A beautiful, glorious day, and one which the Yankees expected
confidently to spend triumphantly in Richmond. Last Fourth of July old General
Scott expected to be there, to tread in triumph the fallen fortunes of his
quondam friends, and to-day McClellan has been obliged to yield his visions of
glory. “Man proposes, but God disposes.” Many of their companions in arms are
there, in the Libby and other prisons, wounded in the hospitals, and dead in
the swamps and marshes, or buried on the battle-fields while the “Grand Army”
and the “Young Napoleon” are struggling desperately to get out of the bogs of
the Chickahominy to his gunboats on James River. I sent the carriage to
Richmond a day or two ago for Mr. N., but he writes that he is sending it
backwards and forwards to the battlefields for the wounded. It is a season of
wide-spread distress; parties are going by constantly to seek their husbands,
brothers, sons, about whose fate they are uncertain. Some old gentlemen passed
yesterday, walking all the way from Lancaster County. All the boats and
bridges have been destroyed on the rivers, and conveyances can't be put across.
Ladies are sent from river to river by those persons who have conveyances and
horses left to them. Oh, I trust that blood enough has been spilled now!. Dr.
S. has just arrived; he has been twenty miles below Richmond. He says the
Yankee dead still lie unburied in many places — our men are too much worn out
to undertake to bury them. The Yankee hospitals, as well as our own, are all
along the roads; their hospital flag is red; ours is orange. They have their
own surgeons, and, of course, many delicacies that our men can't have. The
Northern papers speak of this retreat of McClellan's as a “strategic movement.”
The bloody fights of eight days, the retreat of thirty miles, attended by
immense loss of life, thousands of prisoners, many guns, stores of all kinds,
etc., a “strategic movement !” But our loss is heavy — so many valuable lives,
and such suffering among the wounded. O God! interpose and stop this cruel war!
[Returning to her
diary, Mrs. Judith W. McGuire writes:]
I quote no further from Mrs. N[ewton]'s diary, as the next
page was devoted to the visits of those dear ones whom God had preserved amid
strife and carnage. She mentions the return of our dear W. B. N. from Fort
Delaware on the 5th of August, where he had been for several months. He asked
but five days' furlough to be with his family, and then returned to his
regiment, (Fourth Cavalry.) His reception by his company was most gratifying.
As soon as he got to camp, it drew up in line, and requested him to come to the
front, when the “Orderly” came up, leading a very handsome bay horse,
elegantly equipped, which he presented to his “Captain,” in the name of the
company.
SOURCE: Judith W. McGuire, Diary of a Southern
Refugee, During the War, p. 148-9
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