CAMP ON WEST FORK OF MONONGAHELA
RIVER, WESTON, VIRGINIA, Tuesday, P. M.,
July 30, 1861.
DEAREST:–We are in the loveliest spot for a camp you ever saw–no, lovelier than that; nothing in Ohio can equal it. It needs a mountainous region for these beauties. We do not know how long we shall stay, but we suppose it will be three or four days. We have had two days of marching–not severe marching at all; but I saw enough to show me how easily raw troops are used up by an injudicious march. Luckily we are not likely to suffer in that way. We are probably aiming for Gauley Bridge on the Kanawha where Wise is said to be fortified. General Rosecrans is engaged in putting troops so as to hold the principal routes leading to the point.
The people here are divided. Many of the leading ladies are Secessionists. We meet many good Union men; the other men are prudently quiet. Our troops behave well.
We have had one of those distressing accidents which occur so frequently in volunteer regiments. You may remember that a son of H. J. Jewett, of Zanesville, President of [the] Central Ohio Railroad, was on the request of his father appointed a first-lieutenant in Captain Canby’s company. He joined us at Grafton in company with his father. He had served in Colonel ––’s regiment of three-months men in all the affairs in western Virginia and is very promising. A loaded gun was thrown down from a stack by a careless sentinel discharging a Minie ball through young Jewett’s foot. I was with him in a moment. It is a painful and severe wound, perhaps dangerous. There is a hope he may not be crippled. He bears it well. One of his exclamations was, “Oh, if it had only been a secession ball I wouldn’t have cared. Do you think you can save my leg,” etc., etc. The ball after passing through his foot passed through three of McIlrath’s tents, one full of men lying down. It cut the vest of one over his breast as he lay on his back and stirred the hair of another; finally passed clean through a knapsack and struck a man on the leg barely making a slight bruise and dropping down. Dr. Joe has the flattened bullet now to give to Jewett.
My horse came over the hills in good style.– Pshaw! I wish you were here; this is a camp. The field officers’ tents are on a high greensward hill, the other tents spreading below it in the sweetest way. As I write I can turn my head and from the entrance of the tent see the loveliest scene you can imagine. . . .
Affectionately,
R. B. HAYES.
MRS. HAYES.