Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: implored me not to listen to or credit any rumors to the contrary, and urged me in an added line to be brave and of good cheer—to keep up a " skookum tum-tum." This letter was brought to me by Jaccheri, a daring, fearless Italian in my husband's employ as a headquarters postmaster. He was sagacious and loyal, perfectly devoted to my husband and his cause, and was trusted with letters of the strictest confidence and importance all through the war. As I said before, our people were on the verge of starvation. The army had been living on rations of corn and beans, with "seasonings" of meat, for weeks before we left camp. A rat even had been considered a bonne bouche for months past. The game had been trapped and killed throughout the whole country, and my breakfast that morning had consisted of a few beans cooked in water; no salt; for salt had been a luxury for a long time in the Confederacy. All the old smokehouses had been moved, that the earth might be dug up and boiled down to get the salt which in the many years it had absorbed. John Theophelas, my dear little brother, nine years old, was a great comfort to me in these days of trial. He had just brought up my beans and was lovingly coaxing me to eat them when Jaccheri came. A plate was filled for Jaccheri, and after he had finished his meager breakfast, seasoned with his adventures in getting to me, swimming the river at one place with his clothes tied up in a bundle on his head, etc., he said he must go. I added a few lines to my diary of all my acts, which I always kept for the General, and gave it to our faithful letter-carrier to take back to him. "Ina da days to come," said Jaccheri, in his soft Italian voice, "ina all landa, no matter, mucha people — tnucha gloly, nadia money, no matter, you find Jaccherihere—and...