April 17.—Mr. Moore came in to-day and told us very calmly that Lee and his whole army were captured. I was mute with astonishment, and looked at Mr. M., thinking I had seen our people take disasters coolly, but had never seen any thing to equal his coolness in telling of such a terrible one. After awhile he laughed, and said he had frightened us enough; that such news had come by a lady from Chattanooga; she had seen it in the northern papers. He said it was one of the tales invented by the enemy to dismay us, but we were not to be so easily frightened.
After Mr. M. had left us, I commenced thinking over the news, and concluded that it probably might be true. I had just read an account of the last three days’ fighting around Petersburg, and it had filled me with dismay. How our men ever withstood such a host is a perfect miracle. They were behind breastworks, but the enemy came on them eight deep, and as fast as one line was mowed down another took its place. It is said that in these three days at least sixty thousand of the enemy were killed; and that our loss was nothing in comparison, but God knows it was enough. General Lee did not have fifty thousand in his army, and the enemy at least two hundred and fifty thousand. It seems like downright murder attempting to oppose such a force. O, how terrible is this cruel, cruel war! When will it cease?
When I saw Mr. M. again, I told him I had made up my mind to try and think that our late disaster might possibly be true. Perhaps General Lee had been overwhelmed by numbers, and compelled to surrender with his handful of men. We seem to have forgotten that he is mortal, and liable to failures like all others.
Mr. M. would not listen to me, and said that such a thing was a moral impossibility. We can hear nothing reliable. It seems as if we were shut out from the whole world.
This evening we went to the Methodist Church; a chaplain, Rev. Dr. Baird, a Presbyterian, preached. Quite a number of children were admitted on probation, and some were baptized. The sight was quite an interesting one.
