April 27th.—Gen. Lee is calm—but the work of preparation goes on night and day.
April 28th.—We have rumors of an important cabinet meeting, wherein it was resolved to advise or command Gen. Johnston to evacuate Yorktown and retire toward Richmond! Also that Norfolk is to be given up! I don’t believe it; Lee’s name is not mentioned.
April 29th.—Major Griswold is here, and so is a new batch of Marylanders.
April 30th.—Troops from the South are coming in and marching down the Peninsula.
CHAPTER XIV.
Disloyalists entrapped.—Norfolk abandoned.—Merrimac blown up.—Army falling back.—Mrs. Davis leaves Richmond.—Preparing to burn the tobacco.—Secretary of War trembles for Richmond.—Richmond to be defended.—The tobacco.—Winking and blinking.—Johnston’s great battle.—Wounded himself.—The wounded.—The hospitals.
May 1st.—The ladies shower loaves of bread and slices of ham on the passing troops.
May 2d.—An iniquitous-looking prisoner was brought in to-day from Orange C. H., by the name of Robert Stewart. The evidence against him is as follows: He is a Pennsylvanian, though a resident of Virginia for a number of years, and owns a farm in Orange County. Since the series of disasters, and the seeming downward progress of our affairs, Stewart has cooled his ardor for independence. He has slunk from enrollment in the militia, and under the Conscription Act. And since the occupation of Fredericksburg by the enemy he has made use of such equivocal language as to convince his neighbors that his sympathies are wholly with the Northern invader.