by John Beauchamp Jones
JANUARY 17TH.—There is nothing new to-day. The weather is pleasant for the season, the snow being all gone.
Custis has succeeded in getting ten pupils for his night-school, and this will add $100 per month to our income—if they pay him. But with flour at $300 per barrel; meal, $20 per bushel, and meat from $2 to $5 per pound, what income would suffice? Captain Warner (I suppose in return for some writing which Custis did for him) sent us yesterday two bushels of potatoes, and, afterwards, a turkey! This is the first turkey we have had during our housekeeping in Richmond.
I rarely see Robert Tyler nowadays. He used to visit me at my office. His brother John I believe is in the trans-Mississippi Department. My friend Jacques is about town occasionally.
January 17.—This morning the rebels made a desperate attack upon the Union lines near Dandridge, Tenn. They threw out no skirmishers, but pressed down upon the Nationals in full force, seemingly determined to sweep them from the field. Observing their desperate determination, General Sturgis ordered Colonel D. M. McCook, who was in command of a division of Elliott’s cavalry, to charge the enemy on horse. This order was obeyed most gallantly. The charge of this division turned the fortunes of the day, which, up to this time, had been decidedly against the Nationals. The First Wisconsin, which bore the brunt of the enemy’s attack, lost sixty in killed and wounded. The Union loss in all did not exceed one hundred and fifty.—A fight occurred at Camp Butler, near Springfield, Ill., destroying the officers’ quarters and quartermaster’s stores. Captain Dimon and Lieutenant Bennett, of the Thirty-eighth Illinois cavalry, were burned to death, and two other lieutenants were badly injured.—The bombardment of Charleston, S. C, by the forces under General Gillmore, was continued with great fury, several new Parrott guns having been opened on the city from Battery Gregg.
