MARCH 19th.—Snowing. It is estimated that we lost 250 men, killed, wounded, and taken, in the fight on the Rappahannock; the enemy’s loss is not known, but certainly was heavy, since they were defeated, and fled back, hotly pursued. Confederate money still depreciates, in spite of the funding act. Some of the brokers are [...]
Camp 103d Illinois Infantry, Lagrange, Tenn., March 19, 1863. Nine whole days of the most beautiful sunshiny weather imaginable. Warm as our home June, almost. The boys bathe in the river that runs near our camp. The little birds warble in the trees, the beautiful young ladies walk out to enjoy the gentle spring breezes. [...]
MARCH 18th.—I sent an extract from my Diary of yesterday to the Hon. T. H. Watts, Minister of Justice. I know not whether he will appreciate its importance; but he has professed friendship for me. The city is in some excitement to-day, for early this morning we had intelligence of the crossing of the Rappahannock [...]
March 17th. On dit the Yankees have gone back to Baton Rouge, hearing we had sixty thousand men coming down after them. I believe I am positively disappointed! I did want to see them soundly thrashed! The light we thought was another burning house was that of the Mississippi. They say the shrieks of the [...]
Sunday, March 15th. To my unspeakable surprise, I waked up this morning and found myself alive. Once satisfied of that, and assuring myself of intense silence in the place of the great guns which rocked me to sleep about half-past two this morning, I began to doubt that I had heard any disturbance in the [...]
MARCH 15th.—Another cold, disagreeable day. March so far has been as cold and terrible as a winter month.
Camp 103d Illinois Infantry, Lagrange, Tenn., March 15, 1863. I have just returned from a walk to and inspection of the cemetery belonging to this nice little town. There, as everywhere, the marks of the “Vandal Yankees” are visible. The fence which formerly enclosed the whole grounds has long since vanished in thin air, after [...]
Saturday, March 14th. 5 o’clock, P.M. They are coming! The Yankees are coming at last! For four or five hours the sound of their cannon has assailed our ears. There! – that one shook my bed! Oh, they are coming! God grant us the victory! They are now within four miles of us, on [...]
MARCH 14th.—Gen. Pemberton writes that he has 3000 hogs-heads of sugar at Vicksburg, which he retains for his soldiers to subsist on when the meat fails. Meat is scarce there as well as here. Bacon now sells for $1.50 per pound in Richmond. Butter $3. I design to cultivate a little garden 20 by 50 [...]
MARCH 13th.—To-day a great calamity occurred in this city. In a large room of one of the government laboratories an explosion took place, killing instantly five or six persons, and wounding, it is feared fatally, some thirty others. Most of them were little indigent girls!
MARCH 12th.—To-day we have no army news. Mr. Richard Smith issued the first number of The Sentinel yesterday morning. Thus we have five daily morning papers, all on half sheets. The Sentinel has a biography of the President, and may aspire to be the “organ.” John Mitchel, the Irishman, who was sentenced to a [...]
March 12, 1863, The Charleston Mercury (CORRESPONDENCE OF THE MERCURY.) RICHMOND, Friday, March 7. It was a relief to us to hear that the Indianola had not been blown up. One of our papers recommends that the parties connected with the disgraceful affair (if such it was) be branded with the letters T. M., and [...]
MARCH 11th.—Gen. Fitzhugh Lee has made a dash into Fairfax (near Washington) a day or two ago, and captured the Federal Gen. Slaughter and other officers, in their beds. Last night one of the government warehouses in this city was burnt. It is supposed to have been the work of an incendiary traitor; perhaps in [...]
March 10th, Tuesday. I had so many nice things to say – which now, alas, are knocked forever from my head – when news came that the Yankees were advancing on us, and were already within fifteen miles. The panic which followed reminded me forcibly of our running days in Baton Rouge. Each one [...]
MARCH 10th.—No war news of importance. Just at this time there is a large number of persons passing to and from the North. They are ostensibly blockade-runners, and they do succeed in bringing from the enemy’s country a large amount of goods, on which an enormous profit is realized. The Assistant Secretary of War, his [...]
MARCH 9th.—We have no news to-day. But the next act of this terrible drama is near at hand. The Northern papers have reports of the fall of Vicksburg and Charleston. Unfounded. They also say 22,000 men have deserted from the Army of the Potomac. This is probably true. There is much denunciation of the recent [...]
Camp 103d Illinois Infantry, Jackson, Tenn., March 9, 1863. We leave here again in the morning for the Grange. Ordered to report there immediately to relieve a regiment, the 6th Iowa, which is going down the river. Am right glad to be again on the way. Can’t think that we will stay there long, though [...]
MARCH 8th.— Judge Meredith’s opinion, that foreigners, Marylanders, and others, who have served in the army, have become domiciled, and are liable to conscription, has produced a prodigious commotion. Gen. Winder’s door is beset with crowds of eager seekers of passports to leave the Confederacy; and as these people are converting their Confederate money into [...]
MARCH 7th.—The President is sick, and has not been in the Executive Office for three days. Gen. Toombs, resigned, has published a farewell address to his brigade. He does not specify of what his grievance consists; but he says he cannot longer hold his commission with honor. The President must be aware of his perilous [...]
Camp 103d Illinois Infantry, Jackson, Tenn., March 7, 1863. The rumors from Vicksburg in the Tribune of the 5th are enough to make one’s flesh creep, and more than sufficient to account for my little touch of the blues I do feel to-night as though some awful calamity had befallen our army somewhere. God grant [...]
March 7, 1863, The Charleston Mercury (CORRESPONDENCE OF THE MERCURY.) RICHMOND, Tuesday, March 3. Everybody admits that the horizon is darker than at any previous stage of the war, yet everybody is cheerful and confident. Dictator LINCOLN, with his powers of purse and sword, has no terrors for a people who have endured and achieved [...]
MARCH 6th.—I have meditated on this day, as the anniversary of my birth, and the shortening lapse of time between me and eternity. I am now fifty-three years of age. Hitherto I have dismissed from my mind, if not with actual indifference, yet with far more unconcern than at present, the recurring birthdays which plunged [...]
MARCH 5th.—Yesterday the government seized the flour in the mills and warehouses; and now the price has risen from $30 to $40 per barrel. I wrote to the Commissary, in view of the dissatisfaction of the people, and to prevent disturbances, advising him to seize the 5000 barrels in the hands of the small speculators, [...]
Camp 103d Illinois Infantry, Jackson, Tenn., March 5, 1863. You certainly should not complain of my neglect, in writing no more than once in ten days while we are quartered at such an intolerably stupid place as this, for there really have not been two incidents ocurred worthy of notice, since we pitched our tents [...]
MARCH 4th.—The enemy bombarded Fort McAlister again yesterday, several gun-boats opening fire on it. It lasted all day; during which one of the iron-clads retired, perhaps injured. We had only two men wounded and one gun (8 in. columbiad) dismounted. The fort was but little injured. Recent Northern papers assert that their gun-boats have all [...]