Dear Diary, August 30, 1861

Security has been growing ever tighter on the border. It seems like everything has gotten many times worse than it was before, and to think it could all be caused by one woman. Just seven days ago in Washington, Rose Greenhow, or Rebel Rose, was arrested at her house by Allan Pinkerton and company. I appreciate the work that Pinkerton does, but since they arrested Rebel Rose, every soul in the city has been suspicious of everyone else. Even the neighbors won’t talk to me anymore. Everyone thinks everyone else is a spy, and life is getting lonelier with each passing second.

The emergence of spies as a necessity in war has put the whole country into a panic, both sides will put you in jail for even the slightest reluctance to being interrogated. I tried to go visit my family in the South, but a Confederate soldier threatened to shoot me if I tried to pass, saying I was a “dirty northern rat.” He proceeded to inform me that a “fragile creature” like me wouldn’t “survive” in the south, and that it “takes a real man to live here.” I guess a “real man” sits in his mansion reading the newspaper while his slaves are being worked to death harvesting and processing cotton. Northern abolitionists, and southern pro-slavery people are nothing alike, nothing but the fact that we have something we are fighting for. 

I’m still traumatized by the interaction I had with that soldier, I tried to visit my family, who I haven’t seen for nearly a year, and he threatened to kill me without hesitation. Whether it was fear, anger, or some mix of the two, all I know is that none of it is going to get better any time soon. This war should never have started, I get sick to my stomach thinking about the casualties still yet to come. I feel as though we have not yet even reached point where I can say that the Union is in a position of power against the Confederates. We are fighting an uphill battle. Defending is much easier than attacking, and we are required to do the latter if we want to piece the country back together again. At this poin in the war, I can’t find anything that it has accomplished or changed except for the families that have been torn apart over the issue of slavery, or their children being drafted, and never coming back home. My opinion is this: The war has so far changed and accomplished nothing minorly significant, and I don’t foresee anything significant happening any time soon.

The one who fills your pages,

Henry Edington