11 November 1862: “He said that those negroe regiments the Yankees have are more trouble than use to them, they have to watch them closely to prevent their running back to their masters.”

Item description: Entry, 11 November 1862, from the diary of Sarah Lois Wadley. The entry includes a brief mention of black Union soldiers that were stationed in New Orleans in the fall of 1862.

More about Sarah Lois Wadley:
Sarah Lois Wadley was born in 1844 in New Hampshire, the daughter of railroad superintendent William Morrill Wadley (1813-1882) and Rebecca Barnard Everingham Wadley (1819-1905). Although born in New England, she appears to have been raised in the South, and lived with her family in homes near Amite in Tangipahoa Parish, Monroe and Oakland in Ouachita Parish, La., and near Macon, Ga. Sarah Lois Wadley died unmarried in Monroe County, Ga., in 1920.

[Transcription available below images.]

Item citation: From the Sarah Lois Wadley Papers, #1258Southern Historical Collection,Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Item transcription:

Tuesday, Nov. 11th

Saturday morning we were very agreeably surprised by a visit from Mrs. Bennett and her daughter, they had been at Monroe and were going home that evening, so that they could not stay and dine with us. The young ladies are coming down soon, and promised to spend some time with me. We had just sat down to dinner when Emmeline came in to say that there was a carriage at the door, with what looked like a sick soldier in it. Mother told Willie to go and see, and tell him we had a sick man here and could take no one, after some minutes of impatience on our part we found that it was Mr. Murrah with two other gentlemen, we have but a slight acquaintance with.Mr. Murrah as our only intercourse with him was one morning when Father invited him to breakfast with us, but he was then so easy and agreeable in conversation that we were all favourably impressed, with him, and were glad to have his company to dinner, the other two gentlemen were refugees from New Orleans, one had been away some time but was obliged to leave his family there as he could not get a passport for them to come away. The other gentleman had left New Orleans but a few days before, and gave us an interesting account of the proceedings there; he says one must depend upon Butler’s caprice about getting a passport, but that generally one can be bought for five hundred dollars, though he has known a thousand to be given. He says those persons who take the oath are not allowed to leave the city except to go to the United States. He said that those negroe regiments the Yankees have are more trouble than use to them, they have to watch them closely to prevent their running back to their masters.

This soldier is still sick here, the doctor came this morning, pronounces his disease camp fever, says he will probably recover soon. The soldier’s brother came and spent the day and night with him Saturday, but his regiment was ordered off and he could not stay.

It is very warm tonight, we are all hoping for rain, we are in great need of it. Willie left home yesterday to look up some pork, we expect him back tonight.

We are reading Prescott’s conquest of Mexico now, commenced it last week, we find it very entertaining.

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