Another pleasant excitement. News has just arrived that
Scott's cavalry was having a hard fight with the Yankees eight miles from town.
Everybody immediately commenced to pick up stray articles, and get ready to
fly, in spite of the intense heat. I am resigned, as I hardly expect a
shelling. Another report places the fight fourteen miles from here. A man on
horseback came in for reinforcements. Heaven help poor Howell, if it is true. I
am beginning to doubt half I hear. People tell me the most extravagant things,
and if I am fool enough to believe them and repeat them, I suddenly discover
that it is not half so true as it might be, and as they themselves frequently
deny having told it, all the odium of “manufacturing” rests on my shoulders,
which have not been accustomed to bear lies of any kind. I mean to cease
believing anything, unless it rests on the word of some responsible person. By
the way — the order I so confidently believed, concerning the proclamation,
turns out not quite so bad. I was told women were included, and it extended to
private houses as well as public ones, though I fortunately omitted that when I
recorded it. When I read it, it said, “All discussions concerning the war are
prohibited in bar-rooms, public assemblies, and street corners.” As women do
not frequent such places, and private houses are not mentioned, I cannot
imagine how my informant made the mistake, unless, like me, it was through
hearing it repeated. Odious as I thought it then, I think it wise now; for more
than one man has lost his life through discussions of the kind.
SOURCE: Sarah Morgan Dawson, A Confederate Girl's
Diary, p. 116-7
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