"Since I last wrote. all has been uncertainty and suspense.No news from any quarter-not a word from our army. It is terrible when we know that events, so fraught with deep interest to us, are transpiring. Night before last we heard pickets firing & one gun & thought the boats were about to commence an attack, but all was still again, and we understood it was a false alarm. Yesterday we learned that a coal barge had been towed to the bend by a gun boat and it was at this that the firing was. She cut the barge loose however and our men secured and brought it in.Eight thousand bushels of coal- which the the boats must need greatly."

...Mrs. Balfour's Civil War Diary.