old and new prayer books father had given me, and Miriam's, too;--pistol
and carving-knife ready, I stood awaiting the exodus. I heaped on the
bed the treasures I wanted to burn, matches lying ready to fire the
whole at the last minute. I may here say that, when all was over, I
found I had omitted many things from the holocaust. This very diary was
not included. It would have afforded vast amusement to the Yankees.
There may yet be occasion to burn them, and the house also. People
fortunately changed their minds about the _auto-da-fe_ just then; and
the Yankees have not yet arrived, at sundown. So, when the excitement
calmed down, poor Lilly tumbled in bed in a high fever in consequence
of terror and exertion.

[A page torn out]

I was right in that prophecy. For this was not the Will Pinckney I saw
last. So woebegone! so subdued, careworn, and sad! No trace of his once
merry self. He is good-looking, which he never was before. But I would
rather never have seen him than have found him so changed. I was
talking to a ghost. His was a sad story. He had held one bank of the
river until forced to retreat with his men, as their cartridges were
exhausted, and General Lovell omitted sending more. They had to pass
through swamps, wading seven and a half miles, up to their waists in
water. He gained the edge of the swamp, saw they were over the worst,
and fell senseless. Two of his men brought him milk, and "woke him up,"
he said. His men fell from exhaustion, were lost, and died in the
swamp; so that out of five hundred, but one hundred escaped. This he
told quietly and sadly, looking so heart-broken that it was piteous to
see such pain. He showed me his feet, with thick clumsy shoes which an
old negro had pulled off to give him; for his were lost in the swamp,
and he came out bare-footed. They reached the Lafourche River, I
believe, seized a boat, and arrived here last night. His wife and child
were aboard. Heaven knows how they got there! The men he sent on to
Port Hudson, while he stopped here. I wanted to bring his wife to stay
with us; but he said she could not bear to be seen, as she had run off
just as she had happened to be at that moment. In half an hour he would
be off to take her to his old home in a carriage. There he would rejoin
his men, on the railroad, and march from Clinton to the Jackson road,
and so on to Corinth. A long journey for men so disheartened! But they
will conquer in the