Diary of Mary Boykin Chesnut: November 30, 1863 – Second Entry

Anxiety pervades.  Lee is fighting Meade.  Misery is everywhere.  Bragg is falling back before Grant.¹  Longstreet, the soldiers call him Peter the Slow, is settling down before Knoxville.

General Lee requires us to answer every letter, said Mr. Venable, and to do our best to console the poor creatures whose husbands and sons are fighting the battles of the country.

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¹ The siege of Chattanooga, which had been begun on September 21st, closed late in November, 1863, the final engagements beginning on November 23d, and ending on November 25th. Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge were the closing incidents of the siege. Grant, Sherman, and Hooker were conspicuous on the Federal side and Bragg and Longstreet on the Confederate.

SOURCE: Mary Boykin Chesnut, Edited by Isabella D. Martin and Myrta Lockett Avary, A Diary From Dixie, p. 258-9