FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78  
79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   >>   >|  
opening into the house, and no windows. The stairs are like ladders, and the colonel's contraband valet won't risk his neck taking down water, but pours it through the windows on people's heads. We sha'n't stay in it. Men are at work closing up the caves; they had become hiding-places for trash. Vicksburg is now like one vast hospital--every one is getting sick or is sick. My cook was taken to-day with bilious fever, and nothing but will keeps me up. _July 23._--We moved again two days ago. _Aug. 20._--Sitting in my easy-chair to-day, looking out upon a grassy slope of the hill in the rear of this house, I have looked over this journal as if in a dream; for since the last date sickness and sorrow have been with me. I feel as if an angry wave had passed over me, bearing away strength and treasure. For on one day there came to me from New Orleans the news of Mrs. B.'s death, a friend whom no tie of blood could have made nearer. The next day my beautiful boy ended his brief life of ten days, and died in my arms. My own illness caused him to perish; the fatal cold in the cave was the last straw that broke down strength. The colonel's sweet wife has come, and I do not lack now for womanly companionship. She says that with such a prenatal experience perhaps death was the best for him. I try to think so, and to be glad that H. has not been ill, though I see the effects. This book is exhausted, and I wonder whether there will be more adventures by flood and field to cause me to begin another. THE LOCOMOTIVE CHASE IN GEORGIA BY WILLIAM PITTENGER The railroad raid to Georgia, in the spring of 1862, has always been considered to rank high among the striking and novel incidents of the civil war. At that time General O.M. Mitchel, under whose authority it was organized, commanded Union forces in middle Tennessee, consisting of a division of Buell's army. The Confederates were concentrating at Corinth, Mississippi, and Grant and Buell were advancing by different routes toward that point. Mitchel's orders required him to protect Nashville and the country around, but allowed him great latitude in the disposition of his division, which, with detachments and garrisons, numbered nearly seventeen thousand men. His attention had long been strongly turned toward the liberation of east Tennessee, which he knew that President Lincoln also earnestly desired, and which would, if achieved, strike a most damaging blow at the reso
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78  
79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

Tennessee

 
division
 

Mitchel

 

colonel

 

windows

 

strength

 
spring
 

Georgia

 

striking

 

incidents


considered

 

effects

 

exhausted

 
General
 
LOCOMOTIVE
 

GEORGIA

 

PITTENGER

 

WILLIAM

 

adventures

 

railroad


damaging
 

earnestly

 
desired
 

detachments

 
garrisons
 
numbered
 

disposition

 

latitude

 

country

 
allowed

seventeen
 
liberation
 
turned
 
strongly
 

thousand

 

attention

 

Lincoln

 

achieved

 

strike

 
forces

President

 

middle

 

consisting

 
commanded
 

authority

 

organized

 

Confederates

 
orders
 

required

 

protect