February 6, 1864
Busy with my Garden seeds, dividing them with friends who are not so fortunate or so provident as I was last summer. I have a fine stock, as times go, but it seems meager to what I once thought a necessity for a good garden. Last evening came Mary & Sue on horse back. Sad rumours they bring us, but they are but rumours, to the effect that we have failed in our attack on New Berne & have fallen back, Barton’s Brigade being the scapegoat this time. Gen Martin has stormed & taken Morehead City and Dame Rumour says holds it. The newspapers “distinguish themselves” like the little man in the Spectator “by a profound silence” on the whole subject, so Mad Rumour’s reign is undisturbed. We have had some success of minor importance, capturing a wagon train of eighty wagons in Hardy County, burning a Gunboat, the Smith Briggs, & capturing her crew and a detachment of 130 men sent out to destroy a Factory & Mill in Isle of Wight County. The prisoners boast that they were in the foray which destroyed Brandon. Col Griffin also repulsed the enemy & drove them to their boats at Windsor, killing ten of them.
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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