Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 03.djvu/261

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Diary of Captain Robert E. Park.
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yielded to the great pressure. Lieutenant Critchton and Captains Gibson and Fannin remain firm and counsel with me daily. Received ten dollars from Mrs. Martha J. Sullivan, of Baltimore, with a noble letter, full of sweet, womanly sympathy, counseling me to yield to the requirements of the Yankee Government, and secure release from longer confinement. Miss Gertie C—— now at Baltimore Female College, sent me her photograph, a very handsome one. A prison newspaper, all in manuscript, has made its appearance. It is a single sheet of foolscap, all written neatly with the pen, and evidently by several hands. "The Prison Times" is its name. It is divided into columns, and every page has its contents properly classed. The head is prettily done in ornamental letters. The motto is "en temps et lien." The number out is the second issue. There is a prospectus and a salutatory. There is a column of miscellany followed by a column of advertisements. "Lieutenant White, of Thirty-third North Carolina, will execute on metal all kinds of engravings;" "Lieutenant B. F. Curtright, Division 24, manufactures gutta-percha rings, chains and breastpins; "tailoring is done by Griggs and Church;" "washing and ironing by J. G. Davenport, of Tenth Georgia battalion, and by Lieutenant J. C. Boswell, Thirty-third Georgia regiment;" "Broughton and Walker keep a shaving and shampooing shop." The editors are George S. Thomas, Captain Sixty-fourth Georgia; W. H. Bennett, Captain and Adjutant same regiment, and F. J. Cassidy, Lieutenant Eleventh South Carolina volunteers. The editorials consist of a "Salutatory," "Our Prison World," "A Good Work," "A Local," "Our Paper," "Miscellaneous," "Report of the Markets," and there are several original communications.

May 19th to 31st—The mortifying news of the capture of President Davis, near Washington, Georgia, is received, and the false report of his attempt to escape in female attire is circulated and maliciously harped upon by the fanatical Yankee newspapers. While I feel sure the report is totally untrue, yet I confess I think he would have been entirely justified in it, if he had sought to escape by such means. Louis Napoleon once escaped from a dungeon in female garb, and no disgrace or shame attaches to him for it. But it is a ringing and lasting shame to the Yankee nation that our great chief has been compelled to endure the severest, bitterest attempt to humiliate him and disgrace his people by being basely manacled with irons. While thoroughly indignant we feel that the disgrace of the cruel deed all belongs to President Johnson