June 16.—Max got back this morning. H. and he were in the parlor talking and examining maps together till dinner-time. When that was over they laid the matter before us. To buy provisions had proved impossible. The planters across the lake had decided to issue rations of corn-meal and peas to the villagers whose men had all gone to war, but they utterly refused to sell anything. “They said to me,” said Max, “‘ We will not see your family starve, Mr. K.; but with such numbers of slaves and the village poor to feed, we can spare nothing for sale.’” “Well, of course,” said H., “we do not purpose to stay here and live on charity rations. We must leave the place at all hazards. We have studied out every route and made inquiries everywhere we went. We shall have to go down the Mississippi in an open boat as far as Fetler’s Landing (on the eastern bank). There we can cross by land and put the boat into Steele’s Bayou, pass thence to the Yazoo River, from there to Chickasaw Bayou, into McNutt’s Lake, and land near my uncle’s in Warren County.”
Note: To protect Mrs. Miller’s job as a teacher in post-civil war New Orleans, her diary was published anonymously, edited by G. W. Cable, names were changed and initials were generally used instead of full names—and even the initials differed from the real person’s initials. (Read Dora Richards Miller’s biographical sketch.)