The Richmond papers of yesterday mention two severe
skirmishes on the Rappahannock within a week The enemy are retreating through
Culpeper, Orange, etc., and our men are driving them on. General Jackson has
reached Warrenton. Burnside's army is said to be near Fredericksburg, and Pope
retreating towards Manassas. The safe situation of this town makes it a city of
refuge to many. Several of our old friends are here. Mr. and Mrs. Dixon, of
Alexandria, are just across the passage from us; the Irwins are keeping house,
and Mrs. Charles Minor is boarding very near us. This evening our friends the
S's arrived. None but persons similarly situated can know the heartfelt
pleasure of meeting with home friends, and talking of home scenes — of going
back, as we did this evening, to the dear old times when we met together in our
own parlours, with none to make us afraid. We see very little of Lynchburg
society, but in this pleasant boarding-house, with refugee society, we
want nothing more. The warmest feelings of my heart have been called forth, by
meeting with one of the most intimate friends of my youth — now Mrs. Judge
Daniel. We met the other day in the church-door, for the first time for many,
many years. Time has done its work with us both, but we instantly recognized
each other. Since that time, not a day has passed without some affectionate
demonstration on her part towards us. At her beautiful home, more than a mile
from town, I found her mother, my venerable and venerated friend Mrs. Judge Cabell,
still the elegant, accomplished lady, the cheerful, warm-hearted, Christian
Virginia woman. At four-score, the fire kindles in her eye as she speaks of our
wrongs. “What would your father and my husband have thought of these times,”
she said to me — “men who loved and revered the Union, who would have
yielded up their lives to support the Constitution, in its purity, but who
could never have given up their cherished doctrines of State rights, nor have
yielded one jot or tittle of their independence to the aggressions of the
North?” She glories in having sons and grandsons fighting for the South.
Two of the latter have already fallen in the great cause; I trust that the rest
may be spared to her.
I see that the Northern papers, though at first claiming a
victory at “Cedar Run,” now confess that they lost three thousand killed and
wounded, two generals wounded, sundry colonels aid other officers. The Times
is severe upon Pope — thinks it extraordinary that, as he knew two days
before that the battle must take place, he did not have a larger force at hand;
and rather “strange” that
he should have been within six miles of the battle-field, and did not reach it
until the fight was nearly over! They say, as usual, that they were greatly outnumbered!
Strange, that with their myriads, they should be so frequently
outnumbered on the battle-field! It is certain that our loss there was
comparatively very small; though we have to mourn General Winder of the
glorious Stonewall Brigade, and about two hundred others, all valuable lives.
SOURCE: Judith W. McGuire, Diary of a Southern
Refugee, During the War, p. 132-4
