1863 January 18: “I say curse such men”

Jerry Flint, with the 4th Wisconsin Infantry in Louisiana, has a lot to say in this letter about past experiences, what’s happening currently around him, and what he expects in the near future.  The original letter is in the Jerry E. Flint Papers (River Falls Mss BN) at the University of Wisconsin-River Falls, University Archives and Area Research Center.

Camp Parapet La
Jan. 18^th 1863

My Dear Brother,

                                         I was much gratified at the reception of a letter from you yesterday, and was also very much surprised to learn that you were at Madison.  I am glad to know that you have your discharge for I was well satisfied that you could not get well enough this winter to stand a soldier’s duty.  From the way you write I should think that some of the men thought they were having hard times.  I hope our boys will not get such an idea into their heads, for if they ever leave the State and go into the field they will think they have been living on the top shelf.

When we went into camp in the State many of the boys thought they had dreadful living but our rations then were like thanksgiving supper compared with what we get now.  Let them march through the swamps a few days, laying down at night in the rain without shelter and nothing to eat but a chunk of salt beef and hard bread, and ill lest they will think of the old Barracks at Camp Randall with a grunt of satisfaction.  [paragraph break added]

Our regiment is pretty much done growling.  It was all grumble from the time we left the state through all our travels until we started for Ship Island.  Every place we went things kept growing worse.  But the voyage from Fortress Monroe to Ship Island capped everything before it so the boys came to the conclusion that they might just as well keep cool and take things as they come.

There has been many times this summer when I would have been glad to have got out of the service, but I could have done so honorably, but I never wish to leave while matters stand as they are now.  I can never again feel proud of being called an American citizen if the accursed “Stars and Bars” emblem of treason and rebellion are allowed to float independently over the ruins of our once great Republic.

Things in the department are very quiet although our Generals are not idle since the arrival of Gen. Banks forces [Nathaniel P. Banks], troops are constantly moving about and getting ready to do something.  Baton Rouge was occupied as soon as his forces arrived and there is now at that place an army of 30,000 men.  They are mostly new troops and to use their own words don’t mean to fight much.  They are enlisted for nine months and got a huge bounty.

I say curse such men.

Quite a number of the old regim[ents] are with them at Baton Rouge and I am afraid that when the battle comes they will have to stand the brunt.  Our regiment is up there in a brigade commanded by Col. Paine [Halbert E. Paine].  Their position is in the advance.  It was said when the regiment left that we should follow them in a week or so as soon as another company could be drilled on the heavy guns.  But we are here yet and no more signs of going  that first.  We shall however probably join them before the column is ready to move.

It is expected that we shall have a severe fight at Port Hudson.  The rebels have fortified until it is nearly as strong as Vicksburg.  When we came by there the last time in July there was not a gun there.  Now thousands of lives must be lost taking it.  Why they were allowed to fortify right under the nose of our gunboats is more than I can tell.  I think it could have been stopped any way.

Gen. Weitzel¹ has been fighting in the vicinity of Berwick Bay and has scooped the rebels every time.  The rebel iron clad gunboat on Bayou Teche was blown up.  Lieut. Com. Buchanan² of the gunboat “Calhoun” was killed by sharp shooters on the bank of the Bayou.  His funeral was attended in New Orleans.  Admiral Farragut [David G. Farragut] and Gen. Banks marched on foot in rear of the procession.

The rebels again have possession of Galveston but it will not long as an expedition is fitting out for that place.  I do not know whether you have heard of the capture of the Harriet Lane and the destruction of the Westfield in Galveston Bay or not.  They were both aground when New Years eve four light draught boats of the rebels came out and attacked them.  The Harriet Lane sunk one of them but being aground she could not maneuver so that the rebels boarded her and after a severe fight captured her.  They then made for the Westfield but Com. Renshaw [William B. Renshaw] seeing he could not help himself told his crew that the rebels could never have her and that all who wished could take to the boats for he was going to blaze her up.  Part of the crew swore they would never leave their commander and so staid and were all blown up together.  The Westfield was a light open boat but carried some good guns.  She was up the river with us last summer.  When the rebel ram Arkansas run the upper fleet and landed under the guns of Vicksburg this boat run right up under the guns, fired a shot into the ram as a challenge to come out and fight her alone but they dare not do it.  This shows what kind of man Renshaw was, and I believe it shows what our whole navy is.³

Gen. Banks visited the camp the other day.  We fired the salute from our battery.  We used 10½ lb. cartridges.  You had better believe they talked some.

Remember me to all the folks in Chicago, our folks of course.  Tell Mother I shall write to her next.

I received letters by yesterdays mail from Sarah Hunt, Sophia, Eunice, Rossie and yourself.

Write Soon, Jerry

1.  Godfrey, or Gottfried, Weitzel (1835-1884) was born in Bavaria (Germany) and immigrated to Cincinnati, Ohio, with his parents. He graduated from West Point and was a career military officer working primarily as an engineer. In 1861 his company served as the bodyguard during the inauguration of President Abraham Lincoln. Early in the Civil War he constructed defenses in Cincinnati, Washington, D.C., and for the Army of the Potomac. He then became the chief engineer on General Benjamin F. Butler’s staff. At this time he was commanding the advance in General Nathaniel P. Banks’ operations in western Louisiana and he will command a division under Banks at the siege of Port Hudson.
2.  “On January 14, 1863, a combined expedition of Union gunboats, infantry, and artillery attacked the [CSS] Cotton near Pattersonville [Louisiana]. Her crew burned her and sank her across Bayou Teche as an obstruction. … Lieutenant Commander Thomas M. Buchanan had command of the Federal vessels. He was shot in the head by one of the Confederate riflemen.”  For more details, see page 105 of The Civil War Reminiscences of Major Silas T. Grisamore, C.S.A., edited and with an introduction by Arthur W. Bergeron, Jr. (Louisiana State University Press, 1993), available on Google Books.
Thomas M. Buchanan.
3.  See our post of January 14, 1863, Battle of Galveston, for more details on Commander William B. Renshaw, the USS Westfield, and the USS Harriet Lane.

Jerry Flint letter of January 18, 1863, from the Jerry E. Flint Paper (River Falls Mss BN) at the University of Wisconsin-River Falls University Archives & Area Research Center

1863 January 14: Battle of Galveston

The other big war news in the January 14, 1863, issue of The Prescott Journal is about the battle which took place in Galveston, Texas, on January 1, 1863.  Confederate forces under General John B. Magruder attacked the Union’s fleet under Commander William B. Renshaw.  During the battle, the USS Harriet Lane was captured and the USS Westfield was grounded on a sandbar.  Renshaw refused to surrender his flagship, the Westfield, and set her on fire to keep her from falling into the Confederates’ hands.  The explosives were set off too early, however, and he and some of his men were killed.  The explosion caused Union troops on shore to think that their own ships were surrendering and they raised the white flag.  The remaining U.S. ships did not surrender and succeeded in retreating to Union-controlled New Orleans.

FROM TEXAS.

Galveston taken by the Rebels.
Dispersion of our Fleet.
3 000 Prisoners Taken.

Special dispatch to the St. Paul Pioneer

NEW YORK, Jan. 11

The steamer Creole arrived to-night from New Orleans, 3d.  She brings dispatches to Gen. Halleck [William H. Halleck].  She passed several gunboats bound up the river.  Passed transport Merrimas, with troops, at South West Pass, also gunboat Kensington.

Purser Cook reports, by the arrival of gunboat Clifton at South West Pass, the evening of the 3d, as follows:

I learn that early on the morning of the 1st the rebels made an attack by land and water on the fedral [sic] forces at Galveston.  Our gunboats were attacked by five rebel steamers protected by double rows of bales of cotten [sic], loaded with troops armed with rifle-muskets, &c.

The Harriet Lane was captured by boarding, after about all her officers, including Capt. Wainwright and Lieut. Lee [sic]¹ and the crew, 130 all told, had been killed by musketry from the rebel steamers.  My informant states that but one or two of the officers, and but twelve or fifteen of the crew escaped death.

Line engraving from “Harper’s Weekly” (see footnote 1). The USS Harriet Lane is shown in the left distance, under attack by the Confederate gunboats Neptune and Bayou City. The grounded USS Westfield is at right, being blown up to prevent capture. USS Owasco is in the center of the view.

The gunboats Clifton and Owasco were engaged, and escaped—forming loseing [i.e., former loosing] no men, and but one wounded.  The Owasco lost one killed, and thirteen wounded.  Two barks loaded with coal fell into the hands of the enemy.

The Westfield, the flag ship of Commodore Renshaw,³ was not engaged, being ashore in another channel.  Her crew were transfered [sic] to transports, and Com. Renshaw, fearing she would fall into the hands of the rebels, blew her up.  By some mismangement [sic] or accident, the explosion occured before the boat containing Com. Renshaw, Lieut. Zimmerman⁴, and the boat’s crew, got away, and they were consequently blown up with the ship.  The crew of the Westfield arrived at New Orleans on transports, and the remaining troops are on the way back.  They did not arrive until the place had been evacuated.

All the fleet are on the way to New Orleans.  The rebel force was estimated at about 5,000 under General Magruder.

Our land force under the command of Colonel Burill [sic],⁵ of Massachusetts, probably did not exceed 3,000—the residue not having arrived, or not being disembarked in time to fight.  Our loss was estimated at from 150 to 200 killed and 200 taken prisoners.  The navy suffered the most.

It is thought the Rebel loss was much more, as our gunners were firing grape cannister continually in their midst.  The rebels had several batteries on shore.  The Federal troops were on one of the long wharves, and it is said repulsed two charges of rebels before they surrended [sic].

1.  Jonathan Meyhew Wainwright (1821-1863) was a career naval officer and was commanding the Harriet Lane at this time. Edward Lea (1837-1863) was the executive officer of the Harriet Lane and was mortally wounded in the battle. His father, Albert Miller Lea, who was serving with the Confederates on shore in Galveston, came on board the ship and was with his son at his death.
2.  The University of Wisconsin-River Falls’ Chalmer Davee Library has microfilm copies of Harper’s Weekly for 1858-1865 (UWRF online catalog).
3.  William Bainbridge Renshaw (1816-1863) had followed his father into the U.S. Navy and was appointed a midshipman in 1831. In April 1861 he was appointed a commander. He was attached to David Farragut’s Mortar Flotilla on the Mississippi River in 1862. By the end of the year, he was in charge of the Union fleet that was blockading the port of Galveston.
4.  Charles W. Zimmerman.
5.  Isaac S. Burrell (1820-1895) was the colonel of the 42nd Massachusetts Infantry. He raised the white flag to surrender the forces on shore after seeing the Harriet Lane raise a white flag. He was held as a prisoner for 18 months.