Diary of Sarah Morgan: Monday, June 16, 1862

My poor old diary comes to a very abrupt end, to my great distress. The hardest thing in the world is to break off journalizing when you are once accustomed to it, and mine has proved such a resource to me in these dark days of trouble that I feel as though I were saying good-bye to an old and tried friend. Thanks to my liberal supply of pens, ink, and paper, how many inexpressibly dreary days I have filled up to my own satisfaction, if not to that of others! How many disagreeable affairs it has caused me to pass over without another thought, how many times it has proved a relief to me where my tongue was forced to remain quiet! Without the blessed materials, I would have fallen victim to despair and “the Blues” long since; but they have kept my eyes fixed on “Better days a-coming” while slightly alluding to present woes; kept me from making a fool of myself many a day; acted as lightning rod to my mental thunder, and have made me happy generally. For all of which I cry, “Vivent pen, ink, and paper!” and add with regret, “Adieu, my mental Conductor. I fear this unchained lightning will strike somewhere, in your absence!”

SOURCE: Sarah Morgan Dawson, A Confederate Girl's Diary, p. 76-7

Diary of Corporal Alexander G. Downing: Wednesday, October 12, 1864

We started early this morning and marched to within five miles of Rome by midnight, when we went into bivouac for the rest of the night. We had to move very slowly on account of the teams giving out. Our horses and mules are getting very thin. This is because of the scarcity of forage, and then, too, the roads are very rough, which made it hard on them. Hood's force is thought to be about thirty thousand, while our army numbers fifty thousand men, of all arms, and the men are in fine shape. We received a large mail at Kingston, when passing through there this evening.

Source: Alexander G. Downing, Edited by Olynthus B., Clark, Downing’s Civil War Diary, p. 221

Colonel Charles Russell Lowell to Charles E. Perkins, October 17, 1864

Cedar Creek, Oct. 17, 1864.

I hope and trust and believe that you are doing all you can for Lincoln, — and I believe that McClellan's election would send this country to where Mexico and South America are. Do what you can to prevent it.

SOURCE: Edward Waldo Emerson, Life and Letters of Charles Russell Lowell, p. 362

Colonel Charles Russell Lowell to John M. Forbes, October 17, 1864

Cedar Creek, Oct. 17, 1864.

In spite of Will's anxiety to be back with us, and of our desire to have him back, I cannot but hope for your sake that he may somehow be delayed till we are safely in winter-quarters. Mails are very irregular up and down the Valley, and during active operations I am sure you and Mrs. Forbes would be constantly anxious about him, — more even than you can be now. Let him come back in time to open the Spring with us; that will be early enough to “retrieve all disasters” that you speak of. It was very kind of you to write me as you did about Billy; I know how you feel about him. I will tell you, what I believe I did not tell Alice, that I got off and walked some time before finally deciding to take him into the charge where he was hit, and that I had three orderlies' horses killed or disabled under me that day. I tried to use him as I knew you and Will would wish him used. He was a dear little horse, — did not always have a sore back, had got over that weakness bravely, — you see he was improving to the last day of his life.

I get the Chaplain's “Army and Navy Journal” for the present, — shall subscribe myself when he returns, — I have generally liked its articles about operations before Richmond, as they told me all I ever learned about that campaign. Its notices about this Shenandoah campaign have not been very good: it has been wrong in some most important facts and in some of its criticisms. It has been entirely wrong too in praising ——— so constantly; ——— from the beginning has been the laughing-stock here, — his absurd newspaper reporter may have caused this, — but worse than that, his false despatches to the General and his constant habit of having “infantry” in front of him, and of falling back “pressed,” have on two occasions come very near causing great disasters.

I am very glad, my dear Mr. Forbes, that we have not a handy writer among us. The reputation of regiments is made and is known in the Army, — the comparative merits are well known there. Such a notice as I saw of the —th ——— Cavalry makes a regiment ridiculous, besides giving the public false history, — yet I have no doubt the writer meant to be honest.

SOURCE: Edward Waldo Emerson, Life and Letters of Charles Russell Lowell, p. 362-4

Major-General John Sedgwick to his Sister, July 26, 1863

Warrenton, Virginia, July 26, 1863.

My dear sister:

Since I last wrote you we have been marching every day over the worst roads, and about the hottest days, except when raining, that I have ever seen or felt. Since we left Fredericksburg, now six weeks since, it has been the same thing, marching almost day and night, for many of our hardest marches have been made by night. We have done an incredible amount of labour, if we have accomplished but little. If the people of Pennsylvania had risen as they should have done, they might have done more injury to the enemy after the battle of Gettysburg than our army did at the battle. But it will scarcely be believed that not ten thousand men turned out, and then refused to follow into Maryland. New York sent more men to Harrisburg that followed up the enemy to the Potomac than Pennsylvania did, and the extortion to our troops, the sick and wounded included, surpasses belief. I am worn out. I have not had any clothes off since leaving the Rappahannock, and the army and animals are exhausted. Whether we are to have some rest here is uncertain. I regard it as an unsafe position; it is the one that Pope occupied last year, and we are but a little stronger. All of the reports in the papers regarding the demonstration of their army are untrue; at least, there is but little evidence of it. We have had no mail in the last week, and I know nothing that has been going on. A mail is expected to-night. The riots in New York have been suppressed, but their effect must have been more disastrous than the loss of a great battle. This is a beautiful country, but has not been cultivated this year; fences all down, houses deserted, and everything denoting the presence of both armies last fall, and the fear of both coming again; there are no such articles as vegetables or groceries to be had. We captured twelve thousand head of cattle and eight thousand head of sheep that the enemy had driven from Pennsylvania. Amongst the cattle were many cows and calves, which have been divided. One cow fell to my lot, which comes in good time, as at Berlin, Maryland, I gave mine to a parson who had his only one killed by our soldiers. Has the draft taken place in Connecticut?

With much love, I am

Your affectionate brother.

John Sedgwick.

SOURCE: George William Curtis, Correspondence of John Sedgwick, Major-General, Volume 2, p. 137-8

Diary of Lieutenant-Colonel Rutherford B Hayes: January 13, 1862

As commander of the post have charge of the pass business. Have deputized to do the clerkly part, and private Gray, Company I, to do the orderly and department part, an erect, neat, fine old soldier; like him much. . . .

The Twenty-sixth preparing to leave. Will take William Smith, a crack shot and well known bushwhacker, to Charleston or Columbus. James Phillips the owner of this cottage was in the habit of going to Miller's Ferry to shoot at our men. Mr. Mauser opposed it, said the town would be burned. To no purpose. Phillips kept at the business.

SOURCE: Charles Richard Williams, editor, Diary and Letters of Rutherford Birchard Hayes, Volume 2, p. 186-7

Francis Lieber to Major-General Henry W. Halleck, June 13, 1864

New York, June 13,1864.

. . . In reply to your letter of yesterday, the following: I was informed by Major A. Bolles that my opinion would be very acceptable to General Dix, as well as to himself, on the following question, “Can any military court or commission, in a department not under martial law, take cognizance of, and try a citizen for, any violation of the law of war, such citizen not being conneeted in any wise with the military service of the United States?” I answered, that undoubtedly a citizen under these conditions can, or rather must, be tried by military courts, because there is no other way to try him and repress the crime which may endanger the whole country; it is very difficult to say how far martial law extends, or in what degree it extends, in cases of great danger arising out of war; and that it must never be forgotten that the whole country is always at war with the enemy; that is to say, every citizen is an enemy to the opposing belligerent, and that there is in case of war — especially in a free country where no “cabinet wars” are carried on — by no means that distinction between soldier and citizen which many people either believe to exist or desire, — as though the citizen could quietly carry on all possible mischief with reference to the army, which is in fact his own army, and with reference to the war, which is as much his war as that of the army. . . .

SOURCE: Thomas Sergeant Perry, Editor, The Life and Letters of Francis Lieber, p. 347-8

Diary of John Beauchamp Jones: December 5, 1861

The account of the Drainsville massacre was furnished me by an officer of the 6th S. C. Regiment, which suffered severely. The newspaper accounts of the occurrence, upon which, perhaps, the history of this war will be founded, give a different version of the matter. And hence, although not so designed at first, this Diary will furnish more authentic data of many of the events of the war than the grave histories that will be written. Still, I do not aspire to be the Froissart of these interesting times: but intend merely to furnish my children, and such others as may read them, with reliable chronicles of the events passing under my own observation.

SOURCE: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 1, p. 98

Diary of Mary Boykin Chesnut: March 12, 1864

An active campaign has begun everywhere. Kilpatrick still threatens us. Bragg has organized his fifteen hundred of cavalry to protect Richmond. Why can't my husband be made colonel of that? It is a new regiment. No; he must be made a general!

“Now,” says Mary Preston, “Doctor Darby is at the mercy of both Yankees and the rolling sea, and I am anxious enough; but, instead of taking my bed and worrying mamma, I am taking stock of our worldly goods and trying to arrange the wedding paraphernalia for two girls.”

There is love-making and love-making in this world. What a time the sweethearts of that wretch, young Shakespeare, must have had. What experiences of life's delights must have been his before he evolved the Romeo and Juliet business from his own internal consciousness; also that delicious Beatrice and Rosalind. The poor creature that he left his second best bedstead to came in second best all the time, no doubt; and she hardly deserved more. Fancy people wondering that Shakespeare and his kind leave no progeny like themselves! Shakespeare's children would have been half his only; the other half only the second best bedstead's. What would you expect of that commingling of materials? Goethe used his lady-loves as school-books are used: he studied them from cover to cover, got all that could be got of self-culture and knowledge of human nature from the study of them, and then threw them aside as if of no further account in his life.

Byron never could forget Lord Byron, poet and peer, and mauvais sujet, and he must have been a trying lover; like talking to a man looking in the glass at himself. Lady Byron was just as much taken up with herself. So, they struck each other, and bounded apart.

[Since I wrote this, Mrs. Stowe has taken Byron in hand. But I know a story which might have annoyed my lord more than her and Lady Byron's imagination of wickedness — for he posed a fiend, but was tender and kind. A clerk in a country store asked my sister to lend him a book, he “wanted something to read; the days were so long.” “What style of book would you prefer?” she said. “Poetry.” “Any particular poet?” “Brown. I hear him much spoken of.” “Browningr?” “No; Brown — short — that is what they call him.” “Byron, you mean.” “No, I mean the poet, Brown.”]

“Oh, you wish you had lived in the time of the Shakespeare creature!” He knew all the forms and phases of true love. Straight to one's heart he goes in tragedy or comedy. He never misses fire. He has been there, in slang phrase. No doubt the man's bare presence gave pleasure to the female world; he saw women at their best, and he effaced himself. He told no tales of his own life. Compare with him old, sad, solemn, sublime, sneering, snarling, fault finding Milton, a man whose family doubtless found “les absences délicieuses.” That phrase describes a type of man at a touch; it took a Frenchwoman to do it.

“But there is an Italian picture of Milton, taken in his youth, and he was as beautiful as an angel.” “No doubt. But love flies before everlasting posing and preaching — the deadly requirement of a man always to be looked up to — a domestic tyrant, grim, formal, and awfully learned. Milton was only a mere man, for he could not do without women. When he tired out the first poor thing, who did not fall down, worship, and obey him, and see God in him, and she ran away, he immediately arranged his creed so that he could take another wife; for wife he must have, a la Mohammedan creed. The deer-stealer never once thought of justifying theft simply because he loved venison and could not come by it lawfully. Shakespeare was a better man, or, may I say, a purer soul, than self-upholding, Calvinistic, Puritanic, king-killing Milton. There is no muddling of right and wrong in Shakespeare, and no Pharisaical stuff of any sort.'”

Then George Deas joined us, fresh from Mobile, where he left peace and plenty. He went to sixteen weddings and twenty-seven tea-parties. For breakfast he had everything nice. Lily told of what she had seen the day before at the Spottswood. She was in the small parlor, waiting for someone, and in the large drawing-room sat Hood, solitary, sad, with crutches by his chair. He could not see them. Mrs. Buckner came in and her little girl who, when she spied Hood, bounded into the next room, and sprang into his lap. Hood smoothed her little dress down and held her close to him. She clung around his neck for a while, and then, seizing him by the beard, kissed him to an illimitable extent. “Prettiest picture I ever saw,” said Lily. “The soldier and the child.”

John R. Thompson sent me a New York Herald only three days old. It is down on Kilpatrick for his miserable failure before Richmond. Also it acknowledges a defeat before Charleston and a victory for us in Florida.

General Grant is charmed with Sherman's successful movements; says he has destroyed millions upon millions of our property in Mississippi. I hope that may not be true, and that Sherman may fail as Kilpatrick did. Now, if we still had Stonewall or Albert Sidney Johnston where Joe Johnston and Polk are, I would not give a fig for Sherman's chances. The Yankees say that at last they have scared up a man who succeeds, and they expect him to remedy all that has gone wrong. So they have made their brutal Suwarrow, Grant, lieutenant-general.

Doctor at the Prestons' proposed to show me a man who was not an F. F. V. Until we came here, we had never heard of our social position. We do not know how to be rude to people who call. To talk of social position seems vulgar. Down our way, that sort of thing was settled one way or another beyond a peradventure, like the earth and the sky. We never gave it a thought. We talked to whom we pleased, and if they were not comme il faut, we were ever so much more polite to the poor things. No reflection on Virginia. Everybody comes to Richmond.

Somebody counted fourteen generals in church to-day, and suggested that less piety and more drilling of commands would suit the times better. There were Lee, Longstreet, Morgan, Hoke, Clingman, Whiting, Pegram, Elzey, Gordon, and Bragg. Now, since Dahlgren failed to carry out his orders, the Yankees disown them, disavowing all. He was not sent here to murder us all, to hang the President, and burn the town. There is the note-book, however, at the Executive Office, with orders to hang and burn.

SOURCE: Mary Boykin Chesnut, Edited by Isabella D. Martin and Myrta Lockett Avary, A Diary From Dixie, p. 296-9

Diary of Judith Brockenbrough McGuire: February 28, 1863

To-day we are all at home. It is amusing to see, as each lady walks into the parlour, where we gather around the centre-table at night, that her work-basket is filled with clothes to be repaired. We are a cheerful set, notwithstanding. Our winding “reel,” too, is generally busy. L. has a very nice one, which is always in the hands of one or the other, preparing cotton for knitting. We are equal to German women in that line. Howitt says that throughout Germany, wherever you see a woman, you see the “everlasting knitting;” so it is with Confederate women. I only wish it was “everlasting,” for our poor soldiers in their long marches strew the way with their wornout socks.

SOURCE: Judith W. McGuire, Diary of a Southern Refugee, During the War, p. 195

Mary Boykin Chesnut to Charlotte Cross Wigfall, late January 1863

My dear friend,

My heart is heavier to-day than it has been since this murderous war began. I daresay I have told you, over and over, as I always talk of what is uppermost, that my cronies in Columbia, my bosom friends, were Mrs. Preston, Mrs. McCord and Mrs. Izard. Captain Cheves McCord, only son of my friend, lies dead at a Mr. Meyers' only a few doors below us. I did not know he was here. Mr. Chesnut had a letter from him yesterday dated Fredericksburg. He was wounded at the Second Manassas, two balls in his leg, and one in his head. Contrary to the advice of his doctors, he had rejoined his company, and this is the end. He died in convulsions from a pressure on the brain. His mother is expected by every train — poor thing — I could not sleep for thinking of her. She seemed to have but one thought in this world — “My Son.” He is barely twenty-one—is married— his wife a beautiful girl—unfortunate and miserable and wretched is it all!

. . . I will try to see you as soon as possible, but I will not, as I had hoped, take the box with you. This unhappy boy, lying dead so near me, makes the thought of theatres hateful to me just now.  . . . I feel you are too true hearted a mother not to sympathize.

Your friend,

M. B. C.

SOURCE: Louise Wigfall Wright, A Southern Girl in ’61, p. 83-4

EDITOR’S NOTE: Captain Langdon Cheves McCord, son of David James McCord and Louisa Susannah Cheves, died January 23rd 1863.  This undated letter, citing the fact that Captain McCord “lies dead at a Mr. Meyers' only a few doors below us,” it is evident this letter was written shortly after his death and before his burial.

Charlotte Cross Wigfall to Louise Wigfall, Sunday, June 29, 1862

Sunday, 29th.

Another note from your dear father this morning. It was written last night, the other side of the Chickahominy at Headquarters. He says they were still driving the enemy before them and that operations would begin again at daybreak, and that he hoped it would be over to-day. I shall not expect him back until it is entirely concluded. He says the slaughter has been terrible, but our success glorious.

SOURCE: Louise Wigfall Wright, A Southern Girl in ’61, p. 83

Diary of Sarah Morgan: June 11, 1862

Last evening mother and Miriam went to the Arsenal to see if they would be allowed to do anything for the prisoners. General Williams received them, and fascinated Miriam by his manner, as usual. Poor Miriam is always being fascinated, according to her own account. He sent for little Nathan Castle and Willie Garig, and left them alone in the room with them, showing his confidence and delicacy by walking away. The poor young men were very grateful to be remembered; one had his eyes too full of tears to speak. Mr. Garig told Miriam that when the story of her refusing the escort was told in camp, the woods rang with shouts of “Three cheers for Miss Morgan!” They said they were treated very well, and had no want, except clean clothes, and to let their mothers know they were well and content. I have been hard at work mending three or four suits of the boys' clothing for those poor young men. Some needed thread and needle very much, but it was the best we could do. So I packed them all up — not forgetting a row of pins — and sent Tiche off with the bundle, perched real Congo fashion on her many-colored head-handkerchief, which was tied in the most superb Creole style in honor of the occasion.

SOURCE: Sarah Morgan Dawson, A Confederate Girl's Diary, p. 75-6

Diary of Corporal Alexander G. Downing: Tuesday, October 11, 1864

The weather has been cool and pleasant for several days. Our entire corps started early this morning at 2 o'clock, going as we suppose, to Kingston. We marched through to Cartersville, where we went into camp for the night.

We hear that there was a hard fight at Altoona yesterday with fearful loss of life on both sides, but Hood had to give up trying to capture the place. It is reported that Hood is now moving toward Rome, Georgia.

Source: Alexander G. Downing, Edited by Olynthus B., Clark, Downing’s Civil War Diary, p. 221

Diary of John Beauchamp Jones: December 4, 1861

We are now tasting the bitter fruits of a too indulgent treatment of our enemies. Yesterday Gen. Stuart's cavalry and the 6th Regiment S. C. volunteers met with a bloody disaster at Drainsville. It appears that several of the traitors arrested and sent hither by Gen. Johnston were subsequently discharged by Gen. Winder, under the instructions of Mr. Benjamin, and sent to their homes, in the vicinity of Drainsville, at the expense of the government. These men, with revenge rankling in their breasts, reported to Gen. Stuart that a large amount of forage might be obtained in the vicinity of Drainsville, and that but a few companies of the enemy were in the neighborhood. The general believing these men to be loyal, since they seemed to have the confidence of the War Department, resolved to get the forage; and for that purpose started some 80 wagons early the next morning, escorted by several regiments of infantry and 1000 cavalry, hoping to capture any forces of the enemy in the vicinity. Meantime the Drainsville traitors had returned to their homes the preceding evening, and sent off intelligence to the headquarters of the enemy of the purpose of Gen. Stuart to send out in that direction, early the next day, a foraging party consisting of so many wagons, and small forces of infantry, artillery, and cavalry. - The enemy hastened away to Drainsville an overwhelming force, and ambuscaded the road, where it entered the woods, with artillery and men of all arms. Their line was the shape of a horseshoe, and completely concealed from view.

Gen. Stuart had not entered far into the jaws of this trap, before some of his trusty scouts reported the presence of the enemy. Believing it to be only the pickets of the few companies previously reported, the general advanced still farther; but at the same time ordering the wagons to retire. He was soon undeceived by a simultaneous and concentric fire of artillery and musketry, which brought down many of his men. Nevertheless, he charged through the lines in one or two places, and brought his guns to bear with effect on such portions of the enemy's line as were not wholly protected by the inequalities of the ground and the dense growth of woods. He quickly ascertained, however, that he was contending against vastly superior numbers, and drew off his forces in good order, protecting his wagons. The enemy did not pursue, for Stuart had rather more men than the informers reported to the enemy. But we lost 200 men, while the enemy sustained but little injury; their killed and wounded not exceeding 30.

This is the first serious wound inflicted on the country by Mr. Benjamin's policy.

SOURCE: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 1, p. 97-8

Diary of Mary Boykin Chesnut: March 11, 1864

Letters from home, including one from my husband's father, now over ninety, written with his own hand, and certainly his own mind still. I quote: “Bad times; worse coming. Starvation stares me in the face. Neither John's nor James's overseer will sell me any corn.” Now, what has the government to do with the fact that on all his plantations he made corn enough to last for the whole year, and by the end of January his negroes had stolen it all? Poor old man, he has fallen on evil days, after a long life of ease and prosperity.

To-day, I read The Blithedale Romance. Blithedale leaves such an unpleasant impression. I like pleasant, kindly stories, now that we are so harrowed by real life. Tragedy is for our hours of ease.

SOURCE: Mary Boykin Chesnut, Edited by Isabella D. Martin and Myrta Lockett Avary, A Diary From Dixie, p. 296

Diary of Judith Brockenbrough McGuire: February 26, 1863

In the city again yesterday. B. improving. The morning papers report firing upon Vicksburg. Several steamers have arrived lately, laden for the Confederacy. Blockade-running seems to be attended with less danger than it was, though we have lately lost a most valuable cargo by the capture of the “Princess Royal.” The “Alabama” continues to perform the most miraculous feats, and the “Florida” seems disposed to rival her in brilliant exploits. They “walk the water,” capturing every thing in their way, and know no fear, though many vessels are in pursuit. I am grieved to hear that my dear little J. P. has been ordered to Charleston. While he was on James River, I felt that I could be with him if he were wounded; but he is in God's hands:

“Be still, my heart; these anxious cares

To thee are burdens, thorns, and snares.”

The papers full of the probable, or rather hoped for, intervention of France. The proposition of the Emperor, contained in a letter from the Minister to Seward, and his artful, wily, Seward-like reply, are in a late paper. We pause to see what will be the next step of the Emperor. Oh that he would recognize us, and let fanatical England pursue her own cold, selfish course!

SOURCE: Judith W. McGuire, Diary of a Southern Refugee, During the War, p. 194-5

Charlotte Cross Wigfall to Louise Wigfall, Saturday, June 28, 1862

Saturday, 28th.

Your father did not come last night, dear L. I got a note from him early this morning. Thank God, he was unhurt! and remained to look up our wounded Texans. So far our victory has been brilliant, but oh! at what sacrifice of life! Poor Col. Marshall (1st Texas) is killed; so is Lieut. Col. Warwick. His poor mother's heart will be broken, I fear. (He was an only child.) The Major of the Regiment, too, is dangerously wounded. Genl. Hood is not hurt or was not when your father wrote. God grant your father may be safe now! He expected to be up all night collecting and caring for our wounded. We have heard no cannon to-day and don't know whether the fighting has continued or not. Cousin Lewis has just been here and says he hears 1,500 prisoners have already arrived, and among them 2 generals. There are all sorts of reports, one, that we have taken eighty officers above the rank of major. Your father thought the battle would be over today. I am almost afraid to believe it. Halsey has not been at all in the direction of the fight. He is guarding the batteries on the extreme right, and the contest has all been on the left. He has got his commission for 2nd Lieutenant — or rather, I have got it here for him.

SOURCE: Louise Wigfall Wright, A Southern Girl in ’61, p. 82-3

Diary of Sarah Morgan: June 10, 1862

This morning while I was attending to my flowers . . . several soldiers stopped in front of me, and holding on the fence, commenced to talk about some brave Colonel, and a shooting affair last night. When all had gone except one who was watching me attentively, as he seemed to wish to tell me, I let him go ahead. The story was that Colonel McMillan was shot through the shoulder, breast, and liver, by three guerrillas while four miles from town last night, on a scout. He was a quarter of a mile from his own men at the time, killed one who shot him, took the other two prisoners, and fell from his horse himself, when he got within the lines. The soldier said these two guerrillas would probably be hanged, while the six we saw pass captives, Sunday, would probably be sent to Fort Jackson for life. I think the guerrilla affair mere murder, I confess; but what a dreadful fate for these young men! One who passed Sunday was Jimmy's schoolmate, a boy of sixteen; another, Willie Garig, the pet of a whole family of good, honest country people. . . .

These soldiers will get in the habit of talking to me after a while, through my own fault. Yesterday I could not resist the temptation to ask the fate of the six guerrillas, and stopped two volunteers who were going by, to ask them. They discussed the fate of the country, told me Fort Pillow and Vicksburg were evacuated, the Mississippi opened from source to mouth; I told them of Banks's and McClellan's defeat; they assured me it would all be over in a month, — which I fervently pray may be so; told me they were from Michigan (one was Mr. Bee, he said, cousin of our General); and they would probably have talked all day if I had not bowed myself away with thanks for their information. It made me ashamed to contrast the quiet, gentlemanly, liberal way these volunteers spoke of us and our cause, with the rabid, fanatical, abusive violence of our own female Secession declaimers. Thank Heaven, I have never yet made my appearance as a Billingsgate orator on these occasions. All my violent feelings, which in moments of intense excitement were really violent, I have recorded in this book; I am happy to say only the reasonable dislike to seeing my country subjugated has been confided to the public ear, when necessary; and that even now, I confess that nothing but the reign of terror and gross prejudice by which I was surrounded at that time could justify many expressions I have here applied to them. Fact is, these people have disarmed me by their kindness. I expected to be in a crowd of ruffian soldiers, who would think nothing of cutting your throat or doing anything they felt like; and I find, among all these thousands, not one who offers the slightest annoyance or disrespect. The former is the thing as it is believed by the whole country, the latter the true state of affairs. I admire foes who show so much consideration for our feelings.

Contrast these with our volunteers from New Orleans — all gentlemen — who came to take the Garrison from Major Haskins. Several of them passing our gate where we were standing with the Brunots, one exclaimed, “What pretty girls!” It was a stage aside that we were supposed not to hear. “Yes,” said another; “beautiful! but they look as though they could be fast.” Fast! and we were not even speaking! not even looking at them! Sophie and I were walking presently, and met half a dozen. We had to stop to let them pass the crossing; they did not think of making way for us; No. I sighed — such a sigh! No. 2 followed, and so on, when they all sighed in chorus for our edification, while we dared not raise our eyes from the ground. That is the time I would have made use of a dagger. Two passed in a buggy, and trusting to our not recognizing them from the rapidity of their vehicle, kissed their hands to us until they were out of sight! All went back to New Orleans vowing Baton Rouge had the prettiest girls in the world. These were our own people, the elite of New Orleans, loyal Southerners and gentlemen. These Northerners pass us satisfied with a simple glance; some take off their hats, for all these officers know our name, though we may not know theirs; how, I can't say.

When I heard of Colonel McMillan's misfortune, mother conspired with me to send over some bandages, and something Tiche manufactured of flour under the name of “nourishment,” for he is across the street at Heroman's. Miriam objected on account of what “our people” will say, and what we will suffer for it if the guerrillas reach town, but we persuaded her we were right. . . . You can imagine our condition at present, many years hence, Sarah, when you reflect that it is the brave, noble-hearted, generous Miriam who is afraid to do that deed on account of "public opinion,” which indeed is “down” on us. At Greenwell they are frantic about our returning to town, and call us traitors, Yankees, and vow vengeance.  . . . A lady said to me, “The guerrillas have a black list containing the names of those remaining in town. All the men are to be hanged, their houses burned, and all the women are to be tarred and feathered.” I said, “Madam, if I believed them capable of such a vile threat, even, much less the execution, I would see them cut down without a feeling of compassion” (which is not true), “and swear I was a Yankee rather than claim being a native of the same country with such brutes.” She has a long tongue; when I next hear of it, it will be that I told the story, and called them brutes and hoped they would be shot, etc. And so goes the world. No one will think of saying that I did not believe them guilty of the thought, even. Our three brothers may be sick or wounded at this minute; what I do for this man, God will send some one to do for them, and with that belief I do it. . . .

SOURCE: Sarah Morgan Dawson, A Confederate Girl's Diary, p. 71-5

Diary of Corporal Alexander G. Downing: Monday, October 10, 1864

A large detail from our regiment was put to work on the railroad. Three of us, Hiram Frank, John D. Moore and I, took French leave this afternoon and climbed to the top of Kenesaw mountain. It is a grand view from the mountain, but we had to pay for our sightseeing, for when we got back to camp we found that our command had left. They were ordered to go on the double-quick to Altoona, Georgia, and we had to run about four miles before we caught up with them. Our bunkmates were carrying our knapsacks, haversacks, canteens and rifles, with all accouterments, and they were about as thankful as we were when we caught up with them.¹

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¹ General Corse had flagged Sherman for reinforcements, as Hood was trying to capture the place. Our army had about one million rations stored at Altoona. Sherman flagged: “Hold the fort; I am coming,” and General Corse answered back that he'd hold the fort to the death if need be. — A. G. D.

Source: Alexander G. Downing, Edited by Olynthus B., Clark, Downing’s Civil War Diary, p. 220-1