The Northern papers say the Federals have taken Vicksburg;
but we are incredulous. Yet we have no reliable intelligence from thence; and
it may be so. It would be a terrible blow, involving, for a time, perhaps, the
loss of the Mississippi River.
But we have cheering news from Galveston, Texas. Several of our
improvised gun-boats attacked the enemy's war vessels in the harbor, and after a
sanguinary contest, hand to hand, our men captured the Harriet Lane, a fine
United States ship of war, iron clad. She was boarded and taken. Another of the
enemy's ships, it is said, was blown up by its officers, rather than surrender,
and many perished. If this be Magruder's work, it will make him famous.
Our public offices are crowded with applicants for
clerkships, mostly wounded men, or otherwise unfit for field duty.
How can we live here? Boarding is $60 per month, and I have
six to support! They ask $1800 rent for a dwelling — and I have no furniture to
put in one. Gen. Rains and I looked at one today, thinking to take it jointly.
But neither of us is able to furnish it. Perhaps we shall take it,
nevertheless.
SOURCE: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's
Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 1, p. 235
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