March 24, 1863

March 24, 1863

 

---The Richmond Daily Dispatch regularly publishes ads for escaped slaves, usually house slaves.  On this date, this one appears, as an example:

 

Five Hundred Dollars Reward.

–I will pay $500 reward for the apprehension and delivery to me, in Richmond, of my house boy Albert, who absconded from my residence, corner of 5th and Grace streets, on the morning of the 25th inst.Albert is of a dark gingerbread color, 27 years old, about 5 feet7 inches high, is well formed, quick and active in his motion, and wears rather a grim countenance when in conversation. He was raised by Mr. Isaac A. Goddin, and has two brothers and other relations in this city.

W. M. Sutton

 

---Oliver Willcox Norton, of the 83rd Pennsylvania Infantry, writes home to his family.  Among other topics, he discusses the need for intellectual diversion in the dreariness of camp life, and what he and a few comrades do to relieve it:

The meeting of the debating club last night was a feast for a hungry mind. The scene reminded me much of some exhibition at home. The building is a log one covered with canvas, and the seats mere logs, but a big fire was blazing in the fireplace, and the room was warm and comfortable. It was decorated with pendant wreaths and loops of evergreen, and two tasty chandeliers lit up the hall cheerfully. It was filled with well dressed, gentlemanly soldiers, and the exercises, a paper, a poem, and a debate, were so interesting I had hard work to tear myself away before it broke up, but duty first and pleasure afterwards is military style.