August 10, 1863

August 10, 1863

---Judith White McGuire, of Richmond, writes in her journal of a story she hears from a young soldier who has just died at home of his wounds:

August 10.—Spent this morning in the house of mourning. Our neighbour Mrs. S. has lost her eldest son. The disease was “that most fatal of Pandora’s train,” consumption. He contracted it in the Western Army. His poor mother has watched the ebbing of his life for several months, and last night he died most suddenly. That young soldier related to me an anecdote, some weeks ago, with his short, oppressed breathing and broken sentences, which showed the horrors of this fratricidal war. He said that the day after a battle in Missouri, in the Fall of 1861, he, among others, was detailed to bury the dead. Some Yankee soldiers were on the field doing the same thing. As they turned over a dead man, he saw a Yankee stop, look intently, and then run to the spot with an exclamation of horror. In a moment he was on his knees by the body, in a paroxysm of grief. It was his brother. They were Missourians. The brother now dead had emigrated South some years before. He said that before the war communication had been kept up between them, and he had strongly suspected that he was in the army; he had consequently been in constant search of his brother. The Northern and Southern soldier then united in burying him, who was brother in arms of the one, and the mother’s son of the other!

---Lucy Johnston Ambler, of Faquier County in Northern Virginia, writes in her diary of the condition of the Rebel troops and problems with the Federals encouraging her slaves to run off:

August 10, 1863. Again there seems to be apprehension of the negroes going off. At Leeds, Mrs. J. K. Marshall’s farm, 29 went off with the Yankey army reducing their numbers very much. They still think more are going. There is a body of Yankey cavalry within five miles of us and it is probable they are there for the purpose of helping off the blacks. Poor creatures!  They seem doomed to utter extirpation. Some of the Yankeys advise them to go, and others tell [them] they had better stay where they are.

We hear nothing of our army that is at all reliable, but trust that God will be with them and give them a signal victory over our enemies. We hear a good deal of riots at the North resisting the draft but I fear Lincoln has placed his foot too firmly on the necks of the people for them to offer resistance, unless the hand of God interfere. We must as far as we can judge be prepared to fight fresh hordes of these barbarous people who seem bent in every way on our entire destruction. Lord, save or we perish. May it please the Lord that our universal cry for peace may ascend to him who is more ready to than we to ask good at his hand. O may his mercy be upon us even as our trust is in his army mighty to save those who in humble reliance on him put all their trust in him and cast their cares on his strong arm mighty to save through Christ.