"I have new drawers."

Wednesday, July 13, 1864, Chaffin's Bluff, Virginia

Aside from the occasional musket round thrown our way from the other side, there is very little action to take up our efforts. We do not mind this as this relative respite gives us the chance to improve our works and ourselves. There are not so many of manning the line here. When we are not on the line, we sew and mend and there is a great deal of that to do. Strengthening the works keeps us from getting in too much trouble.

The quality and quality of our rations does not permit us of enough energy to allow any trouble. For a brief while, there was coffee in abundance. Each of us could have two cups per day. This was real coffee, not the barn sweepings that get graced with the name of coffee. It was captured from the Yankees for all we know, not that it mattered. We did not question it's origins. It was grand if temporary. It is no longer issued to us. We might not see its like again.

If only the rest of our rations were as grand. We would not recognize wheat flour if we saw it. There is some corn meal issued to us and we make the most of it, or perhaps the least of it. The water here is bad and it is so much the worse since there is no coffee to mask the taste. There were some wild onions here but we wiped them out some time ago. We think that we can identify our meat ration as having been, when alive, of animal origins but we cannot tell what kind of animal.

One piece of brightness that has shone upon us is that Lieutenant Williamson has bestowed clothing riches upon us. I have new drawers. I cut up my old ones to patch my shirt with. Hancock got a new jacket.  White got a blanket, the only one issued. Some of us got something but some of us got nothing. More than anything I wanted shoes but there were only nineteen pair to be issued and others got them.

Hagins has returned from sick furlough. Terry has gone on sick furlough so the company is neither weaker nor stronger.

The First has been removed from the brigade. That regiment now is the garrison of Fort Harrison. The four regiments left will have to get along without the First.

The news tells us that the gallant horseman Stuart, recently killed, is replaced with that South Carolinian Wade Hampton. He has a bit of a reputation as skillful cavalryman. He has a big pair of boots to fill.

I think that if a horse neared our camp, we would kill it and roast it.


I Send You These Few Lines.


The clothing issue was taken from records at the National Archives. The records document the issuance of 5 jackets, 18 pair of trousers, 9 shirts, 2 pair of drawers, 19 pairs of shoes and a single blanket. Tooms and his pards will need to take good care of what has been given to them. There's no telling when or if there will be any more.

That there was a good deal of coffee issued at one point comes from the brigade historian. They thought they were doing very well at two cups a day. Some of my modern friends would think themselves suffering if they did not have much more.

The poor rations are also mentioned in the brigade history.

Fort Harrison, part of the Richmond defenses, needed a unit to be the garrison and it was the First South Carolina was picked. The brigade, much understrength already, was just further reduced by twenty percent.

John M. Hagins and William Terry's medical furloughs are a mater of record at the National Archives.

Lee's army is split at this time of the war. There are just too many Yankees in too many places for Lee to properly protect. Lee now provides his own troops to other commands to the weakening of his own. Tooms and his brigade, plus one other, are on loan to Richard Ewell who is defending Richmond. Is this loan temporary or permanent?