We had a case of disappointed love in the regiment last night. A sergeant of Captain Mitchell's company was engaged to a girl of Athens county. They were to be married upon his return from the war, and until within a month have been corresponding regularly. Suddenly and without explanation she ceased to write, why he could not imagine. He never, however, doubted that she would be faithful to him. His anxiety to hear from home increased, until finally he learned from her brother, a soldier of the Eighteenth Ohio, that she was married. Strong, healthy, good-looking fellow that he was, this intelligence prostrated him completely, and made him crazy as a loon. He imagined that he was in hell, thought Dr. Seyes the devil, and so violent did he become that they had to bind him.
This morning he is more calm, but still deranged. He thought the straws in his bunk were thorns, and would pluck at them with his fingers and exclaim: "My God, ain't they sharp?" Captain Mitchell called, and the boys said: "Sergeant, don't you know him?" "Yes," he replied, "he is one of the devils." The Captain said: "Sergeant, don't you know where you are?" "Of course I do; I'm in hell." When they were binding him he said: "That's right; heap on the coals; put me in the hottest place." While Dr. Seyes was preparing something to quiet him—laudanum, perhaps—he said: "Bring on your poison; I'll take it."
The boys, while living roughly, exposed to hardships and dangers, think more of their sweethearts than ever before, and are constantly recurring, in their talk, to the comfortable homes and pleasant scenes from which they are for the present separated.
FEBRUARY, 1862.
1. The Colonel sent in his resignation this morning. It will go to Department head-quarters to-morrow.
Saw the new moon over my right shoulder this evening, which I accept as an omen of good luck. Let it come. It will suit me just as well now as at any time. If deceived, I shall never more have faith in the moon; and as for the man in the moon, I shall call him a cheat to his face.
2. The devil is to pay in the regiment. The Colonel is doing his utmost to create a disturbance. His friends are busy among the privates. At noon an effort was made to get up a demonstration on the color line in his behalf. Now a petition is being circulated among the privates requesting Major Keifer and me to resign.
The night is as dark as pitch. A few minutes ago a shout went up for the Colonel, and was swelled from point to point along the line of company tents, until now possibly five hundred voices have joined in the yell. The Colonel's friends tell the boys that if he were to remain he would obtain leave for the regiment to go back to Camp Dennison to recruit; that he was about to obtain rifles and Zouave uniforms for them, and that there is a conspiracy among the officers to crush him.