To my unspeakable surprise, I waked up this morning and
found myself alive. Once satisfied of that, and assuring myself of intense
silence in the place of the great guns which rocked me to sleep about half-past
two this morning, I began to doubt that I had heard any disturbance in the
night, and to believe I had written a dream within a dream, and that no
bombardment had occurred; but all corroborate my statement, so it must be true,
and this portentous silence is only the calm before the storm. I am half afraid
the land force won't attack. We can beat them if they do; but suppose they lay
siege to Port Hudson and starve us out? That is the only way they can conquer.
We hear nothing still that is reliable.
Just before daylight there was a terrific explosion which
electrified every one save myself. I was sleeping so soundly that I did not
hear anything of it, though Mrs. Badger says that when she sprang up and called
me, I talked very rationally about it, and asked what it could possibly be.
Thought that I had ceased talking in my sleep. Miriam was quite eloquent in her
dreams before the attack, crying aloud, “See! See! What do I behold?” as though
she were witnessing a rehearsal of the scene to follow.
SOURCE: Sarah Morgan Dawson, A Confederate Girl's
Diary, p. 338-9
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