The Wartime Journal of a Georgia Girl by Eliza Frances Andrews

Author:Eliza Frances Andrews [Andrews, Eliza Frances]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, United States, Civil War Period (1850-1877)
ISBN: 9781453727317
Google: EelEcAAACAAJ
Publisher: Createspace Independent Pub
Published: 2010-07-27T03:06:45+00:00

May 2, Tuesday. — Mr. Harrison left this morning, with a God-speed from all the family and prayers for the safety of the honored fugitives committed to his charge.

The disorders begun by the Texans yesterday were continued to-day, every fresh band that arrived from the front falling into the way of their predecessors. They have been pillaging the ordnance stores at the dépot, in which they were followed by negroes, boys, and mean white men. I don't see what people are thinking about to let ammunition fall into the hands of the negroes, but everybody is demoralized and reckless and nobody seems to care about anything any more. A number of paroled men came into our grove where they sat under the trees to empty the cartridges they had seized. Confederate money is of no more use now than so much waste paper, but by filling their canteens with powder they can trade it off along the road for provisions. They scattered lead and cartridges all over the ground. Marshall went out after they left and picked up enough to last him for years. The balls do not fit his gun, but he can remold them and draw the powder out of the cartridges to shoot with. I am uneasy at having so much explosive material in the house, especially when I consider the careless manner in which we have to live. There is so much company and so much to do that even the servants hardly have time to eat. I never lived in such excitement and confusion in my life. Thousands of people pass through Washington every day, and our house is like a free hotel; father welcomes everybody as long as there is a square foot of vacant space under his roof. Meeting all these pleasant people is the one compensation of this dismal time, and I don't know how I shall exist when they have all gone their ways, and we settle down in the mournful quiet of subjugation. Besides the old friends that are turning up every day, there is a continual stream of new faces crossing my path, and I make some pleasant acquaintance or form some new friendship every day. The sad part of it is that the most of them I will probably never meet again, and if I should, where, and how? What will they be? What will I be? These are portentous questions in such a time as this.

We had a larger company to dinner to-day than usual, but no one that specially interested me. In the afternoon came a poor soldier from Abbeville, with a message from Garnett that he was there, waiting for father to send the carriage to bring him home. He sat on the soft grass before the door, and we fed him on sorghum cake and milk, the only things we had to offer. I am glad the cows have not been emancipated, for the soldiers always beg for milk; I never saw one that was not eager for it at any time.

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