1865 January 28: A Burns Festival in Hudson, Illinois Gets 10 New Regiments, the Southwest Practically Conquered, General Weitzel Married

Following are the smaller news items from the January 28, 1865, issues of The Polk County Press and The Prescott Journal.

From The Polk County Press:

LATEST NEWS.—H. C. LEE, Esq., of Hudson, paid us a visit this morning, direct from below.  He reports that SHERMAN is bombarding Charleston from the land side.  This is the latest, and most reliable news we have to lay before our readers.  [William T. Sherman]

— A treasonable organization has been discovered in California, of the K. G. C. stamp.  The order is known as the “Knights of the Columbia Star.”

— Major General Godfrey Weitzel, commanding the 25th corps, U. S. Volunteers, was married on Friday evening, the 20th, to Miss. Louise Bogen, of Cincinnati.  The General’s brother, Captain Weitzel and Capt. Fitch acted as Bridemen, and Miss Tillie Bogon and Miss Perlie Wilbur as Bridesmaids.  As marriages of Major Generals are not at all common, everybody that was invited was on hand, and as a consequence a large crowd was present.  Among the number was Gen. Hooker and other distinguished men.  [Joseph Hooker]

— The Governor of Illinois has been authorized to call out ten new regiments of volunteers.

BURNS FESTIVAL.—The Burns Festival at Hudson last Wednesday was a perfect success.  Over 140 couple[s] were present.  The toasts, speeches, music, &c., were most excellent.—Our limited time forbids us making further mention this week.  We shall have occasion to speak of the affair hereafter.

AN APOLOGY.—We would apologize to our readers for a lack of reading matter.  Our absence from home, and unavoidable delays have made it necessary for us to issue a paper which is not hardly up to the mark.

— The War Department has in its possession two hundred and five flags, captured from the rebels in the battle.  This, of course, does not include all those that have fallen into the hands of the Union troops within a short time.

— The Times’ Washington special says Gen. Thomas [George H. Thomas] has written to the War Department a letter giving a very encouraging view of military affairs in the Southwest.  He says Hood [John Bell Hood] can’t raise an army of 20,000 men, and the Southwest is practically a conquered country.

— Thos. Haskins,¹ 1st Wisconsin Cavalry, died at North Wheeling Military Hospital on Tuesday morning, and was buried the same evening.  He came to the hospital on Saturday night, says the Wheeling Intelligencer, having been paroled from the rebel prison at Andersonville Ga.  He was a complete skeleton, and his legs were frozen up to the knees.  He was so far gone that no human power could have saved him.

From The Prescott Journal:

  The “Burns Festival,” held at Hudson last Wednesday evening, was largely attended.  We shall give a report of it next week.

Special Notice.

For over a year past we have been furnishing the JOURNAL to families of soldiers for one dollar a year.  The exhorbitant [sic] price of everything connected with printing compels us to withdraw this offer.  All contracts made will be filled, but no new subscriptions will be taken at this rate.  Our paper, when received by us, now costs $1,25 [$1.25] for each subscriber.  We are compelled also to strike from our list those to whom we have sent, and would be glad to send the paper free.  We have on our books about a $1,000 of unpaid subscriptions.  This must be paid.

— Notices of Marriages and Deaths will hereafter be charged 50 cents each, and 10 cents a line for anything beyond the announcement.

  John Bull is wroth over Secretary [of State] SEWARD’S [William H. Seward] letter to Lord WHARNCLIFFE,² in which he tells our English cousins to mind their own business.  The poor Lord W. is made the snubbing post, and he is soundly berated for giving Mr. SEWARD so good an opportunity.  The London Telegraph winds up a furious leader by saying :

Lord Wharncliffe and his clique have made fussy demonstration, and irritated the United States Government in about the sorest place they are troubled with, and played directly into the hands of the Minister, who is over watchful for an opportunity to gird at Great Britain.

THOMAS AND GRANT.—A correspondent of a Western paper gives the following as the facts regarding the alleged movement to supersede Gen. THOMAS, just before the battles at Nashville :

“Grant telegraphed Thomas that he was rather slow in moving, and ordered him to attack Hood.  Thomas sent back a reply saying that he was not ready to move, and could not move until his plans were completed, and if Grant had any man that he had more confidence in than himself, to send him at once to relieve him, and he would take a subordinate position.  Grant replied, that there was not a man in the army that he had more confidence in, and to go ahead and do what he thought was best.  Grant said, probably the distant view had had taken was wrong, and thus the matter rested.”  [Ulysses S. Grant]

The Herald’s Washington special says admiral porter has sent a communication to the Navy Department in which he respond to some of Gen. Butler’s statements in regard the naval part of the expedition delaying the attack on Fort Fisher and thus causing its failure.  He says that the only work assigned to the navy was to silence the rebel works and that it did that effectually on the 24th and 25th of December, but that, as Gen. Butler then decided an assault by his military unfeasible, it would not have been less so on the earlier day. He is of the opinion that the fort could easily have been taken by the troops if an effort had been made.  Gen. Butler started on the expedition, the admiral says, before the naval fleet was ready to co-operate with him, and thus by exposing is transports to the view of the enemy warned them of their danger.  He also charges that the army position of the enterprise was gotten up in a very nonmilitary manner.  [Benjamin F. Butler]

The Times Washington special says Gen. Thomas has written to the War Department a letter giving a very encouraging view of military affairs in the southwest.  He says that Hood cannot gather an army of 20,000 men and that the southwest is practically a conquered country.

The Commercial’s Nashville correspondent Nashville correspondent says the Convention passed, by nearly a unanimous vote, a resolution that no person be considered a qualified voter, until he takes a stringent oath declaring himself unreservedly in favor of the Union and all laws and proclamations issued since the war began by his President or Congress.

1.  There was not a Thomas Haskins in any Wisconsin regiment in the Civil War, but there were 15 other soldiers named Thomas Haskins who served  from other states.
2.  Edward Montagu Stuart Granville Montagu-Stuart-Wortley-Mackenzie, 1st Earl of Wharncliffe (1827–1899), was a British peer and chairman of Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway, which under his leadership became the Great Central Railway. At this time, he was Baron Wharncliffe, not becoming the Earl of Wharncliffe until 1876.

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