February 13
Mr Toomer Porter had a sale of his furniture & moved his family to Charleston. Mr Irwin the proprietor now lives in the other wing and keeps his school, to which Harry goes.—
Miss Toomer & Miss Charlotte, her niece, are boarding at Mrs Thomsons. Her health is better, we visited her the other day and she complained of the fare, very little Milk, very little butter, always salt meat and now & then one fowl for 12 people. Her friends in Charleston find the price of all articles of food very high, Beef $1 per lb. She talked very earnestly of the difficulty of trusting any one. Once when very ill, she thinking herself likely to die, had a paper drawn up, & signed it, giving nineteen thousand dollars to a relation, one she thought was her friend, she recovered, but the money was taken, and she is allowed 5 hundred dollars a year, which she finds very hard to get: What poor creatures we all are.
There has been a great success at Galveston Texas, the Harriet Lane taken, and the Town; and at Sabine pass. In Charleston the Iron Clad Gun-boats went out, and sunk one of the vessels blocading the harbour. A Gun boat was taken in Stono River by Col. Yates’s command. The Gun boat expedition has not proved so signal a success. A vessel the Princess Royal was taken by the Blocading squadron and is a great loss to the Government. It is thought the Gun boats might have taken her. Arthur went to Stono as one of the Signal Corps and seems quite pleased with his prowis.—
Lieutenant Stevens lost his life in an engagement on the Mississippi River, his wife and Mother are bowed down with grief.—
The time slips away but the much desired peace is still very far off, a great deal of property is offered for sale and changes hands at very high prices negroes particularly.