January 15. Wednesday. — A swashing rain is falling on top of the snow. What floods and what roads we shall have! No more movements in this quarter. Yesterday a party from Camp Hayes went out after forage to the home of a man named Shumate who had escaped from the guardhouse in Raleigh a few days ago. They stopped at his house. As one of the men were [was] leaving, he said he would take a chunk along to build a fire. Mrs. Shumate said, “You’ll find it warm enough before you get away.” The party were fired on by about thirty bushwhackers; two horses badly wounded. Four men had narrow escapes, several balls through clothing.
Two more contrabands yesterday. These runaways are bright fellows. As a body they are superior to the average of the uneducated white population of this State. More intelligent, I feel confident. What a good-for-nothing people the mass of these western Virginians are! Unenterprising, lazy, narrow, listless, and ignorant. Careless of consequences to the country if their own lives and property are safe. Slavery leaves one class, the wealthy, with leisure for cultivation. They are usually intelligent, well-bred, brave, and high-spirited. The rest are serfs.
Rained all day; snow gone. I discharged three suspicious persons heretofore arrested; all took the oath. Two I thought too old to do mischief, Thurman and Max; one I thought possibly honest and gave him the benefit of the possibility. He was from Logan County. Knew Laban T. Moore and my old friend John Bromley. John, he says, is “suspect” of Secesh.
