Good morning! Our Fort Donelson sesquicentennial series continues with this excerpt from Lucy Larcom’s February, 1862 diary:
There is news to-day of great victories in progress for us. Fort Donelson is surrounded; there has been a deadly fight, and our flag waves upon the outer fortifications. It is said that the rebels must yield, as all approaches are cut off, but it is the struggle of desperation with them, as this is the key to the whole Southwest. There are victories in Missouri and in North Carolina also; more prisoners taken than our generals know what to do with; but all this is purchased at such a price of blood!
Source: Larcom, Lucy, “Diary of Lucy Larcom, February, 1862,” in Lucy Larcom: Life, Letters, and Diary, edited by Daniel Dulany Addison (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1894).
Image Credit: Harper’s Weekly, March 15, 1862.
