Day 97. June 5, 1862.
97
last thing anyone expected him to do was to turn and fight….
June Thursday 5
Quite wet this morning. We have had quite a hard time of it. We had very little to eat. The men went out foraging today. The men got quite a lot of sheep for to kill. We had no crackers and we had orders to march this morning at 6oclock were countermanded and we are still in the mudy camp or swampy the ground was very full of water. We are in Page Co Va and we have been very much woren out in regard to the [illeg.] or marching around so much. We got orders to march at 7oclock tomorrow morning. The road is impassible or we would have moved this morning. I feel very much woren out. It is cool this evenning. Some little rain and cloudy this evening
Note: Right now Northern troops are in two columns moving south on both sides of the Massanutten Mountain. Ephraim is about done.
Civil War Weather in Virginia Robert K. Krick P. 62
“7a.m. 65; 2p.m. 71; 9p.m. 62. Drizzled all day. .12”
Nature’s Civil War: Common Soldiers and the Environment in 1862 Virginia Kathryn Shively Meier P. 65
“Before the war, common soldiers could scarcely have imagined the sprawling, alien medical systems that would be constructed by the United States and the Confederacy. Properly supporting soldier health necessitated the consideration of supply lines and camp sanitation, sick call and diagnostic procedures in the ranks, treatment at regimental and remote hospitals, and rehabilitation. Because of the division of labor in military bureaucracy, not all these elements were under the purview of the two sides’ Medical Departments. The health systems of the Union and Confederacy involved the Quartermaster and Commissary Departments, commanding generals, military and medical officers, the presidents, and, in the case of the United States, the civilians of the U.S. Sanitary Commission– composed of elite social and medical reformers, middle-class male and female reformers, and average Northerners at home. Meanwhile, Union and Confederate civilians scrutinized medical progress and commented on upon it in the newspapers, pushing for changes that might preserve the health of their loved ones. It is no surprise, then, that this complex network of individuals quarreled over power, conflicting medical theories, and varying obligations. Further, even the brightest, most forward-thinking health care workers only dimly comprehended environmental management, disease prevention, and medical treatment. Even so, institutional obstacles were more crippling to health care in 1862 than were individuals. These factors involved a shortage of staff, supplies, and hospitals and the painfully gradual nature of reform endemic to democracies. Despite the complex tangle of problems, both Medical Departments were able to institute reform programs that would improve soldier health over time, if not drastically during the 1862 Peninsula and Shenandoah campaigns; however, in the first year and a half of war, taking responsibility for one’s own body was not only an accepted cultural convention, it was vital to survival.
Increased contact with the unfamiliar did not lead soldiers to heightened confidence in science or trust in the Medical Departments in 1862; quite the contrary. Common soldiers often criticized and sometimes rejected a system of care they found ineffectual, impersonal, and even condemnatory given the class differences with some of their caretakers. They leveled some of their harshest critiques at surgeons, assistant surgeons, hospital stewards, nurses, and military officers. In return, common soldiers were often viewed as low-class, undisciplined volunteers in need of guidance by the enlightened middle and upper classes. To a certain extent, the opinion was justifiable. Officers were supposed to regulate and train their troops not only to prepare them for combat, but also to preserve their health. And yet middle-class paternalism spread beyond securing army efficiency to enforcing a code of expected behavior, evident particularly in the newspapers. This feedback loop increased estrangement between soldiers and civilians.”
America Aflame: How the Civil War Created a Nation David Goldfield P. 270
Note: Whitman visits a man named Holmes (not that one) at the hospital:
“Whitman saw a glassy-eyes, pale, and despairing face on his way out of the ward one evening. It was clear that the man was dying, so he stopped but received no response at first. “I sat down by him without any fuss; talked a little; soon saw that it did him good; led him to talk a little himself; got him somewhat interested; wrote a letter for him to his folks… soothed him down… gave him some small gifts and told him I should come again soon.” Holmes asked the poet for a few pennies to buy milk from the woman who came through the ward in the morning. When Whitman pulled the change out of his pocket, the dying soldier wept uncontrollably.
Whitman visited Holmes the next day and the next, expecting on each visit to find an empty bed or another unfortunate soldier in his place. He followed this routine for several weeks, and, to his surprise, Holmes got stronger and eventually rejoined his unit. As he left the hospital, Holmes told Whitman that he had saved his life that first day he sat on the soldier’s bed. “I can testify,” the poet asserted later, “that friendship had literally cured a fever, and the medicine of daily affection a bad wound.’”
Rebel Yell: The Violence, Passion and Redemption of Stonewall Jackson S.C. Gwynne P. 312
“By early June, it could be fairly said that Jackson had done everything Jefferson Davis, and Robert E. Lee had asked him to do, and more. For two and a half months he and his small, highly mobile force had occupied the attention of the ever-larger Union armies. He had managed, by the sheer weight of his daring and audacity– and a growing reputation for both– to create a diversion that had temporarily stalled the Union campaign in front of Richmond. He had even thrown the Northern capital into a brief fit of panic. Now, having narrowly slipped through Lincoln’s pincers, the last thing anyone expected him to do was to turn and fight. He did not need to. His escape over the Blue Ridge to the safety of Robert E. Lee’s army was guaranteed. But escape had never figured in his plans. One June 5 Jackson, having sent his trains of captured supplies and sick and wounded men south to Staunton, turned off the valley pike at Harrisonburg, marched a few miles south and east on a narrow, rutted clay road, and under the looming 2,900-foot southern tip of the Massanutten Mountain bivouacked his army in rolling farmland near an obscure river-junction hamlet called Port Republic, and spun around the face his pursuers.”
The Civil War, A Narrative: Fort Sumter to Perryville Shelby Foote P. 457
“From the signal station, high on Massanutton, came a message that Shields had halted two miles north of the burned bridge, which placed him fourteen muddy miles from Port Republic. Frémont was a good deal farther back. He had crossed the North Fork above Mount Jackson, but the cavalry was hacking away at the head of his column, impeding his progress up the pike. Reassured, though still regretful, Stonewall called a halt. The rain had slacked to a mizzle by now; perhaps tomorrow the road would be firmer.
Make Me a Map of the Valley: The Civil War Journal of Stonewall Jackson’s Topographer Jedediah Hotchkiss P. 52
“Thursday, June 5th. Reached Harrisonburg at 3 A.M., rested two hours and fed my horse. Dr. McGuire came up in an ambulance and our sick were taken to Mt. Crawford and across North River in boats. The river was very high, said to have been higher than it had been in 25 years. Our sick were taken on to Staunton, ambulances coming to the river after them. Everything in Harrisonburg was in confusion. I went on at 5 A.M.; got Mr. Eiler, at Peale’s, as a guide, and reached the top of the mt., “The Peak,” by 81/2 o’clock A.M., and spent the day there. Saw the head of Shields’ column encamp 2 miles below Conrad’s store, near the Big Spring, at about 4 P.M. The day was fine; had some rain.”
no crackers and we had orders to march this morning at 6oclock….
This goes down clear to the bone.
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