Visit to Mr. Francis Sorrel's country-seat—Interment of Captain Tillinghast, U. S. A.—Sir William Howard Russell, Times correspondent—McDowell and July 21st—Seward and the French princes—Army begins to march to Peninsula.
Not long after the battle I set out on a visit to my father's country place, Ireland, fifteen miles from our camp. Hitching up two good mules to a light army ambulance, what we needed was put in, our intention being to bring back some delicacies for the messes. Captain Thompson, of Mississippi, one of the aids, accompanied me. He was an extraordinary looking person. Nature had been unkind. The son of Jacob Thompson, Buchanan's Secretary of the Interior, he had much to hope for, but for his affliction. His teeth and jaws were firmly set and locked, and no surgical ingenuity had yet succeeded in opening them. Liquids could be conveniently taken, but mechanical arrangements had to be made for solid food by the removal of some teeth.
This young officer showing a great desire to go along with me, was taken, although I could not help picturing some surprise on the part of my father and young sisters. We were made very welcome, as fresh from the glorious battlefield, and the day was a happy one. The girls had made a captain's coat for me out of homespun cloth; but such a fit! big enough for two captains of my thickness, it hung at all angles and flapped furiously in high winds. But love had prompted its making and I would never suffer any ugly remarks about it.
Something better soon came. My brother, Doctor Sorrel, in Richmond, was always mindful of his juniors in the field, and getting possession of a blockade bolt of fine gray cloth, he soon had enough snipped off to make me two good Confederate suits, suitably laced and in regulation trim, besides a long gray cape, or cloak, well lined, which was to do me good service for years.
At "Ireland" they loaded our ambulance with good things and there were shouts of joy when we reached the camp with the delicacies.
Captain Thompson was not subject to military duty and soon returned to his home.
It should be said here that these jottings are without the aid of a scrap of notes or other memoranda. The memory alone is called on, and as the events go back forty years it is something of a test; but I hope I am rather strong on that point and do not fear falling into inventions or imaginations. There were some dry notes of dates and marches, but they cannot be found, and they would be of no use with these jottings, as no attempt at dates is made. It is a lasting regret to me that as a staff officer with opportunities of seeing and knowing much, I did not keep up a careful diary or journal throughout the war. It should be made one of the duties of the staff.
This is odd. The day after the battle I came across the body of Captain Tillinghast at the Federal field infirmary near the stone bridge. The year previous I had been much in Baltimore at the Maryland Club and had there played billiards with Tillinghast, then a captain of Artillery, U. S. A., and an agreeable acquaintance; consequently there could be no mistake when I recognized his dead body. The Federal surgeon also identifying him, I set about giving him decent burial, and managed it finally by the help of some men of Bartow's Savannah company who knew me. The ground was baked hard and we could not make the grave deep, but it was enough; and with my own hands I carved his name on the bark of a tree, under which the soldier found his last bivouac—"Otis H. Tillinghast."
Some time after, a blockade-runner, passing the lines took a letter from me to my cousin, Robert Fisher, in Baltimore, a friend also of Tillinghast. It was on other matters, but I let him know that Tillinghast's body had been recognized on the field, had received decent burial, and the spot marked. I described the location and then the matter passed out of my mind.
After peace came I was with Fisher in Baltimore and learned from him that my letter had been received and the information as to Captain Tillinghast considerately conveyed to his family. Fisher was answered soon after with thanks, "but there was some mistake," Captain Tillinghast was buried by his old classmate Samuel Jones, a Confederate brigadier-general, in a different part of the field and his body later removed to the family vault. Astonishing! If they got a body from a spot not where I had laid him they got the wrong husband. Sam Jones quite likely saw Tillinghast, but he had no hand in our burial of him. Stranger things, however, have happened.