ut does not say
whether he is here.

Thursday, July 23d.

It is bad policy to keep us from seeing the prisoners; it just sets us
wild about them. Put a creature you don't care for in the least, in a
situation that commands sympathy, and nine out of ten girls will fall
desperately in love. Here are brave, self-sacrificing, noble men who
have fought heroically for us, and have been forced to surrender by
unpropitious fate, confined in a city peopled by their friends and
kindred, and as totally isolated from them as though they inhabited the
Dry Tortugas! Ladies are naturally hero-worshipers. We are dying to
show these unfortunates that we are as proud of their bravery as though
it had led to victory instead of defeat. Banks wills that they remain
in privacy. Consequently our vivid imaginations are constantly occupied
in depicting their sufferings, privations, heroism, and manifold
virtues, until they have almost become as demigods to us. Even horrid
little Captain C---- has a share of my sympathy in his misfortune!
Fancy what must be my feelings where those I consider as gentlemen are
concerned! It is all I can do to avoid a most tender compassion for a
very few select ones. Miriam and I are looked on with envy by other
young ladies because some twenty or thirty of our acquaintance have
already arrived. To know a Port Hudson defender is considered as the
greatest distinction one need desire. If they would only let us see the
prisoners once to sympathize with, and offer to assist them, we would
never care to call on them again until they are liberated. But this is
aggravating. Of what benefit is it to send them lunch after lunch, when
they seldom receive it? Colonel Steadman and six others, I am sure, did
not receive theirs on Sunday. We sent with the baskets a number of
cravats and some handkerchiefs I had embroidered for the Colonel.

Brother should forbid those gentlemen writing, too. Already a dozen
notes have been received from them, and what can we do? We can't tell
them not to. Miriam received a letter from Major Spratley this morning,
raving about the kindness of the ladies of New Orleans, full of hope of
future successes, and vows to help deliver the noble ladies from the
hands of their oppressors, etc. It is a wonder that such a patriotic
effusion could be smuggled out. He kindly assures us that not only
those of our acquaintance there, but all their brother off