27 November
Mr Grimball returned from Camden with the box of silver which we now have up here and has gone to Charleston where he intends offering his services for Military duty in the Reserves, Captain Lesegne. He is under 65 & the Governor and Council have called out all men under 65 and of 16 to do Military duty. I have received 3 letters from him he was when last writing at the Bluff on a visit to Papa and the abandoned Plantation with the 13 old negroes left there. Our own soldiers are most destructive in their visits to houses left, and entered ours and helped themselves to what they liked. When this war does end the poor Planters on the Coast will be found in a miserable plight. Berkley offered Mr Grimball his stock to purchase a place to put the negroes on which he declined but it was very kind of B. He had just passed through another attack of fever.—A. & W. are at Fort Sumter, Lewis on Sulivan’s Island. John writes to Ella from Mobile that he has some pleasant ladies to visit there, and that the Navy is held in great repute since Admiral Buchanan came there which state of things he is enjoying.—
The time & the war goes on and we hope in spite of every thing there will soon be a peace. At present not a ray of the quarter from which it will spring but the triumph of the Democratic party at the North, and the little success they have yet arrived at South: the Removal of McClellan is too in our favor. Burnside is represented as a man of Military education but urged on by the Abolition party at the North may be induced to hazard a battle which we think he will loose. The Lord is over all and in his hands we are, to destroy or to save.—