20 April 1862: “This is Easter Sunday, at the commencement of Lent the Yankee papers said that in forty days the stars and stripes should float over New Orleans, their boast has not been verified.”

Item description: In this diary entry, Sarah Lois Wadley (1844-1920) describes the Battle of Shiloh and the Confederate loss of Ft. Pulaski.

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

Item transcription:

Sunday, April 20th–

The battle at Corinth was another added to our victories but the work is yet but begun, ennemies threaten us on every side, and we must soon hear of another great battle. The Yankees have stormed and taken Fort Pulaski and surrounded island No. 10 so that we surrendered. we daily of skirmishes and an approaching fight in eastern Virginia and of a threatened attack upon New Orleans; now we need bravery and coolness and now I believe our rulers and our people are showing it.

Gen’l. Johnston was killed at Corinth, every one mourns him. The conscription law has passed, and thirty days from the time it passed every male between eighteen and thirty-five years, not legally exempt, must be enrolled in defence of our cause. We are waiting anxiously for Father to return it is three weeks tonight since he left, and we have only heard from him once; two bridges have been burned on the route and Huntsville Ala. is in the possession of the Yankees, so that he cannot come by the most direct way; Willie looks for him with much impatience, to decide whether or not he shall go to the war, Willie says he cannot stay at home; though if he applied he could easily get exemption from the conscript laws on account of his arm and his ill health, I hope the latter is getting better he has not had a chill in a long time. This has been quite a cold day, fires have been necessary for comfort, it rains a good deal last week and this morning cleared off cold, it seems as it we shall never have settled warm weather.

This is Easter Sunday, at the commencement of Lent the Yankee papers said that in forty days the stars and stripes should float over New Orleans, their boast has not been verified. God grant I may never see the day that such a thing shall happen!

Miss Mary’s and my little violet bushes bore their first flowers this week.

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