January 1st, Thursday, 1863.
1863! Why I have hardly become accustomed to writing ’62 yet! Where has this year gone? With all its troubles and anxieties, it is the shortest I ever spent! ’61 and ’62 together would hardly seem three hundred and sixty-five days to me. Well, let time fly. Every hour brings us nearer air freedom, and we are two years nearer peace now than we were when South Carolina seceded. That is one consolation. . . .
I learn, to my unspeakable grief, that the State House is burned down.
