Old Times in Dixie Land

heart, my dearest friend, about your son David. I heard he was killed, but I have just seen Mr. Holmes, who has read in a Yankee paper: 'Capt. Merrick, of Gen. Stafford's staff, sli

ow that he was killed on the battlefield at Franklin. My son Wesley was reported missing after the fight at Chickamauga; he may be a prisoner. I have heard nothing more, and my heart stands still when I think he too may have been killed, and his body thrown in some ravine or creek, as the Texans are said sometimes to do when they 'lose' their Yankee prisoners on the march. God knows, this is a wicked war! And there is Bowma

ball entering his head above the ear and going out on the other side below the ear. He fell from his horse, it was supposed, mortally wounded. By careful medical attention he survi

any mothers' boys can never come back to them, and I am alive and getting better every day. If you have felt cramped in expression, or anybody has e

-not one word of complaint in the whole of it." The surgeon attributed my son's extraordinary re

tive here. I never saw her before. The ladies are very kind and contribute to all our wants. Hundreds of them promenade daily before our windows; they look very sweet and lovely to us. Their hearts are all right, but when they motion to us with their fans, or wave their handkerchiefs, the guards take them away. The w

g up his buried silver, and so alarmed the old lady that she died of fright. I wish to got back into the field-feel

o years at Johnson's Island until after the surrender, he has been for

my as fitted their purpose, and had no scruples about doing the most lawless and violent deed. At one time it was unsafe to let it be known when the head of the family would go or return, or to allow any plans to leak out, lest a descent should be made on the unprotected home or the equally unprotected absentee. A careful servant, closi

stores with them, but the sense of protection was an unspeakable comfort. I had rooms near my house furnished as a hospital, where I nursed friend or foe who came to me

ce my guest. While sipping his champagne at dinner he exclaimed: "I'm astonished, madam, that in these times you can be living in such luxury!" I explained that it was the birthday of my daughter Laura for which we had long prepared, and that t

in command of the Department of Mississippi and Alabama, his brilliant record culminated in the victories of Mansfield and Pleasant Hill. Having beaten General Banks one day at the former place, he pursued him to Pleasant

Historical So

y table, he asked: "Did you raise these peas under glass, madam?" "Look at my broken windows," I answered, "all over this house, and tell whether I can raise peas under glass when we can't keep ourselves under it!" With such as we had everybody kept open house while the war lasted. Nobody, high o

n to desert the army, because their little children were starving at home; it was also good news to the broad-minded student of history who knew that surrender was the only alternative for an army over

nder, the altered social and domestic conditions engrossed every energy. Every home mourned its dead. Those were counted happy who could lay tear-dewed flowers upon the graves of their soldier-slain-so many never looked again, even upon the dead face of him who had smiled back a

to follow to the grave the army of men, of fifty years and over when the war began, whose hearts broke with the loss of half a century's accumulations and ambitions, and with the failure of the cause fo

ined to meet responsibilities. So in those days of awful uncertainties, when men's hearts failed them, it was the woman who brought her greater adaptability and elasticity to control circumstances, and to lay the foundations of a new order. She sewed, she sold flowers, milk and vegetables, and she taught school; sometimes even a negro school. She made pies and corn-bread, and palmetto hats for the Federals in garrison; she r

re. Care seems likely to eat up every pleasure in their bewildered lives. They no longer dance and sing in the quarters at night, but sit about in dejected groups; their chief dissipation is prayer-meeting. It is a dire perplexity that they must pay their doctor's bills; they resent it as a bitter injustice that 'Marster' does not 'find them' in medicine and all the ordinary things of living as of old. They say no provision is made for them. They are left to work for white folks the same as ever, but for white folks who no longer care for them nor are interested in their own joys and sorrows. Freedom meant to them the abolition of work, liberty to rove unc

ittle black Jake to steal some of them back for me, as he says he knows where they are. I cannot even set the bread to rise without some of it being taken. All this, notwithstanding

s collected the national revenues; agents of the Freedman's Bureau are taking the census of negro children preparatory to forming schools, and Northern land buyers are looking out for bargains in broken-up estates. Is it strange t

d more. They-the Federals-burnt the mill mortgaged to me by G. B. M.-and I shall lose $5,000 on that. I think I have done remarkably well to have paid off so many incumbrances, but I wish you to have for the pr

patience under our temporary separation. I do not wish them to aid me by earning anything, except it be David, for hi

e South denounce the assassination of Linc

mies. A fine sugar estate, near us on the river, worth two hundred thousand dollars, was sold last week for taxes, which were seven thousand five hundred dollars. The whole estate-land, dwelling, sugar

he fields for gathering, the hands are all given by the semi-military government 'passes to go,' though we pay wages; and (weakly or humanely?) buy food, furnish doctors and wait on the sick, very much in the old way, simply because

h the result. Though they acknowledge every item on their accounts, furnished at New Orleans wholesale prices, it is a disappointment not to have a large sum of money for their year's labor-that, too, after an extravagance of liv

tutes lard; yet I cannot withhold my admiration when I see her double the recipe in order that her own table may be graced with a soft-jumble as good as mine. Somebody has said: 'By means of fire, blood, sword and sacrifice you have been separated from your black idol.' I

The best people in the South were true to our cause; only the worthless and unprincipled, with rare exceptions, went over to the enemy. We must bear our trials with what wisdom and patience we may be able to summon until our status is fully defined. I cannot but feel, however, that if war measures had ceased with the war, if United States officers on duty here, and the Government at Washington,