November 2
Mr. Williamson reached here safe on Saturday the 25 with his servants, he left Mary Virginia and the children well. They were staying with Mrs. Jones, six miles from their home. Thank the Lord I have heard from my daughter, she and the 2 children are well. This another evidence of the goodness of God.
Mr. Williamson returns from Arkansa today and I hope will bring M. Virginia back with him in a few weeks. I feel more cheerful, I have had peace and comfort ever since the meeting at Wentworth 4 weeks ago. The Lord is good to me and mine.
We received another letter from George this week, he was well. My family enjoy good health, all the servants. Some of Mr. Williamson’s servants have the chills, contracted at Arkansa.
The Lord is reviving his work at several places on our circuit under Brother Pepper, about 70 converts.
Source: Mary Jeffreys Bethell Diary, 1853-1873. #1737-z, Southern Historical Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. http://docsouth.unc.edu/imls/bethell/menu.html
tal�6 ah�/(�yle=’mso-spacerun:yes’> That alone & the record of it contained in you is your hold upon existence. Think how much poetry, how many thoughts have fed your devouring flame! Yet, Journal, I love you better than the others. It would pain me to lose you, so for your sake I will be more reticent & not fritter you away upon idle thoughts & ideas “long drawn out.” You have eased my anxiety & soothed my pain many at time this past year, but I make too large demands on you!
Mr E heard last night to our great relief that the rumour of the capture of the Cotton Plant was an entire fabrication. Not even a mistake, as she went up the river in safety yesterday & had we been at Looking Glass we could have seen her. Truth is indeed dead. Galveston in Texas is captured by the enemy. I know not which behaved worse or with more pusillamnity, the captors or the captured, if the Newspaper record is the true one. Two Regts are below us at Hamilton. Tomorrow our hands are to go down to work on the entrenchments, 500 called out with a fortnight’s provisions. I hope they will make it safe this time. We captured a company of “Buffalos,” so we hear, about Plymouth. What “Buffalos” are does not appear, but they are enemies. The traitor Col Jones has been captured and is in Jail at Hamilton. If the State authorities do their duty they will hang him for treason. I hope earnestly that they will never release him whilst the War lasts, for with his grand airs & pretended intimacy with the best people in the land, which he will be anxious to exhibit to his Abolition friends, he would be a dangerous person to us. He would pilot the enemy all through our country. He has long been an admirer of our fair neighbor Nannie Hill & came up often to see her. I would be sorry for him, much as I despise him, should he ever again encounter her!
Source: Edmondston, Catherine Ann Devereux, 1823-1875, Journal of a Secesh Lady: The Diary of Catherine Ann Devereux Edmondston 1860-1866. Crabtree, Beth G and Patton, James W., (Raleigh, NC: North Carolina Division of Archives and History, 1979). http://nc-historical-publications.stores.yahoo.net/478.html
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