They are coming! The Yankees are coming at last! For four or
five hours the sound of their cannon has assailed our ears. There! — that one
shook my bed! Oh, they are coming! God grant us the victory! They are now
within four miles of us, on the big road to Baton Rouge. On the road from town
to Clinton, we have been fighting since daylight at Readbridge, and have been
repulsed. Fifteen gunboats have passed Vicksburg, they say. It will be an awful
fight. No matter! With God's help we'll conquer yet! Again! — the report comes
nearer. Oh, they are coming! Coming to defeat, I pray God.
Only we seven women remain in the house. The General left
this morning, to our unspeakable relief. They would hang him, we fear, if they
should find him here. Mass' Gene has gone to his company; we are left alone
here to meet them. If they will burn the house, they will have to burn
me in it. For I cannot walk, and I know they shall not carry me. I'm resigned.
If I should burn, I have friends and brothers enough to avenge me.
Create such a consternation! Better than being thrown from a buggy —
only I'd not survive to hear of it!
Letter from Lilly to-day has distressed me beyond measure.
Starvation which threatened them seems actually at their door. With more money
than they could use in ordinary times, they can find nothing to purchase. Not a
scrap of meat in the house for a week. No pork, no potatoes, fresh meat
obtained once as a favor, and poultry and flour articles unheard of.
Besides that, Tiche crippled, and Margret very ill, while Liddy has run off to
the Yankees. Heaven only knows what will become of them. The other day we were
getting ready to go to them (Thursday) when the General disapproved of my running
such a risk, saying he'd call it a d--- piece of nonsense, if I asked what he
thought; so we remained. They will certainly starve soon enough without our
help; and yet — I feel we should all be together still. That last superfluous
word is the refrain of Gibbes's song that is ringing in my ears, and that I am
chanting in a kind of ecstasy of excitement: —
“Then let the cannon boom as it
will,
We’ll be gay and happy still!”
And we will be happy in spite of Yankee guns! Only — my dear
This, That, and the Other, at Port Hudson, how I pray for your safety! God
spare our brave soldiers, and lead them to victory! I write, touch my guitar,
talk, pick lint, and pray so rapidly that it is hard to say which is my
occupation. I sent Frank some lint the other day, and a bundle of it for Mr.
Halsey is by me. Hope neither will need it! But to my work again!
SOURCE: Sarah Morgan Dawson, A Confederate Girl's
Diary, p. 335-6
No comments:
Post a Comment