October 31, 1862

October 31, 1862: Mrs. Dora Richards Miller, a Unionist woman living in Mississippi, recounts a conversation with a neighbor about the news of Emancipation reaching their slaves:
　
Oct. 31      —Mr. W. said last night the farmers felt uneasy about the "Emancipation Proclamation" to take effect in December. The slaves have found it out, though it had been carefully kept from them.
"Do yours know it?" I asked.
"Oh, yes. Finding it to be known elsewhere, I told it to mine with fair warning what to expect if they tried to run away. The hounds are not far off."
The need of clothing for their armies is worrying them too. I never saw Mrs. W. so excited as on last evening. She said the provost-marshal at the next town had ordered the women to knit so many pairs of socks.
"Just let him try to enforce it and they’ll cow-hide him. He’ll get none from me. I’ll take care of my own friends without an order from him."
"Well," said Mr. W., "if the South is defeated and the slaves set free, the Southern people will all become atheists, for the Bible justifies slavery and says it shall be perpetual."
"You mean, if the Lord does not agree with you, you’ll repudiate him."
"Well, we’ll feel it’s no use to believe in anything."

October 30, 1862

Northern Virginia, Oct. 30, 1862

October 30, 1862: Although Gen. McClellan began crossing the Army of the Potomac across the river that it was named for, still—four days later—no more than half of the army has crossed. He asks Gen. Halleck for more troops, and Halleck replies that he has no more troops for McClellan. McClellan then warns Gov. Curtin of Pennsylvania that he does not have sufficient troops to guard Pennsylvania from attack because Washington will not send the troops. He also discovers about this time that the Army is forming the new troops into new regiments rather than using them to put in veteran regiments. He writes home to Mrs. McClellan:

 

I have just been put in excellent humor by seeing that instead of sending the drafted men to fill the old rgts (as had been promised me) they are forming them into new rgts. Also that in the face of the great want of cavalry… they are sending the new cavalry rgts from Penna to Louisville instead of hither!! Blind & foolish they will continue to the end.

—On this date, the U.S. Navy offers a $500,000.00 reward for the capture of the CSS Alabama, or $300,000.00 for its destruction. Apparently, the Confederate commerce raider has become a big enough problem that the Navy needs to offer more motivation to its sea commanders.

—Sec. of War Stanton sends directives to the governors of Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to begin sending newly-raised regiments to Gen. McClernand, rather than to Gen. Grant.

—On this date, Napoleon III, Emperor of France, proposes to Great Britain and Russia that the three nations intervene in the American Civil War and bring about a brokered peace—one that would provide favorable outcomes and privileges to the brokering nations, of course, since Napoleon was interested in establishing more French "opportunities" in Central America. The British and the Russians eventually reject Napoleon’s overtures, however.

Emperor Napoleon III of France

—Harper’s Weekly, once an anti-Republican paper, but now a firmly pro-Republican paper, publishes a pair of cartoons as commentary on the upcoming elections in one week: they attack the "Seymour Party"—the New York Democrats who favor peace with the South at any price, and which will in future months become the core of Copperhead movement in the North. The cartoons lampoon the Peace Democrats’ approach to the war, of their prevarications about Union, and their sympathy and percieved loyalty to the South. (Seymour is shown as kissing the foot of The South):



What the Seymour Party Say

What the Seymour Party Do

—Gen. Robert E. Lee has formally divided the Army of Nothern Virginia into two corps–the 1^st, under Gen. Longstreet, and the 2^nd, under Gen. Jackson.

—John Beauchamp Jones, a clerk in the Confederate War Department, writes in his journal of the rumors that constantly fly around the Department:

But we have good news from England—if it be true. The New York Express says Lord Lyons is instructed by England, and perhaps on the part of France and other powers, to demand of the United States an armistice; and in the event of its not being acceded to, the governments will recognize our independence. One of the President’s personal attendants told me this news was regarded as authentic by our government. I don’t regard it so.

---George Templeton Strong, of New York City, writes in his journal about prospects for the war and prospects for the mid-term elections, where the mayoral seat for the city and the governorship of the state of New York are up for grabs, which could have crucial consequences for the Lincoln administration—not to mention the probability that New York’s congressional delegation would become strongly Democratic, due to increasing sympathy for the South and discontent with the stunted Union efforts toward victory. He also notes the ill effect of arresting Southern sympathizers and critics of the war without a writ of habeas corpus:
Private advices from the War Department are that the Virginia rebels are greatly reinforced and that McClellan is to wait a little longer. Alas for next Tuesday’s election! There is danger—great and pressing danger—of a disaster more telling than all our Bull Run battles and Peninsular strategy: the resurrection to political life and power of the Woods, Barlows, LaRocques, and Belmonts [leading Copperheads in New York], who have been dead and buried and working only underground, if at all, for eighteen months, and every one of them well deserves hanging as an ally of the rebellion. It would be a fearful national calamity. If it come, it will be due not so much to the Emancipation Manifesto as to the irregular arrests the government has been making. They have been used against the Administration with most damaging effect, and no wonder. They have been utterly arbitrary, and could be excused only because demanded by the pressure of an unprecedented national crisis; because necessary in a case of national life or death that justified any measure, however extreme. But not one of the many hundreds illegally arrested and locked up for months has been publicly charged with any crime or brought to the notice of a Grand Jury. They have all been capriciously arrested, so far as we can see, and some have been capriciously discharged; locked up for months without legal authority and let out without legal acquittal. All this is very bad—imbecile, dangerous, unjustifiable. It gives traitors and Seymourites an apology for opposing the government and helping South Carolina that it is hard to answer. I know it is claimed that these arrests are legal, and perhaps they are. . . . There go drums through the street. It’s a Democratic procession (democratic!) with torches, parading dirty James Brooks’s name on a dirty banner. I met this, or its brother, marching down Fifth Avenue on my way to Agnew’s, and felt as if a Southern Army had got into New York. . . .

---Private George Grenville Benedict, of the 12^th Vermont Infantry Regiment, writes another letter he intends to publish in the Burlington Free Press, his hometown newspaper: this one is a humorous look at the constant work of a soldier who is ambitious to improve his comfort in camp. It also concerns the constant flux of army life and the total unreliability of said soldier’s expectations: "Change sweepeth over all," sang the plaintive Motherwell, and we find the line to have as much truth as poetry in the army. Yesterday at this time every man in the Second Vermont brigade thought we were good for a stay of some weeks on East Capitol Hill. . . . It was reasonable to suppose that some time for drill in battalion and brigade evolutions would be granted before sending us forward. . . . Some troops would of course be left there, and we must be the ones. So reasoned officers and men, and the conclusion was easily reached that we should stay where we were for the present. In this conviction the men of the Twelfth began making themselves more comfortable in camp. Lumber was procured at $25 a thousand and upwards. Our little A tents, in which we enacted the daily and nightly miracle of stowing six men, with six muskets and about as much harness as is allotted to so many horses in a well arranged stable, together with bedding, crockery and tinware and goods and chattels all and sundry, belonging to said family of six, in a tent seven feet square on the ground and tapering in a wedge to the height of six or six and one-half feet,—these little tents were elevated on sides built up of boards, by which their original capacity was almost doubled and the comfort of the occupants at least trebled. Shelves were rigged, pegs put in to hang guns and trappings on, floors laid, and various little contrivances to enhance order and cleanliness added. With what satisfaction we looked at our new structures! How we enjoyed a residence in which we could stretch our arms at length above our heads, and sit around the sides without doubling together like so many jack-knives! With what complacency did we think of our own thrift, and look forward to days and weeks of such comparative luxury! Alas for the folly of human expectations! With nightfall came the order to move into Virginia, and here we are to-night, five miles the other side of the Potomac, our new acquisitions left far behind us, and not a saw-mill or lumber yard this side of Washington or Richmond, so far as we know. They may talk of the sorrow of leaving the ancestral roof-tree, the hearth around which boyhood’s days were spent and youth’s and manhood’s memories clustered; —that can be described; but the pangs with which we left our wooden walls and floors, are indescribable. But such is life in the army.

October 29, 1862

October 29, 1862: Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton, on this date, sends two telegrams to Gen. John McClernand in Illinois, who is raising a new army that he intends to use to sidestep (or bypass) Gen. Grant in doing the important work of attacking Vicksburg and capturing the entire length of the Mississippi River. Apparently, Grant does not know about this activity that is going on behind his back–and behind General-in-Chief Halleck’s back. In these telegrams, Stanton urges McClernand: 
Every effort should be made to raise all the forces you can. You will see to getting as many cavalry regiments as possible. In respect to arms, do not suffer yourself to be misled by captious and trifling complaints as to their quality. We shall improve them as fast as possible. Additional funds for pay and bounty will be remitted to-morrow. Get the troops forward as fast as possible. Let every hour advance your work.
He sends another wire later in the day, and repeats some of the same things: 
I wish you to report as frequently as possible the progress that you are making in organizing and sending forward troops, specifying the number from each State.

Diligent attention should be given to providing yourself with cavalry. I have authorized, and will give fresh authority if needed, for raising any number of cavalry regiments. . . .

Artillery has already been forwarded to Cairo, and you may raise any number of artillery companies that you deem necessary. . . . You will apprise me of your wants, which shall be promptly supplied as far as may be in the power of the Department.
This kind of carte blanche is very unusual, and there appears to be no transparent reason for Stanton’s odd subterfuge or his tone of haste.

U.S. Secretary of War, Edwin Stanton

　

—Maj. Gen. Don Carlos Buell discovers he has been relieved of command—indeed, several days ago—on this date, by reading about it in the newspapers. Gen. Rosecrans still had not arrived to deliver Buell the orders. Gen. Halleck in Washington apparently never sent any orders to Buell, relying on Rosecrans, the new commander of the department, to show Buell the orders as he arrived. Buell is still in Louisville, even though his quarry, Bragg’s army, is already in East Tennessee, preparing to drive west into Middle Tennessee, and he is starting to put his army on the road south back to Nashville when he discovers he has been relieved of command. He sends this note to Gen. Halleck:
Louisville, Ky., October 29, 1862—11.30 a. m. H. W. Halleck, General-in-Chief:
If, as the papers report, my successor has been appointed, it is important that I should know it, and that he should enter on the command immediately, as the troops are already in motion.
D. C. BUELL,
Major-General.
Gen. Buell is not re-assigned. He later requests a trial in which he is acquited, but not reinstated in the army.

Maj. Gen. Don Carlos Buell, looking dubious

　
---Battle of Island Mound, Misouri: Under command of Brig. Gen. James Lane, detachments from the 5^th Kansas Cavalry and the 1^st Kansas Volunteers, a black regiment raised by Lane---which he formed in disregard of orders---engage in sporadic skirmishing over the previous three days with Confederate forces. Outnumbered, the Federals form a defensive position, fortified. As the Rebels attack repeatedly, the black troops drive them off every time. The Rebels set a prairie fire which flushed the Kansas men out, but as they fled, they turned suddenly and delivered a volley which broke up the Rebel mounted charge. The black troops had lost 4 killed and 12 wounded, but there were at least 30 Rebels killed, and an unknown number wounded. Black troops won their first victory against the Rebels, and a newspaper in Lawrence praised the battle as proving "that black men can fight."

—Major Alexander Biddle, of the 121^st Reg. of Pennsylvania Vol. Infantry, writes home to his wife Julia, thanking her for the food treats she has sent to add a little variety to his diet—and also hinting at things she might yet send:

We are at Berlin with orders to march at short notice. We expected to march last night, this morning and think we shall certainly go over the river tomorrow at the farthest. Your box dearest came by Mr. Rasin with the tea &c. You need not send me crackers – the condensed beef I have not tried I think it may be good on the march but I like to have it by me. Alick’s chestnuts were very acceptable to the Field Staff and his papa. I do not think any boxes can reach me for some time to come but the best method to send me anything is by Mr. Rasin. A pine apple cheese may also do very well – any dried preserved fruits are pleasant "bonnés bouches" to soldiers.

Your chocolate is delightful. A piece of it was my supper in last Sunday night’s rain. A piece of good dried beef is a very good thing too. And the tea you sent just supplied our chest.

Your kindness love has been a great help to me.

You do indeed follow me with your influence wherever I go and always to promote my happiness saving that I cannot be with you. . . .
　

October 28, 1862

October 28, 1862:  Gen. Bragg and the Army of the Mississippi arrive in the Knoxville area.  Bragg leaves the army under the command of Gen. Polk while he travels to Richmond to consult with the President.  Meanwhile, Gen. John C. Breckenridge marches his division to occupy Murfreesboro, only 35 miles from Union-controlled Nashville.  Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest, knowing that Buell’s army had not yet returned to Nashville, urges Breckenridge to attack Nashville now.

---At Cross Hollows, Arkansas, near Fayetteville, Gen. Francis Herron and about 1,000 Federal cavalry encounter five regiments of Texas cavalry and two cannon.  Herron’s troops rout the Rebels in a sharp fight.

---In coastal North Carolina, Gen. John G. Foster, with 12,000 troops, begins an expedition up the Albemarle River, heading inland.

---Just off of the entrance to Mobile Bay, the USS Montgomery captures the Rebel steamer CSS Caroline, attempting to run the blockade with a cargo of weapons and munitions.

 

---The Lauretta, a merchant vessel out of New York, is captures by the CSS Alabama and burned.

October 27, 1862

October 27, 1862:  Gen. John McClernand has arrived in Illinois to recruit his new army for his proposed Vicksburg expedition.  Grant is likewise proposing his own Vicksburg move, and has already put matters into motion, but still lacks clear approval or support from Washington.  Grant is unaware that McClernand is now asking for some of Grant’s army to be re-assigned to him, once he begins his move down the river. 

---In answer to Pres. Lincoln’s rather sarcastic quip about why McClellan’s horses might be too fatigued for the Army of the Potomac to pursue the Rebels, Little Mac replies with some touchy, offended sense of outrage.  So the President answers with some mollifying comments and a tone of support---and Mac comes back with more reasons why he is not ready to go, namely the filling up of worn regiments with replacements---and Lincoln, savvy to McClellan’s procrastinating ways, is sure to ask if this new project is something that must be done before (once again) he will able to go after General Lee:

EXECUTIVE MANSION, Washington, October 27, 1862.
(Sent 12.10 p. m.)
Major-General McCLELLAN:
    Yours of yesterday received. Most certainly I intend no injustice to any, and if I have done any I deeply regret it. To be told, after more than five weeks' total inaction of the army, and during which period we have sent to the army every fresh horse we possibly could, amounting in the whole to 7,918, that the cavalry horses were too much fatigued to move, presents a very cheerless, almost hopeless, prospect for the future, and it may have forced something of impatience in my dispatch. If not recruited and rested then, when could they ever be? I suppose the river is rising, and I am glad to believe you are crossing.

A. LINCOLN.

HEADQUARTERS ARMY OF THE POTOMAC, October 27, 1862-3 p. m.
His Excellency the PRESIDENT:
    Your Excellency is aware of the very great reduction of numbers that has taken place in most of the old regiments of this command, and how necessary it is to fill up these skeletons before taking them again into action. I have the honor, therefore, to request that the order to fill up the old regiments with drafted men may at once be issued.

GEO. B. McCLELLAN,
Major-General, Commanding.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, Washington, October 27, 1862. (Sent 3.25 p. m.)
Major-General McCLELLAN:
    Your dispatch of 3 p. m. to-day, in regard to filling up old regiments with drafted men, is received, and the request therein shall be complied with as far as practicable.
    And now I ask a distinct answer to the question, Is it your purpose not to go into action again until the men now being drafted in the States are incorporated into the old regiments?

A. LINCOLN.

---The Columbus (Ga.) Times publishes an editorial that offers descriptions of the leading Confederate generals in the East:

Gen. Lee has, I believe, won his way to everybody’s confidence. In appearance he is tall, portly, and commanding. His dress is usually a plain Brigadier’s uniform, a black felt hat, with the brim turned down, and he wears a short grizzled beard all round his face. He has much of the Washingtonian dignity about him, and is much respected by all with whom he is thrown. At Sharpsburg I saw him on the field during the heat of the action. He was surrounded by his staff and a perfect squadron of couriers. He was engaged in calmly viewing the storm of battle, and giving orders in a manner of cool reliance. Aids and couriers were hurrying to and from the right, left and centre, and the whole disposition of forces seemed under his perfect control.

Gen. Robert E. Lee

Gen. Longstreet is stout and fleshy, and of good height, and has a quiet, courageous look. He seems full of thought and of decision, and his face makes an agreeable impression alike on new and old acquaintances. He is characteristically a fighting man — none can equal him in forcing a strong and well fortified position, and Gen, Lee showed his appreciation of an old tried soldier, when he patted him on the shoulder after the late battle and said, “My old war horse!” In this engagement he was second in command of the army, and his old corps keenly felt the need of his able handling.

Maj. Gen. James "Pete" Longstreet

I was surprised at Stonewall Jackson’s appearance. He has been described as a sort of clown. I never yet saw him riding with his knees drawn up like a monkey, and his head resting upon his breast. He has a first-rate face, and seems a plainly dressed Captain of Cavalry, with an unpretending Staff. His uniform is fine enough, certainly, for the hard life he leads. But the imagination is piqued, you know, by the absence of pretension, as “a King in gray clothes,”Stonewall don’t like to come about the army much. The boys keep him bareheaded all the time. When they begin to cheer him be usually pulls off his hat, spurs his fine horse, and runs through the howls which meet him at every step (for some five miles) as hard as he can go.

Maj. Gen. Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson

---The steamer Anglia, under British colors, attempts to run the blockade near Charleston.  It is captured just offshore by the USS Restless and the USS Flag.

---Battle of Georgia Landing (Labadieville), Louisiana: Gen. Benjamin Butler, in command of Union troops in southern Louisiana, orders Gen. Godfrey Weitzel to take 4,000 troops into the Bayou Lafourche area, west of New Orleans in Cajun country, to secure it for the Union.  Opposing them was a Confederate reinforced brigade under Brig. Gen. Alfred Mouton, with four infantry regiments, some cavalry, and two batteries of artillery, numbering about 1,392 men.  Weitzel advances his brigade along the east side of the bayou, and encounters half of Mouton’s force there; after a brief skirmish, the Rebels retreat.  Then the Union forces use boats to cross to the west bank, and they engage the other half of Mouton’s graybacks there, who put up a stiff fight, and keep the Federals at bay.  But the Rebels run out of ammunition, and are forced to retreat.  Union Victory.

Losses:  U.S.  86; C.S. 229

October 26, 1862

October 26, 1862: Gen. William S. Rosecrans responds to the order to take command of the Army of the Cumberland with a rather strange telegram to Gen. Halleck (and to Pres. Lincoln) which reveals a high level of unease in the general:

CAIRO, ILL, October 27, 1862 - 11.40 A. M.
(Received 4 p. m.)
Major General H. W. HALLECK,


General- in- Chief:
　　　 I was astonished at your dispatch. I am obeying orders as fast as the ordinary mans of travel will carry me. My telegraph only means to say, as I could not get conveyeance from Cairo before this morning, I would spend the time in completely winding up my affirs at Corinth instead of lying idle at Cairo. If you desire more, please say what, and it shall be done if possible.

W. S. ROSECRANS,
Major-General.


In return, Halleck sends this reprimand:

WASHINGTON, D. C., October 26, 1862.
Major-General ROSECRANS,
Corinth:
　　　Your telegram of yesterday tothe President has bee sent tothe War Deaprtment. Your conduct in this matter is very reprehensible, and I am directed to say that unless you immediately obey the orders sent to you you will not receive the command.


H. W . HALLECK,
General- in- Chief.

Maj. Gen. William Starke Rosecrans, U.S.A.

—Vicksburg Campaign Begins: Gen. Ulysses S. Grant has Vicksburg and control of the Mississippi River in view as he begins his campaign to capture the Gibraltar of the Mississippi. Assemblilng his army in Tennessee, he plans to advance overland down through the state of Mississippi and then take Vicksburg from behind, on the landward side, since approaching the city from the river—or finding solid ground close enough land troops on—is theoretically unlikely. But a few miles down the Mississippi Central Railroad, which Grant plans to use as his line of advance, Gen. Sterling Price of the Confederate Army (under the overall command of John C. Pemberton) is assembling a force calculated to stop Grant, at Holly Springs.

　

—President Lincoln, determined to keep tabs on McClellan’s movements, sends this telegram to the general partly to mollify Little Mac about the horses comment, and to compliment him that he is finally crossing the Potomac into Virginia:

TELEGRAM TO GENERAL G. B. McCLELLAN.
EXECUTIVE MANSION WASHINGTON, October 26, 1862. 11.30am
MAJOR-GENERAL McCLELLAN:
Yours, in reply to mine about horses, received. Of course you know the facts better than I; still two considerations remain: Stuart’s cavalry outmarched ours, having certainly done more marked service on the Peninsula and everywhere since. Secondly, will not a movement of our army be a relief to the cavalry, compelling the enemy to concentrate instead of foraging in squads everywhere? But I am so rejoiced to learn from your despatch to General Halleck that you begin crossing the river this morning.
A. LINCOLN.

—Two Federal gunboats, the USS Clifton and USS Westfield, attack the port of Indianola, Texas, and take possession of the port and town.

—The CSS Alabama overtakes a schooner, the Crenshaw, from New York, bound to Scotland with a load of flour. The Crenshaw is condemned and burned at sea.

—Laura M. Towne, a Northern woman in the Sea Islands off South Carolina, writes in her diary about the brutal way the Union army is "recruiting" black men for the army:

[Diary] October 26.
At church to-day Captain Randolph and Colonel Elwell were present. They came to see the colored men and to recruit, or rather with an eye to recruiting. But there were no able-bodied young men to be seen. They had all taken to the woods at the sight of epaulets, guessing the errand. The seizure and transportation to Pulaski of those men from the village has had a very bad effect. No man likes to be seized and taken from home to unknown parts — specially as they were taught to expect it by their masters; these people hate it, for they think they will surely be sent to Cuba.
　

October 25, 1862

October 25, 1862: President Lincoln writes a brief note to Gen. McClellan in answer to Little Mac’s complaint that he cannot pursue the Confederates very soon because the horses of the army are fatigued. Lincoln’s response reveals his weakening presidential decorum and patience:
Washington City, D.C.
Majr. Genl. McClellan Oct. 24 [25]. 1862

I have just read your despatch about sore tongued and fatigued horses. Will you pardon me for asking what the horses of your army have done since the battle of Antietam that fatigue anything?
A. LINCOLN

—The Richmond Daily Dispatch publishes an editorial about an "affair of honor"—that is, a duel, between two officers in the 1^st South Carolina Artillery regiment, which was guarding the city of Charleston. The significant fact about this duel was that the son of noted fire-easter and secession advocate Barnwell Rhett shot and killed the nephew of the great Southern states’ rights champion Sen. John C. Calhoun:
The duel at Charleston.
–The late fatal duel at Charleston, S. C., resulting in the death of Col. W. R. Calhoun, of the 1st Reg’t S. C. Artillery, at the hands of Maj. Alfred Rhett, of the same regiment, did not obtain much publicity through the papers of that city. A correspondent of the Mobile Advertiser, writing from Charleston, says it is to be the subject of legal investigation, the first case of that kind in the city courts for twenty years. The letter says:
Besides the principals and their surgeons, it is said there were six gentlemen present at the meeting–three State Senators, the Speaker of the House of Representatives of North Carolina a leading member of the State Convention, and a Captain Two of the Senators also hold commissions as officers of the army. The arrangements of the meeting were conducted throughout with the nicest regard for the etiquette of the "code," and I have heard of several of those who were on the ground who express their belief that a more fairly-fought duel never occurred. Major Rhett, the challenged party, waived the "drop" shot, which he preferred, and shot the "rise." He was dressed in full uniform; Col. Calhoun in citizen’s dress. Both fired almost simultaneously, Major Rhett in an instant after Col. Calhoun. The latter missed, and fell with a ball through the middle of his body. He survived only about an hour.
It appears that Southern gentlemen who are allied in the rightness of secession were not immune to slaughtering each other in honorable Southern fashion.

—There appears an advertisement in the Dispatch also of a "large sale of negroes" in Columbia, South Carolina:
Large Sale of negroes.
–About one hundred negroes were sold at Columbia, S. C., on the 17th inst., at an average of $680 cash. The following is a list of prices:
One family of five, $415 each; a family of three $715 each; a family of six, $650 each; a family of five, $610 each; a family of nine, $840 one negro man $1,255, and another $1,365; two, $940 each; a family of six, $510 each; two, $700 each; one old negro, $100; negro girl, $530; a family of five, $670 each; a family of four, $750 each; three at $850 each; two at $510 each; two at $1,315 each; four at $625 each; one at $1,405; three at $310 each; one at $590; one at $575; a family of six at $790 each; four at $315 each; two at $750 each; three at $730 each, and one at $1,310.

—Corporal Zenas T. Haines of the 44^th Masssachusetts Infantry Regiment is on board a transport as several regiments are being shipped from Fort Monroe to the inlets of North Carolina. But the young soldier notes the absence of any warships to protect the troop transports:
This morning we are supposed to be steaming along between Fortress Monroe and Cape Hatteras. The sea is smooth, and the genial breath of the South is upon us. We feel as if Spring-time had come upon us suddenly, and those not afflicted with sea-sickness feel good this morning. . . .

On board these two steamers are three thousand soldiers with arms and accoutrements. We are the same as defenceless. From our vast navy of war vessels not even one little gunboat has been spared to escort us to our destination, and this in the face and eyes of the fact that a number of formidable rebel privateers are scouring the seas and scattering destruction in their path. Is there any apology for such risk and negligence? We cannot see it.
　
　
　
　

October 24, 1862

October 24, 1862: After chasing Braxton Bragg and his army ineffectively throughout the late summer and early Fall, Maj. Gen. Don Carlos Buell is relieved of command over the Army of the Ohio, with William Stark Rosecrans named as his successor—in spite of Rosecrans’ lackluster performance in the campaigning in northern Mississippi and at the Battle of Corinth. The name of the army and department is changed to the Army of the Cumberland. Gen. Halleck orders Rosecrans to drive the enemy out of Kentucky and Middle Tennessee, to take and hold East Tennessee, and to cut the rail links between Virginia and Tennessee (and the deep South). Halleck specifies: "I need not urge upon you the necessity of giving active employment to your forces. Neither the country nor the Government will much longer put up with the inactivity of some of our armies and generals." Rosecrans sets out with these orders for Buell’s HQ. Buell will not learn is his dismissal for another five days.

—Sarah Morgan, now back in Baton Rouge, writes in her journal of her youngest brother, who serves in the Confederate Navy:
Friday, October 24th.
A letter from Jimmy, the first we have received since New Orleans fell. It was dated the 10th inst., and he spoke of being on the eve of running the blockade, and going to Liverpool "to represent our unfortunate navy," as he says, though I am at loss to imagine what he can mean. He speaks of a kind friend, a Mr. George Trenholm, whose kindness has been perfectly extraordinary. He has befriended him in every way. —Laura M. Towne, in the South Carolina Sea Islands to teach school to former slaves, tells of a Rebel attempt to storm the island and re-capture the negroes:
[Diary] October 24.
Three boats full of rebels attempted to land on these islands last night, two at the village and one at Edding’s Point. The negroes with their guns were on picket; they gave the alarm, fired and drove the rebels off. "That tells for us," Mr. Soule says; that is, for those who have urged arming the negroes.
　
　
　
　  

October 23, 1862

October 23, 1862: The Richmond Daily Dispatch prints an editorial column that argues that the Union can never be restored now, and that the implacable hatred between North and South is too fervid and too permanent to ever be effaced:
Nevertheless, the best policy, simply as policy, to say nothing of right and justice, which the Lincoln Government could have pursued at the time of his inauguration, and at any time since, would have been to permit the South to depart in peace.–The Government would have lost nothing by that policy, which it could have preserved by any other, and it would have saved the hundreds of thousands of lives and the hundreds of millions of treasure which the adoption of coercive measures has cost. So it will be to the end. Peace now, late as it is, is a better policy for the North than war. The South is never to be re-united to the old Union, except by the extermination of its whole people.–And when this is accomplished, of what value will the Union be to the North? With the whole framework of Southern society overthrown, the proprietors and directors of the labor dead or exiled, and the laborers themselves turned loose, what practical gain will ensure to the North? . . . There are no two nations of Europe which have ever hated each other with more intense and implacable hate than North and South. There are no two nations in Europe more dissimilar, politically, socially, in almost every other respect that can be named. The two races, apart from their present hostility, do not think alike, do not look alike, do not even talk alike, and have nothing alike but their mutual hate. It is useless to attempt the union of such opposing elements. Better let them part in peace.

The Union attack at Pocotaligo Bridge

—Battle of Pocotaligo Bridge, S.C. Yesterday, in an attempt to cut the railroad between Savannah and Charleston, several Federal regiments, under command of Generals Brannan and Terry, land at Macky’s Point in the coastal waters of southern South Carolina, and march inland toward Pocotaligo Bridge. At first, Col. Walker of the Confederate Army has only a battery of cannon and 400+ men to oppose them. Heavy fighting delays the Federal advance, although the bluecoats manage to drive off the Rebels each time. By the time they reach Pocotaligo, Walker has received 200 reinforcements, and the two sides blaze away until dusk, when the thwarted Yankees march back to the river and board their transports back to Hilton Head. Today, pickets clash along the railway route, but the Federals are unable to find any openings. Confederate Victory.




—George Michael Neese of Chew’s Battery, in Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia, writes in his journal of a not-so-harmless prank by the pickets on duty.
October 23 — Still on picket. To-day we had an alarm at the front, caused by the explosion of a shell which some of our outer pickets found and threw in the fire just to see whether it would explode; and sure enough they saw, for the shell exploded with a report similar to a cannon, and sowed the fire and iron fragments around like a young volcano. The explosion stirred up a lively scene for a while among the reserve pickets. We rushed to our guns with the full expectation of seeing a Yankee battery appear over a hill about a mile in our front and open on us, but when we learned the cause of the sudden alarm all anticipations of a Yankee advance were expelled and quietude again reigned along our picket line.

—Private George Grenville Benedict, of the 12^th Vermont Infantry Regiment, writes a letter he intends to publish in the Burlington Free Press, his hometown newspaper, and makes observations about hospital conditions in the Army of the Potomac:

The men, as a general thing, have a repugnance to going into hospital. The hospital is a large tent, kept warm by stoves, in which the sick men lie on straw, placed on the ground, as the Government does not furnish cots. It looks a little hard; but ours is a good field hospital, and the inmates are better off than many in and around this city. The sick and wounded men in the permanent hospitals in Washington, Georgetown and Alexandria, number thirty-four thousand—an army in themselves. Many of these are in tents, for want of houses, and many, I fear, from what I hear, suffer from want of suitable care. The Government is now building on the plain here, not far from our camp, some immense one-story wooden buildings, for a general hospital, which, when completed, will give the covering of a roof to thousands who now shiver in the hospital tent.Benedict in this letter also renders a description of a "Plague of Dust" in the camp.
What do you think of a bath of thirty-six hours’ duration in Washington dirt? That is what we have been enjoying yesterday and to-day. It had been quite dusty for a day or two and you must remember that we are on a bare surface of clay, denuded of grass and easily ground into the finest, most adhesive and most disagreeable dust in the world—the dust of Washington. It had sifted pretty thoroughly over and into every thing in our tents, when yesterday morning the wind began to blow. It commenced before light with a furious gust, which woke our thousand sleepers, and many other thousands around us, to find the dust pouring in upon us through every opening and crevice. We sprang up and with blankets and over-coats closed the openings; but the dust was still there, kept in constant motion by the slatting of our canvas walls, and the only way was to lie down again and take it as it came. What a dirty crew crawled out of the tents that morning! It was of little use to brush or wash —which latter habit, by the way, has to be indulged with moderation in our camp, for we are short of water. . . . water is now a luxury if not a rarity, in the camp of the Twelfth. The wind kept up and the dust with it, and it is not fairly down yet. It is a peculiar life, when you must eat, breathe and drink earth, instead of food, air and water. You open your mouth, it is as if some one had put in a spoonful of pulverized clay. You put your hand to your hair, it feels like a dust brush. You touch your cheek, it is a clod. You place your finger in your ear, it is like running it into a hole in the ground. You draw from one of the dust holes in your clothes, the mud-stained rag which a few hours since was your clean handkerchief, and wipe a small pile of "sacred soil" from the corner of either eye. You look on the faces of your comrades, they are of the earth, earthy. The dust penetrates every fibre of every article of clothing; you feel dirty clear through. But it is of no use to attempt to describe it; it is unutterable—this plague of dust.

—George Templeton Strong, of New York City, writes in his journal, despairing of falling Republican fortunes without any decisive battlefield victories:
To Columbia College this norning with George F. Allen in time for chapel. Service satisfactory. . . . Meeting of the Executive Committee of the Sanitary Commission and slight supper thereafter. [Frederick Law] Olmsted present, also an intelligent, well-mannered Dr. Fowler, a refugee from Montgomery, Alabama. That town cast him out because he was thought overzealous in caring for a hospital full of Union prisoners, onf which he was in charge. . . . The war on rebellion languishes. We make no onward movements and gain no victories. McClellan’s response is doubtless majectic, but if a couchant lion postpone his spring too long, people will begind wondering whether he is not a stuffed specimen after all. . . . One thing is clear: that unless we gain decisive success before the November election, this state will range itself against the Administration. It it does, a dishonorable peace and permanent disunion are not unlikely. The whole community is honeycombed by secret sympathizers with treason who will poke out their heads and flaunt their "red, white, and blue" tentacles the moment avowed division of Northern sentiment enables them to do so safely. . . .
　
　
　

October 22, 1862

October 22, 1862:  A Democrat-oriented newspaper in Seneca County, New York, publishes an editorial that plays the race card with a vengeance:

Abolition and Amalgamation.

 These beautious and fragrant twins, – offsprings of the Republican party, have taken a fixed position among the political facts of the day. President LINCOLN, after a season of heartless coquetry with the conservative sentiment of the country, has finally proclaimed the end aim of this war to be the abolition of slavery; and the establishment of the negro element, as an independent governing power in the far off South. To accomplish this, the blood and treasure of the north is to be poured out like water. For this end, thousands of the best lives in this country are to be sacrificed and tens of thousands of millions of dollars wrested from the people by a hungry hoard of Republican tax-gatherers, are to be spent. – One tenth of the proceeds of the industry of the country are to be annually taken from the people to pay the interest on current expenses; and a debt, as unending as the returns of the seasons, is to be fastened upon the future. Verily, the good time foretold by songsters, has come. Free speech and a free press, aye, even free white men, have ceased to be; but in their place we have free plunder for partizans, free taxes for the people, and free negroes to support.

—Gen. George McClellan writes to Gen. Halleck, and tells him that he will probably begin to advance again southward, but keeping his army between Washington and the Rebel army.

—Gen. Lee writes to Pres. Davis and, supposing that McClellan will “do little more this fall than to organize and instruct his new troops,” asks Davis’s advice on Lee’s plan to quarter his troops for the winter.

—Old Fort Wayne, Indian Territory: Battle of Maysville - Gen. Blunt’s column, about 3,000 strong, is on the trail after the Confederate Col. Douglas Cooper and his cavalry, who were camped near Old Fort Wayne, just across the Arkansas state line in the Indian Territory (now Oklahoma).  Blunt arouses the 2nd Kansas Cavalry Regiment soon after 4:00 AM, and sends word to awaken the rest of his two brigades.  Blunt rides with the 2nd Kansas, and sends a few companies to circle around behind the Confederate camp and catch them by surprise.  But the Federals find the Confederates gone—who apparently have known that Blunt is coming.  Cooper has put his supply train in motion first, and left a rear guard to guard their retreat.  (Cooper has about 7,000 men, and does not realize that he outnumbers Blunt by 2 to 1.)  Blunt, about this time, discovers where the Rebels are, but also discovers that he has only one regiment with him.  In the pre-dawn confusion, word did not get passed down to the rest of his division, who are still asleep in their camp.  He sends back to awaken them—but, not waiting Blunt proceeds to advance with just the 2nd Kansas anyway.  The Rebel rear guard is larger than the 2nd Kansas, and is near Maysville, commanded by Col. Michael Buster, and consists mostly of Cherokees of Col. Stand Watie’s 1st Cherokee Mounted Rifles. 

Col. Stand Watie, 1st Cherokee Rifles

When Blunt’s Kansans deploy into line of battle, he sees that his numbers are too small.  Then, Capt. Samuel Crawford, with a battlion of the Kansas troopers, about 250 men, dashes forward on their own to seize the Confederate artillery, totally without orders, to Gen. Blunt’s shock and dismay.  But the brash dash by Crawford succeeds in an unexpected way.  The crews of the Rebel cannon were surrounded, and they instantly surrender—and the rest of the Rebel infantry dissolves and flees down the road.  Watie and his mounted Cherokees still stand, but the Union 3rd Indian Home Guard regiment appears on Blunt’s left, and they exchange shots with Watie’s Cherokees until the Rebel riders retreat also.  More Federal troops arrive, and a battery unlimbers and begins to toss shells into the retreating Southern column.  Blunt orders a pursuit, but Cooper manages to save his ammunition train and keep retreating down to Fort Smith in the Arkansas River Valley.  Results: many secessionist Cherokees become convinced that the Confederate cause is in decline.  Many desert and swell the ranks of Blunt’s Home Guard Indian regiments, simply switching sides.  This odd battle turns out to be a Union victory.

Brig. Gen. James Blunt (no relation to the singer)

—Meanwhile, in Huntsville, Arkansas, Gen. Schofield drives Gen. Hindman’s Rebel brigades out of the town in a brief fight.

---Near Van Buren, Arkansas, a force of Union cavalry engages in a sharp fight for an hour and routs the much-larger Confederate cavalry detachment opposing them.

—The Richmond Daily Dispatch, in an editorial, calls for the Conscription Law to be passed and applied, since it is clear that the Yankees have big plans for new invasions:

 The Yankees had not only determined on, but had already begun to levy a new force of six hundred thousand men. That force, we declared, would be raised in a very short time, and we were not wrong. It is already in great part; drilling as rapidly as it can and by the time the cold weather sets in it will be upon us. We shall have another "on to Richmond," and that is a very short time. The advance of McClellan indicates thus much. . . .  An invasion is designed to which that we have yet seen of invasion is mere child's play.

The editors scold the Confederate Congress for moving too slow on this bill.  But although the editors have every confidence that Southern men will meet the emergency with “promptness and gallantry”, they warn of a dire struggle ahead:
 

We have no belief that we can be finally beaten here upon our own soil, fighting for our altars and our firesides — But we must dismiss all illusions, agreeable as they may be, and learn to look at the grim reality. It is war in its most gloomy aspect that we are called upon to endure.

—The U.S.S. Penobscot overtakes and captures a British blockade runner, the Robert Bruce, off of Shalotte Inlet in North Carolina. 

October 21, 1862

October 21, 1862:  Gen. Thomas Hindman is able to convince Gen. Holmes in Little Rock to let him return to his field army.  Hindman finds his army just north of Bentonville, and decides to divide his army in order to divide the Federals’ interests.  A column of mostly cavalry (and most of them Cherokee and Seminole troopers) under Co. Douglas Cooper veers west toward the Indian Territories, and the rest go with Hindman to the southeast.  Schofield, the Union commander, encamped at Pea Ridge, sends Gen. Blunt and his Army of Kansas after Cooper, and he gives chase to Hindman.  After a forced march without rations, the Federals find the Confederates still almost 20 miles out of reach, as Hindman moves south into the Boston Mountains.  Schofield stops in Huntsville.  Blunt, however, pursues his quarry southwest towards Bentonville, and halts to rest along Little Osage Creek.  Hearing that the Indian troops under Cooper are just over the state line, he decides to march all night and catch them.  Blunt’s troops march all night along Spavinaw Creek, through  the hamlet of Maysville.  Just before dawn, he halts his army and lets them sleep, hoping to attack Cooper in the morning.

 

---Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant is at Grand Junction, Tennessee, just a few miles north of the Mississippi state line, and is gathering troops in excess of 45,000.  He is preparing to strike at Holly Springs, Mississippi, a major supply depot along the railroad into Mississippi that he plans to use as his line of advance into central Mississippi to capture Vicksburg.  Gen. Sherman, in command at Memphis, tells Grant that scouts report nearlyu 20,000 Confederate troops at Holly Springs, under the overall command of Gen. Pemberton.  He also passes on to Grant that the Confederates are apparently expecting him to attack them, since deserters have told Sherman of earthworks being built around Holly Springs.

 

October 20, 1862

October 20, 1862:  The New York Times reviews the exhibition of the photographs of Mathew Brady’s studio in New York---most of them taken by Alexander Gardner.  This sombering and sober review, often quoted in our time, offers an eloquent response to photography being used in a major way to bring war to the public.  Civilians’ view of War has been forever changed: 

The living that throng Broadway care little perhaps for the Dead at Antietam, but we fancy they would jostle less carelessly down the great thoroughfare, saunter less at their ease, were a few dripping bodies, fresh from the field, laid along the pavement. There would be a gathering up of skirts and a careful picking of way; conversation would be less lively, and the general air of pedestrians more subdued. As it is, the dead of the battle-field come up to us very rarely, even in dreams. We see the list in the morning paper at breakfast, but dismiss its recollection with the coffee. There is a confused mass of names, but they are all strangers; we forget the horrible significance that dwells amid the jumble of type. The roll we read is being called over in Eternity, and pale, trembling lips are answering to it. Shadowy fingers point from the page to a field where even imagination is loth to follow. Each of these little names that the printer struck off so lightly last night, whistling over his work, and that we speak with a clip of the tongue, represents a bleeding, mangled corpse. It is a thunderbolt that will crash into some brain -- a dull, dead, remorseless weight that will full upon some heart, straining it to breaking. There is nothing very terrible to us, however, in in the list, though our sensations might be different if the newspaper carrier left the names on the battle-field and the bodies at our doors instead.

We recognize the battle-field as a reality, but it stands as a remote one. It is like a funeral next door. The crape on the bell-pull tells there is death in the house, and in the close carriage that rolls away with muffled wheels you know there rides a woman to whom the world is very dark now. . . . It attracts your attention, but does not enlist your sympathy. . . .  

Dead Confederate artillermen at Antietam

Mr. BRADY has done something to bring home to us the terrible reality and earnestness of war. If he has not brought bodies and laid them in our dooryards and along the streets, he has done something very like it. At the door of his gallery hangs a little placard, "The Dead of Antietam." Crowds of people are constantly going up the stairs; follow them, and you find them bending over photographic views of that fearful battle-field, taken immediately after the action. Of all objects of horror one would think the battle-field should stand preeminent, that it should bear away the palm of repulsiveness. But, on the contrary, there is a terrible fascination about it that draws one near these pictures, and makes him loth to leave them. You will see hushed, reverend groups standing around these weird copies of carnage, bending down to look in the pale faces of the dead, chained by the strange spell that dwells in dead men's eyes. It seems somewhat singular that the same sun that looked down on the faces of the slain, blistering them, blotting out from the bodies all semblance to humanity, and hastening corruption, should have thus caught their features upon canvas, and given them perpetuity for ever. But so it is.

These poor subjects could not give the sun sittings, and they are taken as they fell, their poor hands clutching the grass around them in spasms of Pain, or reaching out for a help which none gave. Union, soldier and Confederate, side by side, here they lie, the red light of battle faded from their eyes but are set as when they met in the last fierce change which located their souls and sent them grappling with each other and battling to the very grass of Heaven. The ground whereon they lie is torn by shot and shell, the grass is trampled down by the tramp of their feet, and little revulets that and scarcely be of blood trickling along the earth like tears over a mother’s face. . . .

These is one side of the picture that the sun did not catch, one phase that has escaped photographic skill it is the background of widows and orphans, torn from the bosom of their natural protectors by the red  ruthless hand of Battle, and thrown upon the brotherhood of God. Homes have been made desolate, and the light of life in thousands of hearts has been extinguished forever. All of this desolation imagination must paint -- broken hearts cannot be photographed.

These pictures have a terrible distinctness. By the aid of the magnifying glass, the very features of the slain may be distinguished. We would scarce choose to be in the gallery, when one of the women bending over them should recognize a husband, a son, or a brother in the still, lifeless lines of bodies, that lie ready for the gaping trenches. For these trenches have a terror for a woman's hear, that goes far to outweigh all the others that hover over the battle-field. . . .

Confederate dead at the Bloody Lane at Antietam

 

---On this date, Pres. Lincoln re-establishes a Provisional Court for the region of Louisiana, and appoints Charles A. Peabody of New York as judge.  Union civil authority has now been restored.

 

---Two large skirmishes occur this day in the state of Missouri between Union cavalry (a Missouri regiment in once case, and Illinois in the other) and Confederate mounted raiders.  The Federal forces prevail in both engagements.

---Alexander Biddle, of the 121^st Pennsylvania Infantry, writes home to his wife with suggestions for a care package she might send to him:

A few spermaceti candles, the little silver watch repaired, any late newspaper, a fine toothed comb a small box of dried ginger, some ginger nuts bread, another large flask with some good brandy in it and anything else you think of. Say two pair of colored flannel drawers, my measure round the waist is 36 inches, length of drawers 3 ft 3 inches. It is very difficult for me to say what I want but every now and then I think of some of our little home comforts which would be very acceptable Above all dearest I want your photograph. I like to have it by me – you cannot conceive how I long to see you and how tiresome and lonely it is to think how long it may be before I get a chance of being with you. . . .

He continues with a description of the Antietam battlefield as he and another officer rode over it:

I rode this morning with the Colonel to return the call of General Ricketts and found him and Johnny Williams, James Biddle, and their surgeon and Ben Richards – Ben Richards rode with us over the Antietam battle field and we saw the ground over which Ricketts division advanced/ He lost one in every three of his men as the reports show. I saw wheels broken 30 or 40 dead horses, quantities of cartridge box tins. Old haversacks, trees scored shattered and perforated by ,shot and in two instances large trees cut down. One tree had been twice nearly cut in half. A meeting house with 25 or 30 shot holes through it. Many unexploded shells still on the ground We passed over the part which Ricketts marched over and then went towards our Camp. We all very undecided about our movements soldiers in the field know but little beyond what they are engaged in.

Dunker Church on the
Antietam battlefield

October 19, 2012

October 19, 1862: General Henry W. Halleck, in command of all U.S. armies, urges Gen. Buell to push into East Tennessee, a strongly Unionist area, to liberate it from the Confederacy. Halleck mentions that Pres. Lincoln is ordering Buell to occupy East Tennessee before the autumn season is over—which has long been a pet project of the President’s. Halleck, however, is inclined to return to the comforts of Nashville, since the city is being threatened by the Rebels—just which Rebels, he does not say, since there is no significant rebel force in central Tennessee or central Kentucky.

Meanwhile, Gen. John Hunt Morgan, who spanked the Yankee cavalry at Lexington and occupied the city, much to the consternation of the scattered forces of Federal troops throughout Kentucky, has ridden southeast and now occupies the city of Richmond, Kentucky, just northeast of Buell’s army at Crab Orchard—a good, safe distance from the armies of Bragg and Kirby-Smith, who are nearing their escape hatch of Cumberland Gap in the southeast corner of the state. Morgan’s goal is to ride around Buell’s army, as Stuart has done to McClellan. On this date, Morgan’s men capture a 150-wagon supply train for Buell’s men, which they loot and then destroy, with the exception of two wagons, since Morgan is traveling light.


—Gen. George B. McClellan of the Army of the Potomac submits a letter to Gen. Halleck 00which offers not a plan or calendar, but a vague discussion of possible objectives, and more reasons why he will be unable to move until the Spring. In this letter, he assures the Army that "this project of extensively fortifying Harper's Ferry, and constructing a permanent bridge at that point, involves a very considerable expenditure of money, a larger garrison, and a long delay, perhaps extending into winter, before Harper's Ferry can be made a prepared base for, at best, an exterior line of operations upon our proper objective point-Staunton, Lynchburg, or Richmond."


—William A. Collins, a former divinity student and currently a soldier in the North Carolina 48^th Infantry Reg., writes home to his parents in North Carolina about his condition and wound he received at the Battle of Antietam:
Richmond, Oct. 19th

Dear & Beloved Father & Mother,

It is by the mercies of an Almighty God that I am once more permitted to take my pen in hand though it is with a heavy and sorrowful heart, to inform you that I am at Richmond, wounded & am also in bad health but it is seems only to be the diarea and I think I am likely to get better of that soon. I was wounded the 17th ult. of last month at the Battle of Antietam in my left leg in the back part opposite the knee by by a piece of a burn shell but the wound has nearly heald up but my knee is very stiff yet but I can go on crutches. I will inform you that I was a prisoner with the Yankees untill [Oct.] 16th when we were brought acros our lines to Richmond. We were brought round from Baltimore on water to [?] landing and thence to Rich. they have a large number of our wounded that was not able to come. Dear Father and Mother the horrors of that days battle I shall not attempt to describe. Our Regt. was badly cut up. . . . I know you have all nearly dispaird of ever hearing from me, but I hope and trust to God you may get this letter and it may releive you of your trouble once more I hope & trust to God that I will get to start home in a few days or at least the doctor says we will get to go. O that I only was at home now where I could get your kind treat ment but I will patiently wait may God grant my desire and wish. I am getting so tired I will have to close for this time by asking you all to ask God to bless and keep me under his protection. God is still my trust.

May he bless you all is my prayr for Christ sake amen.

Write to me as soon as you get this and fail not.

Wm A. C., Co. C. [?]William Collins will die of gangrene from his wound on Dec. 14 in Richmond.

　

–Lincoln appoints his friend David Davis, a Federal Circuit Court judge, as a Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.

　

—Gen. John A. McClernand, who had served under Grant at Shiloh, has obtained leave from the army and visits Lincoln, a long-time friend from Illinois. Since Grant appears to be busy chasing Van Dorn and Price all over the borderlands of Mississippi, McClernand convinces Lincoln to appoint himself head of a new army, which McClernand says he will raise in Illinois, specifically for the task of taking Vicksburg. Lincoln gives him the requested appointment.

　

—Luman Harris Tenney, of the Union Army of the Frontier, at Pea Ridge, Arkansas, writes in his journal as he goes out foraging and ends up flirting with some of the local girls, who flirt back while insisting that they are die-hard Rebels:

Went through to the town, 100 of our Indians there.* Called at two houses and had very pleasant and spicy chats with two girls, one pleasant lady. Southern officers left their "regards" for any "Feds" that might call. Believed the south right. Would fight if a man. Got back to camp at dark and found good letter from home and Fannie. Pleased with the whole trip and incidents. Quite a laugh with the captain. Like Arkansas first rate considering—good farms and orchards—pretty girls.

(* Native American troops raised by Gen. James Blunt in Kansas for the Union.)

　

—In the coastal waters of North Carolina, the Federal gunboat U.S.S. Ellis captures a British steamer, the Adelaide, as it tries to run the blockade from Wilmington to England with a cargo of cotton and turpentine. Lt. William D. Cushing, whose fame is yet to be made, commands the Ellis. The Adelaide, with its cargo of cotton and turpentine