June 15 1863

June 7 1863

April 1863

Ok Folks me and the blog have been fighting, and up until tonight the blog was winning.
Well I changed browsers and it seems to be working!

Taking a Break ! 
I will be back online after a while !

Quotes ?

Tonight at my SCV meeting a handout was given to us.
Some of the quotes are questionable.
All comments are welcome !

Jan 1st 1863

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Christmas Dinner

When Fiction Became Fact

By

WILLIAM MEADE DAME, D. D.

One bright spot in that “winter of our discontent”—lives in my memory. It was on the Christmas Day of 1863. That was a day specially hard to get through. The rations were very short indeed that day—only a little bread, no meat. As we went, so hungry, about our work, and remembered the good and abundant cheer always belonging to Christmas time; as we thought of “joys we had tasted in past years” that did not “return” to us, now, and felt the woeful difference in our insides—it made us sad. It was harder to starve on Christmas Day than any day of the winter.

When the long day was over and night had come, some twelve or fifteen of us, congenial comrades, had gathered in a group, and were sitting out of doors around a big camp fire, talking about Christmas, and trying to keep warm and cheer ourselves up. One fellow proposed what he called a game, and it was at once taken up—though it was a silly thing to do, as it only made us hungrier than ever. The game was this—we were to work our fancy, and imagine that we were around the table at “Pizzini’s,” in Richmond. Pizzini was the famous restauranteur who was able to keep up a wonderful eating house all through the war, even when the rest of Richmond was nearly starving. Well—in reality, now, we were all seated on the ground around that fire, and very hungry. In imagination we were all gathered ’round Pizzini’s with unlimited credit and free to call for just what we wished. One fellow tied a towel on him, and acted as the waiter—with pencil and paper in hand going from guest to guest taking orders—all with the utmost gravity. “Well, sir, what will you have?” he said to the first man. He thought for a moment and then said (I recall that first order, it was monumental) “I will have, let me see—a four-pound steak, a turkey, a jowl and turnip tops, a peck of potatoes, six dozen biscuits, plenty of butter, a large pot of coffee, a gallon of milk and six pies—three lemon and three mince—and hurry up, waiter—that will do for a start; see ’bout the rest later.” This was an order for one, mind you. The next several were like unto it. Then, one guest said, “I will take a large saddle of mountain mutton, with a gallon of crabapple jelly to eat with it, and as much as you can tote of other things.”

This, specially the crabapple jelly, quite struck the next man. He said, “I will take just the same as this gentleman.” So the next, and the next. All the rest of the guests took the mountain mutton and jelly. All this absurd performance was gone through with all seriousness—making us wild with suggestions of good things to eat and plenty of it. The waiter took all the orders and carefully wrote them down, and read them out to the guest to be sure he had them right. Just as we were nearly through with this Barmecide feast, one of the boys, coming past us from the Commissary tent, called out to me, “Billy, old Tuck is just in (Tucker drove the Commissary wagon and went up to Orange for rations) and I think there is a box, or something, for you down at the tent.” I got one of our crowd to go with me on the jump. Sure enough, there was a great big box for me—from home.

We got it on our shoulders and trotted back up to the fire. The fellows gathered

around, the top was off that box in a jiffy, and there, right on top, the first thing we came to—funny to tell, after what had just occurred—was the biggest saddle of mountain mutton, and a two-gallon jar of crabapple jelly to eat with it. The box was packed with all good, solid things to eat—about a bushel of biscuits and butter and sausage and pies, etc., etc.We all pitched in with a whoop. In ten minutes after the top was off, there was not a thing left in that box except one skin of sausage which I saved for our mess next morning. You can imagine how the boys did enjoy it. It was a bully way to end up that hungry Christmas Day. I wrote my thanks and the thanks of all the boys to my mother and sisters, who had packed that box, and I described the scene as I have here described it, which made them realize how welcome and acceptable their kind present was—and what comfort and pleasure it gave—all the more that it came to us on Christmas Day, and made it a joyful one—at the end, at least. 

Dec 10 1862

Nov 23 1862

Oct 9 1862

Oct 2 1862

(Hully Gull is a guessing game using five stones)

April 16 1862 & April 21 1862

Confederates at Yorktown

Lee Wallace in his book The Richmond Howitzers, notes--

March 9 1862

Click on picture to make it bigger!

Feb 23 1862

Feb 10 1862

Many of the letters I'm posting are used as a reference in this book by 

Lee Wallace Jr.

Including the second paragraph in this letter.

Feb 1 1862

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I had a question the other day that seemed to question the validity of the letters I'm posting.

All the original hand written letters and transcripts can be found at -------

The Virginia Historical Society Call # Mss2t1896b.

Jan 26 1861

Jan 19th 1862

Jan 12th 1862

William Henry Tatum

Nov 1st 1861

Oct 4th 1861

From the Front - Sep 3rd 1861

FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT

FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT:

Stiles, Robert, 1836-1905

Surely it was not for slavery they fought. The great majority of them had never owned a slave and had little or no interest in the institution. My own father, for example, had freed his slaves long years before; that is, all save one, who would not be "emancipated," our dear "Mammy," who clung to us when we moved to the North and never recognized any change in her condition or her relations to us. The great conflict will never be properly comprehended by the man who looks upon it as a war for the preservation of slavery.

        Nor was it, so far as Virginia was concerned, a war in support of the right of secession or the Southern interpretation of the Constitution. Virginia did not favor this interpretation; at least, she did not favor the exercise of the right of secession. Up to President Lincoln's call for troops she refused to secede. She changed her position under the distinct threat of invasion--the demand that she help coerce her sister States. This was the turning point. The Whig party, the anti-secession party of Virginia, became the war party of Virginia upon this issue. As John B. Baldwin, the great Whig and Union leader, said, speaking of the effect of Lincoln's call for troops, "We have no Union men in Virginia now." The change of front was instantaneous, it was intuitive. Jubal Early was the type of his party--up to the proclamation, the most extreme anti-secessionist and anti-war man in the Virginia Convention; after the proclamation, the most enthusiastic man in the Commonwealth in advocacy of the war and personal service in it.

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