Potomac Diary: A Soldier's Account of the Capital in Crisis, 1864-1865 (DC)

Civil War History

by Marc Newman

In the spring of 1864, a student of medicine from upstate New York joined the Union army and ended up stationed in Virginia, across the Potomac River from Washington, D.C. Over the next year and a half, Richtmyer Hubbell, in his early twenties, visited Washington several times a month, witnessed some of the most compelling events of the Civil War period, and kept an account of them in his diary. His entries are unique for their time as well as for ours. They chronicle not the military aspects of the war but the political and social events and anticipate the impact that those events will have on the war and on the nation. In Potomac Diary we witness Hubbell's three meetings with Pres. Abraham Lincoln. We go with Hubbell to the Electoral College balloting in the 1864 presidential election, to Lincoln's second inauguration, and to the New Year's Eve ball at the White House in 1865. In the most eloquent entry, which is both chilling and prophetic, we share Hubbell's grief and insight into the assassination of Lincoln.

128 pages, Paperback

First published November 8, 2000

Reviews

[Robert · Rating 3 out of 5]

Author-editor Marc Newman and Arcadia Publishing have presented us with a new soldier’s diary from the later years of the American Civil War, Corporal Richtmyer Hubbell of the 1st Wisconsin Heavy Artillery Company M. Other than via this diary and the military service on behalf of the Union it reflects, Corporal Hubbell appears to have left little other major impact upon history writ large. The 21-year old soldier participated in no major battles, neither saved nor ended the life of any of the great figures of history, nor left no known great artistic or creative works. He is an 1860’s representative of the ordinary citizen in extraordinary times.
The title describes this as an “account of the capital in crisis, 1864-1865” although it does not cover the crisis that would be suggested to most knowledgeable readers – the July 1864 raid by Confederate General Jubal Early’s army. Early’s offensive threatened the U.S. capital and brought a sitting President, Abraham Lincoln, onto a battlefield when the latter visited Fort Stevens in the District of Columbia. However, life in the garrisons of Washington and its surroundings forts was not without excitement between Rebel guerrillas and Confederate raider John Singleton Mosby and the activities in the life of the city itself.
On October 12, 1864, Hubbell’s Captain offered the Corporal the position of either Captain’s Clerk or Hospital Steward. By the 16th, Corporal Hubbell accepted the Clerk’s position, calculating that the Steward’s position could easily be lost if the Company moved while the Clerk’s position would be secure as long as the Captain was satisfied with his work. Hubbell doesn’t offer a lot of detailed discussion of the Clerk’s duties, but makes several references through the diary to obtaining and completing “Blanks” for the dispatch to Headquarters on behalf of the Company; preparation of Clothing receipts and “footing up the amount of clothing drawn by each soldier”; making out Muster and pay-rolls; the preparation of Election returns for the 1864 Presidential election; discharge and final papers for a soldier going home on medical discharge; official passes; all discussed against the general background of war news, political (and Army) gossip, and the description of his excursions on various errands of pleasure and business. He apparently also felt it worth noting that he was making his entries for April 12-13, 1865 by “writing with a quill pen”.




In many ways, it is the very humdrum ordinariness of his experience and their recounting in this diary that makes him of potential interest to the modern reader and student of the history of the American Civil War. This edition enhances that image by combining Hubbell’s words with numerous original images of the period that are paired with and reflect elements of various entries in the diary. Hubbell writes of daily life in the artillery manning one of the forts defending Washington, giving the reader a sense of the routine of drill, guard duty, firing practice, record keeping and preparation of reports, furloughs and leaves, mixed with observations of life in the capital city itself based upon duty visits and recreational excursions into Alexandria, Virginia and Washington itself over his tour of duty. He also makes it clear that he had to be prepared to join the rest of his company if it were to actually find itself in combat – though he is routinely spared by his Captain from falling in under arms during various alerts. It was apparently sufficient for him to keep his arms and accoutrements at hand, just in case.
This is an interesting contribution to the literature on life in Civil War Washington DC and northern Virginia, including Alexandria, as well as on life in the Union Army. I would recommend it without hesitation to those readers interested in this subject. It is disappointing in its lack of additional detail on the work, tools, and duties of a Company Clerk of the period, but it is a common trait of such diaries that they often leave us today with more questions than answers.