1862 December 10 Staunton, Va.

[from the diary of Joseph Addison Waddell, civilian employee of the Quartermaster Dept.]

Wednesday night, Dec. 10, 1862

The town perfectly quiet yesterday and to- day — a dreary dullness. This evening the papers bring news of quite an important affair at Huntsville, on the Cumberland River, Tennessee. Gen. J. H. Morgan assailed an outpost of the enemy, killing and wounding 200, and capturing 1800, with all the stores at the place. A great expedition (Yankee) is about starting from Cairo for the reduction of Vicksburg and the opening of the Mississippi river. All quiet at Fredericksburg. Two hundred negroes are called for from this county, to work on the fortifications at Richmond. H. J. Lushbaugh is manufacturing maple wood buttons — very pretty ones. Nails sell in town at 50^c a pound — formerly 5^c to 6/4^c.

[transcript by the Valley of the Shadow Project]

MSS 38-258