nt:--

"Then let the cannon boom as it will,
We'll be gay and happy still!"

And we will be happy in spite of Yankee guns! Only--my dear This, That,
and the Other, at Port Hudson, how I pray for your safety! God spare
our brave soldiers, and lead them to victory! I write, touch my guitar,
talk, pick lint, and pray so rapidly that it is hard to say which is my
occupation. I sent Frank some lint the other day, and a bundle of it
for Mr. Halsey is by me. Hope neither will need it! But to my work
again!

Half-past One o'clock, A.M.

It has come at last! What an awful sound! I thought I had heard a
bombardment before; but Baton Rouge was child's play compared to this.
At half-past eleven came the first gun--at least the first _I_ heard,
and I hardly think it could have commenced many moments before.
Instantly I had my hand on Miriam, and at my first exclamation, Mrs.
Badger and Anna answered. All three sprang to their feet to dress,
while all four of us prayed aloud. Such an incessant roar! And at every
report the house shaking so, and we thinking of our dear soldiers, the
dead and dying, and crying aloud for God's blessing on them, and defeat
and overthrow to their enemies. That dreadful roar! I can't think fast
enough. They are too quick to be counted. We have all been in Mrs.
Carter's room, from the last window of which we can see the incessant
flash of the guns and the great shooting stars of flame, which must be
the hot shot of the enemy. There is a burning house in the distance,
the second one we have seen to-night. For Yankees can't prosper unless
they are pillaging honest people. Already they have stripped all on
their road of cattle, mules, and negroes.

Gathered in a knot within and without the window, we six women up here
watched in the faint starlight the flashes from the guns, and silently
wondered which of our friends were lying stiff and dead, and then,
shuddering at the thought, betook ourselves to silent prayer. I think
we know what it is to "wrestle with God in prayer"; we had but one
thought. Yet for women, we took it almost too coolly. No tears, no
cries, no fear, though for the first five minutes everybody's teeth
chattered violently. Mrs. Carter had her husband in Fenner's battery,
the hottest place if they are attacked by the land force, and yet to my
unspeakable relief she betrayed no more emotion than we who had only
friends there. We know abs