10th May (Sunday).—I spent a very rough night in consequence of the badness of the road, the jolting of the carriage, and having to occupy a centre seat.
In the morning we received news from every one we met of the fall of Alexandria.
The road to-day was alive with negroes, who are being “run” into Texas out of Banks’s way. We must have met hundreds of them, and many families of planters, who were much to be pitied, especially the ladies.
On approaching Munroe, we passed through the camp of Walker’s division (8000 strong), which was on its march from Arkansas to meet Banks. The division had embarked in steamers, and had already started down the “Wachita” towards the Eed Eiver, when the news arrived of the fall of Alexandria, and of the presence of Federal gunboats in or near the Wachita itself. This caused the precipitate return and disembarkation of Walker’s division. The men were well armed with rifles and bayonets, but they were dressed in ragged civilian clothes. The old Matagorda man recognised his son in one of these regiments—a perfect boy.
Munroe is on the “Wachita” (pronounced Washtaw), which is a very pretty and wide stream. After crossing it we arrived at the hotel after dark.
Universal confusion reigned there; it was full of officers and soldiers of Walker’s division, and no person would take the slightest notice of us.
In desperation I called on General Hebert, who commanded the post. I told him who I was, and gave him a letter of introduction, which I had fortunately brought from Kirby Smith. I stated my hard case, and besought an asylum for the night, which he immediately accorded me in his own house.
The difficulty of crossing the Mississippi appeared to increase the nearer I got to it, and General Hebert told me that it was very doubtful whether I could cross at all at this point. The Yankee gunboats, which had forced their way past Vicksburg and Port Hudson, were roaming about the Mississippi and Red River, and some of them were reported at the entrance of the Wachita itself, a small fort at Harrisonburg being the only impediment to their appearance in front of Munroe.
On another side, the enemy’s forces were close to Delhi, only forty miles distant.
There were forty or fifty Yankee deserters here from the army besieging Vicksburg. These Yankee deserters, on being asked their reasons for deserting, generally reply,—”Our Government has broken faith with us. We enlisted to fight for the Union, and not to liberate the G—d d—d niggers.” Vicksburg is distant from this place about eighty miles.
The news of General Lee’s victory at Chancellorsville had just arrived here. Every one received it very coolly, and seemed to take it quite as a matter of course; but the wound of Stonewall Jackson was universally deplored.
