Day 31. March 31, 1862.
31
we may keep the troops from starvation….
March Monday 31 1862
Quite frosty this morning and has every appearance for a fine day and I hope we may soon have summer or spring. I have saw a grate deal since we came into the state. Our wounded are all fixed up and intend sending them back to the state Penn and I trust that we will try and do our duty in regard to doing the things of soldiers. Soldiering is hard bussiness. Must be a good soldier. We hear many things in these parts that kindles our eire* and we must keep ourselves ready and I hope and trust to hear some good news
*Unclear meaning: Ephraim, by writing “in these parts,” probably means Confederates acting poorly, versus Union soldiers, whose bad behavior he will write about June 4.
SPIRITUAL CHARACTERS AMONG THE SOLDIERS.
“Every now and then, in hospital or camp, there are beings I meet— specimens of unworldliness, disinteredness, and animal purity and heroism—perhaps some unconscious Indianian, or from Ohio or Tennessee—on whose birth the calmness of heaven seems to have descended, and whose gradual growing up, whatever the circumstances of work-life or change, or hardship, or small or no education that attended it, the power of a strange spiritual sweetness, fibre and inward health, have also attended. Something veil’d and abstracted is often a part of the manners of these beings. I have met them, I say, not seldom in the army, in camp, and in the hospitals. The Western regiments contain many of them. They are often young men, obeying the events and occasions about them, marching, soldiering, fighting, foraging, cooking, working on farms or at some trade before the war—unaware of their own nature, (as to that, who is aware of his own nature?) their companions only understanding that they are different from the rest, more silent, “something odd about them,” and apt to go off and meditate and muse in solitude.” (Walt Whitman)
Shenandoah 1862: Stonewall Jackson’s Valley Campaign Peter Cozzens P. 236
“The weather was unseasonably cold during the first half of April, and it rained or snowed constantly. Heavy wagon train traffic churned the meadows of Meem’s Bottom and the open slopes of Rude’s Hill to muck. Everyone in the Valley suffered from the elements. The air was dense with chilling and penetrating moisture. Camps were saturated. Tall pine trees, weighted down with icicles, cracked and fell. Drilling was suspended. The unlucky shivered on sentinel duty, while those in camp huddled around sputtering fires. “Our encampment was worse than any barnyard, for in many places there seems to be no bottom,” wrote Major Jones of the 2nd Virginia. “Our tent floors are deep in mud.’”
A Virginia Yankee in the Civil War The Diaries of David Hunter Strother David Hunter Strother P. 23
“MARCH 31, MONDAY.—Still cloudy…. The army are short on rations. The General wishes to move on Woodstock tomorrow. The regular army, Beckwith and Perkins, opposed the move. The volunteers were in favor of it, and I spoke decidedly in favor of it. We will be but twelve miles farther from supplies there than we are here. By adding a little energy to our commissary department at Harper’s Ferry and by drawing on the country around us, we may keep the troops from starvation.”
This Hallowed Ground: The Story of the Union Side of the Civil War Bruce Catton P. 148
“Writing about the 27th Ohio stealing fence* rails for firewood, and the threats of hanging by General Pope “Even John Pope, whom the people of Virginia would soon consider the very author of lawless war…” “None of this did any good (and the volunteers went unhanged) for the fact was that the army saw nothing in the least wrong in taking what it needed from the people of the South. Higher officials were infected as well as enlisted men.’”
Report of the Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War U.S. Congress 1863 Part One: Army of the Potomac. Statement of the Comparative strength of the army of the Potomac on the 1st day of April, 1862, and the 20th day of June, 1862. P. 345
“On the 1st day of April, 1862: 136,444 Aggregate present for duty. Aggregate on special duty, sick, and in arrest: 8,848. Aggregate absent: 13,127. Total aggregate present and absent: 158,419.
June 1862: Aggregate present for duty: 115,102. Aggregate on special duty, sick, and in arrest: 12,225. Aggregate absent: 29,511. Total aggregate present and absent: 156,838.
Loss: Aggregate present for duty: 21,342.
Gain: Aggregate on special duty, sick, and in arrest: 3,377.
Gain: Aggregate absent: 16,384.
Gain: Total aggregate present and absent: 1,581.”
Note: At this time in 1865:
America Aflame: How the Civil War Created a Nation David Goldfield P. 361
“April 1, 1865
The war continued. Philip Sheridan* and two divisions of his Army of the Shenandoah had joined Grant at Petersburg in late March, swelling the federal force to 125,000 men. Lee’s army, whittled away by desertions and battle, had shrunk to 30,000 troops. Perhaps if Grant waited another month or two, Lee’s army would just melt away and the war would end in a whimper. Then again, it might not. It was time to end the siege of Petersburg and take Richmond. Lee understood this, having written to his daughter on March 28. “Genl Grant is evidently preparing for something.” Lee’s only hope was to dash to the West and join forces with the remnants of the Army of Tennessee, now in North Carolina attempting to slow Sherman’s advance. Spring was in full bloom in Virginia.
On April 1, Sheridan, with fifty thousand men, attacked ten thousand Rebels under the command of General George E. Pickett at Five Forks, west of Petersburg, and near a key railroad junction. While Pickett attended a fish fry (or shad bake, as Virginians called it), the Federals smashed through the thin Confederate lines, taking five thousand prisoners. News of Sheridan’s victory encouraged Grant to challenge the Rebel entrenchments in front of Petersburg. By this time, there were simply not enough Confederate soldiers remaining to man the trenches. The Federals overran the defenses, sending Lee westward toward Lynchburg in a desperate attempt to meet up with Joseph Johnston’s army. The siege at Petersburg was over.
It was Sunday, and Jefferson Davis sat worshipping at St. Paul’s Church in Richmond. The congregation consisted mainly of women, many in mourning clothes. The few men present had hobbled in on crutches or were cabinet officers. A messenger found the president, who then quietly excused himself. When other officials began to peel out of their pews, the congregation knew something major was happening. The note told of Lee’s evacuation of Petersburg and of Richmond’s imminent danger.
By midnight, the Confederate government and their families abandoned the capital. Flickering gaslights cast a yellow pall over crowds in the streets, drunken mobs looting shops, and throngs at the railroad depot. Confederate General Richard Ewell ordered evacuating troops to burn cotton, tobacco, and military stores, and the glow grew brighter, punctuated by explosions from ordnance, turning the city into an inferno. Dogs, cats, and rats ran alongside citizens fleeing the conflagration. The fire destroyed nearly 90 percent of the city center. All that remained of Richmond’s industrial might was isolated brick chimneys and the piers of the city’s three burned bridges. Lincoln telegraphed Grant, “Allow me to tender to you, the nation’s grateful thanks for this additional, and magnificent success.” Richmond had finally fallen.”
*In two years, on July 15, 1864, Grant will sign an order that directs Sheridan to level Jubal Early, and to annihilate the Shenandoah Valley, reducing it a “desert” and to “eat out Virginia clear and clean as far as they go, so that crows flying over it for the balance of the season will have to carry their provender with them.” (Early isn’t defeated until Cedar Creek, October ’64.) “We must destroy this army of Grant’s before it gets to the James River. If he gets there it will become a siege, and then it will be a mere question of time.” Robert E. Lee to Jubal Early, spring 1864.
*Another Mississippi tangent: of the state: Frederick Law Olmsted wrote, “The farce of the vulgar rich has its foundation in Mississippi.” 1869, Natchez County Mississippi was the richest county per capita in the world. 2019: Biloxi 8th graders rank last in the nation. Also: it’s called the Mississippi Appendectomy: by 2006: 1 in 3 women over 18 have hysterectomies. A recent sign: “Entering Mississippi: Turn Your Clock Back 200 Years.” The NAACP put out a poster in 1956, an outline in the shape of the state, an outline of Mississippi, that read “Stamp Out Mississippi-ism!” Then Reagan stood on the soil 7 miles from Philadelphia, MS. to continue Nixon’s Southern strategy by talking States Rights, how “I believe we’ve distorted the balance of our government today by giving powers that were never intended in the Constitution to that federal establishment.” 1984, he goes back to the same spot & declares, “The South shall rise again!” 2017: Biloxi pulls To Kill a Mockingbird: “There is some language in the book that makes people uncomfortable.” Even Grant & his men had shenanigans down there; they attempted to reroute the Mississippi, change its course, lift it up with their fingers, empty the river of swerve to cause it to forget where it last saw itself.
At a Philadelphia, Mississippi traffic stop in 1964, Chaney, Goodman, & Schwerner– voter rights workers– were abducted murdered, & finally discovered 2 months later. In the national news, it was a KKK, Neshoba County police, & Philadelphia Police cover-up. The murders helped pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The Civil Rights filibuster of 1964 was the longest in history, getting in the way of all the hangings.
However, by 2018, a Mississippi elementary school changed the name from Jefferson Davis to Barack Obama. And by 2020, a statue of John McDonogh had showed itself to the river, until an unknown party came along & rescued him from drowning. City officials have no leads or comment at the time of this writing.
And nota bene: Mississippi, enslaved enslaved enslaved, cotton cotton cotton, Adams County down Natchez way, “richest town per capita” in America from 1820-1860, sixteen thousand souls there now with a $16k per capita income, still haven’t recovered from the war, or, put another way, that whole human trafficking thing didn’t pan out longterm. 9 of the top 10 most impoverished states are red, and most are southern states. Mississippi’s Governor Reeves declares April “Confederate Heritage Month” in 2020 a couple days after signing the Covid stay at home order. Reeves’ proclamation can read for either scenario: “As we honor all who lost their lives in this war, it is important for all Americans to reflect upon our nation’s past, to gain insight from our mistakes and successes, and to come to a full understanding that the lessons learned yesterday and today will carry us through tomorrow if we carefully and earnestly strive to understand and appreciate our heritage and our opportunities which lie before us.” The state’s only Black congressman, Bennie Thompson, tweets, “Unnecessary.” Mississippi Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV) posted on Facebook, “God bless the Confederate Soldier. Many of whom are buried in unmarked and unknown mass graves throughout the South. May he, or his sacrifices, never be forgotten.” Mississippi, the last state with a flag which prominently displays the Stars & Bars, Mississippi, with the same battle flag since 1894, Mississippi, where a 2001 referendum to remove the Stars & Bars fails. Not fails; see: Richard Wright, Eudora Welty, Morgan Freeman, James Earl Jones, John Grisham, Kiese Laymon, Walker Percy, Tennessee Williams, Floyd Mayweather, Jimmy Buffett, Sam Cooke, Bo Diddley, Bobbie Gentry, Al Goodman, John Lee Hooker, B.B. King, Charley Pride, Britney Spears, Hound Dog Taylor, Muddy Waters, Tammy Wynette, Conway Twitty, James Cotton, Elvis. Bettie Wilson.
Mississippi Goddam
“Lord have mercy on this land of mine
We all gonna get it in due time
I don’t belong here
I don’t belong there
I’ve even stopped believing in prayer”
Nina Simone, written in 1963 after the Birmingham, AL. 16th Street Baptist Church bombing which killed four Black girls.
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hear many things in these parts that kindles our eire….
It turned out citizens of the North and the South didn’t have a prayer at being informed what they were in for. Too few paragraphs fleshed out in real ink to live off of. There was propaganda even in the first NYT Bull Run headlines July 24, 1861: “THE NATIONAL ARMY NOT ROUTED.” https://www.nytimes.com/1861/07/24/archives/the-great-rebellion-the-victory-of-sunday-and-how-it- was-lost.html Paper claimed 3k Rebels lost but in the North? “Not over 600.” [EDITORS: BEGIN OPTIONAL TRIM] Their best source for information turned out their own family members at the front, and their neighbors. There were newspapers, but it may as well have been the dark ages, stitch a black line through it. Citizens read the same account & came out swinging in opposite directions & from different hemispheres. Historical revisionism where the plot comes later, too, from the New York correspondent on the field sketching the remains, planting props by the bodies, adjusting the limbs just so… and you can’t even believe the era’s great paintings because after a line fires once, you can’t see the enemy for the smoke down to the ground like a thick London fog. There was no informed populace. The words taken out of the lines produced alterations of statements, the statements not left intact and at best left evidentially ambiguous, like the fingerprints had all been burned off, & now the flies are bothering you? Both sides had letters the same starting size, they all had the same 26 letters to go from, yet the world began to separate into different planes like a staged disease, like a dark shape bull shark off the coast in the deeper waters [END OPTIONAL TRIM]. Eventually the South runs out of printing press paper, so covering the demon up with parchment, with obfuscation, & underhandedly omitting facts– the absolute force within them interrupts a sentence midair– what Americans knew to be true was no longer an option [EDITORS: STORY CAN END HERE] because of the way the words fit too close together, each letter alibieing the next, shaking hands all around, the division of words at the end of the line like goats teetering on ridges where there’s only one way in or out.
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