Friday, May 10

A poor battered sailor, a native of New York, but just out from the hospital in New Orleans, staid here last night.  He had been thirty eight years a sailor and had visited many lands.  He had lost his right arm and had his leg broken by a fall from the mast of a ship some months ago at New Orleans.  He left because of the unkind treatment he, being a northern man, received.  
Fifty thousand troops of the southern Confederacy are concentrated about Richmond.  Gen. Scott is sending troops to Washington.  A collision seems to be inevitable soon.  Gov. Letcher has appointed twenty different places of rendezvous for Virginian troops.  Parkersburg for Wood and seven adjoining counties. If any number of secession troops to muster there, it will bring the war to our very doors.  As yet there are no adequate arrangements for defence of this part of Ohio if attacked.  
William came home from Chillicothe today almost sick.  ______sent him an insolent dispatch which he did not reply to.  Troubles thicken, God is our refuge.  Oh, that we may be able to say "He is a very present help in time of trouble."  
The city of Wheeling observed Thursday as a day of fasting and prayer in view of the present crisis. Monday a convention meets there to take into consideration forming a new state out of Western Virginia.  The Cincinnati Commercial says that "Wheeling trusts in God and keeps her powder dry."  The gallant Mayor Robert Anderson, late commander of Fort Sumpter, has been made Colonel and takes command of Kentucky troops.  He seems to be a truly good, as well as a truly brave man.  The southern papers have taken great pains to assure the world that nobody was hurt by the guns of Fort Sumpter, a circumstance which seems incredible as two thousand balls and shells were said to have been thrown during the siege, many of which were known to have taken effect from the testimony of a number of different witnesses.  It now appears that several hundred were killed and buried at night.  The troops were sworn to secrecy.  Why?


Editor's comments:

• Governor Letcher was governor of Virginia from 1860-1864.  He worked to find a compromise so that Virginia would not secede from the Union, but once it seceded, he remained governor of Virginia.
• Parkersburg, Virginia was a town across the Ohio River from Marietta, Ohio.  Wood County and adjoining counties in the western part of Virginia sided with the Union and did not want to secede.  In 1863, West Virginia became a state.