So eventless have the last few days been that it has not
been worth while to make any note of them. Have been busy as usual, sewing,
&c. . . . It is amazing, and
sorrowful too, to see how the language, operations, &c. of war are
understood and imitated by the children. Almost their entire set of plays have
reference to a state of war. George cuts lines of soldiers every day; marches
them about; has battles; beats “the Yankees,” and carries off prisoners. Builds
hospitals with blocks and corn-cobs; drives ambulances with chairs; administers
pills to his rag-boy-babies, who are laid up in bed as sick and wounded
soldiers. He gets sticks and hobbles about, saying that he lost a leg at the
Second battle of Manassas; tells wonderful stories of how he cut off Yankees'
heads, bayoneted them, &c. He has an old cartridge box and haversack, and
with a stick for a sword, and something stuck in his belt for pistols, he
struts about, bids me good-by daily with entire gravity, as his furlough is out
and he must go to his regiment again. Little Herbert also kills “Lankees,” as
he calls them, and can talk war lingo almost as well as George. The children
are more familiar with war language than I was when I was grown up. They can
tell all about pickets, cavalry, cannon, ambulances, &c. Sad indeed that
very infancy has learned such language!
. . . Had a present that I hailed with a joy that cannot be
easily imagined, yesterday — a pair of coarse shoes for little Herbert! Agnes
sent them to him. The last two pair I had made him, and I had no more soles, so
was at my wits' end; no shoemaker can be prevailed upon, for any money, to make
a pair of child's shoes. Heard W. F. J. say, the other day, that he had married
K. G. not long since, in a plain bombazine dress, the simple dress pattern of
which cost $110! Potatoes are now $5 a bushel. The price of negroes is
enormous. A young girl sold on the street the other day for a few dollars short
of $2000. Heard of a not at all “likely” woman of 40 and her two babies selling
for $3000.
SOURCE: Elizabeth Preston Allan, The Life and
Letters of Margaret Junkin Preston, p. 158-9
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