THE CIVIL WAR DIARY OF JOHN G. MORRISON 1861-1865

[97] kept their arms in a most dirty and careless manner, as they
were all more less breech burnt. Turned in at 8 P.M.
Wednesday, April 9th.
today.
Nothing of any importance occurred
Thursday, April 10th. Wrote two letters home today, one to
my wife and one to my friend,Tom Gillespie. Heard today that
a great battle had been fought at Corinth, Miss., between the
Union forces under Genls Grant and Buell on one side and the
rebels under Beauregard and S.A. Johnston on the other and
which resulted in the defeat of the latter after two days'
fighting in the second of which Johnston got killed and
Beauregard lost an arm. It is said that the slaughter on
both sides was tremendous, amounting (so says report) to
50,000 killed and wounded. It is also said that Grant was
beaten the first day by Beauregard and driven back some six
miles but the timely arrival of Buell with 60,000 men (which
made the forces about equall) turned the scale in our favor,
but I don't think it is true. I went ashore today and had a
good long walk through the country, the soil of which is
composed principally of sand and loam mixed, but it is badly
farmed, as they trust too much to the nigger. I ran across a
few of that class known south as "poor whites" and of a
verity they are poor in all that is requisite to bring them
up to any preconceived idea of souther men, an American
citizen, being small in both mind and body. Moreover, they
don't seem to comprehend the question at issue, having
derived what little information they possess from those whose
interest it is to mislead them.
[98] Visited the home of a widow lady named Davis, who seemed very
uneasy at the proximity of our troops, thinking perhaps that
we were like her secesh soldiers, ready and willing to steal
everything we could get our hands on, as they had stolen six
of her horses a few nights before. I found a little keg of
buckshot on my road home, which I brought home and gave to one
of our masters. Turned in early as I was tired.
Friday, April 11th. Nothing of any importance occurred today
except the return of our first master. I also received a
letter and two papers from Tom Gillespie, which were very
welcome, as I was entirely out of reading matter. The
weather begins to feel warm now.
Saturday, April 12th. In the forenoon the whole fleet came
down from Island 10, as the commodore came abreast of us,
signalled us to get under weigh and follow him immediatly,
which we did. As the afternoon wore away, we kept gaining on
the other boats and from being the last we came the second in
line as we passed downstream. There was nothing to be seen
except the same everlasting cottonwood bottom, flooded, and
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