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	Record Group Number:	900000
	Collection Number:	M92- 1
	Series Number:
	Creator:
	Collection/Series Title:	Call family and Brevard family papers, 1788-1925.
	Container:	00012
	File Unit:	00012.00001
	Item:
	Title:	Ellen Call Long diary, fragments, 1864-1865, 60 pp., reflecting on progress of the war, race relations, and family matters: "The idea set forth is that the Caucasian race (which we have always been taught is the most perfect of men) is exhausted . . . and in order to restore it to its pristine excellence or superiority, there needs to be a cross with the African - can any thing be more revolting . . . May 1st 1864 . . . The Yankees have left only a brigade of negroes in Jacksonville . . . Genl Grant (Yankee) is preparing to march on to Richmond again . . . May 8th. More carnage, more widows, more orphans - The long expected and dreaded battle has commenced in Virginia . . . we are said to have lost four Generals - Longstreet is thought mortally wounded and shot accidentally as General Stonewall Jackson was by our men. . . 31st. Is it possible - my little Nonie went off to Lake City this morning . . . to make a visit of two weeks - she has never left me before. She was all excitement . . . She is such a perfect little lady. . . Her brother is retained with General Anderson . . . Today is the second anniversary of the battle of 'Seven Pines,' near Richmond, on which field my cousin George Call fell. . . August 23 . . . The new Brigadier General (John K. Jackson) visited our town last week - spent an evening with me - seems disposed to take things quietly - although the Yanks are carrying everything before them in East Florida. Captain Dickinson . . . met them with a hundred men near Gainesville . . . and is said to have taken 150 prisoners . . . August 28th, 1864. I had letter from son Richard yesterday, he says Capt. Dickinsons little affair with the enemy was quite a brilliant one . . . Several females stood in the doors and fired at the enemy . . . Our enemies will find it difficult to subdue a people with such women among them. . . September 11th. Well Atlanta has fallen . . . we have 40 or 50 thousand Yankee prisoners at a little town in Ga (Andersonville) - it will be unfortunate if the Federal Army makes its way there and liberates them. A great deal has been said both North and South with regard to these prisoners who are represented as suffering every thing so many crowded into a stockade of a few acres must necessarily suffer - seventy five or one hundred are said to die daily . . . September 14th, 1864. Today is the second anniversary of my dear Fathers death. How I used to dislike the idea of his growing old . . . Son Richard is home on sick leave. . . September 16th. I was pained to learn today through letter that my sister had lost her little infant, 'Ellen Kirkman' - poor Mary, it is her first heartfelt grief. . . The Enemy very much to the surprise entered Marianna (West Florida) on the morning of the 26th inst. A fight took place in the street and several persons were killed . . . Nov 15th. There is no doubt but Abe Lincoln is again elected . . . my heart sunk within me with the news. I see now nothing before me but subjugation utter utter ruin. . . Nov. __ Sherman who has been in Atlanta for some months has astonished the south by being reinforced . . . April 2nd 1865. The Governor of our State (Milton) committed suicide last night. By nature an animated and kind man . . . The present condition of the country . . . seems enough to drive all mad who had aught to do in producing this state of affairs. . . I do get out of patience with that class who in answer to all argument cry out, 'we must succeed for Providence is on our side' - the slightest evidence of which I have never seen. . . I am inclined to think Providence has nothing to do with this diabolical war. . . The Confederate Congress . . . passed a bill authorizing the enlistment or rather the conscripting of negro troops. I am so satisfied that the institution of slavery is gone, that I set no value upon them as property. . . but I do not believe negros can bear the hardships of a southern soldiers life . . . April 6th. The long expected event has come at last . . . Richmond has fallen. . . I feel most anxious about Col. Brevard who was in the fight before Petersburg - his wife is at her plantation. I will keep the news of the battle from her if possible until I hear more. . . April 21st. Well I believe the war is over - our suffering may not have yet begun however. . . I cannot but think Davis has acted selfishly in persisting in the war. . . April 23d 1865. We are all electrified by an official order . . . which says, 'Hostilities will be suspended pending negotiations for peace between the two governments.' April 26th. We had the most astounding and startling news last night coming through the lines at Jacksonville which is that Lincoln has been assassinated . . . I am sorry - this man most probably has been murdered while considering the best act of his life . . . a concilliatory course on his part toward the South - while his death puts a much worse man in his place . . . May 10th. I was suddenly interrupted this morning in my usual occupation by our little 'Black Boy' running in screaming out, 'Yankees! Miss Ellen, Yankees' and I found myself running with the rest of the children to see the 'Yankees' who were just entering the town by my house. . . General McCook had not been in Tallahassee a half hour before he was invited to lodge at the house of one of our most influential men - which has created great indignation among many - certainly none of our own Generals were met with such prompt attention. . . if they . . . practice kind treatment I think we should show some appreciation of it - it is time the southern people recognized their folly - and the truth of having sold their birth right for a mess of pottage. Andrew Johnson has issued a proclamation offering a $100,000 reward for the arrest of Jeff Davis and others whom he pretends to implicate in the murder of Lincoln and Seward. Poor Davis, where is he? . . the commandant of the stockade at Andersonville . . . has been arrested . . . he is said even by our own authorities to have been unusually cruel. . . Sunday May 14th. I find our pastors remarks last Sunday have created a great furore among some of the parishioners - many declare they will not return . . . how unfair and uncharitable to the man who has sympathized with them in all their fanatical madness for four years . . . The negros around the country are behaving badly as it was feared they would do - many plantations are entirely deserted. . . I have told my negros that I expect that they will be freed - but in any case they have got to work, and it is only a question whether they will work for me or somebody else . . . they will catch the popular feeling soon that they are free - which with a negro means to sleep all day under the shade of a tree and when night comes catch a possum or two . . . May 16th. Sad sad is the news brought us today. Jeff Davis has been arrested . . . Davis was really opposed to secession and did his utmost for awhile to stop its progress, but when the current became too strong for him he yielded to it. . . May 21st. On Yesterday the 'Stars and Stripes' were thrown to the breeze once more over our Capitol. . . I thought four years ago . . . that it would give me great pleasure, but not so. The humility of the south, her utterly crushed condition makes my heart ache . . . Freedom was declared to the negros, so today has been a great Saturnalia with them . . . May 23rd. The negros at last will be the sufferers, for there is not one in a hundred that knows how to make a living and many must starve and die for the need of the fostering care of their masters. When we pass through this crisis, this state of transition, I have no doubt we shall work our plantations to greater advantage than ever instead of having 1 to work and 5 to feed we will only feed those that work. . . . . I read a full account of the obsequies of the dead President - I do not think that there was ever anything like it in the world. From Washington City to his place of interment in Illinois might be called one funereal procession. In every city through which his body passed there was every demonstration of grief set forth in every emblem of woe. . . So the Rail splitting, union splitting, joking President is now called a Martyr . . . July 28th. We must be in Russia - one of our citizens in a private conversation remarked to a Yankee official that the south never would have surrendered if we could have anticipated such treatment as we are receiving . . . he reported him, and the General had him arrested . . . July 4th, 1865. This is the first 4th observance here for five years, and no southern white people take part . . . it is a negro jubilee entirely . . . we shall hate the United States ever with a hatred that cannot be measured . . . . . I intend to leave home next Tuesday - what the consequences will be I do not know - whether I ever get back or not, I don't know . . . if it were not for our family Grave Yard, I think I could easily part with it forever, but that attaches me to it. . . Farewell my home - my heart will often turn in sadness to you . . . God grant that those that remain of us may in time gather again around thy heart, under bright auspices than now shade our domestic and political condition." At the end is a copy of General Orders No. 18, April 27, 1865, giving the terms of surrender of Confederate troops under General Joseph E. Johnston to General Sherman. [Photocopies of diary pages in Box 5, File Folder 20]
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