The public mind of the entire South is fast recovering from the causeless panic occasioned by the unfortunate affairs at Roanoke Island and Fort Donelson. Considerate men see that much ultimate good may come of them, by inuring us to defeats that must often occur in a war with a power possessed of inferior numbers and superior resources of all kinds, by curing us of that rashness which our continued successes had begotten,–and, most of all, by stimulating enlistments, and thus increasing the numbers and efficiency of our armies. . . . they will have a disposable force of only three hundred thousand with which to invade our interior; and, in long incursions, this will be diminished at least one third by the forces detailed to keep up communication with their bases of operation. Besides, by deferring their invasion of the South until the warm season, they will soon decimate their ranks by the malarious diseases of our climate. . . . They cannot probably hold Nashville longer than the rainy season keeps the Cumberland river flooded. We know not how large an army they have there, but believe it cannot be very large. . . . The North, under weight of debt and want of cotton, is becoming desperate, and will rashly quit its wooden walls ere long and march far into our interior. Then we will make prisoners of their armies, and gloriously and triumphantly wind up the war. Let faint-hearted people recollect that we never yet met them with equal numbers in the open field without defeating them. . . .
—Gen. C.F. Smith moves most of his Federal troops (formerly under Grant’s command) along with a flotilla of gunboats to Savannah, Tennessee, on the Tennessee River near the Mississippi state line, in a move to cut off the army Gen. Beauregard is combining at Jackson, Tennessee. Beauregard is given command of what is called the Army of Mississippi. A.S. Johnston, meanwhile, with the Rebel troops who evacuated Bowling Green and Nashville, moves down into Alabama with the idea of shifting westward to get in front of the Federals and to shield the crucial railroad junction of Corinth, Mississippi.
—In Savannah, Georgia, Mrs. Louisa Fredericka Alexander Gilmer writes to her husband, Jeremy Gilmer, who is serving as a military engineer in Gen. A.S. Johnston’s command in Tennessee, asking about rumors of an impending attack on Savannah and offering her fiery passion for the Southern cause:
Do you & he know of any dreadful engine of war & destruction that is to be brought against us, that we haven’t heard of, & is sure to defeat and destroy us _ or are you both, as I fear you are _ infected by the defeat we have sustained in Nashville, and so disheartened that you feel sure every attack of our enemies must result in victory to them _ Oh my dear husband, it has been one of my constant prayers for you. Since the disasters in wh. you have been involved, that your heart might be sustained in all the trying and depressing scenes that were to follow, & that you might be saved from the baleful influences of doubt & despondency _ that you might be enabled to look up notwithstanding the partial success of our enemies _ & feel that our cause was Just & must prevail_ I cannot bear to think of you as low spirited & depressed _ and indeed I hope from you letters, wh. I have had & read again, to get into their spirit _ that you are not. . . . I cannot go scouring the country to run from Yankees. I should despise myself, if I went & hid in some dark corner of the land for fear of them _ No _ I pray my Heavenly Father to take care of me _ & he is mightier than many Yankees _ and I pray daily that he will direct me what to do, & where to go _ and choose my lot for me _ and so far no light has been given me, but to stay where I am & trust in him. . . . But do not allow yourself to be distressed for us _ I am not going to be cut off from you, or the chance to get to you _ & if I have to loose my clothes _ that will be the worst can happen to me _ for I shall certainly leave before the Union Flag is hoisted here _ I never never, will stand alive and well again, under its folds, unless to follow you as a prisoner. . . .
—Mary Boykin Chestnut, at her plantation Mulberry in South Carolina, writes in her journal of her despair of either Britain or France coming to aid the Confederacy: “I like Disraeli because I find so many clever things in him. I like the sparkle and the glitter. Carlyle does not hold up his hands in holy horror of us because of African slavery. Lord Lyons has gone against us. Lord Derby and Louis Napoleon are silent in our hour of direst need. People call me Cassandra, for I cry that outside hope is quenched. From the outside no help indeed cometh to this beleaguered land.”
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