent me to a different field. 
 
 It was the evening of the 5th of August : I had re- 
 viewed my division, established pickets, held some inter- 
 esting conferences with my officers, approved certain papers 
 which the British subject had presented to establish his 
 
168 A WAR DIAEY. 
 
 claim for losses by ray command, and was about half way 
 to oblivion in my bed, when I was aroused by an aid, from 
 General Howard, with " important despatches for General 
 Gordon." By the glimmer of a wretched candle I read 
 the startling order that General Meade would send imme- 
 diately General Gordon's division by rail to Alexandria, 
 where he would report by telegraph to Major-General Hal- 
 leck. While it may be said of a soldier that he knows not 
 what a day may bring forth, since his destiny, his fate, is 
 in the hands of those who watch the great game and make 
 the grand combinations of war, yet a soldier may feel an 
 intensity of unpleasantness in taking prescribed doses, even 
 for the good of the body politic. But no time for question- 
 ing or dreaming remained. Prom the adjutant-general to 
 the commanders of brigades, and from thence to regimental 
 commanders, the order sped, — arousing, as the wave rolled 
 on, confused murmurs of many voices, flashing of lights, 
 shouting of teamsters, and inquiring officers. Everybody 
 wondered ; my staff wondered, and surmised, and sighed. 
 That we were to be borne to some other scene of action 
 must be true ; but where that scene was to be, the order 
 did not say. General Meade did not know, and General 
 Howard could not imagine. Long before daylight a sleepy, 
 depressed column of troops took up its march for Catlett's 
 Station. Groping about through the night and until the 
 gray light of morning broke, we found no soul of whom to 
 inquire, or, inquiring, secure the slightest information of 
 where transportation to Alexandria was to come from, or 
 when to start, save a somnolent telegraph operator, and 
 he could only assure me that the Quartermaster-General of 
 the Army of the Potomac was asleep, and therefore no 
 information was to be got from him until he should awake 
 in the morning. With nothing, therefore, more palpable 
 to pound than the slender wire which led to the quarters 
 
WITH THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC. 169 
 
 of this slumbering quartermaster, or the luckless operator 
 who could, no more than I, affect the drowsy officials around 
 General Meade, we fell back on restless chafing and a wink 
 of sleep in the dirt whereon we tumbled, and remained 
 there until eleven o'clock of the next day ; when, o%ving to 
 information from some one who was awake, we marched to 
 Warrenton Junction. There, at half-past five in the after- 
 noon, we were loaded into cattle-cars and slowly hauled 
 to Alexandria, where we arrived at half-past twelve at 
 night, more than twenty-four hours from the time when I 
 was aroused to go forward immediately to that city. 
 
 As may be presumed, we were sleepy. Tired Nature's 
 sweet restorer, balm of tired bodies as well as hurt minds, is 
 often a phantom to a soldier, a thing longed for, but rarely 
 enjoyed in tranquillity. In my bedroom at Alexandria, how- 
 ever, I met hosts of foes, more relentless and bloodthirsty 
 than were the Southern forces. Sleep was impossible ; so I 
 passed the night sitting bolt upright in full dress, to receive 
 in the morning the sympathies of my dolt of a landlord, 
 who assured me that he knew one of those beds was oc- 
 cv^ied, and meant to have so informed me. But this I 
 doubted ; believing the man to be a Secessionist, who took 
 this shocking method of shedding Union blood. 
 
 At five o'clock in the morning of the 7th of August I 
 was ready to receive the telegram which shortly after came 
 from General Halleck, announcing that my destination 
 was Morris Island, South Carolina, to reinforce Brigadier- 
 General Gillmore ; and that I must not unfold this order 
 until I should be at sea. Gillmore, it appeared, had met 
 with a heavy loss in an unsuccessful attempt to take Fort 
 Wagner by assault, and had called for reinforcements. 
 Halleck, temporarily commander-in-chief, casting his eyes 
 over the pages which recorded his disposable force, paused 
 long enough on the Eleventh Corps to resolve that my 
 
170 A WAK DIARY. 
 
 division should respond to Gillmore's call, and that Howard, 
 with the remainder of the corps, should reinforce Eose- 
 crans, who at Tennessee had met with as bad luck as had 
 Gillmore in South Carolina. As we could not go to sea in 
 river boats, and only river boats were at the disposal of the 
 quartermaster, it was determined that we should sail for 
 Fortress Monroe, and there meet ocean steamers to take us 
 to our destination. On the morning of the 8th of August 
 we entered the James Eiver, and went into camp at New- 
 port News to await our ships ; and there, as some delay- 
 occurred, I had time once more to observe and meditate 
 upon this region, already so prominent in the annals of 
 the war. The little Monitor and the " Merrimac," New- 
 port News and the " Congress " and the " Cumberland," of 
 what startling events do these remind us in the groping 
 darkness of the first years of the war ! Hampton, too, was 
 in ruins through the vandalism of its commander, the Eebel 
 Magruder. Nothing marked the site of this beautiful vil- 
 lage but fallen buildings. Court-house and churches, and 
 trees with their luxuriant shade, — all gone ; and in their 
 place falling walls and chimneys, monuments of desolation> 
 types of the rebellious spirit which would reduce our 
 Government to the same condition. As I rode by and 
 over the crumbling ruins of the fi.ve hundred brick build- 
 ings which once formed the town, a motley group of negroes 
 and a few whites, sad and wan in their want, came to the 
 doors of flimsy sheds, or gazed listlessly out, wedded still 
 to home with all its desolation. Over a frail and newly- 
 built structure, by the side of the charred piers of an old 
 bridge, by the standing pillars of the ruined court-house, by 
 the tottering walls of the Presbyterian church, I wandered 
 to the end of the village, where I came to the ruins of the 
 Episcopal church, whose side-walls and one end were still 
 standing, — a picturesque ruin in the alternating white and 
 
"^S-K? 
 
172 A WAR DIAEY. 
 
 colored bricks which formed its courses. Surrounding the 
 church was an enclosure in which there were many graves 
 and monuments, with commemorative epitaphs ; but they 
 were all crushed, chipped, and broken by the falling walls. 
 Heavy granite tombs were covered with rubbish, and all 
 around was desolation. That all this vandalism should 
 have been the work of that Goth Magruder upon the dwell- 
 ings, the churches, and the graves of his own people, was 
 suggestive of what might take place should our country 
 be invaded in a foreign war. It was hard to realize that 
 this was my own country. 
 
 Major-General John G. Foster was in command of the 
 department of the James, with headquarters at Portress 
 Monroe. Ko longer the slim cadet of yore, he was burly in 
 iigure and six feet in height, with a pleasing smile and genial 
 welcome for all. The movements of General Foster in 
 xforth Carolina, in his fight at Goldsboro, and his exploits 
 on the rivers thereabout, had attracted much notice, and 
 gained for him the name of a gallant and skilful officer. 
 President Lincoln was delighted both with him and with 
 his achievements. Foster gave me an account of an inter- 
 view which he had with the President after his return 
 from North Carolina, at which, in the presence of an 
 admiring crowd of Congressmen, Mr. Lincoln questioned 
 him and repeated his answers, with his own comments 
 thereon, in an amusing way. 
 
 " How did you get up there ? " asked the President. 
 
 "I made them think I was going elsewhere," replied 
 Foster. 
 
 " Deceived them," said Mr. Lincoln ; " don't you see ? " — 
 turning to the Congressmen. " And how far did you march 
 in a day ? " he continued. 
 
 " About miles," replied Foster. 
 
 " He made miles," echoed the President, — and so 
 
WITH THE AEMY OF THE POTOMAC. 173 
 
 on to the end of the chapter. Our dear old President was 
 so charmed with the energy and skill and dash of the 
 General that he rewarded him with the command of this 
 important avenue to Eichmond. General Foster had just 
 made a gallant dash up the James ; had looked in^o Fort 
 Darling, run his steamers over torpedoes, four of which, 
 exploding under his boat, deluged the deck and almost blew 
 him out of the water ; had received the fire of batteries 
 open and concealed ; had, in fact, gone far enough to find 
 that the Eebel river-way to the Eebel city was still strongly 
 guarded from river's brink to river's bottom. 
 
 On the 11th of August, the steamships "Few York," 
 "Constitution," "Empire City," "Spaulding," "America," 
 " United States," and " Nelly Pentz " received my entire 
 division, and we sailed for South Carolina. After embark- 
 ing her complement of troops at Newport News, the " Em- 
 pire City " was directed to take myself and staff on board 
 at Fortress Monroe. In the mean time, at General Foster's 
 invitation, I had joined a party of officers with ladies on 
 their way to the iron-clad, turreted ship " Eoanoke " (cut' 
 down from her former size of a sister ship of the " Minne- 
 sota "), the foremost vessel awaiting, on the James the com- 
 ing of those grim Eebel iron-clads, often threatened, from 
 Eichmond. The "Eoanoke" was armed with fifteen and 
 eleven inch guns, two in each turret. The fifteen-inch gun 
 is a formidable weapon, as the "Atlanta," an iron-clad 
 Eebel vessel, discovered. Inspired by gay company from 
 the fort, and the hearty welcome of the naval officers, the 
 cares and perplexities of this world vanished, and we sur- 
 rendered to the bewitching fancies of music, charming 
 companions, and the- romances of an iron-clad, until the 
 thick smoke of the " Empire City " and certain tender fare- 
 wells warned us that our time had come. We gave the 
 word, and were soon ploughing through the waves of the 
 
174 A WAK DIAET. 
 
 bay in the strong night-breeze out into the broad Atlantic. 
 Behind us the lights from the iron-clads and the fort grew 
 fainter and fainter, until at length they went out beneath 
 the waters, and then we turned our faces towards the land 
 that awaited us at the seat of war in South Carolina. 
 
 As recorded in his Bible, Captain Baxter, of the " Empire 
 City,'' was born in Osterville, near Barnstable, in Massa- 
 chusetts ; and as recorded in the memory of aU. who ever 
 sailed with him, he was a good fellow and an admirable 
 seaman. Such, indeed, was his sense of responsibility on 
 this trip that he assured me his whole time, night and day, 
 must be devoted to his vessel; and he pressed upon me 
 the use of his state-room, which I accepted only upon his 
 repeated assertion that he should not use it himself. 
 
 When officers and men were comfortably stowed 
 away, proper guards established, and officers assigned to 
 duty, nothing remained but to look out for the " Alabama," 
 enjoy the refreshing sea-breeze, or listen to the captain's 
 narratives of escapes by sea and by land. And of the latter 
 he recalled more vividly his gratitude to God for his escape 
 from " a long, thin lawyer," who once in court questioned 
 him on the witness stand, than from any sea monster or 
 mishap. "I shall know that man again," said Captain 
 Baxter, " in this world or the next ; " but as the Captain 
 acknowledged having a private arrangement with a short, 
 fat lawyer on his own side (a certain Boston notable, prac- 
 tising in the United States Courts), by which he was not 
 to answer any questions until his counsel turned up his 
 thumb in approval, it may be that the long, thin brother 
 was much maligned. It was in vain that I defended the 
 profession : Captain Baxter was unmoved. He was " down 
 on all lawyers," he said ; and he insisted that it made no 
 good defence for their bad manners, that a witness had 
 conspired to tell, during a cross-examination, only so much 
 
SOUTH CAEOLINA. 175 
 
 of the truth as he could find on his own counsel's thumb. 
 And this he reiterated with a seaman's voice, in sweet igno- 
 rance that one general in command, one colonel, a lieuten- 
 ant-colonel, and two lieutenants on his staff, — with no one 
 knows how many of the field, line officers, and privates, — 
 aU lawyers, were under his charge on his own boat. 
 
 At midnight I was aroused from a deep sleep by the 
 captain, who, reporting that a steamer was in sight sig- 
 nalling with blue lights, inquired what he should do about 
 it. First shouting out, " Do what you choose," I reconsid- 
 ered in a moment, and plunged out on deck just in time to 
 hear the whirring of a shell and its explosion across our 
 bows, followed by a rough hail, " "What ship is that ? " 
 " The ' Empire City ! ' What ship is that ? " 
 " The ' Mercedita.' We will send a boat aboard of you." 
 Soon a boat came alongside, from which emerged a lieu- 
 tenant in naval uniform, who, when presented to me, broke 
 out with profuse apologies for stopping us; saying that it 
 was his duty, as our lights were out, and he had his sus- 
 picions that we might be a blockade-runner. Of course 
 our lights were not out, and the proceeding was vexatious ; 
 but I embraced the opportunity to ply our visitor with 
 questions, and learned that he thought a naval attack on 
 Sumter had begun, because he heard night, before last a 
 terrible firing ; also that Dahlgren had ordered up all iron- 
 clads and fighting ships. Marine rumors we found gener- 
 ally as untrustworthy as this proved to be. But they gave 
 us something to talk about at the breakfast-table. 
 
 On the evening of the thirteenth we were off Charleston. 
 At first we could make out dimly the tops of the tall masts 
 of the " Wabash " on the outer circle of the blockading 
 fleet ; then the faint dark line of the coast-range came in 
 sight ; and then flashes of guns, and reports of heavy ord- 
 nance breaking out from the indistinct gloom, were borne 
 
176 A WAK DIARY. 
 
 to US over the waters from Morris Island, as near as we 
 could make out, with but few if any responses from Sumter 
 or Wagner. Anchoring near the flag-ship (the " Wabash "), 
 which is en rhgle when the army invades the domain of 
 the navy, we soon^ learned from an officer who boarded us 
 that the projected attack upon Sumter with our heavy 
 guns had not yet been made, though it was promised for 
 the next day, or at farthest within two or three days ; also 
 that the Eebels had been erecting batteries on James 
 Island to take ours on Morris Island in reverse, but 
 that we had established counter batteries, and it was 
 surmised that the Eebels were evacuating Fort Sumter and 
 carrying their heavy guns to James Island, near the city. 
 We learned further that but little had been done on shore 
 since Gillmore's failure to take Wagner by storm, but that 
 all were hopeful. The reported bombardment of Fort 
 Sumter, of which we had heaird two or three days before at 
 Hampton Eoads, was due, we were told, to the opening of 
 Eebel guns from Wagner and Sumter upon our working 
 parties, through information carried to the enemy by two 
 escaped sutlers whom Gillmore had ordered to the trenches 
 for selling liquor to his troops. 
 
 Late in the evening I announced my arrival by a note 
 to General Gillmore. The spires of the city, the walls of 
 Sumter, the blockading fleet, and the beleaguered army were 
 shrouded in darkness. Waves rolled along the sides of 
 our steamer as we lay at anchor in the bay, and we slept, 
 gently rocked into slumber on their bosoms, as sweetly 
 and as calmly as if no great drama were being enacted 
 around us. 
 
 Daylight revealed the position of Loyal and Eebel forces 
 with remarkable precision. Sumter, plainly cut against 
 sky and water, stood out clear and well-defined in the 
 morning sunlight. The " New Ironsides," lying under the 
 
SOUTH CAKOLINA. 177 
 
 walls of Wagner to flank our approaching parallels, or render 
 futile tha efforts of Eebel storming parties, maintained h.er 
 position despite the Eebel shells which burst over her iron 
 ribs and fell harmless into the water beyond. At the lower 
 end of Morris and on the upper end of Folly Island white 
 canvas covered the sandy shores. Long lines of black 
 iron-clad vessels and monitors flanked that part of Morris 
 Island occupied by our troops and embraced within our 
 operations; and these, with many gunboats of wood of 
 heavy armament, enabled the navy to throw such a deluge 
 of shot and shell for the protection of Gillmore's troops, that 
 any attempt on the part of the Eebel garrison to make a 
 sortie must have resulted in disaster. On the land side 
 the island was protected by a swamp and deep inlet. It 
 is not strange that with such naval co-operation we were 
 practically unmolested in military operations from Morris 
 Island against Sumter, Wagner, or Charleston. Indeed, 
 the problem of remaining where he was, so long as Gill- 
 more chose, was unquestioned and undisputed by an enemy 
 who, it might be added, was utterly indifferent to his 
 operations, so long as he confined himself to this barren 
 and useless occupation. Moultrievilie and Fort Moultrie, 
 Charleston with its spires and its buildings, the Eebel 
 forts and battle-flags and cannon, our fleet and our troops, 
 — a picturesque panorama, — were before us. While we 
 gazed upon this scene, the " New Ironsides," accompanied 
 by a monitor or two, steamed up under Sumter's walls and 
 opened with her eleven-inch guns. Sullen was the roar 
 and thick the smoke that swept out over the waters as her 
 shot and shell struck fairly the walls of Sumter, throwing 
 up great clouds of dust or tearing huge rents in the solid 
 structure. Yet the fort was silent; the challenge was 
 unheeded. This was not the time for a persistent effort ; 
 and the Union vessels withdrew to their anchorage. 
 
 12 
 
178 A WAK DIAKY. 
 
 The sun rose high in the heavens, and poured its hot 
 heams upon our heads, and still we remained awaiting 
 instructions from Gillmore. The men meanwhile amused 
 themselves fishing for sharks, which were gliding spectre- 
 like around our ships, and severing from the hook the 
 pork bait with a cut as keen as if made with a knife. 
 About half-past one in the afternoon a small steamer, 
 the "Escort," hove in sight, towing barges by which the 
 troops and luggage were to be conveyed to her decks, and 
 thence to shore, — for one steamer could not lie along 
 another in such a rough sea ; indeed, it is with the utmost 
 difficulty and care that men can be transferred from the 
 deck of an ocean steamer at anchor in the offing into 
 launches, tossed about as they may be, now up on a^ top- 
 pling wave, and now down into a yawning gulf ten feet 
 away. Clumsy as these soldiers were, encumbered with 
 gun and knapsack, it was not strange that most ludicrous 
 scenes were exhibited ; and small show of usefulness on 
 land was predicted from the manner in which aur military 
 landlubbers flopped around at sea. Up comes the launch, 
 riding on a monster wave, when " Jump ! " cries the mate. 
 The soldier hesitates, until down goes the launch, ten feet 
 below, in the trough of the sea, when " Hold on ! " bawls 
 the mate ; and then the soldier leaps, is caught by some 
 one who is bobbing about in the launch, and deposited 
 — a lump of musket, knapsack, and blue cloth — in the 
 bottom of the boat. A hundred times this scene was 
 enacted, until the launch was filled. It was then hauled 
 off to the smaller vessel, where, in ■ order to gain its 
 deck, the same process, with all its awkward display, is 
 reversed. 
 
SEA ISLANDS OFF CHARLESTON. 179 
 
 CHAPTEE VII. 
 
 SEA ISLANDS OFF CHARLESTON. 
 
 /^N" the 15th of August, at noon, I bade farewell to the 
 ^-^ kind and hospitable captain of the "Empire City," 
 and with a box of ice, chickens, hams, ducks, and mutton 
 (the captain's considerate gift), passed through the fleet 
 towards Stono Inlet, and up the narrow reach which sepa- 
 rates Morris and Folly islands from the mainland, to dis- 
 embark at an improvised landing. Thence we marched 
 oceanwards some two or three miles to the beach, where, 
 almost in the flying foam of the surf, we made our first 
 encampment- on the shores of FoUy Island, in South Caro- 
 lina; and, with the music of the waves rolling in thunder 
 tones from the great restless ocean, we went supperless to 
 bed, — that booby of a nobody having forgotten to remove 
 the captain's timely gift from the transport. 
 
 As it was reported that our land batteries would open 
 upon Fort Sumter the next day, and that Gillmore was 
 confident the fort would be taken then, I arose at five 
 o'clock in the morning (it was the 16th of August) on this 
 delectable island, breakfasted on ham and pickles, galloped 
 up the beach, crossed Light House Inlet to Morris Island 
 on the steamer " Planter '' (memorable for its capture by 
 the negro pilot Eobert Small), and called on Gillmore, to 
 find him in bed, and sick. I saw his chief of staff, how-, 
 ever, and learned from him that the attack on -Sumter had 
 been deferred until the next day ; that our batteries were 
 
SEA ISLANDS OFF CHARLESTON. 181 
 
 nearly ready ; and that the three-hundred pounder Par- 
 rott, then almost in position, would be completely so that 
 night. Here I found General Stevenson, of Boston, and 
 was cordially received by this valued and genial of&cer, 
 and invited to ride to the trenches, through which it was 
 hoped Wagner would be successfully taken this time. 
 
 Mounting our horses, we galloped by the encampments 
 of regiments garrisoning the island, to within about eleven 
 hundred yards of Wagner; there we dismounted and 
 climbed a sand-hill, and lying down behind small bushes, 
 which concealed us from the view of the Kebel garrison, 
 took with our strong glasses a full survey of the scene. By 
 parallels and hoyausn Gillmore had approached to within 
 three hundred yards of Wagner. The deep ditches, which 
 the . busy sappers were still making, stretched away at our 
 feet for eight hundred yards to our front. About a mile 
 beyond, Sumter rose calmly from the sea. Sullivan's Island 
 we saw on Sumter's right, with James Island and the spires 
 of Charleston on its left ; while batteries innumerable, with 
 heavy guns on all their points, confronted us. Stretching 
 away to our right, and forming a semicircle around the 
 entrance to the harbor, was our fleet, — monitors and iron- 
 sides and frigates. Nearly all of them were ready to join 
 in a concentrated fire upon the doomed forts and city. 
 Within the estimated range of our two and three hundred 
 pounder Parrotts, within the range of the naval battery of 
 captured Whitworths, which was manned by sailors anx- 
 ious to take part in the coming bombardment, stood as 
 targets Sumter, AVagner, and Gregg, the latter occupying 
 the end of Morris Island. Over this panoramic view my 
 eye wandered, until the whole gradually assumed the form 
 and shape of a definite plan. Burrowing within or upheav- 
 ing the sandy bed of the islands, to attack with impunity 
 the weakest points of the enemy's works, we had slowly but 
 
182 A WAR DIAKY. 
 
 surely approached under cover of our protecting ditches. 
 Meanwhile the greatest caution had been necessary to pre- 
 vent the enemy from making a sortie from his works to 
 destroy ours, spike our guns, or kill and capture our men. 
 Long I gazed upon the different sand-piles thrown up by 
 the Eebels within the fair circle of my vision; long I med- 
 itated upon the grim and silent mouths of the huge guns 
 behind those sandy bulwarks, upon the indistinct bodies of 
 workmen and soldiers seen through the lifeless and hazy 
 air, — until all seemed as unreal as a dream. But, hark ! 
 See there ! A white puff rose from the mound-like fort 
 on James Island ; a shell screamed and burst with a sharp 
 and angry crash which jarred the air around uS, and hurled 
 its fragments humming by our ears. Another and another 
 followed in quick succession. " These are the first from 
 that spot," said General Stevenson. " And for my benefit, 
 perhaps," I replied, as, slowly turning, and crouching 
 through ditch or covered by traverse, we made our way to 
 our horses, and thence to General Gillmore's tent. 
 
 At daylight on the morning of the seventeenth, from the 
 deck of the steamer " Maple-leaf," at anchor near a whole 
 fleet of monitors, I awaited the combined naval and land 
 demonstration which was to knock Sumter into smithers, 
 and open wide the gates of the city of Charleston. No posi- 
 tion on shore was so favorable. It had been necessary to 
 steam out the evening before, and wait at anchor for the 
 early dawn. The night had been one of disturbances. We 
 were just off Wagner, near Fort Sumter and Sullivan's 
 Island, not only with an unobstructed view, but in good 
 shelling range of batteries from those hostile works, if the 
 enemy had seen fit to turn his attention to us. 
 
 What a night that was ! The anticipations of the com- 
 ing day, the rocking and rolling of my little steamer on the 
 ocean waves, with the eternal banging of her rudder-head 
 
SEA ISLANDS OFF CHARLESTON. 183 
 
 as she swung hither and thither on the swift-rnnning tide 
 of Charleston bar, the bright stars above, the wash of 
 waves, the distant hum of voices from the fleet, the roar of 
 heavy guns from Wagner ploughing up the land against 
 our advancing trenches, making our engineers' work in 
 them a dance of death, a warfare unfamiliar to a lands- 
 man, — all these things made me so wakeful that the first 
 opening gun of a monitor at three o'clock found no sleepy 
 listener in me. 
 
 A little after daylight our shore batteries opened. At 
 seven o'clock the monitors, iron-clads, and wooden gun- 
 boats went in. The scene was exciting. iFrom the 
 trenches our large Parrotts, with an accurate range, pene- 
 trated Sumter's gorge above the sand-bags. And this 
 was as Gillmore supposed it would be. Three hours 
 passed ; Sumter was still silent. For any sign of life 
 we saw or heard, every man within the battered walls 
 might have been killed. The only moving thing was the 
 fluttering flag that still waved on its staff. Was this a 
 ruse ? Nearer and nearer the monitors stole. Lazily, but 
 with a conscious show of strength, the huge form of the 
 " Ironsides " followed ; and in its wake, with a temerity 
 not born of iron walls, eight wooden gunboats drew, near 
 to Cumming's Point. From here and from Wagner a spite- 
 ful fire was maintained upon our fleet ; but the sailors for 
 more than flve hours stood by their guns, hurling the sand 
 in cartloads from the parapets. Then Wagner ceased its 
 fire, and Sumter opened. It was now one o'clock. Fire 
 from the land batteries had slowed down, as if from 
 fatigue. And so our effort ended. Beyond a gallant 
 attack, we had accomplished nothing more than pier- 
 cing holes in Sumter and knocking sand about Wagner. 
 The naval vessels retired to their anchorage, carrying their 
 flags at half-mast. Iron walls had not excluded death ; 
 
184 A WAR DIARY. 
 
 Captain Eodgers had fallen, killed by a piece of iron driven 
 from the grating in his pilot-house by a steel shot, while 
 he was gallantly steering his vessel into the thickest of the 
 fight. Near him, and from the same cause, fell Paymas- 
 ter Woodbury, his acting aid. These officers, and a few 
 wounded, covered all our casualties. 
 
 At five in the afternoon I steamed towards Stono Inlet, 
 to my camp. As the sun threw its rays upon the western 
 face of Sumter, its yellow walls shone out marked and 
 pitted by our guns. One hundred times and more our 
 solid shot had entered ; and this* had given strength to the 
 belief that if our attack should be incessant and remorse- 
 less, at irresistible ranges, the Rebel fort was doomed. With 
 an attack later in the day by two monitors upon Wagner, 
 and by guns on Cumming's Point, in which nothing effec- 
 tual was accomplished, demonstrations ceased by land 
 and sea. By this day's proceeding, from which much had 
 been promised, we had accomplished nothing. 
 
 On the morning of the eighteenth fire from our shore 
 batteries was resumed ; but the effect was not as good as 
 on the day before, owing to a high wind, which blew the 
 sand about in a most uncomfortable way, deranging the aim 
 of the gunners or the projectiles, or both. I had a fine 
 view of Sumter and of this day's operations from the deck 
 of the gunboat " McDonough," — a quondam ferry-boat 
 lying at anchor in Light House Inlet. The coping had 
 been knocked away ; the w^estern face perforated with holes 
 innumerable. From cotton-bales and sand-bags cotton and 
 sand in one mingled mass covered the ruin. As yet the 
 three-hundred pounder Parrott had not been mounted ; but 
 in a swamp to our left our men were piling up countless 
 sand-bags to cover a two-hundred pounder Parrott gun 
 which should carry as far as Charleston itself. The inflow 
 from the ocean that separates Morris from Polly Island, and . 
 
SEA. ISLANDS OFF CHARLESTON. 185 
 
 these islands from the mainland, begins and ends near the 
 great source of supply, — the ocean itself These inlets 
 form a quiet channel of communication behind the sand- 
 dunes from North Carolina to the Gulf By such an 
 avenue Gillmore filled his sand-bags at the shore and 
 conveyed them at night without great exposure to the 
 desired spot for his battery in the low ground or marsh. 
 When daylight lit up what had previously been thought 
 to be an inaccessible spot, it revealed this sand-bag fort, 
 which had, like Jonah's gourd, grown up in a single night. 
 The enemy, from James and from Sullivan's islands, bat- 
 tered it with savage vengeance, though with so little effect 
 that Gillmore expressed satisfaction with this day's results. 
 This enormous expenditure of treasure, this sad loss of life 
 from disease and powder, should, we thought, be followed 
 by nothing less than the reduction of Sumter and the occu- 
 pation of all the Kebel forts around it. 
 
 I awoke on the morning of the nineteenth to a r^veUM 
 of heavy guns which shook the ground. The night had 
 been a sleepless one ; it was filled with fearful sounds. 
 The winds roared and shook my frail tent like a leaf ; the 
 waves were hoarse with tumult ; demons of the storm and 
 evil passions of men seemed to howl in concert. Again I 
 found myself on the gunboat, trying to count the new holes 
 in Sumter's battered walls ; again viewing with satisfac- 
 tion huge rents of some nine square feet (the results of 
 the fire of yesterday), or speculating upon how long a 
 fort could hold out whose gorge angles had been battered 
 down, the coping knocked away, and dreadful havoc done 
 to masonry, — and this, too, though the three-hundred 
 pounder Parrott had not yet opened its ponderous jaws, 
 nor had the angel of death been mounted in the marsh bat- 
 tery. StiU the enemy was defiant. From James Island 
 he delivered a continuous fire, which dashed in upon our 
 
186 A WAS, DIAEY. 
 
 left ; from Johnson, wherever it would hurt most ; and from 
 Sullivan, a iire feeble and sputtering, — and this went on 
 until sunset. Throughout the night the heavy thud of 
 guns mingled with the ceaseless roar of the ocean. 
 
 The morning of the twentieth dawned on the fourth day 
 of the assault lipon Sumter. The siege went on. Flanks 
 and faces had been battered until they were scarcely distin- 
 guishable. Arches of the casemates now began to show 
 themselves, stuffed with sand-bags, — a fort within a fort. 
 The besieged in this manner, as the old front fell away, built 
 a new one, — using for this purpose the bricks which our 
 shot had beaten into sand. General Gillmore promised that 
 the siege should end in twelve days ; for by that time the 
 navy would be able to sail through the pathway he would 
 have cleared, and to summon the city to surrender. We 
 understood that this was agreed to by those in charge of 
 the fleet. 
 
 The. hope of the besiegers, the three-hundred pounder 
 Parrott gun, had not opened during all this time ; small 
 stones in the vent, which, it was said, had been crushed in 
 while moving it, were to be picked out, — and this caused 
 delay. Nor had the two-hundred pounder Parrott in the 
 marsh battery opened, — the gun that was meant to strike 
 terror into Sumter, and drive the garrison into the sea ; the 
 gun that was to riddle Charleston like a sieve, and make 
 the very source and fountain of EebeUion dry as the des- 
 ert of Sahara. That the Rebels feared perhaps as much 
 as we hoped from this battery would seem to follow from 
 the unmitigated ferocity with which they turned their guns 
 upon its sandy waUs. There it stood, — alone, silent, in 
 the marshes. The sun illuminated its slanting faces, and 
 mottled with darker spots the uneven lines of its sand-bag 
 sides. Eebel shell and shot kept crashing around it; 
 Union hearts were beating hopefully within it. Marsh 
 
SEA ISLANDS OFF CHARLESTON. 187 
 
 Angel, Swamp Angel, the soldiers and sailors had christened 
 the large gun. We were impatient to have it tried, for the 
 belief began to strengthen that we were making, or might 
 make, Sumter stronger, instead of rendering it untenable. 
 Such a possibility the commander seemed not to have con- 
 sidered ; for to a question of what he should do if such 
 should be the case, he replied, " I do not know." 
 
 Our operations were twofold, — the possession of the 
 whole of Morris Island, and the knocking down of Sumter. 
 As yet we occupied but half the former. Wagner stretched 
 across the island in our front, and the strong battery on its 
 northern point sent its greeting to our trenches. Whether 
 it would have been wise or not to have used all our powers 
 in the occupation of the whole of Morris Island before 
 planting our batteries against Sumter, it was too late then 
 to discuss. So delicious a temptation as that of battering 
 the notorious Eebel fort as soon as he could reach it with 
 a single gun, was too much for Gillmore. Besides, the 
 report that GiUmore was knocking Sumter about the ears 
 of its Eebel occupants, was what every one was glad to 
 hear ; and it was pleasing to know that the cry of " Sumter, 
 defiant Sumter, is falling ! " was echoing through the North. 
 Moreover, was it not proved by book and precept, by plan 
 and figures, that Sumter could be reached and penetrated 
 from batteries midway up the island ; from batteries which 
 were constantly exposed to Wagner's plunging fire ; from 
 batteries planted in our parallels, under Wagner's very walls ? 
 But though this could be done by gaUant men, could it be 
 done as efficiently ? And that question was always evaded. 
 
 Under aU the circumstances it was perhaps too much 
 to expect that Gillmore should refrain from hitting Sum- 
 ter with his great guns, even though Wagner stood in his 
 path, menacing his operations and shutting out the pos- 
 sibility of accomplishing anything thereby. To be sure. 
 
188 A WAE DIAEY. 
 
 our engineers were slowly approaching the parapet of the 
 fort, and it was hoped that by regular approaches we could 
 accomplish what GUlmore had failed to do by assault. In 
 the first blush of Gillmore's successful landing on Morris 
 Island he had hastened to the assault of Wagner. On its 
 parapet, sleeping in common earth, lay many brave men, 
 white and colored, victims of a plan in which regular 
 approaches were overlooked, weak points neglected, a 
 proper hour disregarded ; to whom reinforcements were not 
 sent, nor a pathway levelled for them with artUlery ; nor, 
 finally, was the commanding General (as all eye-witnesses 
 agree) where he could either know or direct their advance, 
 their management, or their retreat. In vain, alas ! in vain, 
 did these brave soldiers stumble from one impediment to 
 another, groping from ditch to parapet, falling by scores 
 beneath the murderous fire of the foe, or mangled by tor- 
 pedoes under the sands at their feet. Some gallant men 
 reached the parapet, but to be stricken down upon the very 
 goal of their efforts; some sank at its foot; others iiUed 
 the ditches, dead and dying as they were. And all along 
 from where the well-defined range of Wagner's guns could 
 tell, the slain covered the ground, monuments of foUy and 
 of woe. Our loss was terrible. In generals we mourned 
 Strong ; and in colonels, Shaw. Others as brave as these, 
 — that multitude of nameless ones, the rank and file, 
 the non-commissioned, who, cheered by no hope of public 
 recognition, conscious that living or dyirig their sole re- 
 ward must be the approbation of their own consciences, 
 — many of them of the proscribed, the enslaved race, with 
 not even a Christian name or home, with nothing to mark 
 them save the form of a human being, — these I cannot 
 name ; I can only say that they fought and fell, and on 
 their bodies, stiff and stark, the rising sun looked down 
 on white and colored, named and nameless, side by side. 
 
SEA ISLANDS OFF CHARLESTON. 189 
 
 Save that the grandeur, the sublimity of these deaths 
 raised the colored man to a higher plane of manhood, and 
 weakened the shackles of slavery all over the world, we 
 had gained nothing. These facts may be confirmed by the 
 testimony of many stiU. living. 
 
 In this second effort to capture Wagner the system of 
 approaches offered an easy and a sure solution of the prob- 
 lem. Aided by the ships, on which great guns were floated 
 within excellent range, a new parallel had been begun; 
 and although from all divisions a large quota was furnished 
 to that remorseless enrolling ofi&cer Death, the work went 
 manfully on. Gillmore had expressed great satisfaction 
 with results so far attained. " I consider my part of the 
 work almost ended," he said on the morning of the 21st of 
 August, as from the deck of the " McDonough " he scanned 
 the horizon with his glass. These words, spoken of Sum- 
 ter, afforded pleasing reflections upon our four days of 
 bombardment, our forty (more or less) of occupation of this 
 sand island, and upon the death and disease that had 
 wasted our forces. An outside view of battered Sumter 
 was, however, encouraging to the besiegers. The gorge 
 seemed to me to be destroyed, and a practicable breach, 
 so far as I could judge (and my view was good), had 
 been made. Mortars and gun-carriages, sand-bags and 
 cotton-bales were mingled in confusion. The sea-faces, 
 though thicker than the land, not being so well pro- 
 tected by sand-bags, showed the effect of our fire. The 
 three-hundred pounder Parrott, at last at work, was making 
 generally fine shots, and, with its range of from only two 
 to two and one half miles, tearing away stone and bricks 
 where both had not been already beaten into dust. These 
 ranges measured the greatest and the least distances of our 
 guns from Sumter ; and although they were so exceptional, 
 they became really insignificant when compared with the 
 
190 A WAR DIAEY. 
 
 achievements of the marsh battery, which was so long 
 delayed that the soldiers changed its name from Marsh 
 Angel and Swamp Angel, which characterized our hopes, 
 into "Battery Useless," to illustrate our despair. This, 
 however, at last promised to repay the expenditure of sand- 
 bags, powder, time, labor, and material — animate and 
 inanimate — which had been intrusted to Gillmore for the 
 destruction of the city of Charleston itself 
 
 Although it was believed that Sumter was nearly done 
 for, and that therefore the most important obstruction to 
 an entrance to the harbor of Charleston was removed, GUI- 
 more could not refrain from anticipating the possible entry 
 of the navy, by sending his compliments in advance from 
 the marsh battery. Accordingly he notified the Eebel 
 Beauregard that women and children must be sent out of 
 the city. Hardly, however, had this notice reached its 
 destination, when the Eebels in Wagner, strangely indiffer- 
 ent to the condition of Sumter or to the doom impending 
 over Charleston, became so actively alive with their rifles 
 that they knocked out of this world (into, let us hope, a 
 better) so many of our troops as to cause doubt to be 
 thrown upon GUlmore's pen-and-ink sketch of how to take 
 Wagner. In his extremity at this impudence (Charleston 
 and Sumter being in such imminent perU), naval aid was 
 again invoked, even at the expense of sharing the glory of 
 Wagner's capture.. And again the iron-clads flanked our 
 advanced positions on Morris Island, and poured from their 
 great guns such a deluge of canister that the Eebel rifle- 
 men were like gnats in the throat of Vesuvius. 
 
 Of the immense value of our navy in operations upon 
 this narrow island, one can hardly speak too strongly. 
 By the aid of naval boats working on our flanks we had 
 advanced our siege operations with little loss and less 
 hard fighting. These floating batteries kept down the 
 
SEA ISLAJTDS OFF CHAKLESTON. 191 
 
 Rebel riflemen, while our sappers operated undisturbed. 
 Meanwhile the hours passed; the Northern press filled 
 Northern hearts with great hopes of Gillmore, whUe he in 
 the twilight of his undertakings pondered doubtingly upon 
 the» mysterious silence of Sumter, with fears that, though 
 her proportions were once fairer, her ability for defence 
 was never greater. Could it be possible that efforts to 
 reduce the fort had rendered it more impregnable ? The 
 high brick front on its land side had, it was true, been 
 beaten down; but in its place the ruin formed a low 
 breastwork of sand, a parapet on which the enemy's heavy 
 guns were plainly seen by Gillmore with his glass. He 
 nevertheless declared, on the sixth day of his bombard- 
 ment (the 22d of August), that he "considered the fort 
 no longer a fit work from which to use artillery," and that 
 practically Sumter was reduced. Looking at the terrible 
 effect of our shot and shell as they bored into its remaining 
 walls, making great breaches and throwing up immense 
 clouds of dust, and considering that two faces were partly 
 down and cracked, though they had not fallen; that the 
 flag-staff was groggy, too weak to hold the diminutive flag 
 which feebly floated but a little way above the coping from 
 a makeshift staff, — it would certainly seem that hope and 
 encouragement might be indulged that the flrst step had 
 really been taken to enable the navy to sail in and hold 
 the city itself But Gillmore, affecting to believe that 
 he had fulfilled his contract, wrote an official note to 
 Admiral Dahlgren, claiming to have accomplished his 
 part of the work, and affirming that there was nothing to 
 fear from Sumter; and subsequently, though the navy 
 had not the slightest thought of attempting it, he assured 
 us that the fleet, with their powerful floating batteries and 
 armored ships, would steam that night by the disabled fort. 
 Powerless as the land forces were to make headway in this 
 
192 A WAR DIAET. 
 
 harbor without naval co-operation, and anxious as Gillmore 
 was, and Dahlgren may have been, each to put the blame 
 of failure on the other, it was apparent to all but Gillmore 
 that not now, if ever, should the navy be charged with hold- 
 ing back, or with irresolution. Nevertheless such charges 
 were made, and spread abroad in the daily papers of the 
 North, with the knowledge of the commander of the land 
 forces, who thus sought, by inculpating gallant men in a gal- 
 lant service, to vindicate his fame from the severe reflections 
 of critics upon the smallness of his performances when com- 
 pared with the greatness of his high-sounding manifestoes. 
 
 At last the two-hundred pounder Parrott gun in the 
 marshes was ready. It opened about two o'clock in the 
 morning of the twenty-second, iiring fifteen shells fiUed 
 with an incendiary composition. The gun was loaded with 
 fifteen pounds of powder, elevated thirty-one degrees, and 
 directed towards the Eebel city, distant five and one sixth 
 miles. It was Uncertain whether the elevation was suffi- 
 cient, although the bells of the city churches were heard 
 ringing out an alarm. The effect of this fire was made 
 known to us on the twenty-second ; on that day Beaure- 
 gard replied to Gillmore's threat of what he would do with 
 his marsh battery. Only on condition, Gillmore had writ- 
 ten, that Beauregard would surrender Sumter (which Gill- 
 more in his note said had been battered into uselessness, 
 so that it was hardly able to stand), with Ports Wagner and 
 Gregg on Cumming's Point, would he refrain from throw- 
 ing shells into the city. Four hours were given for a reply, 
 which would bring the time to four o'clock on the 21st of 
 August. But the letter was without signature, and Beau- 
 regard returned it, addressed " to whom it may concern." 
 It was received by Gillmore on the twenty-second, and sent 
 back immediately, properly acknowledged. Beauregard at 
 once sent a reply, which was substantially as follows : He 
 
SEA ISLANDS OFF CHAELESTON. 193 
 
 acknowledged the receipt of a communication, — which he 
 said he did not see for two hours after it reached his of&ce, 
 as he was out reconnoitring his batteries, — in which he, 
 Gillmore, demanded the surrender of Sumter (almost 
 knocked to pieces!), of Wagner and Gregg, with a threat 
 that on refusal he would open upon Charleston, a battery- 
 having been erected for that purpose. Beauregard then 
 continued : — 
 
 "This communication not being signed, I returned it. But 
 in the mean time, as two hours of the four have been lost by my 
 absence, and two more must necessarily ensue before a reply 
 could reach you, the time will be up when you threaten to open 
 upon a city filled with defenceless women and children, and hos- 
 pitals. You have already thrown shells fiUed with the most 
 destructive composition known in warfare into the heart of this 
 city, and this without sufficient warning — according to the 
 usages of nations not barbarous — to non-combatants to seek 
 places of safety. By such deeds you will not make much of a 
 name for yourself in history, and your deeds will be monstrous 
 even in this war. I shall not surrender Sumter, Gregg, or Wag- 
 ner. Why do you not ask for forts on James Island and Moul- 
 trie also 1 After two years of trial you have failed to capture 
 this city or its defences ; and I now give you solemn warning, 
 that, if you carry out your threat, I will retaliate according to 
 the best of the means in my power." 
 
 To this Gillmore sent the following, at fifteen minutes 
 after nine o'clock on the morning of the twenty-second : 
 
 " My letter to you was not signed, through inadvertence. You 
 have had two years to prepare your city against an attack, and 
 have at length been unable to do so. During that time, and 
 especially during the last forty days, you have had ample notice 
 of my intention to bombard your city and destroy your defences. 
 You have had aU your avenues to the rear open and at your 
 disposal. You have therefore strictly no right to any notice 
 whatever before bombardment ; but as you represent your city 
 to be filled with infirm old men, women, and children, I wiU 
 give you twenty-four hours in which to remove them." 
 
 13 
 
194 A WAE DIARY. 
 
 On Sunday, the 23d of August, at a quarter past eleven 
 in the morning, I was at Gillmore's tent. Great obliga- 
 tion was then and there expressed for Beauregard's in- 
 formation that thirty-one degrees of elevation would 
 carry a shell from the marsh gun into the city. "I 
 shall resume fire," said Gillmore, "at eleven o'clock to- 
 night," — adding that he was willing to give them this 
 time because the foreign consuls asked it, and the Spanish 
 consul declared that unoffending persons had already lost 
 their lives. That night, at half-past eleven, while sitting 
 in my tent, I heard the roar of the two-hundred pounder 
 Parrott hurling its shells into the heart of the Eebel city. 
 What a wonderful retaliation! Frightened inhabitants 
 fleeing from the wrath of a just avenger, and the double- 
 traitor Beauregard with no better resources than impotent 
 denunciations left to him ! Ah, indeed, but this was sweet ! 
 and almost induced me to believe that we might gain some 
 recompense for all the suffering and sacrifice and things 
 unaccomplished. 
 
 On the 24th of August, high winds interfered with the 
 range of shots at Sumter ; the navj'- lay with difficulty at 
 their anchorage ; two Whitworth guns in our naval battery, 
 throwing formidable projectiles, were useless from two days' 
 hard usage; jolly tars slept soundly under bomb-proof 
 shelters of sand-bags ; the two-hundred pounder Parrott gun 
 in the swamp had burst, after throwing five or six shells 
 towards Charleston, with eighteen pounds of powder and 
 thirty-one degrees of elevation; there was sharp picket 
 firing from Wagner, in which many men from my com- 
 mand were killed, and strange stories were bruited about 
 of the fatal precision of the fire of a negro marksman, a 
 Eebel. A rumor was current that Gillmore had determined 
 to reply to Beauregard's taunt, — that after two years of 
 effort he ' had failed to capture the defences of the city of 
 
SEA ISLANDS OFF CHARLESTON. 195 
 
 Charleston, — by a quixotic assault on Sumter. For this 
 purpose General Ames, commanding one of my brigades, 
 had been assigned to the command of the expedition, which 
 was to consist of six hundred men, to be selected by colo- 
 nels of regiments. What Gillmore called a practicable 
 breach was pointed out from a distance to the officers to be 
 engaged, though whether it was practicable or not was sub- 
 mitted to them for consideration. The expedition, having 
 embarked in boats, was to steal through the inlet, by the 
 side of Wagner and Gregg, to the assault on Sumter. This 
 was a movement which any practical soldier would have 
 called unwise, if feasible, and for reasons which I deter- 
 mined to set forth in a letter to Gillmore of the following 
 tenor, marked private and unofficial: — 
 
 " Suppose you are successful, and effect your lodgement, how 
 long could you remain in the fort? The fire of concentrated 
 Eebel batteries would be much harder for oui men than our sin- 
 gle and remote battery is for theirs. And if under our fire but 
 few Eebels remain to skulk under bomb-proofs, what more conld 
 we do when Gregg and Wagner, James Island and Moultrie, 
 pour tornadoes of shot and shell into us t Even our iron-clads 
 shrink from attempting to run into Charleston under the fire of 
 other Eebel batteries than Sumter. What, then, can men do who 
 hold a half-ruined fort ] How will you feed them, or supply them 
 with ammunition'! Of what use will they be ; what can they 
 accomplish ? . . . I deem it my duty to protest against the 
 use of troops from my division for such a purpose ; and this, in 
 a friendly spirit, I have unofficially done." 
 
 The same opinion of the uselessness of these operations on 
 Morris Island was, I had reason to believe, held by all the 
 highest officers, although there was no critical discussion of 
 Gillmore's operations, and no holding back from a zealous 
 and hearty co-operation in his plans. Our movements 
 pointed to the occupation of the whole of Morris Island ; 
 and for this we were making approaches upon Wagner, and 
 
196 A WAE DIAKT. 
 
 thence, I presumed, upon Gregg. But when occupied, cui 
 bono ? Should we be any nearer Charleston ; had we gained 
 any strategic point; were we doing anything to aid in 
 bringing the war to a close ? Was it to assist the navy 
 that we were to occupy the whole of Morris Island ? The 
 navy had but little, if anything, to fear from the forts on 
 that island when Sumter was no longer to be dreaded ; and 
 even then the navy would be impotent in the presence of 
 James and Sullivan's islands, and Tort Johnson and Castle 
 Pinckney. Were we slowly and at increased cost to con- 
 tinue operations on aH the islands in Charleston Harbor 
 until they were won ? For two years military operations 
 had been conducted in the Department of the South, and 
 as a result we occupied one haK of Morris Island ! Where 
 should we be in 1865 ? 
 
 Two days after my letter to Gillmore, I called at his tent 
 and entered upon a discussion of the subject. He began 
 by acknowledging its receipt, and agreeing with its views. 
 He did not contemplate, he said, holding Fort Sumter, only 
 taking it to blow it up. He had learned from deserters 
 that the Eebels proposed to do the same thing when we 
 had rendered it perfectly untenable ; and he had found out 
 from the same source that our shot went completely through 
 the face we fired at, and penetrated the opposite wall. 
 He felt so well satisfied that he had entirely demolished 
 the fort and dismounted the guns, that he had made a 
 report to this effect to the' War Department. " I claim," 
 he continued, " to have done all my work, all I agreed to 
 do, and all it was agreed, in a mixed board of army and 
 navy officers who met at Washington, that it was necessary 
 to do to render powerless the key-point to Charleston Har- 
 bor. Admiral Dahlgren was one of the officers present, and 
 he has admitted that I have destroyed Fort Sumter, that it 
 is a heap of worthless ruins. He has admitted it to me 
 
SEA. ISLANDS OFF CHAKLESTON. 197 
 
 and to a reporter. I was sent down here," Gillmore went 
 on, " to carry out the following movements : (1) To capture 
 the southern end of Morris Island; (2) To reduce Fort 
 Wagner ; ( 3 ) To reduce Fort Sumter. The first and third 
 are accomplished ; the second was but a step to accomplish 
 the third, and one which I thought indispensable, — and I 
 was as much surprised as any one to find that it was not. 
 I maintain that the entire object of my being sent here has 
 been gained. I should like to get the whole of Morris 
 Island ; but I don't see that any particular object can be 
 gained thereby, now that Sumter is destroyed. But stiU 
 there is Wagner, and I am about giving orders to advance 
 my approaches to that fort so as to seize an advanced sand- 
 ridge within about one hundred and ninety yards of the 
 waUs." 
 
 That Gillmore stated the truth when he said that "the 
 object of my operations is the destruction of Sumter," may 
 not be denied. Folly Island and Morris Island were of 
 but secondary importance. But what did the Administra- 
 tion think about the results accruing from this demolition ? 
 Did they hope for the capture of Charleston ? That was 
 impossible ; for we had before us other islands so strongly 
 guarded that Sumter was of little consideration in the 
 problem. Our naval operations had made this a certainty. 
 The Admiral knew it ; and it may be presumed that the 
 Administration, after aU the sad loss of life, expenditure 
 of treasure, and great disappointment, had at last begun 
 to appreciate' the fact that the people had not been com- 
 pensated by such an entertainment. For, as sure as truth 
 is truth, nothing whatever had yet been done, either by 
 Dupont or Hunter, Dahlgren or Gillmore, to make the 
 capture of Charleston more possible than before a naval 
 vessel floated in the waters of her harbor, or a soldier had 
 set foot upon the shores of the rebellious State of South 
 Carolina. 
 
198 A WAS. DIAEY. 
 
 Notwithstanding, therefore, that I looked upon the gal- 
 lant achievement of the Twenty-fourth Massachusetts Eegi- 
 ment, in rushing forward to capture an important position 
 in front of Wagner, with admiration; and although this 
 affair gave an opportunity to publish in huge capitals in 
 the daily papers that fifty Eebels from North Carolina 
 were delighted at having been made prisoners, and to fiU 
 pages of letter-writers with complaints poured forth by 
 the captives against the Eebel Government, — yet this 
 was all, and nothing more. Turn where we might in this 
 department, a feeling of despair prevailed which not all the 
 promises nor all the performances of either army or navy 
 could remove. That we were then but two hundred yards 
 from Wagner, and that no amount of shelling could drive 
 our gallant fellows from the ridge they gained the night 
 before, furnished undoubtedly a gleam of hope that Wag- 
 ner ultimately might be ours. But what good was even 
 the capture of Fort Wagner to do us ? Having detained 
 GiUmore before its walls; having inflicted a severe loss 
 upon his troops ; and having held them at such a distance 
 from Sumter that our bombardment only battered it into 
 impregnability, — the Eebel garrison at its own conveni- 
 ence quietly moved out of Wagner, and gave us a barren 
 victory. But I anticipate ; and yet as I galloped home by 
 the camps on the singularly beautiful night in August of 
 which I am writing, a full moon bathing in its light the 
 crests of the waves as they rolled even to my horse's feet, 
 I could find no answer to the oft-repeated question: 
 What is the use of all this ? 
 
 Between Folly and Kiowah islands the Stono Eiver 
 empties into the Atlantic. On its banks the enemy had 
 established batteries to obstruct our movement towards 
 Charleston through this channel. In this river roamed a 
 ship-of-war, the " Pawnee," commanded by Captain Balch, 
 
SEA ISLANDS OFF CHARLESTON.' 199 
 
 with whom in the protection of these islands I was to 
 co-operate,, should our safety require it. About this, I may 
 add, GUlmore was much exercised. On the 28th of August, 
 a crew of land-lubhers might have been seen.puUing stoutly 
 for the " Pawnee," then in motion towards a small cluster 
 of houses on the river's bank, rejoicing in the name of 
 IiegarevUle, whence the owners seemed to have fled. It 
 was my purpose to accompany Captain Balch on this expe- 
 dition if I could catch him. This I succeeded in doing, 
 because he stopped to pick up a stray torpedo floating idly 
 near the shore, instead of performing the pleasant service 
 intended by its Eebel maker. Captain Balch received me 
 with cheerful hospitality (he could not have done otherwise 
 without doing violence to his nature), and offered the tor- 
 pedo for my inspection. Two tin canisters, water-tight, 
 were firmly connected by a hollow tube of iron in the 
 direction of the axis of the cylinders ; the lower one was 
 the magazine, -and held fifty pounds of gunpowder; the 
 upper served as a float. Into this connecting tube, and 
 passing through the upper canister into the lower, was 
 inserted a loaded musket, — the lock set as if for firing. 
 To make the breech of the gun less conspicuous, one half 
 of it had been cut off. The two canisters, with connecting 
 tube, loaded musket, and fifty pounds of coarse powder, 
 were so weighted that the infernal invention floated with 
 the tide, barely showing any of its parts above the water. 
 The ingenious arrangement for exploding it consisted of a 
 small disk of wood, the size of a tea-plate, which floated 
 on the surface and inclosed the musket-barrel through a 
 small hole in its centre, and almost touched the trigger of 
 the lock. When sent out for destruction, two torpedoes of 
 this sort, connected by a long rope, are swept along by 
 the current upon a vessel's bow, where the line catches and 
 swings them against her sides. As the rope tightens, the 
 
200 A WAK DIARY. 
 
 wooden disks press upon the triggers, and the muskets ex- 
 plode into the magazine. Captain Balch had captured two 
 of these devices, and hung them — harmless instruments 
 then — at his yard-arm, in fuE view of a Eebel work 
 swarming with men. In one of them the gun had been 
 discharged ; but it was so heavily loaded that it had burst 
 both barrel and tube, thus soaking the powder in the 
 magazine. In the other, the powder in good condition 
 was emptied into the captain's magazine, in part payment 
 for his launch which the Rebels had blown up a day or 
 two before. 
 
 Service on the Stono, by the " Pawnee," was not an ani- 
 mated life ; though the captain told me of one or two fights 
 with the Eebels, in which his ship had been struck by solid 
 shot. It would not be difficult to hit her, for in turning in 
 narrow parts of the river she made almost a connecting 
 bridge from bank to bank. I dined with the captain in 
 these waters on soup, roast beef from Philadelphia, float- 
 ing island, and a young watermelon obtained from an old 
 negro living on one of the Sea Islands and taking care of 
 " Massa's " property. To landsmen a ship or sloop of war 
 is a strange animal. The right things are to be found in 
 the right places at the right time, with a wonderful degree 
 of right-mindedness. One has confidence that the sailor 
 will fight for his pets, — those great yawning nine-inch 
 Dahlgren guns. See how the huge rammers, sponges, 
 and shells are laid neatly and exactly where they belong. 
 Hear the boatswain's pipe and see the boatswain's roll as 
 he walks the deck, filled with an ever-earnest desire to pipe 
 his whistle. See the men cheerily " lending a hand," with 
 outlandish gibberish, with run and roll, with dress and de- 
 meanor, with fun and fight, with all in all that 's odd and 
 interesting and daring. The sailor has a dare-devil, happy- 
 go-lucky spirit which laughs at obstacles. Here now is 
 
SEA ISLANDS OFF CHARLESTON. 201 
 
 Captain Balch, who would, I dare say, find it not impos- 
 sible to run into Charleston to-night or any night. " How 
 say you. Captain, to this, were you off Sumter instead of 
 here up the Stono ? " 
 
 " "Well," he repKed, " if obstructions were removed, — 
 and I think it is high time they were, — I see no objec- 
 tions to the iron-clads running into Charleston harbor and 
 lying off the city." 
 
 " Then," I exclaimed, " you see no objections from any 
 guns or batteries within Port Sumter, but think the iron- 
 clads can lie quietly in Charleston Harbor and batter the 
 city about the ears of its people ? " 
 
 " None whatever," replied the Captain. 
 
 " Then why not go in now ? " I asked. 
 
 " Why not ? " echoed the Captain, and turned the con- 
 versation abruptly into a dissertation on blockade-running 
 and how to prevent it, from which I fancied the gallant 
 mariner was not so siu-e about the iron-clads under Eebel 
 guns in Charleston Harbor. 
 
 We had another bout at it two or three days later, when 
 Captain Balch, with Captain Whiting, of the gunboat 
 " Ottawa," came ashore to dine with me. Whiting spoke 
 from some experience with iron-clads, for he carried his 
 gunboat into action the first day the iron vessels opened 
 on Sumter and Wagner. He was very decided in his 
 opinion, that the task of getting into Charleston Har- 
 bor was not so easy as Captain Balch thought it. " Ad- 
 mitting," said he, " that the efficiency of Fort Sumter is 
 destroyed, there yet remain other and stronger obstacles to 
 an entrance. Fort Sumter is but one key in the compli- 
 cated lock." 
 
 " Did not Admiral Dahlgren profess in Washington that 
 he would go in if Sumter were destroyed or silenced ? " I 
 
202 A WAK DIARY. 
 
 "If he did," replied Whiting, "he made a prophecy 
 which he will find it difficult to fulfil ; though," he added, 
 " the navy are still under orders to go in, are only await- 
 ing good weather, and would have made the attempt long 
 ago, hut for the wind. Iron-clads I do not consider im- 
 pervious to shot," he continued. " But if they were, it 
 is not alone with heavy guns that we have to contend. 
 There are chains and torpedoes to arrest our ships and hold 
 them under a heavy and formidable fire." 
 
 If it were manifest that our naval brethren considered 
 the absolute reduction of Sumter a sine qua non to an at- 
 tempted entrance to the inner harbor, — and of this, as will 
 be seen, there was no doubt, — it was equally manifest that 
 at the very hour while we were at my table, discussing the 
 problem of whether Sumter was as harmless as Gillmore 
 contended, its Eebel garrison could be plainly seen prepar- 
 ing sand-bags for the mounting of guns upon its walls, or 
 its ruins ; and on the day following, the 1st of September, 
 while our three-hundred pounder Parrott was tearing away 
 large portions of the walls and making the place very 
 uncomfortable for a peaceful resident. Admiral Dahlgren 
 received the fire of six guns in position on the northeastern 
 face of the fort : and of this he informed Gillmore. The 
 commanding officer of the trenches saw the evening gun 
 fired from Sumter's walls that night at sunset ; saw Eebels 
 at work, during the day, piling sand-bags upon the ruins, 
 and reported the same to Gillmore. It was not strange 
 that he who had claimed to have so silenced Sumter that 
 the navy could run their vessels by without danger, should 
 have exhibited some vexation at such reports. "How 
 could Sumter be an obstacle ? " he cried. " Many, days 
 ago Admiral Dahlgren sent word to me in a note, that 
 he no longer considered Sumter an impediment to his 
 entrance to the inner harbor. Then," continued GiUmore, 
 
SEA ISLANDS OFF CHAELESTOK. 203 
 
 " the fort was useless ; but now they may have built up 
 with sand-bags its crumbled walls to hold their guns. 
 How can I fire all the time," he asked, " and thus assure 
 the navy that the Eebels will not make repairs ? " 
 
 And thus replied the navy : " You, Gillmore, were to 
 silence Sumter, and you have not done so." " Put that in 
 your pipe and smoke it," the reader may supply. No 
 doubt GiUmore did ; for he grumbled, and the three-hun- 
 dred pounder Parrott grumbled, and the troops grumbled, 
 
 — and there was no progress made. 
 
 The true task of the navy, the complete blockade of this 
 port, they had accomplished as well as was possible. That 
 this could not be done absolutely, will be apparent from 
 some incidents of blockade-running which were told me 
 while dining on the " Pawnee," by the commander of the 
 sloop " Onondaga," who had been on the coast for many 
 months on blockade service. While a boat flying a flag of 
 truce came out of Charleston Harbor with the English 
 consul on board, to protest against our firing upon the city 
 until the women and children and British subjects had 
 been removed (particularly the latter), and while all our 
 fleet was at anchor within the channel and within two or 
 three miles of Sumter, a blockade-runner from Charleston 
 slipped down unperceived to Moultrie, and laid herseK 
 along the shore, awaiting night and a high tide to run out. 
 The vessel (a steamer) being of a leaden color, and running 
 near the land^ could gain this position without being per- 
 ceived by our blockading squadron, unless it had taken up 
 its picketing posts with the iron-clads early in the evening, 
 
 — which would have been done, had not the Eebel flag-of- 
 truce boat interfered with the arrangement. After night, 
 the crew of the " Onondaga," whose station was in Maf&tt's 
 Channel, which runs by Sullivan's Island, heard the sound 
 of rapidly-revolving paddle-wheels coming nearer and 
 
204 A WAE DIARY. 
 
 nearer ; but, owing to a slight haze, no object fifty yards 
 away could be distinguished. Vainly did the look-out 
 peer into' the thick haze and darkness. That it was the 
 sound of a blockade-runner trying to escape from the block- 
 aded port, was manifest. It was just the night for it. The 
 fugitive could not see the blockading vessel, nor could the 
 latter see the fugitive. Ifearer and nearer she came. The 
 men stood silently by their guns, craning their necks out- 
 ward to get the first shot. The orders of her captain 
 were heard loud and clear, — " Hard a port ! " and the 
 reply, " Ay, ay, sir ! " then " Steady ! " The rapid whir of 
 the wheels continued, yet nothing could be seen. Our 
 sailors thought they perceived a phosphorescent glow in 
 her wake, as the fugitive made a sudden turn in her course 
 through a narrow and shallow channel, — and at this they 
 fired ; but as the steamer was under full headway the shot 
 was wild, and she escaped under cover of the fog. 
 
 It was audacious. Although but few succeeded in 
 eluding the navy at this port, I found that it was quite 
 impossible to prevent all vessels from running in or out. 
 A fast steamer of light draught and leaden hue, running 
 in the dim twilight or at night along the shore, would fre- 
 quently escape the keenest watch. Besides, the squadron 
 was motionless, while the blockade-runner was under full 
 headway, and therefore might frustrate aU conditions of 
 watchfulness. It is hard to hit a bird on the wing with 
 a Dahlgren gun. Although the officers and men of oui 
 fleet were greatly mortified at every escape of a vessel, 
 the opinion was expressed that we much overestimated 
 the amount of war material carried to, or the merchandise 
 sent from, a Eebel port in this way. One great battle, it 
 was said, would consume more ammunition than could be 
 run in before another, in the order of past events, would 
 occur. For an army of seventy thousand infantry it would 
 
SEA ISLANDS OFF CHARLESTON. 205 
 
 take 5,600 boxes of ammunition, each box containing one 
 thousand rounds, to furnish eighty rounds to a man, — and 
 eighty rounds to a man is not a large estimate for three 
 days of fighting. This allowance would weigh 320 tons, 
 and does not include an estimate for artillery. This added, 
 it would require a very long period for the few small 
 steamers that could make successful trips, to supply the 
 Eebels with ammunition. 
 
 The foreign consuls in Charleston incurred the dis- 
 pleasure of our navy for other causes than contributing to 
 a blockade-runner's escape. They had united in a state- 
 ment to their different Governments, that the blockade of 
 Charleston was successfully raised by a raid of Eebel iron- 
 clads made but a short time before ; and they added, as the 
 result of their own personal observation, that they steamed 
 out into the harbor by invitation of Beauregard, and were 
 unable with strong glasses to discover any one of the 
 blockading fleet. It was therefore asserted by the Eebels 
 and the foreign consuls, that ships were free to enter the 
 port of Charleston, until a new establishment and a new 
 notice of the blockade. Commander Whiting, in discussing 
 this matter, became very indignant with the foreign con- 
 suls who lent themselves to the manufacture of what he 
 termed wilful lies. Our fleet, he said, never moved from 
 its position outside the bar. The foreign consuls, he 
 declared, not only did not come out with Beauregard in a 
 tug, but they did not come out at all ; and the only tug 
 that was there was the " tug of war." The entire consular 
 statement was declared to be a fruitful lie of the Eebel 
 Beauregard. Even then, on a French man-of-war within 
 the line of our fleet, a French consul was known to be 
 engaged in making notes of our bombardment for home 
 service, and for conclusions possibly touching a French 
 invasion of Mexico. 
 
206 A WAE DIAKY. 
 
 Instances now more and more frequently occurred to 
 make manifest the bad feeling against the navy which Gill- 
 more — who possibly foresaw a disastrous end to his opera- 
 tions — was sedulously fostering among the land forces. 
 The Admiral, one night, made a persistent and vigorous 
 attack upon Sumter, and Gillmore pooh-poohed it to every 
 one who would listen. "But do you think the navy accom- 
 plished nothing last night ? " I asked, as I found him on 
 the morning of the 2d of September gazing at a large pile 
 of shells of various sizes, solid shot, Whitworth bolts, and 
 so forth, artistically piled up near his tent, to give effect to 
 a photograph about to be taken of his headquarters. 
 
 "Accomplished!" he replied contemptuously; "what 
 did they do but bang away for five or six hours at the walls 
 of Sumter, already a mass of crumbled brick and mortar, 
 utterly powerless for defence ? " 
 
 " Then you think it nothing that iron-clads can show 
 themselves to be invulnerable in such danger and under 
 such heavy pounding ? " I asked. 
 
 " They were too far off to do even the little good they 
 might have done," replied Gillmore. " Their elevation was 
 not sufficient to knock down the coping, so they battered 
 away at casemates filled with sand ; and this I call crying 
 nonsense." 
 
 " If, then," I asked, " the troops holding Sumter are pro- 
 tected by sand-bags that resist the severest fire our heavy 
 guns can offer, and at such short ranges as those taken by our 
 iron-clads, what good could have been accomplished even 
 if the navy had amused themselves in knocking down the 
 coping ? Is it not a fact that you have beaten and mauled 
 the bricks, stone, and mortar of Sumter into sand embank- 
 ments, behind which the garrison repose in safety, and 
 laugh both at your efforts and those of the navy to drive 
 them out ? Is it not true that you have found sand the 
 
SEA ISLANDS OFF CHAKLESTON. 207 
 
 most difficult material to overcome, as well as the safest 
 for resistance ? " 
 
 "Sand forts," replied Gillmore, "are terrible things to 
 resist attacks. Sand is a good resisting material under all 
 circumstances. In fifteen minutes a man may so cover 
 himself in a loose sandy soil, that he will be effectually 
 protected against every kind of fire except mortar firing. 
 We have tried it in our advance upon Wagner." 
 
 " Then if you find yourself powerless against sand forts, 
 why do you blame the navy, who do no better than you 
 have done ? " 
 
 " They promised to run in by the forts," exclaimed Gill- 
 more ; " and this they should have done, instead of banging 
 away where no good results could be accomplished. The 
 papers are stirring them up," he added, with as much show 
 of satisfaction as if he had inspired the articles. 
 
 For more than seven hours, until nearly two hours of 
 daylight had melted the moonbeams upon the ocean, until 
 a full tide had softened the foaming waves that dashed 
 against the ebbing waters, had I heard the sullen and con- 
 tinuous thud of the naval guns delivering their fire within 
 eight hundred yards of the southeast face of Sumter. 
 Twice only did this battered fort reply, when the naval fire 
 began ; afterward it took the avalanche in silence. And of 
 this fire it was that Gillmore spoke with such contempt, as 
 being of little service in the accomplishment of the great 
 result of all efforts, past, present, and to be, — the capture 
 of Charleston. We began to doubt if anything could be 
 effected. Serious cases of dysentery began to show them- 
 selves; and bad water and innutritions food were the 
 causes, the surgeons said. 
 
 Operations still went on, however. We began to erect 
 batteries on the Blackwater, and I heard rumors that Eebel 
 batteries were rising on the Stono, within the region under 
 
208 A "WAE DIAEY. 
 
 my control. Pickets were therefore advanced, and Captain 
 Balcli was requested to make a reconnoissance with his ship. 
 Meanwhile, with a powerful glass, I detected easily a long 
 line of Eebel intrenchments on James Island, — huge in- 
 trenchments, with deep embrasures, and many troops at 
 work there. Behind the Blackwater, and out of reach from 
 any position I could occupy, the Eebel works extended ; 
 while on that island, concealed from Eebel view by a high 
 and thick growth of timber, three or four of our thirty- 
 pounder Parrotts turned their ugly muzzles toward Charles- 
 ton. So evening came, and the sun sank in the west, and in 
 its departing rays the spires of the city shone like polished 
 steel. The hours passed, — ten, eleven, twelve ; and still the 
 cannon's roar mingled with the booming surf at my feet. 
 
 The next morning, the 4th of September, in response to 
 an invitation from Captain Balch, I went on board the 
 "Pawnee." The ship was cleared for action, the drum 
 beat to quarters, and up the Stono we went, in the teeth of 
 reported batteries. Our enemy had acted wisely in closing 
 a passage to the rear of the city of Charleston by fortifica- 
 tions on James Island and on the mainland against our 
 naval vessels with their armament of huge guns. But 
 scarcely glancing at deserted Legareville, we steamed on 
 by an abandoned Eebel battery and a deep patch of 
 timber to a long, narrow, open reach, with James Island 
 clear in view. Looking intently with our glasses, we dis- 
 covered there a formidable earthwork of about five hundred 
 yards in length, with many men at work, but as yet with- 
 out an armament. The " Pawnee " was brought to a stand- 
 still at this spot, the anchor let go, and an observation 
 taken in a small boat, — which showed that beyond this 
 new work there was no other until Fort Pemberton was 
 reached, six miles further on. Prom our mast-head we 
 could plainly see this fort, its flag flying and its parapet 
 
SEA ISLANDS OFF CHAELESTON. 209 
 
 covered witli men. Sumter also was in view; so was the 
 Eebel town of Secessionville and its fort near by, with flag 
 and parapet. This was a new outlook upon our enemy's 
 defences, and showed how earnest had been his prepara- 
 tions to protect his beloved city from our attack in front or 
 from the rear. 
 
 Having done all that we intended to do, we scattered 
 the workmen at the nearest fort with seven or eight shots 
 from the " Pawnee's " one-hundred pounder Parrott gun, 
 and turned homewards. Turned ? — no ! I was lost in 
 the mazes of nautical gymnastics and futile expedients 
 to which our captain resorted. Either the " Pawnee " was 
 too long for the river's width, or the river was too narrow 
 for the "Pawnee's" length. If her head pointed down- 
 wards, as it ought to do, when her screw turned she ran 
 into the bank. If steam was not used, an ebbing tide 
 took her stern down stream faster than her bow. We 
 could not return to our anchorage going ahead backwards. 
 Again and again we tried, — to the right, to the left, — 
 sometimes with promised success ; but just as we seemed 
 to be on the point of making the turn, back the tide would 
 sweep us again, to drift downward, stern foremost, when 
 our own head-way had been overcome. In these abortive 
 efforts we were fortunately not fired on from concealed 
 batteries. Here was a large war vessel cutting up these 
 antics within range of a large Eebel fort on the shore of 
 a narrow river ; and yet we were allowed to pirouette un- 
 molested. There must have been some reason for it other 
 than sympathy with our situation. An anchor out astern 
 would have overcome our difficulty, but Captain Balch 
 had no stern anchor; so he made one of his tender, the 
 " Huron," a smaller vessel by his side, to which he sent a 
 hawser, and thus restrained the unmanageable stern of the 
 " Pawnee " until her nose was fairly down stream, when 
 
 14 
 
210 A WAR DIAEY. 
 
 she became again responsive to steam, and carried us 
 without other incidents to .our anchorage. 
 
 The next move in Gillmore's plans was an attempt, on 
 the night of the 4th of September, to capture Fort Gregg 
 by surprise and spike its guns. The effort failed; our 
 troops were discomfited. The land forces were to have 
 been supported by boats from the navy, armed with howit- 
 zers. After dark the troops were at the designated point ; 
 and so were the sailors, all but one boat's crew carrying an 
 ambitious of&cer, who, in pulling seaward further than he 
 ought, between Cumming's Point and Sumter, encountered 
 a boat from Gregg containing a wounded major of the 
 Eebel army with his surgeon. Instant pursuit was made 
 by our blue-jackets, some of whom fired with muskets. 
 The Eebel boat halted and was captured, but at the 
 expense of the expedition ; for the firing had aroused the 
 garrison, and a surprise was impossible. To make up for 
 this disappointment, it was determined to try again the 
 next night ; while in the mean time by daylight the army 
 and navy would make a combined attack on Wagner. 
 Accordingly, on the 5th of September, the iron-clad " New 
 Ironsides " anchored within less than eight hundred yards 
 of the fort, and threw its huge shells into it at every dis- 
 charge. A flag at the nearest point of our approach to 
 Wagner, some sixty yards, warned the navy of the location 
 of the land forces. With two officers of my staff I went to 
 the second parallel, over which in an angry and threaten- 
 ing manner shells were bursting from Eebel guns. John- 
 son, Wagner, Gregg, and others were lively, but not so 
 dangerous as the noise they made would have indicated, 
 for the moment a flash was seen from a Eebel gun our 
 watchful sentinel cried out, " Johnson ! " " Gregg ! " and so 
 forth, upon which both officers and men hugged the para- 
 pet, while the ugly and scragg}' fragments of iron howled 
 
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SEA ISLANDS OFF CHARLESTON. 211 
 
 harmlessly by. After looking long, and dodging at every 
 warning, I retraced my steps for one third of a mile, 
 mounted my horse, and returned to camp, where the next 
 morning I heard of last night's second failure to capture 
 Gregg. Thus it came to pass : Details of infantry from 
 Gillm ore's command arrived in time at the boats, but were 
 there delayed ; there was confusion in telling off the men, 
 and there was a lack of rowers. Time was wasted by 
 these mishaps. The moon lighted up the sandy bulwarks 
 of Gregg, and enabled a few of her watchful sentinels, 
 mindful of last night's effort, to discover and fire at our 
 approaching boats. The Federals were alarmed ; some of 
 their boats turned and pulled back to shore ; Gregg opened 
 with canister upon those that remained, and then they 
 also turned in flight, disembarking with men disheartened, 
 wounded, and killed. Upon a stupid enemy only should a 
 commander attempt a second surprise on a night follow- 
 ing an abortive effort, — and that ours was not one to be 
 caught napping, we had abundant proof during the war. 
 
 While it was evident enough that Sumter was a bad- 
 looking pile of ruins, and therefore, judging from appear- 
 ances, no bar to an attempt to sail into Charleston Harbor, 
 it began to be apparent that the navy had found other in- 
 surmountable obstacles, both on the earth and in the waters 
 under the earth ; and although this would be no excuse for 
 not making the effort, the grand question, — one which I 
 had been asking myself since I had been there, — had at last 
 been propounded from Washington ; namely, What do we 
 want of Charleston ? This had weighed upon the Admiral, 
 and upon every other naval commander in these waters, 
 and had made them unwilling to contribute to a useless 
 sacrifice, as also somewhat cooled the otherwise enthusias- 
 tic ardor with which they would have entered into Gill- 
 more's plans. That the mere capture of the city would 
 
212 A WAE DIAET. 
 
 have been useless, was stated in a letter from Cullum, chief 
 of Halleck's staff. Of course this was Halleck's view. " We 
 care nothing about Charleston," said the letter ; " we want 
 to shut up the harbor. Charleston would be something of 
 an elephant to us, after all." And what a discovery this was 
 to-day, after all the waste and woe of these useless opera- 
 tions ! We could have as effectually closed the harbor of 
 Charleston with our blockading fleet alone, as with the 
 presence and loss of so much land force. 
 
 But there we were, with one-half of Morris Island in our 
 possession, and our advanced parallels within sixty yards 
 of Wagner. For our own prestige, at least, we should be 
 compelled to take possession of Morris Island. Something 
 had to be shown the American people for the loss of life 
 in trenches and from torpedoes buried in the earth. " A 
 log troubles me in digging," said a soldier one day in the 
 trenches to his of&cer. " Well, then, dig around it," was 
 the reply ; " don't bother about it." A minute more, and 
 an explosion blew the soldier to atoms. Our men, as they 
 advanced, found the ground filled with torpedoes, for we 
 were very near the foot of Wagner's parapet, — so near, in- 
 deed, that that lively fort gently tossed iron shells into our 
 trenches, which, bursting with sad effect, killed some ten or 
 twelve men every day. Our second day's bombardment 
 of Wagner, I was informed, was the prelude to a honafide 
 attempt to take it by storm the next morning, between the 
 hours of eight and ten. Our approaches had carried us 
 so near that our assaulting columns could be massed under 
 cover of our own works. 
 
 The time selected was the hour of lowest tide, for this 
 allowed the use of the beach in an approach, and thus 
 enabled the men to avoid a liberal sprinkling of torpedoes 
 in front of the works. General Stevenson, with his brigade 
 and a small additional force, was to command the storming 
 
SEA ISLANDS OFF CHARLESTON. 213 
 
 column. The iron-clads and the " Ironsides," within easy- 
 range, were to keep down the fire of Wagner : indeed, they 
 would have been able to keep its garrison, if it had any, 
 from making any resistance whatever. Launches with 
 howitzers, we judged, could approach the coast and cer- 
 tainly keep up a rear as well as an enfilading fire upon 
 the place ; and what under such circumstances could the 
 enemy do ? On the supposition that this fire should be 
 maintained until a strong body of at least six hundred 
 men, formed in three columns of two hundred each, could 
 ru^h into the work, and that they should be supported by 
 reseryes containing at least five hundred each, in columns 
 of company front, — it was thought that the work could 
 be carried without serious loss. Eleven hundred of my 
 men I had sent to Morris Island, and five hundred to the 
 northern end of Polly ; and thus it seemed to me that the 
 Eebels must be satisfied, for they had been grumbling a 
 great deal at our mode of operations. A Charleston news- 
 paper belabored our army because we did not, as it ex- 
 pressed it, "clean up as we went." It thought it very 
 unfair for us to bombard Charleston without at first taking 
 all the approaches, — that is, all the forts defending the city. 
 The editor was so angry that we ignored the works which 
 Eebels thought secure against our shells, that he had the 
 farcical impertinence to call on Beauregard to compel us 
 to take the works as we went along, and not skip any ! 
 
 Shall I record it ? — aU this elaborate preparation ended 
 in a farce ! The whole of Morris Island became ours, — 
 Wagner, Gregg, and all, — abandoned the night of the 6th 
 of September, without awaiting our assault, without strik- 
 ing a blow ! The moment the report reached me I made 
 my way, under heavy firing from Johnson's, Sullivan's, and 
 James islands, along the beach to Wagner, where, secur- 
 ing my horse, I efiected an entrance, regardless of torpe- 
 
214 A WAR DIAEY. 
 
 does or bursting shells, into the fort. It was of immense 
 strength. As I wandered from one face to another I failed 
 to perceive that our bombardment had done more than 
 deprive it of part of its beauty, — certainly, of none of its 
 strength. I had no time to take measurements, which 
 would have been dangerous business then, but I made up 
 my mind that the fort was strong enough to resist all the 
 iire that rifled and fifteen-inch guns could have brought 
 against it. The open and capacious covered ways leading 
 from gun to gun afforded a sufficient circulation of air, and 
 made stories current among our men, of Eebels fainting in 
 closed bomb-proofs, supremely ridiculous. The number 
 of guns within the fort, the precise measurements of the 
 parapet, the dimensions of the bomb-proofs, the exact form 
 of the work, and the length of its faces, I had no time to 
 investigate. But what had interested us much, — namely 
 how any garrison could survive the huge shells and shot 
 which our enormous calibres, had poured into the fort, — 
 was satisfactorily explained by the perfect bomb-proofs, 
 which so protected the gunners that they could serve their 
 guns in the very face of our fire with almost perfect impu- 
 nity ; even an enfilading fire from our navy was impotent 
 for harm. StiU there were many marks of rough usage 
 about the fort. Some guns had been rendered useless, — 
 one knocked out of its carriage, and the carriage broken, 
 while another showed a huge indentation near the muzzle 
 where a solid shot had struck. Many uninjured guns 
 (sixteen of them) had been spiked. More than the usual 
 ddbris of camp, garrison equipage, and subsistence was 
 scattered around ; hundreds of barrels of hard bread, excel- 
 lent and fresh in appearance, had been emptied and tram- 
 pled under foot, while hundreds of others, filled and half 
 filled, were piled up for service as a protecting traverse ; 
 ordnance stores littered the earth : fragments of shells, and 
 
SEA. ISLANDS OFF CHAKLESTON. 215 
 
 whole ones unexploded ; solid shot, shattered Imnber, and 
 broken gun-carriages strewed the ground : there were also 
 dead men lying too long unburied. On its northern side 
 Wagner was open ; its gorge faced the work we had known 
 as Gregg, on the extreme northern end of the island. This 
 work, too, had been evacuated; otherwise it would have 
 been uncomfortable, if not impossible, to occupy Wagner, 
 for the latter would have received, without let or hindrance, 
 all the unobstructed fire the former chose to pour into it. 
 
 Why these forts were evacuated, was a question upon 
 which there might be great differences of opinion. It could 
 be said of Wagner, that, by our last trench, we had exten- 
 ded our works almost to the line of the surf, gaining a 
 point further north than the southeastern angle of the fort, 
 and almost under its very wall ; and that therefore it would 
 have been impossible to hold the fort against our assault. 
 Others, however, would argue that we gained nothing by 
 such surrender, for a fire from adjacent islands, almost if 
 not quite as effective, could be poured into us on Mor- 
 ris Island; and that the possession of the whole of this 
 island did not in the least advance our efforts to acquire 
 an inch of land or water beyond the island itself How- 
 ever this may be, we should have found it deadly work if, 
 with all Gillmore's engineering science in our behalf, we 
 had attempted to assault Wagner. Buried in the scarp 
 wall of the ditch, breast high, were pointed lances like 
 boarding pikes, and doubtless used as such at a former 
 period, to receive the assailant in an attempt to scale the 
 wall ; while on the bottom of the ditch long nails, as sharp 
 as needles, driven through boards to hold them firmly in 
 their places, were placed to impale the intruders. The 
 defence of this fort had been brave and determined ; its 
 garrison had been exposed to a terrible and long-continued 
 fire. The courage of its defenders, however, bore no com- 
 
216 A WAB DIAET. 
 
 parison to the energy and bravery of our own troops, in 
 pushing forward their siege-works under the fire delivered 
 by the Besieged. Never free from exposure to bursting 
 shells; unceasingly at work, by day and by night, on 
 hands and knees, crouching for shelter behind the insig- 
 nificant protection of a sap-roller, — our fearless troops 
 constructed their approaches and their parallels. 
 
 But now Wagner was ours without a fight; and we 
 thanked God for it. Officers and men jostled one another 
 on the Eebel parapet, or wandered through the bomb-proofs 
 and the ditches, gazing with curious looks at each new 
 revelation of haste or destruction, and unmindful, despite 
 many warnings, of concealed torpedoes or the whirring of 
 shells, with which the Eebels peppered us with an increas- 
 ing venom. 
 
 Mounting my horse, I returned to the observatory. A 
 solid shot, fired from Johnson's Island, struck within a few 
 feet of my path ; a fragment of shell howling over the line 
 of my right shoulder in uncomfortable proximity buried 
 itself in the ocean ; while another, bursting over my head, 
 spread its fragments around like an enveloping cloud, from 
 which came those peculiar death notes caused by the whir 
 of jagged iron. Gillmore was jubilant. In the fall of 
 Wagner and of Gregg he saw the surrender of every work 
 that impeded his triumphal entry into the coveted city; 
 his heart beat high with hope ; he exulted in his own 
 prowess. The navy was also affected. The Admiral de- 
 cided to attack something or somebody that afternoon with 
 his monitors, and test upon other forts and other inlands 
 the full significance of triumphs already won. From the 
 deck of my steamer I had a fair view of an engagement 
 between the iron-clads and Moultrie and other works on 
 Sullivan's Island. I was within range of Johnson's Island, 
 and my vision was uninterrupted. The scene was inde- 
 
SEA ISLANDS OFF CHAELESTON. 217 
 
 scribably Tarilliant. The iron-clads were enveloped in smoke ; 
 the water toiled around them, from the multitude of shot 
 fired from Eehel guns. SuUivan's Island seemed a living 
 mass of batteries. Tier after tier of guns opened on our 
 adventurous fleet. The fire was received with a dignified 
 composure, which was only broken at intervals when our 
 guns vomited forth defiance at the impotent rage of the 
 Eebel foe. I watched the scene until midnight. Long 
 after I had returned to my camp I heard the roar of the 
 prolonged contest, which, alas ! did not affect the yet un- 
 solved problem of how to accomplish the capture or the de- 
 struction of Charleston. So ended the siege of Wagner. 
 
 Almost every one has heard of the gallant conduct of the 
 negro pilot, Eobert Small, in running the Eebel steamer 
 " Planter " out of the harbor of Charleston, and delivering 
 her, with all her equipment, as a prize to our navy, then 
 blockading the port. Small was employed by our Govern- 
 ment as a pilot, at seventy-five dollars per month ; and it 
 was while serving as such on my boat that he told, in a 
 modest way, the details of that escape. No one could have 
 managed with more consummate skill. On the night of 
 his fiight, his party of nine colored men and five women 
 and children stole noiselessly on board. There were white 
 men among the crew, but, as was their custom, they were 
 asleep on shore. If the fugitive with his companions were 
 to escape, he must steam out before these men returned, 
 before the watchful sentinels in Sumter or on Sullivan's 
 or Johnson's Island could distinguish the face or figure of 
 this flying slave. It was the habit of General Eipley, the 
 Eebel commander of Charleston, to make a reconnoissance 
 of the waters at an early hour in the " Planter," sometimes 
 at daybreak ; and when he did, the pilot gave the usual 
 signal to Sumte^ of two long whistles and one short one. 
 That this trip, so pregnant with fate to the poor slaves, 
 
218 A WAR DUEY. 
 
 might seem to be in the interest of the Eebel masters; it 
 was imperative that none of the usual forms of courtesy 
 should be neglected. SmaU was familiar with them all, 
 having watched the performance of them by others. Before 
 daylight he put them into practice. Sumter came in view ; 
 where Eipley was wont to stand on the vessel, with cloak 
 and cap, to salute the ofiEicer of the guard as the signals 
 were given, stood Small, the negro captain of the " Planter," 
 in form and gesture so like Eipley that deception was not 
 dreamed of by the Eebels. Sumter passed, a new danger 
 presented itself. Our fleet, — would the officers there rec- 
 ognize the purposes of this Eebel boat ; or, thinking it on 
 foul things intent, demolish it with their heavy guns ? Out 
 of range of Sumter's guns, our brave negro captain pulled 
 down the Eebel flag and raised a white one in its place. In 
 the indistinct light the watchful eyes of our sailors per- 
 ceived the boat, and took it for a ram. The alarm was 
 given, and some ships got under way ; but soon the truth 
 was known. Captain Eobert Small and his company of 
 fourteen trembling negroes, — the slave pilot and the slave 
 crew, — stepped upon the deck of a gunship, and under the 
 Stars and Stripes made over a free gift of one valuable 
 steamer, with all her outfit and eq^uipments, to the United 
 States, receiving in return the priceless gift of freedom. 
 
 We may well pause here to ask if, so short a time ago, 
 such things could be ? Men, women, and children fleeing 
 from the barbarous degradation of slavery ; from a condition 
 so dwarfing to both mind and body that we can only won- 
 der that there was manhood enough left in Eobert SmaU 
 to enable him to design and execute so hazardous a flight ! 
 Yet so modestly, so quietly, did Small relate to me the 
 main facts of his heroic achievement, that I felt myself to 
 be in the presence of a man. God knows that I am thank- 
 ful enough now, as I was glad enough then, that my steps 
 
SEA ISLANDS OFF CHARLESTON. 219 
 
 had been directed towards those who had it in their power 
 to give freedom to Eobert Small, rather than to those who 
 were devoting their homes to the red flame of war that 
 they might hold him and his race forever in slavery. 
 
 Like this brave soul, there were many colored men fighting 
 for freedom within our ranks on the shores of South Caro- 
 lina ; many buried under the parapet of Wagner, waiting for 
 that trump which shall summon free and slave to the same 
 immortality. It was no wonder that sympathy for such 
 men moved many refined and well-educated young men to 
 seek commands where they could lead to liberty the slave 
 soldiers whom we organized into regiments during the 
 Eebellion. This was done, too, with- the knowledge that 
 it involved a greater hazard than was incurred in the 
 command of white troops. To deter our officers from 
 enlisting negroes, the Southern authorities declared that 
 white men commanding colored troops should not be 
 included in the cartel of exchanges. Upon this subject 
 Mr. Lincoln was importuned by the father of a captain of 
 negro troops, then a prisoner at Eichmond. The President 
 replied " that the cartel of exchanges could not be altered 
 on account of such action by the Eebels ; it would not be 
 just to other officers. Commanders of black troops," he 
 said, "take upon themselves extra risk, and must bear it; 
 but any cruelty or death to such officers will be visited 
 with retaliation." Yet even this did not deter our young 
 men from accepting such positions, or from becoming 
 enthusiastic about their negro troops. Making all due 
 allowance for the natural enthusiasm and zeal of avowed 
 Abolitionists, when engaged as the officers of colored regi- 
 ments within my command, I could not doubt or deny their 
 representation of the intelligence displayed by the colored 
 non-commissioned officers in the discharge of their duties. 
 They assisted the commissioned officers as clerks; were 
 
220 A WAE DIARY. 
 
 apt in drills, and ready in the acquisition of knowledge 
 concerning subjects before unknown. They were animated 
 with a desire to show that they were worthy of freedom, 
 and to fight for a recognition of their equality with other 
 races in the eyes' of the world. That the colored troops 
 would succeed in proving their efficiency before the war 
 closed their officers did not doubt. 
 
 In Wagner we continued to turn up buried torpedoes. 
 Killing by mines and torpedoes, not for defence, but for 
 butchery, is scarcely civilized warfare. We discovered 
 ingenious arrangements by which torpedoes might be dis- 
 charged by our unsuspecting troops. A line attached to a 
 pocket-knife would meet the eye of a soldier, who naturally 
 enough would stoop to pick it up, and thus explode an in- 
 strument of death. Torpedoes were as abundant as blue- 
 berries ; they floated ashore from the ocean, were discharged 
 in the current of the rivers and inlets, dug up in the sand, 
 or found, as we have seen, in the parapets of Wagner and 
 Gregg. A black object was one day cast up on the beach 
 of Folly Island. It was cylindrical in shape, painted 
 black, and about the size of a barrel It was at once 
 surrounded by soldiers, who touched it rather tenderly, as 
 one of them said, because "I did not know, sir, what the 
 damned thing would do next ; " and then they awaited 
 the return of a comrade with a saw, with which, they 
 thought, they could best get at its contents. Of course 
 there was an explosion and casualties, with "no one to 
 blame." 
 
 That the withdrawal of the enemy from the whole of 
 Morris Island was an indication that he would also retreat 
 from Sumter if hard pressed, seemed to be decided by both 
 GiUmore and Dahlgren ; and, singularly enough, each felt 
 so sure of this that he determined to make an effort to 
 steal from the other the coveted honor of being the first to 
 
SEA ISLANDS OFF CHAELESTON. 221 
 
 win the fort. Accordingly, on the night of the 8th of Sep- 
 tember, -without concert, expeditions from the army and 
 navy, under separate commanders and with separate if not 
 conflicting instructions, sallied forth to do the deed which 
 should electrify the North. The courtesy of acc[uainting 
 Gillmore with his intentions was not omitted by Admiral 
 Dahlgren, who by a messenger informed the General that 
 he should send an expedition to capture Sumter. But 
 Gillmore kept his plans to himself; and though he declared 
 that he could not communicate in time with the Admiral, 
 he was discreet enough to guard against the misfortunes 
 that might readily happen to two independent commands 
 in attacking at night, from different directions, the same 
 object. He sent to the Admiral a watchword, as also a 
 suggestion that whoever reached Sumter's parapet first, 
 should burn a red light. With this exception, nothing was 
 agreed upon by the two commanders. 
 
 The naval boats, loaded with tars armed with cutlasses 
 and muskets, put off silently and in darkness from the 
 various vessels of the blockading fleet, and were gathered 
 in a single body as near as practicable to the fort, that they 
 might pull vigorously on at the appointed time, and begin 
 their work. The army, with infantry in two long lines, 
 marched at night to the creek, and there quietly seated 
 themselves in barges, ready with oarsmen to pull to the 
 attack. of the gorge of Sumter. The naval force, it appeared, 
 was instructed to attack three faces of the work, — the 
 northern, southeastern, and southern, or gorge. As the 
 boats approached the northeastern face, they were discov- 
 ered and fired upon by musketry from the fort ; while at 
 the same time two Eebel steamers, opportunely in waiting, 
 backed off and opened upon the boats with grape, and from 
 the parapet of the fort hand-grenades were thrown upon 
 our sailors. This concerted fire soon threw the boats into 
 
222 A WAR DIARY. 
 
 confusion ; those that were not destroyed were dispersed, 
 and made their way back to the fleet. The boats that 
 landed at the southern face, where the gorge wall had been 
 beaten down, were a little more fortunate. Several offi- 
 cers gained the crest of the work, but only to be taken 
 prisoners by an overpowering force of Eebels, who were 
 always at night-fall thrown into the fort and safely housed 
 within its bomb and shot-proof shelters, waiting for pre- 
 cisely such a catch as this. During the whole of this dis- 
 astrous effort a fierce fire from Eebel batteries on James 
 Island and on Sullivan's swept the faces and flanks of Sum- 
 ter. To fly, therefore, was more hazardous than to remain ; 
 and to remain was sure to result in captivity or death. 
 In the midst of this commotion the army boats came up 
 and halted. It was soon perceived that the naval attack 
 had failed. Every Eebel fort in the harbor was aroused ; 
 to have proceeded further would have been folly ; there- 
 fore the troops returned, without loss, to their creeks. 
 
 In killed, wounded, and captured, the navy lost one 
 hundred and twenty men and two officers, out of a total of 
 four hundred. The survivors brought back more reliable 
 information of Sumter than Gillmore had ever received. 
 Captain Buchanan of the marines reached the southern 
 face, — the one that had borne all of Gillmore's pounding 
 from Morris Island, — to find a vertical wall of fifteen feet 
 in height from the top of the debris at the foot, which 
 neither officer nor man could scale. It was here, at the 
 foot of this debris, that all the Federal sailors were made 
 prisoners. Our iron-clads were of but little service. Two 
 of them accompanied our boats, but their draught was such 
 that their guns could not be brought to bear to flank the 
 southern or gorge wall ; while the Eebel gunboats, lying in 
 shallower water, used their fairer opportunity with great 
 effect upon our men and boats. The southern face was 
 
SEA ISLAKDS OFF CHAELESTON. 223 
 
 never stronger ; it was simply invincible. The outside 
 had been made impregnable by the debris from GiUmore's 
 bombardment, while sand and cotton-bags within strength- 
 ened all the inner part. The result did not dissipate the 
 growing feeling of ill-humor that had been for some time 
 manifest between the land and naval forces. "With no 
 single head to devise and execute operations looking to the 
 same end, there must needs be clashing and inef&ciency 
 and bad blood. In the mean time Sumter grew daily in 
 strength. In front of its battered walls, at the angle of its 
 gorge and southeastern flank, an immense pile of sand, a 
 little lower than the old embrasures, had been deposited, 
 where new guns and new embrasures and the beginning 
 of a magazine of sand-bags appeared. AU this I saw on 
 the morniag of the 10th of September from our second 
 parallel ; and it did not fill me with the conviction that 
 Sumter had been rendered useless or defenceless. Mean- 
 while it became more likely that our stay in this region 
 would be much prolonged, and I looked with grief on the 
 lessening rolls of men under my command. 
 
 General Schimmelfening, an educated German soldier, 
 who commanded the second brigade of my division, had 
 fought " mit Siegel " both here and abroad, and was a hearty 
 republican. His brigade contained some of the twelve 
 regiments that formed the division which I brought from 
 the Army of the Potomac. Eight of these regiments were 
 formed into two brigades ; but no regiment numbered over 
 two hundred men, and some of them counted but ninety. 
 Many of these men were formerly commanded by General 
 Blenker, under Fremont, in the Shenandoah Valley ; then 
 by Siegel, Pope, McClellan, Burnside, Hooker, and Meade. 
 They had fought in the campaigns which each of these 
 generals had in turn directed, and under many different 
 subordinate commanders. Since the battle of Chancellors- 
 
224 A WAK DUEY. 
 
 ville their knapsacks had been stowed away under guard ; 
 and they had not seen since then their own shelter-tents 
 and blankets, but had eaten their rations of fresh beef and 
 hard bread, with coffee at times, under borrowed blankets 
 and canvas. This was part of the force with which I began, 
 under Meade, the campaign in Virginia in pursuit of Lee. 
 
 A series of reconnoissances on Cole's, John's, and Kio- 
 wah islands, recently made by General Schimmelfening 
 under my direction, brought that General daily to my tent, 
 where I was often both entertained and instructed by his 
 shrewd and keen remarks. He was well informed with 
 regard to the armies of modern Europe, and had had con- 
 siderable experience in our war. His conversation did 
 much to enliven the dreary monotony of life on Folly 
 Island. 
 
 Folly Island — a dune or sand-bank half a mile in 
 width, with patches of pines and palmettos, with reaches of 
 meadow, stagnant swamps, and fiddler-crabs — is bounded 
 by an ocean of water, and yet has not a drop to drink, 
 except, indeed, the brackish fluid found three feet below 
 the surface. Very tropical is this long and narrow bit of 
 land, with a sand-heap for its eastern and a marsh for its 
 western boundary, while between was vegetable life, rank 
 and luxurious. The palmetto reaches its cabbage-head and 
 its long, sword-like leaf upward towards the gorgeous mag- 
 nolia ; the Southern pines, like stately sentinels, stand erect 
 in the forest ; parasitical mosses droop from the trees, and 
 creeping vines cover the earth. Loud-mouthed locusts fill 
 the air with sound ; the waters are filled with oysters, and 
 the lands with diarrhoea. Eeptiles and bugs, birds with 
 gorgeous plumage and melodious voices, here abound as 
 rich treasure for the naturalist. And here, too, crowded 
 upon the sand-hiUs to escape the marsh, seeking the sea- 
 breeze to kill the malaria, — here were the camps and cook- 
 
 o 
 
SEA ISLANDS OFF CHARLESTON. 225 
 
 ing persons and properties of my command. "Order is 
 Heaven's first law ; " but not that of Folly Island, — there 
 ■was not room enough for order. The population was too 
 dense to allow to each man a house and bit of land. One 
 A-tent win hold three men, if they lie close and don't kick 
 around much ; sometimes we put in four : the area of four 
 was just equal to the superficial area of the tent. One 
 could not stand straight, for the eaves came down to the 
 ground. A company of sixty men lived in fifteen such 
 tents, — seven in one row, and eight opposite; and between 
 was what we called a street, varying in width according 
 to the room for the encampment. The street here was 
 five paces wide ; so that it wiU. readily appear that we 
 were crowded. At one end of this spacious avenue were 
 officers' tents, also in a row ; at the other was the kitchen, 
 while just beyond were other company tents, miserable 
 imitations of civilized life. Imagine ten of them, and you 
 will have a regiment ; imagine sixty, and you wUl have a 
 brigade numbering over six thousand men! 
 
 Here, then, was a population somewhat larger than a 
 so-called populous town in E"ew England. A Yankee 
 would " guess '' that the space occupied by our town of six 
 thousand would make a mean pasture for one cow; yet 
 here, by night and by day, lived, ate, slept, and died, six 
 thousand human beings. Ye Gods! what an imperial 
 avenue, — five paces in width, almost enough for an unob- 
 structed passage of a wheel-barrow! What airy mansions 
 these, in which we could not stand erect! what roomy 
 apartments, just holding four, if they touched snugly ! 
 
 I gave to each encampment all the room I could, and 
 enforced all sanitary rules that could be executed ; but alas 
 for the result, where the room was insufficient! The effect 
 of crowded camps is and must be to fill the soil with im- 
 purities, which in this case had a pernicious effect on the 
 
 15 
 
226 A WAK DIARY. 
 
 health of the brigades. In one, where the tents were well 
 separated and ventilated, I had about 2,500 troops, with 
 only 165 sick; while in another, comprising only 1,800 
 troops, there were 525 sick. Then the essentials for Living 
 in such a community, — how to get things, — indeed it 
 was a complicated question! In the world, each man 
 answers this question for himself ; and as he' succeeds or 
 fails, he is called wise or foolish. But it was not so easy 
 for one in our contracted community to answer it. For 
 instance, a soldier, one of the six thousand, one fourth of 
 the number that fiUed the A-tent, wanted a coat or a belt, 
 a gun cartridge, a box, or a cof&n : his captain made a 
 requisition on a printed form, with particulars in writing, 
 stating what was wanted ; a colonel approved the requi- 
 sition ; so did a brigadier-general ; so did the commander 
 of a division; so did the quartermaster, — for upon this 
 functionary finally the procuring and sending depended. 
 More than one year before. General Mitchell, then com- 
 manding this department, made a requisition upon the 
 quartermaster for oak plank for military purposes, — say 
 rafts and other uses; General Mitchell died; General 
 Hunter succeeded him ; and then GHlmore, — and at 
 about the end of August the plank was received ! 
 
 Yes, how to get things, — there was the rub, which 
 rubbed even harder than what to do with things when you 
 had got them. How to manage housekeeping without a 
 house, cooking without a cook, catering without a steward, 
 and purchasing without a market, — these were mysteries. 
 It is true we had cattle, — beef cattle, they were called, — 
 but they had suffocated and fevered in cattle-cars on their 
 way from the West ; had made a stormy passage of the 
 sea, crowded on a schooner's deck and towed on an ocean 
 voyage to Hilton Head, where they were transferred again 
 to other vessels; then another voyage of two or three days. 
 
SEA ISLANDS OFF CHARLESTON. 227 
 
 until at length they were landed in our neighborhood. 
 There in a close corral, on brackish water and musty hay, 
 sparks of life were fanned into existence, until a merciful 
 butcher ended them. But Death with his scythe sometimes 
 anticipated the bloody Dutchman with his axe ; and when 
 the former was foremost, the poor animal was, let us trust, 
 not eaten. But if the latter was ahead, though for never 
 so short a time, we then got the issue three times a week, 
 — thrice theoretically; but at times there were accidents, 
 and events not anticipated, which deprived us of our 
 ration. And if no such mishap, there was the cook! — 
 ay, the cook! 
 
 In a fatal moment of forgetfulness I once invited a 
 general ofiEicer to dine with me, tempting him with the 
 promise of a nice roast of beef, — and this though but a 
 few days had passed since five pounds of beef had been 
 placed in the cook's hands, resulting in the outside 
 being burned to a cinder, while within it was perfectly 
 raw ! To a feast to be prepared by this skilful ( ! ) culi- 
 nary artist, I had pressed General to be punctual, as 
 
 possibly the beef might be — well, overdone. This invi- 
 tation, I may say, was the result of a momentary inspira- 
 tion on my part, in which the capacity of the cook never 
 for a moment entered my head ; but as I rode slowly home 
 I recalled his existence and his qualifications with some 
 apprehension. However, the die was cast, and the issue 
 must be met. Much care and a special message secured 
 for me ten pounds of the " second cut." I saw it myself^ 
 — fresh, inviting upper slices, and tenderloin, — as fair a 
 promise as ever dawned on mortal stomach. On the morn- 
 ing of the eventful day I began early with my .cook, giving 
 him instructions so simple and elementary (one instruction 
 involving but a single idea, with a long rest between ideas) 
 that confusion was thought to be impossible. Order, I tried 
 
228 
 
 A WAR DIARY. 
 
 to believe, must reign in the head of this chef de cuisine. 
 Informing him that friends would dine with me that day 
 at one o'clock, and that to the appointed time he must be 
 punctual, very punctual, I filled his mind so effectually 
 with beef as to force from him, I fondly believed, aU 
 thought, dream, or hope, save that which flowed from the 
 process of roasting. And yet, as the hours went by, I had 
 misgivings, painful lapses from a resigned trust, which were 
 strong enough to draw me at half-past eleven to the coals 
 which my obdurate Teuton ycleped a kitchen. Merciful 
 heavens ! shall I ever forget that scene ? My hope, my 
 promised joy of beef was transformed into a burned and 
 shapeless mass, hung like some horrid fruit from the branch 
 of a neighboring tree ! To my indignant questions the cook 
 replied, with an overwhelming confidence in himself, — 
 
 "Oh, I roast him!" 
 
 Why should this foreigner attach a masculine personality 
 to a junk of beef? It but served to increase my irritability. 
 " Eoast him ! " I thundered, " roast him ! and why in the 
 (name of an unmentionable old sinner) did you ' roast him ' 
 one hour and a half before the dinner hour ? " 
 
 " Oh, I has a good fire then ! " 
 
 " You incorrigible Dutchman, why did you give to the 
 breeze that beef for one hour and a half ? " 
 
 " Oh, I hang him on de tree ! " 
 
 Madness would have overcome me had I confronted 
 this impenitent anirnal longer. I sought explanations of 
 the cause of committing this diabolical act, only to receive 
 repeated assurances that it had been committed, and turned 
 away without another glance at the swarm of flies which 
 were enjoying .my dinner. Fortunately I had received a 
 present of peaches ; with these I overcame my guest, and 
 so filled him before dinner that he received my explana- 
 tions about the beef with softened feelings. 
 
SEA ISLANDS OFF CHAELESTON. 229 
 
 Turning now from the dining to the dying, we shall find 
 that more here than elsewhere did red-tape demand its 
 victims. Of all things on earth that should yield to neces- 
 sity, red-tape should abandon something when human life 
 is the alternative. In the field, if a soldier is sick he should 
 be put under the best treatment and in the most perfect 
 shelter attainable, with the least possible delay. How this 
 was not done in our case I wOl illustrate. A captain of 
 my command had tj'^phoid fever, and it was necessary that 
 he should be immediately removed to the hospital at 
 Hilton Head, — the only appropriate place. He could not 
 go in the boat which carried the disabled from Morris 
 Island, for that was ordered to take only the sick from that 
 island ; he could not go in a boat leaving the southern end 
 of Folly Island, because neither was I allowed to send"^ by 
 it, nor had a board of officers, as required, declared the man 
 to be sick ; he could not go from the northern end of Folly 
 Island, because there' I was not in command. And so in 
 a very unhealthy locality, under a shelter-tent, this sick 
 captain awaited for three days the useless efforts of my 
 surgeon-in-chief to unravel the mystery of how he could 
 get his patient into the hospital at Hilton Head, — the 
 hospital erected for the sick in this department, and for this 
 alone ; about this fact there was no dispute. I believe I 
 stormed over this condition of things until my surgeon 
 succeeded in finding a temporary hospital on FoUy Island, 
 from which the sick could be sent to Hilton Head without 
 further circumlocution. 
 
 Another case of almost malignant stupidity relating to 
 the sick came before me, through the neglect of my division 
 surgeon, — an unenergetic man with an unpronounceable 
 name. A convalescent doctor, going home on leave of 
 absence, finding it absolutely impossible to procure trans- 
 portation to the boat, wrote to my headquarters for an 
 
230 A WAR DIARY. 
 
 ambulance. "Does he wish me to drive him ? " I asked 
 the messenger, reflecting at the same time that it was 
 barely possible that in this department of engineers ambu- 
 lances might have been overlooked, as of no value in siege 
 operations. " Where, in the name of saints and martyrs, 
 are, the ambulances ? " I at first softly ejaculated ; then 
 called loudly for information, only to be informed that 
 there was but one two-wheeled vehicle for the transporta- 
 tion of the sick on the island. One two-wheeled vehicle 
 for more than six thousand men ! Twenty and more am- 
 bulances I gave up when I left the Army of the Potomac ; 
 and now for the same command there was no ambulance, 
 absolutely none at all, poor or good, in this end of the 
 Department of the South. Supplies for the body, for the 
 externals and internals ; supplies for fighting, — all these I 
 had gone into, and now I turned to carriages for the sick. 
 
 " Mr. [my aid and temporary assistant adjutant- 
 general], where is the division surgeon ? " 
 
 " Gone home, sir." 
 
 " Ah, yes ! Any one to answer for him, to attend to his 
 duties ? " 
 
 " His clerk, sir." 
 
 " Call him." 
 
 " He is n't in, sir." 
 
 " Where is he ? " 
 
 " Don't know, sir." 
 
 " Who is the next surgeon in rank ? " 
 
 " Dr. Myer, of the second brigade." 
 
 " Send for him." 
 
 A sergeant enters, and, saluting, says : " I can't get any 
 boards for your tent floor, sir." 
 
 " Mr. -" I said, turning to my aid, " write a note 
 
 to the provost-marshal, and tell him to send boards. I 
 don't care where he gets them." 
 
SEA ISLANDS OFF CHARLESTON. 231 
 
 "Yes, sir." 
 
 Now, Dr. Myer presents himself. " Good morning, Doc- 
 tor. I wish you to attend to the duties of division surgeon 
 in the absence of Dr. ." 
 
 " Dr. Brilliantowski ranks me, sir." ' 
 
 " What 1 does he ? Mr. , send for Dr. Brillian- 
 towski." 
 
 "Yes, sir." 
 
 " Dr. Myer, we need flooring for all of our hospitals ; we 
 need ambulances and hay. There are some three or four 
 hundred men who will die if they are not sent home. Dr. 
 Brilliantowski, the president of the Medical Board, thinks 
 there are too many of them to send home, and yet I know 
 they win die if they remain.'' Then, turning again to my 
 aid, I directed an order to be sent to the quartermaster to 
 seize any lumber he could find at the lower end of the 
 island, and take it for hospital purposes. " Send in your 
 
 requisitions for hay, Dr. Myer ; and Mr. , I desire you 
 
 to teU the quartermaster to make a requisition for two 
 ambulances, one for each brigade of the division. And, 
 Dr. Myer, I shaU insist that Dr. Brilliantowski shall send 
 home such sick men as are in danger here." Exit Myer, 
 and enter German cook. 
 
 " De orderle, he can get no meat, sir." 
 
 " Well," — damn the orderly, I was about saying, but 
 did n't, — " who is the orderly ? " 
 
 " Dat bugler." 
 
 " Oh, a Dutchman ! Of course he can't." 
 
 " No brade neither," adds the cook. 
 
 " Clear out ! Captain , see what is the matter." 
 
 Enter Brilliantowski. " Good morning. Doctor ; you wiU 
 
 act as division surgeon during the absence of Dr . I 
 
 wish you to make a rigid examination of hospitals, and 
 see that everything is supplied. Get ambulances, hay. 
 
232 A WAR DIARY. 
 
 flooring, medicines, fresh vegetables, and all things needed 
 for sick men. Send home such as will die if you don't, 
 and send others to Hilton Head." Exit BriUiantowski, 
 and enter General Schimmelfening. 
 
 "I have come to report to you, General, the result of 
 my reconnoissance on Kiowah Island yesterday, as simply 
 that I did not catch the Eebel pickets, and was fired at 
 from Sea Brook Island, but without any casualties." 
 
 Perhaps this chapter, from one day's experiences in 
 this department, may help to explain some facts which 
 puzzled our people so much, concerning the waste of men 
 in war. Is it unaccountable what becomes of an army ? 
 The good folks at home know that as many men were 
 sent to the war as the total will amount to of all the names 
 that can be remembered by some one in every village, 
 town, and city in the North ; and that if all these names 
 are counted, there will be three, or thirty, or three hun- 
 dred thousand men, all of them Jacks, Jameses, or Johns, 
 or something else, well known in the home. How did it 
 happen that so few of them were present for duty ? Where 
 had they gone ; how faded away ? They were somewhere, 
 certainly ; but where ? I will not now take into account 
 the dead, killed in action ; but I will endeavor to answer 
 that mystery of why, when men had not been killed in 
 action, so many recruits were required to take the places 
 of the well-remembered but unaccounted-for originals. 
 Here is the report of one division in the army of the 
 United States. Can I account for every man in that 
 division, every unit of each company that formed the regi- 
 ment, — the men who marched as James, Jack, and John 
 from the old town or city in which they grew up ? 
 
 AU the living men on the first day of September, 1863, 
 contained in the two brigades of my division numbered 
 seven thousand four himdred and sixty-seven. These two 
 
SEA ISLANDS OFF CHAELESTON. 233 
 
 brigades held six regiments in each ; twelve in aU. If I 
 had now the numbers of those who originally enlisted, and 
 the date of enlistment of each regiment and its service, I 
 could tell how long and through what agencies the twelve 
 thousand men (if each regiment numbered one thousand) 
 had dwindled by death to seven thousand four hundred 
 and sixty-seven. But it will be instructive to deal with 
 the living, of which four thousand one hundred and eighty- 
 eight were present with their commands upon these 
 islands, — present, but not fit for duty. Some were sick ; 
 many unto death. Five hundred and two were tossing 
 in pain in that infernal region, victims of this siege of 
 Charleston. Two hundred and fifty-six more were detailed 
 as commissary's and quartermaster's men, — workmen, team- 
 sters, boatmen, carpenters, and laborers in other, necessary 
 service, in military and ordinary duties required to keep 
 Gillmore's machine in operation. Twenty-six were in 
 arrest, in the guard-house. This leaves three thousand 
 four hundred and four to do the fighting on the first day 
 of September, 1863. 
 
 Not two years before this, these twelve regiments of 
 twelve thousand men left their native towns with the 
 cheers and exultations of admiring crowds ringing in their 
 ears. Let us see where are the absentees. There must 
 be three thousand two hundred and seventy-nine of them, 
 for that is the difference between the total — present and 
 absent — and the. present ; not the present fighting force, 
 for that must be diminished by the sick and in arrest, as I 
 have explained. Kineteen commissioned of&cers. and two 
 hundred and eighty enlisted men were absent within that 
 department. They were at Beaufort, at Hilton Head, on 
 Morris Island, or sent somewhere by Gillmore. Outside 
 that department there were two hundred and eighty com- 
 missioned officers, and two thousand eight hundred and 
 
234 A WAR DIAEY. 
 
 sixty-four enlisted men; what were they doing? This 
 question opens a wide field to the explorer. There were 
 the sick who had recovered, and who were blacking boots 
 for surgeons in hospitals throughout the loyal part of the 
 United States ; the sick who had died, and no account of 
 them been rendered; the discharged that had not been 
 reported ; and the absent, detailed, and furloughed. The 
 names of these men were enrolled on the regimental record, 
 and all of them were on the company report-books, in 
 which the history of each man was kept. 
 
 After a completely organized army has been ground up 
 in the crash of battle, it is a work of peculiar interest to 
 trace the particles, and thus account for the rivulet into 
 which the torrent has wasted. Some sixty days after the 
 battle of Antietam, I found a soldier standing at the door 
 of a common farm-house near the field where the battle 
 had been fought. " What are you doing here ? " I inquired. 
 
 " Well, I was left here by my colonel to guard this 
 house," was the reply. 
 
 "When were you left here ?" 
 
 "Well, the day of the fight." 
 
 " Why, that was sixty days ago ! " 
 
 " Yes ; but he never relieved me." 
 
 " And where is your regiment now ? " I asked. 
 
 " Well, I s'pose it has gone on Harper's Ferry way." 
 
 " What were you to guard this house against ? " I said. 
 
 " Well, I suppose the soldiers." 
 
 " But the soldiers have been gone these two months ! " 
 
 " Well, yes ; but I was never relieved." 
 
 I ordered this sneaking coward to strap on his knap- 
 sack and start for his regiment. He had taken advantage 
 of the stupidity or criminality of his colonel, or captain, to 
 remain for sixty days at this house, while his comrades 
 were doing his share of the work in an arduous campaign ; 
 
SEA ISLANDS OFF CHARLESTON. 235 
 
 and all because he was not man enough properly to inter- 
 pret his orders. I will be bound that he did not forget to 
 dr^iW his pay for that time. 
 
 Many other instances of this kind occurred upon the 
 Potomac within the area of my command, after the battle 
 of Antietam, in which I ordered meu — some of whom 
 were guarding property, some staying with wounded com- 
 rades, some with wounded officers, but almost all sneaks 
 from duty and from danger — to rejoin their regiments- 
 But it would require a volume to deal specifically with this 
 question, and would, moreover, be too monotonous to be 
 interesting, involving the same dreary repetitions of skulk- 
 ing and desertion, of death and disease. It wOl be much 
 more profitable to return to the narrative of events. 
 
 To the west of Folly Island, and separated from it by a 
 deep and narrow inlet, lies Cole's Island, — a low, marshy 
 spot, crossed by two causeways, and occupied by mos- 
 quitoes and one regiment of my division. One Sunday I 
 visited the line of outlying pickets on James Island beyond 
 Cole's, and found them so near the Eebel sentinels (less 
 than two hundred yards) that they could easily talk with 
 each other; there was only a dividing slough between. 
 This would have been a dangerous site, but that it was 
 understood there should be no firing, simply because there 
 had been none for some days. We trusted, and the Eeb- 
 els trusted, that neither side would resume picket-firing 
 without ample warning. It thus happens that mortal 
 enemies will sometimes indulge in social recreations which 
 soften the asperities of war. Now and then our men were 
 saluted with " Come, Yanks ! have a chat, will you ? " or, 
 " Yanks ! how do you like mosquitoes ? " But efforts by 
 either to discover the real numbers and position of oppos- 
 ing forces were sometimes amusingly parried. One of my 
 officers, disguised in a private's uniform, met in the middle 
 
236 A WAR DIARY. 
 
 of the bridge which crossed the dividing stream a man 
 dressed in Confederate gray, who seemed to be a private 
 soldier. Both were unarmed. 
 
 " You have quite a cavalry force here ! " suggested the 
 Yankee, inquiringly. 
 
 " Can I buy any cheese of you ? " replied the other. 
 
 At times, however, we gained positive advantages 
 throiTgh verbal information or in newspaper exchanges. 
 Thus we read in a Charleston paper of the 16tli of Sep- 
 tember an admission that the outside of Sumter was effect- 
 ually battered down; but there was also in the same 
 connection a strong insinuation that the strength of the 
 inside would surprise us. Names of our naval officers 
 captured at Sumter were also therein given ; and the dead 
 killed by our shells at the various batteries in the harbor 
 were eulogized. From the same source came a surprising 
 statement concerning the doubtful valor of that quondam 
 fire-eater and ex-Congressman Keitt (the Keitt of the 
 Brooks-Sumner assault) during the last day of his com- 
 mand at Fort Wagner ; for he it was who sought notoriety 
 there. When this valiant South Carolinian saw that Gill- 
 more had almost dug him out, — a few more shovelfuls ere 
 the hounds would be in full pursuit, — he asked in terror 
 of Beauregard, very like the "Anne, Sister Anne!" in Blue- 
 beard, if the boats were not coming to take the garrison 
 away. Looking anxiously towards Charleston, fearful that 
 every rising cloud might turn out to be the "flock of 
 sheep " of Sister Anne, appalled at the proximity of the 
 Bluebeard Yankees, he impressed his commander with the 
 conviction that if he had any preference, it was not to 
 remain longer in Wagner. When it became known, how- 
 ever, that the boats were on the way, that the cloud was 
 not a flock of sheep at all, then Keitt cried out with hys- 
 teric valor, " I will fight till the last man is killed ! We 
 
SEA ISLANDS OFF CHARLESTON. 237 
 
 ought to fight to-night ! " But at night the boats came ; 
 the gallant Keitt embarked, and proceeded to roar in the 
 Charleston papers louder than Falstaff at Gadshill. We 
 ■will not call him a coward, — no ; but we might offer a 
 thousand pounds to any man who could run as fast as 
 Keitt did. 
 
 There were other articles of interest in this Charleston 
 newspaper. A piteous appeal for peace ended with a 
 solemn declaration that the South would never give up the 
 contest. Then followed an article by a poor but sensible 
 man, who asked why he could get only fifty dollars for a 
 whole hide of leather, and yet was obliged to pay seventy- 
 five for a single pair of boots: was it that the planters 
 caused high prices, by keeping their slaves at home and 
 compelling skilled white labor to do all the work of the 
 soldier in the field ? A raw-and-bloody-bones article came 
 next. " Let us keep the Yankee prisoners in Sumter," it 
 said, " to prevent any further bombardment of the same ; 
 and make them take the fort fairly." This was a germ of 
 wisdom, certainly! Place our prisoners in range of our 
 own shots ? How would the Eebels have Hked to see us 
 sailing into Charleston Harbor with their people, our pris- 
 oners, lashed to the decks of our monitor? ? To be sure, 
 they were shelling the whole of Morris Island; but we 
 intended to return their compliments when our hundred- 
 pounder Parrotts were in position on Cumming's Point, and 
 Forts Wagner and Gregg were " turned around," as old 
 Governor Wise of Virginia said of the earthworks in front 
 of Williamsburg, which we closed up at the rear when we 
 had captured them. This objection to the further bombard- 
 ment of Sumter contained an element of Eebel humor, 
 which was more striking in view of Gillmore's congratu- 
 latory order, published that same day, wherein he thanked 
 his troops for taking Morris Island, banging Sumter into 
 
238 A WAR DIARY. 
 
 a useless pile of bricks, and placing the harbor and city of 
 Charleston under the guns of our batteries. Yet we beheld 
 the Eebel flag run up daily on those ruins which neither 
 Dahlgren nor Gillmore could occupy or neglect, — those 
 battered ruins on whose impregnable walls heavy siege- 
 guns, newly mounted, closed the city of Charleston against 
 our efforts. 
 
 Meanwhile GiUmore was aroused by unfounded rumors, 
 or stirred by groundless suspicions. The night of the 17th 
 of September was a night of storm. The ground trembled 
 with the thud of breaking waves; the tents shook and 
 swayed in the tempest. I had just fallen asleep, when I 
 was aroused by a messenger with a note from Gillmore, 
 that he had "positive information that an attempt would 
 be made to-night to surprise your [my] post." It availed 
 nothing that I knew this fear was without foundation. 
 Where in the name of common-sense were the Eebels to 
 come from ? How in a night of tempest like this could 
 they handle boats on Folly Eiver or on the Stono ? Never- 
 theless, the " Pawnee " had to be warned, and (at GiU- 
 more's suggestion) some of my infantry offered to Captain 
 Balch to repel boarders. Out into the darkness and pelting 
 storm I sent aids and orderlies flying in every direction, 
 to stir from their slumbers in one grand muss the sleeping 
 columns of my division. In a few moments drums were 
 sounding, bugles echoing, and troops marching. General 
 Schimmelfening, with his whole brigade, I directed to the 
 end of the island near the entrance of Stono Eiver, the 
 place where the first attempt at a hostile landing should 
 be met. I posted General Ames where he could throw 
 assistance to General Schimmelfening, or move opposite 
 Secessionville if Eebels chose to come that way. Batteries 
 were aroused, and sleepy sentinels, dozing in the rain over 
 their posts, quickened into keen activity. In thirty minutes 
 
SEA ISLANDS OFF CHARLESTON. 239 
 
 a sleeping camp had become a moving body of armed men. 
 The sloop-of-war " Pawnee," a few moments since holding 
 her crew in the unconsciousness of slumber while she 
 lay idly in the stream, had called all her men to action ; 
 her guns were ready, and all her offensive arrangements 
 made. 
 
 Broad daylight came at last. The storm and wind con- 
 tinued; black billows from the ocean still rolled and 
 scolded on the beach ; the air was thick with mist ; the 
 troops were tired, wet, and cold ; everything about us was 
 wretched and raw, — and this was aU that happened ! It 
 was not imtil a day or two later that we knew whence the 
 "positive information" came. Gillmore employed a scout 
 who pretended to be an expert in the mechanism of tele- 
 graphy. If he could use his art to some good end, he might 
 profit greatly. Charleston and Savannah were connected 
 by a wire. A daring man might approach it by night and 
 take off Eebel communications, — tapping the wires, it was 
 called. This the scout proceeded to do ; and whether he 
 knew as much of what was pas.sing as the woodpecker that 
 tapped the hollow beech tree in the adjacent swamps, or 
 whether, he knew more, he reported to Gillmore that troops . 
 were coming that very night to attack us. To prevent a 
 like disturbance from occurring again, I occupied, the next 
 day, Kiowah Island, south of Folly. This island, like all 
 hereabouts, is but a narrow sandy ridge covered with a 
 scrubby growth of wood, on its western side bounded by 
 an extensive marsh. A narrow water-course, an inner pas- 
 sage from Stono to Edisto Inlet, separates John's Island 
 from Kiowah, and receives the drainage of the marsh and 
 creeks which cut up Kiowah in its seven miles of length. 
 The Eebel pickets were posted on a dilapidated bridge on 
 John's Island, where they could talk with our men, or 
 make harmless incursions upon our domain. 
 
240 A -WAE DIARY. 
 
 To repeat in detail the too tedious incidents of daily life 
 in efforts to keep my command in good health and condi- 
 tion; to teU of all the varied subjects which served to 
 lighten the weary hours of watching on FoUy Island ; to 
 dwell upon the never-ceasing sound of heavy guns, — this 
 would be tiresome and of but little profit in the history 
 of proceedings in the Department of the South. Days 
 wore on with an increased mortality, as the fire of Eebel 
 gunners was plied with greater vigor to drive away or 
 annoy workmen engaged on Cumming's Point. Seven 
 soldiers from the Engineer Corps were killed there by a 
 single shell, which exploded behind a traverse. A daring 
 officer, with admirable coolness, seated himself calmly 
 on the parapet, unmoved by the shells which burst over 
 him from Sumter, Charleston, and Moultrie, and gazed se- 
 renely on the spires of the city, the ruins of Sumter, and 
 works adjacent. Such presumption was rash. Improved 
 artillery delivers its missile with the precision of a rifle ; 
 and a fatal shot severed in twain the body of this fool- 
 hardy man. 
 
 In, a Charleston paper of the twenty-first, exchanged 
 with Eebel pickets at my outposts, we learned that the 
 occupation of Chattanooga by Eosecrans troubled the 
 Eebel leaders. Bragg,- the Eebel commander, — Braxton 
 Bragg, the " little more grape " Bragg, of Buena Vista no- 
 torietyj imder old Zachary Taylor ; the Bragg of the old 
 army, who had graduated at West Point, with whom 
 I had often been associated in garrison and in field, — 
 this Bragg published an order to his troops, in which he 
 declared that they must fight, and " your general will lead 
 you." In imagination the sound of Bragg's artillery 
 mingled with the bugle signals and the solemn, never- 
 ceasing roar of the surf. They were more real than the 
 echo of our guns levelled against Sumter, and more impor- 
 
SEA ISLANDS OFF CHARLESTON, 241 
 
 tant thau the doom whicli Gillmore fancied he was pre- 
 paring for Charleston. 
 
 It was at this time that I received a visit from Gen- 
 eral Wilde, who was proposing to form a negro brigade. 
 The general was a gallant man, as he had shown on 
 many a field. At South Mountain his left arm was 
 taken off, and he was wounded in the remaining hand- 
 His brother, who was his aide-de-camp, had lost an 
 eye ; and so it happened that between the two tbe full 
 and disposable complement of eyes and arms was three 
 of each. 
 
 On the morning of September 26, 1863, there came a 
 newspaper from the North, dated the twentieth, confirm- 
 ing the rumor current with us some time earlier of the 
 escape from Eichmond and arrival at Morris Island of 
 three men who were captured in one of our recent efforts 
 upon "Wagner. These men confirmed the report which 
 had come to us through a Eebel paper a few days before, 
 that a large movement of Eebel troops southward from 
 Eichmond had taken place, which report created in me 
 no little anxiety. Nevertheless, to visit Kiowah Island 
 and inspect the fortifications erecting there ; to fall back 
 on the sport of curlew-shooting, and the rich gain to my 
 mess of ten birds, with an addition of small oysters (in 
 which latter the rivers and inlets abound) ; to hail the 
 arrival of fresh beef, — these are but new illustrations that 
 man is mortal, and the subject of appetite under all cir- 
 cumstances. But so passed the day ; and then came Sun- 
 day, the twenty-seventh. Sunday is certainly not a day of 
 rest in the army ; and this Sunday in particular I spent in 
 ascertaining how many bakers were required to bake six 
 thousand rations of bread daily for my men, and how many 
 butchers to kill beef for them; in examining the condi- 
 tion of outposts, writing letters, directions, and orders, and 
 
 16 
 
242 A WAR DIARY. 
 
 taking steps for self-preservation from the action of this 
 wilful moon, which my orderly declared was " larger than 
 the moon we have up Forth." Inch hy inch the land was 
 disappearing in front of my encampment, and tumbling 
 down the precipitous bank which the powerful waves had 
 made in the yielding soil. All forms of vegetable and ani- 
 mal life were thus drawn downward into ocean depths, to 
 be covered and pressed down still further by ever increas- 
 ing deposits. In view of this inevitable process, I could 
 not help surmising that in ages hence, when aU that I then 
 stood upon should have been submerged, and new land 
 created in its place, some Hugh Miller of the future might 
 find my hapless corpse imprinted in a new Silurian system, 
 — the only senseless specimen that had not sense enough 
 to move inland. In fear of this, I strengthened my foun- 
 dations with huge logs ; but the advancing tide tore them 
 away like straws, wrenched them out, and tumbled them 
 about in defiance. 
 
 While thus meditating flight and geologic changes, my 
 attention was called from my own safety by a despatch 
 from General Vogdes, who sent one evening at nine o'clock 
 a messenger to inform me that an officer on duty on Long 
 Island, in front of Folly, had observed a large force of 
 the enemy passing through Secessionville towards Stono 
 Eiver. The march was at night; but the troops were 
 counted, as they passed before a light within the town. 
 This village, which was within range of some of our heaviest 
 guns, had not been occupied by Eebel soldier or citizen ; 
 and we had been wont to make excursions there. A hos- 
 tile movement, so carelessly made, seemed hardly possible ; 
 but, nevertheless, troops had to be held in readiness, while 
 boats were sent to reconnoitre. The "Pawnee" having 
 been warned, and pickets cautioned, I devoted the rest of 
 the night to preparations, until greeted by the morning's 
 
SEA ISLANDS OFF CHAELESTON. 243 
 
 sun. We saw no more of the enemy, and we had no fight. 
 During the day, however, there seemed to be a movement 
 of the Eebel pickets towards the Stono, which induced me 
 to direct rifle-pits to be prepared on Kiowah and Cole's 
 islands. 
 
 This disposed of our time until the twenty-ninth, which 
 brought with it a paper from New York, dated the twenty- 
 third, revealing what I had feared might take place. Eose- 
 crans had been beaten in Tennessee. The Eebel pickets 
 who, two or three days before, had called over to mine, 
 "We have licked Eosecrans, and taken more than thirty 
 thousand prisoners," — those Eebel pickets who received 
 with derision the retort of ours, " That 's more men than he 
 had in the fight," — had, after all, cause for satisfaction. 
 The ofiicial intelligence spoke of Eosecrans being com- 
 pelled to fall back to Chattanooga, of desperate fighting, 
 of loss of some artillery and prisoners ; yet of course the 
 article added : " Eosecrans inflicted great loss upon the 
 enemy, but was overpowered by numbers, a large portion 
 of Lee's army being opposed to him." As we lingered over 
 this cheerful information, we pondered on our fears when 
 we read in the Charleston papers of the nineteenth of the 
 exclusion of citizens from the use of the northeastern rail- 
 way, as it was wanted for troops. Eosecrans had been 
 whipped and driven back to Chattanooga, and the reoccupa- 
 tion of Tennessee by the Eebels had begun. Was it con- 
 tinued ? The first blow had fallen ; any day, I thought, 
 might bring events of great moment. 
 • Meanwhile I found it hard to dwell with patience upon 
 the siUy and unprovoked quarrel which GiUmore had 
 brought to a culmination with the Admiral. Envious of 
 Dahlgren, and determined if possible to attribute to the 
 navy his own failure to achieve anything, GiUmore had 
 replied to a note from the Admiral in a petulant spirit.' 
 
244 A WAE DIARY. 
 
 The naval commander had written to our chief of engineers, 
 that he wished to have removed those obstructions in the 
 harbor which barred his nearer approach to Charleston. 
 Sumter he considered an obstacle to such an approach ; 
 " and although," he continued, " I could remove it [Sumter], 
 I do not like to put this task upon my iron-clads, M'hich I 
 wish to preserve for the great work of reducing the diffi- 
 culties I may find after I get in." The letter ended with a 
 request that Gillmore would possess the work. As reason- 
 able as this request was, and as fully justified as the Ad- 
 miral was in making it, it filled our engineer commander 
 with anger. Gillmore had come down to the Department 
 of the South to make things lively ; to remove such ob- 
 structions as would prevent the entrance of iron-clads into 
 the harbor of Charleston ; to hold the rebellious city under 
 our guns, or to demolish it at will. The events which 
 occurred before my arrival, and which I had often heard 
 discussed, — of Gillmore's descent from FoUy to Morris 
 Island ; his failure at Wagner ; and his occupation, when 
 the enemy withdrew, of the whole of Morris Island, — 
 these I have already mentioned. These operations had, 
 to be sure, been interspersed with a great deal of artillery 
 pounding, as I have also recorded. Under this Sumter 
 grew daj'^ by day more impregnable, though much of its 
 beauty had disappeared. There had also been a great deal 
 said of the Swamp Angel, and much about firing into 
 Charleston; and there had been one or two disastrous 
 attempts to assault " defenceless " Sumter, in which we 
 had lost heavily. Since the 12th of August how little had 
 been accomplished, and at what a sacrifice had that little 
 been gained ! Indeed, without the destruction of all the 
 forts which shut out the iron-clads from Charleston Har- 
 bor, not one really useful step had been taken. And this 
 the Admiral asserted. 
 
SEA ISLANDS OFF CHARLESTON. 245 
 
 " The only fort you have attempted," he wrote to Gillmore, 
 "Sumter, you have not reduced at all" This upon the 
 very heels of our engineer's promotion to a major-general- 
 ship of volunteers for doing that which an army of obser- 
 vers at Washington publicly praised, but which an army 
 of fighters on the spot privately condemned ! This, while 
 from iron-clad to tender the navy saluted GiUmore's pro- 
 motion ! This, too, in the presence of puffings and praises 
 in the Northern newspapers, which undertook to show 
 that he had to contend with a line of small development, 
 with sand of little depth for his trenches, in his advance 
 with pick and spade on Wagner ; and also with the fire 
 of two forts in his front, while (according to them) he 
 was reducing a third — Sumter — beyond. This was ful- 
 some praise, and with not a word about the navy, without 
 whom Gillmore could not have stayed an hour on Morris 
 Island. At such a time as this, in the very heat and fire 
 of his fame, with the plaudits of an admiring engineer 
 corps ringing in his ears, with the parchment recording his 
 promotion to be a major-general (for the reduction of Sum- 
 ter and laying Charleston at our feet) from a too zealous 
 and over-credulous Secretary of War, — just here and now 
 to be asked to reduce Sumter, was too cruel and keen a 
 thrust, and it elicited a reply in which ill-concealed rage 
 and satire were combined. Imagine Napoleon receiving 
 a laurel crown for Waterloo, or his successor for Sedan ! 
 "By concurrent testimony of deserters," wrote Gillmore, 
 "by admissions in Southern papers of eye-witnesses, as 
 well as by your own. Fort Sumter is no longer to be con- 
 sidered capable of doing any harm to any one. But," he 
 continued, " if you think, after one naval failure to capture 
 this fort, the few infantry there are any real obstacle to your 
 removal of the obstructions from Sumter to Sullivan's 
 Island, I will agree to remove them with my own force." 
 
246 A WAR DIABY. 
 
 To this threat of converting his infantry into marines to 
 grub for obstructions at the bottom of the ocean, the Admiral 
 responded that Gillmore had misunderstood him. He 
 wished him to open again with his guns upon Sumter ; 
 and he had no more ground for saying that he would 
 remove obstructions for the Admiral because of the request 
 contained in his letter, than would the Admiral have to 
 offer to dig GOlmore's trenches because he asked him to 
 keep down for him the fire of Wagner. This hit at our 
 chief was a fair one ; but it availed not, for before the 
 Admiral's reply had been received, Gillmore returned to 
 his routine of pounding the already pulverized embank- 
 ments of Sumter ; and although a great deal of noise was 
 made, and a great amount of money squandered, Sumter, 
 holding its force unharmed, replied with its heavy artillery, 
 and Jaughed at our impotent efforts. 
 
 I awoke on the morning of the 13th oi September to 
 receive papers from New York, of the twenty-fifth, wherein 
 I learned the full measure of the disaster to Eosecrans. It 
 was better than I feared. Though we were compelled to 
 fall back before superior numbers, the enemy gained but 
 little. The Eebel General Harris, of Tennessee, on Sunday 
 night telegraphed that the contest was undecided. That 
 night Eosecrans fell back, and on the next morning Harris 
 reported that the victory was complete, although nothing 
 but the falling back of the Federal general enabled him to 
 discover it, and although Eosecrans at Chattanooga assured 
 the Government that he could hold his position against 
 anything the Eebels could bring against him. Meade had 
 again crossed the Eapidan. He was at Madison Court- 
 House closing up the railroad line via Knoxville to Chat- 
 tanooga; so that he would soon be able to communicate 
 with Eosecrans by rail. " Two years ago," mourned a Eebel 
 editor, "our armies at Bowling-green, Kentucky, threat- 
 
SEA ISLANDS OFF CHAELESTON. 247 
 
 ened Cairo, Illinois; we are now fighting to defend 
 Atlanta, Georgia." Where will they be two years hence ? 
 I asked. 
 
 Good news was meanwhile brought to us from every 
 quarter. On the 5th of October we heard that Eosecrans 
 had turned upon the victorious Bragg and whipped him 
 soundly. This statement was confirmed by a Eebel paper 
 of the fourth instant, exchanged on our picket line. And 
 as if to fill our cup of cheer to the brim, we heard from the 
 Army of the Potomac that Meade was below the Eapidan 
 and advancing rapidly on Eichmond; and there was a wild 
 report that the Eebels were evacuating Virginia. The air 
 was filled with rumors, and we believed what we hoped to 
 be true. Eosecrans was advancing east and south from 
 Tennessee ; Meade was moving towards Eichmond, the 
 seat of Eebel power; Grant was clearing away obstruc- 
 tions on the Mississippi, — and all this, while we were 
 chafing at our inability to do anything before Charleston. 
 
 This was the time when a private soldier presented 
 General GiUmore with an American eagle, — the same 
 bird, a counterfeit presentment of which adorns our colors 
 and our coins. The bird that swooped over the headcLuar- 
 ters of our chieftain was a living bird, a Southern eagle 
 caught in its nest by a Yankee soldier, by whom it was 
 presented to Gillmore on the day he received his promo- 
 tion ; but whether to indicate that the Southern eagle had 
 been caged, or that the American eagle might find its most 
 appropriate perch on Morris Island, the giver did not in- 
 dicate. Speeches were made at the presentation. The 
 presence of the eagle and of Gillmore were in some man- 
 ner inseparably connected in the minds of the speakers as 
 they delivered their spread-eagle orations. Unconscious ot 
 the inevitable accompaniment of American presentations, 
 the noble bird stood on the edge of a full water-bucket 
 
248 A -WAK DIAEY. 
 
 devouring chickens and fish, oblivious of its own heroic 
 nature, and as stupidly indifferent to the flights of rhetoric 
 as were the poor " contrabands " who gazed open-mouthed 
 at the singular spectacle, listening to the eloquence of 
 volunteer generals and colonels as it soared around the 
 head of Gillmore, with praise and adulation scarce lower 
 than an eagle's flight. 
 
 Whether this occasion was deemed a fitting one for a 
 Eebel demonstration, or whether it was a happy coinci- 
 dence, we may never know ; but the opportunity was taken 
 to make a daring attack on the brave old battle-ship, the 
 "New Ironsides." In front of all the fleet this vessel 
 serenely lay at her anchorage on the night of the 5th of 
 October. No picket-boats were in advance, none but the 
 ordinary watch upon her' decks. The bells had sounded 
 the hour of midnight, when suddenly from the gloom the 
 look-out descried a strange-looking craft submerged almost 
 to the water's edge. A hail was instantly answered by a 
 volley of musketry. The officer of the deck fell, fatally 
 wounded. The marines returned the fire, but without 
 avail. On came the mysterious float, until she touched the 
 iron walls of the ship, when there came a crash, a jar so 
 heavy and severe that our men were thrown violently to 
 the deck, their limbs broken by the fall. It was apparent 
 to all that the mysterious stranger was a torpedo boat at- 
 tempting to destroy the " Ironsides." Officers and men, 
 peering out in the darkness, saw nothing, heard only the 
 swashing of the tide breaking against the ship. In vain 
 was the search ; the explosion of the torpedo had dashed 
 its frail conveyance to atoms ! It took but a moment for 
 the Federal sailors to lower their boats, and in a glance to 
 discover that the noble ship had shaken off this attack 
 under her water-line as disdainfully as she had withstood 
 all attempts to pierce her deck or her sides by the most 
 
SEA ISLANDS OFF CHARLESTON. 249 
 
 powerful bolts from the guns of Sumter and Wagner. But 
 the Eebel crew, the daring fellows who had made this 
 attack, where were they ? The first one caught was a cer- 
 tain Glassell, formerly a lieutenant in our navy ; he was 
 directing the torpedo, and had jumped or was blown over- 
 board when the shock came. The effect on the " Iron- 
 sides " was very severe ; her timbers were strained, and she 
 showed signs of leaking, though not enough to take her 
 fromher station. Had this missile struck her fore or aft 
 her armor, she would have sunk' at her moorings ; and, as 
 it was, her heavy beams were crushed. The firing- of mus- 
 ketry was heard at our camps on Morris Island, and the 
 alarm was sounded. Drummers beat the long roll ; armed 
 men sprang hastily from their blanket beds and formed in 
 ranks or rushed to their posts by the guns. What was it ? 
 None knew, though all inquired, and stared and wondered, 
 — then tumbled back to bed again to a sounder slumber 
 than before. 
 
 This daring attack caused much uneasiness among our 
 officers. If men would do and dare so much, why not do 
 more with less hazard ? Why not attempt our islands ? 
 That GUlmore believed they would, and that General 
 Vogdes coincided (for he had seen movements of the 
 enemy from which he inferred mysterious purposes), I 
 knew on the 12th of October, when word came to me from 
 Vogdes that the hour had come ; that the enemy had been 
 seen moving bodies of infantry and artillery towards the 
 southern end of James Island; and that he expected an 
 attack that night. So did GiUmore, and directed me to 
 place a boom of logs in Folly Eiver to obstruct the enemy's 
 boats. Before twelve at night I had given the requisite 
 orders, and had taken proper measures for safety. At 
 midnight there were no sounds at the front, nothing but 
 the roaring waves and the thunder of heavy guns from the 
 
250 A WAR DIARY. 
 
 forts. Morning came, and with it more reports of Eebel 
 concentration on the Stono. Was there no fire in all this 
 smoke ? "We must not be caught napping. Brave Captain 
 Balch decided to take the " Pawnee " up the river and see 
 what the enemy was preparing for us. Meanwhile aU 
 went on as usual in my front. The Eebel pickets indulged 
 in courteous and friendly pleasantries with mine. At times 
 they were even jocose : " If you are going to attack us, you 
 better hurry up ; we have got a crowd of negroes digging, 
 and an additional division of Southern troops from the 
 Army of Virginia is in Charleston," they shouted over to 
 us one day. Another exchange of newspapers took place. 
 I got a Charleston paper of the eighth, in which subscrip- 
 tions were solicited for the brave men who attempted to 
 destroy the "Ironsides'' with their torpedo boat, and who, 
 it was admitted, were only partly successful 
 
 In order to talk matters over with Captain Balch, I in- 
 vited him to dine with me. He brought with him Captain 
 Buchanan of the marines. 
 
 It ill becomes me to boast of the successor of my previous 
 cook. I will rather speak of the old-time memories revived 
 during this visit ; for was not Captain Buchanan with us 
 in Mexico during the war, with the detachment of marines 
 that marched to the capital under Major Dulaney ? Of 
 course the captain knew my old regiment well, and could 
 repeat the names of nearly all the oificers in it. Ah, what 
 a grand time I had revelling in the past ! So long it was 
 since I had talked with any one of that campaign, so much 
 a thing of the past had it become, that it remained with 
 me as the memory of a gorgeous painting seen long ago, 
 but when or where I could not teU ; nor sure, even, was I 
 that ever I had seen it aCall, so misty was the outline in my 
 mind. Oh, that city of the Aztecs ! It is true, then, that 
 Cannette was the charming actress ; and Tapia, the fairy- 
 
SEA ISLANDS OFF CHARLESTON. 251 
 
 like danseuse ! Ah, Cannette, — the saint, the virgin, in 
 the play, .tempted by a holy padre, and descending with 
 him to the realms of Hades, — how archly you smiled 
 upon us, the invaders of your country and your domain, 
 when we visited you behind the scenes, with the smoke of 
 your mimic hell still curling around your head ! Was not 
 this also true ? Yes, the captain remembered it. And 
 Old Barnes, too, the gentlemanly gambler whom we paid 
 for good suppers at his table with the little game, — 
 obliging Barnes, who cashed our pay accounts in advance, 
 and bagged the amount in so gentlemanly a manner with 
 his little pack, — Old Barnes, who so feelingly advised the 
 young officers never to touch the cards, because luck would 
 be ever against them, — Old Barnes, too, was not a myth, 
 for 'had not the captain seen him within three years at 
 Vera Cruz, the owner of a fine hacienda, where he was 
 growing rich by stock-raising ? And the Pass^o was real, 
 and the Alemeda, and the beautiful girls with fine figures, 
 — the loves ! And it was true that General Harney hung 
 thirty of our deserters at a time, and Twiggs fifteen men 
 who had fought against us and were captured at the battle 
 of Churubusco. Mexico, — a country and climate the finest 
 in the world, but cursed with a people and a government 
 the poorest, — how vividly did its long-forgotten scenes 
 clothe themselves in the bright robes of reality! The 
 romance of our trip to Molino Blanco; the beautiful 
 
 Miss , and the hours of charming entertainment at 
 
 her father's house in the city of Mexico; the march to 
 Vera Cruz, and the presence of this fanuly with us at 
 nightly camps, in their departure from the country to find 
 a securer home ; their more than loving care when one day 
 on the road I feU grievously wounded, — aU this I told. 
 And then we talked of times still longer past ; of my old 
 regiment, the Mounted Eifles, and my first introduction 
 
252 A WAK DIART, 
 
 to it at Jefferson Barracks in Missouri, in 1846 ; of its 
 political organization, by President Polk (before the days 
 of civil-service reform), from the Democratic fold. There 
 
 was Stephe T- r, a captain from Arkansas, who could 
 
 boast of tavern brawls and knock-down arguments, — 
 
 Stephe T ^r, who throve on whiskey and double-jointed 
 
 elbows ; an angel of Democracy, who began his career in 
 the United States Mounted Eiflemen at the discreet age 
 
 of forty, — yes, maudlin, swearing, tearing Stephe T r, 
 
 you were one of them. And so, too, was Joe B — ^k — s, 
 Whilom Democratic sheriff of Illinois ; Captain Joe of the 
 Eifles, whose fame in pursuit of Mormons, when that sect 
 inhabited his State, had given, him such notoriety that he 
 claimed and received a captaincy in the regular army by vir- 
 tue of the possession of much knowledge of horse-thieves 
 and many captures of the same, — a wily, deceitful, unprin- 
 cipled scamp, apt to know and discover that which was to 
 himself of kin, was Captain Joe. There, too, were Cap- 
 tain P e from Kentucky, once a man of fine mental 
 
 powers, but at last, wrecked and besotted, he fell in a 
 duel ; and C — r — n, a captain (afterwards a Eebel general), 
 son of the good and loyal Senator from Kentucky, — 
 whiskey was his bane ; N — ^w — n, a lawyer from Ohio, 
 burnt out with whiskey, — ever in pursuit of some- 
 thing fresh from the sea, he died in search of oysters in 
 
 Texas ; Captain , a noted gambler from Cincinnati, 
 
 murdered in Texas for his money ; L g (a major-gen- 
 eral in the Southern army, and afterwards high in rank in 
 the Egyptian army), a captain in the Eifles, vivacious, 
 brave, and quarrelsome; T — y — r, who lived on army 
 
 rations, and lunched on pork and hard bread; F ^k 
 
 E ^1, — poor F ^k ! he struggled with rum, and fell ; 
 
 and so did H s, and M y. Of such as some of 
 
 these, graduates from schools of political intrigue in their 
 
SEA ISLANDS OFF CHAELESTON. 253 
 
 most depraved forms, was the Mounted Eifle regiment com- 
 posed in 1846. Into this innocent fold, as brevet second 
 lieutenants, graduates from the nulitary academy, where 
 chivalric and honorable sentiments were enforced, were 
 £illowed to enter. I was the ninth in order awaiting pro- 
 motion. If four years of West Point life and instruction 
 were required to enable a young graduate of twenty-two 
 to be a second lieutenant by brevet in the army of the 
 United States, what requirement should be exacted to 
 entitle to be captains, majors, and colonels, men of forty 
 ■who have graduated from political brothels ? 
 
 But I am wandering away into the past, and using 
 harsh language of many whose hearts are cold in the 
 dost. 
 
254 A "WAK DIAEY. 
 
 CHAPTEE VIII. 
 
 SEA ISLANDS OFF CHAKLESTON {continued). 
 
 " 'T^AKE care ! " shouted the careful watchman at Cum- 
 -*- ming's Point, as a small puff of white smoke issued 
 from the muzzle of a hostile gun ; and almost before a man 
 could take in the meaning of the words a crash came over- 
 head, as if earth, air, and sea impressed their significance 
 upon him. Yet so reckless had our men become on Cum- 
 ming's Point, that they would not protect themselves by 
 bomb-proof or traverse, but out of mere bravado ran for 
 luck, the loss of which was the loss of life. A fragment 
 of a shell tears such an ugly hole in a man's body that life 
 cannot stay. If the men could have seen what inevita- 
 bly came after in hospitals, where weakness and suffering 
 took all the nerve and manhood out of them, and they 
 moaned like children, and thought of home and tender 
 care, — care that was not to be found in the circuit of 
 that sandy island, — they would have been more prudent, 
 while no less brave. 
 
 Eumors were again frequent that the Admiral intended 
 to go into Charleston Harbor, and that he had written to 
 the N"avy Department that he should soon have eight or 
 nine new monitors, and that though he might lose half of 
 them he would make the attempt. Gillmore and Dahl- 
 gren were sent to capture the city of Charleston. By the 
 aid of the navy the former had spoiled the beauty of Sum- 
 ter, occupied the whole of Morris Island, and was prac- 
 
SEA ISLANDS OFF CHAKLESTON. 255 
 
 tising on the church spires of the city. This was all that 
 GiUmore could do ; and the Admiral had done all he could 
 in aiding and abetting it. Neither could have done what 
 he had without the aid of the other ; but neither had done 
 what was expected of him, and what he had hoped to do. 
 Kor had GiUmore, even with naval aid, done what he de- 
 clared he would do, as a preliminary to enable the Admiral 
 to run into the harbor ; for Sumter was not silenced, — it 
 was as formidable as ever, if not more so. It would seem 
 that to save General Gillmore's reputation a pack-horse 
 was« needed, and that that animal was found in Admiral 
 Dahlgren. Under the heading of letters from " our special 
 correspondent," there went out from Morris Island many 
 misrepresentations about the navy, — false statements, 
 revised and corrected, to prejudice the public. Day by day 
 these stories were circulated in Northern newspapers ; day 
 by day they grew meaner and more contemptible. If the 
 Admiral had allowed a swarm of reporters to find refuge 
 on board the ships to malign and denounce the operations 
 of the army, our commander would have been keenly alive 
 to the ownership of the gored ox. Sumter was not reduced ; 
 its beauty was destroyed, to be sure, but its garrison was 
 uninjured, — the sunset gun was fired every evening. 
 
 Who that has tasted the applause of the multitude can 
 bear to give a sip of the cup to another ? Certainly Gen- 
 eral GiUmore had but little inclination to do this : he 
 was rather enraged with those who seemed to him to be 
 attacking his fame. "Am I to be stripped of everything? " 
 he said. " Here, now, is an engineer of&cer asserting that 
 to him is due aU the credit for planning and building my 
 Swamp Angel battery; and the paper in which his letter 
 is printed contains at least five distinct falsehoods about 
 the way it was built and the money it cost." I agreed with 
 GiUmore that this effort was an unworthy one, a positive 
 
256" A WAR DIABY. 
 
 case of petty larceny ; for the battery in its grand concep- 
 tion and in its unimportant achievement was a child of his 
 own. And it was as wrong, as unprincipled and ungen- 
 erous, for the engineer of&cer to try to strip Gillmore of 
 the glory of it, as it was for any one to endeavor to keep 
 the fires of his fame aglow by making an auto-da-fe, of his 
 naval brother. ' 
 
 This senseless and bitter feud among those who ought to 
 have sacrificed all personal feeling for the greater good of 
 their country, paralyzed our efforts. " It 's not night yet ! " 
 shouted that gruff soldier. General Sumner, in answer to 
 my joyous exclamations that we had repulsed the enemy, 
 as I met him at the head of his glorious corps coming up 
 in our rear upon the bloody field of Antietam, — " It 's 
 not night yet ! " he shouted again, as forward in order of 
 battle, with his lines but fifty feet apart and swaying with 
 the uneven ground, he dashed up against the wood where 
 stood the Duliker church, and where, too, the enemy was 
 at bay. Alas ! it was an eternal, a bloody, and an ever- 
 lasting night for hundreds on hundreds of those poor fel- 
 lows, as grape, canister, and musketry tore huge rents and 
 left fearful openings, where the life went out of that brave 
 body of men. Not "night yet" then, nor was it night 
 with us at FoUy Island. There was work to do from day to 
 day ; and when the sun sank low in the horizon, touching 
 with roseate hues the gathering clouds, then came the 
 hour to watch and wait for the morrow, with the anxious 
 solicitude with which a sick mother might look upon her 
 infant child. 
 
 But we were not alone in our unhappiness and despond- 
 ency. Our enemy had heard bad news, and his adversity 
 was our joy. At my picket station, when exchange of 
 papers was proposed, the reply from the Eebel sentinel 
 was, "We have no papers," while at the same time a group 
 
SEA ISLANDS OFF CHARLESTON. 257 
 
 of Eebel soldiers further to the rear listened eagerly to 
 what a comrade read from one.. Favors, however, they 
 were willing to receive. They wanted coffee ; but our men 
 had none to spare, and were chaffed by two squadrons of 
 mounted and dismounted Eebel cavalry who appeared at 
 the little creek which separates Kiowah from Cole's Island. 
 " Why don't you go up and help Meade ? " they asked, in 
 a friendly but impertinent tone. What was not revealed 
 at the picket station became clear to me the next day. 
 Jefferson Davis had been making a speech to his troops 
 at Chattanooga, telling them truths he would fain conceal 
 from us, — unpalatable facts, I believed, or the usual cour- 
 tesy of the picket station would have been displayed. I 
 learned this from two deserters from the enemy's works at 
 Secessionville, who brought in a paper of the 21st of Octo- 
 ber, and gave us much valuable information besides. They 
 told me that the lower tier of casemates in Sumter, — those 
 which look towards the north and could not be seen in our 
 land or water operations, — were entirely uninjured by the 
 bombardment ; that the numbers and works of the enemy 
 consisted of ten thousand men on James Island, and a new 
 line of fortifications to protect the rear of the city ; and 
 they also gave an intelligent enumeration of the number- 
 of guns in and around the city of Charleston. 
 
 Compare this successful effort of the enemy to shut us 
 out of the harbor to ours at an early period of the war to 
 shut him in, when forty-eight old whalers, laden with stone, 
 were towed from the North to Charleston bar and sunk 
 there, to close, as it was believed, forever the port of that 
 city of treason. The captain of the steamer " Deflaware," 
 running between the Sea Islands and Hilton Head, a mas- 
 ter of one of those vessels, told me the story of the deed, 
 and speculated on its utter failure. "We towed to the 
 bar," said the captain, "a long line of vessels. There 
 
 17 
 
258 A WAR DIAEY. 
 
 [pointing to the position on the chart] they were scuttled 
 and sunk. But they did not sink fairly, turning over on 
 their sides ; and so we left them to find sandy graves. They 
 did not lie quietly, though ; the waves beat upon them, and 
 the sea swashed over them, until they were broken up into 
 fragments and tossed anywhere and everywhere along the 
 coast. ISTor did the stone cargoes offer any real impedi- 
 ment. The waters of Ashley and of Cooper rivers poured 
 down in torrents, and soon wore a new channel, which in 
 time, as the ships broke up, became merged in the old one. 
 Nothing of the old stone fleet remains; the masts and 
 cordage floated to the shore, and furnished oakum for the 
 Eebel rams. Out of this scheme Gideon WeUs could not 
 claim profit to the United States ; and the loss has never 
 appeared in his report." 
 
 This story of the stone fleet I listened to on a tedious 
 passage within this department (where steamers, like verbs, 
 are both irregular and defective) to Hilton Head, where I 
 arrived at nine at night, a day's journey, and was kindly 
 received by Captain Gadsden, of the "Arago." He pro- 
 vided me with a comfortable room on his ship while I 
 was awaiting impatiently the morning of the twenty- 
 seventh, — the day and hour when for a brief period I was 
 to overcome that barrier which separated from home so 
 many yearning hearts. The day fixed at this island for 
 an ocean steamer's departure for New York was marked 
 by unusual excitement. Soldiers with longing eyes, quar- 
 termasters bustling and consequential, stevedores hurrying 
 and shouting, the sick on the steamer " Cosmopolitan " m, 
 roide to Florida (a healthy place wherein to save life or 
 prevent permanent disability), barrels of beef and boxes of 
 hard bread, — aU these met my gaze as the " Arago " left 
 behind the Department of the South. 
 
 We arrived at New York on the 13th of October, where 
 
SEA ISLANDS OFF CHARLESTON. 259 
 
 the most notable thing I saw was a New York " Herald " 
 but fifteen minutes old. By November 1 I was at home ; 
 and on the twentieth of the same month sailed again from 
 New York, arriving at Hilton Head on the twenty-fourth, 
 whence on the steamer " Columbia," formerly a block- 
 ade runner, I reached Folly Island (after being out all 
 night in a fog) on the 25th of November at nine A. M., and 
 entered my tent with a feeling of depression and discom- 
 fort as much below the plane of my average state as 
 thoughts. of home and of going there had lifted me above 
 it. Ah, how little we know of ourselves, or of what will 
 give us content and rest ! How we long for we know not 
 what, and wrestle with disquiet and unrest, and will not 
 be satisfied ! I went resolutely to my work, however, shut 
 out thought and memory, and in the living present found 
 content. 
 
 I especially found consolation in a paper brought in 
 from my picket station, wherein I saw that Grant had wiped 
 out our disaster at the West in a grand victory at Chicka- 
 mauga, and read confessions that the part of the city of 
 Charleston into which our shells had fallen had been made 
 uninhabitable ; that the main hotels in the city had been 
 abandoned, and that stores and offices were to be moved 
 to other and safer parts of the city. ■ " Well," I thought, as 
 the cold and rain chilled me imder a bit of canvas while 
 I sat reading this intelligence, as my Dutch cook, too, was 
 driving me distracted with his unsavory messes and his 
 more unsavory person, — " well, it is some consolation to 
 know that those who make us so uncomfortable are not 
 quite happy themselves." 
 
 At Legareville, opposite my picket stations on the north 
 bank of the Stoho, I found what was once a somewhat 
 pretentious line of houses, conspicuously white, and in 
 marked contrast with the sea of surrounding foliage. 
 
260 A WAR DIARY. 
 
 These houses, occupied alternately by Eebel and Yankee 
 troops, had been subjected to a usage which would have 
 •wrecked more soUd buildings. "Windows had been broken, 
 door-knobs taken away, furniture destroyed. In the halls 
 and churches the seats had been torn out, and the walls 
 disfigured with Eebel or Yankee taunts, with threats of 
 impending vengeance allegorically expressed. Jefferson 
 Davis hanging on the lyric apple-tree, rudely sketched 
 by the Yankee picket, aroused the ire of the alternating 
 Eebel occupant, who wrote underneath in furious gas- 
 conade, " The last man will die ! " and so forth ; to which 
 our Yankee in his turn of occupancy retorted, " Gas ! " 
 During the day my troops on this advance picket station 
 occupied the houses, but at night they retired to a single 
 habitation near the marsh, where they had intrenched 
 themselves in the most improved style of modern engi- 
 neering for converting houses into castles. Amidst the 
 strange wreck and ruin of this Southern summer retreat, 
 on the 30th day of November, 1863, roses were blooming 
 in all the luxury of leaf and flower, to waste their sweet- 
 ness where once their fragrance had been so welcome. It 
 was here that the best-known people of South Carolina 
 had lived. And here, too, were created and organized 
 plans for a rupture of this government which had now 
 brought its doom upon the very place itself My pilot, a 
 refugee from Beaufort, remembered these original seces- 
 sion discussions at LegareviUe. He remembered that 
 they always turned upon the vital question. Would the 
 Yankees fight ? And he further recalled that but rarely 
 was any other answer made to this inquiry than that 
 they would not, — though sometimes this was denied, and 
 warnings were given that if the South continued her course 
 the Yankees would pour into and over South Carolina, 
 and blot out her lines as a sovereign and independent 
 
SEA ISLANDS OFF CHARLESTON. 261 
 
 State. But this sentiment or opinion was not received 
 with favor; and so the deluded people were led on to 
 their destruction. 
 
 December came, and with it the same duties, the same 
 eternal roar of surf, the same continuous boom of artillery. 
 Once more we had our usual exchange from the picket 
 line. One of my officers, disguised as a private, visited the 
 Eebel guard, from which a private soldier had been sent 
 to the rear to give warning of the approach of their officers. 
 A gift of cheese opened the way to a most friendly con- 
 ference, in which the guard told all they knew. The sol- 
 diers were discouraged, they said, and so were the people, 
 — both tired of the war ; the citizens were moving out of 
 Charleston into the country ; the late explosion in Sumter 
 was caused by trifling with an unexploded shell from Yan- 
 kee batteries, by which four men were killed and two were 
 wounded. It was of no use, they said, for us to make sig- 
 nals to them in the daytime, for if we did, and were seen, 
 they were watched all night ; their officers distrusted them, 
 and had given them strict orders not to go on the bridge 
 which separated the Eebel from the Yankee post ; one of 
 their men was now confined in the guard-house for "talking 
 with the Yankees." How many troops we had, and where, 
 and in what direction Gillmore's headquarters were, they 
 asked, but were not informed. The friendly chat closed 
 with a suspicion that after aU Yankee cheese had not 
 caught a Eebel rat. 
 
 Efforts by the civil department to manage the military 
 were most amusing anywhere, but especially so when some 
 emissary of the Government made his habitation among 
 us, and in the plenitude of his brief power attempted to 
 ignore our authority. At my post was a man calling him- 
 self Supervising Special Agent of the Treasury Depart- 
 ment, whose sphere of duty it was to add to the treasures 
 
262 A WAR DIARY. 
 
 of the Treasury by enforcing taxes upon traders and look- 
 ing after captured and abandoned property. Here too, 
 with my permission, was a sutler's store for supplying the 
 troops. The special agent, being wroth with the sutler, 
 absolutely ordered my provost-marshal to close up the sut- 
 ler's shop. I in turn ordered the provost to throw the 
 special agent into the sea if necessary, but not to interfere 
 with the sutler. Not that I was desirous of aiding the 
 sutler, — a Jew accused of violating Treasury laws in the 
 mode in which his goods were transferred to this dis- 
 trict, — but because I would not recognize orders delivered 
 to my subordinate by a Treasury agent. But when the 
 agent, communicating with the military head, made known 
 the Jew's violations of law, I closed his store, turned a deaf 
 ear to his cries, and listened unmoved to the summing up 
 of his gains and losses as he hugged himself with delight 
 that the forfeited goods were not his, but another's ; that 
 in all and after all he, the fawning Shylock, had made 
 " much moneys." But this was not the end. The schem- 
 ing Jew held ■ close relations with a power at court, a cer- 
 tain Post-master General ; who, when he heard the course 
 which things had taken with the Jew, so used his influence 
 that the fellow gained a most complete triumph over all 
 his adversaries, and left me wondering what relation could 
 exist between this ugly dwarf and an officer of our Cabinet, 
 that not only should the Jew's confiscated goods be re- 
 turned, but that, in a letter addressed to me, the right 
 honorable P. M. G. should commend the fellow to my con- 
 sideration! Was it a political affinity; was the Jew a 
 leader in some American Jerusalem, and did he bring a host 
 of Israelites to the polls for the advantage of the Honorable 
 Post-master General ? 
 
 Jerusalem ! Jerusalem ! But it is a pleasure to turn 
 from the city of Judea to the dignity of actim, within the 
 
SEA ISLANDS OFF CHAELESTON. 263 
 
 Department of the South ; to be aroused before the dawn 
 on Christmas morning with the hurried message, "Sir, 
 there is an affair at Legareville ; the gunboats are heavily- 
 engaged, and the 'Marblehead' has dropped down out of 
 range ! " My sleep had been so profound — for I had 
 gone late to bed — that there was needed a moment's 
 chase for my scattered senses, a moment's struggle to 
 grapple with and master my faculties of perception, wiE, 
 and judgment; and then I hurried, half dressed, to my 
 saddle, galloped to the wharf, boarded the old ferry-boat 
 " Philadelphia," and was speedily on my way to this out- 
 post. In the stream I passed the " Pawnee," covered with 
 smoke, as Captain Balch fired away like a human Vesu- 
 vius in the direction (though to the rear) of my garrison 
 at Legareville, at something or somebody concealed by the 
 trees on the river's edge. Further up the river, off the 
 town, lay the "Marblehead," a tender to the "Pawnee," 
 blazing away with a will, while a mortar schooner attached 
 to Captain Balch's small fleet was under way. 
 
 It was my duty, of course, to land at the festive town, 
 care for my garrison if not already captured, and do what- 
 ever I could in any emergency. Before I reached the 
 troops, fire from the Eebel guns had materially slackened, 
 though the " Pawnee " and " Marblehead," unable to recover 
 suddenly from the excitement of the fight, were plumping 
 huge shots into the wood. I jumped ashore upon the rem- 
 nant of a wharf, found the garrison all right, and was off 
 again, boarding the " Marblehead." Three of her crew had 
 been killed and three desperately wounded, and there were 
 twenty-four shot-holes in her sides. The suddenness of 
 this Eebel attack was startling. Neither the land forces 
 nor the water forces suspected that behind the thick foliage 
 which lined the right bank of the Stono huge guns had 
 been transported and placed in battery, rudely to break the 
 
264 A WAE DIAKY. 
 
 morning slumbers of those dreaming ships (if ships do 
 dream ! ), and send on this Christmas morning a Christmas 
 gift of solid shot and deadly shell to their Yankee country- 
 men. Without one warning note, the " Marblehead," while 
 lying calmly with her beam to shore, felt solid shot crash- 
 ing through sail and mast or tearing away life and limb. 
 Two, however, could play at that game, as the Eebels 
 found ; for their Christmas gift .was soon hurled back 
 with blessings on their heads. 
 
 Up to the deck of the "Pawnee" I clambered like a 
 land-lubber, to find Captain Balch beaming with a love of 
 the thing, making fast time across his sanded decks to get 
 everything trig and taut, and the men at c[uarters, with 
 plenty of shot and shell, ready to go in again. Staying 
 long enough to peer through the edge of the wood at one 
 or more Eebel guns, the cause of all this rout, I hurried 
 back to Folly Island, took on board the "Philadelphia" 
 the Seventy-fourth Pennsylvania, of my command, followed 
 them with another boat, landed again at Legareville, and 
 moved out, with skirmishers in advance, in the direction 
 of the Eebel guns. Fifty-five new shovels. Confederate 
 property, I sent to the rear on my way to the battery, 
 from which the living had fled in a disorderly flight, panic- 
 stricken by the havoc wrought by our great missiles. One 
 dead Eebel, five dead horses and one disabled, many knap- 
 sacks, the ground ploughed up, huge branches lopped off 
 from trees, -^ these bore witness to the severe punishment 
 we had inflicted. A marshy spot prevented the removal 
 of the guns ; so they were spiked and dismounted. The 
 " Pawnee " had come in as near the shore as she could, 
 that on the very tip-top of her tall mast a sailor might 
 hang by his eyelids, to explore the surrounding country 
 and send down word that over a patch of intervening tim- 
 ber, to the rear of the deserted battery, he had discovered a 
 
SEA ISLANDS OFF CHARLESTON. 265 
 
 long line of Eebel infantry which he reckoned as in num- 
 ber two thousand. Mounting the highest point attainable 
 on the highest house-top I could find, I got with my field- 
 glass an excellent view of the situation. Before me was a 
 wide field covered with high grass, which concealed efiiectu- 
 ally our skirmishers, and on the opposite side a gate, up to 
 which a tall, fine-looking horseman in Confederate uniform, 
 with a few companions, had just ridden. The leader of the 
 skirmishers was standing erect and gazing earnestly, as it 
 seemed to me, into the very eyes of the Eebel horseman ; 
 indeed, the officer with my advance and the Eebel horse- 
 man might, as they appeared through my glass, shake 
 hands with but a half-extended arm. Why they did 
 not do so, or why they made no demonstration, either 
 friendly or hostile, it would have been difficult to under- 
 stand, had not due allowance been made for the tele- 
 scope. With the eye one judges of actual distances by 
 the dimensions of actual objects ; the eye makes the 
 standard by which the judgment unconsciously decides. 
 But with a telescope, ^by which all objects are magnified, 
 the judgment is at fault, and one is apt to make mistakes. 
 Had the object-glass of my telescope contained wires which 
 measure the height of a known object at a given distance, 
 all difficulties would h^ve vanished ; then I should have 
 appreciated that what was so plainly in my view would be 
 unseen by others with the naked eye. The enemy, far out- 
 numbering my force, were drawn up in line, awaiting in 
 their ambush our approach. It was impossible to reach 
 or fight them on even terms, so I kept them well under 
 observation until the sun went down, and then withdrew. 
 Their captured guns were held under the fire of our vessels 
 for a day or two, and then were brought away by a small 
 force from the gunboats, which found a passage • through 
 the marsh. After this the old order of events was resumed ; 
 
266 A WAE DIAET. 
 
 the silent, useless hours sped on, and brought us to the end 
 of the year 1863. 
 
 My good friend Captain Gadsden of the " Arago " hav- 
 ing sent,- with his compliments, a plump turkey and six 
 bottles of champagne, with Captains Balch and Meade of 
 the navy, with Paymaster Lawrence and my staff, we had 
 on New Year's day in my mess-tent a royal dinner, — 
 oysters from Southern waters, ducks and curlew from 
 Southern haunts, mince-pies from the North, and nuts and 
 raisins from no matter where. With such an abundance 
 of good things we were all as merry for five hours as if 
 we had been jolly friars instead of " heroic defenders." 
 How can I ever forget my gratitude to my servant Jack, 
 a colored boy of exceeding comeliness, for his graceful 
 attendance upon that table ? Where he borrowed his 
 white shirt and new pantaloons, was for me a matter of 
 conjecture. 
 
 While our men at the outposts were saluting their 
 Eebel brethren with nothing stronger than the compli- 
 ments of the season, being unable, from want of supplies, 
 to offer anything more refreshing than that, or at best 
 an interchange of newspapers, a ' Confederate soldier, un- 
 der cover of a heavy fog which shrouded the earth and 
 partially concealed his form, rushed precipitately to 
 the bridge which divided our opposing forces, exclaim- 
 ing eagerly : — 
 
 " Have you any copies of the President's proclamation ? 
 We have heard there is one, but can't get a copy." 
 
 " Here is one," replied the sergeant, handing him a paper. 
 
 " By Jove!" exclaimed the Eebel, " my officers are at my 
 post ! I can't go back now. One of our men was shot a 
 little while ago for communicating with your pickets. 
 Can't you take me prisoner ? " he inquired with ludicrous 
 anxiety. 
 
SEA ISLANDS OFF CHARLESTON. 267 
 
 " No," replied the sergeant ; " that would be a breach of 
 confidence. We have been accustomed to meet and ex- 
 change papers without danger to either party ; the rest of 
 your men won't understand it." 
 
 '' But I only came over for the President's proclamation," 
 repeated the rhan ; " and now that I am discovered I can- 
 not go back." 
 
 " Go back to the other side of the bridge," said the 
 sergeant ; " get your gun and equipments, and let them 
 see that we don't detain you against your will." 
 
 '' But I want to be kinder taken prisoner," he urged. 
 
 " Yes," replied our sergeant ; " you would like to have it 
 appear that we have abused the confidence your comrades 
 have reposed in us, that you may escape the odium of 
 desertion ! " 
 
 He could n't desert ! Oh, no ; he could n't do that ! 
 
 "Then you may return," said the sergeant; "and there 
 is no other alternative." 
 
 The man, a Yankee living at the South when the war 
 broke out, had with commendable acuteness calculated 
 that the last chance for the South had about gone, and 
 that he had better start early to escape the falling ruins. 
 Waiving his objections to appearances, he dashed across 
 the bridge, seized his gun and cartridge-box, returned, and 
 was duly taken in as a deserter. From this dry well I 
 pumped the information that but a small force occupied 
 James Island; that three more iron-clads were building 
 in Charleston; that the South was tired of the war (as 
 usual) ; that Beauregard had ordered that no quarter be 
 given to black troops or to their white commanders, — and 
 so forth and so on, until I turned his attention to the 
 country in front of our pickets, and to the roads we should 
 use if we made a descent upon James Island. "There, 
 sir," he replied, " do you see that road through the woods 
 
268 A WAB DIAKY. 
 
 [pointing directly in front of my picket line] ? Well, sir, 
 there are torpedoes in that road ; and in a hole dug in the 
 ground there is a can of liquid or Greek iire, with a fric- 
 tion match so arranged that if you step there you will 
 ignite it. We take a circuitous path to the right to avoid 
 these dangerous places." 
 
 Further revelations from deserters, it soon appeared, had 
 heen provided against by the Confederate officers. Artil- 
 lery had been brought to the Eebel picket station ; our 
 men had spied it in the thicket. 
 
 Captain Balch, who is always ready with the "Pawnee," 
 came to my tent early on the 9th of January, with the 
 commander of the " Cimmarone," to arrange for a search- 
 ing reconnoissance up the Stono, beyond the site of the 
 captured battery, past Legareville, to the permanent Eebel 
 fortifications now going up on the St. John's Eiver. Every- 
 thing finally being agTced upon, 1 prevailed on my naval 
 friends to pass the day with me in good cheer ; which in 
 truth I found them nothing loath to do, for in anticipation 
 thereof they had brought their " knitting " with them. 
 This metaphor may describe the long yarns they spun, 
 even if it fails to show that anything useful was con- 
 structed in the tales they wove. 
 
 The " Pawnee " was ready and awaiting my arrival, as 
 on the morning of the eleventh, with her men at quarters, 
 guns shotted and lanyards ready, we slowly steamed by 
 the hushed and lifeless forest, past dead and deserted 
 Legareville, past an opening in the forest, where, through 
 the smoky air, we dimly saw the spires of Charleston, — on 
 until a row of piles across the river seemed to bar our pro- 
 gress, though as we approached we saw an opening wide 
 enough for the " Pawnee " to pass ; through this without 
 hesitation we steamed, and so, gently moving, still sped 
 onward, regardless of concealed batteries on shore or 
 
SEA ISLANDS OFF CHAELESTON. 269 
 
 obstructions beneath the water, until a large and heavy- 
 mound of earth freshly thrown up, with embrasures for 
 cannon, announced a new work for defence. Here we 
 stopped and looked leisurely at the Eebels hard at work, 
 and at their troops, — they in turn gazing intently at us, 
 as we thought, but making no effort to use their guns, and 
 none to oppose our passage through the narrow way staked 
 out. We could but speculate on this strange indifference, 
 which, however, was in a few days explained to us by a boat- 
 load of deserters who gave themselves up to Captain Balch. 
 The inviting passage through the piling carried us over 
 several large torpedoes, and the Eebel garrison were much 
 chagrined that we did not disappear in a tremendous 
 explosion and vanish in the air. " We thought this would 
 be the case," said the deserters, "as you came up and 
 passed through ; and we were q^uite sure of it when you 
 returned, — yet you passed in safety. Nevertheless the 
 torpedoes are there, and you can find them if you wilL" 
 We would and did. From their watery bed Captain Balch 
 rescued some three or four large barrels filled with pow- 
 der, and so arranged with soft sheet-lead, covering friction 
 primers in their bungs, that contact with our vessel's keel 
 would explode them in the magazine. Certainly we had 
 been in a dangerous neighborhood; but fate had soaked 
 the powder with sea-water, despite the thick coating of tar 
 or pitch by which the sunken barrels were protected. Over 
 those that were undamaged by the water we managed to 
 pass unhurt. One of these torpedoes I sent to the military 
 school at West Point. 
 
 Eternal vigilance is the price of freedom in peace, the 
 price of victory in war. This continuous reconnoitring, 
 this unceasing guard-duty, these pickets extended where 
 they could best observe the ground which the enemy occu- 
 pied in our front, — were only that we might know what we 
 
270 A WAR DIARY. 
 
 had to defend or attack. Every commander should he ahle 
 at all times to place on paper a sketch of the forces and 
 positions of his enemy. Overlooking hills may be occu- 
 pied ; but where the field is a plain, as it was with us on 
 those flat marshes, it is easy to build tall scaffoldings, upon 
 which sentinels may keep watch on front and side and 
 rear, so that the scene of military operations may lie before 
 the commander as the moves on a chess-board. 
 
 With a sense of the importance of accurate information, 
 I visited, on the 11th of January, one of my most impor- 
 tant picket stations, and found that where a tall look-out 
 had been built no sentinel for many days Ijad climbed to 
 take observations, because " some steps of the ladder had 
 been broken off, and there was nothing to nail them on 
 with " ! Eegularly established and regularly relieved, the 
 men "posted at this important station had day after day 
 wilfully and stupidly neglected their duty, — the very 
 object of their coming, — because there was "nothing by 
 to nail on the slats with " ! I rode away asking myself if 
 man was an intelligent being, — if his creation evinced 
 design in the Creator ? But I did not solve the problem 
 that day nor the next ; and perhaps it was because I de- 
 voted the period to a reconnoissance on Seabrook Island 
 (adjoining Kiowah), abandoning the conundrum to moral- 
 ists and theologians, while with a competent force I pushed 
 through the dense foliage until I stood in an opening in 
 the midst of which was a veritable old Eevolutionary 
 mansion called the Vanderherst estate. Our invasion 
 awoke echoes which had been silent for many months in 
 the spacious but empty halls. The house was untenanted, 
 the grounds were almost deserted. Three old negroes, sur- 
 viving slaves of fugitive masters, bade us welcome, in the 
 presence of two ancient ' mules wliich browsed around and 
 stared at us, as we approached and questioned these forlorn 
 
SEA ISLANDS OFF CHAELESTON. 271 
 
 darkies. " No, massa," they said, " 'cept dese yer mules, 
 dere 's notody here." A legend of two wild asses and a 
 phantom deer flitted before their dazed minds; but save 
 these, the deep and luxuriant verdure shaded no life. 
 
 Early in the war the old Eebel Vanderherst fled with his 
 valuables, leaving the tumble-down mansion to the tender 
 mercies of those who, animated by curiosity or a hope of 
 reward (a combination of motives irresistible to a soldier), 
 might choose to rest under the trees or roam through the 
 deserted dwelling. Absolutely nothing of value was found 
 in the house, save a fine old mahogany bedstead, and this 
 my men kindly proposed to bear off for my use ; but I for- 
 bade it, for it would have been an infraction of a good rule 
 in warfare, that private property may be devoted to public 
 uses, but never to personal. Our expedition revealed the 
 fact that there was no occupation of the island by the enemy, 
 and that it would be useless to maintain a garrison there, 
 even if we were to remain longer on Morris or on Folly 
 Island ; and that we were not, had now passed from the 
 region of rumor into certainty. On Wednesday, the 13th 
 of January, Gillmore returned from Hilton Head with the 
 announcement that hereafter his own headquarters would 
 be established there. This was the beginning of the end. 
 Tired of a costly and profitless struggle, the War Depart- 
 ment had now begun what had been too long delayed, — 
 the removal of Gillmore from this region. 
 
 Before continuing this history in pages which shall 
 record the disaster of Olustee in Florida, — the scene of 
 Gillmore's next operations, — I will follow on with varied 
 experiences, as they are recorded in my note-book, of the 
 last days of our operations on Morris and Folly islands, — 
 among which was a visit by a young lady whom I had 
 met on the " Arago." Attended by her father and a staff 
 of ofi&cers, the party came upon me so suddenly in my tent 
 
272 A WAR DIAKY. 
 
 that I had no time to remove a long flannel night-shirt 
 which my chamberlain (Jack) had displayed in its most 
 effective manner for sanitary purposes ; but this confusion 
 did not repress the melody of her laughter, nor shade the 
 sunlight which she brought into the chilling atmosphere 
 of perpetual bachelordom. The angel never came again, 
 though Jack paraded the old talisman with a feeling that 
 it might bring a similar visitation. 
 
 Meanwhile my tent saw visitors of a very different sort. 
 Two Irishmen and a German were ushered into it as de- 
 serters, under cover of a dense fog, from a Eebel fort on the 
 Stono, who had delivered themselves to Captain Balch on 
 the 15th of January, the day of their escape. Without 
 a moment's reluctance, they told me that they came from 
 the Fifteenth Independent Battalion, commanded by a 
 Major Lucas; that they estimated the number of the 
 enemy on James Island at ten thousand men, and that 
 they got at it by knowing that one third of the whole 
 number there were ordered to be present at a military exe- 
 cution, and that third they estimated at three thousand ; 
 but when pressed for positions, names of regiments and 
 commanders, they utterly failed to respond. Their own 
 battalion, they said, belonged inside the fortiiication on the 
 island ; but they did not know the position of Colquitt's 
 brigade, numbering eight hundred men, recently from the 
 Army of Northern Virginia, nor could they place Colonels 
 Symington and Galliard with a total of one thousand men. 
 They did not know what other troops were on the island, 
 but did know that at night a whole regiment was stationed 
 in front of the fortifications, and withdrawn at daylight. 
 
 This was the meagre information I received ; and it was 
 about what might be looked for from such sources. Men 
 are very apt to jump at an exact estimate when asked for 
 the. numbers that occupy a territory; but they are gen- 
 
SEA ISLANDS OFF CHAKLESTON. 273 
 
 erally staggered when questioned as to the positions and 
 names of commanders. I should look with great suspicion 
 upon a deserter who reported a territorial disposition with 
 precision, and should require confirmation before acting 
 on such information. Our deserters were honest enough, 
 without doubt, and had brought off all the facts which 
 their not enormous crania could hold. 
 
 I questioned these men on another subject, where knowl- 
 edge is apt to be accurate, — their rations. They looked 
 fat, and were ready enough to reveal that one and one 
 fifth pounds of corn-meal, or grits, or rice, or hard bread 
 per day, with a quarter of a pound of bacon or one pound 
 of beef, constituted their daily food. They had had no 
 vegetables for eighteen months, and nothing but water for 
 the same period to drink. Soap was issued once more, — 
 three pounds to one hundred rations. Their pay was eleven 
 dollars per month. Such was their physical condition. 
 
 As to their mental, I found them much dissatisfied with 
 the status of Eebeldom. All the men of their company 
 would desert, they said, if they could get away. (Deserters, 
 however, are apt to talk thus.) Their officers did not con- 
 fide anything to the men, and the men did not. think they 
 could whip the Yankees. They believed the war would 
 end that year, but predicted more fighting in the spring; 
 furloughed men, returning from Virginia, spoke of Lee's 
 intention to invade Pennsylvania at that time. I also 
 learned that a distinguished functionary in North Carolina 
 so far forgot Jefferson Davis and the Confederacy as to drink 
 to the success of the Stars and Stripes ; while reports from 
 other officials in that State were rife, that the wiU of the 
 people to return to the Union was so strong that they could 
 not be controlled. With the further information that there 
 were obstructions in Charleston Harbor and a living, active 
 garrison in Fort Sumter, I closed my interview with these 
 
 18 
 
274 A WAR DIARY. 
 
 deserters, with perhaps as little valuable information as one 
 would look for from such sources. 
 
 More evidence of our disintegration came to us on the 
 15th of January in an order to detach from my command 
 and send to Hilton Head the Fortieth Massachusetts Eegi- 
 ment of Infantry, to report to General Seymour, to be used 
 as mounted infantry. This valuable regiment, which had 
 been with me for nearly one year, I brought in my division 
 to this department from the Army of the Potomac after 
 Gettysburg. I was sorry to lose it ; nevertheless I pub- 
 lished the order on the same day I received it, directing 
 the regiment to leave in the morning. During the evening 
 of the same day I had pleasant interviews with the of&cers, 
 and was serenaded by the band in token of kindly feeling. 
 At ten A.M., the 16th of January, the regiment, en route 
 for embarkation, formed in line as they passed my tent 
 and saluted me. Undisturbed save by the gentle murmur 
 of the waves, I spoke in parting of my regrets at the loss, 
 praised them as e£&cient and soldierly men, and called 
 their attention to the fact that as Massachusetts troops 
 they had, without murmuring, stood for many weary weeks 
 under the shadow of the Stars and Stripes on this sandy 
 coast, in sight of that city which Massachusetts had spe- 
 cial cause to remember. With three cheers, the regiment 
 moved away forever from my command. 
 
 The departure of the Fortieth Massachusetts was fol- 
 lowed by an order putting me in charge of the whole of 
 FoUy Island, with instructions to hold myself in readiness 
 to leave this delectable spot at any moment. The reader 
 will believe that I could comply with this order without a 
 murmur. The troops on the island, divided into seventeen 
 regiments and several batteries, numbering over five thou- 
 sand men, were organized into brigades and divisions. The 
 first division, commanded by General Vogdes, consisted of 
 
SEA ISLANDS OFF CHAKLESTON. 275 
 
 three brigades, one of which, composed of but two regi- 
 ments, was made up of negroes with white officers, — the 
 Fifty-sixth Massachusetts, Colonel Hartwell, and a North 
 Carolina regiment. Colonel Beecher. In my own division 
 there were two brigades, with three light batteries. I re- 
 viewed these troops on the morning of the 20th of Jan- 
 uary, and carefully inspected the line, which was nearly 
 a mile in length. 
 
 I was not impressed with the negroes as soldiers ; but 
 there was a difference between the colored men from Mas- 
 sachusetts and those from North Carolina. Those from 
 the former State were well made and intelligent, while 
 those from the latter were dwarfed and ill formed. From 
 revelations subsequently made before a general court-mar- 
 tial, in the trial of an officer for selling colored recruits to 
 a Massachiisetts agent under a Presidential call for patriots, 
 this curious bit of history appeared. A witness, a citizen 
 of Massachusetts, being under oath, swore that he formed 
 a copartnership with others to go to Newberne in North 
 Carolina and buy up negroes to fill the requisition made 
 upon Massachusetts ; that he went, accompanied by a pay- 
 master from that State, who carried with him four hundred 
 and twenty-five dollars for each recruit, of which one hun- 
 dred dollars was " hand money," as it was called, — that is, 
 it was furnished by private subscription from towns to aid 
 in getting their quota, each town thus receiving a credit of 
 negroes in proportion to the "hand money " furnished ; that 
 three hundred and twenty-five doUars was the State's bounty 
 to recruits, and that of this the negro got but two hundred, 
 the other one hundred and twenty-five being profits of the 
 business, out of which he had made ten thousand dollars as 
 his share ; that he paid much more than many other State 
 agents, and that as sharp a bargain as could be was gener- 
 ally driven with the poor ebony emblems of patriotism. 
 
276 A WAE DIAEY. 
 
 At this time I visited again Torts Wagner and Gregg. 
 We could stand at the extreme end of Cumming's Point, 
 on the precise spot which in April, 1861, held the first 
 Eebel battery that fired on Fort Sumter. From our line 
 of sand embankments, scarce twelve hundred yards over 
 the waters of the harbor, we could gaze upon the shapeless 
 sides of Sumter, still defiant. From her ruins rose the 
 Eebel flag, and over her crumbled parapet the muzzles of 
 huge guns yawned, while behind it there were stout hearts 
 and arms to defend them ; we could not take the ruined 
 fort if we would. All around our circle of vision, Eebel 
 batteries frowned upon us. Sullivan's Island, Mount 
 Pleasant, Castle Pinckney, James Island, Middle Battery, 
 — from all of them black-mouthed engines of death, in 
 ranges and in tiers, threatened us with concentric destruc- 
 tion. Some were not more than a mile away, and all (over 
 one hundred in number) could have deluged us with shell 
 and grape. Rebel soldiers were in sight everywhere, and 
 we could clearly discern Charleston, its houses and its 
 wharves, — that Charleston whose streets were once filled 
 with a shouting and excited multitude of men and women 
 listening with exultation to the cannon's roar as Beau- 
 regard (in 1861) assailed in Sumter his fellow-citizens 
 and life-long companions in arms ; that Charleston whose 
 maddened mobs cursed the North, and defiantly chal- 
 lenged it to mortal combat. Well could I recall the 
 hour when these men of South Carolina paraded in their 
 shallow pomp before the representative of the London 
 " Times," to tell him that they would like a prince of the 
 royal English blood to rule over them. Oh, how time 
 deals with the follies of fools ! " We never can be whipped, 
 sir," — "I tell you the whole world cannot conquer us," — 
 " Cotton is king," — " Where will be your carrying trade 
 then ? " — « The Yankees won't fight," — " The negroes are 
 
SEA ISLANDS OFF CHARLESTON. 277 
 
 the happiest people in the world while they are slaves," — 
 and so on ad nauseam to Mr. Eussell, as one may read in 
 his very interesting " Diary North and South," in 1863. 
 
 All this I thought, as I stood on the very end of Cum- 
 ming's Point and listened to the crash of the thirty- 
 pounder Parrott by my side, whose booming sounds had 
 now for more than fourteen hundred times carried con- 
 sternation to the enemy, and saw that dark globe flying 
 through space to fall with merciless and savage power 
 within the very heart of the city itself. The Swamp 
 Angel was silent, and since our occupation of Cumming's 
 Point we had established there the "Avenging Angel," 
 which hurled bursting bomb and Greek fire not alone upon 
 the heads of enemies, but, alas ! upon those of our own 
 poor fellows who had been taken as prisoners and sent to 
 Charleston to divert Gillmore from his work. How those 
 emaciated captives prayed that they might escape, and how 
 they did escape this horror, has often since the war been 
 told. " Stand where your own guns with hottest fire may 
 tell upon you," said the Christian Beauregard to these help- 
 less men, as he placed them in Charleston within the circle 
 of our fire. And there they stood untU the next steamer 
 from the North brought to Morris Island an equal number 
 of Eebel prisoners, whom we posted where the Eebel fire 
 came strong and hot, at the end of Cumming's Point, when 
 the Eebels saw the game, and begged to be allowed to 
 stop. 
 
 The bombardment of Charleston was of no service in 
 bringing about peace, but it satisfied a certain thirst for 
 vengeance, — such, for instance, as • existed in a certain 
 seeker after fame, a restless, irrepressible female, a Gideon- 
 ite, as her class was called, wandering here as a teacher of 
 abandoned negroes, a stranger without fear of Eebel shot. 
 Listening on a time with rapt attention to the story which 
 
278 A WAR DIAEY. 
 
 told the fame of our thirty-pounder Parrott gun at Cum- 
 ming's Point, she became animated with a desire to gain 
 one knows not what, and asked to be conducted to the gun. 
 She took in at a glance the bank of earth — the shelter of 
 oui' gunners from the danger of a bursting gun — and the 
 long lanyard attached to the friction-primer ; and she feli 
 that to fire a shell into -the very heart of that city of traitors, 
 to add another to the fourteen hundred discharges of that 
 historic gun, to stand within the range of Charleston's spires, 
 defying the Eebel storm upon her head, was surely such an 
 opportunity as had never descended upon Gideonite before. 
 The hour of her destiny had arrived. Scarcely awaiting 
 permission, she advanced boldly to the intervening earth 
 embankment, looked in triumph from gun to city, then to 
 heaven, with inward petition that she might survive the 
 hour and live to thrUl the Northern heart with a recital of 
 her deeds, seized the lanyard firmly in her hand, and puUed 
 with energy enough to dare a platform in behaK of woman 
 suffrage. To its appointed duty each element was true, 
 save one. The gun, with thundering sound, sent out its 
 missile, while clouds of smoke concealed from view the 
 agent and the actors in the scene ; when it cleared away, 
 there, far down a steep descent, clutching a broken lan- 
 yard in her hand, in posture quite reversed, her Hmbs, like 
 Charleston's spires, pointing heavenward, — there, unharmed 
 but most discomfited, lay the heroic woman. The gun had 
 gone off in one direction, the schoolmarm in the other ; 
 the shell exploded with powder, the soldiers with laughter. 
 The act of the Gideonite was. historical in more senses 
 than one. 
 
 From the 26th of January until the end came, in the 
 Florida disaster, but little of interest took place. General 
 Terry had been left in command ; he was next in rank to 
 Gillmore. But there was little for him to do. When the 
 
SEA ISLAKDS OFF CHAELESTON. 279 
 
 enemy opened with mortars upon Cumming's Point, he 
 went there and saw guns in process of erection upon the 
 land side of Sumter : that was on the 28th of January, 
 1864, and the situation was confirmed to us on the last 
 day of that month by deserters, who told us that the fort 
 was now very strong, that the garrison were secure in 
 bomb-proofs, and that more heavy ordnance was there 
 ready to be placed in position. 
 
 On the night of the 1st of February a blockade-runner, 
 in attempting to enter the harbor of Charleston, was driven 
 by our fleet — or through fear of our fleet drove herseK — 
 so far out of the channel that she ran ashore under the 
 gims of SuUivan's Island. Daylight revealed to the eyes 
 of our soldiers and sailors this prize hard and fast on the 
 beach in such a way that the Eebels were working like 
 beavers in removing the cargo. Instantly the guns from 
 Wagner and the iron-clads opened on the steamer, making 
 great holes in her iron sides, but not frightening away the 
 Eebels themselves, who defiantly and openly continued in 
 the removal of the valuable cargo, with a spirit and vigor 
 which made prize money to our fellows in this case a 
 shadow and a myth. 
 
 But it was not to blockade-runners, nor to the tedious 
 monotony of operations against Charleston, that we were 
 henceforth to give our attention. When it became apparent 
 that nothing more could be accomplished here, the Admin- 
 istration ordered a military movement in Florida, the effect 
 of which, it was thought, would be felt in the coming Presi- 
 dential electioa It -was believed that large numbers of 
 whites and blacks would, if protected by the United States 
 Government, cast their ballots for the Eepublican party; 
 all that was needed was to cover with our troops as much 
 of the State as possible, and to furnish the civil machinery 
 for the collection of votes. To Mr. John Hay, the Presi- 
 
280 A WAE DIARY. 
 
 dent's private secretary, was deputed the work of registra- 
 tion. This functionary appeared in our department laden 
 with the requisite papers, at about the time the forward 
 movement took place. 
 
 On the 6th of February the troops that were to be taken 
 from Morris and Folly islands set sail for Florida, to be 
 united with others from Beaufort and Hilton Head. At 
 Jacksonville the invading army under Gillmore was or- 
 ganized. Colonel Hawley, of Connecticut, commanded a 
 brigade of infantry made up of his own, the Seventh Eegi- 
 meut, and the Seventh New Hampshire. Colonel Barton, 
 of New York, was assigned to a second brigade composed 
 of the Forty-eighth, the One Hundred 'and Fifteenth, and 
 the Forty-seventh New York regiments of infantry. To 
 another brigade, consisting of two colored regiments, — the 
 First North Carolina and the Fifty-fifth Massachusetts, — 
 Colonel Beecher was assigned ; while a fourth, composed 
 of five colore(J regiments, — the Second South Carolina, 
 Fifty-fourth Massachusetts, the Third and Eighth United 
 States, and the First South Carolina, — was under the 
 command of Colonel Montgomery. Three field batteries 
 were commanded by Captain John Hamilton, of the regu- 
 lar artillery, and by Captain Elder, also a regular. The 
 cavalry was improvised, with the exception of a single 
 squadron, from mounted infantry ; the Fortieth Massachu- 
 setts regiment was mounted on animals raked and scraped 
 up within the department. 
 
 This entire heterogeneous body was commanded by Gen- 
 eral Truman Seymour, of the United States Army, — an 
 officer of skiU and great bravery. It numbered less than 
 five thousand men, as given at the time by Captain Elder ; 
 about four thousand eight hundred were reported by Gen- 
 eral Seymour as in the fight which afterwards took place. 
 On the 9th of February, Seymour, en route from Jackson- 
 
SEA ISLANDS OFF CHARLESTON. 281 
 
 ville to Lake City, had advanced to Baldwin, a distance of 
 twenty miles. Beyond, the railroad was to he destroyed. 
 Thirty-five miles more were before him. After marching 
 thirty-two of it he came to a small town called Olustee. 
 
 Gillmore went with his troops as far as Baldwin. From 
 there he dated his last despatch to HaUeck, claiming to 
 be with the " advance ; " but he advanced no further. Ee- 
 turning immediately to Hilton Head, in South Carolina, 
 he issued, on the 15th of February, a flaming manifesto or 
 proclamation of his occupancy of the country, and called 
 on all Floridians to take the oath of allegiance. Florida, 
 he said, had been recovered from Eebel rule ; the United 
 States would not again abandon it ; they were abundantly 
 able to protect all loyal citizens ! 
 
 It was the 20th of February when General Seymour 
 reached Olustee. His movement from Baldwin — in obedi- 
 ence to Gillmore's orders, or the spirit of his orders — has 
 been criticised.^ There is evidence of vacillation here. 
 Gnimore did order the advance, and then, as if halting in 
 fear, countermanded the order. But nine hours had inter- 
 vened between the first and second order, and in the mean 
 time disaster had overtaken us. General Seymour relied 
 upon the railroad for his transportation ; but it proved a 
 failure, for he had in use but a single engine, which was 
 captured at Fernandina, and proved to be out of repair, and 
 which soon broke down and became useless. The country 
 through which he moved was open and even ; one searched 
 in -vain for the slightest elevation. Where the ground was 
 dry the bottom was firm and the footing safe. Strategi- 
 cally, however, no position was safe, and few tactically. 
 Troops could march in any and every direction. " It was 
 damned nonsense to advance without a base : even Gill-' 
 more's line of communication was not secure," was the 
 
 ^ See General Seymour's Eeport. 
 
282 A WAK DIARY. 
 
 criticism of a general officer who did not march under 
 Seymour. 
 
 As the troops were, however, on they went in that fatal 
 march of the last day (the twentieth), hurrying forward to 
 Lake City. Hawley's brigade was in the advance, moving 
 in three parallel columns by flank, — one in the road and 
 one on each side dressing on the centre. In Hawley's rear 
 came Barton ; and following him were Montgomery and 
 Beecher, — all formed and moving like the head brigade. 
 Musketry firing was heard ; the column halted. Hawley's 
 brigade moved forward, and Barton's followed. At two p. M. 
 the first cannon was fired. It came from the enemy, who 
 was in position before our troops. Hawley hurried forward, 
 and Barton followed ; but the latter did not get up till Haw- 
 ley had been repulsed. Langdon had lost his guns, and the 
 dickens was to pay. Montgomery was not within support- 
 ing distance when the action began, but under peremptory 
 orders hurried forward and aided in the four hours' contest 
 which ensued before the Federal troops were fairly driven 
 from the .field and put in flight for Jacksonville. 
 
 The contest appears to have begun with a blunder. The 
 enemy awaited Seymour's approach; his line crossed the 
 railroad at right angles, his flanks resting on two lakes ; 
 his front was strengthened with embankments and logs, 
 behind which his infantry and artillery, thrown forward 
 like the heels of a horse-shoe, found cover. In number 
 he had, as he claimed, but eight regiments and three 
 battalions of infantry, with three batteries, mostly Geoigia 
 troops,^ — in aU about five thousand men. Our officers 
 place the number at ten thousand ; but that was when the 
 fight was just over. 
 
 We were whipped in detail. Our advance was in the 
 enemy's works before we knew it, and the troops first in 
 
 1 Report in a Confederate paper of Feb. 27, 1864. 
 
SEA ISLANDS OFF CHARLESTON. 283 
 
 were whipped ^before they were fairly engaged. Langdon 
 lost his guns almost within pistol-shot of the enemy's line; 
 the fire was too hot to bring them off, though our troops 
 were at one time within twenty-five yards of them. In 
 forming for action after our first surprise, another blunder 
 was committed. Our rear was rushed forward to support 
 a disheartened force, when this force itself should have 
 fallen back on a cool and unbroken one. The Federal 
 troops fought well, with some few exceptions, the of&cers 
 said. One white and one colored regiment formed the ex- 
 ceptions in the opinions of some ; although both General 
 Seymour and an of&cer of his staff agreed that the colonel 
 of the white regiment (the Seventh New Hampshire) be- 
 haved well in trying to rally his men, and that the Eighth 
 (colored) United States did not break tiU most of its ofi&cers 
 were killed or wounded. When our men first turned in 
 flight, the enemy gave three cheers, dashed forward, and 
 pursued for five hours. The cavalry seem to have been 
 useless. Two thousand Eebel horse remained passive 
 on the Federal left flank, observing a few companies of 
 Federal cavalry sent out to fight it. 
 
 The first reports of this disaster came to us on Folly and 
 Morris islands, through a captain of a steamboat, on the 
 twenty-first of the month ; on the twenty-second we knew 
 it alL Five brigadier-generals had remained idly await- 
 ing results on those islands, while as many brigades com- 
 manded by colonels were being whipped at Olustee. Save 
 General Seymour in command, there was no general officer 
 with Gillmore's Florida army. Now it was time for brig- 
 adier-generals to be called in. General Terry was directed 
 to send two biigades to Jacksonville, — one of them under 
 General Ames from my division, a second under General 
 Foster from General Terry's ; the whole to be commanded 
 by General Vogdes. 
 
284 A WAE DIAKY. 
 
 On the twenty-fifth, in the afternoon, all that remained 
 of our Florida army were again at Jacksonville intrench- 
 ing against a further pursuit and a renewed attack by an 
 enemy in whose hands we had already left eight hundred 
 dead, wounded, and missing, while we held in our own of 
 wounded and dying eleven hundred more. We also lost 
 in artillery five pieces, and in small arms fifteen hundred 
 muskets.^ The Eebel army was commanded by a General 
 Finnigan, who was much praised for his skill in entrap- 
 ping Yankees. The enemy's losses are put by them at 
 eighty killed and five or six hundred wounded. Gillmore's 
 staff loudly declaimed against Seymour; indeed so did 
 Gillmore himself, who charged him with disobeying orders, 
 but was silent in his specifications. It was further charged 
 against Seymour that he marched in three parallel col- 
 umns, with his cavalry in the middle, and with no skir- 
 mishers or advanced guard to the front; and that he 
 walked into the arms of a concealed enemy in a wood 
 which was alive with his numbers. Seymour's affair is 
 spoken of as a Braddock's defeat or a Dade's massacre; 
 but there was no reason in this denunciation. An army of 
 several thousand men could conceal themselves among the 
 pines in that flat region so as to avoid detection. That 
 Seymour was surprised when he found himself actually en- 
 gaged with an army in position, one may not doubt ; but 
 his men fought well, even though fate was against them 
 at the beginning. 
 
 While these events were happening in Florida, Gillmore 
 was safely housed in South Carolina, in his headquarters 
 at Hilton Head. There he heard both of the defeat and 
 of the rout of his troops. Our loss, it was said, now footed 
 up twenty-two hundred men. 
 
 Preceding this fiasco, and as a diversion in its behalf, 
 
 1 Gillmore's Official Eepsrt. 
 
SEA. ISLANDS OFF CHARLESTON. 285 
 
 GiUmore had sent orders from Hilton Head to General 
 Terry at Morris Island to make a demonstration with five 
 or six thousand troops on John's Island. Not a word of 
 his purposes, upon which Terry's plans should hinge ; not 
 a syllable of where on John's Island the diversion was to 
 be made, nor how long it was to be kept up, nor when it 
 was to begin, did Gillmore vouchsafe, nor could Terry dis- 
 cover, though he sought it from Gillmore's chief of staff. 
 On the 12th of February, eight days before our troops had 
 met the enemy at Olustee, Terry's expedition returned. 
 The results were summed up in a loss of three or four Fed- 
 erals killed and some six wounded ; but we captured five 
 horses. Nor was this all. General Schimmelfening in 
 command discovered and brought away with him from a 
 Eebel outpost a book in which all of Gillmore's preliminary 
 despatches concerning his contemplated invasion of Florida, 
 transmitted from Folly Island to Hilton Head and Jack- 
 sonville,— despatches giving the numbers of his expedi- 
 tion, its armament, and so forth, — had been transcribed. 
 There were seen the vacant places where the most import- 
 ant ones had been cut out to be sent to Beauregard ; and 
 there, too, were some of GiUmore's unimportant messages, 
 which our signal of&cer admitted to have been sent. The 
 point of Eebel observation was in full sight of one of our 
 signal stations, at a place called Botany Bay, on a short 
 line to South Carolina at Hilton Head, where our flag sig- 
 nals were received and repeated.^ 
 
 Much impressed with this revelation, General Schim- 
 melfening sought to use it to our advantage, and to avert, 
 if possible, a consequent disaster. " I will make use," he 
 wrote to General Terry, "of this unhappy fact to our ad- 
 
 1 I have since been infonu'ed by General Couch that all of Gillmore's 
 despatches, as they were taken by Rebel signal officers, were captured by 
 Shennan on his march through South Carolina, and that they were a 
 faithful transcript of Gillmore's plans. 
 
286 A "WAR DIARY. 
 
 vantage." Then followed certain fictitious messages, sent 
 by an orderly, which Terry was requested to transmit by 
 signal to Schimmelfening, who would in turn send a reply, 
 — the whole, it was not doubted, to be read as before by 
 the Eebel signal oflBcer. This stratagem was to help on 
 the present diversion. Accordingly there soon came from 
 Terry, " I have sent you the thirty-pounder Parrotts and 
 three thousand more infantry ; " and there went back to 
 him, " I have received and placed them in position ; the 
 infantry are coming up. The Eebel infantry fight badly." 
 This was followed by another signal from Terry of, " How 
 many more infantry do you want ? " and a reply, " I have 
 enough to whip the force in front of me ; send the force 
 around as agreed upon." Thus full of his device, Schim- 
 melfening started for the enemy, with the results which 
 have been given. He had advanced beyond Haulover Cut ; 
 and, although it was no part of his instructions to bring on 
 a fight, he had assumed a threatening attitude, which, but 
 for revelations to the enemy of GiUmore's real purposes 
 in Florida through inexcusable carelessness at the signal 
 stations, might have weakened the enemy's line at Olustee 
 to strengthen it on the Stono. Had not the enemy cheated 
 Gillmore, he might have cheated the enemy ; though, owing 
 to the abandonment of the diversion for so many days 
 before the battle of Olustee, even this is doubtful. Here 
 was one conspicuous instance of the cross and vague pur- 
 poses which paralyzed effort in that department.^ 
 
 1 Upon an inquiry by General Terry of Turner, General Gillmore's 
 chief of staff, for more definite instructions as to the purposes of this 
 demonstration, Turner informed him that all the information he had 
 from Gillmore was, that, as he (Gillmore) was going aboard the steamer 
 for Florida, he turned to Turner and said: " Tell Terry to make a demon- 
 stration with iive or six thousand troops on John's Island." "This is 
 all," said Turner, "that I know.'' Terry, much perplexed, sought advice 
 from others in vain. He was compelled to grope in the dark. 
 
SEA ISLANDS OFF CHAELESTON. 287 
 
 But it was the last ; for Gillmore now received a per- 
 emptory order to wind up his operations in the Depart- 
 ment of the South, and with some of his troops report to 
 and serve under General B. F. Butler, then laboring with 
 the enemy on the James. On Morris Island some show 
 of occupancy was stiU to be kept up, — some perhaps on 
 Folly, Cole, and Kiowah, — while on the water the navy 
 was to maintain the blockade of the port. 
 
 From other departments, within and without the field 
 of military operations, we received exciting reports. The 
 President of the United States had called for two hundred 
 thousand troops, and ordered a draft to be made on the 
 10th of March. There also came news from Sherman, who 
 was reported in the Charleston "Mercury" to be march- 
 ing through Jackson, Mississippi, with a body of men on 
 whose caps was conspicuously displayed the motto, " Mo- 
 bile or HeU ! " And there was a report also that the Con- 
 federate war-steamer "Alabama" had captured a North- 
 ern clipper in the East Indies, valued at three hundred 
 thousand dollars. 
 
 But the enemy was not idle in our department. One 
 of our large blockading ships, the " Housatonic," had been 
 utterly destroyed by a torpedo. As a head-board marks 
 a grave, her masts above the water pointed to where she 
 sank at her anchorage. The hour of this achievement 
 was after eight in the evening, — an hour when the of&cer 
 of the deck could scarcely make out that something like a 
 plank was moving rapidly towards the ship. All hands 
 were called, and the cable slipped ; but before the vessel 
 could move she was struck near her mizzen chains. An 
 explosion instantly followed, which so fairly blew off the 
 whole stern of the steamer that she settled immediately, 
 and in a few moments sank. Some lives were lost, among 
 whom we heard of the captain's clerk, an ensign, and two 
 
288 A WAR DIAEY. 
 
 or three men. The commander was blown overboard, but 
 regained the rigging of the ship after she sank. Others 
 were saved by boats from neighboring vessels. The tor- 
 pedo boat — in shape like a cigar — was furnished with 
 an iron rod projecting from its bow, on the extremity of 
 which a large shell containing powder was secured, de- 
 signed so as to ignite by concussion with a vessel's side. 
 
 After the attempt on the "New Ironsides," and the 
 success with the " Housatonic," unusual precautions were 
 taken to guard against this formidable danger. Around 
 • the " Ironsides " boats pulled at night, and a steam-tug 
 made its rounds; while a calcium light with a large re- 
 flector, constantly revolving, threw a wide beam around. 
 Thus our navy hoped to hold their present position until 
 some strategic movement should throw Charleston into 
 our hands; and until then I doubt if any naval officer 
 had ever seen the hour when he would attempt to rim 
 his ship into that harbor. Commander Eowan of the 
 "New Ironsides" was not in favor of making the effort. 
 The problem had at last become one of staying as we were. 
 Practically we had simply assisted the navy in maintain- 
 ing a blockade ; but, as it was put by an intelligent ob- 
 server, "the amount of money disbursed for the use of 
 all the unarmed steamboats used as transports for troops 
 to aid the navy in maintaining the blockade, would have 
 supplied enough naval armed steamers to fence in every 
 inlet on the coast of this department." The quartermaster- 
 general asserted that it cost more to maintain this depart- 
 ment, while it returned less, than any other; and that 
 more stationery was used within it than in any other 
 military division. There is a red-tape formality, much 
 writing and many clerks, where military achievements are 
 rare. No fighting begets much writing; Military O'Trig- 
 gers at Washington began to appreciate this; and even 
 
ISLANDS OFF CHARLESTON. 289 
 
 Halleck cam understand that to continue the Depart- 
 ment of the . as an aggressive one was a folly — nay, 
 more, a crimi 
 
 The 7th of March brought with it the last night of my 
 tent home on that island of desolation. It would be 
 strange indeed had I felt any regrets at leaving ; certainly 
 there were none. But I had passed seven long months 
 with these surroundings, and somehow or other my own 
 individuality took something from those familiar objects, 
 despite the cares and vexations which had perplexed me. 
 I had scarcely turned my back, however, before I found 
 my heart thumping with excitement as I looked forward 
 with new hopes to a return to the old Army of the Po- 
 tomac.^ 
 
 1 See " Atlantic Monthly," May, 1865, Criticism of GiUmore's Report 
 of Operations in 1863-64, Department of the South. 
 
 19 
 
290 A WAE DIAKY. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 HILTON HEAD. — FLORIDA. — MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 
 
 AT Hilton Head, in South Carolina, on the 18th of 
 March, 1864, perfume of yellow jessamine, orange 
 blossoms, and violets filled our encampments, penetrated 
 the negro huts, and swept over abandoned cotton-fields, as 
 lavish in its delicious fragrance as if the lords of the 
 manors were the owners and cultivators of the old Sea- 
 Island cotton plantations as of yore. 
 
 But a few miles from the fortifications which Dupont 
 captured with his wooden ships there was a plantation of 
 twelve hundred acres, on which a Northern doctor was 
 trying the experiment of raising cotton. Between rows of 
 negro cabins this Northern vandal ambled gently to the de- 
 caying mansion, to repose under the shade of superb live- 
 oaks with their drapery of Southern moss, or to slumber 
 away the heat of noon-day under beautiful magnolias in 
 the yard. It may be true that the occupier of this domain 
 deceived himself; that with these remnants of baronial 
 splendor, these trees, negroes, the old mansion, and the 
 view of the bay from the embowered porch, he was beguiled 
 into indulging delusive hopes and dreams, and was fain to 
 strut awhile in his new robes of borrowed splendor. But 
 there was a death's head at this feast. Near him, on the 
 left of his fine old avenue, there was an encampment of 
 Yankee soldiers, with its attendant bones and offal of 
 slaughtered beeves ; and within his halls two energetic, 
 
HILTON HEAD. 291 
 
 well-formulated Yankee schoolmarms were teaching twenty 
 young negro children of assorted sizes their alphabet, — 
 violating South Carolina law on South Carolina soil ; while 
 in his fields, his cotton-planting ran every chance of prov- 
 ing but a delusion and a dream, born of a belief that a freed- 
 man would find his greatest pleasure in working for reward. 
 But it is not by work that the negro is made content. 
 
 For instance, Eichard and his wife Daphne were our 
 servants. The former had been the slave of Lawyer Tres- 
 cott, of Charleston, whom Eichard says he remembers with 
 affection ; for the master used to give his servant money 
 and clothes, and would " back him " when he was in 
 trouble; but now Eichard complained, that he had no 
 time to himself! Was Eichard a philosopher, that he 
 had discovered the slavery in freedom ; that, though the 
 money he made belonged to him, necessity was a harder 
 taskmaster than his owner ? 
 
 It was a change, and a bitter one, for these poor negroes, 
 who had to learn that a condition which demanded all 
 their earnings in return for food and raiment, was superior 
 to that in which these things were provided for them as a 
 matter of course. They doubtless looked back with regret 
 to the days \Vhen they had spare hours, gifts of money, 
 and an opportunity to turn a penny by raising a few vege- 
 tables, and all the more that now they had to work hard 
 merely to support themselves. Freedom brought with it 
 new cares and rigorous responsibilities, and must at first 
 have seemed to them less attractive than they had thought 
 it to be from the accounts of those who spoke of nothing 
 but its dignity. 
 
 Troops were arriving from Morris and from Folly islands 
 and from Jacksonville to sail away with Gillmore, who, 
 with the Tenth Army Corps, was to report, as we have 
 seen, to Benjamin F. Butler at Fortress Monroe. Gillmore 
 
292 A WAK DIARY. 
 
 was crestfallen. His nomination to be a major-general of 
 volunteers was suspended in the Senate by senators who 
 declared that he had done nothing worthy of promotion. 
 Shades of Sumter not battered down ; spirits of Greek fire 
 within the city of Charleston not destroyed; echoes of 
 Parrot guns, two and three hundred-pounders, uselessly 
 discharged; the blood and disgrace of the Florida cam- 
 paign, — these all had been transformed into a bubbling 
 cauldron of toil and trouble, from which spectres were 
 arising to " break the word of promise to our hope." 
 
 Great excitement centred upon the question, who was to 
 go to the Army of the James, and who remain. Steamers 
 crowded the port. The old " Ericsson " was there, but her 
 four smoke-pipes and her caloric engines had been adapted 
 to steam. The ship was dirty, dirtier even than a troop- 
 ship, and she was slow. On the twenty-fourth she sailed 
 with troops, and on the twenty-eighth troops were still leav- 
 ing the department. The "Arago " was lying off the dock ; 
 river steamers with soldiers on board were in the stream ; 
 the " Ben Deford " sailed ; and at last all had gone save 
 the few who were to leave on the " Arago " with Gillmore. 
 On the night of the 1st of May the " Arago " sailed, and 
 Gillmore's life and administration within these waters 
 was a thing of the past. 
 
 General J. P. Hatch was left in command. Acting on 
 the advice of Gillmore, Hatch had ordered me to proceed 
 at once to Jacksonville, Florida, to relieve General Birney 
 and take command of military operations within that 
 State. Hatch was an old army friend of mine, a thorough 
 soldier, and a gentleman. But Hatch was also stubborn. 
 No entreaty on my part could move him to reconsider 
 his order. 
 
 The cotton was just appearing above the ground. In a 
 ride around Hilton Head, I saw a negro woman trudging 
 
FLOEIDA. 293 
 
 along with a load on her head, and asked her if she was 
 sorry her master had run away from her. "No," she 
 replied, " I am not ; for now I have time to sit down." 
 The bodies of two conscripts who had just been shot for 
 desertion came next in view. They lay dead by their 
 cofi&ns, while the troops (I think they belonged to a Con- 
 necticut regiment) were marching by to look upon the 
 unhappy victims of military law. 
 
 On the afternoon of the 2d of May I went over to St. 
 Helena Island. A rather famous plantation of thirteen 
 hundred acres, with all the buildings thereon, — mansion- 
 house, negro huts, and stables, — had been purchased at a 
 tax sale, two years before, by a son of New England, for 
 fifteen hundred dollars. No furniture was found in the 
 house, — that had been stolen after the flight of the family, 
 — but the walls were still embellished with family por- 
 traits, in which the old men and women looked grave and 
 severe, the young ones simpering and helpless. The females, 
 taken in light silks and set off with bouquets and roses, in 
 attitudes of sweet simplicity, passed with the estate into 
 the possession of its Yankee occupant, by purchase from 
 the tax commissioner at forty cents a head. Our Northern 
 planter with a Yankee wife lived meanwhile on this South- 
 ern plantation, worked the negroes on his land, raised a 
 goodly amount of cotton, and gathered beautiful roses from 
 a garden in which rare varieties bloomed for those who 
 would look in vain for smiles from the fugitives who set 
 them there. 
 
 There was no time to linger over changes which this war 
 had wrought in Southern homes, for I was off for Florida, 
 touching first at Femandina, where I carefully examined 
 Fort Clinch, in charge of Captain Sears, of the New York 
 Volunteer Engineers, and arrived at Jacksonville at twelve 
 noon on the 7th of May. 
 
294 A WAK DIAKY. 
 
 As near as could be estimated (and this was afterwards 
 confirmed by reports from scouts and deserters), the entire 
 Eebel force within the State numbered about three thou- 
 sand men. Finnigan's brigade of infantry — consisting of 
 Martin's and Brevard's battalions, the Sixty-fourth Georgia, 
 and Bowman's battalion — numbered . fourteen hundred 
 and forty, while two cavalry regiments (Georgians and the 
 Second Florida), three batteries of artillery of four pieces 
 each, and seventy men made up the remaining fifteen hun- 
 dred and sixty. These troops were stationed at different 
 points, and were occupied with various duties. Detach- 
 ments of cavalry, engaged in offensive operations, were at 
 Pilatka, under command of Captains Dickerson and Gray ; 
 infantry regiments guarded railroad bridges from Baldwin 
 to Cedar Keys and to Tallahassee, reclaimed deserters in 
 the counties of Orange, Brevard, and Alachua, or wherever 
 else a strong Union sentiment prevailed, and gathered cat- 
 tle and agricultural products in the counties of Brevard, 
 Hillsborough, Monroe, Polk, Marion, and Sumter. Here- 
 tofore a noted Eebel cattle agent, had been able to gather 
 the beeves required for the Eebel army at his residence 
 near Lake Ware, to be driven to Georgia. But because of 
 the activity of the Federals, or the hostility of Union men 
 in Florida, the aid of troops had become a necessity. At 
 Camp Milton, a short distance east of Baldwin, the largest 
 body of Eebel troops within the State held a line of strong 
 works under the command of Patton, Anderson, Major- 
 General commanding the military District of Florida. So 
 far as I could get reliable information, their number was 
 about six hundred men, with artillery. At Baldwin there 
 was artillery, but no infantry. At a trestle bridge across 
 the St. Mary's, negroes were throwing up fortifications. 
 Some State troops, raised for the defence of the State, 
 were expected at Camp Milton by the 1st of June. Three 
 
FLORIDA. 295 
 
 companies were already raised, and two thousand men in 
 all were hoped for. In addition to these there were Eehel 
 pickets at Green and Cove springs, and a body of one hun- 
 dred men near Doctor's Lake, so called, engaged in placing 
 torpedoes in the St. John's. On the 1st of May these men 
 had set fourteen adrift, and had twelve more in readiness. 
 
 I was hardly seated in my office before I had another 
 proof of the value of torpedoes, in the fate of our boats on 
 the St. John's. The " Harriet Ward " was the first victim. 
 She was struck by this infernal machine, and sank in the 
 channel ; five men were killed and wounded. The steamer 
 "Boston," with a large number of men and women on 
 board, just in advance, had haply passed unharmed. The 
 captain of the "Ward" reported his misfortune to me 
 while the coal-dust was still in his hair and the cry of his 
 mates still ringing in his ears. Who would come next ? 
 How were we to navigate these waters ? — and yet upon 
 them we depended, for communication within and without. 
 These questions I discussed with the captain, with a view 
 of constructing some sort of invention to catch torpedoes 
 and outwit the Eebels ; but our efforts were in vain, and 
 we were obliged to take our chances, with the pleasant 
 feeling that at any moment we might find ourselves blown 
 high in air or struggling in the waters of the St. John's. 
 
 Meanwhile loyal Floridians flocked to my headquarters. 
 The sufferings of Union men moved me to the extreme of 
 patience. They had lived in swamps, where they had 
 suffered untold horrors; their families had hungered for 
 food, and their relatives had been hung : they were willing 
 to fight for the Union. Women suffered alike with men. 
 Jacksonville had been a Union city ; it had been occupied 
 by Northerners, some of whom, however, were more rebel- 
 lious than the Southern bom. It was a Northern man 
 with a Southern wife who drew up the ordinance under 
 
296 A WAR DIARY. 
 
 ■which Florida seceded from the Union; and they were 
 Northern men who burned the buildings of those who 
 refused to give aid to Southern armies in their rebellious 
 war. Now the hour for vengeance had come. Long lists 
 of names of those who were willing to enroll themselves in 
 our army — some plucky to the last, others cowed and 
 intimidated — were handed in to my headquarters. The 
 stories of their sufferings were incredible, the romance of 
 their lives wonderful. From among those who were will- 
 ing to do the State some service as scouts and in burning 
 bridges that were of use to the enemy's communications, 
 I armed and organized twenty-one; while from those 
 whose practices and experiences had been confined to the 
 more difficult methods of statecraft, I entertained plans for 
 bringing the State back into the Union, through a conven- 
 tion of such loyal citizens as should first be submitted for 
 approval. 
 
 Of the United States troops in this department the 
 7th Colored, the 144th New York, 107th Ohio, 3d Colored 
 (acting as heavy artillerists). Battery A 3d Ehode Island 
 (six guns), four companies of mounted infantry from the 
 75th Ohio, and three mounted companies from the 35th 
 Colored, were stationed at Jacksonville. Four companies 
 of the 157th New York, two of the 8th, and seven of the 
 35th United States Colored, were at and near Picolata on 
 the St. John's. At St. Augustine the 17th Connecticut was 
 stationed, with small bodies thrown out to the St. John's, 
 of whom fifty men were at Volusia, fifteen at Sanders to 
 the north, and fifteen at Welaka to the south. At Smyrna, 
 fifteen mounted men of the 157th New York Infantry were 
 guarding captured cotton. At Yellow Bluff there were 
 seven companies of the 5th, and at St. John's Bluff one of 
 the 8th United States Colored Infantry; while between 
 Enterprise, Volusia, and Smyrna, six mounted companies 
 
FLORIDA. 297 
 
 of the 75th Ohio, tinder Colonel Harris, were raiding after 
 cattle. To watch all these posts; to familiarize myself 
 with all the territory we held, confined as it was mainly 
 to the eastern bank of the St. John's Eiver ; to hold fre- 
 quent interviews with Floridians, loyal and disloyal, with 
 rebellious women of Massachusetts origin, with detec- 
 tives, — one of whom was a long South Carolina parson 
 transplanted to Plorida, an itiaerant of the Church Mili- 
 tant, and another a farmer, whose cattle had been taken 
 by Southern commissaries from his pastures and his 
 yards; to look after my vedettes; to patrol the river 
 at night for torpedoes; to forecast Presidential action in 
 utilizing the orange groves and the cotton lands, the lum- 
 ber and the logs of this land of sun and flowers, — to 
 do all this, the reader will readily believe brought very 
 busy days to me. 
 
 To St. Augustine from Jacksonville is forty-one miles by 
 land. Over the road, under the pines, it was a desolate, 
 wUd, and solemn ride. My horse measured it in exactly 
 five hours. It was on the 14th of May that I drew rein 
 under the shade of trees from which hung in rich profusion 
 oranges, figs, bananas, and pomegranates, within that quaint 
 old Spanish town of St. Augustine, with its narrow streets, 
 ample balustrades, and old fort ; with its mysterious dun- 
 geons, which yet bore witness to the torture inflicted (so 
 says tradition) by the cruel Spaniards upon their prisoners. 
 For a single night I enjoyed the hospitality which this 
 luxurious climate enabled our officers to bestow, and then 
 galloped away in the morning to Picolata, with the delicious 
 melodies of some of the daughters of the th regi- 
 ment still ringing in my ears as I threaded the inevitable 
 pine forest and passed the miserable huts, called settle- 
 ments, in my course to the St. John's. From the 15th to 
 the 21st of May my time was taken up with the exami- 
 
298 A WAR DIAKT. 
 
 nation of deserters, many of whom came over from the 
 western bank of the river ; with the organization of small 
 scouting parties, to burn bridges or to break up the 
 enemy's communications ; with the removal of cotton from 
 Smyrna; with the preparation of an imperfect torpedo- 
 catcher; with reviews of troops, conferences with the 
 provost-marshal, devising new and better police and sani- 
 tary measures ; with organization of a court for civil ad- 
 ministration ; with oaths of allegiance ; with calling a con- 
 vention to send delegates to the National Conference for a 
 Presidential nomination ; with listening to music, salutes, 
 and exultation for victories under Grant in Virginia, of 
 which we heard on the 19th of May; with revising a 
 printed memorial from citizens to the President, asking 
 protection and permanent occupation of the State ; with 
 hearing arguments by lumbermen of the immense fortunes 
 to be made if the port of Jacksonville were thrown open 
 to the world ; with endeavoring to foresee the effect upon 
 Northern minds when they should learn that sweet oranges 
 might be grown at Mandarin and elsewhere, twelve hun- 
 dred to a tree ; with providing schools for the town ; with 
 a vain effort to drive the laziness out of natives whose sole 
 ambition was satisiied by the ownership of a few cattle that 
 fed, summer and winter, on grass which cost nothing, and 
 of hogs which cost less, and of a few acres of corn requir- 
 ing but little labor to ripen ; and last, but most essential of 
 all things, with a gun and ammunition for the hunt. 
 
 On the twenty-first, however, hostile movements upon 
 my picket stations called for greater activity on the upper 
 'waters of the St. John's. Colonel Noble, commanding all 
 the forces east of the jiver, wrote from St. Augustine on the 
 twentieth that the Eebel cavalry officers — Dickerson and 
 Gray — had crossed the river and made prisoners a captain 
 and twenty men at Welaka. The Colonel had ordered 
 
FLOKIDA. 299 
 
 Colonel Harris to push forward with cavalry to protect our 
 posts at Volusia, Enterprise, and Sanders on the river, and 
 Colonel Beecher to occupy Welaka, Horse Landing, and 
 south to the mouth of Dunn's Creek. A raid within that 
 domain which furnislied our political supplies for conven- 
 tions, petitions, delegations. Union meetings, and so forth ! 
 — this would never do. But there was still more to come. 
 Another communication from Colonel Noble, received at 
 eleven at night, startled me with the report that a small 
 body of our troops had been captured at another station; 
 and that the enemy, four hundred strong, were marching 
 northward on our side of the river. Directing Colonel 
 Noble to withdraw his men from the St. John's opposite 
 Volusia and Sanders, I started in an hour on the steamer 
 "Houghton" for the nearest point threatened. From 
 Jacksonville I carried two hundred men. By the kindness 
 of Captain Balch, my old friend of the Stono, I was accom- 
 panied by two gunboats, the " Ottawa " and a little steam 
 launch named the " Columbine." At Picolata I increased 
 my force by six companies of Colonel Beecher's regiment 
 and all the available men of the 157th New York Volunteers, 
 until the whole numbered between six hundred and fifty 
 and seven hundred men. At the same place I filled bags 
 with sand for the protection of the troops on the " Colum- 
 bine " (there were no cotton bales, and but one of hay) on 
 her trip through the narrow passes of the river to Volusia. 
 These preparations caused so much delay that we did 
 not reach the landing opposite Pilatka until the afternoon 
 of the twenty-second. At this point the river begins to 
 narrow so rapidly, that in following it with the boats the 
 men would have been unnecessarily exposed. By march- 
 ing the troops inland to Volusia through the forest, and 
 sending a gunboat up the river to cut ofi" retreating Eebels, 
 we should have them between the ocean and the St. John's. 
 
300 A WAR DIAEY. 
 
 Acting on this plan, I directed the "Columbine" to pro- 
 ceed to Volusia, and as much further as her services might 
 be required. With a guard of two officers and twenty-five 
 men from Colonel Beecher's regiment, and his small naval 
 force, the daring commander' of this little craft went on, 
 accompanied as far as the mouth of Dunn's Creek by the 
 " Ottawa " under Commander Breese, who was ready and 
 willing to afford all possible protection both to the launch 
 and to the "Houghton." I told him that I intended to 
 push forward towards Volusia, and to assist the commander 
 of the " Columbine " as soon as I could reach him ; adding 
 that I should not regard the discharge of artillery as an 
 indication of his being in danger, while he in turn agreed 
 with me to throw up a rocket if he required assistance. 
 
 All these proceedings were in full view of the enemy, 
 who, concealed behind his leafy cover on the left bank of 
 the river in and near Pilatka, had prepared to receive us 
 with batteries of artillery as soon as ever our boats, crowded 
 with troops, might be hopelessly entangled in the narrow 
 reaches of the St. John's. ITotwithstanding his chagrin 
 at my disembarkation below, the enemy opened upon the 
 gunboats after the " Columbine " had passed, keeping up 
 a spirited fire vlntil finally driven off. So far it was well 
 with the little " Columbine." I directed my march towards 
 the place where the road from St. Augustine crosses Haw 
 Creek, and thence pushed on to Volusia. At Haw Creek 
 T had ordered Colonel Noble, with all his available infantry 
 and cavalry, to meet me. 
 
 At four o'clock on Sunday afternoon, the 22d of May, 
 we moved out from under the shade of the superb oaks 
 that lined the banks of the river. It was a late start ; but 
 we made nine miles, halting in the night at a miserable 
 hut on the south side of Haw Creek, where I slept on a 
 floor surrounded by negroes, dogs, cats, and babies. I found 
 
FLORIDA. 301 
 
 the creek unfordable. During the march we heard a great 
 deal of artillery firing in the direction of the mouth of 
 Dunn's Creek; but as no rockets were fired and no de- 
 spatches received, I presumed that the gunboats were 
 engaged in the not uncommon occupation of shelling the 
 woods. 
 
 In proceeding further on Monday morning, a guide was 
 a necessity. The owner of an adjoining cabin would do ; 
 he was a fine-looking man, athletic and determined, but he 
 would not serve ma It was useless to expostulate with 
 him, or to entreat him ; go he would not. Nor would he 
 reason about it. Nothing could be more ridiculous than 
 that this single man should defy seven hundred soldiers 
 drawn up before his miserable hut ; and it seemed so pre- 
 posterous that I doubted his sincerity. I therefore rode 
 up to him, so near that I could hear a whisper ; when, 
 " Take me," he said, " and tie me by force. Use force, and 
 I will go with you." In a moment the truth flashed through 
 my mind. He was surrounded by spies ; any offer of aid 
 to us would have been fatal to him after our departure. 
 We therefore adopted his suggestion ; went through a great 
 show of seizing and tying him, and then, lifting him 
 struggling and kicking to the back of a lively mule, with 
 two armed men on either side, we struck out for the for- 
 est with the most willing Southerner who ever guided a 
 Yankee army on its way. A better Union man, a truer 
 guide, or a more interesting fellow-traveller I never found 
 during all the war. That day we made thirty miles. 
 Through the woods all the way, over a perfectly flat coun- 
 try, under the same monotony of pines, on the edges of 
 swamps which were to my unskilled vision ever the same, 
 over paths never changing in aspect, this experienced 
 hunter led us, pointing out the slightest variations which 
 served as landmarks. 
 
302 A WAK DIAEY. 
 
 We came at last to the crossing of Haw Creek, beyond 
 which I found that Colonel Noble had pushed his infantry 
 four miles, and that his cavalry was at Volusia. The 
 garrison at this place was safe ; but the two small posts at 
 Welaka and Sanders had shamefully surrendered without 
 firing a gun. There was no enemy on our side of the river, 
 though the country people were much excited, affirming 
 that there were seven hundred Eebels on Haw Creek. 
 On Tuesday, the twenty-fourth, I directed the cavalry to 
 drive in all the beef-cattle that could be found, for it was 
 well known that they were being gathered for Kebel use ; 
 also to send word to the " Columbine " to return. The in- 
 fantry I ordered to concentrate in camp nine miles south 
 of St. Augustine, at the city itself, and at Picolata. The 
 troops I had brought from Jacksonville were to return 
 there. I found my transport steamer, the " Houghton," at 
 Orange Mills. In the fracas of Sunday she had been 
 struck three times with twelve-pound shot amidships and 
 near her walking-beam. She did n't lilce it, and steamed 
 down the river. Here I heard of the loss of the naval 
 steam-launch "Columbine," and the capture of most of 
 those on board. She had gone up safe to her destination, 
 and safe she might have returned, had my advice, to run 
 only by night, been heeded. But, scorning the words of 
 a landsman, the over-zealous commander came to grief 
 opposite Horse Landing, on Monday, the twenty-third. A 
 Eebel battery had been so posted on the left bank of the 
 river as to make his capture a certainty. In the narrowest 
 part of her course the " Columbine '' met her doom. The 
 youthful naval commander made some resistance, but in 
 vain ; for his rudder-chains were shot away by a raking 
 fire of artillery, his decks were swept fore and aft, while a 
 brisk musketry fire disabled many of his men. The situa- 
 tion was desperate, and nothing was left but to surrender, 
 
FLORIDA. 303 
 
 which was done, although a few escaped and made their 
 way to Haw Creek with news of the disaster. 
 
 By this movement I confirmed reports that there was 
 no enemy at Camp Finnigan; that the force at Camp 
 Milton numbered six hundred effective men of the Second 
 Florida Cavalry and two pieces of artillery ; that at Bald- 
 win there were no troops and only two pieces of artillery ; 
 that there were two hundred men at Pilatka, and two 
 thousand State troops expected at Camp Milton ; and that 
 Dunham's light battery was on the St. John's, near Welaka, 
 Sanders, and at Horse Landing. 
 
 When I had arrived at Jacksonville, I determined to 
 return the enemy's attentions by a raid on his works at 
 Camp Milton. This strongly-intrenched camp was about 
 eleven miles from my headquarters, and contained the 
 largest body of troops collected at a single station in the 
 State. This defensive work, which covered the railroad to 
 Lake City and all the dirt roads that ran due west from 
 Jacksonville, was constructed after the Olustee disaster to 
 oppose marches to Baldwin and heyond. I knew that it 
 would be very difficult to capture the works by a direct 
 assault ; but I discovered from scouts and from deserters 
 that it could be very easily turned. 
 
 By the twenty-eighth my preparations were nearly com- 
 plete. Colonel Noble, with a command numbering twelve 
 hundred and fifty-two, collected at night and concentrated 
 at Jacksonville, was directed to effect a landing at the in- 
 tersection of Cedar with McGirt's Creek, — a point two 
 miles from the mouth of the latter, on the St. John's Eiver, 
 and easily reached by boats from Jacksonville, — and 
 thence to march rapidly hefore morning in a southwesterly 
 direction to a crossing of the same creek, where, turning 
 northerly, he was to follow it up until he had gained the 
 rear of the enemy's line of intrenchments. A second 
 
304 A WAR DIARY. 
 
 column under Colonel Shaw, numbering twelve hundred 
 and ninety-nine men, was ordered to move from Jackson- 
 ville, march on the dirt road south of the railroad, and 
 threaten the intrenched line in front. 
 
 Colonel Noble, with assistance from naval boats, landed 
 his troops and began his march at about three o'clock in 
 the morning of the 1st of June. At the same hour Colonel 
 Shaw moved out from Jacksonville. The front and rear of 
 the enemy's works were gained at about the same time, but 
 too late to capture the enemy. We saw abundant evidence 
 of his hasty flight in trestle-work on the railroad in flames, 
 in stores abandoned, cooking utensils thrown away, and in 
 one hundred bushels of corn involuntarily issued for our 
 use. The line of Eebel fortifications surprised me ; it was 
 of great strength, and capable of offering resistance to a 
 very large force. The breastworks were made of huge logs 
 firmly fastened and covered with earth. At the base the 
 log parapet was six feet in width ; at the top three feet. 
 Field artillery could have made but little impression upon 
 this work. The stockades were composed of timber from 
 twelve to sixteen inches thick, with loop-holes two feet 
 apart, and protected at the base by dirt thrown up from a 
 ditch, which covered the whole line of works. At every 
 fifty yards there was a salient or re-entering angle. Two 
 works in the rear for artillery had been erected; they 
 were very strong and most elaborately finished, having 
 a sharpness of outline almost equal to masonry. Guns 
 on these works completely commanded the approach from 
 Jacksonville by rail. The line as I have described it ex- 
 tended about a mile and a half, when a new line began. 
 Across the dirt road, north of the railroad, the works were 
 of the same character as the others, save that in addition 
 to stockades there were platforms and embrasures for 
 artillery. Here, too, the defences were of great solidity 
 
FLORIDA. 305 
 
 and beautifully finished. These defences were fired ; the 
 logs burned fiercely, and the works were completely demol- 
 ished. Thus not only was the labor of many thousands 
 of men for many weeks rendered utterly useless, but one 
 of the most formidable barriers to the march of an army 
 to Tallahassee removed. 
 
 The column that moved to the rear was strong enough 
 to hold its own against any force it was likely to meet. 
 As it moved with its right resting on the creek, it gradu- 
 ally opened easy communication with the column moving 
 from Jacksonville. Not even an attempt was made by the 
 enemy in defence, so surprisingly had we come upon him, 
 so rapidly and so promptly had my plans been executed. 
 
 Having accomplished the sole object of the movement, 
 having remained from twelve to twenty-four hours within 
 the enemy's camp, I ordered, on the morning of the 2d of 
 June, a return to Jacksonville. As the troops were form- 
 ing, the enemy made a demonstration with some show of 
 numbers and a heavy skirmish fire. Eeports from the 
 front, that two large columns of the enemy were passing 
 to the rear of my left, moving down the railroad to gain 
 a nasty defile at Black or Cedar Creek, seemed to make 
 it a work of prudence to hold that crossing with my own 
 troops ; for this was the only place where the creek was 
 passable on my line of communication with Jacksonville, 
 where I had left but four hundred men. Colonel Shaw 
 was directed to send his own colored regiment rapidly to 
 the creek, and Colonel Noble to retire to within one mUe 
 therefrom, — which he proceeded to do, although at the 
 time the enemy were falling back before him. The posi- 
 tion at Cedar Creek secure, I halted my command, and the 
 men got breakfast. We were here an hour, at the end of 
 which time the enemy again appeared, and opened with 
 a purposeless skirmish fire, which we easily silenced. At 
 
306 A WAR DIARY. 
 
 no time could we possibly discover the actual numbers 
 before us. The country is flat and wooded ; and one must 
 guess as to the strength or purposes of his enemy. In the 
 Seminole war our officers suffered from the peculiar adapt- 
 ability of the country to concealment. Major Dade and 
 his command were all massacred by a foe in ambush. 
 Seymour at Olustee moved in this cribbed and coniined 
 forest to a disaster second only to Dade's. 
 
 We reached Jacksonville at dusk of the 2d of June. 
 And here ended my Florida campaign. General Birney 
 had returned to his old command; .and I was ordered 
 to present myself in person to the Adjutant-General at 
 Washington. 
 
 Once more on the steam-ship "Arago,"' bowling along 
 off the Jersey shore, I filled my lungs with fresh and 
 invigorating air. On' the morning of the 13th of June I 
 was at Washington, where I received with ill-concealed 
 chagrin an order to report in person to Major-General 
 Canby, commanding the Military Division of the West 
 Mississippi, for assignment to duty. On Sunday, the 
 eighteenth, I sailed from New York for New Orleans, 
 where I arrived on the twenty-sixth, having been detained 
 on the bar for twenty-four hours. Neither waste nor deso- 
 lation had touched the plantations and cultivated fields on 
 the Lower Mississippi, though most of the Rebel owners 
 had fled from their stately homes. Near the city the New 
 Orleans barracks came in view, and then the old battle- 
 field where General Jackson won renown. Eighteen years 
 had passed since, on my way to Mexico with General Scott, 
 I had drilled my company of Mounted Eiflemen upon that 
 field, lived in those barracks, and galloped with my com- 
 panions to the St. Charles Hotel, now filled with Yankee 
 officers, within that city where Butler once reigned. 
 
 New Orleans was intensely hot. Charges for living 
 
MISSISSIPPI KIVEK. 307 
 
 were most exorbitant; joom without board at the St. 
 Charles, three dollars a day ; a simple breakfast at a res- 
 taurant, one dollar ; a frugal dinner, two dollars ; two small 
 slices of dry toast, fifteen cents ; the same for a cup of tea 
 or coffee ; ten cents for ice and butter; sixty cents for one 
 small mutton chop. The simplest fare cost six dollars a 
 day. I heard of money-making and corruption. Perhaps 
 the of&cers could not live on their pay ! It was said 
 that Butler allowed his civilian brother to make money 
 by the purchase of unadvertised property at enforced sales ; 
 but who that knows Butler wUl believe this ? 
 
 The city presented an appearance of great activity. 
 There was a vast deal of cotton here ; twenty -five hundred 
 bales had just come in, — the property, I was told, of those 
 who were outside, claiming to be loyal men. So might 
 any man claim to be loyal who, b^ sending his cotton tQ 
 New Orleans, could get a good price for it in gold. A con- 
 vention was in session in the city to manufacture a Consti- 
 tution for the State on its readmission to the Union. A 
 majority of the members were policemen, it was said, and 
 all were men of little ability and less honesty. They 
 were then, I was told, discussing a constitutional provision 
 that policemen should hold office during good behavior, 
 and receive one thousand dollars a year ; and still another, 
 that nine hours should constitute a day's labor on the pub- 
 lic works. The convention held its meetings in the City 
 Hall, a large stone building, in which over the President's 
 head stand forth in bold letters the words, " Louisiana ! 
 the first returning State. Her voice is liberty! — Major- 
 General N. P. Banks." But the reign of Banks was over. 
 The fearful fiasco of the Eed Eiver campaign had been 
 much talked about, and a great deal of scorn was ex- 
 pressed for Banks and his generalship. 
 
 On the 2d of July I received from General Canby orders 
 
308 A WAE DIABY. 
 
 to report to Major-General C. C. Washburn at Memphis, 
 then in command of the District of West Tennessee. 
 Special instructions accompanied this order. Pive thou- 
 sand troops were supposed to be on their way down the 
 river to Morganzia, Louisiana, by virtue of orders sent to 
 Washburn on the 28th of June. It was Canby's wish that 
 these troops should be sent, if needed, to the support of 
 General Steele, whose headquarters were at Little Eock. 
 I was consequently directed to keep an incessant v?atch 
 for the transports carrying this command, and to order 
 them to return to the mouth of White Eiver if I met them 
 below that point ; but if above, then to direct them to 
 return there. The use to be made of this command was 
 specified. If General Steele's communications were en- 
 dangered, — of which I should be informed by the of&cer 
 commanding the naval' district, — I was to proceed up the 
 White Eiver and use the troops to the best advantage. 
 
 At five o'clock in the afternoon we left New Orleans for 
 Memphis, on the passenger steamer " Olive Branch," — a 
 fine, commodious boat, running on private account and 
 risk from New Orleans to St. Louis. Eiver navigation was 
 not secure. Despite the efforts of all our gunboats and all 
 our land forces at various points, it was seldom that a 
 transport escaped a severe fire from Eebel artillery and 
 musketry. Whether the quality of Eebel mercy would be 
 strained in our behalf by the gentle name of peace which 
 our steamer bore, remained to be seen. The captain, at all 
 events, did not rely upon it, for he had covered his bow 
 and his boilers with huge piles of cord- wood, and somewhat 
 protected the forward part of his upper deck with boxes of 
 hard bread, lest, as on his last downward trip, he should 
 receive salutations from Eebel riflemen along the river. 
 
 On Sunday, the third, I had time to study the appear- 
 ance of those who were making this perilous passage in a 
 
MISSISSIPPI EIVEK. 
 
 309 
 
 flimsy boat, unarmed and unguarded against dangers 
 which might burst upon us from the wooded cover of the 
 bank, or at any bend of the many windings of the Missis- 
 sippi, where the channel carries one into the very arms of 
 a waiting foe. At various points said to be dangerous 
 there were gunboats in waiting along our course; but 
 neither in strength nor numbers could they be of much 
 service to prevent our great unwieldy white-pine transport 
 
 Gunboat on the Mississippi. 
 
 from being riddled with musketry or with artillery. There 
 were along the river certain places known to be held by 
 the enemy in strong force, and these it would be necessary 
 to pass at night. There was Marmaduke with five thou- 
 sand men and seventeen pieces of artillery, a portion only 
 of his command, who, it was said, had blockaded the river 
 between the mouths of the Arkansas and the White. But 
 aU such threatened ills did not deter a dozen women, as 
 
310 A WAR DIARY. 
 
 well as many male non-combatants, from rushing into pos- 
 sible pern. There were also some children on their way 
 to St. Louis schools ; soldiers going home for a brief fur- 
 lough ; soldiers discharged, who had had enough of it ; 
 cotton merchants from New Orleans, and citizens not trav- 
 elling for amusement, I fancy. In every state-room there 
 were suggestive notices that life-preservers at the head 
 of each mattress " can be put on like jackets ; " that the 
 doors and blinds could be easily lifted off, and that these 
 would save from drowning. 
 
 On Monday, the 4th of July, we were fifty miles above 
 Natchez. It was a dangerous neighborhood. Near a point 
 we had just passed our boat had been fired at on her last 
 downward trip ; but now we went unmolested towards an 
 abrupt bend on our left, thickly wooded to the water line. 
 On our right a gunboat at anchor arrested us with a signal 
 to await the arrival of one of her small boats with a commu- 
 nication. This proved to be a statement that the enemy in 
 large force, with infantry and artillery, had within an hour 
 taken possession of the bend of the river, and that it would 
 be very dangerous to proceed. Saying this, and calling 
 attention to a long line of fires indicated by smoke curling 
 above the tree-tops, the officer in charge returned to his 
 gunboat, leaving us to the counsels of our own unaided wis- 
 dom. In this extremity the captain of the "Olive Branch" 
 consulted my pleasure ; for it was well understood that on 
 all transports within the theatre of our military operations, 
 or when engaged in the transportation of troops, the highest 
 officer in rank assumed command of the vessel. We were 
 as yet such a distance from the entrance to the channel 
 which was to be followed in doubling the dangerous point, 
 that there was ample time to steam away to the gunboat, 
 tie up, and allow it, with such consorts as it could gather, 
 to try their mettle upon the enemy. Should we do it, or 
 
MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 311 
 
 run on and take our chances ? The captain thought he 
 could pass safely, and was quite willing to run ; but would 
 do as I ordered. My mind was instantly made up ; and I 
 told him to go ahead. In less time than I can write it the 
 " Olive Branch " was ready for action. Women, children, 
 and male non-combatants were thrust into the hold below 
 the water-line ; the clerk took refuge behind his safe, the 
 captain and pilots behind the iron gratings in the pilot- 
 house, while those whose duty it was to appear indifferent 
 to danger remained on the upper deck behind a parapet of 
 hard-bread boxes. Thus defying artillery and musketry, 
 the " Olive Branch " buckled down to her work. Out of 
 her huge smoke-stacks rolled black smoke in thick clouds, 
 out of her steam-pipes the steam puffed from her high- 
 pressure engines, until the water spurted from her bows as 
 she tore into the very teeth of the enemy, sheered grace- 
 fully off or on for many an anxious mile as the tortuous 
 channel wound its course around the point, and carried 
 us all, unharmed and unmolested, beyond and above the 
 wooded bend. That there was an enemy in our path was 
 not to be denied ; yet that the " Olive Branch " was in 
 but little danger from any organized body of the enemy 
 operating anywhere on the Mississippi Eiver did not, 
 in my mind, admit of doubt. When the captain paid 
 such little heed to advices from the gunboat, and was un- 
 moved by camp-fires, I more than half suspected some 
 understanding with the enemy, some consideration moving 
 them in his behalf I hoped he knew his risk ; I doubted 
 not that he did. Indeed, we saw enough to know that prof- 
 itable mercantile relations between Northern traders and 
 Southern owners of cotton and merchandise aU along the 
 Mississippi and its tributaries were winked at by Southern 
 civil and military authorities, provided those engaged in 
 the iniquity, by the permission of Northern civil function- 
 
312 A WAR DIAEY. 
 
 aries and very grim Union generals, gave as a considera- 
 tion exchange on London or contraband of war. " Why," 
 I asked in amazement of our captain, "Why do I see 
 under the very noses of our gunboats small river steamers 
 plying up and down the Mississippi and all the lesser 
 streams and bayous in its valley, stopping at small towns 
 and villages, where all the life to be seen is in the scowl- 
 ing, ugly faces of rascals who look as if they would murder 
 a man for his boots, or lying at night near some settlement, 
 with their cabins aglow with lamps, and festive sounds of 
 music on their decks ? " And I was answered that through 
 such means our merchants of the East collected Southern 
 cotton within the lines of Southern Eebel occupation, often 
 without even a pretence of prior purchase by Union men, 
 which was sometimes needed to overcome the scruples of 
 honest civil or military authorities. Such purchase indeed 
 was at best a shallow device, and never worked to despoil 
 the Eebel army of its equivalent return of contraband of 
 war. The methods of this dishonest business were revealed 
 to me by a smart cotton trader from New York, which 
 in his case consisted of a purchase in New York some 
 months before — from a person whose home and whose 
 cotton were within Eebel lines — of several bales of 
 cotton at eight cents per pound. The next step in the 
 game was played by an alien, who could plead exemption 
 from the restrictions of trade which hamper the non-com- 
 batants of belligerents, or, that failing, could deceive an 
 honest Union general into a belief of ownership through 
 forged and fraudulent bills of sale. In this case the alien 
 was a Frenchman, who willingly agreed to land the cotton 
 in New Orleans as his own, for twenty thousand dollars. 
 This sum was paid, and the New Yorker got his cotton. 
 
 On the fifth, at five o'clock in the afternoon, we reached 
 a small place called Columbia, — a dangerous point, which 
 
MISSISSIPPI KIVER. 313 
 
 was invariably passed by boats at night. A fortnight 
 before, the Eebels had placed guns in position to stop the 
 upward passage of General A. J. Smith with twelve thou- 
 sand men; but Smith landed below, put the Eebels to 
 flight by threatening their rear, and impressed them with 
 such wholesome convictions of the determination of the 
 Union forces to keep the river open, that, as we were 
 informed by a gunboat off the point, there had been no 
 renewal of the hostile occupation. We reached the mouth 
 of the White Eiver at half past one A. M., of the sixth, with- 
 out having received a sign from the five thousand troops 
 with which I was to operate on that stream. They had 
 not passed me ; for every boat we had encountered, whether 
 by night or by day, had been halted and questioned. Nor 
 had they left Memphis. Nothing remained, therefore, but 
 to inquire about the situation, and then proceed to Mem- 
 phis and endeavor to collect troops for further action. 
 
 The commander of the naval fleet off the mouth of the 
 river was disturbed in his slumbers by my inquiries at 
 the very moment of my arrival. Steele's communications, 
 he informed me, were not threatened by the enemy at this 
 time; he had sent him yesterday two and one half millions 
 of money to pay troops with. A Eebel general (Shelby) 
 had, however, made a demonstration on the Mississippi near 
 the White Eiver with twenty-five hundred men, and had 
 captured and destroyed a gunboat ; but the guns and ma- 
 terial had been recaptured by another gunboat, and Shel- 
 by's troops had been driven some eight or nine miles back 
 by our General Carr, to Cache Eiver, where he then was. 
 Then there was the Eebel General Marmaduke with eight 
 thousand men and forty-seven pieces of artillery on the 
 right hank of the Arkansas Eiver, extending his lines 
 from Eed Pine Fork to a point about eight miles from 
 the mouth, intending as soon as he could to close both 
 
314 A WAK DIAKY. 
 
 the Arkansas and White Eiver ; and this accounted for his 
 disproportionate amount of artillery, and for the twenty- 
 pouuder Parrotts among his pieces. The Eebel General 
 Price was also at hand, with an intention, so the naval 
 officer thought, to unite with Marmaduke in an attack 
 on Steele, but not until the waters of the Arkansas were 
 low enough to afford a better opportunity for the Eebels 
 to retreat in case of defeat. Nothing was left me but to 
 proceed to Memphis in search of the promised infantry, 
 en route to Morganzia. I arrived there late in the night 
 of the sixth, found a bed at the Gayoso House at two 
 o'clock on the morning of the seventh, and reported early 
 to General Washburn, to find him sick in bed, and to 
 learn that he had no troops to send either to Morganzia 
 or to White Eiver. , 
 
 We were delayed until the eighteenth by events which 
 were not under our control, and sailed on that date on the 
 steamer " Continental " for the mouth of the White Eiver. 
 There we were to meet one brigade of infantry and two 
 batteries of artillery, with the possibility of securing other 
 troops if we needed them. 
 
 The days I had spent in Memphis had been dreary. 
 We had heard of the splendid triumph of the " Kearsarge " 
 over the " Alabama ; " and there were reports of Eebel raids 
 across the Potomac, quotations of gold at two hundred 
 and seventy, the resignation of Mr. Secretary Chase and 
 Mr. Lincoln's effort to fill his place with an incompetent 
 Mr. Todd, and the War Secretary's action in sustaining a 
 detective named Baker in his infamous charges concerning 
 the male and female operatives in the printing department 
 of the Treasury, — these and more, that it would not now 
 be wise to recall, scarce served to lighten a single hour of 
 our wretchedness. 
 
 At nine at night the " swift and commodious " steamer 
 
MISSISSIPPI EIVER. 315 
 
 " Continental " was still harrying the air with that hideous 
 sound of escaping steam which precedes tlie moment of 
 departure. A single plank connected the outer darkness 
 with the brilliant illumination of the saloon. Beyond the 
 glare of pine torches at the landing, within the indistinct 
 film of blackness which covered the streets, the houses, 
 and the people, human figures flitted restlessly around, or 
 squatted feebly on their hams, idly gazing at and idly 
 dreaming of anything and everything that came athwart 
 their vision. The boat was crowded with passengers ; 
 there were soldiers, convalescents, returning to their com- 
 mands ; citizens, followers of such fortune as might fall 
 to them from the wreck and ruin of their fellows ; and 
 women, young and old. The decks were even more 
 crowded, — cattle and hogs, ammunition, boxes piled up 
 to the floor-boards of the cabin above, and a very heavy 
 load of commissary stores heaped in that confusion which 
 is always manifest in the few last moments before a boat's 
 departure. "What a freight this is," I thought, "to ex- 
 pose on these amiable waters, where snags, sawyers, bars, 
 fire, and exploded boilers have enlisted the co-operative 
 deviltry of man's destructive ingenuity." And what that 
 deviltry was capable of doing, we most unexpectedly real- 
 ized in the last moments of our stay at Memphis. As the 
 captain was about giving his final order to get under way, 
 a man rushed along the hurricane deck, jumped to the 
 shore, and disappeared in the darkness. With this episode 
 there came the cry of " Fire ! " and then a yell of " Shoot 
 him ! " followed by a glare and lighting up of eager faces, 
 as flames began to lick up the light woodwork which, con- 
 necting with the cabins on the hurricane deck, held the 
 rope controlling the rudder from the pilot-house. For a 
 moment there was a panic among the passengers, but it 
 was soon at an end, and an orderly movement for the 
 
316 A WAR DIAEY. 
 
 shore was arrested with the cry that the fire was out and 
 all danger passed. A slight examination revealed that 
 a sponge saturated with turpentine had been crammed 
 into the pine guides which held the rudder-rope, and set 
 on fire, with the hope that when the boat backed into the 
 stream the flame would make headway, and the boat, thus 
 without a rudder, would be beyond control. In the dark- 
 ness of that night, helplessly afloat on the 'turbulent waters 
 of the Mississippi, with ammunition on board, and under 
 the appalling fear of flames, the result to man and beast 
 would have been too dreadful to contemplate. The fiend 
 who made this attempt escaped ; but the " Continental " 
 survived to carry us without further adventure to our des- 
 tination, which we reached at eleven the next night. 
 
 On the 21st of July, with a brigade "of infantry and one 
 section of artillery on seven transports, I began the ascent of 
 White Eiver, under convoy of four gunboats, for the occu- 
 pation of St. Charles Blufl^. Our movement was very slow, 
 for the channel was tortuous and shallow (a scant four 
 and one half feet of water on the bars). At Little Island 
 we were several hours getting over the bar; the fleet 
 meanwhile lay at anchor in the river, exposed to attacks 
 from an irregular force that infested the banks. On the 
 twenty-third we approached the Bluff. There seemed to be 
 an understanding between the Eebels in this neighborhood 
 and the pilots of our transports, for the latter saluted these 
 gentry with a white handkerchief, or with a friendly greet- 
 ing when near. At all events we had not been molested, 
 nor had the pilot of my boat been fired into in twenty-one 
 previous trips. At nine o'clock in the morning we were 
 ready to land. 
 
 A reconnoissance with cavalry under General Lee was 
 made, but no enemy discovered, though our troops were 
 fired at by one of our own gunboats higher up towards 
 
MISSISSIPPI BIVEE. 317 
 
 Duvall's Bluff, under the mistaken impression that we 
 were the enemy whom we expected to find. The works 
 at St. Charles Bluff had been erected more than one year 
 previously by the enemy to hold the river. They were 
 extensive and strong. The line was crenellated with plat- 
 forms for artillery in the salients, and ditches and parapets 
 were well revetted. The abandonment of the place was 
 probably due to the occupation of Arkansas by our troops 
 from Missouri. But whatever may have been the motive, 
 I was saved an immense amount of digging, for it was only 
 necessary to throw up short lines to complete works on the 
 most important positions. 
 
 Picks and shovels having been provided, the men were 
 soon at work, while in the mean time residents were inter- 
 viewed, who could not, it seemed, feel too thankful for this 
 break in their monotonous Kves. A peaceful-looking old 
 man, originally from Pennsylvania, withheld nothing he 
 knew ; but unfortunately he knew nothing which he might 
 not have withheld without loss to us or fear for his sur- 
 roundings. The poor inhabitants remained to meet us; 
 but the chickens, pigs, cattle, and a patriarchal cock, with 
 a most sagacious instinct, had fled from the blandishments 
 of seven-foot Indiana volunteers to the protection which 
 my presence afforded. Here I awaited the expected rein- 
 forcements from Vicksburg and the establishment of an 
 infantry force at Prairie Landing to protect the river, which 
 was falling rapidly to three feet on the bars. Then, under 
 the convoy of a slow Western river monitor called the 
 " Turtle," — a saurian it greatly resembled in form and 
 movement, — we made in thirty-six hours of floating what 
 should have been done in six of sailing, and arrived after 
 butting the points, rubbing the bars, and jamming the 
 curves, at two o'clock p. M., of the 24th of July, at that 
 delectable abode of human misery stranded at what is 
 
318 A WAK DIARY. 
 
 known as " the mouth of "White Eiver." The habitations, 
 the population, and the surroundings of this avenue to a 
 Western slave State differ but little from similar points 
 aU along the Mississippi. A half-dozen wretched log- 
 houses on a muddy bank, and two or three flat-boats fitted 
 up as stores on the water ; heaps of damaged corn, bundles 
 of musty hay, and miserable refugees sick and dying; 
 children, motherless, fatherless, homeless, a dirty bundle 
 their aU; steamboats overloaded with private and Govern- 
 ment stores; a few dirty soldiers and many sick ones; 
 officers eating at soldiers' tables in soldiers' kitchens ; ac- 
 cumulated filth, diarrhoea, dysentery, and cholera, — these 
 aU marked and characterized the low and foggy spot off 
 which three gunboats were then lying to protect the ave- 
 nue to Arkansas, which was the highway to Duvall's Bluff, 
 one hundred and eighty miles up a river, with three feet 
 of water in the channel, and thence forty miles to Little 
 Eock. 
 
 We did not get flattering accounts of our army in Arkan- 
 sas. Want of discipline, want of police, want of proper civil 
 and military administration, corruption and drunkenness, 
 unrestrained Hquor-selling, contractors and quartermasters 
 engaged in knavish practices (among which I may mention 
 a contract to cut and press prairie hay for the Government 
 at thirty dollars a ton, for which the man was offered, so he 
 informed me, seven thousand dollars in Chicago), — these 
 were some of the evils that threatened the efficiency of our 
 army there. And this too at a time when there was evi- 
 dence of remarkable Eebel activity in Arkansas ; of Shelby's 
 moving from Jacksonport with two thousand cavalry and 
 artillery to the neighborhood of Little Eed Eiver, where 
 there were said to be two or three thousand infantry under 
 a General Adams, who had replaced 'one McCrea, arrested 
 for cotton trading with " truly loyal Yankees ; " of Mar- 
 
MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 319 
 
 maduke, who with five to six thousand men had crossed 
 the Arkansas, and was marching northerly towards the 
 White Eiver ; of Fagan at Monticello, with six or eight 
 thousand cavalry ; of Price with ten or twelve thousand 
 men at Camden ; of Kirby Smith at Shreveport, and 
 Buckner with from twenty to twenty- five thousand men 
 (Dick Taylor's late command) at the same place ; and of 
 attempts to close the White Eiver with batteries as soon 
 as infantry could be brought to support them at Crockett's 
 Bluff, at Prairie Landing (twenty-five miles from the 
 mouth), if I should not get there first, and at St. Charles, 
 if I had not already occupied that place. 
 
 The arrival of General Bailey from Vicksburg, on the 
 twenty-fifth, with but eight or nine hundred of the twelve 
 hundred that had sailed, filled me with such apprehensions 
 of disaster that I sent one of my boats in search of the 
 " Clara Bell," in which the missing men had taken passage. 
 Meanwhile I was watching eagerly for the arrival of the 
 much-needed commissary stores and ordnance from Mem- 
 phis. During this wearisome time General Bailey was a 
 most entertaining companion. He told me of the com- 
 mencement, methods of construction, and the difficulties he 
 had to contend with in building his successful dam on the 
 Eed Eiver. At first Banks would not listen to him ; then 
 Admiral Porter was sceptical ; but at last every prejudice 
 gave way before his earnest demonstration, and thus a 
 practical mill-builder saved the navy from probable de- 
 struction. The 26th of July passed without news from 
 the missing steamer, and without supplies from Memphis. 
 Having determined, therefore, to await them no longer, I 
 had given orders to my boats to be in readiness at day- 
 light of the twenty-seventh to take us up on the morrow, 
 when I was aroused at night by news that the steamer 
 " Gladiator," on her way to New Orleans, reported heavy 
 
320 A WAR DIARY. 
 
 fighting at Helena, Arkansas, and that our loss was sixty 
 or seventy in killed. A change in my plans became neces- 
 sary. The gunboat " Tyler " of our convoy was requested 
 to go to Helena ; General Bailey, with six companies of the 
 Si.xth Michigan regiment, . was despatched to St. Charles, 
 and I remained to await the arrival of expected troops, and 
 to put them to such uses as the future might demand. 
 
 Before General Bailey's departure, which was delayed 
 untn the afternoon of the twenty-eighth, the supplies from 
 Memphis had arrived ; but it was not until the convoy had 
 sailed that I became apprised of the disaster which had 
 overtaken the " Clara Bell" and the missing troops on board. 
 With four companies of the Sixth Michigan, their equip- 
 ments and engineering tools, the steamer, it appeared, was 
 passing along the Arkansas shore at a point forty mUes 
 below Napoleon, when a Eebel battery, till then concealed, 
 opened with a rapid fire upon the boat and her defenceless 
 passengers. With shot-holes clear through her hull below 
 the water-line, with the troops crowding to the boat's side 
 farthest from the point of attack until she keeled almost 
 to the water's edge, she made for the Mississippi shore, 
 plunged her bows into the mud, and exposed to the Eebel 
 battery the view of a steamer unloading living freight with 
 more celerity than ever before known on that river. Out 
 of range, the soldiers halted and took counsel of affairs. It 
 was thought possible to plug up the holes and continue 
 the passage ; and so they would have done, had not the 
 Rebels changed the position of their guns, and opened 
 so furiously with shells that the boat was set on fire and 
 utterly destroyed. The first gun had been fired at ten 
 A. M., and at two p. M. the " Clara Bell " was in ashes. 
 One of our many gunboats went to the steamer's assistance, 
 only to seek her own safety in flight. Some ten miles 
 down the river from where the flames were destroying the 
 
MISSISSIPPI EIVEE. 321 
 
 last vestige of their boat, the Sixth Michigan soldiers made 
 their way to where a gunboat lay, thence they re-embarked 
 on a regular passenger steamer from New Orleans, and 
 again were on their way to the wooded shore which hid 
 the Eebel gunners. Concealing the troops and so dispos- 
 ing his lights as to resemble a gunboat, the captain passed 
 safely under cover of night, and delivered his men at the 
 mouth of the White Eiver without further illustration of 
 the delightful pastime it had become to sail the waters 
 of the Mississippi or its confluents. 
 
 On the morning of the 30th of July, at three o'clock, I 
 was aroused to another realization of this shuttlecock exist- 
 ence by an aid of General Canby's, who had arrived on the 
 steamer " Continental " bringing me orders to sail with my 
 whole command for Morganzia, La., as soon as I should 
 be relieved by troops to be sent by General Washburn. 
 On the 1st of August in the afternoon, no troops having 
 arrived for my relief, I took the steamer " White Cloud " 
 for Memphis. Since my occupation of St. Charles I could 
 say with truth that "peace reigned in Warsaw." Every 
 steamer from these waters, reports from our General Lee, 
 and personal inspection by General Bailey revealed a con- 
 dition of absolute security, save in a single instance of im- 
 potent guerilla firing upon our boats at Prairie Landing. 
 Lee had sent a reconnoissance to the Arkansas Eiver and 
 found nothing between it and St. Charles ; nothing at Ar- 
 kansas Post. He had also further acquainted himself with 
 the position of all the Eebel troops in Arkansas, and with 
 the fact that many commanders were away recruiting men 
 for their depleted ranks. The good effects of the seizure 
 of St. Charles Bluff were also testified to by Generals Lee 
 and Bailey, who were persuaded that after our possession 
 of that point hostile movements were abandoned by the 
 enemy. The further confirmation of this belief by General 
 
322 A WAB DURY. 
 
 Steele, in a letter to me written on the 26tli of July, with, 
 a memoranduni of the position of Eebel forces west of the 
 Mississippi, resulted in the conclusion which I had reached, 
 that I should be justified in visiting Memphis, to urge upon 
 General Washburn immediate compliance with General 
 Canby's orders ; for only thus could I, with proper expedi- 
 tion, report for the new field awaiting mei 
 
 At five o'clock of the 3d of August I was with the Gen- 
 eral in Memphis, hearing the disagreeable news that he 
 had no troops to spare, that General Sherman had ordered; 
 him to send out a command under A. J. Smith to keep 
 French from entering Tennessee, and that I should have to 
 wait some time for troops to relieve my command on the 
 White Eiver. Calling his attention to the fact that Gen- 
 eral Canby's orders, were peremptory, and that I might be 
 obliged to abandon St. Charles, I was met by Washburn's 
 assertions that he was under Sherman's orders and must 
 obey him; but that after tea, if I would call again, he 
 would in the mean time confer with General A. J. Smith 
 and give me an answer. This he did, and a favorable one, 
 though he cut down my demand for two thousand troops 
 to a division numbering a little over twelve hundred men 
 and two sections of artillery. -I suspected that this small 
 concession was due to new light which broke upon him, 
 as upon a closer inspection of his military status he found 
 that General Canby was in fact empowered to order Wash- 
 bum's troops to be sent wherever he desired. At my so- 
 licitation the movement of this division began as soon as 
 the steamers had coaled, — a preliminary which I made it 
 my business to get under way that very night. 
 
 With everything in training for an early start, I fell 
 into a most interesting discussion with General Washburn 
 about the cotton trade between rebellious and loyal per- 
 sons within his own military district. The General was 
 
MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 323 
 
 anxious to' put a stop to all private trade in cotton, 
 reserving the buying of this staple for the exclusive bene- 
 fit of the United States. His reasons for this he had im- 
 parted to our Government in a long communication which 
 he read to me. A system of checks and balances was to 
 be so arranged that dishonesty and bribery should be impos- 
 sible ; and the Government was to have the profit; Out 
 of the so-called cotton trade, as then conducted, came 
 swindling, dishonesty, corruption, and violations of law, of 
 which supplies of contraband of war to the enemy was not 
 the least ; all private rights in this: traffic- were pernicious, 
 and the permissive clemency of the Government was abused. 
 Three hundred thousaiid bales of cotton. General Washburn 
 thought, could have been obtained that year, which, at one 
 dollar and fifty cents per pound, would have amounted to 
 seven hundred dollars per bale, or two hundred and ten 
 millions of dollars. The profit on this sum would have 
 accrued to the Government if private trade had been sup- 
 pressed. But, as it was, much of this cotton was sure to 
 find its way to our lines in exchange for ammunition, sup- 
 plies, and sterling exchange. There was at that time but 
 little effort made to exclude Eebel emissaries from our lines 
 on the Mississippi. I found one at the mouth of White 
 Eiver, who, without let or hindrance, had been exchanging 
 commodities with army and navy commanders. He did 
 not wish money for his vegetables, he said, he would take 
 commissary stores ; he had twelve in his family and seven 
 negroes, whom he "fed precisely as he fed himself;" he 
 was a Union man ; the Kebels knew it, and would not inter- 
 fere with him ; he could come and gO' as he wished. By 
 such drivelling utterances had this knave so imposed upon 
 a gunboat commander, an easy and hungiy man, that a free 
 passage and unlimited smuggling had resulted for the small 
 consideration of green corn and vegetables for gunboat use. 
 
324 A WAR DIAEY. 
 
 Nor was this the only result of maladministration with- 
 in this region. Every day I discovered the evil effects 
 which this traffic in cotton was producing in both branches 
 of our service. To the closed eye the mouth of the 
 White Eiver was nothing but a Sahara, a stopping-place 
 for boats, redolent with chills and fever and poverty ; but 
 to the open eye it offered a most promising future for green- 
 backs. So thought Major of our army, an ex-major, 
 
 who came, saw, and resigned. A covered flat-boat (one 
 among the many mean- looking craft, roofed over head and 
 holding goods enough to supply a city, owned by " truly 
 loyal peddlers " wanting " facilities ") holding a bar, loafing- 
 room, sleeping-rooms, dining-room, and kitchen ; a second 
 boat for a store, filled with cheap goods ; a log-house on 
 shore as store number two ; a contract with our Govern.- 
 ment to supply boats on White Eiver with wood at three 
 dollars a cord, and a contract with negroes (refugees) to cut 
 it on Eebel lands at one dollar, to be paid in goods ; a cot- 
 ton field, under cover of United States gunboats, of more 
 than one hundred acres, with the cotton now in bloom, and 
 carefully cultivated by contrabands at one dollar a day in 
 goods, — these were the tangible fields in which the Major 
 sought compensation for that sense of glory which makes 
 it " sweet for one's country to die." N"o more for him the 
 tented field, ear-piercing fife, and army muster-rolls ; but 
 instead thereof the steamers that wanted cord-wood, seven 
 or eight at a time, to ascend White Eiver; the mouths 
 that wanted feeding while waiting for boats ; the soldiers 
 and negroes and Eebel deserters and refugees who traded at 
 his stores ; the cotton which found its way out from Eebel 
 fields and from his own ; and last, but not least, the ene- 
 my's desire to trade, which the Major found more pleasant 
 and profitable than danger from his bullets. For all that any 
 man could make out of this place the Major was the man ; 
 
MISSISSIPPI EIVEK. 325 
 
 but lie was not the only man. Movements here that had 
 seemed strange and imintelligible were becoming clear. 
 
 I had seized a steamer for service on the White Paver, 
 much to the regret and dismay of its captain, who pleaded 
 a release from Government use as a reason why I should 
 relieve him, for a short visit to his home. " You would 
 not believe me," he said, " if I told you that I have been 
 up the Ked River by permission of Abraham Lincoln on 
 the one hand, Jefferson Davis, Kirby Smith, and other 
 Eebel characters on the other, for cotton to be delivered 
 to an old friend or partner of Lincoln's; but it is true 
 nevertheless." General Washburn explained this enigma. 
 The traffic was allowed, with the understanding that if the 
 Rebels could sell their cotton they would evacuate the 
 region which held it. 
 
 Banks's Red River expedition was solely a cotton spec- 
 ulating raid. It was well understood that all the cotton 
 seized by the troops should be paid for. But the expedi- 
 tion came to grief through the arrival of Admiral Porter 
 with his fleet within the waters of the river, and his seiz- 
 ure as prizes of war of all the cotton that the Rebels had 
 transported to the banks. The bluff old Admiral was not 
 informed of the uses to which he was to be put, and went 
 about this business in a sailor-like way which seemed to 
 Eebel traders to savor strongly of treachery. Kirby Smith 
 was so enraged at what he called a violation of the contract 
 that he burned thousands of bales, and drove Banks and his 
 wagons in confusion from the region. Banks's expedition in 
 the Teche country, General Washburn says, was organized 
 for a similar purpose; but there, rumor had it, the specula- 
 tors were more fortunate. Under threats of destruction of 
 cotton and sugar, these products were transported in im- 
 mense quantities to New Orleans, where a low price was 
 offered the unfortunate owner, with the choice of accept- 
 
326 A WAE DIAKY. 
 
 ance or confiscation for disloyalty. I withliold the names 
 of prominent of&cers whose fortunes were made while the 
 soldiers were guHed, the owners defrauded, and the country's 
 fame hesmirched. Washburn could make any day, he 
 said, one hundred thousand dollars by closing his eyes to 
 the true inwardness of this vile cotton traffic. " Have you 
 ever thought," he asked, " that the cotton crop within the 
 Eebel country would in a single year, at present prices, 
 pay the whole debt thus far incurred by the Eebels in 
 carrying on the war ? " 
 
 The further discussion of this interesting subject was 
 interrupted by the necessity of giving my personal atten- 
 tion to the embarkation of troops; and even then there 
 were irritating delays, so that it was half-past three o'clock 
 in the morning of the 4th of August before we were off. 
 On the way down I stopped for half an hour at Helena. 
 General Buford was in command, and occupied, with his 
 wife and a pleasant young lady from Boston, the only 
 decent house in tumble-down, shaken-down, seedy, frowzy, 
 ragged Helena, — a place which rum, negroes, and predes- 
 tination had made a by- word and a reproach among habi- 
 tations. Buford deemed himself insulted by a body of 
 Eebel troops reported to be within nine miles of Helena, 
 and determined to remain. "Why can't you," said Mrs. 
 Buford, "disembark your troops and help my husband 
 drive this Eebel force away ? We have a leave of absence, 
 and can't take it. General Buford says, untU the Eebels 
 move. And then, too," she added, " there is such a chance 
 for glory!" This was ingenuous and pertinent. It re- 
 minded me of a late newspaper paragraph mourning the 
 death of General McPherson at Atlanta; it closed with 
 the announcement that his grandmother attended the 
 funeral. I was obliged to excuse myself with a plea of 
 more important duties, and bade good-by to those who 
 
MISSISSIPPI KIVEK. 327 
 
 in half an hour had filled my whole future with pleasing 
 remembrances. 
 
 At eight in the evening we had made the mouth of the 
 White Eiver. Everything was in statu guo. The quarter- 
 master, running over with an unusual abundance of rumors, 
 chewed his usual amount of tobacco, and was more than 
 usually addle-headed. General Bailfey was not ready to go 
 down the river. In the mean time my new troops were 
 to leave under convoy, August the 5th, to relieve General 
 Lee and his command ; and General Bailey with three boats 
 was to take the " Polar Star," " Kenton," and " St. Cloud," 
 at a quarter before five in the afternoon, for Morganzia, 
 running as much as possible at night. 
 
 On the sixth, at noon, the steamer " Gladiator " arrived, 
 bringing an aid from General Ganby with despatches to the 
 «ffect, that, the enemy having left the neighborhood of Mor- 
 ganzia, I should remain where I was if Steele's commu- 
 nications were threatened, unless Washburn's troops had 
 arrived to relieve me, — ■ in which event I should proceed 
 down the river, and if I found the enemy attempting to 
 cross the Mississippi, use " to the best advantage the force 
 at my disposal;" and suggesting that perhaps I might stop 
 at Vicksburg and act with or aid General Slocum. When 
 I received this order Bailey's command was below Vicks- 
 burg, and Washburn's force, or rather Colonel Moore's di- 
 vision, was steaming up White River. My plans, therefore, 
 were not changed, and I only awaited the arrival of Gen- 
 eral Lee's brigade to follow General Bailey. By three 
 o'clock in the afternoon of the eighth the whole brigade 
 had arrived, but could not get off in time to run by night 
 past certain Eebel batteries which were said to be await- 
 ing us.. Our start was therefore deferred until the next 
 day, and hence two more events of minor importance 
 remain to be chronicled. 
 
328 A "WAK DIARY. 
 
 We had overhauled a dug-out floating " way down the 
 river," laden with its proprietor, one passenger, several 
 watermelons at seventy-five cents each, and chickens at 
 fifty cents, — those that had not died from the heat, — 
 when a man was captured as he was dashing into the for- 
 est. A search revealed a half -bushel of CLuinine upon his 
 person. The man had come from Memphis, was suspected 
 and followed by one of General Washburn's aids, through 
 whom the capture was made, and by whom the penalty of 
 .confiscation was imposed. The second incident furnished 
 an illustration of the prevailing demoralization which on 
 this river offers its seductions to all grades and manners 
 of persons alike. Through my staff I had been approached 
 by the owner of five hundred bales of cotton, which he 
 wished to sell me at fifty cents a pound. The cotton was 
 deposited not far from where we were, in a safe place, 
 whence it could be easily brought. No commander could 
 have availed himself of this opportunity without doing so 
 at the expense of impairing his own usefulness in his coun- 
 try's service. It was a palpable case of " Choose ye this day 
 whom ye will serve ; " and I made it by bidding an eternal 
 farewell, at three o'clock in the afternoon of the ninth, to 
 the mouth of the White Eiver and its speculators. 
 
 In the early night the moon sank below the horizon, and 
 the darkness covered us, as, with our six boats trimmed to 
 resemble gunboats, we approached the dangerous point. 
 That a Eebel battery was in position on the Arkansas 
 shore, where a bend offered a most favorable site, I had 
 been informed and believed. Crammed with troops, we 
 turned into the exposed channel.. Everything was stiU, 
 save the plashing of the wheels and the sullen roar of 
 escaping steam. Anxiously I watched the dark shore-line, 
 nervously I awaited the first gleam of light and roar of ar- 
 tillery. A faint breeze swept our decks ; the single lamp 
 
MISSISSIPPI EITER. 329 
 
 at our bows shone out a single speck on the muddy face of 
 the Father of Waters, and on we went, unmolested by those 
 sleeping gunners, who on the morrow glutted their ven- 
 geance for our escape by attacking the mail steamer on 
 her way north from New Orleans (laden with sick soldiers, 
 women, and old men), with such venom that nothing saved 
 her but being towed out of range by the timely arrival of 
 a gunboat. The mail-boat was severely crippled, and some 
 of her passengers were killed. Among them was the cap- 
 tain, poor fellow, who lost his head by a cannon-ball as he 
 thrust it from the pilot's window at the first report of a 
 gun. Had our advice been followed, this boat would have 
 escaped. We had met her coming up swiftly in the 
 morning with a superb sweep, had replied to her cap- 
 tain's hail, and given our advice that he should run the 
 Eebel batteries by night. But he scorned the caution, and 
 paid the penalty. 
 
 At eight o'clock in the morning of the tenth we were off 
 Skipworth's Landing and making good headway towards 
 Vicksburg, where we arrived at five in the alfternoon, to 
 find that General Slocum did not require assistance, and 
 knew nothing of any probable attempt of the enemy 
 to cross the river. At a wooded reach in our course a 
 man from the bluff made frantic signals, waving a white 
 rag furiously, and slapping his pockets to intimate that he 
 had money to pay his passage if we would only take him 
 on board. I think I should have halted ; but the captain 
 of my boat declared that this display was only to lure us 
 to the shore, where there were probably concealed a party 
 of gueriUas awaiting a good opportunity to fire and run 
 before we could get under arms. It was a wild-looking 
 place in which to play this trick, — an old one, the captain 
 said, and often successful. 
 
 Leaving Vicksburg at six o'clock in the afternoon, we 
 
330 A WAR DIAEY. 
 
 were ten miles below Natchez at seven o'clock on the 
 morning of the eleventh. Here we were hailed by a gun- 
 boat, and with great respect for its guns we obeyed. A 
 boat in charge of a subaltern came alongsida " What do 
 you want ? " from our captain. 
 
 " Say ! a God damned fool in that boat wants a paper ! " 
 was the reply. 
 
 " Have n't got any," says our captain. 
 
 " Well, go ahead ; sorry to detain you ; " and we went 
 ahead, our men chuckling, and I reflecting upon the char- 
 acter and degree of that discipline which would allow a 
 subaltern in the United States Volunteer Navy so to 
 characterize the respectable commander of a gunboat. 
 At half-past two we were at Morganzia, where there 
 were fifteen thousand troops, a well-constructed redoubt, 
 and plenty of artillery. 
 
 On the twelfth, at eleven at night, I was summoned by 
 a despatch to report to General Canby at New Orleans. 
 Near Baton Eouge and Port Hudson we were brought up 
 by an unshotted gun, but went on after a regulation amount 
 of whistles and jarring and see-sawing, to pass at daylight 
 one hundred miles of abandoned mansions, sugar-mills, 
 negro quarters, churches, asylums, colleges, and thrifty 
 plantations, whence the owners had fled, and on which 
 Government contractors had entered and begun to cul- 
 tivate, when assured of protection, — and protection by 
 certain military commanders could generally be assured 
 under certain conditions. At five o'clock in the afternoon 
 of the thirteenth we were at the city. It was the General's 
 desire that I should command the troops at Morganzia, 
 but just then the need of commanders seemed greater at 
 Mobile Bay, where a combined army and naval movement 
 was in progress. 
 
 On the fourteenth, the order to repair to Mobile Bay 
 
MISSISSIPPI .KIVEE. 331 
 
 was issued. Major-General Gordon Granger was the com- 
 mander of the land forces there engaged, and to him I was 
 to report for assignment to duty. Owing to a delay with 
 which I had nothing to do, I was not apprised of my des- 
 tination until the evening of the sixteenth. At this time 
 I fell in with a political supporter of Banks, a man whose 
 peculiar eloquence had often resounded at the North. I 
 met him at the St. Charles Hotel. He had made a show 
 of serving his country by skipping out of the line into an 
 of&ce in the State of Louisiana at a salary of five thousand 
 dollars per annum and a brigadier-general's uniform. For 
 a man whose safety was secured he was wonderfully pat- 
 riotic, thinking this whole generation should die (and no 
 matter) rather than not press forward to the end. " If we 
 fail," he continued, " let me flee from the name of America, 
 — from every line of American literature, from every breath 
 of American poetry ; let me hide away from this shame, 
 and be hereafter unknown." These fragments of stump 
 oratory from a hale and hearty man who. howled for the 
 advance while he consented to remain ignobly in the rear 
 at a salary of ifive thousand a year, moved a few strag- 
 gling hearers to sneers. 
 
332 A WAR DIARY. 
 
 CHAPTEE X. 
 
 MOBILE BAY. — ARMY OF THE POTOMAC. — NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 AT five o'clock on the afternoon of the seventeenth I 
 left New Orleans for Lakeport ; arrived there at 
 eight after many obstructions, and took passage for Port 
 Gaines, Mobile Bay. We -had made but five miles when 
 the engineer told us that it would be unsafe to proceed, the 
 steam having blown a hole in the boiler. At half-past ten 
 at night we were back again at Lakeport. A telegram to 
 the quartermaster, " The ' Dale ' cannot be repaired until 
 twelve to-morrow; shall I take the 'Clyde'?" (a fine-look- 
 ing little steamer which seemed to be in order) brought a 
 reply : " Take the ' J. M. Brown.' " But the " Brown " was 
 out. of repair, and the engineer and pilot were in New 
 Orleans. The " Clyde " also was found to be out of sorts, 
 and could not be got into condition until the next day at 
 noon. So I pushed forward repairs on the "Dale." It 
 was eleven at night before steam was iip, and then the 
 boiler burst in a new place. The ■ " Dale " was hopeless. 
 There was nothing for it but the " Brown," and she was 
 most unfit to traverse the lake ; her hull rotten, her boilers 
 and machinery out of order, she was a most unpromising 
 craft for rough weather. But there was no alternative ; 
 so despite the captain's assertion that he could not tell 
 when she would break down, I went on board with staff, 
 luggage, and horses, and started at noon. 
 
 On the nineteenth, at nine in the morning, our rickety 
 
MOBILE BAY. 333 
 
 t 
 
 and weather-beaten old steamer passed out of Lake .Pont- 
 chartrain into Mobile Bay. There a most impressive 
 scene was presented. On our right was Fort Gaines, fly- 
 ing the Stars and Stripes from a Eebel staff. In the bay 
 we saw our gallant ships at rest, among them the " Hart- 
 ford," with the brave Admiral Farragut on board. The 
 Eebel ram " Tennessee " lay c[uietly alongside our vessels, 
 looking like a square box on a raft. From Fort Morgan 
 the Eebel flag was flying in defiance. With the old 
 " Brown " I steamed around the bay, stopping a moment 
 at Fort Gaines to find that General Granger was in the rear 
 of Fort Morgan, conducting movements to compel its sur- 
 render. There I found him with but few troops for siege 
 operations, though enough, for he had but few troops to 
 besiege. In anticipation of movements on Mobile I was 
 assigned to the command of all the forces operating on the 
 western shore of Mobile Bay. 
 
 On my way from Fort Morgan I took on board Cap- 
 tain Stephens, of the navy, who had fought a double-tur- 
 reted iron-clad in making the passage of the forts, and 
 with him visited the principal ships, wooden and iron, of 
 as gallant a fieet as had ever immortalized itself in a gal- 
 lant action. I saw the ram " Ossipee," once our formid- 
 able enemy, but then — docile and obedient — flying the 
 Stars and Stripes. In the "Oneida," Eebel shells burst 
 in the cabin and killed a luckless steward there, while 
 from stem to stern she was perforated with round shot. 
 On the "Brooklyn" more than a ton's weight of shells, 
 bolts, and round shot had been gathered from those that 
 had penetrated her sides or remained on board. On the 
 " Monongahela " I saw fearful signs of the ordeal through 
 which our vessels had passed. This ship had butted the 
 Eebel ram "Tennessee" with such force that her bow 
 showed crushed ends of timbers, and such deep inden- 
 
334 A WAE DIARY. 
 
 tations that for more than a mile I saw them as I ap- 
 proached. The commander of this vessel described and. 
 pointed out to me the course he took in making for the 
 ram, the effect of his blow, and how, as he sheered off for 
 another, the Eebel commander of the " Tennessee '' waved 
 a white flag. 
 
 Of all those naval officers who deserted our colors at the 
 outbreak of the Rebellion, none was braver or more daring 
 than he who had been removed from his captured ram 
 and sent, grievously wounded, to our naval hospital at 
 Pensacola. Captain Buchanan had shared with Dupont 
 an enviable reputation in the navy. In the Eebel service 
 he had been intrusted with great responsibilities. He had 
 fought on the " Merrimac " until that armored monster was 
 whipped by an insignificant monitor under Worden. Then 
 he had turned boldly from the protection of the guns of 
 Fort Morgan to plunge unattended into the fight with our 
 fleet under Farragut. Eelying upon the invincibility of the 
 " Tennessee," he exhibited a hardihood which came near 
 ending in his destruction. Had he not surrendered when 
 he did, he would have been sunk. It was no slight praise 
 that was accorded to Captain Strong of the " Mononga- 
 hela," when Captain Buchanan sent with his surrender his 
 compliments for Strong's bravery. Had the other vessels 
 of the Eebel navy behaved with as much Valor as was shown 
 by the " Tennessee," the naval conflict in the Bay of Mobile 
 would have been, to say- the least, more desperate. 
 
 Eesuming my visits to the ships, I saw where two 
 marines had been killed on the " Brooklyn '' by the same 
 solid shot as it glanced from the water. The commander 
 of this vessel showed me the blood stains on the deckj 
 still plainly visible, though the men had holy-stoned and 
 scrubbed to remove them. On the " Oneida " a solid shot 
 struck the heavy gun-carriage of an eleven-inch gun, shiver- 
 
MOBILE BAY., 335 
 
 ing the solid oak as if it had been of the softest pine, and 
 decapitating a marine with such force that a piece of the 
 skull was driven a quarter of an inch into the oaken carriage. 
 By other fragments of the skull, which flew around like 
 bits of shell, several men were wounded. But why enlarge 
 on these horrors ? Wherever I went, from ship to ship,, 
 I gazed on battered timbers, yawning shot-holes, crushed 
 ©aken knees, torn bulwarks, gouged sides, and deep indenta- 
 tions, — speaking witnesses of the serious conflict in which 
 these vessels had been engaged. But what shall I say of 
 the noble officers and seamen into whose faces I looked 
 as they told me how they had fought their ships, how each 
 had outrun the other to reach first the point of danger ; of 
 this commander, who plunged fiercely into the conflict 
 with the " Tennessee ; " or of that, who turned his vessel 
 when deadly torpedoes lay in his path ; or stiU of a third, 
 who, unappaUed by the fire of the hostile fort, escaped un- 
 harmed by running so near the muzzles of the enemy's 
 guns that He escaped through his own rashness. How 
 proud, these sailors were of their achievements, and how 
 they rejoiced that they had borne the dear old flag of their 
 country to victory in this fearful conflict ! In those days 
 of our tribulation and trial, — in the days when a world 
 looked upon us to see what manner of men we were, — 
 we could rejoice in our noble navy, and praise the wis- 
 dom that sustained and supported the school from which 
 it sprang. 
 
 Fort Morgan stUl held out, but could not be saved. 
 Our little army was strong enough to shut out reinforce- 
 ments from the eight hundred men that formed its gar- 
 rison ; while on the water front the navy was nearly ready 
 to. begin. By approaches and by taking advantage of 
 natural cover, our sharpshooters had got within two or 
 three hundred yards of the walls,. — so near that the Eebel 
 
336 A WAR DIAKT. 
 
 guns were rendered useless on that face. The fort con- 
 tained six months' provisions ; but there was no hope for 
 the imprisoned garrison. 
 
 The scene, of my future operations was in plain view of 
 the fort, the ships, and the beleaguering army. At sunrise 
 on the twentieth my duties began. The occupation of 
 Tort Gaines, on the western entrance to the bay, de- 
 manded my attention. This stronghold was abandoned 
 early in the fight. The action of its commander was very 
 unfavorably criticised by his superior, as will appear. The 
 fort, though covering a small area, was strongly built, well 
 supplied with artillery, and sheltered with bomb-proofs. 
 There was an inner parapet of earth for artillery, and be- 
 yond it, at the foot of the exterior slope, a wall of brick 
 loopholed for musketry, uniting at the angles with a bas- 
 tion for one heavy gun. Beyond the wall came the ditch, 
 with a trend and parapet for infantry on the counterscarp. 
 In the lower part of the bastioned wall there were embra- 
 sures for light pieces to defend the ditch. This system of 
 fortifying was new, and bad grown out of the necessity 
 for applying new defences to attacks by improved artillery. 
 The crest of the glacis protected the wall and the earth- 
 work behind it, leaving nothing to be battered down. I 
 found everything within the fort in a dirty and disorderly 
 condition, comparing favorably, however, with its custo- 
 dians, — a detail from a colored regiment, one of whose 
 members, a watchful sentinel, guarded the entrance by sit- 
 ting at the sally-port in a rocking-chair. The distance to 
 Fort Morgan across the bay is three miles, so that we were 
 within range of its heavy guns, had there not been more 
 important matters to claim the attention of its garrison. 
 With my glass I could count three tiers of guns in that still 
 defiant fort, with seven guns in each tier, — one set in the 
 low sand-battery, one above in casemates, and one on the 
 
MOBILE BAY. 337 
 
 parapet of the enceinte. The Rebel flag was flying, tut it 
 flapped mildly, as if without confidence in its length of 
 days. 
 
 The bay is singularly beautiful, and abounds in fish, oys- 
 ters, and fresh air, — though the air was the only delicacj' 
 which we were able to enjoy. For food we had ham and 
 hard-bread for breakfast, varying it with bread and ham 
 for the rest of the day. At daylight, on the morning of 
 the twenty-second, the bombardment of Fort Morgan began. 
 From shore and seai our guns sent their missiles over, into, 
 and around the doomed fort. For a time the firing was 
 wild ; but soon the range was more accurate, and our shells 
 plunged squarely into the inclosure. The firing was con- 
 tinued through the day, and, prolonged into the night. The 
 concussion shook the room in which I slept, and filled 
 the air with its reverberations. During the night a bright 
 flame shot up from within the fort, and on the morning of 
 the 23d of August, the day of the surrender, a dense black 
 smoke arose from it. The day before, I had been HI, and 
 unable to leave my bed, being threatened with congestive 
 chills. At length 1 slept, and rose refreshed at half-past 
 six on the morning of the second day of the bombardment, 
 to see the Eebel commander of Fort Morgan run up a white 
 flag. Hardly had our fire ceased, when the enemy showed 
 himself on the glacis. Negotiations for surrender were 
 begun. Unconditional and immediate surrender was the 
 demand, with the single condition, which was allowed, 
 of remaining within the fort until two o'clock in the after- 
 noon, to enable the officers and men to pack up their lug- 
 gage, — for they had made no preparation to leave. The 
 Eebel commander — one Page, a former of&cer of the 
 United States Navy — signified his ready compliance with 
 the terms. Captain Arnold, in behalf of the army, and 
 Captain Drayton, flag-captain, for ihe navy, were ordered 
 
 22 
 
338 A W4.E DIAKY. 
 
 by Admiral Farragut and General Granger to receive the 
 surrender. 
 
 When the white flag was run up, I pushed off in a small 
 boat for the fort, where Drayton and Arnold soon appeared, 
 walking on the glacis with the Eebel commander. Page, 
 in a plain suit of citizen's clothing, looked very stiff as he 
 pointed seaward to what I afterward learned to be the posi- 
 tions of formidable torpedoes. From the starched manner 
 in which this late lord of Fort Morgan bore himself, I could 
 well understand why our sailors had dubbed him " Eamrod 
 Page." It had leaked out that Page was very indignant 
 with his brother-in-arms, Colonel Anderson, for surrender- 
 ing Fort Gaines when Farragut summoned him. The 
 Mobile papers had spoken of this surrender as a shameful 
 and cowardly act, and had asserted that Page had not only 
 signalled to Anderson, " Don't give up your fort," but had 
 rowed there in the night in a small boat, to find that An- 
 derson was with our fleet, negotiating terms of sun'ender, 
 and that Page then placed a subordinate officer in com- 
 mand. Such an invincible spirit, it may be thought, would 
 have scorned to surrender his charge until the heroic 
 defence of Saragossa had paled before his achievements. 
 Indeed, a blush of such determination did mantle the stern 
 cheek of Sir Eamrod ; for it was said that when, before the 
 bombardment, he was summoned to surrender, he replied 
 that he would exhaust the lives and the means at his dis- 
 posal in defending the fort. Twenty-four hours of bombard- 
 ment so changed the whole aspect of things, that Page 
 declared his willingness to surrender to prevent further 
 suffering and loss of life. Though not a gun had been fired 
 from the fort in reply to ours from land and sea ; though 
 not a soul had been killed or wounded by our fire ; though 
 our land batteries had without serious opposition been 
 established within short range of his covered way, and 
 
MOBILE BAY. 339 
 
 our sharpshooters permitted to take positions where the 
 effective use of the Eebel guns was rendered impossible, 
 — yet, to prevent further suffering and loss of life, Page 
 surrendered ! 
 
 Who is entitled to praise for the manhood displayed in 
 the defences of .Mobile Bay, — Page, or Anderson ? When 
 the latter saw that nothing had availed to hold back the 
 hostile fleet ; that the strongest of forts manned with the 
 most formidable guns, the channel filled with torpedoes, 
 the harbor holding its fleet of armored ships and dreaded 
 rams, — that all these were swept away from the path of our 
 vessels as obstructions of but little weight, he knew that 
 his position was hopeless. The great guns of our navy 
 commanded his fort, and could destroy it ; the forces of our 
 army invested his position, and he could not escape : so, 
 braving public obloquy, Anderson surrendered Fort Gaines, 
 though not without a vigorous fire upon our ships and a 
 considerable loss of life. It would seem that had the 
 commander of Fort Morgan exercised as sound judgment 
 as did the commander of Fort Gaines, he would have 
 spared the country that exhibition of mock heroism ia 
 which he played so conspicuous a part. 
 
 At two o'clock in the afternoon, when our forces took 
 possession of Fort Morgan, it was found that all the ar- 
 tillery had been spiked and the powder destroyed. Upon 
 being interrogated as to when this destruction took place, 
 Page replied that it was done before the surrender. But if 
 this were so, the commander of Fort Morgan was guilty of 
 false statements to Captain Drayton and General Arnold, 
 for he told those officers at the morning conference that 
 there was no necessity for his surrender at all ; that he had 
 not been materially injured by the bombardment ; and that 
 he could, if he chose, have prolonged the combat. More- 
 over, he added, " The army has done me no harm what- 
 
340 A WAR DIAKY. 
 
 ever ; " with more twaddle of like nature, all of which was 
 refuted by the condition of the fort. Could he have con- 
 tinued the iight with his guns spiked and his powder 
 destroyed? Of course not. Then these acts must have 
 been committed before the conference with our of&cers, 
 before the white flag, as large as a sheet, was thrown out 
 in token of submission; or the spiking and destruction 
 must have been committed after the surrender, and during 
 the delay granted to enable his of&cers to pack their lug- 
 gage and get ready to leave the fort. If before. Page de- 
 ceived Captain Drayton and General Arnold ; if after, he 
 violated all rules of honor and abused our clemency, for 
 he had no right to take anything away, nor to injure or de- 
 stroy anything that remained. When his own life and the 
 lives of his garrison were given him at his own beseech- 
 ing, the public property became ours ; and the pitiful 
 excuse made by this modern Don Quixote, that because 
 General Granger came in a small unarmed boat close to 
 the wharf of the fort when the white flag was thrown out, 
 and overlooked his works, he was obliged to surrender, and 
 therefore could in turn justify himself for violating the 
 laws of war, shows to what extremes this chivalric Virgi- 
 nian was pushed. Any sea-lawyer would have told Page 
 that this was pettifogging. 
 
 At two o'clock in the afternoon the Rebel garrison, six 
 hundred strong, marched out of the fort. Page had added 
 a straw hat to his citizen's dress. Like his officers, he was 
 unarmed. Some of them said they never had had swords, 
 others that they had lost them. After the surrender and 
 departure of the troops the fort was overrun with our sol- 
 diers and sailors. They looked into every box and trunk, 
 into every hole and casemate, dragging into light odds and 
 ends that were odd and endless enough. " I have got a 
 woman's likeness," shouted one young sailor to his com- 
 
MOBILE BAY. 341 
 
 rades ; " and Jack has got an ink-bottle, and there 's lots 
 of plunder," — all of which was exhibited as men and 
 ofi&cers staggered along with spoil, which, however, they 
 were soon compelled to disgorge to the sentinels as they 
 emerged from the sally-port. The inside of the fort 
 showed hard usage. The Eebels described the effect of 
 the bursting of fifteen-inch shells as terrific. The work 
 was an old-fashioned one, with a low sand-battery added. 
 An immense citadel, occupying the middle of the enceinte, 
 took fire from our shells and burned until the wood- work 
 was destroyed. This may have hastened the surrender. 
 Guns were dismounted, carriages broken, and so much 
 debris scattered around that the interior presented a sad 
 spectacle. Although the casemates were not properly pro- 
 tected by blindages, the fact that six hundred ofi&cers and 
 men remained in the fort during a twenty-four hours' 
 bombardment without death or injury, proves that there 
 must have been ample protection within, and that the fort 
 could have held out much longer. 
 
 At four P.M. General Granger left for New Orleans, and 
 the command of all the forces and operations in Mobile 
 Bay devolved upon me. On the twenty-fourth I visited 
 Admiral Farragut on his ship, the " Hartford," and dined 
 with him. In preparing for a movement of troops, I sought 
 the Admiral's co-operation, which he gave, of course, most 
 cordially. He was as brown as a nut, with a fresh, manly, 
 and honest countenance, such as one would expect to 
 find in a man whose achievements had entitled him to a 
 foremost, if not the first, place among the heroes of the 
 war. Dinner was announced shortly after my arrival, to 
 which' the Admiral insisted I should, with my adjutant- 
 general, accompany him. His invitation was so cordial 
 that I could not decline. When we were seated, the Ad- 
 miral in low tones asked a blessing upon our repast. The 
 
342 A WAR DIARY; 
 
 dinner passed in pleasant talk about Mobile, the bay, the 
 chivalric honor of Colonel Anderson, and the questionable 
 conduct of Commander Page, — all of which I wiU not 
 elaborate further. Said the Admiral : " Passing the forts 
 was nothing. I wrote the Department that I could pass 
 the forts at any time ; aU I wanted was a single iron-clad. 
 Well, it never rains but it pours. Four iron-clads came 
 down to me; and then I went in immediately. But I 
 could have gone in at any time within three months, and 
 so I informed the Department." To my question, whether 
 the fire from the forts seriously damaged his ships, he 
 replied, with some show of contempt for the enemy's fire, 
 " No ! " then added, " The main fight was with his iron- 
 clads : that was severe. I watched it very closely. Our 
 ships were aU. around the ram ' Tennessee,' and when I 
 saw him begin to back one wheel, as you did when you 
 came up alongside, I said, ' We 've got him ! '" I spoke 
 of the loss of the "Tecumseh," a monitor carrying a fif- 
 teen-inch gun, which went down with all on board while 
 our fleet was entering the harbor. Eeferring to her sudden 
 disappearance (she struck a torpedo), I asked if Craven, 
 her commander, entered the harbor in the course pointed 
 out for him. The Admiral thought he might have departed 
 a little from his orders ; but upon being set right by Cap- 
 tain Drayton, added: "Well, he took his chances." On 
 the matter of torpedoes I questioned the Admiral eagerly, 
 for I was deeply interested in knowing whether in his 
 wooden ships he attempted to avoid them. He laughed as 
 he said : " No ! I heard torpedoes cracking all around me ; 
 I knew there were chances of getting in without their 
 exploding ; I knew also that there were chances of their 
 exploding without blowing up my vessels, and I took these 
 chances. I know of no other way to fight an enemy but 
 to take chances and go ahead ! " The capture of Vicksburg 
 
MOBILE BAY. 343 
 
 coming up, the Admiral said that he first proposed to Grant 
 to drop down below Vicksburg, land, and make his way 
 around by Jackson ; that Grant looked over the map which 
 Farragut had exhibited in his cabin, and said : " It looks 
 well : 1 11 try it ; and if I don't succeed, I will come back 
 and fight it out in front of the city." I saw where the 
 " Hartford " was struck by the " Lackawanna '' in her at- 
 tempt to run down the " Tennessee." An awful hole it 
 was, indeed, though at the time the " Lackawanna " was 
 backing ; she saw how inevitable the impact must be in 
 spite of her efforts to avoid it. The Admiral was out- 
 spoken in condemnation of the use of torpedoes in war- 
 fare ; he thought their employment about on a par with 
 poison, though he admitted that he would " fight fire with 
 fire." The Admiral believed in wooden ships. He had 
 been in the "Hartford" since the war broke out. "A 
 ship of wood and a heart of iron," he said to me, " are as 
 good as an iron-clad." I left the Admiral with a con- 
 firmed conviction that in capacity and valor he was one 
 of the ablest officers of the navy. 
 
 One of my aids brought with him from Fort Morgan a 
 few articles for our table use, which Page had not carried 
 away; also two good negro servants, both of whom I hired. 
 These men told me that Page used silver forks and spoons, 
 but that he saw them all packed in his trunk before the 
 hour of surrendering came. The Eebel sick, surgeons, and 
 matrons I sent to New Orleans. A chaplain who accom- 
 panied them begged to be released as a non-combatant; 
 but I replied : " Not yet ; for you parsons stir up bad blood 
 by your preaching, — at least the people say so of you." 
 We found many sacks of fine coffee in the fort, with other 
 evidences that good living abounded. It was amusing to 
 hear from my new colored servants a recital of what Page 
 threatened to do with our fleet. He had roared like a Hon 
 
344 A WAR DIAKY. 
 
 of his achievements; he had "kept the whole Yankee 
 fleet at hay, sir ! would sink them, sir ! should they at- 
 tempt to enter." Chivalry had listened to, and ladies had 
 smiled upon. Sir Eamrod. Even when our fleet had passed 
 the fort, this hragging went on. He signalled Buchanan 
 not to go out and fight them ; " Tor, sir," said he, " I 've got 
 every one of them ; they 've got to run by my fort to get 
 out, and they can't get by, sir ! Every one of those ships 
 is mine." 
 
 The twenty-fifth was passed in advancing my lines for 
 the occupation of Cedar Point, which was on the direct 
 road to the city of Mobile. Four transports, two tin-clads 
 borrowed from the navy, and two army boats carried the 
 troops. In all there were two thousand men, two batteries, 
 and a large quantity of engineering tools. We made the 
 landing with difficulty, over a wharf at least one third of a 
 mile in length, and in a most desperate condition. General 
 Emery, the Eebel commander at MobUe, had attempted to 
 render this wharf altogether useless; but the men clam- 
 bered over leaning piles, broken stringers, and crazy 
 planking to the shore. The tin-clads, after landing their 
 troops, took positions on each side of the narrow penin- 
 sula along which we were to march. The captured ram 
 "Selma,'' with her heavy battery of Brooks guns, towed 
 launches in which, if necessary, to land the troops. I 
 went forward to reconnoitre. The sun was hot, and the 
 mosquitoes were frightfully thick. We advanced towards 
 a Eebel fortification which was in fine condition, having 
 heavy bomb-proofs. We neither saw nor heard the 
 enemy. Save on the shell road, the country on either 
 side from water to water was a marsh. Deciding to oc- 
 cupy the Eebel fort, I ordered the engineers to complete 
 the lines- by additional works, and directed the bridge and 
 wharf to be completed and artillery landed. This occu- 
 
MOBILE BAY. 345 
 
 pied until eight p. M., when I was rowed in a small hoat 
 about five miles to Fort Gaines, which I reached at fifteen 
 minutes past nine, having passed the day without food 
 or rest, to look forward to a night in which heat and 
 mosquitoes contended for the mastery. 
 
 Our enemy was hard at work erecting batteries near 
 Mobile in every conceivable place and situation, also in 
 laying down obstructions to our ships, — some of these, 
 however, the navy had blown up at night. My cavalry had 
 found the enemy's pickets on the easterly side of Mobile 
 Bay. Every day furnished new and amusing revelations 
 of the hopes and fears which had been indulged in by 
 those in Fort Morgan in anticipation of our attack ; much 
 was said, of course, in the presence of servants at the 
 table, with that forgetfulness of the " cheil amang " them 
 taking mental notes which is not uncommon everywhere. 
 Olmstead, Page's colored waiter in the fort, now mine, 
 said that the Eebel commander could not conceive how 
 Farragut got by his guns. "I do not see how I failed 
 to sink the ' Hartford.' I do not see how I failed to sink 
 her," he muttered at his table. Why should he not won- 
 der ? All his guns bore upon the " Hartford," and all his 
 will was to sink the brave old ship which bore the gallant 
 Admiral. Page knew that the loss of Farragut would be 
 almost irreparable to us ; so he trained his gTins, and fired 
 his huge shot, and looked out from the flame and smoke 
 to see the " Hartford," with our plucky Admiral on board, 
 pass on unscathed. So muttering and musing of his fail- 
 ure, he spiked his guns and surrendered without a shot. 
 
 Two young engineer officers on my staff found in Fort 
 Morgan a classmate of Southern birth and proclivities, 
 who, while condemning the act of the Eebel commander 
 in spiking his guns, and excusing him through ignorance 
 of proper observances in such situations, severely criti- 
 
346 A WAR DIARY. 
 
 cised our inhumanity in maintaining fire on the fort after 
 flames had burst out from its citadel. " Why did you not 
 stop it by raising the white flag?" was asked, and an- 
 swered with the statement that this course was not 
 thought necessary. Our inhumanity ! Of what was the 
 Eebel milk of human kindness made, when our sailors, 
 blown into the water by torpedoes and struggling for life, 
 were shot dead by concealed riflemen from the shore; 
 when our women, children, and sick soldiers, traversing 
 the Mississippi, were greeted with batteries of artillery, 
 amidst cries of non-combatants, bursting boilers, smoke 
 and flame, and sinking wrecks ? What shall be said of 
 Sumter, where the Eebels began the war by the very act 
 which is now condemned; of Fort Pillow, where hell 
 itself was shadowed in that glare of Eebel wickedness; 
 of Quantrell and Forrest ; of Libby Prison and Anderson- 
 ville ? One could hardly believe that we had been so long 
 associated as fellow-countrymen with such cruel monsters 
 as some of these denizens of a slave-holding region showed 
 themselves to be. 
 
 On the twenty-eighth I could not neglect the progress 
 of that malarial poison which had for several days op- 
 pressed me. So utterly wretched with aches in head, eyes, 
 and limbs I had never felt. And yet the duties devolving 
 upon me had to be performed as long as soul and body 
 could hold together. A movement upon Mobile, it 
 seemed to be conceded, was not to be made at that 
 time, — there were not troops enough ; and General Canby 
 had plans of action on the Mississippi at Morganzia, where 
 troops were to be sent, and the Nineteenth Corps re- 
 organized. 
 
 On the thirty-first, the last day of summer, in the even- 
 ing, Admiral Farragut came ashore in his steam yacht to 
 call upon me. I had been visiting the eastern side of the 
 
MOBILE BAY. 347 
 
 . bay in a miserable old tub of a metamorphosed canal-boat, 
 too ugly to make headway, too perverse to keep still, and 
 
 ■ too ungainly to tie up, and had arrived at my wharf to find 
 the Admiral, with some officers of his staff, awaiting my 
 landing. Exchanging salutations at a distance, I curbed 
 my impatience while the foolish captain of my pig-headed 
 beast of a boat " roped her in " near enough to enable me 
 to jump ashore and accompany the Admiral to my quar- 
 ters. I called Olmstead in to tell about Page's close 
 confinement to his bomb-proof during the day of the bom- 
 bardment, and of his begging for a cup of tea, which, not 
 forthcoming (because Olmstead declined to go to' the 
 kitchen to make one), left him with nothing but. the shells 
 which had been so liberally supplied by our navy during 
 the day. Speaking of the political contest in Virginia 
 which preceded the Eebellion, the Admiral said that both he 
 and Page, finding themselves in the same representative dis- 
 trict, in or near Norfolk, Virginia, worked together against 
 Secession sympathies and tendencies. "Together," con- 
 tinued the Admiral, " we carried our district for the Union ; 
 and yet Virginia was dragged out. Page had no sympathy 
 with Secession, and I don't believe he has any now. I have 
 heard him say to men who argued in its favor, that he had 
 no patience with them. ' But,' he said to me, ' if my State 
 goes out, what am I to do ? I can't give up home and 
 friends.' ' I know I can,' I replied ; ' I know there 's some 
 other place in the world to live in besides Norfolk.'" 
 Again the Admiral repeated that Virginia was most in- 
 famously dragged out of the Union, and that he could not 
 follow her. Suppose there had been more men like him, — 
 men who not only wished Union, and talked Union, and 
 voted Union, but who were determined to fight for Union, — 
 we should have had more Parraguts and so small a volume 
 of Pages, that Virginia, true to her best thought, her best 
 
348 A WAR DIARY. 
 
 history, and best men, would not have been dragooned by 
 political knaves and mountebanks. Such as these, with a 
 few historic names, it is painful to think, were potent to 
 drive her into rebellion against the Government. 
 
 As the Admiral returned to his yacht, I fell in with 
 Captain Drayton and spoke to him of what was then much 
 talked of, — the Admiral's passing Fort Morgan lashed in 
 the rigging of the " Hartford." I was much surprised at 
 the reply that others of his officers were also equally ex- 
 posed ; and that as to the lashing, it was a measure of pru- 
 dence suggested by the captain himself, who, perceiving 
 the Admiral about to take his position in the shrouds, 
 advised this precaution. Indeed it did not seem that this, 
 which has so added to Farragut's reputation for daring, was 
 more than was expected of him, or that it exposed him 
 to greater peril than if he had remained on deck. 
 
 A spicy letter, reported to have been sent by General 
 Canby to the President, in which he wrote that if the cot- 
 ton traffic was to be continued within his division by per- 
 mits from Washington, in the face of Treasury regulations 
 prohibiting it outside of our picket lines, he could not 
 control the military situation west of the Mississippi, — 
 called forth an opinion from the Admiral that such permits, 
 if they had been given, were justified by the necessity of 
 relieving our cotton-spinners at the North, and therefore 
 that the proceeding was both patriotic and justifiable. The 
 Admiral proved himself daily to be a dear old fellow, an 
 innocent, fighting Admiral. But the torpedoes that he 
 had fished up in this bay, where there were some hun- 
 dreds more planted, — would it not have injured Northern 
 manufactures and trade to discourage or condemn their 
 use in Eebel warfare ? Might we not as well have manu- 
 factured war material for the enemy as buy his cotton with 
 that which enabled him to purchase war material ? What 
 
MOBILE BAY. 349 
 
 would Page say, — Page, who fought the political contest 
 side by side with the Admiral, who went out because Vir- 
 ginia went out, and who planted torpedoes for his friend and 
 old comrade to sail over, because that friend and comrade 
 bore at his top the flag of the Union ? Ask Page what he 
 thought of Lincoln's permits for traffic in cotton on the 
 Ked Eiver, and whether our nation was benefited thereby. 
 Any officer of our army would agree with General Wash- 
 burn, that our Government was entitled to all it could 
 make out of all the cotton it could seize in the South, to 
 pay for food supplied to Southern paupers, if for no other 
 purpose. In June of that year. Banks at New Orleans, as 
 was shown by figures taken from the provost-marshal's 
 books, issued seven thousand nine hundred rations daily to 
 those negroes who were not employed by the Government ; 
 at Vicksburg, in the same month, the rations issued to the 
 same class of persons amounted to forty-eight thousand 
 four hundred. What were the net receipts from a region 
 which drew so largely upon the Treasury ? Was there not 
 a better use for cotton than granting permits to private 
 favorites to exchange for it contraband of war? How 
 many more Southern cities ought we to have taken if the 
 capture required a daily gift of seventy-nine thousand 
 rations to contrabands ? 
 
 By the 2d of September it became apparent, through 
 orders for the transfer of two of my regiments at Cedar 
 Point to Morganzia on the Mississippi, that no immediate 
 movement would be made on Mobile. Sickness was on 
 the increase ; malarial fever patients filled our temporary 
 hospitals. Strange pains and aches and debility were with 
 me a daily experience, which baffled the doctor's drugs and 
 the doctor's care. Northern air was recommended and 
 ordered; but I was averse to giving up, though I was 
 stricken with a violent chill while in a boat transferring 
 
350 A WAR DIARY. 
 
 troops on the bay. Absolute prostration and utter help- 
 lessness oppressed me for the first time in my life. The 
 heat in the bay was not relieved by the wind which our 
 boat had stirred. A sudden chOl in all this heat, an un- 
 bearable suffocation followed by a burning fever, sent me 
 to the shore, whence I was carried to my camp-bed, and 
 there restored to life from the beginning of death. The 
 next day found me weak, unable to rise, and in receipt of 
 orders from General Canby to report for duty to Major- 
 General Eeynolds, commanding the Nineteenth Army 
 Corps. Through the aid of quinine, I was able to take an 
 outside passage for New Orleans on the 4th of September, 
 stopping a moment at the " Hartford " to say farewell to 
 Farragut and to give him a rocking-chair which came out 
 of Fort Morgan, for which he had expressed a wish. By 
 night we were off the mouth of the Mississippi, and on the 
 fifth at New Orleans, with Page's Servants exulting in 
 their freedom. On the seventh, with a leave of absence 
 for twenty days on account of sickness, I was on board 
 the steamship " Empire City," bound for Fortress Monroe, 
 with permission to make application for duty at the 
 North. 
 
 On the twenty-seventh, after a few days at home, !■ 
 touched again at the Fortress on my way to City Point, 
 where I arrived at four o'clock in the afternoon. General 
 Grant was near the landing, within the square which held 
 his own tent and the tents of his staff. As I approached, 
 a mutual recognition followed, though we had not met 
 since we were in the city of Mexico under Scott. Grant 
 was talking with his staff in an easy and familiar way, 
 when General Hunter, who had come up on the steamer, 
 introduced me. " Why," said the General, " I knew you, 
 Gordon, a quarter of a century ago." We were together 
 two years at West Point. Cadet Grant graduated in 1844. 
 
AEMY OF THE POTOMAC. 351 
 
 It was twenty years since I had first met him. " Come to 
 my tent," he added, in an easy and cordial way ; and we 
 directed our steps towards a good-sized wall-tent, with a 
 carpeted floor and but little camp furniture, pitched on 
 the greensward of a rich estate on the bank of the James. 
 The scene, with the flag flying in front near the cottage 
 of the owner of this domain, which was surrounded with 
 hedges, shrubbery, and roses, was both beautiful and pictur- 
 esque. Beyond, where soldiers overran, batteries defaced, 
 and hungry mules destroyed, the usual desolation and de- 
 struction were exhibited. Grant offered cigars. Of course 
 he was smoking; indeed he was rarely without a cigar. 
 He made the frank admission, however, that he " smoked 
 too much," and thought he " felt better when he hankered 
 after a cigar'' than when he "smoked one." The Gen- 
 eral's mail was handed him. Some letters he read with 
 great interest ; one from a mutual friend (an old flame of 
 his, he said, the wife of an officer in his army) could not 
 have been addressed to one more potent. Another was from 
 the President, — Uncle Abe, as Grant called him. After 
 reading it he said, " That 's kind of Uncle Abe ; he says he 
 won't do so any more ; good boy ! " Still another, with an 
 envelope enclosed, was torn up and thrown on the floor. 
 " An application for an autograph 1 " asked General Hun- 
 ter. " Yes," replied the General ; .then added, " I don't get 
 as many as I did when I answered them." But he con- 
 tinued, " I do get a great many letters telling me how to 
 take Eichmond. One writer thinks if I and all my soldiers 
 would pray at one and the same moment for the fall of 
 Eichmond, we might fetch it. Another thinks I ought to 
 surround Eichmond with a water-tight dam, and pump the 
 James into it." The conversation lasted for two or three 
 hours, and was shared with large numbers of civilians of 
 note and general officers who had dropped in, all of whom 
 
352 A WAE DIAEY. 
 
 however' could do little more than listen, for the General 
 steadily held the floor and did most of the talking. Grant 
 is a much better looking man than his photographs repre- 
 sent him to be. I could easily discover the old resolute 
 look which I had often noted when he was a gray-coated 
 cadet at West Point; and it gave me every encourage- 
 ment to believe that at last the right man was in the right 
 place. In that face of courage, capacity, watchfulness, 
 hopefulness, and reticence, I saw self-confidence, without 
 which all other soldierly qualities are as nothing. 
 
 In the morning I saw Butler on the other side of the 
 Appomattox, ready for his "bottling." He had pretty 
 well exploded General Quincy A. Gillmore's military pre- , 
 tensions, though he said he had as yet only begun on him, 
 — he had "charges to prefer against him." But General 
 (Baldy) Smith's case was a puzzler to Butler, — one of 
 "pure cussedness" he called it. He could not under- 
 stand it. " Smith is a valuable officer," he said, and he 
 would have done him no injustice any more than he would 
 have knocked the horse on the head that was safely carry- 
 ing him on his journey. "But," added Butler, "I am 
 reminded of the old couplet, — 
 
 '"He digg'd a pit and digg'd it deep. 
 And digg'd it for his brother. 
 But he fell into that pit instead of t'other !" 
 
 Butler was, as usual, a little mistaken, as was proved by 
 after events then moving rapidly on. 
 
 I left Grant's headquarters with assurances from the 
 General that I should be ordered on duty with his array. 
 On the 3d of October I received a despatch from General 
 Grant, dated at City Point, October 1, directing me to 
 report to General Butler. This assignment was not what 
 I had anticipated from the General-in-Chief; but there 
 
ARMY OF THE POTOMAC. 353 
 
 ■was no remedy for it, so I prepared to obey, with the 
 belief or hope that it was only a stepping-stone to better 
 things beyond. On the 13th of October, at nine o'clock in 
 the morning, I took passage for Bermuda Hundred, on the 
 same steamer in which, but a few days before, I had sailed 
 for City Point with General Burnham of Maine, who was 
 returning from a furlough. The General had his little son 
 with him, " taking him out," he told me, " to see some- 
 thing of the army. He will probably be a soldier, as his 
 father is," he added, patting the boy's head in a gentle, 
 loving way. Alas for human hopes ! The next trip the 
 steamer made she bore the dead body of the General, with 
 his weeping son, back to the old home. On the day after 
 our landing an engagement between the enemy and our 
 forces, including General Burnham's command, had blotted 
 out the life of the fond father and the gallant soldier. 
 
 By steamer, tug, and ambulance, I reached Butler's tent, 
 on the north of the James, on the 13th of October, to iind 
 that a division in Birney's corps, then temporarily com- 
 manded by General Terry, was to be assigned to me. I 
 studied carefully the position occupied by the Tenth 
 Corps, the scene of its exploits in conjunction with the 
 Eighteenth, afterwards designated as the Twenty-fourth 
 and Twenty-iifth, — the former white, the latter black, — 
 the enemy's line of rifle-pits, the good work done by our 
 colored troops on the New Market Heights, and the loop 
 (bottle) which Butler made for his troops in strengthening 
 his right by returning it to the James. 
 
 An overpowering sense of debility from malarious at- 
 tacks in the Gulf convinced me that it would be but jus- 
 tice to myself and the troops I might command to ask for 
 a few days' respite, that I might test my strength and tone. 
 Butler, kindly assenting, suggested that I take a tent near 
 his headquarters and await movements soon to be made, 
 
354 A WAR DIARY. 
 
 in which I should participate. I gladly accepted this con- 
 dition, and went to bed, — returning the next day, how- 
 ever, to Fortress Monroe, to hurry forward my horses and 
 equipage, daily expected there. Not a mile to the front, 
 strains of music from our battle-line came to my ears. 
 Behind thirty-two miles of intrenchments, crossing the 
 James and the Appomattox from the New Market Road 
 on the right to and over the Weldon Eailroad on the left, 
 the armies of the Potomac and of the James confronted, 
 in some places within half pistol-shot, the Eebel lines. 
 
 On the fifteenth I was again at Fortress Monroe. My 
 expectations of returning on the next day were not to be 
 realized. After a sleepless night I was prostrated with 
 fever. Mustard baths and medicines were prescribed by 
 two physicians, with the usual good effects in such cases. 
 The utter impossibility of returning to duty at once was 
 ailso pointed out, and a stay of fifteen days in a more 
 northerly climate insisted on as indispensable to recovery. 
 On the seventeenth, Butler, who had come to the Fortress, 
 approved of the surgeon's decision, and offered me the com- 
 mand of a colored corps when I should return. 
 
 On the nineteenth I arrived at Philadelphia, and gave 
 myself up to medical treatment. By the 5th of Novem- 
 ber, under the skilful handling of Dr. Neill and the ten- 
 der care of loving friends, I was able to go to New York 
 and offer my services to Butler, of whose arrival there on 
 that day to control the city during the forthcoming Presi- 
 dential election, I saw note made in the morning papers. 
 A division of troops from the armies of the James and the 
 Potomac had been landed at Forts Eichmond and Hamil- 
 ton for use in the streets of New York if occasion should 
 require. These troops, Butler informed me, he designed 
 to place under my command. 
 
 At ten in the morning of Sunday, the 6th of November, 
 
NEW YORK CITY. 355 
 
 I was driven in a buggy from Englewood, where I had 
 passed the night, to the landing at Hoboken for the ferry 
 to New York. It was a bright sunny day, and the hill- 
 sides, the palisades, the villages, churches, and taverns by 
 the Hudson never before looked so picturesque. Butler 
 had made his headquarters at the Hoffman House, and 
 there I met him at noon. With Major-General Butterfield 
 and a brigadier-general then on duty in New York I held 
 a long consultation upon a plan of operations. We also 
 consulted the chief of police and others as to the proba- 
 bilities of mob violence on election day. The plan decided 
 on and approved by Butler contemplated the disposal of 
 the troops in ferry-boats along the North and East rivers 
 in complete readiness to land at any moment. On the 
 seventh, at noon, I visited the troops, and made final dis- 
 positions-for the eighth, the day of election. The positions 
 the boats were to occupy, the number and kind of troops 
 for each boat, food and water, — everything, even to hitch- 
 ing the horses to the gun-carriages, was provided for and 
 communicated to General Hawley, commanding the pro- 
 visional division. It was dark when I returned to the 
 Hoffman House. At Butler's desire I had accepted for 
 this duty the position of chief of his staff. 
 
 Tuesday, the 8th of November, was a muggy day. Early 
 in the morning I made the circuit of the North and East 
 rivers in a tug. The ferry-boats with artillery were in 
 the slips, and those with infantry off the piers. Tugs to 
 carry orders, staff-officers and mounted orderlies were in 
 readiness. In my office at the hotel telegraphic communi- 
 cation was held with every public station in the city, and 
 a commissioned officer was stationed at each to communi- 
 cate instantly with headquarters. The quiet of New York 
 was unparalleled, if not ominous. During the day but 
 two policemen were at_ the Hoffman House. At night the 
 
356 A WAK DIAEY. 
 
 building was guarded by sixty soldiers. Save these, there 
 ■was no display of force within the city itself. When the 
 returns came in, for the first time in his life Butler found 
 t he could rejoice over a Democratic defeat. 
 On the fourteenth Butler received an ovation from the 
 citizens, during which Henry Ward Beecher nominated 
 him for the Presidency. This ended the military occupa- 
 tion of New York. If mobs had been organized, or relied 
 upon, to defeat Lincoln's election to the Presidency, our 
 formidable preparations had subdued them. Before the 
 eighteenth the troops had returned to the armies whence 
 they were taken, and the Hoffman. House was no longer 
 subject to siege. 
 
DISTRICT OF EASTERN VIRGINIA. 357 
 
 CHAPTEE XI. 
 
 DISTRICT OE EASTERN VIRGINIA. 
 
 /^N" the 9tli of December troops from the Army of the 
 ^-^ James were lying in transports at anchor in the bay 
 under command of General Weitzel, with Generals Ames 
 and Paine as subordinates. The destination of this expe- 
 dition, unknown to all but the parties interested, was sup- 
 posed to be Wilmington, in North Carolina. Eumors that 
 " Butler goes along " were current, but whether he was to 
 command was uncertain. Until some time during the night 
 of the twelfth, a storm had detained the fleet ; but in the 
 morning the transports got under way. Admiral Porter 
 was off at three o'clock in the afternoon of the thirteenth, 
 and Butler sailed the next day in the " Ben Deford." Con- 
 templating his departure, I reflected that it would be hard, 
 indeed, if he who had thus far impressed his admirers 
 with a coinviction that human agency could not avail 
 against his imperious will, should fail in this his great 
 opportunity. 
 
 Some of the engineers at Fortress Monroe laughed 
 heartily at Butler's efforts, when he first came to that 
 post, to introduce labor-saving methods. He laid rails to 
 transport heavy guns and material from the wharf to any 
 part of the fort. Old army officers protested that the fort 
 would be ruined, that proper drainage would be impossible. 
 In the previous spring the rain fell; for forty days and 
 forty nights it poured, and the winds blew. The water 
 rose in ' the fort, and the drains refused to do their duty. 
 
358 A WAE DIARY. 
 
 Engineers said that the fort -was in danger; the water 
 could not be removed from the parade-ground. Butler 
 sent for a steam-engine and pumped it out. John Phce- 
 nix, in his great work on Astronomy, discourses of how to 
 "find "the sun at sea: "You can find the sun any day," he 
 says, " through a piece of smoked glass, when clouds do not 
 intervene." 
 
 There were many sights of great interest at and around 
 Fortress Monroe. Near the Chesapeake and Hampton 
 Hospitals were graveyards where the dead soldiers lay. 
 Each grave had its own white wooden slab, each slab its 
 own inscription, and the slabs and inscriptions were all 
 pretty much alike. The Hampton field covered a little 
 less than one acre, and yet it contained one thousand five 
 hundred and eighty graves, and all but three hundred of 
 them had been made since the preceding July. Deaths 
 from wounds and sickness had fallen from ten to five a 
 day. Whatever might have blotted out these lives, here lay 
 the bodies buried, perhaps forgotten. " Bide [as it was 
 
 sometimes spelled], ," is all the passing stranger 
 
 knows. Near the beach by the Fortress there was an old 
 enclosure thickly covered with headboards and graves. 
 It was the old Fortress Monroe Cemetery, — a lovely spot. 
 The surf rolled in from the ocean, a never-ceasing requiem. 
 Before the war much taste was exhibited in its adorn- 
 ment; but so rudely did Death swing his scythe in the 
 abundant harvest of the present, that for some time but 
 little effort had been made at order or preservation. Eebel 
 and Loyal, soldier and sailor, foreign and native, all lay 
 peacefully together. Eulogies and prayers were inscribed 
 in German and French on some of the headstones. On 
 some, too, the names were in full, on some abbreviated, 
 while on others there was a blank. The ground was fur- 
 rowed with the dead. " Jo Johnson, of Jeff Davis artil- 
 
MAP 
 
 OF 
 
 EASTERN VIRGINIA 
 
 Soufh oF James River. 
 •Starufe Mil«s: 
 
DISTRICT OF EASTERN VIRGINIA. 359 
 
 lery;" ■"Thom , of North Carolina infantry;" and 
 
 others of a Mississippi, Georgia, or South Carolina bat- 
 talion. Above them the strife went on, until friend and 
 foe should be laid to rest side by side in the sleep that 
 knows no waking. 
 
 Many of the farms around the Fortress were occupied by 
 their original owners. Between Hampton Creek and the 
 bay the farmers were thriving on good prices for corn and 
 vegetables. Two dollars a bushel was their price for pota- 
 toes (Irish or sweet), ninety-five cents a pound for butter, 
 and three dollars and fifty cents for turkeys. The farmers 
 complained loudly of their taxes. The control of the en- 
 tire region within the Department of Virginia and North 
 Carolina was exercised by Butler. He made the laws 
 and administered them, dealt out justice and inflicted 
 punishment, levied fines and collected taxes. An enor- 
 mous civil fund, said to amount to an unexpended quarter 
 of a million of dollars, was thus created, of which Butler 
 disposed as he pleased. Under the permissive power of 
 martial law, he conducted and managed every movement 
 of every person within his department. No one could 
 enter without his consent; no one could leave without 
 his order ; and each paid from the gains and profits of his 
 business as much as Butler chose to command. Kimberly 
 Brothers were traders, paying as ground rent, for the privi- 
 lege of keeping a store near the Fortress, one thousand 
 dollars a month, and paying it cheerfully, recompensing 
 themselves for this outlay from the pockets of their cus- 
 tomers. Proof of this came to me in a charge of four 
 dollars for a small turkey. " Forty cents a pound, sah," 
 replied the grinning darky to my amazed expression. 
 
 " But does this turkey weigh ten pounds ? " 
 
 " Dun'no, sah." 
 
 " Did Kimberly weigh it ? " 
 
360 A WAR DIAKT. 
 
 "Es, saL" 
 
 "What did it weigh?" 
 
 "Dun'no, sah; didn't tell me." 
 
 " Take it back, ahd bring me the weight." 
 
 " Eight pounds " was soon returned. 
 
 " Now go and teU them that forty times eight is three 
 dollars and twenty cents. Tell them to correct this bUl." 
 
 " Es, sah." And back he came with the figures for this 
 amount. 
 
 I was still in doubt. I knew that the one-thousand- 
 dollar civil tax per month was somewhere apportioned on 
 that turkey, and I determined to give my mind to the 
 discovery. 
 
 "William," to the darky, "how much do you think 
 that turkey weighs ? " 
 
 " Dun'no, sah ; says eight pounds." 
 
 " Go to the commissary, ask him to weigh that turkey, 
 and put the weight on paper." 
 
 " Six pounds, three ounces," was in a few minutes dis- 
 played before my indignant eyes. 
 
 "Turkey, six pounds and three ounces, at forty cents 
 per pound, comes to two dollars and fifty cents," I ex- 
 claimed. A brief note, reciting my wrongs, brought from 
 the Brothers Kimberly the reduced charge of two dollars 
 and fifty cents, with an apology for mistakes, which they 
 laid to a great press of business. 
 
 Where ther^ was no money the tithing system was en- 
 forced. Many abandoned farms were occupied by Govern- 
 ment agents, white and black, paying a tithe of the products 
 as rent. The negroes on the Hampton Eoad, and beyond, 
 had set up the characteristic shanty, quite recognizable from 
 its form and newness. There was a collection of these 
 huts, called Slabtown, near Hampton. The houses were 
 generally comfortable, enclosing a space about as large 
 
DISTEICT OF EASTEEN VIRGINIA. 361 
 
 as a wall-tent, and were made of rough shingles, riven 
 from an easily-splitting wood. Clusters of them had 
 sprung "up like mushrooms at various places on the road 
 to Big Bethel. At one, I saw a schoolhouse with pupils 
 who were genuine ebony, and white teachers. There was 
 " right smart " of stock at some farmyards, and a thrifty- 
 looking peafih-orchard within two ihiles of Hampton. 
 Some of these contrabands, slaves before the war, were 
 now living on, and cultivating " ole massa's " farm, from 
 which "massa" had run away. 
 
 A bright, smart, colored fellow, whom I met about five 
 miles from Big Bethel, travelled on foot by my horse for 
 about seven miles on my return, affording me much enter- 
 tainment. He lived in Warwick, iive miles from York- 
 town ; was going to Hampton to meet his wife, unless he 
 encountered her on the . road. She had gone to Hampton 
 that morning, with a hired horse and cart, on a shopping 
 excursion. The husband had walked twelve miles, with 
 seven more before him, and he had been married five years, 
 too. He occupied a Government farm (the one on which 
 he had been raised, and from which his master had fled), 
 and paid one fourth of his produce as rental. To insure 
 returns from proper labor, the agent of the Government 
 compelled the darky to buy a horse (for which he charged 
 him ten dollars in gross, and one dollar a month for six 
 months), which died on his hands at the expiration of four 
 months. Then there were charges for the use of a plough, 
 and a few other little things furnished, — all of which he 
 told me was " hard down on him," particularly " de boss." 
 But I made him admit that in trying to do well by himself 
 the horse had had a hard time of it ; and though he insisted 
 that he stinted himself, he admitted under pressure that 
 he had generally meat, corn-bread, flour, potatoes, and vege- 
 tables, with sugar, butter, eggs, and chickens. The man 
 
362 A WAK DIAKY. 
 
 had his own views of the war. That the Eebels " nebber 
 gib up," he called the necessary result of Eebel reflection 
 upon the loss of their slaves. " Wen dey tink," he said, 
 " nebber ole nigger do fur 'em eny mo', dey fight as long as 
 dey last. Dey 'member wen dey sot back in der carege and 
 fan dar sef wen hot, or shet up wid glass cases wen cole, 
 and ole nigger in de sun and in de snow ; and wen dey 
 tink ob dat, dey iight on sure. Dey alw'ys will fight wen 
 dey tink dey nebber hab ole nigger eny mo'." At the 
 famous battle of Big Bethel this man was a cook for the 
 " Sesh," as he called the Eebels. " Wat 'stonish me mos' 
 wus to hear de Sesh brag, and den see 'em run; dat 
 'stonish me, sure." 
 
 Thus chattering on, the negro plied his legs stoutly, 
 often wondering, sometimes sorrowfully, where his wife 
 could be, until I became interested in the meeting of such 
 a loving pair. But cart after cart rolled by without any 
 recognition. We were within half a mile of Hampton, 
 when this faithful lover espied his wife. " Dar she comes ! " 
 he exclaimed with a broad grin of delight. As the pair 
 approached, the man was greeted with a sweet and affec- 
 tionate salutation by a good-looking woman, who exclaimed, 
 "I done feel like a fish out ob water widout him." As 
 the man climbed into the cart, his face wreathed with 
 smiles and his whole soul happy in his love, I felt that 
 in the sight of God, who gave us hearts and affections, 
 there is but little difference between high and low. This 
 poor freed slave, in his humble toil under his lowly roof, 
 was much happier, and more blessed in his happiness, than 
 many of the mighty of the land with aU their external 
 grandeur. An honest man is generally a happy one. 
 
 The new iron-clad "Dictator"' arrived here about this 
 time from New York, under the command of Commodore 
 Eodgers, who captured the Eebel gunboat "Atlanta" off 
 
DISTRICT OF EASTEEN VIEGINU. 363 
 
 Savannah Eiver. This iron-clad was of the monitor class, 
 and about three hundred and twenty feet in length, and 
 greater in beam than any other ship afloat. Eeady for 
 sea, she drew twenty-one feet of water. Her engines were 
 ponderous, being of five thousand horse-power, and her 
 speed was sixteen miles an hour. Her side armor was of 
 iron, nine inches thick, backed with four feet of oak. Her 
 turret was of iron, thirteen inches in thickness, and her top 
 was covered with seven-inch iron and oak. The roomy 
 apartments for officers and crew, the fire-room, coal-bunk- 
 ers, and engine-room filled me with amazement. At my 
 request the Commodore ordered the steam to be turned on. 
 Through the enormous cylinders and connecting pipes the 
 steam rushed, hissing like a demon, imparting motion to 
 the huge cranks and levers which communicated with the 
 main shaft. I stood on an elevation, from which, accord- 
 ing to the chief engineer, the best view of the machinery 
 could be had, to witness the wondrous adaptability of this 
 immense mass. At the first glance all was chaos; the 
 second showed the application of the means to the end. 
 But there was yet more to foUow ; moving through an 
 elliptical opening into a water-tight compartment, I seemed 
 descending into infernal depths. The passage-way was 
 lined on either side with cavernous furnaces in double 
 rows, forty-eight in all, blazing with the glare of anthracite 
 coal. Beyond, over a railway, through a subterranean, or 
 more properly subaqueous, passage, was the coal mine, — 
 food for these dark and fiery furnaces. The ventilation 
 was perfect. In the engine-room, the fire-room, the coal- 
 mine, the cabins, wherever we went, the cool air swept over 
 us, making the temperature delightful. This was effected 
 by a large wheel, which, revolving on an axis perpendicular 
 to the horizon, sucked in the cold air from the outside, and 
 forced it by its paddles through the ship. The use of 
 
364 A WAS DIAEY. 
 
 water for cleansing purposes was ingeniously arranged, as 
 indeed any one will see it would have to be, where every- 
 thing but the turret was either under or flush with the 
 sea. To prevent the rushing in of water, a valve closed 
 communication with the outside, until the basin was so 
 secured that there could be no overflow. Everything was 
 then forced out with one or two strokes of an air-pump, 
 and the valve closed again. From the hold we went to the 
 turret. I did not at the time quite take in a very inter- 
 esting discourse which the Commodore gave on the mode 
 of preserving the magnetic needle from deflection by the 
 mass of iron around the compass. The height at which 
 the needle was placed was clear enough, but how a card 
 floating in liquid was arranged to keep the needle in the 
 plane of the magnetic meridian, I did not quite catch. 
 Two enormous fifteen-inch guns, and the method of load- 
 ing them, next attracted my attention, and filled me with 
 renewed admiration. Eodgers felt that his ship could whip 
 anything afloat, unless it met its like, when there would 
 come the " tug of war." 
 
 On Christmas day news was brought to Fortress Monroe 
 by an ocean steamer from Savannah that Sherman had 
 occupied that city, captured thirty thousand bales of cot- 
 ton, and lost General Hardee, who had escaped, through a 
 loop-hole between the Savannah Eiver and the coast, with 
 ten thousand men. How sweet in the nostrils of cormo- 
 rant non-conibatants was the odor of those thirty thousand 
 bales, and the opening trade which loomed up through 
 Sherman's triumph! How was greed sharpened and cu- 
 pidity increased ! The telegraph had hardly carried to New 
 York the news, before the wires vibrated with schemes and 
 petitions, and bargains for military permits to gather up 
 the treasure, quite indifferent to what went in to pay for 
 the cotton, turpentine, and tar that might come out. There 
 
DISTKICT OF EASTERN YEKGINIA. 365 
 
 were cormorant traders bent on making money ; cormorant 
 provost-marshals regulating trade ; cormorant tax-collectors 
 drawing money into invisible pockets for personal use; 
 cormorant Treasury-agents seizing the so-called Eebel pro- 
 ducts of the country — furniture, abandoned dwellings, 
 whatever they could lay their hands on — to convert them 
 into cash, which sometimes found its way into the Treasury ; 
 cormorant philanthropists, who laid up great treasure of 
 reputation at small expenditure of discomfort, who made 
 great professions and bore small burdens ! It seemed 
 possible that it might have been better for the honest, 
 earnest, and hearty prosecution of the war that Sherman 
 had not left one stone upon another in the Eebel city. 
 
 There were many rumors afloat here, spoken with bated 
 breath, — for Butler had fiUed his department with spies 
 and informers, — of the means and methods by which a 
 most infamous Eebel trade was maintained within the ter- 
 ritory ruled over by Butler and his confidants ; of the trade 
 stores beyond our picket lines, in full blast, under Treasury 
 regulations which were not enforced ; of the military com- 
 mander of the District of Eastern Virginia, who adjudged 
 the amount and kind of sales that were defined by the 
 Treasury regulations, and from whom permission to make 
 such sales was obtained ; of a certain detective, disreputa- 
 ble and degraded even for a detective, who farmed out his 
 privileges of securing permits from a military sub-com- 
 mander of the department for such compensation as would 
 remunerate himself and his master, — a man who at that 
 moment had been charged, so he informed me, with seeing 
 that no telegraphic information of disaster to Butler's expe- 
 dition, if there should be disaster, should be sent from 
 Fortress Monroe. Did Butler's prophetic soul foresee the 
 dark result ? 
 
 On the 27th of December, at nine o'clock in the evening. 
 
366 A "WAE DIARY. 
 
 we heard that the expedition against Fort Fisher had termi- 
 nated in disaster. Butler was the herald of his own dis- 
 honor. At nine o'clock, with General Weitzel, he returned 
 in the same steamer in which but one short week before 
 he had sailed in all his glory. He was at his own quarters 
 within the Fortress with an acrid temper, though why or 
 wherefore none seemed to know, and few to care. 
 
 As has been narrated, transports, with the troops of the 
 expedition destined for the capture of Fort Fisher, at the 
 mouth of Cape Fear Eiver on the coast of North Carolina, 
 left Fortress Monroe on the thirteenth. Fine weather fa- 
 vored the plan. The troops arrived on the fifteenth, but 
 the naval fleet was not there. The weather changed, and 
 the transports put into Beaufort, where fresh supplies of 
 water and provisions were secured. On the twenty-third 
 the troops and ships were ready, and awaiting Butler's 
 grand pjTotechnic display, for which he had been for some 
 time preparing. This consisted in an explosion near the 
 hostile fort of more than two hundred and thirty-five tons 
 of powder, which had been packed into the hold and on 
 the decks of an iron steamer (belonging to the navy), for 
 conveyance as near the fort as she could be run. The bet- 
 ter to deceive the enemy, the vessel was to play the part of 
 a blockade-runner under fire of our guns. 
 
 On the night of the twenty-third the grand perform- 
 ance came off. Fort Fisher, situated at the angle of the 
 peninsula made by the Cape Fear Eiver and the ocean, 
 was about two hundred and fifty yards from the shore. 
 The explosion took place, as desired, one hundred and fifty 
 yards from the landing, and about four hundred from 
 the fort. There was a great shock, a terrific noise, and a 
 dense smoke; but the fort was uninjured. A captured 
 Eebel officer, near the fort when the powder was fired, 
 was carried off his feet for some distance, uninjured. 
 
DISTRICT OF EASTERN VIRGINIA. 367 
 
 The ships of our own navy were fortunately unharmed ; 
 they lay off a great distance for safety. Over half a mil- 
 lion of dollars having been thrown away on this idle ex- 
 periment, the fleet and the troops began operations. At 
 one o'clock on the morning of the twenty-fourth the ships 
 opened fire, continuing during the day, and firing, according 
 to a Eebel newspaper, thirty shells a minute. At night, two 
 divisions of three thousand men, under General Ames and 
 General Paine, were thrown ashore about three or four miles 
 above the fort. By the morning of the twenty-fifth, the 
 debarkation was complete. During this day the navy con- 
 tinued their fire, and the troops drew near the fort. When 
 night came on, our skirmishers were within two or three 
 hundred yards of the outworks. As yet there had been no 
 attack upon Weitzel's force by any considerable body of 
 the enemy, and the few guns fired from the fort had hurt 
 no one. It was plainly perceived that the fort was not 
 entirely surrounded by a ditch, and that it was casemated 
 towards the ocean, but open on the river side. An officer 
 of Colonel N. M Curtis's brigade, under cover of the dark- 
 ness, stole around between the river and the fort, got inside, 
 and brought off the Rebel flag, which had been shot away 
 in our naval bombardment. Once during the night our 
 picket line had become confused, and in an attempt to 
 re-establish it — which was successful -:— there were brief 
 exchanges of musketry, and the Eebels claimed to have re- 
 pulsed us. At this time Colonel Curtis felt sure that the 
 fort could have been taken by assault, and he wished to 
 make the attempt, but was forbidden to do so, and ordered 
 to withdraw to the place of debarkation. Why this was 
 done Curtis did not know ; but he was grieved and disap- 
 pointed, and so expressed himself to me after his return 
 to the Fortress, declaring again and again that then and 
 there that fort could and should have been captured. The 
 
368 A WAR DIARY. 
 
 valor shown by Colonel Curtis when, a few weeks later, he 
 exhibited such conspicuous bravery in the capture of Port 
 Fisher, where he came near losing his life, entitles him to 
 consideration. 
 
 On the twenty-sixth, Butler's grand expedition took to 
 their boats and sailed for Fortress Monroe. A few of our 
 men were wounded, and we took two hundred and fifty 
 prisoners, who were captured in the outworks. General 
 Weitzel was at the front with Curtis on the night of the 
 twenty-fifth. Did Weitzel order this withdrawal, thinking 
 the fort could not be taken? Is there a mystery about it? 
 Would an assaulting column have found themselves in a 
 trap? General Ames thought the naval delay, from the 
 fifteenth to the twenty-third, enabled the enemy to throw 
 a large force into the fort ; but he was not sure that this 
 was the case, and Curtis was sure it was not. Butler, who 
 was punished for his timidity and his failure in ordering 
 the withdrawal, was evidently frightened away. Even a 
 quartermaster asked me if Butler should not have known 
 the strength of the fort before he attacked it. 
 
 The two hundred and twenty prisoners captured at the 
 half -moon and other batteries were brought to Fortress 
 Monroe. Not the grave only but the cradle must have 
 been robbed when this dwarfed and weazened lot frightened 
 Butler away from Fort Fisher. That the navy were justly 
 indignant because their efforts were not seconded by the 
 land forces, that the newspapers praised Curtis and con- 
 demned Butler, and that gold rose from two hundred and 
 eight and one-half to two hundred and sixteen and seven- 
 eighths, were among the interesting topics of the day. 
 
 But whatever Admiral Porter thought of Butler's flight 
 (it was said that he intended to put upon the General the 
 blame for not taking Fort Fisher), it did not move him to 
 
 follow Biit,lpT'.<! fiYamnlp. All that rnnlrl Vip. dnnp t.r> rlis- 
 
DISTKICT OF EASTERN VIEGIKIA. 369 
 
 mount the guns and knock the work into an unsightly 
 mass, Porter did, and with such effect that again the com- 
 mander-in-chief determined with the same troops and an- 
 other general to assault and occupy the fort. 
 
 On the 5th of January, 1865, very early ia the morning. 
 Colonel Curtis aroused me with the information that, 
 with his brigade, he was again to take ship ; and that the 
 same troops that had but just returned from Fort Fisher 
 (Ames's division and Paine's colored), with an additional 
 brigade, in all numbering eight thousand men, the whole 
 commanded by General Alfred Terry, would be down from 
 the front that day. Where they were going he did not 
 know, though he had seen the order to report to Sher- 
 man at Savannah, and Terry told him to make this pub- 
 lic, but he looked when he' spoke as if Savannah were 
 not the real destination of the expedition. In the after- 
 noon. General Ames arrived ^dth the whole of his divi- 
 sion. He also had seen Terry's orders to go to Sherman ; 
 but certain sealed orders which Grant had given Terry, 
 not to be opened until at sea, Ames had not seen. Every- 
 thing pointed to a renewal of the attack upon Port Fisher. 
 The troops were the same, the staff-officer from Grant's 
 headquarters was the same, — aU. but Butler, and he knew 
 nothing of the destination of the expedition ; he had been 
 left out. 
 
 On the evening of the fifth the troops went to sea. But- 
 ler at Fortress Monroe was suspicious of the movement. 
 "Terry is going to try it, they say," he knowingly re- 
 marked ; adding, " I shall be glad if they take Fort Fisher, 
 but I am sorry for Terry. However, I shall be glad if 
 they take it ; and if they do not, I shall find my vindi- 
 cation.'' Butler then informed me that Grant had been 
 ordered to send a second expedition; that there had been 
 
 a stormy meeting of the Cabinet ; that his (Butler's) de- 
 
 24 
 
370 A WAR DIARY. 
 
 spatches were refused publication; and that Porter was 
 ordered to run by the forts. Butler then addressed him- 
 self to a defence of his own course. First making a rude 
 sketch of the peninsula, with positions of the forts, place 
 of landing, trace. and mode of construction of Fort Fisher, 
 he pointed out where Colonel Curtis's picket line was, 
 how far from the outer ditch, and explained (as he thought 
 satisfactorily) how impossible it would have been for 
 Curtis to have taken the fort. Moreover, argued Butler, 
 " Curtis never got in the rear of the work ; he was pre- 
 vented by piling, which he never passed." Of its garrison 
 Butler was equally confident : he knew they had all the 
 men inside the work they could use ; he had information 
 that a large force, more numerous than his own, were 
 just from Eichmoift, and not two miles in the rear of the 
 work. 
 
 Thus did Butler, until the 9th of January, disport him- 
 self to all who would listen upon his great military achieve- 
 ment in running away from Fort Fisher. On that day 
 an order which arrived from Washington, relieving him 
 from further command and sending him to LoweU to 
 await orders, started him on a new course of scandalous 
 and bitter vituperation. In the presence of a large num- 
 ber of staff officers and clerks, he avowed himself to be 
 the last of those monumental volunteer officers who, start- 
 ing out in high command at the beginning of the war, had 
 been removed by "regular army influence." As this re- 
 mark was delivered, with furious irony or ironical fury, in 
 my presence, I replied : " Not so, sir ; for those who have 
 removed you hold, like yourself, volunteer rank. The Pre- 
 sident and Secretary of War are, like yourself, from the 
 people, and should not be presumed to lean more to reg- 
 ulars than to volunteers. "That is not so," grimaced 
 Butler ; " I am removed on account of the influence of 
 
DISTRICT OF EASTERN VIRGINIA. 371 
 
 regular army officers, upon General Grant, — one General 
 
 Patrick, one General Ingalls, and another Colonel . 
 
 I have interfered, " shouted Benjamin, " with General 
 
 , who finds it necessary to go to Washington once a 
 
 week to do his courting, while in the mean time our horses 
 
 starve. Besides, he wishes to marry , who does 
 
 not like me because I kept, so she says, her husband from 
 being President ; and I did do as much as any one to that 
 
 effect. I sent word to that if he married 
 
 , I hoped he would not be dowered with all her hates." 
 
 Long did Butler discourse to his audience of the spites 
 which had culminated in his ignominy ; bitterly did he 
 strive to convince himself and his hearers that not his utter 
 and absolute inability to command, but jealous interferen- 
 ces and malign influences were the cause of his removal 
 to the serene and secure atmosphere of Lowell in Massa- 
 chusetts. One thing more was left him : he could publish 
 a farewell order to his troops, and he did it. First recit- 
 ing, in imitation of Ossian, the heroism of his soldiers, he 
 concluded : " Such men your General could not lead to sac- 
 rifice, and he is relieved." The New York "Herald" of the 
 fourteenth, containing the official reports of Butler, Weitzel, 
 and Ames, with certain letters, telegrams, and indorsements 
 by Grant relating to the Fort Fisher matter, threw an addi- 
 tional ray of light upon that ill-starred expedition. It may 
 seem strange that it was through this medium that these 
 official communications should have first appeared; but 
 I was prepared for it through a revelation from Butler 
 that his report of the Fort Fisher expedition which had 
 been delivered to Grant, was found subsequently on the 
 floor of the Norfolk Theatre, where it had evidently 
 been dropped by some one at the play ; and this, Butler 
 thought, might " cause its publication by the person who 
 picked it up." 
 
372 A WAK DIAEY. 
 
 However it may have appeared, Sutler therein blamed 
 the navy for a delay which lost to the army three fine 
 days, in which it could have operated before the enemy 
 was reinforced by numbers superior to his own ; as- 
 serted that an assault upon landing would have been folly ; 
 that no siege was contemplated, and no preparation for 
 one made; that it would have been bad generalship to have 
 kept his troops on shore to await reinforcements and siege 
 material ; and that the same military result might follow 
 the efforts of any new expedition which might have been 
 accomplished by the first, if it had been reinforced and sup- 
 plied with materials for a si^ge, — perhaps better, for the 
 enemy had now been thrown off his guard. 
 
 General Grant reported that he did not order or contem- 
 plate Butler's presence with the expedition ; af&rmed that 
 the delay in attacking was due to the powder-boat, — a 
 design which he indirectly censured; that if a landing were 
 effected and an assault found not feasible, a siege was con- 
 templated ; and that the return with the troops to Portress 
 Monroe was in violation of his order. When Butler saw in 
 the " Herald " Grant's comments upon his report, he was 
 excited and angry, crying out, " Well, he makes a direct 
 issue ; he says I was not ordered to accompany the expedi- 
 tion. I can prove that he directed his aid, Comstock, to 
 accompany me." Where, Butler did not say ; but as he 
 had previously told me that he went "to keep Porter from 
 overriding Weitzel," I fancied that in his peevishness he 
 had resorted to pettifogging. 
 
 On Sunday the fifteenth, at .six o'clock in the afternoon, 
 Butler left Fortress Monroe for Lowell. He was escorted 
 to the boat by a small body of troops, and by Generals 
 Shepley and Marston, both of whom hung about him as a 
 victim of regular army persecution. Once in the cabin of 
 the boat, — where his family had secluded themselves in 
 
DISTRICT OF EASTERN VIRGINIA. 373 
 
 their state-rooms, — none were so poor as to do him rev- 
 erence. Butler seemed excited and unhappy. Cut down 
 in the spring-tide of his popularity, it was with pleasure 
 that he grasped the hand of a coal-heaver who happened 
 to be passing, and who was much astonished at the unex- 
 pected honor. 
 
 Out of all this blackness one ray of light still shone 
 above Butler's horizon. The Massachusetts Legislature 
 had deferred its election for a United States senator, and 
 spoke of Butler as a possible candidate. The deposed and 
 disgraced general was in his office at the Fortress when 
 this plan of the newspapers dispelled for a moment the 
 clouds which enveloped him. The office was filled with 
 people, — spies, detectives, clerks, confidential agents, and 
 reporters ; a goodly crowd. Ben availed himself of his 
 
 opportunity. In boisterous tones he ordered Captain 
 
 to write to Henry Wilson an epistle in which " duty to the 
 State," " claims of friendship," and " your own unqualified 
 services " laid that foundation for official intimacy on which 
 were subsequently reared so many political monstrosi- 
 ties that even Henry Wilson at last threw back the alli- 
 ance in disgust. Even Sumner, who was won, and used, 
 and flung away, could not despise Ben Butler more. But- 
 ler's civil-fund system had hardly been throttled by his 
 departure ; the artesian well and Dutch Gap had hardly 
 been baptized with the names of " Butler's Folly," which 
 they have since borne ; Gillmore had hardly been returned 
 from the active service of the James to the quiet of his old 
 command at South Carolina, — when a vessel, covered with 
 flags and firing its rejoicing guns, brought to the Fortress 
 at an early hour of the seventeenth the news that Fort 
 Fisher had been taken by assault after a severe struggle on 
 Saturday the fourteenth, at three in the afternoon. Under 
 a civilian brevet major-general, with the same troops and 
 
374 A "WAK DIAKY. 
 
 a few more added, Fort Fisher had fallen. General Terry, 
 the hero of the hour, had entered service from civil life as 
 the commander of a Connecticut regiment, and had won 
 his promotion and his honors by study and practice in a 
 modest and painstaking way. He had never blustered of 
 what he would do, and failed ; we had first heard of him 
 through his successes. Colonel Curtis also was vindicated 
 at last. He lay, seriously wounded in the eye, on a boat 
 just in from the scene, on its way to Chesapeake Hospital. 
 Instant promotions followed as a reward for this gallant 
 affair, — General Terry to be a full major-general of vol- 
 unteers, Ames to be a major-general by brevet, and Curtis 
 to be a full brigadier. 
 
 And these promotions were justly deserved. We will 
 not here discuss degrees of merit. In the words of Gen- 
 eral Ames, " seldom have we passed through a fiercer fire." 
 Our troops, he wrote (in a private letter from Fort Fisher), 
 were put into position, — Colonel Comstock's formation 
 (an oflicer of General Grant's staff, who accompanied both 
 expeditions and who knew the region, and that this expe- 
 dition came to assault the fort) being adopted. The assault 
 took place at three o'clock in the afternoon. In the ad- 
 vance, Ames lost three of the five staff of&cers who started 
 with him. All day long he fought his men with sound 
 judgment and valor. The struggle at one time was fear- 
 ful, — the result being so doubtful in the mind of General 
 Terry that he gave an order to some one to tell Ames to 
 make a vigorous effort, and if it failed to withdraw at once. 
 This order did not reach Ames, and he fought on. Night 
 came. Ames thought a movement should be made to gain 
 the whole work. He sent for General Terry, who came ; 
 so did Colonel Comstock. What should be done ? Terry 
 proposed one plan, Comstock another, and Ames a third, 
 which he (Ames) carried out, and soon had the work. 
 
DISTRICT OF KASTEEN VIRGINIA. 375 
 
 General Whiting, its commander, surrendered to General 
 Ames. 
 
 The Secretary of War, in writing to the President from 
 Fortress Monroe concerning Fort Fisher, did not mention 
 General Ames, who fought so bravely. General Curtis, 
 too, fought like a lion. I visited him in hospital, and went 
 over the attack with him, — his position; how the palisades 
 were cut away ; how the parapet was gained by escalade, 
 by the use of. sword and bayonet ; how they struggled inch 
 by inch, driving the Eebels, who fought with desperation, 
 from the bomb-proof. Curtis had talked with Colonel 
 Lamb, a Eebel captive, who said that in Butler's expedi- 
 tion there were no veterans in the fort, while in Terry's 
 the fort was filled with Lee's troops. Weitzel, however, 
 who accompanied Butler, attributed Terry's success to a 
 diversion made by the sailors from the fleet, which misled 
 the Eebels and drew off attention from the real point of 
 attack.^ 
 
 In the same hospital where Curtis was lying were 
 wounded Eebel officers from Fort Fisher, — among them 
 General Whiting and Colonel Lamb, the latter grievously 
 hurt, and yet not forgetting to send greeting to General 
 Curtis for his valor. Such are the amenities of war. 
 Among others dreadfully wounded in this affair I found 
 the brave General Pennypacker, who suffered too much to 
 be sensible of the glory he had gained ; his sufferings were 
 indeed terrible. 
 
 At this period the War Department was once more 
 aroused by rumors that a large trade in contraband of war 
 
 1 Since the war, Colonel Lamb, in a reported criticism of Jefferson Davis's 
 statements, in his " Kise and Fall of the Confederate Government, " con- 
 cerning Fort Fisher, says that when Butler attacked him, vpith 6,500 men, 
 he had but 1,371 men in the fort ; and that when the fort was taken he had 
 but 1,900. 
 
376 A WAE DIAEY. 
 
 was being carried on from and through Norfolk with the 
 Eebel army under Lee. General Grant was ordered to ap- 
 point a military commission to examine into this matter, 
 and to try suspected persons. General Ord, who had on 
 the fifteenth relieved Butler and assumed command of the 
 Departments of Virginia and North Carolina, was directed 
 by Grant to comply with the Secretary's instructions; 
 whereupon my name as chief of that commission was 
 submitted to Grant, and by him, in a letter written to 
 Ord, heartily approved. It was in vain to remonstrate, or 
 to remind Ord that since the 30th of December I had been 
 hurrying through a court-martial, at his suggestion, in order 
 to take command either of the front at Bermuda Hun- 
 dred, or of a division in the Army of the James, both of 
 which he had placed at my disposal. No excuses or remon- 
 strances were accepted or allowed, and I entered upon the 
 duty assigned to me. To go into the history of all the 
 trading and traders in Norfolk, to know what goods they 
 had received and how these goods had been distributed, 
 presented a fine piece of work, which, however, I hoped 
 to dispose of before active operations under Grant should 
 begin. Eumors were everywhere current that ardent lov- 
 ers of their country, many of them from Lowell, Mass., were 
 engaged in dividing the profits of a contraband trade car- 
 ried on extensively in the district bounded by the Albe- 
 marle Sound on the south, and extending as far west as 
 the Eebel commissaries found it convenient to establish 
 their d^pSts. 
 
 On the 21st of January, at eleven a. m., at Norfolk, Vir- 
 ginia, the reputed headquarters of the Lowell ring, the 
 commission were to assemble and try such persons as might 
 be implicated in trading with the Eebels, in supplying 
 them with food or other aid and comfort not authorized by 
 military orders or instructions from the War Department. 
 
DISTRICT OF EASTERN VIRGmiA. 377 
 
 The first day, January 23, was devoted to the examination 
 of the military commander of the District of Eastern Vir- 
 ginia. General Shepley's examination revealed that on 
 the 1st of Decemher the port of Norfolk was opened to 
 commerce ; that prior to that date goods were allowed to 
 enter only upon the application of a trader approved by the 
 commander of the district, by the department commander, 
 and by the "War Department, with invoices in duplicate 
 forwarded to the Treasury Department. It also appeared 
 that since December no restrictions on the admission of 
 goods, wares, and merchandise to Norfolk had been exer- 
 cised ; that our pickets did not cover the neutral territory 
 between the enemy's lines and our own ; that there were 
 three stores for trading purposes on, within, or outside our 
 picket lines ; that a territory claimed as loyal beyond these 
 lines was supplied by these stores ; that Norfolk merchants 
 had been permitted to take goods into this territory; that 
 no particular restrictions had been placed on the amounts 
 which individuals might purchase of these, and no particu- 
 lar caution used to prevent purchasing by people from the 
 lines of actual Eebel occupation. 
 
 On the twenty-fourth, the examination of Shepley was 
 resumed. It occupied the whole day, and revealed that 
 but little attention had been paid to the Treasury regula- 
 tion of allowing the Yankee trader to purchase one third 
 of the value of goods sold (not contraband of war) in cotton 
 and other products from within insurrectionary States. 
 Whether from our revelations or because of new knowl- 
 edge of the unpardonable iniquities allowed in Norfolk, 
 General Grant sent an order to Shepley to allow no more 
 goods to go into insurrectionary regions. 
 
 On Saturday, the 25th of February, the last testimony 
 was taken on the subject of contraband trade from Norfolk. 
 The examination had lasted more than one month. In this 
 
378 A -WAK DIAET. 
 
 time over fifty witnesses had been examined, one thousand 
 and ninety-six pages of testimony taken, and a report of 
 sixty pages, without accompanying abstracts, made. In 
 the mean while, great changes had taken place. Shepley 
 .had been removed from the command of the District of 
 Eastern Virginia, and from his position as military governor 
 of Norfolk. Through an order which I vainly protested 
 against, I was compelled on the 11th of February to take 
 upon myself temporarily the command. 
 
 The military duties of the district I found to be coex- 
 tensive with almost all the requirements of the Depart- 
 ment of Virginia, save the management of the Army of 
 the James in the field. Among others were included the 
 guarding and holding all the territory in Virginia south of 
 the James, and north of it up to the lines of Grant's opera- 
 tions, including the Peninsular lines at "Williamsburg and 
 Yorktown, as well as the eastern shore. Within this 
 large area were to be found forts, field-works, and troops, 
 prisons, military and civil, almshouses and poorhouses, 
 hospitals for citizens and soldiers, magazines and arsenals; 
 contrabands and refugees ; and last, but not least, was in- 
 cluded the imprisonment of the scoundrels who had been 
 engaged in contraband trade with the enemy, the breaking 
 up of trade-stores on and outside our picket lines, and the 
 shutting up in Norfolk of all goods, wares, and merchandise 
 beyond possibility of escape to the enemy's lines. The 
 government and control of the city of Norfolk involved 
 also judicious and continuous labor. Being charged with 
 the care of all its civil and municipal duties, I admin- 
 istered justice between quarrelsome neighbors; decided 
 causes on appeals from the provost-court; cared for the 
 lighting, cleaning, and guarding of the streets ; approved 
 licenses for trade within our lines of absolute military 
 occupation, or without, where the supplies under any one 
 
DISTRICT OF EASTERN VIRGINIA. 379 
 
 permit going from Norfolk were only enough to feed a 
 single family for a day or more ; watched over the markets ; 
 with many other matters, an enumeration of which would 
 tire one to read. Among them, however, I may mention a 
 Congressional committee appointed by the House of Eep- 
 resentatives to investigate this great crime of contraband 
 trade. This committee, of which the Hon. E. B. Wash- 
 burn was chairman, sat with me in Norfolk, heard -and 
 reported the same testimony from the mouths of the 
 same witnesses that had been before my commission, and 
 expressed themselves in their report iu as strong a manner 
 as I had done concerning that crime which would not have 
 been possible without the assent and approval of generals 
 high in command. 
 
 Besides this, another investigation devolved upon our 
 commission. Butler had set up "an organ" in Norfolk, 
 " The New E^gime," — his advocate and clarion, — edited 
 by one Clark, of Massachusetts, formerly a newspaper 
 man of Boston, but now a staff ofBcer and follower of the 
 Butlerian dispensation. Through reports made to Gen- 
 eral Grant, that soldiers were detached from their com- 
 panies to run Clark's printing-office, Ord was instructed 
 to direct my commission to inquire into the management 
 of this paper, and to ascertain and report " by whom and 
 by what authority the same has been carried on, and 
 whether any commissioned or non-commissioned officers 
 or enlisted men have by detail or otherwise been engaged 
 upon it." Let it suffice to say here that we found that all 
 the reports made to Grant were true, and that a full and 
 circumstantial account thereof may be found in the report 
 of the commission, on file within the archives of the War 
 Department at Washington. ' Butler's organ was instantly 
 suppressed, the enlisted printers and compositors returned 
 to their, companies to perform the duty for which they 
 
380 A WAB DIARY. 
 
 were receiving Government pay, and the presses and types 
 returned to their owners, who had been despoiled of them 
 by Butler's orders. And thus the whole establishment 
 was rendered extremely unprofitable as a money-making 
 investment. 
 
 My action in limiting trade within this district to the 
 lines of absolute military occupation, and allowing no 
 cotton to be purchased outside of our lines or to come in- 
 to them, caused a great deal of excitement among traders 
 and Treasury agents, who had never been ignorant of the 
 fact that every pound of cotton entering Norfolk came 
 from an appointed agent within Lee's army, receiving its 
 ecLuivalent in army supplies (contraband of war) at rates 
 proclaimed and published by General Lee, — a transaction 
 which afforded an immense profit to the dastardly traders. 
 General Grant's approval of my administration came to me 
 in an order which is given below. 
 
 Headqtjaeters, Armies of the United States, 
 City Point, Va., March 10, 1865. 
 (Spedal Order, No. 48.) 
 
 1. The operations on all Treasury-trade Permits, and all other 
 trade-permits and licenses to trade, by whomsoever granted, 
 within the State of Virginia, — except that portion known as 
 Eastern Shore, and the States of North Carolina and South 
 Carolina, and that portion of the State of Georgia immediately 
 bordering on the Atlantic, including the city of Savannah, — 
 are hereby suspended until further orders. All contracts and 
 agreements made under or by virtue of any trade-permits or 
 licenses within any of said States or parts of States during the 
 existence of this order will be deemed void, and the subject of 
 such contracts or agreements wiU be seized by the military 
 authorities for the benefit of Government, whether the same 
 is at the time of such contracts or agreements within their reach, 
 or at any time thereafter comes within then- reach, either by 
 
DISTRICT OF EASTERN VIEGINIA. 381 
 
 the operations of war or the acts of the contracting parties or 
 their agents. The delivery of all goods contracted for and not 
 delivered before the publication of this order, is prohibited. 
 
 2. Supplies of aU kinds are prohibited from passing into 
 any States or parts of States, except such as are absolutely nec- 
 essary for the wants of those living within the lines of actual 
 military occupation ; and under no circumstances wiU military 
 commanders allow them to pass beyond the lines they actually 
 hold. 
 
 By command of Lieutenant-General Grant, 
 (Signed) T. S. Bowees, 
 
 Assistant Adjutant-General. 
 
 This suspension of all permission to trade in the enemy's 
 country where tliere was the least possibility of supplying 
 him with the sinews of war, not only covered the ground 
 of the report of our commission, but used in some cases its 
 very language. It was such an order as might have been 
 looked for from any honest commanding officer, whether 
 he were the commander of the District of Eastern Vir- 
 ginia, of the Department of Virginia and North Carolina, 
 or of aU the armies in the field; and it fully sustained 
 my hostility to those rascals who bragged that they had 
 the President's ear, and would get out cotton yet, in spite 
 of me. 
 
 To be quite sure that those who had negotiated for the 
 delivery of supplies to Lee's army at Murfrees D^pot (a 
 noted station for the trade on the Seaboard and Eoanoke 
 Eailway, between the Meherrin and Nottoway rivers), and 
 to obtain in return cotton marked " C. S. A." awaiting their 
 arrival, should be disappointed, I sent an expedition to 
 destroy this cotton. Colonel George W. Lewis, of the Third 
 New York Cavalry, with his command, reached the Black- 
 water to find his passage opposed. At length, however, he 
 overcame the enemy, gained the ddpot, fired and destroyed 
 
382 A WAK DLARY. 
 
 fifty bales of cotton and all the warehouses, and returned 
 with the loss of but three men. This successful raid of 
 the 10th of March was followed by another a few days 
 later, also under Colonel Lewis, in which he destroyed the 
 enemy's ferry across the Blackwater at South Quay, and 
 found it perfectly easy to make a dash on the bridge 
 across the Nottoway. This raid on Murfrees D^p6t was 
 appalling to the enemy. A Mrs. Gore, who left Eichmond 
 on the eighth, reached Weldon vid the Danville and Ea- 
 leigh Eailway, remained there during the night of the 
 tenth, and came into my lines on the fourteenth, reported 
 that Weldon was in a great state of excitement; that 
 Union troops were at Muifrees Ddpot, and it was feared 
 that they would soon appear at Weldon, where, at that 
 VQry hour, there were eight hundred Union prisoners on 
 their way to Wilmington to be exchanged. At Eichmond 
 there was, she said, a beUef that the city must soon he 
 evacuated ; provisions were becoming very scarce, and 
 bacon could not be purchased at any price. 
 
 The purposes for which I was placed in command of 
 this district having been accomplished, General Ord, in 
 conformity with many previous and urgent notifications, 
 informed me on the 18th of March that I was to be trans- 
 ferred to the Army of the James, either to a division or to 
 the command of the front at Bermuda Hundred. On the 
 nineteenth I was ready to go, — was indeed awaiting impa- 
 tiently the summons, — when a messenger announced that 
 the Secretary of War had arrived at Norfolk, and was 
 somewhere in that city. After an exhaustive search I 
 found him with a party of ladies and gentlemen in an old 
 and venerable church in the city, — I think it was St. 
 Paul's. The Secretary had but just arrived from the front, 
 where I had met him. It was at the last grand review by 
 General Grant of the Twenty-fourth (white) and Twenty- 
 
DISTEICT OF EASTERN VIKGINIA, 383 
 
 fifth (colored) Divisions of the Army of the James, before 
 the final movement which ushered in the beginning of the 
 end, — an occasion on which I had ridden with the General 
 during the review and found him very hopeful and com- 
 municative, he having just heard from Sheridan, who was 
 smashing up things generally, having destroyed all the 
 railroads from Lynchburg to Eichmond, as well as all the 
 bridges and canals, and was then making his way to White 
 House, where he would arrive. Grant thought, in spite of 
 aU the efforts made by two divisions of the enemy to 
 intercept him. The General had also received a letter 
 from Sherman, who was at Fayetteville, and who reported 
 that Johnston's army was breaking up. The Secretary 
 being fresh from such an occasion, and having such cheer- 
 ing news, was in the best of spirits, though fatigued and 
 careworn, and received me very kindly. We sat together 
 in conversation for a few minutes, when Mr. Stanton 
 introduced the subject of my command. I said I was 
 expecting at any moment an order relieving me from the 
 command of that district, and directing me to go to the 
 front. " No," he replied, " you are not to be relieved. I 
 fixed that matter with Generals Grant and Ord last night. 
 You are doing too much good here, and we cannot afford 
 to lose you; you are doing better work here than if you 
 were commanding a corps or a division in the field, for you 
 are stopping supplies from going to the enemy, and Hart- 
 suflf [who was to take my place] would have matters all 
 mixed up in a short time." I was disappointed and vexed ; 
 but there was no help for it. Though Grant and Ord had 
 proposed, the Secretary had disposed ; and when Mr. Stan- 
 ton had once made up his mind, one who would think to 
 move him could not know him. I had never seen the Sec- 
 retary in such a kindly mood, or when he manifested so 
 much interest in others as he expressed for me and mine, 
 
384 A "WAE DIAEY. 
 
 assuring me that I should be relieved and sent to the field 
 as soon as the dangers which I was trying to ward off 
 should have passed. 
 
 Hard upon this visit came the official promulgation of 
 the Secretary's order, from General Ord, " by telegraph 
 from Headc[uarters, Army of the Potomac," dated March 
 18,1865: — 
 
 " The Secretary of War, when informed of the order about to 
 issue, owing to matters still pending, prefers that you continue 
 in command of the District of Eastern Virginia. You will 
 therefore not be relieved by General Hartsutt," 
 
DISTRICT OF EASTERN VIRGINIA. 385 
 
 CHAPTEE XII. 
 
 DISTRICT OF EASTERN VIRGINIA {continued). 
 
 ' I ^OWAEDS the end events became as confused as 
 
 ■^ pictures in a kaleidoscope. Hard upon the heels 
 of an impromptu dance at Fortress Monroe, at which 
 several officers of the English frigate " Galatea " were 
 present, Stephens, Vice-President of the so-called Con- 
 federacy, with others, arrived at City Point to treat of 
 peace with Mr. Seward and President Lincoln. The con- 
 ference took place on the " Indian Queen." So suddenly 
 had the President come, and so quickly had he gone, that 
 few knew of it, and none knew of the significance of the 
 visit. But that its purpose was to gain something from 
 the inevitable ruin before the final crash, we felt assured 
 from the testimony of the numerous deserters and refu- 
 gees who swarmed into our lines, bringing one and all 
 ■the same story of falling fortunes and hopeless prospects 
 of the Eebel Government. Of twenty-five who surren- 
 dered to me in a single batch, all were dispirited and 
 dejected. 
 
 " You won't believe us, sir," they said, " when we tell 
 you of the hopelessness of our troops. We are whipped, 
 sir, that 's all." 
 
 " Well, where do you wish to go ? " I asked. 
 
 " Home," they replied. 
 
 " But you can't," I said. 
 
 " We have General Grant's order," they pleaded. 
 
 " Let me see it." 
 
 25 
 
386 A WAR DIARY. 
 
 A soiled and torn paper, bearing General Grant's "prom- 
 ise that all deserters from the Eebel army should be per- 
 mitted to go to their homes — which, they said, had been 
 given to them by our pickets — was handed to me. 
 
 " How did so many of you escape at once ? " I asked. 
 
 " We bought furloughs," was the laconic reply. 
 
 " Bought furloughs ! Of whom ? " I said. 
 
 " Oh, you can buy them for fifty dollars apiece of a fel- 
 low who gets them forged for you." 
 
 Another turn of the kaleidoscope, and a gallows appears, 
 which was erected for the execution of an ofidcer of our 
 own army who had caused a sutler, with whom he had had 
 an affray, to be shot by his men. Death by hanging was 
 the sentence which I was ordered to see executed. Could 
 I save him ? The order was peremptory ; it was the sen- 
 tence of a court-martial, confirmed by the commander of 
 the department. But were there no mitigating circum- 
 stances ? Inquiries were set on foot, and a slight thread of 
 hope appeared, with which I procured a postponement of 
 his sentence for two weeks. The wife of the condemned 
 man, in ignorance of the fate of her husband, had written 
 to announce to him the birth of his first-born, and to ask 
 him to name it, — and this, with his death-warrant ring- 
 ing in his ears! In two weeks I 'had made out a case; 
 the order was reconsidered, and the of&cer finally saved by 
 the President's reprieve and pardon. I do not know the 
 officer's name, and I never saw him ; nor do I believe he 
 ever knew that my unmilitary interference saved him 
 from an ignominious death. 
 
 And then came another interference ; and this time it 
 was with the Tax Commissioners, whose sales of confis- 
 cated property for non-payment of taxes I had arrested 
 sometime before, under the plea of reservations for mili- 
 tary uses. These honest and high-minded gentlemen, 
 
DISTRICT OF EASTERN VIRGINIA. 387 
 
 being anxious to get as much property as possible out of 
 the hands of its original owners, seemed only desirous 
 of cutting off by sale the possibility of redemption; for, 
 once sold, the right was permanently lost. " Much has 
 been lost to the Government," they complained to me, " by 
 your order ; for since your interference many owners have 
 redeemed their estates by paying their taxes." I replied 
 that this was all the Government wanted ; of which I was 
 soon able to convince these patriotic (!) commissioners by 
 showing them telegrams from the President, and from the 
 Secretaries of the Treasury and of War, directing that all 
 tax sales should be stopped until further orders. 
 
 While these half-gorged harpies went away, sharp of 
 scent, to pounce down on other garbage, I turned my 
 attention to my own civil fund, with which I supported 
 orphans and almshouses, lighted streets, established schools, 
 maintained iire-engines, and so forth. This fund, accruing 
 from taxes, licenses, poUs, fees, permits, and small fines 
 through the provost-marshal's court, was regularly turned 
 over to a responsible financial agent, whose account of 
 receipts and disbursements was always open to the exami- 
 nation of the district and department commander. Then, 
 too, there were the rents paid by the Government for build- 
 ings for public uses, which in the hurried and partial deci- 
 sions of the hour had been grossly unjust, sometimes to the 
 owner, and sometimes to the Government. This question 
 of rents had been deferred until claimants could be heard 
 at the close of the war, when it was thought greater justice 
 might be done. 
 
 From the 6th to the 26th of March I had received, 
 through deserters and refugees, most satisfactory evidence 
 in justification of the course I had pursued in stopping the 
 infamous traffic which had been allowed in the District of 
 Eastern Virginia. Through Weldon in North Carolina, — a 
 
388 A WAK DIAKY. 
 
 point eighty miles from Norfolk on the Seaboard and Eoa^ 
 noke Eailroad, where that and other railways from the 
 south and west unite with the Petersburg and Roanoke 
 and Eichmond and Petersburg roads, — all the forage and 
 supplies had passed for Lee's army. At this gateway from 
 Norfolk, from the seaboard, and from such interior roads 
 as the Ealeigh and Gaston, the Weldon and "Wilmington, 
 Lee's army had been largely supplied with food and muni- 
 tions of war. From the officer charged with the exami- 
 nation of refugees and deserters a daily report, embodying 
 the fullest details of the'foul traffic which had been carried 
 on with the enemy, was made to me. Parties who left 
 Murfreea D^p&t as late as the 2d of March reported that 
 large lots of cotton were then being brought to that place 
 by rail, and thence carted to where it could be exchanged 
 for supplies ; and that the quantity arriving daily at this 
 D^pot was much greater than it was before the capture of 
 Charleston and Wilmington. On the 9th of March, refu- 
 gees and deserters from Edenton on the Ohowan River 
 reported that there was a regular line of vessels running 
 from thkt place, each carrying about one hundred bales 
 of cotton ; that they lay there generally four or five days 
 for a load, and that the Confederate Government had nine 
 mule teams drawing this same cotton from Murfrees D4- 
 pot; that cotton was also sent from this d^p6t to South 
 Mills, where, said the informants, " it is supposed to be 
 within your lines." But the most convincing testimony 
 was given by one "William "Whitehead, who came "into my 
 lines on the eighteenth as a deserter from the Twenty- 
 fourth "Virginia Cavalry. "Whitehead had been detached 
 from his regiment since October, and placed on duty in 
 the quartermaster's department at "Weldon. This position 
 afforded an admirable opportunity for observing the amount 
 of supplies passing through "Weldon, the sources whence 
 
DISTRICT OF EASTERN VIRGINU. 389 
 
 they came, and their final destination. All of the sugar 
 and coffee which had of late been issued to General Lee's 
 army had been carried through that town, and most of it 
 came from Murfrees D^p6t. At the time Whitehead left, 
 about four bales of cotton were stored there. 
 
 Cotton seized by the Confederate Government was turned 
 over to the commissary of subsistence, who appointed agents 
 to carry it into the Union lines and dispose of it. These 
 agents were obliged to give security to the amount of twenty 
 thousand dollars, and were thereupon allowed to take that 
 amount of cotton out of the Confederacy and exchange it 
 f6r coffee, sugar, and bacon. Usually from six to twelve 
 thousand pounds of bacon passed daily through Weldon in 
 exchange for cotton; but the cotton trade had become 
 very dull after the late restrictions. On the twenty-sixth, 
 however, on the testimony of one Thomas Montague, a 
 ship carpenter, who left Halifax, on the Eoanoke Eiver, 
 eight miles from Weldon, on the twentieth and came into 
 my lines on the twenty-sixth, I had reason to believe that 
 cotton was still flowing towards Murfrees D^pot, to the 
 left bank of the Chowan, and to the points formerly occu- 
 pied by Shepley's trade-stores. He said that he crossed 
 the Chowan at Manny's Ferry, one mile below Eeddicks- 
 ville, and that there were eight bales of cotton on the 
 boat on which he crossed the river, which cotton came 
 from Murfrees DdpSt; and, further, that he saw quite a 
 number of bales in the woods about Eeddick's. John 
 Gillot, a deserter from the Sixty-first "Virginia Infantry, 
 came from EeddicksviUe on the twenty-fourth, where he 
 saw about one hundred bales of cotton. He said that 
 EeddicksviUe was a sort of rendezvous for men who were 
 trading between the two armies; that as soon as cotton 
 was landed on the east bank of the Chowan Eiver it 
 was considered to be within Federal lines ; and that Man- 
 
390 A WAR DIAEY. 
 
 ny's Ferry was a point where quantities of cotton were 
 sent over. 
 
 On the thirty-first several mechanics and others who 
 had been in the service of the Seaboard Eailway came in- 
 to my lines. They stated that the average amount of cot- 
 ton carried over that road was fifty bales a day, and that 
 the amount carried to Murfrees D^pSt depended upon the 
 amount of supplies which was expected to be received 
 for cotton. Some days three car-loads were sent down, 
 and every day at least one car-load went, carrying about 
 thirty bales. The average amount of bacon carried over 
 this road daily was about ten thousand pounds. Sugar, 
 coffee, molasses, codfish, candles, etc., were also sent over 
 this road. 
 
 A single glance at the map will show, stronger than any 
 argument, the degree of that human " cussedness " which 
 could have allowed unlimited supplies of contraband of 
 war to pass into that region bounded by the Albemarle 
 Sound, the Chowan Eiver, and the Seaboard Eailway, where 
 free and uninterrupted communication, for cotton to come 
 out and supplies to go in, was allowed with Weldon, 
 Petersburg, and Eichmond. A single reflection wiU show 
 that a traffic in which the profits were so enormous would 
 not have been allowed and encouraged, if that region had 
 not been governed after the manner of the Eoman gover- 
 nors under Csesar, who plundered subject States, sold jus- 
 tice, pillaged temples, and stole all they could lay their 
 hands on, in the belief that they were safe from punish- 
 ment if they returned to Eome and admitted others to a 
 share in their spoils. 
 
 By the 20th of March, Sheridan had arrived in safety 
 at White House on the Pamunkey, and there, by Grant's 
 order, I sent a boat to him. Everything confirmed his 
 conviction that the end was nigh. Deserters, refugees. 
 
DISTRICT OF EASTERN VIRGINIA. 391 
 
 and our own men escaping from the enemy swelled the 
 list of those who told of a Eebel downfall. This was con- 
 firmed by the condition of Hood's army, which had arrived 
 a month before at Charlotte with only twenty thousand 
 men and no artillery; moreover, Bragg and his army were 
 falling back from Goldsborough and Ealeigh, while Sher- 
 man and Schofield, uniting, interposed between Lee and 
 reinforcements. There was also disaffection within the 
 enemy's lines. Eebel soldiers refused to fight if negroes 
 were to be armed, while Eebel leaders acknowledged that 
 there was no hope for them if negroes were not armed and 
 forced into the ranks. Jefferson Davis was treated with 
 contempt ; he had ceased to be an oracle, and was violently 
 finding fault with every one. 
 
 On the twenty-eighth General Sherman passed through 
 my district to the front to see Grant. He arrived there in 
 time to meet the President, who had himself arrived in 
 season to be part witness of a lively fight which had been 
 going on for a few days. It was begun by the enemy, who 
 came forward in front of Petersburg as if to surrender, and 
 then made a rush by which they gained an entrance to one 
 of our forts and proceeded to drive out our men. The 
 fight was sharp and decisive; the Eebels captured eight 
 hundred of our men, besides killing a few, while we of 
 theirs took twenty-eight hundred, killing many. These 
 little affairs were very entertaining to the Washington 
 officials, as a relief to the ocean of dreariness in which 
 society in that city floated, and those who were fortunate 
 enough to be present on such occasions never tired of 
 describing the scene. 
 
 Mr. Seward followed the President. He came from the 
 front with the Spanish and English ministers, his own 
 daughter, and a large retinue of ladies. I found them 
 seated in the parlor at my headquarters ; introduced my 
 
392 A WAK DIAEY. 
 
 wife and several lady visitors from Boston, and tten with 
 our distinguished guests, including Admiral Farragut, we 
 had an interesting talk. Mr. Seward, ever on the watch 
 for a diplomatic result, stood ready, I fancied, to extin- 
 guish my conversation the moment it glanced in any direc- 
 tion where he thought silence would he more profitable. 
 The premier had enjoyed the excitement of a heavy fight 
 on the left, where an attempt had been made to break up 
 the South-side Eailway ; he believed that this would prove 
 to be the final struggle of the war, and that it would end 
 in our success. So did the President, who still remained 
 at the front, in readiness to make peace at any moment 
 with the enemy, whenever he should show pacific inten- 
 tions. Our triumph did indeed seem assured by every 
 word that came to us. On the 2d of April it was tele- 
 graphed from Fortress Monroe that Sheridan had cap- 
 tured three brigades of the enemy and several batteries, 
 had possession of the South-side Eailway, and was driving 
 everything before him ; and hardly had this report been 
 received, when we learned that Eebel rams yet on the 
 stocks had been blown up, in order to choke the channel 
 of the James Eiver. 
 
 I cannot describe my feelings when these events were 
 followed, on the morning of the third, by an announcement 
 from Fortress Monroe that General Weitzel entered the 
 city of Eichmond at fifteen minutes after eight that morn- 
 ing! It was but two hours to midday. I was at my 
 office ; and there the message was received, — " authentic 
 beyond doubt," it said. I put the telegram in my pocket 
 and rushed on to the street. An officer spoke to me, and 
 I replied, " We have Eichmond ! " In a moment I was 
 with Admiral Farragut. He could hardly contain him- 
 self at the news. In his hand he held a copy of my des- 
 patch. Could this news be true ? — the Admiral doubted. 
 
DISTEICT OF EASTERN VERGINU. 393 
 
 But his wife did not ; she was jubilant ; she had never a 
 misgiving. We consulted a few moments upon the condi- 
 tion of affairs, upon the movement of Grant's left to cut 
 off Lee's railway communications between Eichmond and 
 the Southwest, and then I returned to my office. A boat 
 was ordered to be in readiness to convey the Admiral and 
 myself to Richmond that night. Everything that could be 
 turned out, I commanded to parade the streets of Norfolk, 
 with music, flags, and cheers. The provost-marshal organ- 
 nized civil processions. Bands in wagons played to the 
 echo in every street ; bells were rung and cannon fired till 
 " further orders." Till nightfall the carnival continued. 
 The first gun boomed out on the same spot where, it was 
 said, a householder at his own expense had fired a salute 
 when Sumter fell in 1861. The city was wild with ex- 
 citement. Crowds, composed largely of negroes, surged 
 through the streets till midnight. 
 
 On the evening of the same day a reception had been 
 prepared for Admiral Farragut. It was tendered to him 
 by the " citizens of Norfolk and Portsmouth and vicinity," 
 at Mechanics' Hall, at half-past seven. The Admiral's 
 speech was received with enthusiastic cheers. It was fol- 
 lowed by some fancy dancing, which was in rather bad 
 taste ; but the dancers were wreathed in garments of red, 
 white, and blue, which made the performance a patriotic 
 one. After the reception, at eleven o'clock at night, we 
 were on the boat steaming up the James. Of those who 
 accompanied me there were, of officers. Admiral Farra- 
 gut, my staff. Colonel Martindale, and Majors Stackpole 
 and Binney ; of ladies there were Mrs. Gordon and two 
 ladies from Boston; and several citizens, who, without 
 license or invitation, stole on board, and lay concealed 
 until we were under way. At daylight, on the 4th of 
 April, we were at City Point. There were many boats at 
 
394 A WAE DIAEY. 
 
 this place filled with prisoners; and there also was the 
 President's boat, the " Eiver Queen." Nothing was to be 
 learned here, and on we went to Dutch Gap, where we 
 were told by some naval officers that the navy under 
 Admiral Porter had not yet gone up to Eichmond, but 
 were engaged in dredging for torpedoes, which were said, 
 or thought, to be very abundant, and that the river was 
 full of obstructions. One mile below us was Aiken's Land- 
 ing ; it was the best starting-point for an overland jour- 
 ney to Eichmond, for which I had brought horses and 
 saddles. Eeturning there, we were soon on shore, and 
 mounted for our ride of fifteen miles. 
 
 A sailor on horseback is not the man he is on his own 
 quarter-deck. Consequently, we had a scene at the out- 
 set. The Admiral had great difficulty in mounting; his 
 short legs would not go over a rolled overcoat which was 
 strapped to the " gunwale " of his saddle ; and when we got 
 off he was much troubled with his trousers flying up to 
 his knees in an unruly manner. We stopped, therefore, 
 rigged straps, got him taut and ship-shape, and on we 
 went in rear of our lines up to General Ord's old headquar- 
 ters, by Butler's " bull pen," up to Fort Harrison, along the 
 lines of our deserted camps and intrenchments, out through 
 an opening in our most advanced breastwork, across the 
 ditch, over the abatis (the two lines of them, by^the way, 
 were not very strong), and into the open fields which lay 
 between the hostile lines that separated the armies besieg- 
 ing and defending the Eebel capital. Erom near Fort 
 Harrison, where we left our advanced lines, it was about 
 \ one-half or two-thirds of a mile to the first defences of the 
 enemy. Over the intermediate space, which was filled with 
 rifle-pits and stripped of trees and everything that could 
 cover an enemy, we approached the Eebel defences. They 
 were superior in strength to ours. Between two lines of 
 
DISTEICT Of EASTERN VIEGINIA. 395 
 
 abatis covering the front, chevaux-de-/rise, peikctly formed 
 and chained together, rendered a successful assault almost 
 an impossibility until these obstacles were cleared away. 
 These overcome, ditches with wire entanglements and tor- 
 pedoes before the parapets presented themselves as devil- 
 ish designs to impede an approach. Eebel huts and tents 
 were still standing; but there was not a solitary vestige 
 of life within them. From here we pushed on impatiently 
 towards Eichmond, eagerly gazing for its spires, which 
 were wrapped in the smoke rising from the burning city. 
 Passing many detached works, ■ — forts, defences, outer and 
 inner lines, — we at last reached the entrance to Eichmond. 
 It was about ten o'clock in the morning. "We made our 
 way through dirty and tortuous streets, by the ashes of 
 countless houses and burning timbers, by household goods 
 and furniture, amid multitudes of men and women gazing 
 hopelessly at the wreck and ruin, down the main avenue 
 and into the square where stood a monumental group of 
 Washington and Patrick Henry and Clay. 
 
 Here we found General Weitzel. He had established 
 his headquarters at the house and home of Jefferson 
 Davis. The lower part of the house was roomy and some- 
 what imposing, but the upper part was poor and mean 
 in the extreme. When Weitzel entered he was met by 
 Davis's servants with the announcement that their master 
 had told them that the Union commander would proba- 
 bly occupy the house, and that they must treat him well. 
 The Eebel President's wines had been preserved, and in 
 his parlor we drank to the health of the fugitive ruler of 
 the Confederacy. As a memento I took away a group of 
 bronze and wood representing an eagle being strangled by 
 a crocodile. From the eagle's beak hung a chain. It was 
 thus, I suppose, that the United States were to be throttled 
 in an attempt to enslave the South. We were joined in 
 
396 A WAR DUKY. 
 
 the parlor by the ladies. They were the first to enter 
 Eichmond after its capture ; and this they owed to Colonel 
 Martindale, who, pressing an ambulance into service, made 
 his way into the Eebel city, to the entire and lasting grati- 
 fication of these irrepressible women. 
 
 A cunning device now entered the Admiral's head. 
 What a fine thing it would be to run the river and triumph 
 over Admiral Porter; to hail him on his upward course 
 with the President, with a report that the way was clear, 
 and that he, Farragut, though present as a tourist only, 
 had cut in and investigated, while the naval commander 
 to whom the work belonged was sounding and feeling his 
 way cautiously up the James. No sooner was this plan 
 conceived, than Farragut turned to execute it. Since the 
 evacuation no boat had passed down from Eichmond, and 
 none from below had arrived there. The only one in 
 Weitzel's possession was the Eebel flag-of-truce boat, which 
 was at its wharf with its captain, mate, and engineer 
 aboard. The Admiral could have that boat and its pilot 
 (if Weitzel could find him), who knew the river well, and 
 the position of the torpedoes in its channel. With 
 unbounded confidence in the Admiral's seamanship and 
 good luck, I put myself at his disposal. With a skilful 
 pilot who knew the way, there were good chances that we 
 might escape the censure which would inevitably follow 
 our flight from this world while engaged in an officious 
 intermeddling with the plans and duties of others. So we 
 started for the boat. 
 
 On our way we came to Libby Prison, and stopped to 
 enter that gloomy hell. It was occupied by Eebel prison- 
 ers under a Federal guard. On the lower floor piles of 
 cast-off shoes and clothing, miserable reminders of our own 
 poor fellows, awoke feelings both of pity and of rage. We 
 were shown a hole where a torpedo was planted to blow 
 
DISTRICT OF EASTERN VIRGINIA. 397 
 
 the prison and its inmates to atoms, had Dahlgren in 
 his raid succeeded in effecting an entrance to the city. On 
 the ground-floor there were no prisoners. Our officers of 
 the guard, with more humanity than theirs, had given the 
 Eebels the healthier quarters above. As I gazed upon the 
 Stars and Stripes floating gaily over Libby Prison in Eich- 
 mond, I felt that the day of our deliverance was indeed at 
 hand. 
 
 Continuing on to the river, we came to the Eebel 
 steamer, and found her captain, but no pilot on board. 
 We waited until our patience was exhausted, and then 
 consulted the Eebel captain. What did he think of the 
 dangers of this proposed trip, we asked. He said he 
 "didn't like to try it;" was afraid of the torpedoes, "espe- 
 cially as he did not know where they were planted. On 
 Sunday night (it was then Tuesday) he had made his last 
 trip, and since then he had seen a whole boat-load of tor- 
 pedoes carried down to be placed in the channel. We had 
 by this time lost all hope of seeing our promised pilot ; 
 and nothing was left us but to go without him or abandon 
 the trip. The latter was not to be thought of ; go the Ad- 
 miral would, and at once. What did he care for torpedoes ? 
 We must take our chances ; the captain knew the channel, 
 and this was sufficient. I acquiesced, for I was deter- 
 mined to stick by the Admiral. I had brought him into 
 Eichmond, by land ; and what now could be more appro- 
 priate than that he should take me out by water ? Then, 
 too, there was the fun of the thing. How Porter would 
 enjoy it ! — if we got through ! 
 
 The Admiral's arrangements were soon made. He pro- 
 moted himself to be captain of the boat, assigned me to duty 
 on his staff, put the ex-captain at the wheel, and ordered 
 the engineer to go ahead. The Admiral and his staff took 
 post on the hurricane deck near the bow, with weather 
 
398 A WAE DIARY. 
 
 eyes out sharp after obstructions. How the Admiral felt 
 I cannot say ; but I saw no indications, in his calm and 
 serene expression, that he looked for any sudden transla- 
 tion into the higher ether. I did ; but I hope he did not 
 see it. The shores on either side were lined with wrecks. 
 Huge pieces of stone and rubbish walled up the narrow 
 channel, leaving only room enough for the flag-of-truce 
 boat to make its way. " Not one hundred monitors," said 
 Admiral Eadford to me at a subsequent period, " could 
 have opened the James against such obstacles, under the 
 fire of opposing guns. It would have been utterly impos- 
 sible for our fleet to have passed up until these barriers 
 were removed; and they could not have been removed 
 until the shore batteries were silenced. Add to what you 
 saw," he continued, " torpedoes innumerable, some of them 
 immense in size and filled with two thousand pounds of 
 powder, to be ignited by a galvanic wire from shore, and 
 you can see how safe Eichmond was from a forced passage 
 ,of the river by any fleet." And how much was due to 
 Sheridan, I thought, who by his flank movement on the 
 southwestern railways rendered all this costly prepa- 
 ration abortive ! About six miles below Eichmond our 
 passage was stopped by a bridge. While we were at- 
 tempting to' open the draw a naval tug steamed into 
 view, with a gun at her bow, the Stars and Stripes flying 
 from her stern, and a petty ofi&cer in command. This 
 was the advance boat of the fleet under Porter. The 
 sight of a steamer coming down the river flying the Eebel 
 flag (we had no other, and took the steamer as we found 
 her, colors and all) surprised our jolly tars, who hailed us 
 with the cry, — 
 
 " What boat is that ? " 
 
 " Good morning, Mr. ;' replied the Admiral 
 
 " Admiral Farragut ! is that you ? " 
 
DISTRICT OF EASTEBN VIRGINIA. 399 
 
 " Yes, sir, it is. We have come down from Eichmond 
 to meet you." 
 
 " Well, Admiral, you had better take in that flag, or the 
 next boat you meet, seeing those colors, may fire into you." 
 
 An hour or more of delay at the bridge, and we steamed 
 on until a launch hove in sight, with quite an array of 
 officers in its stern. Among them I recognized Admiral 
 Porter and Abraham Lincoln. Porter's expression was 
 one of blank amazement; the President's was sad, but 
 satisfied. " How are you Porter ? " and " Is that you, 
 Farragut?" with "How is Libby?" from the President, 
 accompanied by an audible and very open smile, and the 
 reply from Farragut, "Very fuU of Eebel prisoners," were 
 the salutations and replies which passed as we continued 
 on by still heavier batteries, whose huge guns pointed aim- 
 lessly down the river, — on by more wrecks of iron-clads 
 and gunboats, forts deserted, houses and green wheat-fields, 
 powder-blackened shores, where boats had been blown 
 up, — on by machinery sticking up above the water-line, 
 by mailed timbers, sunken boats, and aH the wreck and 
 ruin of war, — on by twenty-five mUes of fortifications to 
 Aiken's Landing, which we reached at nightfalL At City 
 Point we found Mrs. Grant, with whom we exchanged con- 
 gratulations upon the happy event ; then steamed home- 
 ward, arriving at Norfolk at daylight on the morning of 
 Wednesday, April 5. 
 
 A despatch from General Grant to his wife, that she had 
 better go home, as he intended to follow up Lee till there 
 was no more Lee to follow, when he would turn his at- 
 tention to Joe Johnston, was an expression of that pur- 
 pose which was manifested when Sheridan overtook the 
 fleeing army at BurkesviUe, and held it until our infantry 
 came up, when Lee, again breaking away, was pursued 
 and captured by Grant. In the mean time, Eichmond was 
 
400 A WAR DIARY. 
 
 being made accessible from all quarters, — by rail from 
 Acquia Creek and from Suffolk, and by boats on the 
 James. Trade was resumed, treasures of the soil — cotton 
 and tobacco — were seized, and the day of lasting peace 
 seemed near. 
 
 All the facts of Lee's surrender at Appomattox Court 
 House, on the 9th of April, are known to the world. It is 
 not within the scope of this work to dwell upon the public 
 history of that event I am dealing here with private his- 
 tory, and shall conclude these .pages with what concerned 
 me in the final winding-up of the Great Eebellion. 
 
 Smarting under the disappointment of the hour, queru- 
 lous and scolding from the well-merited punishment in- 
 flicted upon him by Grant, Butler addressed to me two 
 letters, the occasion of which was certain articles in the 
 " Old Dominion," — a newspaper published by its owner 
 within my district, — reflecting upon his administration 
 and his career. It was useless to assure General Butler 
 that I had no hand in the matter, and that I knew nothing 
 of the articles until they appeared in print ; or to suggest 
 that, if the accusations were unfounded, none knew better 
 than he that no injury could befall him thereby., He 
 insisted that I should have suppressed them ; that the 
 bare fact of their publication within my district was evi- 
 dence that my relations with him were not friendly, — 
 nay, that I actually inspired the articles j and he concluded 
 the correspondence by a declaration of war, in the quota- 
 tion, "Time at last sets all things even." "With many 
 irons in the fire, Butler, on the 14th of April, in Wash- 
 ington, sought to heat some of them, "and set things 
 even;" for he, like many other politicians such as he, 
 seemed to think that the word friendship signified an obli- 
 gation to indorse every act and to support every measure, 
 
DISTKICT OF EASTERN VIRGINIA. 401 
 
 however wrong, which it might please him to practise or 
 to countenance. 
 
 To retm-n again to active service as military governor 
 of Eichmond and its vicinity would have suited very well 
 Butler's peculiar complaint ; and it would, moreover, have 
 made good his oft-repeated boast, that he had never been 
 relieved from duty without being intrusted with a higher 
 command. But in Ben's path to this object of his ambition 
 there stood a lion, and Benjamin did not like lions. Gov- 
 ernor Pierpont, whom the President seemed quite inclined 
 to recognize as the Governor of Virginia, entertained for 
 our Benjamin a contempt which was surpassed only by the 
 degree of Benjamin's hate for Pierpont. The President's 
 method of bringing the rebellious States into harmony with 
 the loyal North, was through a reconstruction which should 
 be based upon forgiveness for the past. Butler therefore 
 was anxious to close the deadly breach between himself 
 and the Governor ; to forget that he had offered a number 
 of thousands of dollars for the privilege of catching Pier- 
 pont within the Military Department of Virginia and 
 North Carolina; to become oblivious to the fact that he 
 had allowed his soldier printers to print, with a Govern- 
 ment press on Government paper, and his soldier binders 
 to bind, a pamphlet inspired by himself, scoring Pierpont 
 severely on personal matters ; and, in short, he was making 
 overtures of peace, and pointing to the blessings which 
 would flow to each from a fraternal embrace. Butler as 
 the high priest of a dispensation of forgiveness and love to 
 his Eebel brethren, and especially to Pierpont, would have 
 been an unlocked for event in the President's policy. 
 
 But Butler's mission was not altogether for personal re- 
 dress ; he wished to interfere in this era of brotherly love 
 in behalf of the Lowell knaves and the Southern rascals 
 then held in prison in Norfolk, awaiting trial for supplying 
 
 26 
 
402 A WAE DIARY. 
 
 the enemy with contrahand of war. A pardon for several 
 of these men convicted of this detestable crime had been 
 promised by Butler's brother-in-law, upon the sole condi- 
 tion that they should arrange for the exchange of a whole 
 steamboat load of contraband of war for cotton at the 
 enemy's outpost. More than this, the pardon had actually 
 been granted after the delivery of the cargo was made, 
 the cotton secured, the transaction known, and Butler's 
 authority to grant pardons had been stripped from him. 
 I was for a moment somewhat startled that the era 
 of good feeling could have produced such results in the 
 Presidential heart as to induce Mr. Lincoln to desire 
 to know from me by telegraph by what authority there 
 were certain persons restrained of their liberty within my 
 district. My reply, that these traders in contraband of 
 war were held in duress substantially by Grant's order, 
 drew the controversy into a different channel, and I heard 
 no more of Mr. Lincoln's interference, and should doubtless 
 have heard nothing of any future proceedings concerning 
 the cargo of the " Philadelphia," had not Butler, embold- 
 ened by his success with the President and the Eepublican 
 party, in which he became a shining light, endeavored to 
 overcome the Supreme Court of the United States in an 
 effort to obtain redress for the knaves in matters con- 
 nected with the seizure by our navy of the steamer " Phil- 
 adelphia " and her cargo of cotton as she was making her 
 way from a Rebel outpost on the Nottaway Eiver into 
 Albemarle Sound, and thence to a market in New York. 
 In this court at last the entire transaction was charac- 
 terized as it deserved to be, and the whole subject ex- 
 hibited to the world in its true light. 
 
 Of aU. the woes that had befallen us, the worst seemed 
 to have been reserved for the hour of our rejoicing. Never 
 before in this rebellion had the whole category of human 
 
DISTKICT OF EASTERN VIRGINIA. 403 
 
 afflictions, — downfall, prostration, and ruin, — seemed to 
 me so possible as when, on the 15th of April, between two 
 and three o'clock in the afternoon, I received from Fortress 
 Monroe the following despatch : — 
 
 General, — Not knowing whether the sad intelligence we 
 have received here has yet reached you, I have thought proper 
 to send you this by special boat. President Lincoln was shot 
 last night at Ford's Theatre, and died at 7.30 this A. M. Sec- 
 retary Seward was stabbed, may recover ; his son also stabbed, 
 wiU probably not recover. We have no further particulars 
 here. 
 
 Later in the day, a telegram confirmed this sad news, 
 and added that Vice-President Johnson was offlciating. 
 This deed, so paralyzing both on account of its intrinsic 
 atrocity and its startling effect on the nation, I could not 
 at first grasp. In vain I tried to penetrate that region of 
 despair where men brood over the desperate possibilities 
 of assassination. Such awful crimes we thought had 
 passed from us forever. We could not credit it, that any 
 man could be found wicked enough or foolish enough 
 to believe that our G-overnment could be shaken by the 
 violent death of its President. With a determination to 
 throw off the dejection which oppressed me, I wrote and 
 published t© my command on the next day the following 
 order : — 
 
 Headqfartbks, District of Eastern Virginia, 
 Norfolk, Va., April 16, 1865. 
 
 (General Order No. 25.) 
 
 The General commanding announces with sorrow the sudden 
 death of Abraham Lincoln. All the intelligence yet received is 
 contained in the following telegram, dated the 15th inst. : — 
 
 "President Lincoln was shot through the head at 10.30 last 
 night, while in his private box at Ford's Theatre, Washington, 
 and died at 7.22 this morning. Secretary Seward's house was 
 
404 A WAR DIAEY, 
 
 visited by another assassin at about the same hour (10.30 P. M. 
 14th), and the Secretary stabbed in several places j may possibly 
 recover. His son Frederick was also stabbed, and will probably 
 die of the wounds. Vice-President Johnson is now officiating."* 
 
 In the death of Abraham Lincoln the country has lost one of 
 its best citizens and one of its most conscientious rulers. Our 
 President was a just and a good man. However deeply we 
 may mourn his loss, let us be thankful to God that our country 
 stands unshaken ; and let those who believe our foundations are 
 based upon anything but the firm and unshaken rock of the 
 will of the people, lay to heart the truth, of history, that neither 
 King nor Parliament can ever resist the omnipotence of popular 
 ideas. 
 
 As each day seemed to add new horrors to the horrid 
 tragedy, so each day revealed to us that the plot was more 
 extensive in its scope than we had dreamed of. Booth the 
 assassin had escaped ; Andrew Johnson had been duly in- 
 stalled as the President of the United States; the body 
 of Abraham Lincoln was removed, on the 19th of April, to 
 his old home at Springfield, Illinois, for burial. Home 
 again, and for burial! as so many brave men had been 
 carried before him in our civil war. 
 
 Permission having been granted from the headquarters of 
 the army to all officers and soldiers of the Array of North- 
 ern Virginia who were not present at the surrender of that 
 army by General Eobert E. Lee at Appomattox Court 
 House on the 9th of April, upon laying down their arms 
 and receiving their paroles, to avail themselves of the terms 
 of that capitulation, the constant influx within my lines of 
 those who had thus been paroled seemed to me to call for 
 a proclamation which should make clear the statius of those 
 deceived and deluded masses whom we had vanquished 
 in war. Accordingly, on the 19th of April, I distributed 
 the following : — 
 
DISTEICT OF EASTERN VIRGINIA. 405 
 
 "To those erring and misguided persons who have been 
 allowed to return to their homes, and to all to whom it may be 
 applicable, this order is promulgated. 
 
 " Many of you have been madly attempting the destruction 
 of our common country, but a just God has defeated your efforts. 
 You have experienced the might of your Government ; you are 
 now permitted to enjoy its clemency. You are again at home, 
 with the loved flag of the Nation to defend, succor, and protect. 
 You are received into this district in the belief that, truly peni» 
 tent for the past, you will become .good citizens in the future; 
 that you will, in return for the confidence bestowed, show your- 
 selves worthy that confidence. 
 
 " In that belief, you may rely upon fair and impartial treat- 
 ment. Upon a proper manifestation of allegiance, you shall seek 
 your own living as you may choose, and be subjected to no ex- 
 cessive restraints. You shall share equally all the privileges that 
 can with safety be bestowed on any. Thus will you be trusted. 
 
 " With yourselves and your families remains your future of 
 happiness, or of misery. As you give, so shall you receive. 
 With what measure you mete out your loyalty, protection and 
 pardon shall be meted out to you. A surly and dogged obedi- 
 ence, a traitorous lip-service, and a sneering worship in God's 
 holy temple, with treason in the heart, will not assure such 
 happiness to the male or female subject that joy will be born 
 therefrom. 
 
 " Let there be thanks to God that the heart of the Nation has 
 been turned to pardon, rather than to punishment; but take 
 heed that offence cometh not again! " 
 
 There are many interesting bits of history connected 
 with the first efforts of loyal commanders to tone down the 
 rebellious spirit of returning Eebels. On the one hand 
 there was the rage, chagrin, and mortification of the con- 
 quered, and on the other, the overbearing and sometimes 
 unreasonable exercise of unrestrained wiU by the con- 
 queror. If, on the one hand, it was hard to yield, on the 
 other it was hard to be just. Submission and penitence 
 
406 A "WAR DIAEY. 
 
 were exacted from those who still held in their hearts all 
 the malevolence and anger that civil war engenders. The 
 following case illustrates the animosity which existed, the 
 degree of self-imposed mortification which followed, and 
 the harsh spirit in which commanders received the sub- 
 mission of returning Eebels. 
 
 The Eev. George D. Armstrong, a Presbyterian clergy- 
 man of Norfolk, had taken, in December, 1863, the oath 
 prescribed by the President as a condition of grace, under 
 which he was to enjoy his civil privileges so far as was 
 possible in a state of war, — doing nothing which could 
 give aid or comfort to the enemy, and receiving in return 
 immunity from vexatious proceedings. On the 4th of 
 March, 1864, Butler sent this reverend gentleman to Fort 
 Hatteras in North Carolina, there to be held as a prisoner 
 of war. The somewhat entertaining tournament between 
 Butler as an expounder of Christian principles and church 
 practices and the Eev. Mr. Armstrong was preserved in 
 the files of the " New E^gime,'' where all the most savory 
 performances of the commander of that department were 
 served up to enrapture his obsecLuious worshippers. I give 
 it with its heading, as cut from a Eichmond paper of the 
 23d of April, 1864, — thus not only snatching this literary 
 gem from oblivion, but preserving some of the compli- 
 ments with which our enemies greeted Benjamin in that 
 season : — 
 
 An Examination in a "Subjugated" City. — A few days 
 since we published the examination of Eev. Mr. Armstrong, of 
 Norfolk, by an order of Butler, upon the charge of disloyalty. 
 The oath which the accused had taken was an oath of parole, 
 and the charge against the prisoner seems to have been disloyalty 
 in his feelings. In a late copy of "The New E^gime," pub- 
 lished at Norfolk, we find a report of a subsequent examination 
 
DISTRICT OF EASTERN VIRGINIA. 407 
 
 of Mr. Armstrong by the in person at Fortress Monroe. 
 
 We give it as a part of the history of the times : — 
 
 " General B. — I have read a report, Mr. Armstrong, of an 
 examination of yourself by one of my aides-de-camp in regard to 
 the question of your loyalty. Now I need not say to a man as 
 experienced as yourself, that taking the oath of allegiance is only 
 a manifestation of loyalty; that as a man might join your 
 church and stiU be a very bad man after so doing, so a man may 
 take the oath of allegiance and stUl be a very disloyal man. 
 
 "Rev. Mr. A. — K you will allow me to make a statement 
 to you, I will do so ; or I wUl answer such questions as you 
 please. 
 
 " General. — Make your own statement, sir. 
 
 " Mr. A. — The view with which I took the oath was this : I 
 believe the military commander has a right to demand of the 
 citizens at any time that they shall take a parole. I regard Nor- 
 folk as for the present a conquered city ; indeed, I have had no 
 idea that the Confederates would again take it, and that if it 
 ever again did become a part of Virginia, it would be by treaty 
 at the end of the war. I wished, in accordance with the Scrip- 
 tural injunction, to ' obey the powers that be,' and I believe 
 the United States to be 'the powers that be.' I took the oath 
 with the intention of keeping it so far as my actions were con- 
 cerned. My feelings, of course, I cannot control. My words 
 and actions I can. 
 
 " General. — That brings me, sir, to a matter to which I wish 
 to call your careful attention. Tour unrevealed thoughts I can 
 only get by asking questions. Now, sir, I want to ask you a 
 few questions. Did you in any way advise, consult with, or 
 give any information to Mrs. Mcintosh in relation to selling any 
 property in Norfolk 1 
 
 "Mr. A. — Not that I recollect. 
 
 " General. — Let me try and quicken your recoUeotion a little. 
 Tou know herl 
 
 " Mr. A. — Yes, sir. 
 
 "General. — She is a sister of Captain Mcintosh, of the so- 
 called Confederate States Navy? 
 
408 A WAK DIARY. 
 
 "Mr. A. — His wife; she is a member of my church. She 
 was about selling her property — 
 
 " General. — Wait one moment. Don't you remember whether 
 you advised her about selling it in any way 1 
 
 "Mr. A. — I talked with her. I don't recollect what I said. 
 I believe there was a conversation about her selling her property 
 and removing to Baltimore, — no, not about selling her property. 
 She told me, as her pastor, that she was going to remove to 
 Baltimore. 
 
 "General. — Did you then and there say to her, that she had 
 better not remove or sell her property, because the Confederates 
 would soon have the city of Norfolk, and her property would 
 then be worth more, or words to that effect? Answer me that 
 question, now, without mental reservation or equivocation. 
 
 "Mr. A. — No, sir. I urged her not to go away from Nor- 
 folk, on account of her church. 
 
 "General. — Did you say anything like it? 
 
 "Mr. A. — No, sir. 
 
 '* General. — Did you say anything as to the time when you 
 thought the Confederates would have Norfolk 1 
 
 "Mr.A. — No, sir. 
 
 " General. — Anything of the sort] 
 
 "Mr. A. — No, sir. 
 
 " General. — Tou pray for the authorities? 
 
 "Mr. A. — Ipray for the authorities over us; and I publicly 
 explain to my congregation, that in so doing we were praying 
 for the President of the United States. 
 
 " General. — Do your people understand it? 
 
 "Mr. A. — They do. I have publicly explained it. 
 
 "General. — Have you, since taking the oath of allegiance, or 
 at any other time, checked one of the members of your congre- 
 gation when he was praying for the President? 
 
 " Mr. A. — Have I checked them ? 
 
 "General. — Chided them in any way or form of words? 
 
 « Mr.A. — Not that I recollect. 
 
 "General. — I beg your pardon, sir ; it is not a matter of recol- 
 lection. It is a thing you cannot forget. 
 
DISTRICT OF EASTEKN "VIRGINIA. 409 
 
 "Mr. A. — No, sir. 
 
 " General. — Did not one of the members of your congregation 
 pray for the President of the United States, and did not you 
 say that it had better not be done ; that there were two parties 
 to please here 1 
 
 " Mr. A. — Never, sir. 
 
 "General. — Nothing of the sort ? 
 
 " Mr. A. — Nothing of the sort. 
 
 " General. — I perceive that in your former examination you 
 declined answering this question : ' Do you call yourself a loyal 
 man in letter and spirit to-day ? ' 
 
 " Mr. A. — I do not decline to answer now. If I were to put 
 my own interpretation upon it I should say I am ; but I don't 
 know, sir. 
 
 " General. — Well, sir, perhaps I can teach you. Now, sir, 
 what is the name of that gentleman who had taken the oath, 
 and, while coming out of the Custom House with you, made the 
 remark that he ' would like to spit upon the Northern Yapkees ' ] 
 
 " Mr. A. — Mr. Charles Eeid. I declined to answer on my 
 former examination because I had not his consent to tell, sir ; 
 hut since that I have seen him, and he has given me his consent 
 to mention his name. 
 
 " General. — Where is Mr. Eeid ? 
 
 "Mr. A. — He is in Norfolk. 
 
 " General. — (To an aid.) Telegraph to Colonel Whelden 
 (provost-marshal, Norfolk) to arrest Mr. Charley Eeid and send 
 him here. He lives on Main street. 
 
 " General. — He stated that as he came out from taking the 
 oath? 
 
 " Mr. A. — Yes, sir. 
 
 "General. — With the oath fresh on his lips and the words 
 hardly dry in his mouth, he said he ' wanted to spit in the face 
 of the Northern Yankees ' ? 
 
 " Mr. A. — Well, General, he took it with the same view as I did. 
 
 " General. — •! agree to that, sir. 
 
 "Mr. A. — I meant to say — 
 
 " General. — Stop, sir. I don't like to be insulted. You said, 
 sir, that that infernal Secessionist wanted to spit in the faces of 
 
410 A WAR DIAKY. 
 
 loyal men of this Union, and that you took the oath with the 
 same view as he did, or rather he took it with the same view 
 that you did, — it makes no difference which. I agree, sir, that 
 you did. I have treated you, sir, during this interview, with 
 propriety and courtesy up to this moment, and yet you, sir, here 
 teU me, in order to clear this vile wretch who shall he punished 
 as he deserves, that ytm took the oath to my Government tdth the 
 same view that he did. 
 
 " Mr. A. — Well, sir, it was a mortifying fact to confess that 
 we were a conquered people, and it was the irritation growing 
 out of that fact. 
 
 " General. — You have not helped it, sir. You had not hetter 
 go on in that direction any further, sir, for your own sake. Now, 
 sir, while you did preach a very virulent sermon upon 'The 
 Victory of Manassas,' at the recommendation of the Confederate 
 Congress, have you ever since preached in your pulpit a sermon 
 favorable to the Union cause, or one that would be likely to 
 please the loyal and displease the disloyal 1 
 
 " Mr. A. — No, sir, I never have. 
 
 " General. — You have said you ' do not think this a wicked 
 rebellion.' Do you still hold to that opinion 1 
 
 " Mr. A. — Yes, sir. 
 
 " General. — You have not opened your church upon any of 
 the days recommended by the authorities. I want a more 
 explicit answer, sir, than you have given previously. You know 
 whether you have or not. How is it? 
 
 " Mr. A. — I should have to answer, sir, that I did. There 
 were prayer-meetings held in the church. No addresses were 
 made. There was a prayer for peace. 
 
 " General. — You said you ' would not willingly open your 
 church to any recognized minister of the Gospel from such de- 
 nominations as before the war you would have exchanged with, 
 did you know he would pray for the Union, and against the 
 Eebels'? 
 
 " Mr. A. — Yes, sir. 
 
 " General. — You said you looked upon the hanging of John 
 Brown as just and right because he interfered with the peace of 
 the country i 
 
DISTRICT OF EASTERN VIRGINU. 411 
 
 " Mr. A. — Yes, sir. 
 
 "General. — Very good, sir. Now, then, -would you look 
 upon the hanging of the prominent Eehels, Jefferson Davis, for 
 instance, as just and right 1 — You know the Eebels have inter- 
 fered with the peace of the country, and have caused rivers of 
 blood to flow where John Brown only caused pints. What do 
 you say to that 1 
 
 " Mr. A. — I would not, sir. 
 
 " General. — Are your sympathies with the Union or the Con- 
 federate cause ] 
 
 " Mr. A. — With the Confederates. 
 
 " General. — I don't see, sir, what good the oath has been to you. 
 
 " Mr. A. — I thought the oath was an oath of amnesty. 
 
 " General. — You took the oath, sir, for the purpose of having 
 the United States protect you while you should, by your con- 
 duct and your life, aid and comfort the Eebels. It is an oath 
 of amnesty to those who take it in truth, and come back repent- 
 ant to the United States. You are a Presbyterian. A man 
 comes to you ; you are about to take him into communion. You 
 say to him, ' You have heretofore been a wicked man.' He says, 
 ' Yes, sir.' You ask him if he has experienced a change of 
 heart. He says, 'No, sir.' You ask, ' Are your sympathies with 
 us or the devil "i ' He says, ' The devU.' You ask, ' Which would 
 you like to have prevail in this world, God or the devU V He 
 says, 'The devil.' You ask, ' Where are your friends ]' He says, 
 ' With the devU.' Then you ask him, ' Do you think you can 
 join the church with your present feelings ? ' He replies, ' I think 
 I can, to get the bread and wine at the altar.' Think of it, sir, 
 anywhere else, and as a man of Christian professions, saying 
 nothing of Christian practice. I call upon you to think of it. 
 Sworn to be loyal and true to the United States, here you are 
 with your sympathies against them. You, sir, are a perjured 
 man in the sight of God. It is an oath of amnesty to those 
 who truly repent, precisely as Christ shed his blood for those 
 who repent, but not for those who would crucify him afresh. 
 For you, sir, it was an oath of amnesty. I should be just as 
 wrong in receiving you, sir, as a loyal man, as you would in 
 receiving such a man as I have described into your church. (To 
 
412 A WAR DIAET. 
 
 an aid.) — Make an order that this man be committed to the 
 guard-house, in close confinement, there to remain until he can 
 be consigned to Fort Hatteras, there to be kept in solitary con- 
 finement until further orders, and send a copy of this examina- 
 tion to the officer, in command there." 
 
 In a subsequent number of " The New E^gime " we 
 find the following: — 
 
 "The Eev. George D. Armstrong, of this city, who, after 
 taking the oath of allegiance, had given utterance to disloyal 
 sentiments, yesterday sailed for Fort Hatteras, where he is 
 to be confined for some time. 
 
 " Charles Reid, of this city, has been ordered outside our lines 
 for a like offending, and will go up the James River in the next 
 flag-of-truce boat." 
 
 The manner of this reverend gentleman's release from 
 imprisonment, his return to Norfolk, and his desire to 
 resume his pastoral duties, were set forth in a letter to my 
 provost-marshal as follows : — 
 
 Norfolk, Va., April 22, 1865. 
 To Colonel Mann, Provost-Marshal, District Eastern Virginia : 
 
 Sir, — Having returned to Norfolk after a constrained absence 
 of more than a year, I wish to resume my ministerial charge of 
 the Presbyterian Church in this city, and now ask that I may 
 be allowed to do so. 
 
 In connection with this request, I make the following state- 
 ment of facts in my case. 
 
 1. On the 4th of March, 1864, I was arrested, sent, to Fort 
 Hatteras, North Carolina, and there imprisoned by order of Major- 
 General B. F. Butler. Early in the December preceding, I had 
 taken " the oath of amnesty " published by the late President of 
 the United States, and had never, in so far as I know, by any act 
 of mine, violated that oath. In his order directing my imprison- 
 ment. General Butler does not charge me with any act or word 
 spoken in public in violation of my oath, but with having taken 
 the oath improperly. 
 
DISTKICT OF EASTERN VlEGINIA. 413 
 
 2. After being detained in prison for several months, I was, 
 by General Butler's orders, sent through " the lines " to Eich- 
 mond, which place I reached September 28, 1864. This was 
 not at my request, or the request of my friends, — my wish 
 being to return to my home in this city. 
 
 3. Shortly after reaching Eichmond, I received an appoint- 
 ment from the Presbyterian Board of Missions at Columbia, 
 South Carolina, as a Missionary to the Third Corps of the Army 
 of Northern Virginia (from the Government I had no commis- 
 sion) ; and in this capacity I was laboring at the time of the 
 retreat of that army to Appomattox Court House. At the sur- 
 render of that army, by advice of General Longstreet then 
 commanding the Third Corps, I was paroled along with his 
 staff as a missionary in the army, and in this situation I 
 have now returned to Norfolk. 
 
 4. By the events of the last few weeks, I consider the war as 
 practically 'ended. I accept the result as it is. I regard the 
 authorities of the United States as "the powers that be" of Scrip- 
 ture, and therefore "powers ordained of God," and acknowl- 
 edge it to be my duty to yield them the obedience and support 
 of a good citizen. This obligation it is my intention honestly 
 to discharge. 
 
 5. As I have never regarded " the oath of amnesty," taken in 
 December, 1863, as a proper oath of allegiance, I this day applied 
 to the Assistant Provost-Marshal to administer to me the oath 
 of allegiance to the United States. This he informed me a 
 recent order prohibited his doing in cases such as mine, except 
 upon order of the General commanding. For this reason my 
 request is not accompanied with any certificate of having taken 
 such oath. 
 
 In view of the above statement of facts and intentions, I 
 would now repeat my request that I be allowed to resume my 
 ministerial duties in the Presbyterian church in this city. 
 Very respectfully, your obedient servant, 
 
 Geo. D. Abmstrong. 
 
 The request to take the oath of allegiance and to be 
 permitted to resume his clerical duties, was granted upon 
 
414 A WAR DIAEY. 
 
 condition that he should make due suhmission by signing 
 a paper which I drew up and forwarded for his signature. 
 It is perhaps needless to add that the conditio sine qud 
 ncn was not accepted, and that Mr. Armstrong, therefore, 
 abstained for a period from further ministerial duties. 
 
 Next in order came an appeal, so deferential and pa- 
 thetic, that it inclined my heart unto a willingness to do 
 all in my power for one so crushed and humbled. The 
 appeal was as follows : — 
 
 NoEFOLK, May 4, 1865. 
 General : 
 
 Sir, — I very respectfully submit myself to you ; and in the 
 same tone ask that you wiU give me a pass to my farm, six nules 
 in the country on the Government Bridge Eoad. I own prop- 
 erty in this and the connected counties. I am, sir, 
 
 . Your very obedient servant, 
 
 Sam. Weles, 
 Surgeoririn-Chief of General Johnston's Army. 
 
 There was also a notable correspondence with that irre- 
 pressible Virginian whom we left, it wiU be remembered, 
 in 1863, quarrelling with General E. B. Keyes over a lu- 
 natic asylum at Williamsburg, on the Peninsula. Now we 
 found him at Norfolk, addressing the commanding general 
 
 in the following letter : — 
 
 Norfolk, May 30, 1865. 
 
 General Gordon, — It is indispensably necessary for the in- 
 terests of the Government and myself for me to have a brief 
 interview with the executive officer having the most extended 
 jurisdiction in this place. Believing that you are that officer, I 
 beg you wiU grant me such interview at your earliest conve- 
 nience ; an almost total physical decrepitude induces me to add 
 the hope that if you grant it, you wiU not defer it a moment 
 longer than necessary. 
 
 Eespectfully, 
 
 John C. Wise, 
 
 (per amanuensis). 
 
DISTEICT OF EASTERN VIEGINIA. 415 
 
 To a request that he would make known his wants, he 
 replied, on the 30th of May, that he wished to inquire as 
 to the nature of the relation between the United States 
 Government and himself: whether he was a citizen, and 
 entitled to the privileges and franchises of such. He 
 further stated that the greater part of his farm had been 
 seized by the United States authorities, and that his family 
 was consequently destitute. He closed by asking for as- 
 sistance. To this communication I so replied that the 
 following rejoinder closed the correspondence: — 
 
 EoLLESTON, June 1, 1865. 
 
 General, — Thankful for your note just handed me, I reply 
 that self-respect will not allow me to notice your personal 
 charges. It is also absolutely impossible, owing to my physical 
 condition and want of agents, to attempt the prosecution of a 
 claim for damages against the Government ; nor can I apply to 
 or receive anything from a charity commission. 
 
 Eespectfully, 
 
 Jno. C. Wise. 
 Brigadier-General Gordon. 
 
 In this hurly-burly of restoration many odd perplexities 
 arose. The Eebel uniform, as a badge of rebellious service, 
 was so offensive to the eyes of Union men, that I felt con- 
 strained to suppress it upon its first appearance ; and I did 
 so in an order which for a time caused much concern as 
 to how long a returned Eebel would be compelled to lie in 
 bed if his tailor were false to his agreement, or if the man 
 were too poor to employ a tailor. The Attorney-General 
 of the United States having considered this among other 
 questions connected with the surrender at Appomattox, 
 published his opinion, that the act of wearing the Eebel 
 uniform by a paroled Eebel was a new act of hostility, 
 which justified the Government in withdrawing its parole. 
 
416 A WAR DUET. 
 
 This judgment was promulgated as a military order by 
 the Secretary of War, for the government of all concerned. 
 
 But I soon found that there might be other acts of 
 hostility much more reprehensible than wearing a Eebel 
 uniform, and better justifying the withdrawal of a parole. 
 A positive manifestation of hostility or a continuing re- 
 bellious state furnished much stronger evidence of alien- 
 ation, and one upon which I felt justified in acting under 
 the Secretary's order. A former resident of Norfolk, a sur- 
 geon in the Eebel army who had been paroled and allowed 
 to return to his home, accosted one of his old acquaintances 
 in the street with — 
 
 " Where have you been ? " 
 
 " I 've been in the service," was the reply. 
 
 " What service ? " said the doctor. 
 
 "Why, the United States service, of course !" 
 
 " If you have been in the mean Yankee service, don't 
 dare to shake hands with me ! I don't desire to have any- 
 thing more to do with you," was the retort. 
 
 When this pleasant little episode was brought to my 
 attention I sent for this distinguished Eebel, confronted 
 him with his accuser, established the facts as I have given 
 them, and sent him to the provost-marshal for confinement, 
 until he made such a public revocation of his words as 
 the occasion demanded. To let it be known to all that the 
 Government was administered upon the principle that one 
 may be punished for rebellious utterances as well as re- 
 bellious acts, I published an order that the contumacious 
 Eebel be confined by the provost-marshal as a disturber of 
 the peace and as a Eebel wlio avowed his unwillingness 
 to associate with a loyal man who, singularly enough, 
 seemed willing to associate and shake hands with him. 
 And in another case, in which a Eebel lieutenant, wishing 
 to salve his wounded feelings by a show of dignity, wrote 
 
DISTEICT OF EASTERN VBRGINIA. 417 
 
 to an officer of my command, on the 20th of April, at York- 
 town, that, to avoid further collision between his men and 
 the Federal troops, he wished to surrender upon the same 
 terms that were accorded to the Army of Northern Vir- 
 ginia by Genei-al Grant, I replied that he need not bother 
 himself about a collision, for if he did not surrender he 
 would be caught and hanged. 
 
 The army that surrendered to General Sherman made 
 an even greater effort to preserve its dignity, as well as 
 more material advantages; but it will be remembered 
 that what' at first threatened to be the cause of great un- 
 easiness was finally settled by orders from Washington. 
 On the twenty-eighth I received the following despatch 
 from Eichmond: — 
 
 Fire oue hundred guns ! General Johnston has surrendered 
 with all his army north of the Chattahoochie, on the same terms 
 with General Lee. 
 
 E. 0. C. Ord, 
 
 Major-General Commanding. 
 
 Then we knew that our work was done, and that the 
 cloud which had been gathering over Sherman's head had 
 passed away. 
 
 As early as the 3d of May, Salmon P. Chase, the Chief- 
 Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, accom- 
 panied by a party of ladies and gentlemen, left Washington 
 for a Southern tour, intending to go as far as New Or- 
 leans, to observe as he went the adaptability of the people 
 in their then condition for civil government. Norfolk was 
 taken on the way, and there I met the party. Mr. Chase 
 distinctly enunciated the policy to be pursued in restor- 
 ing 'civil government to the insurgent States. Governor 
 Pierpont, he told me, was to be recognized as governor of 
 Virginia ; the Constitution as adopted at Alexandria was to 
 
 27 
 
418 A WAS DIAEY. 
 
 be acknowledged as the new Constitution of the State. 
 Whether Eebels not entitled to the benefits of the amnesty 
 proclamation of Dec. 8, 1863, were to be permitted to vote, 
 and if so when, was to depend upon future National and 
 State legislation. The Chief Justice expressed himself as 
 decidedly of the opinion that the colored people should be 
 allowed to take a hand in the reconstruction of the Southr 
 ern States ; that they should be encouraged to meet in 
 conventions, and should be intrusted with the ballot, — 
 " For," said he, " their hearts are right, if their heads are 
 empty." Thus it happened, — mirabile dictu ! — that the 
 slave was permitted to pass upon the question whether his 
 former master should be endowed with those civil rights 
 which he had forfeited through treasonable acts. I enter- 
 tained the party at my house for a time, and then drove 
 with them to the outskirts of Norfolk, where Mr. Chase 
 viewed with much interest the outer line of defences, — 
 for he had entered Norfolk with General Wool when that 
 old hero made his grand march to the city. This was 
 the scene of Mr. Chase's first and last military achieve- 
 ment. The savage front of war had become very peace- 
 ful now; strawberries grew on the half-destroyed Eebel 
 parapet, and the ladies plucked them as mementos of 
 the day when the honored Chief-Justice was a soldier of 
 the Union. 
 
 With the surrender of Johnston's army came the anni- 
 hilation of the Confederacy. The war of destruction at an 
 end, the war of reconstruction began. For a time there 
 was no method in the work ; it was a jumble of collisions. 
 Hardly had I, in conformity with direct orders from the 
 Department Commander, declared that paroled officers of 
 the Eebel army could, if they desired, be furnished with 
 free passages and passports to Halifax, and that paroled 
 mechanics, upon taking the oath of allegiance, could, if 
 
DISTRICT OF EASTERN TIRGINIA. 419 
 
 they desired, be furnished with free passages to Philadel- 
 phia, New York, or Boston, than an exceedingly bitter out- 
 burst came from the Secretary of War or his servitor, di- 
 recting an immediate revocation, and demanding by what 
 authority I had done this thing. Soon, however, Presiden- 
 tial proclamations resolved chaotic elements into a more 
 orderly arrangement, and commanding officers used their 
 power to restore the civil machinery which' had so long 
 been trampled out of sight under the feet of contending 
 armies. Before the 1st of May internal domestic and com- 
 mercial restrictions had been generally removed, within 
 the lines of national military occupation, in favor of those 
 who had taken the oath of allegiance since Jan. 1, 1865. 
 On the 13th of June a proclamation declared that sea- 
 ports were to be opened to foreign commerce on the 1st 
 of the ensuing July, and a provisional governor was ap- 
 pointed for Mississippi. 
 
 In the internal administration of each military depart- 
 ment or district, however, each commander used his own 
 discretion. In the MUitary Division of the James, Halleck 
 declared the taking the oath of allegiance to be a sine qud 
 non to a license to practise a profession, foUow a trade or 
 business, or to act as a president or director of a corpora- 
 tion within the cities of Eichmond and Petersburg, or to 
 engage in domestic commerce within the State ; and that 
 prior to taking the oath, no claimant for the restoration of 
 private property before any provost-marshal or any mili- 
 tary officer, court, or commission, should be heard, or his 
 claim considered or granted ; no clearance or permit to 
 ship or land any goods should be given to any person ; 
 no marriage license should be issued to persons desir- 
 ing to be married, and no clergyman or magistrate should 
 perform the marriage ceremony ; and an arrest was to fol- 
 low disobedience of any of these orders. My district 
 
420 A WAE DIAKY. 
 
 being within Halleck's division, I was of course governed 
 by these regulations. 
 
 But there were difficult problems beyond the reach of 
 oaths of allegiance. The poor, the starving people, — what 
 should be done with them ? It is much easier to convert 
 a busy multitude of workers into soldiers, camp-followers, 
 and drones, than it is to reconvert them into laborers. I 
 appointed boards of officers to examine into the subject, 
 and so far as possible to report what steps should be taken 
 within my district to furnish work for the willing, homes 
 for the destitute, and food for all. The steps talien to 
 bring about this end, as published at the time, more fully 
 reveal the exact facts to be considered than anything I 
 can write at this day. 
 
 Headquabtees, District of Eastekn Vibqinia, 
 NoEroLK, May 10, 1866. 
 
 To the People, White and Colored, uiithin, this District : 
 
 You are now called upon to meet a question of vast import- 
 ance, the discussion of which has often agitated the country, and 
 been presented as an insurmountable barrier to the freedom of 
 the colored race. 
 
 Now, through the grace of God, the colored man is free, and 
 he is here demanding a social status in your midst. He is here 
 upon your farms and your plantations, in your towns and your 
 cities ; and to-day you must meet the fact, and this hour begin 
 the solution of the problem. Bad men for political ends, weak- 
 minded men and women (and therefore pitiable, not blamable), 
 have been deceived, or have deceived themselves, in regard to 
 the difficulties of its solution. There are no real obstacles in the 
 path ; nothing that for one moment should make colonization or 
 expatriation questionable or debatable. 
 
 Whatever rule may be for the present enforced by the Na- 
 tion, or whatever policy adopted by the State, it may be safely 
 asserted that it must be in accordance with laws adopted at the 
 North, governing free labor for those who can work, an entire 
 
DISTRICT OF EASTEEN VIRGINIA. 421 
 
 or partial support of those who cannot, and compulsory labor for 
 those who can, but will not. Entire or partial support, in States 
 heretofore free, of the infirm and aged poor, or the homeless 
 too young to labor, is secured in every town or county in the 
 most humane manner, on farms conducted and supported by the 
 town or county for whose poor provision is thus made. From 
 these farms minor children are bound out to proper persons upon 
 proper and humane conditions.^ At the poor-farms, all who are 
 able labor under the supervision of a competent overseer, and 
 thus aid the town or county in their support. For the idle and 
 lazy vagabond the penitentiary is provided, where compulsory 
 labor lessens expense. 
 
 Thus in each community there is provided the home, the 
 poorhouse, and the penitentiary. As the whites of the South 
 appreciate the incomparable value of the free labor of the col- 
 ored man ; as they find, as they surely wiU, that their capital 
 increases, and new channels for industry arise in proportion to a 
 just, moral, and intelligent aid given to raise and educate his 
 labor, — they will loudly caU for still another Northern institu- 
 tion that lessens expense and diminishes inmates of poorhouses 
 and penitentiaries, and increases the number of homes, — the 
 schoolhouse. Then they will appreciate that the colored labor 
 in their communities is of priceless value, and wiU regard any 
 effort to rid themselves of it as springing from lamentable igno- 
 rance or hopeless insanity. 
 
 The colored race wish to live and labor where they were 
 bom, and they are anxious to support their families in the com- 
 munity where they were raised. That they may be encouraged 
 in this work ; that they may sustain themselves and save the 
 community from^ expense ; that they may build up their homes 
 and educate their children, — is it not both economy and wis- 
 dom for the farmers and planters to hire them as laborers upon 
 their lands, and thus relieve the community from the support of 
 many that would otherwise fall upon the public charity ? Is it 
 not only economical, but does not such a course insure greater 
 public security 1 To this consideration your attention is invited. 
 Aid the willing laborer, punish and confine the idle and lazy, 
 
422 A WAE DIAET. 
 
 support the pauper, and educate the race. Let each city, county, 
 and town charge itself with the management of these institu- 
 tions, and there will be no insurmountable difficulties arising 
 from freedom to the slave. 
 
 In this district, under the disadvantages of a state of war, the 
 negro population have been treated, as far as possible, in con- 
 formity with the principles enunciated. From the scarcity of 
 demand for farm hands, from the impracticability of adopting 
 new and as yet untried fields of labor in this community, from 
 the overcrowding of people drawn by the barbarities of war from 
 near and remote plantations and homes, the Government Agents, 
 in adopting as nearly as possible, in the case of the homeless 
 and landless race, the Northern institutions of the home, the 
 schoolhouSe, the poorhouse, and the penitentiary, have been 
 compelled to make departures from their practice and bestow 
 charity upon those who would work, if work could have been 
 found, although this class has mostly been confined to females ; 
 they have also been compelled to find labor for the colored man 
 where he should have found work for himself. And thus the 
 Government has not been able practically to teach that inexo- 
 rable lesson which from to-day must be taught the colored man, 
 that support will alone come from the laborer's own earnings, 
 that with impartial laws and all aids to progress, — mental, 
 moral, and physical, — the negro starts forth hereafter to hew 
 his own way through all obstacles to equality before man, as he 
 now stands equal before the law. 
 
 For the steps that have been taken in this District, too much 
 praise cannot be awarded to Captain 0. Brown, Superintendent 
 of Negro Affairs, under whose intelligent effort the colored man 
 has been partially instructed that he must earn his own bread by 
 the sweat of his own brow. 
 
 By Order of Brigadier-General Geo. H. Gordon. 
 
 T. S. Harris, 
 Assistant Adjutant-General. 
 
 In the midst of all this chaos and confusion I think the 
 newly-appointed governors of insurgent States had a hard 
 
DISTEICT OF EASTEEN VIRGINIA. 423 
 
 time of it. I know it was so with His Excellency Gover- 
 nor Pierpont, of Virginia, for he appealed to me often in 
 a vehement manner. Now he was very anxious to set up 
 the machinery of civil courts; now he was exasperated 
 because a man whom he knew to be loyal, a member of 
 the House of Delegates of Virginia, had been again arrested 
 by the officer whom I had assigned to the command of the 
 Eastern shore ; and again he was fierce in his appeals for 
 my aid in securing the specie and good notes which banks 
 in Norfolk were expecting from Canada, where they had 
 been sent early in the war. There were further ripples of 
 excitement in the disposal of our iron-clads and monitors 
 to meet the Eebel ram "Stonewall," whose arrival at 
 Nassau was communicated to me by telegraph on the 12th 
 of May ; and in the announcement that in Washington, 
 New York, Boston, and Philadelphia efforts were being 
 made, through a pretended scheme of emigration, to enlist 
 soldiers from both armies to drive the French out of 
 Mexico. 
 
 But these matters were forgotten when we received a 
 telegraphic despatch on the fourteenth announcing the 
 capture of Jefferson Davis by the Union troops, seventy- 
 five miles east of Macon in Georgia. On Sunday, the 21st 
 of May, a transport, with the so-called President of the 
 Southern Confederacy and his family on board, lay at 
 anchor off Portress Monroe. By the twenty-third a strong 
 cell in a casemate of the fort had received its occupant. 
 There, heavily ironed and securely guarded, hopeless and 
 broken in spirit, lay the once proud and imperious man who 
 defied the power of the United States of America. Colonel 
 Eoberts, the late commander of the fort, told me that 
 Davis resisted the attempt to rivet manacles upon his 
 ankles, demanding to see the officer who gave the order, and 
 that he was accordingly summoned. " What ! " cried the 
 
424 A WAR DUET. - 
 
 fallen President of the Southern Confederacy, "you surely 
 are not going to put irons upon me ? " — " It is my order," 
 replied the ofBcer, " and, revolting as it is to me, I have 
 no alternative." Seizing a musket from one of the guards, 
 as if to provoke a mortal blow, — preferring death, he said, 
 to submission, — Davis defied for a moment the efforts of 
 his jailers. It was useless. Four men seized him, and held 
 the struggling captive prostrate on his bed. The work was 
 soon over. Armorer and blacksmith riveted around Davis's 
 ankles the rings which were attached to a connecting bar of 
 iron. His hands were free, but his heart was broken ; and 
 in his anguish he cried bitterly. " It was the most painful 
 act of my life," said the lieutenant who superintended this 
 work, as he narrated these incidents to his colonel. 
 
 Painful? So it must have been at best, if the deed 
 were one of necessity. But was it ? The escape of Mr. 
 Davis was an absolute impossibility. His cell was the 
 inner room of a casemate ; his single window was barred 
 with iron ; the connecting rooms were filled with guards ; 
 beyond, were the outer wall of granite blocks, and d, 
 moat ; within the fort was a garrison of troops ; the 
 shores were lined with Federal monitors and iron-clads, 
 and every Eebel army had been dispersed. The prisoner 
 was held safe beyond all mortal aid or rescue. This 
 resentful and remorseless deed was inflicted by General 
 Miles, the new commander of the fort ; but whether 
 under express orders from an implacable authority, or at 
 his own discretion, no one knew, though it was asserted 
 that he had no direct orders to put irons on his prisoner. 
 If this poor, sickly old man was to be treated with in- 
 humanity, our hearts would turn from hate for his deeds to 
 compassion for himself. His separation from his wife and 
 family, who remained upon the transport, was described 
 as most affecting. 
 
DISTRICT OF EASTEKN VIRGINIA. 425 
 
 The true history of Jefferson Davis's imprisonment will 
 reveal many interesting events. At that time we had only 
 detached incidents of his daily life. For the first twenty- 
 four hours he ate but a single piece of bread, scarcely as 
 large as one's fingers; but after that he did better, and 
 was soon supplied with the same ration that was issued 
 to each private of the company that guarded him, — and 
 as this happened to be one of the best on duty at the fort, 
 the distinguished prisoner had the advantage of one of 
 the best of company cooks. His meat was sent to him 
 in small morsels, and he had to manage it with a spoon ; 
 for prudential reasons he was debarred the use of a knife. 
 He breakfasted at six o'clock, dined at one, and supped 
 at six, — primitive hours indeed, but they were the hours 
 of issue for the company in which he was enrolled. So 
 continued the state of his affairs until the last of May, 
 and then came more tender treatment and more whole- 
 some food. This change was wrought through a statement 
 made to Miles by Dr. Craven, the medical director of the 
 department, that he would not be responsible for the life 
 of Jefferson Davis if his food were not changed; after 
 which he was supplied from the good Doctor's own table. 
 That his irons had been removed has been both asserted 
 and denied. On the 6th of June, while he was still con- 
 fined in the fort, and the guarding sentinels kept sleepless 
 watch, I encountered General Miles prancing gayly by 
 the grated windows and barred doors of his prisoner's cell, 
 by the sentinels beyond the moat and on the parapet, trying 
 the mettle of a spirited horse which had been presented to 
 him by his friends. 
 
 In the mean time Mr. Davis had been indicted for trea- 
 sonable acts in levying war against the United States. 
 A copy of the indictment, which appeared in the New 
 York papers, set forth the specific act and period as occur- 
 
426 A WAR DIARY. 
 
 ring in August, 1864, in counselling, aiding, and assisting 
 in an attack on Washington. 
 
 At a later date, in June, many indictments were found 
 and returned into the United States District Court for the 
 district of Norfolk, for some of which, in response to a tele- 
 gram from the commander of the department, I furnished 
 him with the names of Eobert E. Lee, James Longstreet, 
 Benjamin Huger, Henry A. Wise, Eoger A. Pryor, Jubal A. 
 Early, Wade Hampton, Eobert Ould, and others to the 
 number of thirty-four. In the indictments military titles 
 were not given ; some of the indicted may have been citi- 
 zens. Thus, it seemed, might the great and interesting 
 question of the status of those who levied war against the 
 United States from 1861 to 1865 be brought before the 
 courts. Patriot or Eebel, through success or failure, was 
 the issue. In the eyes of England our Eebels were belK- 
 gerents, both upon land and sea ; but England made money 
 by that decision, and we lost. In 1864 we had a diplo- 
 matic correspondence with Earl Eussell, in which he insisted 
 upon England's doctijine of belligerency. On the other 
 hand, in the " Army and Navy Journal " of May 27, 1865, 
 we found Francis Lieber's opinion expressed^ that paroled 
 Eebels, in the armies of Lee and of Johnston, might be 
 tried for treason when their parole ceased de facto. By 
 the 31st of May all the Eebel troops, from Maine to the 
 Eio Grande, had thrown down their arms and returned to 
 their homes. With the surrender of Kirby Smith, west of 
 the Mississippi, disappeared the last organized army in the 
 field. The hour of reconciliation had come, and, we hoped, 
 the hour also of punishment for the leaders in rebellion. 
 
 Eeconciliation ! there was much to remind me of the 
 word. My classmate and room-mate at West Point, a 
 paroled Eebel officer just from Mobile on his way home 
 to Maryland, sent his card to me in Norfolk. When he 
 
DISTRICT OF EASTERN VIRGINIA. 427 
 
 appeared T recognized him in a moment, though he wore 
 a shabby suit of a civilian ; but my impulse to greet him 
 warmly was checked by his downward and repellent glance, 
 as if he were averse to showing a cordial feeling for his 
 foe. As if apologizing for his call, he said : — 
 
 " I have come, sir, because I am in trouble." 
 
 " Be seated," I replied ; " you could not have called upon 
 one who would be more glad to relieve you." 
 
 " I want," he continued, " to go to my wife and child. I 
 am a beggar, and want work, — an opportunity to earn 
 something to live on in the future. But for the present I 
 want money." 
 
 " I see in you," I replied, " my old classmate and friend. 
 I find you suffering and in want, and you shall have money 
 
 and all the privileges I can give. But, , tell me, how 
 
 could you, though Southern born, find it in your heart to' 
 raise your hand against the old flag ? How could you?" 
 • " Don't talk of it," he entreated ; " don't speak of anything, 
 that has passed," he almost supplicated. " But, teU me, can 
 I be exempt from the penalties of the law ? I am not," he 
 continued, "by Mr. Johnson's proclamation." 
 
 "But you can.be, doubtless, if you apply," I replied. 
 
 " Then I shall do so," he said, as he arose and walked 
 abruptly though courteously from my of&ce. 
 
 Poor fellow ! I thought ; could I measure his dejection 
 by my elation, — the depths of his grief by the summits 
 of my exultation ? As I would have had him do to me if 
 I had stood like him, a suppliant, so -I did to him ; and he 
 kept his promise, even to the uttermost farthing. 
 
 And now I come to the close of my chronicles. A last 
 pull in a launch, T^ith my good and kind friend Captain 
 Lynch, of the navy, showed us many Eebel iron-clads and 
 rams that had come to us through the surrender. There 
 
428 A WAR DIARY. 
 
 was the " Columbia/' a formidable and perfect iron-clad, 
 raised in Charleston Harbor and towed here by the " Van- 
 derbilt," looking a shade rusty for her salt-water immer- 
 sion; the "Albemarle," the object of Cushing's daring 
 exploit, with much of her iron covering removed, to lighten 
 her in raising ; the " Texas," with only her hull completed, 
 captured near Richmond ; and the " Atlanta," a prize to 
 Captain Rogers in Georgia. Besides these, the superb har- 
 bor held two of our own monitors and many war-ships of 
 other kinds. These engines of destruction, as well as those 
 who had surrendered them, both proclaimed alike the joy- 
 ful period of Peace, the final and complete triumph of the 
 Federal forces, and the maintenance and vindication of 
 the old Union of the United States of America. 
 
I l!f D E X. 
 
I]SrDEX. 
 
 Ames, Genekal Adelbeet, com- 
 manda brigade ander General 
 Goi'don in Virginia, 151 ; also, 
 afterwards, in South Carolina, 238, 
 283 ; his opinion of the causes of 
 failure in the first assault on Fort 
 Fisher, 368 ; is engaged in the 
 second assault on that fort, 369 ; 
 his gallant conduct in the same, 
 374 ; receives the surrender of 
 the Fort, 375. 
 
 Amusements in camp-life, 24-28. 
 
 Antietam (or Sharpshurgj, battle 
 of, 1-6. 
 
 Armstrong, Rev. George D., trial of, 
 by General Butler, for disloyal 
 utterances, 406-412 ; his subse- 
 quent appeal to General Gordon, 
 412-414. 
 
 Army, an, how death, disease, etc, 
 dissipate it, 232-234; what be- 
 comes of some of its particles after 
 a battle, 234, 235. 
 
 Balch, Captain, commanding the 
 sliip-of-war "Pawnee,"- — service 
 on the Stono River, 198-200, 208, 
 209, 263-265, 268, 269 ; the writer 
 dines with him, 200 ; his opinion 
 of the feasibility of running past 
 theforts in Charleston Harbor, 201. 
 
 Baxter, Captain, commanding the 
 " Empire City," 174, 175. 
 
 Beauregard, General, commands 
 Rebel forces at Charleston, S. C, 
 — corre.spondence with Gillmore, 
 192, 193 ; how he treated Union 
 prisoners in Charleston, 277. 
 
 Beecher, Chaplain, peculiar views 
 of, €. 
 
 Beecher, Henry Ward, nominates 
 General Butler for President, 356. 
 
 Beef, bow it was furnished to the 
 soldiers on Folly Island, and the 
 quality of it, 226, 227. 
 
 Blockade of Charleston Harbor, 
 action of the foreign consuls in 
 relation to, 205. 
 
 Blockade-running in Charleston Har- 
 bor, 203, 204; its use to the 
 Rebels overestimated, 204, 205. 
 
 British subject, a, in Virginia, the 
 writer's experience with, and anec- 
 dotes of, 161-163, 165-167. 
 
 Buchanan, Captain, Rebel com- 
 mander of the ram " Tennessee," 
 — liis bravery in Mobile Bay, 334. 
 
 Buchanan, Captain, of the Federal 
 marines in Charleston Harbor, — 
 dines with the writer, and they 
 both indulge in reminiscences, 
 250-253. 
 
 Burke, Captain, the Rebel scout and 
 guerilla, story of his capture and 
 death, 16-21. 
 
 Butler, General B. F., in command 
 on the James, S52et seg.; his opin- 
 ion of Gillmore and Baldy Smith, 
 352 ; General Gordon is ordered to 
 report to him, 852-354 ; in com- 
 mand of New York City, 354-356 ; 
 receives an ovation from the citizens 
 of New York, 356 ; at Fortress 
 Monroe, — his labor-saving meth- 
 ods, 357, 358 ; character of his ad- 
 ministration in the Department of 
 Virginia and North Carolina, 359 ; 
 
432 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 his brother-in-law's connection with 
 the unlawful Eebel trade in his de- 
 partment, 365 ; his failure to cap- 
 ture Fort Fisher, 366-368 ; his 
 explanation of that failure to the 
 writer, 369, 370 ; is relieved of his 
 command and sent home, 370 ; ex- 
 presses his indignation thereon, 
 370, 371 ; his farewell order to his 
 troops, 371 ; his official report in 
 the New York "Hei-ald," 371,372 ; 
 is suggested for U. S. Senator 
 from Mass., 373 ; suppression of 
 his organ, "The New K^gime," 
 in Norfolk, 379, 380 ; writes sharp 
 letters to General Gordon, 400 ; 
 desires to he appointed mUitaiy 
 governor of Kiohmond, 401 ; his 
 influence with President Lincoln 
 and the Kepublican party, 402 ; 
 his attempt with the Supreme 
 Court in the case of the "Phila- 
 delphia," 402 ; his trial of Eev. 
 George D. Armstrong, of Norfolk, 
 Va., for disloyal utterances, 406- 
 412. 
 
 Camp-Life on Folly Island in 
 Charleston Hai'hor, — how sol- 
 diers lived there, 225, 226 et seq. 
 
 Camp Milton,- Florida, capture and 
 destruction of, by Union troops 
 under General Gordon, 383-385. 
 
 Canby, General, commanding at 
 New Orleans, 307, 308 ; writes to 
 the President in condemnation of 
 the cotton traffic, 348. 
 
 Capture of General Gordon, Eebel 
 plan for, 112. 
 
 Cavalry service, the, allurements of, 
 23, 24. 
 
 ChancelloTsville, Hooker's defeat at, 
 — effect of, on Federal and Eebel 
 armies, 59. 
 
 Charleston, S.C, siege of, 175etseq.; 
 bombardment of, 194 ; the useless- 
 ness to the Union cause of its cap- 
 ture, 211, 212 ; its newspapers, how 
 they were procured by Union pick- 
 ets, and the information they con- 
 tained, 236, 237, 240, 259 ; what 
 its people said to the London 
 "Times" correspondent, 276, 277. 
 
 Chase, Chief-Justice, visit of, to the 
 writer, at Norfolk, Va., 417, 418 ; 
 his idea of the policy of reconstruc- 
 tion to be pursued, 417, 418. 
 
 Civil and military departments, how 
 they sometimes clashed, 261, 262. 
 
 Claims for indemnification and pro- 
 tection, piteous and urgent char- 
 acter of, 59, 60, 67-71, 101-103, 
 107, 108, 110, 111. 
 
 " Clara Bell," the, passenger steamer 
 on the Mississippi, — destruction 
 of, by the Eebels, 320, 321. 
 
 Cochrane, General, shoots and kills 
 Lieut.-ColonelKimbaU, at Suffolk, 
 Va., 43. 
 
 Coggswell, Captain, leads the ex- 
 pedition to capture '* Old Bui'ke," 
 the Eebel guerilla, 18, 22. 
 
 Confederate officei-s, braggart and 
 boisterous tone of some captured, 
 52, 53. 
 
 "Continental," the, passenger 
 steamer on the Mississippi, — 
 fiendish attempt by a Eebel emis- 
 sary to destroy, 315, 316. 
 
 Cook, a Dutch, how he provided 
 dinner for the writer and his 
 visitor, 227, 228. 
 
 Cotton trade, the, between rebel- 
 lious and loyal persons during the 
 war, — dishonorable natuie and 
 pernicious effects of, 322-326, 
 ' 328, 348, 349 ; how it was carried 
 on in Virginia and North Carolina, 
 888-390. 
 
 Curtis, Colonel, gallant conduct of, 
 in the second attack on Fort 
 Fisher, 374 ; is wounded, and 
 receives promotion, 874; his ac- 
 count of the attack, 875. 
 
 Dahlbken, Admiral, commanding 
 naval forces in Charleston Harbor, 
 196, 197 ; controversy with Gill- 
 more, 202, 203, 245, 246 ; bom- 
 bards Fort Sumter, 206, 207; 
 bombards Fort Moultrie and other 
 works on Sullivan's Island, 216, 
 217 ; his abortive assault on Fort 
 Sumter, independent of Qillmore, 
 220-222. 
 
 Davis, Jefferson, his address to his 
 
INDEX. 
 
 433 
 
 troops at Chattanooga, 257 ; be- 
 gins to be treated with contempt 
 by, and ceases to be an oracle to, 
 the Confederates, 391 ; his health 
 drunk in his own wines, in his 
 own house, by Union officers, after 
 his flight from Richmond, 395 ; 
 capture of, 423 ; imprisonment in 
 Fortress Monroe, 423-425 ; at- 
 tempt to resist being ironed, 423, 
 424 ; the wisdom of his prison- 
 treatment questioned, 424 ; his life 
 in coniinement, 425 ; is indicted 
 for treason, 425, 426. 
 
 Debarkation of General Gordon's 
 troops at Charleston, S. C, an 
 account of, 178. 
 
 Deserter, a, the execution of, 163- 
 165. 
 
 Deserters, information from, to be 
 received with caution, 272-274. 
 
 Despondency, feeling of, in the Army, 
 considered, 7, 8 ; in the troops 
 under GUlmore before Charleston, 
 S. C, 198. 
 
 "Dictator," the, iron-clad, descrip- 
 tion of, 362-364. 
 
 Difficulty, the, of identifying dead 
 soldiers, for re-burial, 33 ; anec- 
 dote in connection with, 33, 34. 
 
 Dinner, a, for hungry officers, how it 
 was planned for and lost, 116-1 18. 
 
 Dix, Major-General John A., com- 
 mands the Department of Virginia, 
 32 ; General Gordon reports to, at 
 Fortress Monroe, 35 ; conference 
 with the writer on the military 
 situation, 122 ; afterward with the 
 same and other general officers, 
 123-127. 
 
 Dog, a favorite, belonging to the 
 writer's staff, — allusion to, 61. 
 
 Dunn, the treachery of, 11, 12. 
 
 Dwight, Major "Wilder, his last let- 
 ter to his mother, 3 ; mortally 
 wounded at the battle of Antie- 
 tam, 3, 4. 
 
 Enlistment, terms of, of soldiers in 
 the Army, remarks upon, 91, 92. 
 
 Exchanges, cartel of, as bearing on 
 colored troops, — President Lin- 
 coln's action in regard to, 219. 
 
 Fakragut, Admiral, commands 
 Union Navy in Mobile Bay, — 
 the writer dines with him on the 
 flag-ship "Hartford," 341; his 
 account qf the action in Mobile 
 Bay, 342 ; his opinion of torpedoes, 
 342, 343 ; he believes in wooden 
 ships, 343 ; in Virginia before the 
 war, 347 ; true account of his 
 being lashed to the rigging of the 
 flag-ship "Hartford," 348; enters 
 Eichmond with General Gordon, 
 393-395; the first, with the writer, 
 to proceed down James Eiver from 
 Richmond, after the fall of that 
 city, — incidents of the trip, 396- 
 399. 
 
 Folly Island, in Charleston Harbor, 
 occupied by General Gordon's 
 troops, 179 et seq. ; description of, 
 224, 225 ; encampment of troops 
 there, how crowded and inconve- 
 nient, 225, 226 ; incidents of life 
 on, 240 ; last night on, of the 
 writer, 289. 
 
 Fort Fisher, first attack on, 366- 
 368 ; second attack on, and capt- 
 ure of, by Union forces, 373-375. 
 
 Fortress Monroe, and its vicinity, 
 description of, 358, 359. 
 
 Foster, General John G., command- 
 ing the Department of the James, 
 172, 173 ; account of his interview 
 with President Lincoln, 172, 173. 
 
 Fraternization between Union and 
 Rebel soldiers, 100, 235, 236, 250, 
 256, 257, 261, 266, 267. 
 
 Frederick, Maryland, the writer's 
 reminiscences of, 139, 140. 
 
 Gaines, Fort, in Mobile Bay, de- 
 scription of, 336. 
 
 Gallows, the, how the writer suc- 
 ceeded in depriving it of' one vic- 
 tim, 386. 
 
 Getty, General, commands Union 
 forces in Viiginia, 123, 125, 126, 
 128, 129, 131, 133. 
 
 Gettysburg, battle of, 131-133. 
 
 Gideonite, a female, how she fired a 
 thirty-pounder Parrott gun at the 
 city of Charleston, 277, 278. 
 
 Gillmore, General Q. A., command- 
 
 28 
 
434 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 ing Union land forces in the siege 
 of Charleston, S. C, 176 et seq. ; 
 notifies Beauregard of his inten- 
 tion to bombard Charleston, 190, 
 193 ; Beauregard's reply to, 192, 
 193 ; his Quixotic plan to assault 
 Sumter, and criticism upon it by 
 the writer, 195, 196 ; his unreason- 
 able assumptions and claims, 196, 
 197 ; his ill-feeling towards Ad- 
 miral Dahlgren, 202, 203, 206, 
 207 ; his disastrous attempt to 
 capture Fort Gregg, 210, 211 ; 
 exults in his own prowess, 216 ; 
 attempts to steal from Dahlgren the 
 honor of capturing Fort Sumter, 
 220-222 ; his unprovoked quarrel 
 with Dahlgren, 243-246 ; present- 
 ation of an American eagle to, 247, 
 248 ; failure of his plans before 
 Charleston, 254, 255 ; tries to use 
 Dahlgren as a pack-horse, 255 ; 
 removes his headquarters to Hil- 
 ton Head, 271 ; his disastrous 
 operations in Florida, 280-284 ; 
 is ordered to report to General B. 
 F. Butler, 287. 
 Grant, General, the writer's inter- 
 , view with him at City Point, 
 Va., 350-352 ; the advice he re- 
 ceived as to the best way to take 
 Eichmond, 351 ; his report on 
 Butler's Fort Fisher fiasco, 372 ; 
 pursues and finally captures Lee, 
 399. 
 Guide, a, how one was secured by 
 General. Gordon in Florida, 301. 
 
 Hagebstown, Rebel earthworks at, 
 143, 144; Lee's flight from, 144, 
 145. 
 
 Halleck, General, commander-in- 
 chief of the Union forces, — the 
 writer's interview with, and im- 
 pressions of, 137 ; his policy to- 
 wards vanquished and returning 
 Eebels, 419. 
 
 Hancock, General W. S., his magni- 
 ficent charge at the first battle of 
 Willia;msburg, 92, 93. 
 
 Harper's Feny, scenery abont, 9, 10. 
 
 Hilton Head, S. C, description of, 
 and incidents related of, 290-293. 
 
 Hooker, General, a criticism on his 
 generalship, 77, 78. 
 
 " Housatonic," the, battle-ship, de- 
 struction of, by the Eebels in 
 Charleston Harbor, 287, 288. 
 
 Howard, General, the writer's inter- 
 view with, and impressions of, 
 148, 149. 
 
 Hubbard, Dr., conversation with, 
 by the writer, 103-107. 
 
 "Ironsides, New," the, battle- 
 ship, daring attempt by the Eebels 
 to destroy, in Charleston Harbor, 
 248, 249. 
 
 Jones, Dr., a conversation with, by 
 the WTiter, 118-120. 
 
 Keitt (ex-Congressman), command- 
 ing Eebel troops in Fort Wagner, 
 — doubtful valor of, 236, 237. 
 
 Keyes, General, commanding Union 
 forces in Virginia, 88, 89, 111, 
 112, 115, 129 ; his controversy 
 with General Wise, 90, 91 ; re- 
 marks upon his generalship and 
 the character of his despatches to 
 Dix, 129, 130. 
 
 Kilpatriok, General, account of his 
 raid on Eichmond, 74-77. 
 
 Kimberly Brothers, how they 
 weighed turkeys at Fortress Mon- 
 roe, 359, 360. 
 
 Lee, General Eobert E., his mis- 
 takes and his escape at Gettys- 
 burg, 133 ; his address to his 
 troops after the battle of Gettys- 
 burg, 140 ; his ofEcial report on 
 the battle of Gettysburg, 146, 147 ; 
 pursuit of him after the battle of 
 Gettysburg, 153 et seq. ; surrender 
 of, 400. 
 
 Lee's Mills, Eebel defences at, 88. 
 
 Legareville, S. C, incidents related 
 of, 259, 260 ; an affair at, 263- 
 265. 
 
 Libby Prison, in Eichmond, visited 
 by the writer, 896, 397. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 435 
 
 Lincoln, President, visits the scene 
 of military operations before Rich- 
 mond, 391, 392 ; enters Eichmond 
 by the James River, after the 
 evacuation of that city, 399 ; as- 
 sassination of, 403, 404. 
 
 Longstreet, General, commands the" 
 Rebels besieging Suffolk, Va,, 35, 
 40 ; his iutrenchments at Suffolk 
 and retreat from, 47-51. 
 
 Look-outs in military operations, — 
 their value, and how they may be 
 artificially made, 269, 270. 
 
 Mansfield, General, as a man and 
 soldier, 3. 
 
 Maryland Heights, its occupation by 
 General Gordon, 6. 
 
 McClellan, General George B., his 
 eagerness to engage the enemy, 2 ; 
 his siege works and operations be- 
 fore Yorktown a proof of his mili- 
 tary genius, 87-89. 
 
 McKibben, Colonel, incident in rela- 
 tion to, 128. 
 
 Meade, General, replaces Hooker in 
 command of the Army of the Po- 
 tomac, 127 ; fights the battle of 
 Gettysburg, 131-133 ; march of 
 General Gordon's troops to rein- 
 force, 135 et seq.; interview of the 
 writer with, 141-143; censured by 
 Halleck, and asks to be relieved, 
 150, 161 ;^ .criticisms on, for not 
 attacking and capturing Lee after 
 the battle of Gettysburg, 160, 161. 
 
 Meum et tiium, how the sense of, is 
 destroyed by war, — anecdotes in 
 regard to, 57-59. 
 
 Morgan, Fort, in Mobile Bay, siege 
 of, by Union forces, 335 ; surren- 
 der of, 337-341 ; occupation of, 
 by Union troops, 340, 341. 
 
 Monis Island, in Charleston Harbor, 
 the possession of, a part of Gill- 
 more's design in besieging Charles- 
 ton, 187 ; its final entire evacua- 
 tion by the Rebels, 213. 
 
 Navy, the, value of its services in 
 the siege of Charleston, S. C, 
 190-192. 
 
 Negroes, as soldiers, value of, — how 
 in some instances they were en- 
 listed, 275 ; as emancipated slaves, 
 their trials, 291 ; at Hampton,Va., 
 360, 362. 
 
 Newport News, Virginia, ruins at, 
 170, 172. 
 
 New Orleans, what the writer found 
 and saw there, 306, 307. 
 
 New York City, mob of Rebel sym- 
 pathizers in, 147, 148 ; under But- 
 ler's military rule, 354-356. 
 
 Norfolk, Virginia, remarks upon, and 
 its rebellious people, 37, 38. 
 
 "Old S- 
 
 -" (Colonel), amusing 
 anecdotes of, 28, 29. 
 
 "Olive Branch," the, passenger 
 steamer on the Mississippi, the 
 writer's experience on, 308-313. 
 
 Olustee, Florida, battle of, and Union 
 defeat at, 282, 283. 
 
 Ord, General, ordered to relieve Gen- 
 eral Gordon in his command at 
 "West Point, 80-82 ; then ordered 
 to Vicksburg, 83 ; relieves Butler 
 in command of the Department of 
 Virginia and North Carolina, 376. 
 
 Page, Captain, Rebel commander of 
 Fort Morgan, 337 ; surrenders the 
 Fort to Union troops, 338 ; his 
 characteristics, 338, 345 ; criti- 
 cism of his conduct and courage, 
 339, 340 ; oi)posed secession in 
 Virginia before the war, 347. 
 
 Peck, General, conimands at Suffolk, 
 Va., 39, 40 ; his kindness to the 
 contrabands fleeing to his lines, 
 40, 41. 
 
 Pickett, General (Rebel), incident in 
 relation to, 128. 
 
 Pierpont, Governor of Virginia, his 
 relations with Butler, 401 ; his 
 difficulties in his Governorship, 
 423. 
 
 Porter, Admiral, commands the fleet 
 in the first attack on Fort Fisher, 
 368, 369 ; enters Richmond by 
 the James River, with President 
 Lincoln, after the evacuation of 
 that city, 399. 
 
436 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Proclamation of Emancipation by- 
 President Lincoln, reflections up- 
 on, 7. 
 
 Eebels, the, inhumanity of their 
 warfare, 346 ; vanquished and re- 
 turning, — how received, 405-416, 
 419-423, 426, 427. 
 
 Esconoiliation ! — incident in the 
 writer's experience reminding him 
 of the significance of the word, 
 426, 427. 
 
 Red-tape in the Army, some account 
 of, 226, 229-232. 
 
 Eeflections and 'Rumors, as to mili- 
 tary conditions and movements, 
 109-111, 114-116, 130-134, 150, 
 238, 241, 242, 247, 256, 257. 
 
 Richmond, capital city of the. Con- 
 federacy, value to the Union cause 
 of its capture considered, 124 ; 
 feasibility of its capture consid- 
 ered, 125-127 ; its fall, and occu- 
 pation by Federal troops under 
 Weitzel, 392. 
 
 Eosecrans, General, commanding 
 Union forces in Tennessee, — his 
 defeat there, and retirement to 
 Chattanooga, 243, 246 ; turns up- 
 on and whips General Bragg, 
 247. 
 
 Savannah, Georgia, its capture, and 
 how the news of, was received 
 by cotton-traders and Treasury- 
 agents, 364, 365. 
 
 Sohimmelfening, General, brigade- 
 commander under General Gordon 
 in Virginia, 151; also under same 
 in South Carolina, 223 ; his ser- 
 vices and capacity, 224 ; his use 
 of captured despatches, 285, 286. 
 
 Schurz, General Carl, the writer's in- 
 terview with, and impressions of, 
 149; his own account of stragglers 
 from his corps, 157. 
 
 Scott, Captain, plans and assists to 
 capture "Old Burke," 18, 21, 22; 
 leads a cavalry raid on Shepherds- 
 town, 22, 23. 
 
 Second Massachusetts Regiment, its 
 losses in the war, 6. 
 
 Seward, Secretary, visits the writer 
 at Norfolk, Virginia, 391, 392; is 
 cautious and, sanguine as usual, 
 392; attempted assassination of, 
 403, 404. 
 
 Seymour, General Truman, com- 
 mands Union forces in Florida 
 under Gillmore, 280-284; his de- 
 feat at Olustee, ,282, 283; charged 
 by Gillmore with disobedience of 
 orders, 284. 
 
 Sheridan, General Phil., his arrival 
 at White House, Va., and the 
 news he brought, 390; his subse- 
 quent successes, 392. 
 
 Sherman, General W. T., his cap- 
 ture of Savannah, Ga., 364. 
 
 Slatersville, cowardly murder of 
 Union soldiers near, 97. 
 
 Slaves, fugitive, — their invaluable 
 aid to the Union cause, their pe- 
 culiarities, and anecdotes of, 64-67, 
 69-74. 
 
 Slavery, not true that the South 
 hated it, 99. 
 
 Small, Robert, accoimt of his capture 
 of the Rebel steamer "Planter," 
 217-219. 
 
 Stanton, E. M. (Secretary of War), 
 his visit to the writer at Norfolk, 
 Va., 382-384. 
 
 Stephens, Alexander H., attempted 
 mission of, 134; arrives at City 
 Point, Va., to treat of peace with 
 President Lincoln and Secretary 
 Seward, 385. 
 
 Stevenson, General, commanding 
 troops in Charleston Harbor, 181, 
 182; deputed to lead the storming 
 column on Fort Wagner, 212, 213. 
 
 Stone Fleet, the, which was sunk in 
 Charleston Harbor, story of, 257, 
 258. 
 
 Stonewall Jackson, how rumor of his 
 death was received, 56; why he 
 did not attack Banks, 146. 
 
 Stono River, Rebel intrenchments 
 on, 208, 209. 
 
 Stuart, General, raid of, into Penn- 
 sylvania, 10, 11. 
 
 Sufferings of men and animals in the 
 war, 30. , 
 
 Suffolk, Virginia, the situation at, 
 under General Peck, 35, 39, et seq.; 
 
INDEX. 
 
 437 
 
 the writer's journey to, to report 
 to General P., 36-39; skirmish at, 
 41, 42; the writer's experiences 
 at, 39-52. 
 
 Sumter, Fort, siege and hombard- 
 ment of, by Union forces, 177 et 
 seq. ; combined attack on, by naval 
 and land forces, 183, 184; effect of 
 the bombardnxBut on, 184, 186, 
 189; its invincibility, 202, 206, 
 207, 222, 228, 238; the honor of 
 attempting its capture enviously 
 disputed by Dahlgren and Gill- 
 more, 220-222. 
 
 Sunday in camp, how the writer 
 spent one, 241, 242. 
 
 Tax Commissioners, in Virginia, 
 dishonest practices of, 386, 387. 
 
 Telegraphic communications, how 
 they were stolen by tapping the 
 wires, 239, 285, 286. 
 
 Terry, General, commands military 
 force in the second^ttack on Foi-t 
 Fisher, 369; promoted for his gal- 
 lant conduct in capturing Fort 
 Fisher, 374. 
 
 Torpedoes, their use by the Rebels 
 in the war, 199, 200; fatal. charac- 
 ter of their obstructions to the 
 Union forces, 212; in Forts Wag- 
 ner and Gregg, 220; on Folly Is- 
 land, 220 ; on the St. John's Eiver, 
 S. C, 269; on the St. John's in 
 Florida, 295; Admiral Farragut's 
 opinion of, 342, 343. 
 
 Trade, in contraband of war, 375- 
 378, 379; military commission to 
 inquire into, appointed, 376; tes- 
 timony before the commission in 
 regard to, 377, 378; opposition to 
 its suppression, 380, 381; Grant's 
 order in regard to, 380, 381 ; means 
 of largely supplying Lee's army 
 with food, 388. 
 
 Treason, indictments for, 426. 
 
 VicKSBUKa, rumor of the fall of, 91 ; 
 
 confirmation of this mmor, 133, 
 
 134. 
 Viele, General, commands at Norfolk, 
 
 Va., some experiences of, 37, 38. 
 Virginia,movementof the Army into, | 
 
 11 ; the writer's opinion of the in- 
 telligence of its people, 165. 
 
 Wagner, Fort, in Charleston Har- 
 bor, siege of, 181 et seq.; Gill- 
 moi-e's first attack on, and its sad 
 results, 188, 189; final evacuation 
 of, by the Rebels, 213; its strength 
 and appointments, 214-216. 
 Washburn, General C. C, in com- 
 mand of the District of West Ten- 
 nessee, the writer's interview with, 
 322-326. 
 Weitzel, General, accompanies But- 
 ler in his attack on Fort Fisher, 
 366-368; the measure of his re- 
 sponsibOity in that affair doubtful, 
 368; he enters Richmond after its 
 evacuation by the Rebels, 392. 
 West, Colonel, commanding Union 
 troopsbefore Williamsburg, Va., 93. 
 West Point, Virginia, General Gordon 
 in command at, 55 et seq.; throws 
 up intrenchments there, 56, 57, 
 evacuation of, by Union forces, 
 84-86. 
 White House, Virginia, historic in- 
 terest of, 122 ; church at, where 
 George Washington was married 
 to Martha Custis, 132. 
 Whiting, Captain, commanding the 
 gunboat "Ottawa" in Charleston 
 Harbor, — his opinion 6f the feasi- 
 bility of running past the forts in 
 the harbor, 201, 202; his indigna- 
 tion at the action of foreign con- 
 suls at Charleston, 205. 
 WUde, General, visit of, to the writer 
 
 in camp, 241. 
 Williamsburg, Virginia, battle-field 
 of, 92, 93; Hancock's charge at, 
 92 ; historic hall in, which rang 
 with ithe eloquence of Patrick 
 Henry, 94; its famous college, 94. 
 Wise, General, commands Rebel forces 
 at Williamsburg, Va., 90; his con- 
 troversy with the Union General 
 Keyes, 90, 91; his retreat to Rich- 
 mond, 95, 96; his correspondence 
 with General Gordon, 414, 415. 
 
 YoRKTOWN, description of, rebel for- 
 tifications at, and McClellan's siege- 
 works before, 87, 88.