1862 July 11 Chapel Hill, N.C.

[from the diary of Eliza Oswald Hill, refugee from Wilmington, N.C.]

Friday 11th  After the storm yesterday. It is damp- & very cool this morn
ing.  Eliza & I must have both taken cold sleeping with the windows
open - as neither of us feel well today--My mind is so worried about
Tom that I cannot sit quietly to anything.  Had he been killed I should
have thought the melancholy news would have reached Chapel Hill be
-fore this-& had his Regiment the 18 Miss' been in the fight some
mention would certainly have been made of it in the papers--I am
afraid he is sick at some private  house--or gone off to join
Stone Wall Jackson in some of his bold dashes--Not he alone, but
his Regiment or Company--the letter from Liz this morning was
all we received--She leaves for Wilmington on the 14th after remain
-ing there two days will return to Chapel Hill--The Richmond dis-
patch has nothing new in it to day--But I learn from the Wilmington
journal that the Yankees are trying hard to get Vicksburg--I hope they
may find it as hard to take as they have found Richmond--& with less
sacrifice of life on the Confederate side.

MSS 6960