Some of the poorer whites manifested a loyal feeling, which sprang from a belief that the establishment of the Confederacy would not better their condition.  This number was not large, but it has doubtless increased with the termination of the war.  The wealthier portion of the people were invariably in sympathy with the Rebel cause.

After we reached Grand Junction, and made our camp a short distance south of that point, we were joined by the column from Bolivar.  In the two columns General Grant had more than forty thousand men, exclusive of a force under General Sherman, about to move from Memphis.  The Rebel army was at Holly Springs and Abbeville, and was estimated at fifty thousand strong.  Every day found a few deserters coming in from the Rebels, but their number was not large.  The few that came represented their army to be well supplied with shoes, clothing, and ammunition, and also well fed.  They were nearly recovered from the effects of their repulse at Corinth, a month before.

Our soldiers foraged at will on the plantations near our camp.  The quantities of supplies that were brought in did not argue that the country had been previously visited by an army.  Mules, horses, cattle, hogs, sheep, chickens, and other things used by an army, were found in abundance.

The soldiers did not always confine their foraging to articles of necessity.  A clergyman’s library was invaded and plundered.  I saw one soldier bending under the (avoirdupois) weight of three heavy volumes on theology, printed in the German language.  Another soldier, a mere boy, was carrying away in triumph a copy of Scott’s Greek Lexicon.  In every instance when it came to their knowledge, the officers compelled the soldiers to return the books they had stolen.  German theology and Greek Lexicons were not thought advantageous to an army in the field.

One wing of our army was encamped at Lagrange, Tennessee, and honored with the presence of General Grant.  Lagrange presented a fair example of the effects of secession upon the interior villages of the South.  Before the war it was the center of a flourishing business.  Its private residences were constructed with considerable magnificence, and evinced the wealth of their owners.  There was a male and a female college; there was a bank, and there were several stores and commission houses.

When the war broke out, the young men at the male college enlisted in the Rebel army.  The young women in the female college went to their homes.  The bank was closed for want of funds, the hotels had no guests, the stores had few customers, and these had no money, the commission houses could find no cotton to sell and no goods to buy.  Every thing was completely stagnated.  All the men who could carry muskets went to the field.  When we occupied the town, there were not three men remaining who were of the arms-bearing age.

I found in Lagrange a man who could keep a hotel.  He was ignorant, lazy, and his establishment only resembled the Fifth Avenue or the Continental in the prices charged to the guests.  I staid several days with this Boniface, and enjoyed the usual fare of the interior South.  Calling for my bill at my departure, I found the charges were only three dollars and fifty cents per day.