As the army lay in camp near Lagrange for nearly four weeks, and the enemy was twenty-five miles distant, there was very little war correspondence to be written.  There was an occasional skirmish near the front, but no important movement whatever.  The monotony of this kind of life, and the tables of the Lagrange hotels, were not calculated to awaken much enthusiasm.  Learning from a staff officer the probable date when the army would advance, I essayed a visit to St. Louis, and returned in season to take part in the movement into Mississippi.

At the time General Grant advanced from Lagrange, he ordered General Sherman to move from Memphis, so that the two columns would unite in the vicinity of Oxford, Mississippi.  General Sherman pushed his column as rapidly as possible, and, by the combined movement, the Rebels were forced out of their defenses beyond Oxford, and compelled to select a new line in the direction of Grenada.  Our flag was steadily advancing toward the Gulf.

Satisfied there would be no battle until our army had passed Oxford, I tarried several days at Holly Springs, waiting for the railway to be opened.  I found the town a very pleasant one, finely situated, and bearing evidence of the wealth and taste of its inhabitants.  When the war broke out, there were only two places in the State that could boast a larger population than Holly Springs.

At the time of my arrival, the hotels of Holly Springs were not open, and I was obliged to take a room at a private house with one of the inhabitants.  My host was an earnest advocate of the Rebel cause, and had the fullest confidence in the ultimate independence of the South.

“We intend,” said he, “to establish a strong Government, in which there will be no danger of interference by any abolitionists.  If you had allowed us to have our own way, there would never have been any trouble.  We didn’t want you to have slavery in the North, but we wanted to go into the Territories, where we had a perfect right, and do as we pleased about taking our slaves there.  The control of the Government belongs to us.  The most of the Presidents have been from the South, as they ought to be.  It was only when you elected a sectional President, who was sworn to break up slavery, that we objected.  You began the war when you refused us the privilege of having a national President.”

This gentleman argued, further, that the half of all public property belonged to the South, and it was only just that the State authorities should take possession of forts and arsenals, as they did at the inception of the war.  It was the especial right of the South to control the nation.  Slavery was instituted from Heaven, for the especial good of both white and black.  Whoever displayed any sympathy for the negro, and wished to make him free, was doing a great injustice to the slave and his master, particularly to the latter.

Once he said the destruction of slavery would be unworthy a people who possessed any gallantry.  “You will,” he declared, “do a cruel wrong to many fine ladies.  They know nothing about working with their hands, and consider such knowledge disgraceful.  If their slaves are taken from them, these ladies will be helpless.”