March 14.
One of General Franklin’s aids has been in to say that his Division is now marching into Alexandria and is to embark on Saturday or Sunday, down the Potomac. . . . We went down to Alexandria and took lodgings at Mrs. Dyson’s, on Water street, for over Sunday, and two more wretched or longer days I never passed. Through a drenching storm McDowell’s corps was marched back from Centreville, 35 miles, and arrived at dusk, cold, hungry, wet to the skin, to find no transports ready and no provision made for their shelter or comfort. The city was filled with the wretched men, many crowded into the market stalls and empty churches, others finding shelter in lofts or under sheds and porches, and some, we know, sleeping in the open streets. In the market they had large fires, but with soaking knapsacks, no dry clothing to put on. In one place, the loft of a foundry, where Chaplain Hopkins found shelter for one company, the steam which rushed out as he opened the door was as that of a laundry on washing day. The poor fellows suffered from hunger as well as cold and fatigue, for on Sunday all the stores were closed. Whiskey could be had, which Moritz and G. and H. distributed among tired and wet volunteers on cellar doors. Some of them actually begged for bread or offered to sell their rings and trinkets for food. It was a wretched and heart-sickening day and shook our confidence in McClellan or McDowell, or whoever the responsible person may be. We sent Moritz up to Washington for a half barrel of socks Aunt E. had just sent on and took them to the churches where the soldiers were quartered, and distributed them among the eager and grateful men. The men were lying on the benches and floors, and in the baptistry of the “Beulah Particular Baptist” and the Presbyterian secesh churches, and we stumbled about, holding the end of a candle for light, distributing socks. All ours were soon gone, and Chaplain Hopkins went back to the hospital, and telling the steward to protest, so that he might be shielded from blame, deliberately took ten dozen pairs from the store-closet and distributed them. The two long useless marches with nothing accomplished, no shelter and no food, have shaken the unbounded faith in McClellan. Congress has been debating a bill displacing him; the Star says it was withdrawn to-day. Our soldier, Joe, and the 16th, were not in that wretched plight but were kept in bivouac out of the town. Joe took final command of the regiment that Sunday morning.