I do not write often now - not for want of something to say, but from a loathing of all I see and hear. Why dwell upon it?

Richmond has fallen - and I have no heart to write about it... They are too many for us. Everything lost in Richmond, even our archives. Blue-black is our horizon.

Is the sea drying up? It is going up into mist and coming down on us in this water spout, the rain. It raineth every day, and the weather represents our tearful despair on a large scale.

I do not write often now - not for want of something to say, but from a loathing of all I see and hear. Why dwell upon it?

We are scattered, stunned; the remnant of heart left alive is filled with brotherly hate... Whose fault? Everybody blamed somebody else. Only the dead heroes left stiff and stark on the battlefield escape.

A freshet in the autumn does not compensate for a drought in the spring.

To think there are men who dare so defile a church, a sacred sanctuary dedicated to God. We have to hold up our skirts and walk tiptoe, so covered is the floor, the aisle and pews, with the dark shower of tobacco juice.