Heavy firing last night down the river, and about midnight an immense
amount of cheering. We were all called out, but found the cheering was on our
side. THE "ESCORT" (an unarmed steamer), HAD
RUN THE BLOCKADE AT RODMAN'S POINT, BRINGING UP THE 5TH RHODE ISLAND, COLONEL
SISSON, which practically ends the siege, as we can probably send or bring
vessels through the blockade any time. Robbins, Pierce, and myself have been
detailed in the fort to-day, building a bomb-proof for Gen. Foster, but the
fire from "Widow Blunt" was so lively we could do but little. We
received a mail in the mêlée, bringing about $25 to our mess, being the first
for several weeks it seems to us months. I immediately left my watch with a
jeweller in the 27th, who was in the fort, and who repaired it while under
fire. I now had the money to pay him, thanks to home folks. We have been so
hard up that a day or two since I tried for the first time to borrow a dollar
or two, asking even Capt. Richardson. When he showed me that his pocket-book
held only about two dollars, I gave it up. To-day I offered him some, when he
showed me a bill which came by the same mail as ours. I think the full
appreciation of the value of money will cling to us all, officers as well as
men, in all future time. Our change of clothes came to-day, but in an awful
condition.
SOURCE: John Jasper Wyeth, Leaves from a Diary Written While
Serving in Co. E, 44 Mass. Dep’t of North Carolina from September 1862 to June
1863, p. 49
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