February 27th. Grace Greenwood, Mrs. Lippencott of literary renown, has been our guest for the past two days. She came to lecture before the officers and their friends of the division and is quartered and will remain for two weeks with us. She is most fascinating in her conversation and manner and is a valuable acquisition at the breakfast table, full of anecdotes, wit, and bon mots all carefully arranged and kept in readiness for the proper occasion. After the lecture we clear the floor for dancing, and there is “revelry by night,” invariably till twelve o’clock. Hobart, Wilson, Broom, and I are standing floor managers and are always receiving more or less agreeable attention.
Thursday, February 27, 2014
by John Beauchamp Jones
FEBRUARY 27TH—Bright and pleasant—dusty. But one rain during the winter!
The “associated press” publishes an unofficial dispatch, giving almost incredible accounts of Gen. Forrest’s defeat of Grierson’s cavalry, 10,000 strong, with only 2000. It is said the enemy were cut up and routed, losing all his guns, etc.
Sugar is $20 per pound; new bacon, $8; and chickens, $12 per pair. Soon we look for a money panic, when a few hundred millions of the paper money is funded, and as many more collected by the tax collectors. Congress struck the speculators a hard blow. One man, eager to invest his money, gave $100,000 for a house and lot, and he now pays $5000 tax on it; the interest is $6000 more—$11,000 total. His next door neighbor, who bought his house in 1860 for $10,000, similar in every respect, pays $500 tax (valued at date of sale), interest $600; total, $1100 per annum. The speculator pays $10,000 per annum more than his patriotic neighbor, who refused to sell his house for $100,000.
