15 8 The American Civil Warcommenting that Confederate General
Leonidas Polk had called on all the planters
along the Mississippi River to send their
slaves to assist in fortifying Fort Pillow some
40 miles (64km) north of Memphis.
'Separating the old family Negroes who have
lived and worked together for so many years
is a great grief to them and a distress to us,'
she observed. After reading a January letter
from her brother, she came to the realization
that 'The manner in which the North is
moving her forces, now that she thinks us
surrounded and can give us the annihilating
blow, reminds me of a party of hunters
crouched around the covert of the deer, and
when the lines are drawn and there is no
escape, they close in and kill.'
Kate reported the fall of Fort Henry and
Fort Donelson, and the capture of significant
points in Kentucky, Tennessee, and Missouri,
which left Vicksburg open from the North.
She abhorred the sight of Federal gunboats
on the Mississippi River only a few miles
from Brokenburn. She lamented the fact that
the southern approach to Vicksburg was
opened by the fall of New Orleans, Baton
Rouge, and Natchez. She was concerned that
the loss of the river cities would allow the
Union army to 'descend the Mississippi and
get all the cotton they can steal.' Benjamin
Butler's occupation of New Orleans in April
1862 provoked a fierce reaction. 'It made my
blood boil to ... think of New Orleans
completely in his power.' Kate hoped such
losses would inspire the populace. 'All other
tidings are gloomy but they have aroused the
country with a trumpet call. There is the
greatest excitement throughout the country.
Almost everyone is going and going at
once,' she recorded. 'The whole country is
awake and on the watch - think and talk
only of war.'
By the summer of 1862, Kate's daily
entries focused almost exclusively on
military affairs. She was beginning to
comprehend the significance of the Union
victories of the spring. 'The merchants are
selling only for cash and that cash is hard to
get, unless we can do as they seem to be
doing in the towns - make it,' she observed.
She also wrote of the tension that
conscription caused in the Confederacy. 'The
conscription has caused a great commotion
and great consternation among the shirking
stay-at-homes.' 'Around here many are
deluding themselves with the belief that the
call will not be enforced in Louisiana now
that New Orleans has fallen and Vicksburg is
threatened.' 'We earnestly hope these coward
souls will be made to go ... Not a single man
has joined for the last two months.'
The surrender of Nashville and the river
forts, and much of the Mississippi River,
made Kate realize that 'fair Louisiana with
her fertile fields of cane and cotton ... lies
powerless at the feet of the enemy.' 'Though
the Yankees have gained the land, the people
are determined they shall not have its
wealth, and from every plantation rises the
smoke of burning cotton,' Her own family
burned $20.000 worth in May 1862.
Although the planters looked upon the
burning of cotton as almost ruin to their
fortunes, it must be done for the cause, she
argued. As the Union soldiers pressed on to
Corinth, Mississippi, Kate invoked the
Almighty to produce Confederate success in
the west, writing in her diary: 'Grant a
victory, Father, we pray.'
Plagued by shortages of food, clothing,
and medicines, Kate watched with scorn as
the Union army threatened to close
Vicksburg in the summer of 1862. 'It seems
hopeless to make a stand at Vicksburg,' she
wrote. 'We only hope they may burn the city
if they meet with any resistance.' 'How much
better to burn our cities than let them fall
into the enemy's hands.' It seemed that God
had answered her prayers as the Confederates
blocked Federal attempts to lay siege to
Vicksburg in the summer and fall of 1862.
While Kate was entertaining Confederate
soldiers at Brokenburn on Christmas Eve
1862, General William T. Sherman with
30.000 men arrived at Milliken's Bend, only
a few miles away. In the winter months, his
troops swarmed the plantation, confiscating
horses and supplies, seizing slaves to work
on a new canal and encouraging others to
leave their masters. On 26 January 1863,