Saturday, May 21. 1864

Mrs. Cutler’s little Sarah went to spend the day at the Burgess’s.  Lucy, Miss Mary C. Nye, and Bettie Gates came & returned on the accommodation train taking dinner here.  Sarah came home at once to play with Bettie & Mrs. Cutler after diner.  Miss Nye brought me a beautiful boquet of “lilies of the valley” and promised us some more of the same to place on dear little Annie’s grave next fall.

Peggy's comments:
While the war wages on in Virginia and Georgia, Julia's writes most frequently about the family life at home.  News was infrequent and often confusing.  

On May 21, Rufus Dawes was moving toward North Anna with Grant and the Army of the Potomac and his brother, Major Ephraim Dawes, was marching with Sherman toward Atlanta.  

Ephraim writes:

On this campaign we have no tents.  Field officers are permitted to take only what they can carry on their horses.  Our marching order has just come in.  We start Monday, the 23rd.  The order says, "take twenty days' rations of hard bread, coffee, and salt, and expect to be independent of the railroad" for that time.  We will meet and defeat the rebel army somewhere between here and Atlanta.           We have a large and well appointed army well officered and in better spirits than I ever saw an army in my life.  The railroad trains from Chattanooga, ran to Kingston as soon as the army reached there.  Next Friday [May 27] is my twenty-fourth birthday; perhaps we will have another fight by that time.  Colonel Jones has just sent up the official report of the regiment at Resaca.  In it he was kind enough to say:  "Major Dawes, whose coolness and courage did much to inspire the men, is worthy of particular mention."

Ephraim Cutler Dawes