Yet the trials of war are here too.  Having no matches, they keep fire, carefully covering it at night, for Mr. G. has no powder, and cannot flash the gun into combustibles as some do.  One day they had to go with the children to the village, and the servant let the fire go out.  When they returned at nightfall, wet and hungry, there was neither fire nor food.  Mr. G. had to saddle the tired mule and ride three miles for a pan of coals, and blow them, all the way back, to keep them alight.  Crockery has gradually been broken and tin-cups rusted out, and a visitor told me they had made tumblers out of clear glass bottles by cutting them smooth with a heated wire, and that they had nothing else to drink from.

Aug. 11, 1862.—­We cannot get to New Orleans.  A special passport must be shown, and we are told that to apply for it would render H. very likely to be conscripted.  I begged him not to try; and as we hear that active hostilities have ceased at Vicksburg, he left me this morning to return to his uncle’s and see what the prospects are there.  I shall be in misery about conscription till he returns.

Sunday, Sept. 7., (Vicksburg, Washington Hotel)—­H. did not return for three weeks.  An epidemic disease broke out in his uncle’s family and two children died.  He staid to assist them in their trouble.  Tuesday evening he returned for me and we reached Vicksburg yesterday.  It was my first sight of the “Gibraltar of the South.”  Looking at it from a slight elevation suggests the idea that the fragments left from world-building had tumbled into a confused mass of hills, hollows, hillocks, banks, ditches, and ravines, and that the houses had rained down afterwards.  Over all there was dust impossible to conceive.  The bombardment has done little injury.  People have returned and resumed business.  A gentleman asked H. if he knew of a nice girl for sale.  I asked if he did not think it impolitic to buy slaves now.

“Oh, not young ones.  Old ones might run off when the enemy’s lines approach ours, but with young ones there is no danger.”

We had not been many hours in town before a position was offered to H. which seemed providential.  The chief of a certain department was in ill-health and wanted a deputy.  It secures him from conscription, requires no oath, and pays a good salary.  A mountain seemed lifted off my heart.

Thursday, Sept. 18, 1862. (Thanksgiving Day.)—­We staid three days at the Washington Hotel; then a friend of H.’s called and told him to come to his house till he could find a home.  Boarding-houses have all been broken up, and the army has occupied the few houses that were for rent.  To-day H. secured a vacant room for two weeks in the only boarding-house.

Oak Haven, Oct. 3.—­To get a house in V. proved impossible, so we agreed to part for a time till H. could find one.  A friend recommended this quiet farm, six miles from ——­ (a station on the Jackson Railroad).  On last Saturday H. came with me as far as Jackson and put me on the other train for the station.