Posted inUS Civil War

January 31, 1862 – CT Military Items

The Twelfth Regiment is to leave for the war next week, it is said. One indication is that the Quartermaster advertises to sell all the lumber used in the construction of temporary buildings in camp, at auction.

Secretary Stanton is reported as having said that “the army must now earn its living.” The men are ready and impatient to do it.

The First Connecticut Battery of Artillery has embarked for Port Royal. They have Parrott rifled cannon. The total number of men is 154, and they take 134 horses and about ten tons of ammunition.

Posted inUS Civil War

January 25, 1862 – Letter from Camp Griffin

Camp Griffin, VA., Jan. 10, ’62

Owing the almost unbearable inactivity of this army and the bad weather we are now having, there has been nothing of any importance going on, for some time, until last Friday night the 17th instant, when, after tramping around all day through mud of a sufficient depth to cover a small sized dog, we stowed ourselves snugly away in the tents, thinking thereby we would escape the mud for a night at least, and be better able to toil with it the next day.

Our peaceful slumbers and happy thoughts were however, destined to be of short duration. We had just got into a good sound sleep, and were dreaming of the gentle ones we left behind us, when the “Bugle Sounded.” “Boots and Saddles,” it being then near 12 o’clock. Immediately thereafter could be heard the commanding and well-known voices of the Colonel’s and Company Commanders, as they rode up and down the lines, calling for the men to come out. Ten minutes after ‘‘boots and saddles” had been sounded, the assembly call was made, and ten minutes thereafter, the “Cameron Regiment of Dragoons” were all in line, ready, willing, and waiting, for a set to with the Enemy.—In that position we stood fora short time, when an orderly came with a message from the General, telling us to go to our quarters. We had just made a start for the stables, when down came another messenger telling us to stand in line so we stood, (poor deluded creatures) until two o’clock, when we were again ordered in, and to keep our horses all ready, which we did until morning. And thus ended the anticipated fight.

Posted inMaritime & Naval History US Civil War

January 24, 1862 – Men Wanted for the Gun Boats

A gentleman in DeKalb county, Indiana, writes to us that he is ready to serve Uncle Abe by entering the gunboat service, and inquires for the rendezvous. We have had several letters of the same import. In reply, we say that Cairo is the place. If our friends want to serve their country in earnest, let them call at once upon Commodore Foote, at Cairo. They will find him a most estimable man—a gentleman, in every sense of the the term, a son of old Connecticut, who is a stranger to fear, who believes in fighting, who has been under hot fire several times in his life, who is also cool, deliberate, judicious, earnest; whose whole soul is in this war, and who will, provided he can get ordnance and men, force the rebels to make quicker time from Columbus than the chivalric South Carolinians made from Tybee.

Posted inBiographical US Civil War

January 23, 1862 – General Zollicoffer

Portrait of Felix Zollicoffer, standing in uniform

Since the death of this noted rebel leader, some interest is attached to his previous history. From our best sources of information we learn that General Felix K. Zollicoffer (irreverently styled “Snollegoster,” by the Union soldiers,) was of a Swiss family who emigrated to Tennessee some fifty or sixty years ago. Felix was born in Maury County, near Nashville, in 1812; was educated a printer; edited, when twenty-two years of age, the Columbia Observer ; in 1833 was made State Printer, and in 1842 became editor of the Nashville Banner, then the leading Whig paper in the State.