Ibn al-Athir's Account:The population was put to the sword by the Franks, who pillaged the area for a week. A band of Muslims barricaded themselves into the Oratory of Savid [Tower of David] and fought on for several days. They were granted their lives in return for surrendering. The Franks honored their word, and the group left by night for Ascalon [a city on the coast]. In the Masjid al-Aqsa [the Temple of Solomon] the Franks slaughtered more than 70,000 people, among them a large number of Imams and Muslim scholars, devout and ascetic men who had left their homelands to live lives of pious seclusion in the Holy Place.

"august 19th (1864)- how they quarreled and wrangled among themselves- alabama and mississippi, all were loud for joe johnston, save and except the long-haired, one-armed hero, who cried at the top of his voice: "oh! you all want to be kept in trenches and to go on retreating, eh? " "oh, if we had had a leader, such as stonewall (jackson), this war would have been over long ago! what we want is a leader! " shouted a (wounded man). they were awfully smashed-up, objects of misery, wounded, maimed, diseased. i was really upset, and came home ill. this kind of thing unnerves me quite." mary chestnut, a diary from dixie this entry from the diary of mary chestnut illustrates a) the lack of medical technology possessed by the confederacy. b) the military superiority of southern troops in the civil war. c) the effects of the emancipation proclamation on the southern economy and society. d) the loss of morale and confidence by the confederacy towards the end of the civil war.