I am afraid for the Cotton production in the Future. We were so used to producing mainly cotton, yet, nothing that would be self-sufficient to survive without the North. My father feels that very important and bloody events are coming up, and I am not sure whether we could stay true Southerners, or find a way to get out of this awful situation, which seems to be impossible to resist anyway. Write me soon. Horrifying, just horrifying war.
News travels awfully slowly here, and so is the army.
Battle at Sharpsburg, or what you call Antietam, was one of the most bloodiest of all the battles so far. It seems to me that Sharpsburg was the turning point for both the South and the North. We put every effort into this particular battle, and Victory of the North killed our last hopes. I think I told you that I want no part in this war, and we have been lucky so far, here in Vicksburg, but it is getting frightening. Your army occupied New Orleans and the entire Mississippi River except for territory between Port Hudson and Vicksburg, but as my father told me before, and continues to tell me now, that Vicksburg will still see its own Antietam before the end of the war.