Page 5  Vicksburg one month ago - here is a strech of plantation from Milliken to Carthage about 40 miles - well improved worth millions - besides the opulent owners, being rendred homeless - The Queenly Mistress with her bright eyed children with a few poor old servants thrown upon the cold charities of an unfeeling army!  I must acknowledge my incapacity to do the sad picture Justice; I pitty the women and children, but when I look at the other side of the question, & turn my mind to a more northern clime, where the mother is sorrowing over the loss of a son slain in battle.  The doting wife weeping over the loss of a loved husband - Little children whose lives were one all sunshine in the light of a fathers presence Yes they will look in vain for the return of homes bright treasures.  Their dust is mingling with the dust of an enemies country - My tears for the Rebel Mother are dried.  Let my weeping be for the friends of the noble dead & for the friends of my bleeding country & the friends of humanity.  When I see the stocks & the lash & other hateful instruments of torture to these poor blacks, with their backs all gashed & scarred & to hear these poor defenceless, people tell of a brother being whiped to death, or some poor fellow tell the sad story of his young wife having been whiped, while her babe was so young & she so weak, from her late confinement, because she could not perform her task, that she went crazy & then whiped until she finally died, my heart sickens to hear those sad stories told in their simplicity, my blood boils in its veins, I cannot but say in my heart let the wrath of God rest & abide on the wretched authors of such wicked cruelty - But I am sentimentalizing again.  I promised to tell you what we are doing
