April 2d and 3d
The appalling news of the evacuation of
Richmond and
Petersburg has reached us, and the
Yankee papers are frantic in their exultant rejoicings.
We have feared and rather expected this dreaded event, for
General Lee's excessive losses from battle, by death and wounds, prisoners, disease and desertion, with no reinforcements whatever, taught us that the evacuation of the gallant Confederate capital was inevitable.
I suppose our peerless chieftain will retreat to
Lynchburg, or perhaps to
North Carolina, and there unite his shattered forces with the army of
General Joseph E. Johnston. “There's life in the old land yet,” and
Lee and
Johnston, with their small but veteran armies united, having no longer to guard thousands of miles of frontier, will yet wrest victory and independence for the
Confederacy from the immense hosts of Yankees, Germans, Irish, English, Canadians and negroes, ex-slaves, composing the powerful armies under
Grant and
Sherman.
Would that the 7,000 or 8,000 Confederates now confined at
Fort Delaware, and their suffering but unconquered comrades at
Johnson's Island,
Point Lookout, Camp Chase,
Camp Douglas,
Rock Island,
Elmira and other places could join the closely pressed, worn out, starving, but ever faithful and gallant band now retreating and fighting step by step, trusting implicitly in the superb leadership of their idolized commander and his brave
lieutenants Longstreet,
Ewell,
Early,
Gordon,
Hampton,
Pickett and the rest.
How quickly the tide of battle would turn, and how speedily glorious victory would again perch upon our banners!
It is very hard, bitter, indeed, to endure this cruel, crushing confinement, while our comrades need our aid so greatly.
Still I realize the fact
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that while painful and harrowing to one's feelings to be pent up within despised prison walls during such trying times, it is no disgrace to be a prisoner of war, if not captured under dishonorable circumstances.
Lafayette languished in prison, and so did
Louis Napoleon, the present
Emperor of
France, and his illustrious uncle, the First
Napoleon, and so did
St. Paul, and so have the great and good of all ages.
We are but mortals, and must yield to the fiat of remorseless destiny.
There are here many splendid specimens of physical, mental and moral manhood, and in them we see the age of chivalry revived.
Three-fourths of the officers are under thirty years of age; many are of the first order of talent, and will make their marks in after life.
A large number are graduates of colleges and universities, and many have had the advantage of extensive travel over
Europe and
America, and are gentlemen of culture and refinement.
Some, of course, in so large a body, gathered from so many States, are coarse and unrefined, illiterate men, promoted doubtless on account of their gallantry in battle, or through the partiality of their ignorant companions.
A vast majority are brave, gallant and dashing soldiers, and are deserving of special mention in my
Diary. Superior power has incarcerated these men in a loathsome prison, indignities and insults are daily heaped upon them, and they have no ability to resent them.
Starvation sometimes almost drives them to reluctant submission, but the whole Yankee Government, with its immense army of more than a million men, cannot shake their confidence in the truth and justice of their cause, nor crush their resolute, undaunted spirits.
For future reference I have bought a small blank book, and am getting the autographs of many acquaintances, with their military rank, name of their commands, and their home address.
A great many officers in the pen, and a few in the hospital, have these autograph books, and are assiduous in collecting names.
