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WAR COMES TO THE GULF COAST
seemed rejoiced co see us, blessed God we had come, and begged us co hold che place. These poor people were on che verge of starvation. ...They looked famished and in every way miserable; che women in shabby calico skircs clinging around their lean frames; che men wichouc coacs, and all as dircy as they were ragged.
We could find no food for sale but a few watermelons, a few stale ginger-cakes and a dozen loaves of bread.... If the war does not end soon, the South will starve to death.
These paupers expressed no hosdlicy. On the contrary, they urged us to remain and protect them. They feared the guerrillas would hang them for speaking to us.
Ac Shieldsboro he found “about 35 families in a state of semi-starvation" who
habitually ate but one meal a day and were not sure of that.... Nearly all these people looked hungry, gaunt, ghostly and yellow. I noted one girl with very handsome features, but so pale and thin that she was piciful to see.
Some of the women begged us to take them to New Orleans, but of course that could not be done.
A few days lacer on August 4, J.F.H. Claiborne wrote Governor Pettus from his plantation near Shieldsboro:	’
Dear Sir:
It is my duty to inform you of the suffering condition of che people of this and the contiguous Sea-Shore Counties.
You are aware that scarcely one acre in 1,000 in these counties will produce corn.... Two thirds of our people, however, never plant corn, relying altogether on procuring it in New Orleans in exchange for wood and charcoal, tar, etc.
The sudden and wholly unexpected fall of that city has cut us off entirely, and for nearly two months many families have been without bread. There is not a pound of flour or rice for sale in the County... . We stand between starvation and military execucion. We are now proving our loyalcy by scar-vacion—by the tears of our women and che cries of our children for bread.
Claiborne closed his letter with an appeal to Pettus to use his good offices to strike a bargain with the Federals in New Orleans to reopen trade in foodstuffs. As for Claiborne, he had already struck his own bargain, becoming the most important Union spy in south Mississippi. He dutifully informed the Yankees of the precise locations of clandestine saltworks and tanneries, the better to direct their raids against his neighbors, whom he termed “essentially animal” in one report to a Federal general.
On August 15 Claiborne in another letter to Pettus complained that Steede’s “utterly useless” cavalry consumed too much food and ought to be sent north to Lieutenant General John C. Pemberton’s army at Vicksburg. A
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