July 27.—We are getting along pretty well; we have moved into the building in which is the kitchen and dining-room. The house is a very small one, and although this part of Georgia abounds in lime, it seems to be little used in the houses; the walls are generally boarded. This house has the addition of paper on its walls, which we have been compelled to take down, owing to its being in tatters.
All our cooks are negroes, and I find I have much more to do than when we had our soldiers in that capacity. A negro is a negro at best, and nothing more. They have to be told the same thing every day, and watched to see if they do it then.
I see by the Mobile papers that General Buckner, who is in command of that post, is making great preparations for a siege, as there is an attack expected there soon. I hope the city will be able to stand as nobly as Charleston is doing, and that we will have no more Vicksburg disasters.
Many of the returned prisoners are blaming Pemberton alone for the fall of Vicksburg, saying that the place was not properly provisioned, and that that was the cause of its surrender. The suffering of our men, both there and at Port Hudson, was terrible, poor fellows! it does seem hard to have had to endure so much from the incompetency of their commander.
If the people have to leave Mobile, I do not see what is to become of them. I have seen enough of refugeeing to prove that it is not the best thing in the world. But Mobilians will have to do as others have done before them—the best they can under the circumstances—knowing it a the fortune of war, and all for the cause.
