August 10th.–To-day General Chesnut and his staff departed. His troops are ordered to look after the mountain passes beyond Greenville on the North Carolina and Tennessee quarter.
Misery upon misery. Mobile[1] is going as New Orleans went. Those Western men have not held their towns as we held and hold Charleston, or as the Virginians hold Richmond. And they call us a “frill-shirt, silk-stocking chivalry,” or “a set of dandy Miss Nancys.” They fight desperately in their bloody street brawls, but we bear privation and discipline best.
[1] The battle of Mobile Bay, won under Farragut, was fought on August 5, 1864.