Friday, June 13th. Among the prisoners confined here, is Charles C. Randolph, Esq., a venerable looking old gentleman, seventy-five years of age, from Fauquier county, Virginia. He served in the war of 1812 as Captain, under General Parks’ command, and received his commission through the influence of the celebrated “Harry Lightfoot Lee,” of the revolution. He says that he went to Richmond about the first of April last, and when he returned to his home he found that the Yankees had devastated everything about his valuable premises. They stole his horses, sheep and cattle, and destroyed his crops, and took everything of value he had from a library worth $5,000, to his bed, and even his wife’s likeness, and the family bible, besides breaking all the hinges of the doors, and committing waste and robbery generally. He, himself, was arrested as soon as he arrived home, and brought here, for what he knows not, unless it be for implied sympathy for the cause of the soil of his birth and the people of his blood. There was a prisoner here named Wharton, a Californian. He was a Lieutenant in the United States Navy at the beginning of the war, when he resigned, and started for the South via Washington city, but was arrested on his arrival here and brought to this prison. A short time since he cursed one of the sentinels for insulting language used towards him, when the sentinel called for the “corporal of the guard,” who being equally insolent, was in turn treated in the same way by Lieutenant Wharton. The “officer of the guard” was then called, who proving equally offensive in language to Lieutenant W., the latter cursed him in the heat of anger, whereupon said Lieutenant Wharton was shot, and soon afterwards died of his wounds. A respectable gentleman, Mr. Stewart of Maryland, who was incarcerated here, was promised by the guard to be allowed to escape, on condition of the payment of $50; but although the sentinel pocketed the money, when Mr. Stewart was effecting his escape the sentinel shot him, and this sentinel was immediately promoted from a private to a sergeant.
Saturday, June 14th, 1862. It is reported this morning that Colonel Ashby is killed, and General “Stonewall” Jackson a prisoner, and the Yankees profess to place great reliance upon the report. From Northern sources, I learn that when the war-tax was being collected in Southern Illinois, it required three regiments to accomplish the task. It seems plain that Southern Illinois would like to break the chains that now bind her. In the beginning of the war the people of that section were told by Yankees that wished to raise regiments of soldiers to fight us, that the Mississippi would be blocked against them, when the very first act of the Confederate Congress insured the free navigation of the Mississippi river.
The Yankees say that by the first of July their public debt will be 650 million dollars! It is now 1,500 millions!! They have 65,000 sick from their own account. Who will pay their pensions?
This is a struggle on the side of the Yankees for supremacy, and on our side for independence. It is urged that the Northern States are a great deal stronger than the Southern States, and therefore must win in this contest. England was a great deal stronger than Scotland, but when it was the object of England to establish by force a supremacy over Scotland, they found the Scotch very ugly customers. In this war the North has had certain successes in the field. But how was it with England in the revolutionary war? It was not for want of victories in the field that England did not conquer the American colonies, for England found when most successful in the field, the object desired was as distant as before. It is not the question when endeavoring to conquer a country, whether you can break up its embattled armies and drive them off the plain, where they have contended with you in the fight. The question is this, and this alone, whether that country is set upon separation. If it is bent upon separation, it is impossible to conquer it, and if the North could conquer us, the political and civil difficulties remaining would render that success a curse and a misery to those who achieved it. It seems but homage to an abstract principle that has caused England to bear the misery consequent upon not recognising the Confederate States. There has been a sense of the danger and mischief of interference in intestine quarrels in other countries, and England has so far paid deference to that principle of international policy, but it will not last a great while longer.
The Yankees admit a loss of 10,000 men at Fort Donaldson—more I believe than we had engaged in the fight.
Sunday, June 15th. My cousin, S. M., called to see me to-day; also, my friends J. C. H. and F. N. B. I was allowed fifteen minutes conversation with each in the presence of a Federal commissioned officer, such being the rule established here. A sermon was preached to the prisoners to-day by the Rev. Mr. Nourse, from Leesburg, Virginia, himself a prisoner. William J. Mills, Company D, 12th Georgia regiment, died to-day, and was buried at the “Congressional burying ground” in presence of a Confederate commissioned officer, taken there “for the purpose of witnessing” the same. A lady friend sent me a bottle of wine by the “Underground railroad.” I cannot say with Hawthorne, to drink it is more a moral than a physical enjoyment, and that like whatever else which is superlatively good, it is better appreciated by memory than by present consciousness. It is decidedly physical in its effects, and far better in reality than in anticipation.
Monday, June 16th. Captain L. F. Whitney, United States cavalry, called to see me to-day. Captain W. and myself were associated in the “draughtsman’s room,” United States Patent office, for nearly four years—every day engaged in the same calling, and upon terms of intimate friendship. One of his men now stands as sentinel to the room in which I am confined. Strange the mutations of time! Two years ago we would have laughed at the prophecy that we would at this time be in our present relations to each other. We talked only of the pleasures of the past without any allusion to our present difficulties, and the interview was, under the circumstances, short but agreeable. An old man was brought into our room to-day, and the officer who ushered him, remarked, as he did so, “Here is a man that wishes to see a live rebel.” Lieutenant D. replied by informing him that “the man with horns” was out, but would soon be in. I presume the old fool became satisfied that we are beings of flesh and blood, who eat, drink, sleep, and wear clothes like other civilized people.
A fellow prisoner from Charlestown, Virginia, says when General Banks was at that place he stopped at a lady’s boarding house without giving her any compensation. He sent the lady a few delicacies to eat while in her house, but when he went away he presented her a bill of $5.
Tuesday, June 17th. The Yankee newspapers claim a victory at Williamsburg. If that battle is a Federal triumph, they are welcome to all such. The fact is, that they have so much at stake, that they cannot afford to report their defeat, and do not scruple to lie! I feel very lonesome in this close room to-day, for those who share my captivity are reading, writing or sleeping, and I cannot do much of either, not more than record in my diary my present feelings. Solitude has the advantage or the danger of making us search more deeply into the same ideas. As our discourse is only with ourself, we always give the same direction to the conversation; we are not called to turn it to the subject which occupies another mind, and so an involuntary inclination makes us return forever to knock at the same doors. There are eight officers in this room, and we take turns in putting it in order, that is, folding up the blankets, sweeping out the room, &c., &c., and some take great interest in keeping the room clean, which is commendable. I distrust the intellect and morality of those people to whom disorder is of no consequence—who can live at ease in an Augean stable. What surrounds us, reflects more or less what is within us.
Wednesday, June 18th. A fellow prisoner, Mr. B., the able correspondent of the “London Times,” handed me the following interesting article to read from the “London Morning Herald” of April 25th. The Herald is the organ of Earl Derby: