ON THIS DAY: Sunday, March 2, 1862

What They Are Doing Now

Ulysses S. Grant, now officially a major general because of his triumphs at Fort Donelson, is busy assembling his forces at Fort Henry. From St. Louis, Maj. Gen. Halleck has ordered an advance up the Tennessee River. Orders go out to two of Grant's division commanders, Generals McClernand and Smith, and messages about logistical matters go to Brig. Gen. Sherman, at Cairo, and Flag Officer Foote, at Fort Donelson. Although Grant’s forces have been weakened by sickness, battle casualties, and lack of supplies, and even though he is sick himself with a severe cold that “nearly destroys my energy” (pneumonia?), the Ohio-born commander uncomplainingly goes about following Halleck’s orders.

After three weeks’ home leave, Lt. Col. Rutherford B. Hayes is getting re-accustomed to army life with the 23^rd Ohio in winter quarters, Fayetteville, western Virginia. He is enjoying (and probably sharing) the food he brought from home in his haversack. And he is thinking about his beloved wife, Lucy, to whom he wrote yesterday: “Darling, you will be pleased to know, and so I tell you, I never loved you more than I do as I think of you on my late visit, and I never admired you so much.”

At 10 o’clock this evening, Capt. Marcus Spiegel of the 67^th Ohio is writing “My dear dear wife and beloved children,” telling her “it would make you feel good” to see Marcus skillfully leading his men while practicing skirmishing. Spiegel is stationed near the Paw Paw Tunnel, a 3,000-foot brick-lined portion of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal. The canal runs along the Potomac River, which divides Maryland and western Virginia.

Sgt. Thomas F. Galwey of the 8^th Ohio, rusticating elsewhere in western Virginia, is enjoying an unusual treat: “two delightful months” on recruiting duty at Columbus, Ohio—a posting that undoubtedly afforded opportunities for returns home in Cleveland.

In Nashville, Col. William B. Hazen, commander pro tem of Buell’s19^th Brigade, has a challenge in his quest to turn raw volunteers into the best soldiers in the army. It is the 9^th Indiana, newly arrived from western Virginia and assigned to Hazen’s tender mercies. Expecting more from the regiment’s previous commander, Hazen is disgusted to find that not only is the regiment “far behind the others, but seems fixed in many vicious habits, acquired…in western Virginia.” Hazen is up to task, however: soon, “some severity” is being dispensed, for which a few officers will hold a grudge long after the war.

Sgt. Oscar D. Ladley is enduring the cold winter winds sweeping the fortifications Union volunteers had built atop Cheat Mountain in western Virginia. Col. Robert H. Milroy commands the fort. It is Milroy who is responsible for the 9^th Indiana’s sloppy habits, which so dismayed Colonel Hazen.

Pvt. Andrew Altman of the 68^th Ohio remains camped near Fort Donelson, Tennessee, wondering where he will be sent next.

IT’S COMING SOONER THAN YOU THINK: April 12, 2011—less than 3½ years from now!—will be the 150^th anniversary of the outbreak of the Civil War. In 1861, April 12 was the day Confederates opened fire on Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor.

Your suggestions, comments, and questions about this blog are always welcome. Address the author: Ohioan@bloodtearsandglory.com

For more information about the author and his newest book, please go to http://www.orangefrazer.com/btg

ON THIS DAY: Friday, Dec. 27, 1861

Headaches in Camp

During the war’s winter hiatus, many soldiers complain there is nothing to do but “drill, eat, and sleep.” For the officers, however, it’s not that simple. Trying to keep order and maintain morale among thousands of energetic young men who are homesick, bored, and restless is a constant challenge.

At Camp John McLean near Cincinnati, the 75^th Ohio has been slow to fill its ranks. Higher authority has decided to speed things up by merging another partially filled regiment—the 79^th Ohio—into the 75^th. The men of the 79^th come from the vicinity of Athens and the coal-mining region of southeastern Ohio. Like many other Civil War regiments drawn from distinct regions, they have a strong sense of their own identity and oppose losing it to the 75^th.

Sgt. Oscar D. Ladley of the 75^th writes his family that the angry men taken from the 79^th threatened to return home. “They seem dissatisfied since they came down here and threatened to leave last night whether or no, and if we attempted to stop them, they would ‘clean us out’ and then go,” Ladley writes his mother and sisters.

However, Col. Nathaniel C. McLean of the 75^th, son of the Judge John McLean (for whom the camp is named) and a Harvard-trained lawyer, used his formidable powers of persuasion last night to talk the rebels around and, Ladley writes, “I think they are quieted down now.”

At Camp Union, Fayetteville, western Virginia, Lt. Col. Rutherford B. Hayes has a different problem with some men of the 23^rd Ohio. A disagreement arising from gambling arises. (Pictured above: “Gambling in Camp,” by Winslow Homer) Two men from Company C complain two other men misled them. Hayes shows the complainers no sympathy, saying they had allowed themselves to be misused as “stool-pigeons” (he means “decoys”), but he orders the other two men to contribute their ill-gotten gains to the Company C common fund. “It will be used to buy gloves and such other comforts as the Government does not furnish for all the company,” the Solomon-like Hayes pronounces.

IN NATIONAL NEWS: American pick up their newspapers to learn that Confederate envoys Mason and Slidell, forcibly removed from a British ship by the Union navy, are being freed. That defuses an escalating crisis between the Lincoln Administration and Great Britain—much to the disappointment of the Confederacy, which had been hoping the Union would be forced into a two-front war.

Your suggestions, comments, and questions about this blog are always welcome. Address the author: Ohioan@bloodtearsandglory.com

For more information about the author’s book, go to http://www.orangefrazer.com/btg

ON THIS DAY: Friday, Dec. 20, 1861

“Muddy, Dirty, God-forsaken”

By now, Fayetteville in western Virginia resembles a fallen woman. Once a quiet little place of about 60 houses, a courthouse and a dozen or so other buildings, Fayetteville has become tawdry and tired looking since November. That’s when Union forces moved in to wait out the winter, taking over the buildings and re-naming the place “Camp Union.”

Most inhabitants have fled, perhaps because their sympathies lay with the South or because they feared the town would become a battleground. Although pro-Union sentiment dominate western Virginia, the region is also home to a number of Confederate sympathizers. Some of these wage guerilla warfare on the Union forces.

Lt. Col. Rutherford B. Hayes of the 23^rd Ohio records in his diary today that Camp Union shelters 1,430 men from the 23^rd, 26^th, and 30^th Ohio infantry regiments, plus an artillery battery and a company of cavalry.

With this many men crammed into what was only a pretty little village, Fayetteville has become, in the words of one soldier, “muddy, dirty, [and] God-forsaken.” Trampled by hundreds of soldiers and escaped slaves, the streets are deep with mud. Trees and fences have been cut down for fuel. Abandoned by its rightful inhabitants, Fayetteville is forlorn looking place.

On the other hand, no guerillas are operating in the immediate area and it is doubtful Confederate regulars will show up any time soon, so the Ohioans can look forward to a quiet, if boring, winter.

It would make little difference if the Ohioans were on their own soil. At Camp John McLean (yet another mudhole), near Cincinnati, Sgt. Oscar D. Ladley writes his family in Yellow Springs that “there is no excitement in camp of any kind. It is the same routine over every day. Drill eat and sleep.”

It is much the same everywhere. Soldiers and civilians alike wait and wonder what is coming.