We were guests at a dinner-party yesterday.  Mrs. A. was very talkative.  “Now, ladies, you must all join in with a vim and help equip another company.”

“Mrs. L.,” she said, turning to me, “are you not going to send your husband?  Now use a young bride’s influence and persuade him; he would be elected one of the officers.”  “Mrs. A.,” I replied, longing to spring up and throttle her, “the Bible says, ’When a man hath married a new wife, he shall not go to war for one year, but remain at home and cheer up his wife.’” ...

“Well, H.,” I questioned, as we walked home after crossing the lake, “can you stand the pressure, or shall you be forced into volunteering?” “Indeed,” he replied, “I will not be bullied into enlisting by women, or by men.  I will sooner take my chance of conscription and feel honest about it.  You know my attachments, my interests are here; these are my people.  I could never fight against them; but my judgment disapproves their course, and the result will inevitably be against us.”

This morning the only Irishman left in the village presented himself to H. He has been our woodsawyer, gardener, and factotum, but having joined the new company, his time recently has been taken up with drilling.  H. and Mr. R. feel that an extensive vegetable garden must be prepared while he is here to assist or we shall be short of food, and they sent for him yesterday.

“So, Mike, you are really going to be a soldier?”

“Yes, sor; but faith, Mr. L., I don’t see the use of me going to shtop a bullet when sure an’ I’m willin’ for it to go where it plazes.”

March 18, 1862.—­There has been unusual gayety in this little village the past few days.  The ladies from the surrounding plantations went to work to get up a festival to equip the new company.  As Annie and myself are both brides recently from the city, requisition was made upon us for engravings, costumes, music, garlands, and so forth.  Annie’s heart was in the work; not so with me.  Nevertheless, my pretty things were captured, and shone with just as good a grace last evening as if willingly lent.  The ball was a merry one.  One of the songs sung was “Nellie Gray,” in which the most distressing feature of slavery is bewailed so pitifully.  To sing this at a festival for raising money to clothe soldiers fighting to perpetuate that very thing was strange.

March 20, 1862.—­A man professing to act by General Hindman’s orders is going through the country impressing horses and mules.  The overseer of a certain estate came to inquire of H. if he had not a legal right to protect the property from seizure.  Mr. L. said yes, unless the agent could show some better credentials than his bare word.  This answer soon spread about, and the overseer returned to report that it excited great indignation, especially among the company of new volunteers.  H. was pronounced a traitor, and they declared that no one so untrue to the Confederacy should live there.  When H. related the circumstance at dinner, his partner, Mr. R., became very angry, being ignorant of H.’s real opinions.  He jumped up in a rage and marched away to the village thoroughfare.  There he met a batch of the volunteers, and said, “We know what you have said of us, and I have come to tell you that you are liars, and you know where to find us.”