Tuesday, January 15, 2013

January 15th [1863]. It stormed all night. I lay awake and thought of the poor, poor soldiers. I thought, too, much of the fall of Ft. Donelson, where the flag of the Confederacy went down in storm and blood. How sadly I recall my feeling of horror the night an “extra” made known to us that tragic event! How much blood shed since! Lincoln calls the slaughter of Fredericksburg an accident—some new road to Richmond is to be proposed, his troops are not to go into winter quarters. This will keep our poor Southern boys also exposed, and now, even in this latitude, the cold wind is singing its melancholy song, both by night and day. God help them all, and the poor anxious women who are watching.

Mrs. Blinks’conversed with a gentleman who had spoken with four different ship owners at the North; each had lost a vessel at nearly the same time, and each loser reported himself to have been robbed by the Alabama, Captain Semmes. He and others think that we have several privateers out; the Arrieto lately ran the blockade at Mobile. I have just read the captures of the Ariel by the Alabama, and the speech of Captain Semmes to the frightened crew. “We are gentlemen, not pirates,” and “We gentlemen of the Alabama harm no one,” are speeches which especially took my fancy. In answer to a voice which cried,” You nearly sunk our ship just now with your shot,” he said, “That is our duty; we war upon the sea.” He is no pirate, he claims, but carries a Confederate State’s commission. He is a gallant fellow, and I am glad he comes from Maryland. These Southern soldiers often stir a vein of poetry in my heart which I had thought belonged exclusively to the knights of old. I remember when Bradley Johnson rode into Fredericktown, Maryland, he cried out to the timid, “We come to harm no one; we are friends, we are not robbers, but Southern gentlemen.” The Northern people have not shown their boasted civilization in the progress of this war. Robbery, house-burning, and every species of depredation has marked the course of the Northern armies. Our soldiers at least respect woman, but even in this town helpless females have been driven from their houses without their personal effects, and insulted in the grossest manner. I hear that our Louisiana boys often go into a fight with cries of “New Orleans and Butler.”

Negroes are starving in the streets, though the Federals have taxed all citizens here who have had anything to do with the war for the support of the poor. They boast of feeding our poor, but the city furnishes the means; they do not contribute a penny themselves, but sell their provisions at the highest rate. Butler boasted to the last of having fed this starving city.