Journal

( Fr. ). A public record or general orderly book, kept in the French service, and in which every transaction that occurred during a siege is entered by the governor of the town, for the inspection of a superior authority. The general officer who carried on the siege of a place likewise kept a document of the same kind, and minuted down everything that happened under his command. So that the journal which was kept in this manner was a circumstantial detail of what occurred, day after day, during the attack and defense of a town.