visits and favors from the ladies. When
they took supper at the Huntsville Hotel, the large dining-room was
crowded with fair faces and bright eyes; but the men prudently held
aloof.

A day or two ago one of our Confederate prisoners died. The ladies
filled the hearse to overflowing with flowers, and a large number of
them accompanied the soldier to his last resting-place.

The foolish, yet absolute, devotion of the women to the Southern cause
does much to keep it alive. It encourages, nay forces, the young to
enter the army, and compels them to continue what the more sensible
Southerners know to be a hopeless struggle. But we must not judge these
Huntsville women too harshly. Here are the families of many of the
leading men of Alabama; of generals, colonels, majors, captains, and
lieutenants in the Confederate army; of men, even, who hold cabinet
positions at Richmond, and of many young men who are clerks in the
departments of the rebel Government. Their wives, daughters, sisters,
and sweethearts feel, doubtless, that the honor of these gentlemen, and
possibly their lives, depend upon the success of the Confederacy.

To-day two young negro men from Jackson county came in with their wives.
They were newly married, and taking their wedding journey. The vision of
a better and higher life had lured them from the old plantation where
they were born. At midnight they had stolen quietly away, plodded many
weary miles on foot, confident that the rainbow and the bag of gold were
in the camp of the Federal army.

25. This in-door life has made me ill. I am as yellow as an orange. The
doctors say I have the jaundice.

JUNE, 1862.

3. Have requested General Mitchell to relieve me from duty as Provost
Marshal; am now wholly unfit to do business.

We have heard of the evacuation of Corinth. The simple withdrawal of the
enemy amounts to but little, if anything; he still lives, is organized
and ready to do battle on some other field.

5. Go home on sick leave.

* * * * *

25. There were three little girls on the Louisville packet, about the
age of my own children. They were great romps. I said to one, "what is
your name?" She replied "Pudin' an' tame." So I called her Pudin', and
she became very angry, so angry indeed that she cried. The other little
girls laughed heartily, and called her Pudin' also, and then asked my
name. I answered John Smith; they insisted then that Pudin' was m