“These are the pattering drops that must inevitably be succeeded by a torrent of blood!”—A Rebel War Clerk’s Diary at the Confederate States Capital, By John Beauchamp Jones

JUNE 25th.—More accounts of battles and massacres in Missouri and Kansas. I never thought the Yankees would be permitted to ascend the Missouri River. What has become of the marksmen and deer hunters of Missouri? There has been also a fight at Leesburg, and one near Romney, Va. Blood has been shed in all of them. These are the pattering drops that must inevitably be succeeded by a torrent of blood!