January 20.—Hood’s army is really demoralized; our loss in every thing has been very great, and had it not been for our brave cavalry, scarcely a man would have been left to tell the tale. We have lost nearly all of our artillery. The company of which my brother is a member— Garrety’s battery—lost one man (Edward Haggerty) and all their guns, excepting one.
My brother writes, that the scene on leaving Tennessee was extremely distressing. On their entering it, the ladies received them joyfully, and were ready to do any thing in the world for them. When they left, the grief exhibited was enough to melt a heart of stone. He says the recollection of them makes him miserable. We have been told by many that the devotion of the women to the wounded at the battle of Franklin is beyond all praise. They gave clothes of all kinds to the well soldiers.
I have heard nothing before this to equal the sufferings of the men on this last retreat. Many of them were without shoes, and the snow was lying heavily on the ground. The flesh actually dropped from their feet. I heard of one man who has been compelled to have both feet amputated from this cause.
Every way we turn there is trouble and woe. A lady told me the other day that her young son in the Virginia army had suffered so much lately, that his hair is turning white. The army there have much to endure from the cold. The men are many of them from the South, and are not used to such weather.
In a letter received a few days ago from Rev. Mr. Clute, in Okolona, Mississippi, he says the enemy have destroyed the place, and robbed the people of every thing. They have even taken his children’s clothes; and he writes that he was himself in borrowed clothes.
Well, though every thing looks dark at present, that is nothing. The sun is often obscured with clouds, only to shine out more resplendent than ever.
“What though our cause be baffled, freemen cast
In dungeons, dragged to death, or forced to flee?
Hope is not withered in affliction’s blast—
The patriot’s blood’s the seed of freedom’s tree!”
