I spent a very rough night in consequence of the badness of
the road, the jolting of the carriage, and having to occupy a centre seat.
In the morning we received news from every one we met of the
fall of Alexandria.
The road to-day was alive with negroes, who are being “run”
into Texas out of Banks's way. We must have met hundreds of them, and many
families of planters, who were much to be pitied, especially the ladies.
On approaching Munroe, we passed through the camp of
Walker's division (8000 strong), which was on its march from Arkansas to meet
Banks. The division had embarked in steamers, and had already started down the “Wachita”
towards the Red River, when the news arrived of the fall of Alexandria, and of
the presence of Federal gunboats in or near the Wachita itself. This caused the
precipitate return and disembarkation of Walker's division. The men were well
armed with rifles and bayonets, but they were dressed in ragged civilian
clothes. The old Matagorda man recognised his son in one of these regiments — a
perfect boy.
Munroe is on the “Wachita” (pronounced Washtaw), which is a
very pretty and wide stream. After crossing it we arrived at the hotel after
dark.
Universal confusion reigned there; it was full of officers
and soldiers of Walker's division, and no person would take the slightest
notice of us.
In desperation I called on General Hebert, who commanded the
post. I told him who I was, and gave him a letter of introduction, which I had
fortunately brought from Kirby Smith. I stated my hard case, and besought an
asylum for the night, which he immediately accorded me in his own house.
The difficulty of crossing the Mississippi appeared to
increase the nearer I got to it, and General Hebert told me that it was very
doubtful whether I could cross at all at this point. The Yankee gunboats, which
had forced their way past Vicksburg and Port Hudson, were roaming about the
Mississippi and Red River, and some of them were reported at the entrance of
the Wachita itself, a small fort at Harrisonburg being the only impediment to
their appearance in front of Munroe.
On another side, the enemy's forces were close to Delhi,
only forty miles distant.
There were forty or fifty Yankee deserters here from the
army besieging Vicksburg. These Yankee deserters, on being asked their reasons
for deserting, generally reply, — “Our Government has broken faith with us. We
enlisted to fight for the Union, and not to liberate the G-d d----d niggers.”
Vicksburg is distant from this place about eighty miles.
The news of General Lee's victory at Chancellorsville had
just arrived here. Every one received it very coolly, and seemed to take it
quite as a matter of course; but the wound of Stonewall Jackson was universally
deplored.
SOURCE: Sir Arthur James Lyon Fremantle, Three
Months in the Southern States: April-June, 1863, p. 85-7
