Starting Over

Back in high school (early 1980s) I became aware that my grandmother had a Civil War diary from my great-great grandfather Philip L. Loufman. At that time (way before personal computers), I went to her house with a pad of yellow lined paper determined to transcribe the diary. It didn't take me long to be overwhelmed by the task (probably 5 or 10 minutes). The entries were all written in pencil and difficult to read. Add to that my almost total lack of interest in the Civil War, and I had little to no context to understand much of what my great-great grandfather was writing about. What I could understand wasn't very exciting - days on end of drills, fishing and picking blackberries. Needless to say my first attempt at a handwritten transcript didn't get very far. 

Years later, in the early 2000s, after my grandmother had passed away, I asked my mom for the diary so I could transcribe it. This second attempt went much better. I had slightly more patience and knowledge of the Civil War. I was able to more quickly transcribe passages by typing the into a Word document. There were still many words, phrases and sentences that I could not read and used a lot of question marks and blanks in my document. What I didn't have was a lot of time. Between working full time and shuttling two children to their various activities, I was trying to squeeze transcribing time into my little spare time. I skipped around the diary a bit and looked for more interesting passages before losing interest in completing the transcription.  Over time the original Word document disappeared from our computers.

Now that I'm not working and the kids are out on their own I have lots of free time and decided to take another crack at transcribing the diary. The high intensity mini flashlight I'm using is helping me to make out difficult to read words and passages. Google is helping me understand references to people and events that I didn't understand before and even helping me understand terms my great-grandfather used that I have never heard before such as "ruddies" or what a "limber" is.

Below is an excerpt from my first week of transcribing. There are still some question marks and blanks. I added punctuation but the words and grammar are exactly as they are in the diary. I added a few comments in italics.

The year is 1864 and my grandfather, Philip L. Loufman is stationed near Alexandria, Virginia during the Battle of Fort Stevens.

_______________

JULY 12TH

We heard firing this morning in the northeast direction of Washington. We drew muskets this evening which the boys very much disliked. 6 o’clock pm. Very heavy firing which we are returning promptly. We are momentarily expecting an attack. We are burning all the homes in front of our works to keep the rebel sharpshooters out of them. Now while I write I see a large fire in front of T____town(?). The work of the invading force. This is apparently the Battle of Fort Stevens July 11-12, 1864.

JULY 13TH

Everything seems quiet this morning. No news from the battlefield but I gauge from the smoke that they are still burning buildings. We drew muskets at ½ 9 pm preparing a grand attack. Were reinforced by 400 men from the camp of distribution and 31 negro soldiers, the first I ever seen. We are making obstructions with telegraph wire to entangle the rebels with and cutting all the underbrush away from in front of … Fort Lyons, Weed, Farnsworth, O’Rourke and Willard.

JULY 14TH

No news this morning but a disturbance in camp by a pack of ruddies stealing a watch(?) (“ruddies” was a term used by Union soldiers to describe Confederate soldiers). They was caught and tied up to a limber (a 2-wheeled cart that carried one ammunition chest for an artillery piece). Was detailed to guard them.

JULY 15TH

This morning we was informed that a body of rebels were coming and driving the home guards back. We was all sent into the forts. But after waiting some two or 3 hours, no rebels appeared in sight. We was reinforced by a regiment of invalids from Fort Stevens. A detachment of our boys were sent to Fort Lyons with his 38 guns and 8 mortars in it. At present we are all split up and the duty comes pretty hard upon us.