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We received the news to-day of the evacuation of
Jackson by the rebels, where it was thought they would make a
desperate stand; but it seems as though they gave up the place
with comparatively little fighting. Where they will make their
next stand I am unable to say. But my opinion is, they are about
gone up the spout. The news from the east is very encouraging
indeed; and the time is not far distant when this rebellion will
come to an end.
The health of the boys is pretty good. A few cases
of the ague still hang on, but there are no serious cases.
Clinton is ten miles from Jackson, on the railroad,
and is the most bitter secesh hole I have come across in the South.
I have had the honor of calling on some of the fair damsels of
the Southern soil, and find them even worse than the men; which
is generally the case on all topics, (not wishing to say anything
against the dear creatures at all.)
You can hardly see the town for the houses, but it
is a pretty situation, and could be made a nice place.
General McArthur is ordered to keep open the road
against guerrillas between here and Champion Hills, but we are
anxious to go back and join our old Division, and spend the summer
on the Mississippi.
On the 25th day of July the regiment returned to
Vicksburg and pitched camp on Walnut Hills, near the city. The
terrible campaign ended; General Johnston and all the rebel army
driven far east of Jackson; the Seventeenth Army Corps settles
down round Vicksburg to rest and recuperate its thinned and wearied
ranks. The Thirteenth Army Corps goes South; the Fifteenth goes
with General Sherman to Memphis, and thence toward Chattanooga.
The brave Sixty-Eighth and Twentieth Ohio Regiments still remain
with the Seventy-Eighth; these three regiments have become banded
together as firmly as brothers; all have shared equally in dangers
and hardships, in honors and triumphs.
The effects of the long campaign upon the men begin
now to be developed in disease, much sickness and many deaths.
The Brigade remains scarcely a day idle, but commence
building fortifications around the city. Two hours every day
are spent in drill.
August 25 – The Division went on reconnoisance
to Monroeville, Louisiana. The march was a hard one, and many
men never recovered from its effects. Part of the way was through
swamps, now dried by the summer's sun, and covered with weeds
and grass higher than the horses backs; in this, rattle-snakes
of all sizes dwelt as thick as fish in the river. These the men
shot and killed by the thousand.
Monroeville was at length reached.
The town is situated on the Washita River, and is a pleasant
little place of about one thousand inhabitants; the rebel army
said to be encamped there had fled; it consisted only of a few
cavalry. Yankee soldiers were quite a curiosity to the natives,
no Federal troops had before been seen by them. The people were
living in blissful ignorance, cut off from all communications
with the world, they had not received the intelligence that Vicksburg
had fallen, and come into the possession of
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