Army Life: From a Soldier's Journal

XXVIII. THE YEAR 1863 AS VIEWED BY A SOLDIER—AN ARMY NEWSPAPER—SHORT RATIONS

The next morning all of the troops except our company went back to quarters . During the afternoon, we also went, leaving Old Indianola unguarded. It was not thought advisable to keep a mere picket post so far from the army quarters . We performed what soldier duties there were to do and returned to our quarters for the night. This is Thursday night, December 31, 1863, the last day of the year. Thus closes the year of 1863,—an eventful year—one that has witnessed many great, strange and bewildering events. Who can fully comprehend the magnitude of such momentous events? Already many of the scenes through which we have passed seem impossible; seem to me more the remembrances of a strange dream, than of reality. I would that it were so, but it is not. Ah, no! The absence of so many loved comrades that we have laid in their soldier graves, only too vividly reminds us that we are in the midst of scenes of sad reality. As I shall have but little of soldier duties to occupy my attention on New Year’s Day, it may afford me some satisfaction to indulge in and write here, a few reminiscences of the year that has gone; for to-night, to the year 1863,—farewell. CHAPTER XXVIII. THE YEAR 1863 AS VIEWED BY A SOLDIER— AN ARMY NEWSPAPER—SHORT RATIONS. Indianola, Texas, January 1, 1864—New Year’s day.1 Another year has come and passed. An eventful, historic year; one that history will ever remember ; a year that we, the actors in its scenes, can never forget. It is a year that has witnessed many strange, great and important events. No one can tell how farreaching the results of the past year’s work will be. A year ago, the objects, the aims, the purposes and the intentions of this great struggle could hardly be said to be more than fairly determined. Prior to that time, it seemed as though both sides were slowly feeling their way to determine what great principles were involved in the gigantic war that had burst upon us. Since then, it has been a contest for the principles then acknowledged to be involved. During the year, neither party has suggested any new principles to sustain or justify its side of the contest. It has been an undisguised conflict between freedom and slavery. - Army Life. 230 The strife has been desperate and earnest. The desperate, passionate and madly insane struggles of slavery have been met by the earnest, patient, cool but determined zeal with which freedom has reluctantly, yet thoroughly, learned to fight in defense of its cause. The cause we advocate and fight for, the cause of liberty and justice to all men, the cause of our country, has, during the year, been successful enough to warrant us in the belief that a just God fights our battles with us. We need not write down the battles which have been fought in 1863 to remember them. No American will ever forget the names of Vicksburg, Gettysburg, Chattanooga and hosts of others that have been made historic during the year 1863. To me, personally, the year has been, by far, the most eventful one I have yet or ever expect to pass. A year ago to-day we were at Ironton, Missouri, with one of General Davidson’s supply trains. We soon rejoined the army at Van Buren, Mo., and then went through last winter’s campaign to Alton and West Plains and thence back again to Ironton. From there we marched to the Mississippi and came down the river. Then came the important Vicksburg campaign. Being sick I was not at the battle of Magnolia Hills, in which the regiment took part, but rejoined it soon afterward at Port Gibson. Then followed the battles of Champion Hills and Black River, charges of twentieth and twenty-second of May, and siege of Vicksburg, all of which, owing to the protecting care of a kind Providence I passed through in safety. Next came our short campaign in Western Louisiana and lately our operations in Texas, the capture of Fort Esparenza and Matagorda Bay. And now New Year’s day finds us enjoying comfortable quarters in Indianola where with a consciousness of being engaged in a just and holy cause, and with every promise of an early, successful and honorable termination of this unhappy civil war, we are as happy and contented as soldiers in active service...