From Mrs. Lyon’s Diary
Dec. 28.—The regiment returned from their recent expedition, all safe, not having found the enemy at all. We made up our minds that we were now going to have a good visit, but a dispatch arrived from Colonel Lowe with orders for the Thirteenth to go to Paris, as there is a strong force of rebels there, to prevent the Unionists from voting for their Congressional member. They are to have their election today. I fear our men will not get off so easily again. The men are completely tired out from their march, being in camp only one night. They started from here about five o’clock p. m., and will have to march all night to get there. This expedition is entirely under William’s supervision. His orders were to disembark at Paris Landing, and after that to do what seemed proper to him. He has two companies of cavalry with him. When he told me yesterday that they were going, I told him that I intended to go home on the gunboat, but he begged so hard for me to stay that I told him I would stay unless I heard bad news from home. He feels as badly as I do that he can not be with me, and says that they will surely be back in a few days.
The weather is perfectly beautiful. It is so warm that I do not pretend to put anything around me when I go out. The birds are singing as they do with us in the spring. The Eighty-Third Illinois Regiment from Fort Donelson has just passed, to join the Thirteenth in the expedition.
