Camp Jones. — A fine bright day. General Cox is
trying to get our army transferred to General Pope's command in eastern
Virginia.
The dispatches received this beautiful afternoon fill me
with sorrow. We have an obscure account of the late battle or battles at
Richmond. There is an effort to conceal the extent of the disaster, but the
impression left is that McClellan's grand army has been defeated before
Richmond!! If so, and the enemy is
active and energetic, they will drive him out of the Peninsula, gather
fresh energy everywhere, and push us to the wall in all directions. Foreign
nations will intervene and the Southern Confederacy be established.
Now for courage and clear-headed sagacity. Nothing else will
save us. Let slavery be destroyed and this sore disaster may yet do good.
SOURCE: Charles Richard Williams, editor, Diary and
Letters of Rutherford Birchard Hayes, Volume 2, p. 295-6
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