"Soldiers never did better than the Colored Soldiers today."
Soldiers’ diaries constitute a significant portion of the Newberry’s Civil War collections. Featured here are pages from one of forty-four pocket diaries in the papers of Iowan Hiram Scofield (1830–1906). In addition to these, which cover the years 1857 to 1906, the Scofield holdings include some letters and miscellaneous items.
Born in New York, Scofield moved west in the early 1850s as a young lawyer and by 1857 had opened an office in Washington, Iowa. After the first shots of the war were exchanged at the battle of Fort Sumter, South Carolina, in April 1861, Scofield enlisted in the Union Army as a private and was assigned to Company H of the 2nd Iowa Infantry. His 1862 diary documents his rise through the ranks, the daily life of an officer, the weather, his health, and his reading and relaxation activities.
The Newberry was especially interested in acquiring Scofield’s diaries because, from 1863 to 1866, he commanded the 8th Louisiana Regiment Infantry (African Descent) of Colored Troops (later renamed the 47th U.S. Colored Regiment Infantry). The diaries from this time provide a fascinating account of an African American regiment from the perspective of a white commander. While stationed at Vicksburg, Mississippi, in 1863, Scofield wrote of his first days with the Colored Troops:
May 3: “a meeting with my Regiment—I made a little talk to them which was well received.”
May 4: “boats unloaded and the families sent down to Plantation. Dr. Thornton has been examining the men preparatory to being mustered in. The muster rolls are being made and I fear I shall lack a few men.”
May 24: “2 boys buried today, a good deal of sickness.”
May 25: “Had our first Battalion drill today—the Regiment did remarkably well.”
June 25: “Today the rebels appeared in still larger numbers burning plantations and running off the Negroes.”
Dec. 2: “received some bad—very bad—mush today which we made a fuss about.”
Scofield’s diaries depict the daily activities of his regiment in 1864 and 1865, when it played a major role in the capture of Fort Blakely, Alabama, and the fall of Mobile. On April 9, 1865, the day Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox, Scofield and his troops overwhelmed the defenses of Fort Blakely. He noted in his diary, “Quiet until afternoon when the skirmishes advanced without any direct orders + and engagement was begun which resulted by mistake in the capture of Blakely—Soldiers never did better than the Colored Soldiers today.” It is clear that Scofield had a great deal of respect and empathy for the often-maligned Colored Troops.
Since the Scofield diaries entered the Newberry, staff have learned that after the war Scofield assembled one of the largest private libraries in Iowa, with more than 20,000 volumes. One title from this library had entered the Newberry in 1957, forty-five years before the diaries: J. A. Besson’s presentation copy of History of Eufaula, Alabama: The Bluff City of the Chattahoochee (1875), an interesting local history that includes an “H. Scofield, Private Library” bookplate. Thus, not only do Scofield’s diaries offer an extraordinary perspective on the Civil War, but they also provide a unique glimpse into the life of a voracious nineteenth-century American reader and book collector.
– John Brady; originally published in The Newberry 125: Stories of Our Collection (Newberry Library: 2012).
View the Hiram Scofield diaries at Newberry Digital Collections
