Tuesday 11th
Cloudy today and snow towards evening. Dispatch rcd today by the War Dept that Burnside had taken Roanoke Island with many prisoners, particulars perhaps tomorrow. Went up to the RR Depot after dinner and then up the Ave to Willards Hotel. Quite a crowd there, a great many army officers. The Statuelike Dragoons were stationed all along the Ave not, as the corrispondant of the London Times (Russell) says, to prevent a “rising” of the people, but to prevent fast driving and to keep order in the streets.
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The three diary manuscript volumes, Washington during the Civil War: The Diary of Horatio Nelson Taft, 1861-1865, are available online at The Library of Congress.