August 9, 1863

August 9, 1863

---President Lincoln writes to Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, strongly urging vigorous action in the recruitment of black troops:  "Gen. [Lorenzo] Thomas has gone again to the Mississippi Valley, with the view of raising colored troops. I have no reason to doubt that you are doing what you reasonably can upon the same subject. I believe it is a resource which, if vigorously applied now, will soon close the contest. It works doubly, weakening the enemy and strengthening us."

---John Beauchamp Jones, of the War Department in Richmond, writes in his journal of his garden---one attempt at dealing with the worsening food shortage in the Confederate capital:

We have fine hot August weather now, and I hope my tomatoes will mature, and thus save me two dollars per day. My potatoes have, so far, failed; but as they are still green, perhaps they may produce a crop later in the season. The lima beans, trailed on the fence, promise an abundant crop; and the cabbages and peppers look well. Every inch of the ground is in cultivation—even the ash-heap, covered all over with tomato-vines.

---Beginning to move at last, Rosecrans orders several of his army’s corps to move toward the Tennessee River.  He also dispatches troops to chase down Gen. Forrest who, in characteristic fashion, is plaguing the Yankees with raids in the flank and rear.

---Annie M. Schon writes to her sister Bettie Kimberley in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and discusses the horrific inflation in the South, and of its effect on the Kimberley family, since Mr. Kimberley is on the faculty at the University of North Carolina:

You speak of the prices in Chapel Hill, they are just the same here, and it is frightful to think how much we pay for so little but when we think of the value of our currency we ought not to be surprised at the cost of things for in reality one dollar now is not work more than ten cents used to be. But I think it is shameful Mr. Kimberly’s salary has not been raised.  I don’t know how the professors can be expected to live on the same amount they received formerly when prices have increased so much. . . . we will yet see the day when we will look back even upon the present prices and consider them very low, and I have now determined to buy as soon as possible every thing I will need for the next year, and I would buy for 2 years to come but Mr. Schon thinks it is best not to do so, as he thinks in a year we will have brighter times, but I have given up the hope & since our late misfortunes, think the war may continue for years.