“But we can’t look forward, for what horrors may come upon us before our independence is achieved it makes my heart ache to dwell upon.”—Diary of a Southern Refugee, Judith White McGuire.

July 29.—No army news. In this quiet nook mail-day is looked forward to with the greatest anxiety, and the newspapers are read with avidity from beginning to end—embracing Southern rumours, official statements, army telegrams, Yankee extravaganzas, and the various et caeteras. The sick and wounded in the various hospitals are subjects for thought and action in every part of our State which is free to act for them; we all do what we can in our own little way; and surely if we have nothing but prayer to offer, great good must be effected. Yesterday evening, while walking out, a young woman with a baby in her arms passed us rapidly, weeping piteously, and with the wildest expressions of grief; we turned to follow her, but found that another woman was meeting her, whom we recognized as her mother; in another moment all was explained by her father, whom we met, slowly wending his way homeward. He had been to the hospital at Danville to see his son-in-law, whose name appeared among the wounded there. On reaching the place, he found that he had just been buried. On returning he met his daughter walking; in her impatience and anxiety about her husband, she could not sit still in the house; and in her ignorance, she supposed that her father would bring him home, to be nursed. Poor thing! she is one of thousands. Oh that the enemy may be driven from our land, with a wholesome dread of encroaching upon our borders again! Our people are suffering too much; they cannot stand it. The family here suffers much anxiety as each battle approaches, about their young son, the pride and darling of the household. He is a lieutenant in the Regiment; but during the fights around Richmond, as his captain was unfit for duty, the first lieutenant killed in the first fight, the command of the company devolved on this dear, fair-haired boy, and many praises have they heard of his bravery during those terrible days. He writes most delightfully encouraging letters, and never seems to know that he is enduring hardships. His last letter, written on a stump near Charles City Court-House, whither they had followed the enemy, was most exultant; and, brave young Christian as he is, he gives the glory to God. He exults in having helped to drive them, and, as it were, pen them up on the river; and though they are now desecrating the fair homes of his ancestors, (Berkeley and Westover,) yet, as they dare not unfurl their once proud banner on any other spot in Lower Virginia, and only there because protected by their gun-boats, he seems to think that the proud spirits of the Byrds and Harrisons may submit when they reflect that though their ancestral trees may shelter the direst of all foes, yet their ancestral marshes are yielding their malaria and mosquitoes with an unstinting hand, and aiding unsparingly the sword of the South in relieving it of invaders. Dear B., like so many Southern boys, he was summoned by the tocsin of war from the class-room to the camp. His career was most successful in one of the first literary institutions in this country, and if he lives he will return to his studies less of a scholar, but more of a man, in the highest sense of the word, than any collegiate course could have made him. But we can’t look forward, for what horrors may come upon us before our independence is achieved it makes my heart ache to dwell upon.