A long pause in my diary. Every thing seems so dark and
uncertain that I have no heart for keeping records. The croakers croak about
Richmond being evacuated, but I can't and won't believe it.
There is hard fighting about Petersburg, and General A. P.
Hill has been killed. Dreadful to think of losing such a man at such a time;
but yet it comes nearer home when we hear of the young soldiers whom we have
loved, and whose youth we have watched with anxiety and hope as those on whom
our country must depend in days to come, being cut down when their country most
needs them. We have just heard of the death of Barksdale Warwick, another of
our E. H. S. boys — another son of the parents who yielded up their noble
first-born son on the field of battle three years ago. He fell a day or two
ago; I did not hear precisely when or where; I only know that he has passed
away, as myriads of our young countrymen have done before him, and in the way
in which our men would prefer to die.
A week ago we made a furious attack upon the enemy's
fortifications near Petersburg, and several were taken before daylight, but we
could not hold them against overwhelming numbers, and batteries vastly too
strong for any thing we could command; and so it is still — the enemy is far
too strong in numbers and military resources. The Lord save us, or we perish!
Many persons think that Richmond is in the greatest possible danger, and may be
evacuated at any time. Perhaps we are apathetic or too hopeful, but none of us
are desponding at all, and I find myself planning for the future, and feeling
excessively annoyed when I find persons less sanguine than myself.
SOURCE: Judith W. McGuire, Diary of a Southern
Refugee, During the War, p. 342
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