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This item is currently being transcribed by a volunteer. We look forward to making the full-text of the document available soon. C.G.
May 29th 1862.
This is not a diary or record of the events of the war - the fearful bloody Civil Strife around us - but a series of rests - occasional settlements of my feelings & heart promptings - as a memorandum for future referrence; as the means of observing how the storm rages - from time to time.
The Southern troops have beaten
out Genl Banks' column - from the valley - by a rapid daring charge beginning at Front Royal - on one line at Monterey on another - followed up by fights at Newtown Winchester & this to the state of Md. We are now under Confederate [?] and the sympathizers with the North are under the soldiers of the South and the sympathizers with the South are rejoicing. The negroes are thro' their ignorance credulity and timidity made the cause of great truth, my man William my favorite & favored servant [?] off with the panic stricken army of Banks, with his free wife. They were industriously indoctri nated with the false belief that Genl Jackson was killing all the negro men women & children it can be proved that this was done deliberately by officers of the northern army & the poor harrassed border is almost swept of them who were to tell & gather the crops of our people - now even this day the corps of Genl [?] it is said are crossing & a fight will take place somewhere south of Harper's Ferry. Rumors are rife of Southern victims at Corinth & Richmond - nothing is yet certain to us of their reality. Oh when will it end? When will these opposing hosts agree to ground the weapons of bloody strife, and do as Wellington said was always adviseable "to do any thing, and agree to any thing, before entering upon civil war" and if before, what can be done at last, but this? To know and feel & act upon the know lege and conviction - that war is a greater evil- and civil war- than any other that Satan invented. May 29 cont. I try to mitigate injustice - bitterness & the suffering following such a change of affairs - we are fast being wasted & beggared under the ebb and flow of the raging waters here upon the beach. We are the rolled pebbles - the chaffed shore line - the submerged territory - one day the denuded & sterile swept beach the next.
"Oh God of all power create
and make in us new & contrite hearts that we worthily lamenting our national sins & personal [?] [?] toward thee - may by thy merciful & blessed help be forgiven and relieved thro' Jesus Christ our blessed Savior - mediator - ad vocate & ever merciful high priest before the Unions of God! Amen!
June 17th 1862 Tuesday.
The confederate tide soon ebbed
and the Federal wave again flowed over us. Jackson went south to meet Freemont & Shields and [?] & Winchester again are over run. Back came the refugees - full of spite & malice, against every body that had not run away. I literally persecuted & robbed the quiet and peacable ones giving as a reason "You wouldn't run away." We had fist cavalry -then regiments of foot - every church occupied, filled with noisy pilfering low bred soldiers, cheifly foreigners - they have passed on and at this present we are under the rule of Zuaves - cheifly French and Germans. My horse was openly & forcibly taken from a stable where my neighbor the doctor had placed him. Some person tried to reclaim him but the positive inability of Col De Forest to effect it shews that remarkable fact (but to any ob servant man perfectly apparent) that this is a mob invasion & the officers are merely puppets & pageants, in the hands of the "fierce Democracie" - they dare not punish & they cannot control their soldiery - fearful enough & yet God preserveth me and mine. We are wonderfully favoured - a few vegetables stolen-a horse-a few negros that's all. I have nothing to ask or to look to them for, that is I dont even look at them as they pass - I hardly could get out of my house, or office for some two weeks they sat in the porches slept & ate upon them & scribbled on the houses. We had no privacy quiet or security for no guards were placed & I asked none. My trust is not in Man - May it be still stronger in God! "Merciful-loving-protecting Father we thank Thee for the goodness & wonder ful Providence which verifies thy promise that Thou wilt keep those in perfect peace & whose hearts are stayed on Thee; that the very hairs of our heads are numbered-that our Heavenly Father careth for us. Thus Merciful keep us from harm & preserve us for better days for the sake of our Blessed Savior & redeemer Amen! Lucy my most faithful servant died about a week or two after the last invasion-her son William then absconding-returned only to see her die. These people have very little sensibility-these servants [now?] of mine have been raised carefully among us - ate of my dish & instructed by the same word of Grace & yet how little are they affected by her death. I made Wm [Massy?] [?] woman (free black). I took our recter to his house on Sunday June 8th & the rite was perfd that I might bring her to live here but she declines it - is willing to work together [?] & keep up a sepeerate establishment. I see I must have white servants if I stay here. Patienza as the Spaniard hath it. I went in the rain & buried Lucy with the service of the Church. Jane & I the only white attendants. After lifes troubled fever she sleeps well, poor old Lucy. I trust she had glimpses of a savior's atonement before she died - if so she is "Clarion Luce," "Clara Luce aefulsit" Luce Tenebro"
June 30th 2862. The other day Ann Magill the daughter of my early friend [?] came down to go over to Wmsport and sell her stock there $500 worth. Chiefly to get some federal money for expenses. I have taken much pain to negociate this sale & transfer & by giving my personal guaranty I effected it-for her own sake I [?] do all this, at any trouble, doing out of view my obligations to her father. She succeeded beyond her hopes-got $300 instead of 200$ in Md money & went home rejoicing. She is a christian indeed - hopeful happy, cheerful [?] spends her life in following the leadings of the Spirit & she has a right to be happy. I was a little afraid of her going over when at any moment there might be between Win chester & WmsPort a bettle & pursuit. She wd not listen to my apprehensions. She said when the line of duty was clear to her she went in it fearlessly and if God did not intend her to be in error' she trusted Him to show it to her that she was mistaken. "How" said I "He will somehow pre vent the move, if He does not block up the path; I go on" Blessed Faith that trusts this. She said "God is my husband - ever since my husband died I look to Him to guide me in everything." [Thru?] blessed trust-be it mine- my brother has lost all his slaves but one old man (Stephen and a little girl-seven gone-Can our crops be cut? very doubtful. War! Pestilence!! Famine!!! The three sequent evil. The syllogism of national calamity. This wet spring & summer must & will bring the second. The absence of horses to [?], & means to reap the ground, may bring the last. Yet have I mine as yet felt neither. He promises to feed his chosen ones in famine & that the pestilence shall not come nigh them, tho' a thousand fall on the right & left & I believe these promises and desire to believe them as Ann Magill believes & pray to my Blessed Savior for a higher faith "my blessed Lord & Savior pardon my poor doubting wavering Faith & give unto thy servant that clear steadfast trust in the word, that it may be the earnest of things hoped for, the evidence of things unseen Amen!
July 7th 62 Oh Lord of Hosts and nations we children of Doubt & Sinfulness, trembling in the dark, dare not take to ourselves, to call in question thine unerring will. Sorrow and Death even as joy & life are at the breath of a mercy divine, & a wisdom all seeing, and out of the minutes of Evil, on the arch of time, thou dost draw the wide unspanned circle of Eternally good. "Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven." If [?] disposer of events our human prayers are in accordance with thy Holy will & purposes to us ward; protect the lives of our dear ones, the bulwarks of our homes and altars, the sons of our land, which she is offering in sacrafice. May the angel of Mercy turn aside the blade and avert the deadly missile, as of old from the heart of Isaac! But o Ruler of Nations in whose estimate a thousand years is as one day, ages as moments, and generations but as the chasing billows of the sea if there lives are destined to be yielded up, may the precious death of their Savior expiate their sins and thus absolved and purified & saved, even from the field of Battle, receive Thou their Souls, thro' the all prevailing interception of Jesus Christ our only mediator & Redeemer Amen! (a prayer christianized from Harold)
The fierce bloody Battles near Richmond have been fought for 8 successive days. Blood! blood! blood! God of peace Hear my prayers for a cessation of this unnatural strife.
The [?] of Man is vain &
worse than vain because his energies & labors & striving are for death & car nage. What but the almightys arm can save such creatures as we are. August 13th 1862. Another fierce conflict near Culpepper C.H. between Panks Pope & [Seigel?] & the forces under Jackson. The details we do not know except that there was certainly great destruction of the northern troops & a repulse.(Saturday 9th Aug Here we have a camp of instruction Cannon firing, at a target- boys, some very young kept here for instruction in the art of destruction of human life. No light from the north shewing any relentings- no light from the South shewing spirit of reconciliation or a wish for peace. The cloud still hangs in [?] darkness. "O God of Mercy & prince of Peace & spirit of all comfort! dispell this dark cloud & let the sun of righteousness shine thro' the rift-let they people see Thy light that in the light we may see light"
Amen!
