In Northern Virginia, Confederate activity is stirring on the grounds of Frying Pan Baptist Church. Colonel Philip St. George Cocke reports,
“Major Wheat’s Louisiana First Special Battalion was added to my command and stationed at or near Frying Pan Church, and Captain Alexander’s troop of cavalry also added to Terry’s at the same place. Subsequently Major Evans was ordered from Leesburg with Sloan’s Fourth Regiment of South Carolina Volunteers to Frying Pan Church with orders to report to me and act as a part of my command stationed at that place.”
Yet troop movements are merely one aspect of the war. On the home front in the middle Georgia town of Forsyth, Julia Stanford worries about her fiancée (Pierce Young) in Virginia:
Last night was one of weeping for me. I heard that P- was sick & a prisoner this with a dream I had this week agonized my mind in the greatest degree. Oh! the sorrow – sorrow – I can never forget it – Never. Never. O. that the Lord would make me perform my vows- But I cannot dwell on this tears & tears can never blot out his memory.
Today I have heard that Pierce is on parole and as soon as his health will admit he will be sent home on parole.
Sources: Frying Pan Baptist Meeting House History and photo (link); “The Diary of Miss Julia A. Stanford” (A copy is available in the Mercer University Georgia Baptist History Depository, Macon, Georgia)
