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Introduction By George Rugg The James Boardman diary is a 13 cm., partly printed volume of 66 leaves, bearing the printed title Pocket Diary for 1863. Its 121 pages of entries in pencil and pen, dating from 1 January to 31 December 1863, provide an overview of one year in the military life of James Boardman, a 29-year-old corporal in Company B of the 3rd Minnesota Infantry. Boardman's brief daily entries record fundamental facts of the soldier's existence; typical subjects include the weather, camp routine, company and regimental movements, food and recreation, and personal health. Sixteen days lack entries, and one leaf, probably containing entries for 3 to 8 December, is missing. James Boardman was born on 31 December 1831 in Erie County, New York, the son of Barney and Elizabeth Hush Boardman. He was mustered in to the 3rd Minnesota on 7 October 1861. January 1863 found him at his home near Salem in Olmsted County, Minnesota, on furlough. (The regiment had been reorganized at the end of 1862, as a consequence of its controversial surrender to Nathan Bedford Forrest at Murfreesboro, Tennessee the previous summer). After rejoining his regiment at Fort Snelling (on the site of present-day St. Paul), he travelled to the Federal camp at Columbus, Kentucky (3 February) and thence to Fort Heiman, Kentucky (14 March), opposite Fort Henry on the west bank of the Tennessee River. Here the regiment spent the next 2 1/2 months, manning the post and conducting operations aimed at frustrating Confederate conscription in the surrounding countryside. The most extended such scout in which Boardman participated, up the Big Sandy River into Tennessee, is described in the diary entries of 26 May to 2 June. In early June the 3rd Minnesota joined thousands of other troops moving down the Mississippi to reinforce Grant at the siege of Vicksburg. During the siege the regiment was positioned on the Yazoo River, at Haines' Bluff (8 June) and subsequently at Snyder's Bluff (15 June), some 10-15 miles northeast of the city. These were not the Federal siege lines proper, but defensive positions aimed at preventing the relief of Vicksburg from its landward side by the army of the Confederate general Joseph Johnston. But Johnston's expected attack never materialized, and the city surrendered on 4 July. Several weeks after Vicksburg's fall the 3rd Minnesota moved back upriver to Helena, Arkansas, from which point it was to participate in Frederick Steele's expedition against Little Rock. But by this time Boardman was sick - possibly with malaria, which took a terrible toll among troops fighting in the swampy environs of Vicksburg. On 14 August he was off active duty and in a "Convaliscent Camp" near Helena; he was later moved to hospitals in Memphis (18 September) and at Jefferson Barracks, St. Louis (5 October). Two separate weeks of missed diary entries suggest the seriousness of Boardman's condition. By the end of the year he was recovering, trying to "Make myself usefull as well as Ornamental" by cleaning up around the barracks. Over the course of the war the 3rd Minnesota—a regiment which saw little sustained combat—suffered 17 battle casualties while losing a recorded 279 officers and men to disease. When the regiment was veteranized in February 1864 Boardman reenlisted, receiving a promotion to sergeant. He went on to fight in the 3rd Minnesota for the duration of the war, and was mustered out of service on 2 September 1865. In the 1880 U.S. census he is identified as a laborer, residing at Long Prairie, Todd County, Minnesota. Bibliographic note: For a history of the 3rd Minnesota and a roster of its officers and men, see Minnesota in the Civil and Indian Wars 1861-1865, St. Paul MN: 1890, pp. 147-197. For the movements of the regiment and of Company B, see Janet B. Hewitt, ed., Supplement to the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Wilmington NC, 1996, Part II, Vol. 31, pp 732-50, 753-55. Cover, exterior:
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| Related Collections: | Colonial & Revolutionary America | Early National & Antebellum America | American Civil War | Modern America | Sports | |
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University of Notre Dame
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Dept. of Special Collections University of Notre Dame 102 Hesburgh Library Notre Dame, IN 46556 |
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Telephone: 574-631-0290 Fax: 574-631-6308 E-Mail: rarebook @ nd.edu |
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