Documenting the lives of the Beesleys...

Today is cold and stormy.  The city of Annapolis, like that of Baltimore, has the appearance of a very old one.  The buildings are mostly of wood and are fast decaying.  The streets are narrow, crooked, and dirty.

We left Washington about 9 o’clock A.M. for Annapolis, where we arrived at sundown today.  After leaving Washington, we went back to Annapolis Junction and branched off there to Annapolis itself.  Just on the outskirts of the city we passed through a gate and encamped in a field well grown over with weeds and burrs.
We were brigaded here with the Sixth and Seventh Connecticut and Ninth Maine Regiments and under command of Brigadier General H.G. Wright.

From October 3 to October 8 was in camp at Washington.  During this week I visited fortifications around Washington.  While here there was a little trouble in Company G.  That Company had some rather rough, ill-behaved set of men.  The cooks of the company were much annoyed by constant complaints among the men regarding their food and by their repeated visits to the cook-house.  They declared that the next intruder should suffer.  It happened to be an old man named Beede.  He was an inoffensive, harmless creature, with a stammer in his speech, and for these reasons he was the butt of the company.  Some words passed between him and the younger of the two cooks, and it ended in the young fellow seizing a stick and knocking the old man down.  He was thought to be dead at first and the culprit was sent to the guardhouse.  The old man, however, recovered and his assailant was subsequently released, with no further punishment.

Today we went into camp about a mile from the capitol, and in full view of the city.  We were in a nice green field near the road.
I am on guard today.  Wrote to Sue while sitting on the bank of the road that goes into the city.  I had the pleasure of viewing a company of horses that were taken in a fight day before yesterday. They just went by where I am writing, to water.  They were driven up through here yesterday in a drove.  I go on guard two hours and off four, for twenty-four hours.  I have been all over the capitol.  I have not seen “Honest Old Abe” yet.  I don’t knoew whether we shall stop here long or not.  The talk now is that we are going down the coast, as we expected in the first place, but we cannot tell.  It is beginning to rain out here, but we are moving in to our ten, where we shall be comfortable until we have to go on guard.

Walked over to or three miles to the camp of the Second New Hampshire Regiment, I think, on Blagdensburg Road, to see a Smith A. Whitefield.  He looks as tough as a bear.  You ought to see the darkies; there are more of them than white men.  I saw the grave of a man that was shot because he ran from a sentinel.  The sentinel ordered him to halt and he turned to run and he shot him in the back of the neck and killed him.  The sentinels are obliged, when a man runs or won’t halt when ordered, to shoot him.
Went over the capitol.

This morning at 2 a.m. we arrived at the Soldiers’ Rest, Washington, a large building near the depot devoted to the temporary use of incoming regiments.  Here we had a breakfast which caused some complaint [tremendous grumbling].  Boiled salt pork, extremely greasy hardtack, and coffee.  E. N. Nutting says the coffee was well seasoned with quinine by order of the medical department.  This made it very bitter.
As a whole, the journey from Manchester to Washington was a delightful one.  I enjoyed particularly the ride over and beside the Delaware and Susquehanna rivers.  At Havre de Grace, on the latter one, the cars were run on board a ferry boat and we passed over without change.
As we came in Delaware the great numbers of colored people were noticeable, making it seem as if we were indeed getting southward.  They gave us a patriotic welcome, cheering and waving handkerchiefs, etc.  You ought to see their corn here – it is tall, I tell you – and eat some of the grapes; they are as sweet as raisins.  I can hardly look east, west, north, or south but I can see an encampment.

We found in Philadelphia a nice breakfast.  We were greeted here with great warmth and we learned that every regiment that passed through was received in the same cordial way.  Four o’clock in the afernoon found us in Baltimore, where we stopped till 9 p.m. and got a good supper.  Here we found a different sentiment, a strong secession spirit.  They hissed the regiment and threatened us as we passed.  In marching across city to reembark on train, men had strict orders to keep in close ranks, the officers fearing some assault.  This precaution was particularly necessary, as we had no arms, having left our state arms in New Hampshire.
We took cars for Washington at 9 p.m.

(We lay at dock all night and started in the morning at 2 a.m. for Allyn’s Point, on way to New York.)
Today found us crossing Long Island Sound.  Many of the men were seasick, although the passage was not a rough one.  Mother was afraid I would be seasick, but I was not.  But there were any quantity of men that would buy mince-pie and eat it and in a few minutes be seasick and look as white as a sheet.  The boat was crowded with men, for the boat was not large.  They were lying everywhere about, with their knapsacks for pillows.  We slept this way all night and even during the day it was about the same.  At about 5 p.m. we came in sight of Brooklyn, N.Y., and went through the East river, landing at Jersey City, where we took the cars for Philadelphia.  Traveling all night, we arrived at daylight in Philadelphia

There’s been a lot of talk of the Civil War on my NPR station lately.  As you might know it is the 150th anniversary of the start of the war and, here in the South, the war is still not over.  Well, I have a distant relative who is a Civil War Veteran and who kept a diary of his time in the war.  I will retype it here over the course of the next couple of years (hopefully I will complete this project)…

FRIDAY, SEPT. 27, 1861

We, the Fourth New Hampshire Volunteer Regiment under the command of Colonel Thomas J. Whipple of Laconia, N.H., with full complement, 1,000 men beside its officers, left Manchester for Washington today.  Sister Sue came down from Hillsborough, lower village, where she was keeping house for Mr. Brown, to see us off.  She walked beside me as walked to the depot.
There was much enthusiasm shown by the people of the places through which we passed, they sheering us and waving handkerchiefs and shouting “good-by.”
In the factory towns all the heads came to the windows to cheer us.  At Worcester, Mass., particularly, the enthusiasm was furious, our regiment answering back with cheers and waving of handkerchiefs.  As we approached Reed’s Ferry, Deacon Robert French’s family were waiting to see us pass.  They had come from home across the fields and were sitting on the fence by the railroad.
We passed through Nashua, Groton Junction (Ayer), Worcester, and arrived at Allyn’s Point, Long Island, where we were to take the steamer “Connecticut” to cross the sound, at 9 o’clock P.M., and immediately went on board.
The night of September 27 was so rough that after proceeding a short distance down the sound we were obliged to anchor and wait for morning, causing a report to be sent back from New York, where we were expected, to New Hampshire, that the boat was lost, with all on board.