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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a474fc7 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #60908 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/60908) diff --git a/old/60908-0.txt b/old/60908-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index ee400e7..0000000 --- a/old/60908-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,16648 +0,0 @@ -Project Gutenberg's A Diary from Dixie, by Mary Boykin Miller Chesnut - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll -have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using -this ebook. - - - -Title: A Diary from Dixie - As written by Mary Boykin Chesnut, wife of James Chesnut, - Jr., United States Senator from South Carolina, 1859-1861, - and afterward an Aide to Jefferson Davis and a - Brigadier-General in the Confederate Army - -Author: Mary Boykin Miller Chesnut - -Editor: Isabella D. Martin - Myrta Lockett Avary - -Release Date: December 12, 2019 [EBook #60908] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A DIARY FROM DIXIE *** - - - - -Produced by MWS and the Online Distributed Proofreading -Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from -images generously made available by The Internet -Archive/American Libraries.) - - - - - - - - - - - A DIARY FROM - DIXIE [Illustration] - - - - -[Illustration: MRS. JAMES CHESNUT, JR. - -From a Portrait in Oil.] - - - - - A DIARY FROM - DIXIE, _as written by_ - - MARY BOYKIN CHESNUT, _wife of_ JAMES - CHESNUT, JR., _United States Senator from South - Carolina, 1859-1861, and afterward an Aide - to Jefferson Davis and a Brigadier-General - in the Confederate Army_ - - Edited by - Isabella D. Martin and - Myrta Lockett - Avary - - [Illustration] - - NEW YORK - D. APPLETON AND COMPANY - 1906 - - COPYRIGHT, 1905, BY - D. APPLETON AND COMPANY - - _Published March, 1905_ - - - - -CONTENTS - - - PAGE - - INTRODUCTION: THE AUTHOR AND HER BOOK xiii - - CHAPTER I.—CHARLESTON, S. C., _November 8, 1860-December 27, 1860_. - - The news of Lincoln’s election—Raising the Palmetto flag—The - author’s husband resigns as United States Senator—The Ordinance - of Secession—Anderson takes possession of Fort Sumter 1 - - CHAPTER II.—MONTGOMERY, Ala., _February 19, 1861-March 11, 1861_. - - Making the Confederate Constitution—Robert Toombs—Anecdote of - General Scott—Lincoln’s trip through Baltimore—Howell Cobb and - Benjamin H. Hill—Hoisting the Confederate flag—Mrs. Lincoln’s - economy in the White House—Hopes for peace—Despondent talk with - anti-secession leaders—The South unprepared—Fort Sumter 6 - - CHAPTER III.—CHARLESTON, S. C., _March 26, 1861-April 15, 1861_. - - A soft-hearted slave-owner—Social gaiety in the midst of war - talk—Beauregard a hero and a demigod—The first shot of the - war—Anderson refuses to capitulate—The bombardment of Fort - Sumter as seen from the house-tops—War steamers arrive in - Charleston harbor—“Bull Run” Russell—Demeanor of the negroes 21 - - CHAPTER IV.—CAMDEN, S. C., _April 20, 1861-April 22, 1861_. - - After Sumter was taken—The _jeunesse dorée_—The story of - Beaufort Watts—Maria Whitaker’s twins—The inconsistencies of - life 42 - - CHAPTER V.—MONTGOMERY, Ala., _April 27, 1861-May 20, 1861_. - - Baltimore in a blaze—Anderson’s account of the surrender of - Fort Sumter—A talk with Alexander H. Stephens—Reports from - Washington—An unexpected reception—Southern leaders take - hopeless views of the future—Planning war measures—Removal of - the capital 47 - - CHAPTER VI.—CHARLESTON, S. C., _May 25, 1861-June 24, 1861_. - - Waiting for a battle in Virginia—Ellsworth at Alexandria—Big - Bethel—Moving forward to the battle-ground—Mr. Petigru against - secession—Mr. Chesnut goes to the front—Russell’s letters to - the London Times 57 - - CHAPTER VII.—RICHMOND, Va., _June 27, 1861-July 4, 1861_. - - Arrival at the new capital—Criticism of Jefferson - Davis—Soldiers everywhere—Mrs. Davis’s drawing-room—A day at - the Champ de Mars—The armies assembling for Bull Run—Col. L. Q. - C. Lamar 68 - - CHAPTER VIII.—FAUQUIER WHITE SULPHUR SPRINGS, Va., _July 6, - 1861-July 11, 1861_. - - Cars crowded with soldiers—A Yankee spy—Anecdotes of - Lincoln—Gaiety in social life—Listening for guns—A horse for - Beauregard 77 - - CHAPTER IX.—RICHMOND, Va., _July 13, 1861-September 2, 1861_. - - General Lee and Joe Johnston—The battle of Bull Run—Colonel - Bartow’s death—Rejoicings and funerals—Anecdotes of - the battle—An interview with Robert E. Lee—Treatment - of prisoners—Toombs thrown from his horse—Criticism of - the Administration—Paying the soldiers—Suspected women - searched—Mason and Slidell 82 - - CHAPTER X.—CAMDEN, S. C., _September 9, 1861-September 19, 1861_. - - The author’s sister, Kate Williams—Old Colonel Chesnut—Roanoke - Island surrenders—Up Country and Low Country—Family silver to - be taken for war expenses—Mary McDuffie Hampton—The Merrimac - and the Monitor 127 - - CHAPTER XI.—COLUMBIA, S. C., _February 20, 1862-July 21, 1862_. - - Dissensions among Southern leaders—Uncle Tom’s - Cabin—Conscription begins—Abuse of Jefferson Davis—The battle - of Shiloh—Beauregard flanked at Nashville—Old Colonel Chesnut - again—New Orleans lost—The battle of Williamsburg—Dinners, - teas, and breakfasts—Wade Hampton at home wounded—Battle of - the Chickahominy—Albert Sidney Johnston’s death—Richmond - in sore straits—A wedding and its tragic ending—Malvern - Hill—Recognition of the Confederacy in Europe 131 - - CHAPTER XII.—FLAT ROCK, N. C., _August 1, 1862-August 8, 1862_. - - A mountain summer resort—George Cuthbert—A disappointed - cavalier—Antietam and Chancellorsville—General Chesnut’s work - for the army 210 - - CHAPTER XIII.—PORTLAND, Ala., _July 8, 1863-July 30, 1863_. - - A journey from Columbia to Southern Alabama—The surrender of - Vicksburg—A terrible night in a swamp on a riverside—A good - pair of shoes—The author at her mother’s home—Anecdotes of - negroes—A Federal Cynic 216 - - CHAPTER XIV.—RICHMOND, Va., _August 10, 1863-September 7, 1863_. - - General Hood in Richmond—A brigade marches through the - town—Rags and tatters—Two love affairs and a wedding—The battle - of Brandy Station—The Robert Barnwell tragedy 229 - - CHAPTER XV.—CAMDEN, S. C., _September 10, 1863-November 5, 1863_. - - A bride’s dressing-table—Home once more at - Mulberry—Longstreet’s army seen going West—Constance and Hetty - Cary—At church during Stoneman’s raid—Richmond narrowly escapes - capture—A battle on the Chickahominy—A picnic at Mulberry 240 - - CHAPTER XVI.—RICHMOND, Va., _November 28, 1863-April 11, 1864_. - - Mr. Davis visits Charleston—Adventures by rail—A - winter of mad gaiety—Weddings, dinner-parties, and - private theatricals—Battles around Chattanooga—Bragg - in disfavor—General Hood and his love affairs—Some - Kentucky generals—Burton Harrison and Miss Constance - Cary—George Eliot—Thackeray’s death—Mrs. R. E. Lee and her - daughters—Richmond almost lost—Colonel Dahlgren’s death—General - Grant—Depreciated currency—Fourteen generals at church 252 - - CHAPTER XVII.—CAMDEN, S. C., _May 8, 1864-June 1, 1864_. - - A farewell to Richmond—“Little Joe’s” pathetic death - and funeral—An old silk dress—The battle of the - Wilderness—Spottsylvania Court House—At Mulberry once more—Old - Colonel Chesnut’s grief at his wife’s death 304 - - CHAPTER XVIII.—COLUMBIA, S. C., _July 6, 1864-January 17, 1865_. - - Gen. Joe Johnston superseded and the Alabama sunk—The author’s - new home—Sherman at Atlanta—The battle of Mobile Bay—At - the hospital in Columbia—Wade Hampton’s two sons shot—Hood - crushed at Nashville—Farewell to Mulberry—Sherman’s advance - eastward—The end near 313 - - CHAPTER XIX.—LINCOLNTON, N. C., _February 16, 1865-March 15, 1865_. - - The flight from Columbia—A corps of generals without - troops—Broken-hearted and an exile—Taken for millionaires—A - walk with Gen. Joseph E. Johnston—The burning of - Columbia—Confederate money refused in the shops—Selling old - clothes to obtain food—Gen. Joe Johnston and President Davis - again—Braving it out—Mulberry saved by a faithful negro—Ordered - to Chester, S. C. 344 - - CHAPTER XX.—CHESTER, S. C., _March 21, 1865-May 1, 1865_. - - How to live without money—Keeping house once more—Other - refugees tell stories of their flight—The Hood melodrama - over—The exodus from Richmond—Passengers in a box car—A visit - from General Hood—The fall of Richmond—Lee’s surrender—Yankees - hovering around—In pursuit of President Davis 367 - - CHAPTER XXI.—CAMDEN, S. C., _May 2, 1865-August 2, 1865_. - - Once more at Bloomsbury—Surprising fidelity of negroes—Stories - of escape—Federal soldiers who plundered old estates—Mulberry - partly in ruins—Old Colonel Chesnut last of the grand - seigniors—Two classes of sufferers—A wedding and a - funeral—Blood not shed in vain 384 - - INDEX 405 - - - - -LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS - - - FACING - PAGE - - MRS. JAMES CHESNUT, JR. _Frontispiece_ - - From a Portrait in Oil. Reproduced by courtesy of the owner, - Mr. David R. Williams, of Camden, S. C. - - A PAGE OF THE DIARY IN FACSIMILE xxii - - THE OLD BAPTIST CHURCH IN COLUMBIA, S. C. 4 - - Here First Met the South Carolina Secession Convention. - - VIEW OF CHARLESTON DURING THE WAR 22 - - From an Old Print. - - FORT SUMTER UNDER BOMBARDMENT 38 - - From an Old Print. - - A GROUP OF CONFEDERATE GENERALS 94 - - Robert E. Lee, Joseph E. Johnston, Albert Sidney Johnston, - “Stonewall” Jackson, John B. Hood, and Pierre G. T. Beauregard. - - MULBERRY HOUSE, NEAR CAMDEN, S. C. 128 - - From a Recent Photograph. - - A GROUP OF CONFEDERATE WOMEN 148 - - Mrs. Jefferson Davis, Mrs. Francis W. Pickens, Mrs. Louisa S. - McCord, Miss S. B. C. Preston, Mrs. David R. Williams (the - author’s sister Kate), Miss Isabella D. Martin. - - ANOTHER GROUP OF CONFEDERATE GENERALS 230 - - Robert Toombs, John H. Morgan, John C. Preston, Joseph B. - Kershaw, James Chesnut, Jr., Wade Hampton. - - THE DAVIS MANSION IN RICHMOND, THE “WHITE HOUSE” OF THE - CONFEDERACY 264 - - Now the Confederate Museum. - - MRS. JAMES CHESNUT, SR. 310 - - From a Portrait in Oil by Gilbert Stuart. Reproduced by - courtesy of the owner, Mr. David R. Williams, of Camden, S. C. - - MRS. CHESNUT’S HOME IN COLUMBIA IN THE LAST YEAR OF THE WAR 314 - - Here Mrs. Chesnut entertained Jefferson Davis. - - RUINS OF MILLWOOD, WADE HAMPTON’S ANCESTRAL HOME 350 - - From a Recent Photograph. - - A NEWSPAPER “EXTRA” 380 - - Issued in Chester, S. C., and Announcing the Assassination of - Lincoln. - - COL. JAMES CHESNUT, SR. 390 - - From a Portrait in Oil by Gilbert Stuart. Reproduced by - courtesy of the owner, Mr. David R. Williams, of Camden, S. C. - - SARSFIELD, NEAR CAMDEN, S. C. 402 - - Built by General Chesnut after the War, and the Home of himself - and Mrs. Chesnut until they Died. From a Recent Photograph. - - - - -INTRODUCTION - -THE AUTHOR AND HER BOOK - - -In Mrs. Chesnut’s Diary are vivid pictures of the social life that went -on uninterruptedly in the midst of war; of the economic conditions that -resulted from blockaded ports; of the manner in which the spirits of the -people rose and fell with each victory or defeat, and of the momentous -events that took place in Charleston, Montgomery, and Richmond. But the -Diary has an importance quite apart from the interest that lies in these -pictures. - -Mrs. Chesnut was close to forty years of age when the war began, and thus -had lived through the most stirring scenes in the controversies that led -to it. In this Diary, as perhaps nowhere else in the literature of the -war, will be found the Southern spirit of that time expressed in words -which are not alone charming as literature, but genuinely human in their -spontaneousness, their delightfully unconscious frankness. Her words are -the farthest possible removed from anything deliberate, academic, or -purely intellectual. They ring so true that they start echoes. The most -uncompromising Northern heart can scarcely fail to be moved by their -abounding sincerity, surcharged though it be with that old Southern fire -which overwhelmed the army of McDowell at Bull Run. - -In making more clear the unyielding tenacity of the South and the stern -conditions in which the war was prosecuted, the Diary has further -importance. At the beginning there was no Southern leader, in so far as -we can gather from Mrs. Chesnut’s reports of her talks with them, who -had any hope that the South would win in the end, provided the North -should be able to enlist her full resources. The result, however, was -that the South struck something like terror to many hearts, and raised -serious expectations that two great European powers would recognize her -independence. The South fought as long as she had any soldiers left who -were capable of fighting, and at last “robbed the cradle and the grave.” -Nothing then remained except to “wait for another generation to grow up.” -The North, so far as her stock of men of fighting age was concerned, had -done scarcely more than make a beginning, while the South was virtually -exhausted when the war was half over. - -Unlike the South, the North was never reduced to extremities which led -the wives of Cabinet officers and commanding generals to gather in -Washington hotels and private drawing-rooms, in order to knit heavy -socks for soldiers whose feet otherwise would go bare: scenes like these -were common in Richmond, and Mrs. Chesnut often made one of the company. -Nor were gently nurtured women of the North forced to wear coarse and -ill-fitting shoes, such as negro cobblers made, the alternative being to -dispense with shoes altogether. Gold might rise in the North to 2.80, but -there came a time in the South when a thousand dollars in paper money -were needed to buy a kitchen utensil, which before the war could have -been bought for less than one dollar in gold. Long before the conflict -ended it was a common remark in the South that, “in going to market, you -take your money in your basket, and bring your purchases home in your -pocket.” - -In the North the counterpart to these facts were such items as butter -at 50 cents a pound and flour at $12 a barrel. People in the North -actually thrived on high prices. Villages and small towns, as well as -large cities, had their “bloated bondholders” in plenty, while farmers -everywhere were able to clear their lands of mortgages and put money in -the bank besides. Planters in the South, meanwhile, were borrowing money -to support the negroes in idleness at home, while they themselves were -fighting at the front. Old Colonel Chesnut, the author’s father-in-law, -in April, 1862, estimated that he had already lost half a million in bank -stock and railroad bonds. When the war closed, he had borrowed such large -sums himself and had such large sums due to him from others, that he saw -no likelihood of the obligations on either side ever being discharged. - -Mrs. Chesnut wrote her Diary from day to day, as the mood or an occasion -prompted her to do so. The fortunes of war changed the place of her abode -almost as frequently as the seasons changed, but wherever she might -be the Diary was continued. She began to write in Charleston when the -Convention was passing the Ordinance of Secession. Thence she went to -Montgomery, Ala., where the Confederacy was organized and Jefferson Davis -was inaugurated as its President. She went to receptions where, sitting -aside on sofas with Davis, Stephens, Toombs, Cobb, or Hunter, she talked -of the probable outcome of the war, should war come, setting down in -her Diary what she heard from others and all that she thought herself. -Returning to Charleston, where her husband, in a small boat, conveyed to -Major Anderson the ultimatum of the Governor of South Carolina, she saw -from a housetop the first act of war committed in the bombardment of Fort -Sumter. During the ensuing four years, Mrs. Chesnut’s time was mainly -passed between Columbia and Richmond. For shorter periods she was at the -Fauquier White Sulphur Springs in Virginia, Flat Rock in North Carolina, -Portland in Alabama (the home of her mother), Camden and Chester in South -Carolina, and Lincolnton in North Carolina. - -In all these places Mrs. Chesnut was in close touch with men and women -who were in the forefront of the social, military, and political life -of the South. Those who live in her pages make up indeed a catalogue of -the heroes of the Confederacy—President Jefferson Davis, Vice-President -Alexander H. Stephens, General Robert E. Lee, General “Stonewall” -Jackson, General Joseph E. Johnston, General Pierre G. T. Beauregard, -General Wade Hampton, General Joseph B. Kershaw, General John B. Hood, -General John S. Preston, General Robert Toombs, R. M. T. Hunter, Judge -Louis T. Wigfall, and so many others that one almost hears the roll-call. -That this statement is not exaggerated may be judged from a glance at -the index, which has been prepared with a view to the inclusion of all -important names mentioned in the text. - -As her Diary constantly shows, Mrs. Chesnut was a woman of society in the -best sense. She had love of companionship, native wit, an acute mind, -knowledge of books, and a searching insight into the motives of men and -women. She was also a notable housewife, much given to hospitality; and -her heart was of the warmest and tenderest, as those who knew her well -bore witness. - - * * * * * - -Mary Boykin Miller, born March 31, 1823, was the daughter of Stephen -Decatur Miller, a man of distinction in the public affairs of South -Carolina. Mr. Miller was elected to Congress in 1817, became Governor -in 1828, and was chosen United States Senator in 1830. He was a strong -supporter of the Nullification movement. In 1833, owing to ill-health, -he resigned his seat in the Senate and not long afterward removed to -Mississippi, where he engaged in cotton planting until his death, in -March, 1838. - -His daughter, Mary, was married to James Chesnut, Jr., April 23, 1840, -when seventeen years of age. Thenceforth her home was mainly at Mulberry, -near Camden, one of several plantations owned by her father-in-law. Of -the domestic life at Mulberry a pleasing picture has come down to us, as -preserved in a time-worn scrap-book and written some years before the war: - - “In our drive of about three miles to Mulberry, we were struck - with the wealth of forest trees along our way for which the - environs of Camden are noted. Here is a bridge completely - canopied with overarching branches; and, for the remainder of - our journey, we pass through an aromatic avenue of crab-trees - with the Yellow Jessamine and the Cherokee rose, entwining - every shrub, post, and pillar within reach and lending an - almost tropical luxuriance and sweetness to the way. - - “But here is the house—a brick building, capacious and - massive, a house that is a home for a large family, one of - the homesteads of the olden times, where home comforts and - blessings cluster, sacred alike for its joys and its sorrows. - Birthdays, wedding-days, ‘Merry Christmases,’ departures for - school and college, and home returnings have enriched this - abode with the treasures of life. - - “A warm welcome greets us as we enter. The furniture within is - in keeping with things without; nothing is tawdry; there is no - gingerbread gilding; all is handsome and substantial. In the - ‘old arm-chair’ sits the venerable mother. The father is on his - usual ride about the plantation; but will be back presently. A - lovely old age is this mother’s, calm and serene, as the soft - mellow days of our own gentle autumn. She came from the North - to the South many years ago, a fair young bride. - - “The Old Colonel enters. He bears himself erect, walks at a - brisk gait, and needs no spectacles, yet he is over eighty. - He is a typical Southern planter. From the beginning he has - been one of the most intelligent patrons of the Wateree Mission - to the Negroes, taking a personal interest in them, attending - the mission church and worshiping with his own people. May his - children see to it that this holy charity is continued to their - servants forever!” - -James Chesnut, Jr., was the son and heir of Colonel James Chesnut, whose -wife was Mary Coxe, of Philadelphia. Mary Coxe’s sister married Horace -Binney, the eminent Philadelphia lawyer. James Chesnut, Jr., was born in -1815 and graduated from Princeton. For fourteen years he served in the -legislature of South Carolina, and in January, 1859, was appointed to -fill a vacancy in the United States Senate. In November, 1860, when South -Carolina was about to secede, he resigned from the Senate and thenceforth -was active in the Southern cause, first as an aide to General Beauregard, -then as an aide to President Davis, and finally as a brigadier-general of -reserves in command of the coast of South Carolina. - -General Chesnut was active in public life in South Carolina after the -war, in so far as the circumstances of Reconstruction permitted, and in -1868 was a delegate from that State to the National convention which -nominated Horatio Seymour for President. His death occurred at Sarsfield, -February 1, 1885. One who knew him well wrote: - - “While papers were teeming with tribute to this knightly - gentleman, whose services to his State were part of her history - in her prime—tribute that did him no more than justice, in - recounting his public virtues—I thought there was another phase - of his character which the world did not know and the press did - not chronicle—that which showed his beautiful kindness and his - courtesy to his own household, and especially to his dependents. - - “Among all the preachers of the South Carolina Conference, a - few remained of those who ever counted it as one of the highest - honors conferred upon them by their Lord that it was permitted - to them to preach the gospel to the slaves of the Southern - plantations. Some of these retained kind recollections of the - cordial hospitality shown the plantation missionary at Mulberry - and Sandy Hill, and of the care taken at these places that the - plantation chapel should be neat and comfortable, and that the - slaves should have their spiritual as well as their bodily - needs supplied. - - “To these it was no matter of surprise to learn that at his - death General Chesnut, statesman and soldier, was surrounded - by faithful friends, born in slavery on his own plantation, - and that the last prayer he ever heard came from the lips of a - negro man, old Scipio, his father’s body-servant; and that he - was borne to his grave amid the tears and lamentations of those - whom no Emancipation Proclamation could sever from him, and who - cried aloud: ‘O my master! my master! he was so good to me! He - was all to us! We have lost our best friend!’ - - “Mrs. Chesnut’s anguish when her husband died, is not to be - forgotten; the ‘bitter cry’ never quite spent itself, though - she was brave and bright to the end. Her friends were near in - that supreme moment at Sarsfield, when, on November 22, 1886, - her own heart ceased to beat. Her servants had been true to - her; no blandishments of freedom had drawn Ellen or Molly away - from ‘Miss Mary.’ Mrs. Chesnut lies buried in the family - cemetery at Knight’s Hill, where also sleep her husband and - many other members of the Chesnut family.” - -The Chesnuts settled in South Carolina at the close of the war with -France, but lived originally on the frontier of Virginia. Their Virginia -home had been invaded by French and Indians, and in an expedition to Fort -Duquesne the father was killed. John Chesnut removed from Virginia to -South Carolina soon afterward and served in the Revolution as a captain. -His son James, the “Old Colonel,” was educated at Princeton, took an -active part in public affairs in South Carolina, and prospered greatly -as a planter. He survived until after the War, being a nonogenarian when -the conflict closed. In a charming sketch of him in one of the closing -pages of this Diary, occurs the following passage: “Colonel Chesnut, -now ninety-three, blind and deaf, is apparently as strong as ever, and -certainly as resolute of will. Partly patriarch, partly grand seigneur, -this old man is of a species that we shall see no more; the last of a -race of lordly planters who ruled this Southern world, but now a splendid -wreck.” - -Three miles from Camden still stands Mulberry. During one of the raids -committed in the neighborhood by Sherman’s men early in 1865, the house -escaped destruction almost as if by accident. The picture of it in this -book is from a recent photograph. A change has indeed come over it, since -the days when the household servants and dependents numbered between -sixty and seventy, and its owner was lord of a thousand slaves. After the -war, Mulberry ceased to be the author’s home, she and General Chesnut -building for themselves another to which they gave the name of Sarsfield. -Sarsfield, of which an illustration is given, still stands in the pine -lands not far from Mulberry. Bloomsbury, another of old Colonel Chesnut’s -plantation dwellings, survived the march of Sherman, and is now the home -of David R. Williams, Jr., and Ellen Manning, his wife, whose children -roam its halls, as grandchildren of the author’s sister Kate. Other -Chesnut plantations were Cool Spring, Knight’s Hill, The Hermitage, and -Sandy Hill. - -The Diary, as it now exists in forty-eight thin volumes, of the small -quarto size, is entirely in Mrs. Chesnut’s handwriting. She originally -wrote it on what was known as “Confederate paper,” but transcribed it -afterward. When Richmond was threatened, or when Sherman was coming, she -buried it or in some other way secreted it from the enemy. On occasion -it shared its hiding-place with family silver, or with a drinking-cup -which had been presented to General Hood by the ladies of Richmond. -Mrs. Chesnut was fond of inserting on blank pages of the Diary current -newspaper accounts of campaigns and battles, or lists of killed and -wounded. One item of this kind, a newspaper “extra,” issued in Chester, -S. C., and announcing the assassination of Lincoln, is reproduced in this -volume. - -Mrs. Chesnut, by oral and written bequest, gave the Diary to her friend -whose name leads the signatures to this Introduction. In the Diary, here -and there, Mrs. Chesnut’s expectation that the work would some day be -printed is disclosed, but at the time of her death it did not seem wise -to undertake publication for a considerable period. Yellow with age as -the pages now are, the only harm that has come to them in the passing of -many years, is that a few corners have been broken and frayed, as shown -in one of the pages here reproduced in facsimile. - -In the summer of 1904, the woman whose office it has been to assist -in preparing the Diary for the press, went South to collect material -for another work to follow her A Virginia Girl in the Civil War. -Her investigations led her to Columbia, where, while the guest of -Miss Martin, she learned of the Diary’s existence. Soon afterward -an arrangement was made with her publishers under which the Diary’s -owner and herself agreed to condense and revise the manuscript -for publication. The Diary was found to be of too great length for -reproduction in full, parts of it being of personal or local interest -rather than general. The editing of the book called also for the -insertion of a considerable number of foot-notes, in order that persons -named, or events referred to, might be the better understood by the -present generation. - -Mrs. Chesnut was a conspicuous example of the well-born and high-bred -woman, who, with active sympathy and unremitting courage, supported the -Southern cause. Born and reared when Nullification was in the ascendent, -and acquiring an education which developed and refined her natural -literary gifts, she found in the throes of a great conflict at arms -the impulse which wrought into vital expression in words her steadfast -loyalty to the waning fortunes of a political faith, which, in South -Carolina, had become a religion. - -Many men have produced narratives of the war between the States, and -a few women have written notable chronicles of it; but none has given -to the world a record more radiant than hers, or one more passionately -sincere. Every line in this Diary throbs with the tumult of deep -spiritual passion, and bespeaks the luminous mind, the unconquered soul, -of the woman who wrote it. - - ISABELLA D. MARTIN, - MYRTA LOCKETT AVARY. - - - - -[Illustration: A PAGE OF THE DIARY IN FACSIMILE.] - - - - -I - -CHARLESTON, S. C. - -_November 8, 1860-December 27, 1860_ - - -Charleston, S. C., _November 8, 1860_.—Yesterday on the train, just -before we reached Fernandina, a woman called out: “That settles the -hash.” Tanny touched me on the shoulder and said: “Lincoln’s elected.” -“How do you know?” “The man over there has a telegram.” - -The excitement was very great. Everybody was talking at the same time. -One, a little more moved than the others, stood up and said despondently: -“The die is cast; no more vain regrets; sad forebodings are useless; the -stake is life or death.” “Did you ever!” was the prevailing exclamation, -and some one cried out: “Now that the black radical Republicans have the -power I suppose they will Brown[1] us all.” No doubt of it. - -I have always kept a journal after a fashion of my own, with dates and a -line of poetry or prose, mere quotations, which I understood and no one -else, and I have kept letters and extracts from the papers. From to-day -forward I will tell the story in my own way. I now wish I had a chronicle -of the two delightful and eventful years that have just passed. Those -delights have fled and one’s breath is taken away to think what events -have since crowded in. Like the woman’s record in her journal, we have -had “earthquakes, as usual”—daily shocks. - -At Fernandina I saw young men running up a Palmetto flag, and shouting a -little prematurely, “South Carolina has seceded!” I was overjoyed to find -Florida so sympathetic, but Tanny told me the young men were Gadsdens, -Porchers, and Gourdins,[2] names as inevitably South Carolinian as Moses -and Lazarus are Jewish. - -From my window I can hear a grand and mighty flow of eloquence. Bartow -and a delegation from Savannah are having a supper given to them in the -dining-room below. The noise of the speaking and cheering is pretty hard -on a tired traveler. Suddenly I found myself listening with pleasure. -Voice, tone, temper, sentiment, language, all were perfect. I sent Tanny -to see who it was that spoke. He came back saying, “Mr. Alfred Huger, the -old postmaster.” He may not have been the wisest or wittiest man there, -but he certainly made the best after-supper speech. - -_December 10th._—We have been up to the Mulberry Plantation with -Colonel Colcock and Judge Magrath, who were sent to Columbia by their -fellow-citizens in the low country, to hasten the slow movement of the -wisdom assembled in the State Capital. Their message was, they said: -“Go ahead, dissolve the Union, and be done with it, or it will be worse -for you. The fire in the rear is hottest.” And yet people talk of the -politicians leading! Everywhere that I have been people have been -complaining bitterly of slow and lukewarm public leaders. - -Judge Magrath is a local celebrity, who has been stretched across the -street in effigy, showing him tearing off his robes of office. The -painting is in vivid colors, the canvas huge, and the rope hardly -discernible. He is depicted with a countenance flaming with contending -emotions—rage, disgust, and disdain. We agreed that the time had now -come. We had talked so much heretofore. Let the fire-eaters have it -out. Massachusetts and South Carolina are always coming up before the -footlights. - -As a woman, of course, it is easy for me to be brave under the skins of -other people; so I said: “Fight it out. Bluffton[3] has brought on a -fever that only bloodletting will cure.” My companions breathed fire and -fury, but I dare say they were amusing themselves with my dismay, for, -talk as I would, that I could not hide. - -At Kingsville we encountered James Chesnut, fresh from Columbia, where -he had resigned his seat in the United States Senate the day before. -Said some one spitefully, “Mrs. Chesnut does not look at all resigned.” -For once in her life, Mrs. Chesnut held her tongue: she was dumb. In the -high-flown style which of late seems to have gotten into the very air, -she was offering up her life to the cause. - -We have had a brief pause. The men who are all, like Pickens,[4] -“insensible to fear,” are very sensible in case of small-pox. There -being now an epidemic of small-pox in Columbia, they have adjourned to -Charleston. In Camden we were busy and frantic with excitement, drilling, -marching, arming, and wearing high blue cockades. Red sashes, guns, and -swords were ordinary fireside accompaniments. So wild were we, I saw at -a grand parade of the home-guard a woman, the wife of a man who says he -is a secessionist _per se_, driving about to see the drilling of this new -company, although her father was buried the day before. - -Edward J. Pringle writes me from San Francisco on November 30th: “I see -that Mr. Chesnut has resigned and that South Carolina is hastening -into a Convention, perhaps to secession. Mr. Chesnut is probably to be -President of the Convention. I see all of the leaders in the State are -in favor of secession. But I confess I hope the black Republicans will -take the alarm and submit some treaty of peace that will enable us now -and forever to settle the question, and save our generation from the -prostration of business and the decay of prosperity that must come both -to the North and South from a disruption of the Union. However, I won’t -speculate. Before this reaches you, South Carolina may be off on her own -hook—a separate republic.” - -_December 21st._—Mrs. Charles Lowndes was sitting with us to-day, when -Mrs. Kirkland brought in a copy of the Secession Ordinance. I wonder if -my face grew as white as hers. She said after a moment: “God help us. As -our day, so shall our strength be.” How grateful we were for this pious -ejaculation of hers! They say I had better take my last look at this -beautiful place, Combahee. It is on the coast, open to gunboats. - -We mean business this time, because of this convocation of the notables, -this convention.[5] In it are all our wisest and best. They really have -tried to send the ablest men, the good men and true. South Carolina was -never more splendidly represented. Patriotism aside, it makes society -delightful. One need not regret having left Washington. - -[Illustration: THE OLD BAPTIST CHURCH IN COLUMBIA, S. C. - -Here First Met the South Carolina Secession Convention.] - -_December 27th._—Mrs. Gidiere came in quietly from her marketing to-day, -and in her neat, incisive manner exploded this bombshell: “Major -Anderson[6] has moved into Fort Sumter, while Governor Pickens slept -serenely.” The row is fast and furious now. State after State is taking -its forts and fortresses. They say if we had been left out in the cold -alone, we might have sulked a while, but back we would have had to go, -and would merely have fretted and fumed and quarreled among ourselves. -We needed a little wholesome neglect. Anderson has blocked that game, -but now our sister States have joined us, and we are strong. I give the -condensed essence of the table-talk: “Anderson has united the cotton -States. Now for Virginia!” “Anderson has opened the ball.” Those who want -a row are in high glee. Those who dread it are glum and thoughtful enough. - -A letter from Susan Rutledge: “Captain Humphrey folded the United States -Army flag just before dinner-time. Ours was run up in its place. You know -the Arsenal is in sight. What is the next move? I pray God to guide us. -We stand in need of wise counsel; something more than courage. The talk -is: ‘Fort Sumter must be taken; and it is one of the strongest forts.’ -How in the name of sense are they to manage? I shudder to think of rash -moves.” - - - - -II - -MONTGOMERY, ALA. - -_February 19, 1861-March 11, 1861_ - - -Montgomery, Ala., _February 19, 1861_.—The brand-new Confederacy is -making or remodeling its Constitution. Everybody wants Mr. Davis to be -General-in-Chief or President. Keitt and Boyce and a party preferred -Howell Cobb[7] for President. And the fire-eaters _per se_ wanted -Barnwell Rhett. - -My brother Stephen brought the officers of the “Montgomery Blues” to -dinner. “Very soiled Blues,” they said, apologizing for their rough -condition. Poor fellows! they had been a month before Fort Pickens and -not allowed to attack it. They said Colonel Chase built it, and so were -sure it was impregnable. Colonel Lomax telegraphed to Governor Moore[8] -if he might try to take it, “Chase or no Chase,” and got for his answer, -“No.” “And now,” say the Blues, “we have worked like niggers, and when -the fun and fighting begin, they send us home and put regulars there.” -They have an immense amount of powder. The wheel of the car in which it -was carried took fire. There was an escape for you! We are packing a -hamper of eatables for them. - -I am despondent once more. If I thought them in earnest because at first -they put their best in front, what now? We have to meet tremendous odds -by pluck, activity, zeal, dash, endurance of the toughest, military -instinct. We have had to choose born leaders of men who could attract -love and secure trust. Everywhere political intrigue is as rife as in -Washington. - -Cecil’s saying of Sir Walter Raleigh that he could “toil terribly” was an -electric touch. Above all, let the men who are to save South Carolina be -young and vigorous. While I was reflecting on what kind of men we ought -to choose, I fell on Clarendon, and it was easy to construct my man out -of his portraits. What has been may be again, so the men need not be -purely ideal types. - -Mr. Toombs[9] told us a story of General Scott and himself. He said he -was dining in Washington with Scott, who seasoned every dish and every -glass of wine with the eternal refrain, “Save the Union; the Union must -be preserved.” Toombs remarked that he knew why the Union was so dear -to the General, and illustrated his point by a steamboat anecdote, an -explosion, of course. While the passengers were struggling in the water -a woman ran up and down the bank crying, “Oh, save the red-headed man!” -The red-headed man was saved, and his preserver, after landing him -noticed with surprise how little interest in him the woman who had made -such moving appeals seemed to feel. He asked her, “Why did you make that -pathetic outcry?” She answered, “Oh, he owes me ten thousand dollars.” -“Now, General,” said Toombs, “the Union owes you seventeen thousand -dollars a year!” I can imagine the scorn on old Scott’s face. - -_February 25th._—Find every one working very hard here. As I dozed on the -sofa last night, could hear the scratch, scratch of my husband’s pen as -he wrote at the table until midnight. - -After church to-day, Captain Ingraham called. He left me so -uncomfortable. He dared to express regrets that he had to leave the -United States Navy. He had been stationed in the Mediterranean, where he -liked to be, and expected to be these two years, and to take those lovely -daughters of his to Florence. Then came Abraham Lincoln, and rampant -black Republicanism, and he must lay down his life for South Carolina. -He, however, does not make any moan. He says we lack everything necessary -in naval gear to retake Fort Sumter. Of course, he only expects the navy -to take it. He is a fish out of water here. He is one of the finest -sea-captains; so I suppose they will soon give him a ship and send him -back to his own element. - -At dinner Judge —— was loudly abusive of Congress. He said: “They have -trampled the Constitution underfoot. They have provided President Davis -with a house.” He was disgusted with the folly of parading the President -at the inauguration in a coach drawn by four white horses. Then some one -said Mrs. Fitzpatrick was the only lady who sat with the Congress. After -the inaugural she poked Jeff Davis in the back with her parasol that he -might turn and speak to her. “I am sure that was democratic enough,” said -some one. - -Governor Moore came in with the latest news—a telegram from Governor -Pickens to the President, “that a war steamer is lying off the Charleston -bar laden with reenforcements for Fort Sumter, and what must we do?” -Answer: “Use your own discretion!” There is faith for you, after all is -said and done. It is believed there is still some discretion left in -South Carolina fit for use. - -Everybody who comes here wants an office, and the many who, of course, -are disappointed raise a cry of corruption against the few who are -successful. I thought we had left all that in Washington. Nobody is -willing to be out of sight, and all will take office. - -“Constitution” Browne says he is going to Washington for twenty-four -hours. I mean to send by him to Mary Garnett for a bonnet ribbon. If they -take him up as a traitor, he may cause a civil war. War is now our dread. -Mr. Chesnut told him not to make himself a bone of contention. - -Everybody means to go into the army. If Sumter is attacked, then Jeff -Davis’s troubles will begin. The Judge says a military despotism would be -best for us—anything to prevent a triumph of the Yankees. All right, but -every man objects to any despot but himself. - -Mr. Chesnut, in high spirits, dines to-day with the Louisiana delegation. -Breakfasted with “Constitution” Browne, who is appointed Assistant -Secretary of State, and so does not go to Washington. There was at -table the man who advertised for a wife, with the wife so obtained. She -was not pretty. We dine at Mr. Pollard’s and go to a ball afterward at -Judge Bibb’s. The New York Herald says Lincoln stood before Washington’s -picture at his inauguration, which was taken by the country as a good -sign. We are always frantic for a good sign. Let us pray that a Cæsar or -a Napoleon may be sent us. That would be our best sign of success. But -they still say, “No war.” Peace let it be, kind Heaven! - -Dr. De Leon called, fresh from Washington, and says General Scott is -using all his power and influence to prevent officers from the South -resigning their commissions, among other things promising that they shall -never be sent against us in case of war. Captain Ingraham, in his short, -curt way, said: “That will never do. If they take their government’s pay -they must do its fighting.” - -A brilliant dinner at the Pollards’s. Mr. Barnwell[10] took me down. Came -home and found the Judge and Governor Moore waiting to go with me to -the Bibbs’s. And they say it is dull in Montgomery! Clayton, fresh from -Washington, was at the party and told us “there was to be peace.” - -_February 28th._—In the drawing-room a literary lady began a violent -attack upon this mischief-making South Carolina. She told me she was -a successful writer in the magazines of the day, but when I found she -used “incredible” for “incredulous,” I said not a word in defense of my -native land. I left her “incredible.” Another person came in, while she -was pouring upon me her home troubles, and asked if she did not know I -was a Carolinian. Then she gracefully reversed her engine, and took the -other tack, sounding our praise, but I left her incredible and I remained -incredulous, too. - -Brewster says the war specks are growing in size. Nobody at the North, -or in Virginia, believes we are in earnest. They think we are sulking -and that Jeff Davis and Stephens[11] are getting up a very pretty little -comedy. The Virginia delegates were insulted at the peace conference; -Brewster said, “kicked out.” - -The Judge thought Jefferson Davis rude to him when the latter was -Secretary of War. Mr. Chesnut persuaded the Judge to forego his private -wrong for the public good, and so he voted for him, but now his old -grudge has come back with an increased venomousness. What a pity to bring -the spites of the old Union into this new one! It seems to me already men -are willing to risk an injury to our cause, if they may in so doing hurt -Jeff Davis. - -_March 1st._—Dined to-day with Mr. Hill[12] from Georgia, and his wife. -After he left us she told me he was the celebrated individual who, for -Christian scruples, refused to fight a duel with Stephens.[13] She seemed -very proud of him for his conduct in the affair. Ignoramus that I am, I -had not heard of it. I am having all kinds of experiences. Drove to-day -with a lady who fervently wished her husband would go down to Pensacola -and be shot. I was dumb with amazement, of course. Telling my story to -one who knew the parties, was informed, “Don’t you know he beats her?” -So I have seen a man “who lifts his hand against a woman in aught save -kindness.” - -Brewster says Lincoln passed through Baltimore disguised, and at night, -and that he did well, for just now Baltimore is dangerous ground. He -says that he hears from all quarters that the vulgarity of Lincoln, his -wife, and his son is beyond credence, a thing you must see before you can -believe it. Senator Stephen A. Douglas told Mr. Chesnut that “Lincoln is -awfully clever, and that he had found him a heavy handful.” - -Went to pay my respects to Mrs. Jefferson Davis. She met me with open -arms. We did not allude to anything by which we are surrounded. We -eschewed politics and our changed relations. - -_March 3d._—Everybody in fine spirits in my world. They have one and -all spoken in the Congress[14] to their own perfect satisfaction. To my -amazement the Judge took me aside, and, after delivering a panegyric upon -himself (but here, later, comes in the amazement), he praised my husband -to the skies, and said he was the fittest man of all for a foreign -mission. Aye; and the farther away they send us from this Congress the -better I will like it. - -Saw Jere Clemens and Nick Davis, social curiosities. They are -Anti-Secession leaders; then George Sanders and George Deas. The Georges -are of opinion that it is folly to try to take back Fort Sumter from -Anderson and the United States; that is, before we are ready. They saw -in Charleston the devoted band prepared for the sacrifice; I mean, ready -to run their heads against a stone wall. Dare devils they are. They have -dash and courage enough, but science only could take that fort. They -shook their heads. - -_March 4th._—The Washington Congress has passed peace measures. Glory be -to God (as my Irish Margaret used to preface every remark, both great and -small). - -At last, according to his wish, I was able to introduce Mr. Hill, of -Georgia, to Mr. Mallory,[15] and also Governor Moore and Brewster, the -latter the only man without a title of some sort that I know in this -democratic subdivided republic. - -I have seen a negro woman sold on the block at auction. She overtopped -the crowd. I was walking and felt faint, seasick. The creature looked so -like my good little Nancy, a bright mulatto with a pleasant face. She was -magnificently gotten up in silks and satins. She seemed delighted with -it all, sometimes ogling the bidders, sometimes looking quiet, coy, and -modest, but her mouth never relaxed from its expanded grin of excitement. -I dare say the poor thing knew who would buy her. I sat down on a stool -in a shop and disciplined my wild thoughts. I tried it Sterne fashion. -You know how women sell themselves and are sold in marriage from queens -downward, eh? You know what the Bible says about slavery and marriage; -poor women! poor slaves! Sterne, with his starling—what did he know? He -only thought, he did not feel. - -In Evan Harrington I read: “Like a true English female, she believed in -her own inflexible virtue, but never trusted her husband out of sight.” - -The New York Herald says: “Lincoln’s carriage is not bomb-proof; so he -does not drive out.” Two flags and a bundle of sticks have been sent him -as gentle reminders. The sticks are to break our heads with. The English -are gushingly unhappy as to our family quarrel. Magnanimous of them, for -it is their opportunity. - -_March 5th._—We stood on the balcony to see our Confederate flag go up. -Roars of cannon, etc., etc. Miss Sanders complained (so said Captain -Ingraham) of the deadness of the mob. “It was utterly spiritless,” -she said; “no cheering, or so little, and no enthusiasm.” Captain -Ingraham suggested that gentlemen “are apt to be quiet,” and this was “a -thoughtful crowd, the true mob element with us just now is hoeing corn.” -And yet! It is uncomfortable that the idea has gone abroad that we have -no joy, no pride, in this thing. The band was playing “Massa in the cold, -cold ground.” Miss Tyler, daughter of the former President of the United -States, ran up the flag. - -Captain Ingraham pulled out of his pocket some verses sent to him by -a Boston girl. They were well rhymed and amounted to this: she held a -rope ready to hang him, though she shed tears when she remembered his -heroic rescue of Koszta. Koszta, the rebel! She calls us rebels, too. So -it depends upon whom one rebels against—whether to save or not shall be -heroic. - -I must read Lincoln’s inaugural. Oh, “comes he in peace, or comes he in -war, or to tread but one measure as Young Lochinvar?” Lincoln’s aim is to -seduce the border States. - -The people, the natives, I mean, are astounded that I calmly affirm, -in all truth and candor, that if there were awful things in society in -Washington, I did not see or hear of them. One must have been hard to -please who did not like the people I knew in Washington. - -Mr. Chesnut has gone with a list of names to the President—de Treville, -Kershaw, Baker, and Robert Rutledge. They are taking a walk, I see. I -hope there will be good places in the army for our list. - -_March 8th._—Judge Campbell,[16] of the United States Supreme Court, has -resigned. Lord! how he must have hated to do it. How other men who are -resigning high positions must hate to do it. - -Now we may be sure the bridge is broken. And yet in the Alabama -Convention they say Reconstructionists abound and are busy. - -Met a distinguished gentleman that I knew when he was in more affluent -circumstances. I was willing enough to speak to him, but when he saw -me advancing for that purpose, to avoid me, he suddenly dodged around -a corner—William, Mrs. de Saussure’s former coachman. I remember him -on his box, driving a handsome pair of bays, dressed sumptuously in -blue broadcloth and brass buttons; a stout, respectable, fine-looking, -middle-aged mulatto. He was very high and mighty. - -Night after night we used to meet him as fiddler-in-chief of all our -parties. He sat in solemn dignity, making faces over his bow, and patting -his foot with an emphasis that shook the floor. We gave him five dollars -a night; that was his price. His mistress never refused to let him play -for any party. He had stable-boys in abundance. He was far above any -physical fear for his sleek and well-fed person. How majestically he -scraped his foot as a sign that he was tuned up and ready to begin! - -Now he is a shabby creature indeed. He must have felt his fallen fortunes -when he met me—one who knew him in his prosperity. He ran away, this -stately yellow gentleman, from wife and children, home and comfort. My -Molly asked him “Why? Miss Liza was good to you, I know.” I wonder who -owns him now; he looked forlorn. - -Governor Moore brought in, to be presented to me, the President of the -Alabama Convention. It seems I had known him before; he had danced -with me at a dancing-school ball when I was in short frocks, with sash, -flounces, and a wreath of roses. He was one of those clever boys of our -neighborhood, in whom my father saw promise of better things, and so -helped him in every way to rise, with books, counsel, sympathy. I was -enjoying his conversation immensely, for he was praising my father[17] -without stint, when the Judge came in, breathing fire and fury. Congress -has incurred his displeasure. We are abusing one another as fiercely as -ever we have abused Yankees. It is disheartening. - -_March 10th._—Mrs. Childs was here to-night (Mary Anderson, from -Statesburg), with several children. She is lovely. Her hair is piled up -on the top of her head oddly. Fashions from France still creep into Texas -across Mexican borders. Mrs. Childs is fresh from Texas. Her husband is -an artillery officer, or was. They will be glad to promote him here. Mrs. -Childs had the sweetest Southern voice, absolute music. But then, she has -all of the high spirit of those sweet-voiced Carolina women, too. - -Then Mr. Browne came in with his fine English accent, so pleasant to the -ear. He tells us that Washington society is not reconciled to the Yankee -_régime_. Mrs. Lincoln means to economize. She at once informed the -major-domo that they were poor and hoped to save twelve thousand dollars -every year from their salary of twenty thousand. Mr. Browne said Mr. -Buchanan’s farewell was far more imposing than Lincoln’s inauguration. - -The people were so amusing, so full of Western stories. Dr. Boykin -behaved strangely. All day he had been gaily driving about with us, and -never was man in finer spirits. To-night, in this brilliant company, he -sat dead still as if in a trance. Once, he waked somewhat—when a high -public functionary came in with a present for me, a miniature gondola, -“A perfect Venetian specimen,” he assured me again and again. In an -undertone Dr. Boykin muttered: “That fellow has been drinking.” “Why -do you think so?” “Because he has told you exactly the same thing four -times.” Wonderful! Some of these great statesmen always tell me the same -thing—and have been telling me the same thing ever since we came here. - -A man came in and some one said in an undertone, “The age of chivalry -is not past, O ye Americans!” “What do you mean?” “That man was once -nominated by President Buchanan for a foreign mission, but some Senator -stood up and read a paper printed by this man abusive of a woman, and -signed by his name in full. After that the Senate would have none of him; -his chance was gone forever.” - -_March 11th._—In full conclave to-night, the drawing-room crowded with -Judges, Governors, Senators, Generals, Congressmen. They were exalting -John C. Calhoun’s hospitality. He allowed everybody to stay all night -who chose to stop at his house. An ill-mannered person, on one occasion, -refused to attend family prayers. Mr. Calhoun said to the servant, -“Saddle that man’s horse and let him go.” From the traveler Calhoun would -take no excuse for the “Deity offended.” I believe in Mr. Calhoun’s -hospitality, but not in his family prayers. Mr. Calhoun’s piety was of -the most philosophical type, from all accounts.[18] - -The latest news is counted good news; that is, the last man who left -Washington tells us that Seward is in the ascendency. He is thought to be -the friend of peace. The man did say, however, that “that serpent Seward -is in the ascendency just now.” - -Harriet Lane has eleven suitors. One is described as likely to win, or he -would be likely to win, except that he is too heavily weighted. He has -been married before and goes about with children and two mothers. There -are limits beyond which! Two mothers-in-law! - -Mr. Ledyard spoke to Mrs. Lincoln in behalf of a door-keeper who almost -felt he had a vested right, having been there since Jackson’s time; -but met with the same answer; she had brought her own girl and must -economize. Mr. Ledyard thought the twenty thousand (and little enough it -is) was given to the President of these United States to enable him to -live in proper style, and to maintain an establishment of such dignity -as befits the head of a great nation. It is an infamy to economize with -the public money and to put it into one’s private purse. Mrs. Browne -was walking with me when we were airing our indignation against Mrs. -Lincoln and her shabby economy. The Herald says three only of the _élite_ -Washington families attended the Inauguration Ball. - -The Judge has just come in and said: “Last night, after Dr. Boykin left -on the cars, there came a telegram that his little daughter, Amanda, had -died suddenly.” In some way he must have known it beforehand. He changed -so suddenly yesterday, and seemed so careworn and unhappy. He believes in -clairvoyance, magnetism, and all that. Certainly, there was some terrible -foreboding of this kind on his part. - -_Tuesday._—Now this, they say, is positive: “Fort Sumter is to be -released and we are to have no war.” After all, far too good to be true. -Mr. Browne told us that, at one of the peace intervals (I mean intervals -in the interest of peace), Lincoln flew through Baltimore, locked up in -an express car. He wore a Scotch cap. - -We went to the Congress. Governor Cobb, who presides over that august -body, put James Chesnut in the chair, and came down to talk to us. He -told us why the pay of Congressmen was fixed in secret session, and why -the amount of it was never divulged—to prevent the lodging-house and -hotel people from making their bills of a size to cover it all. “The bill -would be sure to correspond with the pay,” he said. - -In the hotel parlor we had a scene. Mrs. Scott was describing Lincoln, -who is of the cleverest Yankee type. She said: “Awfully ugly, even -grotesque in appearance, the kind who are always at the corner stores, -sitting on boxes, whittling sticks, and telling stories as funny as they -are vulgar.” Here I interposed: “But Stephen A. Douglas said one day -to Mr. Chesnut, ‘Lincoln is the hardest fellow to handle I have ever -encountered yet.’” Mr. Scott is from California, and said Lincoln is “an -utter American specimen, coarse, rough, and strong; a good-natured, kind -creature; as pleasant-tempered as he is clever, and if this country can -be joked and laughed out of its rights he is the kind-hearted fellow to -do it. Now if there is a war and it pinches the Yankee pocket instead of -filling it——” - -Here a shrill voice came from the next room (which opened upon the one we -were in by folding doors thrown wide open) and said: “Yankees are no more -mean and stingy than you are. People at the North are just as good as -people at the South.” The speaker advanced upon us in great wrath. - -Mrs. Scott apologized and made some smooth, polite remark, though -evidently much embarrassed. But the vinegar face and curly pate refused -to receive any concessions, and replied: “That comes with a very bad -grace after what you were saying,” and she harangued us loudly for -several minutes. Some one in the other room giggled outright, but we were -quiet as mice. Nobody wanted to hurt her feelings. She was one against -so many. If I were at the North, I should expect them to belabor us, -and should hold my tongue. We separated North from South because of -incompatibility of temper. We are divorced because we have hated each -other so. If we could only separate, a “_separation à l’agréable_,” as -the French say it, and not have a horrid fight for divorce. - -The poor exile had already been insulted, she said. She was playing -“Yankee Doodle” on the piano before breakfast to soothe her wounded -spirit, and the Judge came in and calmly requested her to “leave out the -Yankee while she played the Doodle.” The Yankee end of it did not suit -our climate, he said; was totally out of place and had got out of its -latitude. - -A man said aloud: “This war talk is nothing. It will soon blow over. -Only a fuss gotten up by that Charleston clique.” Mr. Toombs asked him -to show his passports, for a man who uses such language is a suspicious -character. - - - - -III - -CHARLESTON, S. C. - -_March 26, 1861-April 15, 1861_ - - -Charleston, S. C., _March 26, 1861_.—I have just come from Mulberry, -where the snow was a foot deep—winter at last after months of apparently -May or June weather. Even the climate, like everything else, is upside -down. But after that den of dirt and horror, Montgomery Hall, how white -the sheets looked, luxurious bed linen once more, delicious fresh cream -with my coffee! I breakfasted in bed. - -Dueling was rife in Camden. William M. Shannon challenged Leitner. -Rochelle Blair was Shannon’s second and Artemus Goodwyn was Leitner’s. My -husband was riding hard all day to stop the foolish people. Mr. Chesnut -finally arranged the difficulty. There was a court of honor and no duel. -Mr. Leitner had struck Mr. Shannon at a negro trial. That’s the way the -row began. Everybody knows of it. We suggested that Judge Withers should -arrest the belligerents. Dr. Boykin and Joe Kershaw[19] aided Mr. Chesnut -to put an end to the useless risk of life. - -John Chesnut is a pretty soft-hearted slave-owner. He had two negroes -arrested for selling whisky to his people on his plantation, and buying -stolen corn from them. The culprits in jail sent for him. He found them -(this snowy weather) lying in the cold on a bare floor, and he thought -that punishment enough; they having had weeks of it. But they were not -satisfied to be allowed to evade justice and slip away. They begged of -him (and got) five dollars to buy shoes to run away in. I said: “Why, -this is flat compounding a felony.” And Johnny put his hands in the -armholes of his waistcoat and stalked majestically before me, saying, -“Woman, what do you know about law?” - -Mrs. Reynolds stopped the carriage one day to tell me Kitty Boykin was -to be married to Savage Heyward. He has only ten children already. These -people take the old Hebrew pride in the number of children they have. -This is the true colonizing spirit. There is no danger of crowding here -and inhabitants are wanted. Old Colonel Chesnut[20] said one day: “Wife, -you must feel that you have not been useless in your day and generation. -You have now twenty-seven great-grandchildren.” - -[Illustration: VIEW OF CHARLESTON DURING THE WAR. - -From an Old Print.] - -_Wednesday._—I have been mobbed by my own house servants. Some of them -are at the plantation, some hired out at the Camden hotel, some are at -Mulberry. They agreed to come in a body and beg me to stay at home to -keep my own house once more, “as I ought not to have them scattered and -distributed every which way.” I had not been a month in Camden since -1858. So a house there would be for their benefit solely, not mine. I -asked my cook if she lacked anything on the plantation at the Hermitage. -“Lack anything?” she said, “I lack everything. What are corn-meal, -bacon, milk, and molasses? Would that be all you wanted? Ain’t I been -living and eating exactly as you does all these years? When I cook for -you, didn’t I have some of all? Dere, now!” Then she doubled herself up -laughing. They all shouted, “Missis, we is crazy for you to stay home.” - -Armsted, my butler, said he hated the hotel. Besides, he heard a man -there abusing Marster, but Mr. Clyburne took it up and made him stop -short. Armsted said he wanted Marster to know Mr. Clyburne was his -friend and would let nobody say a word behind his back against him, -etc., etc. Stay in Camden? Not if I can help it. “Festers in provincial -sloth”—that’s Tennyson’s way of putting it. - -“We” came down here by rail, as the English say. Such a crowd of -Convention men on board. John Manning[21] flew in to beg me to reserve -a seat by me for a young lady under his charge. “_Place aux dames_,” -said my husband politely, and went off to seek a seat somewhere else. As -soon as we were fairly under way, Governor Manning came back and threw -himself cheerily down into the vacant place. After arranging his umbrella -and overcoat to his satisfaction, he coolly remarked: “I am the young -lady.” He is always the handsomest man alive (now that poor William -Taber has been killed in a duel), and he can be very agreeable; that is, -when he pleases to be so. He does not always please. He seemed to have -made his little maneuver principally to warn me of impending danger to -my husband’s political career. “Every election now will be a surprise. -New cliques are not formed yet. The old ones are principally bent upon -displacing one another.” “But the Yankees—those dreadful Yankees!” “Oh, -never mind, we are going to take care of home folks first! How will you -like to rusticate?—go back and mind your own business?” “If I only knew -what that was—what was my own business.” - -Our round table consists of the Judge, Langdon Cheves,[22] Trescott,[23] -and ourselves. Here are four of the cleverest men that we have, but such -very different people, as opposite in every characteristic as the four -points of the compass. Langdon Cheves and my husband have feelings and -ideas in common. Mr. Petigru[24] said of the brilliant Trescott: “He is a -man without indignation.” Trescott and I laugh at everything. - -The Judge, from his life as solicitor, and then on the bench, has learned -to look for the darkest motives for every action. His judgment on men and -things is always so harsh, it shocks and repels even his best friends. -To-day he said: “Your conversation reminds me of a flashy second-rate -novel.” “How?” “By the quantity of French you sprinkle over it. Do you -wish to prevent us from understanding you?” “No,” said Trescott, “we are -using French against Africa. We know the black waiters are all ears now, -and we want to keep what we have to say dark. We can’t afford to take -them into our confidence, you know.” - -This explanation Trescott gave with great rapidity and many gestures -toward the men standing behind us. Still speaking the French language, -his apology was exasperating, so the Judge glared at him, and, in -unabated rage, turned to talk with Mr. Cheves, who found it hard to keep -a calm countenance. - -On the Battery with the Rutledges, Captain Hartstein was introduced to -me. He has done some heroic things—brought home some ships and is a man -of mark. Afterward he sent me a beautiful bouquet, not half so beautiful, -however, as Mr. Robert Gourdin’s, which already occupied the place of -honor on my center table. What a dear, delightful place is Charleston! - -A lady (who shall be nameless because of her story) came to see me -to-day. Her husband has been on the Island with the troops for months. -She has just been down to see him. She meant only to call on him, but he -persuaded her to stay two days. She carried him some clothes made from -his old measure. Now they are a mile too wide. “So much for a hard life!” -I said. - -“No, no,” said she, “they are all jolly down there. He has trained -down; says it is good for him, and he likes the life.” Then she became -confidential, although it was her first visit to me, a perfect stranger. -She had taken no clothes down there—pushed, as she was, in that manner -under Achilles’s tent. But she managed things; she tied her petticoat -around her neck for a night-gown. - -_April 2d._—Governor Manning came to breakfast at our table. The others -had breakfasted hours before. I looked at him in amazement, as he was in -full dress, ready for a ball, swallow-tail and all, and at that hour. -“What is the matter with you?” “Nothing, I am not mad, most noble madam. -I am only going to the photographer. My wife wants me taken thus.” He -insisted on my going, too, and we captured Mr. Chesnut and Governor -Means.[25] The latter presented me with a book, a photo-book, in which I -am to pillory all the celebrities. - -Doctor Gibbes says the Convention is in a snarl. It was called as a -Secession Convention. A secession of places seems to be what it calls for -first of all. It has not stretched its eyes out to the Yankees yet; it -has them turned inward; introspection is its occupation still. - -Last night, as I turned down the gas, I said to myself: “Certainly this -has been one of the pleasantest days of my life.” I can only give the -skeleton of it, so many pleasant people, so much good talk, for, after -all, it was talk, talk, talk _à la Caroline du Sud_. And yet the day -began rather dismally. Mrs. Capers and Mrs. Tom Middleton came for me and -we drove to Magnolia Cemetery. I saw William Taber’s broken column. It -was hard to shake off the blues after this graveyard business. - -The others were off at a dinner party. I dined _tête-à-tête_ with Langdon -Cheves, so quiet, so intelligent, so very sensible withal. There never -was a pleasanter person, or a better man than he. While we were at -table, Judge Whitner, Tom Frost, and Isaac Hayne came. They broke up -our deeply interesting conversation, for I was hearing what an honest -and brave man feared for his country, and then the Rutledges dislodged -the newcomers and bore me off to drive on the Battery. On the staircase -met Mrs. Izard, who came for the same purpose. On the Battery Governor -Adams[26] stopped us. He had heard of my saying he looked like Marshal -Pelissier, and he came to say that at last I had made a personal remark -which pleased him, for once in my life. When we came home Mrs. Isaac -Hayne and Chancellor Carroll called to ask us to join their excursion to -the Island Forts to-morrow. With them was William Haskell. Last summer at -the White Sulphur he was a pale, slim student from the university. To-day -he is a soldier, stout and robust. A few months in camp, with soldiering -in the open air, has worked this wonder. Camping out proves a wholesome -life after all. Then came those nice, sweet, fresh, pure-looking Pringle -girls. We had a charming topic in common—their clever brother Edward. - -A letter from Eliza B., who is in Montgomery: “Mrs. Mallory got a letter -from a lady in Washington a few days ago, who said that there had -recently been several attempts to be gay in Washington, but they proved -dismal failures. The Black Republicans were invited and came, and stared -at their entertainers and their new Republican companions, looked unhappy -while they said they were enchanted, showed no ill-temper at the hardly -stifled grumbling and growling of our friends, who thus found themselves -condemned to meet their despised enemy.” - -I had a letter from the Gwinns to-day. They say Washington offers a -perfect realization of Goldsmith’s Deserted Village. - -Celebrated my 38th birthday, but I am too old now to dwell in public on -that unimportant anniversary. A long, dusty day ahead on those windy -islands; never for me, so I was up early to write a note of excuse to -Chancellor Carroll. My husband went. I hope Anderson will not pay them -the compliment of a salute with shotted guns, as they pass Fort Sumter, -as pass they must. - -Here I am interrupted by an exquisite bouquet from the Rutledges. Are -there such roses anywhere else in the world? Now a loud banging at my -door. I get up in a pet and throw it wide open. “Oh!” said John Manning, -standing there, smiling radiantly; “pray excuse the noise I made. I -mistook the number; I thought it was Rice’s room; that is my excuse. Now -that I am here, come, go with us to Quinby’s. Everybody will be there who -are not at the Island. To be photographed is the rage just now.” - -We had a nice open carriage, and we made a number of calls, Mrs. Izard, -the Pringles, and the Tradd Street Rutledges, the handsome ex-Governor -doing the honors gallantly. He had ordered dinner at six, and we dined -_tête-à-tête_. If he should prove as great a captain in ordering his -line of battle as he is in ordering a dinner, it will be as well for the -country as it was for me to-day. - -Fortunately for the men, the beautiful Mrs. Joe Heyward sits at the next -table, so they take her beauty as one of the goods the gods provide. And -it helps to make life pleasant with English grouse and venison from the -West. Not to speak of the salmon from the lakes which began the feast. -They have me to listen, an appreciative audience, while they talk, and -Mrs. Joe Heyward to look at. - -Beauregard[27] called. He is the hero of the hour. That is, he is -believed to be capable of great things. A hero worshiper was struck -dumb because I said: “So far, he has only been a captain of artillery, -or engineers, or something.” I did not see him. Mrs. Wigfall did and -reproached my laziness in not coming out. - -Last Sunday at church beheld one of the peculiar local sights, old negro -maumas going up to the communion, in their white turbans and kneeling -devoutly around the chancel rail. - -The morning papers say Mr. Chesnut made the best shot on the Island at -target practice. No war yet, thank God. Likewise they tell me Mr. Chesnut -has made a capital speech in the Convention. - -Not one word of what is going on now. “Out of the fulness of the heart -the mouth speaketh,” says the Psalmist. Not so here. Our hearts are in -doleful dumps, but we are as gay, as madly jolly, as sailors who break -into the strong-room when the ship is going down. At first in our great -agony we were out alone. We longed for some of our big brothers to come -out and help us. Well, they are out, too, and now it is Fort Sumter and -that ill-advised Anderson. There stands Fort Sumter, _en evidence_, and -thereby hangs peace or war. - -Wigfall[28] says before he left Washington, Pickens, our Governor, and -Trescott were openly against secession; Trescott does not pretend to like -it now. He grumbles all the time, but Governor Pickens is fire-eater down -to the ground. “At the White House Mrs. Davis wore a badge. Jeff Davis is -no seceder,” says Mrs. Wigfall. - -Captain Ingraham comments in his rapid way, words tumbling over each -other out of his mouth: “Now, Charlotte Wigfall meant that as a fling at -those people. I think better of men who stop to think; it is too rash to -rush on as some do.” “And so,” adds Mrs. Wigfall, “the eleventh-hour men -are rewarded; the half-hearted are traitors in this row.” - -_April 3d._—Met the lovely Lucy Holcombe, now Mrs. Governor Pickens, last -night at Isaac Hayne’s. I saw Miles now begging in dumb show for three -violets she had in her breastpin. She is a consummate actress and he -well up in the part of male flirt. So it was well done. - -“And you, who are laughing in your sleeves at the scene, where did you -get that huge bunch?” “Oh, there is no sentiment when there is a pile -like that of anything!” “Oh, oh!” - -To-day at the breakfast table there was a tragic bestowal of heartsease -on the well-known inquirer who, once more says in austere tones: “Who is -the flirt now?” And so we fool on into the black cloud ahead of us. And -after heartsease cometh rue. - -_April 4th._—Mr. Hayne said his wife moaned over the hardness of the -chaperones’ seats at St. Andrew’s Hall at a Cecilia Ball.[29] She was -hopelessly deposited on one for hours. “And the walls are harder, my -dear. What are your feelings to those of the poor old fellows leaning -there, with their beautiful young wives waltzing as if they could never -tire and in the arms of every man in the room. Watch their haggard, weary -faces, the old boys, you know. At church I had to move my pew. The lovely -Laura was too much for my boys. They all made eyes at her, and nudged -each other and quarreled so, for she gave them glance for glance. Wink, -blink, and snicker as they would, she liked it. I say, my dear, the old -husbands have not exactly a bed of roses; their wives twirling in the -arms of young men, they hugging the wall.” - -While we were at supper at the Haynes’s, Wigfall was sent for to -address a crowd before the Mills House piazza. Like James Fitz James -when he visits Glen Alpin again, it is to be in the saddle, etc. So let -Washington beware. We were sad that we could not hear the speaking. But -the supper was a consolation—_pâté de foie gras_ salad, _biscuit glacé_ -and _champagne frappé_. - -A ship was fired into yesterday, and went back to sea. Is that the first -shot? How can one settle down to anything; one’s heart is in one’s mouth -all the time. Any moment the cannon may open on us, the fleet come in. - -_April 6th._—The plot thickens, the air is red hot with rumors; the -mystery is to find out where these utterly groundless tales originate. In -spite of all, Tom Huger came for us and we went on the Planter to take a -look at Morris Island and its present inhabitants—Mrs. Wigfall and the -Cheves girls, Maxcy Gregg and Colonel Whiting, also John Rutledge, of the -Navy, Dan Hamilton, and William Haskell. John Rutledge was a figurehead -to be proud of. He did not speak to us. But he stood with a Scotch shawl -draped about him, as handsome and stately a creature as ever Queen -Elizabeth loved to look upon. - -There came up such a wind we could not land. I was not too sorry, -though it blew so hard (I am never seasick). Colonel Whiting explained -everything about the forts, what they lacked, etc., in the most -interesting way, and Maxcy Gregg supplemented his report by stating all -the deficiencies and shortcomings by land. - -Beauregard is a demigod here to most of the natives, but there are always -seers who see and say. They give you to understand that Whiting has all -the brains now in use for our defense. He does the work and Beauregard -reaps the glory. Things seem to draw near a crisis. And one must think. -Colonel Whiting is clever enough for anything, so we made up our minds -to-day, Maxcy Gregg and I, as judges. Mr. Gregg told me that my husband -was in a minority in the Convention; so much for cool sense when the -atmosphere is phosphorescent. Mrs. Wigfall says we are mismatched. She -should pair with my cool, quiet, self-poised Colonel. And her stormy -petrel is but a male reflection of me. - -_April 8th._—Yesterday Mrs. Wigfall and I made a few visits. At the first -house they wanted Mrs. Wigfall to settle a dispute. “Was she, indeed, -fifty-five?” Fancy her face, more than ten years bestowed upon her so -freely. Then Mrs. Gibbes asked me if I had ever been in Charleston -before. Says Charlotte Wigfall (to pay me for my snigger when that false -fifty was flung in her teeth), “and she thinks this is her native heath -and her name is McGregor.” She said it all came upon us for breaking the -Sabbath, for indeed it was Sunday. - -Allen Green came up to speak to me at dinner, in all his soldier’s -toggery. It sent a shiver through me. Tried to read Margaret Fuller -Ossoli, but could not. The air is too full of war news, and we are all so -restless. - -Went to see Miss Pinckney, one of the last of the old-world Pinckneys. -She inquired particularly about a portrait of her father, Charles -Cotesworth Pinckney,[30] which she said had been sent by him to my -husband’s grandfather. I gave a good account of it. It hangs in the place -of honor in the drawing-room at Mulberry. She wanted to see my husband, -for “his grandfather, my father’s friend, was one of the handsomest men -of his day.” We came home, and soon Mr. Robert Gourdin and Mr. Miles -called. Governor Manning walked in, bowed gravely, and seated himself -by me. Again he bowed low in mock heroic style, and with a grand wave -of his hand, said: “Madame, your country is invaded.” When I had breath -to speak, I asked, “What does he mean?” He meant this: there are six -men-of-war outside the bar. Talbot and Chew have come to say that -hostilities are to begin. Governor Pickens and Beauregard are holding a -council of war. Mr. Chesnut then came in and confirmed the story. Wigfall -next entered in boisterous spirits, and said: “There was a sound of -revelry by night.” In any stir or confusion my heart is apt to beat so -painfully. Now the agony was so stifling I could hardly see or hear. The -men went off almost immediately. And I crept silently to my room, where I -sat down to a good cry. - -Mrs. Wigfall came in and we had it out on the subject of civil war. We -solaced ourselves with dwelling on all its known horrors, and then we -added what we had a right to expect with Yankees in front and negroes -in the rear. “The slave-owners must expect a servile insurrection, of -course,” said Mrs. Wigfall, to make sure that we were unhappy enough. - -Suddenly loud shouting was heard. We ran out. Cannon after cannon -roared. We met Mrs. Allen Green in the passageway with blanched cheeks -and streaming eyes. Governor Means rushed out of his room in his -dressing-gown and begged us to be calm. “Governor Pickens,” said he, “has -ordered in the plenitude of his wisdom, seven cannon to be fired as a -signal to the Seventh Regiment. Anderson will hear as well as the Seventh -Regiment. Now you go back and be quiet; fighting in the streets has not -begun yet.” - -So we retired. Dr. Gibbes calls Mrs. Allen Green Dame Placid. There was -no placidity to-day, with cannon bursting and Allen on the Island. No -sleep for anybody last night. The streets were alive with soldiers, men -shouting, marching, singing. Wigfall, the “stormy petrel,” is in his -glory, the only thoroughly happy person I see. To-day things seem to have -settled down a little. One can but hope still. Lincoln, or Seward, has -made such silly advances and then far sillier drawings back. There may be -a chance for peace after all. Things are happening so fast. My husband -has been made an aide-de-camp to General Beauregard. - -Three hours ago we were quickly packing to go home. The Convention has -adjourned. Now he tells me the attack on Fort Sumter may begin to-night; -depends upon Anderson and the fleet outside. The Herald says that this -show of war outside of the bar is intended for Texas. John Manning came -in with his sword and red sash, pleased as a boy to be on Beauregard’s -staff, while the row goes on. He has gone with Wigfall to Captain -Hartstein with instructions. Mr. Chesnut is finishing a report he had to -make to the Convention. - -Mrs. Hayne called. She had, she said, but one feeling; pity for those -who are not here. Jack Preston, Willie Alston, “the take-life-easys,” -as they are called, with John Green, “the big brave,” have gone down to -the islands—volunteered as privates. Seven hundred men were sent over. -Ammunition wagons were rumbling along the streets all night. Anderson is -burning blue lights, signs, and signals for the fleet outside, I suppose. - -To-day at dinner there was no allusion to things as they stand in -Charleston Harbor. There was an undercurrent of intense excitement. -There could not have been a more brilliant circle. In addition to our -usual quartette (Judge Withers, Langdon Cheves, and Trescott), our two -ex-Governors dined with us, Means and Manning. These men all talked -so delightfully. For once in my life I listened. That over, business -began in earnest. Governor Means had rummaged a sword and red sash from -somewhere and brought it for Colonel Chesnut, who had gone to demand the -surrender of Fort Sumter. And now patience—we must wait. - -Why did that green goose Anderson go into Fort Sumter? Then everything -began to go wrong. Now they have intercepted a letter from him urging -them to let him surrender. He paints the horrors likely to ensue if they -will not. He ought to have thought of all that before he put his head in -the hole. - -_April 12th._—Anderson will not capitulate. Yesterday’s was the merriest, -maddest dinner we have had yet. Men were audaciously wise and witty. We -had an unspoken foreboding that it was to be our last pleasant meeting. -Mr. Miles dined with us to-day. Mrs. Henry King rushed in saying, “The -news, I come for the latest news. All the men of the King family are on -the Island,” of which fact she seemed proud. - -While she was here our peace negotiator, or envoy, came in—that is, Mr. -Chesnut returned. His interview with Colonel Anderson had been deeply -interesting, but Mr. Chesnut was not inclined to be communicative. He -wanted his dinner. He felt for Anderson and had telegraphed to President -Davis for instructions—what answer to give Anderson, etc. He has now gone -back to Fort Sumter with additional instructions. When they were about to -leave the wharf A. H. Boykin sprang into the boat in great excitement. He -thought himself ill-used, with a likelihood of fighting and he to be left -behind! - -I do not pretend to go to sleep. How can I? If Anderson does not accept -terms at four, the orders are, he shall be fired upon. I count four, St. -Michael’s bells chime out and I begin to hope. At half-past four the -heavy booming of a cannon. I sprang out of bed, and on my knees prostrate -I prayed as I never prayed before. - -There was a sound of stir all over the house, pattering of feet in the -corridors. All seemed hurrying one way. I put on my double-gown and a -shawl and went, too. It was to the housetop. The shells were bursting. -In the dark I heard a man say, “Waste of ammunition.” I knew my husband -was rowing about in a boat somewhere in that dark bay, and that the -shells were roofing it over, bursting toward the fort. If Anderson was -obstinate, Colonel Chesnut was to order the fort on one side to open -fire. Certainly fire had begun. The regular roar of the cannon, there -it was. And who could tell what each volley accomplished of death and -destruction? - -The women were wild there on the housetop. Prayers came from the women -and imprecations from the men. And then a shell would light up the scene. -To-night they say the forces are to attempt to land. We watched up there, -and everybody wondered that Fort Sumter did not fire a shot. - -To-day Miles and Manning, colonels now, aides to Beauregard, dined with -us. The latter hoped I would keep the peace. I gave him only good words, -for he was to be under fire all day and night, down in the bay carrying -orders, etc. - -Last night, or this morning truly, up on the housetop I was so weak -and weary I sat down on something that looked like a black stool. “Get -up, you foolish woman. Your dress is on fire,” cried a man. And he put -me out. I was on a chimney and the sparks had caught my clothes. Susan -Preston and Mr. Venable then came up. But my fire had been extinguished -before it burst out into a regular blaze. - -Do you know, after all that noise and our tears and prayers, nobody has -been hurt; sound and fury signifying nothing—a delusion and a snare. - -Louisa Hamilton came here now. This is a sort of news center. Jack -Hamilton, her handsome young husband, has all the credit of a famous -battery, which is made of railroad iron. Mr. Petigru calls it the -boomerang, because it throws the balls back the way they came; so Lou -Hamilton tells us. During her first marriage, she had no children; hence -the value of this lately achieved baby. To divert Louisa from the glories -of “the Battery,” of which she raves, we asked if the baby could talk -yet. “No, not exactly, but he imitates the big gun when he hears that. -He claps his hands and cries ‘Boom, boom.’” Her mind is distinctly -occupied by three things: Lieutenant Hamilton, whom she calls “Randolph,” -the baby, and the big gun, and it refuses to hold more. - -Pryor, of Virginia, spoke from the piazza of the Charleston hotel. I -asked what he said. An irreverent woman replied: “Oh, they all say the -same thing, but he made great play with that long hair of his, which he -is always tossing aside!” - -Somebody came in just now and reported Colonel Chesnut asleep on the sofa -in General Beauregard’s room. After two such nights he must be so tired -as to be able to sleep anywhere. - -Just bade farewell to Langdon Cheves. He is forced to go home and leave -this interesting place. Says he feels like the man that was not killed -at Thermopylæ. I think he said that unfortunate had to hang himself when -he got home for very shame. Maybe he fell on his sword, which was the -strictly classic way of ending matters. - -I do not wonder at Louisa Hamilton’s baby; we hear nothing, can listen -to nothing; boom, boom goes the cannon all the time. The nervous strain -is awful, alone in this darkened room. “Richmond and Washington ablaze,” -say the papers—blazing with excitement. Why not? To us these last days’ -events seem frightfully great. We were all women on that iron balcony. -Men are only seen at a distance now. Stark Means, marching under the -piazza at the head of his regiment, held his cap in his hand all the time -he was in sight. Mrs. Means was leaning over and looking with tearful -eyes, when an unknown creature asked, “Why did he take his hat off?” Mrs. -Means stood straight up and said: “He did that in honor of his mother; he -saw me.” She is a proud mother, and at the same time most unhappy. Her -lovely daughter Emma is dying in there, before her eyes, of consumption. -At that moment I am sure Mrs. Means had a spasm of the heart; at least, -she looked as I feel sometimes. She took my arm and we came in. - -_April 13th._—Nobody has been hurt after all. How gay we were last night. -Reaction after the dread of all the slaughter we thought those dreadful -cannon were making. Not even a battery the worse for wear. Fort Sumter -has been on fire. Anderson has not yet silenced any of our guns. So the -aides, still with swords and red sashes by way of uniform, tell us. -But the sound of those guns makes regular meals impossible. None of us -go to table. Tea-trays pervade the corridors going everywhere. Some of -the anxious hearts lie on their beds and moan in solitary misery. Mrs. -Wigfall and I solace ourselves with tea in my room. These women have all -a satisfying faith. “God is on our side,” they say. When we are shut in -Mrs. Wigfall and I ask “Why?” “Of course, He hates the Yankees, we are -told. You’ll think that well of Him.” - -Not by one word or look can we detect any change in the demeanor of -these negro servants. Lawrence sits at our door, sleepy and respectful, -and profoundly indifferent. So are they all, but they carry it too far. -You could not tell that they even heard the awful roar going on in the -bay, though it has been dinning in their ears night and day. People talk -before them as if they were chairs and tables. They make no sign. Are -they stolidly stupid? or wiser than we are; silent and strong, biding -their time? - -So tea and toast came; also came Colonel Manning, red sash and sword, to -announce that he had been under fire, and didn’t mind it. He said gaily: -“It is one of those things a fellow never knows how he will come out -until he has been tried. Now I know I am a worthy descendant of my old -Irish hero of an ancestor, who held the British officer before him as a -shield in the Revolution, and backed out of danger gracefully.” We talked -of St. Valentine’s eve, or the maid of Perth, and the drop of the white -doe’s blood that sometimes spoiled all. - -[Illustration: FORT SUMTER UNDER BOMBARDMENT. - -From an Old Print.] - -The war-steamers are still there, outside the bar. And there are people -who thought the Charleston bar “no good” to Charleston. The bar is the -silent partner, or sleeping partner, and in this fray it is doing us -yeoman service. - -_April 15th._—I did not know that one could live such days of excitement. -Some one called: “Come out! There is a crowd coming.” A mob it was, -indeed, but it was headed by Colonels Chesnut and Manning. The crowd was -shouting and showing these two as messengers of good news. They were -escorted to Beauregard’s headquarters. Fort Sumter had surrendered! Those -upon the house-tops shouted to us “The fort is on fire.” That had been -the story once or twice before. - -When we had calmed down, Colonel Chesnut, who had taken it all quietly -enough, if anything more unruffled than usual in his serenity, told us -how the surrender came about. Wigfall was with them on Morris Island -when they saw the fire in the fort; he jumped in a little boat, and with -his handkerchief as a white flag, rowed over. Wigfall went in through a -porthole. When Colonel Chesnut arrived shortly after, and was received -at the regular entrance, Colonel Anderson told him he had need to pick -his way warily, for the place was all mined. As far as I can make out the -fort surrendered to Wigfall. But it is all confusion. Our flag is flying -there. Fire-engines have been sent for to put out the fire. Everybody -tells you half of something and then rushes off to tell something else or -to hear the last news. - -In the afternoon, Mrs. Preston,[31] Mrs. Joe Heyward, and I drove around -the Battery. We were in an open carriage. What a changed scene—the -very liveliest crowd I think I ever saw, everybody talking at once. All -glasses were still turned on the grim old fort. - -Russell,[32] the correspondent of the London Times, was there. They took -him everywhere. One man got out Thackeray to converse with him on equal -terms. Poor Russell was awfully bored, they say. He only wanted to see -the fort and to get news suitable to make up into an interesting article. -Thackeray had become stale over the water. - -Mrs. Frank Hampton[33] and I went to see the camp of the Richland troops. -South Carolina College had volunteered to a boy. Professor Venable (the -mathematical), intends to raise a company from among them for the war, a -permanent company. This is a grand frolic no more for the students, at -least. Even the staid and severe of aspect, Clingman, is here. He says -Virginia and North Carolina are arming to come to our rescue, for now -the North will swoop down on us. Of that we may be sure. We have burned -our ships. We are obliged to go on now. He calls us a poor, little, -hot-blooded, headlong, rash, and troublesome sister State. General -McQueen is in a rage because we are to send troops to Virginia. - -Preston Hampton is in all the flush of his youth and beauty, six feet in -stature; and after all only in his teens; he appeared in fine clothes -and lemon-colored kid gloves to grace the scene. The camp in a fit of -horse-play seized him and rubbed him in the mud. He fought manfully, but -took it all naturally as a good joke. - -Mrs. Frank Hampton knows already what civil war means. Her brother was in -the New York Seventh Regiment, so roughly received in Baltimore. Frank -will be in the opposite camp. - -Good stories there may be and to spare for Russell, the man of the London -Times, who has come over here to find out our weakness and our strength -and to tell all the rest of the world about us. - - - - -IV - -CAMDEN, S. C. - -_April 20, 1861-April 23, 1861_ - - -Camden, S. C., _April 20, 1861_.—Home again at Mulberry. In those last -days of my stay in Charleston I did not find time to write a word. - -And so we took Fort Sumter, _nous autres_; we—Mrs. Frank Hampton, and -others—in the passageway of the Mills House between the reception-room -and the drawing-room, for there we held a sofa against all comers. All -the agreeable people South seemed to have flocked to Charleston at the -first gun. That was after we had found out that bombarding did not kill -anybody. Before that, we wept and prayed and took our tea in groups in -our rooms, away from the haunts of men. - -Captain Ingraham and his kind also took Fort Sumter—from the Battery with -field-glasses and figures made with their sticks in the sand to show what -ought to be done. - -Wigfall, Chesnut, Miles, Manning, took it rowing about the harbor in -small boats from fort to fort under the enemy’s guns, with bombs bursting -in air. - -And then the boys and men who worked those guns so faithfully at the -forts—they took it, too, in their own way. - -Old Colonel Beaufort Watts told me this story and many more of the -_jeunesse dorée_ under fire. They took the fire easily, as they do -most things. They had cotton bag bomb-proofs at Fort Moultrie, and -when Anderson’s shot knocked them about some one called out “Cotton is -falling.” Then down went the kitchen chimney, loaves of bread flew out, -and they cheered gaily, shouting, “Bread-stuffs are rising.” - -Willie Preston fired the shot which broke Anderson’s flag-staff. Mrs. -Hampton from Columbia telegraphed him, “Well done, Willie!” She is his -grandmother, the wife, or widow, of General Hampton, of the Revolution, -and the mildest, sweetest, gentlest of old ladies. This shows how the war -spirit is waking us all up. - -Colonel Miles (who won his spurs in a boat, so William Gilmore Simms[34] -said) gave us this characteristic anecdote. They met a negro out in the -bay rowing toward the city with some plantation supplies, etc. “Are you -not afraid of Colonel Anderson’s cannon?” he was asked. “No, sar, Mars -Anderson ain’t daresn’t hit me; he know Marster wouldn’t ’low it.” - -I have been sitting idly to-day looking out upon this beautiful lawn, -wondering if this can be the same world I was in a few days ago. After -the smoke and the din of the battle, a calm. - -_April 22d._—Arranging my photograph book. On the first page, Colonel -Watts. Here goes a sketch of his life; romantic enough, surely: Beaufort -Watts; bluest blood; gentleman to the tips of his fingers; chivalry -incarnate. He was placed in charge of a large amount of money, in bank -bills. The money belonged to the State and he was to deposit it in the -bank. On the way he was obliged to stay over one night. He put the roll -on a table at his bedside, locked himself in, and slept the sleep of -the righteous. Lo, next day when he awaked, the money was gone. Well! -all who knew him believed him innocent, of course. He searched and they -searched, high and low, but to no purpose. The money had vanished. It was -a damaging story, in spite of his previous character, and a cloud rested -on him. - -Years afterward the house in which he had taken that disastrous sleep -was pulled down. In the wall, behind the wainscot, was found his pile of -money. How the rats got it through so narrow a crack it seemed hard to -realize. Like the hole mentioned by Mercutio, it was not as deep as a -well nor as wide as a church door, but it did for Beaufort Watts until -the money was found. Suppose that house had been burned, or the rats had -gnawed up the bills past recognition? - -People in power understood how this proud man suffered those many years -in silence. Many men looked askance at him. The country tried to repair -the work of blasting the man’s character. He was made Secretary of -Legation to Russia, and was afterward our Consul at Santa Fé de Bogota. -When he was too old to wander far afield, they made him Secretary to all -the Governors of South Carolina in regular succession. - -I knew him more than twenty years ago as Secretary to the Governor. He -was a made-up old battered dandy, the soul of honor. His eccentricities -were all humored. Misfortune had made him sacred. He stood hat in hand -before ladies and bowed as I suppose Sir Charles Grandison might have -done. It was hard not to laugh at the purple and green shades of his -overblack hair. He came at one time to show me the sword presented -to Colonel Shelton for killing the only Indian who was killed in the -Seminole war. We bagged Osceola and Micanopy under a flag of truce—that -is, they were snared, not shot on the wing. - -To go back to my knight-errant: he knelt, handed me the sword, and then -kissed my hand. I was barely sixteen and did not know how to behave under -the circumstances. He said, leaning on the sword, “My dear child, learn -that it is a much greater liberty to shake hands with a lady than to kiss -her hand. I have kissed the Empress of Russia’s hand and she did not -make faces at me.” He looks now just as he did then. He is in uniform, -covered with epaulettes, aigulettes, etc., shining in the sun, and with -his plumed hat reins up his war-steed and bows low as ever. - -Now I will bid farewell for a while as Othello did to all the “pomp, -pride, and circumstance of glorious war,” and come down to my domestic -strifes and troubles. I have a sort of volunteer maid, the daughter of my -husband’s nurse, dear old Betsy. She waits on me because she so pleases. -Besides, I pay her. She belongs to my father-in-law, who has too many -slaves to care very much about their way of life. So Maria Whitaker came, -all in tears. She brushes hair delightfully, and as she stood at my back -I could see her face in the glass. “Maria, are you crying because all -this war talk scares you?” said I. “No, ma’am.” “What is the matter with -you?” “Nothing more than common.” “Now listen. Let the war end either way -and you will be free. We will have to free you before we get out of this -thing. Won’t you be glad?” “Everybody knows Mars Jeems wants us free, and -it is only old Marster holds hard. He ain’t going to free anybody any -way, you see.” - -And then came the story of her troubles. “Now, Miss Mary, you see me -married to Jeems Whitaker yourself. I was a good and faithful wife to -him, and we were comfortable every way—good house, everything. He had -no cause of complaint, but he has left me.” “For heaven’s sake! Why?” -“Because I had twins. He says they are not his because nobody named -Whitaker ever had twins.” - -Maria is proud in her way, and the behavior of this bad husband has -nearly mortified her to death. She has had three children in two years. -No wonder the man was frightened. But then Maria does not depend on him -for anything. She was inconsolable, and I could find nothing better to -say than, “Come, now, Maria! Never mind, your old Missis and Marster are -so good to you. Now let us look up something for the twins.” The twins -are named “John and Jeems,” the latter for her false loon of a husband. -Maria is one of the good colored women. She deserved a better fate in -her honest matrimonial attempt. But they do say she has a trying temper. -Jeems was tried, and he failed to stand the trial. - -_April 23d._—Note the glaring inconsistencies of life. Our chatelaine -locked up Eugene Sue, and returned even Washington Allston’s novel with -thanks and a decided hint that it should be burned; at least it should -not remain in her house. Bad books are not allowed house room, except in -the library under lock and key, the key in the Master’s pocket; but bad -women, if they are not white, or serve in a menial capacity, may swarm -the house unmolested; the ostrich game is thought a Christian act. Such -women are no more regarded as a dangerous contingent than canary birds -would be. - -If you show by a chance remark that you see some particular creature, -more shameless than the rest, has no end of children, and no beginning of -a husband, you are frowned down; you are talking on improper subjects. -There are certain subjects pure-minded ladies never touch upon, even in -their thoughts. It does not do to be so hard and cruel. It is best to -let the sinners alone, poor things. If they are good servants otherwise, -do not dismiss them; all that will come straight as they grow older, and -it does! They are frantic, one and all, to be members of the church. The -Methodist Church is not so pure-minded as to shut its eyes; it takes them -up and turns them out with a high hand if they are found going astray as -to any of the ten commandments. - - - - -V - -MONTGOMERY, ALA. - -_April 27, 1861-May 20, 1861_ - - -Montgomery, Ala., _April 27, 1861_.—Here we are once more. Hon. Robert -Barnwell came with us. His benevolent spectacles give him a most -Pickwickian expression. We Carolinians revere his goodness above all -things. Everywhere, when the car stopped, the people wanted a speech, and -we had one stream of fervid oratory. We came along with a man whose wife -lived in Washington. He was bringing her to Georgia as the safest place. - -The Alabama crowd are not as confident of taking Fort Pickens as we were -of taking Fort Sumter. - -Baltimore is in a blaze. They say Colonel Ben Huger is in command -there—son of the “Olmutz” Huger. General Robert E. Lee, son of Light -Horse Harry Lee, has been made General-in-Chief of Virginia. With such -men to the fore, we have hope. The New York Herald says, “Slavery must -be extinguished, if in blood.” It thinks we are shaking in our shoes at -their great mass meetings. We are jolly as larks, all the same. - -Mr. Chesnut has gone with Wade Hampton[35] to see President Davis about -the legion Wade wants to get up. The President came across the aisle to -speak to me at church to-day. He was very cordial, and I appreciated the -honor. - -Wigfall is black with rage at Colonel Anderson’s account of the fall of -Sumter. Wigfall did behave magnanimously, but Anderson does not seem to -see it in that light. “Catch me risking my life to save him again,” says -Wigfall. “He might have been man enough to tell the truth to those New -Yorkers, however unpalatable to them a good word for us might have been. -We did behave well to him. The only men of his killed, he killed himself, -or they killed themselves firing a salute to their old striped rag.” - -Mr. Chesnut was delighted with the way Anderson spoke to him when he went -to demand the surrender. They parted quite tenderly. Anderson said: “If -we do not meet again on earth, I hope we may meet in Heaven.” How Wigfall -laughed at Anderson “giving Chesnut a howdy in the other world!” - -What a kind welcome the old gentlemen gave me! One, more affectionate and -homely than the others, slapped me on the back. Several bouquets were -brought me, and I put them in water around my plate. Then General Owens -gave me some violets, which I put in my breastpin. - -“Oh,” said my “Gutta Percha” Hemphill,[36] “if I had known how those -bouquets were to be honored I would have been up by daylight seeking -the sweetest flowers!” Governor Moore came in, and of course seats were -offered him. “This is a most comfortable chair,” cried an overly polite -person. “The most comfortable chair is beside Mrs. Chesnut,” said the -Governor, facing the music gallantly, as he sank into it gracefully. Well -done, old fogies! - -Browne said: “These Southern men have an awfully flattering way with -women.” “Oh, so many are descendants of Irishmen, and so the blarney -remains yet, even, and in spite of their gray hairs!” For it was a group -of silver-gray flatterers. Yes, blarney as well as bravery came in with -the Irish. - -At Mrs. Davis’s reception dismal news, for civil war seems certain. At -Mrs. Toombs’s reception Mr. Stephens came by me. Twice before we have -had it out on the subject of this Confederacy, once on the cars, coming -from Georgia here, once at a supper, where he sat next to me. To-day he -was not cheerful in his views. I called him half-hearted, and accused -him of looking back. Man after man came and interrupted the conversation -with some frivle-fravle, but we held on. He was deeply interesting, and -he gave me some new ideas as to our dangerous situation. Fears for the -future and not exultation at our successes pervade his discourse. - -Dined at the President’s and never had a pleasanter day. He is as witty -as he is wise. He was very agreeable; he took me in to dinner. The talk -was of Washington; nothing of our present difficulties. - -A General Anderson from Alexandria, D. C., was in doleful dumps. He says -the North are so much better prepared than we are. They are organized, or -will be, by General Scott. We are in wild confusion. Their army is the -best in the world. We are wretchedly armed, etc., etc. They have ships -and arms that were ours and theirs. - -Mrs. Walker, resplendently dressed, one of those gorgeously arrayed -persons who fairly shine in the sun, tells me she mistook the inevitable -Morrow for Mr. Chesnut, and added, “Pass over the affront to my powers of -selection.” I told her it was “an insult to the Palmetto flag.” Think of -a South Carolina Senator like that! - -Men come rushing in from Washington with white lips, crying, “Danger, -danger!” It is very tiresome to have these people always harping on -this: “The enemy’s troops are the finest body of men we ever saw.” “Why -did you not make friends of them,” I feel disposed to say. We would have -war, and now we seem to be letting our golden opportunity pass; we are -not preparing for war. There is talk, talk, talk in that Congress—lazy -legislators, and rash, reckless, headlong, devil-may-care, proud, -passionate, unruly, raw material for soldiers. They say we have among us -a regiment of spies, men and women, sent here by the wily Seward. Why? -Our newspapers tell every word there is to be told, by friend or foe. - -A two-hours’ call from Hon. Robert Barnwell. His theory is, all would -have been right if we had taken Fort Sumter six months ago. He made this -very plain to me. He is clever, if erratic. I forget why it ought to -have been attacked before. At another reception, Mrs. Davis was in fine -spirits. Captain Dacier was here. Came over in his own yacht. Russell, -of The London Times, wondered how we had the heart to enjoy life so -thoroughly when all the Northern papers said we were to be exterminated -in such a short time. - -_May 9th._—Virginia Commissioners here. Mr. Staples and Mr. Edmonston -came to see me. They say Virginia “has no grievance; she comes out on a -point of honor; could she stand by and see her sovereign sister States -invaded?” - -Sumter Anderson has been offered a Kentucky regiment. Can they raise a -regiment in Kentucky against us? In Kentucky, our sister State? - -Suddenly General Beauregard and his aide (the last left him of the galaxy -who surrounded him in Charleston), John Manning, have gone—Heaven knows -where, but out on a war-path certainly. Governor Manning called himself -“the last rose of summer left blooming alone” of that fancy staff. A new -fight will gather them again. - -Ben McCulloch, the Texas Ranger, is here, and Mr. Ward,[37] my “Gutta -Percha” friend’s colleague from Texas. Senator Ward in appearance is the -exact opposite of Senator Hemphill. The latter, with the face of an old -man, has the hair of a boy of twenty. Mr. Ward is fresh and fair, with -blue eyes and a boyish face, but his head is white as snow. Whether he -turned it white in a single night or by slower process I do not know, but -it is strangely out of keeping with his clear young eye. He is thin, and -has a queer stooping figure. - -This story he told me of his own experience. On a Western steamer there -was a great crowd and no unoccupied berth, or sleeping place of any sort -whatsoever in the gentlemen’s cabin—saloon, I think they called it. He -had taken a stateroom, 110, but he could not eject the people who had -already seized it and were asleep in it. Neither could the Captain. It -would have been a case of revolver or “’leven inch Bowie-knife.” - -Near the ladies’ saloon the steward took pity on him. “This man,” said -he, “is 110, and I can find no place for him, poor fellow.” There was -a peep out of bright eyes: “I say, steward, have you a man 110 years -old out there? Let us see him. He must be a natural curiosity.” “We are -overcrowded,” was the answer, “and we can’t find a place for him to -sleep.” “Poor old soul; bring him in here. We will take care of him.” - -“Stoop and totter,” sniggered the steward to No. 110, “and go in.” - -“Ah,” said Mr. Ward, “how those houris patted and pitied me and hustled -me about and gave me the best berth! I tried not to look; I knew it was -wrong, but I looked. I saw them undoing their back hair and was lost in -amazement at the collapse when the huge hoop-skirts fell off, unheeded -on the cabin floor.” - -One beauty who was disporting herself near his curtain suddenly caught -his eye. She stooped and gathered up her belongings as she said: “I -say, stewardess, your old hundred and ten is a humbug. His eyes are -too blue for anything,” and she fled as he shut himself in, nearly -frightened to death. I forget how it ended. There was so much laughing -at his story I did not hear it all. So much for hoary locks and their -reverence-inspiring power! - -Russell, the wandering English newspaper correspondent, was telling how -very odd some of our plantation habits were. He was staying at the house -of an ex-Cabinet Minister, and Madame would stand on the back piazza and -send her voice three fields off, calling a servant. Now that is not a -Southern peculiarity. Our women are soft, and sweet, low-toned, indolent, -graceful, quiescent. I dare say there are bawling, squalling, vulgar -people everywhere. - -_May 13th._—We have been down from Montgomery on the boat to that -God-forsaken landing, Portland, Ala. Found everybody drunk—that is, the -three men who were there. At last secured a carriage to carry us to my -brother-in-law’s house. Mr. Chesnut had to drive seven miles, pitch dark, -over an unknown road. My heart was in my mouth, which last I did not open. - -Next day a patriotic person informed us that, so great was the war fever -only six men could be found in Dallas County. I whispered to Mr. Chesnut: -“We found three of the lone ones _hors de combat_ at Portland.” So much -for the corps of reserves—alcoholized patriots. - -Saw for the first time the demoralization produced by hopes of freedom. -My mother’s butler (whom I taught to read, sitting on his knife-board) -contrived to keep from speaking to us. He was as efficient as ever in -his proper place, but he did not come behind the scenes as usual and -have a friendly chat. Held himself aloof so grand and stately we had to -send him a “tip” through his wife Hetty, mother’s maid, who, however, -showed no signs of disaffection. She came to my bedside next morning with -everything that was nice for breakfast. She had let me sleep till midday, -and embraced me over and over again. I remarked: “What a capital cook -they have here!” She curtsied to the ground. “I cooked every mouthful -on that tray—as if I did not know what you liked to eat since you was a -baby.” - -_May 19th._—Mrs. Fitzpatrick says Mr. Davis is too gloomy for her. He -says we must prepare for a long war and unmerciful reverses at first, -because they are readier for war and so much stronger numerically. Men -and money count so in war. “As they do everywhere else,” said I, doubting -her accurate account of Mr. Davis’s spoken words, though she tried to -give them faithfully. We need patience and persistence. There is enough -and to spare of pluck and dash among us, the do-and-dare style. - -I drove out with Mrs. Davis. She finds playing Mrs. President of this -small confederacy slow work, after leaving friends such as Mrs. Emory and -Mrs. Joe Johnston[38] in Washington. I do not blame her. The wrench has -been awful with us all, but we don’t mean to be turned into pillars of -salt. - -Mr. Mallory came for us to go to Mrs. Toombs’s reception. Mr. Chesnut -would not go, and I decided to remain with him. This proved a wise -decision. First Mr. Hunter[39] came. In college they called him from -his initials, R. M. T., “Run Mad Tom” Hunter. Just now I think he is -the sanest, if not the wisest, man in our new-born Confederacy. I -remember when I first met him. He sat next to me at some state dinner -in Washington. Mr. Clay had taken me in to dinner, but seemed quite -satisfied that my “other side” should take me off his hands. - -Mr. Hunter did not know me, nor I him. I suppose he inquired, or looked -at my card, lying on the table, as I looked at his. At any rate, we -began a conversation which lasted steadily through the whole thing from -soup to dessert. Mr. Hunter, though in evening dress, presented a rather -tumbled-up appearance. His waistcoat wanted pulling down, and his hair -wanted brushing. He delivered unconsciously that day a lecture on English -literature which, if printed, I still think would be a valuable addition -to that literature. Since then, I have always looked forward to a talk -with the Senator from Virginia with undisguised pleasure. Next came Mr. -Miles and Mr. Jameson, of South Carolina. The latter was President of our -Secession Convention; also has written a life of Du Guesclin that is not -so bad. So my unexpected reception was of the most charming. Judge Frost -came a little later. They all remained until the return of the crowd from -Mrs. Toombs’s. - -These men are not sanguine—I can’t say, without hope, exactly. They -are agreed in one thing: it is worth while to try a while, if only to -get away from New England. Captain Ingraham was here, too. He is South -Carolina to the tips of his fingers; yet he has it dyed in the wool—it is -part of his nature—to believe the United States Navy can whip anything in -the world. All of these little inconsistencies and contrarieties make the -times very exciting. One never knows what tack any one of them will take -at the next word. - -_May 20th._—Lunched at Mrs. Davis’s; everything nice to eat, and I was -ravenous. For a fortnight I have not even gone to the dinner table. -Yesterday I was forced to dine on cold asparagus and blackberries, so -repulsive in aspect was the other food they sent me. Mrs. Davis was as -nice as the luncheon. When she is in the mood, I do not know so pleasant -a person. She is awfully clever, always. - -We talked of this move from Montgomery. Mr. Chesnut opposes it violently, -because this is so central a position for our government. He wants our -troops sent into Maryland in order to make our fight on the border, and -so to encompass Washington. I see that the uncomfortable hotels here will -at last move the Congress. Our statesmen love their ease, and it will -be hot here in summer. “I do hope they will go,” Mrs. Davis said. “The -Yankees will make it hot for us, go where we will, and truly so if war -comes.” “And it has come,” said I. “Yes, I fancy these dainty folks may -live to regret losing even the fare of the Montgomery hotels.” “Never.” - -Mr. Chesnut has three distinct manias. The Maryland scheme is one, and he -rushes off to Jeff Davis, who, I dare say, has fifty men every day come -to him with infallible plans to save the country. If only he can keep -his temper. Mrs. Davis says he answers all advisers in softly modulated, -dulcet accents. - -What a rough menagerie we have here. And if nice people come to see -you, up walks an irate Judge, who engrosses the conversation and abuses -the friends of the company generally; that is, abuses everybody and -prophesies every possible evil to the country, provided he finds that -denouncing your friends does not sufficiently depress you. Everybody has -manias—up North, too, by the papers. - -But of Mr. Chesnut’s three crazes: Maryland is to be made the seat of -war, old Morrow’s idea of buying up steamers abroad for our coast -defenses should be adopted, and, last of all, but far from the least, we -must make much cotton and send it to England as a bank to draw on. The -very cotton we have now, if sent across the water, would be a gold mine -to us. - - - - -VI - -CHARLESTON, S. C. - -_May 25, 1861-June 24, 1861_ - - -Charleston, S. C., _May 25, 1861_.—We have come back to South Carolina -from the Montgomery Congress, stopping over at Mulberry. We came with R. -M. T. Hunter and Mr. Barnwell. Mr. Barnwell has excellent reasons for -keeping cotton at home, but I forget what they are. Generally, people -take what he says, also Mr. Hunter’s wisdom, as unanswerable. Not so Mr. -Chesnut, who growls at both, much as he likes them. We also had Tom Lang -and his wife, and Doctor Boykin. Surely there never was a more congenial -party. The younger men had been in the South Carolina College while Mr. -Barnwell was President. Their love and respect for him were immeasurable -and he benignly received it, smiling behind those spectacles. - -Met John Darby at Atlanta and told him he was Surgeon of the Hampton -Legion, which delighted him. He had had adventures. With only a few -moments on the platform to interchange confidences, he said he had -remained a little too long in the Medical College in Philadelphia, where -he was some kind of a professor, and they had been within an ace of -hanging him as a Southern spy. “Rope was ready,” he sniggered. At Atlanta -when he unguardedly said he was fresh from Philadelphia, he barely -escaped lynching, being taken for a Northern spy. “Lively life I am -having among you, on both sides,” he said, hurrying away. And I moaned, -“Here was John Darby like to have been killed by both sides, and no time -to tell me the curious coincidences.” What marvelous experiences a little -war begins to produce. - -_May 27th._—They look for a fight at Norfolk. Beauregard is there. I -think if I were a man I’d be there, too. Also Harper’s Ferry is to be -attacked. The Confederate flag has been cut down at Alexandria by a man -named Ellsworth,[40] who was in command of Zouaves. Jackson was the name -of the person who shot Ellsworth in the act. Sixty of our cavalry have -been taken by Sherman’s brigade. Deeper and deeper we go in. - -Thirty of Tom Boykin’s company have come home from Richmond. They went -as a rifle company, armed with muskets. They were sandhill tackeys—those -fastidious ones, not very anxious to fight with anything, or in any way, -I fancy. Richmond ladies had come for them in carriages, fêted them, -waved handkerchiefs to them, brought them dainties with their own hands, -in the faith that every Carolinian was a gentleman, and every man south -of Mason and Dixon’s line a hero. But these are not exactly descendants -of the Scotch Hay, who fought the Danes with his plowshare, or the oxen’s -yoke, or something that could hit hard and that came handy. - -Johnny has gone as a private in Gregg’s regiment. He could not stand it -at home any longer. Mr. Chesnut was willing for him to go, because those -sandhill men said “this was a rich man’s war,” and the rich men would be -the officers and have an easy time and the poor ones would be privates. -So he said: “Let the gentlemen set the example; let them go in the -ranks.” So John Chesnut is a gentleman private. He took his servant with -him all the same. - -Johnny reproved me for saying, “If I were a man, I would not sit here and -dole and drink and drivel and forget the fight going on in Virginia.” -He said it was my duty not to talk so rashly and make enemies. He “had -the money in his pocket to raise a company last fall, but it has slipped -through his fingers, and now he is a common soldier.” “You wasted it or -spent it foolishly,” said I. “I do not know where it has gone,” said he. -“There was too much consulting over me, too much good counsel was given -to me, and everybody gave me different advice.” “Don’t you ever know -your own mind?” “We will do very well in the ranks; men and officers all -alike; we know everybody.” - -So I repeated Mrs. Lowndes’s solemn words when she heard that South -Carolina had seceded alone: “As thy days so shall thy strength be.” Don’t -know exactly what I meant, but thought I must be impressive as he was -going away. Saw him off at the train. Forgot to say anything there, but -cried my eyes out. - -Sent Mrs. Wigfall a telegram—“Where shrieks the wild sea-mew?” She -answered: “Sea-mew at the Spotswood Hotel. Will shriek soon. I will -remain here.” - -_June 6th._—Davin! Have had a talk concerning him to-day with two -opposite extremes of people. - -Mrs. Chesnut, my mother-in-law, praises everybody, good and bad. “Judge -not,” she says. She is a philosopher; she would not give herself the pain -to find fault. The Judge abuses everybody, and he does it so well—short, -sharp, and incisive are his sentences, and he revels in condemning the -world _en bloc_, as the French say. So nobody is the better for her good -word, or the worse for his bad one. - -In Camden I found myself in a flurry of women. “Traitors,” they cried. -“Spies; they ought to be hanged; Davin is taken up, Dean and Davis are -his accomplices.” “What has Davin done?” “He’ll be hanged, never you -mind.” “For what?” “They caught him walking on the trestle work in the -swamp, after no good, you may be sure.” “They won’t hang him for that!” -“Hanging is too good for him!” “You wait till Colonel Chesnut comes.” “He -is a lawyer,” I said, gravely. “Ladies, he will disappoint you. There -will be no lynching if he goes to that meeting to-day. He will not move a -step except by habeas corpus and trial by jury, and a quantity of bench -and bar to speak long speeches.” - -Mr. Chesnut did come, and gave a more definite account of poor Davin’s -precarious situation. They had intercepted treasonable letters of his at -the Post Office. I believe it was not a very black treason after all. At -any rate, Mr. Chesnut spoke for him with might and main at the meeting. -It was composed (the meeting) of intelligent men with cool heads. And -they banished Davin to Fort Sumter. The poor Music Master can’t do much -harm in the casemates there. He may thank his stars that Mr. Chesnut gave -him a helping hand. In the red hot state our public mind now is in there -will be a short shrift for spies. Judge Withers said that Mr. Chesnut -never made a more telling speech in his life than he did to save this -poor Frenchman for whom Judge Lynch was ready. I had never heard of Davin -in my life until I heard he was to be hanged. - -Judge Stephen A. Douglas, the “little giant,” is dead; one of those -killed by the war, no doubt; trouble of mind. - -Charleston people are thin-skinned. They shrink from Russell’s touches. -I find his criticisms mild. He has a light touch. I expected so much -worse. Those Englishmen come, somebody says, with three P’s—pen, paper, -prejudices. I dread some of those after-dinner stories. As to that -day in the harbor, he let us off easily. He says our men are so fine -looking. Who denies it? Not one of us. Also that it is a silly impression -which has gone abroad that men can not work in this climate. We live in -the open air, and work like Trojans at all manly sports, riding hard, -hunting, playing at being soldiers. These fine, manly specimens have been -in the habit of leaving the coast when it became too hot there, and also -of fighting a duel or two, if kept long sweltering under a Charleston -sun. Handsome youths, whose size and muscle he admired so much as they -prowled around the Mills House, would not relish hard work in the fields -between May and December. Negroes stand a tropical or semitropical sun at -noon-day better than white men. In fighting it is different. Men will not -then mind sun, or rain, or wind. - -Major Emory,[41] when he was ordered West, placed his resignation in the -hands of his Maryland brothers. After the Baltimore row the brothers -sent it in, but Maryland declined to secede. Mrs. Emory, who at least is -two-thirds of that co-partnership, being old Franklin’s granddaughter, -and true to her blood, tried to get it back. The President refused point -blank, though she went on her knees. That I do not believe. The Franklin -race are stiff-necked and stiff-kneed; not much given to kneeling to God -or man from all accounts. - -If Major Emory comes to us won’t he have a good time? Mrs. Davis adores -Mrs. Emory. No wonder I fell in love with her myself. I heard of her -before I saw her in this wise. Little Banks told me the story. She -was dancing at a ball when some bad accident maker for the Evening -News rushed up and informed her that Major Emory had been massacred -by ten Indians somewhere out West. She coolly answered him that she -had later intelligence; it was not so. Turning a deaf ear then, she -went on dancing. Next night the same officious fool met her with this -congratulation: “Oh, Mrs. Emory, it was all a hoax! The Major is alive.” -She cried: “You are always running about with your bad news,” and turned -her back on him; or, I think it was, “You delight in spiteful stories,” -or, “You are a harbinger of evil.” Banks is a newspaper man and knows how -to arrange an anecdote for effect. - -_June 12th._—Have been looking at Mrs. O’Dowd as she burnished the -“Meejor’s arrms” before Waterloo. And I have been busy, too. My husband -has gone to join Beauregard, somewhere beyond Richmond. I feel blue-black -with melancholy. But I hope to be in Richmond before long myself. That is -some comfort. - -The war is making us all tenderly sentimental. No casualties yet, no real -mourning, nobody hurt. So it is all parade, fife, and fine feathers. -Posing we are _en grande tenue_. There is no imagination here to -forestall woe, and only the excitement and wild awakening from every-day -stagnant life are felt. That is, when one gets away from the two or three -sensible men who are still left in the world. - -When Beauregard’s report of the capture of Fort Sumter was printed, -Willie Ancrum said: “How is this? Tom Ancrum and Ham Boykin’s names are -not here. We thought from what they told us that they did most of the -fighting.” - -Colonel Magruder[42] has done something splendid on the peninsula. -Bethel is the name of the battle. Three hundred of the enemy killed, they -say. - -Our people, Southerners, I mean, continue to drop in from the outside -world. And what a contempt those who seceded a few days sooner feel for -those who have just come out! A Camden notable, called Jim Velipigue, -said in the street to-day: “At heart Robert E. Lee is against us; that I -know.” What will not people say in war times! Also, he said that Colonel -Kershaw wanted General Beauregard to change the name of the stream near -Manassas Station. Bull’s Run is so unrefined. Beauregard answered: “Let -us try and make it as great a name as your South Carolina Cowpens.”[43] - -Mrs. Chesnut, born in Philadelphia, can not see what right we have to -take Mt. Vernon from our Northern sisters. She thinks that ought to -be common to both parties. We think they will get their share of this -world’s goods, do what we may, and we will keep Mt. Vernon if we can. -No comfort in Mr. Chesnut’s letter from Richmond. Unutterable confusion -prevails, and discord already. - -In Charleston a butcher has been clandestinely supplying the Yankee fleet -outside the bar with beef. They say he gave the information which led to -the capture of the Savannah. They will hang him. - -Mr. Petigru alone in South Carolina has not seceded. When they pray for -our President, he gets up from his knees. He might risk a prayer for Mr. -Davis. I doubt if it would seriously do Mr. Davis any good. Mr. Petigru -is too clever to think himself one of the righteous whose prayers avail -so overly much. Mr. Petigru’s disciple, Mr. Bryan, followed his example. -Mr. Petigru has such a keen sense of the ridiculous he must be laughing -in his sleeve at the hubbub this untimely trait of independence has -raised. - -Looking out for a battle at Manassas Station. I am always ill. The name -of my disease is a longing to get away from here and to go to Richmond. - -_June 19th._—In England Mr. Gregory and Mr. Lyndsey rise to say a good -word for us. Heaven reward them; shower down its choicest blessings on -their devoted heads, as the fiction folks say. - -Barnwell Heyward telegraphed me to meet him at Kingsville, but I was at -Cool Spring, Johnny’s plantation, and all my clothes were at Sandy Hill, -our home in the Sand Hills; so I lost that good opportunity of the very -nicest escort to Richmond. Tried to rise above the agonies of every-day -life. Read Emerson; too restless—Manassas on the brain. - -Russell’s letters are filled with rubbish about our wanting an English -prince to reign over us. He actually intimates that the noisy arming, -drumming, marching, proclaiming at the North, scares us. Yes, as the -making of faces and turning of somersaults by the Chinese scared the -English. - -Mr. Binney[44] has written a letter. It is in the Intelligencer of -Philadelphia. He offers Lincoln his life and fortune; all that he has put -at Lincoln’s disposal to conquer us. Queer; we only want to separate from -them, and they put such an inordinate value on us. They are willing to -risk all, life and limb, and all their money to keep us, they love us so. - -Mr. Chesnut is accused of firing the first shot, and his cousin, an -ex-West Pointer, writes in a martial fury. They confounded the best -shot made on the Island the day of the picnic with the first shot at -Fort Sumter. This last is claimed by Captain James. Others say it was -one of the Gibbeses who first fired. But it was Anderson who fired the -train which blew up the Union. He slipped into Fort Sumter that night, -when we expected to talk it all over. A letter from my husband dated, -“Headquarters, Manassas Junction, June 16, 1861”: - - MY DEAR MARY: I wrote you a short letter from Richmond last - Wednesday, and came here next day. Found the camp all busy - and preparing for a vigorous defense. We have here at this - camp seven regiments, and in the same command, at posts in - the neighborhood, six others—say, ten thousand good men. The - General and the men feel confident that they can whip twice - that number of the enemy, at least. - - I have been in the saddle for two days, all day, with the - General, to become familiar with the topography of the country, - and the posts he intends to assume, and the communications - between them. - - We learned General Johnston has evacuated Harper’s Ferry, and - taken up his position at Winchester, to meet the advancing - column of McClellan, and to avoid being cut off by the three - columns which were advancing upon him. Neither Johnston nor - Beauregard considers Harper’s Ferry as very important in a - strategic point of view. - - I think it most probable that the next battle you will hear of - will be between the forces of Johnston and McClellan. - - I think what we particularly need is a head in the field—a - Major-General to combine and conduct all the forces as well - as plan a general and energetic campaign. Still, we have all - confidence that we will defeat the enemy whenever and wherever - we meet in general engagement. Although the majority of the - people just around here are with us, still there are many who - are against us. - - God bless you. - - Yours, - - JAMES CHESNUT, JR. - -Mary Hammy and myself are off for Richmond. Rev. Mr. Meynardie, of -the Methodist persuasion, goes with us. We are to be under his care. -War-cloud lowering. - -Isaac Hayne, the man who fought a duel with Ben Alston across the -dinner-table and yet lives, is the bravest of the brave. He attacks -Russell in the Mercury—in the public prints—for saying we wanted an -English prince to the fore. Not we, indeed! Every man wants to be at the -head of affairs himself. If he can not be king himself, then a republic, -of course. It was hardly necessary to do more than laugh at Russell’s -absurd idea. There was a great deal of the wildest kind of talk at the -Mills House. Russell writes candidly enough of the British in India. We -can hardly expect him to suppress what is to our detriment. - -_June 24th._—Last night I was awakened by loud talking and candles -flashing, tramping of feet, growls dying away in the distance, loud calls -from point to point in the yard. Up I started, my heart in my mouth. Some -dreadful thing had happened, a battle, a death, a horrible accident. Some -one was screaming aloft—that is, from the top of the stairway, hoarsely -like a boatswain in a storm. Old Colonel Chesnut was storming at the -sleepy negroes looking for fire, with lighted candles, in closets and -everywhere else. I dressed and came upon the scene of action. - -“What is it? Any news?” “No, no, only mamma smells a smell; she thinks -something is burning somewhere.” The whole yard was alive, literally -swarming. There are sixty or seventy people kept here to wait upon this -household, two-thirds of them too old or too young to be of any use, -but families remain intact. The old Colonel has a magnificent voice. I -am sure it can be heard for miles. Literally, he was roaring from the -piazza, giving orders to the busy crowd who were hunting the smell of -fire. - -Old Mrs. Chesnut is deaf; so she did not know what a commotion she -was creating. She is very sensitive to bad odors. Candles have to be -taken out of the room to be snuffed. Lamps are extinguished only in the -porticoes, or farther afield. She finds violets oppressive; can only -tolerate a single kind of sweet rose. A tea-rose she will not have in -her room. She was totally innocent of the storm she had raised, and in a -mild, sweet voice was suggesting places to be searched. I was weak enough -to laugh hysterically. The bombardment of Fort Sumter was nothing to this. - -After this alarm, enough to wake the dead, the smell was found. A family -had been boiling soap. Around the soap-pot they had swept up some woolen -rags. Raking up the fire to make all safe before going to bed, this was -heaped up with the ashes, and its faint smoldering tainted the air, at -least to Mrs. Chesnut’s nose, two hundred yards or more away. - -Yesterday some of the negro men on the plantation were found with -pistols. I have never before seen aught about any negro to show that they -knew we had a war on hand in which they have any interest. - -Mrs. John de Saussure bade me good-by and God bless you. I was touched. -Camden people never show any more feeling or sympathy than red Indians, -except at a funeral. It is expected of all to howl then, and if you don’t -“show feeling,” indignation awaits the delinquent. - - - - -VII - -RICHMOND, VA. - -_June 27, 1861-July 4, 1861_ - - -Richmond, Va., _June 27, 1861_.—Mr. Meynardie was perfect in the part -of traveling companion. He had his pleasures, too. The most pious and -eloquent of parsons is human, and he enjoyed the converse of the “eminent -persons” who turned up on every hand and gave their views freely on all -matters of state. - -Mr. Lawrence Keitt joined us _en route_. With him came his wife and -baby. We don’t think alike, but Mr. Keitt is always original and -entertaining. Already he pronounces Jeff Davis a failure and his -Cabinet a farce. “Prophetic,” I suggested, as he gave his opinion -before the administration had fairly got under way. He was fierce in -his fault-finding as to Mr. Chesnut’s vote for Jeff Davis. He says Mr. -Chesnut overpersuaded the Judge, and those two turned the tide, at least -with the South Carolina delegation. We wrangled, as we always do. He says -Howell Cobb’s common sense might have saved us. - -Two quiet, unobtrusive Yankee school-teachers were on the train. I had -spoken to them, and they had told me all about themselves. So I wrote on -a scrap of paper, “Do not abuse our home and house so before these Yankee -strangers, going North. Those girls are schoolmistresses returning from -whence they came.” - -Soldiers everywhere. They seem to be in the air, and certainly to fill -all space. Keitt quoted a funny Georgia man who says we try our soldiers -to see if they are hot enough before we enlist them. If, when water is -thrown on them they do not sizz, they won’t do; their patriotism is too -cool. - -To show they were wide awake and sympathizing enthusiastically, every -woman from every window of every house we passed waved a handkerchief, if -she had one. This fluttering of white flags from every side never ceased -from Camden to Richmond. Another new symptom—parties of girls came to -every station simply to look at the troops passing. They always stood -(the girls, I mean) in solid phalanx, and as the sun was generally in -their eyes, they made faces. Mary Hammy never tired of laughing at this -peculiarity of her sister patriots. - -At the depot in Richmond, Mr. Mallory, with Wigfall and Garnett, met us. -We had no cause to complain of the warmth of our reception. They had a -carriage for us, and our rooms were taken at the Spotswood. But then the -people who were in the rooms engaged for us had not departed at the time -they said they were going. They lingered among the delights of Richmond, -and we knew of no law to make them keep their words and go. Mrs. Preston -had gone for a few days to Manassas. So we took her room. Mrs. Davis -is as kind as ever. She met us in one of the corridors accidentally, -and asked us to join her party and to take our meals at her table. Mr. -Preston came, and we moved into a room so small there was only space for -a bed, washstand, and glass over it. My things were hung up out of the -way on nails behind the door. - -As soon as my husband heard we had arrived, he came, too. After dinner he -sat smoking, the solitary chair of the apartment tilted against the door -as he smoked, and my poor dresses were fumigated. I remonstrated feebly. -“War times,” said he; “nobody is fussy now. When I go back to Manassas -to-morrow you will be awfully sorry you snubbed me about those trumpery -things up there.” So he smoked the pipe of peace, for I knew that his -remarks were painfully true. As soon as he was once more under the -enemy’s guns, I would repent in sackcloth and ashes. - -Captain Ingraham came with Colonel Lamar.[45] The latter said he could -only stay five minutes; he was obliged to go back at once to his camp. -That was a little before eight. However, at twelve he was still talking -to us on that sofa. We taunted him with his fine words to the F. F. V. -crowd before the Spotswood: “Virginia has no grievance. She raises her -strong arm to catch the blow aimed at her weaker sisters.” He liked it -well, however, that we knew his speech by heart. - -This Spotswood is a miniature world. The war topic is not so much -avoided, as that everybody has some personal dignity to take care of and -everybody else is indifferent to it. I mean the “personal dignity of” -_autrui_. In this wild confusion everything likely and unlikely is told -you, and then everything is as flatly contradicted. At any rate, it is -safest not to talk of the war. - -Trescott was telling us how they laughed at little South Carolina in -Washington. People said it was almost as large as Long Island, which is -hardly more than a tail-feather of New York. Always there is a child who -sulks and won’t play; that was our rôle. And we were posing as San Marino -and all model-spirited, though small, republics, pose. - -He tells us that Lincoln is a humorist. Lincoln sees the fun of things; -he thinks if they had left us in a corner or out in the cold a while -pouting, with our fingers in our mouth, by hook or by crook he could have -got us back, but Anderson spoiled all. - -In Mrs. Davis’s drawing-room last night, the President took a seat by -me on the sofa where I sat. He talked for nearly an hour. He laughed at -our faith in our own powers. We are like the British. We think every -Southerner equal to three Yankees at least. We will have to be equivalent -to a dozen now. After his experience of the fighting qualities of -Southerners in Mexico, he believes that we will do all that can be done -by pluck and muscle, endurance, and dogged courage, dash, and red-hot -patriotism. And yet his tone was not sanguine. There was a sad refrain -running through it all. For one thing, either way, he thinks it will -be a long war. That floored me at once. It has been too long for me -already. Then he said, before the end came we would have many a bitter -experience. He said only fools doubted the courage of the Yankees, or -their willingness to fight when they saw fit. And now that we have stung -their pride, we have roused them till they will fight like devils. - -Mrs. Bradley Johnson is here, a regular heroine. She outgeneraled the -Governor of North Carolina in some way and has got arms and clothes and -ammunition for her husband’s regiment.[46] There was some joke. The -regimental breeches were all wrong, but a tailor righted that—hind part -before, or something odd. - -Captain Hartstein came to-day with Mrs. Bartow. Colonel Bartow is Colonel -of a Georgia regiment now in Virginia. He was the Mayor of Savannah who -helped to wake the patriotic echoes the livelong night under my sleepless -head into the small hours in Charleston in November last. His wife is a -charming person, witty and wise, daughter of Judge Berrien. She had on a -white muslin apron with pink bows on the pockets. It gave her a gay and -girlish air, and yet she must be as old as I am. - -Mr. Lamar, who does not love slavery more than Sumner does, nor than I -do, laughs at the compliment New England pays us. We want to separate -from them; to be rid of the Yankees forever at any price. And they -hate us so, and would clasp us, or grapple us, as Polonius has it, to -their bosoms “with hooks of steel.” We are an unwilling bride. I think -incompatibility of temper began when it was made plain to us that we got -all the opprobrium of slavery and they all the money there was in it with -their tariff. - -Mr. Lamar says, the young men are light-hearted because there is a fight -on hand, but those few who look ahead, the clear heads, they see all the -risk, the loss of land, limb, and life, home, wife, and children. As in -“the brave days of old,” they take to it for their country’s sake. They -are ready and willing, come what may. But not so light-hearted as the -_jeunesse dorée_. - -_June 29th._—Mrs. Preston, Mrs. Wigfall, Mary Hammy and I drove in a -fine open carriage to see the _Champ de Mars_. It was a grand tableau -out there. Mr. Davis rode a beautiful gray horse, the Arab Edwin de -Leon brought him from Egypt. His worst enemy will allow that he is a -consummate rider, graceful and easy in the saddle, and Mr. Chesnut, who -has talked horse with his father ever since he was born, owns that Mr. -Davis knows more about horses than any man he has met yet. General Lee -was there with him; also Joe Davis and Wigfall acting as his aides. - -Poor Mr. Lamar has been brought from his camp—paralysis or some sort -of shock. Every woman in the house is ready to rush into the Florence -Nightingale business. I think I will wait for a wounded man, to make my -first effort as Sister of Charity. Mr. Lamar sent for me. As everybody -went, Mr. Davis setting the example, so did I. Lamar will not die this -time. Will men flatter and make eyes, until their eyes close in death, at -the ministering angels? He was the same old Lamar of the drawing-room. - -It is pleasant at the President’s table. My seat is next to Joe Davis, -with Mr. Browne on the other side, and Mr. Mallory opposite. There is -great constraint, however. As soon as I came I repeated what the North -Carolina man said on the cars, that North Carolina had 20,000 men -ready and they were kept back by Mr. Walker, etc. The President caught -something of what I was saying, and asked me to repeat it, which I did, -although I was scared to death. “Madame, when you see that person tell -him his statement is false. We are too anxious here for troops to refuse -a man who offers himself, not to speak of 20,000 men.” Silence ensued—of -the most profound. - -Uncle H. gave me three hundred dollars for his daughter Mary’s expenses, -making four in all that I have of hers. He would pay me one hundred, -which he said he owed my husband for a horse. I thought it an excuse to -lend me money. I told him I had enough and to spare for all my needs -until my Colonel came home from the wars. - -Ben Allston, the Governor’s son, is here—came to see me; does not show -much of the wit of the Petigrus; pleasant person, however. Mr. Brewster -and Wigfall came at the same time. The former, chafing at Wigfall’s -anomalous position here, gave him fiery advice. Mr. Wigfall was calm and -full of common sense. A brave man, and without a thought of any necessity -for displaying his temper, he said: “Brewster, at this time, before the -country is strong and settled in her new career, it would be disastrous -for us, the head men, to engage in a row among ourselves.” - -As I was brushing flies away and fanning the prostrate Lamar, I reported -Mr. Davis’s conversation of the night before. “He is all right,” said -Mr. Lamar, “the fight had to come. We are men, not women. The quarrel -had lasted long enough. We hate each other so, the fight had to come. -Even Homer’s heroes, after they had stormed and scolded enough, fought -like brave men, long and well. If the athlete, Sumner, had stood on his -manhood and training and struck back when Preston Brooks assailed him, -Preston Brooks’s blow need not have been the opening skirmish of the war. -Sumner’s country took up the fight because he did not. Sumner chose his -own battle-field, and it was the worse for us. What an awful blunder that -Preston Brooks business was!” Lamar said Yankees did not fight for the -fun of it; they always made it pay or let it alone. - -Met Mr. Lyon with news, indeed—a man here in the midst of us, taken with -Lincoln’s passports, etc., in his pocket—a palpable spy. Mr. Lyon said he -would be hanged—in all human probability, that is. - -A letter from my husband written at Camp Pickens, and saying: “If you and -Mrs. Preston can make up your minds to leave Richmond, and can come up to -a nice little country house near Orange Court House, we could come to see -you frequently while the army is stationed here. It would be a safe place -for the present, near the scene of action, and directly in the line of -news from all sides.” So we go to Orange Court House. - -Read the story of Soulouque,[47] the Haytian man: he has wonderful -interest just now. Slavery has to go, of course, and joy go with it. -These Yankees may kill us and lay waste our land for a while, but conquer -us—never! - -_July 4th._—Russell abuses us in his letters. People here care a great -deal for what Russell says, because he represents the London Times, and -the Times reflects the sentiment of the English people. How we do cling -to the idea of an alliance with England or France! Without France even -Washington could not have done it. - -We drove to the camp to see the President present a flag to a Maryland -regiment. Having lived on the battle-field (Kirkwood), near Camden,[48] -we have an immense respect for the Maryland line. When our militia in -that fight ran away, Colonel Howard and the Marylanders held their own -against Rawdon, Cornwallis, and the rest, and everywhere around are -places named for a doughty captain killed in our defense—Kirkwood, De -Kalb, etc. The last, however, was a Prussian count. A letter from my -husband, written June 22d, has just reached me. He says: - -“We are very strongly posted, entrenched, and have now at our command -about 15,000 of the best troops in the world. We have besides, two -batteries of artillery, a regiment of cavalry, and daily expect a -battalion of flying artillery from Richmond. We have sent forward seven -regiments of infantry and rifles toward Alexandria. Our outposts have -felt the enemy several times, and in every instance the enemy recoils. -General Johnston has had several encounters—the advancing columns of the -two armies—and with him, too, the enemy, although always superior in -numbers, are invariably driven back. - -“There is great deficiency in the matter of ammunition. General -Johnston’s command, in the very face of overwhelming numbers, have only -thirty rounds each. If they had been well provided in this respect, they -could and would have defeated Cadwallader and Paterson with great ease. -I find the opinion prevails throughout the army that there is great -imbecility and shameful neglect in the War Department. - -“Unless the Republicans fall back, we must soon come together on both -lines, and have a decided engagement. But the opinion prevails here that -Lincoln’s army will not meet us if they can avoid it. They have already -fallen back before a slight check from 400 of Johnston’s men. They had -700 and were badly beaten. You have no idea how dirty and irksome the -camp life is. You would hardly know your best friend in camp guise.” - -Noise of drums, tramp of marching regiments all day long; rattling of -artillery wagons, bands of music, friends from every quarter coming in. -We ought to be miserable and anxious, and yet these are pleasant days. -Perhaps we are unnaturally exhilarated and excited. - -Heard some people in the drawing-room say: “Mrs. Davis’s ladies are not -young, are not pretty,” and I am one of them. The truthfulness of the -remark did not tend to alleviate its bitterness. We must put Maggie -Howell and Mary Hammy in the foreground, as youth and beauty are in -request. At least they are young things—bright spots in a somber-tinted -picture. The President does not forbid our going, but he is very much -averse to it. We are consequently frightened by our own audacity, but we -are wilful women, and so we go. - - - - -VIII - -FAUQUIER WHITE SULPHUR SPRINGS, VA. - -_July 6, 1861-July 11, 1861_ - - -Fauquier White Sulphur Springs, Va., _July 6, 1861_.—Mr. Brewster came -here with us. The cars were jammed with soldiers to the muzzle. They were -very polite and considerate, and we had an agreeable journey, in spite -of heat, dust, and crowd. Rev. Robert Barnwell was with us. He means -to organize a hospital for sick and wounded. There was not an inch of -standing-room even; so dusty, so close, but everybody in tip-top spirits. - -Mr. Preston and Mr. Chesnut met us at Warrenton. Saw across the lawn, but -did not speak to them, some of Judge Campbell’s family. There they wander -disconsolate, just outside the gates of their Paradise: a resigned Judge -of the Supreme Court of the United States; resigned, and for a cause that -he is hardly more than half in sympathy with, Judge Campbell’s is one of -the hardest cases. - -_July 7th._—This water is making us young again. How these men enjoy the -baths. They say Beauregard can stop the way with sixty thousand; that -many are coming. - -An antique female, with every hair curled and frizzed, said to be a -Yankee spy, sits opposite us. Brewster solemnly wondered “with eternity -and the judgment to come so near at hand, how she could waste her few -remaining minutes curling her hair.” He bade me be very polite, for she -would ask me questions. When we were walking away from table, I demanded -his approval of my self-control under such trying circumstances. It seems -I was not as calm and forbearing as I thought myself. Brewster answered -with emphasis: “Do you always carry brickbats like that in your pocket -ready for the first word that offends you? You must not do so, when you -are with spies from the other side.” I do not feel at all afraid of spies -hearing anything through me, for I do not know anything. - -But our men could not tarry with us in these cool shades and comfortable -quarters, with water unlimited, excellent table, etc. They have gone back -to Manassas, and the faithful Brewster with them to bring us the latest -news. They left us in excellent spirits, which we shared until they -were out of sight. We went with them to Warrenton, and then heard that -General Johnston was in full retreat, and that a column was advancing -upon Beauregard. So we came back, all forlorn. If our husbands are taken -prisoners, what will they do with them? Are they soldiers or traitors? - -Mrs. Ould read us a letter from Richmond. How horrified they are there -at Joe Johnston’s retreating. And the enemies of the War Department -accuse Walker of not sending General Johnston ammunition in sufficient -quantities; say that is the real cause of his retreat. Now will they not -make the ears of that slow-coach, the Secretary of War, buzz? - -Mrs. Preston’s maid Maria has a way of rushing in—“Don’t you hear the -cannon?” We fly to the windows, lean out to our waists, pull all the -hair away from our ears, but can not hear it. Lincoln wants four hundred -millions of money and men in proportion. Can he get them? He will find us -a heavy handful. Midnight. I hear Maria’s guns. - -We are always picking up some good thing of the rough Illinoisan’s -saying. Lincoln objects to some man—“Oh, he is too _interruptious_”; that -is a horrid style of man or woman, the interruptions. I know the thing, -but had no name for it before. - -_July 9th._—Our battle summer. May it be our first and our last, so -called. After all we have not had any of the horrors of war. Could there -have been a gayer, or pleasanter, life than we led in Charleston. And -Montgomery, how exciting it all was there! So many clever men and women -congregated from every part of the South. Mosquitoes, and a want of -neatness, and a want of good things to eat, drove us away. In Richmond -the girls say it is perfectly delightful. We found it so, too, but the -bickering and quarreling have begun there. - -At table to-day we heard Mrs. Davis’s ladies described. They were said to -wear red frocks and flats on their heads. We sat mute as mice. One woman -said she found the drawing-room of the Spotswood was warm, stuffy, and -stifling. “Poor soul,” murmured the inevitable Brewster, “and no man came -to air her in the moonlight stroll, you know. Why didn’t somebody ask her -out on the piazza to see the comet?” Heavens above, what philandering -was done in the name of the comet! When you stumbled on a couple on the -piazza they lifted their eyes, and “comet” was the only word you heard. -Brewster came back with a paper from Washington with terrific threats of -what they will do to us. Threatened men live long. - -There was a soft, sweet, low, and slow young lady opposite to us. She -seemed so gentle and refined, and so uncertain of everything. Mr. -Brewster called her Miss Albina McClush, who always asked her maid when a -new book was mentioned, “Seraphina, have I perused that volume?” - -Mary Hammy, having a _fiancé_ in the wars, is inclined at times to be sad -and tearful. Mrs. Preston quoted her negro nurse to her: “Never take any -more trouble in your heart than you can kick off at the end of your toes.” - -_July 11th._—We did hear cannon to-day. The woman who slandered Mrs. -Davis’s republican court, of which we are honorable members, by saying -they—well, were not young; that they wore gaudy colors, and dressed -badly—I took an inventory to-day as to her charms. She is darkly, -deeply, beautifully freckled; she wears a wig which is kept in place by -a tiara of mock jewels; she has the fattest of arms and wears black bead -bracelets. - -The one who is under a cloud, shadowed as a Yankee spy, has confirmed our -worst suspicions. She exhibited unholy joy, as she reported seven hundred -sick soldiers in the hospital at Culpeper, and that Beauregard had sent a -flag of truce to Washington. - -What a night we had! Maria had seen suspicious persons hovering about -all day, and Mrs. Preston a ladder which could easily be placed so as to -reach our rooms. Mary Hammy saw lights glancing about among the trees, -and we all heard guns. So we sat up. Consequently, I am writing in bed -to-day. A letter from my husband saying, in particular: “Our orders are -to move on,” the date, July 10th. “Here we are still and no more prospect -of movement now than when I last wrote to you. It is true, however, that -the enemy is advancing slowly in our front, and we are preparing to -receive him. He comes in great force, being more than three times our -number.” - -The spy, so-called, gave us a parting shot: said Beauregard had arrested -her brother in order that he might take a fine horse which the aforesaid -brother was riding. Why? Beauregard, at a moment’s notice, could have -any horse in South Carolina, or Louisiana, for that matter. This man was -arrested and sent to Richmond, and “will be acquitted as they always -are,” said Brewster. “They send them first to Richmond to see and hear -everything there; then they acquit them, and send them out of the country -by way of Norfolk to see everything there. But, after all, what does it -matter? They have no need for spies: our newspapers keep no secrets hid. -The thoughts of our hearts are all revealed. Everything with us is open -and aboveboard. - -“At Bethel the Yankees fired too high. Every daily paper is jeering them -about it yet. They’ll fire low enough next time, but no newspaper man -will be there to get the benefit of their improved practise, alas!” - - - - -IX - -RICHMOND, VA. - -_July 13, 1861-September 2, 1861_ - - -Richmond, Va., _July 13, 1861_.—Now we feel safe and comfortable. We can -not be flanked. Mr. Preston met us at Warrenton. Mr. Chesnut doubtless -had too many spies to receive from Washington, galloping in with the -exact numbers of the enemy done up in their back hair. - -Wade Hampton is here; Doctor Nott also—Nott and Glyddon known to fame. -Everybody is here, _en route_ for the army, or staying for the meeting of -Congress. - -Lamar is out on crutches. His father-in-law, once known only as the -humorist Longstreet,[49] author of Georgia Scenes, now a staid Methodist, -who has outgrown the follies of his youth, bore him off to-day. They say -Judge Longstreet has lost the keen sense of fun that illuminated his life -in days of yore. Mrs. Lamar and her daughter were here. - -The President met us cordially, but he laughed at our sudden retreat, -with baggage lost, etc. He tried to keep us from going; said it was a -dangerous experiment. Dare say he knows more about the situation of -things than he chooses to tell us. - -To-day in the drawing-room, saw a _vivandière_ in the flesh. She was in -the uniform of her regiment, but wore Turkish pantaloons. She frisked -about in her hat and feathers; did not uncover her head as a man would -have done; played the piano; and sang war-songs. She had no drum, but she -gave us rataplan. She was followed at every step by a mob of admiring -soldiers and boys. - -Yesterday, as we left the cars, we had a glimpse of war. It was the -saddest sight: the memory of it is hard to shake off—sick soldiers, not -wounded ones. There were quite two hundred (they said) lying about as -best they might on the platform. Robert Barnwell[50] was there doing all -he could. Their pale, ghastly faces! So here is one of the horrors of war -we had not reckoned on. There were many good men and women with Robert -Barnwell, rendering all the service possible in the circumstances. - -Just now I happened to look up and saw Mr. Chesnut with a smile on his -face watching me from the passageway. I flew across the room, and as I -got half-way saw Mrs. Davis touch him on the shoulder. She said he was to -go at once into Mr. Davis’s room, where General Lee and General Cooper -were. After he left us, Mrs. Davis told me General Beauregard had sent -Mr. Chesnut here on some army business. - -_July 14th._—Mr. Chesnut remained closeted with the President and General -Lee all the afternoon. The news does not seem pleasant. At least, he is -not inclined to tell me any of it. He satisfied himself with telling me -how sensible and soldierly this handsome General Lee is. General Lee’s -military sagacity was also his theme. Of course the President dominated -the party, as well by his weight of brain as by his position. I did not -care a fig for a description of the war council. I wanted to know what is -in the wind now? - -_July 16th._—Dined to-day at the President’s table. Joe Davis, the -nephew, asked me if I liked white port wine. I said I did not know; “all -that I had ever known had been dark red.” So he poured me out a glass. I -drank it, and it nearly burned up my mouth and throat. It was horrid, but -I did not let him see how it annoyed me. I pretended to be glad that any -one found me still young enough to play off a practical joke upon me. It -was thirty years since I had thought of such a thing. - -Met Colonel Baldwin in the drawing-room. He pointed significantly to his -Confederate colonel’s buttons and gray coat. At the White Sulphur last -summer he was a “Union man” to the last point. “How much have you changed -besides your coat?” “I was always true to our country,” he said. “She -leaves me no choice now.” - -As far as I can make out, Beauregard sent Mr. Chesnut to the President to -gain permission for the forces of Joe Johnston and Beauregard to join, -and, united, to push the enemy, if possible, over the Potomac. Now every -day we grow weaker and they stronger; so we had better give a telling -blow at once. Already, we begin to cry out for more ammunition, and -already the blockade is beginning to shut it all out. - -A young Emory is here. His mother writes him to go back. Her Franklin -blood certainly calls him with no uncertain sound to the Northern -side, while his fatherland is wavering and undecided, split in half by -factions. Mrs. Wigfall says he is half inclined to go. She wondered -that he did not. With a father in the enemy’s army, he will always be -“suspect” here, let the President and Mrs. Davis do for him what they -will. - -I did not know there was such a “bitter cry” left in me, but I wept my -heart away to-day when my husband went off. Things do look so black. When -he comes up here he rarely brings his body-servant, a negro man. Lawrence -has charge of all Mr. Chesnut’s things—watch, clothes, and two or three -hundred gold pieces that lie in the tray of his trunk. All these, papers, -etc., he tells Lawrence to bring to me if anything happens to him. But I -said: “Maybe he will pack off to the Yankees and freedom with all that.” -“Fiddlesticks! He is not going to leave me for anybody else. After all, -what can he ever be, better than he is now—a gentleman’s gentleman?” “He -is within sound of the enemy’s guns, and when he gets to the other army -he is free.” Maria said of Mr. Preston’s man: “What he want with anything -more, ef he was free? Don’t he live just as well as Mars John do now?” - -Mrs. McLane, Mrs. Joe Johnston, Mrs. Wigfall, all came. I am sure so many -clever women could divert a soul _in extremis_. The Hampton Legion all -in a snarl—about, I forget what; standing on their dignity, I suppose. -I have come to detest a man who says, “My own personal dignity and -self-respect require.” I long to cry, “No need to respect yourself until -you can make other people do it.” - -_July 19th._—Beauregard telegraphed yesterday (they say, to General -Johnston), “Come down and help us, or we shall be crushed by numbers.” -The President telegraphed General Johnston to move down to Beauregard’s -aid. At Bull Run, Bonham’s Brigade, Ewell’s, and Longstreet’s encountered -the foe and repulsed him. Six hundred prisoners have been sent here. - -I arose, as the Scriptures say, and washed my face and anointed my head -and went down-stairs. At the foot of them stood General Cooper, radiant, -one finger nervously arranging his shirt collar, or adjusting his neck to -it after his fashion. He called out: “Your South Carolina man, Bonham, -has done a capital thing at Bull Run—driven back the enemy, if not -defeated him; with killed and prisoners,” etc., etc. Clingman came to -tell the particulars, and Colonel Smith (one of the trio with Garnett, -McClellan, who were sent to Europe to inspect and report on military -matters). Poor Garnett is killed. There was cowardice or treachery on -the part of natives up there, or some of Governor Letcher’s appointments -to military posts. I hear all these things said. I do not understand, but -it was a fatal business. - -Mrs. McLane says she finds we do not believe a word of any news unless it -comes in this guise: “A great battle fought. Not one Confederate killed. -Enemy’s loss in killed, wounded, and prisoners taken by us, immense.” I -was in hopes there would be no battle until Mr. Chesnut was forced to -give up his amateur aideship to come and attend to his regular duties in -the Congress. - -Keitt has come in. He says Bonham’s battle was a skirmish of outposts. -Joe Davis, Jr., said: “Would Heaven only send us a Napoleon!” Not one -bit of use. If Heaven did, Walker would not give him a commission. Mrs. -Davis and Mrs. Joe Johnston, “her dear Lydia,” were in fine spirits. The -effect upon _nous autres_ was evident; we rallied visibly. South Carolina -troops pass every day. They go by with a gay step. Tom Taylor and John -Rhett bowed to us from their horses as we leaned out of the windows. Such -shaking of handkerchiefs. We are forever at the windows. - -It was not such a mere skirmish. We took three rifled cannon and six -hundred stands of arms. Mr. Davis has gone to Manassas. He did not let -Wigfall know he was going. That ends the delusion of Wigfall’s aideship. -No mistake to-day. I was too ill to move out of my bed. So they all sat -in my room. - -_July 22d._—Mrs. Davis came in so softly that I did not know she was here -until she leaned over me and said: “A great battle has been fought.[51] -Joe Johnston led the right wing, and Beauregard the left wing of the -army. Your husband is all right. Wade Hampton is wounded. Colonel -Johnston of the Legion killed; so are Colonel Bee and Colonel Bartow. -Kirby Smith[52] is wounded or killed.” - -I had no breath to speak; she went on in that desperate, calm way, to -which people betake themselves under the greatest excitement: “Bartow, -rallying his men, leading them into the hottest of the fight, died -gallantly at the head of his regiment. The President telegraphs me only -that ‘it is a great victory.’ General Cooper has all the other telegrams.” - -Still I said nothing; I was stunned; then I was so grateful. Those -nearest and dearest to me were safe still. She then began, in the same -concentrated voice, to read from a paper she held in her hand: “Dead and -dying cover the field. Sherman’s battery taken. Lynchburg regiment cut to -pieces. Three hundred of the Legion wounded.” - -That got me up. Times were too wild with excitement to stay in bed. We -went into Mrs. Preston’s room, and she made me lie down on her bed. -Men, women, and children streamed in. Every living soul had a story to -tell. “Complete victory,” you heard everywhere. We had been such anxious -wretches. The revulsion of feeling was almost too much to bear. - -To-day I met my friend, Mr. Hunter. I was on my way to Mrs. Bartow’s room -and begged him to call at some other time. I was too tearful just then -for a morning visit from even the most sympathetic person. - -A woman from Mrs. Bartow’s country was in a fury because they had stopped -her as she rushed to be the first to tell Mrs. Bartow her husband was -killed, it having been decided that Mrs. Davis should tell her. Poor -thing! She was found lying on her bed when Mrs. Davis knocked. “Come in,” -she said. When she saw it was Mrs. Davis, she sat up, ready to spring to -her feet, but then there was something in Mrs. Davis’s pale face that -took the life out of her. She stared at Mrs. Davis, then sank back, and -covered her face as she asked: “Is it bad news for me?” Mrs. Davis did -not speak. “Is he killed?” Afterward Mrs. Bartow said to me: “As soon as -I saw Mrs. Davis’s face I could not say one word. I knew it all in an -instant. I knew it before I wrapped the shawl about my head.” - -Maria, Mrs. Preston’s maid, furiously patriotic, came into my room. -“These colored people say it is printed in the papers here that the -Virginia people done it all. Now Mars Wade had so many of his men killed -and he wounded, it stands to reason that South Carolina was no ways -backward. If there was ever anything plain, that’s plain.” - -_Tuesday._—Witnessed for the first time a military funeral. As that march -came wailing up, they say Mrs. Bartow fainted. The empty saddle and the -led war-horse—we saw and heard it all; and now it seems we are never out -of the sound of the Dead March in Saul. It comes and it comes, until I -feel inclined to close my ears and scream. - -Yesterday, Mrs. Singleton and ourselves sat on a bedside and mingled our -tears for those noble spirits—John Darby, Theodore Barker, and James -Lowndes. To-day we find we wasted our grief; they are not so much as -wounded. I dare say all the rest is true about them—in the face of the -enemy, with flags in their hands, leading their men. “But Dr. Darby is -a surgeon.” He is as likely to forget that as I am. He is grandson of -Colonel Thomson of the Revolution, called, by way of pet name, by his -soldiers, “Old Danger.” Thank Heaven they are all quite alive. And we -will not cry next time until officially notified. - -_July 24th._—Here Mr. Chesnut opened my door and walked in. Out of the -fulness of the heart the mouth speaketh. I had to ask no questions. He -gave me an account of the battle as he saw it (walking up and down my -room, occasionally seating himself on a window sill, but too restless to -remain still many moments); and told what regiments he was sent to bring -up. He took the orders to Colonel Jackson, whose regiment stood so stock -still under fire that they were called a “stone wall.” Also, they call -Beauregard, Eugene, and Johnston, Marlboro. Mr. Chesnut rode with Lay’s -cavalry after the retreating enemy in the pursuit, they following them -until midnight. Then there came such a fall of rain—rain such as is only -known in semitropical lands. - -In the drawing-room, Colonel Chesnut was the “belle of the ball”; -they crowded him so for news. He was the first arrival that they -could get at from the field of battle. But the women had to give way -to the dignitaries of the land, who were as filled with curiosity as -themselves—Mr. Barnwell, Mr. Hunter, Mr. Cobb, Captain Ingraham, etc. - -Wilmot de Saussure says Wilson of Massachusetts, a Senator of the United -States,[53] came to Manassas, _en route_ to Richmond, with his dancing -shoes ready for a festive scene which was to celebrate a triumph. The New -York Tribune said: “In a few days we shall have Richmond, Memphis, and -New Orleans. They must be taken and at once.” For “a few days” maybe now -they will modestly substitute “in a few years.” - -They brought me a Yankee soldier’s portfolio from the battle-field. -The letters had been franked by Senator Harlan.[54] One might shed -tears over some of the letters. Women, wives and mothers, are the same -everywhere. What a comfort the spelling was! We had been willing to admit -that their universal free-school education had put them, rank and file, -ahead of us _literarily_, but these letters do not attest that fact. The -spelling is comically bad. - -_July 27th._—Mrs. Davis’s drawing-room last night was brilliant, and -she was in great force. Outside a mob called for the President. He did -speak—an old war-horse, who scents the battle-fields from afar. His -enthusiasm was contagious. They called for Colonel Chesnut, and he gave -them a capital speech, too. As public speakers say sometimes, “It was -the proudest moment of my life.” I did not hear a great deal of it, for -always, when anything happens of any moment, my heart beats up in my -ears, but the distinguished Carolinians who crowded round told me how -good a speech he made. I was dazed. There goes the Dead March for some -poor soul. - -To-day, the President told us at dinner that Mr. Chesnut’s eulogy of -Bartow in the Congress was highly praised. Men liked it. Two eminently -satisfactory speeches in twenty-four hours is doing pretty well. And now -I could be happy, but this Cabinet of ours are in such bitter quarrels -among themselves—everybody abusing everybody. - -Last night, while those splendid descriptions of the battle were being -given to the crowd below from our windows, I said: “Then, why do we -not go on to Washington?” “You mean why did they not; the opportunity -is lost.” Mr. Barnwell said to me: “Silence, we want to listen to the -speaker,” and Mr. Hunter smiled compassionately, “Don’t ask awkward -questions.” - -Kirby Smith came down on the turnpike in the very nick of time. Still, -the heroes who fought all day and held the Yankees in check deserve -credit beyond words, or it would all have been over before the Joe -Johnston contingent came. It is another case of the eleventh-hour scrape; -the eleventh-hour men claim all the credit, and they who bore the heat -and brunt and burden of the day do not like that. - -Everybody said at first, “Pshaw! There will be no war.” Those who foresaw -evil were called ravens, ill-foreboders. Now the same sanguine people all -cry, “The war is over”—the very same who were packing to leave Richmond a -few days ago. Many were ready to move on at a moment’s warning, when the -good news came. There are such owls everywhere. - -But, to revert to the other kind, the sage and circumspect, those who -say very little, but that little shows they think the war barely begun. -Mr. Rives and Mr. Seddon have just called. Arnoldus Van der Horst came -to see me at the same time. He said there was no great show of victory -on our side until two o’clock, but when we began to win, we did it in -double-quick time. I mean, of course, the battle last Sunday. - -Arnold Harris told Mr. Wigfall the news from Washington last Sunday. -For hours the telegrams reported at rapid intervals, “Great victory,” -“Defeating them at all points.” The couriers began to come in on -horseback, and at last, after two or three o’clock, there was a -sudden cessation of all news. About nine messengers with bulletins -came on foot or on horseback—wounded, weary, draggled, footsore, -panic-stricken—spreading in their path on every hand terror and dismay. -That was our opportunity. Wigfall can see nothing that could have stopped -us, and when they explain why we did not go to Washington I understand it -all less than ever. Yet here we will dilly-dally, and Congress orate, and -generals parade, until they in the North get up an army three times as -large as McDowell’s, which we have just defeated. - -Trescott says this victory will be our ruin. It lulls us into a fool’s -paradise of conceit at our superior valor, and the shameful farce of -their flight will wake every inch of their manhood. It was the very -fillip they needed. There are a quieter sort here who know their Yankees -well. They say if the thing begins to pay—government contracts, and all -that—we will never hear the end of it, at least, until they get their pay -in some way out of us. They will not lose money by us. Of that we may be -sure. Trust Yankee shrewdness and vim for that. - -There seems to be a battle raging at Bethel, but no mortal here can be -got to think of anything but Manassas. Mrs. McLean says she does not see -that it was such a great victory, and if it be so great, how can one -defeat hurt a nation like the North. - -John Waties fought the whole battle over for me. Now I understand it. -Before this nobody would take the time to tell the thing consecutively, -rationally, and in order. Mr. Venable said he did not see a braver thing -done than the cool performance of a Columbia negro. He carried his master -a bucket of ham and rice, which he had cooked for him, and he cried: “You -must be so tired and hungry, marster; make haste and eat.” This was in -the thickest of the fight, under the heaviest of the enemy’s guns. - -The Federal Congressmen had been making a picnic of it: their luggage was -all ticketed to Richmond. Cameron has issued a proclamation. They are -making ready to come after us on a magnificent scale. They acknowledge us -at last foemen worthy of their steel. The Lord help us, since England and -France won’t, or don’t. If we could only get a friend outside and open a -port. - -One of these men told me he had seen a Yankee prisoner, who asked him -“what sort of a diggins Richmond was for trade.” He was tired of the old -concern, and would like to take the oath and settle here. They brought us -handcuffs found in the _débacle_ of the Yankee army. For whom were they? -Jeff Davis, no doubt, and the ringleaders. “Tell that to the marines.” We -have outgrown the handcuff business on this side of the water. - -Dr. Gibbes says he was at a country house near Manassas, when a Federal -soldier, who had lost his way, came in exhausted. He asked for brandy, -which the lady of the house gave him. Upon second thought, he declined -it. She brought it to him so promptly he said he thought it might be -poisoned; his mind was; she was enraged, and said: “Sir, I am a Virginia -woman. Do you think I could be as base as that? Here, Bill, Tom, disarm -this man. He is our prisoner.” The negroes came running, and the man -surrendered without more ado. - -Another Federal was drinking at the well. A negro girl said: “You go in -and see Missis.” The man went in and she followed, crying triumphantly: -“Look here, Missis, I got a prisoner, too!” This lady sent in her two -prisoners, and Beauregard complimented her on her pluck and patriotism, -and her presence of mind. These negroes were rewarded by their owners. - -Now if slavery is as disagreeable to negroes as we think it, why don’t -they all march over the border where they would be received with open -arms? It all amazes me. I am always studying these creatures. They are to -me inscrutable in their way and past finding out. Our negroes were not -ripe for John Brown. - -This is how I saw Robert E. Lee for the first time: though his family, -then living at Arlington, called to see me while I was in Washington (I -thought because of old Colonel Chesnut’s intimacy with Nellie Custis in -the old Philadelphia days, Mrs. Lee being Nelly Custis’s niece), I had -not known the head of the Lee family. He was somewhere with the army then. - -Last summer at the White Sulphur were Roony Lee and his wife, that sweet -little Charlotte Wickam, and I spoke of Roony with great praise. Mrs. -Izard said: “Don’t waste your admiration on him; wait till you see his -father. He is the nearest to a perfect man I ever saw.” “How?” “In every -way—handsome, clever, agreeable, high-bred.” - -Now, Mrs. Stanard came for Mrs. Preston and me to drive to the camp in -an open carriage. A man riding a beautiful horse joined us. He wore a -hat with something of a military look to it, sat his horse gracefully, -and was so distinguished at all points that I very much regretted not -catching his name as Mrs. Stanard gave it to us. He, however, heard ours, -and bowed as gracefully as he rode, and the few remarks he made to each -of us showed he knew all about us. - -But Mrs. Stanard was in ecstasies of pleasurable excitement. I felt that -she had bagged a big fish, for just then they abounded in Richmond. Mrs. -Stanard accused him of being ambitious, etc. He remonstrated and said his -tastes were “of the simplest.” He only wanted “a Virginia farm, no end of -cream and fresh butter and fried chicken—not one fried chicken, or two, -but unlimited fried chicken.” - -To all this light chat did we seriously incline, because the man and -horse and everything about him were so fine-looking; perfection, in fact; -no fault to be found if you hunted for it. As he left us, I said eagerly, -“Who is he?” “You did not know! Why, it was Robert E. Lee, son of Light -Horse Harry Lee, the first man in Virginia,” raising her voice as she -enumerated his glories. All the same, I like Smith Lee better, and I like -his looks, too. I know Smith Lee well. Can anybody say they know his -brother? I doubt it. He looks so cold, quiet, and grand. - -[Illustration: A GROUP OF CONFEDERATE GENERALS. - -“STONEWALL” JACKSON. - -ROBERT E. LEE. - -JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. - -PIERRE G. T. BEAUREGARD. - -JOHN B. HOOD. - -ALBERT SIDNEY JOHNSTON.] - -Kirby Smith is our Blücher; he came on the field in the nick of time, as -Blücher at Waterloo, and now we are as the British, who do not remember -Blücher. It is all Wellington. So every individual man I see fought and -won the battle. From Kershaw up and down, all the eleventh-hour men won -the battle; turned the tide. The Marylanders—Elzey & Co.—one never hears -of—as little as one hears of Blücher in the English stories of Waterloo. - -Mr. Venable was praising Hugh Garden and Kershaw’s regiment generally. -This was delightful. They are my friends and neighbors at home. I showed -him Mary Stark’s letter, and we agreed with her. At the bottom of our -hearts we believe every Confederate soldier to be a hero, _sans peur et -sans reproche_. - -Hope for the best to-day. Things must be on a pleasanter footing all over -the world. Met the President in the corridor. He took me by both hands. -“Have you breakfasted?” said he. “Come in and breakfast with me?” Alas! I -had had my breakfast. - -At the public dining-room, where I had taken my breakfast with Mr. -Chesnut, Mrs. Davis came to him, while we were at table. She said she -had been to our rooms. She wanted Wigfall hunted up. Mr. Davis thought -Chesnut would be apt to know his whereabouts. I ran to Mrs. Wigfall’s -room, who told me she was sure he could be found with his regiment in -camp, but Mr. Chesnut had not to go to the camp, for Wigfall came to his -wife’s room while I was there. Mr. Davis and Wigfall would be friends, -if—if—— - -The Northern papers say we hung and quartered a Zouave; cut him into four -pieces; and that we tie prisoners to a tree and bayonet them. In other -words, we are savages. It ought to teach us not to credit what our papers -say of them. It is so absurd an imagination of evil. We are absolutely -treating their prisoners as well as our own men: we are complained of for -it here. I am going to the hospitals for the enemy’s sick and wounded in -order to see for myself. - -Why did we not follow the flying foe across the Potomac? That is the -question of the hour in the drawing-room with those of us who are not -contending as to “who took Rickett’s Battery?” Allen Green, for one, took -it. Allen told us that, finding a portmanteau with nice clean shirts, he -was so hot and dusty he stepped behind a tree and put on a clean Yankee -shirt, and was more comfortable. - -The New York Tribune soothes the Yankee self-conceit, which has received -a shock, by saying we had 100,000 men on the field at Manassas; we -had about 15,000 effective men in all. And then, the Tribune tries to -inflame and envenom them against us by telling lies as to our treatment -of prisoners. They say when they come against us next it will be in -overwhelming force. I long to see Russell’s letter to the London Times -about Bull Run and Manassas. It will be rich and rare. In Washington, it -is crimination and recrimination. Well, let them abuse one another to -their hearts’ content. - -_August 1st._—Mrs. Wigfall, with the “Lone Star” flag in her carriage, -called for me. We drove to the fair grounds. Mrs. Davis’s landau, with -her spanking bays, rolled along in front of us. The fair grounds are as -covered with tents, soldiers, etc., as ever. As one regiment moves off -to the army, a fresh one from home comes to be mustered in and take its -place. - -The President, with his aides, dashed by. My husband was riding with him. -The President presented the flag to the Texans. Mr. Chesnut came to us -for the flag, and bore it aloft to the President. We seemed to come in -for part of the glory. We were too far off to hear the speech, but Jeff -Davis is very good at that sort of thing, and we were satisfied that it -was well done. - -Heavens! how that redoubtable Wigfall did rush those poor Texans about! -He maneuvered and marched them until I was weary for their sakes. Poor -fellows; it was a hot afternoon in August and the thermometer in the -nineties. Mr. Davis uncovered to speak. Wigfall replied with his hat on. -Is that military? - -At the fair grounds to-day, such music, mustering, and marching, such -cheering and flying of flags, such firing of guns and all that sort of -thing. A gala day it was, with double-distilled Fourth-of-July feeling. -In the midst of it all, a messenger came to tell Mrs. Wigfall that a -telegram had been received, saying her children were safe across the -lines in Gordonsville. That was something to thank God for, without any -doubt. - -These two little girls came from somewhere in Connecticut, with Mrs. -Wigfall’s sister—the one who gave me my Bogotsky, the only person in the -world, except Susan Rutledge who ever seemed to think I had a soul to -save. Now suppose Seward had held Louisa and Fanny as hostages for Louis -Wigfall’s good behavior; eh? - -Excitement number two: that bold brigadier, the Georgia General Toombs, -charging about too recklessly, got thrown. His horse dragged him up to -the wheels of our carriage. For a moment it was frightful. Down there -among the horses’ hoofs was a face turned up toward us, purple with rage. -His foot was still in the stirrup, and he had not let go the bridle. The -horse was prancing over him, tearing and plunging; everybody was hemming -him in, and they seemed so slow and awkward about it. We felt it an -eternity, looking down at him, and expecting him to be killed before our -very faces. However, he soon got it all straight, and, though awfully -tousled and tumbled, dusty, rumpled, and flushed, with redder face and -wilder hair than ever, he rode off gallantly, having to our admiration -bravely remounted the recalcitrant charger. - -Now if I were to pick out the best abused one, where all catch it so -bountifully, I should say Mr. Commissary-General Northrop was the most -“cussed” and vilified man in the Confederacy. He is held accountable for -everything that goes wrong in the army. He may not be efficient, but -having been a classmate and crony of Jeff Davis at West Point, points -the moral and adorns the tale. I hear that alluded to oftenest of his -many crimes. They say Beauregard writes that his army is upon the verge -of starvation. Here every man, woman, and child is ready to hang to the -first lamp-post anybody of whom that army complains. Every Manassas -soldier is a hero dear to our patriotic hearts. Put up with any neglect -of the heroes of the 21st July—never! - -And now they say we did not move on right after the flying foe because -we had no provisions, no wagons, no ammunition, etc. Rain, mud, and -Northrop. Where were the enemy’s supplies that we bragged so of bagging? -Echo answers where? Where there is a will there is a way. We stopped -to plunder that rich convoy, and somehow, for a day or so, everybody -thought the war was over and stopped to rejoice: so it appeared here. -All this was our dinner-table talk to-day. Mr. Mason dined with us and -Mr. Barnwell sits by me always. The latter reproved me sharply, but Mr. -Mason laughed at “this headlong, unreasonable woman’s harangue and female -tactics and their war-ways.” A freshet in the autumn does not compensate -for a drought in the spring. Time and tide wait for no man, and there was -a tide in our affairs which might have led to Washington, and we did not -take it and lost our fortune this round. Things which nobody could deny. - -McClellan virtually supersedes the Titan Scott. Physically General Scott -is the largest man I ever saw. Mrs. Scott said, “nobody but his wife -could ever know how little he was.” And yet they say, old Winfield Scott -could have organized an army for them if they had had patience. They -would not give him time. - -_August 2d._—Prince Jerome[55] has gone to Washington. Now the Yankees so -far are as little trained as we are; raw troops are they as yet. Suppose -France takes the other side and we have to meet disciplined and armed -men, soldiers who understand war, Frenchmen, with all the _élan_ we boast -of. - -Ransom Calhoun, Willie Preston, and Doctor Nott’s boys are here. These -foolish, rash, hare-brained Southern lads have been within an ace of a -fight with a Maryland company for their camping grounds. It is much too -Irish to be so ready to fight anybody, friend or foe. Men are thrilling -with fiery ardor. The red-hot Southern martial spirit is in the air. -These young men, however, were all educated abroad. And it is French or -German ideas that they are filled with. The Marylanders were as rash and -reckless as the others, and had their coat-tails ready for anybody to -tread on, Donnybrook Fair fashion. One would think there were Yankees -enough and to spare for any killing to be done. It began about picketing -their horses. But these quarrelsome young soldiers have lovely manners. -They are so sweet-tempered when seen here among us at the Arlington. - -_August 5th._—A heavy, heavy heart. Another missive from Jordan, -querulous and fault-finding; things are all wrong—Beauregard’s Jordan had -been crossed, not the stream “in Canaan’s fair and happy land, where our -possessions lie.” They seem to feel that the war is over here, except the -President and Mr. Barnwell; above all that foreboding friend of mine, -Captain Ingraham. He thinks it hardly begun. - -Another outburst from Jordan. Beauregard is not seconded properly. -_Hélas!_ To think that any mortal general (even though he had sprung up -in a month or so from captain of artillery to general) could be so puffed -up with vanity, so blinded by any false idea of his own consequence as -to write, to intimate that man, or men, would sacrifice their country, -injure themselves, ruin their families, to spite the aforesaid general! -Conceit and self-assertion can never reach a higher point than that. And -yet they give you to understand Mr. Davis does not like Beauregard. In -point of fact they fancy he is jealous of him, and rather than Beauregard -shall have a showing the President (who would be hanged at least if -things go wrong) will cripple the army to spite Beauregard. Mr. Mallory -says, “How we could laugh, but you see it is no laughing matter to have -our fate in the hands of such self-sufficient, vain, army idiots.” So the -amenities of life are spreading. - -In the meantime we seem to be resting on our oars, debating in Congress, -while the enterprising Yankees are quadrupling their army at their -leisure. Every day some of our regiments march away from here. The town -is crowded with soldiers. These new ones are fairly running in; fearing -the war will be over before they get a sight of the fun. Every man from -every little precinct wants a place in the picture. - -_Tuesday._—The North requires 600,000 men to invade us. Truly we are a -formidable power! The Herald says it is useless to move with a man less -than that. England has made it all up with them, or rather, she will not -break with them. Jerome Napoleon is in Washington and not our friend. - -Doctor Gibbes is a bird of ill omen. To-day he tells me eight of our men -have died at the Charlottesville Hospital. It seems sickness is more -redoubtable in an army than the enemy’s guns. There are 1,100 there _hors -de combat_, and typhoid fever is with them. They want money, clothes, and -nurses. So, as I am writing, right and left the letters fly, calling for -help from the sister societies at home. Good and patriotic women at home -are easily stirred to their work. - -Mary Hammy has many strings to her bow—a _fiancé_ in the army, and Doctor -Berrien in town. To-day she drove out with Major Smith and Colonel Hood. -Yesterday, Custis Lee was here. She is a prudent little puss and needs no -good advice, if I were one to give it. - -Lawrence does all our shopping. All his master’s money has been in his -hands until now. I thought it injudicious when gold is at such a premium -to leave it lying loose in the tray of a trunk. So I have sewed it up in -a belt, which I can wear upon an emergency. The cloth is wadded and my -diamonds are there, too. It has strong strings, and can be tied under my -hoops about my waist if the worst comes to the worst, as the saying is. -Lawrence wears the same bronze mask. No sign of anything he may feel or -think of my latest fancy. Only, I know he asks for twice as much money -now when he goes to buy things. - -_August 8th._—To-day I saw a sword captured at Manassas. The man who -brought the sword, in the early part of the fray, was taken prisoner -by the Yankees. They stripped him, possessed themselves of his -sleeve-buttons, and were in the act of depriving him of his boots when -the rout began and the play was reversed; proceedings then took the -opposite tack. - -From a small rill in the mountain has flowed the mighty stream which -has made at last Louis Wigfall the worst enemy the President has in the -Congress, a fact which complicates our affairs no little. Mr. Davis’s -hands ought to be strengthened; he ought to be upheld. A divided house -must fall, we all say. - -Mrs. Sam Jones, who is called Becky by her friends and cronies, male and -female, said that Mrs. Pickens had confided to the aforesaid Jones (_née_ -Taylor, and so of the President Taylor family and cousin of Mr. Davis’s -first wife), that Mrs. Wigfall “described Mrs. Davis to Mrs. Pickens as -a coarse Western woman.” Now the fair Lucy Holcombe and Mrs. Wigfall had -a quarrel of their own out in Texas, and, though reconciled, there was -bitterness underneath. At first, Mrs. Joe Johnston called Mrs. Davis -“a Western belle,”[56] but when the quarrel between General Johnston -and the President broke out, Mrs. Johnston took back the “belle” and -substituted “woman” in the narrative derived from Mrs. Jones. - -Commodore Barron[57] came with glad tidings. We had taken three prizes -at sea, and brought them in safely, one laden with molasses. General -Toombs told us the President complimented Mr. Chesnut when he described -the battle scene to his Cabinet, etc. General Toombs is certain Colonel -Chesnut will be made one of the new batch of brigadiers. Next came Mr. -Clayton, who calmly informed us Jeff Davis would not get the vote of this -Congress for President, so we might count him out. - -Mr. Meynardie first told us how pious a Christian soldier was Kershaw, -how he prayed, got up, dusted his knees and led his men on to victory -with a dash and courage equal to any Old Testament mighty man of war. - -Governor Manning’s account of Prince Jerome Napoleon: “He is stout and -he is not handsome. Neither is he young, and as he reviewed our troops -he was terribly overheated.” He heard him say “_en avant_,” of that he -could testify of his own knowledge, and he was told he had been heard to -say with unction “_Allons_” more than once. The sight of the battle-field -had made the Prince seasick, and he received gratefully a draft of fiery -whisky. - -Arrago seemed deeply interested in Confederate statistics, and praised -our doughty deeds to the skies. It was but soldier fare our guests -received, though we did our best. It was hard sleeping and worse eating -in camp. Beauregard is half Frenchman and speaks French like a native. -So one awkward mess was done away with, and it was a comfort to see -Beauregard speak without the agony of finding words in the foreign -language and forming them, with damp brow, into sentences. A different -fate befell others who spoke “a little French.” - -General and Mrs. Cooper came to see us. She is Mrs. Smith Lee’s sister. -They were talking of old George Mason—in Virginia a name to conjure -with. George Mason violently opposed the extension of slavery. He was a -thorough aristocrat, and gave as his reason for refusing the blessing of -slaves to the new States, Southwest and Northwest, that vulgar new people -were unworthy of so sacred a right as that of holding slaves. It was not -an institution intended for such people as they were. Mrs. Lee said: -“After all, what good does it do my sons that they are Light Horse Harry -Lee’s grandsons and George Mason’s? I do not see that it helps them at -all.” - -A friend in Washington writes me that we might have walked into -Washington any day for a week after Manassas, such were the consternation -and confusion there. But the god Pan was still blowing his horn in the -woods. Now she says Northern troops are literally pouring in from all -quarters. The horses cover acres of ground. And she thinks we have lost -our chance forever. - -A man named Grey (the same gentleman whom Secretary of War Walker so -astonished by greeting him with, “Well, sir, and what is your business?”) -described the battle of the 21st as one succession of blunders, redeemed -by the indomitable courage of the two-thirds who did not run away on our -side. Doctor Mason said a fugitive on the other side informed him that “a -million of men with the devil at their back could not have whipped the -rebels at Bull Run.” That’s nice. - -There must be opposition in a free country. But it is very uncomfortable. -“United we stand, divided we fall.” Mrs. Davis showed us in The New -York Tribune an extract from an Augusta (Georgia) paper saying, “Cobb -is our man. Davis is at heart a reconstructionist.” We may be flies on -the wheel, we know our insignificance; but Mrs. Preston and myself have -entered into an agreement; our oath is recorded on high. We mean to stand -by our President and to stop all fault-finding with the powers that be, -if we can and where we can, be the fault-finders generals or Cabinet -Ministers. - -_August 13th._—Hon. Robert Barnwell says, “The Mercury’s influence began -this opposition to Jeff Davis before he had time to do wrong. They -were offended, not with him so much as with the man who was put into -what they considered Barnwell Rhett’s rightful place. The latter had -howled nullification and secession so long that when he found his ideas -taken up by all the Confederate world, he felt he had a vested right to -leadership.” - -Jordan, Beauregard’s aide, still writes to Mr. Chesnut that the mortality -among the raw troops in that camp is fearful. Everybody seems to be doing -all they can. Think of the British sick and wounded away off in the -Crimea. Our people are only a half-day’s journey by rail from Richmond. -With a grateful heart I record the fact of reconciliation with the -Wigfalls. They dined at the President’s yesterday and the little Wigfall -girls stayed all night. - -Seward is fêting the outsiders, the cousin of the Emperor, Napoleon III., -and Russell, of the omnipotent London Times. - -_August 14th._—Last night there was a crowd of men to see us and they -were so markedly critical. I made a futile effort to record their -sayings, but sleep and heat overcame me. To-day I can not remember a -word. One of Mr. Mason’s stories relates to our sources of trustworthy -information. A man of very respectable appearance standing on the -platform at the depot, announced, “I am just from the seat of war.” Out -came pencil and paper from the newspaper men on the _qui vive_. “Is -Fairfax Court House burned?” they asked. “Yes, burned yesterday.” “But I -am just from there,” said another; “left it standing there all right an -hour or so ago.” “Oh! But I must do them justice to say they burned only -the tavern, for they did not want to tear up and burn anything else after -the railroad.” “There is no railroad at Fairfax Court House,” objected -the man just from Fairfax. “Oh! Indeed!” said the seat-of-war man, “I -did not know that; is that so?” And he coolly seated himself and began -talking of something else. - -Our people are lashing themselves into a fury against the prisoners. Only -the mob in any country would do that. But I am told to be quiet. Decency -and propriety will not be forgotten, and the prisoners will be treated as -prisoners of war ought to be in a civilized country. - -_August 15th._—Mrs. Randolph came. With her were the Freelands, Rose -and Maria. The men rave over Mrs. Randolph’s beauty; called her a -magnificent specimen of the finest type of dark-eyed, rich, and glowing -Southern woman-kind. Clear brunette she is, with the reddest lips, the -whitest teeth, and glorious eyes; there is no other word for them. Having -given Mrs. Randolph the prize among Southern beauties, Mr. Clayton said -Prentiss was the finest Southern orator. Mr. Marshall and Mr. Barnwell -dissented; they preferred William C. Preston. Mr. Chesnut had found -Colquitt the best or most effective stump orator. - -Saw Henry Deas Nott. He is just from Paris, via New York. Says New York -is ablaze with martial fire. At no time during the Crimean war was there -ever in Paris the show of soldiers preparing for the war such as he saw -at New York. The face of the earth seemed covered with marching regiments. - -Not more than 500 effective men are in Hampton’s Legion, but they kept -the whole Yankee army at bay until half-past two. Then just as Hampton -was wounded and half his colonels shot, Cash and Kershaw (from Mrs. Smith -Lee audibly, “How about Kirby Smith?”) dashed in and not only turned the -tide, but would have driven the fugitives into Washington, but Beauregard -recalled them. Mr. Chesnut finds all this very amusing, as he posted many -of the regiments and all the time was carrying orders over the field. -The discrepancies in all these private memories amuse him, but he smiles -pleasantly and lets every man tell the tale in his own way. - -_August 16th._—Mr. Barnwell says, Fame is an article usually home made; -you must create your own puffs or superintend their manufacture. And you -must see that the newspapers print your own military reports. No one else -will give you half the credit you take to yourself. No one will look -after your fine name before the world with the loving interest and faith -you have yourself. - -_August 17th._—Captain Shannon, of the Kirkwood Rangers, called and -stayed three hours. Has not been under fire yet, but is keen to see or to -hear the flashing of the guns; proud of himself, proud of his company, -but proudest of all that he has no end of the bluest blood of the low -country in his troop. He seemed to find my knitting a pair of socks a day -for the soldiers droll in some way. The yarn is coarse. He has been so -short a time from home he does not know how the poor soldiers need them. -He was so overpoweringly flattering to my husband that I found him very -pleasant company. - -_August 18th._—Found it quite exciting to have a spy drinking his tea -with us—perhaps because I knew his profession. I did not like his face. -He is said to have a scheme by which Washington will fall into our hands -like an overripe peach. - -Mr. Barnwell urges Mr. Chesnut to remain in the Senate. There are so many -generals, or men anxious to be. He says Mr. Chesnut can do his country -most good by wise counsels where they are most needed. I do not say to -the contrary; I dare not throw my influence on the army side, for if -anything happened! - -Mr. Miles told us last night that he had another letter from General -Beauregard. The General wants to know if Mr. Miles has delivered his -message to Colonel Kershaw. Mr. Miles says he has not done so; neither -does he mean to do it. They must settle these matters of veracity -according to their own military etiquette. He is a civilian once more. -It is a foolish wrangle. Colonel Kershaw ought to have reported to his -commander-in-chief, and not made an independent report and published it. -He meant no harm. He is not yet used to the fine ways of war. - -The New York Tribune is so unfair. It began by howling to get rid of us: -we were so wicked. Now that we are so willing to leave them to their -overrighteous self-consciousness, they cry: “Crush our enemy, or they -will subjugate us.” The idea that we want to invade or subjugate anybody; -we would be only too grateful to be left alone. We ask no more of gods or -men. - -Went to the hospital with a carriage load of peaches and grapes. Made -glad the hearts of some men thereby. When my supplies gave out, those who -had none looked so wistfully as I passed out that I made a second raid on -the market. Those eyes sunk in cavernous depths and following me from bed -to bed haunt me. - -Wilmot de Saussure, harrowed my soul by an account of a recent death by -drowning on the beach at Sullivan’s Island. Mr. Porcher, who was trying -to save his sister’s life, lost his own and his child’s. People seem to -die out of the army quite as much as in it. - -Mrs. Randolph presided in all her beautiful majesty at an aid -association. The ladies were old, and all wanted their own way. They were -cross-grained and contradictory, and the blood mounted rebelliously into -Mrs. Randolph’s clear-cut cheeks, but she held her own with dignity and -grace. One of the causes of disturbance was that Mrs. Randolph proposed -to divide everything sent on equally with the Yankee wounded and sick -prisoners. Some were enthusiastic from a Christian point of view; some -shrieked in wrath at the bare idea of putting our noble soldiers on a par -with Yankees, living, dying, or dead. Fierce dames were some of them, -august, severe matrons, who evidently had not been accustomed to hear the -other side of any question from anybody, and just old enough to find the -last pleasure in life to reside in power—the power to make their claws -felt. - -_August 23d._—A brother of Doctor Garnett has come fresh and straight -from Cambridge, Mass., and says (or is said to have said, with all the -difference there is between the two), that “recruiting up there is dead.” -He came by Cincinnati and Pittsburg and says all the way through it was -so sad, mournful, and quiet it looked like Sunday. - -I asked Mr. Brewster if it were true Senator Toombs had turned brigadier. -“Yes, soldiering is in the air. Every one will have a touch of it. Toombs -could not stay in the Cabinet.” “Why?” “Incompatibility of temper. He -rides too high a horse; that is, for so despotic a person as Jeff Davis. -I have tried to find out the sore, but I can’t. Mr. Toombs has been out -with them all for months.” Dissension will break out. Everything does, -but it takes a little time. There is a perfect magazine of discord and -discontent in that Cabinet; only wants a hand to apply the torch, and up -they go. Toombs says old Memminger has his back up as high as any. - -Oh, such a day! Since I wrote this morning, I have been with Mrs. -Randolph to all the hospitals. I can never again shut out of view the -sights I saw there of human misery. I sit thinking, shut my eyes, and -see it all; thinking, yes, and there is enough to think about now, God -knows. Gilland’s was the worst, with long rows of ill men on cots, ill of -typhoid fever, of every human ailment; on dinner-tables for eating and -drinking, wounds being dressed; all the horrors to be taken in at one -glance. - -Then we went to the St. Charles. Horrors upon horrors again; want of -organization, long rows of dead and dying; awful sights. A boy from home -had sent for me. He was dying in a cot, ill of fever. Next him a man died -in convulsions as we stood there. I was making arrangements with a nurse, -hiring him to take care of this lad; but I do not remember any more, for -I fainted. Next that I knew of, the doctor and Mrs. Randolph were having -me, a limp rag, put into a carriage at the door of the hospital. Fresh -air, I dare say, brought me to. As we drove home the doctor came along -with us, I was so upset. He said: “Look at that Georgia regiment marching -there; look at their servants on the sidewalk. I have been counting them, -making an estimate. There is $16,000—sixteen thousand dollars’ worth of -negro property which can go off on its own legs to the Yankees whenever -it pleases.” - -_August 24th._—Daniel, of The Examiner, was at the President’s. Wilmot -de Saussure wondered if a fellow did not feel a little queer, paying his -respects in person at the house of a man whom he abused daily in his -newspaper. - -A fiasco: an aide engaged to two young ladies in the same house. The -ladies had been quarreling, but became friends unexpectedly when his -treachery, among many other secrets, was revealed under that august roof. -Fancy the row when it all came out. - -Mr. Lowndes said we have already reaped one good result from the war. The -orators, the spouters, the furious patriots, that could hardly be held -down, and who were so wordily anxious to do or die for their country—they -had been the pest of our lives. Now they either have not tried the -battle-field at all, or have precipitately left it at their earliest -convenience: for very shame we are rid of them for a while. I doubt it. -Bright’s speech[58] is dead against us. Reading this does not brighten -one. - -_August 25th._—Mr. Barnwell says democracies lead to untruthfulness. -To be always electioneering is to be always false; so both we and the -Yankees are unreliable as regards our own exploits. “How about empires? -Were there ever more stupendous lies than the Emperor Napoleon’s?” Mr. -Barnwell went on: “People dare not tell the truth in a canvass; they must -conciliate their constituents. Now everybody in a democracy always wants -an office; at least, everybody in Richmond just now seems to want one.” -Never heeding interruptions, he went on: “As a nation, the English are -the most truthful in the world.” “And so are our country gentlemen: they -own their constituents—at least, in some of the parishes, where there are -few whites; only immense estates peopled by negroes.” Thackeray speaks of -the lies that were told on both sides in the British wars with France; -England kept quite alongside of her rival in that fine art. England lied -then as fluently as Russell lies about us now. - -Went to see Agnes De Leon, my Columbia school friend. She is fresh from -Egypt, and I wished to hear of the Nile, the crocodiles, the mummies, the -Sphinx, and the Pyramids. But her head ran upon Washington life, such as -we knew it, and her soul was here. No theme was possible but a discussion -of the latest war news. - -Mr. Clayton, Assistant Secretary of State, says we spend two millions a -week. Where is all that money to come from? They don’t want us to plant -cotton, but to make provisions. Now, cotton always means money, or did -when there was an outlet for it and anybody to buy it. Where is money to -come from now? - -Mr. Barnwell’s new joke, I dare say, is a Joe Miller, but Mr. Barnwell -laughed in telling it till he cried. A man was fined for contempt of -court and then, his case coming on, the Judge talked such arrant nonsense -and was so warped in his mind against the poor man, that the “fined one” -walked up and handed the august Judge a five-dollar bill. “Why? What -is that for?” said the Judge. “Oh, I feel such a contempt of this court -coming on again!” - -I came up tired to death; took down my hair; had it hanging over me in a -Crazy Jane fashion; and sat still, hands over my head (half undressed, -but too lazy and sleepy to move). I was sitting in a rocking-chair by an -open window taking my ease and the cool night air, when suddenly the door -opened and Captain —— walked in. He was in the middle of the room before -he saw his mistake; he stared and was transfixed, as the novels say. I -dare say I looked an ancient Gorgon. Then, with a more frantic glare, he -turned and fled without a word. I got up and bolted the door after him, -and then looked in the glass and laughed myself into hysterics. I shall -never forget to lock the door again. But it does not matter in this case. -I looked totally unlike the person bearing my name, who, covered with -lace cap, etc., frequents the drawing-room. I doubt if he would know me -again. - -_August 26th._—The Terror has full swing at the North now. All the papers -favorable to us have been suppressed. How long would our mob stand a -Yankee paper here? But newspapers against our government, such as the -Examiner and the Mercury flourish like green bay-trees. A man up to the -elbows in finance said to-day: “Clayton’s story is all nonsense. They do -sometimes pay out two millions a week; they paid the soldiers this week, -but they don’t pay the soldiers every week.” “Not by a long shot,” cried -a soldier laddie with a grin. - -“Why do you write in your diary at all,” some one said to me, “if, as you -say, you have to contradict every day what you wrote yesterday?” “Because -I tell the tale as it is told to me. I write current rumor. I do not -vouch for anything.” - -We went to Pizzini’s, that very best of Italian confectioners. From there -we went to Miss Sally Tompkins’s hospital, loaded with good things for -the wounded. The men under Miss Sally’s kind care looked so clean and -comfortable—cheerful, one might say. They were pleasant and nice to see. -One, however, was dismal in tone and aspect, and he repeated at intervals -with no change of words, in a forlorn monotone: “What a hard time we have -had since we left home.” But nobody seemed to heed his wailing, and it -did not impair his appetite. - -At Mrs. Toombs’s, who was raging; so anti-Davis she will not even admit -that the President is ill. “All humbug.” “But what good could pretending -to be ill do him?” “That reception now, was not that a humbug? Such a -failure. Mrs. Reagan could have done better than that.” - -Mrs. Walker is a Montgomery beauty, with such magnificent dresses. She -was an heiress, and is so dissatisfied with Richmond, accustomed as she -is to being a belle under different conditions. As she is as handsome and -well dressed as ever, it must be the men who are all wrong. - -“Did you give Lawrence that fifty-dollar bill to go out and change it?” I -was asked. “Suppose he takes himself off to the Yankees. He would leave -us with not too many fifty-dollar bills.” He is not going anywhere, -however. I think his situation suits him. That wadded belt of mine, with -the gold pieces quilted in, has made me ashamed more than once. I leave -it under my pillow and my maid finds it there and hangs it over the back -of a chair, in evidence as I reenter the room after breakfast. When I -forget and leave my trunk open, Lawrence brings me the keys and tells -me, “You oughten to do so, Miss Mary.” Mr. Chesnut leaves all his little -money in his pockets, and Lawrence says that’s why he can’t let any one -but himself brush Mars Jeems’s clothes. - -_August 27th._—Theodore Barker and James Lowndes came; the latter has -been wretchedly treated. A man said, “All that I wish on earth is to be -at peace and on my own plantation,” to which Mr. Lowndes replied quietly, -“I wish I had a plantation to be on, but just now I can’t see how any -one would feel justified in leaving the army.” Mr. Barker was bitter -against the spirit of braggadocio so rampant among us. The gentleman who -had been answered so completely by James Lowndes said, with spitefulness: -“Those women who are so frantic for their husbands to join the army would -like them killed, no doubt.” - -Things were growing rather uncomfortable, but an interruption came in -the shape of a card. An old classmate of Mr. Chesnut’s—Captain Archer, -just now fresh from California—followed his card so quickly that Mr. -Chesnut had hardly time to tell us that in Princeton College they called -him “Sally” Archer he was so pretty—when he entered. He is good-looking -still, but the service and consequent rough life have destroyed all -softness and girlishness. He will never be so pretty again. - -The North is consolidated; they move as one man, with no States, but an -army organized by the central power. Russell in the Northern camp is -cursed of Yankees for that Bull Run letter. Russell, in his capacity -of Englishman, despises both sides. He divides us equally into North -and South. He prefers to attribute our victory at Bull Run to Yankee -cowardice rather than to Southern courage. He gives no credit to either -side; for good qualities, we are after all mere Americans! Everything not -“national” is arrested. It looks like the business of Seward. - -I do not know when I have seen a woman without knitting in her hand. -Socks for the soldiers is the cry. One poor man said he had dozens of -socks and but one shirt. He preferred more shirts and fewer stockings. -We make a quaint appearance with this twinkling of needles and the -everlasting sock dangling below. - -They have arrested Wm. B. Reed and Miss Winder, she boldly proclaiming -herself a secessionist. Why should she seek a martyr’s crown? Writing -people love notoriety. It is so delightful to be of enough consequence to -be arrested. I have often wondered if such incense was ever offered as -Napoleon’s so-called persecution and alleged jealousy of Madame de Staël. - - * * * * * - -Russell once more, to whom London, Paris, and India have been an -every-day sight, and every-night, too, streets and all. How absurd for -him to go on in indignation because there have been women on negro -plantations who were not vestal virgins. Negro women get married, and -after marriage behave as well as other people. Marrying is the amusement -of their lives. They take life easily; so do their class everywhere. Bad -men are hated here as elsewhere. - -“I hate slavery. I hate a man who—You say there are no more fallen women -on a plantation than in London in proportion to numbers. But what do -you say to this—to a magnate who runs a hideous black harem, with its -consequences, under the same roof with his lovely white wife and his -beautiful and accomplished daughters? He holds his head high and poses -as the model of all human virtues to these poor women whom God and the -laws have given him. From the height of his awful majesty he scolds and -thunders at them as if he never did wrong in his life. Fancy such a man -finding his daughter reading Don Juan. ‘You with that immoral book!’ -he would say, and then he would order her out of his sight. You see -Mrs. Stowe did not hit the sorest spot. She makes Legree a bachelor.” -“Remember George II. and his likes.” - -“Oh, I know half a Legree—a man said to be as cruel as Legree, but the -other half of him did not correspond. He was a man of polished manners, -and the best husband and father and member of the church in the world.” -“Can that be so?” - -“Yes, I know it. Exceptional case, that sort of thing, always. And I -knew the dissolute half of Legree well. He was high and mighty, but the -kindest creature to his slaves. And the unfortunate results of his bad -ways were not sold, had not to jump over ice-blocks. They were kept in -full view, and provided for handsomely in his will.” - -“The wife and daughters in the might of their purity and innocence are -supposed never to dream of what is as plain before their eyes as the -sunlight, and they play their parts of unsuspecting angels to the letter. -They profess to adore the father as the model of all saintly goodness.” -“Well, yes; if he is rich he is the fountain from whence all blessings -flow.” - -“The one I have in my eye—my half of Legree, the dissolute half—was so -furious in temper and thundered his wrath so at the poor women, they -were glad to let him do as he pleased in peace if they could only escape -his everlasting fault-finding, and noisy bluster, making everybody so -uncomfortable.” “Now—now, do you know any woman of this generation who -would stand that sort of thing? No, never, not for one moment. The -make-believe angels were of the last century. We know, and we won’t have -it.” - -“The condition of women is improving, it seems.” “Women are brought up -not to judge their fathers or their husbands. They take them as the Lord -provides and are thankful.” - -“If they should not go to heaven after all; think what lives most women -lead.” “No heaven, no purgatory, no—the other thing? Never. I believe in -future rewards and punishments.” - -“How about the wives of drunkards! I heard a woman say once to a friend -of her husband, tell it as a cruel matter of fact, without bitterness, -without comment, ‘Oh, you have not seen him! He has changed. He has not -gone to bed sober in thirty years.’ She has had her purgatory, if not -‘the other thing,’ here in this world. We all know what a drunken man -is. To think, _for no crime_, a person may be condemned to live with -one thirty years.” “You wander from the question I asked. Are Southern -men worse because of the slave system and the facile black women?” “Not -a bit. They see too much of them. The barroom people don’t drink, the -confectionery people loathe candy. They are sick of the black sight of -them.” - -“You think a nice man from the South is the nicest thing in the world?” -“I know it. Put him by any other man and see!” - - * * * * * - -Have seen Yankee letters taken at Manassas. The spelling is often -atrocious, and we thought they had all gone through a course of -blue-covered Noah Webster spelling-books. Our soldiers do spell -astonishingly. There is Horace Greeley: they say he can’t read his own -handwriting. But he is candid enough and disregards all time-serving. He -says in his paper that in our army the North has a hard nut to crack, and -that the rank and file of our army is superior in education and general -intelligence to theirs. - -My wildest imagination will not picture Mr. Mason[59] as a diplomat. He -will say chaw for chew, and he will call himself Jeems, and he will wear -a dress coat to breakfast. Over here, whatever a Mason does is right in -his own eyes. He is above law. Somebody asked him how he pronounced his -wife’s maiden name: she was a Miss Chew from Philadelphia. - -They say the English will like Mr. Mason; he is so manly, so -straightforward, so truthful and bold. “A fine old English gentleman,” -so said Russell to me, “but for tobacco.” “I like Mr. Mason and Mr. -Hunter better than anybody else.” “And yet they are wonderfully unlike.” -“Now you just listen to me,” said I. “Is Mrs. Davis in hearing—no? Well, -this sending Mr. Mason to London is the maddest thing yet. Worse in some -points of view than Yancey, and that was a catastrophe.” - -_August 29th._—No more feminine gossip, but the licensed slanderer, the -mighty Russell, of the Times. He says the battle of the 21st was fought -at long range: 500 yards apart were the combatants. The Confederates were -steadily retreating when some commotion in the wagon train frightened the -“Yanks,” and they made tracks. In good English, they fled amain. And on -our side we were too frightened to follow them—in high-flown English, to -pursue the flying foe. - -In spite of all this, there are glimpses of the truth sometimes, and the -story leads to our credit with all the sneers and jeers. When he speaks -of the Yankees’ cowardice, falsehood, dishonesty, and braggadocio, the -best words are in his mouth. He repeats the thrice-told tale, so often -refuted and denied, that we were harsh to wounded prisoners. Dr. Gibson -told me that their surgeon-general has written to thank our surgeons: -Yankee officers write very differently from Russell. I know that in that -hospital with the Sisters of Charity they were better off than our men -were at the other hospitals: that I saw with my own eyes. These poor -souls are jealously guarded night and day. It is a hideous tale—what they -tell of their sufferings. - -Women who come before the public are in a bad box now. False hair is -taken off and searched for papers. Bustles are “suspect.” All manner of -things, they say, come over the border under the huge hoops now worn; -so they are ruthlessly torn off. Not legs but arms are looked for -under hoops, and, sad to say, found. Then women are used as detectives -and searchers, to see that no men slip over in petticoats. So the poor -creatures coming this way are humiliated to the deepest degree. To -men, glory, honor, praise, and power, if they are patriots. To women, -daughters of Eve, punishment comes still in some shape, do what they will. - -Mary Hammy’s eyes were starting from her head with amazement, while a -very large and handsome South Carolinian talked rapidly. “What is it?” -asked I after he had gone. “Oh, what a year can bring forth—one year! -Last summer you remember how he swore he was in love with me? He told -you, he told me, he told everybody, and if I did refuse to marry him I -believed him. Now he says he has seen, fallen in love with, courted, and -married another person, and he raves of his little daughter’s beauty. And -they say time goes slowly”—thus spoke Mary Hammy, with a sigh of wonder -at his wonderful cure. - -“Time works wonders,” said the explainer-general. “What conclusion did -you come to as to Southern men at the grand pow-wow, you know?” “They are -nicer than the nicest—the gentlemen, you know. There are not too many of -that kind anywhere. Ours are generous, truthful, brave, and—and—devoted -to us, you know. A Southern husband is not a bad thing to have about the -house.” - -Mrs. Frank Hampton said: “For one thing, you could not flirt with these -South Carolinians. They would not stay at the tepid degree of flirtation. -They grow so horridly in earnest before you know where you are.” “Do you -think two married people ever lived together without finding each other -out? I mean, knowing exactly how good or how shabby, how weak or how -strong, above all, how selfish each was?” “Yes; unless they are dolts, -they know to a tittle; but you see if they have common sense they make -believe and get on, so so.” Like the Marchioness’s orange-peel wine in -Old Curiosity Shop. - -A violent attack upon the North to-day in the Albion. They mean to let -freedom slide a while until they subjugate us. The Albion says they use -_lettres de cachet_, passports, and all the despotic apparatus of regal -governments. Russell hears the tramp of the coming man—the king and -kaiser tyrant that is to rule them. Is it McClellan?—“Little Mac”? We may -tremble when he comes. We down here have only “the many-headed monster -thing,” armed democracy. Our chiefs quarrel among themselves. - -McClellan is of a forgiving spirit. He does not resent Russell’s slurs -upon Yankees, but with good policy has Russell with him as a guest. - -The Adonis of an aide avers, as one who knows, that “Sumter” Anderson’s -heart is with us; that he will not fight the South. After all is said and -done that sounds like nonsense. “Sumter” Anderson’s wife was a daughter -of Governor Clinch, of Georgia. Does that explain it? He also told me -something of Garnett (who was killed at Rich Mountain).[60] He had been -an unlucky man clear through. In the army before the war, the aide had -found him proud, reserved, and morose, cold as an icicle to all. But for -his wife and child he was a different creature. He adored them and cared -for nothing else. - -One day he went off on an expedition and was gone six weeks. He was out -in the Northwest, and the Indians were troublesome. When he came back, -his wife and child were underground. He said not one word, but they found -him more frozen, stern, and isolated than ever; that was all. The night -before he left Richmond he said in his quiet way: “They have not given me -an adequate force. I can do nothing. They have sent me to my death.” It -is acknowledged that he threw away his life—“a dreary-hearted man,” said -the aide, “and the unluckiest.” - - * * * * * - -On the front steps every evening we take our seats and discourse at our -pleasure. A nicer or more agreeable set of people were never assembled -than our present Arlington crowd. To-night it was Yancey[61] who occupied -our tongues. Send a man to England who had killed his father-in-law in -a street brawl! That was not knowing England or Englishmen, surely. Who -wants eloquence? We want somebody who can hold his tongue. People avoid -great talkers, men who orate, men given to monologue, as they would avoid -fire, famine, or pestilence. Yancey will have no mobs to harangue. No -stump speeches will be possible, superb as are his of their kind, but -little quiet conversation is best with slow, solid, common-sense people, -who begin to suspect as soon as any flourish of trumpets meets their ear. -If Yancey should use his fine words, who would care for them over there? - -Commodore Barron, when he was a middy, accompanied Phil Augustus Stockton -to claim his bride. He, the said Stockton, had secretly wedded a fair -heiress (Sally Cantey). She was married by a magistrate and returned to -Mrs. Grillaud’s boarding-school until it was time to go home—that is, to -Camden. - -Lieutenant Stockton (a descendant of the Signer) was the handsomest man -in the navy, and irresistible. The bride was barely sixteen. When he was -to go down South among those fire-eaters and claim her, Commodore Barron, -then his intimate friend, went as his backer. They were to announce the -marriage and defy the guardians. Commodore Barron said he anticipated a -rough job of it all, but they were prepared for all risks. “You expected -to find us a horde of savages, no doubt,” said I. “We did not expect to -get off under a half-dozen duels.” They looked for insults from every -quarter and they found a polished and refined people who lived _en -prince_, to say the least of it. They were received with a cold, stately, -and faultless politeness, which made them feel as if they had been -sheep-stealing. - -The young lady had confessed to her guardians and they were for making -the best of it; above all, for saving her name from all gossip or -publicity. Colonel John Boykin, one of them, took Young Lochinvar to stay -with him. His friend, Barron, was also a guest. Colonel Deas sent for a -parson, and made assurance doubly sure by marrying them over again. Their -wish was to keep things quiet and not to make a nine-days’ wonder of the -young lady. - -Then came balls, parties, and festivities without end. He was enchanted -with the easy-going life of these people, with dinners the finest in the -world, deer-hunting, and fox-hunting, dancing, and pretty girls, in fact -everything that heart could wish. But then, said Commodore Barron, “the -better it was, and the kinder the treatment, the more ashamed I grew of -my business down there. After all, it was stealing an heiress, you know.” - -I told him how the same fate still haunted that estate in Camden. Mr. -Stockton sold it to a gentleman, who later sold it to an old man who -had married when near eighty, and who left it to the daughter born of -that marriage. This pretty child of his old age was left an orphan -quite young. At the age of fifteen, she ran away and married a boy -of seventeen, a canny Scotchman. The young couple lived to grow up, -and it proved after all a happy marriage. This last heiress left six -children; so the estate will now be divided, and no longer tempt the -fortune-hunters. - -The Commodore said: “To think how we two youngsters in our blue uniforms -went down there to bully those people.” He was much at Colonel Chesnut’s. -Mrs. Chesnut being a Philadelphian, he was somewhat at ease with them. It -was the most thoroughly appointed establishment he had then ever visited. - - * * * * * - -Went with our leviathan of loveliness to a ladies’ meeting. No scandal -to-day, no wrangling, all harmonious, everybody knitting. Dare say that -soothing occupation helped our perturbed spirits to be calm. Mrs. C—— -is lovely, a perfect beauty. Said Brewster: “In Circassia, think what a -price would be set upon her, for there beauty sells by the pound!” - -Coming home the following conversation: “So Mrs. Blank thinks purgatory -will hold its own—never be abolished while women and children have to -live with drunken fathers and brothers.” “She knows.” “She is too bitter. -She says worse than that. She says we have an institution worse than the -Spanish Inquisition, worse than Torquemada, and all that sort of thing.” -“What does she mean?” “You ask her. Her words are sharp arrows. I am a -dull creature, and I should spoil all by repeating what she says.” - -“It is your own family that she calls the familiars of the Inquisition. -She declares that they set upon you, fall foul of you, watch and harass -you from morn till dewy eve. They have a perfect right to your life, -night and day, unto the fourth and fifth generation. They drop in at -breakfast and say, ‘Are you not imprudent to eat that?’ ‘Take care now, -don’t overdo it.’ ‘I think you eat too much so early in the day.’ And -they help themselves to the only thing you care for on the table. They -abuse your friends and tell you it is your duty to praise your enemies. -They tell you of all your faults candidly, because they love you so; that -gives them a right to speak. What family interest they take in you. You -ought to do this; you ought to do that, and then the everlasting ‘you -ought to have done,’ which comes near making you a murderer, at least in -heart. ‘Blood’s thicker than water,’ they say, and there is where the -longing to spill it comes in. No locks or bolts or bars can keep them -out. Are they not your nearest family? They dine with you, dropping in -after you are at soup. They come after you have gone to bed, when all the -servants have gone away, and the man of the house, in his nightshirt, -standing sternly at the door with the huge wooden bar in his hand, nearly -scares them to death, and you are glad of it.” - -“Private life, indeed!” She says her husband entered public life and -they went off to live in a far-away city. Then for the first time in her -life she knew privacy. She never will forget how she jumped for joy as -she told her servant not to admit a soul until after two o’clock in the -day. Afterward, she took a fixed day at home. Then she was free indeed. -She could read and write, stay at home, go out at her own sweet will, -no longer sitting for hours with her fingers between the leaves of a -frantically interesting book, while her kin slowly driveled nonsense -by the yard—waiting, waiting, yawning. Would they never go? Then for -hurting you, who is like a relative? They do it from a sense of duty. -For stinging you, for cutting you to the quick, who like one of your own -household? In point of fact, they alone can do it. They know the sore, -and how to hit it every time. You are in their power. She says, did you -ever see a really respectable, responsible, revered and beloved head of a -family who ever opened his mouth at home except to find fault? He really -thinks that is his business in life and that all enjoyment is sinful. He -is there to prevent the women from such frivolous things as pleasure, -etc., etc. - -I sat placidly rocking in my chair by the window, trying to hope all was -for the best. Mary Hammy rushed in literally drowned in tears. I never -saw so drenched a face in my life. My heart stopped still. “Commodore -Barron is taken prisoner,” said she. “The Yankees have captured him -and all his lieutenants. Poor Imogen—and there is my father scouting -about, the Lord knows where. I only know he is in the advance guard. The -Barron’s time has come. Mine may come any minute. Oh, Cousin Mary, when -Mrs. Lee told Imogen, she fainted! Those poor girls; they are nearly dead -with trouble and fright.” - -“Go straight back to those children,” I said. “Nobody will touch a hair -of their father’s head. Tell them I say so. They dare not. They are not -savages quite. This is a civilized war, you know.” - -Mrs. Lee said to Mrs. Eustis (Mr. Corcoran’s daughter) yesterday: “Have -you seen those accounts of arrests in Washington?” Mrs. Eustis answered -calmly: “Yes, I know all about it. I suppose you allude to the fact that -my father has been imprisoned.” “No, no,” interrupted the explainer, -“she means the incarceration of those mature Washington belles suspected -as spies.” But Mrs. Eustis continued, “I have no fears for my father’s -safety.” - -_August 31st._—Congress adjourns to-day. Jeff Davis ill. We go home on -Monday if I am able to travel. Already I feel the dread stillness and -torpor of our Sahara of a Sand Hill creeping into my veins. It chills the -marrow of my bones. I am reveling in the noise of city life. I know what -is before me. Nothing more cheering than the cry of the lone whippoorwill -will break the silence at Sandy Hill, except as night draws near, when -the screech-owl will add his mournful note. - -_September 1st._—North Carolina writes for arms for her soldiers. Have we -any to send? No. Brewster, the plain-spoken, says, “The President is ill, -and our affairs are in the hands of noodles. All the generals away with -the army; nobody here; General Lee in Western Virginia. Reading the third -Psalm. The devil is sick, the devil a saint would be. Lord, how are they -increased that trouble me? Many are they that rise up against me!” - -_September 2d._—Mr. Miles says he is not going anywhere at all, not even -home. He is to sit here permanently—chairman of a committee to overhaul -camps, commissariats, etc., etc. - -We exchanged our ideas of Mr. Mason, in which we agreed perfectly. In -the first place, he has a noble presence—really a handsome man; is a -manly old Virginian, straightforward, brave, truthful, clever, the very -beau-ideal of an independent, high-spirited F. F. V. If the English value -a genuine man they will have one here. In every particular he is the -exact opposite of Talleyrand. He has some peculiarities. He had never an -ache or a pain himself; his physique is perfect, and he loudly declares -that he hates to see persons ill; seems to him an unpardonable weakness. - -It began to grow late. Many people had come to say good-by to me. I had -fever as usual to-day, but in the excitement of this crowd of friends the -invalid forgot fever. Mr. Chesnut held up his watch to me warningly and -intimated “it was late, indeed, for one who has to travel to-morrow.” So, -as the Yankees say after every defeat, I “retired in good order.” - -Not quite, for I forgot handkerchief and fan. Gonzales rushed after and -met me at the foot of the stairs. In his foreign, pathetic, polite, -high-bred way, he bowed low and said he had made an excuse for the fan, -for he had a present to make me, and then, though “startled and amazed, I -paused and on the stranger gazed.” Alas! I am a woman approaching forty, -and the offering proved to be a bottle of cherry bounce. Nothing could -have been more opportune, and with a little ice, etc., will help, I am -sure, to save my life on that dreadful journey home. - -No discouragement now felt at the North. They take our forts and are -satisfied for a while. Then the English are strictly neutral. Like the -woman who saw her husband fight the bear, “It was the first fight she -ever saw when she did not care who whipped.” - -Mr. Davis was very kind about it all. He told Mr. Chesnut to go home and -have an eye to all the State defenses, etc., and that he would give him -any position he asked for if he still wished to continue in the army. -Now, this would be all that heart could wish, but Mr. Chesnut will never -ask for anything. What will he ask for? That’s the rub. I am certain of -very few things in life now, but this is one I am certain of: Mr. Chesnut -will never ask mortal man for any promotion for himself or for one of his -own family. - - - - -X - -CAMDEN, S. C. - -_September 9, 1861-September 19, 1861_ - - -Camden, S. C., _September 9, 1861_.—Home again at Mulberry, the fever -in full possession of me. My sister, Kate, is my ideal woman, the most -agreeable person I know in the world, with her soft, low, and sweet -voice, her graceful, gracious ways, and her glorious gray eyes, that I -looked into so often as we confided our very souls to each other. - -God bless old Betsey’s yellow face! She is a nurse in a thousand, and -would do anything for “Mars Jeems’ wife.” My small ailments in all -this comfort set me mourning over the dead and dying soldiers I saw in -Virginia. How feeble my compassion proves, after all. - -I handed the old Colonel a letter from his son in the army. He said, as -he folded up the missive from the seat of war, “With this war we may die -out. Your husband is the last—of my family.” He means that my husband is -his only living son; his grandsons are in the army, and they, too, may -be killed—even Johnny, the gallant and gay, may not be bullet-proof. No -child have I. - -Now this old man of ninety years was born when it was not the fashion for -a gentleman to be a saint, and being lord of all he surveyed for so many -years, irresponsible, in the center of his huge domain, it is wonderful -he was not a greater tyrant—the softening influence of that angel wife, -no doubt. Saint or sinner, he understands the world about him—_au fond_. - -Have had a violent attack of something wrong about my heart. It stopped -beating, then it took to trembling, creaking and thumping like a -Mississippi high-pressure steamboat, and the noise in my ears was more -like an ammunition wagon rattling over the stones in Richmond. That was -yesterday, and yet I am alive. That kind of thing makes one feel very -mortal. - -Russell writes how disappointed Prince Jerome Napoleon was with the -appearance of our troops, and “he did not like Beauregard at all.” Well! -I give Bogar up to him. But how a man can find fault with our soldiers, -as I have seen them individually and collectively in Charleston, -Richmond, and everywhere—that beats me. - -The British are the most conceited nation in the world, the most -self-sufficient, self-satisfied, and arrogant. But each individual man -does not blow his own penny whistle; they brag wholesale. Wellington—he -certainly left it for others to sound his praises—though Mr. Binney -thought the statue of Napoleon at the entrance of Apsley House was a -little like “‘Who killed Cock Robin?’ ‘I, said the sparrow, with my bow -and arrow.’” But then it is so pleasant to hear them when it is a lump -sum of praise, with no private crowing—praise of Trafalgar, Waterloo, the -Scots Greys. - -Fighting this and fighting that, with their crack corps stirs the blood -and every heart responds—three times three! Hurrah! - -But our people feel that they must send forth their own reported prowess: -with an, “I did this and I did that.” I know they did it; but I hang my -head. - -[Illustration: MULBERRY HOUSE, NEAR CAMDEN, S. C. - -From a Recent Photograph.] - -In those Tarleton Memoirs, in Lee’s Memoirs, in Moultrie’s, and in Lord -Rawdon’s letters, self is never brought to the front. I have been reading -them over and admire their modesty and good taste as much as their -courage and cleverness. That kind of British eloquence takes me. It is -not, “_Soldats! marchons, gloire!_” Not a bit of it; but, “Now, my lads, -stand firm!” and, “Now up, and let them have it!” - -Our name has not gone out of print. To-day, the Examiner, as usual, -pitches into the President. It thinks Toombs, Cobb, Slidell, Lamar, or -Chesnut would have been far better in the office. There is considerable -choice in that lot. Five men more utterly dissimilar were never named in -the same paragraph. - -_September 19th._—A painful piece of news came to us yesterday—our -cousin, Mrs. Witherspoon, of Society Hill, was found dead in her bed. She -was quite well the night before. Killed, people say, by family sorrows. -She was a proud and high-strung woman. Nothing shabby in word, thought, -or deed ever came nigh her. She was of a warm and tender heart, too; -truth and uprightness itself. Few persons have ever been more loved -and looked up to. She was a very handsome old lady, of fine presence, -dignified and commanding. - -“Killed by family sorrows,” so they said when Mrs. John N. Williams died. -So Uncle John said yesterday of his brother, Burwell. “Death deserts the -army,” said that quaint old soul, “and takes fancy shots of the most -eccentric kind nearer home.” - -The high and disinterested conduct our enemies seem to expect of us is -involuntary and unconscious praise. They pay us the compliment to look -for from us (and execrate us for the want of it) a degree of virtue they -were never able to practise themselves. It is a crowning misdemeanor -for us to hold still in slavery those Africans whom they brought here -from Africa, or sold to us when they found it did not pay to own them -themselves. Gradually, they slid or sold them off down here; or freed -them prospectively, giving themselves years in which to get rid of them -in a remunerative way. We want to spread them over other lands, too—West -and South, or Northwest, where the climate would free them or kill -them, or improve them out of the world, as our friends up North do the -Indians. If they had been forced to keep the negroes in New England, -I dare say the negroes might have shared the Indians’ fate, for they -are wise in their generation, these Yankee children of light. Those -pernicious Africans! So have just spoken Mr. Chesnut and Uncle John, both -_ci-devant_ Union men, now utterly for State rights. - -It is queer how different the same man may appear viewed from different -standpoints. “What a perfect gentleman,” said one person of another; -“so fine-looking, high-bred, distinguished, easy, free, and above all -graceful in his bearing; so high-toned! He is always indignant at any -symptom of wrong-doing. He is charming—the man of all others I like to -have strangers see—a noble representative of our country.” “Yes, every -word of that is true,” was the reply. “He is all that. And then the -other side of the picture is true, too. You can always find him. You -know _where_ to find him! Wherever there is a looking-glass, a bottle, -or a woman, there will he be also.” “My God! and you call yourself his -friend.” “Yes, I know him down to the ground.” - -This conversation I overheard from an upper window when looking down on -the piazza below—a complicated character truly beyond La Bruyère—with -what Mrs. Preston calls refinement spread thin until it is skin-deep only. - -An iron steamer has run the blockade at Savannah. We now raise our wilted -heads like flowers after a shower. This drop of good news revives us.[62] - - - - -XI - -COLUMBIA, S. C. - -_February 20, 1862-July 21, 1862_ - - -Columbia, S. C., _February 20, 1862_.—Had an appetite for my dainty -breakfast. Always breakfast in bed now. But then, my Mercury contained -such bad news. That is an appetizing style of matutinal newspaper. Fort -Donelson[63] has fallen, but no men fell with it. It is prisoners for -them that we can not spare, or prisoners for us that we may not be able -to feed: that is so much to be “forefended,” as Keitt says. They lost -six thousand, we two thousand; I grudge that proportion. In vain, alas! -ye gallant few—few, but undismayed. Again, they make a stand. We have -Buckner, Beauregard, and Albert Sidney Johnston. With such leaders and -God’s help we may be saved from the hated Yankees; who knows? - -_February 21st._—A crowd collected here last night and there was a -serenade. I am like Mrs. Nickleby, who never saw a horse coming full -speed but she thought the Cheerybles had sent post-haste to take Nicholas -into co-partnership. So I got up and dressed, late as it was. I felt sure -England had sought our alliance at last, and we would make a Yorktown -of it before long. Who was it? Will you ever guess?—Artemus Goodwyn and -General Owens, of Florida. - -Just then, Mr. Chesnut rushed in, put out the light, locked the door -and sat still as a mouse. Rap, rap, came at the door. “I say, Chesnut, -they are calling for you.” At last we heard Janney (hotel-keeper) loudly -proclaiming from the piazza that “Colonel Chesnut was not here at all, -at all.” After a while, when they had all gone from the street, and the -very house itself had subsided into perfect quiet, the door again was -roughly shaken. “I say, Chesnut, old fellow, come out—I know you are -there. Nobody here now wants to hear you make a speech. That crowd has -all gone. We want a little quiet talk with you. I am just from Richmond.” -That was the open sesame, and to-day I hear none of the Richmond -news is encouraging. Colonel Shaw is blamed for the shameful Roanoke -surrender.[64] - -Toombs is out on a rampage and swears he will not accept a seat in the -Confederate Senate given in the insulting way his was by the Georgia -Legislature: calls it shabby treatment, and adds that Georgia is not the -only place where good men have been so ill used. - -The Governor and Council have fluttered the dove-cotes, or, at least, the -tea-tables. They talk of making a call for all silver, etc. I doubt if we -have enough to make the sacrifice worth while, but we propose to set the -example. - -_February 22d._—What a beautiful day for our Confederate President to be -inaugurated! God speed him; God keep him; God save him! - -John Chesnut’s letter was quite what we needed. In spirit it is all that -one could ask. He says, “Our late reverses are acting finely with the -army of the Potomac. A few more thrashings and every man will enlist -for the war. Victories made us too sanguine and easy, not to say -vainglorious. Now for the rub, and let them have it!” - -A lady wrote to Mrs. Bunch: “Dear Emma: When shall I call for you to go -and see Madame de St. André?” She was answered: “Dear Lou: I can not go -with you to see Madame de St. André, but will always retain the kindest -feeling toward you on account of our past relations,” etc. The astounded -friend wrote to ask what all this meant. No answer came, and then she -sent her husband to ask and demand an explanation. He was answered thus: -“My dear fellow, there can be no explanation possible. Hereafter there -will be no intercourse between my wife and yours; simply that, nothing -more.” So the men meet at the club as before, and there is no further -trouble between them. The lady upon whom the slur is cast says, “and I am -a woman and can’t fight!” - -_February 23d._—While Mr. Chesnut was in town I was at the Prestons. John -Cochran and some other prisoners had asked to walk over the grounds, -visit the Hampton Gardens, and some friends in Columbia. After the -dreadful state of the public mind at the escape of one of the prisoners, -General Preston was obliged to refuse his request. Mrs. Preston and the -rest of us wanted him to say “Yes,” and so find out who in Columbia were -his treacherous friends. Pretty bold people they must be, to receive -Yankee invaders in the midst of the row over one enemy already turned -loose amid us. - -General Preston said: “We are about to sacrifice life and fortune for a -fickle multitude who will not stand up to us at last.” The harsh comments -made as to his lenient conduct to prisoners have embittered him. I told -him what I had heard Captain Trenholm say in his speech. He said he would -listen to no criticism except from a man with a musket on his shoulder, -and who had beside enlisted for the war, had given up all, and had no -choice but to succeed or die. - -_February 24th._—Congress and the newspapers render one desperate, ready -to cut one’s own throat. They represent everything in our country as -deplorable. Then comes some one back from our gay and gallant army at the -front. The spirit of our army keeps us up after all. Letters from the -army revive one. They come as welcome as the flowers in May. Hopeful and -bright, utterly unconscious of our weak despondency. - -_February 25th._—They have taken at Nashville[65] more men than we had at -Manassas; there was bad handling of troops, we poor women think, or this -would not be. Mr. Venable added bitterly, “Giving up our soldiers to the -enemy means giving up the cause. We can not replace them.” The up-country -men were Union men generally, and the low-country seceders. The former -growl; they never liked those aristocratic boroughs and parishes, they -had themselves a good and prosperous country, a good constitution, and -were satisfied. But they had to go—to leave all and fight for the others -who brought on all the trouble, and who do not show too much disposition -to fight for themselves. - -That is the extreme up-country view. The extreme low-country says Jeff -Davis is not enough out of the Union yet. His inaugural address reads as -one of his speeches did four years ago in the United States Senate. - -A letter in a morning paper accused Mr. Chesnut of staying too long in -Charleston. The editor was asked for the writer’s name. He gave it as -Little Moses, the Governor’s secretary. When Little Moses was spoken to, -in a great trepidation he said that Mrs. Pickens wrote it, and got him to -publish it; so it was dropped, for Little Moses is such an arrant liar no -one can believe him. Besides, if that sort of thing amuses Mrs. Pickens, -let her amuse herself. - -_March 5th._—Mary Preston went back to Mulberry with me from Columbia. -She found a man there tall enough to take her in to dinner—Tom Boykin, -who is six feet four, the same height as her father. Tom was very -handsome in his uniform, and Mary prepared for a nice time, but he looked -as if he would so much rather she did not talk to him, and he set her -such a good example, saying never a word. - -Old Colonel Chesnut came for us. When the train stopped, Quashie, shiny -black, was seen on his box, as glossy and perfect in his way as his -blooded bays, but the old Colonel would stop and pick up the dirtiest -little negro I ever saw who was crying by the roadside. This ragged -little black urchin was made to climb up and sit beside Quash. It spoilt -the symmetry of the turn-out, but it was a character touch, and the old -gentleman knows no law but his own will. He had a biscuit in his pocket -which he gave this sniffling little negro, who proved to be his man -Scip’s son. - -I was ill at Mulberry and never left my room. Doctor Boykin came, more -military than medical. Colonel Chesnut brought him up, also Teams, -who said he was down in the mouth. Our men were not fighting as they -should. We had only pluck and luck, and a dogged spirit of fighting, to -offset their weight in men and munitions of war. I wish I could remember -Teams’s words; this is only his idea. His language was quaint and -striking—no grammar, but no end of sense and good feeling. Old Colonel -Chesnut, catching a word, began his litany, saying, “Numbers will tell,” -“Napoleon, you know,” etc., etc. - -At Mulberry the war has been ever afar off, but threats to take the -silver came very near indeed—silver that we had before the Revolution, -silver that Mrs. Chesnut brought from Philadelphia. Jack Cantey and -Doctor Boykin came back on the train with us. Wade Hampton is the hero. - -Sweet May Dacre. Lord Byron and Disraeli make their rosebuds Catholic; -May Dacre is another Aurora Raby. I like Disraeli because I find so many -clever things in him. I like the sparkle and the glitter. Carlyle does -not hold up his hands in holy horror of us because of African slavery. -Lord Lyons[66] has gone against us. Lord Derby and Louis Napoleon are -silent in our hour of direst need. People call me Cassandra, for I cry -that outside hope is quenched. From the outside no help indeed cometh to -this beleaguered land. - -_March 7th._—Mrs. Middleton was dolorous indeed. General Lee had warned -the planters about Combahee, etc., that they must take care of themselves -now; he could not do it. Confederate soldiers had committed some outrages -on the plantations and officers had punished them promptly. She poured -contempt upon Yancey’s letter to Lord Russell.[67] It was the letter of a -shopkeeper, not in the style of a statesman at all. - -We called to see Mary McDuffie.[68] She asked Mary Preston what Doctor -Boykin had said of her husband as we came along in the train. She heard -it was something very complimentary. Mary P. tried to remember, and to -repeat it all, to the joy of the other Mary, who liked to hear nice -things about her husband. - -Mary was amazed to hear of the list of applicants for promotion. One -delicate-minded person accompanied his demand for advancement by a -request for a written description of the Manassas battle; he had heard -Colonel Chesnut give such a brilliant account of it in Governor Cobb’s -room. - -The Merrimac[69] business has come like a gleam of lightning illumining -a dark scene. Our sky is black and lowering. - -The Judge saw his little daughter at my window and he came up. He -was very smooth and kind. It was really a delightful visit; not a -disagreeable word was spoken. He abused no one whatever, for he never -once spoke of any one but himself, and himself he praised without stint. -He did not look at me once, though he spoke very kindly to me. - -_March 10th._—Second year of Confederate independence. I write daily -for my own diversion. These _mémoires pour servir_ may at some future -day afford facts about these times and prove useful to more important -people than I am. I do not wish to do any harm or to hurt any one. If any -scandalous stories creep in they can easily be burned. It is hard, in -such a hurry as things are now, to separate the wheat from the chaff. Now -that I have made my protest and written down my wishes, I can scribble on -with a free will and free conscience. - -Congress at the North is down on us. They talk largely of hanging -slave-owners. They say they hold Port Royal, as we did when we took it -originally from the aborigines, who fled before us; so we are to be -exterminated and improved, _à l’Indienne_, from the face of the earth. - -Medea, when asked: “Country, wealth, husband, children, all are gone; and -now what remains?” answered: “Medea remains.” “There is a time in most -men’s lives when they resemble Job, sitting among the ashes and drinking -in the full bitterness of complicated misfortune.” - -_March 11th._—A freshman came quite eager to be instructed in all -the wiles of society. He wanted to try his hand at a flirtation, and -requested minute instructions, as he knew nothing whatever: he was so -very fresh. “Dance with her,” he was told, “and talk with her; walk with -her and flatter her; dance until she is warm and tired; then propose to -walk in a cool, shady piazza. It must be a somewhat dark piazza. Begin -your promenade slowly; warm up to your work; draw her arm closer and -closer; then, break her wing.” - -“Heavens, what is that—break her wing?” “Why, you do not know even that? -Put your arm round her waist and kiss her. After that, it is all plain -sailing. She comes down when you call like the coon to Captain Scott: -‘You need not fire, Captain,’ etc.” - -The aspirant for fame as a flirt followed these lucid directions -literally, but when he seized the poor girl and kissed her, she uplifted -her voice in terror, and screamed as if the house was on fire. So quick, -sharp, and shrill were her yells for help that the bold flirt sprang over -the banister, upon which grew a strong climbing rose. This he struggled -through, and ran toward the college, taking a bee line. He was so mangled -by the thorns that he had to go home and have them picked out by his -family. The girl’s brother challenged him. There was no mortal combat, -however, for the gay young fellow who had led the freshman’s ignorance -astray stepped forward and put things straight. An explanation and an -apology at every turn hushed it all up. - -Now, we all laughed at this foolish story most heartily. But Mr. Venable -remained grave and preoccupied, and was asked: “Why are you so unmoved? -It is funny.” “I like more probable fun; I have been in college and I -have kissed many a girl, but never a one scrome yet.” - -Last Saturday was the bloodiest we have had in proportion to -numbers.[70] The enemy lost 1,500. The handful left at home are rushing -to arms at last. Bragg has gone to join Beauregard at Columbus, Miss. Old -Abe truly took the field in that Scotch cap of his. - -Mrs. McCord,[71] the eldest daughter of Langdon Cheves, got up a company -for her son, raising it at her own expense. She has the brains and energy -of a man. To-day she repeated a remark of a low-country gentleman, who -is dissatisfied: “This Government (Confederate) protects neither person -nor property.” Fancy the scornful turn of her lip! Some one asked for -Langdon Cheves, her brother. “Oh, Langdon!” she replied coolly, “he is -a pure patriot; he has no ambition. While I was there, he was letting -Confederate soldiers ditch through his garden and ruin him at their -leisure.” - -Cotton is five cents a pound and labor of no value at all; it commands -no price whatever. People gladly hire out their negroes to have them fed -and clothed, which latter can not be done. Cotton osnaburg at 37½ cents -a yard, leaves no chance to clothe them. Langdon was for martial law -and making the bloodsuckers disgorge their ill-gotten gains. We, poor -fools, who are patriotically ruining ourselves will see our children in -the gutter while treacherous dogs of millionaires go rolling by in their -coaches—coaches that were acquired by taking advantage of our necessities. - -This terrible battle of the ships—Monitor, Merrimac, etc. All hands on -board the Cumberland went down. She fought gallantly and fired a round as -she sank. The Congress ran up a white flag. She fired on our boats as -they went up to take off her wounded. She was burned. The worst of it is -that all this will arouse them to more furious exertions to destroy us. -They hated us so before, but how now? - -In Columbia I do not know a half-dozen men who would not gaily step into -Jeff Davis’s shoes with a firm conviction that they would do better in -every respect than he does. The monstrous conceit, the fatuous ignorance -of these critics! It is pleasant to hear Mrs. McCord on this subject, -when they begin to shake their heads and tell us what Jeff Davis ought to -do. - -_March 12th._—In the naval battle the other day we had twenty-five guns -in all. The enemy had fifty-four in the Cumberland, forty-four in the St. -Lawrence, besides a fleet of gunboats, filled with rifled cannon. Why -not? They can have as many as they please. “No pent-up Utica contracts -their powers”; the whole boundless world being theirs to recruit in. -Ours is only this one little spot of ground—the blockade, or stockade, -which hems us in with only the sky open to us, and for all that, how -tender-footed and cautious they are as they draw near. - -An anonymous letter purports to answer Colonel Chesnut’s address to South -Carolinians now in the army of the Potomac. The man says, “All that bosh -is no good.” He knows lots of people whose fathers were notorious Tories -in our war for independence and made fortunes by selling their country. -Their sons have the best places, and they are cowards and traitors still. -Names are given, of course. - -Floyd and Pillow[72] are suspended from their commands because of Fort -Donelson. The people of Tennessee demand a like fate for Albert Sidney -Johnston. They say he is stupid. Can human folly go further than this -Tennessee madness? - -I did Mrs. Blank a kindness. I told the women when her name came up that -she was childless now, but that she had lost three children. I hated to -leave her all alone. Women have such a contempt for a childless wife. -Now, they will be all sympathy and goodness. I took away her “reproach -among women.” - -_March 13th._—Mr. Chesnut fretting and fuming. From the poor old -blind bishop downward everybody is besetting him to let off students, -theological and other, from going into the army. One comfort is that -the boys will go. Mr. Chesnut answers: “Wait until you have saved your -country before you make preachers and scholars. When you have a country, -there will be no lack of divines, students, scholars to adorn and purify -it.” He says he is a one-idea man. That idea is to get every possible man -into the ranks. - -Professor Le Conte[73] is an able auxiliary. He has undertaken to -supervise and carry on the powder-making enterprise—the very first -attempted in the Confederacy, and Mr. Chesnut is proud of it. It is a -brilliant success, thanks to Le Conte. - -Mr. Chesnut receives anonymous letters urging him to arrest the Judge -as seditious. They say he is a dangerous and disaffected person. His -abuse of Jeff Davis and the Council is rabid. Mr. Chesnut laughs and -throws the letters into the fire. “Disaffected to Jeff Davis,” says he; -“disaffected to the Council, that don’t count. He knows what he is about; -he would not injure his country for the world.” - -Read Uncle Tom’s Cabin again. These negro women have a chance here that -women have nowhere else. They can redeem themselves—the “impropers” -can. They can marry decently, and nothing is remembered against these -colored ladies. It is not a nice topic, but Mrs. Stowe revels in it. How -delightfully Pharisaic a feeling it must be to rise superior and fancy -we are so degraded as to defend and like to live with such degraded -creatures around us—such men as Legree and his women. - -The best way to take negroes to your heart is to get as far away from -them as possible. As far as I can see, Southern women do all that -missionaries could do to prevent and alleviate evils. The social evil -has not been suppressed in old England or in New England, in London or -in Boston. People in those places expect more virtue from a plantation -African than they can insure in practise among themselves with all their -own high moral surroundings—light, education, training, and support. -Lady Mary Montagu says, “Only men and women at last.” “Male and female, -created he them,” says the Bible. There are cruel, graceful, beautiful -mothers of angelic Evas North as well as South, I dare say. The Northern -men and women who came here were always hardest, for they expected an -African to work and behave as a white man. We do not. - -I have often thought from observation truly that perfect beauty hardens -the heart, and as to grace, what so graceful as a cat, a tigress, or -a panther. Much love, admiration, worship hardens an idol’s heart. It -becomes utterly callous and selfish. It expects to receive all and to -give nothing. It even likes the excitement of seeing people suffer. I -speak now of what I have watched with horror and amazement. - -Topsys I have known, but none that were beaten or ill-used. Evas are -mostly in the heaven of Mrs. Stowe’s imagination. People can’t love -things dirty, ugly, and repulsive, simply because they ought to do so, -but they can be good to them at a distance; that’s easy. You see, I can -not rise very high; I can only judge by what I see. - -_March 14th._—Thank God for a ship! It has run the blockade with arms and -ammunition. - -There are no negro sexual relations half so shocking as Mormonism. And -yet the United States Government makes no bones of receiving Mormons -into its sacred heart. Mr. Venable said England held her hand over -“the malignant and the turbaned Turk” to save and protect him, slaves, -seraglio, and all. But she rolls up the whites of her eyes at us when -slavery, bad as it is, is stepping out into freedom every moment through -Christian civilization. They do not grudge the Turk even his bag and -Bosphorus privileges. To a recalcitrant wife it is, “Here yawns the -sack; there rolls the sea,” etc. And France, the bold, the brave, the -ever free, she has not been so tender-footed in Algiers. But then the -“you are another” argument is a shabby one. “You see,” says Mary Preston -sagaciously, “we are white Christian descendants of Huguenots and -Cavaliers, and they expect of us different conduct.” - -Went in Mrs. Preston’s landau to bring my boarding-school girls here -to dine. At my door met J. F., who wanted me then and there to promise -to help him with his commission or put him in the way of one. At the -carriage steps I was handed in by Gus Smith, who wants his brother made -commissary. The beauty of it all is they think I have some influence, and -I have not a particle. The subject of Mr. Chesnut’s military affairs, -promotions, etc., is never mentioned by me. - -_March 15th._—When we came home from Richmond, there stood Warren -Nelson, propped up against my door, lazily waiting for me, the handsome -creature. He said he meant to be heard, so I walked back with him to the -drawing-room. They are wasting their time dancing attendance on me. I -can not help them. Let them shoulder their musket and go to the wars like -men. - -After tea came “Mars Kit”—he said for a talk, but that Mr. Preston would -not let him have, for Mr. Preston had arrived some time before him. Mr. -Preston said “Mars Kit” thought it “bad form” to laugh. After that you -may be sure a laugh from “Mars Kit” was secured. Again and again, he was -forced to laugh with a will. I reversed Oliver Wendell Holmes’s good -resolution—never to be as funny as he could. I did my very utmost. - -Mr. Venable interrupted the fun, which was fast and furious, with -the very best of bad news! Newbern shelled and burned, cotton, -turpentine—everything. There were 5,000 North Carolinians in the fray, -12,000 Yankees. Now there stands Goldsboro. One more step and we are -cut in two. The railroad is our backbone, like the Blue Ridge and the -Alleghanies, with which it runs parallel. So many discomforts, no wonder -we are down-hearted. - -Mr. Venable thinks as we do—Garnett is our most thorough scholar; Lamar -the most original, and the cleverest of our men—L. Q. C. Lamar—time -fails me to write all his name. Then, there is R. M. T. Hunter. Muscoe -Russell Garnett and his Northern wife: that match was made at my house in -Washington when Garnett was a member of the United States Congress. - -_March 17th._—Back to the Congaree House to await my husband, who has -made a rapid visit to the Wateree region. As we drove up Mr. Chesnut -said: “Did you see the stare of respectful admiration E. R. bestowed upon -you, so curiously prolonged? I could hardly keep my countenance.” “Yes, -my dear child, I feel the honor of it, though my individual self goes -for nothing in it. I am the wife of the man who has the appointing power -just now, with so many commissions to be filled. I am nearly forty, and -they do my understanding the credit to suppose I can be made to believe -they admire my mature charms. They think they fool me into thinking that -they believe me charming. There is hardly any farce in the world more -laughable.” - -Last night a house was set on fire; last week two houses. “The red cock -crows in the barn!” Our troubles thicken, indeed, when treachery comes -from that dark quarter. - -When the President first offered Johnston Pettigrew a -brigadier-generalship, his answer was: “Not yet. Too many men are ahead -of me who have earned their promotion in the field. I will come after -them, not before. So far I have done nothing to merit reward,” etc. -He would not take rank when he could get it. I fancy he may cool his -heels now waiting for it. He was too high and mighty. There was another -conscientious man—Burnet, of Kentucky. He gave up his regiment to his -lieutenant-colonel when he found the lieutenant-colonel could command the -regiment and Burnet could not maneuver it in the field. He went into the -fight simply as an aide to Floyd. Modest merit just now is at a premium. - -William Gilmore Simms is here; read us his last poetry; have forgotten -already what it was about. It was not tiresome, however, and that is a -great thing when people will persist in reading their own rhymes. - -I did not hear what Mr. Preston was saying. “The last piece of Richmond -news,” Mr. Chesnut said as he went away, and he looked so fagged out I -asked no questions. I knew it was bad. - -At daylight there was a loud knocking at my door. I hurried on a -dressing-gown and flew to open the door. “Mrs. Chesnut, Mrs. M. says -please don’t forget her son. Mr. Chesnut, she hears, has come back. -Please get her son a commission. He must have an office.” I shut the -door in the servant’s face. If I had the influence these foolish people -attribute to me why should I not help my own? I have a brother, two -brothers-in-law, and no end of kin, all gentlemen privates, and privates -they would stay to the end of time before they said a word to me about -commissions. After a long talk we were finally disgusted and the men went -off to the bulletin-board. Whatever else it shows, good or bad, there -is always woe for some house in the killed and wounded. We have need of -stout hearts. I feel a sinking of mine as we drive near the board. - -_March 18th._—My war archon is beset for commissions, and somebody says -for every one given, you make one ingrate and a thousand enemies. - -As I entered Miss Mary Stark’s I whispered: “He has promised to vote -for Louis.” What radiant faces. To my friend, Miss Mary said, “Your -son-in-law, what is he doing for his country?” “He is a tax collector.” -Then spoke up the stout old girl: “Look at my cheek; it is red with -blushing for you. A great, hale, hearty young man! Fie on him! fie -on him! for shame! Tell his wife; run him out of the house with a -broomstick; send him down to the coast at least.” Fancy my cheeks. I -could not raise my eyes to the poor lady, so mercilessly assaulted. My -face was as hot with compassion as the outspoken Miss Mary pretended hers -to be with vicarious mortification. - -Went to see sweet and saintly Mrs. Bartow. She read us a letter from -Mississippi—not so bad: “More men there than the enemy suspected, and -torpedoes to blow up the wretches when they came.” Next to see Mrs. -Izard. She had with her a relative just from the North. This lady had -asked Seward for passports, and he told her to “hold on a while; the road -to South Carolina will soon be open to all, open and safe.” To-day Mrs. -Arthur Hayne heard from her daughter that Richmond is to be given up. -Mrs. Buell is her daughter. - -Met Mr. Chesnut, who said: “New Madrid[74] has been given up. I do not -know any more than the dead where New Madrid is. It is bad, all the same, -this giving up. I can’t stand it. The hemming-in process is nearly -complete. The ring of fire is almost unbroken.” - -Mr. Chesnut’s negroes offered to fight for him if he would arm them. -He pretended to believe them. He says one man can not do it. The whole -country must agree to it. He would trust such as he would select, and -he would give so many acres of land and his freedom to each one as he -enlisted. - -Mrs. Albert Rhett came for an office for her son John. I told her Mr. -Chesnut would never propose a kinsman for office, but if any one else -would bring him forward he would vote for him certainly, as he is so -eminently fit for position. Now he is a private. - -_March 19th._—He who runs may read. Conscription means that we are in a -tight place. This war was a volunteer business. To-morrow conscription -begins—the _dernier ressort_. The President has remodeled his Cabinet, -leaving Bragg for North Carolina. His War Minister is Randolph, -of Virginia. A Union man _par excellence_, Watts, of Alabama, is -Attorney-General. And now, too late by one year, when all the mechanics -are in the army, Mallory begins to telegraph Captain Ingraham to build -ships at any expense. We are locked in and can not get “the requisites -for naval architecture,” says a magniloquent person. - -Henry Frost says all hands wink at cotton going out. Why not send it -out and buy ships? “Every now and then there is a holocaust of cotton -burning,” says the magniloquent. Conscription has waked the Rip Van -Winkles. The streets of Columbia were never so crowded with men. To fight -and to be made to fight are different things. - -To my small wits, whenever people were persistent, united, and rose in -their might, no general, however great, succeeded in subjugating them. -Have we not swamps, forests, rivers, mountains—every natural barrier? -The Carthaginians begged for peace because they were a luxurious people -and could not endure the hardship of war, though the enemy suffered as -sharply as they did! “Factions among themselves” is the rock on which we -split. Now for the great soul who is to rise up and lead us. Why tarry -his footsteps? - -_March 20th._—The Merrimac is now called the Virginia. I think these -changes of names so confusing and so senseless. Like the French “Royal -Bengal Tiger,” “National Tiger,” etc. _Rue_ this, and next day _Rue_ -that, the very days and months a symbol, and nothing signified. - -I was lying on the sofa in my room, and two men slowly walking up -and down the corridor talked aloud as if necessarily all rooms were -unoccupied at this midday hour. I asked Maum Mary who they were. “Yeadon -and Barnwell Rhett, Jr.” They abused the Council roundly, and my -husband’s name arrested my attention. Afterward, when Yeadon attacked -Mr. Chesnut, Mr. Chesnut surprised him by knowing beforehand all he had -to say. Naturally I had repeated the loud interchange of views I had -overheard in the corridor. - -First, Nathan Davis called. Then Gonzales, who presented a fine, -soldierly appearance in his soldier clothes, and the likeness to -Beauregard was greater than ever. Nathan, all the world knows, is by -profession a handsome man. - -[Illustration: A GROUP OF CONFEDERATE WOMEN. - -MISS S. B. C. PRESTON. - -MISS ISABELLA D. MARTIN. - -MRS. JEFFERSON DAVIS. - -MRS. LOUISA S. McCORD. - -MRS. FRANCIS W. PICKENS. - -MRS. DAVID R. WILLIAMS. (The author’s sister, Kate.)] - -General Gonzales told us what in the bitterness of his soul he had -written to Jeff Davis. He regretted that he had not been his classmate; -then he might have been as well treated as Northrop. In any case he -would not have been refused a brigadiership, citing General Trapier and -Tom Drayton. He had worked for it, had earned it; they had not. To his -surprise, Mr. Davis answered him, and in a sharp note of four pages. Mr. -Davis demanded from whom he quoted, “not his classmate.” General Gonzales -responded, “from the public voice only.” Now he will fight for us all -the same, but go on demanding justice from Jeff Davis until he get his -dues—at least, until one of them gets his dues, for he means to go on -hitting Jeff Davis over the head whenever he has a chance. - -“I am afraid,” said I, “you will find it a hard head to crack.” He -replied in his flowery Spanish way: “Jeff Davis will be the sun, -radiating all light, heat, and patronage; he will not be a moon -reflecting public opinion, for he has the soul of a despot; he delights -to spite public opinion. See, people abused him for making Crittenden -brigadier. Straightway he made him major-general, and just after a -blundering, besotted defeat, too.” Also, he told the President in that -letter: “Napoleon made his generals after great deeds on their part, and -not for having been educated at St. Cyr, or Brie, or the Polytechnique,” -etc., etc. Nathan Davis sat as still as a Sioux warrior, not an eyelash -moved. And yet he said afterward that he was amused while the Spaniard -railed at his great namesake. - -Gonzales said: “Mrs. Slidell would proudly say that she was a Creole. -They were such fools, they thought Creole meant—” Here Nathan interrupted -pleasantly: “At the St. Charles, in New Orleans, on the bill of fare were -‘Creole eggs.’ When they were brought to a man who had ordered them, with -perfect simplicity, he held them up, ‘Why, they are only hens’ eggs, -after all.’ What in Heaven’s name he expected them to be, who can say?” -smiled Nathan the elegant. - -One lady says (as I sit reading in the drawing-room window while Maum -Mary puts my room to rights): “I clothe my negroes well. I could not bear -to see them in dirt and rags; it would be unpleasant to me.” Another -lady: “Yes. Well, so do I. But not fine clothes, you know. I feel—now—it -was one of our sins as a nation, the way we indulged them in sinful -finery. We will be punished for it.” - -Last night, Mrs. Pickens met General Cooper. Madam knew General Cooper -only as our adjutant-general, and Mr. Mason’s brother-in-law. In her -slow, graceful, impressive way, her beautiful eyes eloquent with -feeling, she inveighed against Mr. Davis’s wickedness in always sending -men born at the North to command at Charleston. General Cooper is on his -way to make a tour of inspection there now. The dear general settled his -head on his cravat with the aid of his forefinger; he tugged rather more -nervously with the something that is always wrong inside of his collar, -and looked straight up through his spectacles. Some one crossed the room, -stood back of Mrs. Pickens, and murmured in her ear, “General Cooper was -born in New York.” Sudden silence. - -Dined with General Cooper at the Prestons. General Hampton and Blanton -Duncan were there also; the latter a thoroughly free-and-easy Western -man, handsome and clever; more audacious than either, perhaps. He pointed -to Buck—Sally Buchanan Campbell Preston. “What’s that girl laughing -at?” Poor child, how amazed she looked. He bade them “not despair; all -the nice young men would not be killed in the war; there would be a few -left. For himself, he could give them no hope; Mrs. Duncan was uncommonly -healthy.” Mrs. Duncan is also lovely. We have seen her. - -_March 24th._—I was asked to the Tognos’ tea, so refused a drive with -Mary Preston. As I sat at my solitary casemate, waiting for the time to -come for the Tognos, saw Mrs. Preston’s landau pass, and Mr. Venable -making Mary laugh at some of his army stories, as only Mr. Venable can. -Already I felt that I had paid too much for my whistle—that is, the -Togno tea. The Gibbeses, Trenholms, Edmund Rhett, there. Edmund Rhett -has very fine eyes and makes fearful play with them. He sits silent and -motionless, with his hands on his knees, his head bent forward, and his -eyes fixed upon you. I could think of nothing like it but a setter and a -covey of partridges. - -As to President Davis, he sank to profounder deeps of abuse of him than -even Gonzales. I quoted Yancey: “A crew may not like their captain, but -if they are mad enough to mutiny while a storm is raging, all hands are -bound to go to the bottom.” After that I contented myself with a mild -shake of the head when I disagreed with him, and at last I began to shake -so persistently it amounted to incipient palsy. “Jeff Davis,” he said, -“is conceited, wrong-headed, wranglesome, obstinate—a traitor.” “Now I -have borne much in silence,” said I at last, “but that is pernicious -nonsense. Do not let us waste any more time listening to your quotations -from the Mercury.” - -He very good-naturedly changed the subject, which was easy just then, -for a delicious supper was on the table ready for us. But Doctor Gibbes -began anew the fighting. He helped me to some _pâté_—“Not _foie gras_,” -said Madame Togno, “_pâté perdreaux_.” Doctor Gibbes, however, gave it -a flavor of his own. “Eat it,” said he, “it is good for you; rich and -wholesome; healthy as cod-liver oil.” - -A queer thing happened. At the post-office a man saw a small boy open -with a key the box of the Governor and the Council, take the contents of -the box and run for his life. Of course, this man called to the urchin to -stop. The urchin did not heed, but seeing himself pursued, began tearing -up the letters and papers. He was caught and the fragments were picked -up. Finding himself a prisoner, he pointed out the negro who gave him the -key. The negro was arrested. - -Governor Pickens called to see me to-day. We began with Fort Sumter. For -an hour did we hammer at that fortress. We took it, gun by gun. He was -very pleasant and friendly in his manner. - -James Chesnut has been so nice this winter; so reasonable and -considerate—that is, for a man. The night I came from Madame Togno’s, -instead of making a row about the lateness of the hour, he said he was -“so wide awake and so hungry.” I put on my dressing-gown and scrambled -some eggs, etc., there on our own fire. And with our feet on the fender -and the small supper-table between us, we enjoyed the supper and glorious -gossip. Rather a pleasant state of things when one’s own husband is in -good humor and cleverer than all the men outside. - -This afternoon, the _entente cordiale_ still subsisting, Maum Mary -beckoned me out mysteriously, but Mr. Chesnut said: “Speak out, old -woman; nobody here but myself.” “Mars Nathum Davis wants to speak to -her,” said she. So I hurried off to the drawing-room, Maum Mary flapping -her down-at-the-heels shoes in my wake. “He’s gwine bekase somebody -done stole his boots. How could he stay bedout boots?” So Nathan said -good-by. Then we met General Gist, Maum Mary still hovering near, and -I congratulated him on being promoted. He is now a brigadier. This he -received with modest complaisance. “I knowed he was a general,” said Maum -Mary as he passed on, “he told me as soon as he got in his room befo’ his -boy put down his trunks.” - -As Nathan, the unlucky, said good-by, he informed me that a Mr. Reed from -Montgomery was in the drawing-room and wanted to see me. Mr. Reed had -traveled with our foreign envoy, Yancey. I was keen for news from abroad. -Mr. Reed settled that summarily. “Mr. Yancey says we need not have one -jot of hope. He could bowstring Mallory for not buying arms in time. The -very best citizens wanted to depose the State government and take things -into their own hands, the powers that be being inefficient. Western men -are hurrying to the front, bestirring themselves. In two more months we -shall be ready.” What could I do but laugh? I do hope the enemy will be -considerate and charitable enough to wait for us. - -Mr. Reed’s calm faith in the power of Mr. Yancey’s eloquence was -beautiful to see. He asked for Mr. Chesnut. I went back to our rooms, -swelling with news like a pouter pigeon. Mr. Chesnut said: “Well! four -hours—a call from Nathan Davis of four hours!” Men are too absurd! So I -bear the honors of my forty years gallantly. I can but laugh. “Mr. Nathan -Davis went by the five-o’clock train,” I said; “it is now about six or -seven, maybe eight. I have had so many visitors. Mr. Reed, of Alabama, is -asking for you out there.” He went without a word, but I doubt if he went -to see Mr. Reed, my laughing had made him so angry. - -At last Lincoln threatens us with a proclamation abolishing -slavery[75]—here in the free Southern Confederacy; and they say McClellan -is deposed. They want more fighting—I mean the government, whose skins -are safe, they want more fighting, and trust to luck for the skill of the -new generals. - -_March 28th._—I did leave with regret Maum Mary. She was such a good, -well-informed old thing. My Molly, though perfection otherwise, does -not receive the confidential communications of new-made generals at the -earliest moment. She is of very limited military information. Maum Mary -was the comfort of my life. She saved me from all trouble as far as she -could. Seventy, if she is a day, she is spry and active as a cat, of a -curiosity that knows no bounds, black and clean; also, she knows a joke -at first sight, and she is honest. I fancy the negroes are ashamed to rob -people as careless as James Chesnut and myself. - -One night, just before we left the Congaree House, Mr. Chesnut had -forgotten to tell some all-important thing to Governor Gist, who was -to leave on a public mission next day. So at the dawn of day he put on -his dressing-gown and went to the Governor’s room. He found the door -unlocked and the Governor fast asleep. He shook him. Half-asleep, the -Governor sprang up and threw his arms around Mr. Chesnut’s neck and -said: “Honey, is it you?” The mistake was rapidly set right, and the -bewildered plenipotentiary was given his instructions. Mr. Chesnut came -into my room, threw himself on the sofa, and nearly laughed himself to -extinction, imitating again and again the pathetic tone of the Governor’s -greeting. - -Mr. Chesnut calls Lawrence “Adolphe,” but says he is simply perfect as a -servant. Mary Stevens said: “I thought Cousin James the laziest man alive -until I knew his man, Lawrence.” Lawrence will not move an inch or lift -a finger for any one but his master. Mrs. Middleton politely sent him -on an errand; Lawrence, too, was very polite; hours after, she saw him -sitting on the fence of the front yard. “Didn’t you go?” she asked. “No, -ma’am. I am waiting for Mars Jeems.” Mrs. Middleton calls him now, “Mr. -Take-it-Easy.” - -My very last day’s experience at the Congaree. I was waiting for Mars -Jeems in the drawing-room when a lady there declared herself to be the -wife of an officer in Clingman’s regiment. A gentleman who seemed quite -friendly with her, told her all Mr. Chesnut said, thought, intended to -do, wrote, and _felt_. I asked: “Are you certain of all these things -you say of Colonel Chesnut?” The man hardly deigned to notice this -impertinent interruption from a stranger presuming to speak but who had -not been introduced! After he went out, the wife of Clingman’s officer -was seized with an intuitive curiosity. “Madam, will you tell me your -name?” I gave it, adding, “I dare say I showed myself an intelligent -listener when my husband’s affairs were under discussion.” At first, I -refused to give my name because it would have embarrassed her friend if -she had told him who I was. The man was Mr. Chesnut’s secretary, but I -had never seen him before. - -A letter from Kate says she had been up all night preparing David’s -things. Little Serena sat up and helped her mother. They did not know -that they would ever see him again. Upon reading it, I wept and James -Chesnut cursed the Yankees. - -Gave the girls a quantity of flannel for soldiers’ shirts; also a string -of pearls to be raffled for at the Gunboat Fair. Mary Witherspoon has -sent a silver tea-pot. We do not spare our precious things now. Our -silver and gold, what are they?—when we give up to war our beloved. - -_April 2d._—Dr. Trezevant, attending Mr. Chesnut, who was ill, came and -found his patient gone; he could not stand the news of that last battle. -He got up and dressed, weak as he was, and went forth to hear what he -could for himself. The doctor was angry with me for permitting this, and -more angry with him for such folly. I made him listen to the distinction -between feminine folly and virulent vagaries and nonsense. He said: “He -will certainly be salivated after all that calomel out in this damp -weather.” - -To-day, the ladies in their landaus were bitterly attacked by the morning -paper for lolling back in their silks and satins, with tall footmen in -livery, driving up and down the streets while the poor soldiers’ wives -were on the sidewalks. It is the old story of rich and poor! My little -barouche is not here, nor has James Chesnut any of his horses here, but -then I drive every day with Mrs. McCord and Mrs. Preston, either of whose -turnouts fills the bill. The Governor’s carriage, horses, servants, etc., -are splendid—just what they should be. Why not? - -_April 14th._—Our Fair is in full blast. We keep a restaurant. Our -waitresses are Mary and Buck Preston, Isabella Martin, and Grace Elmore. - -_April 15th._—Trescott is too clever ever to be a bore; that was proved -to-day, for he stayed two hours; as usual, Mr. Chesnut said “four.” -Trescott was very surly; calls himself ex-Secretary of State of the -United States; now, nothing in particular of South Carolina or the -Confederate States. Then he yawned, “What a bore this war is. I wish it -was ended, one way or another.” He speaks of going across the border and -taking service in Mexico. “Rubbish, not much Mexico for you,” I answered. -Another patriot came then and averred, “I will take my family back to -town, that we may all surrender together. I gave it up early in the -spring.” Trescott made a face behind backs, and said: “_Lache!_” - -The enemy have flanked Beauregard at Nashville. There is grief enough for -Albert Sidney Johnston now; we begin to see what we have lost. We were -pushing them into the river when General Johnston was wounded. Beauregard -was lying in his tent, at the rear, in a green sickness—melancholy—but no -matter what the name of the malady. He was too slow to move, and lost all -the advantage gained by our dead hero.[76] Without him there is no head -to our Western army. Pulaski has fallen. What more is there to fall? - -_April 15th._—Mrs. Middleton: “How did you settle Molly’s little -difficulty with Mrs. McMahan, that ‘piece of her mind’ that Molly gave -our landlady?” “Oh, paid our way out of it, of course, and I apologized -for Molly!” - -Gladden, the hero of the Palmettos in Mexico, is killed. Shiloh has been -a dreadful blow to us. Last winter Stephen, my brother, had it in his -power to do such a nice thing for Colonel Gladden. In the dark he heard -his name, also that he had to walk twenty-five miles in Alabama mud or go -on an ammunition wagon. So he introduced himself as a South Carolinian -to Colonel Gladden, whom he knew only by reputation as colonel of the -Palmetto regiment in the Mexican war. And they drove him in his carriage -comfortably to where he wanted to go—a night drive of fifty miles for -Stephen, for he had the return trip, too. I would rather live in Siberia, -worse still, in Sahara, than live in a country surrendered to Yankees. - -The Carolinian says the conscription bill passed by Congress is fatal to -our liberties as a people. Let us be a people “certain and sure,” as poor -Tom B. said, and then talk of rebelling against our home government. - -Sat up all night. Read Eothen straight through, our old Wiley and Putnam -edition that we bought in London in 1845. How could I sleep? The power -they are bringing to bear against our country is tremendous. Its weight -may be irresistible—I dare not think of that, however. - -_April 21st._—Have been ill. One day I dined at Mrs. Preston’s, _pâté -de foie gras_ and partridge prepared for me as I like them. I had been -awfully depressed for days and could not sleep at night for anxiety, but -I did not know that I was bodily ill. Mrs. Preston came home with me. -She said emphatically: “Molly, if your mistress is worse in the night -send for me instantly.” I thought it very odd. I could not breathe if I -attempted to lie down, and very soon I lost my voice. Molly raced out and -sent Lawrence for Doctor Trezevant. She said I had the croup. The doctor -said, “congestion of the lungs.” - -So here I am, stranded, laid by the heels. Battle after battle has -occurred, disaster after disaster. Every morning’s paper is enough to -kill a well woman and age a strong and hearty one. - -To-day, the waters of this stagnant pool were wildly stirred. The -President telegraphed for my husband to come on to Richmond, and offered -him a place on his staff. I was a joyful woman. It was a way opened by -Providence from this Slough of Despond, this Council whose counsel no -one takes. I wrote to Mr. Davis, “With thanks, and begging your pardon, -how I would like to go.” Mrs. Preston agrees with me, Mr. Chesnut ought -to go. Through Mr. Chesnut the President might hear many things to the -advantage of our State, etc. - -Letter from Quinton Washington. That was the best tonic yet. He writes -so cheerfully. We have fifty thousand men on the Peninsula and McClellan -eighty thousand. We expect that much disparity of numbers. We can stand -that. - -_April 23d._—On April 23, 1840, I was married, aged seventeen; -consequently on the 31st of March, 1862, I was thirty-nine. I saw a -wedding to-day from my window, which opens on Trinity Church. Nanna Shand -married a Doctor Wilson. Then, a beautiful bevy of girls rushed into my -room. Such a flutter and a chatter. Well, thank Heaven for a wedding. It -is a charming relief from the dismal litany of our daily song. - -A letter to-day from our octogenarian at Mulberry. His nephew, Jack Deas, -had two horses shot under him; the old Colonel has his growl, “That’s -enough for glory, and no hurt after all.” He ends, however, with his -never-failing refrain: We can’t fight all the world; two and two only -make four; it can’t make a thousand; numbers will not lie. He says he -has lost half a million already in railroad bonds, bank stock, Western -notes of hand, not to speak of negroes to be freed, and lands to be -confiscated, for he takes the gloomiest views of all things. - -_April 26th._—Doleful dumps, alarm-bells ringing. Telegrams say the -mortar fleet has passed the forts at New Orleans. Down into the very -depths of despair are we. - -_April 27th._—New Orleans gone[77] and with it the Confederacy. That -Mississippi ruins us if lost. The Confederacy has been done to death by -the politicians. What wonder we are lost. - -The soldiers have done their duty. All honor to the army. Statesmen as -busy as bees about their own places, or their personal honor, too busy -to see the enemy at a distance. With a microscope they were examining -their own interests, or their own wrongs, forgetting the interests of the -people they represented. They were concocting newspaper paragraphs to -injure the government. No matter how vital it may be, nothing can be kept -from the enemy. They must publish themselves, night and day, what they -are doing, or the omniscient Buncombe will forget them. - -This fall of New Orleans means utter ruin to the private fortunes of the -Prestons. Mr. Preston came from New Orleans so satisfied with Mansfield -Lovell and the tremendous steam-rams he saw there. While in New Orleans -Burnside offered Mr. Preston five hundred thousand dollars, a debt due to -him from Burnside, and he refused to take it. He said the money was safer -in Burnside’s hands than his. And so it may prove, so ugly is the outlook -now. Burnside is wide awake; he is not a man to be caught napping. - -Mary Preston was saying she had asked the Hamptons how they relished -the idea of being paupers. If the country is saved none of us will care -for that sort of thing. Philosophical and patriotic, Mr. Chesnut came -in, saying: “Conrad has been telegraphed from New Orleans that the -great iron-clad Louisiana went down at the first shot.” Mr. Chesnut and -Mary Preston walked off, first to the bulletin-board and then to the -Prestons’. - -_April 29th._—A grand smash, the news from New Orleans fatal to us. Met -Mr. Weston. He wanted to know where he could find a place of safety for -two hundred negroes. I looked into his face to see if he were in earnest; -then to see if he were sane. There was a certain set of two hundred -negroes that had grown to be a nuisance. Apparently all the white men of -the family had felt bound to stay at home to take care of them. There -are people who still believe negroes property—like Noah’s neighbors, who -insisted that the Deluge would only be a little shower after all. - -These negroes, however, were Plowden Weston’s, a totally different part -of speech. He gave field-rifles to one company and forty thousand dollars -to another. He is away with our army at Corinth. So I said: “You may rely -upon Mr. Chesnut, who will assist you to his uttermost in finding a home -for these people. Nothing belonging to that patriotic gentleman shall -come to grief if we have to take charge of them on our own place.” Mr. -Chesnut did get a place for them, as I said he would. - -Had to go to the Governor’s or they would think we had hoisted the -black flag. Heard there we are going to be beaten as Cortez beat the -Mexicans—by superior arms. Mexican bows and arrows made a poor showing in -the face of Spanish accoutrements. Our enemies have such superior weapons -of war, we hardly any but what we capture from them in the fray. The -Saxons and the Normans were in the same plight. - -War seems a game of chess, but we have an unequal number of pawns to -begin with. We have knights, kings, queens, bishops, and castles enough. -But our skilful generals, whenever they can not arrange the board to suit -them exactly, burn up everything and march away. We want them to save the -country. They seem to think their whole duty is to destroy ships and save -the army. - -Mr. Robert Barnwell wrote that he had to hang his head for South -Carolina. We had not furnished our quota of the new levy, five thousand -men. To-day Colonel Chesnut published his statement to show that we have -sent thirteen thousand, instead of the mere number required of us; so Mr. -Barnwell can hold up his head again. - -_April 30th._—The last day of this month of calamities. Lovell left the -women and children to be shelled, and took the army to a safe place. I -do not understand why we do not send the women and children to the safe -place and let the army stay where the fighting is to be. Armies are to -save, not to be saved. At least, to be saved is not their _raison d’être_ -exactly. If this goes on the spirit of our people will be broken. One ray -of comfort comes from Henry Marshall. “Our Army of the Peninsula is fine; -so good I do not think McClellan will venture to attack it.” So mote it -be. - -_May 6th._—Mine is a painful, self-imposed task: but why write when I -have nothing to chronicle but disaster?[78] So I read instead: First, -Consuelo, then Columba, two ends of the pole certainly, and then a -translated edition of Elective Affinities. Food enough for thought in -every one of this odd assortment of books. - -At the Prestons’, where I am staying (because Mr. Chesnut has gone to see -his crabbed old father, whom he loves, and who is reported ill), I met -Christopher Hampton. He tells us Wigfall is out on a war-path; wants them -to strike for Maryland. The President’s opinion of the move is not given. -Also Mr. Hampton met the first lieutenant of the Kirkwoods, E. M. Boykin. -Says he is just the same man he was in the South Carolina College. In -whatever company you may meet him, he is the pleasantest man there. - -A telegram reads: “We have repulsed the enemy at Williamsburg.”[79] Oh, -if we could drive them back “to their ain countree!” Richmond was hard -pressed this day. The Mercury of to-day says, “Jeff Davis now treats all -men as if they were idiotic insects.” - -Mary Preston said all sisters quarreled. No, we never quarrel, I and -mine. We keep all our bitter words for our enemies. We are frank -heathens; we hate our enemies and love our friends. Some people (our -kind) can never make up after a quarrel; hard words once only and -all is over. To us forgiveness is impossible. Forgiveness means calm -indifference; philosophy, while love lasts. Forgiveness of love’s -wrongs is impossible. Those dutiful wives who piously overlook—well, -everything—do not care one fig for their husbands. I settled that in my -own mind years ago. Some people think it magnanimous to praise their -enemies and to show their impartiality and justice by acknowledging the -faults of their friends. I am for the simple rule, the good old plan. I -praise whom I love and abuse whom I hate. - -Mary Preston has been translating Schiller aloud. We are provided with -Bulwer’s translation, Mrs. Austin’s, Coleridge’s, and Carlyle’s, and we -show how each renders the passage Mary is to convert into English. In -Wallenstein at one point of the Max and Thekla scene, I like Carlyle -better than Coleridge, though they say Coleridge’s Wallenstein is the -only translation in the world half so good as the original. Mrs. Barstow -repeated some beautiful scraps by Uhland, which I had never heard before. -She is to write them for us. Peace, and a literary leisure for my old -age, unbroken by care and anxiety! - -General Preston accused me of degenerating into a boarding-house gossip, -and is answered triumphantly by his daughters: “But, papa, one you love -to gossip with full well.” - -Hampton estate has fifteen hundred negroes on Lake Washington, -Mississippi. Hampton girls talking in the language of James’s novels: -“Neither Wade nor Preston—that splendid boy!—would lay a lance in -rest—or couch it, which is the right phrase for fighting, to preserve -slavery. They hate it as we do.” “What are they fighting for?” “Southern -rights—whatever that is. And they do not want to be understrappers -forever to the Yankees. They talk well enough about it, but I forget what -they say.” Johnny Chesnut says: “No use to give a reason—a fellow could -not stay away from the fight—not well.” It takes four negroes to wait on -Johnny satisfactorily. - - * * * * * - -It is this giving up that kills me. Norfolk they talk of now; why not -Charleston next? I read in a Western letter, “Not Beauregard, but the -soldiers who stopped to drink the whisky they had captured from the -enemy, lost us Shiloh.” Cock Robin is as dead as he ever will be now; -what matters it who killed him? - -_May 12th._—Mr. Chesnut says he is very glad he went to town. Everything -in Charleston is so much more satisfactory than it is reported. Troops -are in good spirits. It will take a lot of ironclads to take that city. - -Isaac Hayne said at dinner yesterday that both Beauregard and the -President had a great opinion of Mr. Chesnut’s natural ability for -strategy and military evolution. Hon. Mr. Barnwell concurred; that is, -Mr. Barnwell had been told so by the President. “Then why did not the -President offer me something better than an aideship?” “I heard he -offered to make you a general last year, and you said you could not go -over other men’s shoulders until you had earned promotion. You are too -hard to please.” “No, not exactly that, I was only offered a colonelcy, -and Mr. Barnwell persuaded me to stick to the Senate; then he wanted my -place, and between the two stools I fell to the ground.” - -My Molly will forget Lige and her babies, too. I asked her who sent me -that beautiful bouquet I found on my center-table. “I give it to you. -’Twas give to me.” And Molly was all wriggle, giggle, blush. - -_May 18th._—Norfolk has been burned and the Merrimac sunk without -striking a blow since her _coup d’état_ in Hampton Roads. Read Milton. -See the speech of Adam to Eve in a new light. Women will not stay at -home; will go out to see and be seen, even if it be by the devil himself. - -Very encouraging letters from Hon. Mr. Memminger and from L. Q. -Washington. They tell the same story in very different words. It amounts -to this: “Not one foot of Virginia soil is to be given up without a -bitter fight for it. We have one hundred and five thousand men in all, -McClellan one hundred and ninety thousand. We can stand that disparity.” - -What things I have been said to have said! Mr. —— heard me make scoffing -remarks about the Governor and the Council—or he thinks he heard me. -James Chesnut wrote him a note that my name was to be kept out of -it—indeed, that he was never to mention my name again under any possible -circumstances. It was all preposterous nonsense, but it annoyed my -husband amazingly. He said it was a scheme to use my chatter to his -injury. He was very kind about it. He knows my real style so well that he -can always tell my real impudence from what is fabricated for me. - -There is said to be an order from Butler[80] turning over the women -of New Orleans to his soldiers. Thus is the measure of his iniquities -filled. We thought that generals always restrained, by shot or sword if -need be, the brutality of soldiers. This hideous, cross-eyed beast orders -his men to treat the ladies of New Orleans as women of the town—to punish -them, he says, for their insolence. - -Footprints on the boundaries of another world once more. Willie Taylor, -before he left home for the army, fancied one day—_day_, remember—that -he saw Albert Rhett standing by his side. He recoiled from the ghostly -presence. “You need not do that, Willie. You will soon be as I am.” -Willie rushed into the next room to tell them what had happened, and -fainted. It had a very depressing effect upon him. And now the other day -he died in Virginia. - -_May 24th._—The enemy are landing at Georgetown. With a little more -audacity where could they not land? But we have given them such a scare, -they are cautious. If it be true, I hope some cool-headed white men will -make the negroes save the rice for us. It is so much needed. They say -it might have been done at Port Royal with a little more energy. South -Carolinians have pluck enough, but they only work by fits and starts; -there is no continuous effort; they can’t be counted on for steady work. -They will stop to play—or enjoy life in some shape. - -Without let or hindrance Halleck is being reenforced. Beauregard, -unmolested, was making some fine speeches—and issuing proclamations, -while we were fatuously looking for him to make a tiger’s spring on -Huntsville. Why not? Hope springs eternal in the Southern breast. - -My Hebrew friend, Mem Cohen, has a son in the war. He is in John -Chesnut’s company. Cohen is a high name among the Jews: it means Aaron. -She has long fits of silence, and is absent-minded. If she is suddenly -roused, she is apt to say, with overflowing eyes and clasped hands, “If -it please God to spare his life.” Her daughter is the sweetest little -thing. The son is the mother’s idol. Mrs. Cohen was Miriam de Leon. I -have known her intimately all my life. - -Mrs. Bartow, the widow of Colonel Bartow, who was killed at Manassas, -was Miss Berrien, daughter of Judge Berrien, of Georgia. She is now in -one of the departments here, cutting bonds—Confederate bonds—for five -hundred Confederate dollars a year, a penniless woman. Judge Carroll, her -brother-in-law, has been urgent with her to come and live in his home. -He has a large family and she will not be an added burden to him. In -spite of all he can say, she will not forego her resolution. She will be -independent. She is a resolute little woman, with the softest, silkiest -voice and ways, and clever to the last point. - -Columbia is the place for good living, pleasant people, pleasant dinners, -pleasant drives. I feel that I have put the dinners in the wrong place. -They are the climax of the good things here. This is the most hospitable -place in the world, and the dinners are worthy of it. - -In Washington, there was an endless succession of state dinners. I -was kindly used. I do not remember ever being condemned to two dull -neighbors: on one side or the other was a clever man; so I liked -Washington dinners. - -In Montgomery, there were a few dinners—Mrs. Pollard’s, for instance, -but the society was not smoothed down or in shape. Such as it was it -was given over to balls and suppers. In Charleston, Mr. Chesnut went to -gentlemen’s dinners all the time; no ladies present. Flowers were sent to -me, and I was taken to drive and asked to tea. There could not have been -nicer suppers, more perfect of their kind than were to be found at the -winding up of those festivities. - -In Richmond, there were balls, which I did not attend—very few to which -I was asked: the MacFarlands’ and Lyons’s, all I can remember. James -Chesnut dined out nearly every day. But then the breakfasts—the Virginia -breakfasts—where were always pleasant people. Indeed, I have had a good -time everywhere—always clever people, and people I liked, and everybody -so good to me. - -Here in Columbia, family dinners are the specialty. You call, or they -pick you up and drive home with you. “Oh, stay to dinner!” and you stay -gladly. They send for your husband, and he comes willingly. Then comes -a perfect dinner. You do not see how it could be improved; and yet they -have not had time to alter things or add because of the unexpected -guests. They have everything of the best—silver, glass, china, table -linen, and damask, etc. And then the planters live “within themselves,” -as they call it. From the plantations come mutton, beef, poultry, cream, -butter, eggs, fruits, and vegetables. - -It is easy to live here, with a cook who has been sent for training -to the best eating-house in Charleston. Old Mrs. Chesnut’s Romeo was -apprenticed at Jones’s. I do not know where Mrs. Preston’s got his -degree, but he deserves a medal. - -At the Prestons’, James Chesnut induced Buck to declaim something about -Joan of Arc, which she does in a manner to touch all hearts. While she -was speaking, my husband turned to a young gentleman who was listening to -the chatter of several girls, and said: “_Écoutez!_” The youth stared at -him a moment in bewilderment; then, gravely rose and began turning down -the gas. Isabella said: “_Écoutez_, then, means put out the lights.” - -I recall a scene which took place during a ball given by Mrs. Preston -while her husband was in Louisiana. Mrs. Preston was resplendent in -diamonds, point lace, and velvet. There is a gentle dignity about her -which is very attractive; her voice is low and sweet, and her will is -iron. She is exceedingly well informed, but very quiet, retiring, and -reserved. Indeed, her apparent gentleness almost amounts to timidity. She -has chiseled regularity of features, a majestic figure, perfectly molded. - -Governor Manning said to me: “Look at Sister Caroline. Does she look as -if she had the pluck of a heroine?” Then he related how a little while -ago William, the butler, came to tell her that John, the footman, was -drunk in the cellar—mad with drink; that he had a carving-knife which he -was brandishing in drunken fury, and he was keeping everybody from their -business, threatening to kill any one who dared to go into the basement. -They were like a flock of frightened sheep down there. She did not speak -to one of us, but followed William down to the basement, holding up -her skirts. She found the servants scurrying everywhere, screaming and -shouting that John was crazy and going to kill them. John was bellowing -like a bull of Bashan, knife in hand, chasing them at his pleasure. - -Mrs. Preston walked up to him. “Give me that knife,” she demanded. He -handed it to her. She laid it on the table. “Now come with me,” she -said, putting her hand on his collar. She led him away to the empty -smoke-house, and there she locked him in and put the key in her pocket. -Then she returned to her guests, without a ripple on her placid face. -“She told me of it, smiling and serene as you see her now,” the Governor -concluded. - -Before the war shut him in, General Preston sent to the lakes for his -salmon, to Mississippi for his venison, to the mountains for his mutton -and grouse. It is good enough, the best dish at all these houses, what -the Spanish call “the hearty welcome.” Thackeray says at every American -table he was first served with “grilled hostess.” At the head of the -table sat a person, fiery-faced, anxious, nervous, inwardly murmuring, -like Falstaff, “Would it were night, Hal, and all were well.” - -At Mulberry the house is always filled to overflowing, and one day is -curiously like another. People are coming and going, carriages driving -up or driving off. It has the air of a watering-place, where one does -not pay, and where there are no strangers. At Christmas the china closet -gives up its treasures. The glass, china, silver, fine linen reserved -for grand occasions come forth. As for the dinner itself, it is only a -matter of greater quantity—more turkey, more mutton, more partridges, -more fish, etc., and more solemn stiffness. Usually a half-dozen -persons unexpectedly dropping in make no difference. The family let the -housekeeper know; that is all. - -People are beginning to come here from Richmond. One swallow does not -make a summer, but it shows how the wind blows, these straws do—Mrs. -“Constitution” Browne and Mrs. Wise. The Gibsons are at Doctor Gibbes’s. -It does look squally. We are drifting on the breakers. - -_May 29th._—Betsey, recalcitrant maid of the W.’s, has been sold to a -telegraph man. She is as handsome as a mulatto ever gets to be, and -clever in every kind of work. My Molly thinks her mistress “very lucky in -getting rid of her.” She was “a dangerous inmate,” but she will be a good -cook, a good chambermaid, a good dairymaid, a beautiful clear-starcher, -and the most thoroughly good-for-nothing woman I know to her new owners, -if she chooses. Molly evidently hates her, but thinks it her duty “to -stand by her color.” - -Mrs. Gibson is a Philadelphia woman. She is true to her husband and -children, but she does not believe in us—the Confederacy, I mean. She is -despondent and hopeless; as wanting in faith of our ultimate success as -is Sally Baxter Hampton. I make allowances for those people. If I had -married North, they would have a heavy handful in me just now up there. - -Mrs. Chesnut, my mother-in-law, has been sixty years in the South, and -she has not changed in feeling or in taste one iota. She can not like -hominy for breakfast, or rice for dinner, without a relish to give -it some flavor. She can not eat watermelons and sweet potatoes _sans -discrétion_, as we do. She will not eat hot corn bread _à discrétion_, -and hot buttered biscuit without any. - -“Richmond is obliged to fall,” sighed Mrs. Gibson. “You would say so, -too, if you had seen our poor soldiers.” “Poor soldiers?” said I. “Are -you talking of Stonewall Jackson’s men? Poor soldiers, indeed!” She said -her mind was fixed on one point, and had ever been, though she married -and came South: she never would own slaves. “Who would that was not born -to it?” I cried, more excited than ever. She is very handsome, very -clever, and has very agreeable manners. - -“Dear madam,” she says, with tears in her beautiful eyes, “they have -three armies.” “But Stonewall has routed one of them already. Heath -another.” She only answered by an unbelieving moan. “Nothing seemed -to suit her,” I said, as we went away. “You did not certainly,” said -some one to me; “you contradicted every word she said, with a sort of -indignant protest.” - -We met Mrs. Hampton Gibbes at the door—another Virginia woman as good as -gold. They told us Mrs. Davis was delightfully situated at Raleigh; North -Carolinians so loyal, so hospitable; she had not been allowed to eat a -meal at the hotel. “How different from Columbia,” said Doctor Gibbes, -looking at Mrs. Gibson, who has no doubt been left to take all of her -meals at his house. “Oh, no!” cried Mary, “you do Columbia injustice. -Mrs. Chesnut used to tell us that she was never once turned over to the -tender mercies of the Congaree cuisine, and at McMahan’s it is fruit, -flowers, invitations to dinner every day.” - -After we came away, “Why did you not back me up?” I was asked. “Why did -you let them slander Columbia?” “It was awfully awkward,” I said, “but -you see it would have been worse to let Doctor Gibbes and Mrs. Gibson see -how different it was with other people.” - -Took a moonlight walk after tea at the Halcott Greens’. All the company -did honor to the beautiful night by walking home with me. - -Uncle Hamilton Boykin is here, staying at the de Saussures’. He says, -“Manassas was play to Williamsburg,” and he was at both battles. He -lead a part of Stuart’s cavalry in the charge at Williamsburg, riding a -hundred yards ahead of his company. - -Toombs is ready for another revolution, and curses freely everything -Confederate from the President down to a horse boy. He thinks there is a -conspiracy against him in the army. Why? Heavens and earth—why? - -_June 2d._—A battle[81] is said to be raging round Richmond. I am at the -Prestons’. James Chesnut has gone to Richmond suddenly on business of the -Military Department. It is always his luck to arrive in the nick of time -and be present at a great battle. - -Wade Hampton shot in the foot, and Johnston Pettigrew killed. A telegram -says Lee and Davis were both on the field: the enemy being repulsed. -Telegraph operator said: “Madam, our men are fighting.” “Of course they -are. What else is there for them to do now but fight?” “But, madam, the -news is encouraging.” Each army is burying its dead: that looks like a -drawn battle. We haunt the bulletin-board. - -Back to McMahan’s. Mem Cohen is ill. Her daughter, Isabel, warns me not -to mention the battle raging around Richmond. Young Cohen is in it. Mrs. -Preston, anxious and unhappy about her sons. John is with General Huger -at Richmond; Willie in the swamps on the coast with his company. Mem -tells me her cousin, Edwin de Leon, is sent by Mr. Davis on a mission to -England. - -Rev. Robert Barnwell has returned to the hospital. Oh, that we had given -our thousand dollars to the hospital and not to the gunboat! “Stonewall -Jackson’s movements,” the Herald says, “do us no harm; it is bringing -out volunteers in great numbers.” And a Philadelphia paper abused us so -fervently I felt all the blood in me rush to my head with rage. - -_June 3d._—Doctor John Cheves is making infernal machines in Charleston -to blow the Yankees up; pretty name they have, those machines. My horses, -the overseer says, are too poor to send over. There was corn enough on -the place for two years, they said, in January; now, in June, they write -that it will not last until the new crop comes in. Somebody is having a -good time on the plantation, if it be not my poor horses. - -Molly will tell me all when she comes back, and more. Mr. Venable has -been made an aide to General Robert E. Lee. He is at Vicksburg, and -writes, “When the fight is over here, I shall be glad to go to Virginia.” -He is in capital spirits. I notice army men all are when they write. - -_Apropos_ of calling Major Venable “Mr.” Let it be noted that in social -intercourse we are not prone to give handles to the names of those we -know well and of our nearest and dearest. A general’s wife thinks it bad -form to call her husband anything but “Mr.” When she gives him his title, -she simply “drops” into it by accident. If I am “mixed” on titles in this -diary, let no one blame me. - -Telegrams come from Richmond ordering troops from Charleston. Can not -be sent, for the Yankees are attacking Charleston, doubtless with the -purpose to prevent Lee’s receiving reenforcements from there. - -Sat down at my window in the beautiful moonlight, and tried hard -for pleasant thoughts. A man began to play on the flute, with piano -accompaniment, first, “Ever of thee I am fondly dreaming,” and then, “The -long, long, weary day.” At first, I found this but a complement to the -beautiful scene, and it was soothing to my wrought-up nerves. But Von -Weber’s “Last Waltz” was too much; I broke down. Heavens, what a bitter -cry came forth, with such floods of tears! the wonder is there was any of -me left. - -I learn that Richmond women go in their carriages for the wounded, carry -them home and nurse them. One saw a man too weak to hold his musket. She -took it from him, put it on her shoulder, and helped the poor fellow -along. - -If ever there was a man who could control every expression of emotion, -who could play stoic, or an Indian chief, it is James Chesnut. But one -day when he came in from the Council he had to own to a break-down. -He was awfully ashamed of his weakness. There was a letter from Mrs. -Gaillard asking him to help her, and he tried to read it to the Council. -She wanted a permit to go on to her son, who lies wounded in Virginia. -Colonel Chesnut could not control his voice. There was not a dry eye -there, when suddenly one man called out, “God bless the woman.” - -Johnston Pettigrew’s aide says he left his chief mortally wounded on the -battle-field. Just before Johnston Pettigrew went to Italy to take a hand -in the war there for freedom, I met him one day at Mrs. Frank Hampton’s. -A number of people were present. Some one spoke of the engagement of the -beautiful Miss —— to Hugh Rose. Some one else asked: “How do you know -they are engaged?” “Well, I never heard it, but I saw it. In London, a -month or so ago, I entered Mrs. ——’s drawing-room, and I saw these two -young people seated on a sofa opposite the door.” “Well, that amounted to -nothing.” “No, not in itself. But they looked so foolish and so happy. -I have noticed newly engaged people always look that way.” And so on. -Johnston Pettigrew was white and red in quick succession during this -turn of the conversation; he was in a rage of indignation and disgust. “I -think this kind of talk is taking a liberty with the young lady’s name,” -he exclaimed finally, “and that it is an impertinence in us.” I fancy him -left dying alone! I wonder what they feel—those who are left to die of -their wounds—alone—on the battle-field. - -Free schools are not everything, as witness this spelling. Yankee -epistles found in camp show how illiterate they can be, with all their -boasted schools. Fredericksburg is spelled “Fredrexbirg,” medicine, -“metison,” and we read, “To my sweat brother,” etc. For the first time in -my life no books can interest me. Life is so real, so utterly earnest, -that fiction is flat. Nothing but what is going on in this distracted -world of ours can arrest my attention for ten minutes at a time. - -_June 4th._—Battles occur near Richmond, with bombardment of Charleston. -Beauregard is said to be fighting his way out or in. - -Mrs. Gibson is here, at Doctor Gibbes’s. Tears are always in her eyes. -Her eldest son is Willie Preston’s lieutenant. They are down on the -coast. She owns that she has no hope at all. She was a Miss Ayer, of -Philadelphia, and says, “We may look for Burnside now, our troops which -held him down to his iron flotilla have been withdrawn. They are three -to one against us now, and they have hardly begun to put out their -strength—in numbers, I mean. We have come to the end of our tether, -except we wait for the yearly crop of boys as they grow up to the -requisite age.” She would make despondent the most sanguine person alive. -“As a general rule,” says Mrs. Gibson, “government people are sanguine, -but the son of one high functionary whispered to Mary G., as he handed -her into the car, ‘Richmond is bound to go.’” The idea now is that we are -to be starved out. If they shut us in, prolong the agony, it can then -have but one end. - -Mrs. Preston and I speak in whispers, but Mrs. McCord scorns whispers, -and speaks out. She says: “There are our soldiers. Since the world began -there never were better, but God does not deign to send us a general -worthy of them. I do not mean drill-sergeants or military old maids, -who will not fight until everything is just so. The real ammunition of -our war is faith in ourselves and enthusiasm in our cause. West Point -sits down on enthusiasm, laughs it to scorn. It wants discipline. And -now comes a new danger, these blockade-runners. They are filling their -pockets and they gibe and sneer at the fools who fight. Don’t you see -this Stonewall, how he fires the soldiers’ hearts; he will be our leader, -maybe after all. They say he does not care how many are killed. His -business is to save the country, not the army. He fights to win, God -bless him, and he wins. If they do not want to be killed, they can stay -at home. They say he leaves the sick and wounded to be cared for by those -whose business it is to do so. His business is war. They say he wants to -hoist the black flag, have a short, sharp, decisive war and end it. He is -a Christian soldier.” - -_June 5th._—Beauregard retreating and his rear-guard cut off. If -Beauregard’s veterans will not stand, why should we expect our newly -levied reserves to do it? The Yankee general who is besieging Savannah -announces his orders are “to take Savannah in two weeks’ time, and then -proceed to erase Charleston from the face of the earth.” - -Albert Luryea was killed in the battle of June 1st. Last summer when a -bomb fell in the very thick of his company he picked it up and threw -it into the water. Think of that, those of ye who love life! The -company sent the bomb to his father. Inscribed on it were the words, -“Albert Luryea, bravest where all are brave.” Isaac Hayne did the same -thing at Fort Moultrie. This race has brains enough, but they are not -active-minded like those old Revolutionary characters, the Middletons, -Lowndeses, Rutledges, Marions, Sumters. They have come direct from -active-minded fore-fathers, or they would not have been here; but, with -two or three generations of gentlemen planters, how changed has the -blood become! Of late, all the active-minded men who have sprung to -the front in our government were immediate descendants of Scotch, or -Scotch-Irish—Calhoun, McDuffie, Cheves, and Petigru, who Huguenotted his -name, but could not tie up his Irish. Our planters are nice fellows, but -slow to move; impulsive but hard to keep moving. They are wonderful for a -spurt, but with all their strength, they like to rest. - -_June 6th._—Paul Hayne, the poet, has taken rooms here. My husband came -and offered to buy me a pair of horses. He says I need more exercise in -the open air. “Come, now, are you providing me with the means of a rapid -retreat?” said I. “I am pretty badly equipped for marching.” - -Mrs. Rose Greenhow is in Richmond. One-half of the ungrateful -Confederates say Seward sent her. My husband says the Confederacy owes -her a debt it can never pay. She warned them at Manassas, and so they -got Joe Johnston and his Paladins to appear upon the stage in the very -nick of time. In Washington they said Lord Napier left her a legacy to -the British Legation, which accepted the gift, unlike the British nation, -who would not accept Emma Hamilton and her daughter, Horatia, though they -were willed to the nation by Lord Nelson. - -Mem Cohen, fresh from the hospital where she went with a beautiful Jewish -friend. Rachel, as we will call her (be it her name or no), was put to -feed a very weak patient. Mem noticed what a handsome fellow he was and -how quiet and clean. She fancied by those tokens that he was a gentleman. -In performance of her duties, the lovely young nurse leaned kindly over -him and held the cup to his lips. When that ceremony was over and she -had wiped his mouth, to her horror she felt a pair of by no means weak -arms around her neck and a kiss upon her lips, which she thought strong, -indeed. She did not say a word; she made no complaint. She slipped away -from the hospital, and hereafter in her hospital work will minister at -long range, no matter how weak and weary, sick and sore, the patient may -be. “And,” said Mem, “I thought he was a gentleman.” “Well, a gentleman -is a man, after all, and she ought not to have put those red lips of hers -so near.” - -_June 7th._—Cheves McCord’s battery on the coast has three guns and one -hundred men. If this battery should be captured John’s Island and James -Island would be open to the enemy, and so Charleston exposed utterly. - -Wade Hampton writes to his wife that Chickahominy was not as decided a -victory as he could have wished. Fort Pillow and Memphis[82] have been -given up. Next! and next! - -_June 9th._—When we read of the battles in India, in Italy, in the -Crimea, what did we care? Only an interesting topic, like any other, -to look for in the paper. Now you hear of a battle with a thrill and a -shudder. It has come home to us; half the people that we know in the -world are under the enemy’s guns. A telegram reaches you, and you leave -it on your lap. You are pale with fright. You handle it, or you dread to -touch it, as you would a rattlesnake; worse, worse, a snake could only -strike you. How many, many will this scrap of paper tell you have gone to -their death? - -When you meet people, sad and sorrowful is the greeting; they press your -hand; tears stand in their eyes or roll down their cheeks, as they happen -to possess more or less self-control. They have brother, father, or sons -as the case may be, in battle. And now this thing seems never to stop. We -have no breathing time given us. It can not be so at the North, for the -papers say gentlemen do not go into the ranks there, but are officers, or -clerks of departments. Then we see so many members of foreign regiments -among our prisoners—Germans, Irish, Scotch. The proportion of trouble is -awfully against us. Every company on the field, rank and file, is filled -with our nearest and dearest, who are common soldiers. - -Mem Cohen’s story to-day. A woman she knew heard her son was killed, and -had hardly taken in the horror of it when they came to say it was all a -mistake in the name. She fell on her knees with a shout of joy. “Praise -the Lord, O my soul!” she cried, in her wild delight. The household was -totally upset, the swing-back of the pendulum from the scene of weeping -and wailing of a few moments before was very exciting. In the midst of -this hubbub the hearse drove up with the poor boy in his metallic coffin. -Does anybody wonder so many women die? Grief and constant anxiety kill -nearly as many women at home as men are killed on the battle-field. Mem’s -friend is at the point of death with brain fever; the sudden changes from -grief to joy and joy to grief were more than she could bear. - -A story from New Orleans. As some Yankees passed two boys playing in the -street, one of the boys threw a handful of burned cotton at them, saying, -“I keep this for you.” The other, not to be outdone, spit at the Yankees, -and said, “I keep this for you.” The Yankees marked the house. Afterward, -a corporal’s guard came. Madam was affably conversing with a friend, and -in vain, the friend, who was a mere morning caller, protested he was not -the master of the house; he was marched off to prison. - -Mr. Moise got his money out of New Orleans. He went to a station with his -two sons, who were quite small boys. When he got there, the carriage that -he expected was not to be seen. He had brought no money with him, knowing -he might be searched. Some friend called out, “I will lend you my horse, -but then you will be obliged to leave the children.” This offer was -accepted, and, as he rode off, one of the boys called out, “Papa, here is -your tobacco, which you have forgotten.” Mr. Moise turned back and the -boy handed up a roll of tobacco, which he had held openly in his hand all -the time. Mr. Moise took it, and galloped off, waving his hat to them. In -that roll of tobacco was encased twenty-five thousand dollars. - -Now, the Mississippi is virtually open to the Yankees. Beauregard has -evacuated Corinth.[83] - -Henry Nott was killed at Shiloh; Mrs. Auzé wrote to tell us. She had no -hope. To be conquered and ruined had always been her fate, strive as she -might, and now she knew it would be through her country that she would be -made to feel. She had had more than most women to endure, and the battle -of life she had tried to fight with courage, patience, faith. Long years -ago, when she was young, her lover died. Afterward, she married another. -Then her husband died, and next her only son. When New Orleans fell, her -only daughter was there and Mrs. Auzé went to her. Well may she say that -she has bravely borne her burden till now.[84] - -Stonewall said, in his quaint way: “I like strong drink, so I never touch -it.” May heaven, who sent him to help us, save him from all harm! - -My husband traced Stonewall’s triumphal career on the map. He has -defeated Frémont and taken all his cannon; now he is after Shields. -The language of the telegram is vague: “Stonewall has taken plenty of -prisoners”—plenty, no doubt, and enough and to spare. We can’t feed our -own soldiers, and how are we to feed prisoners? - -They denounce Toombs in some Georgia paper, which I saw to-day, for -planting a full crop of cotton. They say he ought to plant provisions for -soldiers. - -And now every man in Virginia, and the eastern part of South Carolina is -in revolt, because old men and boys are ordered out as a reserve corps, -and worst of all, sacred property, that is, negroes, have been seized and -sent out to work on the fortifications along the coast line. We are in a -fine condition to fortify Columbia! - -_June 10th._—General Gregg writes that Chickahominy[85] was a victory -_manqué_, because Joe Johnston received a disabling wound and G. W. Smith -was ill. The subordinates in command had not been made acquainted with -the plan of battle. - -A letter from John Chesnut, who says it must be all a mistake about Wade -Hampton’s wound, for he saw him in the field to the very last; that is, -until late that night. Hampton writes to Mary McDuffie that the ball -was extracted from his foot on the field, and that he was in the saddle -all day, but that, when he tried to take his boot off at night his foot -was so inflamed and swollen, the boot had to be cut away, and the wound -became more troublesome than he had expected. - -Mrs. Preston sent her carriage to take us to see Mrs. Herbemont, whom -Mary Gibson calls her “Mrs. Burgamot.” Miss Bay came down, ever-blooming, -in a cap so formidable, I could but laugh. It was covered with a -bristling row of white satin spikes. She coyly refused to enter Mrs. -Preston’s carriage—“to put foot into it,” to use her own words; but she -allowed herself to be overpersuaded. - -I am so ill. Mrs. Ben Taylor said to Doctor Trezevant, “Surely, she is -too ill to be going about; she ought to be in bed.” “She is very feeble, -very nervous, as you say, but then she is living on nervous excitement. -If you shut her up she would die at once.” A queer weakness of the -heart, I have. Sometimes it beats so feebly I am sure it has stopped -altogether. Then they say I have fainted, but I never lose consciousness. - -Mrs. Preston and I were talking of negroes and cows. A negro, no matter -how sensible he is on any other subject, can never be convinced that -there is any necessity to feed a cow. “Turn ’em out, and let ’em grass. -Grass good nuff for cow.” - -Famous news comes from Richmond, but not so good from the coast. Mrs. -Izard said, quoting I forget whom: “If West Point could give brains -as well as training!” Smith is under arrest for disobedience of -orders—Pemberton’s orders. This is the third general whom Pemberton has -displaced within a few weeks—Ripley, Mercer, and now Smith. - -When I told my husband that Molly was full of airs since her late trip -home, he made answer: “Tell her to go to the devil—she or anybody else -on the plantation who is dissatisfied; let them go. It is bother enough -to feed and clothe them now.” When he went over to the plantation he -returned charmed with their loyalty to him, their affection and their -faithfulness. - -Sixteen more Yankee regiments have landed on James Island. Eason writes, -“They have twice the energy and enterprise of our people.” I answered, -“Wait a while. Let them alone until climate and mosquitoes and sand-flies -and dealing with negroes takes it all out of them.” Stonewall is a -regular brick, going all the time, winning his way wherever he goes. -Governor Pickens called to see me. His wife is in great trouble, anxiety, -uncertainty. Her brother and her brother-in-law are either killed or -taken prisoners. - -Tom Taylor says Wade Hampton did not leave the field on account of his -wound. “What heroism!” said some one. No, what luck! He is the luckiest -man alive. He’ll never be killed. He was shot in the temple, but that -did not kill him. His soldiers believe in his luck. - -General Scott, on Southern soldiers, says, we have _élan_, courage, -woodcraft, consummate horsemanship, endurance of pain equal to the -Indians, but that we will not submit to discipline. We will not take -care of things, or husband our resources. Where we are there is waste -and destruction. If it could all be done by one wild, desperate dash, we -would do it. But he does not think we can stand the long, blank months -between the acts—the waiting! We can bear pain without a murmur, but we -will not submit to be bored, etc. - -Now, for the other side. Men of the North can wait; they can bear -discipline; they can endure forever. Losses in battle are nothing to -them. Their resources in men and materials of war are inexhaustible, -and if they see fit they will fight to the bitter end. Here is a nice -prospect for us—as comfortable as the old man’s croak at Mulberry, “Bad -times, worse coming.” - -Mrs. McCord says, “In the hospital the better born, that is, those born -in the purple, the gentry, those who are accustomed to a life of luxury, -are the better patients. They endure in silence. They are hardier, -stronger, tougher, less liable to break down than the sons of the soil.” -“Why is that?” I asked, and she answered, “Something in man that is more -than the body.” - -I know how it feels to die. I have felt it again and again. For instance, -some one calls out, “Albert Sidney Johnston is killed.” My heart stands -still. I feel no more. I am, for so many seconds, so many minutes, I know -not how long, utterly without sensation of any kind—dead; and then, there -is that great throb, that keen agony of physical pain, and the works are -wound up again. The ticking of the clock begins, and I take up the burden -of life once more. Some day it will stop too long, or my feeble heart -will be too worn out to make that awakening jar, and all will be over. -I do not think when the end comes that there will be any difference, -except the miracle of the new wind-up throb. And now good news is just as -exciting as bad. “Hurrah, Stonewall has saved us!” The pleasure is almost -pain because of my way of feeling it. - -Miriam’s Luryea and the coincidences of his life. He was born Moses, and -is the hero of the bombshell. His mother was at a hotel in Charleston -when kind-hearted Anna De Leon Moses went for her sister-in-law, and -gave up her own chamber, that the child might be born in the comfort -and privacy of a home. Only our people are given to such excessive -hospitality. So little Luryea was born in Anna De Leon’s chamber. After -Chickahominy when he, now a man, lay mortally wounded, Anna Moses, who -was living in Richmond, found him, and she brought him home, though her -house was crowded to the door-steps. She gave up her chamber to him, and -so, as he had been born in her room, in her room he died. - -_June 12th._—New England’s Butler, best known to us as “Beast” Butler, is -famous or infamous now. His amazing order to his soldiers at New Orleans -and comments on it are in everybody’s mouth. We hardly expected from -Massachusetts behavior to shame a Comanche. - -One happy moment has come into Mrs. Preston’s life. I watched her face -to-day as she read the morning papers. Willie’s battery is lauded to the -skies. Every paper gave him a paragraph of praise. - -South Carolina was at Beauregard’s feet after Fort Sumter. Since Shiloh, -she has gotten up, and looks askance rather when his name is mentioned. -And without Price or Beauregard who takes charge of the Western forces? -“Can we hold out if England and France hold off?” cries Mem. “No, our -time has come.” - -“For shame, faint heart! Our people are brave, our cause is just; our -spirit and our patient endurance beyond reproach.” Here came in Mary -Cantey’s voice: “I may not have any logic, any sense. I give it up. My -woman’s instinct tells me, all the same, that slavery’s time has come. -If we don’t end it, they will.” - -After all this, tried to read Uncle Tom, but could not; too sickening; -think of a man sending his little son to beat a human being tied to a -tree. It is as bad as Squeers beating Smike. Flesh and blood revolt; you -must skip that; it is too bad. - -Mr. Preston told a story of Joe Johnston as a boy. A party of boys at -Abingdon were out on a spree, more boys than horses; so Joe Johnston rode -behind John Preston, who is his cousin. While going over the mountains -they tried to change horses and got behind a servant who was in charge of -them all. The servant’s horse kicked up, threw Joe Johnston, and broke -his leg; a bone showed itself. “Hello, boys! come here and look: the -confounded bone has come clear through,” called out Joe, coolly. - -They had to carry him on their shoulders, relieving guard. As one party -grew tired, another took him up. They knew he must suffer fearfully, but -he never said so. He was as cool and quiet after his hurt as before. -He was pretty roughly handled, but they could not help it. His father -was in a towering rage because his son’s leg was to be set by a country -doctor, and it might be crooked in the process. At Chickahominy, brave -but unlucky Joe had already eleven wounds. - -_June 13th._—Decca’s wedding. It took place last year. We were all lying -on the bed or sofas taking it coolly as to undress. Mrs. Singleton had -the floor. They were engaged before they went up to Charlottesville; -Alexander was on Gregg’s staff, and Gregg was not hard on him; Decca was -the worst in love girl she ever saw. “Letters came while we were at the -hospital, from Alex, urging her to let him marry her at once. In war -times human events, life especially, are very uncertain. - -“For several days consecutively she cried without ceasing, and then she -consented. The rooms at the hospital were all crowded. Decca and I slept -together in the same room. It was arranged by letter that the marriage -should take place; a luncheon at her grandfather Minor’s, and then she -was to depart with Alex for a few days at Richmond. That was to be their -brief slice of honeymoon. - -“The day came. The wedding-breakfast was ready, so was the bride in -all her bridal array; but no Alex, no bridegroom. Alas! such is the -uncertainty of a soldier’s life. The bride said nothing, but she wept -like a water-nymph. At dinner she plucked up heart, and at my earnest -request was about to join us. And then the cry, ‘The bridegroom cometh.’ -He brought his best man and other friends. We had a jolly dinner. -‘Circumstances over which he had no control’ had kept him away. - -“His father sat next to Decca and talked to her all the time as if she -had been already married. It was a piece of absent-mindedness on his -part, pure and simple, but it was very trying, and the girl had had much -to stand that morning, you can well understand. Immediately after dinner -the belated bridegroom proposed a walk; so they went for a brief stroll -up the mountain. Decca, upon her return, said to me: ‘Send for Robert -Barnwell. I mean to be married to-day.’ - -“‘Impossible. No spare room in the house. No getting away from here; the -trains all gone. Don’t you know this hospital place is crammed to the -ceiling?’ ‘Alex says I promised to marry him to-day. It is not his fault; -he could not come before.’ I shook my head. ‘I don’t care,’ said the -positive little thing, ‘I promised Alex to marry him to-day and I will. -Send for the Rev. Robert Barnwell.’ We found Robert after a world of -trouble, and the bride, lovely in Swiss muslin, was married. - -“Then I proposed they should take another walk, and I went to one of my -sister nurses and begged her to take me in for the night, as I wished to -resign my room to the young couple. At daylight next day they took the -train for Richmond.” Such is the small allowance of honeymoon permitted -in war time. - -Beauregard’s telegram: he can not leave the army of the West. His health -is bad. No doubt the sea breezes would restore him, but—he can not come -now. Such a lovely name—Gustave Tautant Beauregard. But Jackson and -Johnston and Smith and Jones will do—and Lee, how short and sweet. - -“Every day,” says Mem, “they come here in shoals—men to say we can not -hold Richmond, and we can not hold Charleston much longer. Wretches, -beasts! Why do you come here? Why don’t you stay there and fight? Don’t -you see that you own yourselves cowards by coming away in the very face -of a battle? If you are not liars as to the danger, you are cowards to -run away from it.” Thus roars the practical Mem, growing more furious at -each word. These Jeremiahs laugh. They think she means others, not the -present company. - -Tom Huger resigned his place in the United States Navy and came to us. -The Iroquois was his ship in the old navy. They say, as he stood in the -rigging, after he was shot in the leg, when his ship was leading the -attack upon the Iroquois, his old crew in the Iroquois cheered him, and -when his body was borne in, the Federals took off their caps in respect -for his gallant conduct. When he was dying, Meta Huger said to him: “An -officer wants to see you: he is one of the enemy.” “Let him come in; I -have no enemies now.” But when he heard the man’s name: - -“No, no. I do not want to see a Southern man who is now in Lincoln’s -navy.” The officers of the United States Navy attended his funeral. - -_June 14th._—All things are against us. Memphis gone. Mississippi fleet -annihilated, and we hear it all as stolidly apathetic as if it were a -story of the English war against China which happened a year or so ago. - -The sons of Mrs. John Julius Pringle have come. They were left at -school in the North. A young Huger is with them. They seem to have had -adventures enough. Walked, waded, rowed in boats, if boats they could -find; swam rivers when boats there were none; brave lads are they. One -can but admire their pluck and energy. Mrs. Fisher, of Philadelphia, -_née_ Middleton, gave them money to make the attempt to get home. - -Stuart’s cavalry have rushed through McClellan’s lines and burned five of -his transports. Jackson has been reenforced by 16,000 men, and they hope -the enemy will be drawn from around Richmond, and the valley be the seat -of war. - -John Chesnut is in Whiting’s brigade, which has been sent to Stonewall. -Mem’s son is with the Boykin Rangers; Company A, No. 1, we call it. -And she has persistently wept ever since she heard the news. It is no -child’s play, she says, when you are with Stonewall. He doesn’t play at -soldiering. He doesn’t take care of his men at all. He only goes to kill -the Yankees. - -Wade Hampton is here, shot in the foot, but he knows no more about France -than he does of the man in the moon. Wet blanket he is just now. Johnston -badly wounded. Lee is King of Spades. They are all once more digging for -dear life. Unless we can reenforce Stonewall, the game is up. Our chiefs -contrive to dampen and destroy the enthusiasm of all who go near them. So -much entrenching and falling back destroys the _morale_ of any army. This -everlasting retreating, it kills the hearts of the men. Then we are scant -of powder. - -James Chesnut is awfully proud of Le Conte’s powder manufactory here. Le -Conte knows how to do it. James Chesnut provides him the means to carry -out his plans. - -Colonel Venable doesn’t mince matters: “If we do not deal a blow, a blow -that will be felt, it will be soon all up with us. The Southwest will be -lost to us. We can not afford to shilly-shally much longer.” - -Thousands are enlisting on the other side in New Orleans. Butler holds -out inducements. To be sure, they are principally foreigners who want to -escape starvation. Tennessee we may count on as gone, since we abandoned -her at Corinth, Fort Pillow, and Memphis. A man must be sent there, or it -is all gone now. - -“You call a spade by that name, it seems, and not an agricultural -implement?” “They call Mars Robert ‘Old Spade Lee.’ He keeps them digging -so.” “General Lee is a noble Virginian. Respect something in this world. -Cæsar—call him Old Spade Cæsar? As a soldier, he was as much above -suspicion, as he required his wife to be, as Cæsar’s wife, you know. If -I remember Cæsar’s Commentaries, he owns up to a lot of entrenching. You -let Mars Robert alone. He knows what he is about.” - -“Tell us of the women folk at New Orleans; how did they take the fall of -the city?” “They are an excitable race,” the man from that city said. As -my informant was standing on the levee a daintily dressed lady picked her -way, parasol in hand, toward him. She accosted him with great politeness, -and her face was as placid and unmoved as in antebellum days. Her first -question was: “Will you be so kind as to tell me what is the last general -order?” “No order that I know of, madam; General Disorder prevails now.” -“Ah! I see; and why are those persons flying and yelling so noisily -and racing in the streets in that unseemly way?” “They are looking for -a shell to burst over their heads at any moment.” “Ah!” Then, with a -courtesy of dignity and grace, she waved her parasol and departed, but -stopped to arrange that parasol at a proper angle to protect her face -from the sun. There was no vulgar haste in her movements. She tripped -away as gracefully as she came. My informant had failed to discompose her -by his fearful revelations. That was the one self-possessed soul then in -New Orleans. - -Another woman drew near, so overheated and out of breath, she had -barely time to say she had run miles of squares in her crazy terror and -bewilderment, when a sudden shower came up. In a second she was cool and -calm. She forgot all the questions she came to ask. “My bonnet, I must -save it at any sacrifice,” she said, and so turned her dress over her -head, and went off, forgetting her country’s trouble and screaming for a -cab. - -Went to see Mrs. Burroughs at the old de Saussure house. She has such a -sweet face, such soft, kind, beautiful, dark-gray eyes. Such eyes are -a poem. No wonder she had a long love-story. We sat in the piazza at -twelve o’clock of a June day, the glorious Southern sun shining its very -hottest. But we were in a dense shade—magnolias in full bloom, ivy, vines -of I know not what, and roses in profusion closed us in. It was a living -wall of everything beautiful and sweet. In all this flower-garden of a -Columbia, that is the most delicious corner I have been in yet. - -Got from the Prestons’ French library, Fanny, with a brilliant preface by -Jules Janier. Now, then, I have come to the worst. There can be no worse -book than Fanny. The lover is jealous of the husband. The woman is for -the polyandry rule of life. She cheats both and refuses to break with -either. But to criticize it one must be as shameless as the book itself. -Of course, it is clever to the last degree, or it would be kicked into -the gutter. It is not nastier or coarser than Mrs. Stowe, but then it is -not written in the interests of philanthropy. - -We had an unexpected dinner-party to-day. First, Wade Hampton came and -his wife. Then Mr. and Mrs. Rose. I remember that the late Colonel -Hampton once said to me, a thing I thought odd at the time, “Mrs. James -Rose” (and I forget now who was the other) “are the only two people on -this side of the water who know how to give a state dinner.” Mr. and Mrs. -James Rose: if anybody wishes to describe old Carolina at its best, let -them try their hands at painting these two people. - -Wade Hampton still limps a little, but he is rapidly recovering. Here -is what he said, and he has fought so well that he is listened to: “If -we mean to play at war, as we play a game of chess, West Point tactics -prevailing, we are sure to lose the game. They have every advantage. -They can lose pawns _ad infinitum_, to the end of time and never feel -it. We will be throwing away all that we had hoped so much from—Southern -hot-headed dash, reckless gallantry, spirit of adventure, readiness to -lead forlorn hopes.” - -Mrs. Rose is Miss Sarah Parker’s aunt. Somehow it came out when I was -not in the room, but those girls tell me everything. It seems Miss Sarah -said: “The reason I can not bear Mrs. Chesnut is that she laughs at -everything and at everybody.” If she saw me now she would give me credit -for some pretty hearty crying as well as laughing. It was a mortifying -thing to hear about one’s self, all the same. - -General Preston came in and announced that Mr. Chesnut was in town. He -had just seen Mr. Alfred Huger, who came up on the Charleston train with -him. Then Mrs. McCord came and offered to take me back to Mrs. McMahan’s -to look him up. I found my room locked up. Lawrence said his master had -gone to look for me at the Prestons’. - -Mrs. McCord proposed we should further seek for my errant husband. At the -door, we met Governor Pickens, who showed us telegrams from the President -of the most important nature. The Governor added, “And I have one from -Jeems Chesnut, but I hear he has followed it so closely, coming on its -heels, as it were, that I need not show you that one.” - -“You don’t look interested at the sound of your husband’s name?” said he. -“Is that his name?” asked I. “I supposed it was James.” “My advice to you -is to find him, for Mrs. Pickens says he was last seen in the company of -two very handsome women, and now you may call him any name you please.” - -We soon met. The two beautiful dames Governor Pickens threw in my teeth -were some ladies from Rafton Creek, almost neighbors, who live near -Camden. - -By way of pleasant remark to Wade Hampton: “Oh, General! The next battle -will give you a chance to be major-general.” “I was very foolish to give -up my Legion,” he answered gloomily. “Promotion don’t really annoy many -people.” Mary Gibson says her father writes to them, that they may go -back. He thinks now that the Confederates can hold Richmond. _Gloria in -excelsis!_ - -Another personal defeat. Little Kate said: “Oh, Cousin Mary, why don’t -you cultivate heart? They say at Kirkwood that you had better let your -brains alone a while and cultivate heart.” She had evidently caught up a -phrase and repeated it again and again for my benefit. So that is the way -they talk of me! The only good of loving any one with your whole heart is -to give that person the power to hurt you. - -_June 24th._—Mr. Chesnut, having missed the Secessionville[86] fight by -half a day, was determined to see the one around Richmond. He went off -with General Cooper and Wade Hampton. Blanton Duncan sent them for a -luncheon on board the cars,—ice, wine, and every manner of good thing. - -In all this death and destruction, the women are the same—chatter, -patter, clatter. “Oh, the Charleston refugees are so full of airs; there -is no sympathy for them here!” “Oh, indeed! That is queer. They are not -half as exclusive as these Hamptons and Prestons. The airs these people -do give themselves.” “Airs, airs,” laughed Mrs. Bartow, parodying -Tennyson’s Charge of the Light Brigade. “Airs to the right of them, Airs -to the left of them, some one had blundered.” “Volleyed and thundered -rhymes but is out of place.” - -The worst of all airs came from a democratic landlady, who was asked by -Mrs. President Davis to have a carpet shaken, and shook herself with rage -as she answered, “You know, madam, you need not stay here if my carpet or -anything else does not suit you.” - -John Chesnut gives us a spirited account of their ride around McClellan. -I sent the letter to his grandfather. The women ran out screaming -with joyful welcome as soon as they caught sight of our soldiers’ -gray uniforms; ran to them bringing handfuls and armfuls of food. One -gray-headed man, after preparing a hasty meal for them, knelt and prayed -as they snatched it, as you may say. They were in the saddle from Friday -until Sunday. They were used up; so were their horses. Johnny writes for -clothes and more horses. Miss S. C. says: “No need to send any more of -his fine horses to be killed or captured by the Yankees; wait and see how -the siege of Richmond ends.” The horses will go all the same, as Johnny -wants them. - -_June 25th._—I forgot to tell of Mrs. Pickens’s reception for General -Hampton. My Mem dear, described it all. “The Governess” (“Tut, Mem! that -is not the right name for her—she is not a teacher.” “Never mind, it is -the easier to say than the Governor’s wife.” “_Madame la Gouvernante_” -was suggested. “Why? That is worse than the other!”) met him at the door, -took his crutch away, putting his hand upon her shoulder instead. “That -is the way to greet heroes,” she said. Her blue eyes were aflame, and -in response poor Wade smiled, and smiled until his face hardened into a -fixed grin of embarrassment and annoyance. He is a simple-mannered man, -you know, and does not want to be made much of by women. - -The butler was not in plain clothes, but wore, as the other servants -did, magnificent livery brought from the Court of St. Petersburg, one -mass of gold embroidery, etc. They had champagne and Russian tea, the -latter from a samovar made in Russia. Little Moses was there. Now for -us they have never put their servants into Russian livery, nor paraded -Little Moses under our noses, but I must confess the Russian tea and -champagne set before us left nothing to be desired. “How did General -Hampton bear his honors?” “Well, to the last he looked as if he wished -they would let him alone.” - -Met Mr. Ashmore fresh from Richmond. He says Stonewall is coming up -behind McClellan. And here comes the tug of war. He thinks we have so -many spies in Richmond, they may have found out our strategic movements -and so may circumvent them. - -Mrs. Bartow’s story of a clever Miss Toombs. So many men were in love -with her, and the courtship, while it lasted, of each one was as exciting -and bewildering as a fox-chase. She liked the fun of the run, but she -wanted something more than to know a man was in mad pursuit of her; that -he should love her, she agreed, but she must love him, too. How was she -to tell? Yet she must be certain of it before she said “Yes.” So, as they -sat by the lamp she would look at him and inwardly ask herself, “Would I -be willing to spend the long winter evenings forever after sitting here -darning your old stockings?” Never, echo answered. No, no, a thousand -times no. So, each had to make way for another. - -_June 27th._—We went in a body (half a dozen ladies, with no man on -escort duty, for they are all in the army) to a concert. Mrs. Pickens -came in. She was joined soon by Secretary Moses and Mr. Follen. Doctor -Berrien came to our relief. Nothing could be more execrable than the -singing. Financially the thing was a great success, for though the -audience was altogether feminine, it was a very large one. - -Telegram from Mr. Chesnut, “Safe in Richmond”; that is, if Richmond be -safe, with all the power of the United States of America battering at -her gates. Strange not a word from Stonewall Jackson, after all! Doctor -Gibson telegraphs his wife, “Stay where you are; terrible battle[87] -looked for here.” - -Decca is dead. That poor little darling! Immediately after her baby was -born, she took it into her head that Alex was killed. He was wounded, -but those around had not told her of it. She surprised them by asking, -“Does any one know how the battle has gone since Alex was killed?” She -could not read for a day or so before she died. Her head was bewildered, -but she would not let any one else touch her letters; so she died with -several unopened ones in her bosom. Mrs. Singleton, Decca’s mother, -fainted dead away, but she shed no tears. We went to the house and saw -Alex’s mother, a daughter of Langdon Cheves. Annie was with us. She said: -“This is the saddest thing for Alex.” “No,” said his mother, “death is -never the saddest thing. If he were not a good man, that would be a far -worse thing.” Annie, in utter amazement, whimpered, “But Alex is so good -already.” “Yes, seven years ago the death of one of his sisters that he -dearly loved made him a Christian. That death in our family was worth a -thousand lives.” - -One needs a hard heart now. Even old Mr. Shand shed tears. Mary Barnwell -sat as still as a statue, as white and stony. “Grief which can relieve -itself by tears is a thing to pray for,” said the Rev. Mr. Shand. Then -came a telegram from Hampton, “All well; so far we are successful.” -Robert Barnwell had been telegraphed for. His answer came, “Can’t leave -here; Gregg is fighting across the Chickahominy.” Said Alex’s mother: -“My son, Alex, may never hear this sad news,” and her lip settled -rigidly. “Go on; what else does Hampton say?” asked she. “Lee has one -wing of the army, Stonewall the other.” - -Annie Hampton came to tell us the latest news—that we have abandoned -James Island and are fortifying Morris Island. “And now,” she says, “if -the enemy will be so kind as to wait, we will be ready for them in two -months.” - -Rev. Mr. Shand and that pious Christian woman, Alex’s mother (who looks -into your very soul with those large and lustrous blue eyes of hers) -agreed that the Yankees, even if they took Charleston, would not destroy -it. I think they will, sinner that I am. Mr. Shand remarked to her, -“Madam, you have two sons in the army.” Alex’s mother replied, “I have -had six sons in the army; I now have five.” - -There are people here too small to conceive of any larger business than -quarreling in the newspapers. One laughs at squibs in the papers now, -in such times as these, with the wolf at our doors. Men safe in their -closets writing fiery articles, denouncing those who are at work, are -beneath contempt. Only critics with muskets on their shoulders have the -right to speak now, as Trenholm said the other night. - -In a pouring rain we went to that poor child’s funeral—to Decca’s. They -buried her in the little white frock she wore when she engaged herself -to Alex, and which she again put on for her bridal about a year ago. She -lies now in the churchyard, in sight of my window. Is she to be pitied? -She said she had had “months of perfect happiness.” How many people can -say that? So many of us live their long, dreary lives and then happiness -never comes to meet them at all. It seems so near, and yet it eludes them -forever. - -_June 28th._—Victory! Victory heads every telegram now;[88] one reads -it on the bulletin-board. It is the anniversary of the battle of Fort -Moultrie. The enemy went off so quickly, I wonder if it was not a trap -laid for us, to lead us away from Richmond, to some place where they can -manage to do us more harm. And now comes the list of killed and wounded. -Victory does not seem to soothe sore hearts. Mrs. Haskell has five sons -before the enemy’s illimitable cannon. Mrs. Preston two. McClellan is -routed and we have twelve thousand prisoners. Prisoners! My God! and what -are we to do with them? We can’t feed our own people. - -For the first time since Joe Johnston was wounded at Seven Pines, we -may breathe freely; we were so afraid of another general, or a new one. -Stonewall can not be everywhere, though he comes near it. - -Magruder did splendidly at Big Bethel. It was a wonderful thing how he -played his ten thousand before McClellan like fireflies and utterly -deluded him. It was partly due to the Manassas scare that we gave them; -they will never be foolhardy again. Now we are throwing up our caps for -R. E. Lee. We hope from the Lees what the first sprightly running (at -Manassas) could not give. We do hope there will be no “ifs.” “Ifs” have -ruined us. Shiloh was a victory if Albert Sidney Johnston had not been -killed; Seven Pines if Joe Johnston had not been wounded. The “ifs” -bristle like porcupines. That victory at Manassas did nothing but send -us off in a fool’s paradise of conceit, and it roused the manhood of the -Northern people. For very shame they had to move up. - -A French man-of-war lies at the wharf at Charleston to take off French -subjects when the bombardment begins. William Mazyck writes that the -enemy’s gunboats are shelling and burning property up and down the -Santee River. They raise the white flag and the negroes rush down on -them. Planters might as well have let these negroes be taken by the -Council to work on the fortifications. A letter from my husband: - - RICHMOND, _June 29, 1862_. - - MY DEAR MARY: - - For the last three days I have been a witness of the most - stirring events of modern times. On my arrival here, I found - the government so absorbed in the great battle pending, that I - found it useless to talk of the special business that brought - me to this place. As soon as it is over, which will probably be - to-morrow, I think that I can easily accomplish all that I was - sent for. I have no doubt that we can procure another general - and more forces, etc. - - The President and General Lee are inclined to listen to me, - and to do all they can for us. General Lee is vindicating the - high opinion I have ever expressed of him, and his plans and - executions of the last great fight will place him high in the - roll of really great commanders. - - The fight on Friday was the largest and fiercest of the whole - war. Some 60,000 or 70,000, with great preponderance on the - side of the enemy. Ground, numbers, armament, etc., were all in - favor of the enemy. But our men and generals were superior. The - higher officers and men behaved with a resolution and dashing - heroism that have never been surpassed in any country or in any - age. - - Our line was three times repulsed by superior numbers and - superior artillery impregnably posted. Then Lee, assembling - all his generals to the front, told them that victory depended - on carrying the batteries and defeating the army before them, - ere night should fall. Should night come without victory all - was lost, and the work must be done by the bayonet. Our men - then made a rapid and irresistible charge, without powder, and - carried everything. The enemy melted before them, and ran - with the utmost speed, though of the regulars of the Federal - army. The fight between the artillery of the opposing forces - was terrific and sublime. The field became one dense cloud - of smoke, so that nothing could be seen, but the incessant - flash of fire. They were within sixteen hundred yards of each - other and it rained storms of grape and canister. We took - twenty-three pieces of their artillery, many small arms, and - small ammunition. They burned most of their stores, wagons, etc. - - The victory of the second day was full and complete. Yesterday - there was little or no fighting, but some splendid maneuvering, - which has placed us completely around them. I think the end - must be decisive in our favor. We have lost many men and many - officers; I hear Alex Haskell and young McMahan are among them, - as well as a son of Dr. Trezevant. Very sad, indeed. We are - fighting again to-day; will let you know the result as soon as - possible. Will be at home some time next week. No letter from - you yet. - - With devotion, yours, - - JAMES CHESNUT. - -A telegram from my husband of June 29th from Richmond: “Was on the field, -saw it all. Things satisfying so far. Can hear nothing of John Chesnut. -He is in Stuart’s command. Saw Jack Preston; safe so far. No reason why -we should not bag McClellan’s army or cut it to pieces. From four to six -thousand prisoners already.” Doctor Gibbes rushed in like a whirlwind to -say we were driving McClellan into the river. - -_June 30th._—First came Dr. Trezevant, who announced Burnet Rhett’s -death. “No, no; I have just seen the bulletin-board. It was Grimké -Rhett’s.” When the doctor went out it was added: “Howell Trezevant’s -death is there, too. The doctor will see it as soon as he goes down to -the board.” The girls went to see Lucy Trezevant. The doctor was lying -still as death on a sofa with his face covered. - -_July 1st._—No more news. It has settled down into this. The general -battle, the decisive battle, has to be fought yet. Edward Cheves, only -son of John Cheves, killed. His sister kept crying, “Oh, mother, what -shall we do; Edward is killed,” but the mother sat dead still, white as a -sheet, never uttering a word or shedding a tear. Are our women losing the -capacity to weep? The father came to-day, Mr. John Cheves. He has been -making infernal machines in Charleston to blow up Yankee ships. - -While Mrs. McCord was telling me of this terrible trouble in her -brother’s family, some one said: “Decca’s husband died of grief.” Stuff -and nonsense; silly sentiment, folly! If he is not wounded, he is alive. -His brother, John, may die of that shattered arm in this hot weather. -Alex will never die of a broken heart. Take my word for it. - -_July 3d._—Mem says she feels like sitting down, as an Irishwoman does -at a wake, and howling night and day. Why did Huger let McClellan slip -through his fingers? Arrived at Mrs. McMahan’s at the wrong moment. Mrs. -Bartow was reading to the stricken mother an account of the death of her -son. The letter was written by a man who was standing by him when he was -shot through the head. “My God!” he said; that was all, and he fell dead. -James Taylor was color-bearer. He was shot three times before he gave in. -Then he said, as he handed the colors to the man next him, “You see I -can’t stand it any longer,” and dropped stone dead. He was only seventeen -years old. - -If anything can reconcile me to the idea of a horrid failure after -all efforts to make good our independence of Yankees, it is Lincoln’s -proclamation freeing the negroes. Especially yours, Messieurs, who write -insults to your Governor and Council, dated from Clarendon. Three hundred -of Mr. Walter Blake’s negroes have gone to the Yankees. Remember, that -recalcitrant patriot’s property on two legs may walk off without an -order from the Council to work on fortifications. - -Have been reading The Potiphar Papers by Curtis. Can this be a picture of -New York socially? If it were not for this horrid war, how nice it would -be here. We might lead such a pleasant life. This is the most perfectly -appointed establishment—such beautiful grounds, flowers, and fruits; -indeed, all that heart could wish; such delightful dinners, such pleasant -drives, such jolly talks, such charming people; but this horrid war -poisons everything. - -_July 5th._—Drove out with Mrs. “Constitution” Browne, who told -us the story of Ben McCulloch’s devotion to Lucy Gwynn. Poor Ben -McCulloch—another dead hero. Called at the Tognos’ and saw no one; no -wonder. They say Ascelie Togno was to have been married to Grimké Rhett -in August, and he is dead on the battle-field. I had not heard of the -engagement before I went there. - -_July 8th._—Gunboat captured on the Santee. So much the worse for us. We -do not want any more prisoners, and next time they will send a fleet of -boats, if one will not do. The Governor sent me Mr. Chesnut’s telegram -with a note saying, “I regret the telegram does not come up to what we -had hoped might be as to the entire destruction of McClellan’s army. I -think, however, the strength of the war with its ferocity may now be -considered as broken.” - -Table-talk to-day: This war was undertaken by us to shake off the yoke -of foreign invaders. So we consider our cause righteous. The Yankees, -since the war has begun, have discovered it is to free the slaves that -they are fighting. So their cause is noble. They also expect to make the -war pay. Yankees do not undertake anything that does not pay. They think -we belong to them. We have been good milk cows—milked by the tariff, or -skimmed. We let them have all of our hard earnings. We bear the ban of -slavery; they get the money. Cotton pays everybody who handles it, sells -it, manufactures it, but rarely pays the man who grows it. Second hand -the Yankees received the wages of slavery. They grew rich. We grew poor. -The receiver is as bad as the thief. That applies to us, too, for we -received the savages they stole from Africa and brought to us in their -slave-ships. As with the Egyptians, so it shall be with us: if they let -us go, it must be across a Red Sea—but one made red by blood. - -_July 10th._—My husband has come. He believes from what he heard in -Richmond that we are to be recognized as a nation by the crowned heads -across the water, at last. Mr. Davis was very kind; he asked him to stay -at his house, which he did, and went every day with General Lee and Mr. -Davis to the battle-field as a sort of amateur aide to the President. -Likewise they admitted him to the informal Cabinet meetings at the -President’s house. He is so hopeful now that it is pleasant to hear him, -and I had not the heart to stick the small pins of Yeadon and Pickens in -him yet a while. - -Public opinion is hot against Huger and Magruder for McClellan’s escape. -Doctor Gibbes gave me some letters picked up on the battle-field. One -signed “Laura,” tells her lover to fight in such a manner that no -Southerner can ever taunt Yankees again with cowardice. She speaks of a -man at home whom she knows, “who is still talking of his intention to -seek the bubble reputation at the cannon’s mouth.” “Miserable coward!” -she writes, “I will never speak to him again.” It was a relief to find -one silly young person filling three pages with a description of her new -bonnet and the bonnet still worn by her rival. Those fiery Joan of Arc -damsels who goad on their sweethearts bode us no good. - -Rachel Lyons was in Richmond, hand in glove with Mrs. Greenhow. Why -not? “So handsome, so clever, so angelically kind,” says Rachel of the -Greenhow, “and she offers to matronize me.” - -Mrs. Philips, another beautiful and clever Jewess, has been put into -prison again by “Beast” Butler because she happened to be laughing as a -Yankee funeral procession went by. - -Captain B. told of John Chesnut’s pranks. Johnny was riding a powerful -horse, captured from the Yankees. The horse dashed with him right into -the Yankee ranks. A dozen Confederates galloped after him, shouting, -“Stuart! Stuart!” The Yankees, mistaking this mad charge for Stuart’s -cavalry, broke ranks and fled. Daredevil Camden boys ride like Arabs! - -Mr. Chesnut says he was riding with the President when Colonel Browne, -his aide, was along. The General commanding rode up and, bowing politely, -said: “Mr. President, am I in command here?” “Yes.” “Then I forbid you -to stand here under the enemy’s guns. Any exposure of a life like yours -is wrong, and this is useless exposure. You must go back.” Mr. Davis -answered: “Certainly, I will set an example of obedience to orders. -Discipline must be maintained.” But he did not go back. - -Mr. Chesnut met the Haynes, who had gone on to nurse their wounded son -and found him dead. They were standing in the corridor of the Spotswood. -Although Mr. Chesnut was staying at the President’s, he retained his room -at the hotel. So he gave his room to them. Next day, when he went back -to his room he found that Mrs. Hayne had thrown herself across the foot -of the bed and never moved. No other part of the bed had been touched. -She got up and went back to the cars, or was led back. He says these -heart-broken mothers are hard to face. - -_July 12th._—At McMahan’s our small colonel, Paul Hayne’s son, came into -my room. To amuse the child I gave him a photograph album to look over. -“You have Lincoln in your book!” said he. “I am astonished at you. I hate -him!” And he placed the book on the floor and struck Old Abe in the face -with his fist. - -An Englishman told me Lincoln has said that had he known such a war -would follow his election he never would have set foot in Washington, nor -have been inaugurated. He had never dreamed of this awful fratricidal -bloodshed. That does not seem like the true John Brown spirit. I was very -glad to hear it—to hear something from the President of the United States -which was not merely a vulgar joke, and usually a joke so vulgar that you -were ashamed to laugh, funny though it was. They say Seward has gone to -England and his wily tongue will turn all hearts against us. - -Browne told us there was a son of the Duke of Somerset in Richmond. -He laughed his fill at our ragged, dirty soldiers, but he stopped his -laughing when he saw them under fire. Our men strip the Yankee dead of -their shoes, but will not touch the shoes of a comrade. Poor fellows, -they are nearly barefoot. - -Alex has come. I saw him ride up about dusk and go into the graveyard. I -shut up my windows on that side. Poor fellow! - -_July 13th._—Halcott Green came to see us. Bragg is a stern -disciplinarian, according to Halcott. He did not in the least understand -citizen soldiers. In the retreat from Shiloh he ordered that not a gun -should be fired. A soldier shot a chicken, and then the soldier was shot. -“For a chicken!” said Halcott. “A Confederate soldier for a chicken!” - -Mrs. McCord says a nurse, who is also a beauty, had better leave her -beauty with her cloak and hat at the door. One lovely lady nurse said to -a rough old soldier, whose wound could not have been dangerous, “Well, -my good soul, what can I do for you?” “Kiss me!” said he. Mrs. McCord’s -fury was “at the woman’s telling it,” for it brought her hospital into -disrepute, and very properly. She knew there were women who would boast -of an insult if it ministered to their vanity. She wanted nurses to come -dressed as nurses, as Sisters of Charity, and not as fine ladies. Then -there would be no trouble. When she saw them coming in angel sleeves, -displaying all their white arms and in their muslin, showing all their -beautiful white shoulders and throats, she felt disposed to order them -off the premises. That was no proper costume for a nurse. Mrs. Bartow -goes in her widow’s weeds, which is after Mrs. McCord’s own heart. But -Mrs. Bartow has her stories, too. A surgeon said to her, “I give you no -detailed instructions: a mother necessarily is a nurse.” She then passed -on quietly, “as smilingly acquiescent, my dear, as if I had ever been a -mother.” - -Mrs. Greenhow has enlightened Rachel Lyons as to Mr. Chesnut’s character -in Washington. He was “one of the very few men of whom there was not a -word of scandal spoken. I do not believe, my dear, that he ever spoke to -a woman there.” He did know Mrs. John R. Thompson, however. - -Walked up and down the college campus with Mrs. McCord. The buildings all -lit up with gas, the soldiers seated under the elms in every direction, -and in every stage of convalescence. Through the open windows, could see -the nurses flitting about. It was a strange, weird scene. Walked home -with Mrs. Bartow. We stopped at Judge Carroll’s. Mrs. Carroll gave us a -cup of tea. When we got home, found the Prestons had called for me to -dine at their house to meet General Magruder. - -Last night the Edgefield Band serenaded Governor Pickens. Mrs. Harris -stepped on the porch and sang the Marseillaise for them. It has been more -than twenty years since I first heard her voice; it was a very fine one -then, but there is nothing which the tooth of time lacerates more cruelly -than the singing voice of women. There is an incongruous metaphor for you. - -The negroes on the coast received the Rutledge’s Mounted Rifles -apparently with great rejoicings. The troops were gratified to find the -negroes in such a friendly state of mind. One servant whispered to his -master, “Don’t you mind ’em, don’t trust ’em”—meaning the negroes. The -master then dressed himself as a Federal officer and went down to a negro -quarter. The very first greeting was, “Ki! massa, you come fuh ketch -rebels? We kin show you way you kin ketch thirty to-night.” They took -him to the Confederate camp, or pointed it out, and then added for his -edification, “We kin ketch officer fuh you whenever you want ’em.” - -Bad news. Gunboats have passed Vicksburg. The Yankees are spreading -themselves over our fair Southern land like red ants. - -_July 21st._—Jackson has gone into the enemy’s country. Joe Johnston and -Wade Hampton are to follow. - -Think of Rice, Mr. Senator Rice,[89] who sent us the buffalo-robes. I see -from his place in the Senate that he speaks of us as savages, who put -powder and whisky into soldiers’ canteens to make them mad with ferocity -in the fight. No, never. We admire coolness here, because we lack it; we -do not need to be fired by drink to be brave. My classical lore is small, -indeed, but I faintly remember something of the Spartans who marched to -the music of lutes. No drum and fife were needed to revive their fainting -spirits. In that one thing we are Spartans. - -The Wayside Hospital[90] is duly established at the Columbia Station, -where all the railroads meet. All honor to Mrs. Fisher and the other -women who work there so faithfully! The young girls of Columbia started -this hospital. In the first winter of the war, moneyless soldiers, sick -and wounded, suffered greatly when they had to lie over here because of -faulty connections between trains. Rev. Mr. Martin, whose habit it was -to meet trains and offer his aid to these unfortunates, suggested to the -Young Ladies’ Hospital Association their opportunity; straightway the -blessed maidens provided a room where our poor fellows might have their -wounds bound up and be refreshed. And now, the “Soldiers’ Rest” has grown -into the Wayside Hospital, and older heads and hands relieve younger ones -of the grimmer work and graver responsibilities. I am ready to help in -every way, by subscription and otherwise, but too feeble in health to go -there much. - -Mrs. Browne heard a man say at the Congaree House, “We are breaking our -heads against a stone wall. We are bound to be conquered. We can not keep -it up much longer against so powerful a nation as the United States. -Crowds of Irish, Dutch, and Scotch are pouring in to swell their armies. -They are promised our lands, and they believe they will get them. Even -if we are successful we can not live without Yankees.” “Now,” says Mrs. -Browne, “I call that man a Yankee spy.” To which I reply, “If he were a -spy, he would not dare show his hand so plainly.” - -“To think,” says Mrs. Browne, “that he is not taken up. Seward’s little -bell would tinkle, a guard would come, and the Grand Inquisition of -America would order that man put under arrest in the twinkling of an eye, -if he had ventured to speak against Yankees in Yankee land.” - -General Preston said he had “the right to take up any one who was not -in his right place and send him where he belonged.” “Then do take up my -husband instantly. He is sadly out of his right place in this little -Governor’s Council.” The general stared at me and slowly uttered in his -most tragic tones, “If I could put him where I think he ought to be!” -This I immediately hailed as a high compliment and was duly ready with my -thanks. Upon reflection, it is borne in upon me, that he might have been -more explicit. He left too much to the imagination. - -Then Mrs. Browne described the Prince of Wales, whose manners, it seems, -differ from those of Mrs. ——, who arraigned us from morn to dewy eve, and -upbraided us with our ill-bred manners and customs. The Prince, when he -was here, conformed at once to whatever he saw was the way of those who -entertained him. He closely imitated President Buchanan’s way of doing -things. He took off his gloves at once when he saw that the President -wore none. He began by bowing to the people who were presented to him, -but when he saw Mr. Buchanan shaking hands, he shook hands, too. When -smoking affably with Browne on the White House piazza, he expressed his -content with the fine cigars Browne had given him. The President said: “I -was keeping some excellent ones for you, but Browne has got ahead of me.” -Long after Mr. Buchanan had gone to bed, the Prince ran into his room in -a jolly, boyish way, and said: “Mr. Buchanan, I have come for the fine -cigars you have for me.” - -As I walked up to the Prestons’, along a beautiful shaded back street, a -carriage passed with Governor Means in it. As soon as he saw me he threw -himself half out and kissed both hands to me again and again. It was a -whole-souled greeting, as the saying is, and I returned it with my whole -heart, too. “Good-by,” he cried, and I responded “Good-by.” I may never -see him again. I am not sure that I did not shed a few tears. - -General Preston and Mr. Chesnut were seated on the piazza of the Hampton -house as I walked in. I opened my batteries upon them in this scornful -style: “You cold, formal, solemn, overly-polite creatures, weighed down -by your own dignity. You will never know the rapture of such a sad -farewell as John Means and I have just interchanged. He was in a hack,” I -proceeded to relate, “and I was on the sidewalk. He was on his way to the -war, poor fellow. The hackman drove steadily along in the middle of the -street; but for our gray hairs I do not know what he might have thought -of us. John Means did not suppress his feelings at an unexpected meeting -with an old friend, and a good cry did me good. It is a life of terror -and foreboding we lead. My heart is in my mouth half the time. But you -two, under no possible circumstances could you forget your manners.” - -Read Russell’s India all day. Saintly folks those English when their -blood is up. Sepoys and blacks we do not expect anything better from, but -what an example of Christian patience and humanity the white “angels” -from the West set them. - -The beautiful Jewess, Rachel Lyons, was here to-day. She flattered Paul -Hayne audaciously, and he threw back the ball. - -To-day I saw the Rowena to this Rebecca, when Mrs. Edward Barnwell -called. She is the purest type of Anglo-Saxon—exquisitely beautiful, -cold, quiet, calm, ladylike, fair as a lily, with the blackest and -longest eyelashes, and her eyes so light in color some one said “they -were the hue of cologne and water.” At any rate, she has a patent right -to them; there are no more like them to be had. The effect is startling, -but lovely beyond words. - -Blanton Duncan told us a story of Morgan in Kentucky. Morgan walked into -a court where they were trying some Secessionists. The Judge was about to -pronounce sentence, but Morgan rose, and begged that he might be allowed -to call some witnesses. The Judge asked who were his witnesses. “My name -is John Morgan, and my witnesses are 1,400 Confederate soldiers.” - -Mrs. Izard witnessed two instances of patriotism in the caste called -“Sandhill tackeys.” One forlorn, chill, and fever-freckled creature, -yellow, dirty, and dry as a nut, was selling peaches at ten cents a -dozen. Soldiers collected around her cart. She took the cover off and -cried, “Eat away. Eat your fill. I never charge our soldiers anything.” -They tried to make her take pay, but when she steadily refused it, they -cheered her madly and said: “Sleep in peace. Now we will fight for you -and keep off the Yankees.” Another poor Sandhill man refused to sell his -cows, and gave them to the hospital. - - - - -XII - -FLAT ROCK, N. C. - -_August 1, 1862-August 8, 1862_ - - -Flat Rock, N. C., _August 1, 1862_.—Being ill I left Mrs. McMahan’s for -Flat Rock[91]. It was very hot and disagreeable for an invalid in a -boarding-house in that climate. The La Bordes and the McCord girls came -part of the way with me. - -The cars were crowded and a lame soldier had to stand, leaning on his -crutches in the thoroughfare that runs between the seats. One of us gave -him our seat. You may depend upon it there was no trouble in finding a -seat for our party after that. Dr. La Borde quoted a classic anecdote. In -some Greek assembly an old man was left standing. A Spartan gave him his -seat. The Athenians cheered madly, though they had kept their seats. The -comment was, “Lacedemonians practise virtue; Athenians know how to admire -it.” - -Nathan Davis happened accidentally to be at the station at Greenville. He -took immediate charge of Molly and myself, for my party had dwindled to -us two. He went with us to the hotel, sent for the landlord, told him who -I was, secured good rooms for us, and saw that we were made comfortable -in every way. At dinner I entered that immense dining-room alone, but -I saw friends and acquaintances on every side. My first exploit was -to repeat to Mrs. Ives Mrs. Pickens’s blunder in taking a suspicious -attitude toward men born at the North, and calling upon General Cooper to -agree with her. Martha Levy explained the grave faces of my auditors by -saying that Colonel Ives was a New Yorker. My distress was dire. - -Louisa Hamilton was there. She told me that Captain George Cuthbert, with -his arm in a sling from a wound by no means healed, was going to risk -the shaking of a stage-coach; he was on his way to his cousin, William -Cuthbert’s, at Flat Rock. Now George Cuthbert is a type of the finest -kind of Southern soldier. We can not make them any better than he is. -Before the war I knew him; he traveled in Europe with my sister, Kate, -and Mary Withers. At once I offered him a seat in the comfortable hack -Nathan Davis had engaged for me. - -Molly sat opposite to me, and often when I was tired held my feet in -her lap. Captain Cuthbert’s man sat with the driver. We had ample room. -We were a dilapidated company. I was so ill I could barely sit up, and -Captain Cuthbert could not use his right hand or arm at all. I had to -draw his match, light his cigar, etc. He was very quiet, grateful, -gentle, and, I was going to say, docile. He is a fiery soldier, one of -those whose whole face becomes transfigured in battle, so one of his men -told me, describing his way with his company. He does not blow his own -trumpet, but I made him tell me the story of his duel with the Mercury’s -reporter. He seemed awfully ashamed of wasting time in such a scrape. - -That night we stopped at a country house half-way toward our journey’s -end. There we met Mr. Charles Lowndes. Rawlins Lowndes, his son, is with -Wade Hampton. - -First we drove, by mistake, into Judge King’s yard, our hackman -mistaking the place for the hotel. Then we made Farmer’s Hotel (as the -seafaring men say). - -Burnet Rhett, with his steed, was at the door; horse and man were -caparisoned with as much red and gold artillery uniform as they -could bear. He held his horse. The stirrups were Mexican, I believe; -they looked like little side-saddles. Seeing his friend and crony, -George Cuthbert, alight and leave a veiled lady in the carriage, this -handsome and undismayed young artillerist walked round and round the -carriage, talked with the driver, looked in at the doors, and at -the front. Suddenly I bethought me to raise my veil and satisfy his -curiosity. Our eyes met, and I smiled. It was impossible to resist the -comic disappointment on his face when a woman old enough to be George -Cuthbert’s mother, with the ravages of a year of gastric fever, almost -fainting with fatigue, greeted his vision. He instantly mounted his -gallant steed and pranced away to his _fiancée_. He is to marry the -greatest heiress in the State, Miss Aiken. Then Captain Cuthbert told me -his name. - -At Kate’s, I found Sally Rutledge, and then for weeks life was a blank; -I remember nothing. The illness which had been creeping on for so long -a time took me by the throat. At Greenville I had met many friends. I -witnessed the wooing of Barny Heyward, once the husband of the lovely -Lucy Izard, now a widower and a _bon parti_. He was there nursing Joe, -his brother. So was the beautiful Henrietta Magruder Heyward, now a -widow, for poor Joe died. There is something magnetic in Tatty Clinch’s -large and lustrous black eyes. No man has ever resisted their influence. -She says her virgin heart has never beat one throb the faster for any -mortal here below—until now, when it surrenders to Barny. Well, as I -said, Joseph Heyward died, and rapidly did the bereaved beauty shake -the dust of this poor Confederacy from her feet and plume her wings for -flight across the water. - -[Let me insert here now, much later, all I know of that brave spirit, -George Cuthbert. While I was living in the winter of 1863 at the corner -of Clay and Twelfth Streets in Richmond, he came to see me. Never did -man enjoy life more. The Preston girls were staying at my house then, -and it was very gay for the young soldiers who ran down from the army -for a day or so. We had heard of him, as usual, gallantly facing odds at -Sharpsburg.[92] And he asked if he should chance to be wounded would I -have him brought to Clay Street. - -He was shot at Chancellorsville,[93] leading his men. The surgeon did -not think him mortally wounded. He sent me a message that “he was coming -at once to our house.” He knew he would soon get well there. Also that -“I need not be alarmed; those Yankees could not kill me.” He asked one -of his friends to write a letter to his mother. Afterward he said he had -another letter to write, but that he wished to sleep first, he felt so -exhausted. At his request they then turned his face away from the light -and left him. When they came again to look at him, they found him dead. -He had been dead for a long time. It was bitter cold; wounded men lost -much blood and were weakened in that way; they lacked warm blankets and -all comforts. Many died who might have been saved by one good hot drink -or a few mouthfuls of nourishing food. - -One of the generals said to me: “Fire and reckless courage like Captain -Cuthbert’s are contagious; such men in an army are invaluable; losses -like this weakened us, indeed.” But I must not linger longer around the -memory of the bravest of the brave—a true exemplar of our old _régime_, -gallant, gay, unfortunate.—M. B. C.] - - * * * * * - -_August 8th._—Mr. Daniel Blake drove down to my sister’s in his heavy, -substantial English phaeton, with stout and strong horses to match. -I went back with him and spent two delightful days at his hospitable -mansion. I met there, as a sort of chaplain, the Rev. Mr. ——. He dealt -unfairly by me. We had a long argument, and when we knelt down for -evening prayers, he introduced an extemporaneous prayer and prayed _for -me_ most palpably. There was I down on my knees, red-hot with rage and -fury. David W. said it was a clear case of hitting a fellow when he was -down. Afterward the fun of it all struck me, and I found it difficult -to keep from shaking with laughter. It was not an edifying religious -exercise, to say the least, as far as I was concerned. - -Before Chancellorsville, was fatal Sharpsburg.[94] My friend, Colonel -Means, killed on the battle-field; his only son, Stark, wounded and a -prisoner. His wife had not recovered from the death of her other child, -Emma, who had died of consumption early in the war. She was lying on a -bed when they told her of her husband’s death, and then they tried to -keep Stark’s condition from her. They think now that she misunderstood -and believed him dead, too. She threw something over her face. She did -not utter one word. She remained quiet so long, some one removed the -light shawl which she had thrown over her head and found she was dead. -Miss Mary Stark, her sister, said afterward, “No wonder! How was she to -face life without her husband and children? That was all she had ever -lived for.” These are sad, unfortunate memories. Let us run away from -them. - -What has not my husband been doing this year, 1862, when all our South -Carolina troops are in Virginia? Here we were without soldiers or arms. -He raised an army, so to speak, and imported arms, through the Trenholm -firm. He had arms to sell to the Confederacy. He laid the foundation of -a niter-bed; and the Confederacy sent to Columbia to learn of Professor -Le Conte how to begin theirs. He bought up all the old arms and had them -altered and repaired. He built ships. He imported clothes and shoes for -our soldiers, for which things they had long stood sorely in need. He -imported cotton cards and set all idle hands carding and weaving. All the -world was set to spinning cotton. He tried to stop the sale of whisky, -and alas, he called for reserves—that is, men over age, and he committed -the unforgivable offense of sending the sacred negro property to work on -fortifications away from their owners’ plantations. - - - - -XIII - -PORTLAND, ALA. - -_July 8, 1863-July 30, 1863_ - - -Portland, Ala., _July 8, 1863_.—My mother ill at her home on the -plantation near here—where I have come to see her. But to go back first -to my trip home from Flat Rock to Camden. At the station, I saw men -sitting on a row of coffins smoking, talking, and laughing, with their -feet drawn up tailor-fashion to keep them out of the wet. Thus does war -harden people’s hearts. - -Met James Chesnut at Wilmington. He only crossed the river with me and -then went back to Richmond. He was violently opposed to sending our -troops into Pennsylvania: wanted all we could spare sent West to make an -end there of our enemies. He kept dark about Vallandigham.[95] I am sure -we could not trust him to do us any good, or to do the Yankees any harm. -The Coriolanus business is played out. - -As we came to Camden, Molly sat by me in the cars. She touched me, and, -with her nose in the air, said: “Look, Missis.” There was the inevitable -bride and groom—at least so I thought—and the irrepressible kissing and -lolling against each other which I had seen so often before. I was rather -astonished at Molly’s prudery, but there was a touch in this scene which -was new. The man required for his peace of mind that the girl should -brush his cheek with those beautiful long eyelashes of hers. Molly became -so outraged in her blue-black modesty that she kept her head out of the -window not to see! When we were detained at a little wayside station, -this woman made an awful row about her room. She seemed to know me and -appealed to me; said her brother-in-law was adjutant to Colonel K——, etc. - -Molly observed, “You had better go yonder, ma’am, where your husband -is calling you.” The woman drew herself up proudly, and, with a toss, -exclaimed: “Husband, indeed! I’m a widow. That is my cousin. I loved my -dear husband too well to marry again, ever, ever!” Absolutely tears came -into her eyes. Molly, loaded as she was with shawls and bundles, stood -motionless, and said: “After all that gwine-on in the kyars! O, Lord, I -should a let it go ’twas my husband and me! nigger as I am.” - -Here I was at home, on a soft bed, with every physical comfort; but life -is one long catechism there, due to the curiosity of stay-at-home people -in a narrow world. - -In Richmond, Molly and Lawrence quarreled. He declared he could not put -up with her tantrums. Unfortunately I asked him, in the interests of -peace and a quiet house, to bear with her temper; I did, said I, but she -was so good and useful. He was shabby enough to tell her what I had said -at their next quarrel. The awful reproaches she overwhelmed me with then! -She said she “was mortified that I had humbled her before Lawrence.” - -But the day of her revenge came. At negro balls in Richmond, guests were -required to carry “passes,” and, in changing his coat Lawrence forgot -his pass. Next day Lawrence was missing, and Molly came to me laughing -to tears. “Come and look,” said she. “Here is the fine gentleman tied -between two black niggers and marched off to jail.” She laughed and -jeered so she could not stand without holding on to the window. Lawrence -disregarded her and called to me at the top of his voice: “Please, -ma’am, ask Mars Jeems to come take me out of this. I ain’t done nothin’.” - -As soon as Mr. Chesnut came home I told him of Lawrence’s sad fall, and -he went at once to his rescue. There had been a fight and a disturbance -at the ball. The police had been called in, and when every negro was -required to show his “pass,” Lawrence had been taken up as having none. -He was terribly chopfallen when he came home walking behind Mr. Chesnut. -He is always so respectable and well-behaved and stands on his dignity. - -I went over to Mrs. Preston’s at Columbia. Camden had become simply -intolerable to me. There the telegram found me, saying I must go to -my mother, who was ill at her home here in Alabama. Colonel Goodwyn, -his wife, and two daughters were going, and so I joined the party. I -telegraphed Mr. Chesnut for Lawrence, and he replied, forbidding me to -go at all; it was so hot, the cars so disagreeable, fever would be the -inevitable result. Miss Kate Hampton, in her soft voice, said: “The only -trouble in life is when one can’t decide in which way duty leads. Once -know your duty, then all is easy.” - -I do not know whether she thought it my duty to obey my husband. But I -thought it my duty to go to my mother, as I risked nothing but myself. - -We had two days of an exciting drama under our very noses, before our -eyes. A party had come to Columbia who said they had run the blockade, -had come in by flag of truce, etc. Colonel Goodwyn asked me to look -around and see if I could pick out the suspected crew. It was easily -done. We were all in a sadly molting condition. We had come to the end of -our good clothes in three years, and now our only resource was to turn -them upside down, or inside out, and in mending, darning, patching, etc. - -Near me on the train to Alabama sat a young woman in a traveling dress -of bright yellow; she wore a profusion of curls, had pink cheeks, -was delightfully airy and easy in her manner, and was absorbed in a -flirtation with a Confederate major, who, in spite of his nice, new gray -uniform and two stars, had a very Yankee face, fresh, clean-cut, sharp, -utterly unsunburned, florid, wholesome, handsome. What more in compliment -can one say of one’s enemies? Two other women faced this man and woman, -and we knew them to be newcomers by their good clothes. One of these -women was a German. She it was who had betrayed them. I found that out -afterward. - -The handsomest of the three women had a hard, Northern face, but all were -in splendid array as to feathers, flowers, lace, and jewelry. If they -were spies why were they so foolish as to brag of New York, and compare -us unfavorably with the other side all the time, and in loud, shrill -accents? Surely that was not the way to pass unnoticed in the Confederacy. - -A man came in, stood up, and read from a paper, “The surrender of -Vicksburg.”[96] I felt as if I had been struck a hard blow on the top -of my head, and my heart took one of its queer turns. I was utterly -unconscious: not long, I dare say. The first thing I heard was -exclamations of joy and exultation from the overdressed party. My rage -and humiliation were great. A man within earshot of this party had slept -through everything. He had a greyhound face, eager and inquisitive when -awake, but now he was as one of the seven sleepers. - -Colonel Goodwyn wrote on a blank page of my book (one of De Quincey’s—the -note is there now), that the sleeper was a Richmond detective. - -Finally, hot and tired out, we arrived at West Point, on the -Chattahoochee River. The dusty cars were quite still, except for the -giggling flirtation of the yellow gown and her major. Two Confederate -officers walked in. I felt mischief in the air. One touched the smart -major, who was whispering to Yellow Gown. The major turned quickly. -Instantly, every drop of blood left his face; a spasm seized his throat; -it was a piteous sight. And at once I was awfully sorry for him. He was -marched out of the car. Poor Yellow Gown’s color was fast, but the whites -of her eyes were lurid. Of the three women spies we never heard again. -They never do anything worse to women, the high-minded Confederates, than -send them out of the country. But when we read soon afterward of the -execution of a male spy, we thought of the “major.” - -At Montgomery the boat waited for us, and in my haste I tumbled out of -the omnibus with Dr. Robert Johnson’s assistance, but nearly broke my -neck. The thermometer was high up in the nineties, and they gave me a -stateroom over the boiler. I paid out my Confederate rags of money freely -to the maid in order to get out of that oven. Surely, go where we may -hereafter, an Alabama steamer in August lying under the bluff with the -sun looking down, will give one a foretaste, almost an adequate idea, of -what’s to come, as far as heat goes. The planks of the floor burned one’s -feet under the bluff at Selma, where we stayed nearly all day—I do not -know why. - -Met James Boykin, who had lost 1,200 bales of cotton at Vicksburg, and -charged it all to Jeff Davis in his wrath, which did not seem exactly -reasonable to me. At Portland there was a horse for James Boykin, and -he rode away, promising to have a carriage sent for me at once. But he -had to go seven miles on horseback before he reached my sister Sally’s, -and then Sally was to send back. On that lonely riverside Molly and I -remained with dismal swamps on every side, and immense plantations, the -white people few or none. In my heart I knew my husband was right when -he forbade me to undertake this journey. - -There was one living thing at this little riverside inn—a white man who -had a store opposite, and oh, how drunk he was! Hot as it was, Molly -kept up a fire of pine knots. There was neither lamp nor candle in that -deserted house. The drunken man reeled over now and then, lantern in -hand; he would stand with his idiotic, drunken glare, or go solemnly -staggering round us, but always bowing in his politeness. He nearly fell -over us, but I sprang out of his way as he asked, “Well, madam, what can -I do for you?” - -Shall I ever forget the headache of that night and the fright? My temples -throbbed with dumb misery. I sat upon a chair, Molly on the floor, with -her head resting against my chair. She was as near as she could get to -me, and I kept my hand on her. “Missis,” said she, “now I do believe you -are scared, scared of that poor, drunken thing. If he was sober I could -whip him in a fair fight, and drunk as he is I kin throw him over the -banister, ef he so much as teches you. I don’t value him a button!” - -Taking heart from such brave words I laughed. It seemed an eternity, but -the carriage came by ten o’clock, and then, with the coachman as our sole -protector, we poor women drove eight miles or more over a carriage road, -through long lanes, swamps of pitchy darkness, with plantations on every -side. - -The house, as we drew near, looked like a graveyard in a nightmare, so -vague and phantom-like were its outlines. - -I found my mother ill in bed, feeble still, but better than I hoped to -see her. “I knew you would come,” was her greeting, with outstretched -hands. Then I went to bed in that silent house, a house of the dead it -seemed. I supposed I was not to see my sister until the next day. But she -came in some time after I had gone to bed. She kissed me quietly, without -a tear. She was thin and pale, but her voice was calm and kind. - -As she lifted the candle over her head, to show me something on the wall, -I saw that her pretty brown hair was white. It was awfully hard not to -burst out into violent weeping. She looked so sweet, and yet so utterly -broken-hearted. But as she was without emotion, apparently, it would not -become me to upset her by my tears. - -Next day, at noon, Hetty, mother’s old maid, brought my breakfast to my -bedside. Such a breakfast it was! Delmonico could do no better. “It is -ever so late, I know,” to which Hetty replied: “Yes, we would not let -Molly wake you.” “What a splendid cook you have here.” “My daughter, -Tenah, is Miss Sally’s cook. She’s well enough as times go, but when our -Miss Mary comes to see us I does it myself,” and she courtesied down to -the floor. “Bless your old soul,” I cried, and she rushed over and gave -me a good hug. - -She is my mother’s factotum; has been her maid since she was six years -old, when she was bought from a Virginia speculator along with her own -mother and all her brothers and sisters. She has been pampered until she -is a rare old tyrant at times. She can do everything better than any one -else, and my mother leans on her heavily. Hetty is Dick’s wife; Dick is -the butler. They have over a dozen children and take life very easily. - -Sally came in before I was out of bed, and began at once in the same -stony way, pale and cold as ice, to tell me of the death of her children. -It had happened not two weeks before. Her eyes were utterly without life; -no expression whatever, and in a composed and sad sort of manner she told -the tale as if it were something she had read and wanted me to hear: - -“My eldest daughter, Mary, had grown up to be a lovely girl. She was -between thirteen and fourteen, you know. Baby Kate had my sister’s gray -eyes; she was evidently to be the beauty of the family. Strange it is -that here was one of my children who has lived and has gone and you have -never seen her at all. She died first, and I would not go to the funeral. -I thought it would kill me to see her put under the ground. I was lying -down, stupid with grief when Aunt Charlotte came to me after the funeral -with this news: ‘Mary has that awful disease, too.’ There was nothing to -say. I got up and dressed instantly and went to Mary. I did not leave her -side again in that long struggle between life and death. I did everything -for her with my own hands. I even prepared my darling for the grave. I -went to her funeral, and I came home and walked straight to my mother and -I begged her to be comforted; I would bear it all without one word if God -would only spare me the one child left me now.” - -Sally has never shed a tear, but has grown twenty years older, cold, -hard, careworn. With the same rigidity of manner, she began to go over -all the details of Mary’s illness. “I had not given up hope, no, not at -all. As I sat by her side, she said: ‘Mamma, put your hand on my knees; -they are so cold.’ I put my hand on her knee; the cold struck to my -heart. I knew it was the coldness of death.” Sally put out her hand on -me, and it seemed to recall the feeling. She fell forward in an agony -of weeping that lasted for hours. The doctor said this reaction was a -blessing; without it she must have died or gone mad. - -While the mother was so bitterly weeping, the little girl, the last -of them, a bright child of three or four, crawled into my bed. “Now, -Auntie,” she whispered, “I want to tell you all about Mamie and Katie, -but they watch me so. They say I must never talk about them. Katie died -because she ate blackberries, I know that, and then Aunt Charlotte read -Mamie a letter and that made her die, too. Maum Hetty says they have gone -to God, but I know the people saved a place between them in the ground -for me.” - -Uncle William was in despair at the low ebb of patriotism out here. “West -of the Savannah River,” said he, “it is property first, life next, honor -last.” He gave me an excellent pair of shoes. What a gift! For more than -a year I have had none but some dreadful things Armstead makes for me, -and they hurt my feet so. These do not fit, but that is nothing; they are -large enough and do not pinch anywhere. I have absolutely a respectable -pair of shoes!! - -Uncle William says the men who went into the war to save their negroes -are abjectly wretched. Neither side now cares a fig for these beloved -negroes, and would send them all to heaven in a hand-basket, as Custis -Lee says, to win in the fight. - -General Lee and Mr. Davis want the negroes put into the army. Mr. Chesnut -and Major Venable discussed the subject one night, but would they fight -on our side or desert to the enemy? They don’t go to the enemy, because -they are comfortable as they are, and expect to be free anyway. - -When we were children our nurses used to give us tea out in the open air -on little pine tables scrubbed as clean as milk-pails. Sometimes, as -Dick would pass us, with his slow and consequential step, we would call -out, “Do, Dick, come and wait on us.” “No, little missies, I never wait -on pine tables. Wait till you get big enough to put your legs under your -pa’s mahogany.” - -I taught him to read as soon as I could read myself, perched on his -knife-board. He won’t look at me now; but looks over my head, scenting -freedom in the air. He was always very ambitious. I do not think he ever -troubled himself much about books. But then, as my father said, Dick, -standing in front of his sideboard, has heard all subjects in earth or -heaven discussed, and by the best heads in our world. He is proud, too, -in his way. Hetty, his wife, complained that the other men servants -looked finer in their livery. “Nonsense, old woman, a butler never -demeans himself to wear livery. He is always in plain clothes.” Somewhere -he had picked that up. - -He is the first negro in whom I have felt a change. Others go about in -their black masks, not a ripple or an emotion showing, and yet on all -other subjects except the war they are the most excitable of all races. -Now Dick might make a very respectable Egyptian Sphinx, so inscrutably -silent is he. He did deign to inquire about General Richard Anderson. “He -was my young master once,” said he. “I always will like him better than -anybody else.” - -When Dick married Hetty, the Anderson house was next door. The two -families agreed to sell either Dick or Hetty, whichever consented to -be sold. Hetty refused outright, and the Andersons sold Dick that he -might be with his wife. This was magnanimous on the Andersons’ part, for -Hetty was only a lady’s-maid and Dick was a trained butler, on whom Mrs. -Anderson had spent no end of pains in his dining-room education, and, of -course, if they had refused to sell Dick, Hetty would have had to go to -them. Mrs. Anderson was very much disgusted with Dick’s ingratitude when -she found he was willing to leave them. As a butler he is a treasure; he -is overwhelmed with dignity, but that does not interfere with his work at -all. - -My father had a body-servant, Simon, who could imitate his master’s voice -perfectly. He would sometimes call out from the yard after my father -had mounted his horse: “Dick, bring me my overcoat. I see you there, -sir, hurry up.” When Dick hastened out, overcoat in hand, and only Simon -was visible, after several obsequious “Yes, marster; just as marster -pleases,” my mother had always to step out and prevent a fight. Dick -never forgave her laughing. - -Once in Sumter, when my father was very busy preparing a law case, the -mob in the street annoyed him, and he grumbled about it as Simon was -making up his fire. Suddenly he heard, as it were, himself speaking, “the -Hon. S. D. Miller—Lawyer Miller,” as the colored gentleman announced -himself in the dark—appeal to the gentlemen outside to go away and -leave a lawyer in peace to prepare his case for the next day. My father -said he could have sworn the sound was that of his own voice. The crowd -dispersed, but some noisy negroes came along, and upon them Simon rushed -with the sulky whip, slashing around in the dark, calling himself “Lawyer -Miller,” who was determined to have peace. - -Simon returned, complaining that “them niggers run so he never got in a -hundred yards of one of them.” - -At Portland, we met a man who said: “Is it not strange that in this -poor, devoted land of ours, there are some men who are making money by -blockade-running, cheating our embarrassed government, and skulking the -fight?” - -_Montgomery, July 30th._—Coming on here from Portland there was no -stateroom for me. My mother alone had one. My aunt and I sat nodding in -armchairs, for the floors and sofas were covered with sleepers, too. -On the floor that night, so hot that even a little covering of clothes -could not be borne, lay a motley crew. Black, white, and yellow disported -themselves in promiscuous array. Children and their nurses, bared to the -view, were wrapped in the profoundest slumber. No caste prejudices were -here. Neither Garrison, John Brown, nor Gerrit Smith ever dreamed of -equality more untrammeled. A crow-black, enormously fat negro man waddled -in every now and then to look after the lamps. The atmosphere of that -cabin was stifling, and the sight of those figures on the floor did not -make it more tolerable. So we soon escaped and sat out near the guards. - -The next day was the very hottest I have ever known. One supreme -consolation was the watermelons, the very finest, and the ice. A very -handsome woman, whom I did not know, rehearsed all our disasters in the -field. And then, as if she held me responsible, she faced me furiously, -“And where are our big men?” “Whom do you mean?” “I mean our leaders, -the men we have a right to look to to save us. They got us into this -scrape. Let them get us out of it. Where are our big men?” I sympathized -with her and understood her, but I answered lightly, “I do not know the -exact size you want them.” - -Here in Montgomery, we have been so hospitably received. Ye gods! how -those women talked! and all at the same time! They put me under the care -of General Dick Taylor’s brother-in-law, a Mr. Gordon, who married one -of the Beranges. A very pleasant arrangement it was for me. He was kind -and attentive and vastly agreeable with his New Orleans anecdotes. On -the first of last January all his servants left him but four. To these -faithful few he gave free papers at once, that they might lose naught by -loyalty should the Confederates come into authority once more. He paid -high wages and things worked smoothly for some weeks. One day his wife -saw some Yankee officers’ cards on a table, and said to her maid, “I did -not know any of these people had called?” - -“Oh, Missis!” the maid replied, “they come to see me, and I have been -waiting to tell you. It is too hard! I can not do it! I can not dance -with those nice gentlemen at night at our Union Balls and then come -here and be your servant the next day. I can’t!” “So,” said Mr. Gordon, -“freedom must be followed by fraternity and equality.” One by one the -faithful few slipped away and the family were left to their own devices. -Why not? - -When General Dick Taylor’s place was sacked his negroes moved down to -Algiers, a village near New Orleans. An old woman came to Mr. Gordon to -say that these negroes wanted him to get word to “Mars Dick” that they -were dying of disease and starvation; thirty had died that day. Dick -Taylor’s help being out of the question, Mr. Gordon applied to a Federal -officer. He found this one not a philanthropist, but a cynic, who said: -“All right; it is working out as I expected. Improve negroes and Indians -off the continent. Their strong men we put in the army. The rest will -disappear.” - -Joe Johnston can sulk. As he is sent West, he says, “They may give Lee -the army Joe Johnston trained.” Lee is reaping where he sowed, he thinks, -but then he was backing straight through Richmond when they stopped his -retreating. - - - - -XIV - -RICHMOND, VA. - -_August 10, 1863-September 7, 1863_ - - -Richmond, Va., _August 10, 1863_.—To-day I had a letter from my sister, -who wrote to inquire about her old playmate, friend, and lover, Boykin -McCaa. It is nearly twenty years since each was married; each now has -children nearly grown. “To tell the truth,” she writes, “in these last -dreadful years, with David in Florida, where I can not often hear from -him, and everything dismal, anxious, and disquieting, I had almost -forgotten Boykin’s existence, but he came here last night; he stood by -my bedside and spoke to me kindly and affectionately, as if we had just -parted. I said, holding out my hand, ‘Boykin, you are very pale.’ He -answered, ‘I have come to tell you good-by,’ and then seized both my -hands. His own hands were as cold and hard as ice; they froze the marrow -of my bones. I screamed again and again until my whole household came -rushing in, and then came the negroes from the yard, all wakened by my -piercing shrieks. This may have been a dream, but it haunts me. - -“Some one sent me an old paper with an account of his wounds and his -recovery, but I know he is dead.” “Stop!” said my husband at this point, -and then he read from that day’s Examiner these words: “Captain Burwell -Boykin McCaa found dead upon the battle-field leading a cavalry charge at -the head of his company. He was shot through the head.” - -The famous colonel of the Fourth Texas, by name John Bell Hood,[97] is -here—him we call Sam, because his classmates at West Point did so—for -what cause is not known. John Darby asked if he might bring his hero to -us; bragged of him extensively; said he had won his three stars, etc., -under Stonewall’s eye, and that he was promoted by Stonewall’s request. -When Hood came with his sad Quixote face, the face of an old Crusader, -who believed in his cause, his cross, and his crown, we were not prepared -for such a man as a beau-ideal of the wild Texans. He is tall, thin, -and shy; has blue eyes and light hair; a tawny beard, and a vast amount -of it, covering the lower part of his face, the whole appearance that -of awkward strength. Some one said that his great reserve of manner he -carried only into the society of ladies. Major Venable added that he had -often heard of the light of battle shining in a man’s eyes. He had seen -it once—when he carried to Hood orders from Lee, and found in the hottest -of the fight that the man was transfigured. The fierce light of Hood’s -eyes I can never forget. - -[Illustration: ANOTHER GROUP OF CONFEDERATE GENERALS. - -WADE HAMPTON. - -ROBERT TOOMBS. - -JOHN C. PRESTON. - -JOHN H. MORGAN. - -JOSEPH B. KERSHAW. - -JAMES CHESNUT, JR.] - -Hood came to ask us to a picnic next day at Drury’s Bluff.[98] The naval -heroes were to receive us and then we were to drive out to the Texan -camp. We accused John Darby of having instigated this unlooked-for -festivity. We were to have bands of music and dances, with turkeys, -chickens, and buffalo tongues to eat. Next morning, just as my foot -was on the carriage-step, the girls standing behind ready to follow me -with Johnny and the Infant Samuel (Captain Shannon by proper name), up -rode John Darby in red-hot haste, threw his bridle to one of the men -who was holding the horses, and came toward us rapidly, clanking his -cavalry spurs with a despairing sound as he cried: “Stop! it’s all up. -We are ordered back to the Rappahannock. The brigade is marching through -Richmond now.” So we unpacked and unloaded, dismissed the hacks and sat -down with a sigh. - -“Suppose we go and see them pass the turnpike,” some one said. The -suggestion was hailed with delight, and off we marched. Johnny and the -Infant were in citizens’ clothes, and the Straggler—as Hood calls John -Darby, since the Prestons have been in Richmond—was all plaided and -plumed in his surgeon’s array. He never bated an inch of bullion or a -feather; he was courting and he stalked ahead with Mary Preston, Buck, -and Johnny. The Infant and myself, both stout and scant of breath, lagged -last. They called back to us, as the Infant came toddling along, “Hurry -up or we will leave you.” - -At the turnpike we stood on the sidewalk and saw ten thousand men march -by. We had seen nothing like this before. Hitherto we had seen only -regiments marching spick and span in their fresh, smart clothes, just -from home and on their way to the army. Such rags and tags as we saw -now. Nothing was like anything else. Most garments and arms were such as -had been taken from the enemy. Such shoes as they had on. “Oh, our brave -boys!” moaned Buck. Such tin pans and pots as were tied to their waists, -with bread or bacon stuck on the ends of their bayonets. Anything that -could be spiked was bayoneted and held aloft. - -They did not seem to mind their shabby condition; they laughed, shouted, -and cheered as they marched by. Not a disrespectful or light word was -spoken, but they went for the men who were huddled behind us, and who -seemed to be trying to make themselves as small as possible in order to -escape observation. - -Hood and his staff finally came galloping up, dismounted, and joined -us. Mary Preston gave him a bouquet. Thereupon he unwrapped a Bible, -which he carried in his pocket. He said his mother had given it to him. -He pressed a flower in it. Mary Preston suggested that he had not worn -or used it at all, being fresh, new, and beautifully kept. Every word -of this the Texans heard as they marched by, almost touching us. They -laughed and joked and made their own rough comments. - -_September 7th._—Major Edward Johnston did not get into the Confederacy -until after the first battle of Manassas. For some cause, before he -could evade that potentate, Seward rang his little bell and sent him to -a prison in the harbor of New York. I forget whether he was exchanged or -escaped of his own motion. The next thing I heard of my antebellum friend -he had defeated Milroy in Western Virginia. There were so many Johnstons -that for this victory they named him Alleghany Johnston. - -He had an odd habit of falling into a state of incessant winking as soon -as he became the least startled or agitated. In such times he seemed -persistently to be winking one eye at you. He meant nothing by it, and -in point of fact did not know himself that he was doing it. In Mexico -he had been wounded in the eye, and the nerve vibrates independently of -his will. During the winter of 1862 and 1863 he was on crutches. After a -while he hobbled down Franklin Street with us, we proud to accommodate -our pace to that of the wounded general. His ankle continued stiff; -so when he sat down another chair had to be put before him. On this -he stretched out his stiff leg, straight as a ramrod. At that time he -was our only wounded knight, and the girls waited on him and made life -pleasant for him. - -One night I listened to two love-tales at once, in a distracted state of -mind between the two. William Porcher Miles, in a perfectly modulated -voice, in cadenced accents and low tones, was narrating the happy end -of his affair. He had been engaged to sweet little Bettie Bierne, and I -gave him my congratulations with all my heart. It was a capital match, -suitable in every way, good for her, and good for him. I was deeply -interested in Mr. Miles’s story, but there was din and discord on the -other hand; old Edward, our pet general, sat diagonally across the room -with one leg straight out like a poker, wrapped in red carpet leggings, -as red as a turkey-cock in the face. His head is strangely shaped, like a -cone or an old-fashioned beehive; or, as Buck said, there are three tiers -of it; it is like a pope’s tiara. - -There he sat, with a loud voice and a thousand winks, making love to -Mary P. I make no excuse for listening. It was impossible not to hear -him. I tried not to lose a word of Mr. Miles’s idyl as the despair of -the veteran was thundered into my other ear. I lent an ear to each -conversationalist. Mary can not altogether control her voice, and her -shrill screams of negation, “No, no, never,” etc., utterly failed to -suppress her wounded lover’s obstreperous asseverations of his undying -affection for her. - -Buck said afterward: “We heard every word of it on our side of the room, -even when Mamie shrieked to him that he was talking too loud. Now, -Mamie,” said we afterward, “do you think it was kind to tell him he was -forty if he was a day?” - -Strange to say, the pet general, Edward, rehabilitated his love in a -day; at least two days after he was heard to say that he was “paying -attentions now to his cousin, John Preston’s second daughter; her name, -Sally, but they called her Buck—Sally Buchanan Campbell Preston, a lovely -girl.” And with her he now drove, rode, and hobbled on his crutches, sent -her his photograph, and in due time cannonaded her, from the same spot -where he had courted Mary, with proposals to marry him. - -Buck was never so decided in her “Nos” as Mary. (“Not so loud, at -least”—thus in amendment, says Buck, who always reads what I have -written, and makes comments of assent or dissent.) So again he began to -thunder in a woman’s ears his tender passion. As they rode down Franklin -Street, Buck says she knows the people on the sidewalk heard snatches of -the conversation, though she rode as rapidly as she could, and she begged -him not to talk so loud. Finally, they dashed up to our door as if they -had been running a race. Unfortunate in love, but fortunate in war, our -general is now winning new laurels with Ewell in the Valley or with the -Army of the Potomac. - -I think I have told how Miles, still “so gently o’er me leaning,” told of -his successful love while General Edward Johnston roared unto anguish and -disappointment over his failures. Mr. Miles spoke of sweet little Bettie -Bierne as if she had been a French girl, just from a convent, kept far -from the haunts of men wholly for him. One would think to hear him that -Bettie had never cast those innocent blue eyes of hers on a man until he -came along. - -Now, since I first knew Miss Bierne in 1857, when Pat Calhoun was to -the fore, she has been followed by a tale of men as long as a Highland -chief’s. Every summer at the Springs, their father appeared in the -ballroom a little before twelve and chased the three beautiful Biernes -home before him in spite of all entreaties, and he was said to frown away -their too numerous admirers at all hours of the day. - -This new engagement was confided to me as a profound secret. Of course, -I did not mention it, even to my own household. Next day little Alston, -Morgan’s adjutant, and George Deas called. As Colonel Deas removed his -gloves, he said: “Oh! the Miles and Bierne sensation—have you heard of -it?” “No, what is the row about?” “They are engaged to be married; that’s -all.” “Who told you?” “Miles himself, as we walked down Franklin Street, -this afternoon.” “And did he not beg you not to mention it, as Bettie did -not wish it spoken of?” “God bless my soul, so he did. And I forgot that -part entirely.” - -Colonel Alston begged the stout Carolinian not to take his inadvertent -breach of faith too much to heart. Miss Bettie’s engagement had caused -him a dreadful night. A young man, who was his intimate friend, came -to his room in the depths of despair and handed him a letter from Miss -Bierne, which was the cause of all his woe. Not knowing that she was -already betrothed to Miles, he had proposed to her in an eloquent letter. -In her reply, she positively stated that she was engaged to Mr. Miles, -and instead of thanking her for putting him at once out of his misery, -he considered the reason she gave as trebly aggravating the agony of the -love-letter and the refusal. “Too late!” he yelled, “by Jingo!” So much -for a secret. - -Miss Bierne and I became fast friends. Our friendship was based on a -mutual admiration for the honorable member from South Carolina. Colonel -and Mrs. Myers and Colonel and Mrs. Chesnut were the only friends of Mr. -Miles who were invited to the wedding. At the church door the sexton -demanded our credentials. No one but those whose names he held in his -hand were allowed to enter. Not twenty people were present—a mere handful -grouped about the altar in that large church. - -We were among the first to arrive. Then came a faint flutter and Mrs. -Parkman (the bride’s sister, swathed in weeds for her young husband, who -had been killed within a year of her marriage) came rapidly up the aisle -alone. She dropped upon her knees in the front pew, and there remained, -motionless, during the whole ceremony, a mass of black crape, and a dead -weight on my heart. She has had experience of war. A cannonade around -Richmond interrupted her marriage service—a sinister omen—and in a year -thereafter her bridegroom was stiff and stark—dead upon the field of -battle. - -While the wedding-march turned our thoughts from her and thrilled us -with sympathy, the bride advanced in white satin and point d’Alençon. -Mrs. Myers whispered that it was Mrs. Parkman’s wedding-dress that the -bride had on. She remembered the exquisite lace, and she shuddered with -superstitious forebodings. - -All had been going on delightfully in-doors, but a sharp shower cleared -the church porch of the curious; and, as the water splashed, we wondered -how we were to assemble ourselves at Mrs. McFarland’s. All the horses in -Richmond had been impressed for some sudden cavalry necessity a few days -before. I ran between Mr. McFarland and Senator Semmes with my pretty -Paris rose-colored silk turned over my head to save it, and when we -arrived at the hospitable mansion of the McFarlands, Mr. McFarland took -me straight into the drawing-room, man-like, forgetting that my ruffled -plumes needed a good smoothing and preening. - -Mrs. Lee sent for me. She was staying at Mrs. Caskie’s. I was taken -directly to her room, where she was lying on the bed. She said, before -I had taken my seat: “You know there is a fight going on now at Brandy -Station?”[99] “Yes, we are anxious. John Chesnut’s company is there, -too.” She spoke sadly, but quietly. “My son, Roony, is wounded; his -brother has gone for him. They will soon be here and we shall know all -about it unless Roony’s wife takes him to her grandfather. Poor lame -mother, I am useless to my children.” Mrs. Caskie said: “You need not be -alarmed. The General said in his telegram that it was not a severe wound. -You know even Yankees believe General Lee.” - -That day, Mrs. Lee gave me a likeness of the General in a photograph -taken soon after the Mexican War. She likes it so much better than the -later ones. He certainly was a handsome man then, handsomer even than -now. I shall prize it for Mrs. Lee’s sake, too. She said old Mrs. Chesnut -and her aunt, Nellie Custis (Mrs. Lewis) were very intimate during -Washington’s Administration in Philadelphia. I told her Mrs. Chesnut, -senior, was the historical member of our family; she had so much to tell -of Revolutionary times. She was one of the “white-robed choir” of little -maidens who scattered flowers before Washington at Trenton Bridge, which -everybody who writes a life of Washington asks her to give an account of. - -Mrs. Ould and Mrs. Davis came home with me. Lawrence had a basket of -delicious cherries. “If there were only some ice,” said I. Respectfully -Lawrence answered, and also firmly: “Give me money and you shall have -ice.” By the underground telegraph he had heard of an ice-house over -the river, though its fame was suppressed by certain Sybarites, as -they wanted it all. In a wonderfully short time we had mint-juleps and -sherry-cobblers. - -Altogether it has been a pleasant day, and as I sat alone I was laughing -lightly now and then at the memory of some funny story. Suddenly, a -violent ring; and a regular sheaf of telegrams were handed me. I could -not have drawn away in more consternation if the sheets had been a nest -of rattlesnakes. First, Frank Hampton was killed at Brandy Station. -Wade Hampton telegraphed Mr. Chesnut to see Robert Barnwell, and make -the necessary arrangements to recover the body. Mr. Chesnut is still at -Wilmington. I sent for Preston Johnston, and my neighbor, Colonel Patton, -offered to see that everything proper was done. That afternoon I walked -out alone. Willie Mountford had shown me where the body, all that was -left of Frank Hampton, was to be laid in the Capitol. Mrs. Petticola -joined me after a while, and then Mrs. Singleton. - -Preston Hampton and Peter Trezevant, with myself and Mrs. Singleton, -formed the sad procession which followed the coffin. There was a company -of soldiers drawn up in front of the State House porch. Mrs. Singleton -said we had better go in and look at him before the coffin was finally -closed. How I wish I had not looked. I remember him so well in all the -pride of his magnificent manhood. He died of a saber-cut across the face -and head, and was utterly disfigured. Mrs. Singleton seemed convulsed -with grief. In all my life I had never seen such bitter weeping. She had -her own troubles, but I did not know of them. We sat for a long time on -the great steps of the State House. Everybody had gone and we were alone. - -We talked of it all—how we had gone to Charleston to see Rachel in -Adrienne Lecouvreur, and how, as I stood waiting in the passage near the -drawing-room, I had met Frank Hampton bringing his beautiful bride from -the steamer. They had just landed. Afterward at Mrs. Singleton’s place in -the country we had all spent a delightful week together. And now, only a -few years have passed, but nearly all that pleasant company are dead, and -our world, the only world we cared for, literally kicked to pieces. And -she cried, “We are two lone women, stranded here.” Rev. Robert Barnwell -was in a desperate condition, and Mary Barnwell, her daughter, was -expecting her confinement every day. - -Here now, later, let me add that it was not until I got back to Carolina -that I heard of Robert Barnwell’s death, with scarcely a day’s interval -between it and that of Mary and her new-born baby. Husband, wife, and -child were buried at the same time in the same grave in Columbia. And -now, Mrs. Singleton has three orphan grandchildren. What a woful year it -has been to her. - -Robert Barnwell had insisted upon being sent to the hospital at Staunton. -On account of his wife’s situation the doctor also had advised it. He -was carried off on a mattress. His brave wife tried to prevent it, and -said: “It is only fever.” And she nursed him to the last. She tried to -say good-by cheerfully, and called after him: “As soon as my trouble -is over I will come to you at Staunton.” At the hospital they said it -was typhoid fever. He died the second day after he got there. Poor Mary -fainted when she heard the ambulance drive away with him. Then she crept -into a low trundle-bed kept for the children in her mother’s room. She -never left that bed again. When the message came from Staunton that fever -was the matter with Robert and nothing more, Mrs. Singleton says she -will never forget the expression in Mary’s eyes as she turned and looked -at her. “Robert will get well,” she said, “it is all right.” Her face -was radiant, blazing with light. That night the baby was born, and Mrs. -Singleton got a telegram that Robert was dead. She did not tell Mary, -standing, as she did, at the window while she read it. She was at the -same time looking for Robert’s body, which might come any moment. As for -Mary’s life being in danger, she had never thought of such a thing. She -was thinking only of Robert. Then a servant touched her and said: “Look -at Mrs. Barnwell.” She ran to the bedside, and the doctor, who had come -in, said, “It is all over; she is dead.” Not in anger, not in wrath, came -the angel of death that day. He came to set Mary free from a world grown -too hard to bear. - - * * * * * - -During Stoneman’s raid[100] I burned some personal papers. Molly -constantly said to me, “Missis, listen to de guns. Burn up everything. -Mrs. Lyons says they are sure to come, and they’ll put in their -newspapers whatever you write here, every day.” The guns did sound very -near, and when Mrs. Davis rode up and told me that if Mr. Davis left -Richmond I must go with her, I confess I lost my head. So I burned a part -of my journal but rewrote it afterward from memory—my implacable enemy -that lets me forget none of the things I would. I am weak with dates. I -do not always worry to look at the calendar and write them down. Besides -I have not always a calendar at hand. - - - - -XV - -CAMDEN, S. C. - -_September 10, 1863-November 5, 1863_ - - -Camden, S. C., _September 10, 1863_.—It is a comfort to turn from small -political jealousies to our grand battles—to Lee and Kirby Smith after -Council and Convention squabbles. Lee has proved to be all that my -husband prophesied of him when he was so unpopular and when Joe Johnston -was the great god of war. The very sound of the word convention or -council is wearisome. Not that I am quite ready for Richmond yet. We must -look after home and plantation affairs, which we have sadly neglected. -Heaven help my husband through the deep waters. - -The wedding of Miss Aiken, daughter of Governor Aiken, the largest -slave-owner in South Carolina; Julia Rutledge, one of the bridesmaids; -the place Flat Rock. We could not for a while imagine what Julia would -do for a dress. My sister Kate remembered some muslin she had in the -house for curtains, bought before the war, and laid aside as not needed -now. The stuff was white and thin, a little coarse, but then we covered -it with no end of beautiful lace. It made a charming dress, and how -altogether lovely Julia looked in it! The night of the wedding it stormed -as if the world were coming to an end—wind, rain, thunder, and lightning -in an unlimited supply around the mountain cottage. - -The bride had a _duchesse_ dressing-table, muslin and lace; not one of -the shifts of honest, war-driven poverty, but a millionaire’s attempt -at appearing economical, in the idea that that style was in better taste -as placing the family more on the same plane with their less comfortable -compatriots. A candle was left too near this light drapery and it took -fire. Outside was lightning enough to fire the world; inside, the bridal -chamber was ablaze, and there was wind enough to blow the house down the -mountainside. - -The English maid behaved heroically, and, with the aid of Mrs. Aiken’s -and Mrs. Mat Singleton’s servants, put the fire out without disturbing -the marriage ceremony, then being performed below. Everything in the -bridal chamber was burned up except the bed, and that was a mass of -cinders, soot, and flakes of charred and blackened wood. - -At Kingsville I caught a glimpse of our army. Longstreet’s corps was -going West. God bless the gallant fellows! Not one man was intoxicated; -not one rude word did I hear. It was a strange sight—one part of it. -There were miles, apparently, of platform cars, soldiers rolled in their -blankets, lying in rows, heads all covered, fast asleep. In their gray -blankets, packed in regular order, they looked like swathed mummies. One -man near where I sat was writing on his knee. He used his cap for a desk -and he was seated on a rail. I watched him, wondering to whom that letter -was to go—home, no doubt. Sore hearts for him there. - -A feeling of awful depression laid hold of me. All these fine fellows -were going to kill or be killed. Why? And a phrase got to beating about -my head like an old song, “The Unreturning Brave.” When a knot of boyish, -laughing, young creatures passed me, a queer thrill of sympathy shook me. -Ah, I know how your home-folks feel, poor children! Once, last winter, -persons came to us in Camden with such strange stories of Captain ——, -Morgan’s man; stories of his father, too; turf tales and murder, or, at -least, how he killed people. He had been a tremendous favorite with my -husband, who brought him in once, leading him by the hand. Afterward he -said to me, “With these girls in the house we must be more cautious.” I -agreed to be coldly polite to ——. “After all,” I said, “I barely know -him.” - -When he called afterward in Richmond I was very glad to see him, utterly -forgetting that he was under a ban. We had a long, confidential talk. He -told me of his wife and children; of his army career, and told Morgan -stories. He grew more and more cordial and so did I. He thanked me for -the kind reception given him in that house; told me I was a true friend -of his, and related to me a scrape he was in which, if divulged, would -ruin him, although he was innocent; but time would clear all things. He -begged me not to repeat anything he had told me of his affairs, not even -to Colonel Chesnut; which I promised promptly, and then he went away. -I sat poking the fire thinking what a curiously interesting creature -he was, this famous Captain ——, when the folding-doors slowly opened -and Colonel Chesnut appeared. He had come home two hours ago from the -War Office with a headache, and had been lying on the sofa behind that -folding-door listening for mortal hours. - -“So, this is your style of being ‘coldly polite,’” he said. Fancy my -feelings. “Indeed, I had forgotten all about what they had said of him. -The lies they told of him never once crossed my mind. He is a great deal -cleverer, and, I dare say, just as good as those who malign him.” - -Mattie Reedy (I knew her as a handsome girl in Washington several years -ago) got tired of hearing Federals abusing John Morgan. One day they were -worse than ever in their abuse and she grew restive. By way of putting a -mark against the name of so rude a girl, the Yankee officer said, “What -is your name?” “Write ‘Mattie Reedy’ now, but by the grace of God one day -I hope to call myself the wife of John Morgan.” She did not know Morgan, -but Morgan eventually heard the story; a good joke it was said to be. -But he made it a point to find her out; and, as she was as pretty as she -was patriotic, by the grace of God, she is now Mrs. Morgan! These timid -Southern women under the guns can be brave enough. - -Aunt Charlotte has told a story of my dear mother. They were up at -Shelby, Ala., a white man’s country, where negroes are not wanted. The -ladies had with them several negroes belonging to my uncle at whose house -they were staying in the owner’s absence. One negro man who had married -and dwelt in a cabin was for some cause particularly obnoxious to the -neighborhood. My aunt and my mother, old-fashioned ladies, shrinking -from everything outside their own door, knew nothing of all this. They -occupied rooms on opposite sides of an open passageway. Underneath, the -house was open and unfinished. Suddenly, one night, my aunt heard a -terrible noise—apparently as of a man running for his life, pursued by -men and dogs, shouting, hallooing, barking. She had only time to lock -herself in. Utterly cut off from her sister, she sat down, dumb with -terror, when there began loud knocking at the door, with men swearing, -dogs tearing round, sniffing, racing in and out of the passage and -barking underneath the house like mad. Aunt Charlotte was sure she heard -the panting of a negro as he ran into the house a few minutes before. -What could have become of him? Where could he have hidden? The men shook -the doors and windows, loudly threatening vengeance. My aunt pitied her -feeble sister, cut off in the room across the passage. This fright might -kill her! - -The cursing and shouting continued unabated. A man’s voice, in harshest -accents, made itself heard above all: “Leave my house, you rascals!” -said the voice. “If you are not gone in two seconds, I’ll shoot!” There -was a dead silence except for the noise of the dogs. Quickly the men -slipped away. Once out of gunshot, they began to call their dogs. After -it was all over my aunt crept across the passage. “Sister, what man was -it scared them away?” My mother laughed aloud in her triumph. “I am the -man,” she said. - -“But where is John?” Out crept John from a corner of the room, where -my mother had thrown some rubbish over him. “Lawd bless you, Miss Mary -opened de do’ for me and dey was right behind runnin’ me—” Aunt says -mother was awfully proud of her prowess. And she showed some moral -courage, too! - -At the President’s in Richmond once, General Lee was there, and Constance -and Hetty Cary came in; also Miss Sanders and others. Constance Cary[101] -was telling some war anecdotes, among them one of an attempt to get up -a supper the night before at some high and mighty F. F. V.’s house, and -of how several gentlefolks went into the kitchen to prepare something -to eat by the light of one forlorn candle. One of the men in the party, -not being of a useful temperament, turned up a tub and sat down upon it. -Custis Lee, wishing also to rest, found nothing upon which to sit but a -gridiron. - -One remembrance I kept of the evening at the President’s: General Lee -bowing over the beautiful Miss Cary’s hands in the passage outside. Miss -—— rose to have her part in the picture, and asked Mr. Davis to walk -with her into the adjoining drawing-room. He seemed surprised, but rose -stiffly, and, with a scowling brow, was led off. As they passed where -Mrs. Davis sat, Miss ——, with all sail set, looked back and said: “Don’t -be jealous, Mrs. Davis; I have an important communication to make to the -President.” Mrs. Davis’s amusement resulted in a significant “Now! Did -you ever?” - -During Stoneman’s raid, on a Sunday I was in Mrs. Randolph’s pew. The -battle of Chancellorsville was also raging. The rattling of ammunition -wagons, the tramp of soldiers, the everlasting slamming of those iron -gates of the Capitol Square just opposite the church, made it hard to -attend to the service. - -Then began a scene calculated to make the stoutest heart quail. The -sexton would walk quietly up the aisle to deliver messages to worshipers -whose relatives had been brought in wounded, dying, or dead. Pale-faced -people would then follow him out. Finally, the Rev. Mr. Minnegerode bent -across the chancel-rail to the sexton for a few minutes, whispered with -the sexton, and then disappeared. The assistant clergyman resumed the -communion which Mr. Minnegerode had been administering. At the church -door stood Mrs. Minnegerode, as tragically wretched and as wild-looking -as ever Mrs. Siddons was. She managed to say to her husband, “Your son is -at the station, dead!” When these agonized parents reached the station, -however, it proved to be some one else’s son who was dead—but a son all -the same. Pale and wan came Mr. Minnegerode back to his place within the -altar rails. After the sacred communion was over, some one asked him what -it all meant, and he said: “Oh, it was not my son who was killed, but it -came so near it aches me yet!” - -At home I found L. Q. Washington, who stayed to dinner. I saw that he and -my husband were intently preoccupied by some event which they did not see -fit to communicate to me. Immediately after dinner my husband lent Mr. -Washington one of his horses and they rode off together. I betook myself -to my kind neighbors, the Pattons, for information. There I found Colonel -Patton had gone, too. Mrs. Patton, however, knew all about the trouble. -She said there was a raiding party within forty miles of us and no troops -were in Richmond! They asked me to stay to tea—those kind ladies—and in -some way we might learn what was going on. After tea we went out to the -Capitol Square, Lawrence and three men-servants going along to protect -us. They seemed to be mustering in citizens by the thousands. Company -after company was being formed; then battalions, and then regiments. It -was a wonderful sight to us, peering through the iron railing, watching -them fall into ranks. - -Then we went to the President’s, finding the family at supper. We sat -on the white marble steps, and General Elzey told me exactly how things -stood and of our immediate danger. Pickets were coming in. Men were -spurring to and from the door as fast as they could ride, bringing and -carrying messages and orders. Calmly General Elzey discoursed upon our -present weakness and our chances for aid. After a while Mrs. Davis came -out and embraced me silently. - -“It is dreadful,” I said. “The enemy is within forty miles of us—only -forty!” “Who told you that tale?” said she. “They are within three miles -of Richmond!” I went down on my knees like a stone. “You had better be -quiet,” she said. “The President is ill. Women and children must not add -to the trouble.” She asked me to stay all night, which I was thankful to -do. - -We sat up. Officers were coming and going; and we gave them what -refreshment we could from a side table, kept constantly replenished. -Finally, in the excitement, the constant state of activity and change of -persons, we forgot the danger. Officers told us jolly stories and seemed -in fine spirits, so we gradually took heart. There was not a moment’s -rest for any one. Mrs. Davis said something more amusing than ever: “We -look like frightened women and children, don’t we?” - -Early next morning the President came down. He was still feeble and pale -from illness. Custis Lee and my husband loaded their pistols, and the -President drove off in Dr. Garnett’s carriage, my husband and Custis Lee -on horseback alongside him. By eight o’clock the troops from Petersburg -came in, and the danger was over. The authorities will never strip -Richmond of troops again. We had a narrow squeeze for it, but we escaped. -It was a terrible night, although we made the best of it. - -I was walking on Franklin Street when I met my husband. “Come with me to -the War Office for a few minutes,” said he, “and then I will go home with -you.” What could I do but go? He took me up a dark stairway, and then -down a long, dark corridor, and he left me sitting in a window, saying he -“would not be gone a second”; he was obliged to go into the Secretary of -War’s room. There I sat mortal hours. Men came to light the gas. From the -first I put down my veil so that nobody might know me. Numbers of persons -passed that I knew, but I scarcely felt respectable seated up there in -that odd way, so I said not a word but looked out of the window. Judge -Campbell slowly walked up and down with his hands behind his back—the -saddest face I ever saw. He had jumped down in his patriotism from Judge -of the Supreme Court, U. S. A., to be under-secretary of something or -other—I do not know what—C. S. A. No wonder he was out of spirits that -night! - -Finally Judge Ould came; him I called, and he joined me at once, in no -little amazement to find me there, and stayed with me until James Chesnut -appeared. In point of fact, I sent him to look up that stray member of my -family. - -When my husband came he said: “Oh, Mr. Seddon and I got into an argument, -and time slipped away! The truth is, I utterly forgot you were here.” -When we were once more out in the street, he began: “Now, don’t scold -me, for there is bad news. Pemberton has been fighting the Yankees by -brigades, and he has been beaten every time; and now Vicksburg must go!” -I suppose that was his side of the argument with Seddon. - -Once again I visited the War Office. I went with Mrs. Ould to see her -husband at his office. We wanted to arrange a party on the river on the -flag-of-truce boat, and to visit those beautiful places, Claremont and -Brandon. My husband got into one of his “too careful” fits; said there -was risk in it; and so he upset all our plans. Then I was to go up to -John Rutherford’s by the canal-boat. That, too, he vetoed “too risky,” as -if anybody was going to trouble us! - -_October 24th._—James Chesnut is at home on his way back to Richmond; had -been sent by the President to make the rounds of the Western armies; says -Polk is a splendid old fellow. They accuse him of having been asleep in -his tent at seven o’clock when he was ordered to attack at daylight, but -he has too good a conscience to sleep so soundly. - -The battle did not begin until eleven at Chickamauga[102] when Bragg had -ordered the advance at daylight. Bragg and his generals do not agree. I -think a general worthless whose subalterns quarrel with him. Something -is wrong about the man. Good generals are adored by their soldiers. See -Napoleon, Cæsar, Stonewall, Lee. - -Old Sam (Hood) received his orders to hold a certain bridge against the -enemy, and he had already driven the enemy several miles beyond it, when -the slow generals were still asleep. Hood has won a victory, though he -has only one leg to stand on. - -Mr. Chesnut was with the President when he reviewed our army under the -enemy’s guns before Chattanooga. He told Mr. Davis that every honest man -he saw out West thought well of Joe Johnston. He knows that the President -detests Joe Johnston for all the trouble he has given him, and General -Joe returns the compliment with compound interest. His hatred of Jeff -Davis amounts to a religion. With him it colors all things. - -Joe Johnston advancing, or retreating, I may say with more truth, is -magnetic. He does draw the good-will of those by whom he is surrounded. -Being such a good hater, it is a pity he had not elected to hate somebody -else than the President of our country. He hates not wisely but too well. -Our friend Breckinridge[103] received Mr. Chesnut with open arms. There -is nothing narrow, nothing self-seeking, about Breckinridge. He has not -mounted a pair of green spectacles made of prejudices so that he sees no -good except in his own red-hot partizans. - -_October 27th._—Young Wade Hampton has been here for a few days, a guest -of our nearest neighbor and cousin, Phil Stockton. Wade, without being -the beauty or the athlete that his brother Preston is, is such a nice -boy. We lent him horses, and ended by giving him a small party. What -was lacking in company was made up for by the excellence of old Colonel -Chesnut’s ancient Madeira and champagne. If everything in the Confederacy -were only as truly good as the old Colonel’s wine-cellars! Then we had a -salad and a jelly cake. - -General Joe Johnston is so careful of his aides that Wade has never yet -seen a battle. Says he has always happened to be sent afar off when the -fighting came. He does not seem too grateful for this, and means to be -transferred to his father’s command. He says, “No man exposes himself -more recklessly to danger than General Johnston, and no one strives -harder to keep others out of it.” But the business of this war is to save -the country, and a commander must risk his men’s lives to do it. There is -a French saying that you can’t make an omelet unless you are willing to -break eggs. - -_November 5th._—For a week we have had such a tranquil, happy time here. -Both my husband and Johnny are here still. James Chesnut spent his time -sauntering around with his father, or stretched on the rug before my fire -reading Vanity Fair and Pendennis. By good luck he had not read them -before. We have kept Esmond for the last. He owns that he is having a -good time. Johnny is happy, too. He does not care for books. He will read -a novel now and then, if the girls continue to talk of it before him. -Nothing else whatever in the way of literature does he touch. He comes -pulling his long blond mustache irresolutely as if he hoped to be advised -not to read it—“Aunt Mary, shall I like this thing?” I do not think he -has an idea what we are fighting about, and he does not want to know. He -says, “My company,” “My men,” with a pride, a faith, and an affection -which are sublime. He came into his inheritance at twenty-one (just as -the war began), and it was a goodly one, fine old houses and an estate to -match. - -Yesterday, Johnny went to his plantation for the first time since the war -began. John Witherspoon went with him, and reports in this way: “How do -you do, Marster! How you come on?”—thus from every side rang the noisiest -welcome from the darkies. Johnny was silently shaking black hands right -and left as he rode into the crowd. - -As the noise subsided, to the overseer he said: “Send down more corn and -fodder for my horses.” And to the driver, “Have you any peas?” “Plenty, -sir.” “Send a wagon-load down for the cows at Bloomsbury while I stay -there. They have not milk and butter enough there for me. Any eggs? Send -down all you can collect. How about my turkeys and ducks? Send them down -two at a time. How about the mutton? Fat? That’s good; send down two a -week.” - -As they rode home, John Witherspoon remarked, “I was surprised that you -did not go into the fields to see your crops.” “What was the use?” “And -the negroes; you had so little talk with them.” - -“No use to talk to them before the overseer. They are coming down to -Bloomsbury, day and night, by platoons and they talk me dead. Besides, -William and Parish go up there every night, and God knows they tell me -enough plantation scandal—overseer feathering his nest; negroes ditto at -my expense. Between the two fires I mean to get something to eat while I -am here.” - -For him we got up a charming picnic at Mulberry. Everything was -propitious—the most perfect of days and the old place in great beauty. -Those large rooms were delightful for dancing; we had as good a dinner as -mortal appetite could crave; the best fish, fowl, and game; wine from a -cellar that can not be excelled. In spite of blockade Mulberry does the -honors nobly yet. Mrs. Edward Stockton drove down with me. She helped me -with her taste and tact in arranging things. We had no trouble, however. -All of the old servants who have not been moved to Bloomsbury scented the -prey from afar, and they literally flocked in and made themselves useful. - - - - -XVI - -RICHMOND, VA. - -_November 28, 1863-April 11, 1864_ - - -Richmond, Va., _November 28, 1863_.—Our pleasant home sojourn was soon -broken up. Johnny had to go back to Company A, and my husband was ordered -by the President to make a second visit to Bragg’s Army[104]. - -So we came on here where the Prestons had taken apartments for me. Molly -was with me. Adam Team, the overseer, with Isaac McLaughlin’s help, came -with us to take charge of the eight huge boxes of provisions I brought -from home. Isaac, Molly’s husband, is a servant of ours, the only one my -husband ever bought in his life. Isaac’s wife belonged to Rev. Thomas -Davis, and Isaac to somebody else. The owner of Isaac was about to go -West, and Isaac was distracted. They asked one thousand dollars for -him. He is a huge creature, really a magnificent specimen of a colored -gentleman. His occupation had been that of a stage-driver. Now, he is a -carpenter, or will be some day. He is awfully grateful to us for buying -him; is really devoted to his wife and children, though he has a strange -way of showing it, for he has a mistress, _en titre_, as the French say, -which fact Molly never failed to grumble about as soon as his back was -turned. “Great big good-for-nothing thing come a-whimpering to marster to -buy him for his wife’s sake, and all the time he an—” “Oh, Molly, stop -that!” said I. - -Mr. Davis visited Charleston and had an enthusiastic reception. He -described it all to General Preston. Governor Aiken’s perfect old -Carolina style of living delighted him. Those old gray-haired darkies and -their noiseless, automatic service, the result of finished training—one -does miss that sort of thing when away from home, where your own servants -think for you; they know your ways and your wants; they save you all -responsibility even in matters of your own ease and well doing. The -butler at Mulberry would be miserable and feel himself a ridiculous -failure were I ever forced to ask him for anything. - -_November 30th._—I must describe an adventure I had in Kingsville. Of -course, I know nothing of children: in point of fact, am awfully afraid -of them. - -Mrs. Edward Barnwell came with us from Camden. She had a magnificent boy -two years old. Now don’t expect me to reduce that adjective, for this -little creature is a wonder of childlike beauty, health, and strength. -Why not? If like produces like, and with such a handsome pair to claim as -father and mother! The boy’s eyes alone would make any girl’s fortune. - -At first he made himself very agreeable, repeating nursery rhymes and -singing. Then something went wrong. Suddenly he changed to a little -fiend, fought and kicked and scratched like a tiger. He did everything -that was naughty, and he did it with a will as if he liked it, while his -lovely mamma, with flushed cheeks and streaming eyes, was imploring him -to be a good boy. - -When we stopped at Kingsville, I got out first, then Mrs. Barnwell’s -nurse, who put the little man down by me. “Look after him a moment, -please, ma’am,” she said. “I must help Mrs. Barnwell with the bundles,” -etc. She stepped hastily back and the cars moved off. They ran down a -half mile to turn. I trembled in my shoes. This child! No man could -ever frighten me so. If he should choose to be bad again! It seemed an -eternity while I waited for that train to turn and come back again. My -little charge took things quietly. For me he had a perfect contempt, no -fear whatever. And I was his abject slave for the nonce. - -He stretched himself out lazily at full length. Then he pointed -downward. “Those are great legs,” said he solemnly, looking at his own. -I immediately joined him in admiring them enthusiastically. Near him he -spied a bundle. “Pussy cat tied up in that bundle.” He was up in a second -and pounced upon it. If we were to be taken up as thieves, no matter, I -dared not meddle with that child. I had seen what he could do. There were -several cooked sweet potatoes tied up in an old handkerchief—belonging -to some negro probably. He squared himself off comfortably, broke one in -half and began to eat. Evidently he had found what he was fond of. In -this posture Mrs. Barnwell discovered us. She came with comic dismay in -every feature, not knowing what our relations might be, and whether or -not we had undertaken to fight it out alone as best we might. The old -nurse cried, “Lawsy me!” with both hands uplifted. Without a word I fled. -In another moment the Wilmington train would have left me. She was going -to Columbia. - -We broke down only once between Kingsville and Wilmington, but between -Wilmington and Weldon we contrived to do the thing so effectually as to -have to remain twelve hours at that forlorn station. - -The one room that I saw was crowded with soldiers. Adam Team succeeded -in securing two chairs for me, upon one of which I sat and put my feet -on the other. Molly sat flat on the floor, resting her head against my -chair. I woke cold and cramped. An officer, who did not give his name, -but said he was from Louisiana, came up and urged me to go near the fire. -He gave me his seat by the fire, where I found an old lady and two young -ones, with two men in the uniform of common soldiers. - -We talked as easily to each other all night as if we had known one -another all our lives. We discussed the war, the army, the news of the -day. No questions were asked, no names given, no personal discourse -whatever, and yet if these men and women were not gentry, and of the best -sort, I do not know ladies and gentlemen when I see them. - -Being a little surprised at the want of interest Mr. Team and Isaac -showed in my well-doing, I walked out to see, and I found them working -like beavers. They had been at it all night. In the break-down my boxes -were smashed. They had first gathered up the contents and were trying to -hammer up the boxes so as to make them once more available. - -At Petersburg a smartly dressed woman came in, looked around in the -crowd, then asked for the seat by me. Now Molly’s seat was paid for the -same as mine, but she got up at once, gave the lady her seat and stood -behind me. I am sure Molly believes herself my body-guard as well as my -servant. - -The lady then having arranged herself comfortably in Molly’s seat began -in plaintive accents to tell her melancholy tale. She was a widow. She -lost her husband in the battles around Richmond. Soon some one went out -and a man offered her the vacant seat. Straight as an arrow she went in -for a flirtation with the polite gentleman. Another person, a perfect -stranger, said to me, “Well, look yonder. As soon as she began whining -about her dead beau I knew she was after another one.” “Beau, indeed!” -cried another listener, “she said it was her husband.” “Husband or lover, -all the same. She won’t lose any time. It won’t be her fault if she -doesn’t have another one soon.” - -But the grand scene was the night before: the cars crowded with soldiers, -of course; not a human being that I knew. An Irish woman, so announced by -her brogue, came in. She marched up and down the car, loudly lamenting -the want of gallantry in the men who would not make way for her. Two men -got up and gave her their seats, saying it did not matter, they were -going to get out at the next stopping-place. - -She was gifted with the most pronounced brogue I ever heard, and she gave -us a taste of it. She continued to say that the men ought all to get out -of that; that car was “shuteable” only for ladies. She placed on the -vacant seat next to her a large looking-glass. She continued to harangue -until she fell asleep. - -A tired soldier coming in, seeing what he supposed to be an empty seat, -quietly slipped into it. Crash went the glass. The soldier groaned, the -Irish woman shrieked. The man was badly cut by the broken glass. She was -simply a mad woman. She shook her fist in his face; said she was a lone -woman and he had got into that seat for no good purpose. How did he dare -to?—etc. I do not think the man uttered a word. The conductor took him -into another car to have the pieces of glass picked out of his clothes, -and she continued to rave. Mr. Team shouted aloud, and laughed as if he -were in the Hermitage Swamp. The woman’s unreasonable wrath and absurd -accusations were comic, no doubt. - -Soon the car was silent and I fell into a comfortable doze. I felt Molly -give me a gentle shake. “Listen, Missis, how loud Mars Adam Team is -talking, and all about ole marster and our business, and to strangers. -It’s a shame.” “Is he saying any harm of us?” “No, ma’am, not that. He -is bragging for dear life ’bout how ole ole marster is and how rich he -is, an’ all that. I gwine tell him stop.” Up started Molly. “Mars Adam, -Missis say please don’t talk so loud. When people travel they don’t do -that a way.” - -Mr. Preston’s man, Hal, was waiting at the depot with a carriage to take -me to my Richmond house. Mary Preston had rented these apartments for me. - -I found my dear girls there with a nice fire. Everything looked so -pleasant and inviting to the weary traveler. Mrs. Grundy, who occupies -the lower floor, sent me such a real Virginia tea, hot cakes, and rolls. -Think of living in the house with Mrs. Grundy, and having no fear of -“what Mrs. Grundy will say.” - -My husband has come; he likes the house, Grundy’s, and everything. -Already he has bought Grundy’s horses for sixteen hundred Confederate -dollars cash. He is nearer to being contented and happy than I ever saw -him. He has not established a grievance yet, but I am on the lookout -daily. He will soon find out whatever there is wrong about Cary Street. - -I gave a party; Mrs. Davis very witty; Preston girls very handsome; -Isabella’s fun fast and furious. No party could have gone off more -successfully, but my husband decides we are to have no more festivities. -This is not the time or the place for such gaieties. - -Maria Freeland is perfectly delightful on the subject of her wedding. -She is ready to the last piece of lace, but her hard-hearted father says -“No.” She adores John Lewis. That goes without saying. She does not -pretend, however, to be as much in love as Mary Preston. In point of -fact, she never saw any one before who was. But she is as much in love -as she can be with a man who, though he is not _very_ handsome, is as -eligible a match as a girl could make. He is all that heart could wish, -and he comes of such a handsome family. His mother, Esther Maria Coxe, -was the beauty of a century, and his father was a nephew of General -Washington. For all that, he is far better looking than John Darby or Mr. -Miles. She always intended to marry better than Mary Preston or Bettie -Bierne. - -Lucy Haxall is positively engaged to Captain Coffey, an Englishman. She -is convinced that she will marry him. He is her first fancy. - -Mr. Venable, of Lee’s staff, was at our party, so out of spirits. He -knows everything that is going on. His depression bodes us no good. -To-day, General Hampton sent James Chesnut a fine saddle that he had -captured from the Yankees in battle array. - -Mrs. Scotch Allan (Edgar Allan Poe’s patron’s wife) sent me ice-cream and -lady-cheek apples from her farm. John R. Thompson[105], the sole literary -fellow I know in Richmond, sent me Leisure Hours in Town, by A Country -Parson. - -My husband says he hopes I will be contented because he came here this -winter to please me. If I could have been satisfied at home he would -have resigned his aide-de-camp-ship and gone into some service in South -Carolina. I am a good excuse, if good for nothing else. - -Old tempestuous Keitt breakfasted with us yesterday. I wish I could -remember half the brilliant things he said. My husband has now gone with -him to the War Office. Colonel Keitt thinks it is time he was promoted. -He wants to be a brigadier. - -Now, Charleston is bombarded night and day. It fairly makes me dizzy to -think of that everlasting racket they are beating about people’s ears -down there. Bragg defeated, and separated from Longstreet. It is a long -street that knows no turning, and Rosecrans is not taken after all. - -_November 30th._—Anxiety pervades. Lee is fighting Meade. Misery is -everywhere. Bragg is falling back before Grant[106]. Longstreet, the -soldiers call him Peter the Slow, is settling down before Knoxville. - -General Lee requires us to answer every letter, said Mr. Venable, and to -do our best to console the poor creatures whose husbands and sons are -fighting the battles of the country. - -_December 2d._—Bragg begs to be relieved of his command. The army will be -relieved to get rid of him. He has a winning way of earning everybody’s -detestation. Heavens, how they hate him! The rapid flight of his army -terminated at Ringgold. Hardie declines even a temporary command of the -Western army. Preston Johnston has been sent out post-haste at a moment’s -warning. He was not even allowed time to go home and tell his wife -good-by or, as Browne, the Englishman, said, “to put a clean shirt into -his traveling bag.” Lee and Meade are facing each other gallantly[107]. - -The first of December we went with a party of Mrs. Ould’s getting -up, to see a French frigate which lay at anchor down the river. The -French officers came on board our boat. The Lees were aboard. The -French officers were not in the least attractive either in manners or -appearance, but our ladies were most attentive and some showered bad -French upon them with a lavish hand, always accompanied by queer grimaces -to eke out the scanty supply of French words, the sentences ending -usually in a nervous shriek. “Are they deaf?” asked Mrs. Randolph. - -The French frigate was a dirty little thing. Doctor Garnett was so buoyed -up with hope that the French were coming to our rescue, that he would -not let me say “an English man-of-war is the cleanest thing known in -the world.” Captain —— said to Mary Lee, with a foreign contortion of -countenance, that went for a smile, “I’s bashlor.” Judge Ould said, as we -went to dinner on our own steamer, “They will not drink our President’s -health. They do not acknowledge us to be a nation. Mind, none of you say -‘Emperor,’ not once.” Doctor Garnett interpreted the laws of politeness -otherwise, and stepped forward, his mouth fairly distended with so much -French, and said: “Vieff l’Emperor.” Young Gibson seconded him quietly, -“_À la santé de l’Empereur_.” But silence prevailed. Preston Hampton was -the handsomest man on board—“the figure of Hercules, the face of Apollo,” -cried an enthusiastic girl. Preston was as lazy and as sleepy as ever. He -said of the Frenchmen: “They can’t help not being good-looking, but with -all the world open to them, to wear such shabby clothes!” - -The lieutenant’s name was Rousseau. On the French frigate, lying on -one of the tables was a volume of Jean Jacques Rousseau’s works, side -by side, strange to say, with a map of South Carolina. This lieutenant -was courteously asked by Mary Lee to select some lady to whom she -might introduce him. He answered: “I shuse you,” with a bow that was a -benediction and a prayer. - -And now I am in a fine condition for Hetty Cary’s starvation party, where -they will give thirty dollars for the music and not a cent for a morsel -to eat. Preston said contentedly, “I hate dancing, and I hate cold water; -so I will eschew the festivity to-night.” - -Found John R. Thompson at our house when I got home so tired to-night. -He brought me the last number of the Cornhill. He knew how much I was -interested in Trollope’s story, Framley Parsonage. - -_December 4th._—My husband bought yesterday at the Commissary’s one -barrel of flour, one bushel of potatoes, one peck of rice, five pounds of -salt beef, and one peck of salt—all for sixty dollars. In the street a -barrel of flour sells for one hundred and fifteen dollars. - -_December 5th._—Wigfall was here last night. He began by wanting to hang -Jeff Davis. My husband managed him beautifully. He soon ceased to talk -virulent nonsense, and calmed down to his usual strong common sense. -I knew it was quite late, but I had no idea of the hour. My husband -beckoned me out. “It is all your fault,” said he. “What?” “Why will you -persist in looking so interested in all Wigfall is saying? Don’t let him -catch your eye. Look into the fire. Did you not hear it strike two?” - -This attack was so sudden, so violent, so unlooked for, I could only -laugh hysterically. However, as an obedient wife, I went back, gravely -took my seat and looked into the fire. I did not even dare raise my -eyes to see what my husband was doing—if he, too, looked into the fire. -Wigfall soon tired of so tame an audience and took his departure. - -General Lawton was here. He was one of Stonewall’s generals. So I -listened with all my ears when he said: “Stonewall could not sleep. -So, every two or three nights you were waked up by orders to have your -brigade in marching order before daylight and report in person to the -Commander. Then you were marched a few miles out and then a few miles -in again. All this was to make us ready, ever on the alert. And the end -of it was this: Jackson’s men would go half a day’s march before Peter -Longstreet waked and breakfasted. I think there is a popular delusion -about the amount of praying he did. He certainly preferred a fight on -Sunday to a sermon. Failing to manage a fight, he loved best a long -Presbyterian sermon, Calvinistic to the core. - -“He had shown small sympathy with human infirmity. He was a one-idea-ed -man. He looked upon broken-down men and stragglers as the same thing. -He classed all who were weak and weary, who fainted by the wayside, as -men wanting in patriotism. If a man’s face was as white as cotton and -his pulse so low you scarce could feel it, he looked upon him merely as -an inefficient soldier and rode off impatiently. He was the true type -of all great soldiers. Like the successful warriors of the world, he -did not value human life where he had an object to accomplish. He could -order men to their death as a matter of course. His soldiers obeyed him -to the death. Faith they had in him stronger than death. Their respect -he commanded. I doubt if he had so much of their love as is talked about -while he was alive. Now, that they see a few more years of Stonewall -would have freed them from the Yankees, they deify him. Any man is proud -to have been one of the famous Stonewall brigade. But, be sure, it was -bitter hard work to keep up with him as all know who ever served under -him. He gave his orders rapidly and distinctly and rode away, never -allowing answer or remonstrance. It was, ‘Look there—see that place—take -it!’ When you failed you were apt to be put under arrest. When you -reported the place taken, he only said, ‘Good!’” - -Spent seventy-five dollars to-day for a little tea and sugar, and have -five hundred left. My husband’s pay never has paid for the rent of -our lodgings. He came in with dreadful news just now. I have wept so -often for things that never happened, I will withhold my tears now for -a certainty. To-day, a poor woman threw herself on her dead husband’s -coffin and kissed it. She was weeping bitterly. So did I in sympathy. - -My husband, as I told him to-day, could see me and everything that he -loved hanged, drawn, and quartered without moving a muscle, if a crowd -were looking on; he could have the same gentle operation performed on -himself and make no sign. To all of which violent insinuation he answered -in unmoved tones: “So would any civilized man. Savages, however—Indians, -at least—are more dignified in that particular than we are. Noisy, -fidgety grief never moves me at all; it annoys me. Self-control is what -we all need. You are a miracle of sensibility; self-control is what you -need.” “So you are civilized!” I said. “Some day I mean to be.” - -_December 9th._—“Come here, Mrs. Chesnut,” said Mary Preston to-day, -“they are lifting General Hood out of his carriage, here, at your -door.” Mrs. Grundy promptly had him borne into her drawing-room, which -was on the first floor. Mary Preston and I ran down and greeted him as -cheerfully and as cordially as if nothing had happened since we saw -him standing before us a year ago. How he was waited upon! Some cut-up -oranges were brought him. “How kind people are,” said he. “Not once since -I was wounded have I ever been left without fruit, hard as it is to get -now.” “The money value of friendship is easily counted now,” said some -one, “oranges are five dollars apiece.” - -_December 10th._—Mrs. Davis and Mrs. Lyons came. We had luncheon brought -in for them, and then a lucid explanation of the _chronique scandaleuse_, -of which Beck J. is the heroine. We walked home with Mrs. Davis and met -the President riding alone. Surely that is wrong. It must be unsafe for -him when there are so many traitors, not to speak of bribed negroes. -Burton Harrison[108] says Mr. Davis prefers to go alone, and there is -none to gainsay him. - -My husband laid the law down last night. I felt it to be the last drop -in my full cup. “No more feasting in this house,” said he. “This is no -time for junketing and merrymaking.” “And you said you brought me here to -enjoy the winter before you took me home and turned my face to a dead -wall.” He is the master of the house; to hear is to obey. - -_December 14th._—Drove out with Mrs. Davis. She had a watch in her hand -which some poor dead soldier wanted to have sent to his family. First, -we went to her mantua-maker, then we drove to the Fair Grounds where the -band was playing. Suddenly, she missed the watch. She remembered having -it when we came out of the mantua-maker’s. We drove back instantly, and -there the watch was lying near the steps of the little porch in front of -the house. No one had passed in, apparently; in any case, no one had seen -it. - -Preston Hampton went with me to see Conny Cary. The talk was frantically -literary, which Preston thought hard on him. I had just brought the St. -Denis number of Les Misérables. - -Sunday, Christopher Hampton walked to church with me. Coming out, General -Lee was seen slowly making his way down the aisle, bowing royally to -right and left. I pointed him out to Christopher Hampton when General -Lee happened to look our way. He bowed low, giving me a charming smile -of recognition. I was ashamed of being so pleased. I blushed like a -schoolgirl. - -We went to the White House. They gave us tea. The President said he had -been on the way to our house, coming with all the Davis family, to see -me, but the children became so troublesome they turned back. Just then, -little Joe rushed in and insisted on saying his prayers at his father’s -knee, then and there. He was in his night-clothes. - -[Illustration: THE DAVIS MANSION IN RICHMOND, THE “WHITE HOUSE” OF THE -CONFEDERACY. - -Now the Confederate Museum.] - -_December 19th._—A box has come from home for me. Taking advantage of -this good fortune and a full larder, have asked Mrs. Davis to dine -with me. Wade Hampton sent me a basket of game. We had Mrs. Davis and -Mr. and Mrs. Preston. After dinner we walked to the church to see the -Freeland-Lewis wedding. Mr. Preston had Mrs. Davis on his arm. My husband -and Mrs. Preston, and Burton Harrison and myself brought up the rear. -Willie Allan joined us, and we had the pleasure of waiting one good hour. -Then the beautiful Maria, loveliest of brides, sailed in on her father’s -arm, and Major John Coxe Lewis followed with Mrs. Freeland. After the -ceremony such a kissing was there up and down the aisle. The happy -bridegroom kissed wildly, and several girls complained, but he said: “How -am I to know Maria’s kin whom I was to kiss? It is better to show too -much affection for one’s new relations than too little.” - -_December 21st._—Joe Johnston has been made Commander-in-chief of the -Army of the West. General Lee had this done,’tis said. Miss Agnes Lee and -“little Robert” (as they fondly call General Lee’s youngest son in this -hero-worshiping community) called. They told us the President, General -Lee, and General Elzey had gone out to look at the fortifications around -Richmond. My husband came home saying he had been with them, and lent -General Lee his gray horse. - -Mrs. Howell, Mrs. Davis’s mother, says a year ago on the cars a man said, -“We want a Dictator.” She replied, “Jeff Davis will never consent to be -a Dictator.” The man turned sharply toward her “And, pray, who asks him? -Joe Johnston will be made Dictator by the Army of the West.” “Imperator” -was suggested. Of late the Army of the West has not been in a condition -to dictate to friend or foe. Certainly Jeff Davis did hate to put Joe -Johnston at the head of what is left of it. Detached from General Lee, -what a horrible failure is Longstreet! Oh, for a day of Albert Sidney -Johnston out West! And Stonewall, could he come back to us here! - -General Hood, the wounded knight, came for me to drive. I felt that I -would soon find myself chaperoning some girls, but I asked no questions. -He improved the time between Franklin and Cary Streets by saying, “I do -like your husband so much.” “So do I,” I replied simply. Buck was ill in -bed, so William said at the door, but she recovered her health and came -down for the drive in black velvet and ermine, looking queenly. And then, -with the top of the landau thrown back, wrapped in furs and rugs, we had -a long drive that bitter cold day. - -One day as we were hieing us home from the Fair Grounds, Sam, the wounded -knight, asked Brewster what are the symptoms of a man’s being in love. -Sam (Hood is called Sam entirely, but why I do not know) said for his -part he did not know; at seventeen he had fancied himself in love, but -that was “a long time ago.” Brewster spoke on the symptoms of love: “When -you see her, your breath is apt to come short. If it amounts to mild -strangulation, you have got it bad. You are stupidly jealous, glowering -with jealousy, and have a gloomy fixed conviction that she likes every -fool you meet better than she does you, especially people that you -know she has a thorough contempt for; that is, you knew it before you -lost your head, I mean, before you fell in love. The last stages of -unmitigated spooniness, I will spare you,” said Brewster, with a giggle -and a wave of the hand. “Well,” said Sam, drawing a breath of relief, “I -have felt none of these things so far, and yet they say I am engaged to -four young ladies, a liberal allowance, you will admit, for a man who can -not walk without help.” - -Another day (the Sabbath) we called on our way from church to see Mrs. -Wigfall. She was ill, but Mr. Wigfall insisted upon taking me into the -drawing-room to rest a while. He said Louly was there; so she was, and -so was Sam Hood, the wounded knight, stretched at full length on a sofa -and a rug thrown over him. Louis Wigfall said to me: “Do you know General -Hood?” “Yes,” said I, and the General laughed with his eyes as I looked -at him; but he did not say a word. I felt it a curious commentary upon -the reports he had spoken of the day before. Louly Wigfall is a very -handsome girl. - -_December 24th._—As we walked, Brewster reported a row he had had with -General Hood. Brewster had told those six young ladies at the Prestons’ -that “old Sam” was in the habit of saying he would not marry if he could -any silly, sentimental girl, who would throw herself away upon a maimed -creature such as he was. When Brewster went home he took pleasure in -telling Sam how the ladies had complimented his good sense, whereupon -the General rose in his wrath and threatened to break his crutch over -Brewster’s head. To think he could be such a fool—to go about repeating -to everybody his whimperings. - -I was taking my seat at the head of the table when the door opened and -Brewster walked in unannounced. He took his stand in front of the open -door, with his hands in his pockets and his small hat pushed back as far -as it could get from his forehead. - -“What!” said he, “you are not ready yet? The generals are below. Did you -get my note?” I begged my husband to excuse me and rushed off to put on -my bonnet and furs. I met the girls coming up with a strange man. The -flurry of two major-generals had been too much for me and I forgot to ask -the new one’s name. They went up to dine in my place with my husband, who -sat eating his dinner, with Lawrence’s undivided attention given to him, -amid this whirling and eddying in and out of the world militant. Mary -Preston and I then went to drive with the generals. The new one proved -to be Buckner[109], who is also a Kentuckian. The two men told us they -had slept together the night before Chickamauga. It is useless to try: -legs can’t any longer be kept out of the conversation. So General Buckner -said: “Once before I slept with a man and he lost his leg next day.” -He had made a vow never to do so again. “When Sam and I parted that -morning, we said: ‘You or I may be killed, but the cause will be safe all -the same.’” - -After the drive everybody came in to tea, my husband in famous good -humor, we had an unusually gay evening. It was very nice of my husband to -take no notice of my conduct at dinner, which had been open to criticism. -All the comfort of my life depends upon his being in good humor. - -_Christmas Day, 1863._—Yesterday dined with the Prestons. Wore one of my -handsomest Paris dresses (from Paris before the war). Three magnificent -Kentucky generals were present, with Senator Orr from South Carolina, and -Mr. Miles. General Buckner repeated a speech of Hood’s to him to show -how friendly they were. “I prefer a ride with you to the company of any -woman in the world,” Buckner had answered. “I prefer your company to that -of any man, certainly,” was Hood’s reply. This became the standing joke -of the dinner; it flashed up in every form. Poor Sam got out of it so -badly, if he got out of it at all. General Buckner said patronizingly, -“Lame excuses, all. Hood never gets out of any scrape—that is, unless he -can fight out.” Others dropped in after dinner; some without arms, some -without legs; von Borcke, who can not speak because of a wound in his -throat. Isabella said: “We have all kinds now, but a blind one.” Poor -fellows, they laugh at wounds. “And they yet can show many a scar.” - -We had for dinner oyster soup, besides roast mutton, ham, boned turkey, -wild duck, partridge, plum pudding, sauterne, burgundy, sherry, and -Madeira. There is life in the old land yet! - -At my house to-day after dinner, and while Alex Haskell and my husband -sat over the wine, Hood gave me an account of his discomfiture last -night. He said he could not sleep after it; it was the hardest battle he -had ever fought in his life, “and I was routed, as it were; she told me -there was no hope; that ends it. You know at Petersburg on my way to -the Western army she half-promised me to think of it. She would not say -‘Yes,’ but she did not say ‘No’—that is, not exactly. At any rate, I went -off saying, ‘I am engaged to you,’ and she said, ‘I am not engaged to -you.’ After I was so fearfully wounded I gave it up. But, then, since I -came,” etc. - -“Do you mean to say,” said I, “that you had proposed to her before that -conversation in the carriage, when you asked Brewster the symptoms of -love? I like your audacity.” “Oh, she understood, but it is all up now, -for she says, ‘No!’” - -My husband says I am extravagant. “No, my friend, not that,” said I. -“I had fifteen hundred dollars and I have spent every cent of it in my -housekeeping. Not one cent for myself, not one cent for dress nor any -personal want whatever.” He calls me “hospitality run mad.” - -_January 1, 1864._—General Hood’s an awful flatterer—I mean an awkward -flatterer. I told him to praise my husband to some one else, not to me. -He ought to praise me to somebody who would tell my husband, and then -praise my husband to another person who would tell me. Man and wife are -too much one person—to wave a compliment straight in the face of one -about the other is not graceful. - -One more year of Stonewall would have saved us. Chickamauga is the only -battle we have gained since Stonewall died, and no results follow as -usual. Stonewall was not so much as killed by a Yankee: he was shot by -his own men; that is hard. General Lee can do no more than keep back -Meade. “One of Meade’s armies, you mean,” said I, “for they have only to -double on him when Lee whips one of them.” - -General Edward Johnston says he got Grant a place—_esprit de corps_, you -know. He could not bear to see an old army man driving a wagon; that was -when he found him out West, put out of the army for habitual drunkenness. -He is their right man, a bull-headed Suwarrow. He don’t care a snap -if men fall like the leaves fall; he fights to win, that chap does. He -is not distracted by a thousand side issues; he does not see them. He -is narrow and sure—sees only in a straight line. Like Louis Napoleon, -from a battle in the gutter, he goes straight up. Yes, as with Lincoln, -they have ceased to carp at him as a rough clown, no gentleman, etc. You -never hear now of Lincoln’s nasty fun; only of his wisdom. Doesn’t take -much soap and water to wash the hands that the rod of empire sway. They -talked of Lincoln’s drunkenness, too. Now, since Vicksburg they have -not a word to say against Grant’s habits. He has the disagreeable habit -of not retreating before irresistible veterans. General Lee and Albert -Sidney Johnston show blood and breeding. They are of the Bayard and -Philip Sidney order of soldiers. Listen: if General Lee had had Grant’s -resources he would have bagged the last Yankee, or have had them all safe -back in Massachusetts. “You mean if he had not the weight of the negro -question upon him?” “No, I mean if he had Grant’s unlimited allowance of -the powers of war—men, money, ammunition, arms.” - -Mrs. Ould says Mrs. Lincoln found the gardener of the White House so -nice, she would make him a major-general. Lincoln remarked to the -secretary: “Well, the little woman must have her way sometimes.” - -A word of the last night of the old year. “Gloria Mundi” sent me a cup of -strong, good coffee. I drank two cups and so I did not sleep a wink. Like -a fool I passed my whole life in review, and bitter memories maddened me -quite. Then came a happy thought. I mapped out a story of the war. The -plot came to hand, for it was true. Johnny is the hero, a light dragoon -and heavy swell. I will call it F. F.’s, for it is the F. F.’s both of -South Carolina and Virginia. It is to be a war story, and the filling out -of the skeleton was the best way to put myself to sleep. - -_January 4th._—Mrs. Ives wants us to translate a French play. A genuine -French captain came in from his ship on the James River and gave us good -advice as to how to make the selection. General Hampton sent another -basket of partridges, and all goes merry as a marriage bell. - -My husband came in and nearly killed us. He brought this piece of news: -“North Carolina wants to offer terms of peace!” We needed only a break of -that kind to finish us. I really shivered nervously, as one does when the -first handful of earth comes rattling down on the coffin in the grave of -one we cared for more than all who are left. - -_January 5th._—At Mrs. Preston’s, met the Light Brigade in battle array, -ready to sally forth, conquering and to conquer. They would stand no -nonsense from me about staying at home to translate a French play. -Indeed, the plays that have been sent us are so indecent I scarcely know -where a play is to be found that would do at all. - -While at dinner the President’s carriage drove up with only General Hood. -He sent up to ask in Maggie Howell’s name would I go with them? I tied -up two partridges between plates with a serviette, for Buck, who is ill, -and then went down. We picked up Mary Preston. It was Maggie’s drive; -as the soldiers say, I was only on “escort duty.” At the Prestons’, -Major Venable met us at the door and took in the partridges to Buck. As -we drove off Maggie said: “Major Venable is a Carolinian, I see.” “No; -Virginian to the core.” “But, then, he was a professor in the South -Carolina College before the war.” Mary Preston said: “She is taking a -fling at your weakness for all South Carolina.” - -Came home and found my husband in a bitter mood. It has all gone wrong -with our world. The loss of our private fortune the smallest part. He -intimates, “with so much human misery filling the air, we might stay at -home and think.” “And go mad?” said I. “Catch me at it! A yawning grave, -with piles of red earth thrown on one side; that is the only future I -ever see. You remember Emma Stockton? She and I were as blithe as birds -that day at Mulberry. I came here the next day, and when I arrived a -telegram said: ‘Emma Stockton found dead in her bed.’ It is awfully near, -that thought. No, no. I will not stop and think of death always.” - -_January 8th._—Snow of the deepest. Nobody can come to-day, I thought. -But they did! My girls, first; then Constance Cary tripped in—the clever -Conny. Hetty is the beauty, so called, though she is clever enough, too; -but Constance is actually clever and has a classically perfect outline. -Next came the four Kentuckians and Preston Hampton. He is as tall as the -Kentuckians and ever so much better looking. Then we had egg-nog. - -I was to take Miss Cary to the Semmes’s. My husband inquired the price of -a carriage. It was twenty-five dollars an hour! He cursed by all his gods -at such extravagance. The play was not worth the candle, or carriage, in -this instance. In Confederate money it sounds so much worse than it is. -I did not dream of asking him to go with me after that lively overture. -“I did intend to go with you,” he said, “but you do not ask me.” “And I -have been asking you for twenty years to go with me, in vain. Think of -that!” I said, tragically. We could not wait for him to dress, so I sent -the twenty-five-dollar-an-hour carriage back for him. We were behind -time, as it was. When he came, the beautiful Hetty Cary and her friend, -Captain Tucker, were with him. Major von Borcke and Preston Hampton were -at the Cary’s, in the drawing-room when we called for Constance, who was -dressing. I challenge the world to produce finer specimens of humanity -than these three: the Prussian von Borcke, Preston Hampton, and Hetty -Cary. - -We spoke to the Prussian about the vote of thanks passed by Congress -yesterday—“thanks of the country to Major von Borcke.” The poor man -was as modest as a girl—in spite of his huge proportions. “That is a -compliment, indeed!” said Hetty. “Yes. I saw it. And the happiest, -the proudest day of my life as I read it. It was at the hotel -breakfast-table. I try to hide my face with the newspaper, I feel it -grow so red. But my friend he has his newspaper, too, and he sees the -same thing. So he looks my way—he says, pointing to me—‘Why does he grow -so red? He has got something there!’ and he laughs. Then I try to read -aloud the so kind compliments of the Congress—but—he—you—I can not—” -He puts his hand to his throat. His broken English and the difficulty -of his enunciation with that wound in his windpipe makes it all very -touching—and very hard to understand. - -The Semmes charade party was a perfect success. The play was charming. -Sweet little Mrs. Lawson Clay had a seat for me banked up among women. -The female part of the congregation, strictly segregated from the male, -were placed all together in rows. They formed a gay parterre, edged by -the men in their black coats and gray uniforms. Toward the back part of -the room, the mass of black and gray was solid. Captain Tucker bewailed -his fate. He was stranded out there with those forlorn men, but could -see us laughing, and fancied what we were saying was worth a thousand -charades. He preferred talking to a clever woman to any known way of -passing a pleasant hour. “So do I,” somebody said. - -On a sofa of state in front of all sat the President and Mrs. Davis. -Little Maggie Davis was one of the child actresses. Her parents had a -right to be proud of her; with her flashing black eyes, she was a marked -figure on the stage. She is a handsome creature and she acted her part -admirably. The shrine was beautiful beyond words. The Semmes and Ives -families are Roman Catholics, and understand getting up that sort of -thing. First came the “Palmers Gray,” then Mrs. Ives, a solitary figure, -the loveliest of penitent women. The Eastern pilgrims were delightfully -costumed; we could not understand how so much Christian piety could -come clothed in such odalisque robes. Mrs. Ould, as a queen, was as -handsome and regal as heart could wish for. She was accompanied by a very -satisfactory king, whose name, if I ever knew, I have forgotten. There -was a resplendent knight of St. John, and then an American Indian. After -their orisons they all knelt and laid something on the altar as a votive -gift. - -Burton Harrison, the President’s handsome young secretary, was gotten -up as a big brave in a dress presented to Mr. Davis by Indians for some -kindness he showed them years ago. It was a complete warrior’s outfit, -scant as that is. The feathers stuck in the back of Mr. Harrison’s head -had a charmingly comic effect. He had to shave himself as clean as a baby -or he could not act the beardless chief, Spotted Tail, Billy Bowlegs, Big -Thunder, or whatever his character was. So he folded up his loved and -lost mustache, the Christianized red Indian, and laid it on the altar, -the most sacred treasure of his life, the witness of his most heroic -sacrifice, on the shrine. - -Senator Hill, of Georgia, took me in to supper, where were ices, chicken -salad, oysters, and champagne. The President came in alone, I suppose, -for while we were talking after supper and your humble servant was -standing between Mrs. Randolph and Mrs. Stanard, he approached, offered -me his arm and we walked off, oblivious of Mr. Senator Hill. Remember -this, ladies, and forgive me for recording it, but Mrs. Stanard and Mrs. -Randolph are the handsomest women in Richmond; I am no older than they -are, or younger, either, sad to say. Now, the President walked with -me slowly up and down that long room, and our conversation was of the -saddest. Nobody knows so well as he the difficulties which beset this -hard-driven Confederacy. He has a voice which is perfectly modulated, -a comfort in this loud and rough soldier world. I think there is a -melancholy cadence in his voice at times, of which he is unconscious when -he talks of things as they are now. - -My husband was so intensely charmed with Hetty Cary that he -declined at the first call to accompany his wife home in the -twenty-five-dollar-an-hour carriage. He ordered it to return. When -it came, his wife (a good manager) packed the Carys and him in with -herself, leaving the other two men who came with the party, when it was -divided into “trips,” to make their way home in the cold. At our door, -near daylight of that bitter cold morning, I had the pleasure to see -my husband, like a man, stand and pay for that carriage! To-day he is -pleased with himself, with me, and with all the world; says if there was -no such word as “fascinating” you would have to invent one to describe -Hetty Cary. - -_January 9th._—Met Mrs. Wigfall. She wants me to take Halsey to Mrs. -Randolph’s theatricals. I am to get him up as Sir Walter Raleigh. Now, -General Breckinridge has come. I like him better than any of them. -Morgan also is here.[110] These huge Kentuckians fill the town. Isabella -says, “They hold Morgan accountable for the loss of Chattanooga.” The -follies of the wise, the weaknesses of the great! She shakes her head -significantly when I begin to tell why I like him so well. Last night -General Buckner came for her to go with him and rehearse at the Carys’ -for Mrs. Randolph’s charades. - -The President’s man, Jim, that he believed in as we all believe in our -own servants, “our own people,” as we call them, and Betsy, Mrs. Davis’s -maid, decamped last night. It is miraculous that they had the fortitude -to resist the temptation so long. At Mrs. Davis’s the hired servants all -have been birds of passage. First they were seen with gold galore, and -then they would fly to the Yankees, and I am sure they had nothing to -tell. It is Yankee money wasted. I do not think it had ever crossed Mrs. -Davis’s brain that these two could leave her. She knew, however, that -Betsy had eighty dollars in gold and two thousand four hundred dollars in -Confederate notes. - -Everybody who comes in brings a little bad news—not much, in itself, but -by cumulative process the effect is depressing, indeed. - -_January 12th._—To-night there will be a great gathering of Kentuckians. -Morgan gives them a dinner. The city of Richmond entertains John Morgan. -He is at free quarters. The girls dined here. Conny Cary came back for -more white feathers. Isabella had appropriated two sets and obstinately -refused Constance Cary a single feather from her pile. She said, sternly: -“I have never been on the stage before, and I have a presentiment when -my father hears of this, I will never go again. I am to appear before -the footlights as an English dowager duchess, and I mean to rustle in -every feather, to wear all the lace and diamonds these two houses can -compass”—(mine and Mrs. Preston’s). She was jolly but firm, and Constance -departed without any additional plumage for her Lady Teazle. - -_January 14th._—Gave Mrs. White twenty-three dollars for a turkey. Came -home wondering all the way why she did not ask twenty-five; two more -dollars could not have made me balk at the bargain, and twenty-three -sounds odd. - -_January 15th._—What a day the Kentuckians have had! Mrs. Webb gave them -a breakfast; from there they proceeded _en masse_ to General Lawton’s -dinner, and then came straight here, all of which seems equal to one -of Stonewall’s forced marches. General Lawton took me in to supper. In -spite of his dinner he had misgivings. “My heart is heavy,” said he, -“even here. All seems too light, too careless, for such terrible times. -It seems out of place here in battle-scarred Richmond.” “I have heard -something of that kind at home,” I replied. “Hope and fear are both -gone, and it is distraction or death with us. I do not see how sadness -and despondency would help us. If it would do any good, we would be sad -enough.” - -We laughed at General Hood. General Lawton thought him better fitted for -gallantry on the battle-field than playing a lute in my lady’s chamber. -When Miss Giles was electrifying the audience as the Fair Penitent, -some one said: “Oh, that is so pretty!” Hood cried out with stern -reproachfulness: “That is not pretty; it is elegant.” - -Not only had my house been rifled for theatrical properties, but as the -play went on they came for my black velvet cloak. When it was over, I -thought I should never get away, my cloak was so hard to find. But it -gave me an opportunity to witness many things behind the scenes—that -cloak hunt did. Behind the scenes! I know a little what that means now. - -General Jeb Stuart was at Mrs. Randolph’s in his cavalry jacket and high -boots. He was devoted to Hetty Cary. Constance Cary said to me, pointing -to his stars, “Hetty likes them that way, you know—gilt-edged and with -stars.” - -_January 16th._—A visit from the President’s handsome and accomplished -secretary, Burton Harrison. I lent him Country Clergyman in Town and -Elective Affinities. He is to bring me Mrs. Norton’s Lost and Saved. - -At Mrs. Randolph’s, my husband complimented one of the ladies, who had -amply earned his praise by her splendid acting. She pointed to a young -man, saying, “You see that wretch; he has not said one word to me!” My -husband asked innocently, “Why should he? And why is he a wretch?” “Oh, -you know!” Going home I explained this riddle to him; he is always a year -behindhand in gossip. “They said those two were engaged last winter, and -now there seems to be a screw loose; but that sort of thing always comes -right.” The Carys prefer James Chesnut to his wife. I don’t mind. Indeed, -I like it. I do, too. - -Every Sunday Mr. Minnegerode cried aloud in anguish his litany, “from -pestilence and famine, battle, murder, and sudden death,” and we wailed -on our knees, “Good Lord deliver us,” and on Monday, and all the week -long, we go on as before, hearing of nothing but battle, murder, and -sudden death, which are daily events. Now I have a new book; that is -the unlooked-for thing, a pleasing incident in this life of monotonous -misery. We live in a huge barrack. We are shut in, guarded from light -without. - -At breakfast to-day came a card, and without an instant’s interlude, -perhaps the neatest, most fastidious man in South Carolina walked in. I -was uncombed, unkempt, tattered, and torn, in my most comfortable, worst -worn, wadded green silk dressing-gown, with a white woolen shawl over my -head to keep off draughts. He has not been in the war yet, and now he -wants to be captain of an engineer corps. I wish he may get it! He has -always been my friend; so he shall lack no aid that I can give. If he -can stand the shock of my appearance to-day, we may reasonably expect to -continue friends until death. Of all men, the fastidious Barny Heywood to -come in. He faced the situation gallantly. - -_January 18th._—Invited to Dr. Haxall’s last night to meet the Lawtons. -Mr. Benjamin[111] dropped in. He is a friend of the house. Mrs. Haxall is -a Richmond leader of society, a _ci-devant_ beauty and belle, a charming -person still, and her hospitality is of the genuine Virginia type. -Everything Mr. Benjamin said we listened to, bore in mind, and gave heed -to it diligently. He is a Delphic oracle, of the innermost shrine, and is -supposed to enjoy the honor of Mr. Davis’s unreserved confidence. - -Lamar was asked to dinner here yesterday; so he came to-day. We had our -wild turkey cooked for him yesterday, and I dressed myself within an -inch of my life with the best of my four-year-old finery. Two of us, my -husband and I, did not damage the wild turkey seriously. So Lamar enjoyed -the _réchauffé_, and commended the art with which Molly had hid the -slight loss we had inflicted upon its mighty breast. She had piled fried -oysters over the turkey so skilfully, that unless we had told about it, -no one would ever have known that the huge bird was making his second -appearance on the board. - -Lamar was more absent-minded and distrait than ever. My husband behaved -like a trump—a well-bred man, with all his wits about him; so things -went off smoothly enough. Lamar had just read Romola. Across the water -he said it was the rage. I am sure it is not as good as Adam Bede or -Silas Marner. It is not worthy of the woman who was to “rival all but -Shakespeare’s name below.” “What is the matter with Romola?” he asked. -“Tito is so mean, and he is mean in such a very mean way, and the end is -so repulsive. Petting the husband’s illegitimate children and left-handed -wives may be magnanimity, but human nature revolts at it.” “Woman’s -nature, you mean!” “Yes, and now another test. Two weeks ago I read this -thing with intense interest, and already her Savonarola has faded from my -mind. I have forgotten her way of showing Savonarola as completely as I -always do forget Bulwer’s Rienzi.” - -“Oh, I understand you now! It is like Milton’s devil—he has obliterated -all other devils. You can’t fix your mind upon any other. The devil -always must be of Miltonic proportions or you do not believe in him; -Goethe’s Mephistopheles disputes the crown of the causeway with -Lucifer. But soon you begin to feel that Mephistopheles to be a lesser -devil, an emissary of the devil only. Is there any Cardinal Wolsey but -Shakespeare’s? any Mirabeau but Carlyle’s Mirabeau? But the list is -too long of those who have been stamped into your brain by genius. The -saintly preacher, the woman who stands by Hetty and saves her soul; those -heavenly minded sermons preached by the author of Adam Bede, bear them -well in mind while I tell you how this writer, who so well imagines and -depicts female purity and piety, was a governess, or something of that -sort, and perhaps wrote for a living; at any rate, she had an elective -affinity, which was responded to, by George Lewes, and so she lives with -Lewes. I do not know that she caused the separation between Lewes and -his legal wife. They are living in a villa on some Swiss lake, and Mrs. -Lewes, of the hour, is a charitable, estimable, agreeable, sympathetic -woman of genius.” - -Lamar seemed without prejudices on the subject; at least, he expressed -neither surprise nor disapprobation. He said something of “genius being -above law,” but I was not very clear as to what he said on that point. -As for me I said nothing for fear of saying too much. “You know that -Lewes is a writer,” said he. “Some people say the man she lives with is a -noble man.” “They say she is kind and good if—a fallen woman.” Here the -conversation ended. - -_January 20th._—And now comes a grand announcement made by the Yankee -Congress. They vote one million of men to be sent down here to free the -prisoners whom they will not take in exchange. I actually thought they -left all these Yankees here on our hands as part of their plan to starve -us out. All Congressmen under fifty years of age are to leave politics -and report for military duty or be conscripted. What enthusiasm there is -in their councils! Confusion, rather, it seems to me! Mrs. Ould says “the -men who frequent her house are more despondent now than ever since this -thing began.” - -Our Congress is so demoralized, so confused, so depressed. They have -asked the President, whom they have so hated, so insulted, so crossed -and opposed and thwarted in every way, to speak to them, and advise them -what to do. - -_January 21st._—Both of us were too ill to attend Mrs. Davis’s reception. -It proved a very sensational one. First, a fire in the house, then a -robbery—said to be an arranged plan of the usual bribed servants there -and some escaped Yankee prisoners. To-day the Examiner is lost in wonder -at the stupidity of the fire and arson contingent. If they had only -waited a few hours until everybody was asleep; after a reception the -household would be so tired and so sound asleep. Thanks to the editor’s -kind counsel maybe the arson contingent will wait and do better next time. - -Letters from home carried Mr. Chesnut off to-day. Thackeray is dead. I -stumbled upon Vanity Fair for myself. I had never heard of Thackeray -before. I think it was in 1850. I know I had been ill at the New York -Hotel[112], and when left alone, I slipped down-stairs and into a -bookstore that I had noticed under the hotel, for something to read. They -gave me the first half of Pendennis. I can recall now the very kind of -paper it was printed on, and the illustrations, as they took effect upon -me. And yet when I raved over it, and was wild for the other half, there -were people who said it was slow; that Thackeray was evidently a coarse, -dull, sneering writer; that he stripped human nature bare, and made it -repulsive, etc. - -_January 22d._—At Mrs. Lyons’s met another beautiful woman, Mrs. Penn, -the wife of Colonel Penn, who is making shoes in a Yankee prison. She had -a little son with her, barely two years old, a mere infant. She said to -him, “_Faites comme_ Butler.” The child crossed his eyes and made himself -hideous, then laughed and rioted around as if he enjoyed the joke hugely. - -Went to Mrs. Davis’s. It was sad enough. Fancy having to be always ready -to have your servants set your house on fire, being bribed to do it. Such -constant robberies, such servants coming and going daily to the Yankees, -carrying one’s silver, one’s other possessions, does not conduce to home -happiness. - -Saw Hood on his legs once more. He rode off on a fine horse, and managed -it well, though he is disabled in one hand, too. After all, as the woman -said, “He has body enough left to hold his soul.” “How plucky of him to -ride a gay horse like that.” “Oh, a Kentuckian prides himself upon being -half horse and half man!” “And the girl who rode beside him. Did you ever -see a more brilliant beauty? Three cheers for South Carolina!!” - -I imparted a plan of mine to Brewster. I would have a breakfast, a -luncheon, a matinee, call it what you please, but I would try and return -some of the hospitalities of this most hospitable people. Just think of -the dinners, suppers, breakfasts we have been to. People have no variety -in war times, but they make up for that lack in exquisite cooking. - -“Variety?” said he. “You are hard to please, with terrapin stew, gumbo, -fish, oysters in every shape, game, and wine—as good as wine ever is. I -do not mention juleps, claret cup, apple toddy, whisky punches and all -that. I tell you it is good enough for me. Variety would spoil it. Such -hams as these Virginia people cure; such home-made bread—there is no such -bread in the world. Call yours a ‘cold collation.’” “Yes, I have eggs, -butter, hams, game, everything from home; no stint just now; even fruit.” - -“You ought to do your best. They are so generous and hospitable and -so unconscious of any merit, or exceptional credit, in the matter of -hospitality.” “They are no better than the Columbia people always were to -us.” So I fired up for my own country. - -_January 23d._—My luncheon was a female affair exclusively. Mrs. Davis -came early and found Annie and Tudie making the chocolate. Lawrence -had gone South with my husband; so we had only Molly for cook and -parlor-maid. After the company assembled we waited and waited. Those -girls were making the final arrangements. I made my way to the door, and -as I leaned against it ready to turn the knob, Mrs. Stanard held me like -Coleridge’s Ancient Mariner, and told how she had been prevented by a -violent attack of cramps from running the blockade, and how providential -it all was. All this floated by my ear, for I heard Mary Preston’s voice -raised in high protest on the other side of the door. “Stop!” said she. -“Do you mean to take away the whole dish?” “If you eat many more of those -fried oysters they will be missed. Heavens! She is running away with a -plug, a palpable plug, out of that jelly cake!” - -Later in the afternoon, when it was over and I was safe, for all had gone -well and Molly had not disgraced herself before the mistresses of those -wonderful Virginia cooks, Mrs. Davis and I went out for a walk. Barny -Heyward and Dr. Garnett joined us, the latter bringing the welcome news -that “Muscoe Russell’s wife had come.” - -_January 25th._—The President walked home with me from church (I was to -dine with Mrs. Davis). He walked so fast I had no breath to talk; so I -was a good listener for once. The truth is I am too much afraid of him to -say very much in his presence. We had such a nice dinner. After dinner -Hood came for a ride with the President. - -Mr. Hunter, of Virginia, walked home with me. He made himself utterly -agreeable by dwelling on his friendship and admiration of my husband. He -said it was high time Mr. Davis should promote him, and that he had told -Mr. Davis his opinion on that subject to-day. - -Tuesday, Barny Heyward went with me to the President’s reception, and -from there to a ball at the McFarlands’. Breckinridge alone of the -generals went with us. The others went to a supper given by Mr. Clay, of -Alabama. I had a long talk with Mr. Ould, Mr. Benjamin, and Mr. Hunter. -These men speak out their thoughts plainly enough. What they said means -“We are rattling down hill, and nobody to put on the brakes.” I wore -my black velvet, diamonds, and point lace. They are borrowed for all -“theatricals,” but I wear them whenever they are at home. - -_February 1st._—Mrs. Davis gave her “Luncheon to Ladies Only” on -Saturday. Many more persons there than at any of these luncheons which we -have gone to before. Gumbo, ducks and olives, chickens in jelly, oysters, -lettuce salad, chocolate cream, jelly cake, claret, champagne, etc., were -the good things set before us. - -To-day, for a pair of forlorn shoes I have paid $85. Colonel Ives drew -my husband’s pay for me. I sent Lawrence for it (Mr. Chesnut ordered him -back to us; we needed a man servant here). Colonel Ives wrote that he was -amazed I should be willing to trust a darky with that great bundle of -money, but it came safely. Mr. Petigru says you take your money to market -in the market basket, and bring home what you buy in your pocket-book. - -_February 5th._—When Lawrence handed me my husband’s money (six hundred -dollars it was) I said: “Now I am pretty sure you do not mean to go to -the Yankees, for with that pile of money in your hands you must have -known there was your chance.” He grinned, but said nothing. - -At the President’s reception Hood had a perfect ovation. General Preston -navigated him through the crowd, handling him as tenderly, on his -crutches, as if he were the Princess of Wales’s new-born baby that I -read of to-day. It is bad for the head of an army to be so helpless. But -old Blücher went to Waterloo in a carriage, wearing a bonnet on his head -to shade his inflamed eyes—a heroic figure, truly; an old, red-eyed, -bonneted woman, apparently, back in a landau. And yet, “Blücher to the -rescue!” - -Afterward at the Prestons’, for we left the President’s at an early -hour. Major von Borcke was trying to teach them his way of pronouncing -his own name, and reciting numerous travesties of it in this country, -when Charles threw open the door, saying, “A gentleman has called for -Major Bandbox.” The Prussian major acknowledged this to be the worst he -had heard yet. - -Off to the Ives’s theatricals. I walked with General Breckinridge. Mrs. -Clay’s Mrs. Malaprop was beyond our wildest hopes. And she was in such -bitter earnest when she pinched Conny Cary’s (Lydia Languish’s) shoulder -and called her “an antricate little huzzy,” that Lydia showed she felt -it, and next day the shoulder was black and blue. It was not that the -actress had a grudge against Conny, but that she was intense. - -Even the back of Mrs. Clay’s head was eloquent as she walked away. “But,” -said General Breckinridge, “watch Hood; he has not seen the play before -and Bob Acres amazes him.” When he caught my eye, General Hood nodded to -me and said, “I believe that fellow Acres is a coward.” “That’s better -than the play,” whispered Breckinridge, “but it is all good from Sir -Anthony down to Fag.” - -Between the acts Mrs. Clay sent us word to applaud. She wanted -encouragement; the audience was too cold. General Breckinridge responded -like a man. After that she was fired by thunders of applause, following -his lead. Those mighty Kentuckians turned claqueurs, were a host in -themselves. Constance Cary not only acted well, but looked perfectly -beautiful. - -During the farce Mrs. Clay came in with all her feathers, diamonds, and -fallals, and took her seat by me. Said General Breckinridge, “What a -splendid head of hair you have.” “And all my own,” said she. Afterward -she said, they could not get false hair enough, so they put a pair of -black satin boots on top of her head and piled hair over them. - -We adjourned from Mrs. Ives’s to Mrs. Ould’s, where we had the usual -excellent Richmond supper. We did not get home until three. It was a -clear moonlight night—almost as light as day. As we walked along I said -to General Breckinridge, “You have spent a jolly evening.” “I do not -know,” he answered. “I have asked myself more than once to-night, ‘Are -you the same man who stood gazing down on the faces of the dead on that -awful battle-field? The soldiers lying there stare at you with their eyes -wide open. Is this the same world? Here and there?’” - -Last night, the great Kentucky contingent came in a body. Hood brought -Buck in his carriage. She said she “did not like General Hood,” and spoke -with a wild excitement in those soft blue eyes of hers—or, are they -gray or brown? She then gave her reasons in the lowest voice, but loud -and distinct enough for him to hear: “Why? He spoke so harshly to Cy, -his body-servant, as we got out of the carriage. I saw how he hurt Cy’s -feelings, and I tried to soothe Cy’s mortification.” - -“You see, Cy nearly caused me to fall by his awkwardness, and I stormed -at him,” said the General, vastly amused. “I hate a man who speaks -roughly to those who dare not resent it,” said she. The General did own -himself charmed with her sentiments, but seemed to think his wrong-doing -all a good joke. He and Cy understand each other. - -_February 9th._—This party for Johnny was the very nicest I have ever -had, and I mean it to be my last. I sent word to the Carys to bring -their own men. They came alone, saying, “they did not care for men.” -“That means a raid on ours,” growled Isabella. Mr. Lamar was devoted to -Constance Cary. He is a free lance; so that created no heart-burning. - -Afterward, when the whole thing was over, and a success, the lights put -out, etc., here trooped in the four girls, who stayed all night with me. -In dressing-gowns they stirred up a hot fire, relit the gas, and went -in for their supper; _réchauffé_ was the word, oysters, hot coffee, etc. -They kept it up till daylight. - -Of course, we slept very late. As they came in to breakfast, I remarked, -“The church-bells have been going on like mad. I take it as a rebuke to -our breaking the Sabbath. You know Sunday began at twelve o’clock last -night.” “It sounds to me like fire-bells,” somebody said. - -Soon the Infant dashed in, done up in soldier’s clothes: “The Yankees -are upon us!” said he. “Don’t you hear the alarm-bells? They have been -ringing day and night!” Alex Haskell came; he and Johnny went off to -report to Custis Lee and to be enrolled among his “locals,” who are -always detailed for the defense of the city. But this time the attack on -Richmond has proved a false alarm. - -A new trouble at the President’s house: their trusty man, Robert, broken -out with the small-pox. - -We went to the Webb ball, and such a pleasant time we had. After a while -the P. M. G. (Pet Major-General) took his seat in the comfortable chair -next to mine, and declared his determination to hold that position. Mr. -Hunter and Mr. Benjamin essayed to dislodge him. Mrs. Stanard said: “Take -him in the flirtation room; there he will soon be captured and led away,” -but I did not know where that room was situated. Besides, my bold Texan -made a most unexpected sally: “I will not go, and I will prevent her from -going with any of you.” Supper was near at hand, and Mr. Mallory said: -“Ask him if the varioloid is not at his house. I know it is.” I started -as if I were shot, and I took Mr. Clay’s arm and went in to supper, -leaving the P. M. G. to the girls. Venison and everything nice. - -_February 12th._—John Chesnut had a basket of champagne carried to my -house, oysters, partridges, and other good things, for a supper after the -reception. He is going back to the army to-morrow. - -James Chesnut arrived on Wednesday. He has been giving Buck his opinion -of one of her performances last night. She was here, and the General’s -carriage drove up, bringing some of our girls. They told her he could -not come up and he begged she would go down there for a moment. She flew -down, and stood ten minutes in that snow, Cy holding the carriage-door -open. “But, Colonel Chesnut, there was no harm. I was not there ten -minutes. I could not get in the carriage because I did not mean to stay -one minute. He did not hold my hands—that is, not half the time—Oh, you -saw!—well, he did kiss my hands. Where is the harm of that?” All men -worship Buck. How can they help it, she is so lovely. - -Lawrence has gone back ignominiously to South Carolina. At breakfast -already in some inscrutable way he had become intoxicated; he was told to -move a chair, and he raised it high over his head, smashing Mrs. Grundy’s -chandelier. My husband said: “Mary, do tell Lawrence to go home; I am too -angry to speak to him.” So Lawrence went without another word. He will -soon be back, and when he comes will say, “Shoo! I knew Mars Jeems could -not do without me.” And indeed he can not. - -Buck, reading my journal, opened her beautiful eyes in amazement and -said: “So little do people know themselves! See what you say of me!” I -replied: “The girls heard him say to you, ‘Oh, you are so childish and so -sweet!’ Now, Buck, you know you are not childish. You have an abundance -of strong common sense. Don’t let men adore you so—if you can help it. -You are so unhappy about men who care for you, when they are killed.” - -Isabella says that war leads to love-making. She says these soldiers do -more courting here in a day than they would do at home, without a war, in -ten years. - -In the pauses of conversation, we hear, “She is the noblest woman God -ever made!” “Goodness!” exclaims Isabella. “Which one?” The amount of -courting we hear in these small rooms. Men have to go to the front, and -they say their say desperately. I am beginning to know all about it. -The girls tell me. And I overhear—I can not help it. But this style is -unique, is it not? “Since I saw you—last year—standing by the turnpike -gate, you know—my battle-cry has been: ‘God, my country, and you!’” So -many are lame. Major Venable says: “It is not ‘the devil on two sticks,’ -now; the farce is ‘Cupid on Crutches.’” - -General Breckinridge’s voice broke in: “They are my cousins. So I -determined to kiss them good-by. Good-by nowadays is the very devil; -it means forever, in all probability, you know; all the odds against -us. So I advanced to the charge soberly, discreetly, and in the fear of -the Lord. The girls stood in a row—four of the very prettiest I ever -saw.” Sam, with his eyes glued to the floor, cried: “You were afraid—you -backed out.” “But I did nothing of the kind. I kissed every one of them -honestly, heartily.” - -_February 13th._—My husband is writing out some resolutions for the -Congress. He is very busy, too, trying to get some poor fellows -reprieved. He says they are good soldiers but got into a scrape. Buck -came in. She had on her last winter’s English hat, with the pheasant’s -wing. Just then Hood entered most unexpectedly. Said the blunt soldier -to the girl: “You look mighty pretty in that hat; you wore it at the -turnpike gate, where I surrendered at first sight.” She nodded and -smiled, and flew down the steps after Mr. Chesnut, looking back to say -that she meant to walk with him as far as the Executive Office. - -The General walked to the window and watched until the last flutter of -her garment was gone. He said: “The President was finding fault with some -of his officers in command, and I said: ‘Mr. President, why don’t you -come and lead us yourself; I would follow you to the death.’” “Actually, -if you stay here in Richmond much longer you will grow to be a courtier. -And you came a rough Texan.” - -Mrs. Davis and General McQueen came. He tells me Muscoe Garnett is -dead. Then the best and the cleverest Virginian I know is gone. He was -the most scholarly man they had, and his character was higher than his -requirements. - -To-day a terrible onslaught was made upon the President for nepotism. -Burton Harrison’s and John Taylor Wood’s letters denying the charge that -the President’s cotton was unburned, or that he left it to be bought by -the Yankees, have enraged the opposition. How much these people in the -President’s family have to bear! I have never felt so indignant. - -_February 16th._—Saw in Mrs. Howell’s room the little negro Mrs. Davis -rescued yesterday from his brutal negro guardian. The child is an orphan. -He was dressed up in little Joe’s clothes and happy as a lord. He was -very anxious to show me his wounds and bruises, but I fled. There are -some things in life too sickening, and cruelty is one of them. - -Somebody said: “People who knew General Hood before the war said there -was nothing in him. As for losing his property by the war, some say he -never had any, and that West Point is a pauper’s school, after all. He -has only military glory, and that he has gained since the war began.” - -“Now,” said Burton Harrison, “only military glory! I like that! The glory -and the fame he has gained during the war—that is Hood. What was Napoleon -before Toulon? Hood has the impassive dignity of an Indian chief. He has -always a little court around him of devoted friends. Wigfall, himself, -has said he could not get within Hood’s lines.” - -_February 17th._—Found everything in Main Street twenty per cent dearer. -They say it is due to the new currency bill. - -I asked my husband: “Is General Johnston ordered to reenforce Polk? They -said he did not understand the order.” “After five days’ delay,” he -replied. “They say Sherman is marching to Mobile.[113] When they once -get inside of our armies what is to molest them, unless it be women with -broomsticks?” General Johnston writes that “the Governor of Georgia -refuses him provisions and the use of his roads.” The Governor of Georgia -writes: “The roads are open to him and in capital condition. I have -furnished him abundantly with provisions from time to time, as he desired -them.” I suppose both of these letters are placed away side by side in -our archives. - -_February 20th._—Mrs. Preston was offended by the story of Buck’s -performance at the Ive’s. General Breckinridge told her “it was the -most beautifully unconscious act he ever saw.” The General was leaning -against the wall, Buck standing guard by him “on her two feet.” The crowd -surged that way, and she held out her arm to protect him from the rush. -After they had all passed she handed him his crutches, and they, too, -moved slowly away. Mrs. Davis said: “Any woman in Richmond would have -done the same joyfully, but few could do it so gracefully. Buck is made -so conspicuous by her beauty, whatever she does can not fail to attract -attention.” - -Johnny stayed at home only one day; then went to his plantation, got -several thousand Confederate dollars, and in the afternoon drove out with -Mrs. K——. At the Bee Store he spent a thousand of his money; bought us -gloves and linen. Well, one can do without gloves, but linen is next to -life itself. - -Yesterday the President walked home from church with me. He said he was -so glad to see my husband at church; had never seen him there before; -remarked on how well he looked, etc. I replied that he looked so well -“because you have never before seen him in the part of ‘the right man in -the right place.’” My husband has no fancy for being planted in pews, but -he is utterly Christian in his creed. - -_February 23d._—At the President’s, where General Lee breakfasted, a man -named Phelan told General Lee all he ought to do; planned a campaign for -him. General Lee smiled blandly the while, though he did permit himself -a mild sneer at the wise civilians in Congress who refrained from trying -the battle-field in person, but from afar dictated the movements of -armies. My husband said that, to his amazement, General Lee came into his -room at the Executive Office to “pay his respects and have a talk.” “Dear -me! Goodness gracious!” said I. “That was a compliment from the head of -the army, the very first man in the world, we Confederates think.” - -_February 24th._—Friends came to make taffy and stayed the livelong day. -They played cards. One man, a soldier, had only two teeth left in front -and they lapped across each other. On account of the condition of his -mouth, he had maintained a dignified sobriety of aspect, though he told -some funny stories. Finally a story was too much for him, and he grinned -from ear to ear. Maggie gazed, and then called out as the negro fiddlers -call out dancing figures, “Forward two and cross over!” Fancy our faces. -The hero of the two teeth, relapsing into a decorous arrangement of -mouth, said: “Cavalry are the eyes of an army; they bring the news; the -artillery are the boys to make a noise; but the infantry do the fighting, -and a general or so gets all the glory.” - -_February 26th._—We went to see Mrs. Breckinridge, who is here with her -husband. Then we paid our respects to Mrs. Lee. Her room was like an -industrial school: everybody so busy. Her daughters were all there plying -their needles, with several other ladies. Mrs. Lee showed us a beautiful -sword, recently sent to the General by some Marylanders, now in Paris. -On the blade was engraved, “_Aide toi et Dieu t’aidera_.” When we came -out someone said, “Did you see how the Lees spend their time? What a -rebuke to the taffy parties!” - -Another maimed hero is engaged to be married. Sally Hampton has accepted -John Haskell. There is a story that he reported for duty after his arm -was shot off; suppose in the fury of the battle he did not feel the pain. - -General Breckinridge once asked, “What’s the name of the fellow who has -gone to Europe for Hood’s leg?” “Dr. Darby.” “Suppose it is shipwrecked?” -“No matter; half a dozen are ordered.” Mrs. Preston raised her hands: “No -wonder the General says they talk of him as if he were a centipede; his -leg is in everybody’s mouth.” - -_March 3d._—Hetty, the handsome, and Constance, the witty, came; the -former too prudish to read Lost and Saved, by Mrs. Norton, after she had -heard the plot. Conny was making a bonnet for me. Just as she was leaving -the house, her friendly labors over, my husband entered, and quickly -ordered his horse. “It is so near dinner,” I began. “But I am going with -the President. I am on duty. He goes to inspect the fortifications. The -enemy, once more, are within a few miles of Richmond.” Then we prepared a -luncheon for him. Constance Cary remained with me. - -After she left I sat down to Romola, and I was absorbed in it. How -hardened we grow to war and war’s alarms! The enemy’s cannon or our own -are thundering in my ears, and I was dreadfully afraid some infatuated -and frightened friend would come in to cheer, to comfort, and interrupt -me. Am I the same poor soul who fell on her knees and prayed, and wept, -and fainted, as the first gun boomed from Fort Sumter? Once more we have -repulsed the enemy. But it is humiliating, indeed, that he can come and -threaten us at our very gates whenever he so pleases. If a forlorn negro -had not led them astray (and they hanged him for it) on Tuesday night, -unmolested, they would have walked into Richmond. Surely there is horrid -neglect or mismanagement somewhere. - -_March 4th._—The enemy has been reenforced and is on us again. Met Wade -Hampton, who told me my husband was to join him with some volunteer -troops; so I hurried home. Such a cavalcade rode up to luncheon! Captain -Smith Lee and Preston Hampton, the handsomest, the oldest and the -youngest of the party. This was at the Prestons’. Smith Lee walked home -with me; alarm-bells ringing; horsemen galloping; wagons rattling. Dr. -H. stopped us to say “Beast” Butler was on us with sixteen thousand men. -How scared the Doctor looked! And, after all, it was only a notice to the -militia to turn out and drill. - -_March 5th._—Tom Fergurson walked home with me. He told me of Colonel -Dahlgren’s[114] death and the horrid memoranda found in his pocket. He -came with secret orders to destroy this devoted city, hang the President -and his Cabinet, and burn the town! Fitzhugh Lee was proud that the Ninth -Virginia captured him. - -Found Mrs. Semmes covering her lettuces and radishes as calmly as if -Yankee raiders were a myth. While “Beast” Butler holds Fortress Monroe he -will make things lively for us. On the alert must we be now. - -_March 7th._—Shopping, and paid $30 for a pair of gloves; $50 for a -pair of slippers; $24 for six spools of thread; $32 for five miserable, -shabby little pocket handkerchiefs. When I came home found Mrs. Webb. At -her hospital there was a man who had been taken prisoner by Dahlgren’s -party. He saw the negro hanged who had misled them, unintentionally, in -all probability. He saw Dahlgren give a part of his bridle to hang him. -Details are melancholy, as Emerson says. This Dahlgren had also lost a -leg. - -Constance Cary, in words too fine for the occasion, described the homely -scene at my house; how I prepared sandwiches for my husband; and broke, -with trembling hand, the last bottle of anything to drink in the house, a -bottle I destined to go with the sandwiches. She called it a Hector and -Andromache performance. - -_March 8th._—Mrs. Preston’s story. As we walked home, she told me she -had just been to see a lady she had known more than twenty years before. -She had met her in this wise: One of the chambermaids of the St. Charles -Hotel (New Orleans) told Mrs. Preston’s nurse—it was when Mary Preston -was a baby—that up among the servants in the garret there was a sick -lady and her children. The maid was sure she was a lady, and thought she -was hiding from somebody. Mrs. Preston went up, knew the lady, had her -brought down into comfortable rooms, and nursed her until she recovered -from her delirium and fever. She had run away, indeed, and was hiding -herself and her children from a worthless husband. Now, she has one son -in a Yankee prison, one mortally wounded, and the last of them dying -there under her eyes of consumption. This last had married here in -Richmond, not wisely, and too soon, for he was a mere boy; his pay as a -private was eleven dollars a month, and his wife’s family charged him -three hundred dollars a month for her board; so he had to work double -tides, do odd jobs by night and by day, and it killed him by exposure to -cold in this bitter climate to which his constitution was unadapted. - -They had been in Vicksburg during the siege, and during the bombardment -sought refuge in a cave. The roar of the cannon ceasing, they came out -gladly for a breath of fresh air. At the moment when they emerged, a bomb -burst there, among them, so to speak, struck the son already wounded, -and smashed off the arm of a beautiful little grandchild not three years -old. There was this poor little girl with her touchingly lovely face, and -her arm gone. This mutilated little martyr, Mrs. Preston said, was really -to her the crowning touch of the woman’s affliction. Mrs. Preston put up -her hand, “Her baby face haunts me.” - -_March 11th._—Letters from home, including one from my husband’s father, -now over ninety, written with his own hand, and certainly his own mind -still. I quote: “Bad times; worse coming. Starvation stares me in the -face. Neither John’s nor James’s overseer will sell me any corn.” Now, -what has the government to do with the fact that on all his plantations -he made corn enough to last for the whole year, and by the end of January -his negroes had stolen it all? Poor old man, he has fallen on evil days, -after a long life of ease and prosperity. - -To-day, I read The Blithedale Romance. Blithedale leaves such an -unpleasant impression. I like pleasant, kindly stories, now that we are -so harrowed by real life. Tragedy is for our hours of ease. - -_March 12th._—An active campaign has begun everywhere. Kilpatrick still -threatens us. Bragg has organized his fifteen hundred of cavalry to -protect Richmond. Why can’t my husband be made colonel of that? It is a -new regiment. No; he must be made a general! - -“Now,” says Mary Preston, “Doctor Darby is at the mercy of both Yankees -and the rolling sea, and I am anxious enough; but, instead of taking my -bed and worrying mamma, I am taking stock of our worldly goods and trying -to arrange the wedding paraphernalia for two girls.” - -There is love-making and love-making in this world. What a time the -sweethearts of that wretch, young Shakespeare, must have had. What -experiences of life’s delights must have been his before he evolved the -Romeo and Juliet business from his own internal consciousness; also that -delicious Beatrice and Rosalind. The poor creature that he left his -second best bedstead to came in second best all the time, no doubt; and -she hardly deserved more. Fancy people wondering that Shakespeare and -his kind leave no progeny like themselves! Shakespeare’s children would -have been half his only; the other half only the second best bedstead’s. -What would you expect of that commingling of materials? Goethe used his -lady-loves as school-books are used: he studied them from cover to cover, -got all that could be got of self-culture and knowledge of human nature -from the study of them, and then threw them aside as if of no further -account in his life. - -Byron never could forget Lord Byron, poet and peer, and _mauvais sujet_, -and he must have been a trying lover; like talking to a man looking in -the glass at himself. Lady Byron was just as much taken up with herself. -So, they struck each other, and bounded apart. - -[Since I wrote this, Mrs. Stowe has taken Byron in hand. But I know a -story which might have annoyed my lord more than her and Lady Byron’s -imagination of wickedness—for he posed a fiend, but was tender and kind. -A clerk in a country store asked my sister to lend him a book, he “wanted -something to read; the days were so long.” “What style of book would you -prefer?” she said. “Poetry.” “Any particular poet?” “_Brown._ I hear him -much spoken of.” “Brown_ing_?” “No; Brown—short—that is what they call -him.” “Byron, you mean.” “No, I mean the poet, Brown.”] - -“Oh, you wish you had lived in the time of the Shakespeare creature!” -He knew all the forms and phases of true love. Straight to one’s heart -he goes in tragedy or comedy. He never misses fire. He has been there, -in slang phrase. No doubt the man’s bare presence gave pleasure to the -female world; he saw women at their best, and he effaced himself. He told -no tales of his own life. Compare with him old, sad, solemn, sublime, -sneering, snarling, fault-finding Milton, a man whose family doubtless -found “_les absences délicieuses_.” That phrase describes a type of man -at a touch; it took a Frenchwoman to do it. - -“But there is an Italian picture of Milton, taken in his youth, and -he was as beautiful as an angel.” “No doubt. But love flies before -everlasting posing and preaching—the deadly requirement of a man always -to be looked up to—a domestic tyrant, grim, formal, and awfully learned. -Milton was only a mere man, for he could not do without women. When -he tired out the first poor thing, who did not fall down, worship, -and obey him, and see God in him, and she ran away, he immediately -arranged his creed so that he could take another wife; for wife he must -have, _à la_ Mohammedan creed. The deer-stealer never once thought of -justifying theft simply because he loved venison and could not come by it -lawfully. Shakespeare was a better man, or, may I say, a purer soul, than -self-upholding, Calvinistic, Puritanic, king-killing Milton. There is no -muddling of right and wrong in Shakespeare, and no pharisaical stuff of -any sort.” - -Then George Deas joined us, fresh from Mobile, where he left peace and -plenty. He went to sixteen weddings and twenty-seven tea-parties. For -breakfast he had everything nice. Lily told of what she had seen the -day before at the Spottswood. She was in the small parlor, waiting for -someone, and in the large drawing-room sat Hood, solitary, sad, with -crutches by his chair. He could not see them. Mrs. Buckner came in and -her little girl who, when she spied Hood, bounded into the next room, and -sprang into his lap. Hood smoothed her little dress down and held her -close to him. She clung around his neck for a while, and then, seizing -him by the beard, kissed him to an illimitable extent. “Prettiest picture -I ever saw,” said Lily. “The soldier and the child.” - -John R. Thompson sent me a New York Herald only three days old. It is -down on Kilpatrick for his miserable failure before Richmond. Also it -acknowledges a defeat before Charleston and a victory for us in Florida. - -General Grant is charmed with Sherman’s successful movements; says he has -destroyed millions upon millions of our property in Mississippi. I hope -that may not be true, and that Sherman may fail as Kilpatrick did. Now, -if we still had Stonewall or Albert Sidney Johnston where Joe Johnston -and Polk are, I would not give a fig for Sherman’s chances. The Yankees -say that at last they have scared up a man who succeeds, and they expect -him to remedy all that has gone wrong. So they have made their brutal -Suwarrow, Grant, lieutenant-general. - -Doctor —— at the Prestons’ proposed to show me a man who was not an F. F. -V. Until we came here, we had never heard of our social position. We do -not know how to be rude to people who call. To talk of social position -seems vulgar. Down our way, that sort of thing was settled one way or -another beyond a peradventure, like the earth and the sky. We never -gave it a thought. We talked to whom we pleased, and if they were not -_comme il faut_, we were ever so much more polite to the poor things. No -reflection on Virginia. Everybody comes to Richmond. - -Somebody counted fourteen generals in church to-day, and suggested that -less piety and more drilling of commands would suit the times better. -There were Lee, Longstreet, Morgan, Hoke, Clingman, Whiting, Pegram, -Elzey, Gordon, and Bragg. Now, since Dahlgren failed to carry out his -orders, the Yankees disown them, disavowing all. He was not sent here to -murder us all, to hang the President, and burn the town. There is the -note-book, however, at the Executive Office, with orders to hang and burn. - -_March 15th._—Old Mrs. Chesnut is dead. A saint is gone and James Chesnut -is broken-hearted. He adored his mother. I gave $375 for my mourning, -which consists of a black alpaca dress and a crape veil. With bonnet, -gloves, and all it came to $500. Before the blockade such things as I -have would not have been thought fit for a chambermaid. - -Everybody is in trouble. Mrs. Davis says paper money has depreciated so -much in value that they can not live within their income; so they are -going to dispense with their carriage and horses. - -_March 18th._—Went out to sell some of my colored dresses. What a scene -it was—such piles of rubbish, and mixed up with it, such splendid -Parisian silks and satins. A mulatto woman kept the shop under a roof in -an out-of-the-way old house. The _ci-devant_ rich white women sell to, -and the negroes buy of, this woman. - -After some whispering among us Buck said: “Sally is going to marry a man -who has lost an arm, and she is proud of it. The cause glorifies such -wounds.” Annie said meekly, “I fear it will be my fate to marry one who -has lost his head.” “Tudy has her eyes on one who has lost an eye. What a -glorious assortment of noble martyrs and heroes!” “The bitterness of this -kind of talk is appalling.” - -General Lee had tears in his eyes when he spoke of his daughter-in-law -just dead—that lovely little Charlotte Wickham, Mrs. Roony Lee. Roony Lee -says “Beast” Butler was very kind to him while he was a prisoner. The -“Beast” has sent him back his war-horse. The Lees are men enough to speak -the truth of friend or enemy, fearing not the consequences. - -_March 19th._—A new experience: Molly and Lawrence have both gone home, -and I am to be left for the first time in my life wholly at the mercy of -hired servants. Mr. Chesnut, being in such deep mourning for his mother, -we see no company. I have a maid of all work. - -Tudy came with an account of yesterday’s trip to Petersburg. Constance -Cary raved of the golden ripples in Tudy’s hair. Tudy vanished in a halo -of glory, and Constance Cary gave me an account of a wedding, as it -was given to her by Major von Borcke. The bridesmaids were dressed in -black, the bride in Confederate gray, homespun. She had worn the dress -all winter, but it had been washed and turned for the wedding. The female -critics pronounced it “flabby-dabby.” They also said her collar was only -“net,” and she wore a cameo breastpin. Her bonnet was self-made. - -_March 24th._—Yesterday, we went to the Capitol grounds to see our -returned prisoners. We walked slowly up and down until Jeff Davis was -called upon to speak. There I stood, almost touching the bayonets when he -left me. I looked straight into the prisoners’ faces, poor fellows. They -cheered with all their might, and I wept for sympathy, and enthusiasm. -I was very deeply moved. These men were so forlorn, so dried up, and -shrunken, with such a strange look in some of their eyes; others so -restless and wild-looking; others again placidly vacant, as if they had -been dead to the world for years. A poor woman was too much for me. She -was searching for her son. He had been expected back. She said he was -taken prisoner at Gettysburg. She kept going in and out among them with a -basket of provisions she had brought for him to eat. It was too pitiful. -She was utterly unconscious of the crowd. The anxious dread, expectation, -hurry, and hope which led her on showed in her face. - -A sister of Mrs. Lincoln is here. She brings the freshest scandals from -Yankeeland. She says she rode with Lovejoy. A friend of hers commands a -black regiment. Two Southern horrors—a black regiment and Lovejoy. - -_March 31st._—Met Preston Hampton. Constance Cary was with me. She showed -her regard for him by taking his overcoat and leaving him in a drenching -rain. What boyish nonsense he talked; said he was in love with Miss -Dabney now, that his love was so hot within him that he was waterproof, -the rain sizzed and smoked off. It did not so much as dampen his ardor or -his clothes. - -_April 1st._—Mrs. Davis is utterly depressed. She said the fall of -Richmond must come; she would send her children to me and Mrs. Preston. -We begged her to come to us also. My husband is as depressed as I ever -knew him to be. He has felt the death of that angel mother of his keenly, -and now he takes his country’s woes to heart. - -_April 11th._—Drove with Mrs. Davis and all her infant family; -wonderfully clever and precocious children, with unbroken wills. At one -time there was a sudden uprising of the nursery contingent. They laughed, -fought, and screamed. Bedlam broke loose. Mrs. Davis scolded, laughed, -and cried. She asked me if my husband would speak to the President about -the plan in South Carolina, which everybody said suited him. “No, Mrs. -Davis,” said I. “That is what I told Mr. Davis,” said she. “Colonel -Chesnut rides so high a horse. Now Browne is so much more practical. He -goes forth to be general of conscripts in Georgia. His wife will stay at -the Cobbs’s.” - -Mrs. Ould gave me a luncheon on Saturday. I felt that this was my last -sad farewell to Richmond and the people there I love so well. Mrs. Davis -sent her carriage for me, and we went to the Oulds’ together. Such good -things were served—oranges, guava jelly, etc. The Examiner says Mr. -Ould, when he goes to Fortress Monroe, replenishes his larder; why not? -The Examiner has taken another fling at the President, as, “haughty and -austere with his friends, affable, kind, subservient to his enemies.” I -wonder if the Yankees would indorse that certificate. Both sides abuse -him. He can not please anybody, it seems. No doubt he is right. - -My husband is now brigadier-general and is sent to South Carolina to -organize and take command of the reserve troops. C. C. Clay and L. Q. C. -Lamar are both spoken of to fill the vacancy made among Mr. Davis’s aides -by this promotion. - -To-day, Captain Smith Lee spent the morning here and gave a review of -past Washington gossip. I am having such a busy, happy life, with so -many friends, and my friends are so clever, so charming. But the change -to that weary, dreary Camden! Mary Preston said: “I do think Mrs. Chesnut -deserves to be canonized; she agrees to go back to Camden.” The Prestons -gave me a farewell dinner; my twenty-fourth wedding day, and the very -pleasantest day I have spent in Richmond. - -Maria Lewis was sitting with us on Mrs. Huger’s steps, and Smith Lee -was lauding Virginia people as usual. As Lee would say, there “hove in -sight” Frank Parker, riding one of the finest of General Bragg’s horses; -by his side Buck on Fairfax, the most beautiful horse in Richmond, his -brown coat looking like satin, his proud neck arched, moving slowly, -gracefully, calmly, no fidgets, aristocratic in his bearing to the -tips of his bridle-reins. There sat Buck tall and fair, managing her -horse with infinite ease, her English riding-habit showing plainly the -exquisite proportions of her figure. “Supremely lovely,” said Smith -Lee. “Look at them both,” said I proudly; “can you match those two in -Virginia?” “Three cheers for South Carolina!” was the answer of Lee, the -gallant Virginia sailor. - - - - -XVII - -CAMDEN, S. C. - -_May 8, 1864-June 1, 1864_ - - -Camden, S. C., _May 8, 1864_.—My friends crowded around me so in those -last days in Richmond, I forgot the affairs of this nation utterly; -though I did show faith in my Confederate country by buying poor Bones’s -(my English maid’s) Confederate bonds. I gave her gold thimbles, -bracelets; whatever was gold and would sell in New York or London, I gave. - -My friends in Richmond grieved that I had to leave them—not half so -much, however, as I did that I must come away. Those last weeks were so -pleasant. No battle, no murder, no sudden death, all went merry as a -marriage bell. Clever, cordial, kind, brave friends rallied around me. - -Maggie Howell and I went down the river to see an exchange of prisoners. -Our party were the Lees, Mallorys, Mrs. Buck Allan, Mrs. Ould. We picked -up Judge Ould and Buck Allan at Curl’s Neck. I had seen no genuine -Yankees before; prisoners, well or wounded, had been German, Scotch, or -Irish. Among our men coming ashore was an officer, who had charge of -some letters for a friend of mine whose _fiancé_ had died; I gave him -her address. One other man showed me some wonderfully ingenious things -he had made while a prisoner. One said they gave him rations for a week; -he always devoured them in three days, he could not help it; and then -he had to bear the inevitable agony of those four remaining days! Many -were wounded, some were maimed for life. They were very cheerful. We had -supper—or some nondescript meal—with ice-cream on board. The band played -Home, Sweet Home. - -One man tapped another on the shoulder: “Well, how do you feel, old -fellow?” “Never was so near crying in my life—for very comfort.” - -Governor Cummings, a Georgian, late Governor of Utah, was among the -returned prisoners. He had been in prison two years. His wife was with -him. He was a striking-looking person, huge in size, and with snow-white -hair, fat as a prize ox, with no sign of Yankee barbarity or starvation -about him. - -That evening, as we walked up to Mrs. Davis’s carriage, which was waiting -for us at the landing, Dr. Garnett with Maggie Howell, Major Hall with -me, suddenly I heard her scream, and some one stepped back in the dark -and said in a whisper. “Little Joe! he has killed himself!” I felt -reeling, faint, bewildered. A chattering woman clutched my arm: “Mrs. -Davis’s son? Impossible. Whom did you say? Was he an interesting child? -How old was he?” The shock was terrible, and unnerved as I was I cried, -“For God’s sake take her away!” - -Then Maggie and I drove two long miles in silence except for Maggie’s -hysterical sobs. She was wild with terror. The news was broken to her in -that abrupt way at the carriage door so that at first she thought it had -all happened there, and that poor little Joe was in the carriage. - -Mr. Burton Harrison met us at the door of the Executive Mansion. Mrs. -Semmes and Mrs. Barksdale were there, too. Every window and door of the -house seemed wide open, and the wind was blowing the curtains. It was -lighted, even in the third story. As I sat in the drawing-room, I could -hear the tramp of Mr. Davis’s step as he walked up and down the room -above. Not another sound. The whole house as silent as death. It was then -twelve o’clock; so I went home and waked General Chesnut, who had gone -to bed. We went immediately back to the President’s, found Mrs. Semmes -still there, but saw no one but her. We thought some friends of the -family ought to be in the house. - -Mrs. Semmes said when she got there that little Jeff was kneeling down by -his brother, and he called out to her in great distress: “Mrs. Semmes, I -have said all the prayers I know how, but God will not wake Joe.” - -Poor little Joe, the good child of the family, was so gentle and -affectionate. He used to run in to say his prayers at his father’s knee. -Now he was laid out somewhere above us, crushed and killed. Mrs. Semmes, -describing the accident, said he fell from the high north piazza upon a -brick pavement. Before I left the house I saw him lying there, white and -beautiful as an angel, covered with flowers; Catherine, his nurse, flat -on the floor by his side, was weeping and wailing as only an Irishwoman -can. - -Immense crowds came to the funeral, everybody sympathetic, but some -shoving and pushing rudely. There were thousands of children, and -each child had a green bough or a bunch of flowers to throw on little -Joe’s grave, which was already a mass of white flowers, crosses, and -evergreens. The morning I came away from Mrs. Davis’s, early as it was, -I met a little child with a handful of snow drops. “Put these on little -Joe,” she said; “I knew him so well,” and then she turned and fled -without another word. I did not know who she was then or now. - -As I walked home I met Mr. Reagan, then Wade Hampton. But I could see -nothing but little Joe and his broken-hearted mother. And Mr. Davis’s -step still sounded in my ears as he walked that floor the livelong night. - -General Lee was to have a grand review the very day we left Richmond. -Great numbers of people were to go up by rail to see it. Miss Turner -McFarland writes: “They did go, but they came back faster than they went. -They found the army drawn up in battle array.” Many of the brave and gay -spirits that we saw so lately have taken flight, the only flight they -know, and their bodies are left dead upon the battle-field. Poor old -Edward Johnston is wounded again, and a prisoner. Jones’s brigade broke -first; he was wounded the day before. - -At Wilmington we met General Whiting. He sent us to the station in his -carriage, and bestowed upon us a bottle of brandy, which had run the -blockade. They say Beauregard has taken his sword from Whiting. Never! I -will not believe it. At the capture of Fort Sumter they said Whiting was -the brains, Beauregard only the hand. Lucifer, son of the morning! How -art thou fallen! That they should even say such a thing! - -My husband and Mr. Covey got out at Florence to procure for Mrs. Miles -a cup of coffee. They were slow about it and they got left. I did not -mind this so very much, for I remembered that we were to remain all day -at Kingsville, and that my husband could overtake me there by the next -train. My maid belonged to the Prestons. She was only traveling home with -me, and would go straight on to Columbia. So without fear I stepped off -at Kingsville. My old Confederate silk, like most Confederate dresses, -had seen better days, and I noticed that, like Oliver Wendell Holmes’s -famous “one-hoss shay,” it had gone to pieces suddenly, and all over. -It was literally in strips. I became painfully aware of my forlorn -aspect when I asked the telegraph man the way to the hotel, and he was -by no means respectful to me. I was, indeed, alone—an old and not too -respectable-looking woman. It was my first appearance in the character, -and I laughed aloud. - -A very haughty and highly painted dame greeted me at the hotel. “No -room,” said she. “Who are you?” I gave my name. “Try something else,” -said she. “Mrs. Chesnut don’t travel round by herself with no servants -and no nothing.” I looked down. There I was, dirty, tired, tattered, and -torn. “Where do you come from?” said she. “My home is in Camden.” “Come, -now, I know everybody in Camden.” I sat down meekly on a bench in the -piazza, that was free to all wayfarers. - -“Which Mrs. Chesnut?” said she (sharply). “I know both.” “I am now the -only one. And now what is the matter with you? Do you take me for a spy? -I know you perfectly well. I went to school with you at Miss Henrietta de -Leon’s, and my name was Mary Miller.” “The Lord sakes alive! and to think -you are her! Now I see. Dear! dear me! Heaven sakes, woman, but you are -broke!” “And tore,” I added, holding up my dress. “But I had had no idea -it was so difficult to effect an entry into a railroad wayside hotel.” I -picked up a long strip of my old black dress, torn off by a man’s spur as -I passed him getting off the train. - -It is sad enough at Mulberry without old Mrs. Chesnut, who was the good -genius of the place. It is so lovely here in spring. The giants of the -forest—the primeval oaks, water-oaks, live-oaks, willow-oaks, such as I -have not seen since I left here—with opopanax, violets, roses, and yellow -jessamine, the air is laden with perfume. Araby the Blest was never -sweeter. - -Inside, are creature comforts of all kinds—green peas, strawberries, -asparagus, spring lamb, spring chicken, fresh eggs, rich, yellow butter, -clean white linen for one’s beds, dazzling white damask for one’s table. -It is such a contrast to Richmond, where I wish I were. - -Fighting is going on. Hampton is frantic, for his laggard new regiments -fall in slowly; no fault of the soldiers; they are as disgusted as he is. -Bragg, Bragg, the head of the War Office, can not organize in time. - -John Boykin has died in a Yankee prison. He had on a heavy flannel shirt -when lying in an open platform car on the way to a cold prison on the -lakes. A Federal soldier wanted John’s shirt. Prisoners have no rights; -so John had to strip off and hand his shirt to him. That caused his -death. In two days he was dead of pneumonia—may be frozen to death. One -man said: “They are taking us there to freeze.” But then their men will -find our hot sun in August and July as deadly as our men find their cold -Decembers. Their snow and ice finish our prisoners at a rapid rate, they -say. Napoleon’s soldiers found out all that in the Russian campaign. - -Have brought my houseless, homeless friends, refugees here, to luxuriate -in Mulberry’s plenty. I can but remember the lavish kindness of the -Virginia people when I was there and in a similar condition. The Virginia -people do the rarest acts of hospitality and never seem to know it is not -in the ordinary course of events. - -The President’s man, Stephen, bringing his master’s Arabian to Mulberry -for safe-keeping, said: “Why, Missis, your niggers down here are well -off. I call this Mulberry place heaven, with plenty to eat, little to do, -warm house to sleep in, a good church.” - -John L. Miller, my cousin, has been killed at the head of his regiment. -The blows now fall so fast on our heads they are bewildering. The -Secretary of War authorizes General Chesnut to reorganize the men who -have been hitherto detailed for special duty, and also those who have -been exempt. He says General Chesnut originated the plan and organized -the corps of clerks which saved Richmond in the Dahlgren raid. - -_May 27th._—In all this beautiful sunshine, in the stillness and shade of -these long hours on this piazza, all comes back to me about little Joe; -it haunts me—that scene in Richmond where all seemed confusion, madness, -a bad dream! Here I see that funeral procession as it wound among those -tall white monuments, up that hillside, the James River tumbling about -below over rocks and around islands; the dominant figure, that poor, old, -gray-haired man, standing bareheaded, straight as an arrow, clear against -the sky by the open grave of his son. She, the bereft mother, stood -back, in her heavy black wrappings, and her tall figure drooped. The -flowers, the children, the procession as it moved, comes and goes, but -those two dark, sorrow-stricken figures stand; they are before me now! - -That night, with no sound but the heavy tramp of his feet overhead, the -curtains flapping in the wind, the gas flaring, I was numb, stupid, -half-dead with grief and terror. Then came Catherine’s Irish howl. Cheap, -was that. Where was she when it all happened? Her place was to have -been with the child. Who saw him fall? Whom will they kill next of that -devoted household? - -Read to-day the list of killed and wounded.[115] One long column was not -enough for South Carolina’s dead. I see Mr. Federal Secretary Stanton -says he can reenforce Suwarrow Grant at his leisure whenever he calls -for more. He has just sent him 25,000 veterans. Old Lincoln says, in his -quaint backwoods way, “Keep a-peggin’.” Now we can only peg out. What -have we left of men, etc., to meet these “reenforcements as often as -reenforcements are called for?” Our fighting men have all gone to the -front; only old men and little boys are at home now. - -It is impossible to sleep here, because it is so solemn and still. -The moonlight shines in my window sad and white, and the soft south -wind, literally comes over a bank of violets, lilacs, roses, with -orange-blossoms and magnolia flowers. - -[Illustration: MRS. JAMES CHESNUT, SR. - -From a Portrait in Oil by Gilbert Stuart.] - -Mrs. Chesnut was only a year younger than her husband. He is ninety-two -or three. She was deaf; but he retains his senses wonderfully for his -great age. I have always been an early riser. Formerly I often saw him -sauntering slowly down the broad passage from his room to hers, in a -flowing flannel dressing-gown when it was winter. In the spring he was -apt to be in shirt-sleeves, with suspenders hanging down his back. He had -always a large hair-brush in his hand. - -He would take his stand on the rug before the fire in her room, brushing -scant locks which were fleecy white. Her maid would be doing hers, which -were dead-leaf brown, not a white hair in her head. He had the voice of a -stentor, and there he stood roaring his morning compliments. The people -who occupied the room above said he fairly shook the window glasses. This -pleasant morning greeting ceremony was never omitted. - -Her voice was “soft and low” (the oft-quoted). Philadelphia seems to -have lost the art of sending forth such voices now. Mrs. Binney, old -Mrs. Chesnut’s sister, came among us with the same softly modulated, -womanly, musical voice. Her clever and beautiful daughters were _criard_. -Judge Han said: “Philadelphia women scream like macaws.” This morning -as I passed Mrs. Chesnut’s room, the door stood wide open, and I heard -a pitiful sound. The old man was kneeling by her empty bedside sobbing -bitterly. I fled down the middle walk, anywhere out of reach of what was -never meant for me to hear. - -_June 1st._—We have been to Bloomsbury again and hear that William -Kirkland has been wounded. A scene occurred then, Mary weeping bitterly -and Aunt B. frantic as to Tanny’s danger. I proposed to make arrangements -for Mary to go on at once. The Judge took me aside, frowning angrily. -“You are unwise to talk in that way. She can neither take her infant -nor leave it. The cars are closed by order of the government to all but -soldiers.” - -I told him of the woman who, when the conductor said she could not go, -cried at the top of her voice, “Soldiers, I want to go to Richmond to -nurse my wounded husband.” In a moment twenty men made themselves her -body-guard, and she went on unmolested. The Judge said I talked nonsense. -I said I would go on in my carriage if need be. Besides, there would be -no difficulty in getting Mary a “permit.” - -He answered hotly that in no case would he let her go, and that I had -better _not_ go back into the house. We were on the piazza and my -carriage at the door. I took it and crossed over to see Mary Boykin. She -was weeping, too, so washed away with tears one would hardly know her. -“So many killed. My son and my husband—I do not hear a word from them.” - -Gave to-day for two pounds of tea, forty pounds of coffee, and sixty -pounds of sugar, $800. - -Beauregard is a gentleman and was a genius as long as Whiting did his -engineering for him. Our Creole general is not quite so clever as he -thinks himself. - -Mary Ford writes for school-books for her boys. She is in great distress -on the subject. When Longstreet’s corps passed through Greenville there -was great enthusiasm; handkerchiefs were waved, bouquets and flowers were -thrown the troops; her boys, having nothing else to throw, threw their -school-books. - - - - -XVIII - -COLUMBIA, S. C. - -_July 6, 1864-January 17, 1865_ - - -Columbia, S, C., _July 6, 1864_.—At the Prestons’ Mary was laughing at -Mrs. Lyons’s complaint—the person from whom we rented rooms in Richmond. -She spoke of Molly and Lawrence’s deceitfulness. They went about the -house quiet as mice while we were at home; or Lawrence sat at the door -and sprang to his feet whenever we passed. But when we were out, they -sang, laughed, shouted, and danced. If any of the Lyons family passed -him, Lawrence kept his seat, with his hat on, too. Mrs. Chesnut had said: -“Oh!” so meekly to the whole tirade, and added, “I will see about it.” - -Colonel Urquhart and Edmund Rhett dined here; charming men both—no brag, -no detraction. Talk is never pleasant where there is either. Our noble -Georgian dined here. He says Hampton was the hero of the Yankee rout at -Stony Creek.[116] He claims that citizens, militia, and lame soldiers -kept the bridge at Staunton and gallantly repulsed Wilson’s raiders. - -At Mrs. S.’s last night. She came up, saying, “In New Orleans four people -never met together without dancing.” Edmund Rhett turned to me: “You -shall be pressed into service.” “No, I belong to the reserve corps—too -old to volunteer or to be drafted as a conscript.” But I had to go. - -My partner in the dance showed his English descent; he took his pleasure -sadly. “Oh, Mr. Rhett, at his pleasure, can be a most agreeable -companion!” said someone. “I never happened to meet him,” said I, “when -he pleased to be otherwise.” With a hot, draggled, old alpaca dress, and -those clod-hopping shoes, to tumble slowly and gracefully through the -mazes of a July dance was too much for me. “What depresses you so?” he -anxiously inquired. “Our carnival of death.” What a blunder to bring us -all together here!—a reunion of consumptives to dance and sing until one -can almost hear the death-rattle! - -[Illustration: MRS. CHESNUT’S HOME IN COLUMBIA IN THE LAST YEAR OF THE -WAR. - -Here Mrs. Chesnut entertained Jefferson Davis.] - -_July 25th._—Now we are in a cottage rented from Doctor Chisolm. Hood -is a full general. Johnston[117] has been removed and superseded. Early -is threatening Washington City. Semmes, of whom we have been so proud, -risked the Alabama in a sort of duel of ships. He has lowered the flag of -the famous Alabama to the Kearsarge.[118] Forgive who may! I can not. We -moved into this house on the 20th of July. My husband was telegraphed to -go to Charleston. General Jones sent for him. A part of his command is on -the coast. - -The girls were at my house. Everything was in the utmost confusion. We -were lying on a pile of mattresses in one of the front rooms while the -servants were reducing things to order in the rear. All the papers are -down on the President for this change of commanders except the Georgia -papers. Indeed, Governor Brown’s constant complaints, I dare say, caused -it—these and the rage of the Georgia people as Johnston backed down on -them. - -Isabella soon came. She said she saw the Preston sisters pass her house, -and as they turned the corner there was a loud and bitter cry. It seemed -to come from the Hampton house. Both girls began to run at full speed. -“What is the matter?” asked Mrs. Martin. “Mother, listen; that sounded -like the cry of a broken heart,” said Isabella; “something has gone -terribly wrong at the Prestons’.” - -Mrs. Martin is deaf, however, so she heard nothing and thought Isabella -fanciful. Isabella hurried over there, and learned that they had come to -tell Mrs. Preston that Willie was killed—Willie! his mother’s darling. -No country ever had a braver soldier, a truer gentleman, to lay down his -life in her cause. - -_July 26th._—Isabella went with me to the bulletin-board. Mrs. D. (with -the white linen as usual pasted on her chin) asked me to read aloud what -was there written. As I slowly read on, I heard a suppressed giggle -from Isabella. I know her way of laughing at everything, and tried to -enunciate more distinctly—to read more slowly, and louder, with more -precision. As I finished and turned round, I found myself closely packed -in by a crowd of Confederate soldiers eager to hear the news. They took -off their caps, thanked me for reading all that was on the boards, and -made way for me, cap in hand, as I hastily returned to the carriage, -which was waiting for us. Isabella proposed, “Call out to them to give -three cheers for Jeff Davis and his generals.” “You forget, my child, -that we are on our way to a funeral.” - -Found my new house already open hospitably to all comers. My husband -had arrived. He was seated at a pine table, on which someone had put -a coarse, red table-cover, and by the light of one tallow candle was -affably entertaining Edward Barnwell, Isaac Hayne, and Uncle Hamilton. -He had given them no tea, however. After I had remedied that oversight, -we adjourned to the moonlighted piazza. By tallow-candle-light and the -light of the moon, we made out that wonderful smile of Teddy’s, which -identifies him as Gerald Grey. - -We have laughed so at broken hearts—the broken hearts of the foolish love -stories. But Buck, now, is breaking her heart for her brother Willie. -Hearts do break in silence, without a word or a sigh. Mrs. Means and Mary -Barnwell made no moan—simply turned their faces to the wall and died. How -many more that we know nothing of! - -When I remember all the true-hearted, the light-hearted, the gay and -gallant boys who have come laughing, singing, and dancing in my way -in the three years now past; how I have looked into their brave young -eyes and helped them as I could in every way and then saw them no more -forever; how they lie stark and cold, dead upon the battle-field, or -moldering away in hospitals or prisons, which is worse—I think if I -consider the long array of those bright youths and loyal men who have -gone to their death almost before my very eyes, my heart might break, -too. Is anything worth it—this fearful sacrifice, this awful penalty we -pay for war? - -Allen G. says Johnston was a failure. Now he will wait and see what Hood -can do before he pronounces judgment on him. He liked his address to his -army. It was grand and inspiring, but every one knows a general has not -time to write these things himself. Mr. Kelly, from New Orleans, says -Dick Taylor and Kirby Smith have quarreled. One would think we had a big -enough quarrel on hand for one while already. The Yankees are enough and -to spare. General Lovell says, “Joe Brown, with his Georgians at his -back, who importuned our government to remove Joe Johnston, they are -scared now, and wish they had not.” - -In our democratic Republic, if one rises to be its head, whomever he -displeases takes a Turkish revenge and defiles the tombs of his father -and mother; hints that his father was a horse-thief and his mother no -better than she should be; his sisters barmaids and worse, his brothers -Yankee turncoats and traitors. All this is hurled at Lincoln or Jeff -Davis indiscriminately. - -_August 2d._—Sherman again. Artillery parked and a line of battle formed -before Atlanta. When we asked Brewster what Sam meant to do at Atlanta he -answered, “Oh—oh, like the man who went, he says he means to stay there!” -Hope he may, that’s all. - -Spent to-day with Mrs. McCord at her hospital. She is dedicating her -grief for her son, sanctifying it, one might say, by giving up her soul -and body, her days and nights, to the wounded soldiers at her hospital. -Every moment of her time is surrendered to their needs. - -To-day General Taliaferro dined with us. He served with Hood at the -second battle of Manassas and at Fredericksburg, where Hood won his -major-general’s spurs. On the battle-field, Hood, he said, “has military -inspiration.” We were thankful for that word. All now depends on that -army at Atlanta. If that fails us, the game is up. - -_August 3d._—Yesterday was such a lucky day for my housekeeping in our -hired house. Oh, ye kind Columbia folk! Mrs. Alex Taylor, _née_ Hayne, -sent me a huge bowl of yellow butter and a basket to match of every -vegetable in season. Mrs. Preston’s man came with mushrooms freshly cut -and Mrs. Tom Taylor’s with fine melons. - -Sent Smith and Johnson (my house servant and a carpenter from home, -respectively) to the Commissary’s with our wagon for supplies. They made -a mistake, so they said, and went to the depot instead, and stayed there -all day. I needed a servant sadly in many ways all day long, but I hope -Smith and Johnson had a good time. I did not lose patience until Harriet -came in an omnibus because I had neither servants nor horse to send to -the station for her. - -Stephen Elliott is wounded, and his wife and father have gone to him. -Six hundred of his men were destroyed in a mine; and part of his brigade -taken prisoners: Stoneman and his raiders have been captured. This last -fact gives a slightly different hue to our horizon of unmitigated misery. - -General L—— told us of an unpleasant scene at the President’s last -winter. He called there to see Mrs. McLean. Mrs. Davis was in the room -and he did not speak to her. He did not intend to be rude; it was merely -an oversight. And so he called again and tried to apologize, to remedy -his blunder, but the President was inexorable, and would not receive his -overtures of peace and good-will. General L—— is a New York man. Talk of -the savagery of slavery, heavens! How perfect are our men’s manners down -here, how suave, how polished are they. Fancy one of them forgetting to -speak to Mrs. Davis in her own drawing-room. - -_August 6th._—Archer came, a classmate of my husband’s at Princeton; -they called him Sally Archer then, he was so girlish and pretty. No -trace of feminine beauty about this grim soldier now. He has a hard -face, black-bearded and sallow, with the saddest black eyes. His hands -are small, white, and well-shaped; his manners quiet. He is abstracted -and weary-looking, his mind and body having been deadened by long -imprisonment. He seemed glad to be here, and James Chesnut was charmed. -“Dear Sally Archer,” he calls him cheerily, and the other responds in a -far-off, faded kind of way. - -Hood and Archer were given the two Texas regiments at the beginning of -the war. They were colonels and Wigfall was their general. Archer’s -comments on Hood are: “He does not compare intellectually with General -Johnston, who is decidedly a man of culture and literary attainments, -with much experience in military matters. Hood, however, has youth and -energy to help counterbalance all this. He has a simple-minded directness -of purpose always. He is awfully shy, and he has suffered terribly, but -then he has had consolations—such a rapid rise in his profession, and -then his luck to be engaged to the beautiful Miss ——.” - -They tried Archer again and again on the heated controversy of the day, -but he stuck to his text. Joe Johnston is a fine military critic, a -capital writer, an accomplished soldier, as brave as Cæsar in his own -person, but cautious to a fault in manipulating an army. Hood has all the -dash and fire of a reckless young soldier, and his Texans would follow -him to the death. Too much caution might be followed easily by too much -headlong rush. That is where the swing-back of the pendulum might ruin us. - -_August 10th._—To-day General Chesnut and his staff departed. His troops -are ordered to look after the mountain passes beyond Greenville on the -North Carolina and Tennessee quarter. - -Misery upon misery. Mobile[119] is going as New Orleans went. Those -Western men have not held their towns as we held and hold Charleston, -or as the Virginians hold Richmond. And they call us a “frill-shirt, -silk-stocking chivalry,” or “a set of dandy Miss Nancys.” They fight -desperately in their bloody street brawls, but we bear privation and -discipline best. - -_August 14th._—We have conflicting testimony. Young Wade Hampton, of -Joe Johnston’s staff, says Hood lost 12,000 men in the battles of the -22d[120] and 24th, but Brewster, of Hood’s staff, says not three thousand -at the utmost. Now here are two people strictly truthful, who tell things -so differently. In this war people see the same things so oddly one does -not know what to believe. - -Brewster says when he was in Richmond Mr. Davis said Johnston would have -to be removed and Sherman blocked. He could not make Hardee full general -because, when he had command of an army he was always importuning the War -Department for a general-in-chief to be sent there over him. Polk would -not do, brave soldier and patriot as he was. He was a good soldier, and -would do his best for his country, and do his duty under whomever was put -over him by those in authority. Mr. Davis did not once intimate to him -who it was that he intended to promote to the head of the Western Army. - -Brewster said to-day that this “blow at Joe Johnston, cutting off his -head, ruins the schemes of the enemies of the government. Wigfall asked -me to go at once, and get Hood to decline to take this command, for it -will destroy him if he accepts it. He will have to fight under Jeff -Davis’s orders; no one can do that now and not lose caste in the Western -Army. Joe Johnston does not exactly say that Jeff Davis betrays his plans -to the enemy, but he says he dares not let the President know his plans, -as there is a spy in the War Office who invariably warns the Yankees in -time. Consulting the government on military movements is played out. -That’s Wigfall’s way of talking. Now,” added Brewster, “I blame the -President for keeping a man at the head of his armies who treats the -government with open scorn and contumely, no matter how the people at -large rate this disrespectful general.” - -_August 19th._—Began my regular attendance on the Wayside Hospital. -To-day we gave wounded men, as they stopped for an hour at the station, -their breakfast. Those who are able to come to the table do so. The badly -wounded remain in wards prepared for them, where their wounds are dressed -by nurses and surgeons, and we take bread and butter, beef, ham, and hot -coffee to them. - -One man had hair as long as a woman’s, the result of a vow, he said. He -had pledged himself not to cut his hair until peace was declared and our -Southern country free. Four made this vow together. All were dead but -himself. One was killed in Missouri, one in Virginia, and he left one at -Kennesaw Mountain. This poor creature had had one arm taken off at the -socket. When I remarked that he was utterly disabled and ought not to -remain in the army, he answered quietly, “I am of the First Texas. If old -Hood can go with one foot, I can go with one arm, eh?” - -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, this war would have been over long ago! What -we want is a leader!” shouted a cripple. - -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. - -Letters from the army. Grant’s dogged stay about Richmond is very -disgusting and depressing to the spirits. Wade Hampton has been put in -command of the Southern cavalry. - -A Wayside incident. A pine box, covered with flowers, was carefully put -upon the train by some gentlemen. Isabella asked whose remains were in -the box. Dr. Gibbes replied: “In that box lies the body of a young man -whose family antedates the Bourbons of France. He was the last Count -de Choiseul, and he has died for the South.” Let his memory be held in -perpetual remembrance by all who love the South! - -_August 22d._—Hope I may never know a raid except from hearsay. Mrs. -Huger describes the one at Athens. The proudest and most timid of women -were running madly in the streets, corsets in one hand, stockings in -the other—_déshabillé_ as far as it will go. Mobile is half taken. The -railroad between us and Richmond has been tapped. - -Notes from a letter written by a young lady who is riding a high horse. -Her _fiancé_, a maimed hero, has been abused. “You say to me with a -sneer, ‘So you love that man.’ Yes, I do, and I thank God that I love -better than all the world the man who is to be my husband. ‘Proud of -him, are you?’ Yes, I am, in exact proportion to my love. You say, ‘I am -selfish.’ Yes, I am selfish. He is my second self, so utterly absorbed -am I in him. There is not a moment, day or night, that I do not think -of him. In point of fact, I do not think of anything else.” No reply -was deemed necessary by the astounded recipient of this outburst of -indignation, who showed me the letter and continued to observe: “Did you -ever? She seems so shy, so timid, so cold.” - -Sunday Isabella took us to a chapel, Methodist, of course; her father had -a hand in building it. It was not clean, but it was crowded, hot, and -stuffy. An eloquent man preached with a delightful voice and wonderful -fluency; nearly eloquent, and at times nearly ridiculous. He described a -scene during one of his sermons when “beautiful young faces were turned -up to me, radiant faces though bathed in tears, moral rainbows of emotion -playing over them,” etc. - -He then described his own conversion, and stripped himself naked morally. -All that is very revolting to one’s innate sense of decency. He tackled -the patriarchs. Adam, Noah, and so on down to Joseph, who was “a man -whose modesty and purity were so transcendent they enabled him to resist -the greatest temptation to which fallen man is exposed.” “Fiddlesticks! -that is played out!” my neighbor whispered. “Everybody gives up now that -old Mrs. Pharaoh was forty.” “Mrs. Potiphar, you goose, and she was -fifty!” “That solves the riddle.” “Sh-sh!” from the devout Isabella. - -At home met General Preston on the piazza. He was vastly entertaining. -Gave us Darwin, Herodotus, and Livy. We understood him and were -delighted, but we did not know enough to be sure when it was his own -wisdom or when wise saws and cheering words came from the authors of whom -he spoke. - -_August 23d._—All in a muddle, and yet the news, confused as it is, seems -good from all quarters. There is a row in New Orleans. Memphis[121] has -been retaken; 2,000 prisoners have been captured at Petersburg, and a -Yankee raid on Macon has come to grief. - -At Mrs. Izard’s met a clever Mrs. Calhoun. Mrs. Calhoun is a violent -partizan of Dick Taylor; says Taylor does the work and Kirby Smith -gets the credit for it. Mrs. Calhoun described the behavior of some -acquaintance of theirs at Shreveport, one of that kind whose faith -removes mountains. Her love for and confidence in the Confederate army -were supreme. Why not? She knew so many of the men who composed that -dauntless band. When her husband told her New Orleans had surrendered to -a foe whom she despised, she did not believe a word of it. He told her -to “pack up his traps, as it was time for him to leave Shreveport.” She -then determined to run down to the levee and see for herself, only to -find the Yankee gunboats having it all their own way. She made a painful -exhibition of herself. First, she fell on her knees and prayed; then she -got up and danced with rage; then she raved and dashed herself on the -ground in a fit. There was patriotism run mad for you! As I did not know -the poor soul, Mrs. Calhoun’s fine acting was somewhat lost on me, but -the others enjoyed it. - -Old Edward Johnston has been sent to Atlanta against his will, and Archer -has been made major-general and, contrary to his earnest request, ordered -not to his beloved Texans but to the Army of the Potomac. - -Mr. C. F. Hampton deplores the untimely end of McPherson.[122] He was so -kind to Mr. Hampton at Vicksburg last winter, and drank General Hampton’s -health then and there. Mr. Hampton has asked Brewster, if the report of -his death prove a mistake, and General McPherson is a prisoner, that -every kindness and attention be shown to him. General McPherson said at -his own table at Vicksburg that General Hampton was the ablest general on -our side. - -Grant can hold his own as well as Sherman. Lee has a heavy handful in the -new Suwarrow. He has worse odds than any one else, for when Grant has -ten thousand slain, he has only to order another ten thousand, and they -are there, ready to step out to the front. They are like the leaves of -Vallambrosa. - -_August 29th._—I take my hospital duty in the morning. Most persons -prefer afternoon, but I dislike to give up my pleasant evenings. So I get -up at five o’clock and go down in my carriage all laden with provisions. -Mrs. Fisher and old Mr. Bryan generally go with me. Provisions are -commonly sent by people to Mrs. Fisher’s. I am so glad to be a hospital -nurse once more. I had excuses enough, but at heart I felt a coward and -a skulker. I think I know how men feel who hire a substitute and shirk -the fight. There must be no dodging of duty. It will not do now to send -provisions and pay for nurses. Something inside of me kept calling out, -“Go, you shabby creature; you can’t bear to see what those fine fellows -have to bear.” - -Mrs. Izard was staying with me last night, and as I slipped away I begged -Molly to keep everything dead still and not let Mrs. Izard be disturbed -until I got home. About ten I drove up and there was a row to wake the -dead. Molly’s eldest daughter, who nurses her baby sister, let the baby -fall, and, regardless of Mrs. Izard, as I was away, Molly was giving the -nurse a switching in the yard, accompanied by howls and yells worthy of -a Comanche! The small nurse welcomed my advent, no doubt, for in two -seconds peace was restored. Mrs. Izard said she sympathized with the -baby’s mother; so I forgave the uproar. - -I have excellent servants; no matter for their shortcomings behind my -back. They save me all thought as to household matters, and they are so -kind, attentive, and quiet. They must know what is at hand if Sherman is -not hindered from coming here—“Freedom! my masters!” But these sphinxes -give no sign, unless it be increased diligence and absolute silence, as -certain in their action and as noiseless as a law of nature, at any rate -when we are in the house. - -That fearful hospital haunts me all day long, and is worse at night. -So much suffering, such loathsome wounds, such distortion, with stumps -of limbs not half cured, exhibited to all. Then, when I was so tired -yesterday, Molly was looking more like an enraged lioness than anything -else, roaring that her baby’s neck was broken, and howling cries of -vengeance. The poor little careless nurse’s dark face had an ashen tinge -of gray terror. She was crouching near the ground like an animal trying -to hide, and her mother striking at her as she rolled away. All this was -my welcome as I entered the gate. It takes these half-Africans but a -moment to go back to their naked savage animal nature. Mrs. Izard is a -charming person. She tried so to make me forget it all and rest. - -_September 2d._—The battle has been raging at Atlanta,[123] and our fate -hanging in the balance. Atlanta, indeed, is gone. Well, that agony is -over. Like David, when the child was dead, I will get up from my knees, -will wash my face and comb my hair. No hope; we will try to have no fear. - -At the Prestons’ I found them drawn up in line of battle every moment -looking for the Doctor on his way to Richmond. Now, to drown thought, -for our day is done, read Dumas’s _Maîtres d’Armes_. Russia ought to -sympathize with us. We are not as barbarous as this, even if Mrs. Stowe’s -word be taken. Brutal men with unlimited power are the same all over the -world. See Russell’s India—Bull Run Russell’s. They say General Morgan -has been killed. We are hard as stones; we sit unmoved and hear any bad -news chance may bring. Are we stupefied? - -_September 19th._—My pink silk dress I have sold for $600, to be paid for -in instalments, two hundred a month for three months. And I sell my eggs -and butter from home for two hundred dollars a month. Does it not sound -well—four hundred dollars a month regularly. But in what? In Confederate -money. _Hélas!_ - -_September 21st._—Went with Mrs. Rhett to hear Dr. Palmer. I did not -know before how utterly hopeless was our situation. This man is so -eloquent, it was hard to listen and not give way. Despair was his word, -and martyrdom. He offered us nothing more in this world than the martyr’s -crown. He is not for slavery, he says; he is for freedom, and the -freedom to govern our own country as we see fit. He is against foreign -interference in our State matters. That is what Mr. Palmer went to war -for, it appears. Every day shows that slavery is doomed the world over; -for that he thanked God. He spoke of our agony, and then came the cry, -“Help us, O God! Vain is the help of man.” And so we came away shaken to -the depths. - -The end has come. No doubt of the fact. Our army has so moved as to -uncover Macon and Augusta. We are going to be wiped off the face of the -earth. What is there to prevent Sherman taking General Lee in the rear? -We have but two armies, and Sherman is between them now.[124] - -_September 24th._—These stories of our defeats in the valley fall like -blows upon a dead body. Since Atlanta fell I have felt as if all were -dead within me forever. Captain Ogden, of General Chesnut’s staff, -dined here to-day. Had ever brigadier, with little or no brigade, so -magnificent a staff? The reserves, as somebody said, have been secured -only by robbing the cradle and the grave—the men too old, the boys too -young. Isaac Hayne, Edward Barnwell, Bacon, Ogden, Richardson, Miles are -the picked men of the agreeable world. - -_October 1st._—Mary Cantey Preston’s wedding day has come and gone and -Mary is Mrs. John Darby now. Maggie Howell dressed the bride’s hair -beautifully, they said, but it was all covered by her veil, which was of -blond-lace, and the dress tulle and blond-lace, with diamonds and pearls. -The bride walked up the aisle on her father’s arm, Mrs. Preston on Dr. -Darby’s. I think it was the handsomest wedding party I ever saw. John -Darby[125] had brought his wedding uniform home with him from England, -and it did all honor to his perfect figure. I forget the name of his -London tailor—the best, of course! “Well,” said Isabella, “it would be -hard for any man to live up to those clothes.” - -And now, to the amazement of us all, Captain Chesnut (Johnny) who knows -everything, has rushed into a flirtation with Buck such as never was. He -drives her every day, and those wild, runaway, sorrel colts terrify my -soul as they go tearing, pitching, and darting from side to side of the -street. And my lady enjoys it. When he leaves her, he kisses her hand, -bowing so low to do it unseen that we see it all. - -_Saturday._—The President will be with us here in Columbia next Tuesday, -so Colonel McLean brings us word. I have begun at once to prepare to -receive him in my small house. His apartments have been decorated as well -as Confederate stringency would permit. The possibilities were not great, -but I did what I could for our honored chief; besides I like the man—he -has been so kind to me, and his wife is one of the few to whom I can -never be grateful enough for her generous appreciation and attention. - -I went out to the gate to greet the President, who met me most cordially; -kissed me, in fact. Custis Lee and Governor Lubbock were at his back. - -Immediately after breakfast (the Presidential party arrived a little -before daylight) General Chesnut drove off with the President’s aides, -and Mr. Davis sat out on our piazza. There was nobody with him but -myself. Some little boys strolling by called out, “Come here and look; -there is a man on Mrs. Chesnut’s porch who looks just like Jeff Davis on -postage-stamps.” People began to gather at once on the street. Mr. Davis -then went in. - -Mrs. McCord sent a magnificent bouquet—I thought, of course, for the -President; but she gave me such a scolding afterward. She did not know he -was there; I, in my mistake about the bouquet, thought she knew, and so -did not send her word. - -The President was watching me prepare a mint julep for Custis Lee when -Colonel McLean came to inform us that a great crowd had gathered and that -they were coming to ask the President to speak to them at one o’clock. An -immense crowd it was—men, women, and children. The crowd overflowed the -house, the President’s hand was nearly shaken off. I went to the rear, my -head intent on the dinner to be prepared for him, with only a Confederate -commissariat. But the patriotic public had come to the rescue. I had been -gathering what I could of eatables for a month, and now I found that -nearly everybody in Columbia was sending me whatever they had that they -thought nice enough for the President’s dinner. We had the sixty-year-old -Madeira from Mulberry, and the beautiful old china, etc. Mrs. Preston -sent a boned turkey stuffed with truffles, stuffed tomatoes, and stuffed -peppers. Each made a dish as pretty as it was appetizing. - -A mob of small boys only came to pay their respects to the President. He -seemed to know how to meet that odd delegation. - -Then the President’s party had to go, and we bade them an affectionate -farewell. Custis Lee and I had spent much time gossiping on the back -porch. While I was concocting dainties for the dessert, he sat on the -banister with a cigar in his mouth. He spoke very candidly, telling me -many a hard truth for the Confederacy, and about the bad time which was -at hand. - -_October 18th._—Ten pleasant days I owe to my sister. Kate has descended -upon me unexpectedly from the mountains of Flat Rock. We are true -sisters; she understands me without words, and she is the cleverest, -sweetest woman I know, so graceful and gracious in manner, so good and -unselfish in character, but, best of all, she is so agreeable. Any time -or place would be charming with Kate for a companion. General Chesnut was -in Camden; but I could not wait. I gave the beautiful bride, Mrs. Darby, -a dinner, which was simply perfection. I was satisfied for once in my -life with my own table, and I know pleasanter guests were never seated -around any table whatsoever. - -My house is always crowded. After all, what a number of pleasant people -we have been thrown in with by war’s catastrophes. I call such society -glorious. It is the wind-up, but the old life as it begins to die will -die royally. General Chesnut came back disheartened. He complains that -such a life as I lead gives him no time to think. - -_October 28th._—Burton Harrison writes to General Preston that supreme -anxiety reigns in Richmond. - -Oh, for one single port! If the Alabama had had in the whole wide world a -port to take her prizes to and where she could be refitted, I believe she -would have borne us through. Oh, for one single port by which we could -get at the outside world and refit our whole Confederacy! If we could -have hired regiments from Europe, or even have imported ammunition and -food for our soldiers! - -“Some days must be dark and dreary.” At the mantua-maker’s, however, I -saw an instance of faith in our future: a bride’s paraphernalia, and the -radiant bride herself, the bridegroom expectant and elect now within -twenty miles of Chattanooga and outward bound to face the foe. - -Saw at the Laurens’s not only Lizzie Hamilton, a perfect little beauty, -but the very table the first Declaration of Independence was written -upon. These Laurenses are grandchildren of Henry Laurens, of the first -Revolution. Alas! we have yet to make good our second declaration of -independence—Southern independence—from Yankee meddling and Yankee rule. -Hood has written to ask them to send General Chesnut out to command one -of his brigades. In whose place? - -If Albert Sidney Johnston had lived! Poor old General Lee has no backing. -Stonewall would have saved us from Antietam. Sherman will now catch -General Lee by the rear, while Grant holds him by the head, and while -Hood and Thomas are performing an Indian war-dance on the frontier. Hood -means to cut his way to Lee; see if he doesn’t. The “Yanks” have had a -struggle for it. More than once we seemed to have been too much for them. -We have been so near to success it aches one to think of it. So runs the -table-talk. - -Next to our house, which Isabella calls “Tillytudlem,” since Mr. Davis’s -visit, is a common of green grass and very level, beyond which comes -a belt of pine-trees. On this open space, within forty paces of us, a -regiment of foreign deserters has camped. They have taken the oath of -allegiance to our government, and are now being drilled and disciplined -into form before being sent to our army. They are mostly Germans, with -some Irish, however. Their close proximity keeps me miserable. Traitors -once, traitors forever. - -Jordan has always been held responsible for all the foolish -proclamations, and, indeed, for whatever Beauregard reported or -proclaimed. Now he has left that mighty chief, and, lo, here comes from -Beauregard the silliest and most boastful of his military bulletins. He -brags of Shiloh; that was not the way the story was told to us. - -A letter from Mrs. Davis, who says: “Thank you, a thousand times, my dear -friend, for your more than maternal kindness to my dear child.” That is -what she calls her sister, Maggie Howell. “As to Mr. Davis, he thinks -the best ham, the best Madeira, the best coffee, the best hostess in the -world, rendered Columbia delightful to him when he passed through. We -are in a sad and anxious state here just now. The dead come in; but the -living do not go out so fast. However, we hope all things and trust in -God as the only one able to resolve the opposite state of feeling into -a triumphant, happy whole. I had a surprise of an unusually gratifying -nature a few days since. I found I could not keep my horses, so I sold -them. The next day they were returned to me with a handsome anonymous -note to the effect that they had been bought by a few friends for me. But -I fear I can not feed them. Strictly between us, things look very anxious -here.” - -_November 6th._—Sally Hampton went to Richmond with the Rev. Mr. Martin. -She arrived there on Wednesday. On Thursday her father, Wade Hampton, -fought a great battle, but just did not win it—a victory narrowly missed. -Darkness supervened and impenetrable woods prevented that longed-for -consummation. Preston Hampton rode recklessly into the hottest fire. His -father sent his brother, Wade, to bring him back. Wade saw him reel in -the saddle and galloped up to him, General Hampton following. As young -Wade reached him, Preston fell from his horse, and the one brother, -stooping to raise the other, was himself shot down. Preston recognized -his father, but died without speaking a word. Young Wade, though wounded, -held his brother’s head up. Tom Taylor and others hurried up. The General -took his dead son in his arms, kissed him, and handed his body to Tom -Taylor and his friends, bade them take care of Wade, and then rode back -to his post. At the head of his troops in the thickest of the fray he -directed the fight for the rest of the day. Until night he did not know -young Wade’s fate; that boy might be dead, too! Now, he says, no son of -his must be in his command. When Wade recovers, he must join some other -division. The agony of such a day, and the anxiety and the duties of the -battle-field—it is all more than a mere man can bear. - -Another letter from Mrs. Davis. She says: “I was dreadfully shocked at -Preston Hampton’s fate—his untimely fate. I know nothing more touching in -history than General Hampton’s situation at the supremest moment of his -misery, when he sent one son to save the other and saw both fall; and -could not know for some moments whether both were not killed.” - -A thousand dollars have slipped through my fingers already this week. At -the Commissary’s I spent five hundred to-day for candles, sugar, and a -lamp, etc. Tallow candles are bad enough, but of them there seems to be -an end, too. Now we are restricted to smoky, terrabine lamps—terrabine -is a preparation of turpentine. When the chimney of the lamp cracks, -as crack it will, we plaster up the place with paper, thick old -letter-paper, preferring the highly glazed kind. In the hunt for paper -queer old letters come to light. - -Sherman, in Atlanta, has left Thomas to take care of Hood. Hood has -thirty thousand men, Thomas forty thousand, and as many more to be had as -he wants; he has only to ring the bell and call for them. Grant can get -all that he wants, both for himself and for Thomas. All the world is open -to them, while we are shut up in a bastile. We are at sea, and our boat -has sprung a leak. - -_November 17th._—Although Sherman[126] took Atlanta, he does not mean to -stay there, be it heaven or hell. Fire and the sword are for us here; -that is the word. And now I must begin my Columbia life anew and alone. -It will be a short shrift. - -Captain Ogden came to dinner on Sunday and in the afternoon asked me to -go with him to the Presbyterian Church and hear Mr. Palmer. We went, -and I felt very youthful, as the country people say; like a girl and -her beau. Ogden took me into a pew and my husband sat afar off. What a -sermon! The preacher stirred my blood. My very flesh crept and tingled. -A red-hot glow of patriotism passed through me. Such a sermon must -strengthen the hearts and the hands of many people. There was more -exhortation to fight and die, _à la_ Joshua, than meek Christianity. - -_November 25th._—Sherman is thundering at Augusta’s very doors. My -General was on the wing, somber, and full of care. The girls are merry -enough; the staff, who fairly live here, no better. Cassandra, with a -black shawl over her head, is chased by the gay crew from sofa to sofa, -for she avoids them, being full of miserable anxiety. There is nothing -but distraction and confusion. All things tend to the preparation for the -departure of the troops. It rains all the time, such rains as I never saw -before; incessant torrents. These men come in and out in the red mud and -slush of Columbia streets. Things seem dismal and wretched to me to the -last degree, but the staff, the girls, and the youngsters do not see it. - -Mrs. S. (born in Connecticut) came, and she was radiant. She did not come -to see me, but my nieces. She says exultingly that “Sherman will open -a way out at last, and I will go at once to Europe or go North to my -relatives there.” How she derided our misery and “mocked when our fear -cometh.” I dare say she takes me for a fool. I sat there dumb, although -she was in my own house. I have heard of a woman so enraged that she -struck some one over the head with a shovel. To-day, for the first time -in my life, I know how that mad woman felt. I could have given Mrs. S. -the benefit of shovel and tongs both. - -That splendid fellow, Preston Hampton; “home they brought their warrior, -dead,” and wrapped in that very Legion flag he had borne so often in -battle with his own hands. - -A letter from Mrs. Davis to-day, under date of Richmond, Va., November -20, 1864. She says: “Affairs West are looking so critical now that, -before you receive this, you and I will be in the depths or else -triumphant. I confess I do not sniff success in every passing breeze, -but I am so tired, hoping, fearing, and being disappointed, that I have -made up my mind not to be disconsolate, even though thieves break through -and steal. Some people expect another attack upon Richmond shortly, but -I think the avalanche will not slide until the spring breaks up its -winter quarters. I have a blind kind of prognostics of victory for us, -but somehow I am not cheered. The temper of Congress is less vicious, -but more concerted in its hostile action.” Mrs. Davis is a woman that my -heart aches for in the troubles ahead. - -My journal, a quire of Confederate paper, lies wide open on my desk in -the corner of my drawing-room. Everybody reads it who chooses. Buck comes -regularly to see what I have written last, and makes faces when it does -not suit her. Isabella still calls me Cassandra, and puts her hands to -her ears when I begin to wail. Well, Cassandra only records what she -hears; she does not vouch for it. For really, one nowadays never feels -certain of anything. - -_November 28th._—We dined at Mrs. McCord’s. She is as strong a cordial -for broken spirits and failing heart as one could wish. How her strength -contrasts with our weakness. Like Doctor Palmer, she strings one up -to bear bravely the worst. She has the intellect of a man and the -perseverance and endurance of a woman. - -We have lost nearly all of our men, and we have no money, and it looks as -if we had taught the Yankees how to fight since Manassas. Our best and -bravest are under the sod; we shall have to wait till another generation -grows up. Here we stand, despair in our hearts (“Oh, Cassandra, don’t!” -shouts Isabella), with our houses burning or about to be, over our heads. - -The North have just got things ship-shape; a splendid army, perfectly -disciplined, with new levies coming in day and night. Their gentry do not -go into the ranks. They hardly know there is a war up there. - -_December 1st._—At Coosawhatchie Yankees are landing in great force. Our -troops down there are raw militia, old men and boys never under fire -before; some college cadets, in all a mere handful. The cradle and the -grave have been robbed by us, they say. Sherman goes to Savannah and not -to Augusta. - -_December 2d._—Isabella and I put on bonnets and shawls and went -deliberately out for news. We determined to seek until we found. Met a -man who was so ugly, I could not forget him or his sobriquet; he was -awfully in love with me once. He did not know me, but blushed hotly when -Isabella told him who I was. He had forgotten me, I hope, or else I am -changed by age and care past all recognition. He gave us the encouraging -information that Grahamville had been burned to the ground. - -When the call for horses was made, Mrs. McCord sent in her fine bays. She -comes now with a pair of mules, and looks too long and significantly at -my ponies. If I were not so much afraid of her, I would hint that those -mules would be of far more use in camp than my ponies. But they will -seize the ponies, no doubt. - -In all my life before, the stables were far off from the house and I had -nothing to do with them. Now my ponies are kept under an open shed next -to the back piazza. Here I sit with my work, or my desk, or my book, -basking in our Southern sun, and I watch Nat feed, curry, and rub down -the horses, and then he cleans their stables as thoroughly as Smith does -my drawing-room. I see their beds of straw comfortably laid. Nat says, -“Ow, Missis, ain’t lady’s business to look so much in de stables.” I -care nothing for his grumbling, and I have never had horses in better -condition. Poor ponies, you deserve every attention, and enough to eat. -Grass does not grow under your feet. By night and day you are on the trot. - -To-day General Chesnut was in Charleston on his way from Augusta to -Savannah by rail. The telegraph is still working between Charleston and -Savannah. Grahamville certainly is burned. There was fighting down there -to-day. I came home with enough to think about, Heaven knows! And then -all day long we compounded a pound cake in honor of Mrs. Cuthbert, who -has things so nice at home. The cake was a success, but was it worth all -that trouble? - -As my party were driving off to the concert, an omnibus rattled up. Enter -Captain Leland, of General Chesnut’s staff, of as imposing a presence as -a field-marshal, handsome and gray-haired. He was here on some military -errand and brought me a letter. He said the Yankees had been repulsed, -and that down in those swamps we could give a good account of ourselves -if our government would send men enough. With a sufficient army to meet -them down there, they could be annihilated. “Where are the men to come -from?” asked Mamie, wildly. “General Hood has gone off to Tennessee. Even -if he does defeat Thomas there, what difference would that make here?” - -_December 3d._—We drank tea at Mrs. McCord’s; she had her troubles, too. -The night before a country cousin claimed her hospitality, one who fain -would take the train at five this morning. A little after midnight Mrs. -McCord was startled out of her first sleep by loud ringing of bells; an -alarm at night may mean so much just now. In an instant she was on her -feet. She found her guest, who thought it was daylight, and wanted to go. -Mrs. McCord forcibly demonstrated how foolish it was to get up five hours -too soon. Mrs. McCord, once more in her own warm bed, had fallen happily -to sleep. She was waked by feeling two ice-cold hands pass cautiously -over her face and person. It was pitch dark. Even Mrs. McCord gave a -scream in her fright. She found it was only the irrepressible guest up -and at her again. So, though it was only three o’clock, in order to quiet -this perturbed spirit she rose and at five drove her to the station, -where she had to wait some hours. But Mrs. McCord said, “anything for -peace at home.” The restless people who will not let others rest! - -_December 5th._—Miss Olivia Middleton and Mr. Frederick Blake are to -be married. We Confederates have invented the sit-up-all-night for the -wedding night: Isabella calls it the wake, not the wedding, of the -parties married. The ceremony will be performed early in the evening; -the whole company will then sit up until five o’clock, at which hour the -bridal couple take the train for Combahee. Hope Sherman will not be so -inconsiderate as to cut short the honeymoon. - -In tripped Brewster, with his hat on his head, both hands extended, and -his greeting, “Well, here we are!” He was travel-stained, disheveled, -grimy with dirt. The prophet would have to send him many times to bathe -in Jordan before he could be pronounced clean. - -Hood will not turn and pursue Sherman. Thomas is at his heels with forty -thousand men, and can have as many more as he wants for the asking. -Between Thomas and Sherman Hood would be crushed. So he was pushing—I do -not remember where or what. I know there was no comfort in anything he -said. - -Serena’s account of money spent: Paper and envelopes, $12.00; tickets to -concert, $10.00; tooth-brush, $10.00; total, $32.00. - -_December 14th._—And now the young ones are in bed and I am wide awake. -It is an odd thing; in all my life how many persons have I seen in love? -Not a half-dozen. And I am a tolerably close observer, a faithful watcher -have I been from my youth upward of men and manners. Society has been for -me only an enlarged field for character study. - -Flirtation is the business of society; that is, playing at love-making. -It begins in vanity, it ends in vanity. It is spurred on by idleness and -a want of any other excitement. Flattery, battledore and shuttlecock, -how in this game flattery is dashed backward and forward. It is so -soothing to self-conceit. If it begins and ends in vanity, vexation of -spirit supervenes sometimes. They do occasionally burn their fingers -awfully, playing with fire, but there are no hearts broken. Each party -in a flirtation has secured a sympathetic listener, to whom he or she -can talk of himself or herself—somebody who, for the time, admires one -exclusively, and, as the French say, _excessivement_. It is a pleasant, -but very foolish game, and so to bed. - -Hood and Thomas have had a fearful fight, with carnage and loss of -generals excessive in proportion to numbers. That means they were leading -and urging their men up to the enemy. I know how Bartow and Barnard Bee -were killed bringing up their men. One of Mr. Chesnut’s sins thrown in -his teeth by the Legislature of South Carolina was that he procured the -promotion of Gist, “State Rights” Gist, by his influence in Richmond. -What have these comfortable, stay-at-home patriots to say of General Gist -now? “And how could man die better than facing fearful odds,” etc. - -So Fort McAlister has fallen! Good-by, Savannah! Our Governor announces -himself a follower of Joe Brown, of Georgia. Another famous Joe. - -_December 19th._—The deep waters are closing over us and we are in this -house, like the outsiders at the time of the flood. We care for none of -these things. We eat, drink, laugh, dance, in lightness of heart. - -Doctor Trezevant came to tell me the dismal news. How he piled on the -agony! Desolation, mismanagement, despair. General Young, with the flower -of Hampton’s cavalry, is in Columbia. Horses can not be found to mount -them. Neither the Governor of Georgia nor the Governor of South Carolina -is moving hand or foot. They have given up. The Yankees claim another -victory for Thomas.[127] Hope it may prove like most of their victories, -brag and bluster. Can’t say why, maybe I am benumbed, but I do not feel -so intensely miserable. - -_December 27th._—Oh, why did we go to Camden? The very dismalest -Christmas overtook us there. Miss Rhett went with us—a brilliant woman -and very agreeable. “The world, you know, is composed,” said she, “of -men, women, and Rhetts” (see Lady Montagu). Now, we feel that if we -are to lose our negroes, we would as soon see Sherman free them as -the Confederate Government; freeing negroes is the last Confederate -Government craze. We are a little too slow about it; that is all. - -Sold fifteen bales of cotton and took a sad farewell look at Mulberry. It -is a magnificent old country-seat, with old oaks, green lawns and all. So -I took that last farewell of Mulberry, once so hated, now so beloved. - -_January 7th._—Sherman is at Hardieville and Hood in Tennessee, the last -of his men not gone, as Louis Wigfall so cheerfully prophesied. - -Serena went for a half-hour to-day to the dentist. Her teeth are of the -whitest and most regular, simply perfection. She fancied it was better to -have a dentist look in her mouth before returning to the mountains. For -that look she paid three hundred and fifty dollars in Confederate money. -“Why, has this money any value at all?” she asked. Little enough in all -truth, sad to say. - -Brewster was here and stayed till midnight. Said he must see General -Chesnut. He had business with him. His “me and General Hood” is no longer -comic. He described Sherman’s march of destruction and desolation. -“Sherman leaves a track fifty miles wide, upon which there is no living -thing to be seen,” said Brewster before he departed. - -_January 10th._—You do the Anabasis business when you want to get out of -the enemy’s country, and the Thermopylæ business when they want to get -into your country. But we retreated in our own country and we gave up our -mountain passes without a blow. But never mind the Greeks; if we had only -our own Game Cock, Sumter, our own Swamp Fox, Marion. Marion’s men or -Sumter’s, or the equivalent of them, now lie under the sod, in Virginia -or Tennessee. - -_January 14th._—Yesterday I broke down—gave way to abject terror under -the news of Sherman’s advance with no news of my husband. To-day, while -wrapped up on the sofa, too dismal even for moaning, there was a loud -knock. Shawls on and all, just as I was, I rushed to the door to find a -telegram from my husband: “All well; be at home Tuesday.” It was dated -from Adam’s Run. I felt as light-hearted as if the war were over. Then -I looked at the date and the place—Adam’s Run. It ends as it began—in a -run—Bull’s Run, from which their first sprightly running astounded the -world, and now Adam’s Run. But if we must run, who are left to run? From -Bull Run they ran fullhanded. But we have fought until maimed soldiers, -women, and children are all that remain to run. - -To-day Kershaw’s brigade, or what is left of it, passed through. What -shouts greeted it and what bold shouts of thanks it returned! It was all -a very encouraging noise, absolutely comforting. Some true men are left, -after all. - -_January 16th._—My husband is at home once more—for how long, I do not -know. His aides fill the house, and a group of hopelessly wounded haunt -the place. The drilling and the marching go on outside. It rains a flood, -with freshet after freshet. The forces of nature are befriending us, for -our enemies have to make their way through swamps. - -A month ago my husband wrote me a letter which I promptly suppressed -after showing it to Mrs. McCord. He warned us to make ready, for the end -had come. Our resources were exhausted, and the means of resistance could -not be found. We could not bring ourselves to believe it, and now, he -thinks, with the railroad all blown up, the swamps made impassable by the -freshets, which have no time to subside, so constant is the rain, and the -negroes utterly apathetic (would they be so if they saw us triumphant?), -if we had but an army to seize the opportunity we might do something; but -there are no troops; that is the real trouble. - -To-day Mrs. McCord exchanged $16,000 in Confederate bills for $300 in -gold—sixteen thousand for three hundred. - -_January 17th._—The Bazaar for the benefit of the hospitals opens now. -Sherman marches constantly. All the railroads are smashed, and if I laugh -at any mortal thing it is that I may not weep. Generals are as plenty as -blackberries, but none are in command. - -The Peace Commissioner, Blair, came. They say he gave Mr. Davis the kiss -of peace. And we send Stephens, Campbell, all who have believed in this -thing, to negotiate for peace. No hope, no good. Who dares hope? - -Repressed excitement in church. A great railroad character was called -out. He soon returned and whispered something to Joe Johnston and they -went out together. Somehow the whisper moved around to us that Sherman -was at Branchville. “Grant us patience, good Lord,” was prayed aloud. -“Not Ulysses Grant, good Lord,” murmured Teddy, profanely. Hood came -yesterday. He is staying at the Prestons’ with Jack. They sent for us. -What a heartfelt greeting he gave us. He can stand well enough without -his crutch, but he does very slow walking. How plainly he spoke out -dreadful words about “nay defeat and discomfiture; my army destroyed, -my losses,” etc., etc. He said he had nobody to blame but himself. A -telegram from Beauregard to-day to my husband. He does not know whether -Sherman intends to advance on Branchville, Charleston, or Columbia. - -Isabella said: “Maybe you attempted the impossible,” and began one of -her merriest stories. Jack Preston touched me on the arm and we slipped -out. “He did not hear a word she was saying. He has forgotten us all. Did -you notice how he stared in the fire? And the lurid spots which came out -in his face and the drops of perspiration that stood on his forehead?” -“Yes. He is going over some bitter scene; he sees Willie Preston with -his heart shot away. He sees the panic at Nashville and the dead on -the battle-field at Franklin.” “That agony on his face comes again and -again,” said tender-hearted Jack. “I can’t keep him out of those absent -fits.” - -Governor McGrath and General Winder talk of preparations for a defense of -Columbia. If Beauregard can’t stop Sherman down there, what have we got -here to do it with? Can we check or impede his march? Can any one? - -Last night General Hampton came in. I am sure he would do something to -save us if he were put in supreme command here. Hampton says Joe Johnston -is equal, if not superior, to Lee as a commanding officer. - -My silver is in a box and has been delivered for safe keeping to Isaac -McLaughlin, who is really my beau-ideal of a grateful negro. I mean to -trust him. My husband cares for none of these things now, and lets me do -as I please. - -Tom Archer died almost as soon as he got to Richmond. Prison takes the -life out of men. He was only half-alive when here. He had a strange, -pallid look and such a vacant stare until you roused him. Poor pretty -Sally Archer: that is the end of you.[128] - - - - -XIX - -LINCOLNTON, N. C. - -_February 16, 1865-March 15, 1865_ - - -Lincolnton, N. C., _February 16, 1865_.—A change has come o’er the spirit -of my dream. Dear old quire of yellow, coarse, Confederate home-made -paper, here you are again. An age of anxiety and suffering has passed -over my head since last I wrote and wept over your forlorn pages. - -My ideas of those last days are confused. The Martins left Columbia the -Friday before I did, and Mammy, the negro woman, who had nursed them, -refused to go with them. That daunted me. Then Mrs. McCord, who was to -send her girls with me, changed her mind. She sent them up-stairs in her -house and actually took away the staircase; that was her plan. - -Then I met Mr. Christopher Hampton, arranging to take off his sisters. -They were flitting, but were to go only as far as Yorkville. He said it -was time to move on. Sherman was at Orangeburg, barely a day’s journey -from Columbia, and had left a track as bare and blackened as a fire -leaves on the prairies. - -So my time had come, too. My husband urged me to go home. He said Camden -would be safe enough. They had no spite against that old town, as they -have against Charleston and Columbia. Molly, weeping and wailing, came -in while we were at table. Wiping her red-hot face with the cook’s -grimy apron, she said I ought to go among our own black people on the -plantation; they would take care of me better than any one else. So I -agreed to go to Mulberry or the Hermitage plantation, and sent Lawrence -down with a wagon-load of my valuables. - -Then a Miss Patterson called—a refugee from Tennessee. She had been in a -country overrun by Yankee invaders, and she described so graphically all -the horrors to be endured by those subjected to fire and sword, rapine -and plunder, that I was fairly scared, and determined to come here. This -is a thoroughly out-of-all-routes place. And yet I can go to Charlotte, -am half-way to Kate at Flat Rock, and there is no Federal army between me -and Richmond. - -As soon as my mind was finally made up, we telegraphed to Lawrence, who -had barely got to Camden in the wagon when the telegram was handed to -him; so he took the train and came back. Mr. Chesnut sent him with us to -take care of the party. - -We thought that if the negroes were ever so loyal to us, they could -not protect me from an army bent upon sweeping us from the face of the -earth, and if they tried to do so so much the worse would it be for the -poor things with their Yankee friends. I then left them to shift for -themselves, as they are accustomed to do, and I took the same liberty. -My husband does not care a fig for the property question, and never did. -Perhaps, if he had ever known poverty, it would be different. He talked -beautifully about it, as he always does about everything. I have told him -often that, if at heaven’s gate St. Peter would listen to him a while, -and let him tell his own story, he would get in, and the angels might -give him a crown extra. - -Now he says he has only one care—that I should be safe, and not so -harassed with dread; and then there is his blind old father. “A man,” -said he, “can always die like a patriot and a gentleman, with no fuss, -and take it coolly. It is hard not to envy those who are out of all this, -their difficulties ended—those who have met death gloriously on the -battle-field, their doubts all solved. One can but do his best and leave -the result to a higher power.” - -After New Orleans, those vain, passionate, impatient little Creoles were -forever committing suicide, driven to it by despair and “Beast” Butler. -As we read these things, Mrs. Davis said: “If they want to die, why not -first kill ‘Beast’ Butler, rid the world of their foe and be saved the -trouble of murdering themselves?” That practical way of removing their -intolerable burden did not occur to them. I repeated this suggestive -anecdote to our corps of generals without troops, here in this house, as -they spread out their maps on my table where lay this quire of paper from -which I write. Every man Jack of them had a safe plan to stop Sherman, -if—— - -Even Beauregard and Lee were expected, but Grant had double-teamed -on Lee. Lee could not save his own—how could he come to save us? -Read the list of the dead in those last battles around Richmond and -Petersburg[129] if you want to break your heart. - -I took French leave of Columbia—slipped away without a word to anybody. -Isaac Hayne and Mr. Chesnut came down to the Charlotte depot with me. -Ellen, my maid, left her husband and only child, but she was willing to -come, and, indeed, was very cheerful in her way of looking at it. - -“I wan’ travel ’roun’ wid Missis some time—stid uh Molly goin’ all de -time.” - -A woman, fifty years old at least, and uglier than she was old, sharply -rebuked my husband for standing at the car window for a last few words -with me. She said rudely: “Stand aside, sir! I want air!” With his hat -off, and his grand air, my husband bowed politely, and said: “In one -moment, madam; I have something important to say to my wife.” - -She talked aloud and introduced herself to every man, claiming his -protection. She had never traveled alone before in all her life. Old age -and ugliness are protective in some cases. She was ardently patriotic for -a while. Then she was joined by her friend, a man as crazy as herself to -get out of this. From their talk I gleaned she had been for years in the -Treasury Department. They were about to cross the lines. The whole idea -was to get away from the trouble to come down here. They were Yankees, -but were they not spies? - -Here I am broken-hearted and an exile. And in such a place! We have bare -floors, and for a feather-bed, pine table, and two chairs I pay $30 a -day. Such sheets! But fortunately I have some of my own. At the door, -before I was well out of the hack, the woman of the house packed Lawrence -back, neck and heels: she would not have him at any price. She treated -him as Mr. F.’s aunt did Clenman in Little Dorrit. She said his clothes -were too fine for a nigger. “His airs, indeed.” Poor Lawrence was humble -and silent. He said at last, “Miss Mary, send me back to Mars Jeems.” -I began to look for a pencil to write a note to my husband, but in the -flurry could not find one. “Here is one,” said Lawrence, producing one -with a gold case. “Go away,” she shouted, “I want no niggers here with -gold pencils and airs.” So Lawrence fled before the storm, but not before -he had begged me to go back. He said, “if Mars Jeems knew how you was -treated he’d never be willing for you to stay here.” - -The Martins had seen my, to them, well-known traveling case as the hack -trotted up Main Street, and they arrived at this juncture out of breath. -We embraced and wept. I kept my room. - -The Fants are refugees here, too; they are Virginians, and have been in -exile since the second battle of Manassas. Poor things; they seem to have -been everywhere, and seen and suffered everything. They even tried to go -back to their own house, but found one chimney only standing alone; even -that had been taken possession of by a Yankee, who had written his name -upon it. - -The day I left home I had packed a box of flour, sugar, rice, and coffee, -but my husband would not let me bring it. He said I was coming to a -land of plenty—unexplored North Carolina, where the foot of the Yankee -marauder was unknown, and in Columbia they would need food. Now I have -written for that box and many other things to be sent me by Lawrence, or -I shall starve. - -The Middletons have come. How joyously I sprang to my feet to greet them. -Mrs. Ben Rutledge described the hubbub in Columbia. Everybody was flying -in every direction like a flock of swallows. She heard the enemy’s guns -booming in the distance. The train no longer runs from Charlotte to -Columbia. Miss Middleton possesses her soul in peace. She is as cool, -clever, rational, and entertaining as ever, and we talked for hours. Mrs. -Reed was in a state of despair. I can well understand that sinking of -mind and body during the first days as the abject misery of it all closes -in upon you. I remember my suicidal tendencies when I first came here. - -_February 18th._—Here I am, thank God, settled at the McLean’s, in a -clean, comfortable room, airy and cozy. With a grateful heart I stir up -my own bright wood fire. My bill for four days at this splendid hotel -here was $240, with $25 additional for fire. But once more my lines have -fallen in pleasant places. - -As we came up on the train from Charlotte a soldier took out of his -pocket a filthy rag. If it had lain in the gutter for months it could -not have looked worse. He unwrapped the thing carefully and took out two -biscuits of the species known as “hard tack.” Then he gallantly handed -me one, and with an ingratiating smile asked me “to take some.” Then -he explained, saying, “Please take these two; swap with me; give me -something softer that I can eat; I am very weak still.” Immediately, for -his benefit, my basket of luncheon was emptied, but as for his biscuit, -I would not choose any. Isabella asked, “But what did you say to him when -he poked them under your nose?” and I replied, “I held up both hands, -saying, ‘I would not take from you anything that is yours—far from it! I -would not touch them for worlds.’” - -A tremendous day’s work and I helped with a will; our window glass was -all to be washed. Then the brass andirons were to be polished. After we -rubbed them bright how pretty they were. - -Presently Ellen would have none of me. She was scrubbing the floor. “You -go—dat’s a good missis—an’ stay to Miss Isabella’s till de flo’ dry.” I -am very docile now, and I obeyed orders. - -_February 19th._—The Fants say all the trouble at the hotel came from -our servants’ bragging. They represented us as millionaires, and the -Middleton men servants smoked cigars. Mrs. Reed’s averred that he had -never done anything in his life but stand behind his master at table -with a silver waiter in his hand. We were charged accordingly, but -perhaps the landlady did not get the best of us after all, for we paid -her in Confederate money. Now that they won’t take Confederate money in -the shops here how are we to live? Miss Middleton says quartermasters’ -families are all clad in good gray cloth, but the soldiers go naked. -Well, we are like the families of whom the novels always say they are -poor but honest. Poor? Well-nigh beggars are we, for I do not know where -my next meal is to come from. - -Called on Mrs. Ben Rutledge to-day. She is lovely, exquisitely refined. -Her mother, Mrs. Middleton, came in. “You are not looking well, dear? -Anything the matter?” “No—but, mamma, I have not eaten a mouthful to-day. -The children can eat mush; I can’t. I drank my tea, however.” She does -not understand taking favors, and, blushing violently, refused to let me -have Ellen make her some biscuit. I went home and sent her some biscuit -all the same. - -_February 22d._—Isabella has been reading my diaries. How we laugh -because my sage divinations all come to naught. My famous “insight into -character” is utter folly. The diaries were lying on the hearth ready -to be burned, but she told me to hold on to them; think of them a while -and don’t be rash. Afterward when Isabella and I were taking a walk, -General Joseph E. Johnston joined us. He explained to us all of Lee’s -and Stonewall Jackson’s mistakes. We had nothing to say—how could we -say anything? He said he was very angry when he was ordered to take -command again. He might well have been in a genuine rage. This on and off -procedure would be enough to bewilder the coolest head. Mrs. Johnston -knows how to be a partizan of Joe Johnston and still not make his enemies -uncomfortable. She can be pleasant and agreeable, as she was to my face. - -A letter from my husband who is at Charlotte. He came near being taken -a prisoner in Columbia, for he was asleep the morning of the 17th, when -the Yankees blew up the railroad depot. That woke him, of course, and he -found everybody had left Columbia, and the town was surrendered by the -mayor, Colonel Goodwyn. Hampton and his command had been gone several -hours. Isaac Hayne came away with General Chesnut. There was no fire in -the town when they left. They overtook Hampton’s command at Meek’s Mill. -That night, from the hills where they encamped, they saw the fire, and -knew the Yankees were burning the town, as we had every reason to expect -they would. Molly was left in charge of everything of mine, including -Mrs. Preston’s cow, which I was keeping, and Sally Goodwyn’s furniture. - -[Illustration: RUINS OF MILLWOOD, WADE HAMPTON’S ANCESTRAL HOME. - -From a Recent Photograph.] - -Charleston and Wilmington have surrendered. I have no further use for -a newspaper. I never want to see another one as long as I live. Wade -Hampton has been made a lieutenant-general, too late. If he had been -made one and given command in South Carolina six months ago I believe he -would have saved us. Shame, disgrace, beggary, all have come at once, -and are hard to bear—the grand smash! Rain, rain, outside, and naught but -drowning floods of tears inside. I could not bear it; so I rushed down -in that rainstorm to the Martins’. Rev. Mr. Martin met me at the door. -“Madam,” said he, “Columbia is burned to the ground.” I bowed my head and -sobbed aloud. “Stop that!” he said, trying to speak cheerfully. “Come -here, wife,” said he to Mrs. Martin. “This woman cries with her whole -heart, just as she laughs.” But in spite of his words, his voice broke -down, and he was hardly calmer than myself. - -_February 23d._—I want to get to Kate, I am so utterly heart-broken. I -hope John Chesnut and General Chesnut may at least get into the same -army. We seem scattered over the face of the earth. Isabella sits there -calmly reading. I have quieted down after the day’s rampage. May our -heavenly Father look down on us and have pity. - -They say I was the last refugee from Columbia who was allowed to enter -by the door of the cars. The government took possession then and women -could only be smuggled in by the windows. Stout ones stuck and had to be -pushed, pulled, and hauled in by main force. Dear Mrs. Izard, with all -her dignity, was subjected to this rough treatment. She was found almost -too much for the size of the car windows. - -_February 25th._—The Pfeifers, who live opposite us here, are descendants -of those Pfeifers who came South with Mr. Chesnut’s ancestors after the -Fort Duquesne disaster. They have now, therefore, been driven out of -their Eden, the valley of Virginia, a second time. The present Pfeifer -is the great man, the rich man _par excellence_ of Lincolnton. They say -that with something very near to tears in his eyes he heard of our latest -defeats. “It is only a question of time with us now,” he said. “The -raiders will come, you know.” - -In Washington, before I knew any of them, except by sight, Mrs. Davis, -Mrs. Emory, and Mrs. Johnston were always together, inseparable friends, -and the trio were pointed out to me as the cleverest women in the United -States. Now that I do know them all well, I think the world was right in -its estimate of them. - -Met a Mr. Ancrum of serenely cheerful aspect, happy and hopeful. “All -right now,” said he. “Sherman sure to be thrashed. Joe Johnston is in -command.” Dr. Darby says, when the oft-mentioned Joseph, the malcontent, -gave up his command to Hood, he remarked with a smile, “I hope you will -be able to stop Sherman; it was more than I could do.” General Johnston -is not of Mr. Ancrum’s way of thinking as to his own powers, for he -stayed here several days after he was ordered to the front. He must have -known he could do no good, and I am of his opinion. - -When the wagon, in which I was to travel to Flat Rock, drove up to the -door, covered with a tent-like white cloth, in my embarrassment for an -opening in the conversation I asked the driver’s name. He showed great -hesitation in giving it, but at last said: “My name is Sherman,” adding, -“and now I see by your face that you won’t go with me. My name is against -me these times.” Here he grinned and remarked: “But you would leave -Lincolnton.” - -That name was the last drop in my cup, but I gave him Mrs. Glover’s -reason for staying here. General Johnston had told her this “might be the -safest place after all.” He thinks the Yankees are making straight for -Richmond and General Lee’s rear, and will go by Camden and Lancaster, -leaving Lincolnton on their west flank. - -The McLeans are kind people. They ask no rent for their rooms—only $20 a -week for firewood. Twenty dollars! and such dollars—mere waste paper. - -Mrs. Munroe took up my photograph book, in which I have a picture of all -the Yankee generals. “I want to see the men who are to be our masters,” -said she. “Not mine” I answered, “thank God, come what may. This was -a free fight. We had as much right to fight to get out as they had to -fight to keep us in. If they try to play the masters, anywhere upon the -habitable globe will I go, never to see a Yankee, and if I die on the way -so much the better.” Then I sat down and wrote to my husband in language -much worse than anything I can put in this book. As I wrote I was blinded -by tears of rage. Indeed, I nearly wept myself away. - -_February 26th._—Mrs. Munroe offered me religious books, which I -declined, being already provided with the Lamentations of Jeremiah, the -Psalms of David, the denunciations of Hosea, and, above all, the patient -wail of Job. Job is my comforter now. I should be so thankful to know -life never would be any worse with me. My husband is well, and has been -ordered to join the great Retreater. I am bodily comfortable, if somewhat -dingily lodged, and I daily part with my raiment for food. We find no one -who will exchange eatables for Confederate money; so we are devouring our -clothes. - -Opportunities for social enjoyment are not wanting. Miss Middleton and -Isabella often drink a cup of tea with me. One might search the whole -world and not find two cleverer or more agreeable women. Miss Middleton -is brilliant and accomplished. She must have been a hard student all her -life. She knows everybody worth knowing, and she has been everywhere. -Then she is so high-bred, high-hearted, pure, and true. She is so -clean-minded; she could not harbor a wrong thought. She is utterly -unselfish, a devoted daughter and sister. She is one among the many -large-brained women a kind Providence has thrown in my way, such as -Mrs. McCord, daughter of Judge Cheves; Mary Preston Darby, Mrs. Emory, -granddaughter of old Franklin, the American wise man, and Mrs. Jefferson -Davis. How I love to praise my friends! - -As a ray of artificial sunshine, Mrs. Munroe sent me an Examiner. Daniel -thinks we are at the last gasp, and now England and France are bound to -step in. England must know if the United States of America are triumphant -they will tackle her next, and France must wonder if she will not have to -give up Mexico. My faith fails me. It is all too late; no help for us now -from God or man. - -Thomas, Daniel says, was now to ravage Georgia, but Sherman, from all -accounts, has done that work once for all. There will be no aftermath. -They say no living thing is found in Sherman’s track, only chimneys, like -telegraph poles, to carry the news of Sherman’s army backward. - -In all that tropical down-pour, Mrs. Munroe sent me overshoes and an -umbrella, with the message, “Come over.” I went, for it would be as well -to drown in the streets as to hang myself at home to my own bedpost. At -Mrs. Munroe’s I met a Miss McDaniel. Her father, for seven years, was the -Methodist preacher at our negro church. The negro church is in a grove -just opposite Mulberry house. She says her father has so often described -that fine old establishment and its beautiful lawn, live-oaks, etc. Now, -I dare say there stand at Mulberry only Sherman’s sentinels—stacks of -chimneys. We have made up our minds for the worst. Mulberry house is no -doubt razed to the ground. - -Miss McDaniel was inclined to praise us. She said: “As a general rule -the Episcopal minister went to the family mansion, and the Methodist -missionary preached to the negroes and dined with the overseer at his -house, but at Mulberry her father always stayed at the ‘House,’ and the -family were so kind and attentive to him.” It was rather pleasant to hear -one’s family so spoken of among strangers. - -So, well equipped to brave the weather, armed cap-a-pie, so to speak, I -continued my prowl farther afield and brought up at the Middletons’. I -may have surprised them, for “at such an inclement season” they hardly -expected a visitor. Never, however, did lonely old woman receive such a -warm and hearty welcome. Now we know the worst. Are we growing hardened? -We avoid all allusion to Columbia; we never speak of home, and we begin -to deride the certain poverty that lies ahead. - -How it pours! Could I live many days in solitary confinement? Things are -beginning to be unbearable, but I must sit down and be satisfied. My -husband is safe so far. Let me be thankful it is no worse with me. But -there is the gnawing pain all the same. What is the good of being here -at all? Our world has simply gone to destruction. And across the way -the fair Lydia languishes. She has not even my resources against ennui. -She has no Isabella, no Miss Middleton, two as brilliant women as any -in Christendom. Oh, how does she stand it! I mean to go to church if it -rains cats and dogs. My feet are wet two or three times a day. We never -take cold; our hearts are too hot within us for that. - -A carriage was driven up to the door as I was writing. I began to tie on -my bonnet, and said to myself in the glass, “Oh, you lucky woman!” I was -all in a tremble, so great was my haste to be out of this. Mrs. Glover -had the carriage. She came for me to go and hear Mr. Martin preach. He -lifts our spirits from this dull earth; he takes us up to heaven. That -I will not deny. Still he can not hold my attention; my heart wanders -and my mind strays back to South Carolina. Oh, vandal Sherman! what are -you at there, hard-hearted wretch that you are! A letter from General -Chesnut, who writes from camp near Charlotte under date of February 28th: - -“I thank you a thousand, thousand times for your kind letters. They are -now my only earthly comfort, except the hope that all is not yet lost. -We have been driven like a wild herd from our country. And it is not -from a want of spirit in the people or soldiers, nor from want of energy -and competency in our commanders. The restoration of Joe Johnston, it is -hoped, will redound to the advantage of our cause and the reestablishment -of our fortunes! I am still in not very agreeable circumstances. For the -last four days completely water-bound. - -“I am informed that a detachment of Yankees were sent from Liberty Hill -to Camden with a view to destroying all the houses, mills, and provisions -about that place. No particulars have reached me. You know I expected the -worst that could be done, and am fully prepared for any report which may -be made. - -“It would be a happiness beyond expression to see you even for an hour. I -have heard nothing from my poor old father. I fear I shall never see him -again. Such is the fate of war. I do not complain. I have deliberately -chosen my lot, and am prepared for any fate that awaits me. My care -is for you, and I trust still in the good cause of my country and the -justice and mercy of Cod.” - -It was a lively, rushing, young set that South Carolina put to the fore. -They knew it was a time of imminent danger, and that the fight would be -ten to one. They expected to win by activity, energy, and enthusiasm. -Then came the wet blanket, the croakers; now, these are posing, wrapping -Cæsar’s mantle about their heads to fall with dignity. Those gallant -youths who dashed so gaily to the front lie mostly in bloody graves. Well -for them, maybe. There are worse things than honorable graves. Wearisome -thoughts. Late in life we are to begin anew and have laborious, difficult -days ahead. - -We have contradictory testimony. Governor Aiken has passed through, -saying Sherman left Columbia as he found it, and was last heard from at -Cheraw. Dr. Chisolm walked home with me. He says that is the last version -of the story. Now my husband wrote that he himself saw the fires which -burned up Columbia. The first night his camp was near enough to the town -for that. - -They say Sherman has burned Lancaster—that Sherman nightmare, that ghoul, -that hyena! But I do not believe it. He takes his time. There are none to -molest him. He does things leisurely and deliberately. Why stop to do so -needless a thing as burn Lancaster court-house, the jail, and the tavern? -As I remember it, that description covers Lancaster. A raiding party they -say did for Camden. - -No train from Charlotte yesterday. Rumor says Sherman is in Charlotte. - -_February 29th._—Trying to brave it out. They have plenty, yet let our -men freeze and starve in their prisons. Would you be willing to be as -wicked as they are? A thousand times, no! But we must feed our army -first—if we can do so much as that. Our captives need not starve if -Lincoln would consent to exchange prisoners; but men are nothing to -the United States—things to throw away. If they send our men back they -strengthen our army, and so again their policy is to keep everybody -and everything here in order to help starve us out. That, too, is what -Sherman’s destruction means—to starve us out. - -Young Brevard asked me to play accompaniments for him. The guitar is my -instrument, or was; so I sang and played, to my own great delight. It was -a distraction. Then I made egg-nog for the soldier boys below and came -home. Have spent a very pleasant evening. Begone, dull care; you and I -never agree. - -Ellen and I are shut up here. It is rain, rain, everlasting rain. As our -money is worthless, are we not to starve? Heavens! how grateful I was -to-day when Mrs. McLean sent me a piece of chicken. I think the emptiness -of my larder has leaked out. To-day Mrs. Munroe sent me hot cakes and -eggs for my breakfast. - -_March 5th._—Is the sea drying up? Is it going up into mist and coming -down on us in a water-spout? The rain, it raineth every day. The weather -typifies our tearful despair, on a large scale. It is also Lent now—a -quite convenient custom, for we, in truth, have nothing to eat. So we -fast and pray, and go dragging to church like drowned rats to be preached -at. - -My letter from my husband was so—well, what in a woman you would call -heart-broken, that I began to get ready for a run up to Charlotte. My hat -was on my head, my traveling-bag in my hand, and Ellen was saying “Which -umbrella, ma’am?” “Stop, Ellen,” said I, “someone is speaking out there.” -A tap came at the door, and Miss McLean threw the door wide open as she -said in a triumphant voice: “Permit me to announce General Chesnut.” As -she went off she sang out, “Oh, does not a meeting like this make amends?” - -We went after luncheon to see Mrs. Munroe. My husband wanted to thank her -for all her kindness to me. I was awfully proud of him. I used to think -that everybody had the air and manners of a gentleman. I know now that -these accomplishments are things to thank God for. Father O’Connell came -in, fresh from Columbia, and with news at last. Sherman’s men had burned -the convent. Mrs. Munroe had pinned her faith to Sherman because he was a -Roman Catholic, but Father O’Connell was there and saw it. The nuns and -girls marched to the old Hampton house (Mrs. Preston’s now), and so saved -it. They walked between files of soldiers. Men were rolling tar barrels -and lighting torches to fling on the house when the nuns came. Columbia -is but dust and ashes, burned to the ground. Men, women, and children -have been left there homeless, houseless, and without one particle of -food—reduced to picking up corn that was left by Sherman’s horses on -picket grounds and parching it to stay their hunger. - -How kind my friends were on this, my fête day! Mrs. Rutledge sent me a -plate of biscuit; Mrs. Munroe, nearly enough food supplies for an entire -dinner; Miss McLean a cake for dessert. Ellen cooked and served up the -material happily at hand very nicely, indeed. There never was a more -successful dinner. My heart was too full to eat, but I was quiet and -calm; at least I spared my husband the trial of a broken voice and tears. -As he stood at the window, with his back to the room, he said: “Where -are they now—my old blind father and my sister? Day and night I see her -leading him out from under his own rooftree. That picture pursues me -persistently. But come, let us talk of pleasanter things.” To which I -answered, “Where will you find them?” - -He took off his heavy cavalry boots and Ellen carried them away to wash -the mud off and dry them. She brought them back just as Miss Middleton -walked in. In his agony, while struggling with those huge boots and -trying to get them on, he spoke to her volubly in French. She turned -away from him instantly, as she saw his shoeless plight, and said to -me, “I had not heard of your happiness. I did not know the General was -here.” Not until next day did we have time to remember and laugh at that -outbreak of French. Miss Middleton answered him in the same language. He -told her how charmed he was with my surroundings, and that he would go -away with a much lighter heart since he had seen the kind people with -whom he would leave me. - -I asked my husband what that correspondence between Sherman and Hampton -meant—this while I was preparing something for our dinner. His back was -still turned as he gazed out of the window. He spoke in the low and -steady monotone that characterized our conversation the whole day, and -yet there was something in his voice that thrilled me as he said: “The -second day after our march from Columbia we passed the M.’s. He was a -bonded man and not at home. His wife said at first that she could not -find forage for our horses, but afterward she succeeded in procuring -some. I noticed a very handsome girl who stood beside her as she spoke, -and I suggested to her mother the propriety of sending her out of the -track of both armies. Things were no longer as heretofore; there was -so much straggling, so many camp followers, with no discipline, on the -outskirts of the army. The girl answered quickly, ‘I wish to stay with -my mother.’ That very night a party of Wheeler’s men came to our camp, -and such a tale they told of what had been done at the place of horror -and destruction, the mother left raving. The outrage had been committed -before her very face, she having been secured first. After this crime the -fiends moved on. There were only seven of them. They had been gone but a -short time when Wheeler’s men went in pursuit at full speed and overtook -them, cut their throats and wrote upon their breasts: ‘These were the -seven!’” - -“But the girl?” - -“Oh, she was dead!” - -“Are his critics as violent as ever against the President?” asked I when -recovered from pity and horror. “Sometimes I think I am the only friend -he has in the world. At these dinners, which they give us everywhere, I -spoil the sport, for I will not sit still and hear Jeff Davis abused for -things he is no more responsible for than any man at that table. Once I -lost my temper and told them it sounded like arrant nonsense to me, and -that Jeff Davis was a gentleman and a patriot, with more brains than the -assembled company.” “You lost your temper truly,” said I. “And I did -not know it. I thought I was as cool as I am now. In Washington when we -left, Jeff Davis ranked second to none, in intellect, and may be first, -from the South, and Mrs. Davis was the friend of Mrs. Emory, Mrs. Joe -Johnston, and Mrs. Montgomery Blair, and others of that circle. Now they -rave that he is nobody, and never was.” “And she?” I asked. “Oh, you -would think to hear them that he found her yesterday in a Mississippi -swamp!” “Well, in the French Revolution it was worse. When a man failed -he was guillotined. Mirabeau did not die a day too soon, even Mirabeau.” - -He is gone. With despair in my heart I left that railroad station. Allan -Green walked home with me. I met his wife and his four ragged little boys -a day or so ago. She is the neatest, the primmest, the softest of women. -Her voice is like the gentle cooing of a dove. That lowering black future -hangs there all the same. The end of the war brings no hope of peace or -of security to us. Ellen said I had a little piece of bread and a little -molasses in store for my dinner to-day. - -_March 6th._—To-day came a godsend. Even a small piece of bread and the -molasses had become things of the past. My larder was empty, when a tall -mulatto woman brought a tray covered by a huge white serviette. Ellen -ushered her in with a flourish, saying, “Mrs. McDaniel’s maid.” The maid -set down the tray upon my bare table, and uncovered it with conscious -pride. There were fowls ready for roasting, sausages, butter, bread, -eggs, and preserves. I was dumb with delight. After silent thanks to -heaven my powers of speech returned, and I exhausted myself in messages -of gratitude to Mrs. McDaniel. - -“Missis, you oughtn’t to let her see how glad you was,” said Ellen. “It -was a lettin’ of yo’sef down.” - -Mrs. Glover gave me some yarn, and I bought five dozen eggs with it from -a wagon—eggs for Lent. To show that I have faith yet in humanity, I paid -in advance in yarn for something to eat, which they promised to bring -to-morrow. Had they rated their eggs at $100 a dozen in “Confederick” -money, I would have paid it as readily as $10. But I haggle in yarn for -the millionth part of a thread. - -Two weeks have passed and the rumors from Columbia are still of the -vaguest. No letter has come from there, no direct message, or messenger. -“My God!” cried Dr. Frank Miles, “but it is strange. Can it be anything -so dreadful they dare not tell us?” Dr. St. Julien Ravenel has grown pale -and haggard with care. His wife and children were left there. - -Dr. Brumby has at last been coaxed into selling me enough leather for the -making of a pair of shoes, else I should have had to give up walking. -He knew my father well. He intimated that in some way my father helped -him through college. His own money had not sufficed, and so William C. -Preston and my father advanced funds sufficient to let him be graduated. -Then my uncle, Charles Miller, married his aunt. I listened in rapture, -for all this tended to leniency in the leather business, and I bore off -the leather gladly. When asked for Confederate money in trade I never -stop to bargain. I give them $20 or $50 cheerfully for anything—either -sum. - -_March 8th._—Colonel Childs came with a letter from my husband and a -newspaper containing a full account of Sherman’s cold-blooded brutality -in Columbia. Then we walked three miles to return the call of my -benefactress, Mrs. McDaniel. They were kind and hospitable at her house, -but my heart was like lead; my head ached, and my legs were worse than -my head, and then I had a nervous chill. So I came home, went to bed -and stayed there until the Fants brought me a letter saying my husband -would be here to-day. Then I got up and made ready to give him a cheerful -reception. Soon a man called, Troy by name, the same who kept the little -corner shop so near my house in Columbia, and of whom we bought things -so often. We had fraternized. He now shook hands with me and looked in -my face pitifully. We seemed to have been friends all our lives. He says -they stopped the fire at the Methodist College, perhaps to save old Mr. -McCartha’s house. Mr. Sheriff Dent, being burned out, took refuge in our -house. He contrived to find favor in Yankee eyes. Troy relates that a -Yankee officer snatched a watch from Mrs. McCord’s bosom. The soldiers -tore the bundles of clothes that the poor wretches tried to save from -their burning homes, and dashed them back into the flames. They meant -to make a clean sweep. They were howling round the fires like demons, -these Yankees in their joy and triumph at our destruction. Well, we have -given them a big scare and kept them miserable for four years—the little -handful of us. - -A woman we met on the street stopped to tell us a painful coincidence. -A general was married but he could not stay at home very long after -the wedding. When his baby was born they telegraphed him, and he sent -back a rejoicing answer with an inquiry, “Is it a boy or a girl?” He -was killed before he got the reply. Was it not sad? His poor young wife -says, “He did not live to hear that his son lived.” The kind woman added, -sorrowfully, “Died and did not know the sect of his child.” “Let us hope -it will be a Methodist,” said Isabella, the irrepressible. - -At the venison feast Isabella heard a good word for me and one for -General Chesnut’s air of distinction, a thing people can not give -themselves, try as ever they may. Lord Byron says, Everybody knows a -gentleman when he sees one, and nobody can tell what it is that makes a -gentleman. He knows the thing, but he can’t describe it. Now there are -some French words that can not be translated, and we all know the thing -they mean—_gracieuse_ and _svelte_, for instance, as applied to a woman. -Not that anything was said of me like that—far from it. I am fair, fat, -forty, and jolly, and in my unbroken jollity, as far as they know, they -found my charm. “You see, she doesn’t howl; she doesn’t cry; she never, -never tells anybody about what she was used to at home and what she has -lost.” High praise, and I intend to try and deserve it ever after. - -_March 10th._—Went to church crying to Ellen, “It is Lent, we must fast -and pray.” When I came home my good fairy, Colonel Childs, had been here -bringing rice and potatoes, and promising flour. He is a trump. He pulled -out his pocket-book and offered to be my banker. He stood there on the -street, Miss Middleton and Isabella witnessing the generous action, and -straight out offered me money. “No, put up that,” said I. “I am not a -beggar, and I never will be; to die is so much easier.” - -Alas, after that flourish of trumpets, when he came with a sack of flour, -I accepted it gratefully. I receive things I can not pay for, but money -is different. There I draw a line, imaginary perhaps. Once before the -same thing happened. Our letters of credit came slowly in 1845, when we -went unexpectedly to Europe and our letters were to follow us. I was a -poor little, inoffensive bride, and a British officer, who guessed our -embarrassment, for we did not tell him (he came over with us on the -ship), asked my husband to draw on his banker until the letters of credit -should arrive. It was a nice thing for a stranger to do. - -We have never lost what we never had. We have never had any money—only -unlimited credit, for my husband’s richest kind of a father insured us -all manner of credit. It was all a mirage only at last, and it has gone -just as we drew nigh to it. - -Colonel Childs says eight of our Senators are for reconstruction, and -that a ray of light has penetrated inward from Lincoln, who told Judge -Campbell that Southern land would not be confiscated. - -_March 12th._—Better to-day. A long, long weary day in grief has passed -away. I suppose General Chesnut is somewhere—but where? that is the -question. Only once has he visited this sad spot, which holds, he says, -all that he cares for on earth. Unless he comes or writes soon I will -cease, or try to cease, this wearisome looking, looking, looking for him. - -_March 13th._—My husband at last did come for a visit of two hours. -Brought Lawrence, who had been to Camden, and was there, indeed, during -the raid. My husband has been ordered to Chester, S. C. We are surprised -to see by the papers that we behaved heroically in leaving everything we -had to be destroyed, without one thought of surrender. We had not thought -of ourselves from the heroic point of view. Isaac McLaughlin hid and -saved everything we trusted him with. A grateful negro is Isaac. - -_March 15th._—Lawrence says Miss Chesnut is very proud of the presence -of mind and cool self-possession she showed in the face of the enemy. -She lost, after all, only two bottles of champagne, two of her brother’s -gold-headed canes, and her brother’s horses, including Claudia, the brood -mare, that he valued beyond price, and her own carriage, and a fly-brush -boy called Battis, whose occupation in life was to stand behind the table -with his peacock feathers and brush the flies away. He was the sole -member of his dusky race at Mulberry who deserted “Ole Marster” to follow -the Yankees. - -Now for our losses at the Hermitage. Added to the gold-headed canes and -Claudia, we lost every mule and horse, and President Davis’s beautiful -Arabian was captured. John’s were there, too. My light dragoon, Johnny, -and heavy swell, is stripped light enough for the fight now. Jonathan, -whom we trusted, betrayed us; and the plantation and mills, Mulberry -house, etc., were saved by Claiborne, that black rascal, who was -suspected by all the world. Claiborne boldly affirmed that Mr. Chesnut -would not be hurt by destroying his place; the invaders would hurt only -the negroes. “Mars Jeems,” said he, “hardly ever come here and he takes -only a little sompen nur to eat when he do come.” - -Fever continuing, I sent for St. Julien Ravenel. We had a wrangle over -the slavery question. Then, he fell foul of everybody who had not -conducted this war according to his ideas. Ellen had something nice to -offer him (thanks to the ever-bountiful Childs!), but he was too angry, -too anxious, too miserable to eat. He pitched into Ellen after he had -disposed of me. Ellen stood glaring at him from the fireplace, her blue -eye nearly white, her other eye blazing as a comet. Last Sunday, he gave -her some Dover’s powders for me; directions were written on the paper -in which the medicine was wrapped, and he told her to show these to me, -then to put what I should give her into a wine-glass and let me drink it. -Ellen put it all into the wine-glass and let me drink it at one dose. -“It was enough to last you your lifetime,” he said. “It was murder.” -Turning to Ellen: “What did you do with the directions?” “I nuvver see -no d’rections. You nuvver gimme none.” “I told you to show that paper -to your mistress.” “Well, I flung dat ole brown paper in de fire. What -you makin’ all dis fuss for? Soon as I give Missis de physic, she stop -frettin’ an’ flingin’ ’bout, she go to sleep sweet as a suckling baby, -an’ she slep two days an’ nights, an’ now she heap better.” And Ellen -withdrew from the controversy. - -“Well, all is well that ends well, Mrs. Chesnut. You took opium enough to -kill several persons. You were worried out and needed rest. You came near -getting it—thoroughly. You were in no danger from your disease. But your -doctor and your nurse combined were deadly.” Maybe I was saved by the -adulteration, the feebleness, of Confederate medicine. - - * * * * * - -A letter from my husband, written at Chester Court House on March 15th, -says: “In the morning I send Lieut. Ogden with Lawrence to Lincolnton to -bring you down. I have three vacant rooms; one with bedsteads, chairs, -wash-stands, basins, and pitchers; the two others bare. You can have half -of a kitchen for your cooking. I have also at Dr. Da Vega’s, a room, -furnished, to which you are invited (board, also). You can take your -choice. If you can get your friends in Lincolnton to assume charge of -your valuables, only bring such as you may need here. Perhaps it will be -better to bring bed and bedding and the other indispensables.” - - - - -XX - -CHESTER, S. C. - -_March 21, 1865-May 1, 1865_ - - -Chester, S. C., _March 21, 1865_.—Another flitting has occurred. Captain -Ogden came for me; the splendid Childs was true as steel to the last. -Surely he is the kindest of men. Captain Ogden was slightly incredulous -when I depicted the wonders of Colonel Childs’s generosity. So I -skilfully led out the good gentleman for inspection, and he walked to the -train with us. He offered me Confederate money, silver, and gold; and -finally offered to buy our cotton and pay us now in gold. Of course, I -laughed at his overflowing bounty, and accepted nothing; but I begged him -to come down to Chester or Camden and buy our cotton of General Chesnut -there. - -On the train after leaving Lincolnton, as Captain Ogden is a refugee, -has had no means of communicating with his home since New Orleans fell, -and was sure to know how refugees contrive to live, I beguiled the time -acquiring information from him. “When people are without a cent, how do -they live?” I asked. “I am about to enter the noble band of homeless, -houseless refugees, and Confederate pay does not buy one’s shoe-strings.” -To which he replied, “Sponge, sponge. Why did you not let Colonel Childs -pay your bills?” “I have no bills,” said I. “We have never made bills -anywhere, not even at home, where they would trust us, and nobody would -trust me in Lincolnton.” “Why did you not borrow his money? General -Chesnut could pay him at his leisure?” “I am by no means sure General -Chesnut will ever again have any money,” said I. - -As the train rattled and banged along, and I waved my handkerchief in -farewell to Miss Middleton, Isabella, and other devoted friends, I could -only wonder if fate would ever throw me again with such kind, clever, -agreeable, congenial companions? The McLeans refused to be paid for their -rooms. No plummet can sound the depths of the hospitality and kindness of -the North Carolina people. - -Misfortune dogged us from the outset. Everything went wrong with the -train. We broke down within two miles of Charlotte, and had to walk that -distance; which was pretty rough on an invalid barely out of a fever. My -spirit was further broken by losing an invaluable lace veil, which was -worn because I was too poor to buy a cheaper one—that is, if there were -any veils at all for sale in our region. - -My husband had ordered me to a house in Charlotte kept by some great -friends of his. They established me in the drawing-room, a really -handsome apartment; they made up a bed there and put in a washstand -and plenty of water, with everything refreshingly clean and nice. But -it continued to be a public drawing-room, open to all, so that I was -half dead at night and wanted to go to bed. The piano was there and the -company played it. - -The landlady announced, proudly, that for supper there were nine kinds of -custard. Custard sounded nice and light, so I sent for some, but found it -heavy potato pie. I said: “Ellen, this may kill me, though Dover’s powder -did not.” “Don’t you believe dat, Missis; try.” We barricaded ourselves -in the drawing-room that night and left the next day at dawn. Arrived at -the station, we had another disappointment; the train was behind time. -There we sat on our boxes nine long hours; for the cars might come at any -moment, and we dared not move an inch from the spot. - -Finally the train rolled in overloaded with paroled prisoners, but -heaven helped us: a kind mail agent invited us, with two other forlorn -women, into his comfortable and clean mail-car. Ogden, true to his -theory, did not stay at the boarding-house as we did. Some Christian -acquaintances took him in for the night. This he explained with a grin. - -My husband was at the Chester station with a carriage. We drove at once -to Mrs. Da Vega’s. - -_March 24th._—I have been ill, but what could you expect? My lines, -however, have again fallen in pleasant places. Mrs. Da Vega is young, -handsome, and agreeable, a kind and perfect hostess; and as to the house, -my room is all that I could ask and leaves nothing to be desired; so -very fresh, clean, warm, and comfortable is it. It is the drawing-room -suddenly made into a bedroom for me. But it is my very own. We are among -the civilized of the earth once more. - -_March 27th._—I have moved again, and now I am looking from a window -high, with something more to see than the sky. We have the third story of -Dr. Da Vega’s house, which opens on the straight street that leads to the -railroad about a mile off. - -Mrs. Bedon is the loveliest of young widows. Yesterday at church Isaac -Hayne nestled so close to her cap-strings that I had to touch him and -say, “Sit up!” Josiah Bedon was killed in that famous fight of the -Charleston Light Dragoons. The dragoons stood still to be shot down -in their tracks, having no orders to retire. They had been forgotten, -doubtless, and they scorned to take care of themselves. - -In this high and airy retreat, as in Richmond, then in Columbia, and -then in Lincolnton, my cry is still: If they would only leave me here in -peace and if I were sure things never could be worse with me. Again am I -surrounded by old friends. People seem to vie with each other to show how -good they can be to me. - -To-day Smith opened the trenches and appeared laden with a tray covered -with a snow-white napkin. Here was my first help toward housekeeping -again. Mrs. Pride has sent a boiled ham, a loaf of bread, a huge pancake; -another neighbor coffee already parched and ground; a loaf of sugar -already cracked; candles, pickles, and all the other things one must -trust to love for now. Such money as we have avails us nothing, even if -there were anything left in the shops to buy. - -We had a jolly luncheon. James Lowndes called, the best of good company. -He said of Buck, “She is a queen, and ought to reign in a palace. No -Prince Charming yet; no man has yet approached her that I think half good -enough for her.” - -Then Mrs. Prioleau Hamilton, _née_ Levy, came with the story of family -progress, not a royal one, from Columbia here: “Before we left home,” -said she, “Major Hamilton spread a map of the United States on the table, -and showed me with his finger where Sherman was likely to go. Womanlike, -I demurred. I But, suppose he does not choose to go that way?’ ‘Pooh, -pooh! what do you know of war?’ So we set out, my husband, myself, and -two children, all in one small buggy. The 14th of February we took up -our line of march, and straight before Sherman’s men for five weeks we -fled together. By incessant hurrying and scurrying from pillar to post, -we succeeded in acting as a sort of _avant-courier_ of the Yankee army. -Without rest and with much haste, we got here last Wednesday, and here we -mean to stay and defy Sherman and his legions. Much the worse for wear -were we.” - -The first night their beauty sleep was rudely broken into at Alston with -a cry, “Move on, the Yanks are upon us!” So they hurried on, half-awake, -to Winnsboro, but with no better luck. There they had to lighten the -ship, leave trunks, etc., and put on all sail, for this time the Yankees -were only five miles behind. “Whip and spur, ride for your life!” was the -cry. “Sherman’s objective point seemed to be our buggy,” said she; “for -you know that when we got to Lancaster Sherman was expected there, and -he keeps his appointments; that is, he kept that one. Two small children -were in our chariot, and I began to think of the Red Sea expedition. But -we lost no time, and soon we were in Cheraw, clearly out of the track. We -thanked God for all his mercies and hugged to our bosoms fond hopes of a -bed and bath so much needed by all, especially for the children. - -“At twelve o’clock General Hardee himself knocked us up with word to -‘March! march!’ for ‘all the blue bonnets are over the border.’ In mad -haste we made for Fayetteville, when they said: ‘God bless your soul! -This is the seat of war now; the battle-ground where Sherman and Johnston -are to try conclusions.’ So we harked back, as the hunters say, and cut -across country, aiming for this place. Clean clothes, my dear? Never a -one except as we took off garment by garment and washed it and dried it -by our camp fire, with our loins girded and in haste.” I was snug and -comfortable all that time in Lincolnton. - - * * * * * - -To-day Stephen D. Lee’s corps marched through—only to surrender. The camp -songs of these men were a heartbreak; so sad, yet so stirring. They would -have warmed the blood of an Icelander. The leading voice was powerful, -mellow, clear, distinct, pathetic, sweet. So, I sat down, as women have -done before, when they hung up their harps by strange streams, and I wept -the bitterness of such weeping. Music? Away, away! Thou speakest to me of -things which in all my long life I have not found, and I shall not find. -There they go, the gay and gallant few, doomed; the last gathering of -the flower of Southern pride, to be killed, or worse, to a prison. They -continue to prance by, light and jaunty. They march with as airy a tread -as if they still believed the world was all on their side, and that there -were no Yankee bullets for the unwary. What will Joe Johnston do with -them now? - -The Hood melodrama is over, though the curtain has not fallen on the -last scene. Cassandra croaks and makes many mistakes, but to-day she -believes that Hood stock is going down. When that style of enthusiasm is -on the wane, the rapidity of its extinction is miraculous. It is like the -snuffing out of a candle; “one moment white, then gone forever.” No, that -is not right; it is the snow-flake on the river that is referred to. I am -getting things as much mixed as do the fine ladies of society. - -Lee and Johnston have each fought a drawn battle; only a few more dead -bodies lie stiff and stark on an unknown battle-field. For we do not so -much as know where these drawn battles took place. - -Teddy Barnwell, after sharing with me my first luncheon, failed me -cruelly. He was to come for me to go down to the train and see Isabella -pass by. One word with Isabella worth a thousand ordinary ones! So, she -has gone by and I’ve not seen her. - -Old Colonel Chesnut refuses to say grace; but as he leaves the table -audibly declares, “I thank God for a good dinner.” When asked why he did -this odd thing he said: “My way is to be sure of a thing before I return -thanks for it.” Mayor Goodwyn thanked Sherman for promised protection to -Columbia; soon after, the burning began. - -I received the wife of a post-office robber. The poor thing had done no -wrong, and I felt so sorry for her. Who would be a woman? Who that fool, -a weeping, pining, faithful woman? She hath hard measures still when she -hopes kindest. And all her beauty only makes ingrates! - -_March 29th._—I was awakened with a bunch of violets from Mrs. Pride. -Violets always remind me of Kate and of the sweet South wind that blew in -the garden of paradise part of my life. Then, it all came back: the dread -unspeakable that lies behind every thought now. - -_Thursday._—I find I have not spoken of the box-car which held the -Preston party that day on their way to York from Richmond. In the party -were Mr. and Mrs. Lawson Clay, General and Mrs. Preston and their three -daughters, Captain Rodgers, and Mr. Portman, whose father is an English -earl, and connected financially and happily with Portman Square. In -my American ignorance I may not state Mr. Portman’s case plainly. Mr. -Portman is, of course, a younger son. Then there was Cellie and her baby -and wet-nurse, with no end of servants, male and female. In this ark they -slept, ate, and drank, such being the fortune of war. We were there but -a short time, but Mr. Portman, during that brief visit of ours, was said -to have eaten three luncheons, and the number of his drinks, toddies, so -called, were counted, too. Mr. Portman’s contribution to the larder had -been three small pigs. They were, however, run over by the train, and -made sausage meat of unduly and before their time. - -General Lee says to the men who shirk duty, “This is the people’s war; -when they tire, I stop.” Wigfall says, “It is all over; the game is up.” -He is on his way to Texas, and when the hanging begins he can step over -into Mexico. - -I am plucking up heart, such troops do I see go by every day. They -must turn the tide, and surely they are going for something more than -surrender. It is very late, and the wind flaps my curtain, which seems to -moan, “Too late.” All this will end by making me a nervous lunatic. - -Yesterday while I was driving with Mrs. Pride, Colonel McCaw passed -us! He called out, “I do hope you are in comfortable quarters.” “Very -comfortable,” I replied. “Oh, Mrs. Chesnut!” said Mrs. Pride, “how can -you say that?” “Perfectly comfortable, and hope it may never be worse -with me,” said I. “I have a clean little parlor, 16 by 18, with its bare -floor well scrubbed, a dinner-table, six chairs, and—well, that is all; -but I have a charming lookout from my window high. My world is now thus -divided into two parts—where Yankees are and where Yankees are not.” - -As I sat disconsolate, looking out, ready for any new tramp of men and -arms, the magnificent figure of General Preston hove in sight. He was -mounted on a mighty steed, worthy of its rider, followed by his trusty -squire, William Walker, who bore before him the General’s portmanteau. -When I had time to realize the situation, I perceived at General -Preston’s right hand Mr. Christopher Hampton and Mr. Portman, who passed -by. Soon Mrs. Pride, in some occult way, divined or heard that they -were coming here, and she sent me at once no end of good things for my -tea-table. General Preston entered very soon after, and with him Clement -Clay, of Alabama, the latter in pursuit of his wife’s trunk. I left it -with the Rev. Mr. Martin, and have no doubt it is perfectly safe, but -where? We have written to Mr. Martin to inquire. Then Wilmot de Saussure -appeared. “I am here,” he said, “to consult with General Chesnut. He and -I always think alike.” He added, emphatically: “Slavery is stronger than -ever.” “If you think so,” said I, “you will find that for once you and -General Chesnut do not think alike. He has held that slavery was a thing -of the past, this many a year.” - -I said to General Preston: “I pass my days and nights partly at this -window. I am sure our army is silently dispersing. Men are moving the -wrong way, all the time. They slip by with no songs and no shouts now. -They have given the thing up. See for yourself. Look there.” For a while -the streets were thronged with soldiers and then they were empty again. -But the marching now is without tap of drum. - -_March 31st._—Mr. Prioleau Hamilton told us of a great adventure. Mrs. -Preston was put under his care on the train. He soon found the only other -women along were “strictly unfortunate females,” as Carlyle calls them, -beautiful and aggressive. He had to communicate the unpleasant fact to -Mrs. Preston, on account of their propinquity, and was lost in admiration -of her silent dignity, her quiet self-possession, her calmness, her -deafness and blindness, her thoroughbred ignoring of all that she did -not care to see. Some women, no matter how ladylike, would have made a -fuss or would have fidgeted, but Mrs. Preston dominated the situation and -possessed her soul in innocence and peace. - -Met Robert Johnston from Camden. He has been a prisoner, having been -taken at Camden. The Yankees robbed Zack Cantey of his forks and spoons. -When Zack did not seem to like it, they laughed at him. When he said he -did not see any fun in it, they pretended to weep and wiped their eyes -with their coat-tails. All this maddening derision Zack said was as hard -to bear as it was to see them ride off with his horse, Albine. They stole -all of Mrs. Zack’s jewelry and silver. When the Yankee general heard of -it he wrote her a very polite note, saying how sorry he was that she -had been annoyed, and returned a bundle of Zack’s love-letters, written -to her before she was married. Robert Johnston said Miss Chesnut was a -brave and determined spirit. One Yankee officer came in while they were -at breakfast and sat down to warm himself at the fire. “Rebels have no -rights,” Miss Chesnut said to him politely. “I suppose you have come -to rob us. Please do so and go. Your presence agitates my blind old -father.” The man jumped up in a rage, and said, “What do you take me -for—a robber?” “No, indeed,” said she, and for very shame he marched out -empty-handed. - -_April 3d._—Saw General Preston ride off. He came to tell me good-by. -I told him he looked like a Crusader on his great white horse, with -William, his squire, at his heels. Our men are all consummate riders, -and have their servants well mounted behind them, carrying cloaks and -traps—how different from the same men packed like sardines in dirty -railroad cars, usually floating inch deep in liquid tobacco juice. - -For the kitchen and Ellen’s comfort I wanted a pine table and a kitchen -chair. A woman sold me one to-day for three thousand Confederate dollars. - -Mrs. Hamilton has been disappointed again. Prioleau Hamilton says -the person into whose house they expected to move to-day came to say -she could not take boarders for three reasons: First, “that they had -small-pox in the house.” “And the two others?” “Oh, I did not ask for the -two others!” - -_April 5th._—Miss Middleton’s letter came in answer to mine, telling her -how generous my friends here were to me. “We long,” she says, “for our -own small sufficiency of wood, corn, and vegetables. Here is a struggle -unto death, although the neighbors continue to feed us, as you would say, -‘with a spoon.’ We have fallen upon a new device. We keep a cookery book -on the mantelpiece, and when the dinner is deficient we just read off a -pudding or a _crême_. It does not entirely satisfy the appetite, this -dessert in imagination, but perhaps it is as good for the digestion.” - -As I was ready to go, though still up-stairs, some one came to say -General Hood had called. Mrs. Hamilton cried out, “Send word you are not -at home.” “Never!” said I. “Why make him climb all these stairs when you -must go in five minutes?” “If he had come here dragging Sherman as a -captive at his chariot wheels I might say ‘not at home,’ but not now.” -And I ran down and greeted him on the sidewalk in the face of all, and -walked slowly beside him as he toiled up the weary three stories, limping -gallantly. He was so well dressed and so cordial; not depressed in the -slightest. He was so glad to see me. He calls his report self-defense; -says Joe Johnston attacked him and he was obliged to state things from -his point of view. And now follow statements, where one may read between -the lines what one chooses. He had been offered a command in Western -Virginia, but as General Lee was concerned because he and Joe Johnston -were not on cordial terms, and as the fatigue of the mountain campaign -would be too great for him, he would like the chance of going across the -Mississippi. Texas was true to him, and would be his home, as it had -voted him a ranch somewhere out there. They say General Lee is utterly -despondent, and has no plan if Richmond goes, as go it must. - -_April 7th._—Richmond has fallen and I have no heart to write about it. -Grant broke through our lines and Sherman cut through them. Stoneman is -this side of Danville. They are too many for us. Everything is lost in -Richmond, even our archives. Blue black is our horizon. Hood says we -shall all be obliged to go West—to Texas, I mean, for our own part of the -country will be overrun. - -Yes, a solitude and a wild waste it may become, but, as to that, we can -rough it in the bush at home. - -De Fontaine, in his newspaper, continues the old cry. “Now Richmond -is given up,” he says, “it was too heavy a load to carry, and we are -stronger than ever.” “Stronger than ever?” Nine-tenths of our army are -under ground and where is another army to come from? Will they wait until -we grow one? - -_April 15th._—What a week it has been—madness, sadness, anxiety, turmoil, -ceaseless excitement. The Wigfalls passed through on their way to Texas. -We did not see them. Louly told Hood they were bound for the Rio Grande, -and intended to shake hands with Maximilian, Emperor of Mexico. Yankees -were expected here every minute. Mrs. Davis came. We went down to the -cars at daylight to receive her. She dined with me. Lovely Winnie, the -baby, came, too. Buck and Hood were here, and that queen of women, Mary -Darby. Clay behaved like a trump. He was as devoted to Mrs. Davis in her -adversity as if they had never quarreled in her prosperity. People sent -me things for Mrs. Davis, as they did in Columbia for Mr. Davis. It was -a luncheon or breakfast only she stayed for here. Mrs. Brown prepared a -dinner for her at the station. I went down with her. She left here at -five o’clock. My heart was like lead, but we did not give way. She was -as calm and smiling as ever. It was but a brief glimpse of my dear Mrs. -Davis, and under altered skies. - -_April 17th._—A letter from Mrs. Davis, who writes: “Do come to me, and -see how we get on. I shall have a spare room by the time you arrive, -indifferently furnished, but, oh, so affectionately placed at your -service. You will receive such a loving welcome. One perfect bliss have -I. The baby, who grows fat and is smiling always, is christened, and not -old enough to develop the world’s vices or to be snubbed by it. The name -so long delayed is Varina Anne. My name is a heritage of woe. - -“Are you delighted with your husband? I am delighted with him as well -as with my own. It is well to lose an Arabian horse if one elicits such -a tender and at the same time knightly letter as General Chesnut wrote -to my poor old Prometheus. I do not think that for a time he felt the -vultures after the reception of the General’s letter. - -“I hear horrid reports about Richmond. It is said that all below Ninth -Street to the Rocketts has been burned by the rabble, who mobbed the -town. The Yankee performances have not been chronicled. May God take our -cause into His own hands.” - -_April 19th._—Just now, when Mr. Clay dashed up-stairs, pale as a sheet, -saying, “General Lee has capitulated,” I saw it reflected in Mary Darby’s -face before I heard him speak. She staggered to the table, sat down, -and wept aloud. Mr. Clay’s eyes were not dry. Quite beside herself Mary -shrieked, “Now we belong to negroes and Yankees!” Buck said, “I do not -believe it.” - -How different from ours of them is their estimate of us. How -contradictory is their attitude toward us. To keep the despised and -iniquitous South within their borders, as part of their country, they -are willing to enlist millions of men at home and abroad, and to spend -billions, and we know they do not love fighting _per se_, nor spending -money. They are perfectly willing to have three killed for our one. -We hear they have all grown rich, through “shoddy,” whatever that is. -Genuine Yankees can make a fortune trading jack-knives. - -“Somehow it is borne in on me that we will have to pay the piper,” was -remarked to-day. “No; blood can not be squeezed from a turnip. You can -not pour anything out of an empty cup. We have no money even for taxes or -to be confiscated.” - -While the Preston girls are here, my dining-room is given up to them, and -we camp on the landing, with our one table and six chairs. Beds are made -on the dining-room floor. Otherwise there is no furniture, except buckets -of water and bath-tubs in their improvised chamber. Night and day this -landing and these steps are crowded with the _élite_ of the Confederacy, -going and coming, and when night comes, or rather, bedtime, more beds are -made on the floor of the landing-place for the war-worn soldiers to rest -upon. The whole house is a bivouac. As Pickens said of South Carolina in -1861, we are “an armed camp.” - -My husband is rarely at home. I sleep with the girls, and my room is -given up to soldiers. General Lee’s few, but undismayed, his remnant of -an army, or the part from the South and West, sad and crestfallen, pass -through Chester. Many discomfited heroes find their way up these stairs. -They say Johnston will not be caught as Lee was. He can retreat; that is -his trade. If he would not fight Sherman in the hill country of Georgia, -what will he do but retreat in the plains of North Carolina with Grant, -Sherman, and Thomas all to the fore? - -We are to stay here. Running is useless now; so we mean to bide a Yankee -raid, which they say is imminent. Why fly? They are everywhere, these -Yankees, like red ants, like the locusts and frogs which were the plagues -of Egypt. - -The plucky way in which our men keep up is beyond praise. There is no -howling, and our poverty is made a matter of laughing. We deride our own -penury. Of the country we try not to speak at all. - -_April 22d._—This yellow Confederate quire of paper, my journal, blotted -by entries, has been buried three days with the silver sugar-dish, -tea-pot, milk-jug, and a few spoons and forks that follow my fortunes as -I wander. With these valuables was Hood’s silver cup, which was partly -crushed when he was wounded at Chickamauga. - -It has been a wild three days, with aides galloping around with messages, -Yankees hanging over us like a sword of Damocles. We have been in queer -straits. We sat up at Mrs. Bedon’s dressed, without once going to bed for -forty-eight hours, and we were aweary. - -Colonel Cadwallader Jones came with a despatch, a sealed secret despatch. -It was for General Chesnut. I opened it. Lincoln, old Abe Lincoln, has -been killed, murdered, and Seward wounded! Why? By whom? It is simply -maddening, all this. - -I sent off messenger after messenger for General Chesnut. I have not the -faintest idea where he is, but I know this foul murder will bring upon -us worse miseries. Mary Darby says, “But they murdered him themselves. -No Confederates are in Washington.” “But if they see fit to accuse us -of instigating it?” “Who murdered him? Who knows?” “See if they don’t -take vengeance on us, now that we are ruined and can not repel them any -longer.” - -The death of Lincoln I call a warning to tyrants. He will not be the last -President put to death in the capital, though he is the first. - -Buck never submits to be bored. The bores came to tea at Mrs. Bedon’s, -and then sat and talked, so prosy, so wearisome was the discourse, so -endless it seemed, that we envied Buck, who was mooning on the piazza. -She rarely speaks now. - -[Illustration: A NEWSPAPER EXTRA.] - - HIGHLY IMPORTANT NEWS! - - AN ARMISTICE AGREED UPON!!! - - * * * * * - - Lincoln Assassinated and Seward Mortally Wounded in Washington!! - - * * * * * - - GREENSBORO, April 19, 1865. - - GENERAL ORDER NO. 14. - - It is announced to the Army that a suspension of arms has been - agreed upon pending negotiations between the two Governments. - - During its continuance the two armies are to occupy their - present position. - - By command of General Johnston: - - [SIGNED,] ARCHER ANDERSON, - Lieut. Col. and A. A. G. - - Official Copy: ISAAC HAYNE. - - * * * * * - - WASHINGTON, April 12, 1865. - - To MAJOR-GENERAL SHERMAN: - - _President Lincoln was murdered, about ten o’clock last night, - in his private box at Ford’s Theatre, in this city, by an - assassin, who shot him in the head with a pistol ball._ At the - same hour Mr. Seward’s house was entered by another assassin, - who _stabbed the Secretary in several places_. It is thought he - may possibly recover, but his son Fred may possibly die of the - wounds he received. - - The assassin of the President leaped from the private - box, brandishing his dagger and exclaiming: “_Sic Semper - Tyrannis_—VIRGINIA IS REVENGED!” Mr. Lincoln fell senseless - from his seat, and continued in that condition until 22 minutes - past 10 o’clock this morning, at which time he breathed his - last. - - Vice President Johnson now becomes President, and will take the - oath of office and assume the duties to-day. - - [SIGNED,] E. M. STANTON - - * * * * * - - TO THE CITIZENS OF CHESTER. - - CHESTER, S. C., April 22, 1865. - - FLOUR and MEAL given out to the citizens by order of Major - Mitchell, Chief Commissary of South Carolina, to be returned - when called for, is _badly wanted to ration General Johnston’s - army_. Please return the same at once. - - E. M. GRAHAM, Agent Subsistence Dep’t. - - * * * * * - - HEADQUARTERS RESERVE FORCES S. C. - - CHESTERVILLE, APRIL 20, 1865. - - The Brigadier-General Commanding has been informed that, in - view of the approach of the enemy, a large quantity of supplies - of various kinds were given out by the various Government - officers at this post to the citizens of the place. He now - calls upon, and earnestly requests all citizens, who may have - such stores in their possession, to return them to the several - Departments to which they belong. The stores are much needed at - this time for the use of soldiers, passing through the place, - and for the sick at the Hospital. - - By command of Brig. Gen. Chesnut: - - M. R. CLARK, Major and A. A. General. - -_April 23d._—My silver wedding-day, and I am sure the unhappiest day of -my life. Mr. Portman came with Christopher Hampton. Portman told of Miss -Kate Hampton, who is perhaps the most thoroughly ladylike person in the -world. When he told her that Lee had surrendered she started up from her -seat and said, “That is a lie.” “Well, Miss Hampton, I tell the tale as -it was told me. I can do no more.” - -No wonder John Chesnut is bitter. They say Mulberry has been destroyed -by a corps commanded by General Logan. Some one asked coolly, “Will -General Chesnut be shot as a soldier, or hung as a senator?” “I am -not of sufficient consequence,” answered he. “They will stop short of -brigadiers. I resigned my seat in the United States Senate weeks before -there was any secession. So I can not be hung as a senator. But after all -it is only a choice between drumhead court martial, short shrift, and a -lingering death at home from starvation.” - -These negroes are unchanged. The shining black mask they wear does not -show a ripple of change; they are sphinxes. Ellen has had my diamonds to -keep for a week or so. When the danger was over she handed them back to -me with as little apparent interest in the matter as if they had been -garden peas. - -Mrs. Huger was in church in Richmond when the news of the surrender came. -Worshipers were in the midst of the communion service. Mr. McFarland was -called out to send away the gold from his bank. Mr. Minnegerode’s English -grew confused. Then the President was summoned, and distress of mind -showed itself in every face. The night before one of General Lee’s aides, -Walter Taylor, was married, and was off to the wars immediately after the -ceremony. - -One year ago we left Richmond. The Confederacy has double-quicked down -hill since then. One year since I stood in that beautiful Hollywood -by little Joe Davis’s grave. Now we have burned towns, deserted -plantations, sacked villages. “You seem resolute to look the worst in -the face,” said General Chesnut, wearily. “Yes, poverty, with no future -and no hope.” “But no slaves, thank God!” cried Buck. “We would be the -scorn of the world if the world thought of us at all. You see, we are -exiles and paupers.” “Pile on the agony.” “How does our famous captain, -the great Lee, bear the Yankees’ galling chain?” I asked. “He knows how -to possess his soul in patience,” answered my husband. “If there were no -such word as subjugation, no debts, no poverty, no negro mobs backed by -Yankees; if all things were well, you would shiver and feel benumbed,” -he went on, pointing at me in an oratorical attitude. “Your sentence is -pronounced—Camden for life.” - -_May 1st._—In Chester still. I climb these steep steps alone. They have -all gone, all passed by. Buck went with Mr. C. Hampton to York. Mary, -Mrs. Huger, and Pinckney took flight together. One day just before they -began to dissolve in air, Captain Gay was seated at the table, half-way -between me on the top step and John in the window, with his legs outside. -Said some one to-day, “She showed me her engagement ring, and I put it -back on her hand. She is engaged, but not to me.” “By the heaven that is -above us all, I saw you kiss her hand.” “That I deny.” Captain Gay glared -in angry surprise, and insisted that he had seen it. “Sit down, Gay,” -said the cool captain in his most mournful way. “You see, my father died -when I was a baby, and my grandfather took me in hand. To him I owe this -moral maxim. He is ninety years old, a wise old man. Now, remember my -grandfather’s teaching forever-more—‘A gentleman must not kiss and tell.’” - -General Preston came to say good-by. He will take his family abroad at -once. Burnside, in New Orleans, owes him some money and will pay it. -“There will be no more confiscation, my dear madam,” said he; “they must -see that we have been punished enough.” “They do not think so, my dear -general. This very day a party of Federals passed in hot pursuit of our -President.” - -A terrible fire-eater, one of the few men left in the world who believe -we have a right divine, being white, to hold Africans, who are black, in -bonds forever; he is six feet two; an athlete; a splendid specimen of the -animal man; but he has never been under fire; his place in the service -was a bomb-proof office, so-called. With a face red-hot with rage he -denounced Jeff Davis and Hood. “Come, now,” said Edward, the handsome, -“men who could fight and did not, they are the men who ruined us. We -wanted soldiers. If the men who are cursing Jeff Davis now had fought -with Hood, and fought as Hood fought, we’d be all right now.” - -And then he told of my trouble one day while Hood was here. “Just such a -fellow as you came up on this little platform, and before Mrs. Chesnut -could warn him, began to heap insults on Jeff Davis and his satrap, Hood. -Mrs. Chesnut held up her hands. ‘Stop, not another word. You shall not -abuse my friends here! Not Jeff Davis behind his back, not Hood to his -face, for he is in that room and hears you.’” Fancy how dumfounded this -creature was. - -Mrs. Huger told a story of Joe Johnston in his callow days before he -was famous. After an illness Johnston’s hair all fell out; not a hair -was left on his head, which shone like a fiery cannon-ball. One of the -gentlemen from Africa who waited at table sniggered so at dinner that -he was ordered out by the grave and decorous black butler. General -Huger, feeling for the agonies of young Africa, as he strove to stifle -his mirth, suggested that Joe Johnston should cover his head with his -handkerchief. A red silk one was produced, and turban-shaped, placed on -his head. That completely finished the gravity of the butler, who fled -in helplessness. His guffaw on the outside of the door became plainly -audible. General Huger then suggested, as they must have the waiter back, -or the dinner could not go on, that Joe should eat with his hat on, which -he did. - - - - -XXI - -CAMDEN, S. C. - -_May 2, 1865-August 2, 1865_ - - -Camden, S. C., _May 2, 1865_.—Since we left Chester nothing but solitude, -nothing but tall blackened chimneys, to show that any man has ever trod -this road before. This is Sherman’s track. It is hard not to curse him. -I wept incessantly at first. The roses of the gardens are already hiding -the ruins. My husband said Nature is a wonderful renovator. He tried to -say something else and then I shut my eyes and made a vow that if we -were a crushed people, crushed by weight, I would never be a whimpering, -pining slave. - -We heard loud explosions of gunpowder in the direction of Camden. -Destroyers were at it there. Met William Walker, whom Mr. Preston left -in charge of a car-load of his valuables. General Preston was hardly out -of sight before poor helpless William had to stand by and see the car -plundered. “My dear Missis! they have cleaned me out, nothing left,” -moaned William the faithful. We have nine armed couriers with us. Can -they protect us? - -Bade adieu to the staff at Chester. No general ever had so remarkable a -staff, so accomplished, so agreeable, so well bred, and, I must say, so -handsome, and can add so brave and efficient. - -_May 4th._—Home again at Bloomsbury. From Chester to Winnsboro we did not -see one living thing, man, woman, or animal, except poor William trudging -home after his sad disaster. The blooming of the gardens had a funereal -effect. Nature is so luxuriant here, she soon covers the ravages of -savages. No frost has occurred since the seventh of March, which accounts -for the wonderful advance in vegetation. This seems providential to these -starving people. In this climate so much that is edible can be grown in -two months. - -At Winnsboro we stayed at Mr. Robertson’s. There we left the wagon train. -Only Mr. Brisbane, one of the general’s couriers, came with us on escort -duty. The Robertsons were very kind and hospitable, brimful of Yankee -anecdotes. To my amazement the young people of Winnsboro had a May-day -celebration amid the smoking ruins. Irrepressible is youth. - -The fidelity of the negroes is the principal topic. There seems to be not -a single case of a negro who betrayed his master, and yet they showed a -natural and exultant joy at being free. After we left Winnsboro negroes -were seen in the fields plowing and hoeing corn, just as in antebellum -times. The fields in that respect looked quite cheerful. We did not pass -in the line of Sherman’s savages, and so saw some houses standing. - -Mary Kirkland has had experience with the Yankees. She has been -pronounced the most beautiful woman on this side of the Atlantic, and -has been spoiled accordingly in all society. When the Yankees came, -Monroe, their negro manservant, told her to stand up and hold two of her -children in her arms, with the other two pressed as close against her -knees as they could get. Mammy Selina and Lizzie then stood grimly on -each side of their young missis and her children. For four mortal hours -the soldiers surged through the rooms of the house. Sometimes Mary and -her children were roughly jostled against the wall, but Mammy and Lizzie -were stanch supporters. The Yankee soldiers taunted the negro women for -their foolishness in standing by their cruel slave-owners, and taunted -Mary with being glad of the protection of her poor ill-used slaves. -Monroe meanwhile had one leg bandaged and pretended to be lame, so that -he might not be enlisted as a soldier, and kept making pathetic appeals -to Mary. - -“Don’t answer them back, Miss Mary,” said he. “Let ’em say what dey want -to; don’t answer ’em back. Don’t give ’em any chance to say you are -impudent to ’em.” - -One man said to her: “Why do you shrink from us and avoid us so? We did -not come here to fight for negroes; we hate them. At Port Royal I saw a -beautiful white woman driving in a wagon with a coal-black negro man. If -she had been anything to me I would have shot her through the heart.” -“Oh, oh!” said Lizzie, “that’s the way you talk in here. I’ll remember -that when you begin outside to beg me to run away with you.” - -Finally poor Aunt Betsy, Mary’s mother, fainted from pure fright and -exhaustion. Mary put down her baby and sprang to her mother, who was -lying limp in a chair, and fiercely called out, “Leave this room, you -wretches! Do you mean to kill my mother? She is ill; I must put her to -bed.” Without a word they all slunk out ashamed. “If I had only tried -that hours ago,” she now said. Outside they remarked that she was “an -insolent rebel huzzy, who thinks herself too good to speak to a soldier -of the United States,” and one of them said: “Let us go in and break her -mouth.” But the better ones held the more outrageous back. Monroe slipped -in again and said: “Missy, for God’s sake, when dey come in be sociable -with ’em. Dey will kill you.” - -“Then let me die.” - -The negro soldiers were far worse than the white ones. - -Mrs. Bartow drove with me to Mulberry. On one side of the house we -found every window had been broken, every bell torn down, every piece -of furniture destroyed, and every door smashed in. But the other side -was intact. Maria Whitaker and her mother, who had been left in charge, -explained this odd state of things. The Yankees were busy as beavers, -working like regular carpenters, destroying everything when their general -came in and stopped them. He told them it was a sin to destroy a fine -old house like that, whose owner was over ninety years old. He would not -have had it done for the world. It was wanton mischief. He explained to -Maria that soldiers at such times were excited, wild, and unruly. They -carried off sacks full of our books, since unfortunately they found a -pile of empty sacks in the garret. Our books, our letters, our papers -were afterward strewn along the Charleston road. Somebody found things of -ours as far away as Vance’s Ferry. - -This was Potter’s raid.[130] Sherman took only our horses. Potter’s raid -came after Johnston’s surrender, and ruined us finally, burning our mills -and gins and a hundred bales of cotton. Indeed, nothing is left to us now -but the bare land, and the debts contracted for the support of hundreds -of negroes during the war. - -J. H. Boykin was at home at the time to look after his own interests, and -he, with John de Saussure, has saved the cotton on their estates, with -the mules and farming utensils and plenty of cotton as capital to begin -on again. The negroes would be a good riddance. A hired man would be a -good deal cheaper than a man whose father and mother, wife and twelve -children have to be fed, clothed, housed, and nursed, their taxes paid, -and their doctor’s bills, all for his half-done, slovenly, lazy work. For -years we have thought negroes a nuisance that did not pay. They pretend -exuberant loyalty to us now. Only one man of Mr. Chesnut’s left the -plantation with the Yankees. - -When the Yankees found the Western troops were not at Camden, but down -below Swift Creek, like sensible folk they came up the other way, and -while we waited at Chester for marching orders we were quickly ruined -after the surrender. With our cotton saved, and cotton at a dollar a -pound, we might be in comparatively easy circumstances. But now it is the -devil to pay, and no pitch hot. Well, all this was to be. - -Godard Bailey, editor, whose prejudices are all against us, described -the raids to me in this wise: They were regularly organized. First came -squads who demanded arms and whisky. Then came the rascals who hunted for -silver, ransacked the ladies’ wardrobes and scared women and children -into fits—at least those who could be scared. Some of these women could -not be scared. Then came some smiling, suave, well-dressed officers, who -“regretted it all so much.” Outside the gate officers, men, and bummers -divided even, share and share alike, the piles of plunder. - -When we crossed the river coming home, the ferry man at Chesnut’s Ferry -asked for his fee. Among us all we could not muster the small silver coin -he demanded. There was poverty for you. Nor did a stiver appear among us -until Molly was hauled home from Columbia, where she was waging war with -Sheriff Dent’s family. As soon as her foot touched her native heath, she -sent to hunt up the cattle. Many of our cows were found in the swamp; -like Marion’s men they had escaped the enemy. Molly sells butter for us -now on shares. - -Old Cuffey, head gardener at Mulberry, and Yellow Abram, his assistant, -have gone on in the even tenor of their way. Men may come and men may go, -but they dig on forever. And they say they mean to “as long as old master -is alive.” We have green peas, asparagus, lettuce, spinach, new potatoes, -and strawberries in abundance—enough for ourselves and plenty to give -away to refugees. It is early in May and yet two months since frost. -Surely the wind was tempered to the shorn lamb in our case. - -Johnny went over to see Hampton. His cavalry are ordered to reassemble -on the 20th—a little farce to let themselves down easily; they know it is -all over. Johnny, smiling serenely, said, “The thing is up and forever.” - -Godard Bailey has presence of mind. Anne Sabb left a gold card-case, -which was a terrible oversight, among the cards on the drawing-room -table. When the Yankee raiders saw it their eyes glistened. Godard -whispered to her: “Let them have that gilt thing and slip away and hide -the silver.” “No!” shouted a Yank, “you don’t fool me that way; here’s -your old brass thing; don’t you stir; fork over that silver.” And so they -deposited the gold card-case in Godard’s hands, and stole plated spoons -and forks, which had been left out because they were plated. Mrs. Beach -says two officers slept at her house. Each had a pillow-case crammed with -silver and jewelry—“spoils of war,” they called it. - -Floride Cantey heard an old negro say to his master: “When you all had -de power you was good to me, and I’ll protect you now. No niggers nor -Yankees shall tech you. If you want anything call for Sambo. I mean, call -for Mr. Samuel; dat my name now.” - -_May 10th._—A letter from a Pharisee who thanks the Lord she is not as -other women are; she need not pray, as the Scotch parson did, for a good -conceit of herself. She writes, “I feel that I will not be ruined. Come -what may, God will provide for me.” But her husband had strengthened -the Lord’s hands, and for the glory of God, doubtless, invested some -thousands of dollars in New York, where Confederate moth did not corrupt -nor Yankee bummers break through and steal. She went on to tell us: “I -have had the good things of this world, and I have enjoyed them in their -season. But I only held them as steward for God. My bread has been cast -upon the waters and will return to me.” - -E. M. Boykin said to-day: “We had a right to strike for our independence, -and we did strike a bitter blow. They must be proud to have overcome -such a foe. I dare look any man in the face. There is no humiliation -in our position after such a struggle as we made for freedom from the -Yankees.” He is sanguine. His main idea is joy that he has no negroes to -support, and need hire only those he really wants. - -Stephen Elliott told us that Sherman said to Joe Johnston, “Look out -for yourself. This agreement only binds the military, not the civil, -authorities.” Is our destruction to begin anew? For a few weeks we have -had peace. - -Sally Reynolds told a short story of a negro pet of Mrs. Kershaw’s. The -little negro clung to Mrs. Kershaw and begged her to save him. The negro -mother, stronger than Mrs. Kershaw, tore him away from her. Mrs. Kershaw -wept bitterly. Sally said she saw the mother chasing the child before -her as she ran after the Yankees, whipping him at every step. The child -yelled like mad, a small rebel blackamoor. - -_May 16th._—We are scattered and stunned, the remnant of heart left alive -within us filled with brotherly hate. We sit and wait until the drunken -tailor who rules the United States of America issues a proclamation, and -defines our anomalous position. - -Such a hue and cry, but whose fault? Everybody is blamed by somebody -else. The dead heroes left stiff and stark on the battle-field escape, -blame every man who stayed at home and did not fight. I will not stop to -hear excuses. There is not one word against those who stood out until the -bitter end, and stacked muskets at Appomattox. - -[Illustration: COL. JAMES CHESNUT, SR. - -From a Portrait in Oil by Gilbert Stuart.] - -_May 18th._—A feeling of sadness hovers over me now, day and night, which -no words of mine can express. There is a chance for plenty of character -study in this Mulberry house, if one only had the heart for it. Colonel -Chesnut, now ninety-three, blind and deaf, is apparently as strong as -ever, and certainly as resolute of will. Partly patriarch, partly grand -seigneur, this old man is of a species that we shall see no more—the -last of a race of lordly planters who ruled this Southern world, but -now a splendid wreck. His manners are unequaled still, but underneath -this smooth exterior lies the grip of a tyrant whose will has never been -crossed. I will not attempt what Lord Byron says he could not do, but -must quote again: “Everybody knows a gentleman when he sees him. I have -never met a man who could describe one.” We have had three very distinct -specimens of the genus in this house—three generations of gentlemen, each -utterly different from the other—father, son, and grandson. - -African Scipio walks at Colonel Chesnut’s side. He is six feet two, a -black Hercules, and as gentle as a dove in all his dealings with the -blind old master, who boldly strides forward, striking with his stick to -feel where he is going. The Yankees left Scipio unmolested. He told them -he was absolutely essential to his old master, and they said, “If you -want to stay so bad, he must have been good to you always.” Scip says he -was silent, for it “made them mad if you praised your master.” - -Sometimes this old man will stop himself, just as he is going off in a -fury, because they try to prevent his attempting some feat impossible -in his condition of lost faculties. He will ask gently, “I hope that I -never say or do anything unseemly! Sometimes I think I am subject to -mental aberrations.” At every footfall he calls out, “Who goes there?” If -a lady’s name is given he uncovers and stands, with hat off, until she -passes. He still has the old-world art of bowing low and gracefully. - -Colonel Chesnut came of a race that would brook no interference with -their own sweet will by man, woman, or devil. But then such manners has -he, they would clear any man’s character, if it needed it. Mrs. Chesnut, -his wife, used to tell us that when she met him at Princeton, in the -nineties of the eighteenth century, they called him “the Young Prince.” -He and Mr. John Taylor,[131] of Columbia, were the first up-country -youths whose parents were wealthy enough to send them off to college. - -When a college was established in South Carolina, Colonel John Chesnut, -the father of the aforesaid Young Prince, was on the first board of -trustees. Indeed, I may say that, since the Revolution of 1776, there has -been no convocation of the notables of South Carolina, in times of peace -and prosperity, or of war and adversity, in which a representative man -of this family has not appeared. The estate has been kept together until -now. Mrs. Chesnut said she drove down from Philadelphia on her bridal -trip, in a chariot and four—a cream-colored chariot with outriders. - -They have a saying here—on account of the large families with which -people are usually blessed, and the subdivision of property consequent -upon that fact, besides the tendency of one generation to make and to -save, and the next to idle and to squander, that there are rarely more -than three generations between shirt-sleeves and shirt-sleeves. But these -Chesnuts have secured four, from the John Chesnut who was driven out from -his father’s farm in Virginia by the French and Indians, when that father -had been killed at Fort Duquesne,[132] to the John Chesnut who saunters -along here now, the very perfection of a lazy gentleman, who cares not to -move unless it be for a fight, a dance, or a fox-hunt. - -The first comer of that name to this State was a lad when he arrived -after leaving his land in Virginia; and being without fortune otherwise, -he went into Joseph Kershaw’s grocery shop as a clerk, and the Kershaws, -I think, so remember that fact that they have it on their coat-of-arms. -Our Johnny, as he was driving me down to Mulberry yesterday, declared -himself delighted with the fact that the present Joseph Kershaw had -so distinguished himself in our war, that they might let the shop -of a hundred years ago rest for a while. “Upon my soul,” cried the -cool captain, “I have a desire to go in there and look at the Kershaw -tombstones. I am sure they have put it on their marble tablets that we -had an ancestor one day a hundred years ago who was a clerk in their -shop.” This clerk became a captain in the Revolution. - -In the second generation the shop had so far sunk that the John Chesnut -of that day refused to let his daughter marry a handsome, dissipated -Kershaw, and she, a spoiled beauty, who could not endure to obey orders -when they were disagreeable to her, went up to her room and therein -remained, never once coming out of it for forty years. Her father let her -have her own way in that; he provided servants to wait upon her and every -conceivable luxury that she desired, but neither party would give in. - -I am, too, thankful that I am an old woman, forty-two my last birthday. -There is so little life left in me now to be embittered by this agony. -“Nonsense! I am a pauper,” says my husband, “and I am as smiling and as -comfortable as ever you saw me.” “When you have to give up your horses? -How then?” - -_May 21st._—They say Governor Magrath has absconded, and that the Yankees -have said, “If you have no visible governor, we will send you one.” If we -had one and they found him, they would clap him in prison instanter. - -The negroes have flocked to the Yankee squad which has recently come, but -they were snubbed, the rampant freedmen. “Stay where you are,” say the -Yanks. “We have nothing for you.” And they sadly “peruse” their way. Now -that they have picked up that word “peruse,” they use it in season and -out. When we met Mrs. Preston’s William we asked, “Where are you going?” -“Perusing my way to Columbia,” he answered. - -When the Yanks said they had no rations for idle negroes, John Walker -answered mildly, “This is not at all what we expected.” The colored -women, dressed in their gaudiest array, carried bouquets to the Yankees, -making the day a jubilee. But in this house there is not the slightest -change. Every negro has known for months that he or she was free, but I -do not see one particle of change in their manner. They are, perhaps, -more circumspect, polite, and quiet, but that is all. Otherwise all goes -on in antebellum _statu quo_. Every day I expect to miss some familiar -face, but so far have been disappointed. - -Mrs. Huger we found at the hotel here, and we brought her to Bloomsbury. -She told us that Jeff Davis was traveling leisurely with his wife twelve -miles a day, utterly careless whether he were taken prisoner or not, and -that General Hampton had been paroled. - -Fighting Dick Anderson and Stephen Elliott, of Fort Sumter memory, are -quite ready to pray for Andy Johnson, and to submit to the powers that -be. Not so our belligerent clergy. “Pray for people when I wish they were -dead?” cries Rev. Mr. Trapier. “No, never! I will pray for President -Davis till I die. I will do it to my last gasp. My chief is a prisoner, -but I am proud of him still. He is a spectacle to gods and men. He -will bear himself as a soldier, a patriot, a statesman, a Christian -gentleman. He is the martyr of our cause.” And I replied with my tears. - -“Look here: taken in woman’s clothes?” asked Mr. Trapier. “Rubbish, -stuff, and nonsense. If Jeff Davis has not the pluck of a true man, then -there is no courage left on this earth. If he does not die game, I give -it up. Something, you see, was due to Lincoln and the Scotch cap that -he hid his ugly face with, in that express car, when he rushed through -Baltimore in the night. It is that escapade of their man Lincoln that set -them on making up the woman’s clothes story about Jeff Davis.” - -Mrs. W. drove up. She, too, is off for New York, to sell four hundred -bales of cotton and a square, or something, which pays tremendously in -the Central Park region, and to capture and bring home her _belle fille_, -who remained North during the war. She knocked at my door. The day was -barely dawning. I was in bed, and as I sprang up, discovered that my old -Confederate night-gown had to be managed, it was so full of rents. I am -afraid I gave undue attention to the sad condition of my gown, but could -nowhere see a shawl to drape my figure. - -She was very kind. In case my husband was arrested and needed funds, she -offered me some “British securities” and bonds. We were very grateful, -but we did not accept the loan of money, which would have been almost -the same as a gift, so slim was our chance of repaying it. But it was a -generous thought on her part; I own that. - -Went to our plantation, the Hermitage, yesterday. Saw no change; not a -soul was absent from his or her post. I said, “Good colored folks, when -are you going to kick off the traces and be free?” In their furious, -emotional way, they swore devotion to us all to their dying day. Just the -same, the minute they see an opening to better themselves they will move -on. William, my husband’s foster-brother, came up. “Well, William, what -do you want?” asked my husband. “Only to look at you, marster; it does -me good.” - -_June 1st._—The New York Herald quotes General Sherman as saying, -“Columbia was burned by Hampton’s sheer stupidity.” But then who burned -everything on the way in Sherman’s march to Columbia, and in the line -of march Sherman took after leaving Columbia? We came, for three days -of travel, over a road that had been laid bare by Sherman’s torches. -Nothing but smoking ruins was left in Sherman’s track. That I saw with -my own eyes. No living thing was left, no house for man or beast. They -who burned the countryside for a belt of forty miles, did they not -also burn the town? To charge that to “Hampton’s stupidity” is merely -an afterthought. This Herald announces that Jeff Davis will be hanged -at once, not so much for treason as for his assassination of Lincoln. -“Stanton,” the Herald says, “has all the papers in his hands to convict -him.” - -The Yankees here say, “The black man must go as the red man has gone; -this is a white man’s country.” The negroes want to run with the hare, -but hunt with the hounds. They are charming in their professions to us, -but declare that they are to be paid by these blessed Yankees in lands -and mules for having been slaves. They were so faithful to us during the -war, why should the Yankees reward them, to which the only reply is that -it would be by way of punishing rebels. - -Mrs. Adger[133] saw a Yankee soldier strike a woman, and she prayed God -to take him in hand according to his deed. The soldier laughed in her -face, swaggered off, stumbled down the steps, and then his revolver went -off by the concussion and shot him dead. - -The black ball is in motion. Mrs. de Saussure’s cook shook the dust -off her feet and departed from her kitchen to-day—free, she said. The -washerwoman is packing to go. - -Scipio Africanus, the Colonel’s body-servant, is a soldierly looking -black creature, fit to have delighted the eyes of old Frederick William -of Prussia, who liked giants. We asked him how the Yankees came to leave -him. “Oh, I told them marster couldn’t do without me nohow; and then I -carried them some nice hams that they never could have found, they were -hid so good.” - -Eben dressed himself in his best and went at a run to meet his Yankee -deliverers—so he said. At the gate he met a squad coming in. He had -adorned himself with his watch and chain, like the cordage of a ship, -with a handful of gaudy seals. He knew the Yankees came to rob white -people, but he thought they came to save niggers. “Hand over that -watch!” they said. Minus his fine watch and chain, Eben returned a -sadder and a wiser man. He was soon in his shirt-sleeves, whistling at -his knife-board. “Why? You here? Why did you come back so soon?” he was -asked. “Well, I thought may be I better stay with ole marster that give -me the watch, and not go with them that stole it.” The watch was the -pride of his life. The iron had entered his soul. - -Went up to my old house, “Kamschatka.” The Trapiers live there now. In -those drawing-rooms where the children played Puss in Boots, where we -have so often danced and sung, but never prayed before, Mr. Trapier -held his prayer-meeting. I do not think I ever did as much weeping or -as bitter in the same space of time. I let myself go; it did me good. -I cried with a will. He prayed that we might have strength to stand up -and bear our bitter disappointment, to look on our ruined homes and our -desolated country and be strong. And he prayed for the man “we elected -to be our ruler and guide.” We knew that they had put him in a dungeon -and in chains.[134] Men watch him day and night. By orders of Andy, -the bloody-minded tailor, nobody above the rank of colonel can take -the benefit of the amnesty oath, nobody who owns over twenty thousand -dollars, or who has assisted the Confederates. And now, ye rich men, -howl, for your misery has come upon you. You are beyond the outlaw, -camping outside. Howell Cobb and R. M. T. Hunter have been arrested. Our -turn will come next, maybe. A Damocles sword hanging over a house does -not conduce to a pleasant life. - -_June 12th._—Andy, made lord of all by the madman, Booth, says, -“Destruction only to the wealthy classes.” Better teach the negroes to -stand alone before you break up all they leaned on, O Yankees! After all, -the number who possess over $20,000 are very few. - -Andy has shattered some fond hopes. He denounces Northern men who came -South to espouse our cause. They may not take the life-giving oath. My -husband will remain quietly at home. He has done nothing that he had not -a right to do, nor anything that he is ashamed of. He will not fly from -his country, nor hide anywhere in it. These are his words. He has a huge -volume of Macaulay, which seems to absorb him. Slily I slipped Silvio -Pellico in his way. He looked at the title and moved it aside. “Oh,” said -I, “I only wanted you to refresh your memory as to a prisoner’s life and -what a despotism can do to make its captives happy!” - -Two weddings—in Camden, Ellen Douglas Ancrum to Mr. Lee, engineer and -architect, a clever man, which is the best investment now. In Columbia, -Sally Hampton and John Cheves Haskell, the bridegroom, a brave, one-armed -soldier. - -A wedding to be. Lou McCord’s. And Mrs. McCord is going about -frantically, looking for eggs “to mix and make into wedding-cake,” and -finding none. She now drives the funniest little one-mule vehicle. - - * * * * * - -I have been ill since I last wrote in this journal. Serena’s letter came. -She says they have been visited by bush-whackers, the roughs that always -follow in the wake of an army. My sister Kate they forced back against -the wall. She had Katie, the baby, in her arms, and Miller, the brave -boy, clung to his mother, though he could do no more. They tried to pour -brandy down her throat. They knocked Mary down with the butt end of a -pistol, and Serena they struck with an open hand, leaving the mark on her -cheek for weeks. - -Mr. Christopher Hampton says in New York people have been simply -intoxicated with the fumes of their own glory. Military prowess is a -new wrinkle of delight to them. They are mad with pride that, ten to -one, they could, after five years’ hard fighting, prevail over us, -handicapped, as we were, with a majority of aliens, _quasi_ foes, and -negro slaves whom they tried to seduce, shut up with us. They pay us the -kind of respectful fear the British meted out to Napoleon when they sent -him off with Sir Hudson Lowe to St. Helena, the lone rock by the sea, to -eat his heart out where he could not alarm them more. - -Of course, the Yankees know and say they were too many for us, and yet -they would all the same prefer not to try us again. Would Wellington be -willing to take the chances of Waterloo once more with Grouchy, Blücher, -and all that left to haphazard? Wigfall said to old Cameron[135] in -1861, “Then you will a sutler be, and profit shall accrue.” Christopher -Hampton says that in some inscrutable way in the world North, everybody -“has contrived to amass fabulous wealth by this war.” - -There are two classes of vociferous sufferers in this community: 1. Those -who say, “If people would only pay me what they owe me!” 2. Those who -say, “If people would only let me alone. I can not pay them. I could -stand it if I had anything with which to pay debts.” - -Now we belong to both classes. Heavens! the sums people owe us and will -not, or can not, pay, would settle all our debts ten times over and leave -us in easy circumstances for life. But they will not pay. How can they? - -We are shut in here, turned with our faces to a dead wall. No mails. A -letter is sometimes brought by a man on horseback, traveling through the -wilderness made by Sherman. All railroads have been destroyed and the -bridges are gone. We are cut off from the world, here to eat out our -hearts. Yet from my window I look out on many a gallant youth and maiden -fair. The street is crowded and it is a gay sight. Camden is thronged -with refugees from the low country, and here they disport themselves. -They call the walk in front of Bloomsbury “the Boulevard.” - -H. Lang tells us that poor Sandhill Milly Trimlin is dead, and that as a -witch she had been denied Christian burial. Three times she was buried in -consecrated ground in different churchyards, and three times she was dug -up by a superstitious horde, who put her out of their holy ground. Where -her poor, old, ill-used bones are lying now I do not know. I hope her -soul is faring better than her body. She was a good, kind creature. Why -supposed to be a witch? That H. Lang could not elucidate. - -Everybody in our walk of life gave Milly a helping hand. She was a -perfect specimen of the Sandhill “tackey” race, sometimes called -“country crackers.” Her skin was yellow and leathery, even the whites -of her eyes were bilious in color. She was stumpy, strong, and lean, -hard-featured, horny-fisted. Never were people so aided in every way as -these Sandhillers. Why do they remain Sandhillers from generation to -generation? Why should Milly never have bettered her condition? - -My grandmother lent a helping hand to her grandmother. My mother did -her best for her mother, and I am sure the so-called witch could never -complain of me. As long as I can remember, gangs of these Sandhill women -traipsed in with baskets to be filled by charity, ready to carry away -anything they could get. All are made on the same pattern, more or less -alike. They were treated as friends and neighbors, not as beggars. They -were asked in to take seats by the fire, and there they sat for hours, -stony-eyed, silent, wearing out human endurance and politeness. But their -husbands and sons, whom we never saw, were citizens and voters! When -patience was at its last ebb, they would open their mouths and loudly -demand whatever they had come to seek. - -One called Judy Bradly, a one-eyed virago, who played the fiddle at -all the Sandhill dances and fandangoes, made a deep impression on my -youthful mind. Her list of requests was always rather long, and once my -grandmother grew restive and actually hesitated. “Woman, do you mean to -let me starve?” she cried furiously. My grandmother then attempted a meek -lecture as to the duty of earning one’s bread. Judy squared her arms -akimbo and answered, “And pray, who made you a judge of the world? Lord, -Lord, if I had ’er knowed I had ter stand all this jaw, I wouldn’t a took -your ole things,” but she did take them and came afterward again and -again. - -_June 27th._—An awful story from Sumter. An old gentleman, who thought -his son dead or in a Yankee prison, heard some one try the front door. It -was about midnight, and these are squally times. He called out, “What is -that?” There came no answer. After a while he heard some one trying to -open a window and he fired. The house was shaken by a fall. Then, after -a long time of dead silence, he went round the house to see if his shot -had done any harm, and found his only son bathed in his own blood on his -father’s door-step. The son was just back from a Yankee prison—one of his -companions said—and had been made deaf by cold and exposure. He did not -hear his father hail him. He had tried to get into the house in the same -old way he used to employ when a boy. - -My sister-in-law in tears of rage and despair, her servants all gone to -“a big meeting at Mulberry,” though she had made every appeal against -their going. “Send them adrift,” some one said, “they do not obey you, or -serve you; they only live on you.” It would break her heart to part with -one of them. But that sort of thing will soon right itself. They will go -off _to better themselves_—we have only to cease paying wages—and that is -easy, for we have no money. - -_July 4th._—Saturday I was in bed with one of my worst headaches. -Occasionally there would come a sob and I thought of my sister insulted -and my little sweet Williams. Another of my beautiful Columbia quartette -had rough experiences. A raider asked the plucky little girl, Lizzie -Hamilton, for a ring which she wore. “You shall not have it,” she said. -The man put a pistol to her head, saying, “Take it off, hand it to me, -or I will blow your brains out.” “Blow away,” said she. The man laughed -and put down his pistol, remarking, “You knew I would not hurt you.” -“Of course, I knew you dared not shoot me. Even Sherman would not stand -that.” - -[Illustration: SARSFIELD, NEAR CAMDEN, S. C. - -Built by General Chesnut after the War, and the Home of himself and Mrs. -Chesnut until they Died. - -From a Recent Photograph.] - -There was talk of the negroes where the Yankees had been—negroes who -flocked to them and showed them where silver and valuables had been -hid by the white people. Ladies’-maids dressed themselves in their -mistresses’ gowns before the owners’ faces and walked off. Now, before -this every one had told me how kind, faithful, and considerate the -negroes had proven. I am sure, after hearing these tales, the fidelity -of my own servants shines out brilliantly. I had taken their conduct too -much as a matter of course. In the afternoon I had some business on our -place, the Hermitage. John drove me down. Our people were all at home, -quiet, orderly, respectful, and at their usual work. In point of fact -things looked unchanged. There was nothing to show that any one of them -had even seen the Yankees, or knew that there was one in existence. - -_July 26th._—I do not write often now, not for want of something to say, -but from a loathing of all I see and hear, and why dwell upon those -things? - -Colonel Chesnut, poor old man, is worse—grows more restless. He seems -to be wild with “homesickness.” He wants to be at Mulberry. When -there he can not see the mighty giants of the forest, the huge, old, -wide-spreading oaks, but he says he feels that he is there so soon as he -hears the carriage rattling across the bridge at the Beaver Dam. - -I am reading French with Johnny—anything to keep him quiet. We gave a -dinner to his company, the small remnant of them, at Mulberry house. -About twenty idle negroes, trained servants, came without leave or -license and assisted. So there was no expense. They gave their time and -labor for a good day’s feeding. I think they love to be at the old place. - -Then I went up to nurse Kate Withers. That lovely girl, barely eighteen, -died of typhoid fever. Tanny wanted his sweet little sister to have -a dress for Mary Boykin’s wedding, where she was to be one of the -bridesmaids. So Tanny took his horses, rode one, and led the other thirty -miles in the broiling sun to Columbia, where he sold the led horse and -came back with a roll of Swiss muslin. As he entered the door, he saw -Kate lying there dying. She died praying that she might die. She was -weary of earth and wanted to be at peace. I saw her die and saw her put -in her coffin. No words of mine can tell how unhappy I am. Six young -soldiers, her friends, were her pall-bearers. As they marched out with -that burden sad were their faces. - -Princess Bright Eyes writes: “Our soldier boys returned, want us to -continue our weekly dances.” Another maiden fair indites: “Here we have -a Yankee garrison. We are told the officers find this the dullest place -they were ever in. They want the ladies to get up some amusement for -them. They also want to get into society.” - -From Isabella in Columbia: “General Hampton is home again. He looks -crushed. How can he be otherwise? His beautiful home is in ruins, and -ever present with him must be the memory of the death tragedy which -closed forever the eyes of his glorious boy, Preston! Now! there strikes -up a serenade to General Ames, the Yankee commander, by a military band, -of course.... Your last letters have been of the meagerest. What is the -matter?” - - * * * * * - -_August 2d._—Dr. Boykin and John Witherspoon were talking of a nation in -mourning, of blood poured out like rain on the battle-fields—for what? -“Never let me hear that the blood of the brave has been shed in vain! No; -it sends a cry down through all time.” - - - - -FOOTNOTES - - -[1] A reference to John Brown of Harper’s Ferry. - -[2] This and other French names to be met with in this Diary are of -Huguenot origin. - -[3] A reference to what was known as “the Bluffton movement” of 1844, in -South Carolina. It aimed at secession, but was voted down. - -[4] Francis W. Pickens, Governor of South Carolina, 1860-62. He had been -elected to Congress in 1834 as a Nullifier, but had voted against the -“Bluffton movement.” From 1858 to 1860, he was Minister to Russia. He was -a wealthy planter and had fame as an orator. - -[5] The Convention, which on December 20, 1860, passed the famous -Ordinance of Secession, and had first met in Columbia, the State capital. - -[6] Robert Anderson, Major of the First Artillery, United States Army, -who, on November 20, 1860, was placed in command of the troops in -Charleston harbor. On the night of December 26th, fearing an attack, he -had moved his command to Fort Sumter. Anderson was a graduate of West -Point and a veteran of the Black Hawk, Florida, and Mexican Wars. - -[7] A native of Georgia, Howell Cobb had long served in Congress, and in -1849 was elected Speaker. In 1851 he was elected Governor of Georgia, and -in 1857 became Secretary of the Treasury in Buchanan’s Administration. -In 1861 he was a delegate from Georgia to the Provisional Congress which -adopted the Constitution of the Confederacy, and presided over each of -its four sessions. - -[8] Andrew Bary Moore, elected Governor of Alabama in 1859. In 1861, -before Alabama seceded, he directed the seizure of United States forts -and arsenals and was active afterward in the equipment of State troops. - -[9] Robert Toombs, a native of Georgia, who early acquired fame as a -lawyer, served in the Creek War under General Scott, became known in 1842 -as a “State Rights Whig,” being elected to Congress, where he was active -in the Compromise measures of 1850. He served in the United States Senate -from 1853 to 1861, where he was a pronounced advocate of the sovereignty -of States, the extension of slavery, and secession. He was a member of -the Confederate Congress at its first session and, by a single vote, -failed of election as President of the Confederacy. After the war, he was -conspicuous for his hostility to the Union. - -[10] Robert Woodward Barnwell, of South Carolina, a graduate of Harvard, -twice a member of Congress and afterward United States Senator. In -1860, after the passage of the Ordinance of Secession, he was one of -the Commissioners who went to Washington to treat with the National -Government for its property within the State. He was a member of the -Convention at Montgomery and gave the casting vote which made Jefferson -Davis President of the Confederacy. - -[11] Alexander H. Stephens, the eminent statesman of Georgia, who before -the war had been conspicuous in all the political movements of his time -and in 1861 became Vice-President of the Confederacy. After the war he -again became conspicuous in Congress and wrote a history entitled “The -War between the States.” - -[12] Benjamin H. Hill, who had already been active in State and National -affairs when the Secession movement was carried through. He had been an -earnest advocate of the Union until in Georgia the resolution was passed -declaring that the State ought to secede. He then became a prominent -supporter of secession. He was a member of the Confederate Congress, -which met in Montgomery in 1861, and served in the Confederate Senate -until the end of the war. After the war, he was elected to Congress and -opposed the Reconstruction policy of that body. In 1877 he was elected -United States Senator from Georgia. - -[13] Governor Herschel V. Johnson also declined, and doubtless for -similar reasons, to accept a challenge from Alexander H. Stephens, who, -though endowed with the courage of a gladiator, was very small and frail. - -[14] It was at this Congress that Jefferson Davis, on February 9, 1861, -was elected President, and Alexander H. Stephens Vice-President of the -Confederacy. The Congress continued to meet in Montgomery until its -removal to Richmond, in July, 1861. - -[15] Stephen R. Mallory was the son of a shipmaster of Connecticut, who -had settled in Key West in 1820. From 1851 to 1861 Mr. Mallory was United -States Senator from Florida, and after the formation of the Confederacy, -became its Secretary of the Navy. - -[16] John Archibald Campbell, who had settled in Montgomery and was -appointed Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court by -President Pierce in 1853. Before he resigned, he exerted all his -influence to prevent Civil War and opposed secession, although he -believed that States had a right to secede. - -[17] Mrs. Chesnut’s father was Stephen Decatur Miller, who was born in -South Carolina in 1787, and died in Mississippi in 1838. He was elected -to Congress in 1816, as an Anti-Calhoun Democrat, and from 1828 to 1830 -was Governor of South Carolina. He favored Nullification, and in 1830 was -elected United States Senator from South Carolina, but resigned three -years afterward in consequence of ill health. In 1835 he removed to -Mississippi and engaged in cotton growing. - -[18] John C. Calhoun had died in March, 1850. - -[19] Joseph B. Kershaw, a native of Camden, S. C., who became famous in -connection with “The Kershaw Brigade” and its brilliant record at Bull -Run, Fredericksburg, Chickamauga, Spottsylvania, and elsewhere throughout -the war. - -[20] Colonel Chesnut, the author’s father-in-law, was born about 1760. -He was a prominent South Carolina planter and a public-spirited man. -The family had originally settled in Virginia, where the farm had been -overrun by the French and Indians at the time of Braddock’s campaign, the -head of the family being killed at Fort Duquesne. Colonel Chesnut, of -Mulberry, had been educated at Princeton, and his wife was a Philadelphia -woman. In the final chapter of this Diary, the author gives a charming -sketch of Colonel Chesnut. - -[21] John Lawrence Manning was a son of Richard I. Manning, a former -Governor of South Carolina. He was himself elected Governor of that State -in 1852, was a delegate to the convention that nominated Buchanan, and -during the War of Secession served on the staff of General Beauregard. In -1865 he was chosen United States Senator from South Carolina, but was not -allowed to take his seat. - -[22] Son of Langdon Cheves, an eminent lawyer of South Carolina, who -served in Congress from 1810 to 1814; he was elected Speaker of the House -of Representatives, and from 1819 to 1823 was President of the United -States Bank; he favored Secession, but died before it was accomplished—in -1857. - -[23] William Henry Trescott, a native of Charleston, was Assistant -Secretary of State of the United States in 1860, but resigned after South -Carolina seceded. After the war he had a successful career as a lawyer -and diplomatist. - -[24] James Louis Petigru before the war had reached great distinction -as a lawyer and stood almost alone in his State as an opponent of -the Nullification movement of 1830-1832. In 1860 he strongly opposed -disunion, although he was then an old man of 71. His reputation has -survived among lawyers because of the fine work he did in codifying the -laws of South Carolina. - -[25] John Hugh Means was elected Governor of South Carolina in 1850, -and had long been an advocate of secession. He was a delegate to the -Convention of 1860 and affixed his name to the Ordinance of Secession. He -was killed at the second battle of Bull Run in August, 1862. - -[26] James H. Adams was a graduate of Yale, who in 1832 strongly opposed -Nullification, and in 1855 was elected Governor of South Carolina. - -[27] Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard was born in New Orleans in 1818, -and graduated from West Point in the class of 1838. He served in the -war with Mexico; had been superintendent of the Military Academy at -West Point a few days only, when in February, 1861, he resigned his -commission in the Army of the United States and offered his services to -the Confederacy. - -[28] Louis Trezevant Wigfall was a native of South Carolina, but removed -to Texas after being admitted to the bar, and from that State was elected -United States Senator, becoming an uncompromising defender of the South -on the slave question. After the war he lived in England, but in 1873 -settled in Baltimore. He had a wide Southern reputation as a forcible and -impassioned speaker. - -[29] The annual balls of the St. Cecilia Society in Charleston are still -the social events of the season. To become a member of the St. Cecilia -Society is a sort of presentation at court in the sense of giving social -recognition to one who was without the pale. - -[30] Charles Cotesworth Pinckney was a brigadier-general in the -Revolution and a member of the Convention that framed the Constitution -of the United States. He was an ardent Federalist and twice declined -to enter a National Cabinet, but in 1796 accepted the office of -United States Minister to France. He was the Federalist candidate -for Vice-President in 1800 and for President in 1804 and 1808. Other -distinguished men in this family were Thomas, Charles, Henry Laurens, and -Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, the second. - -[31] Caroline Hampton, a daughter of General Wade Hampton, of the -Revolution, was the wife of John S. Preston, an ardent advocate of -secession, who served on the staff of Beauregard at Bull Run and -subsequently reached the rank of brigadier-general. - -[32] William Howard Russell, a native of Dublin, who served as a -correspondent of the London Times during the Crimean War, the Indian -Mutiny, the War of Secession and the Franco-German War. He has been -familiarly known as “Bull Run Russell.” In 1875 he was honorary Secretary -to the Prince of Wales during the Prince’s visit to India. - -[33] The “Sally Baxter” of the recently published “Thackeray Letters to -an American Family.” - -[34] William Gilmore Simms, the Southern novelist, was born in Charleston -in 1806. He was the author of a great many volumes dealing with Southern -life, and at one time they were widely read. - -[35] Wade Hampton was a son of another Wade Hampton, who was an aide to -General Jackson at the battle of New Orleans, and a grandson of still -another Wade Hampton, who was a general in the Revolution. He was not -in favor of secession, but when the war began he enlisted as a private -and then raised a command of infantry, cavalry, and artillery, which as -“Hampton’s Legion” won distinction in the war. After the war, he was -elected Governor of South Carolina and was then elected to the United -States Senate. - -[36] John Hemphill was a native of South Carolina, who had removed to -Texas, where he became Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the State, -and in 1858 was elected United States Senator. - -[37] Matthias Ward was a native of Georgia, but had removed to Texas in -1836. He was twice a delegate to National Democratic Conventions, and -in 1858 was appointed to fill a vacancy from Texas in the United States -Senate, holding that office until 1860. - -[38] Mrs. Johnston was Lydia McLane, a daughter of Louis McLane, United -States Senator from Delaware from 1827 to 1829, and afterward Minister -to England. In 1831 he became Secretary of the Treasury and in 1833 -Secretary of State. General Joseph E. Johnston was graduated from West -Point in 1829 and had served in the Black Hawk, Seminole, and Mexican -Wars. He resigned his commission in the United States Army on April 22, -1861. - -[39] Mr. Hunter was a Virginian. He had long served in Congress, was -twice speaker of the House, and in 1844 was elected a United States -Senator, serving until 1861. He supported slavery and became active in -the secession movement. At the Charleston Convention in 1860, he received -the next highest vote to Stephen A. Douglas for President. - -[40] Ephraim Elmer Ellsworth was a native of Saratoga County, New York. -In 1860 he organized a regiment of Zouaves and became its Colonel. He -accompanied Lincoln to Washington in 1861 and was soon sent with his -regiment to Alexandria, where, on seeing a Confederate flag floating from -a hotel, he personally rushed to the roof and tore it down. The owner of -the hotel, a man named Jackson, met him as he was descending and shot him -dead. Frank E. Brownell, one of Ellsworth’s men, then killed Jackson. - -[41] William H. Emory had served in Charleston harbor during the -Nullification troubles of 1831-1836. In 1846 he went to California, -afterward served in the Mexican War, and later assisted in running the -boundary line between Mexico and the United States under the Gadsden -Treaty of 1853. In 1854 he was in Kansas and in 1858 in Utah. After -resigning his commission, as related by the author, he was reappointed a -Lieutenant-Colonel in the United States Army and took an active part in -the war on the side of the North. - -[42] John Bankhead Magruder was a graduate of West Point, who had served -in the Mexican War, and afterward while stationed at Newport, R. I., had -become famous for his entertainments. When Virginia seceded, he resigned -his commission in the United States Army. After the war he settled in -Houston, Texas. - -The battle of Big Bethel was fought on June 10, 1861. The Federals lost -in killed and wounded about 100, among them Theodore Winthrop, of New -York, author of Cecil Dreeme. The Confederate losses were very slight. - -[43] The battle of the Cowpens in South Carolina was fought on January -17, 1781; the British, under Colonel Tarleton, being defeated by General -Morgan, with a loss to the British of 300 killed and wounded and 500 -prisoners. - -[44] Horace Binney, one of the foremost lawyers of Philadelphia, who -was closely associated with the literary, scientific, and philanthropic -interests of his time. His wife was a sister of Mrs. Chesnut, the -author’s mother-in-law. - -[45] Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus Lamar, a native of Georgia and of -Huguenot descent, who got his classical names from his father: his father -got them from an uncle who claimed the privilege of bestowing upon his -nephew the full name of his favorite hero. When the war began, Mr. Lamar -had lived for some years in Mississippi, where he had become successful -as a lawyer and had been elected to Congress. He entered the Confederate -Army as the Colonel of a Mississippi regiment. He served in Congress -after the war and was elected to the United States Senate in 1877. In -1885 he became Secretary of the Interior, and in 1888, a justice of the -United States Supreme Court. - -[46] Bradley Tyler Johnson, a native of Maryland, and graduate of -Princeton, who had studied law at Harvard. At the beginning of the war he -organized a company at his own expense in defense of the South. He was -the author of a Life of General Joseph E. Johnston. - -[47] Faustin Elie Soulouque, a negro slave of Hayti, who, having been -freed, took part in the insurrection against the French in 1803, and rose -by successive steps until in August, 1849, by the unanimous action of the -parliament, he was proclaimed emperor. - -[48] At Camden in August, 1780, was fought a battle between General -Gates and Lord Cornwallis, in which Gates was defeated. In April of the -following year near Camden, Lord Rawdon defeated General Greene. - -[49] Augustus Baldwin Longstreet had great distinction in the South as a -lawyer, clergyman, teacher, journalist, and author, and was successively -president of five different colleges. His Georgia Scenes, a series of -humorous papers, enjoyed great popularity for many years. - -[50] Rev. Robert Barnwell, nephew of Hon. Robert Barnwell, established in -Richmond a hospital for South Carolinians. - -[51] The first battle of Bull Run, or Manassas, fought on July 21, 1861, -the Confederates being commanded by General Beauregard, and the Federals -by General McDowell. Bull Run is a small stream tributary to the Potomac. - -[52] Edmund Kirby Smith, a native of Florida, who had graduated from West -Point, served in the Mexican War, and been Professor of Mathematics at -West Point. He resigned his commission in the United States Army after -the secession of Florida. - -[53] Henry Wilson, son of a farm laborer and self-educated, who rose -to much prominence in the Anti-Slavery contests before the war. He was -elected United States Senator from Massachusetts in 1855, holding the -office until 1873, when he resigned, having been elected Vice-President -of the United States on the ticket with Ulysses S. Grant. - -[54] James Harlan, United States Senator from Iowa from 1855 to 1865. In -1865 he was appointed Secretary of the Interior. - -[55] Jerome Napoleon Bonaparte, a grandson of Napoleon Bonaparte’s -brother Jerome and of Elizabeth Patterson of Baltimore. He was a graduate -of West Point, but had entered the French Army, where he saw service in -the Crimea, Algiers, and Italy, taking part in the battle of Balaklava, -the siege of Sebastopol, and the battle of Solferino. He died in -Massachusetts in 1893. - -[56] Mrs. Davis was born in Natchez, Mississippi, and educated in -Philadelphia. She was married to Mr. Davis in 1845. In recent years her -home has been in New York City, where she still resides (Dec. 1904). - -[57] Samuel Barron was a native of Virginia, who had risen to be a -captain in the United States Navy. At the time of Secession he received a -commission as Commodore in the Confederate Navy. - -[58] The reference is to John Bright, whose advocacy of the cause of the -Union in the British Parliament attracted a great deal of attention at -the time. - -[59] James Murray Mason was a grandson of George Mason, and had been -elected United States Senator from Virginia in 1847. In 1851 he drafted -the Fugitive Slave Law. His mission to England in 1861 was shared by -John Slidell. On November 8, 1861, while on board the British steamer -Trent, in the Bahamas, they were captured by an American named Wilkes, -and imprisoned in Boston until January 2, 1862. A famous diplomatic -difficulty arose with England over this affair. John Slidell was a native -of New York, who had settled in Louisiana and became a Member of Congress -from that State in 1843. In 1853 he was elected to the United States -Senate. - -[60] The battle of Rich Mountain, in Western Virginia, was fought July -11, 1861, and General Garnett, Commander of the Confederate forces, -pursued by General McClellan, was killed at Carrick’s Ford, July 13th, -while trying to rally his rear-guard. - -[61] William Lowndes Yancey was a native of Virginia, who settled in -Alabama, and in 1844 was elected to Congress, where he became a leader -among the supporters of slavery and an advocate of secession. He was -famous in his day as an effective public speaker. - -[62] By reason of illness, preoccupation in other affairs, and various -deterrent causes besides, Mrs. Chesnut allowed a considerable period to -elapse before making another entry in her diary. - -[63] Fort Donelson stood on the Cumberland River about 60 miles northwest -of Nashville. The Confederate garrison numbered about 18,000 men. General -Grant invested the Fort on February 13, 1862, and General Buckner, who -commanded it, surrendered on February 16th. The Federal force at the time -of the surrender numbered 27,000 men; their loss in killed and wounded -being 2,660 men and the Confederate loss about 2,000. - -[64] General Burnside captured the Confederate garrison at Roanoke Island -on February 8, 1862. - -[65] Nashville was evacuated by the Confederates under Albert Sidney -Johnston, in February, 1862. - -[66] Richard, Lord Lyons, British minister to the United States from 1858 -to 1865. - -[67] Lord Russell was Foreign Secretary under the Palmerston -administration of 1859 to 1865. - -[68] Mary McDuffie was the second wife of Wade Hampton. - -[69] The Merrimac was formerly a 40-gun screw frigate of the United -States Navy. In April, 1861, when the Norfolk Navy-yard was abandoned -by the United States she was sunk. Her hull was afterward raised by the -Confederates and she was reconstructed on new plans, and renamed the -Virginia. On March 2, 1862, she destroyed the Congress, a sailing-ship of -50 guns, and the Cumberland, a sailing-ship of 30 guns, at Newport News. -On March 7th she attacked the Minnesota, but was met by the Monitor and -defeated in a memorable engagement. Many features of modern battle-ships -have been derived from the Merrimac and Monitor. - -[70] On March 7 and 8, 1862, occurred the battle of Pea Ridge in Western -Arkansas, where the Confederates were defeated, and on March 8th and 9th, -occurred the conflict in Hampton Roads between the warships Merrimac, -Cumberland, Congress, and Monitor. - -[71] Louisa Susanna McCord, whose husband was David J. McCord, a lawyer -of Columbia, who died in 1855. She was educated in Philadelphia, and -was the author of several books of verse, including Caius Gracchus, a -tragedy; she was also a brilliant pamphleteer. - -[72] John D. Floyd, who had been Governor of Virginia from 1850 to -1853, became Secretary of War in 1857. He was first in command at Fort -Donelson. Gideon J. Pillow had been a Major-General of volunteers in the -Mexican War and was second in command at Fort Donelson. He and Floyd -escaped from the Fort when it was invested by Grant, leaving General -Buckner to make the surrender. - -[73] Joseph Le Conte, who afterward arose to much distinction as a -geologist and writer of text-books on geology. He died in 1901, while he -was connected with the University of California. His work at Columbia was -to manufacture, on a large scale, medicines for the Confederate Army, -his laboratory being the main source of supply. In Professor Le Conte’s -autobiography published in 1903, are several chapters devoted to his life -in the South. - -[74] New Madrid, Missouri, had been under siege since March 3, 1862. - -[75] The Emancipation Proclamation was not actually issued until -September 22, 1862, when it was a notice to the Confederates to return -to the Union, emancipation being proclaimed as a result of their failure -to do so. The real proclamation, freeing the slaves, was delayed until -January 1, 1863, when it was put forth as a war measure. Mrs. Chesnut’s -reference is doubtless to President Lincoln’s Message to Congress, March -6, 1862, in which he made recommendations regarding the abolition of -slavery. - -[76] The battle of Shiloh, or Pittsburg Landing, in Tennessee, -eighty-eight miles east of Memphis, had been fought on April 6 and 7, -1862. The Federals were commanded by General Grant who, on the second -day, was reenforced by General Buell. The Confederates were commanded by -Albert Sidney Johnston on the first day, when Johnston was killed, and on -the second day by General Beauregard. - -[77] New Orleans had been seized by the Confederates at the outbreak -of the war. Steps to capture it were soon taken by the Federals and on -April 18, 1862, the mortar flotilla, under Farragut, opened fire on -its protecting forts. Making little impression on them, Farragut ran -boldly past the forts and destroyed the Confederate fleet, comprising 13 -gunboats and two ironclads. On April 27th he took formal possession of -the city. - -[78] The Siege of Yorktown was begun on April 5, 1862, the place being -evacuated by the Confederates on May 4th. - -[79] The battle of Williamsburg was fought on May 5, 1862, by a part of -McClellan’s army, under General Hooker and others, the Confederates being -commanded by General Johnston. - -[80] General Benjamin F. Butler took command of New Orleans on May 2, -1862. The author’s reference is to his famous “Order No. 28,” which -reads: “As the officers and soldiers of the United States have been -subject to repeated insults from the women (calling themselves ladies) -of New Orleans, in return for the most scrupulous non-interference and -courtesy on our part, it is ordered that hereafter when any female shall -by word, gesture, or movement, insult or show contempt for any officer or -soldier of the United States she shall be regarded and held liable to be -treated as a woman of the town plying her vocation.” This and other acts -of Butler in New Orleans led Jefferson Davis to issue a proclamation, -declaring Butler to be a felon and an outlaw, and if captured that he -should be instantly hanged. In December Butler was superseded at New -Orleans by General Banks. - -[81] The Battle of Fair Oaks or Seven Pines, took place a few miles east -of Richmond, on May 31 and June 1, 1862, the Federals being commanded by -McClellan and the Confederates by General Joseph E. Johnston. - -[82] Fort Pillow was on the Mississippi above Memphis. It had been -erected by the Confederates, but was occupied by the Federals on June 5, -1862, the Confederates having evacuated and partially destroyed it the -day before. On June 6, 1862, the Federal fleet defeated the Confederates -near Memphis. The city soon afterward was occupied by the Federals. - -[83] Corinth was besieged by the Federals, under General Halleck, in May, -1862, and was evacuated by the Confederates under Beauregard on May 29th. - -[84] She lost her life in the Windsor Hotel fire in New York. - -[85] This must be a reference to the Battle of Seven Pines or to the -Campaign of the Chickahominy, up to and inclusive of that battle. - -[86] The battle of Secessionville occurred on James Island, in the harbor -of Charleston, June 16, 1862. - -[87] Malvern Hill, the last of the Seven Days’ Battles, was fought near -Richmond on the James River, July 1, 1862. The Federals were commanded by -McClellan and the Confederates by Lee. - -[88] The first battle of the Chickahominy, fought on June 27, 1862. It -is better known as the battle of Gaines’s Mill, or Cold Harbor. It was -participated in by a part of Lee’s army and a part of McClellan’s, and -its scene was about eight miles from Richmond. - -[89] Henry M. Rice, United States Senator from Minnesota, who had -emigrated to that State from Vermont in 1835. - -[90] Of ameliorations in modern warfare, Dr. John T. Darby said in -addressing the South Carolina Medical Association, Charleston, in 1873: -“On the route from the army to the general hospital, wounds are dressed -and soldiers refreshed at wayside homes; and here be it said with justice -and pride that the credit of originating this system is due to the women -of South Carolina. In a small room in the capital of this State, the -first Wayside Home was founded; and during the war, some seventy-five -thousand soldiers were relieved by having their wounds dressed, their -ailments attended, and very frequently by being clothed through the -patriotic services and good offices of a few untiring ladies in Columbia. -From this little nucleus, spread that grand system of wayside hospitals -which was established during our own and the late European wars.” - -[91] Flat Rock was the summer resort of many cultured families from the -low countries of the South before the war. Many attractive houses had -been built there. It lies in the region which has since become famous as -the Asheville region, and in which stands Biltmore. - -[92] The battle of Sharpsburg, or Antietam, one of the bloodiest of the -war, was fought in western Maryland, a few miles north of Harper’s Ferry, -on September 16 and 17, 1862, the Federals being under McClellan, and the -Confederates under Lee. - -[93] The battle of Chancellorsville, where the losses on each side were -more than ten thousand men, was fought about fifty miles northwest of -Richmond on May 2, 3, and 4, 1863. The Confederates were under Lee and -the Federals under Hooker. In this battle Stonewall Jackson was killed. - -[94] During the summer of 1862, after the battle of Malvern Hill and -before Sharpsburg, or Antietam, the following important battles had taken -place: Harrison’s Landing, July 3d and 4th; Harrison’s Landing again, -July 31st; Cedar Mountain, August 9th; Bull Run (second battle), August -29th and 30th, and South Mountain, September 14th. - -[95] Clement Baird Vallandigham was an Ohio Democrat who represented the -extreme wing of Northern sympathizers with the South. He was arrested by -United States troops in May, 1863, court-martialed and banished to the -Confederacy. Not being well received in the South, he went to Canada, but -after the war returned to Ohio. - -[96] Vicksburg surrendered on July 4, 1863. Since the close of 1862, it -had again and again been assaulted by Grant and Sherman. It was commanded -by Johnston and Pemberton, Pemberton being in command at the time of the -surrender. John C. Pemberton was a native of Philadelphia, a graduate of -West Point, and had served in the Mexican War. - -[97] Hood was a native of Kentucky and a graduate of West Point. - -[98] Drury’s Bluff lies eight miles south of Richmond on the James River. -Here, on May 16, 1864, the Confederates under Beauregard repulsed the -Federals under Butler. - -[99] The battle of Brandy Station, Va., occurred June 9, 1863. - -[100] George S. Stoneman, a graduate of West Point, was now a -Major-General, and Chief of Artillery in the Army of the Potomac. His -raid toward Richmond in 1863 was a memorable incident of the war. After -the war, he became Governor of California. - -[101] Miss Constance Cary afterward married Burton Harrison and settled -in New York where she became prominent socially and achieved reputation -as a novelist. - -[102] The battle of Chickamauga was fought on the river of the same -name, near Chattanooga, September 19 and 20, 1863. The Confederates were -commanded by Bragg and the Federals by Rosecrans. It was one of the -bloodiest battles of the war; the loss on each side, including killed, -wounded, and prisoners, was over 15,000. - -[103] John C. Breckinridge had been Vice-President of the United States -under Buchanan and was the candidate of the Southern Democrats for -President in 1860. He joined the Confederate Army in 1861. - -[104] Braxton Bragg was a native of North Carolina and had won -distinction in the war with Mexico. - -[105] John R. Thompson was a native of Richmond and in 1847 became editor -of the Southern Literary Messenger. Under his direction, that periodical -acquired commanding influence. Mr. Thompson’s health failed afterward. -During the war he spent a part of his time in Richmond and a part in -Europe. He afterward settled in New York and became literary editor of -the Evening Post. - -[106] The siege of Chattanooga, which had been begun on September -21st, closed late in November, 1863, the final engagements beginning -on November 23d, and ending on November 25th. Lookout Mountain and -Missionary Ridge were the closing incidents of the siege. Grant, Sherman, -and Hooker were conspicuous on the Federal side and Bragg and Longstreet -on the Confederate. - -[107] Following the battle of Gettysburg on July 1st, 2d, and 3d, of this -year, there had occurred in Virginia between Lee and Meade engagements -at Bristoe’s Station, Kelly’s Ford, and Rappahannock Station, the latter -engagement taking place on November 7th. The author doubtless refers here -to the positions of Lee and Meade at Mine Run, December 1st. December 2d -Meade abandoned his, because (as he is reported to have said) it would -have cost him 30,000 men to carry Lee’s breastworks, and he shrank from -ordering such slaughter. - -[108] Burton Harrison, then secretary to Jefferson Davis, who married -Miss Constance Cary and became well known as a New York lawyer. He died -in Washington in 1904. - -[109] Simon B. Buckner was a graduate of West Point and had served in -the Mexican War. In 1887 he was elected Governor of Kentucky and, at the -funeral of General Grant, acted as one of the pall-bearers. - -[110] John H. Morgan, a native of Alabama, entered the Confederate -army in 1861 as a Captain and in 1862 was made a Major-General. He was -captured by the Federals in 1863 and confined in an Ohio penitentiary, -but he escaped and once more joined the Confederate army. In September, -1864, he was killed in battle near Greenville, Tenn. - -[111] Judah P. Benjamin, was born, of Jewish parentage, at St. Croix -in the West Indies, and was elected in 1852 to represent Louisiana -in the United States Senate, where he served until 1861. In the -Confederate administration he served successively from 1861 to 1865 as -Attorney-General, Secretary of War, and Secretary of State. At the close -of the war he went to England where he achieved remarkable success at the -bar. - -[112] The New York Hotel, covering a block front on Broadway at Waverley -Place, was a favorite stopping place for Southerners for many years -before the war and after it. In comparatively recent times it was torn -down and supplanted by a business block. - -[113] General Polk, commanding about 24,000 men scattered throughout -Mississippi and Alabama, found it impossible to check the advance of -Sherman at the head of some 40,000, and moved from Meridian south to -protect Mobile. February 16, 1864, Sherman took possession of Meridian. - -[114] Colonel Ulric Dahlgren was a son of the noted Admiral, John -H. Dahlgren, who, in July, 1863, had been placed in command of the -South Atlantic Blockading Squadron and conducted the naval operations -against Charleston, between July 10 and September 7, 1863. Colonel -Dahlgren distinguished himself at Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, and -Gettysburg. The raid in which he lost his life on March 4, 1864, was -planned by himself and General Kilpatrick. - -[115] During the month of May, 1864, important battles had been fought in -Virginia, including that of the Wilderness on May 6th-7th, and the series -later in that month around Spottsylvania Court House. - -[116] The battle of Stony Creek in Virginia was fought on June 28-29, -1864. - -[117] General Johnston in 1863 had been appointed to command the Army of -the Tennessee, with headquarters at Dalton, Georgia. He was to oppose -the advance of Sherman’s army toward Atlanta. In May, 1864, he fought -unsuccessful battles at Resaca and elsewhere, and in July was compelled -to retreat across the Chattahoochee River. Fault was found with him -because of his continual retreating. There were tremendous odds against -him. On July 17th he was superseded by Hood. - -[118] Raphael Semmes was a native of Maryland and had served in the -Mexican War. The Alabama was built for the Confederate States at -Birkenhead, England, and with an English crew and English equipment was -commanded by Semmes. In 1863 and 1864 the Alabama destroyed much Federal -shipping. On June 19, 1864, she was sunk by the Federal ship Kearsarge -in a battle off Cherbourg. Claims against England for damages were made -by the United States, and as a result the Geneva Arbitration Court was -created. Claims amounting to $15,500,000 were finally awarded. This case -has much importance in the history of international law. - -[119] The battle of Mobile Bay, won under Farragut, was fought on August -5, 1864. - -[120] On July 22d, Hood made a sortie from Atlanta, but after a battle -was obliged to return. - -[121] General Forrest made his raid on Memphis in August of this year. - -[122] General McPherson was killed before Atlanta during the sortie made -by Hood on July 22d. He was a native of Ohio, a graduate of West Point, -and under Sherman commanded the Army of the Tennessee. - -[123] After the battle, Atlanta was taken possession of and partly burned -by the Federals. - -[124] During the summer and autumn of 1864 several important battles -had occurred. In addition to the engagements by Sherman’s army farther -south, there had occurred in Virginia the battle of Cold Harbor in the -early part of June; those before Petersburg in the latter part of June -and during July and August; the battle of Winchester on September 19th, -during Sheridan’s Shenandoah campaign, and the battle of Cedar Creek on -October 19th. - -[125] After the war, Dr. Darby became professor of Surgery in the -University of the City of New York; he had served as Medical Director -in the Army of the Confederate States and as Professor of Anatomy and -Surgery in the University of South Carolina; had also served with -distinction in European wars. - -[126] General Sherman had started from Chattanooga for his march across -Georgia on May 6, 1864. He had won the battles of Dalton, Resaca, and New -Hope Church in May, the battle of Kennesaw Mountain in June, the battles -of Peach Tree Creek and Atlanta in July, and had formally occupied -Atlanta on September 2d. On November 16th, he started on his march from -Atlanta to the sea and entered Savannah on December 23d. Early in 1865 -he moved his army northward through the Carolinas, and on April 26th -received the surrender of General Joseph E. Johnston. - -[127] Reference is here made to the battle between Hood and Thomas at -Nashville, the result of which was the breaking up of Hood’s army as a -fighting force. - -[128] Under last date entry, January 17th, the author chronicles events -of later occurrence; it was her not infrequent custom to jot down -happenings in dateless lines or paragraphs. Mr. Blair visited President -Davis January 12th; Stephens, Hunter and Campbell were appointed Peace -Commissioners, January 28th. - -[129] Battles at Hatchen’s Run, in Virginia, had been fought on February -5, 6, and 7, 1865. - -[130] The reference appears to be to General Edward E. Potter, a native -of New York City, who died in 1889. General Potter entered the Federal -service early in the war. He recruited a regiment of North Carolina -troops and engaged in operations in North and South Carolina and Eastern -Tennessee. - -[131] John Taylor was graduated from Princeton in 1790 and became a -planter in South Carolina. He served in Congress from 1806 to 1810, and -in the latter year was chosen to fill a vacancy in the United States -Senate, caused by the resignation of Thomas Sumter. In 1826 he was chosen -Governor of South Carolina. He died in 1832. - -[132] Fort Duquesne stood at the junction of the Monongahela and -Alleghany Rivers. Captain Trent, acting for the Ohio Company, with -some Virginia militiamen, began to build this fort in February, 1754. -On April 17th of the same year, 700 Canadians and French forced him to -abandon the work. The French then completed the fortress and named it -Fort Duquesne. The unfortunate expedition of General Braddock, in the -summer of 1755, was an attempt to retake the fort, Braddock’s defeat -occurring eight miles east of it. In 1758 General Forbes marched westward -from Philadelphia and secured possession of the place, after the French, -alarmed at his approach, had burned it. Forbes gave it the name of -Pittsburg. - -[133] Elizabeth K. Adger, wife of the Rev. John B. Adger, D. D., of -Charleston, a distinguished Presbyterian divine, at one time a missionary -to Smyrna where he translated the Bible into the Armenian tongue. He was -afterward and before the war a professor in the Theological Seminary at -Columbia. His wife was a woman of unusual judgment and intelligence, -sharing her husband’s many hardships and notable experiences in the East. - -[134] Mr. Davis, while encamped near Irwinsville, Ga., had been captured -on May 10th by a body of Federal cavalry under Lieutenant-Colonel -Pritchard. He was taken to Fortress Monroe and confined there for two -years, his release being effected on May 13, 1867, when he was admitted -to bail in the sum of $100,000, the first name on his bail-bond being -that of Horace Greeley. - -[135] Simon Cameron became Secretary of War in Lincoln’s Administration, -on March 4, 1861. On January 11, 1862, he resigned and was made Minister -to Russia. - - - - -INDEX - - - Adams, James H., 26. - - Adger, Mrs. John B., 396. - - Aiken, Gov. William, his style of living, 253. - - Aiken, Miss, her wedding, 240-241. - - Alabama, the, surrender of, 314. - - Alabama Convention, the, 15. - - Alexandria, Va., Ellsworth killed at, 58. - - Allan, Mrs. Scotch, 258. - - Allston, Ben, his duel, 66; - a call from, 73. - - Allston, Col., 234. - - Allston, Washington, 46. - - Anderson, Gen. Richard, 49, 225. - - Anderson, Major Robert, 5; - his mistake, 34; - fired on, in Fort Sumter, 35; - when the fort surrendered, 39; - his flag-staff, 43; - his account of the fall of Fort Sumter, 48; - offered a regiment, 50, 119. - - Antietam, battle of, 213. - - Archer, Capt. Tom, a call from, 113; - his comments on Hood, 318; - his death, 343. - - Athens, Ga., the raid at, 322. - - Atlanta, battle of, 326. - - Auzé, Mrs. —, her troubled life, 179. - - - Bailey, Godard, 388, 389. - - Baldwin, Col. —, 84. - - Baltimore, Seventh Regiment in, 41; - in a blaze, 47. - - Barker, Theodore, 112. - - Barnwell, Edward, 316. - - Barnwell, Mrs. Edward, 208; - and her boy, 253-254. - - Barnwell, Mary, 194, 316. - - Barnwell, Rev. Robert, establishes a hospital, 83; - back in the hospital, 172; - sent for to officiate at a marriage, 185, 194; - his death, 238. - - Barnwell, Mrs. Robert, her death, 239. - - Barnwell, Hon. Robert W., sketch of, 10, 47; - on Fort Sumter, 50, 57, 77; - at dinner with, 98; - and the opposition to Mr. Davis, 104; - on fame, 106; - on democracies, 110, 160; - as to Gen. Chesnut, 163. - - Barron, Commodore Samuel, 101; - an anecdote of, when a middy, 120-122; - a prisoner, 124. - - Bartow, Col. —, 2; - and his wife, 71; - killed at Bull Run, 87; - eulogized in Congress, 90. - - Bartow, Mrs. —, hears of her husband’s death, 87-88; - her husband’s funeral, 88; - a call on, 146, 162; - in one of the departments, 166; - her story of Miss Toombs, 193, 199, 204; - goes to Mulberry, 386. - - Beauregard, Gen. P. G. T., 28; - a demigod, 31; - in council with the Governor, 33, 34; - leaves Montgomery, 50; - at Norfolk, 58; - his report of the capture of Fort Sumter, 62; - and the name Bull Run, 63; - faith in him, 77; - a horse for, 80; - in Richmond, 83-84; - his army in want of food, 97; - not properly supported, 99; - half Frenchman, 102; - letters from, 107, 131; - at Columbus, Miss., 139; - flanked at Nashville, 156; - and Shiloh, 163; - at Huntsville, 165; - fighting his way, 174; - retreating, 175; - evacuates Corinth, 178; - in disfavor, 183; - and Whiting, 307. - - Bedon, Josiah, 369. - - Bedon, Mrs. —, 369. - - Benjamin, Judah P., 278, 287. - - Berrien, Dr. —, 100, 193. - - Berrien, Judge, 166. - - Bibb, Judge, 9. - - Bierne, Bettie, her admirers, 232, 234; - her wedding, 235. - - Big Bethel, battle of, 81; - Magruder at, 196. - - Binney, Horace, his offer to Lincoln, 64; - quoted, 128, 311. - - Blair, Rochelle, 21. - - Blake, Daniel, 214. - - Blake, Frederick, 338. - - Blake, Walter, negroes leave him, 199. - - Bluffton, movement, the, 3. - - Bonaparte, Jerome Napoleon, goes to Washington, 98; - described, 102; - disappointed in Beauregard, 128. - - Boykin, A. H., 35. - - Boykin, Dr., 17, 18, 21, 135, 404. - - Boykin, E. M., 161, 389. - - Boykin, Hamilton, 171. - - Boykin, James, 220. - - Boykin, J. H., 387. - - Boykin, Col. John, 121; - his death in prison, 308. - - Boykin, Kitty, 22. - - Boykin, Mary, 312, 403. - - Boykin, Tom, his company, 58, 135. - - Bradley, Judy, 401. - - Bragg, Gen. Braxton, joins Beauregard, 139, 147; - a stern disciplinarian, 203; - at Chickamauga, 248, 252; - defeated at Chattanooga, 258; - asks to be relieved, 259; - one of his horses, 303. - - Brandy Station, battle of, 236. - - Breckinridge, Gen. John C., 249; - in Richmond, 275; - at the Ives theatricals, 285-286, 289. - - Brewster, Mr. —, 10; - at Fauquier White Sulphur Springs, 77; - remark by, 79; - a talk with, 82; - quoted, 108, 122; - criticism of, 124; - and Hood’s love-affair, 266-267; - on Joe Johnston’s removal, 320, 338. - - Bright, John, his speeches in behalf of the Union, 109. - - Brooks, Preston, 74. - - Brown, Gov., of Georgia, 315. - - Brown, John, of Harper’s Ferry, 1. - - Browne, “Constitution,” going to Washington, 9. - - Browne, Mrs. —, on spies, 206; - describes the Prince of Wales, 207. - - Brumby, Dr. —, 361. - - Buchanan, James, 16, 207. - - Buckner, Gen. Simon B., 131; - in Richmond, 267-268, 275. - - Bull Run, objection to the name, 63; - battle of, 85-90. - See _Manassas_. - - Burnside, Gen. Ambrose E., captures Roanoke Island, 132; - money due from, to Gen. Preston, 159. - - Burroughs, Mrs. —, 189. - - Butler, Gen. B. F., his Order No. 28, 164-165; - at New Orleans, 183, 202; - threatening Richmond, 294; - kind to Roony Lee, 300; - at New Orleans, 346. - - Byron, Lord, as a lover, 297; - quoted, 391. - - - Calhoun, John C., anecdote of, 17. - - Calhoun, Mrs. —, 323. - - Camden, S. C., excitement at, 3; - dwelling in, 21; - the author’s absence from, 22; - the author in, 42-46; - battle of, 75; - a romance in, 120-121; - return to, 127-130, 240-251; - Gen. Chesnut in, 250; - a picnic near, at Mulberry, 251; - return to, 304; - the author in, 384-404. - - Cameron, Simon, a proclamation by, 92, 400. - - Campbell, Judge John A., his resignation, 14; - his family, 77, 247. - - Cantey, Mary, 183. - - Cantey, Zack, 375. - - Capers, Mrs. —, 26. - - Carlyle, Thomas, and slavery in America, 136. - - Carroll, Chancellor, 27. - - Carroll, Judge, 204. - - Cary, Constance, 263; - a call on, 264; - a call from, 272; - a call for, 272; - as Lady Teazle, 276, 277; - as Lydia Languish, 285; - makes a bonnet, 293; - describes a wedding, 300; - and Preston Hampton, 301. - - Cary, Hetty, 244, 260, 272; - Gen. Chesnut with, 274. - - Chancellorsville, battle of, 213, 245. - - Charleston, the author in, 1-5; - Secession Convention adjourns to, 3; - Anderson in Fort Sumter, 5; - war steamer off, 9; - return to, 21-41; - Convention at, in a snarl, 26; - a ship fired into at, 31; - soldiers in streets of, 33; - Anderson refuses to capitulate at, 35; - the fort bombarded, 36; - Bull Run Russell in, 40; - return to, from Montgomery, 57-67; - thin-skinned people in, 60; - its condition good, 163; - bombardment of, 174; - under bombardment, 258; - surrender of, 350. - - Chase, Col. —, 6. - - Chattanooga, siege of, 258. - - Chesnut, Col. James, Sr., sketch of, XVII; - looking for fire, 66; - and Nellie Custis, 93, 122; - his family, 127; - anecdote of, 135; - his losses from the war, 158; - his old wines, 249; - a letter from, 296; - and his wife, 310; - refuses to say grace, 372; - sketch of, 390-392; - illness of, 403. - - Chesnut, Mrs. James, Sr., praises everybody, 59; - and Mt. Vernon, 63; - anecdote of, 66-67; - silver brought from Philadelphia by, 135; - sixty years in the South, 170, 236; - her death, 299; - and her husband, 310-311, 391. - - Chesnut, Gen. James, Jr., his death described, XVIII; - his resignation as U. S. Senator, 3, 4, 9; - with Mr. Davis, 14, 19; - averts a duel, 21, 26; - at target practice, 29; - made an aide to Beauregard, 34; - goes to demand surrender of Fort Sumter, 34; - his interview with Anderson, 35; - orders Fort Sumter fired on, 36; - asleep in Beauregard’s room, 37; - describes the surrender, 39; - with Wade Hampton, 47; - his interview with Anderson, 48; - goes to Alabama, 52; - opposed to leaving Montgomery, 55, 57; - and Davin the spy, 60; - letter from, 63; - and the first shot at Fort Sumter, 65; - letter from, at Manassas Junction, 65; - in Richmond, 69; - a letter from, 74-75; - orders to move on, received by, 80; - receiving spies from Washington, 82; - with Davis and Lee, 83; - his servant Lawrence, 84; - his account of the battle of Bull Run, 88; - speech by, 90; - carries orders at Bull Run, 106; - returns to Columbia, 126; - on slavery, 130; - news for, from Richmond, 132; - criticized, 134; - his address to South Carolinians, 140; - asked to excuse students from military service, 141; - his military affairs, 143, 144; - negroes offer to fight for, 147; - attacked, 148; - reasonable and considerate, 151; - his adventure with Gov. Gist, 153; - illness of, 155; - offered a place on staff of Mr. Davis, 157; - and the fall of New Orleans, 159; - finds a home for negroes, 160; - on a visit to his father, 161; - as to Charleston’s defenses, 163; - promotion for, 163; - at dinner, 166, 167; - called to Richmond, 171; - his self-control, 173; - and the negroes, 181; - returns to Columbia, 190; - off to Richmond, 191, 194; - letter from, on the Seven Days’ fighting, 197; - hears the Confederacy is to be recognized abroad, 201; - staying with President Davis, 202; - his character in Washington, 204; - with Gen. Preston, 207; - his busy life, 215; - in Wilmington, 216; - at Miss Bierne’s wedding, 235; - an anecdote of, 242; - when a raiding party was near Richmond, 245; - at the war office with, 247; - a tour of the West by, 248; - at home reading Thackeray’s novels, 250; - visits Bragg’s army again, 252; - contented, but opposed to more parties, 257; - receives a captured saddle from Gen. Wade Hampton, 258; - manages Judge Wigfall, 261; - his stoicism, 262; - opposed to feasting, 263; - in good humor, 268; - in a better mood, 271; - denounces extravagance, 272; - and Hetty Cary, 274; - popularity of, with the Carys, 277; - with Col. Lamar at dinner, 279; - promotion for, 280; - his pay, 284; - at church, 292; - going to see the President, 293; - made a brigadier-general, 302, 305; - his return to South Carolina, 307; - his work in saving Richmond, 309; - called to Charleston, 315; - his new home in Columbia, 316; - his friend Archer, 318-319; - returns to Columbia, 330; - in Charleston, 337; - says the end has come, 341; - urges his wife to go home, 344-345; - an anecdote of, 346; - escapes capture, 350; - a letter from, 355; - in Lincolnton, 359; - ordered to Chester, S. C., 364; - letter from, 366; - his cotton, 367; - and slavery, 374; - receives news of Lincoln’s assassination, 380; - fate of, 381. - - Chesnut, Mrs. James, Jr., the author, importance of her diary, XIII; - how she wrote it, XV; - her early life, XVI; - her home described, XX; - history of her diary, XXI; - in Charleston, 1-5; - on keeping a journal, 1; - visits Mulberry, 2; - her husband’s resignation as Senator, 3; - in Montgomery, 6-20; - on the political outlook, 7; - hears a story from Robert Toombs, 7; - at dinners, etc., 9-11; - calls on Mrs. Davis, 12; - sees a woman sold at auction, 13; - sees the Confederate flag go up, 14; - at the Confederate Congress, 18; - in Charleston, 21-41; - at Mulberry again, 21; - a petition to, from house-servants, 22; - her father-in-law, 22; - goes to the Charleston Convention, 23; - one of her pleasantest days, 26; - her thirty-eighth birthday, 27; - a trip by, to Morris Island, 31; - her husband goes to Anderson with an ultimatum, 35; - on a housetop when Sumter was bombarded, 35-36; - watching the negroes for a change, 38; - in Camden, 42-46; - the lawn at Mulberry, 43; - her photograph-book, 43; - a story of her maid Maria, 45; - at Montgomery, 47-56; - a cordial welcome to, 48; - a talk by, with A. H. Stephens and others, 49-54; - a visit to Alabama, 52; - at luncheon with Mrs. Davis, 55; - in Charleston, 57-67; - goes to Richmond, 62, 66; - letter to, from her husband, 65; - in Richmond, 68-76; - incidents in the journey, 68-69; - a talk by, with Mrs. Davis, 71; - at the Champ-de-Mars, 72; - at Mr. Davis’s table, 73; - letters to, from her husband, 74, 75; - at White Sulphur Springs, 77-81; - in Richmond, 82-126; - has a glimpse of war, 83; - weeps at her husband’s departure, 84; - the battle of Bull Run, 85-91; - Gen. Chesnut’s account of the battle, 88; - describes Robert E. Lee, 93-94; - at a flag presentation, 96; - her money-belt, 101; - goes to a hospital, 107, 108; - an unwelcome caller on, 111; - knitting socks, 113; - her fondness for city life, 124; - leaving Richmond, 125; - in Camden, 127-130; - her sister Kate, 127; - a letter to, from old Col. Chesnut, 127; - illness of, 128; - a hiatus in her diary, 130; - in Columbia, 131-209; - a visit to Mulberry, 134; - illness of, 135; - reading Uncle Tom’s Cabin, 142; - her influence with her husband in public matters, 145; - overhears her husband attacked, 148; - her husband and her callers, 151-153; - her husband’s secretary, 154; - depressed, 157; - anniversary of her wedding, 158; - at the Governor’s, 160; - as to love and hatred, 162; - her impression of hospitality in different cities, 166-167; - at Mulberry, 169; - a flood of tears, 173; - illness of, 180; - a call on, by Governor Pickens, 181; - knows how it feels to die, 182; - at Decca’s wedding, 184-185; - Gen. Chesnut in town, 190; - a letter to, from her husband, 197; - assisting the Wayside Hospital, 205-206; - goes to Flat Rock, 210; - illness of, 210; - in Alabama, 216-228; - meets her husband in Wilmington, 216; - a melancholy journey by, 220-221; - finds her mother ill, 221; - Dick, a negro whom she taught to read, 224; - her father’s body-servant Simon, 225; - in Montgomery, 226-227; - in Richmond, 229-239; - asked to a picnic by Gen. Hood, 230; - hears two love-tales, 232-233; - at Miss Bierne’s wedding, 235; - receives from Mrs. Lee a likeness of the General, 236; - burns some personal papers, 239; - in Camden, 240-251; - sees Longstreet’s corps going West, 241; - a story of her mother, 243; - at church during the battle of Chancellorsville, 244-245; - to the War Office with her husband, 247; - a tranquil time at home, 250; - a picnic at Mulberry, 251; - in Richmond, 252-303; - lives in apartments, 252; - an adventure in Kingsville, 255-257; - gives a party, 257; - criticized for excessive hospitality, 263; - with Mrs. Davis, 264; - drives with Gen. Hood, 265-267, 271; - three generals at dinner, 268; - at a charade party, 273-274; - an ill-timed call, 278; - Thackeray’s death, 282; - gives a luncheon-party, 282-283; - at private theatricals, 285; - gives a party for John Chesnut, 286; - goes to a ball, 287; - a walk with Mr. Davis, 291; - selling her old clothes, 300; - her husband made a brigadier-general, 302; - in Camden, 304; - leaving Richmond, 304; - Little Joe’s funeral, 306; - experiences in a journey, 307-308; - friends with her at Mulberry, 309; - writes of her mother-in-law, 310-311; - at Bloomsbury again, 311; - in Columbia, 313-343; - at home in a cottage, 314-316; - attendance of, at the Wayside Hospital, 321, 324, 325; - at Mary Preston’s wedding, 327; - entertains President Davis, 328-329; - a visit to, from her sister, 329; - letters to, from Mrs. Davis, 331, 332, 335; - her ponies, 336; - distress of, at Sherman’s advance, 341; - her husband at home, 341; - in Lincolnton, 344-366; - her flight from Columbia, 344-347; - her larder empty, 361; - refuses an offer of money, 363; - her husband ordered to Chester, 364; - losses at the Hermitage, 364; - illness of, 364; - in Chester, 367-383; - incidents in a journey by, 367-369; - a call on, from Gen. Hood, 376; - on Lincoln’s assassination, 380; - in Camden, 384-404; - goes to Mulberry, 386; - sketch by, of her father-in-law, 390-392; - goes to the Hermitage, 395; - illness of, 399; - no heart to write more, 403. - - Chesnut, Capt. John, a soft-hearted slave-owner, 21; - enlists as a private, 58; - his plantation, 64; - letter from, 132; - negroes to wait on, 163, 187; - and McClellan, 192; - in Stuart’s command, 198; - one of his pranks, 202; - goes to his plantation, 250; - joins his company, 252, 287; - a flirtation by, 328, 351, 381. - - Chesnut, John, Sr., 392. - - Chesnut, Miss, her presence of mind, 364; - bravery shown by, 375. - - Chesnut family, the, 22. - - Chester, S. C., the author in, 367-383; - the journey to, 367-369; - news of Lincoln’s assassination in, 380. - - Cheves, Edward, 199. - - Cheves, Dr. John, 172. - - Cheves, Langdon, 24; - a talk with, 26; - farewell to, 37. - - Chickahominy, battle on the, 177; - as a victory, 180; - another battle on the, 196. - - Chickamauga, battle of, 248. - - Childs, Col. —, 362, 363, 364; - his generosity, 367. - - Childs, Mrs. Mary Anderson, 16. - - Chisolm, Dr. —, 314. - - Choiseul, Count de, 322. - - Clay, C. C., a supper given by, 283, 302, 374. - - Clay, Mrs. C. C., as Mrs. Malaprop, 285. - - Clay, Mrs. Lawson, 273. - - Clayton, Mr. —, 2; - on the Government, 110. - - Clemens, Jere, 12. - - Cobb, Howell, desired for President of the Confederacy, 6, 18; - his common sense, 68; - arrest of, 398. - - Cochran, John, a prisoner in Columbia, 133. - - Coffey, Capt. —, 257. - - Cohen, Mrs. Miriam, her son in the war, 166; - a hospital anecdote by, 176; - a sad story told by, 178; - her story of Luryea, 183. - - Colcock, Col. —, 2. - - Cold Harbor, battle of, 196. - - Columbia, Secession Convention in, 2; - small-pox in, 3; - pleasant people in, 166; - dinner in, 167; - Wade Hampton in, 187; - the author in, 131-209; - Governor and council in, 132; - a trip from, to Mulberry, 135; - critics of Mr. Davis in, 140; - hospitality in, 166; - people coming to, from Richmond, 169; - Wade Hampton in, wounded, 187-193; - Prof. Le Conte’s powder-factory in, 187; - the Wayside Hospital in, 205; - called from, to Alabama, 218; - the author takes a cottage in, 314-316; - President Davis visits, 328-329; - burning of, 351, 358, 361, 362, 396. - - Confederate flag, hoisting of, at Montgomery, 14. - - Congress, the, burning of, 140. - - Cooper, Gen. —, 85, 103, 149. - - Corinth, evacuated, 178. - - Cowpens, the, battle of, 63. - - Coxe, Esther Maria, 257. - - Cumberland, the, sinking of, 139. - - Cummings, Gen., a returned prisoner, 200. - - Curtis, George William, 200. - - Custis, Nellie, 93, 236. - - Cuthbert, Capt. George, wounded, 211; - shot at Chancellorsville, 213. - - Cuthbert, Mrs. George, 337. - - - Dacre, May, 135. - - Dahlgren, Admiral John H., 294. - - Dahlgren, Col. U., his raid and death, 294. - - Daniel, Mr., of The Richmond Examiner, 109. - - Darby, Dr. John T., surgeon of the Hampton Legion, 57; - false report of his death, 88, 205; - with Gen. Hood, 230; - goes to Europe, 293, 296; - his marriage, 327. - - Da Vega, Mrs. —, 369. - - Davin, —, as a spy, 59. - - Davis, President Jefferson, 6, 8; - when Secretary of War, 11; - elected President, 12; - no seceder, 29; - and Hampton’s Legion, 147; - a dinner at his house, 49; - a long war predicted by, 53; - his want of faith in success, 71; - on his Arabian horse, 72; - at his table, 73; - the author met by, 82; - goes to Manassas, 86; - speech by, 90; - the author asked to breakfast with, 95; - presents flag to Texans, 96; - as a reconstructionist, 104; - ill, 124; - criticism of, 129; - his inauguration, 132; - his address criticized, 134; - a defense of, 140; - Gen. Gonzales complains to, 148; - abuse of, 150; - and Butler’s “Order No. 28,” 165; - on the battle-field, 202; - wants negroes in the army, 224; - a reception at his house, 246; - ill, 246; - in Charleston, 253; - riding alone, 263; - as a dictator, 265; - his Christmas dinner, 268; - a talk with, 274; - Congress asks for advice, 280; - a walk home with, 283; - attacked for nepotism, 290; - walks home from church with the author, 291; - speaks to returned prisoners, 301; - when Little Joe died, 305; - his Arabian horse, 309; - and Joe Johnston’s removal, 326; - in Columbia, 328-329; - on his visit to Columbia, 331; - praise of, 360; - when Lee surrendered, 381; - traveling leisurely, 394; - capture of, 395, 398. - - Davis, Jefferson, Jr., 306. - - Davis, Mrs. Jefferson, a call on, 12; - at one of her receptions, 49; - a talk with, 53; - at lunch with, 55; - adores Mrs. Emory, 61; - the author met by, 69; - her entourage, 76; - her ladies described, 79; - brings news of Bull Run, 86; - announces to Mrs. Bartow news of her husband’s death, 88; - in her drawing-room, 90; - “a Western woman,” 102; - a landlady’s airs to, 192; - says that the enemy are within three miles of Richmond, 246; - a call from, 263; - a drive with, 264; - at the Semmes’ charade, 273; - her servants, 275; - a reception by, 281; - a call on, 282; - gives a luncheon, 284; - her family unable to live on their income, 300; - depressed, 301; - a drive with, 302; - overlooked in her own drawing-room, 318; - letters from, 331, 332, 335; - in Chester, 377; - a letter from, 378. - - Davis, “Little Joe,” 264; - his tragic death, 305; - his funeral, 306, 309. - - Davis, Nathan, 148; - a call from, 152, 210. - - Davis, Nick, 12. - - Davis, Rev. Thomas, 252. - - Davis, Varina Anne (“Winnie, Daughter of the Confederacy”), 378. - - Deas, George, 12, 298. - - De Leon, Agnes, back from Egypt, 110. - - De Leon, Dr., 9. - - Derby, Lord, 136. - - Douglas, Stephen A., 12; - his death, 60. - - Drayton, Tom, 148. - - Drury’s Bluff, battle of, 230. - - Duncan, Blanton, anecdote of, 150, 208. - - - Eliot, George, 279. - - Elliott, Stephen, 318. - - Ellsworth, Col. E. E., his death at Alexandria, 58. - - Elmore, Grace, 155. - - Elzey, Gen. —, tells of the danger of Richmond, 246. - - Emancipation Proclamation, the, 153, 199. - - Emerson, R. W., the author reading, 64. - - Emory, Gen. William H., his resignation, 61. - - Emory, Mrs. William H., Franklin’s granddaughter, 61, 84; - a clever woman, 352. - - Eustis, Mrs. —, 124. - - - Fair Oaks or Seven Pines, battle of, 171. - - Farragut, Admiral D. G., captures New Orleans, 158, 319. - - Fauquier White Sulphur Springs, 77. - - Fernandina, Fla., 2. - - Fitzpatrick, Mrs. —, 8, 53. - - Floyd, John D., at Fort Donelson, 140. - - Ford, Mary, 312. - - Forrest, Gen. Nathan B., 323. - - Fort Donelson, surrender of, 131, 140. - - Fort Duquesne, 392. - - Fort McAlister, 339. - - Fort Moultrie, 42. - - Fort Pickens, 47. - - Fort Pillow, given up, 177. - - Fort Sumter, Anderson in, 5, 8; - if it should be attacked, 9; - folly of an attack on, 12; - and Anderson, 29; - surrender of, demanded, 34; - bombardment of, 35; - on fire, 38; - surrender of, 39; - those who captured it, 42; - who fired the first shot at, 65. - - Freeland, Maria, 257. - - Frost, Henry, 147. - - Frost, Judge —, 54. - - Frost, Tom, 26. - - - Gaillard, Mrs. —, 173. - - Garnett, Dr. —, his brother’s arrival from the North, 107, 260. - - Garnett, Mary, 9. - - Garnett, Muscoe Russell, 144. - - Garnett, Gen. R. S., killed at Rich Mountain, 119. - - Gay, Captain, 382. - - Georgetown, enemy landing in, 165. - - Gibbes, Dr. —, 26; - reports incidents of the war, 93; - bad news from, 100. - - Gibbes, Mrs. —, 32. - - Gibbes, Mrs. Hampton, 170. - - Gibson, Dr. —, 117. - - Gibson, Mrs., her prophecy, 169; - her despondency, 174. - - Gidiere, Mrs. —, 4. - - Gist, Gov., 152; - an anecdote of, 153. - - Gladden, Col. —, 156. - - Gonzales, Gen. —, his farewell to the author, 125; - complains of want of promotion, 148. - - Goodwyn, Artemus, 21. - - Goodwyn, Col. —, 218, 350. - - Gourdin, Robert, 25, 32. - - Grahamville, to be burned, 336. - - Grant, Gen. U. S., and the surrender of Fort Donelson, 131; - at Vicksburg, 219; - a place for, 269; - his success, 270; - pleased with Sherman’s work, 299; - reenforcements for, 310; - before Richmond, 322, 333; - closing in on Lee, 346; - Richmond falls before, 377. - - Greeley, Horace, quoted, 116. - - Green, Allen, 32, 95, 360. - - Green, Mrs. Allen, 33. - - Green, Halcott, 171, 203. - - Greenhow, Mrs. Rose, warned the Confederates at Manassas, 176; - in Richmond, 201, 204. - - Gregg, Maxcy, 31. - - Grundy, Mrs., 257. - - - Halleck, Gen., being reenforced, 165; - takes Corinth, 178. - - Hamilton, Jack, 36. - - Hamilton, Louisa, her baby, 36, 211. - - Hamilton, Prioleau, 374. - - Hamilton, Mrs. Prioleau, 370. - - Hammy, Mary, 66, 76; - her _fiancé_, 79; - many strings to her bow, 100; - her disappointment, 118; - in tears, 124. - - Hampton, Christopher, 161, 264; - leaving Columbia, 344, 399. - - Hampton, Frank, his death and funeral, 237; - a memory of, 238. - - Hampton, Mrs. Frank, 40, 42; - on flirting with South Carolinians, 118, 173. - - Hampton, Miss Kate, 218; - anecdote of, 381. - - Hampton Legion, the, Dr. Darby its surgeon, 57; - in a snarl, 85; - at Bull Run, 105. - - Hampton, Preston, 40, 237, 260, 264, 272; - his death in battle, 332. - - Hampton Roads, the Merrimac in, 164. - - Hampton, Sally, 293, 332; - marriage of, 399. - - Hampton, Gen. Wade, of the Revolution, 39, 43, 47. - - Hampton, Mrs. Wade, the elder, 43. - - Hampton, Gen. Wade, his Legion, 47; - in Richmond, 82; - wounded, 87; - the hero of the hour, 135, 150; - shot in the foot, 171; - his wound, 180; - his heroism when wounded, 181; - in Columbia, 187; - at dinner, 189-190; - and his Legion, 191; - a reception to, 192; - sends a captured saddle to Gen. Chesnut, 258; - a basket of partridges from, 271, 313; - fights a battle, in which his two sons fall, 332; - tribute of, to Joe Johnston, 343; - made a lieutenant-general, 350; - correspondence of, with Gen. Sherman, 359; - home again, 404. - - Hampton, Mrs. Wade, 136. - - Hampton, Wade, Jr., 249; - wounded in battle, 332. - - Hardee, Gen. William J., 371. - - Harlan, James, 90. - - Harper’s Ferry, to be attacked, 58; - evacuated, 65. - - Harris, Arnold, brings news from Washington, 91. - - Harrison, Burton, 246, 263, 264; - at a charade, 274; - defends Mr. Davis, 290, 305, 330. - - Hartstein, Capt., 25. - - Haskell, Alexander, 198, 268. - - Haskell, John C., 293, 399. - - Haskell, Mrs. —, 196. - - Haskell, William, 27. - - Haxall, Lucy, 257. - - Haxall, Mrs., 278. - - Hayne, Mrs. Arthur, 146. - - Hayne, Isaac, 26, 66, 316, 346, 369. - - Hayne, Mrs. Isaac, 27; - when her son died, 202. - - Hayne, Paul, 176; - his son and Lincoln, 202, 208. - - Hemphill, John, 48. - - Hermitage, the, 365. - - Heyward, Barnwell, as an escort, 64, 212, 278, 283. - - Heyward, Henrietta Magruder, 212. - - Heyward, Joseph, 212. - - Heyward, Mrs. Joseph, 28, 39. - - Heyward, Savage, 22. - - Hill, Benjamin H., refusal of, to fight a duel, 11, 13; - in Richmond, 274. - - Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 144. - - Hood, Gen. John B., 100; - described, 230; - with his staff, 231; - at Chickamauga, 248; - calls on the author, 263; - a drive with, 265; - his love-affairs, 266-269; - a drive with, 271; - fitted for gallantry, 277; - on horseback, 282; - drives with Mr. Davis, 283; - has an ovation, 284; - at a ball, 287; - his military glory, 290; - anecdote of, 298; - a full general, 314; - his address to the army, 316; - losses of, before Atlanta, 320; - his force, 333; - off to Tennessee, 337; - losses of, at the battle of Nashville, 337, 340; - in Columbia, 342; - his glory on the wane, 372; - a call from, 376; - his silver cup, 380; - abuse of, 383. - - Hooker, Gen. Joseph B., 162, 213. - - Howell, Maggie, 76, 304, 327. - - Howell, Mrs., 265. - - Huger, Alfred, 2. - - Huger, Gen. Benjamin, 383. - - Huger, Mrs., 381, 394. - - Huger, Thomas, 31; - his death, 186. - - Humphrey, Capt., 5. - - Hunter, R. M. T., at dinner with, 53, 57, 144; - a walk home with, 283, 398. - - - Ingraham, Capt. —, 8, 10, 14, 42, 54; - says the war has hardly begun, 99, 147. - - Ives, Col. J. C., 284. - - Ives, Mrs. J. C., 273; - her theatricals, 285. - - Izard, Mrs. —, 26; - quoted, 93, 146; - tells of Sand Hill patriots, 209, 351. - - Izard, Lucy, 212. - - - Jackson, Gen. “Stonewall,” at Bull Run, 89, 170; - his movements, 172; - his influence, 175; - his triumphs, 179; - following up McClellan, 193; - faith in, 196; - killed, 213; - promoted Hood, 230; - described by Gen. Lawton, 261-262; - laments for, 269. - - Jameson, Mr. —, 54. - - James Island, Federals land on, 181; - abandoned, 195. - - Johnson, President Andrew, 394, 398. - - Johnson, Mrs. Bradley T., as a heroine, 71. - - Johnson, Herschel V., 11. - - Johnson, Dr. Robert, 220. - - Johnston, Gen. Albert Sidney, 131, 140; - killed at Shiloh, 156, 182. - - Johnston, General Edward, a prisoner in the North, 232; - help he once gave Grant, 269. - - Johnston, Gen. Joseph E., his command, 75; - evacuates Harper’s Ferry, 65; - retreating, 78; - to join Beauregard, 84, 85; - at Bull Run, 91; - at Seven Pines, 171; - wounded, 180; - his heroism as a boy, 184; - sulking, 228; - as a great god of war, 240; - thought well of, 248; - his care for his men, 249; - made commander-in-chief of the West, 265; - orders to, 290; - suspended, 314; - cause of his removal, 315, 317, 320; - a talk with, 350; - in Lincolnton, 352; - a drawn battle by, 372; - not to be caught, 379; - anecdote of, 383. - - Johnston, Mrs. Joseph E., 53, 86; - and Mrs. Davis, 102, 350; - her cleverness, 352. - - Johnston, Robert, 375. - - Jones, Col. Cadwallader, 380. - - Jones, Gen. —, 315. - - Jordan, Gen., an outburst from, 99. - - - Kearsarge, the, 314. - - Keitt, Col. Lawrence, opposed to Mr. Davis, 68; - seeking promotion, 258. - - Kershaw’s brigade in Columbia, 341. - - Kershaw, Joseph, and the Chesnuts, 393. - - Kershaw, Gen. Joseph B., and his brigade, 21; - anecdote of, 63; - his regiment praised, 95; - his piety, 101; - his independent report on Bull Run, 107. - - Kershaw, Mrs. Joseph B., 390. - - Kilpatrick, Gen. Judson, 294; - threatening Richmond, 296; - his failure before Richmond, 298. - - King, Judge, 211. - - Kingsville, 3; - an adventure in, 253. - - Kirkland, Mary, 385. - - Kirkland, Mrs. —, 4. - - Kirkland, William, 311. - - Kirkwood Rangers, the, 106. - - - La Borde, Dr. —, 210. - - Lamar, Col. L. Q. C., in Richmond, 70; - a talk with, 72; - on the war, 73; - on crutches, 82, 144; - asked to dinner, 278; - his talk of George Eliot, 279-280; - and Constance Cary, 286; - spoken of, for an aideship, 302. - - Lancaster, 356. - - Lane, Harriet, 18. - - Laurens, Henry, his grandchildren, 330. - - Lawrence, a negro, unchanged, 38; - fidelity of, 101, 112; - quarrels of, with his wife, 217, 237; - sent home, 288. - - Lawton, Gen. Alexander R., talks of “Stonewall Jackson,” 261; - a talk with, 276. - - Le Conte, Prof. Joseph, 141; - his powder manufactory, 187. - - Ledyard, Mr. —, 18. - - Lee, Custis, 100, 246, 328. - - Lee, Fitzhugh, 294. - - Lee, Light Horse Harry, 94. - - Lee, Gen. Robert E., made General-in-chief of Virginia, 47, 63; - with Davis and Chesnut, 83; - seen by the author for the first time, 93; - warns planters, 136; - criticism of, 188; - faith in, 197; - warns Mr. Davis on the battle-field, 202; - and Antietam, 213; - wants negroes in the army, 224; - a likeness of, 236; - faith in him justified, 240; - at Mr. Davis’s house, 244; - fighting Meade, 258; - at church, 264; - in Richmond, 265; - if he had Grant’s resources, 270; - a sword for, 292; - instructed in the art of war, 292; - his daughter-in-law’s death, 300; - a postponed review by, 306; - without backing, 331; - a drawn battle by, 372; - despondent, 377; - capitulation of, 378; - part of his army in Chester, 379. - - Lee, Mrs. Robert E., 93, 124, 236; - a call on, 292. - - Lee, Roony, 93; - wounded, 236; - Butler kind to, 300. - - Lee, Capt. Smith, a walk with, 294, 302, 303. - - Lee, Stephen D., 371. - - Legree, of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, discussed, 114-116. - - Leland, Capt., 337. - - Leon, Edwin de, sent to England, 172. - - Levy, Martha, 211. - - Lewes, George Henry, 280. - - Lewis, John, 257. - - Lewis, Major John Coxe, 265. - - Lewis, Maria, her wedding, 264, 303. - - Lincoln, Abraham, his election, 1; - at his inauguration, 9; - in Baltimore, 12, 13; - his inaugural address, 14; - his Scotch cap, 18; - described, 19, 33; - as a humorist, 71; - his army, 76; - anecdote of, 78; - his emancipation proclamation, 153, 199; - his portrait attacked by Paul Hayne’s son, 202; - his regrets for the war, 203, 270; - assassination of, 380, 396. - - Lincoln, Mrs. Abraham, vulgarity of, 12; - her economy, 16, 18, 270; - her sister in Richmond, 381. - - Lincolnton, the author in, 344-366; - an exile in, 347; - taken for a millionaire in, 349; - Gen. Chesnut in, 358-359. - - Lomax, Col., 6. - - Longstreet, A. B., author of Georgia Scenes, 82. - - Longstreet, Gen. James, his army going West, 241; - separated from Bragg, 258; - failure of, 265. - - Lowe, Sir Hudson, 399. - - Lowndes, Charles, 211. - - Lowndes, Mrs. Charles, 4. - - Lowndes, James, a call from, 112, 370. - - Lowndes, Rawlins, 211. - - Lowndes, Mrs. —, 59. - - Lubbock, Gov. —, 328. - - Luryea, Albert, his death, 175. - - Lyons, Lord, 136. - - Lyons, Mrs., 239, 281, 313. - - Lyons, Rachel, 208. - - - Magrath, Judge, 2, 394. - - Magruder, Gen. John B., wins battle of Big Bethel, 62, 196; - public opinion against, 201; - in Columbia, 204. - - Mallory, Stephen R., 13; - meets the author in Richmond, 69, 147. - - Mallory, Mrs. S. R., 27. - - Malvern Hill, battle of, 194, 214. - - Manassas, a sword captured at, 101. - See _Bull Run_. - - Manassas Junction, letter from Gen. Chesnut at, 65. - - Manassas Station, 63; - looking for a battle at, 64. - - Manning, Gov. John, sketch of, 23; - at breakfast, 25, 27; - news from, 32, 34; - an aide to Beauregard, 36; - under fire, 38; - his anecdote of Mrs. Preston, 168. - - Marshall, Henry, 161. - - Martin, Isabella D., 155, 268; - quoted, 275; - to appear in a play, 276; - on war and love-making, 288; - when Willie Preston died, 315; - takes the author to a chapel, 322; - a walk with, 336, 343, 350, 363; - letter from, 404. - - Martin, Rev. William, and the Wayside Hospital, 206; - at Lincolnton, 351. - - Martin, Mrs. William, 315. - - Mason, George, 103. - - Mason, James M., at dinner with, 98; - as an envoy to England, 116-117, 125; - on false news, 104. - - McCaa, Col. Burwell Boykin, his death in battle, 229, 373. - - McClellan, Gen. George B., advancing for a battle, 65; - supersedes Scott, 98; - as a coming king, 119; - said to have been removed, 153; - his force of men on the Peninsula, 158; - his army, 164; - at Fair Oaks, 171; - his lines broken, 187; - followed by “Stonewall” Jackson, 193; - prisoners taken from, 196; - belief in his defeat, 198; - destruction of his army expected, 200; - his escape, 201; - and Antietam, 213. - - McCord, Cheves, 177. - - McCord, Mrs. Louisa S., and her brother, 139; - her faith in Southern soldiers, 175; - of patients in the hospital, 182; - a talk with, 199; - on nurses, 203, 239; - at her hospital, 317; - sends a bouquet to President Davis, 328; - a dinner with, 335; - her horses, 336; - her troublesome country cousin, 337. - - McCulloch, Ben, 50. - - McDowell, Gen. Irvin, defeated at Bull Run, 91. - - McDuffie, Mary, 136. - - McFarland, Mrs., 236. - - McLane, Col., 329. - - McLane, Mrs., 85-86. - - McLane, —, 92. - - McMahan, Mrs., 210. - - Meade, Gen. George G., fighting Lee, 258-259; - his armies, 269. - - Means, Gov. John H., 26, 33; - a good-by to, 207, 214. - - Means, Mrs. —, 37. - - Means, Stark, 37. - - Memminger, Hon. Mr., letter from, 164. - - Memphis given up, 177; - retaken, 323. - - Merrimac, the, 136, 139, 140; - called the Virginia, 148; - sunk, 164. - - Meynardie, Rev. Mr., 66; - as a traveling companion, 68, 101. - - Middleton, Miss, 348, 349; - described, 353, 359; - a letter from, 376. - - Middleton, Mrs. —, 136, 154. - - Middleton, Mrs. Tom, 26. - - Middleton, Olivia, 338. - - Miles, Col. —, an aide to Beauregard, 36; - an anecdote by, 43, 54, 125. - - Miles, Dr. Frank, 361. - - Miles, William A., his love-affairs, 232-234. - - Miller, John L., 309. - - Miller, Stephen, 6. - - Miller, Stephen Decatur, sketch of, 16; - his body-servant, Simon, 225. - - Miller, Mrs. Stephen Decatur, 216; - ill in Alabama, 221; - her return with the author, 226; - an anecdote of her bravery, 243. - - Milton, John, as a husband, 298. - - Minnegerode, Rev. Mr., his church during Stoneman’s raid, 245; - his prayers, 277. - - Mobile Bay, battle of, 319. - - Moise, Mr. —, 178. - - Monitor, the, 137, 139, 140. - - Montagu, Lady Mary, 142. - - Montgomery, Ala., the author in, 6-20; - Confederacy being organized at, 6; - speeches in Congress at, 12; - Confederate flag raised at, 15; - the author in, 47-56; - a trip from Portland, Ala., to, 52; - removal of Congress from, 55; - society in, 166; - hospitality in, 166; - the author in, 220, 226-228. - - Montgomery Blues, the, 6. - - Montgomery Hall, 21. - - Moore, Gen. A. B., 6; - brings news, 8, 10, 15. - - Morgan, Gen. John H., an anecdote of, 208; - his romantic marriage, 242; - in Richmond, 275; - a dinner by, 276; - his death reported, 326. - - Morgan, Mrs. John H., her romantic marriage, 242. - - Mormonism, 143. - - Morris Island, 31; - being fortified, 195. - - Moses, Little, 134. - - Mt. Vernon, 63. - - Mulberry, a visit to, 2, 21; - portrait of C. C. Pinckney at, 32; - the author at, 42; - a stop at, 57; - the author ill at, 127, 135; - hospitality at, 169; - a picnic at, 251; - in spring, 308; - Madeira from, 329; - a farewell to, 340; - fears for, 354; - reported destruction of, 381; - results of attack on, 386; - a dinner at, 403. - - - Napier, Lord, 176. - - Napoleon III, 136. - - Nashville, evacuation of, 134. - - Nelson, Warren, 143. - - Newbern, lost, 144. - - New Madrid, to be given up, 146. - - New Orleans, taken by Farragut, 158-159; - a story from, 178; - men enlisting in, 188; - women at, 188. - - New York Herald, the, quoted, 9, 13, 18, 34, 43, 100; - criticism by, 281, 298. - - New York Tribune, the, quoted, 89, 96, 107. - - Nickleby, Mrs., 131. - - Norfolk, burned, 164. - - Northrop, Mr. —, abused as commissary-general, 97. - - Nott, Henry Deas, on the war, 103. - - - Ogden, Capt. —, 327, 333, 367. - - Orange Court House, 74. - - Ordinance of Secession, passage of, 4. - - Ossoli, Margaret Fuller, 32. - - Ould, Judge, 247. - - Ould, Mrs., a party of hers, 259, 274, 280; - gives a luncheon, 302. - - Owens, Gen. —, 48. - - - Palmer, Dr. —, 326. - - Palmetto Flag, raising the, 2. - - Parker, Frank, 303. - - Parkman, Mrs., 235. - - Patterson, Miss —, 345. - - Pea Ridge, battle of, 139. - - Pemberton, Gen. John C., 219, 247. - - Penn, Mrs. —, 281. - - Petersburg, an incident at, 255; - prisoners taken at, 323. - - Petigru, James L., his opposition to secession, 24, 36; - refuses to pray for Mr. Davis, 63, 284. - - Pettigrew, Johnston, offered a brigadier-generalship, 145, 171, 173. - - Phillips, Mrs., 201. - - Pickens, Gov. Francis W., “insensible to fear,” 3; - and Fort Sumter, 5; - a telegram from, 9; - a fire-eater, 29; - orders a signal fired, 33; - a call from, 151, 181; - has telegram from Mr. Davis, 190; - serenaded, 204. - - Pickens, Mrs. Francis W., 29, 134, 149; - her reception to Gen. Wade Hampton, 192-193. - - Pillow, Gideon J., at Fort Donelson, 140. - - Pinckney, Charles C., 32. - - Pinckney, Miss —, 32. - - Pizzini’s, 111. - - Poe, Edgar Allan, 258. - - Polk, Gen. Leonidas, and Sherman, 291, 298. - - Pollard, Mr. —, dinner at home of, 9. - - Porcher, Mr. —, drowned, 107. - - Portland, Ala., a visit to, 52. - - Portman, Mr. —, 373. - - Port Royal, 137. - - Potter, Gen. Edward E., 387. - - Preston, Jack, 343. - - Preston, Gen. John S., at Warrenton, 82; - as to prisoners in Columbia, 133; - ruined by the fall of New Orleans, 159; - on gossiping, 162; - his entertainments, 168, 207; - with Hood at a reception, 284, 323; - return of his party from Richmond, 373; - on horseback, 374; - a good-by from, 375; - going abroad, 382. - - Preston, Mrs. John S., 39; - goes to Manassas, 69, 94; - quoted, 130, 143; - a dinner with, 157; - a ball given by, 167; - her fearlessness, 168; - a call with, 180; - at a concert, 193; - an anecdote by, 295-296. - - Preston, Mary C., goes to Mulberry, 134, 136, 143; - a drive by, with Mr. Venable, 150; - with Gen. Chesnut, 159; - a talk with, 162; - gives Hood a bouquet, 231; - made love to, 233, 256; - greets Gen. Hood, 263, 283, 296; - her marriage, 327; - a dinner to, 330. - - Preston, Sally Buchanan Campbell, called “Buck,” 150, 167; - made love to, 233, 266; - why she dislikes Gen. Hood, 286; - men who worship, 288; - and Gen. Hood, 289, 291; - on horseback, 303. - - Preston, Miss Susan, 36. - - Preston, Willie, 43; - his death, 315. - - Preston, William C., 105, 362. - - Pride, Mrs. —, 370, 372, 373. - - Prince of Wales, the, his visit to Washington, 207. - - Pringle, Edward J., letter from, 4, 27. - - Pringle, Mrs. John J., 186. - - Pryor, Gen. Roger A., 37. - - - Rachel, Madam, in Charleston, 238. - - Randolph, Gen. —, 147. - - Randolph, Mrs. —, described, 105; - and Yankee prisoners, 107; - her theatricals, 275. - - Ravenel, St. Julien, 365. - - Reed, Wm. B., arrested, 113. - - Reynolds, Mrs. —, 22. - - Rhett, Albert, 165. - - Rhett, Mrs. Albert, 147. - - Rhett, Barnwell, desired for President of the Confederacy, 6; - as a man for president, 104. - - Rhett, Barnwell, Jr., 148. - - Rhett, Burnet, to marry Miss Aiken, 21. - - Rhett, Edmund, 150, 313-314. - - Rhett, Grimké, 200. - - Rice, Henry M., 205. - - Rich Mountain, battle of, 119. - - Richmond, going to, 66; - the author in, 68-76; - return to, from White Sulphur Springs, 82-126; - a council of war in, 83; - when Bull Run was fought, 85-89; - Robert E. Lee seen in, 93-94; - at the hospitals in, 108-111; - women knitting socks in, 113; - agreeable people in, 120; - Gen. Chesnut called to, 157; - hospitality in, 167; - a battle near, 171, 174; - the Seven Days’ fighting near, 197-198; - return to, 229-239; - Gen. Hood in, 229-231; - a march past in, 231; - a funeral in, 237; - during Stoneman’s raid, 239, 247; - at Mr. Davis’s in, 244; - the enemy within three miles of, 246; - at the War-Office in, 247-248; - return to, 252-303; - the journey to, 252-256; - to see a French frigate near, 259; - Gen. Hood in, 265-269, 271; - merriment in, 272-277, 282-287; - a huge barrack, 278; - almost taken, 293-294; - Dahlgren’s raid, 294; - Kilpatrick threatens, 296, 298; - fourteen generals at church in, 299; - returned prisoners in, 301; - a farewell to, 302-304; - Little Joe Davis’s death in, 305-306; - anxiety in, 330; - fall of, 377. - - Roanoke Island, surrender of, 132. - - Robertson, Mr. —, 385. - - Rosecrans, Gen. William S., 248; - at Chattanooga, 258. - - Russell, Lord, 136. - - Russell, William H., of the London Times, 40, 50; - criticisms by, 52; - his criticisms mild, 60; - rubbish in his letters, 64; - attacked, 66; - abuses the South, 74; - his account of Bull Run, 96, 113; - his criticisms of plantation morals, 114; - on Bull Run, 117; - his “India,” 208. - - Rutledge, Mrs. Ben., 348. - - Rutledge, John, 31. - - Rutledge, Julia, 240. - - Rutledge, Robert, 14. - - Rutledge, Sally, 212. - - Rutledge, Susan, 5. - - - Sanders, George, 12. - - Saussure, Mrs. John de, 15; - a good-by from, 67. - - Saussure, Wilmot de, 89, 107, 109. - - Scipio Africanus, a negro, 391, 397. - - Scott, Gen. Winfield, anecdote of, 7; - and officers wishing to resign, 10; - on Southern soldiers, 182. - - Scott, Mrs. Winfield, 19. - - Secession in South Carolina, 2; - the Convention of, 3; - support for, 5. - - Secessionville, battle of, 191. - - Seddon, Mr. J. A., 247. - - Semmes, Admiral R., 236; - a charade-party at his house, 272-273; - and the surrender of the Alabama, 314. - - Semmes, Mrs., her calmness, 294. - - Seven Days’ Battle, last of the, 194; - Gen. Chesnut’s account of, 197. - - Seven Pines, battle of, 171. - - Seventh Regiment, of New York, the, in Baltimore, 41. - - Seward, William H., 17, 33, 104; - quoted, 146; - reported to have gone to England, 203; - attempted assassination of, 380. - - Shakespeare, William, as a lover, 296-297. - - Shand, Nanna, 158. - - Shand, Rev. Mr., 194, 195. - - Shannon, William M., 21. - - Shannon, Capt. —, a call from, 106. - - Sharpsburg. See _Antietam_. - - Sherman, Gen. William T., at Vicksburg, 219; - marching to Mobile, 291; - his work in Mississippi, 299; - between Lee and Hood, 327; - to catch Lee in the rear, 331; - his march to the sea, 333; - at Augusta, 334; - going to Savannah, 336; - desolation in his path, 340-341; - marching constantly, 342; - no living thing in his path, 354-355, 356, 357; - burning of Columbia, 358, 362; - correspondence with Gen. Hampton, 359; - promise of protection by, to Columbia, 372; - at the fall of Richmond, 377; - ruin in his track, 384; - remark of, to Joe Johnston, 390; - accuses Wade Hampton of burning Columbia, 396. - - Shiloh, battle of, 156. - - Simms, William Gilmore, 43, 145. - - Singleton, Mrs., 184, 194, 237; - her orphan grandchildren, 238. - - Slidell, Mrs. —, 149. - - Smith, Gen. Kirby, wounded, 87, 90; - as a Blücher, 94, 317, 323. - - Somerset, Duke of, his son in Richmond, 203. - - Soulouque, F. E., his career in Hayti, 74. - - South Carolina, the secession of, 2, 4; - attack on, 10; - a small State, 70. - - Spotswood Hotel, the, 59; - the author at, 69; - a miniature world, 70; - the drawing-room of, 79. - - Spottsylvania Court House, battles around, 310. - - Stanard, Mr. —, 94. - - Stanton, Edwin M., 310. - - Stark, Mary, 95, 146. - - St. Cecilia Society, the, balls of, 30. - - St. Michael’s Church, and the firing on Fort Sumter, 35. - - Stephens, Alexander H., 10; - elected Vice-President, 12; - his fears for the future, 49. - - Stockton, Philip A., his clandestine marriage, 120-122. - - Stockton, Mrs. Edward, 251. - - Stockton, Emma, 272. - - Stoneman, Gen. G. S., his raid, 239, 244, 245; - before Atlanta, 317, 377. - - Stony Creek, battle of, 313. - - Stowe, Harriet Beecher, 143, 189. - - Stuart, Gen. Jeb, his cavalry, 187, 277. - - Sue, Eugene, 46. - - Sumner, Charles, 74. - - Sumter, S. C., an awful story from, 401, 402. - - - Taber, William, 26. - - Taliaferro, Gen. —, 317. - - Taylor, John, 392. - - Taylor, Gen. Richard, 227. - - Taylor, Willie, 165. - - Team, Adam, 252, 254, 256. - - Thackeray, W. M., quoted, 110; - on American hostesses, 168; - his death, 281. - - Thomas, Gen. George H., his forces, 333; - and Gen. Hood, 338; - wins the battle of Nashville, 339, 340. - - Thompson, John R., 258, 260, 298. - - Thompson, Mrs. John R., 204. - - Togno, Madame —, 151. - - Tompkins, Miss Sally, her hospital, 111. - - Toombs, Robert, an anecdote told by, 7, 20; - thrown from his horse and remounts, 97, 101; - as a brigadier, 108; - in a rage, 132; - his criticisms, 171; - denounced, 179. - - Toombs, Mrs. Robert, a reception given by, 48, 53; - a call on, 112. - - Toombs, Miss —, anecdote of, 193. - - Trapier, Gen. —, 148. - - Trapier, Rev. Mr., 394, 397. - - Trenholm, Capt. —, 133. - - Trescott, William H., 24, 29, 70; - says Bull Run is a victory leading to ruin, 92; - his dinners, 153. - - Trezevant, Dr. —, 198, 339. - - Trimlin, Milly, 400-401. - - Tucker, Capt., 273. - - Tyler, Miss, 14. - - - Uncle Tom’s Cabin, 142, 184. - - Urquhart, Col. —, 313. - - - Vallandigham, Clement B., 216. - - Velipigue, Jim, 63. - - Venable, Col., 36, 40; - reports a brave thing at Bull Run, 92; - on the Confederate losses at Nashville, 134; - his comment on an anecdote, 138; - on toleration of sexual immorality, 143, 144; - an aide to Gen. Lee, 172, 187; - describes Hood’s eyes, 230, 257; - quoted, 289. - - Vicksburg, gunboats pass, 205; - surrender of, reported, 219, 220; - must fall, 247; - a story of the siege of, 295. - - Virginia, and secession, 5. - - von Borcke, Major —, 268, 272; - his name, 285. - - - Walker, John, 394. - - Walker, William, 384. - - Walker, Mrs. —, 49, 112. - - Wallenstein, translations of, 162. - - Ward, Matthias, an anecdote by, 51. - - Washington, city of, deserted, 27; - alarming news from, 49; - why not entered after Bull Run, 90; - how news of that battle was received in, 91; - Confederates might have walked into, 103; - state dinners in, 166. - - Washington, George, at Trenton, 237. - - Washington, L. Q., letters from, 158, 164, 245. - - Watts, Col. Beaufort and Fort Sumter, 42; - a touching story of, 43, 147. - - Wayside Hospital, the, 205; - the author at, 321. - - Weston, Plowden, 160. - - West Point, Ga., 220. - - Whitaker, Maria, and her twins, 45, 386. - - Whiting, Col. —, 31. - - Whiting, Gen. —, 307. - - Whitner, Judge, 26. - - Wigfall, Judge L. T., 29; - speech by, 30; - angry with Major Anderson, 48, 69; - and Mr. Brewster, 73; - quoted, 91; - with his Texans, 96; - an enemy of Mr. Davis, 102; - reconciled with Mr. Davis, 104; - still against Mr. Davis, 261; - and Joe Johnston’s removal, 320; - going to Texas, 373; - on the way to Texas, 377; - remark of, to Simon Cameron, 400. - - Wigfall, Mrs. L. T., 28; - a visit with, 32; - talk with, about the war, 33; - a telegram to, 59; - quoted, 84; - a drive with, 96; - a call on, 266, 275. - - Wilderness, the battle of the, 310. - - Williams, Mrs. David R. (the author’s sister, Kate), 127, 329, 351, 399. - - Williams, Mrs. John N., 129. - - Williamsburg, battle at, 161, 171. - - Wilson, Henry, at Manassas, 89. - - Winder, Miss, arrested, 113. - - Withers, Judge —, 21, 60. - - Withers, Kate, death of, 403. - - Witherspoon, John, 250, 404. - - Witherspoon, Mrs. —, found dead, 129. - - - Yancey, William L., talk from, 120; - letter from, to Lord Russell, 136. - - “Yankee Doodle,” 20. - - Yorktown, siege and evacuation of, 161. - - - - -“EVERY AMERICAN SHOULD READ IT.”—_The News, Providence._ - -The Life and Times of Thomas Jefferson. - - -By THOMAS E. WATSON, Author of “The Story of France,” “Napoleon,” etc. -Illustrated with many Portraits and Views. 8vo. Attractively bound, $2.50 -net; postage, 17 cents additional. - - Mr. Watson long since acquired a national reputation in - connection with his political activities in Georgia. He - startled the public soon afterward by the publication of a - history of France, which at once attracted attention quite as - marked, though different in kind. His book became interesting - not alone as the production of a Southern man interested in - politics, but as an entirely original conception of a great - theme. There was no question that a life of Jefferson from the - hands of such a writer would command very general attention, - and the publishers had no sooner announced the work as in - preparation than negotiations were begun with the author by two - of the best-known newspapers in America for its publication in - serial form. During the past summer the appearance of the story - in this way has created widespread comment which has now been - drawn to the book just published. - -_Opinions by some of the Leading Papers._ - - “A vastly entertaining polemic. It directs attention to many - undoubtedly neglected facts which writers of the North have - ignored or minimized.”—_The New York Times Saturday Review of - Books._ - - “A noble work. It may well stand on the shelf beside Morley’s - ‘Gladstone’ and other epochal biographical works that have come - into prominence. It is deeply interesting and thoroughly fair - and just.”—_The Globe-Democrat, St. Louis._ - - “The book shows great research and is as complete as it could - possibly be, and every American should read it.”—_The News, - Providence._ - - “A unique historical work.”—_The Commercial Advertiser, New - York._ - - “Valuable as an historical document and as a witness to certain - great facts in the past life of the South which have seldom - been acknowledged by historians.”—_The Post, Louisville._ - -D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK. - - - - -UNLIKE ANY OTHER BOOK. - -A Virginia Girl in the Civil War. - - -Being the Authentic Experiences of a Confederate Major’s Wife who -followed her Husband into Camp at the Outbreak of the War, Dined and -Supped with General J. E. B. Stuart, ran the Blockade to Baltimore, and -was in Richmond when it was Evacuated. Collected and edited by MYRTA -LOCKETT AVARY. 12mo. Cloth, $1.25 net; postage additional. - - “The people described are gentlefolk to the backbone, and - the reader must be a hard-hearted cynic if he does not fall - in love with the ingenuous and delightful girl who tells the - story.”—_New York Sun._ - - “The narrative is one that both interests and charms. The - beginning of the end of the long and desperate struggle is - unusually well told, and how the survivors lived during the - last days of the fading Confederacy forms a vivid picture of - those distressful times.”—_Baltimore Herald._ - - “The style of the narrative is attractively informal and - chatty. Its pathos is that of simplicity. It throws upon a - cruel period of our national career a side-light, bringing out - tender and softening interests too little visible in the pages - of formal history.”—_New York World._ - - “This is a tale that will appeal to every Southern man and - woman, and can not fail to be of interest to every reader. It - is as fresh and vivacious, even in dealing with dark days, as - the young soul that underwent the hardships of a most cruel - war.”—_Louisville Courier-Journal._ - - “The narrative is not formal, is often fragmentary, and is - always warmly human.... There are scenes among the dead and - wounded, but as one winks back a tear the next page presents a - negro commanded to mount a strange mule in midstream, at the - injustice of which he strongly protests.”—_New York Telegram._ - - “Taken at this time, when the years have buried all resentment, - dulled all sorrows, and brought new generations to the scenes, - a work of this kind can not fail of value just as it can - not fail in interest. Official history moves with two great - strides to permit of the smaller, more intimate events; fiction - lacks the realistic, powerful appeal of actuality; such works - as this must be depended upon to fill in the unoccupied - interstices, to show us just what were the lives of those - who were in this conflict or who lived in the midst of it - without being able actively to participate in it. And of this - type ‘A Virginia Girl in the Civil War’ is a truly admirable - example.”—_Philadelphia Record._ - -D. 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You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll -have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using -this ebook. - - - -Title: A Diary from Dixie - As written by Mary Boykin Chesnut, wife of James Chesnut, - Jr., United States Senator from South Carolina, 1859-1861, - and afterward an Aide to Jefferson Davis and a - Brigadier-General in the Confederate Army - -Author: Mary Boykin Miller Chesnut - -Editor: Isabella D. Martin - Myrta Lockett Avary - -Release Date: December 12, 2019 [EBook #60908] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A DIARY FROM DIXIE *** - - - - -Produced by MWS and the Online Distributed Proofreading -Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from -images generously made available by The Internet -Archive/American Libraries.) - - - - - - -</pre> - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_i" id="Page_i">[i]</a></span></p> - -<h1>A DIARY FROM<br /> -DIXIE <img src="images/deco.jpg" width="150" height="25" alt="" /></h1> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_ii" id="Page_ii">[ii]</a></span></p> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 475px;" id="illus1"> -<img src="images/illus1.jpg" width="475" height="700" alt="" /> -<p class="caption">MRS. JAMES CHESNUT, JR.</p> -<p class="caption">From a Portrait in Oil.</p> -</div> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_iii" id="Page_iii">[iii]</a></span></p> - -<p class="titlepage larger">A DIARY FROM<br /> -DIXIE, <span class="smaller"><i>as written by</i></span></p> - -<p class="center">MARY BOYKIN CHESNUT, <i>wife of</i> <span class="smcap">James<br /> -Chesnut, Jr.</span>, <i>United States Senator from South<br /> -Carolina, 1859-1861, and afterward an Aide<br /> -to Jefferson Davis and a Brigadier-General<br /> -in the Confederate Army</i></p> - -<p class="titlepage">Edited by<br /> -Isabella D. Martin and<br /> -Myrta Lockett<br /> -Avary</p> - -<div class="figcenter titlepage" style="width: 100px;"> -<img src="images/appleton.jpg" width="100" height="120" alt="" /> -</div> - -<p class="titlepage">NEW YORK<br /> -D. APPLETON AND COMPANY<br /> -1906</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_iv" id="Page_iv">[iv]</a></span></p> - -<p class="titlepage smaller"><span class="smcap">Copyright, 1905, by</span><br /> -D. APPLETON AND COMPANY</p> - -<p class="titlepage smaller"><i>Published March, 1905</i></p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_v" id="Page_v">[v]</a></span></p> - -<h2>CONTENTS</h2> - -<table summary="Contents"> - <tr> - <td></td> - <td class="tdpg smaller">PAGE</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="chap">INTRODUCTION: <span class="smcap">The Author and Her Book</span></td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#INTRODUCTION">xiii</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="chap"><span class="smcap">Chapter I.</span>—CHARLESTON, S. C., <i>November 8, - 1860-December 27, 1860</i>.</td> - <td></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>The news of Lincoln’s election—Raising the Palmetto - flag—The author’s husband resigns as United States - Senator—The Ordinance of Secession—Anderson takes - possession of Fort Sumter</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#CHAPTER_I">1</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="chap"><span class="smcap">Chapter II.</span>—MONTGOMERY, Ala., <i>February 19, - 1861-March 11, 1861</i>.</td> - <td></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Making the Confederate Constitution—Robert Toombs—Anecdote - of General Scott—Lincoln’s trip through - Baltimore—Howell Cobb and Benjamin H. Hill—Hoisting - the Confederate flag—Mrs. Lincoln’s economy in - the White House—Hopes for peace—Despondent talk - with anti-secession leaders—The South unprepared—Fort - Sumter</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#CHAPTER_II">6</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="chap"><span class="smcap">Chapter III.</span>—CHARLESTON, S. C., <i>March 26, 1861-April - 15, 1861</i>.</td> - <td></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>A soft-hearted slave-owner—Social gaiety in the midst of - war talk—Beauregard a hero and a demigod—The first - shot of the war—Anderson refuses to capitulate—The - bombardment of Fort Sumter as seen from the house-tops—War - steamers arrive in Charleston harbor—“Bull - Run” Russell—Demeanor of the negroes</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#CHAPTER_III"> 21</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="chap"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_vi" id="Page_vi">[vi]</a></span><span class="smcap">Chapter IV.</span>—CAMDEN, S. C., <i>April 20, 1861-April - 22, 1861</i>.</td> - <td></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>After Sumter was taken—The <i lang="fr">jeunesse dorée</i>—The - story of Beaufort Watts—Maria Whitaker’s twins—The - inconsistencies of life</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">42</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="chap"><span class="smcap">Chapter V.</span>—MONTGOMERY, Ala., <i>April 27, 1861-May - 20, 1861</i>.</td> - <td></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Baltimore in a blaze—Anderson’s account of the surrender - of Fort Sumter—A talk with Alexander H. - Stephens—Reports from Washington—An unexpected - reception—Southern leaders take hopeless views of - the future—Planning war measures—Removal of the - capital</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#CHAPTER_V">47</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="chap"><span class="smcap">Chapter VI.</span>—CHARLESTON, S. C., <i>May 25, 1861-June - 24, 1861</i>.</td> - <td></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Waiting for a battle in Virginia—Ellsworth at Alexandria—Big - Bethel—Moving forward to the battle-ground—Mr. - Petigru against secession—Mr. Chesnut - goes to the front—Russell’s letters to the London - Times</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#CHAPTER_VI">57</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="chap"><span class="smcap">Chapter VII.</span>—RICHMOND, Va., <i>June 27, 1861-July - 4, 1861</i>.</td> - <td></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Arrival at the new capital—Criticism of Jefferson Davis—Soldiers - everywhere—Mrs. Davis’s drawing-room—A - day at the Champ de Mars—The armies assembling - for Bull Run—Col. L. Q. C. Lamar</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#CHAPTER_VII">68</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="chap"><span class="smcap">Chapter VIII.</span>—FAUQUIER WHITE SULPHUR - SPRINGS, Va., <i>July 6, 1861-July 11, 1861</i>.</td> - <td></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Cars crowded with soldiers—A Yankee spy—Anecdotes - of Lincoln—Gaiety in social life—Listening for guns—A - horse for Beauregard</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">77</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="chap"><span class="smcap">Chapter IX.</span>—RICHMOND, Va., <i>July 13, 1861-September - 2, 1861</i>.</td> - <td></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>General Lee and Joe Johnston—The battle of Bull Run—Colonel - Bartow’s death—Rejoicings and funerals—Anecdotes - <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">[vii]</a></span>of the battle—An interview with Robert E. - Lee—Treatment of prisoners—Toombs thrown from his - horse—Criticism of the Administration—Paying the soldiers—Suspected - women searched—Mason and Slidell</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#CHAPTER_IX">82</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="chap"><span class="smcap">Chapter X.</span>—CAMDEN, S. C., <i>September 9, 1861-September - 19, 1861</i>.</td> - <td></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>The author’s sister, Kate Williams—Old Colonel Chesnut—Roanoke - Island surrenders—Up Country and - Low Country—Family silver to be taken for war expenses—Mary - McDuffie Hampton—The Merrimac and - the Monitor</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#CHAPTER_X">127</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="chap"><span class="smcap">Chapter XI.</span>—COLUMBIA, S. C., <i>February 20, - 1862-July 21, 1862</i>.</td> - <td></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Dissensions among Southern leaders—Uncle Tom’s - Cabin—Conscription begins—Abuse of Jefferson Davis—The - battle of Shiloh—Beauregard flanked at Nashville—Old - Colonel Chesnut again—New Orleans lost—The - battle of Williamsburg—Dinners, teas, and breakfasts—Wade - Hampton at home wounded—Battle of - the Chickahominy—Albert Sidney Johnston’s death—Richmond - in sore straits—A wedding and its tragic - ending—Malvern Hill—Recognition of the Confederacy - in Europe</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#CHAPTER_XI">131</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="chap"><span class="smcap">Chapter XII.</span>—FLAT ROCK, N. C., <i>August 1, 1862-August - 8, 1862</i>.</td> - <td></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>A mountain summer resort—George Cuthbert—A disappointed - cavalier—Antietam and Chancellorsville—General - Chesnut’s work for the army</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#CHAPTER_XII">210</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="chap"><span class="smcap">Chapter XIII.</span>—PORTLAND, Ala., <i>July 8, 1863-July - 30, 1863</i>.</td> - <td></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>A journey from Columbia to Southern Alabama—The - surrender of Vicksburg—A terrible night in a swamp - on a riverside—A good pair of shoes—The author at - her mother’s home—Anecdotes of negroes—A Federal - Cynic</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIII">216</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="chap"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_viii" id="Page_viii">[viii]</a></span><span class="smcap">Chapter XIV.</span>—RICHMOND, Va., <i>August 10, 1863-September - 7, 1863</i>.</td> - <td></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>General Hood in Richmond—A brigade marches - through the town—Rags and tatters—Two love affairs - and a wedding—The battle of Brandy Station—The - Robert Barnwell tragedy</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIV">229</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="chap"><span class="smcap">Chapter XV.</span>—CAMDEN, S. C., <i>September 10, 1863-November - 5, 1863</i>.</td> - <td></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>A bride’s dressing-table—Home once more at Mulberry—Longstreet’s - army seen going West—Constance - and Hetty Cary—At church during Stoneman’s raid—Richmond - narrowly escapes capture—A battle on the - Chickahominy—A picnic at Mulberry</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#CHAPTER_XV">240</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="chap"><span class="smcap">Chapter XVI.</span>—RICHMOND, Va., <i>November 28, - 1863-April 11, 1864</i>.</td> - <td></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Mr. Davis visits Charleston—Adventures by rail—A - winter of mad gaiety—Weddings, dinner-parties, and - private theatricals—Battles around Chattanooga—Bragg - in disfavor—General Hood and his love affairs—Some - Kentucky generals—Burton Harrison and Miss - Constance Cary—George Eliot—Thackeray’s death—Mrs. - R. E. Lee and her daughters—Richmond almost - lost—Colonel Dahlgren’s death—General Grant—Depreciated - currency—Fourteen generals at church</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVI">252</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="chap"><span class="smcap">Chapter XVII.</span>—CAMDEN, S. C., <i>May 8, 1864-June - 1, 1864</i>.</td> - <td></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>A farewell to Richmond—“Little Joe’s” pathetic death - and funeral—An old silk dress—The battle of the - Wilderness—Spottsylvania Court House—At Mulberry - once more—Old Colonel Chesnut’s grief at his wife’s - death</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVII">304</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="chap"><span class="smcap">Chapter XVIII.</span>—COLUMBIA, S. C., <i>July 6, 1864-January - 17, 1865</i>.</td> - <td></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Gen. Joe Johnston superseded and the Alabama sunk—The - author’s new home—Sherman at Atlanta—The - <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_ix" id="Page_ix">[ix]</a></span>battle of Mobile Bay—At the hospital in Columbia—Wade - Hampton’s two sons shot—Hood crushed at - Nashville—Farewell to Mulberry—Sherman’s advance - eastward—The end near</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVIII">313</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="chap"><span class="smcap">Chapter XIX.</span>—LINCOLNTON, N. C., <i>February 16, - 1865-March 15, 1865</i>.</td> - <td></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>The flight from Columbia—A corps of generals without - troops—Broken-hearted and an exile—Taken for - millionaires—A walk with Gen. Joseph E. Johnston—The - burning of Columbia—Confederate money refused - in the shops—Selling old clothes to obtain food—Gen. - Joe Johnston and President Davis again—Braving - it out—Mulberry saved by a faithful negro—Ordered - to Chester, S. C.</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIX">344</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="chap"><span class="smcap">Chapter XX.</span>—CHESTER, S. C., <i>March 21, 1865-May - 1, 1865</i>.</td> - <td></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>How to live without money—Keeping house once more—Other - refugees tell stories of their flight—The Hood - melodrama over—The exodus from Richmond—Passengers - in a box car—A visit from General Hood—The - fall of Richmond—Lee’s surrender—Yankees hovering - around—In pursuit of President Davis</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#CHAPTER_XX">367</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="chap"><span class="smcap">Chapter XXI.</span>—CAMDEN, S. C., <i>May 2, 1865-August - 2, 1865</i>.</td> - <td></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Once more at Bloomsbury—Surprising fidelity of negroes—Stories - of escape—Federal soldiers who plundered old - estates—Mulberry partly in ruins—Old Colonel Chesnut - last of the grand seigniors—Two classes of sufferers—A - wedding and a funeral—Blood not shed in vain</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXI">384</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="chap">INDEX</td> - <td class="tdpg pad"><a href="#INDEX">405</a></td> - </tr> -</table> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_x" id="Page_x">[x]</a></span></p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xi" id="Page_xi">[xi]</a></span></p> - -<h2>LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS</h2> - -<table summary="List of illustrations"> - <tr> - <td></td> - <td class="tdpg smaller">FACING PAGE</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="chap"><span class="smcap">Mrs. JAMES CHESNUT, Jr.</span></td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#illus1"><i>Frontispiece</i></a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="sub">From a Portrait in Oil. Reproduced by courtesy of the - owner, Mr. David R. Williams, of Camden, S. C.</td> - <td></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="chap">A PAGE OF THE DIARY IN FACSIMILE</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#illus2">xxii</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="sub"></td> - <td></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="chap">THE OLD BAPTIST CHURCH IN COLUMBIA, S. C.</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#illus3">4</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="sub">Here First Met the South Carolina Secession Convention.</td> - <td></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="chap">VIEW OF CHARLESTON DURING THE WAR</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#illus4">22</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="sub">From an Old Print.</td> - <td></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="chap">FORT SUMTER UNDER BOMBARDMENT</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#illus5">38</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="sub">From an Old Print.</td> - <td></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="chap">A GROUP OF CONFEDERATE GENERALS</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#illus6">94</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="sub">Robert E. Lee, Joseph E. Johnston, Albert Sidney Johnston, - “Stonewall” Jackson, John B. Hood, and Pierre - G. T. Beauregard.</td> - <td></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="chap">MULBERRY HOUSE, NEAR CAMDEN, S. C.</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#illus7">128</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="sub">From a Recent Photograph.</td> - <td></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="chap">A GROUP OF CONFEDERATE WOMEN</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#illus8">148</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="sub">Mrs. Jefferson Davis, Mrs. Francis W. Pickens, Mrs. Louisa - S. McCord, Miss S. B. C. Preston, Mrs. David R. Williams - (the author’s sister Kate), Miss Isabella D. Martin.</td> - <td></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="chap">ANOTHER GROUP OF CONFEDERATE GENERALS</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#illus9">230</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="sub">Robert Toombs, John H. Morgan, John C. Preston, Joseph - B. Kershaw, James Chesnut, Jr., Wade Hampton.</td> - <td></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="chap"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xii" id="Page_xii">[xii]</a></span>THE DAVIS MANSION IN RICHMOND, THE “WHITE - HOUSE” OF THE CONFEDERACY</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#illus10">264</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="sub">Now the Confederate Museum.</td> - <td></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="chap"><span class="smcap">Mrs. JAMES CHESNUT, Sr.</span></td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#illus11">310</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="sub">From a Portrait in Oil by Gilbert Stuart. Reproduced by - courtesy of the owner, Mr. David R. Williams, of Camden, - S. C.</td> - <td></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="chap"><span class="smcap">Mrs. CHESNUT’S</span> HOME IN COLUMBIA IN THE LAST - YEAR OF THE WAR</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#illus12">314</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="sub">Here Mrs. Chesnut entertained Jefferson Davis.</td> - <td></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="chap">RUINS OF MILLWOOD, WADE HAMPTON’S ANCESTRAL HOME</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#illus13">350</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="sub">From a Recent Photograph.</td> - <td></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="chap">A NEWSPAPER “EXTRA”</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#illus14">380</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="sub">Issued in Chester, S. C., and Announcing the Assassination - of Lincoln.</td> - <td></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="chap"><span class="smcap">Col. JAMES CHESNUT, Sr.</span></td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#illus15">390</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="sub">From a Portrait in Oil by Gilbert Stuart. Reproduced - by courtesy of the owner, Mr. David R. Williams, of Camden, S. C.</td> - <td></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="chap">SARSFIELD, NEAR CAMDEN, S. C.</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#illus16">402</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="sub">Built by General Chesnut after the War, and the Home of - himself and Mrs. Chesnut until they Died. From a Recent Photograph.</td> - <td></td> - </tr> -</table> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xiii" id="Page_xiii">[xiii]</a></span></p> - -<h2 id="INTRODUCTION">INTRODUCTION<br /> -<span class="smaller">THE AUTHOR AND HER BOOK</span></h2> - -<div> -<img class="dropcap" src="images/dropcap-i.jpg" width="100" height="115" alt="" /> -</div> - -<p class="dropcap">In Mrs. Chesnut’s Diary are vivid pictures of the social -life that went on uninterruptedly in the midst of -war; of the economic conditions that resulted from -blockaded ports; of the manner in which the spirits of the -people rose and fell with each victory or defeat, and of the -momentous events that took place in Charleston, Montgomery, -and Richmond. But the Diary has an importance -quite apart from the interest that lies in these pictures.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Chesnut was close to forty years of age when the -war began, and thus had lived through the most stirring -scenes in the controversies that led to it. In this Diary, as -perhaps nowhere else in the literature of the war, will be -found the Southern spirit of that time expressed in words -which are not alone charming as literature, but genuinely -human in their spontaneousness, their delightfully unconscious -frankness. Her words are the farthest possible removed -from anything deliberate, academic, or purely intellectual. -They ring so true that they start echoes. The -most uncompromising Northern heart can scarcely fail to -be moved by their abounding sincerity, surcharged though -it be with that old Southern fire which overwhelmed the -army of McDowell at Bull Run.</p> - -<p>In making more clear the unyielding tenacity of the -South and the stern conditions in which the war was prosecuted, -the Diary has further importance. At the beginning -there was no Southern leader, in so far as we can gather<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xiv" id="Page_xiv">[xiv]</a></span> -from Mrs. Chesnut’s reports of her talks with them, who -had any hope that the South would win in the end, -provided the North should be able to enlist her full -resources. The result, however, was that the South struck -something like terror to many hearts, and raised serious expectations -that two great European powers would recognize -her independence. The South fought as long as she had -any soldiers left who were capable of fighting, and at last -“robbed the cradle and the grave.” Nothing then remained -except to “wait for another generation to grow -up.” The North, so far as her stock of men of fighting -age was concerned, had done scarcely more than make a -beginning, while the South was virtually exhausted when -the war was half over.</p> - -<p>Unlike the South, the North was never reduced to extremities -which led the wives of Cabinet officers and commanding -generals to gather in Washington hotels and -private drawing-rooms, in order to knit heavy socks for -soldiers whose feet otherwise would go bare: scenes like -these were common in Richmond, and Mrs. Chesnut often -made one of the company. Nor were gently nurtured women -of the North forced to wear coarse and ill-fitting shoes, such -as negro cobblers made, the alternative being to dispense -with shoes altogether. Gold might rise in the North to 2.80, -but there came a time in the South when a thousand dollars -in paper money were needed to buy a kitchen utensil, which -before the war could have been bought for less than one -dollar in gold. Long before the conflict ended it was a -common remark in the South that, “in going to market, -you take your money in your basket, and bring your purchases -home in your pocket.”</p> - -<p>In the North the counterpart to these facts were such -items as butter at 50 cents a pound and flour at $12 a barrel. -People in the North actually thrived on high prices. Villages -and small towns, as well as large cities, had their -“bloated bondholders” in plenty, while farmers everywhere<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xv" id="Page_xv">[xv]</a></span> -were able to clear their lands of mortgages and put -money in the bank besides. Planters in the South, meanwhile, -were borrowing money to support the negroes in -idleness at home, while they themselves were fighting at -the front. Old Colonel Chesnut, the author’s father-in-law, -in April, 1862, estimated that he had already lost half -a million in bank stock and railroad bonds. When the -war closed, he had borrowed such large sums himself and -had such large sums due to him from others, that he saw no -likelihood of the obligations on either side ever being discharged.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Chesnut wrote her Diary from day to day, as the -mood or an occasion prompted her to do so. The fortunes -of war changed the place of her abode almost as frequently -as the seasons changed, but wherever she might be the -Diary was continued. She began to write in Charleston -when the Convention was passing the Ordinance of Secession. -Thence she went to Montgomery, Ala., where the -Confederacy was organized and Jefferson Davis was inaugurated -as its President. She went to receptions where, -sitting aside on sofas with Davis, Stephens, Toombs, Cobb, -or Hunter, she talked of the probable outcome of the war, -should war come, setting down in her Diary what she heard -from others and all that she thought herself. Returning to -Charleston, where her husband, in a small boat, conveyed -to Major Anderson the ultimatum of the Governor of South -Carolina, she saw from a housetop the first act of war committed -in the bombardment of Fort Sumter. During the -ensuing four years, Mrs. Chesnut’s time was mainly passed -between Columbia and Richmond. For shorter periods she -was at the Fauquier White Sulphur Springs in Virginia, -Flat Rock in North Carolina, Portland in Alabama (the -home of her mother), Camden and Chester in South Carolina, -and Lincolnton in North Carolina.</p> - -<p>In all these places Mrs. Chesnut was in close touch -with men and women who were in the forefront of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xvi" id="Page_xvi">[xvi]</a></span> -social, military, and political life of the South. Those -who live in her pages make up indeed a catalogue of the -heroes of the Confederacy—President Jefferson Davis, -Vice-President Alexander H. Stephens, General Robert E. -Lee, General “Stonewall” Jackson, General Joseph E. -Johnston, General Pierre G. T. Beauregard, General Wade -Hampton, General Joseph B. Kershaw, General John B. -Hood, General John S. Preston, General Robert Toombs, -R. M. T. Hunter, Judge Louis T. Wigfall, and so many -others that one almost hears the roll-call. That this -statement is not exaggerated may be judged from a -glance at the index, which has been prepared with a -view to the inclusion of all important names mentioned in -the text.</p> - -<p>As her Diary constantly shows, Mrs. Chesnut was a -woman of society in the best sense. She had love of companionship, -native wit, an acute mind, knowledge of books, -and a searching insight into the motives of men and women. -She was also a notable housewife, much given to hospitality; -and her heart was of the warmest and tenderest, as those -who knew her well bore witness.</p> - -<p class="tb">Mary Boykin Miller, born March 31, 1823, was the -daughter of Stephen Decatur Miller, a man of distinction -in the public affairs of South Carolina. Mr. Miller was -elected to Congress in 1817, became Governor in 1828, and -was chosen United States Senator in 1830. He was a -strong supporter of the Nullification movement. In 1833, -owing to ill-health, he resigned his seat in the Senate and -not long afterward removed to Mississippi, where he engaged -in cotton planting until his death, in March, 1838.</p> - -<p>His daughter, Mary, was married to James Chesnut, Jr., -April 23, 1840, when seventeen years of age. Thenceforth -her home was mainly at Mulberry, near Camden, one of -several plantations owned by her father-in-law. Of the -domestic life at Mulberry a pleasing picture has come down<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xvii" id="Page_xvii">[xvii]</a></span> -to us, as preserved in a time-worn scrap-book and written -some years before the war:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“In our drive of about three miles to Mulberry, -we were struck with the wealth of forest -trees along our way for which the environs of -Camden are noted. Here is a bridge completely -canopied with overarching branches; and, for the -remainder of our journey, we pass through an -aromatic avenue of crab-trees with the Yellow Jessamine -and the Cherokee rose, entwining every -shrub, post, and pillar within reach and lending -an almost tropical luxuriance and sweetness to -the way.</p> - -<p>“But here is the house—a brick building, -capacious and massive, a house that is a home for -a large family, one of the homesteads of the olden -times, where home comforts and blessings cluster, -sacred alike for its joys and its sorrows. Birthdays, -wedding-days, ‘Merry Christmases,’ departures -for school and college, and home returnings -have enriched this abode with the treasures -of life.</p> - -<p>“A warm welcome greets us as we enter. -The furniture within is in keeping with things -without; nothing is tawdry; there is no gingerbread -gilding; all is handsome and substantial. -In the ‘old arm-chair’ sits the venerable mother. -The father is on his usual ride about the plantation; -but will be back presently. A lovely old -age is this mother’s, calm and serene, as the soft -mellow days of our own gentle autumn. She -came from the North to the South many years -ago, a fair young bride.</p> - -<p>“The Old Colonel enters. He bears himself -erect, walks at a brisk gait, and needs no spectacles,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xviii" id="Page_xviii">[xviii]</a></span> -yet he is over eighty. He is a typical Southern -planter. From the beginning he has been one -of the most intelligent patrons of the Wateree -Mission to the Negroes, taking a personal interest -in them, attending the mission church and worshiping -with his own people. May his children -see to it that this holy charity is continued to their -servants forever!”</p> - -</div> - -<p>James Chesnut, Jr., was the son and heir of Colonel -James Chesnut, whose wife was Mary Coxe, of Philadelphia. -Mary Coxe’s sister married Horace Binney, the eminent -Philadelphia lawyer. James Chesnut, Jr., was born in 1815 -and graduated from Princeton. For fourteen years he -served in the legislature of South Carolina, and in January, -1859, was appointed to fill a vacancy in the United States -Senate. In November, 1860, when South Carolina was -about to secede, he resigned from the Senate and thenceforth -was active in the Southern cause, first as an aide to -General Beauregard, then as an aide to President Davis, -and finally as a brigadier-general of reserves in command -of the coast of South Carolina.</p> - -<p>General Chesnut was active in public life in South Carolina -after the war, in so far as the circumstances of Reconstruction -permitted, and in 1868 was a delegate from that -State to the National convention which nominated Horatio -Seymour for President. His death occurred at Sarsfield, -February 1, 1885. One who knew him well wrote:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“While papers were teeming with tribute to -this knightly gentleman, whose services to his -State were part of her history in her prime—tribute -that did him no more than justice, in recounting -his public virtues—I thought there was another -phase of his character which the world did -not know and the press did not chronicle—that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xix" id="Page_xix">[xix]</a></span> -which showed his beautiful kindness and his courtesy -to his own household, and especially to his -dependents.</p> - -<p>“Among all the preachers of the South Carolina -Conference, a few remained of those who ever -counted it as one of the highest honors conferred -upon them by their Lord that it was permitted to -them to preach the gospel to the slaves of the -Southern plantations. Some of these retained -kind recollections of the cordial hospitality shown -the plantation missionary at Mulberry and Sandy -Hill, and of the care taken at these places that the -plantation chapel should be neat and comfortable, -and that the slaves should have their spiritual as -well as their bodily needs supplied.</p> - -<p>“To these it was no matter of surprise to learn -that at his death General Chesnut, statesman and -soldier, was surrounded by faithful friends, born -in slavery on his own plantation, and that the last -prayer he ever heard came from the lips of a negro -man, old Scipio, his father’s body-servant; and -that he was borne to his grave amid the tears and -lamentations of those whom no Emancipation -Proclamation could sever from him, and who cried -aloud: ‘O my master! my master! he was so good -to me! He was all to us! We have lost our best -friend!’</p> - -<p>“Mrs. Chesnut’s anguish when her husband -died, is not to be forgotten; the ‘bitter cry’ never -quite spent itself, though she was brave and -bright to the end. Her friends were near in that -supreme moment at Sarsfield, when, on November -22, 1886, her own heart ceased to beat. Her servants -had been true to her; no blandishments of -freedom had drawn Ellen or Molly away from -‘Miss Mary.’ Mrs. Chesnut lies buried in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xx" id="Page_xx">[xx]</a></span> -family cemetery at Knight’s Hill, where also sleep -her husband and many other members of the -Chesnut family.”</p> - -</div> - -<p>The Chesnuts settled in South Carolina at the close of -the war with France, but lived originally on the frontier of -Virginia. Their Virginia home had been invaded by French -and Indians, and in an expedition to Fort Duquesne the -father was killed. John Chesnut removed from Virginia -to South Carolina soon afterward and served in the Revolution -as a captain. His son James, the “Old Colonel,” -was educated at Princeton, took an active part in public -affairs in South Carolina, and prospered greatly as a -planter. He survived until after the War, being a nonogenarian -when the conflict closed. In a charming sketch of -him in one of the closing pages of this Diary, occurs the -following passage: “Colonel Chesnut, now ninety-three, -blind and deaf, is apparently as strong as ever, and certainly -as resolute of will. Partly patriarch, partly grand -seigneur, this old man is of a species that we shall see no -more; the last of a race of lordly planters who ruled this -Southern world, but now a splendid wreck.”</p> - -<p>Three miles from Camden still stands Mulberry. During -one of the raids committed in the neighborhood by Sherman’s -men early in 1865, the house escaped destruction -almost as if by accident. The picture of it in this book -is from a recent photograph. A change has indeed come -over it, since the days when the household servants and dependents -numbered between sixty and seventy, and its owner -was lord of a thousand slaves. After the war, Mulberry -ceased to be the author’s home, she and General Chesnut -building for themselves another to which they gave the -name of Sarsfield. Sarsfield, of which an illustration is -given, still stands in the pine lands not far from Mulberry. -Bloomsbury, another of old Colonel Chesnut’s plantation -dwellings, survived the march of Sherman, and is now the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xxi" id="Page_xxi">[xxi]</a></span> -home of David R. Williams, Jr., and Ellen Manning, his -wife, whose children roam its halls, as grandchildren of the -author’s sister Kate. Other Chesnut plantations were Cool -Spring, Knight’s Hill, The Hermitage, and Sandy Hill.</p> - -<p>The Diary, as it now exists in forty-eight thin volumes, -of the small quarto size, is entirely in Mrs. Chesnut’s handwriting. -She originally wrote it on what was known -as “Confederate paper,” but transcribed it afterward. -When Richmond was threatened, or when Sherman was -coming, she buried it or in some other way secreted it from -the enemy. On occasion it shared its hiding-place with -family silver, or with a drinking-cup which had been presented -to General Hood by the ladies of Richmond. Mrs. -Chesnut was fond of inserting on blank pages of the Diary -current newspaper accounts of campaigns and battles, or -lists of killed and wounded. One item of this kind, a newspaper -“extra,” issued in Chester, S. C., and announcing -the assassination of Lincoln, is reproduced in this volume.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Chesnut, by oral and written bequest, gave the -Diary to her friend whose name leads the signatures to this -Introduction. In the Diary, here and there, Mrs. Chesnut’s -expectation that the work would some day be printed -is disclosed, but at the time of her death it did not seem -wise to undertake publication for a considerable period. -Yellow with age as the pages now are, the only harm that -has come to them in the passing of many years, is that a -few corners have been broken and frayed, as shown in one -of the pages here reproduced in facsimile.</p> - -<p>In the summer of 1904, the woman whose office it -has been to assist in preparing the Diary for the press, -went South to collect material for another work to follow -her A Virginia Girl in the Civil War. Her investigations -led her to Columbia, where, while the guest of Miss -Martin, she learned of the Diary’s existence. Soon afterward -an arrangement was made with her publishers under -which the Diary’s owner and herself agreed to condense<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xxii" id="Page_xxii">[xxii]</a></span> -and revise the manuscript for publication. The Diary -was found to be of too great length for reproduction in -full, parts of it being of personal or local interest rather -than general. The editing of the book called also for the -insertion of a considerable number of foot-notes, in order -that persons named, or events referred to, might be the -better understood by the present generation.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Chesnut was a conspicuous example of the well-born -and high-bred woman, who, with active sympathy and -unremitting courage, supported the Southern cause. Born -and reared when Nullification was in the ascendent, and -acquiring an education which developed and refined her -natural literary gifts, she found in the throes of a great -conflict at arms the impulse which wrought into vital expression -in words her steadfast loyalty to the waning fortunes -of a political faith, which, in South Carolina, had -become a religion.</p> - -<p>Many men have produced narratives of the war between -the States, and a few women have written notable chronicles -of it; but none has given to the world a record more radiant -than hers, or one more passionately sincere. Every line in -this Diary throbs with the tumult of deep spiritual passion, -and bespeaks the luminous mind, the unconquered soul, of -the woman who wrote it.</p> - -<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Isabella D. Martin</span>,<br /> -<span class="smcap">Myrta Lockett Avary</span>.</p> - -<hr /> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 450px;" id="illus2"> -<img src="images/illus2.jpg" width="450" height="700" alt="" /> -<p class="caption">A PAGE OF THE DIARY IN FACSIMILE.</p> -</div> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[1]</a></span></p> - -<h2 id="CHAPTER_I">I<br /> -<span class="smaller">CHARLESTON, S. C.<br /> -<i>November 8, 1860-December 27, 1860</i></span></h2> - -<div> -<img class="dropcap" src="images/dropcap-c.jpg" width="100" height="115" alt="" /> -</div> - -<p class="dropcap">Charleston, S. C., <i>November 8, 1860</i>.—Yesterday -on the train, just before we reached Fernandina, a -woman called out: “That settles the hash.” Tanny -touched me on the shoulder and said: “Lincoln’s elected.” -“How do you know?” “The man over there has a telegram.”</p> - -<p>The excitement was very great. Everybody was talking -at the same time. One, a little more moved than the -others, stood up and said despondently: “The die is cast; -no more vain regrets; sad forebodings are useless; the -stake is life or death.” “Did you ever!” was the prevailing -exclamation, and some one cried out: “Now that the -black radical Republicans have the power I suppose they -will Brown<a name="FNanchor_1" id="FNanchor_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> us all.” No doubt of it.</p> - -<p>I have always kept a journal after a fashion of my -own, with dates and a line of poetry or prose, mere quotations, -which I understood and no one else, and I have kept -letters and extracts from the papers. From to-day forward -I will tell the story in my own way. I now wish I had a -chronicle of the two delightful and eventful years that have -just passed. Those delights have fled and one’s breath is -taken away to think what events have since crowded in. -Like the woman’s record in her journal, we have had -“earthquakes, as usual”—daily shocks.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[2]</a></span></p> - -<p>At Fernandina I saw young men running up a Palmetto -flag, and shouting a little prematurely, “South Carolina -has seceded!” I was overjoyed to find Florida so -sympathetic, but Tanny told me the young men were Gadsdens, -Porchers, and Gourdins,<a name="FNanchor_2" id="FNanchor_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> names as inevitably South -Carolinian as Moses and Lazarus are Jewish.</p> - -<p>From my window I can hear a grand and mighty -flow of eloquence. Bartow and a delegation from Savannah -are having a supper given to them in the dining-room -below. The noise of the speaking and cheering is pretty -hard on a tired traveler. Suddenly I found myself listening -with pleasure. Voice, tone, temper, sentiment, language, -all were perfect. I sent Tanny to see who it was -that spoke. He came back saying, “Mr. Alfred Huger, -the old postmaster.” He may not have been the wisest or -wittiest man there, but he certainly made the best after-supper -speech.</p> - -<p><i>December 10th.</i>—We have been up to the Mulberry -Plantation with Colonel Colcock and Judge Magrath, who -were sent to Columbia by their fellow-citizens in the low -country, to hasten the slow movement of the wisdom assembled -in the State Capital. Their message was, they said: -“Go ahead, dissolve the Union, and be done with it, or -it will be worse for you. The fire in the rear is hottest.” -And yet people talk of the politicians leading! Everywhere -that I have been people have been complaining bitterly -of slow and lukewarm public leaders.</p> - -<p>Judge Magrath is a local celebrity, who has been -stretched across the street in effigy, showing him tearing off -his robes of office. The painting is in vivid colors, the -canvas huge, and the rope hardly discernible. He is -depicted with a countenance flaming with contending emotions—rage, -disgust, and disdain. We agreed that the time<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[3]</a></span> -had now come. We had talked so much heretofore. Let the -fire-eaters have it out. Massachusetts and South Carolina -are always coming up before the footlights.</p> - -<p>As a woman, of course, it is easy for me to be brave -under the skins of other people; so I said: “Fight it out. -Bluffton<a name="FNanchor_3" id="FNanchor_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> has brought on a fever that only bloodletting will -cure.” My companions breathed fire and fury, but I dare -say they were amusing themselves with my dismay, for, -talk as I would, that I could not hide.</p> - -<p>At Kingsville we encountered James Chesnut, fresh -from Columbia, where he had resigned his seat in the -United States Senate the day before. Said some one spitefully, -“Mrs. Chesnut does not look at all resigned.” For -once in her life, Mrs. Chesnut held her tongue: she was -dumb. In the high-flown style which of late seems to have -gotten into the very air, she was offering up her life to -the cause.</p> - -<p>We have had a brief pause. The men who are all, like -Pickens,<a name="FNanchor_4" id="FNanchor_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> “insensible to fear,” are very sensible in case of -small-pox. There being now an epidemic of small-pox in -Columbia, they have adjourned to Charleston. In Camden -we were busy and frantic with excitement, drilling, marching, -arming, and wearing high blue cockades. Red sashes, -guns, and swords were ordinary fireside accompaniments. -So wild were we, I saw at a grand parade of the home-guard -a woman, the wife of a man who says he is a secessionist -<i lang="la">per se</i>, driving about to see the drilling of this new company, -although her father was buried the day before.</p> - -<p>Edward J. Pringle writes me from San Francisco -on November 30th: “I see that Mr. Chesnut has resigned<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[4]</a></span> -and that South Carolina is hastening into a Convention, -perhaps to secession. Mr. Chesnut is probably to -be President of the Convention. I see all of the leaders -in the State are in favor of secession. But I confess I -hope the black Republicans will take the alarm and submit -some treaty of peace that will enable us now and forever -to settle the question, and save our generation from -the prostration of business and the decay of prosperity -that must come both to the North and South from a disruption -of the Union. However, I won’t speculate. Before -this reaches you, South Carolina may be off on her own -hook—a separate republic.”</p> - -<p><i>December 21st.</i>—Mrs. Charles Lowndes was sitting with -us to-day, when Mrs. Kirkland brought in a copy of the -Secession Ordinance. I wonder if my face grew as white -as hers. She said after a moment: “God help us. As our -day, so shall our strength be.” How grateful we were for -this pious ejaculation of hers! They say I had better take -my last look at this beautiful place, Combahee. It is on the -coast, open to gunboats.</p> - -<p>We mean business this time, because of this convocation -of the notables, this convention.<a name="FNanchor_5" id="FNanchor_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> In it are all our wisest -and best. They really have tried to send the ablest men, -the good men and true. South Carolina was never more -splendidly represented. Patriotism aside, it makes society -delightful. One need not regret having left Washington.</p> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 700px;" id="illus3"> -<img src="images/illus3.jpg" width="700" height="475" alt="" /> -<p class="caption">THE OLD BAPTIST CHURCH IN COLUMBIA, S. C.</p> -<p class="caption">Here First Met the South Carolina Secession Convention.</p> -</div> - -<p><i>December 27th.</i>—Mrs. Gidiere came in quietly from her -marketing to-day, and in her neat, incisive manner exploded -this bombshell: “Major Anderson<a name="FNanchor_6" id="FNanchor_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a> has moved into<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[5]</a></span> -Fort Sumter, while Governor Pickens slept serenely.” The -row is fast and furious now. State after State is taking its -forts and fortresses. They say if we had been left out in -the cold alone, we might have sulked a while, but back we -would have had to go, and would merely have fretted and -fumed and quarreled among ourselves. We needed a little -wholesome neglect. Anderson has blocked that game, but -now our sister States have joined us, and we are strong. -I give the condensed essence of the table-talk: “Anderson -has united the cotton States. Now for Virginia!” “Anderson -has opened the ball.” Those who want a row are in -high glee. Those who dread it are glum and thoughtful -enough.</p> - -<p>A letter from Susan Rutledge: “Captain Humphrey -folded the United States Army flag just before dinner-time. -Ours was run up in its place. You know the Arsenal -is in sight. What is the next move? I pray God to guide -us. We stand in need of wise counsel; something more -than courage. The talk is: ‘Fort Sumter must be taken; -and it is one of the strongest forts.’ How in the name of -sense are they to manage? I shudder to think of rash -moves.”</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[6]</a></span></p> - -<h2 id="CHAPTER_II">II<br /> -<span class="smaller">MONTGOMERY, ALA.<br /> -<i>February 19, 1861-March 11, 1861</i></span></h2> - -<div> -<img class="dropcap" src="images/dropcap-m.jpg" width="100" height="115" alt="" /> -</div> - -<p class="dropcap">Montgomery, Ala., <i>February 19, 1861</i>.—The brand-new -Confederacy is making or remodeling its Constitution. -Everybody wants Mr. Davis to be General-in-Chief -or President. Keitt and Boyce and a party -preferred Howell Cobb<a name="FNanchor_7" id="FNanchor_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a> for President. And the fire-eaters -<i lang="la">per se</i> wanted Barnwell Rhett.</p> - -<p>My brother Stephen brought the officers of the “Montgomery -Blues” to dinner. “Very soiled Blues,” they said, -apologizing for their rough condition. Poor fellows! they -had been a month before Fort Pickens and not allowed to -attack it. They said Colonel Chase built it, and so were -sure it was impregnable. Colonel Lomax telegraphed to -Governor Moore<a name="FNanchor_8" id="FNanchor_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a> if he might try to take it, “Chase or no -Chase,” and got for his answer, “No.” “And now,” say -the Blues, “we have worked like niggers, and when the -fun and fighting begin, they send us home and put regulars<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span> -there.” They have an immense amount of powder. -The wheel of the car in which it was carried took fire. -There was an escape for you! We are packing a hamper -of eatables for them.</p> - -<p>I am despondent once more. If I thought them in earnest -because at first they put their best in front, what now? -We have to meet tremendous odds by pluck, activity, zeal, -dash, endurance of the toughest, military instinct. We -have had to choose born leaders of men who could attract -love and secure trust. Everywhere political intrigue is as -rife as in Washington.</p> - -<p>Cecil’s saying of Sir Walter Raleigh that he could “toil -terribly” was an electric touch. Above all, let the men who -are to save South Carolina be young and vigorous. While -I was reflecting on what kind of men we ought to choose, I -fell on Clarendon, and it was easy to construct my man -out of his portraits. What has been may be again, so the -men need not be purely ideal types.</p> - -<p>Mr. Toombs<a name="FNanchor_9" id="FNanchor_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a> told us a story of General Scott and himself. -He said he was dining in Washington with Scott, -who seasoned every dish and every glass of wine with the -eternal refrain, “Save the Union; the Union must be preserved.” -Toombs remarked that he knew why the Union -was so dear to the General, and illustrated his point by a -steamboat anecdote, an explosion, of course. While the -passengers were struggling in the water a woman ran up -and down the bank crying, “Oh, save the red-headed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</a></span> -man!” The red-headed man was saved, and his preserver, -after landing him noticed with surprise how little interest in -him the woman who had made such moving appeals seemed -to feel. He asked her, “Why did you make that pathetic -outcry?” She answered, “Oh, he owes me ten thousand -dollars.” “Now, General,” said Toombs, “the Union -owes you seventeen thousand dollars a year!” I can imagine -the scorn on old Scott’s face.</p> - -<p><i>February 25th.</i>—Find every one working very hard -here. As I dozed on the sofa last night, could hear the -scratch, scratch of my husband’s pen as he wrote at the -table until midnight.</p> - -<p>After church to-day, Captain Ingraham called. He left -me so uncomfortable. He dared to express regrets that he -had to leave the United States Navy. He had been stationed -in the Mediterranean, where he liked to be, and -expected to be these two years, and to take those lovely -daughters of his to Florence. Then came Abraham Lincoln, -and rampant black Republicanism, and he must lay -down his life for South Carolina. He, however, does not -make any moan. He says we lack everything necessary in -naval gear to retake Fort Sumter. Of course, he only -expects the navy to take it. He is a fish out of water here. -He is one of the finest sea-captains; so I suppose they will -soon give him a ship and send him back to his own element.</p> - -<p>At dinner Judge —— was loudly abusive of Congress. -He said: “They have trampled the Constitution underfoot. -They have provided President Davis with a house.” -He was disgusted with the folly of parading the President -at the inauguration in a coach drawn by four white horses. -Then some one said Mrs. Fitzpatrick was the only lady -who sat with the Congress. After the inaugural she poked -Jeff Davis in the back with her parasol that he might turn -and speak to her. “I am sure that was democratic -enough,” said some one.</p> - -<p>Governor Moore came in with the latest news—a telegram<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span> -from Governor Pickens to the President, “that a -war steamer is lying off the Charleston bar laden with -reenforcements for Fort Sumter, and what must we do?” -Answer: “Use your own discretion!” There is faith for -you, after all is said and done. It is believed there is still -some discretion left in South Carolina fit for use.</p> - -<p>Everybody who comes here wants an office, and the -many who, of course, are disappointed raise a cry of corruption -against the few who are successful. I thought we -had left all that in Washington. Nobody is willing to be -out of sight, and all will take office.</p> - -<p>“Constitution” Browne says he is going to Washington -for twenty-four hours. I mean to send by him to Mary -Garnett for a bonnet ribbon. If they take him up as a -traitor, he may cause a civil war. War is now our dread. -Mr. Chesnut told him not to make himself a bone of contention.</p> - -<p>Everybody means to go into the army. If Sumter is -attacked, then Jeff Davis’s troubles will begin. The Judge -says a military despotism would be best for us—anything -to prevent a triumph of the Yankees. All right, but every -man objects to any despot but himself.</p> - -<p>Mr. Chesnut, in high spirits, dines to-day with the -Louisiana delegation. Breakfasted with “Constitution” -Browne, who is appointed Assistant Secretary of State, -and so does not go to Washington. There was at table the -man who advertised for a wife, with the wife so obtained. -She was not pretty. We dine at Mr. Pollard’s and go to -a ball afterward at Judge Bibb’s. The New York Herald -says Lincoln stood before Washington’s picture at his inauguration, -which was taken by the country as a good sign. -We are always frantic for a good sign. Let us pray that a -Cæsar or a Napoleon may be sent us. That would be our -best sign of success. But they still say, “No war.” Peace -let it be, kind Heaven!</p> - -<p>Dr. De Leon called, fresh from Washington, and says<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span> -General Scott is using all his power and influence to prevent -officers from the South resigning their commissions, -among other things promising that they shall never be sent -against us in case of war. Captain Ingraham, in his short, -curt way, said: “That will never do. If they take their -government’s pay they must do its fighting.”</p> - -<p>A brilliant dinner at the Pollards’s. Mr. Barnwell<a name="FNanchor_10" id="FNanchor_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a> took -me down. Came home and found the Judge and Governor -Moore waiting to go with me to the Bibbs’s. And they say it -is dull in Montgomery! Clayton, fresh from Washington, -was at the party and told us “there was to be peace.”</p> - -<p><i>February 28th.</i>—In the drawing-room a literary lady -began a violent attack upon this mischief-making South -Carolina. She told me she was a successful writer in the -magazines of the day, but when I found she used “incredible” -for “incredulous,” I said not a word in defense of -my native land. I left her “incredible.” Another person -came in, while she was pouring upon me her home troubles, -and asked if she did not know I was a Carolinian. Then -she gracefully reversed her engine, and took the other tack, -sounding our praise, but I left her incredible and I remained -incredulous, too.</p> - -<p>Brewster says the war specks are growing in size. Nobody -at the North, or in Virginia, believes we are in earnest. -They think we are sulking and that Jeff Davis and -Stephens<a name="FNanchor_11" id="FNanchor_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a> are getting up a very pretty little comedy. The<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span> -Virginia delegates were insulted at the peace conference; -Brewster said, “kicked out.”</p> - -<p>The Judge thought Jefferson Davis rude to him -when the latter was Secretary of War. Mr. Chesnut persuaded -the Judge to forego his private wrong for the public -good, and so he voted for him, but now his old grudge -has come back with an increased venomousness. What a -pity to bring the spites of the old Union into this new one! -It seems to me already men are willing to risk an injury to -our cause, if they may in so doing hurt Jeff Davis.</p> - -<p><i>March 1st.</i>—Dined to-day with Mr. Hill<a name="FNanchor_12" id="FNanchor_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a> from Georgia, -and his wife. After he left us she told me he was the celebrated -individual who, for Christian scruples, refused to -fight a duel with Stephens.<a name="FNanchor_13" id="FNanchor_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a> She seemed very proud of -him for his conduct in the affair. Ignoramus that I am, I -had not heard of it. I am having all kinds of experiences. -Drove to-day with a lady who fervently wished her husband -would go down to Pensacola and be shot. I was dumb with -amazement, of course. Telling my story to one who knew -the parties, was informed, “Don’t you know he beats -her?” So I have seen a man “who lifts his hand against -a woman in aught save kindness.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span></p> - -<p>Brewster says Lincoln passed through Baltimore disguised, -and at night, and that he did well, for just now Baltimore -is dangerous ground. He says that he hears from -all quarters that the vulgarity of Lincoln, his wife, and his -son is beyond credence, a thing you must see before you -can believe it. Senator Stephen A. Douglas told Mr. Chesnut -that “Lincoln is awfully clever, and that he had -found him a heavy handful.”</p> - -<p>Went to pay my respects to Mrs. Jefferson Davis. She -met me with open arms. We did not allude to anything -by which we are surrounded. We eschewed politics and -our changed relations.</p> - -<p><i>March 3d.</i>—Everybody in fine spirits in my world. -They have one and all spoken in the Congress<a name="FNanchor_14" id="FNanchor_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a> to their -own perfect satisfaction. To my amazement the Judge -took me aside, and, after delivering a panegyric upon himself -(but here, later, comes in the amazement), he praised -my husband to the skies, and said he was the fittest man of -all for a foreign mission. Aye; and the farther away they -send us from this Congress the better I will like it.</p> - -<p>Saw Jere Clemens and Nick Davis, social curiosities. -They are Anti-Secession leaders; then George Sanders and -George Deas. The Georges are of opinion that it is -folly to try to take back Fort Sumter from Anderson and -the United States; that is, before we are ready. They saw -in Charleston the devoted band prepared for the sacrifice; -I mean, ready to run their heads against a stone wall. -Dare devils they are. They have dash and courage enough, -but science only could take that fort. They shook their -heads.</p> - -<p><i>March 4th.</i>—The Washington Congress has passed peace<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span> -measures. Glory be to God (as my Irish Margaret used to -preface every remark, both great and small).</p> - -<p>At last, according to his wish, I was able to introduce -Mr. Hill, of Georgia, to Mr. Mallory,<a name="FNanchor_15" id="FNanchor_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a> and also Governor -Moore and Brewster, the latter the only man without a -title of some sort that I know in this democratic subdivided -republic.</p> - -<p>I have seen a negro woman sold on the block at auction. -She overtopped the crowd. I was walking and felt faint, -seasick. The creature looked so like my good little Nancy, -a bright mulatto with a pleasant face. She was magnificently -gotten up in silks and satins. She seemed delighted -with it all, sometimes ogling the bidders, sometimes looking -quiet, coy, and modest, but her mouth never relaxed from -its expanded grin of excitement. I dare say the poor -thing knew who would buy her. I sat down on a stool in a -shop and disciplined my wild thoughts. I tried it Sterne -fashion. You know how women sell themselves and are -sold in marriage from queens downward, eh? You know -what the Bible says about slavery and marriage; poor -women! poor slaves! Sterne, with his starling—what did -he know? He only thought, he did not feel.</p> - -<p>In Evan Harrington I read: “Like a true English -female, she believed in her own inflexible virtue, but never -trusted her husband out of sight.”</p> - -<p>The New York Herald says: “Lincoln’s carriage is not -bomb-proof; so he does not drive out.” Two flags and a -bundle of sticks have been sent him as gentle reminders. -The sticks are to break our heads with. The English are -gushingly unhappy as to our family quarrel. Magnanimous -of them, for it is their opportunity.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span></p> - -<p><i>March 5th.</i>—We stood on the balcony to see our Confederate -flag go up. Roars of cannon, etc., etc. Miss Sanders -complained (so said Captain Ingraham) of the deadness of -the mob. “It was utterly spiritless,” she said; “no cheering, -or so little, and no enthusiasm.” Captain Ingraham -suggested that gentlemen “are apt to be quiet,” and this -was “a thoughtful crowd, the true mob element with us -just now is hoeing corn.” And yet! It is uncomfortable -that the idea has gone abroad that we have no joy, no -pride, in this thing. The band was playing “Massa in the -cold, cold ground.” Miss Tyler, daughter of the former -President of the United States, ran up the flag.</p> - -<p>Captain Ingraham pulled out of his pocket some verses -sent to him by a Boston girl. They were well rhymed and -amounted to this: she held a rope ready to hang him, -though she shed tears when she remembered his heroic rescue -of Koszta. Koszta, the rebel! She calls us rebels, too. -So it depends upon whom one rebels against—whether to -save or not shall be heroic.</p> - -<p>I must read Lincoln’s inaugural. Oh, “comes he in -peace, or comes he in war, or to tread but one measure as -Young Lochinvar?” Lincoln’s aim is to seduce the border -States.</p> - -<p>The people, the natives, I mean, are astounded that I -calmly affirm, in all truth and candor, that if there were -awful things in society in Washington, I did not see or -hear of them. One must have been hard to please who did -not like the people I knew in Washington.</p> - -<p>Mr. Chesnut has gone with a list of names to the President—de -Treville, Kershaw, Baker, and Robert Rutledge. -They are taking a walk, I see. I hope there will be good -places in the army for our list.</p> - -<p><i>March 8th.</i>—Judge Campbell,<a name="FNanchor_16" id="FNanchor_16"></a><a href="#Footnote_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a> of the United States<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span> -Supreme Court, has resigned. Lord! how he must have -hated to do it. How other men who are resigning high positions -must hate to do it.</p> - -<p>Now we may be sure the bridge is broken. And yet -in the Alabama Convention they say Reconstructionists -abound and are busy.</p> - -<p>Met a distinguished gentleman that I knew when he -was in more affluent circumstances. I was willing enough -to speak to him, but when he saw me advancing for that -purpose, to avoid me, he suddenly dodged around a corner—William, -Mrs. de Saussure’s former coachman. I remember -him on his box, driving a handsome pair of bays, -dressed sumptuously in blue broadcloth and brass buttons; -a stout, respectable, fine-looking, middle-aged mulatto. -He was very high and mighty.</p> - -<p>Night after night we used to meet him as fiddler-in-chief -of all our parties. He sat in solemn dignity, making faces -over his bow, and patting his foot with an emphasis that -shook the floor. We gave him five dollars a night; that was -his price. His mistress never refused to let him play for -any party. He had stable-boys in abundance. He was far -above any physical fear for his sleek and well-fed person. -How majestically he scraped his foot as a sign that he was -tuned up and ready to begin!</p> - -<p>Now he is a shabby creature indeed. He must have felt -his fallen fortunes when he met me—one who knew him in -his prosperity. He ran away, this stately yellow gentleman, -from wife and children, home and comfort. My -Molly asked him “Why? Miss Liza was good to you, I -know.” I wonder who owns him now; he looked forlorn.</p> - -<p>Governor Moore brought in, to be presented to me, the -President of the Alabama Convention. It seems I had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span> -known him before; he had danced with me at a dancing-school -ball when I was in short frocks, with sash, flounces, -and a wreath of roses. He was one of those clever boys of -our neighborhood, in whom my father saw promise of better -things, and so helped him in every way to rise, with -books, counsel, sympathy. I was enjoying his conversation -immensely, for he was praising my father<a name="FNanchor_17" id="FNanchor_17"></a><a href="#Footnote_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a> without stint, -when the Judge came in, breathing fire and fury. Congress -has incurred his displeasure. We are abusing one another -as fiercely as ever we have abused Yankees. It is disheartening.</p> - -<p><i>March 10th.</i>—Mrs. Childs was here to-night (Mary Anderson, -from Statesburg), with several children. She is -lovely. Her hair is piled up on the top of her head oddly. -Fashions from France still creep into Texas across Mexican -borders. Mrs. Childs is fresh from Texas. Her husband -is an artillery officer, or was. They will be glad to promote -him here. Mrs. Childs had the sweetest Southern voice, -absolute music. But then, she has all of the high spirit of -those sweet-voiced Carolina women, too.</p> - -<p>Then Mr. Browne came in with his fine English accent, -so pleasant to the ear. He tells us that Washington society -is not reconciled to the Yankee <i lang="fr">régime</i>. Mrs. Lincoln means -to economize. She at once informed the major-domo that -they were poor and hoped to save twelve thousand dollars -every year from their salary of twenty thousand. Mr. -Browne said Mr. Buchanan’s farewell was far more imposing -than Lincoln’s inauguration.</p> - -<p>The people were so amusing, so full of Western stories.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span> -Dr. Boykin behaved strangely. All day he had been gaily -driving about with us, and never was man in finer spirits. -To-night, in this brilliant company, he sat dead still as if -in a trance. Once, he waked somewhat—when a high public -functionary came in with a present for me, a miniature -gondola, “A perfect Venetian specimen,” he assured me -again and again. In an undertone Dr. Boykin muttered: -“That fellow has been drinking.” “Why do you think -so?” “Because he has told you exactly the same thing -four times.” Wonderful! Some of these great statesmen -always tell me the same thing—and have been telling me -the same thing ever since we came here.</p> - -<p>A man came in and some one said in an undertone, -“The age of chivalry is not past, O ye Americans!” -“What do you mean?” “That man was once nominated -by President Buchanan for a foreign mission, but some Senator -stood up and read a paper printed by this man abusive -of a woman, and signed by his name in full. After that -the Senate would have none of him; his chance was gone -forever.”</p> - -<p><i>March 11th.</i>—In full conclave to-night, the drawing-room -crowded with Judges, Governors, Senators, Generals, -Congressmen. They were exalting John C. Calhoun’s hospitality. -He allowed everybody to stay all night who chose -to stop at his house. An ill-mannered person, on one occasion, -refused to attend family prayers. Mr. Calhoun said -to the servant, “Saddle that man’s horse and let him go.” -From the traveler Calhoun would take no excuse for the -“Deity offended.” I believe in Mr. Calhoun’s hospitality, -but not in his family prayers. Mr. Calhoun’s piety was of -the most philosophical type, from all accounts.<a name="FNanchor_18" id="FNanchor_18"></a><a href="#Footnote_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a></p> - -<p>The latest news is counted good news; that is, the last -man who left Washington tells us that Seward is in the -ascendency. He is thought to be the friend of peace.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span> -The man did say, however, that “that serpent Seward is -in the ascendency just now.”</p> - -<p>Harriet Lane has eleven suitors. One is described as -likely to win, or he would be likely to win, except that he is -too heavily weighted. He has been married before and -goes about with children and two mothers. There are limits -beyond which! Two mothers-in-law!</p> - -<p>Mr. Ledyard spoke to Mrs. Lincoln in behalf of a door-keeper -who almost felt he had a vested right, having been -there since Jackson’s time; but met with the same answer; -she had brought her own girl and must economize. Mr. -Ledyard thought the twenty thousand (and little enough it -is) was given to the President of these United States to -enable him to live in proper style, and to maintain an establishment -of such dignity as befits the head of a great nation. -It is an infamy to economize with the public money -and to put it into one’s private purse. Mrs. Browne was -walking with me when we were airing our indignation -against Mrs. Lincoln and her shabby economy. The Herald -says three only of the <i lang="fr">élite</i> Washington families attended -the Inauguration Ball.</p> - -<p>The Judge has just come in and said: “Last night, -after Dr. Boykin left on the cars, there came a telegram -that his little daughter, Amanda, had died suddenly.” In -some way he must have known it beforehand. He changed -so suddenly yesterday, and seemed so careworn and unhappy. -He believes in clairvoyance, magnetism, and all -that. Certainly, there was some terrible foreboding of -this kind on his part.</p> - -<p><i>Tuesday.</i>—Now this, they say, is positive: “Fort Sumter -is to be released and we are to have no war.” After -all, far too good to be true. Mr. Browne told us that, at -one of the peace intervals (I mean intervals in the interest -of peace), Lincoln flew through Baltimore, locked up in an -express car. He wore a Scotch cap.</p> - -<p>We went to the Congress. Governor Cobb, who presides<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span> -over that august body, put James Chesnut in the -chair, and came down to talk to us. He told us why the -pay of Congressmen was fixed in secret session, and why the -amount of it was never divulged—to prevent the lodging-house -and hotel people from making their bills of a size to -cover it all. “The bill would be sure to correspond with -the pay,” he said.</p> - -<p>In the hotel parlor we had a scene. Mrs. Scott was -describing Lincoln, who is of the cleverest Yankee type. -She said: “Awfully ugly, even grotesque in appearance, -the kind who are always at the corner stores, sitting on -boxes, whittling sticks, and telling stories as funny as they -are vulgar.” Here I interposed: “But Stephen A. -Douglas said one day to Mr. Chesnut, ‘Lincoln is the hardest -fellow to handle I have ever encountered yet.’” Mr. -Scott is from California, and said Lincoln is “an utter -American specimen, coarse, rough, and strong; a good-natured, -kind creature; as pleasant-tempered as he is clever, -and if this country can be joked and laughed out of -its rights he is the kind-hearted fellow to do it. Now if -there is a war and it pinches the Yankee pocket instead of -filling it——”</p> - -<p>Here a shrill voice came from the next room (which -opened upon the one we were in by folding doors thrown -wide open) and said: “Yankees are no more mean and -stingy than you are. People at the North are just as good -as people at the South.” The speaker advanced upon us -in great wrath.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Scott apologized and made some smooth, polite remark, -though evidently much embarrassed. But the vinegar -face and curly pate refused to receive any concessions, -and replied: “That comes with a very bad grace after what -you were saying,” and she harangued us loudly for several -minutes. Some one in the other room giggled outright, -but we were quiet as mice. Nobody wanted to hurt her -feelings. She was one against so many. If I were at the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span> -North, I should expect them to belabor us, and should hold -my tongue. We separated North from South because of incompatibility -of temper. We are divorced because we -have hated each other so. If we could only separate, a -“<i lang="fr">separation à l’agréable</i>,” as the French say it, and not -have a horrid fight for divorce.</p> - -<p>The poor exile had already been insulted, she said. -She was playing “Yankee Doodle” on the piano before -breakfast to soothe her wounded spirit, and the Judge came -in and calmly requested her to “leave out the Yankee -while she played the Doodle.” The Yankee end of it did -not suit our climate, he said; was totally out of place and -had got out of its latitude.</p> - -<p>A man said aloud: “This war talk is nothing. It will -soon blow over. Only a fuss gotten up by that Charleston -clique.” Mr. Toombs asked him to show his passports, for -a man who uses such language is a suspicious character.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span></p> - -<h2 id="CHAPTER_III">III<br /> -<span class="smaller">CHARLESTON, S. C.<br /> -<i>March 26, 1861-April 15, 1861</i></span></h2> - -<div> -<img class="dropcap" src="images/dropcap-c.jpg" width="100" height="115" alt="" /> -</div> - -<p class="dropcap">Charleston, S. C., <i>March 26, 1861</i>.—I have just -come from Mulberry, where the snow was a foot -deep—winter at last after months of apparently -May or June weather. Even the climate, like everything -else, is upside down. But after that den of dirt and horror, -Montgomery Hall, how white the sheets looked, luxurious -bed linen once more, delicious fresh cream with my -coffee! I breakfasted in bed.</p> - -<p>Dueling was rife in Camden. William M. Shannon challenged -Leitner. Rochelle Blair was Shannon’s second and -Artemus Goodwyn was Leitner’s. My husband was riding -hard all day to stop the foolish people. Mr. Chesnut -finally arranged the difficulty. There was a court of honor -and no duel. Mr. Leitner had struck Mr. Shannon at a -negro trial. That’s the way the row began. Everybody -knows of it. We suggested that Judge Withers should arrest -the belligerents. Dr. Boykin and Joe Kershaw<a name="FNanchor_19" id="FNanchor_19"></a><a href="#Footnote_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a> aided -Mr. Chesnut to put an end to the useless risk of life.</p> - -<p>John Chesnut is a pretty soft-hearted slave-owner. He -had two negroes arrested for selling whisky to his people -on his plantation, and buying stolen corn from them. The -culprits in jail sent for him. He found them (this snowy<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span> -weather) lying in the cold on a bare floor, and he thought -that punishment enough; they having had weeks of it. -But they were not satisfied to be allowed to evade justice -and slip away. They begged of him (and got) five dollars -to buy shoes to run away in. I said: “Why, this is flat -compounding a felony.” And Johnny put his hands in the -armholes of his waistcoat and stalked majestically before -me, saying, “Woman, what do you know about law?”</p> - -<p>Mrs. Reynolds stopped the carriage one day to tell me -Kitty Boykin was to be married to Savage Heyward. He -has only ten children already. These people take the old -Hebrew pride in the number of children they have. This -is the true colonizing spirit. There is no danger of crowding -here and inhabitants are wanted. Old Colonel Chesnut<a name="FNanchor_20" id="FNanchor_20"></a><a href="#Footnote_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a> -said one day: “Wife, you must feel that you have -not been useless in your day and generation. You have -now twenty-seven great-grandchildren.”</p> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 700px;" id="illus4"> -<img src="images/illus4.jpg" width="700" height="425" alt="" /> -<p class="caption">VIEW OF CHARLESTON DURING THE WAR.</p> -<p class="caption">From an Old Print.</p> -</div> - -<p><i>Wednesday.</i>—I have been mobbed by my own house servants. -Some of them are at the plantation, some hired out -at the Camden hotel, some are at Mulberry. They agreed -to come in a body and beg me to stay at home to keep my -own house once more, “as I ought not to have them scattered -and distributed every which way.” I had not been -a month in Camden since 1858. So a house there would be -for their benefit solely, not mine. I asked my cook if she -lacked anything on the plantation at the Hermitage. -“Lack anything?” she said, “I lack everything. What -are corn-meal, bacon, milk, and molasses? Would that be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span> -all you wanted? Ain’t I been living and eating exactly -as you does all these years? When I cook for you, didn’t I -have some of all? Dere, now!” Then she doubled herself -up laughing. They all shouted, “Missis, we is crazy for -you to stay home.”</p> - -<p>Armsted, my butler, said he hated the hotel. Besides, -he heard a man there abusing Marster, but Mr. Clyburne -took it up and made him stop short. Armsted said he -wanted Marster to know Mr. Clyburne was his friend and -would let nobody say a word behind his back against him, -etc., etc. Stay in Camden? Not if I can help it. “Festers -in provincial sloth”—that’s Tennyson’s way of putting it.</p> - -<p>“We” came down here by rail, as the English say. -Such a crowd of Convention men on board. John Manning<a name="FNanchor_21" id="FNanchor_21"></a><a href="#Footnote_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a> -flew in to beg me to reserve a seat by me for a young -lady under his charge. “<i lang="fr">Place aux dames</i>,” said my husband -politely, and went off to seek a seat somewhere else. -As soon as we were fairly under way, Governor Manning -came back and threw himself cheerily down into the vacant -place. After arranging his umbrella and overcoat to his -satisfaction, he coolly remarked: “I am the young lady.” -He is always the handsomest man alive (now that poor -William Taber has been killed in a duel), and he can be -very agreeable; that is, when he pleases to be so. He does -not always please. He seemed to have made his little -maneuver principally to warn me of impending danger to -my husband’s political career. “Every election now will -be a surprise. New cliques are not formed yet. The old -ones are principally bent upon displacing one another.” -“But the Yankees—those dreadful Yankees!” “Oh,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span> -never mind, we are going to take care of home folks first! -How will you like to rusticate?—go back and mind your -own business?” “If I only knew what that was—what -was my own business.”</p> - -<p>Our round table consists of the Judge, Langdon -Cheves,<a name="FNanchor_22" id="FNanchor_22"></a><a href="#Footnote_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a> Trescott,<a name="FNanchor_23" id="FNanchor_23"></a><a href="#Footnote_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a> and ourselves. Here are four of the -cleverest men that we have, but such very different people, -as opposite in every characteristic as the four points of -the compass. Langdon Cheves and my husband have feelings -and ideas in common. Mr. Petigru<a name="FNanchor_24" id="FNanchor_24"></a><a href="#Footnote_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a> said of the brilliant -Trescott: “He is a man without indignation.” Trescott -and I laugh at everything.</p> - -<p>The Judge, from his life as solicitor, and then on the -bench, has learned to look for the darkest motives for every -action. His judgment on men and things is always so -harsh, it shocks and repels even his best friends. To-day -he said: “Your conversation reminds me of a flashy second-rate -novel.” “How?” “By the quantity of French -you sprinkle over it. Do you wish to prevent us from understanding -you?” “No,” said Trescott, “we are using -French against Africa. We know the black waiters are all -ears now, and we want to keep what we have to say dark.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span> -We can’t afford to take them into our confidence, you -know.”</p> - -<p>This explanation Trescott gave with great rapidity and -many gestures toward the men standing behind us. Still -speaking the French language, his apology was exasperating, -so the Judge glared at him, and, in unabated rage, -turned to talk with Mr. Cheves, who found it hard to keep -a calm countenance.</p> - -<p>On the Battery with the Rutledges, Captain Hartstein -was introduced to me. He has done some heroic things—brought -home some ships and is a man of mark. Afterward -he sent me a beautiful bouquet, not half so beautiful, -however, as Mr. Robert Gourdin’s, which already occupied -the place of honor on my center table. What a dear, delightful -place is Charleston!</p> - -<p>A lady (who shall be nameless because of her story) -came to see me to-day. Her husband has been on the Island -with the troops for months. She has just been down to see -him. She meant only to call on him, but he persuaded her -to stay two days. She carried him some clothes made from -his old measure. Now they are a mile too wide. “So -much for a hard life!” I said.</p> - -<p>“No, no,” said she, “they are all jolly down there. -He has trained down; says it is good for him, and he likes -the life.” Then she became confidential, although it was -her first visit to me, a perfect stranger. She had taken -no clothes down there—pushed, as she was, in that manner -under Achilles’s tent. But she managed things; she tied -her petticoat around her neck for a night-gown.</p> - -<p><i>April 2d.</i>—Governor Manning came to breakfast at -our table. The others had breakfasted hours before. I -looked at him in amazement, as he was in full dress, ready -for a ball, swallow-tail and all, and at that hour. “What -is the matter with you?” “Nothing, I am not mad, most -noble madam. I am only going to the photographer. My -wife wants me taken thus.” He insisted on my going, too,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span> -and we captured Mr. Chesnut and Governor Means.<a name="FNanchor_25" id="FNanchor_25"></a><a href="#Footnote_25" class="fnanchor">[25]</a> The -latter presented me with a book, a photo-book, in which I -am to pillory all the celebrities.</p> - -<p>Doctor Gibbes says the Convention is in a snarl. It was -called as a Secession Convention. A secession of places -seems to be what it calls for first of all. It has not stretched -its eyes out to the Yankees yet; it has them turned inward; -introspection is its occupation still.</p> - -<p>Last night, as I turned down the gas, I said to myself: -“Certainly this has been one of the pleasantest days of my -life.” I can only give the skeleton of it, so many pleasant -people, so much good talk, for, after all, it was talk, talk, -talk <i lang="fr">à la Caroline du Sud</i>. And yet the day began rather -dismally. Mrs. Capers and Mrs. Tom Middleton came for -me and we drove to Magnolia Cemetery. I saw William -Taber’s broken column. It was hard to shake off the -blues after this graveyard business.</p> - -<p>The others were off at a dinner party. I dined <i lang="fr">tête-à-tête</i> -with Langdon Cheves, so quiet, so intelligent, so very -sensible withal. There never was a pleasanter person, or a -better man than he. While we were at table, Judge Whitner, -Tom Frost, and Isaac Hayne came. They broke up -our deeply interesting conversation, for I was hearing -what an honest and brave man feared for his country, and -then the Rutledges dislodged the newcomers and bore me -off to drive on the Battery. On the staircase met Mrs. -Izard, who came for the same purpose. On the Battery -Governor Adams<a name="FNanchor_26" id="FNanchor_26"></a><a href="#Footnote_26" class="fnanchor">[26]</a> stopped us. He had heard of my saying -he looked like Marshal Pelissier, and he came to say<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span> -that at last I had made a personal remark which pleased -him, for once in my life. When we came home Mrs. Isaac -Hayne and Chancellor Carroll called to ask us to join -their excursion to the Island Forts to-morrow. With them -was William Haskell. Last summer at the White Sulphur -he was a pale, slim student from the university. To-day -he is a soldier, stout and robust. A few months in camp, -with soldiering in the open air, has worked this wonder. -Camping out proves a wholesome life after all. Then came -those nice, sweet, fresh, pure-looking Pringle girls. We -had a charming topic in common—their clever brother -Edward.</p> - -<p>A letter from Eliza B., who is in Montgomery: “Mrs. -Mallory got a letter from a lady in Washington a few days -ago, who said that there had recently been several attempts -to be gay in Washington, but they proved dismal failures. -The Black Republicans were invited and came, and stared -at their entertainers and their new Republican companions, -looked unhappy while they said they were enchanted, -showed no ill-temper at the hardly stifled grumbling and -growling of our friends, who thus found themselves condemned -to meet their despised enemy.”</p> - -<p>I had a letter from the Gwinns to-day. They say Washington -offers a perfect realization of Goldsmith’s Deserted -Village.</p> - -<p>Celebrated my 38th birthday, but I am too old now to -dwell in public on that unimportant anniversary. A long, -dusty day ahead on those windy islands; never for me, so -I was up early to write a note of excuse to Chancellor Carroll. -My husband went. I hope Anderson will not pay -them the compliment of a salute with shotted guns, as they -pass Fort Sumter, as pass they must.</p> - -<p>Here I am interrupted by an exquisite bouquet from the -Rutledges. Are there such roses anywhere else in the -world? Now a loud banging at my door. I get up in a -pet and throw it wide open. “Oh!” said John Manning,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span> -standing there, smiling radiantly; “pray excuse the noise -I made. I mistook the number; I thought it was Rice’s -room; that is my excuse. Now that I am here, come, go -with us to Quinby’s. Everybody will be there who are -not at the Island. To be photographed is the rage just -now.”</p> - -<p>We had a nice open carriage, and we made a number -of calls, Mrs. Izard, the Pringles, and the Tradd Street Rutledges, -the handsome ex-Governor doing the honors gallantly. -He had ordered dinner at six, and we dined <i lang="fr">tête-à-tête</i>. -If he should prove as great a captain in ordering his -line of battle as he is in ordering a dinner, it will be as well -for the country as it was for me to-day.</p> - -<p>Fortunately for the men, the beautiful Mrs. Joe Heyward -sits at the next table, so they take her beauty as one -of the goods the gods provide. And it helps to make life -pleasant with English grouse and venison from the West. -Not to speak of the salmon from the lakes which began -the feast. They have me to listen, an appreciative audience, -while they talk, and Mrs. Joe Heyward to look at.</p> - -<p>Beauregard<a name="FNanchor_27" id="FNanchor_27"></a><a href="#Footnote_27" class="fnanchor">[27]</a> called. He is the hero of the hour. That -is, he is believed to be capable of great things. A hero -worshiper was struck dumb because I said: “So far, he -has only been a captain of artillery, or engineers, or something.” -I did not see him. Mrs. Wigfall did and reproached -my laziness in not coming out.</p> - -<p>Last Sunday at church beheld one of the peculiar local -sights, old negro maumas going up to the communion, in -their white turbans and kneeling devoutly around the -chancel rail.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span></p> - -<p>The morning papers say Mr. Chesnut made the best -shot on the Island at target practice. No war yet, thank -God. Likewise they tell me Mr. Chesnut has made a capital -speech in the Convention.</p> - -<p>Not one word of what is going on now. “Out of the -fulness of the heart the mouth speaketh,” says the Psalmist. -Not so here. Our hearts are in doleful dumps, but we -are as gay, as madly jolly, as sailors who break into the -strong-room when the ship is going down. At first in our -great agony we were out alone. We longed for some of -our big brothers to come out and help us. Well, they are -out, too, and now it is Fort Sumter and that ill-advised -Anderson. There stands Fort Sumter, <i lang="fr">en evidence</i>, and -thereby hangs peace or war.</p> - -<p>Wigfall<a name="FNanchor_28" id="FNanchor_28"></a><a href="#Footnote_28" class="fnanchor">[28]</a> says before he left Washington, Pickens, our -Governor, and Trescott were openly against secession; -Trescott does not pretend to like it now. He grumbles all -the time, but Governor Pickens is fire-eater down to the -ground. “At the White House Mrs. Davis wore a badge. -Jeff Davis is no seceder,” says Mrs. Wigfall.</p> - -<p>Captain Ingraham comments in his rapid way, words -tumbling over each other out of his mouth: “Now, Charlotte -Wigfall meant that as a fling at those people. I think -better of men who stop to think; it is too rash to rush on -as some do.” “And so,” adds Mrs. Wigfall, “the eleventh-hour -men are rewarded; the half-hearted are traitors -in this row.”</p> - -<p><i>April 3d.</i>—Met the lovely Lucy Holcombe, now Mrs. -Governor Pickens, last night at Isaac Hayne’s. I saw Miles -now begging in dumb show for three violets she had in her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span> -breastpin. She is a consummate actress and he well up in -the part of male flirt. So it was well done.</p> - -<p>“And you, who are laughing in your sleeves at the -scene, where did you get that huge bunch?” “Oh, there -is no sentiment when there is a pile like that of anything!” -“Oh, oh!”</p> - -<p>To-day at the breakfast table there was a tragic bestowal -of heartsease on the well-known inquirer who, once -more says in austere tones: “Who is the flirt now?” -And so we fool on into the black cloud ahead of us. And -after heartsease cometh rue.</p> - -<p><i>April 4th.</i>—Mr. Hayne said his wife moaned over the -hardness of the chaperones’ seats at St. Andrew’s Hall at -a Cecilia Ball.<a name="FNanchor_29" id="FNanchor_29"></a><a href="#Footnote_29" class="fnanchor">[29]</a> She was hopelessly deposited on one for -hours. “And the walls are harder, my dear. What are your -feelings to those of the poor old fellows leaning there, with -their beautiful young wives waltzing as if they could never -tire and in the arms of every man in the room. Watch -their haggard, weary faces, the old boys, you know. At -church I had to move my pew. The lovely Laura was too -much for my boys. They all made eyes at her, and nudged -each other and quarreled so, for she gave them glance for -glance. Wink, blink, and snicker as they would, she liked -it. I say, my dear, the old husbands have not exactly a -bed of roses; their wives twirling in the arms of young -men, they hugging the wall.”</p> - -<p>While we were at supper at the Haynes’s, Wigfall was -sent for to address a crowd before the Mills House piazza. -Like James Fitz James when he visits Glen Alpin again, -it is to be in the saddle, etc. So let Washington beware. -We were sad that we could not hear the speaking. But the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span> -supper was a consolation—<i lang="fr">pâté de foie gras</i> salad, <i lang="fr">biscuit -glacé</i> and <i lang="fr">champagne frappé</i>.</p> - -<p>A ship was fired into yesterday, and went back to sea. -Is that the first shot? How can one settle down to anything; -one’s heart is in one’s mouth all the time. Any moment -the cannon may open on us, the fleet come in.</p> - -<p><i>April 6th.</i>—The plot thickens, the air is red hot with -rumors; the mystery is to find out where these utterly -groundless tales originate. In spite of all, Tom Huger -came for us and we went on the Planter to take a look -at Morris Island and its present inhabitants—Mrs. Wigfall -and the Cheves girls, Maxcy Gregg and Colonel Whiting, -also John Rutledge, of the Navy, Dan Hamilton, and William -Haskell. John Rutledge was a figurehead to be proud -of. He did not speak to us. But he stood with a Scotch -shawl draped about him, as handsome and stately a creature -as ever Queen Elizabeth loved to look upon.</p> - -<p>There came up such a wind we could not land. I was -not too sorry, though it blew so hard (I am never seasick). -Colonel Whiting explained everything about the forts, what -they lacked, etc., in the most interesting way, and Maxcy -Gregg supplemented his report by stating all the deficiencies -and shortcomings by land.</p> - -<p>Beauregard is a demigod here to most of the natives, -but there are always seers who see and say. They give -you to understand that Whiting has all the brains now in -use for our defense. He does the work and Beauregard -reaps the glory. Things seem to draw near a crisis. And -one must think. Colonel Whiting is clever enough for -anything, so we made up our minds to-day, Maxcy Gregg -and I, as judges. Mr. Gregg told me that my husband was -in a minority in the Convention; so much for cool sense -when the atmosphere is phosphorescent. Mrs. Wigfall says -we are mismatched. She should pair with my cool, quiet, -self-poised Colonel. And her stormy petrel is but a male -reflection of me.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span></p> - -<p><i>April 8th.</i>—Yesterday Mrs. Wigfall and I made a few -visits. At the first house they wanted Mrs. Wigfall to settle -a dispute. “Was she, indeed, fifty-five?” Fancy her -face, more than ten years bestowed upon her so freely. -Then Mrs. Gibbes asked me if I had ever been in Charleston -before. Says Charlotte Wigfall (to pay me for my -snigger when that false fifty was flung in her teeth), “and -she thinks this is her native heath and her name is McGregor.” -She said it all came upon us for breaking the -Sabbath, for indeed it was Sunday.</p> - -<p>Allen Green came up to speak to me at dinner, in all his -soldier’s toggery. It sent a shiver through me. Tried to -read Margaret Fuller Ossoli, but could not. The air is -too full of war news, and we are all so restless.</p> - -<p>Went to see Miss Pinckney, one of the last of the old-world -Pinckneys. She inquired particularly about a portrait -of her father, Charles Cotesworth Pinckney,<a name="FNanchor_30" id="FNanchor_30"></a><a href="#Footnote_30" class="fnanchor">[30]</a> which -she said had been sent by him to my husband’s grandfather. -I gave a good account of it. It hangs in the place -of honor in the drawing-room at Mulberry. She wanted -to see my husband, for “his grandfather, my father’s -friend, was one of the handsomest men of his day.” We -came home, and soon Mr. Robert Gourdin and Mr. Miles -called. Governor Manning walked in, bowed gravely, and -seated himself by me. Again he bowed low in mock heroic -style, and with a grand wave of his hand, said: “Madame, -your country is invaded.” When I had breath to speak, -I asked, “What does he mean?” He meant this: there<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span> -are six men-of-war outside the bar. Talbot and Chew have -come to say that hostilities are to begin. Governor Pickens -and Beauregard are holding a council of war. Mr. Chesnut -then came in and confirmed the story. Wigfall next entered -in boisterous spirits, and said: “There was a sound -of revelry by night.” In any stir or confusion my heart -is apt to beat so painfully. Now the agony was so stifling -I could hardly see or hear. The men went off almost immediately. -And I crept silently to my room, where I sat -down to a good cry.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Wigfall came in and we had it out on the subject -of civil war. We solaced ourselves with dwelling on all its -known horrors, and then we added what we had a right -to expect with Yankees in front and negroes in the rear. -“The slave-owners must expect a servile insurrection, of -course,” said Mrs. Wigfall, to make sure that we were unhappy -enough.</p> - -<p>Suddenly loud shouting was heard. We ran out. Cannon -after cannon roared. We met Mrs. Allen Green in -the passageway with blanched cheeks and streaming eyes. -Governor Means rushed out of his room in his dressing-gown -and begged us to be calm. “Governor Pickens,” -said he, “has ordered in the plenitude of his wisdom, -seven cannon to be fired as a signal to the Seventh Regiment. -Anderson will hear as well as the Seventh Regiment. -Now you go back and be quiet; fighting in the -streets has not begun yet.”</p> - -<p>So we retired. Dr. Gibbes calls Mrs. Allen Green Dame -Placid. There was no placidity to-day, with cannon bursting -and Allen on the Island. No sleep for anybody last -night. The streets were alive with soldiers, men shouting, -marching, singing. Wigfall, the “stormy petrel,” is in -his glory, the only thoroughly happy person I see. To-day -things seem to have settled down a little. One can but -hope still. Lincoln, or Seward, has made such silly advances -and then far sillier drawings back. There may be a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span> -chance for peace after all. Things are happening so fast. -My husband has been made an aide-de-camp to General -Beauregard.</p> - -<p>Three hours ago we were quickly packing to go home. -The Convention has adjourned. Now he tells me the attack -on Fort Sumter may begin to-night; depends upon Anderson -and the fleet outside. The Herald says that this show -of war outside of the bar is intended for Texas. John Manning -came in with his sword and red sash, pleased as a boy -to be on Beauregard’s staff, while the row goes on. He -has gone with Wigfall to Captain Hartstein with instructions. -Mr. Chesnut is finishing a report he had to make -to the Convention.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Hayne called. She had, she said, but one feeling; -pity for those who are not here. Jack Preston, Willie -Alston, “the take-life-easys,” as they are called, with John -Green, “the big brave,” have gone down to the islands—volunteered -as privates. Seven hundred men were sent -over. Ammunition wagons were rumbling along the streets -all night. Anderson is burning blue lights, signs, and signals -for the fleet outside, I suppose.</p> - -<p>To-day at dinner there was no allusion to things as they -stand in Charleston Harbor. There was an undercurrent -of intense excitement. There could not have been a more -brilliant circle. In addition to our usual quartette (Judge -Withers, Langdon Cheves, and Trescott), our two ex-Governors -dined with us, Means and Manning. These men all -talked so delightfully. For once in my life I listened. -That over, business began in earnest. Governor Means had -rummaged a sword and red sash from somewhere and -brought it for Colonel Chesnut, who had gone to demand -the surrender of Fort Sumter. And now patience—we -must wait.</p> - -<p>Why did that green goose Anderson go into Fort Sumter? -Then everything began to go wrong. Now they have -intercepted a letter from him urging them to let him surrender.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span> -He paints the horrors likely to ensue if they will -not. He ought to have thought of all that before he put -his head in the hole.</p> - -<p><i>April 12th.</i>—Anderson will not capitulate. Yesterday’s -was the merriest, maddest dinner we have had yet. Men -were audaciously wise and witty. We had an unspoken -foreboding that it was to be our last pleasant meeting. -Mr. Miles dined with us to-day. Mrs. Henry King rushed -in saying, “The news, I come for the latest news. All the -men of the King family are on the Island,” of which fact -she seemed proud.</p> - -<p>While she was here our peace negotiator, or envoy, -came in—that is, Mr. Chesnut returned. His interview -with Colonel Anderson had been deeply interesting, but -Mr. Chesnut was not inclined to be communicative. He -wanted his dinner. He felt for Anderson and had telegraphed -to President Davis for instructions—what answer -to give Anderson, etc. He has now gone back to Fort Sumter -with additional instructions. When they were about to -leave the wharf A. H. Boykin sprang into the boat in great -excitement. He thought himself ill-used, with a likelihood -of fighting and he to be left behind!</p> - -<p>I do not pretend to go to sleep. How can I? If Anderson -does not accept terms at four, the orders are, he shall be -fired upon. I count four, St. Michael’s bells chime out and -I begin to hope. At half-past four the heavy booming of a -cannon. I sprang out of bed, and on my knees prostrate I -prayed as I never prayed before.</p> - -<p>There was a sound of stir all over the house, pattering -of feet in the corridors. All seemed hurrying one way. -I put on my double-gown and a shawl and went, too. It -was to the housetop. The shells were bursting. In the -dark I heard a man say, “Waste of ammunition.” I knew -my husband was rowing about in a boat somewhere in that -dark bay, and that the shells were roofing it over, bursting -toward the fort. If Anderson was obstinate, Colonel<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span> -Chesnut was to order the fort on one side to open fire. -Certainly fire had begun. The regular roar of the cannon, -there it was. And who could tell what each volley accomplished -of death and destruction?</p> - -<p>The women were wild there on the housetop. Prayers -came from the women and imprecations from the men. -And then a shell would light up the scene. To-night they -say the forces are to attempt to land. We watched up -there, and everybody wondered that Fort Sumter did not -fire a shot.</p> - -<p>To-day Miles and Manning, colonels now, aides to -Beauregard, dined with us. The latter hoped I would keep -the peace. I gave him only good words, for he was to be -under fire all day and night, down in the bay carrying -orders, etc.</p> - -<p>Last night, or this morning truly, up on the housetop -I was so weak and weary I sat down on something that -looked like a black stool. “Get up, you foolish woman. -Your dress is on fire,” cried a man. And he put me out. -I was on a chimney and the sparks had caught my clothes. -Susan Preston and Mr. Venable then came up. But my -fire had been extinguished before it burst out into a regular -blaze.</p> - -<p>Do you know, after all that noise and our tears and -prayers, nobody has been hurt; sound and fury signifying -nothing—a delusion and a snare.</p> - -<p>Louisa Hamilton came here now. This is a sort of news -center. Jack Hamilton, her handsome young husband, has -all the credit of a famous battery, which is made of railroad -iron. Mr. Petigru calls it the boomerang, because it -throws the balls back the way they came; so Lou Hamilton -tells us. During her first marriage, she had no children; -hence the value of this lately achieved baby. To divert -Louisa from the glories of “the Battery,” of which she -raves, we asked if the baby could talk yet. “No, not -exactly, but he imitates the big gun when he hears that.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span> -He claps his hands and cries ‘Boom, boom.’” Her mind -is distinctly occupied by three things: Lieutenant Hamilton, -whom she calls “Randolph,” the baby, and the big -gun, and it refuses to hold more.</p> - -<p>Pryor, of Virginia, spoke from the piazza of the Charleston -hotel. I asked what he said. An irreverent woman replied: -“Oh, they all say the same thing, but he made -great play with that long hair of his, which he is always -tossing aside!”</p> - -<p>Somebody came in just now and reported Colonel Chesnut -asleep on the sofa in General Beauregard’s room. -After two such nights he must be so tired as to be able -to sleep anywhere.</p> - -<p>Just bade farewell to Langdon Cheves. He is forced to -go home and leave this interesting place. Says he feels -like the man that was not killed at Thermopylæ. I think -he said that unfortunate had to hang himself when he got -home for very shame. Maybe he fell on his sword, which -was the strictly classic way of ending matters.</p> - -<p>I do not wonder at Louisa Hamilton’s baby; we hear -nothing, can listen to nothing; boom, boom goes the cannon -all the time. The nervous strain is awful, alone in this -darkened room. “Richmond and Washington ablaze,” -say the papers—blazing with excitement. Why not? To -us these last days’ events seem frightfully great. We -were all women on that iron balcony. Men are only seen -at a distance now. Stark Means, marching under the piazza -at the head of his regiment, held his cap in his hand all -the time he was in sight. Mrs. Means was leaning over and -looking with tearful eyes, when an unknown creature -asked, “Why did he take his hat off?” Mrs. Means stood -straight up and said: “He did that in honor of his mother; -he saw me.” She is a proud mother, and at the same time -most unhappy. Her lovely daughter Emma is dying in -there, before her eyes, of consumption. At that moment -I am sure Mrs. Means had a spasm of the heart; at least,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span> -she looked as I feel sometimes. She took my arm and we -came in.</p> - -<p><i>April 13th.</i>—Nobody has been hurt after all. How gay -we were last night. Reaction after the dread of all the -slaughter we thought those dreadful cannon were making. -Not even a battery the worse for wear. Fort Sumter has -been on fire. Anderson has not yet silenced any of our -guns. So the aides, still with swords and red sashes by -way of uniform, tell us. But the sound of those guns -makes regular meals impossible. None of us go to table. -Tea-trays pervade the corridors going everywhere. Some -of the anxious hearts lie on their beds and moan in solitary -misery. Mrs. Wigfall and I solace ourselves with tea in -my room. These women have all a satisfying faith. “God -is on our side,” they say. When we are shut in Mrs. Wigfall -and I ask “Why?” “Of course, He hates the Yankees, -we are told. You’ll think that well of Him.”</p> - -<p>Not by one word or look can we detect any change in -the demeanor of these negro servants. Lawrence sits at -our door, sleepy and respectful, and profoundly indifferent. -So are they all, but they carry it too far. You could -not tell that they even heard the awful roar going on in -the bay, though it has been dinning in their ears night and -day. People talk before them as if they were chairs and -tables. They make no sign. Are they stolidly stupid? or -wiser than we are; silent and strong, biding their time?</p> - -<p>So tea and toast came; also came Colonel Manning, red -sash and sword, to announce that he had been under fire, -and didn’t mind it. He said gaily: “It is one of those -things a fellow never knows how he will come out until he -has been tried. Now I know I am a worthy descendant of -my old Irish hero of an ancestor, who held the British officer -before him as a shield in the Revolution, and backed -out of danger gracefully.” We talked of St. Valentine’s -eve, or the maid of Perth, and the drop of the white doe’s -blood that sometimes spoiled all.</p> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 700px;" id="illus5"> -<img src="images/illus5.jpg" width="700" height="450" alt="" /> -<p class="caption">FORT SUMTER UNDER BOMBARDMENT.</p> -<p class="caption">From an Old Print.</p> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span></p> - -<p>The war-steamers are still there, outside the bar. And -there are people who thought the Charleston bar “no -good” to Charleston. The bar is the silent partner, or -sleeping partner, and in this fray it is doing us yeoman -service.</p> - -<p><i>April 15th.</i>—I did not know that one could live such -days of excitement. Some one called: “Come out! There -is a crowd coming.” A mob it was, indeed, but it was -headed by Colonels Chesnut and Manning. The crowd was -shouting and showing these two as messengers of good -news. They were escorted to Beauregard’s headquarters. -Fort Sumter had surrendered! Those upon the house-tops -shouted to us “The fort is on fire.” That had been the -story once or twice before.</p> - -<p>When we had calmed down, Colonel Chesnut, who had -taken it all quietly enough, if anything more unruffled -than usual in his serenity, told us how the surrender came -about. Wigfall was with them on Morris Island when they -saw the fire in the fort; he jumped in a little boat, and -with his handkerchief as a white flag, rowed over. Wigfall -went in through a porthole. When Colonel Chesnut -arrived shortly after, and was received at the regular entrance, -Colonel Anderson told him he had need to pick his -way warily, for the place was all mined. As far as I can -make out the fort surrendered to Wigfall. But it is all confusion. -Our flag is flying there. Fire-engines have been -sent for to put out the fire. Everybody tells you half of -something and then rushes off to tell something else or to -hear the last news.</p> - -<p>In the afternoon, Mrs. Preston,<a name="FNanchor_31" id="FNanchor_31"></a><a href="#Footnote_31" class="fnanchor">[31]</a> Mrs. Joe Heyward, -and I drove around the Battery. We were in an open carriage.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span> -What a changed scene—the very liveliest crowd I -think I ever saw, everybody talking at once. All glasses -were still turned on the grim old fort.</p> - -<p>Russell,<a name="FNanchor_32" id="FNanchor_32"></a><a href="#Footnote_32" class="fnanchor">[32]</a> the correspondent of the London Times, was -there. They took him everywhere. One man got out -Thackeray to converse with him on equal terms. Poor -Russell was awfully bored, they say. He only wanted -to see the fort and to get news suitable to make up into -an interesting article. Thackeray had become stale over -the water.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Frank Hampton<a name="FNanchor_33" id="FNanchor_33"></a><a href="#Footnote_33" class="fnanchor">[33]</a> and I went to see the camp of the -Richland troops. South Carolina College had volunteered -to a boy. Professor Venable (the mathematical), intends to -raise a company from among them for the war, a permanent -company. This is a grand frolic no more for the students, -at least. Even the staid and severe of aspect, Clingman, -is here. He says Virginia and North Carolina are -arming to come to our rescue, for now the North will -swoop down on us. Of that we may be sure. We have -burned our ships. We are obliged to go on now. He calls -us a poor, little, hot-blooded, headlong, rash, and troublesome -sister State. General McQueen is in a rage because -we are to send troops to Virginia.</p> - -<p>Preston Hampton is in all the flush of his youth and -beauty, six feet in stature; and after all only in his teens; -he appeared in fine clothes and lemon-colored kid gloves to -grace the scene. The camp in a fit of horse-play seized him -and rubbed him in the mud. He fought manfully, but took -it all naturally as a good joke.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span></p> - -<p>Mrs. Frank Hampton knows already what civil war -means. Her brother was in the New York Seventh Regiment, -so roughly received in Baltimore. Frank will be in -the opposite camp.</p> - -<p>Good stories there may be and to spare for Russell, the -man of the London Times, who has come over here to find -out our weakness and our strength and to tell all the rest -of the world about us.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span></p> - -<h2 id="CHAPTER_IV">IV<br /> -<span class="smaller">CAMDEN, S. C.<br /> -<i>April 20, 1861-April 23, 1861</i></span></h2> - -<div> -<img class="dropcap" src="images/dropcap-c.jpg" width="100" height="115" alt="" /> -</div> - -<p class="dropcap">Camden, S. C., <i>April 20, 1861</i>.—Home again at Mulberry. -In those last days of my stay in Charleston -I did not find time to write a word.</p> - -<p>And so we took Fort Sumter, <i lang="fr">nous autres</i>; we—Mrs. -Frank Hampton, and others—in the passageway of the -Mills House between the reception-room and the drawing-room, -for there we held a sofa against all comers. All the -agreeable people South seemed to have flocked to Charleston -at the first gun. That was after we had found out that -bombarding did not kill anybody. Before that, we wept -and prayed and took our tea in groups in our rooms, away -from the haunts of men.</p> - -<p>Captain Ingraham and his kind also took Fort Sumter—from -the Battery with field-glasses and figures made with -their sticks in the sand to show what ought to be done.</p> - -<p>Wigfall, Chesnut, Miles, Manning, took it rowing about -the harbor in small boats from fort to fort under the -enemy’s guns, with bombs bursting in air.</p> - -<p>And then the boys and men who worked those guns so -faithfully at the forts—they took it, too, in their own way.</p> - -<p>Old Colonel Beaufort Watts told me this story and -many more of the <i lang="fr">jeunesse dorée</i> under fire. They took the -fire easily, as they do most things. They had cotton bag -bomb-proofs at Fort Moultrie, and when Anderson’s shot -knocked them about some one called out “Cotton is falling.” -Then down went the kitchen chimney, loaves of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span> -bread flew out, and they cheered gaily, shouting, “Bread-stuffs -are rising.”</p> - -<p>Willie Preston fired the shot which broke Anderson’s -flag-staff. Mrs. Hampton from Columbia telegraphed him, -“Well done, Willie!” She is his grandmother, the wife, -or widow, of General Hampton, of the Revolution, and the -mildest, sweetest, gentlest of old ladies. This shows how -the war spirit is waking us all up.</p> - -<p>Colonel Miles (who won his spurs in a boat, so William -Gilmore Simms<a name="FNanchor_34" id="FNanchor_34"></a><a href="#Footnote_34" class="fnanchor">[34]</a> said) gave us this characteristic anecdote. -They met a negro out in the bay rowing toward the city -with some plantation supplies, etc. “Are you not afraid -of Colonel Anderson’s cannon?” he was asked. “No, -sar, Mars Anderson ain’t daresn’t hit me; he know Marster -wouldn’t ’low it.”</p> - -<p>I have been sitting idly to-day looking out upon this -beautiful lawn, wondering if this can be the same world -I was in a few days ago. After the smoke and the din of -the battle, a calm.</p> - -<p><i>April 22d.</i>—Arranging my photograph book. On the -first page, Colonel Watts. Here goes a sketch of his life; -romantic enough, surely: Beaufort Watts; bluest blood; -gentleman to the tips of his fingers; chivalry incarnate. -He was placed in charge of a large amount of money, in -bank bills. The money belonged to the State and he was -to deposit it in the bank. On the way he was obliged to -stay over one night. He put the roll on a table at his bedside, -locked himself in, and slept the sleep of the righteous. -Lo, next day when he awaked, the money was gone. Well! -all who knew him believed him innocent, of course. He -searched and they searched, high and low, but to no purpose. -The money had vanished. It was a damaging story,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span> -in spite of his previous character, and a cloud rested on -him.</p> - -<p>Years afterward the house in which he had taken -that disastrous sleep was pulled down. In the wall, behind -the wainscot, was found his pile of money. How the rats -got it through so narrow a crack it seemed hard to realize. -Like the hole mentioned by Mercutio, it was not as deep as -a well nor as wide as a church door, but it did for Beaufort -Watts until the money was found. Suppose that house had -been burned, or the rats had gnawed up the bills past -recognition?</p> - -<p>People in power understood how this proud man suffered -those many years in silence. Many men looked -askance at him. The country tried to repair the work of -blasting the man’s character. He was made Secretary of -Legation to Russia, and was afterward our Consul at -Santa Fé de Bogota. When he was too old to wander far -afield, they made him Secretary to all the Governors of -South Carolina in regular succession.</p> - -<p>I knew him more than twenty years ago as Secretary -to the Governor. He was a made-up old battered dandy, -the soul of honor. His eccentricities were all humored. -Misfortune had made him sacred. He stood hat in hand -before ladies and bowed as I suppose Sir Charles Grandison -might have done. It was hard not to laugh at the purple -and green shades of his overblack hair. He came at -one time to show me the sword presented to Colonel Shelton -for killing the only Indian who was killed in the Seminole -war. We bagged Osceola and Micanopy under a flag -of truce—that is, they were snared, not shot on the wing.</p> - -<p>To go back to my knight-errant: he knelt, handed me the -sword, and then kissed my hand. I was barely sixteen and -did not know how to behave under the circumstances. He -said, leaning on the sword, “My dear child, learn that it is -a much greater liberty to shake hands with a lady than to -kiss her hand. I have kissed the Empress of Russia’s hand<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span> -and she did not make faces at me.” He looks now just as -he did then. He is in uniform, covered with epaulettes, -aigulettes, etc., shining in the sun, and with his plumed hat -reins up his war-steed and bows low as ever.</p> - -<p>Now I will bid farewell for a while as Othello did to all -the “pomp, pride, and circumstance of glorious war,” and -come down to my domestic strifes and troubles. I have a -sort of volunteer maid, the daughter of my husband’s -nurse, dear old Betsy. She waits on me because she so -pleases. Besides, I pay her. She belongs to my father-in-law, -who has too many slaves to care very much about their -way of life. So Maria Whitaker came, all in tears. She -brushes hair delightfully, and as she stood at my back I -could see her face in the glass. “Maria, are you crying -because all this war talk scares you?” said I. “No, -ma’am.” “What is the matter with you?” “Nothing -more than common.” “Now listen. Let the war end -either way and you will be free. We will have to free you -before we get out of this thing. Won’t you be glad?” -“Everybody knows Mars Jeems wants us free, and it is -only old Marster holds hard. He ain’t going to free anybody -any way, you see.”</p> - -<p>And then came the story of her troubles. “Now, -Miss Mary, you see me married to Jeems Whitaker yourself. -I was a good and faithful wife to him, and we were comfortable -every way—good house, everything. He had no -cause of complaint, but he has left me.” “For heaven’s -sake! Why?” “Because I had twins. He says they are -not his because nobody named Whitaker ever had twins.”</p> - -<p>Maria is proud in her way, and the behavior of this bad -husband has nearly mortified her to death. She has had -three children in two years. No wonder the man was -frightened. But then Maria does not depend on him for -anything. She was inconsolable, and I could find nothing -better to say than, “Come, now, Maria! Never mind, your -old Missis and Marster are so good to you. Now let us<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span> -look up something for the twins.” The twins are named -“John and Jeems,” the latter for her false loon of a husband. -Maria is one of the good colored women. She deserved -a better fate in her honest matrimonial attempt. -But they do say she has a trying temper. Jeems was tried, -and he failed to stand the trial.</p> - -<p><i>April 23d.</i>—Note the glaring inconsistencies of life. -Our chatelaine locked up Eugene Sue, and returned even -Washington Allston’s novel with thanks and a decided -hint that it should be burned; at least it should not remain -in her house. Bad books are not allowed house room, except -in the library under lock and key, the key in the Master’s -pocket; but bad women, if they are not white, or serve in a -menial capacity, may swarm the house unmolested; the -ostrich game is thought a Christian act. Such women are -no more regarded as a dangerous contingent than canary -birds would be.</p> - -<p>If you show by a chance remark that you see some particular -creature, more shameless than the rest, has no end -of children, and no beginning of a husband, you are -frowned down; you are talking on improper subjects. -There are certain subjects pure-minded ladies never touch -upon, even in their thoughts. It does not do to be so hard -and cruel. It is best to let the sinners alone, poor things. -If they are good servants otherwise, do not dismiss them; -all that will come straight as they grow older, and it does! -They are frantic, one and all, to be members of the church. -The Methodist Church is not so pure-minded as to shut its -eyes; it takes them up and turns them out with a high hand -if they are found going astray as to any of the ten commandments.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span></p> - -<h2 id="CHAPTER_V">V<br /> -<span class="smaller">MONTGOMERY, ALA.<br /> -<i>April 27, 1861-May 20, 1861</i></span></h2> - -<div> -<img class="dropcap" src="images/dropcap-m.jpg" width="100" height="115" alt="" /> -</div> - -<p class="dropcap">Montgomery, Ala., <i>April 27, 1861</i>.—Here we are -once more. Hon. Robert Barnwell came with us. His -benevolent spectacles give him a most Pickwickian -expression. We Carolinians revere his goodness above all -things. Everywhere, when the car stopped, the people -wanted a speech, and we had one stream of fervid oratory. -We came along with a man whose wife lived in Washington. -He was bringing her to Georgia as the safest place.</p> - -<p>The Alabama crowd are not as confident of taking -Fort Pickens as we were of taking Fort Sumter.</p> - -<p>Baltimore is in a blaze. They say Colonel Ben Huger -is in command there—son of the “Olmutz” Huger. General -Robert E. Lee, son of Light Horse Harry Lee, has been -made General-in-Chief of Virginia. With such men to the -fore, we have hope. The New York Herald says, “Slavery -must be extinguished, if in blood.” It thinks we are shaking -in our shoes at their great mass meetings. We are jolly -as larks, all the same.</p> - -<p>Mr. Chesnut has gone with Wade Hampton<a name="FNanchor_35" id="FNanchor_35"></a><a href="#Footnote_35" class="fnanchor">[35]</a> to see -President Davis about the legion Wade wants to get up.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span> -The President came across the aisle to speak to me at -church to-day. He was very cordial, and I appreciated the -honor.</p> - -<p>Wigfall is black with rage at Colonel Anderson’s account -of the fall of Sumter. Wigfall did behave magnanimously, -but Anderson does not seem to see it in that light. -“Catch me risking my life to save him again,” says Wigfall. -“He might have been man enough to tell the truth -to those New Yorkers, however unpalatable to them a good -word for us might have been. We did behave well to him. -The only men of his killed, he killed himself, or they killed -themselves firing a salute to their old striped rag.”</p> - -<p>Mr. Chesnut was delighted with the way Anderson spoke -to him when he went to demand the surrender. They -parted quite tenderly. Anderson said: “If we do not -meet again on earth, I hope we may meet in Heaven.” -How Wigfall laughed at Anderson “giving Chesnut a -howdy in the other world!”</p> - -<p>What a kind welcome the old gentlemen gave me! One, -more affectionate and homely than the others, slapped me -on the back. Several bouquets were brought me, and I put -them in water around my plate. Then General Owens -gave me some violets, which I put in my breastpin.</p> - -<p>“Oh,” said my “Gutta Percha” Hemphill,<a name="FNanchor_36" id="FNanchor_36"></a><a href="#Footnote_36" class="fnanchor">[36]</a> “if I -had known how those bouquets were to be honored I would -have been up by daylight seeking the sweetest flowers!” -Governor Moore came in, and of course seats were offered -him. “This is a most comfortable chair,” cried an -overly polite person. “The most comfortable chair is beside -Mrs. Chesnut,” said the Governor, facing the music -gallantly, as he sank into it gracefully. Well done, old -fogies!</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span></p> - -<p>Browne said: “These Southern men have an awfully -flattering way with women.” “Oh, so many are descendants -of Irishmen, and so the blarney remains yet, even, and -in spite of their gray hairs!” For it was a group of silver-gray -flatterers. Yes, blarney as well as bravery came in -with the Irish.</p> - -<p>At Mrs. Davis’s reception dismal news, for civil war -seems certain. At Mrs. Toombs’s reception Mr. Stephens -came by me. Twice before we have had it out on the subject -of this Confederacy, once on the cars, coming from -Georgia here, once at a supper, where he sat next to me. -To-day he was not cheerful in his views. I called him -half-hearted, and accused him of looking back. Man after -man came and interrupted the conversation with some -frivle-fravle, but we held on. He was deeply interesting, -and he gave me some new ideas as to our dangerous situation. -Fears for the future and not exultation at our successes -pervade his discourse.</p> - -<p>Dined at the President’s and never had a pleasanter -day. He is as witty as he is wise. He was very agreeable; -he took me in to dinner. The talk was of Washington; nothing -of our present difficulties.</p> - -<p>A General Anderson from Alexandria, D. C., was in -doleful dumps. He says the North are so much better prepared -than we are. They are organized, or will be, by -General Scott. We are in wild confusion. Their army is -the best in the world. We are wretchedly armed, etc., etc. -They have ships and arms that were ours and theirs.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Walker, resplendently dressed, one of those gorgeously -arrayed persons who fairly shine in the sun, tells -me she mistook the inevitable Morrow for Mr. Chesnut, and -added, “Pass over the affront to my powers of selection.” -I told her it was “an insult to the Palmetto flag.” Think -of a South Carolina Senator like that!</p> - -<p>Men come rushing in from Washington with white lips, -crying, “Danger, danger!” It is very tiresome to have<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span> -these people always harping on this: “The enemy’s -troops are the finest body of men we ever saw.” “Why -did you not make friends of them,” I feel disposed to say. -We would have war, and now we seem to be letting our -golden opportunity pass; we are not preparing for war. -There is talk, talk, talk in that Congress—lazy legislators, -and rash, reckless, headlong, devil-may-care, proud, passionate, -unruly, raw material for soldiers. They say we have -among us a regiment of spies, men and women, sent here -by the wily Seward. Why? Our newspapers tell every -word there is to be told, by friend or foe.</p> - -<p>A two-hours’ call from Hon. Robert Barnwell. His -theory is, all would have been right if we had taken Fort -Sumter six months ago. He made this very plain to me. -He is clever, if erratic. I forget why it ought to have been -attacked before. At another reception, Mrs. Davis was in -fine spirits. Captain Dacier was here. Came over in his -own yacht. Russell, of The London Times, wondered how -we had the heart to enjoy life so thoroughly when all the -Northern papers said we were to be exterminated in such a -short time.</p> - -<p><i>May 9th.</i>—Virginia Commissioners here. Mr. Staples -and Mr. Edmonston came to see me. They say Virginia -“has no grievance; she comes out on a point of honor; -could she stand by and see her sovereign sister States invaded?”</p> - -<p>Sumter Anderson has been offered a Kentucky regiment. -Can they raise a regiment in Kentucky against us? -In Kentucky, our sister State?</p> - -<p>Suddenly General Beauregard and his aide (the last -left him of the galaxy who surrounded him in Charleston), -John Manning, have gone—Heaven knows where, but out -on a war-path certainly. Governor Manning called himself -“the last rose of summer left blooming alone” of that -fancy staff. A new fight will gather them again.</p> - -<p>Ben McCulloch, the Texas Ranger, is here, and Mr.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span> -Ward,<a name="FNanchor_37" id="FNanchor_37"></a><a href="#Footnote_37" class="fnanchor">[37]</a> my “Gutta Percha” friend’s colleague from -Texas. Senator Ward in appearance is the exact opposite -of Senator Hemphill. The latter, with the face of an old -man, has the hair of a boy of twenty. Mr. Ward is fresh -and fair, with blue eyes and a boyish face, but his head is -white as snow. Whether he turned it white in a single -night or by slower process I do not know, but it is strangely -out of keeping with his clear young eye. He is thin, and -has a queer stooping figure.</p> - -<p>This story he told me of his own experience. On a -Western steamer there was a great crowd and no unoccupied -berth, or sleeping place of any sort whatsoever in -the gentlemen’s cabin—saloon, I think they called it. He -had taken a stateroom, 110, but he could not eject the people -who had already seized it and were asleep in it. Neither -could the Captain. It would have been a case of revolver -or “’leven inch Bowie-knife.”</p> - -<p>Near the ladies’ saloon the steward took pity on him. -“This man,” said he, “is 110, and I can find no place for -him, poor fellow.” There was a peep out of bright eyes: -“I say, steward, have you a man 110 years old out there? -Let us see him. He must be a natural curiosity.” “We -are overcrowded,” was the answer, “and we can’t find a -place for him to sleep.” “Poor old soul; bring him in -here. We will take care of him.”</p> - -<p>“Stoop and totter,” sniggered the steward to No. 110, -“and go in.”</p> - -<p>“Ah,” said Mr. Ward, “how those houris patted and -pitied me and hustled me about and gave me the best berth! -I tried not to look; I knew it was wrong, but I looked. I saw -them undoing their back hair and was lost in amazement<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span> -at the collapse when the huge hoop-skirts fell off, unheeded -on the cabin floor.”</p> - -<p>One beauty who was disporting herself near his curtain -suddenly caught his eye. She stooped and gathered -up her belongings as she said: “I say, stewardess, your -old hundred and ten is a humbug. His eyes are too blue -for anything,” and she fled as he shut himself in, nearly -frightened to death. I forget how it ended. There was so -much laughing at his story I did not hear it all. So much -for hoary locks and their reverence-inspiring power!</p> - -<p>Russell, the wandering English newspaper correspondent, -was telling how very odd some of our plantation habits -were. He was staying at the house of an ex-Cabinet Minister, -and Madame would stand on the back piazza and -send her voice three fields off, calling a servant. Now that -is not a Southern peculiarity. Our women are soft, and -sweet, low-toned, indolent, graceful, quiescent. I dare say -there are bawling, squalling, vulgar people everywhere.</p> - -<p><i>May 13th.</i>—We have been down from Montgomery on -the boat to that God-forsaken landing, Portland, Ala. -Found everybody drunk—that is, the three men who were -there. At last secured a carriage to carry us to my brother-in-law’s -house. Mr. Chesnut had to drive seven miles, -pitch dark, over an unknown road. My heart was in my -mouth, which last I did not open.</p> - -<p>Next day a patriotic person informed us that, so great -was the war fever only six men could be found in Dallas -County. I whispered to Mr. Chesnut: “We found three -of the lone ones <i lang="fr">hors de combat</i> at Portland.” So much -for the corps of reserves—alcoholized patriots.</p> - -<p>Saw for the first time the demoralization produced by -hopes of freedom. My mother’s butler (whom I taught -to read, sitting on his knife-board) contrived to keep from -speaking to us. He was as efficient as ever in his proper -place, but he did not come behind the scenes as usual and -have a friendly chat. Held himself aloof so grand and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span> -stately we had to send him a “tip” through his wife -Hetty, mother’s maid, who, however, showed no signs of -disaffection. She came to my bedside next morning with -everything that was nice for breakfast. She had let me -sleep till midday, and embraced me over and over again. -I remarked: “What a capital cook they have here!” She -curtsied to the ground. “I cooked every mouthful on that -tray—as if I did not know what you liked to eat since you -was a baby.”</p> - -<p><i>May 19th.</i>—Mrs. Fitzpatrick says Mr. Davis is too -gloomy for her. He says we must prepare for a long war -and unmerciful reverses at first, because they are readier -for war and so much stronger numerically. Men and -money count so in war. “As they do everywhere else,” -said I, doubting her accurate account of Mr. Davis’s -spoken words, though she tried to give them faithfully. -We need patience and persistence. There is enough and to -spare of pluck and dash among us, the do-and-dare style.</p> - -<p>I drove out with Mrs. Davis. She finds playing Mrs. -President of this small confederacy slow work, after leaving -friends such as Mrs. Emory and Mrs. Joe Johnston<a name="FNanchor_38" id="FNanchor_38"></a><a href="#Footnote_38" class="fnanchor">[38]</a> -in Washington. I do not blame her. The wrench has been -awful with us all, but we don’t mean to be turned into -pillars of salt.</p> - -<p>Mr. Mallory came for us to go to Mrs. Toombs’s reception. -Mr. Chesnut would not go, and I decided to remain -with him. This proved a wise decision. First Mr. Hunter<a name="FNanchor_39" id="FNanchor_39"></a><a href="#Footnote_39" class="fnanchor">[39]</a><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span> -came. In college they called him from his initials, R. -M. T., “Run Mad Tom” Hunter. Just now I think he is -the sanest, if not the wisest, man in our new-born Confederacy. -I remember when I first met him. He sat next to -me at some state dinner in Washington. Mr. Clay had -taken me in to dinner, but seemed quite satisfied that my -“other side” should take me off his hands.</p> - -<p>Mr. Hunter did not know me, nor I him. I suppose he -inquired, or looked at my card, lying on the table, as I -looked at his. At any rate, we began a conversation which -lasted steadily through the whole thing from soup to -dessert. Mr. Hunter, though in evening dress, presented a -rather tumbled-up appearance. His waistcoat wanted pulling -down, and his hair wanted brushing. He delivered unconsciously -that day a lecture on English literature which, -if printed, I still think would be a valuable addition to -that literature. Since then, I have always looked forward -to a talk with the Senator from Virginia with undisguised -pleasure. Next came Mr. Miles and Mr. Jameson, of -South Carolina. The latter was President of our Secession -Convention; also has written a life of Du Guesclin that is -not so bad. So my unexpected reception was of the most -charming. Judge Frost came a little later. They all remained -until the return of the crowd from Mrs. Toombs’s.</p> - -<p>These men are not sanguine—I can’t say, without hope, -exactly. They are agreed in one thing: it is worth while -to try a while, if only to get away from New England. -Captain Ingraham was here, too. He is South Carolina to -the tips of his fingers; yet he has it dyed in the wool—it is -part of his nature—to believe the United States Navy can -whip anything in the world. All of these little inconsistencies -and contrarieties make the times very exciting. One<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span> -never knows what tack any one of them will take at the -next word.</p> - -<p><i>May 20th.</i>—Lunched at Mrs. Davis’s; everything nice -to eat, and I was ravenous. For a fortnight I have not -even gone to the dinner table. Yesterday I was forced to -dine on cold asparagus and blackberries, so repulsive in -aspect was the other food they sent me. Mrs. Davis was -as nice as the luncheon. When she is in the mood, I do not -know so pleasant a person. She is awfully clever, always.</p> - -<p>We talked of this move from Montgomery. Mr. Chesnut -opposes it violently, because this is so central a position -for our government. He wants our troops sent into -Maryland in order to make our fight on the border, and so -to encompass Washington. I see that the uncomfortable -hotels here will at last move the Congress. Our statesmen -love their ease, and it will be hot here in summer. “I do -hope they will go,” Mrs. Davis said. “The Yankees will -make it hot for us, go where we will, and truly so if war -comes.” “And it has come,” said I. “Yes, I fancy -these dainty folks may live to regret losing even the fare -of the Montgomery hotels.” “Never.”</p> - -<p>Mr. Chesnut has three distinct manias. The Maryland -scheme is one, and he rushes off to Jeff Davis, who, I dare -say, has fifty men every day come to him with infallible -plans to save the country. If only he can keep his temper. -Mrs. Davis says he answers all advisers in softly modulated, -dulcet accents.</p> - -<p>What a rough menagerie we have here. And if nice -people come to see you, up walks an irate Judge, who engrosses -the conversation and abuses the friends of the company -generally; that is, abuses everybody and prophesies -every possible evil to the country, provided he finds that -denouncing your friends does not sufficiently depress you. -Everybody has manias—up North, too, by the papers.</p> - -<p>But of Mr. Chesnut’s three crazes: Maryland is to be -made the seat of war, old Morrow’s idea of buying up<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span> -steamers abroad for our coast defenses should be adopted, -and, last of all, but far from the least, we must make much -cotton and send it to England as a bank to draw on. The -very cotton we have now, if sent across the water, would -be a gold mine to us.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span></p> - -<h2 id="CHAPTER_VI">VI<br /> -<span class="smaller">CHARLESTON, S. C.<br /> -<i>May 25, 1861-June 24, 1861</i></span></h2> - -<div> -<img class="dropcap" src="images/dropcap-c.jpg" width="100" height="115" alt="" /> -</div> - -<p class="dropcap">Charleston, S. C., <i>May 25, 1861</i>.—We have come -back to South Carolina from the Montgomery Congress, -stopping over at Mulberry. We came with -R. M. T. Hunter and Mr. Barnwell. Mr. Barnwell has excellent -reasons for keeping cotton at home, but I forget -what they are. Generally, people take what he says, also -Mr. Hunter’s wisdom, as unanswerable. Not so Mr. Chesnut, -who growls at both, much as he likes them. We also -had Tom Lang and his wife, and Doctor Boykin. Surely -there never was a more congenial party. The younger men -had been in the South Carolina College while Mr. Barnwell -was President. Their love and respect for him were immeasurable -and he benignly received it, smiling behind -those spectacles.</p> - -<p>Met John Darby at Atlanta and told him he was Surgeon -of the Hampton Legion, which delighted him. He -had had adventures. With only a few moments on the -platform to interchange confidences, he said he had remained -a little too long in the Medical College in Philadelphia, -where he was some kind of a professor, and they had -been within an ace of hanging him as a Southern spy. -“Rope was ready,” he sniggered. At Atlanta when he -unguardedly said he was fresh from Philadelphia, he barely -escaped lynching, being taken for a Northern spy. “Lively -life I am having among you, on both sides,” he said, hurrying -away. And I moaned, “Here was John Darby like<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span> -to have been killed by both sides, and no time to tell me -the curious coincidences.” What marvelous experiences a -little war begins to produce.</p> - -<p><i>May 27th.</i>—They look for a fight at Norfolk. Beauregard -is there. I think if I were a man I’d be there, too. -Also Harper’s Ferry is to be attacked. The Confederate -flag has been cut down at Alexandria by a man named Ellsworth,<a name="FNanchor_40" id="FNanchor_40"></a><a href="#Footnote_40" class="fnanchor">[40]</a> -who was in command of Zouaves. Jackson was the -name of the person who shot Ellsworth in the act. Sixty -of our cavalry have been taken by Sherman’s brigade. -Deeper and deeper we go in.</p> - -<p>Thirty of Tom Boykin’s company have come home from -Richmond. They went as a rifle company, armed with muskets. -They were sandhill tackeys—those fastidious ones, -not very anxious to fight with anything, or in any way, -I fancy. Richmond ladies had come for them in carriages, -fêted them, waved handkerchiefs to them, brought them -dainties with their own hands, in the faith that every Carolinian -was a gentleman, and every man south of Mason -and Dixon’s line a hero. But these are not exactly descendants -of the Scotch Hay, who fought the Danes with his -plowshare, or the oxen’s yoke, or something that could -hit hard and that came handy.</p> - -<p>Johnny has gone as a private in Gregg’s regiment. He -could not stand it at home any longer. Mr. Chesnut was -willing for him to go, because those sandhill men said -“this was a rich man’s war,” and the rich men would be -the officers and have an easy time and the poor ones would<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span> -be privates. So he said: “Let the gentlemen set the example; -let them go in the ranks.” So John Chesnut is a -gentleman private. He took his servant with him all the -same.</p> - -<p>Johnny reproved me for saying, “If I were a man, I -would not sit here and dole and drink and drivel and forget -the fight going on in Virginia.” He said it was my -duty not to talk so rashly and make enemies. He “had the -money in his pocket to raise a company last fall, but it has -slipped through his fingers, and now he is a common soldier.” -“You wasted it or spent it foolishly,” said I. -“I do not know where it has gone,” said he. “There was -too much consulting over me, too much good counsel was -given to me, and everybody gave me different advice.” -“Don’t you ever know your own mind?” “We will do -very well in the ranks; men and officers all alike; we know -everybody.”</p> - -<p>So I repeated Mrs. Lowndes’s solemn words when she -heard that South Carolina had seceded alone: “As thy -days so shall thy strength be.” Don’t know exactly what -I meant, but thought I must be impressive as he was going -away. Saw him off at the train. Forgot to say anything -there, but cried my eyes out.</p> - -<p>Sent Mrs. Wigfall a telegram—“Where shrieks the -wild sea-mew?” She answered: “Sea-mew at the Spotswood -Hotel. Will shriek soon. I will remain here.”</p> - -<p><i>June 6th.</i>—Davin! Have had a talk concerning him -to-day with two opposite extremes of people.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Chesnut, my mother-in-law, praises everybody, -good and bad. “Judge not,” she says. She is a philosopher; -she would not give herself the pain to find fault. -The Judge abuses everybody, and he does it so well—short, -sharp, and incisive are his sentences, and he revels -in condemning the world <i lang="fr">en bloc</i>, as the French say. So -nobody is the better for her good word, or the worse for -his bad one.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span></p> - -<p>In Camden I found myself in a flurry of women. -“Traitors,” they cried. “Spies; they ought to be -hanged; Davin is taken up, Dean and Davis are his accomplices.” -“What has Davin done?” “He’ll be hanged, -never you mind.” “For what?” “They caught him -walking on the trestle work in the swamp, after no good, -you may be sure.” “They won’t hang him for that!” -“Hanging is too good for him!” “You wait till Colonel -Chesnut comes.” “He is a lawyer,” I said, gravely. -“Ladies, he will disappoint you. There will be no lynching -if he goes to that meeting to-day. He will not move a -step except by habeas corpus and trial by jury, and a -quantity of bench and bar to speak long speeches.”</p> - -<p>Mr. Chesnut did come, and gave a more definite account -of poor Davin’s precarious situation. They had -intercepted treasonable letters of his at the Post Office. I -believe it was not a very black treason after all. At any -rate, Mr. Chesnut spoke for him with might and main at -the meeting. It was composed (the meeting) of intelligent -men with cool heads. And they banished Davin to Fort -Sumter. The poor Music Master can’t do much harm in -the casemates there. He may thank his stars that Mr. Chesnut -gave him a helping hand. In the red hot state our -public mind now is in there will be a short shrift for spies. -Judge Withers said that Mr. Chesnut never made a more -telling speech in his life than he did to save this poor -Frenchman for whom Judge Lynch was ready. I had -never heard of Davin in my life until I heard he was to -be hanged.</p> - -<p>Judge Stephen A. Douglas, the “little giant,” is dead; -one of those killed by the war, no doubt; trouble of mind.</p> - -<p>Charleston people are thin-skinned. They shrink from -Russell’s touches. I find his criticisms mild. He has a -light touch. I expected so much worse. Those Englishmen -come, somebody says, with three P’s—pen, paper, prejudices. -I dread some of those after-dinner stories. As to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span> -that day in the harbor, he let us off easily. He says our -men are so fine looking. Who denies it? Not one of us. -Also that it is a silly impression which has gone abroad -that men can not work in this climate. We live in the open -air, and work like Trojans at all manly sports, riding hard, -hunting, playing at being soldiers. These fine, manly specimens -have been in the habit of leaving the coast when it -became too hot there, and also of fighting a duel or two, -if kept long sweltering under a Charleston sun. Handsome -youths, whose size and muscle he admired so much -as they prowled around the Mills House, would not relish -hard work in the fields between May and December. Negroes -stand a tropical or semitropical sun at noon-day better -than white men. In fighting it is different. Men will -not then mind sun, or rain, or wind.</p> - -<p>Major Emory,<a name="FNanchor_41" id="FNanchor_41"></a><a href="#Footnote_41" class="fnanchor">[41]</a> when he was ordered West, placed his -resignation in the hands of his Maryland brothers. After -the Baltimore row the brothers sent it in, but Maryland -declined to secede. Mrs. Emory, who at least is two-thirds -of that co-partnership, being old Franklin’s granddaughter, -and true to her blood, tried to get it back. The President -refused point blank, though she went on her knees. -That I do not believe. The Franklin race are stiff-necked -and stiff-kneed; not much given to kneeling to God or man -from all accounts.</p> - -<p>If Major Emory comes to us won’t he have a good time? -Mrs. Davis adores Mrs. Emory. No wonder I fell in -love with her myself. I heard of her before I saw her in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span> -this wise. Little Banks told me the story. She was dancing -at a ball when some bad accident maker for the Evening -News rushed up and informed her that Major Emory -had been massacred by ten Indians somewhere out West. -She coolly answered him that she had later intelligence; -it was not so. Turning a deaf ear then, she went on -dancing. Next night the same officious fool met her with -this congratulation: “Oh, Mrs. Emory, it was all a hoax! -The Major is alive.” She cried: “You are always running -about with your bad news,” and turned her back on -him; or, I think it was, “You delight in spiteful stories,” -or, “You are a harbinger of evil.” Banks is a newspaper -man and knows how to arrange an anecdote for effect.</p> - -<p><i>June 12th.</i>—Have been looking at Mrs. O’Dowd as she -burnished the “Meejor’s arrms” before Waterloo. And -I have been busy, too. My husband has gone to join Beauregard, -somewhere beyond Richmond. I feel blue-black -with melancholy. But I hope to be in Richmond before -long myself. That is some comfort.</p> - -<p>The war is making us all tenderly sentimental. No -casualties yet, no real mourning, nobody hurt. So it is all -parade, fife, and fine feathers. Posing we are <i lang="fr">en grande -tenue</i>. There is no imagination here to forestall woe, and -only the excitement and wild awakening from every-day -stagnant life are felt. That is, when one gets away from -the two or three sensible men who are still left in the world.</p> - -<p>When Beauregard’s report of the capture of Fort Sumter -was printed, Willie Ancrum said: “How is this? Tom -Ancrum and Ham Boykin’s names are not here. We -thought from what they told us that they did most of the -fighting.”</p> - -<p>Colonel Magruder<a name="FNanchor_42" id="FNanchor_42"></a><a href="#Footnote_42" class="fnanchor">[42]</a> has done something splendid on the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span> -peninsula. Bethel is the name of the battle. Three hundred -of the enemy killed, they say.</p> - -<p>Our people, Southerners, I mean, continue to drop in -from the outside world. And what a contempt those who -seceded a few days sooner feel for those who have just -come out! A Camden notable, called Jim Velipigue, said -in the street to-day: “At heart Robert E. Lee is against -us; that I know.” What will not people say in war times! -Also, he said that Colonel Kershaw wanted General Beauregard -to change the name of the stream near Manassas -Station. Bull’s Run is so unrefined. Beauregard answered: -“Let us try and make it as great a name as your -South Carolina Cowpens.”<a name="FNanchor_43" id="FNanchor_43"></a><a href="#Footnote_43" class="fnanchor">[43]</a></p> - -<p>Mrs. Chesnut, born in Philadelphia, can not see what -right we have to take Mt. Vernon from our Northern sisters. -She thinks that ought to be common to both parties. -We think they will get their share of this world’s goods, -do what we may, and we will keep Mt. Vernon if we can. -No comfort in Mr. Chesnut’s letter from Richmond. Unutterable -confusion prevails, and discord already.</p> - -<p>In Charleston a butcher has been clandestinely supplying -the Yankee fleet outside the bar with beef. They say -he gave the information which led to the capture of the -Savannah. They will hang him.</p> - -<p>Mr. Petigru alone in South Carolina has not seceded. -When they pray for our President, he gets up from his -knees. He might risk a prayer for Mr. Davis. I doubt if<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span> -it would seriously do Mr. Davis any good. Mr. Petigru is -too clever to think himself one of the righteous whose -prayers avail so overly much. Mr. Petigru’s disciple, -Mr. Bryan, followed his example. Mr. Petigru has such -a keen sense of the ridiculous he must be laughing in his -sleeve at the hubbub this untimely trait of independence -has raised.</p> - -<p>Looking out for a battle at Manassas Station. I am always -ill. The name of my disease is a longing to get away -from here and to go to Richmond.</p> - -<p><i>June 19th.</i>—In England Mr. Gregory and Mr. Lyndsey -rise to say a good word for us. Heaven reward them; -shower down its choicest blessings on their devoted heads, -as the fiction folks say.</p> - -<p>Barnwell Heyward telegraphed me to meet him at -Kingsville, but I was at Cool Spring, Johnny’s plantation, -and all my clothes were at Sandy Hill, our home in the -Sand Hills; so I lost that good opportunity of the very -nicest escort to Richmond. Tried to rise above the agonies -of every-day life. Read Emerson; too restless—Manassas -on the brain.</p> - -<p>Russell’s letters are filled with rubbish about our wanting -an English prince to reign over us. He actually intimates -that the noisy arming, drumming, marching, proclaiming -at the North, scares us. Yes, as the making of -faces and turning of somersaults by the Chinese scared the -English.</p> - -<p>Mr. Binney<a name="FNanchor_44" id="FNanchor_44"></a><a href="#Footnote_44" class="fnanchor">[44]</a> has written a letter. It is in the Intelligencer -of Philadelphia. He offers Lincoln his life and -fortune; all that he has put at Lincoln’s disposal to conquer -us. Queer; we only want to separate from them, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span> -they put such an inordinate value on us. They are willing -to risk all, life and limb, and all their money to keep us, -they love us so.</p> - -<p>Mr. Chesnut is accused of firing the first shot, and his -cousin, an ex-West Pointer, writes in a martial fury. They -confounded the best shot made on the Island the day of the -picnic with the first shot at Fort Sumter. This last is -claimed by Captain James. Others say it was one of the -Gibbeses who first fired. But it was Anderson who fired the -train which blew up the Union. He slipped into Fort Sumter -that night, when we expected to talk it all over. A letter -from my husband dated, “Headquarters, Manassas -Junction, June 16, 1861”:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p><span class="smcap">My dear Mary</span>: I wrote you a short letter from Richmond -last Wednesday, and came here next day. Found the camp all -busy and preparing for a vigorous defense. We have here at this -camp seven regiments, and in the same command, at posts in the -neighborhood, six others—say, ten thousand good men. The General -and the men feel confident that they can whip twice that -number of the enemy, at least.</p> - -<p>I have been in the saddle for two days, all day, with the General, -to become familiar with the topography of the country, and -the posts he intends to assume, and the communications between -them.</p> - -<p>We learned General Johnston has evacuated Harper’s Ferry, -and taken up his position at Winchester, to meet the advancing -column of McClellan, and to avoid being cut off by the three columns -which were advancing upon him. Neither Johnston nor -Beauregard considers Harper’s Ferry as very important in a strategic -point of view.</p> - -<p>I think it most probable that the next battle you will hear of -will be between the forces of Johnston and McClellan.</p> - -<p>I think what we particularly need is a head in the field—a -Major-General to combine and conduct all the forces as well as -plan a general and energetic campaign. Still, we have all confidence -that we will defeat the enemy whenever and wherever we -meet in general engagement. Although the majority of the people<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</a></span> -just around here are with us, still there are many who are -against us.</p> - -<p>God bless you.</p> - -<p class="center">Yours,</p> - -<p class="right"><span class="smcap">James Chesnut, Jr.</span></p> - -</div> - -<p>Mary Hammy and myself are off for Richmond. Rev. -Mr. Meynardie, of the Methodist persuasion, goes with us. -We are to be under his care. War-cloud lowering.</p> - -<p>Isaac Hayne, the man who fought a duel with Ben -Alston across the dinner-table and yet lives, is the bravest -of the brave. He attacks Russell in the Mercury—in the -public prints—for saying we wanted an English prince to -the fore. Not we, indeed! Every man wants to be at the -head of affairs himself. If he can not be king himself, -then a republic, of course. It was hardly necessary to do -more than laugh at Russell’s absurd idea. There was a -great deal of the wildest kind of talk at the Mills House. -Russell writes candidly enough of the British in India. We -can hardly expect him to suppress what is to our detriment.</p> - -<p><i>June 24th.</i>—Last night I was awakened by loud talking -and candles flashing, tramping of feet, growls dying away -in the distance, loud calls from point to point in the yard. -Up I started, my heart in my mouth. Some dreadful thing -had happened, a battle, a death, a horrible accident. Some -one was screaming aloft—that is, from the top of the stairway, -hoarsely like a boatswain in a storm. Old Colonel -Chesnut was storming at the sleepy negroes looking for fire, -with lighted candles, in closets and everywhere else. I -dressed and came upon the scene of action.</p> - -<p>“What is it? Any news?” “No, no, only mamma -smells a smell; she thinks something is burning somewhere.” -The whole yard was alive, literally swarming. -There are sixty or seventy people kept here to wait upon -this household, two-thirds of them too old or too young -to be of any use, but families remain intact. The old -Colonel has a magnificent voice. I am sure it can be heard -for miles. Literally, he was roaring from the piazza, giving<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</a></span> -orders to the busy crowd who were hunting the smell -of fire.</p> - -<p>Old Mrs. Chesnut is deaf; so she did not know what a -commotion she was creating. She is very sensitive to bad -odors. Candles have to be taken out of the room to be -snuffed. Lamps are extinguished only in the porticoes, or -farther afield. She finds violets oppressive; can only tolerate -a single kind of sweet rose. A tea-rose she will not -have in her room. She was totally innocent of the storm -she had raised, and in a mild, sweet voice was suggesting -places to be searched. I was weak enough to laugh hysterically. -The bombardment of Fort Sumter was nothing -to this.</p> - -<p>After this alarm, enough to wake the dead, the smell was -found. A family had been boiling soap. Around the soap-pot -they had swept up some woolen rags. Raking up the -fire to make all safe before going to bed, this was heaped -up with the ashes, and its faint smoldering tainted the air, -at least to Mrs. Chesnut’s nose, two hundred yards or more -away.</p> - -<p>Yesterday some of the negro men on the plantation -were found with pistols. I have never before seen aught -about any negro to show that they knew we had a war on -hand in which they have any interest.</p> - -<p>Mrs. John de Saussure bade me good-by and God bless -you. I was touched. Camden people never show any more -feeling or sympathy than red Indians, except at a funeral. -It is expected of all to howl then, and if you don’t “show -feeling,” indignation awaits the delinquent.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</a></span></p> - -<h2 id="CHAPTER_VII">VII<br /> -<span class="smaller">RICHMOND, VA.<br /> -<i>June 27, 1861-July 4, 1861</i></span></h2> - -<div> -<img class="dropcap" src="images/dropcap-r.jpg" width="100" height="115" alt="" /> -</div> - -<p class="dropcap">Richmond, Va., <i>June 27, 1861</i>.—Mr. Meynardie was -perfect in the part of traveling companion. He had -his pleasures, too. The most pious and eloquent -of parsons is human, and he enjoyed the converse of the -“eminent persons” who turned up on every hand and -gave their views freely on all matters of state.</p> - -<p>Mr. Lawrence Keitt joined us <i lang="fr">en route</i>. With him came -his wife and baby. We don’t think alike, but Mr. Keitt -is always original and entertaining. Already he pronounces -Jeff Davis a failure and his Cabinet a farce. -“Prophetic,” I suggested, as he gave his opinion before -the administration had fairly got under way. He was -fierce in his fault-finding as to Mr. Chesnut’s vote for Jeff -Davis. He says Mr. Chesnut overpersuaded the Judge, -and those two turned the tide, at least with the South Carolina -delegation. We wrangled, as we always do. He says -Howell Cobb’s common sense might have saved us.</p> - -<p>Two quiet, unobtrusive Yankee school-teachers were on -the train. I had spoken to them, and they had told me all -about themselves. So I wrote on a scrap of paper, “Do -not abuse our home and house so before these Yankee -strangers, going North. Those girls are schoolmistresses -returning from whence they came.”</p> - -<p>Soldiers everywhere. They seem to be in the air, and -certainly to fill all space. Keitt quoted a funny Georgia -man who says we try our soldiers to see if they are hot<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span> -enough before we enlist them. If, when water is thrown -on them they do not sizz, they won’t do; their patriotism is -too cool.</p> - -<p>To show they were wide awake and sympathizing enthusiastically, -every woman from every window of every -house we passed waved a handkerchief, if she had one. This -fluttering of white flags from every side never ceased from -Camden to Richmond. Another new symptom—parties of -girls came to every station simply to look at the troops -passing. They always stood (the girls, I mean) in solid -phalanx, and as the sun was generally in their eyes, they -made faces. Mary Hammy never tired of laughing at this -peculiarity of her sister patriots.</p> - -<p>At the depot in Richmond, Mr. Mallory, with Wigfall -and Garnett, met us. We had no cause to complain of the -warmth of our reception. They had a carriage for us, and -our rooms were taken at the Spotswood. But then the people -who were in the rooms engaged for us had not departed -at the time they said they were going. They lingered among -the delights of Richmond, and we knew of no law to make -them keep their words and go. Mrs. Preston had gone for -a few days to Manassas. So we took her room. Mrs. Davis -is as kind as ever. She met us in one of the corridors accidentally, -and asked us to join her party and to take our -meals at her table. Mr. Preston came, and we moved into -a room so small there was only space for a bed, washstand, -and glass over it. My things were hung up out of the way -on nails behind the door.</p> - -<p>As soon as my husband heard we had arrived, he came, -too. After dinner he sat smoking, the solitary chair of the -apartment tilted against the door as he smoked, and my -poor dresses were fumigated. I remonstrated feebly. -“War times,” said he; “nobody is fussy now. When I -go back to Manassas to-morrow you will be awfully sorry -you snubbed me about those trumpery things up there.” -So he smoked the pipe of peace, for I knew that his remarks<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</a></span> -were painfully true. As soon as he was once -more under the enemy’s guns, I would repent in sackcloth -and ashes.</p> - -<p>Captain Ingraham came with Colonel Lamar.<a name="FNanchor_45" id="FNanchor_45"></a><a href="#Footnote_45" class="fnanchor">[45]</a> The latter -said he could only stay five minutes; he was obliged -to go back at once to his camp. That was a little before -eight. However, at twelve he was still talking to us on -that sofa. We taunted him with his fine words to the -F. F. V. crowd before the Spotswood: “Virginia has -no grievance. She raises her strong arm to catch the blow -aimed at her weaker sisters.” He liked it well, however, -that we knew his speech by heart.</p> - -<p>This Spotswood is a miniature world. The war topic -is not so much avoided, as that everybody has some personal -dignity to take care of and everybody else is indifferent -to it. I mean the “personal dignity of” <i lang="fr">autrui</i>. In -this wild confusion everything likely and unlikely is told -you, and then everything is as flatly contradicted. At any -rate, it is safest not to talk of the war.</p> - -<p>Trescott was telling us how they laughed at little South -Carolina in Washington. People said it was almost as -large as Long Island, which is hardly more than a tail-feather -of New York. Always there is a child who sulks -and won’t play; that was our rôle. And we were posing -as San Marino and all model-spirited, though small, republics, -pose.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span></p> - -<p>He tells us that Lincoln is a humorist. Lincoln sees -the fun of things; he thinks if they had left us in a corner -or out in the cold a while pouting, with our fingers in our -mouth, by hook or by crook he could have got us back, but -Anderson spoiled all.</p> - -<p>In Mrs. Davis’s drawing-room last night, the President -took a seat by me on the sofa where I sat. He talked for -nearly an hour. He laughed at our faith in our own powers. -We are like the British. We think every Southerner -equal to three Yankees at least. We will have to be equivalent -to a dozen now. After his experience of the fighting -qualities of Southerners in Mexico, he believes that we will -do all that can be done by pluck and muscle, endurance, -and dogged courage, dash, and red-hot patriotism. And -yet his tone was not sanguine. There was a sad refrain -running through it all. For one thing, either way, he -thinks it will be a long war. That floored me at once. It -has been too long for me already. Then he said, before the -end came we would have many a bitter experience. He said -only fools doubted the courage of the Yankees, or their -willingness to fight when they saw fit. And now that we -have stung their pride, we have roused them till they will -fight like devils.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Bradley Johnson is here, a regular heroine. She -outgeneraled the Governor of North Carolina in some way -and has got arms and clothes and ammunition for her husband’s -regiment.<a name="FNanchor_46" id="FNanchor_46"></a><a href="#Footnote_46" class="fnanchor">[46]</a> There was some joke. The regimental -breeches were all wrong, but a tailor righted that—hind -part before, or something odd.</p> - -<p>Captain Hartstein came to-day with Mrs. Bartow. -Colonel Bartow is Colonel of a Georgia regiment now in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</a></span> -Virginia. He was the Mayor of Savannah who helped to -wake the patriotic echoes the livelong night under my -sleepless head into the small hours in Charleston in November -last. His wife is a charming person, witty and wise, -daughter of Judge Berrien. She had on a white muslin -apron with pink bows on the pockets. It gave her a gay -and girlish air, and yet she must be as old as I am.</p> - -<p>Mr. Lamar, who does not love slavery more than Sumner -does, nor than I do, laughs at the compliment New England -pays us. We want to separate from them; to be rid of the -Yankees forever at any price. And they hate us so, and -would clasp us, or grapple us, as Polonius has it, to their -bosoms “with hooks of steel.” We are an unwilling bride. -I think incompatibility of temper began when it was made -plain to us that we got all the opprobrium of slavery and -they all the money there was in it with their tariff.</p> - -<p>Mr. Lamar says, the young men are light-hearted because -there is a fight on hand, but those few who look -ahead, the clear heads, they see all the risk, the loss of land, -limb, and life, home, wife, and children. As in “the brave -days of old,” they take to it for their country’s sake. -They are ready and willing, come what may. But not so -light-hearted as the <i lang="fr">jeunesse dorée</i>.</p> - -<p><i>June 29th.</i>—Mrs. Preston, Mrs. Wigfall, Mary Hammy -and I drove in a fine open carriage to see the <i lang="fr">Champ de -Mars</i>. It was a grand tableau out there. Mr. Davis rode -a beautiful gray horse, the Arab Edwin de Leon brought -him from Egypt. His worst enemy will allow that he is a -consummate rider, graceful and easy in the saddle, and Mr. -Chesnut, who has talked horse with his father ever since he -was born, owns that Mr. Davis knows more about horses -than any man he has met yet. General Lee was there with -him; also Joe Davis and Wigfall acting as his aides.</p> - -<p>Poor Mr. Lamar has been brought from his camp—paralysis -or some sort of shock. Every woman in the house -is ready to rush into the Florence Nightingale business. I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</a></span> -think I will wait for a wounded man, to make my first effort -as Sister of Charity. Mr. Lamar sent for me. As everybody -went, Mr. Davis setting the example, so did I. Lamar -will not die this time. Will men flatter and make eyes, -until their eyes close in death, at the ministering angels? -He was the same old Lamar of the drawing-room.</p> - -<p>It is pleasant at the President’s table. My seat is next -to Joe Davis, with Mr. Browne on the other side, and Mr. -Mallory opposite. There is great constraint, however. As -soon as I came I repeated what the North Carolina man -said on the cars, that North Carolina had 20,000 men ready -and they were kept back by Mr. Walker, etc. The President -caught something of what I was saying, and asked me -to repeat it, which I did, although I was scared to death. -“Madame, when you see that person tell him his statement -is false. We are too anxious here for troops to refuse a -man who offers himself, not to speak of 20,000 men.” Silence -ensued—of the most profound.</p> - -<p>Uncle H. gave me three hundred dollars for his daughter -Mary’s expenses, making four in all that I have of hers. -He would pay me one hundred, which he said he owed my -husband for a horse. I thought it an excuse to lend me -money. I told him I had enough and to spare for all my -needs until my Colonel came home from the wars.</p> - -<p>Ben Allston, the Governor’s son, is here—came to see -me; does not show much of the wit of the Petigrus; pleasant -person, however. Mr. Brewster and Wigfall came at -the same time. The former, chafing at Wigfall’s anomalous -position here, gave him fiery advice. Mr. Wigfall was -calm and full of common sense. A brave man, and without -a thought of any necessity for displaying his temper, -he said: “Brewster, at this time, before the country is -strong and settled in her new career, it would be disastrous -for us, the head men, to engage in a row among ourselves.”</p> - -<p>As I was brushing flies away and fanning the prostrate -Lamar, I reported Mr. Davis’s conversation of the night<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</a></span> -before. “He is all right,” said Mr. Lamar, “the fight had -to come. We are men, not women. The quarrel had lasted -long enough. We hate each other so, the fight had to come. -Even Homer’s heroes, after they had stormed and scolded -enough, fought like brave men, long and well. If the athlete, -Sumner, had stood on his manhood and training and -struck back when Preston Brooks assailed him, Preston -Brooks’s blow need not have been the opening skirmish of -the war. Sumner’s country took up the fight because he -did not. Sumner chose his own battle-field, and it was the -worse for us. What an awful blunder that Preston -Brooks business was!” Lamar said Yankees did not fight -for the fun of it; they always made it pay or let it alone.</p> - -<p>Met Mr. Lyon with news, indeed—a man here in the -midst of us, taken with Lincoln’s passports, etc., in his -pocket—a palpable spy. Mr. Lyon said he would be hanged—in -all human probability, that is.</p> - -<p>A letter from my husband written at Camp Pickens, -and saying: “If you and Mrs. Preston can make up your -minds to leave Richmond, and can come up to a nice little -country house near Orange Court House, we could come to -see you frequently while the army is stationed here. It -would be a safe place for the present, near the scene of -action, and directly in the line of news from all sides.” So -we go to Orange Court House.</p> - -<p>Read the story of Soulouque,<a name="FNanchor_47" id="FNanchor_47"></a><a href="#Footnote_47" class="fnanchor">[47]</a> the Haytian man: he has -wonderful interest just now. Slavery has to go, of course, -and joy go with it. These Yankees may kill us and lay -waste our land for a while, but conquer us—never!</p> - -<p><i>July 4th.</i>—Russell abuses us in his letters. People here -care a great deal for what Russell says, because he represents<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</a></span> -the London Times, and the Times reflects the -sentiment of the English people. How we do cling to -the idea of an alliance with England or France! Without -France even Washington could not have done it.</p> - -<p>We drove to the camp to see the President present a -flag to a Maryland regiment. Having lived on the battle-field -(Kirkwood), near Camden,<a name="FNanchor_48" id="FNanchor_48"></a><a href="#Footnote_48" class="fnanchor">[48]</a> we have an immense respect -for the Maryland line. When our militia in that -fight ran away, Colonel Howard and the Marylanders held -their own against Rawdon, Cornwallis, and the rest, and -everywhere around are places named for a doughty captain -killed in our defense—Kirkwood, De Kalb, etc. The -last, however, was a Prussian count. A letter from my -husband, written June 22d, has just reached me. He -says:</p> - -<p>“We are very strongly posted, entrenched, and have -now at our command about 15,000 of the best troops in the -world. We have besides, two batteries of artillery, a regiment -of cavalry, and daily expect a battalion of flying -artillery from Richmond. We have sent forward seven regiments -of infantry and rifles toward Alexandria. Our outposts -have felt the enemy several times, and in every -instance the enemy recoils. General Johnston has had several -encounters—the advancing columns of the two armies—and -with him, too, the enemy, although always superior -in numbers, are invariably driven back.</p> - -<p>“There is great deficiency in the matter of ammunition. -General Johnston’s command, in the very face of -overwhelming numbers, have only thirty rounds each. If -they had been well provided in this respect, they could and -would have defeated Cadwallader and Paterson with great -ease. I find the opinion prevails throughout the army that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</a></span> -there is great imbecility and shameful neglect in the War -Department.</p> - -<p>“Unless the Republicans fall back, we must soon come -together on both lines, and have a decided engagement. -But the opinion prevails here that Lincoln’s army will not -meet us if they can avoid it. They have already fallen -back before a slight check from 400 of Johnston’s men. -They had 700 and were badly beaten. You have no idea -how dirty and irksome the camp life is. You would hardly -know your best friend in camp guise.”</p> - -<p>Noise of drums, tramp of marching regiments all day -long; rattling of artillery wagons, bands of music, friends -from every quarter coming in. We ought to be miserable -and anxious, and yet these are pleasant days. Perhaps we -are unnaturally exhilarated and excited.</p> - -<p>Heard some people in the drawing-room say: “Mrs. -Davis’s ladies are not young, are not pretty,” and I am one -of them. The truthfulness of the remark did not tend to -alleviate its bitterness. We must put Maggie Howell and -Mary Hammy in the foreground, as youth and beauty are -in request. At least they are young things—bright spots -in a somber-tinted picture. The President does not forbid -our going, but he is very much averse to it. We are consequently -frightened by our own audacity, but we are -wilful women, and so we go.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</a></span></p> - -<h2 id="CHAPTER_VIII">VIII<br /> -<span class="smaller">FAUQUIER WHITE SULPHUR SPRINGS, VA.<br /> -<i>July 6, 1861-July 11, 1861</i></span></h2> - -<div> -<img class="dropcap" src="images/dropcap-f.jpg" width="100" height="115" alt="" /> -</div> - -<p class="dropcap">Fauquier White Sulphur Springs, Va., -<i>July 6, 1861</i>.—Mr. Brewster came here with us. The -cars were jammed with soldiers to the muzzle. They -were very polite and considerate, and we had an agreeable -journey, in spite of heat, dust, and crowd. Rev. Robert -Barnwell was with us. He means to organize a hospital for -sick and wounded. There was not an inch of standing-room -even; so dusty, so close, but everybody in tip-top -spirits.</p> - -<p>Mr. Preston and Mr. Chesnut met us at Warrenton. -Saw across the lawn, but did not speak to them, some of -Judge Campbell’s family. There they wander disconsolate, -just outside the gates of their Paradise: a resigned -Judge of the Supreme Court of the United States; resigned, -and for a cause that he is hardly more than half in sympathy -with, Judge Campbell’s is one of the hardest cases.</p> - -<p><i>July 7th.</i>—This water is making us young again. How -these men enjoy the baths. They say Beauregard can stop -the way with sixty thousand; that many are coming.</p> - -<p>An antique female, with every hair curled and frizzed, -said to be a Yankee spy, sits opposite us. Brewster solemnly -wondered “with eternity and the judgment to come -so near at hand, how she could waste her few remaining -minutes curling her hair.” He bade me be very polite, for -she would ask me questions. When we were walking away<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</a></span> -from table, I demanded his approval of my self-control -under such trying circumstances. It seems I was not as -calm and forbearing as I thought myself. Brewster answered -with emphasis: “Do you always carry brickbats -like that in your pocket ready for the first word that offends -you? You must not do so, when you are with spies -from the other side.” I do not feel at all afraid of spies -hearing anything through me, for I do not know anything.</p> - -<p>But our men could not tarry with us in these cool -shades and comfortable quarters, with water unlimited, excellent -table, etc. They have gone back to Manassas, and -the faithful Brewster with them to bring us the latest news. -They left us in excellent spirits, which we shared until they -were out of sight. We went with them to Warrenton, and -then heard that General Johnston was in full retreat, and -that a column was advancing upon Beauregard. So we -came back, all forlorn. If our husbands are taken prisoners, -what will they do with them? Are they soldiers or -traitors?</p> - -<p>Mrs. Ould read us a letter from Richmond. How horrified -they are there at Joe Johnston’s retreating. And the -enemies of the War Department accuse Walker of not sending -General Johnston ammunition in sufficient quantities; -say that is the real cause of his retreat. Now will they -not make the ears of that slow-coach, the Secretary of War, -buzz?</p> - -<p>Mrs. Preston’s maid Maria has a way of rushing in—“Don’t -you hear the cannon?” We fly to the windows, -lean out to our waists, pull all the hair away from our ears, -but can not hear it. Lincoln wants four hundred millions -of money and men in proportion. Can he get them? He -will find us a heavy handful. Midnight. I hear Maria’s -guns.</p> - -<p>We are always picking up some good thing of the rough -Illinoisan’s saying. Lincoln objects to some man—“Oh, -he is too <em>interruptious</em>”; that is a horrid style of man or<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</a></span> -woman, the interruptions. I know the thing, but had no -name for it before.</p> - -<p><i>July 9th.</i>—Our battle summer. May it be our first and -our last, so called. After all we have not had any of the -horrors of war. Could there have been a gayer, or pleasanter, -life than we led in Charleston. And Montgomery, -how exciting it all was there! So many clever men and -women congregated from every part of the South. Mosquitoes, -and a want of neatness, and a want of good things -to eat, drove us away. In Richmond the girls say it is perfectly -delightful. We found it so, too, but the bickering -and quarreling have begun there.</p> - -<p>At table to-day we heard Mrs. Davis’s ladies described. -They were said to wear red frocks and flats on their heads. -We sat mute as mice. One woman said she found the -drawing-room of the Spotswood was warm, stuffy, and -stifling. “Poor soul,” murmured the inevitable Brewster, -“and no man came to air her in the moonlight stroll, you -know. Why didn’t somebody ask her out on the piazza to -see the comet?” Heavens above, what philandering was -done in the name of the comet! When you stumbled on a -couple on the piazza they lifted their eyes, and “comet” -was the only word you heard. Brewster came back with -a paper from Washington with terrific threats of what -they will do to us. Threatened men live long.</p> - -<p>There was a soft, sweet, low, and slow young lady opposite -to us. She seemed so gentle and refined, and so uncertain -of everything. Mr. Brewster called her Miss Albina -McClush, who always asked her maid when a new book was -mentioned, “Seraphina, have I perused that volume?”</p> - -<p>Mary Hammy, having a <i lang="fr">fiancé</i> in the wars, is inclined -at times to be sad and tearful. Mrs. Preston quoted her -negro nurse to her: “Never take any more trouble in -your heart than you can kick off at the end of your toes.”</p> - -<p><i>July 11th.</i>—We did hear cannon to-day. The woman -who slandered Mrs. Davis’s republican court, of which we<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</a></span> -are honorable members, by saying they—well, were not -young; that they wore gaudy colors, and dressed badly—I -took an inventory to-day as to her charms. She is darkly, -deeply, beautifully freckled; she wears a wig which is -kept in place by a tiara of mock jewels; she has the fattest -of arms and wears black bead bracelets.</p> - -<p>The one who is under a cloud, shadowed as a Yankee -spy, has confirmed our worst suspicions. She exhibited unholy -joy, as she reported seven hundred sick soldiers in the -hospital at Culpeper, and that Beauregard had sent a -flag of truce to Washington.</p> - -<p>What a night we had! Maria had seen suspicious persons -hovering about all day, and Mrs. Preston a ladder -which could easily be placed so as to reach our rooms. -Mary Hammy saw lights glancing about among the trees, -and we all heard guns. So we sat up. Consequently, I am -writing in bed to-day. A letter from my husband saying, -in particular: “Our orders are to move on,” the date, July -10th. “Here we are still and no more prospect of movement -now than when I last wrote to you. It is true, however, -that the enemy is advancing slowly in our front, and -we are preparing to receive him. He comes in great force, -being more than three times our number.”</p> - -<p>The spy, so-called, gave us a parting shot: said Beauregard -had arrested her brother in order that he might take a -fine horse which the aforesaid brother was riding. Why? -Beauregard, at a moment’s notice, could have any horse in -South Carolina, or Louisiana, for that matter. This man -was arrested and sent to Richmond, and “will be acquitted -as they always are,” said Brewster. “They send them -first to Richmond to see and hear everything there; then -they acquit them, and send them out of the country by way -of Norfolk to see everything there. But, after all, what -does it matter? They have no need for spies: our newspapers -keep no secrets hid. The thoughts of our hearts are all -revealed. Everything with us is open and aboveboard.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</a></span></p> - -<p>“At Bethel the Yankees fired too high. Every daily -paper is jeering them about it yet. They’ll fire low enough -next time, but no newspaper man will be there to get the -benefit of their improved practise, alas!”</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</a></span></p> - -<h2 id="CHAPTER_IX">IX<br /> -<span class="smaller">RICHMOND, VA.<br /> -<i>July 13, 1861-September 2, 1861</i></span></h2> - -<div> -<img class="dropcap" src="images/dropcap-r.jpg" width="100" height="115" alt="" /> -</div> - -<p class="dropcap">Richmond, Va., <i>July 13, 1861</i>.—Now we feel safe -and comfortable. We can not be flanked. Mr. Preston -met us at Warrenton. Mr. Chesnut doubtless -had too many spies to receive from Washington, galloping -in with the exact numbers of the enemy done up in their -back hair.</p> - -<p>Wade Hampton is here; Doctor Nott also—Nott and -Glyddon known to fame. Everybody is here, <i lang="fr">en route</i> for -the army, or staying for the meeting of Congress.</p> - -<p>Lamar is out on crutches. His father-in-law, once -known only as the humorist Longstreet,<a name="FNanchor_49" id="FNanchor_49"></a><a href="#Footnote_49" class="fnanchor">[49]</a> author of Georgia -Scenes, now a staid Methodist, who has outgrown the -follies of his youth, bore him off to-day. They say Judge -Longstreet has lost the keen sense of fun that illuminated -his life in days of yore. Mrs. Lamar and her daughter -were here.</p> - -<p>The President met us cordially, but he laughed at our -sudden retreat, with baggage lost, etc. He tried to keep us -from going; said it was a dangerous experiment. Dare say -he knows more about the situation of things than he -chooses to tell us.</p> - -<p>To-day in the drawing-room, saw a <i lang="fr">vivandière</i> in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</a></span> -flesh. She was in the uniform of her regiment, but wore -Turkish pantaloons. She frisked about in her hat and -feathers; did not uncover her head as a man would have -done; played the piano; and sang war-songs. She had no -drum, but she gave us rataplan. She was followed at -every step by a mob of admiring soldiers and boys.</p> - -<p>Yesterday, as we left the cars, we had a glimpse of war. -It was the saddest sight: the memory of it is hard to shake -off—sick soldiers, not wounded ones. There were quite two -hundred (they said) lying about as best they might on the -platform. Robert Barnwell<a name="FNanchor_50" id="FNanchor_50"></a><a href="#Footnote_50" class="fnanchor">[50]</a> was there doing all he could. -Their pale, ghastly faces! So here is one of the horrors of -war we had not reckoned on. There were many good men -and women with Robert Barnwell, rendering all the service -possible in the circumstances.</p> - -<p>Just now I happened to look up and saw Mr. Chesnut -with a smile on his face watching me from the passageway. -I flew across the room, and as I got half-way saw Mrs. Davis -touch him on the shoulder. She said he was to go at once -into Mr. Davis’s room, where General Lee and General -Cooper were. After he left us, Mrs. Davis told me General -Beauregard had sent Mr. Chesnut here on some army -business.</p> - -<p><i>July 14th.</i>—Mr. Chesnut remained closeted with the -President and General Lee all the afternoon. The news -does not seem pleasant. At least, he is not inclined to tell -me any of it. He satisfied himself with telling me how sensible -and soldierly this handsome General Lee is. General -Lee’s military sagacity was also his theme. Of course the -President dominated the party, as well by his weight of -brain as by his position. I did not care a fig for a description -of the war council. I wanted to know what is in -the wind now?</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</a></span></p> - -<p><i>July 16th.</i>—Dined to-day at the President’s table. Joe -Davis, the nephew, asked me if I liked white port wine. I -said I did not know; “all that I had ever known had been -dark red.” So he poured me out a glass. I drank it, and -it nearly burned up my mouth and throat. It was horrid, -but I did not let him see how it annoyed me. I pretended to -be glad that any one found me still young enough to play -off a practical joke upon me. It was thirty years since I -had thought of such a thing.</p> - -<p>Met Colonel Baldwin in the drawing-room. He pointed -significantly to his Confederate colonel’s buttons and gray -coat. At the White Sulphur last summer he was a “Union -man” to the last point. “How much have you changed -besides your coat?” “I was always true to our country,” -he said. “She leaves me no choice now.”</p> - -<p>As far as I can make out, Beauregard sent Mr. Chesnut -to the President to gain permission for the forces of Joe -Johnston and Beauregard to join, and, united, to push the -enemy, if possible, over the Potomac. Now every day we -grow weaker and they stronger; so we had better give a -telling blow at once. Already, we begin to cry out for -more ammunition, and already the blockade is beginning to -shut it all out.</p> - -<p>A young Emory is here. His mother writes him to go -back. Her Franklin blood certainly calls him with no uncertain -sound to the Northern side, while his fatherland is -wavering and undecided, split in half by factions. Mrs. -Wigfall says he is half inclined to go. She wondered that -he did not. With a father in the enemy’s army, he will -always be “suspect” here, let the President and Mrs. Davis -do for him what they will.</p> - -<p>I did not know there was such a “bitter cry” left in -me, but I wept my heart away to-day when my husband -went off. Things do look so black. When he comes up -here he rarely brings his body-servant, a negro man. Lawrence -has charge of all Mr. Chesnut’s things—watch,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</a></span> -clothes, and two or three hundred gold pieces that lie in the -tray of his trunk. All these, papers, etc., he tells Lawrence -to bring to me if anything happens to him. But I said: -“Maybe he will pack off to the Yankees and freedom -with all that.” “Fiddlesticks! He is not going to leave -me for anybody else. After all, what can he ever be, better -than he is now—a gentleman’s gentleman?” “He is -within sound of the enemy’s guns, and when he gets to the -other army he is free.” Maria said of Mr. Preston’s man: -“What he want with anything more, ef he was free? -Don’t he live just as well as Mars John do now?”</p> - -<p>Mrs. McLane, Mrs. Joe Johnston, Mrs. Wigfall, all came. -I am sure so many clever women could divert a soul <i lang="la">in -extremis</i>. The Hampton Legion all in a snarl—about, I -forget what; standing on their dignity, I suppose. I have -come to detest a man who says, “My own personal dignity -and self-respect require.” I long to cry, “No need to respect -yourself until you can make other people do it.”</p> - -<p><i>July 19th.</i>—Beauregard telegraphed yesterday (they -say, to General Johnston), “Come down and help us, or we -shall be crushed by numbers.” The President telegraphed -General Johnston to move down to Beauregard’s aid. At -Bull Run, Bonham’s Brigade, Ewell’s, and Longstreet’s -encountered the foe and repulsed him. Six hundred prisoners -have been sent here.</p> - -<p>I arose, as the Scriptures say, and washed my face -and anointed my head and went down-stairs. At the -foot of them stood General Cooper, radiant, one finger nervously -arranging his shirt collar, or adjusting his neck to -it after his fashion. He called out: “Your South Carolina -man, Bonham, has done a capital thing at Bull Run—driven -back the enemy, if not defeated him; with killed and -prisoners,” etc., etc. Clingman came to tell the particulars, -and Colonel Smith (one of the trio with Garnett, McClellan, -who were sent to Europe to inspect and report on military -matters). Poor Garnett is killed. There was cowardice<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</a></span> -or treachery on the part of natives up there, or -some of Governor Letcher’s appointments to military posts. -I hear all these things said. I do not understand, but it -was a fatal business.</p> - -<p>Mrs. McLane says she finds we do not believe a word of -any news unless it comes in this guise: “A great battle -fought. Not one Confederate killed. Enemy’s loss in -killed, wounded, and prisoners taken by us, immense.” I -was in hopes there would be no battle until Mr. Chesnut -was forced to give up his amateur aideship to come and attend -to his regular duties in the Congress.</p> - -<p>Keitt has come in. He says Bonham’s battle was a skirmish -of outposts. Joe Davis, Jr., said: “Would Heaven -only send us a Napoleon!” Not one bit of use. If -Heaven did, Walker would not give him a commission. -Mrs. Davis and Mrs. Joe Johnston, “her dear Lydia,” were -in fine spirits. The effect upon <i lang="fr">nous autres</i> was evident; -we rallied visibly. South Carolina troops pass every day. -They go by with a gay step. Tom Taylor and John Rhett -bowed to us from their horses as we leaned out of the windows. -Such shaking of handkerchiefs. We are forever at -the windows.</p> - -<p>It was not such a mere skirmish. We took three rifled -cannon and six hundred stands of arms. Mr. Davis has -gone to Manassas. He did not let Wigfall know he was -going. That ends the delusion of Wigfall’s aideship. No -mistake to-day. I was too ill to move out of my bed. So -they all sat in my room.</p> - -<p><i>July 22d.</i>—Mrs. Davis came in so softly that I did not -know she was here until she leaned over me and said: “A -great battle has been fought.<a name="FNanchor_51" id="FNanchor_51"></a><a href="#Footnote_51" class="fnanchor">[51]</a> Joe Johnston led the right<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</a></span> -wing, and Beauregard the left wing of the army. Your -husband is all right. Wade Hampton is wounded. -Colonel Johnston of the Legion killed; so are Colonel Bee -and Colonel Bartow. Kirby Smith<a name="FNanchor_52" id="FNanchor_52"></a><a href="#Footnote_52" class="fnanchor">[52]</a> is wounded or killed.”</p> - -<p>I had no breath to speak; she went on in that desperate, -calm way, to which people betake themselves under the -greatest excitement: “Bartow, rallying his men, leading -them into the hottest of the fight, died gallantly at the head -of his regiment. The President telegraphs me only that ‘it -is a great victory.’ General Cooper has all the other telegrams.”</p> - -<p>Still I said nothing; I was stunned; then I was so grateful. -Those nearest and dearest to me were safe still. She -then began, in the same concentrated voice, to read from a -paper she held in her hand: “Dead and dying cover the -field. Sherman’s battery taken. Lynchburg regiment cut -to pieces. Three hundred of the Legion wounded.”</p> - -<p>That got me up. Times were too wild with excitement -to stay in bed. We went into Mrs. Preston’s room, and she -made me lie down on her bed. Men, women, and children -streamed in. Every living soul had a story to tell. “Complete -victory,” you heard everywhere. We had been such -anxious wretches. The revulsion of feeling was almost too -much to bear.</p> - -<p>To-day I met my friend, Mr. Hunter. I was on my -way to Mrs. Bartow’s room and begged him to call at some -other time. I was too tearful just then for a morning visit -from even the most sympathetic person.</p> - -<p>A woman from Mrs. Bartow’s country was in a fury -because they had stopped her as she rushed to be the first -to tell Mrs. Bartow her husband was killed, it having been<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[88]</a></span> -decided that Mrs. Davis should tell her. Poor thing! She -was found lying on her bed when Mrs. Davis knocked. -“Come in,” she said. When she saw it was Mrs. Davis, she -sat up, ready to spring to her feet, but then there was something -in Mrs. Davis’s pale face that took the life out of her. -She stared at Mrs. Davis, then sank back, and covered her -face as she asked: “Is it bad news for me?” Mrs. Davis -did not speak. “Is he killed?” Afterward Mrs. Bartow -said to me: “As soon as I saw Mrs. Davis’s face I could not -say one word. I knew it all in an instant. I knew it before -I wrapped the shawl about my head.”</p> - -<p>Maria, Mrs. Preston’s maid, furiously patriotic, came -into my room. “These colored people say it is printed in -the papers here that the Virginia people done it all. Now -Mars Wade had so many of his men killed and he -wounded, it stands to reason that South Carolina was no -ways backward. If there was ever anything plain, that’s -plain.”</p> - -<p><i>Tuesday.</i>—Witnessed for the first time a military -funeral. As that march came wailing up, they say Mrs. -Bartow fainted. The empty saddle and the led war-horse—we -saw and heard it all; and now it seems we are never out -of the sound of the Dead March in Saul. It comes and it -comes, until I feel inclined to close my ears and scream.</p> - -<p>Yesterday, Mrs. Singleton and ourselves sat on a bedside -and mingled our tears for those noble spirits—John -Darby, Theodore Barker, and James Lowndes. To-day we -find we wasted our grief; they are not so much as wounded. -I dare say all the rest is true about them—in the face of the -enemy, with flags in their hands, leading their men. “But -Dr. Darby is a surgeon.” He is as likely to forget that as I -am. He is grandson of Colonel Thomson of the Revolution, -called, by way of pet name, by his soldiers, “Old Danger.” -Thank Heaven they are all quite alive. And we will not -cry next time until officially notified.</p> - -<p><i>July 24th.</i>—Here Mr. Chesnut opened my door and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[89]</a></span> -walked in. Out of the fulness of the heart the mouth -speaketh. I had to ask no questions. He gave me an account -of the battle as he saw it (walking up and down my -room, occasionally seating himself on a window sill, but -too restless to remain still many moments); and told what -regiments he was sent to bring up. He took the orders to -Colonel Jackson, whose regiment stood so stock still under -fire that they were called a “stone wall.” Also, they call -Beauregard, Eugene, and Johnston, Marlboro. Mr. Chesnut -rode with Lay’s cavalry after the retreating enemy in -the pursuit, they following them until midnight. Then -there came such a fall of rain—rain such as is only known -in semitropical lands.</p> - -<p>In the drawing-room, Colonel Chesnut was the “belle -of the ball”; they crowded him so for news. He was the -first arrival that they could get at from the field of -battle. But the women had to give way to the dignitaries -of the land, who were as filled with curiosity as themselves—Mr. -Barnwell, Mr. Hunter, Mr. Cobb, Captain Ingraham, -etc.</p> - -<p>Wilmot de Saussure says Wilson of Massachusetts, a -Senator of the United States,<a name="FNanchor_53" id="FNanchor_53"></a><a href="#Footnote_53" class="fnanchor">[53]</a> came to Manassas, <i lang="fr">en route</i> -to Richmond, with his dancing shoes ready for a festive -scene which was to celebrate a triumph. The New York -Tribune said: “In a few days we shall have Richmond, -Memphis, and New Orleans. They must be taken and at -once.” For “a few days” maybe now they will modestly -substitute “in a few years.”</p> - -<p>They brought me a Yankee soldier’s portfolio from the -battle-field. The letters had been franked by Senator<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</a></span> -Harlan.<a name="FNanchor_54" id="FNanchor_54"></a><a href="#Footnote_54" class="fnanchor">[54]</a> One might shed tears over some of the letters. -Women, wives and mothers, are the same everywhere. -What a comfort the spelling was! We had been willing to -admit that their universal free-school education had put -them, rank and file, ahead of us <em>literarily</em>, but these letters -do not attest that fact. The spelling is comically bad.</p> - -<p><i>July 27th.</i>—Mrs. Davis’s drawing-room last night was -brilliant, and she was in great force. Outside a mob called -for the President. He did speak—an old war-horse, who -scents the battle-fields from afar. His enthusiasm was contagious. -They called for Colonel Chesnut, and he gave -them a capital speech, too. As public speakers say sometimes, -“It was the proudest moment of my life.” I did -not hear a great deal of it, for always, when anything happens -of any moment, my heart beats up in my ears, but the -distinguished Carolinians who crowded round told me -how good a speech he made. I was dazed. There goes the -Dead March for some poor soul.</p> - -<p>To-day, the President told us at dinner that Mr. Chesnut’s -eulogy of Bartow in the Congress was highly praised. -Men liked it. Two eminently satisfactory speeches in twenty-four -hours is doing pretty well. And now I could be -happy, but this Cabinet of ours are in such bitter quarrels -among themselves—everybody abusing everybody.</p> - -<p>Last night, while those splendid descriptions of the battle -were being given to the crowd below from our windows, -I said: “Then, why do we not go on to Washington?” -“You mean why did they not; the opportunity is lost.” -Mr. Barnwell said to me: “Silence, we want to listen to -the speaker,” and Mr. Hunter smiled compassionately, -“Don’t ask awkward questions.”</p> - -<p>Kirby Smith came down on the turnpike in the very -nick of time. Still, the heroes who fought all day and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</a></span> -held the Yankees in check deserve credit beyond words, or -it would all have been over before the Joe Johnston contingent -came. It is another case of the eleventh-hour scrape; -the eleventh-hour men claim all the credit, and they who -bore the heat and brunt and burden of the day do not -like that.</p> - -<p>Everybody said at first, “Pshaw! There will be no -war.” Those who foresaw evil were called ravens, ill-foreboders. -Now the same sanguine people all cry, “The war -is over”—the very same who were packing to leave Richmond -a few days ago. Many were ready to move on at a -moment’s warning, when the good news came. There are -such owls everywhere.</p> - -<p>But, to revert to the other kind, the sage and circumspect, -those who say very little, but that little shows they -think the war barely begun. Mr. Rives and Mr. Seddon -have just called. Arnoldus Van der Horst came to see me -at the same time. He said there was no great show of victory -on our side until two o’clock, but when we began to -win, we did it in double-quick time. I mean, of course, the -battle last Sunday.</p> - -<p>Arnold Harris told Mr. Wigfall the news from Washington -last Sunday. For hours the telegrams reported at -rapid intervals, “Great victory,” “Defeating them at all -points.” The couriers began to come in on horseback, and -at last, after two or three o’clock, there was a sudden cessation -of all news. About nine messengers with bulletins -came on foot or on horseback—wounded, weary, draggled, -footsore, panic-stricken—spreading in their path on every -hand terror and dismay. That was our opportunity. Wigfall -can see nothing that could have stopped us, and when -they explain why we did not go to Washington I understand -it all less than ever. Yet here we will dilly-dally, -and Congress orate, and generals parade, until they in the -North get up an army three times as large as McDowell’s, -which we have just defeated.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[92]</a></span></p> - -<p>Trescott says this victory will be our ruin. It lulls us -into a fool’s paradise of conceit at our superior valor, and -the shameful farce of their flight will wake every inch of -their manhood. It was the very fillip they needed. There -are a quieter sort here who know their Yankees well. They -say if the thing begins to pay—government contracts, and -all that—we will never hear the end of it, at least, until -they get their pay in some way out of us. They will not -lose money by us. Of that we may be sure. Trust Yankee -shrewdness and vim for that.</p> - -<p>There seems to be a battle raging at Bethel, but no mortal -here can be got to think of anything but Manassas. -Mrs. McLean says she does not see that it was such a great -victory, and if it be so great, how can one defeat hurt a -nation like the North.</p> - -<p>John Waties fought the whole battle over for me. Now -I understand it. Before this nobody would take the time -to tell the thing consecutively, rationally, and in order. -Mr. Venable said he did not see a braver thing done than -the cool performance of a Columbia negro. He carried his -master a bucket of ham and rice, which he had cooked for -him, and he cried: “You must be so tired and hungry, -marster; make haste and eat.” This was in the thickest of -the fight, under the heaviest of the enemy’s guns.</p> - -<p>The Federal Congressmen had been making a picnic of -it: their luggage was all ticketed to Richmond. Cameron -has issued a proclamation. They are making ready to come -after us on a magnificent scale. They acknowledge us at -last foemen worthy of their steel. The Lord help us, since -England and France won’t, or don’t. If we could only -get a friend outside and open a port.</p> - -<p>One of these men told me he had seen a Yankee prisoner, -who asked him “what sort of a diggins Richmond was for -trade.” He was tired of the old concern, and would like -to take the oath and settle here. They brought us handcuffs -found in the <i lang="fr">débacle</i> of the Yankee army. For whom<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[93]</a></span> -were they? Jeff Davis, no doubt, and the ringleaders. -“Tell that to the marines.” We have outgrown the handcuff -business on this side of the water.</p> - -<p>Dr. Gibbes says he was at a country house near Manassas, -when a Federal soldier, who had lost his way, came in -exhausted. He asked for brandy, which the lady of the -house gave him. Upon second thought, he declined it. She -brought it to him so promptly he said he thought it might -be poisoned; his mind was; she was enraged, and said: -“Sir, I am a Virginia woman. Do you think I could be as -base as that? Here, Bill, Tom, disarm this man. He is our -prisoner.” The negroes came running, and the man surrendered -without more ado.</p> - -<p>Another Federal was drinking at the well. A negro -girl said: “You go in and see Missis.” The man went in -and she followed, crying triumphantly: “Look here, Missis, -I got a prisoner, too!” This lady sent in her two prisoners, -and Beauregard complimented her on her pluck and -patriotism, and her presence of mind. These negroes were -rewarded by their owners.</p> - -<p>Now if slavery is as disagreeable to negroes as we think -it, why don’t they all march over the border where they -would be received with open arms? It all amazes me. I -am always studying these creatures. They are to me inscrutable -in their way and past finding out. Our negroes -were not ripe for John Brown.</p> - -<p>This is how I saw Robert E. Lee for the first time: -though his family, then living at Arlington, called to see -me while I was in Washington (I thought because of old -Colonel Chesnut’s intimacy with Nellie Custis in the old -Philadelphia days, Mrs. Lee being Nelly Custis’s niece), I -had not known the head of the Lee family. He was somewhere -with the army then.</p> - -<p>Last summer at the White Sulphur were Roony Lee and -his wife, that sweet little Charlotte Wickam, and I spoke of -Roony with great praise. Mrs. Izard said: “Don’t waste<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[94]</a></span> -your admiration on him; wait till you see his father. He -is the nearest to a perfect man I ever saw.” “How?” -“In every way—handsome, clever, agreeable, high-bred.”</p> - -<p>Now, Mrs. Stanard came for Mrs. Preston and me to -drive to the camp in an open carriage. A man riding a -beautiful horse joined us. He wore a hat with something -of a military look to it, sat his horse gracefully, and was -so distinguished at all points that I very much regretted -not catching his name as Mrs. Stanard gave it to us. He, -however, heard ours, and bowed as gracefully as he rode, -and the few remarks he made to each of us showed he knew -all about us.</p> - -<p>But Mrs. Stanard was in ecstasies of pleasurable excitement. -I felt that she had bagged a big fish, for just then -they abounded in Richmond. Mrs. Stanard accused him -of being ambitious, etc. He remonstrated and said his -tastes were “of the simplest.” He only wanted “a Virginia -farm, no end of cream and fresh butter and fried -chicken—not one fried chicken, or two, but unlimited fried -chicken.”</p> - -<p>To all this light chat did we seriously incline, because -the man and horse and everything about him were -so fine-looking; perfection, in fact; no fault to be found if -you hunted for it. As he left us, I said eagerly, “Who is -he?” “You did not know! Why, it was Robert E. Lee, -son of Light Horse Harry Lee, the first man in Virginia,” -raising her voice as she enumerated his glories. All the -same, I like Smith Lee better, and I like his looks, too. I -know Smith Lee well. Can anybody say they know his -brother? I doubt it. He looks so cold, quiet, and grand.</p> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;" id="illus6"> -<img src="images/illus6.jpg" width="400" height="700" alt="" /> -<p class="caption">A GROUP OF CONFEDERATE GENERALS.</p> -<p class="caption">“STONEWALL” JACKSON. ROBERT E. LEE. JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. PIERRE G. T. BEAUREGARD. JOHN B. HOOD. ALBERT SIDNEY JOHNSTON.</p> -</div> - -<p>Kirby Smith is our Blücher; he came on the field in the -nick of time, as Blücher at Waterloo, and now we are as the -British, who do not remember Blücher. It is all Wellington. -So every individual man I see fought and won the -battle. From Kershaw up and down, all the eleventh-hour -men won the battle; turned the tide. The Marylanders—Elzey<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[95]</a></span> -& Co.—one never hears of—as little as one hears of -Blücher in the English stories of Waterloo.</p> - -<p>Mr. Venable was praising Hugh Garden and Kershaw’s -regiment generally. This was delightful. They are my -friends and neighbors at home. I showed him Mary Stark’s -letter, and we agreed with her. At the bottom of our hearts -we believe every Confederate soldier to be a hero, <i lang="fr">sans peur -et sans reproche</i>.</p> - -<p>Hope for the best to-day. Things must be on a pleasanter -footing all over the world. Met the President in the -corridor. He took me by both hands. “Have you breakfasted?” -said he. “Come in and breakfast with me?” -Alas! I had had my breakfast.</p> - -<p>At the public dining-room, where I had taken my breakfast -with Mr. Chesnut, Mrs. Davis came to him, while we -were at table. She said she had been to our rooms. She -wanted Wigfall hunted up. Mr. Davis thought Chesnut -would be apt to know his whereabouts. I ran to Mrs. Wigfall’s -room, who told me she was sure he could be found -with his regiment in camp, but Mr. Chesnut had not to go to -the camp, for Wigfall came to his wife’s room while I was -there. Mr. Davis and Wigfall would be friends, if—if——</p> - -<p>The Northern papers say we hung and quartered a -Zouave; cut him into four pieces; and that we tie prisoners -to a tree and bayonet them. In other words, we are savages. -It ought to teach us not to credit what our papers -say of them. It is so absurd an imagination of evil. We are -absolutely treating their prisoners as well as our own men: -we are complained of for it here. I am going to the hospitals -for the enemy’s sick and wounded in order to see for -myself.</p> - -<p>Why did we not follow the flying foe across the Potomac? -That is the question of the hour in the drawing-room -with those of us who are not contending as to “who -took Rickett’s Battery?” Allen Green, for one, took it. -Allen told us that, finding a portmanteau with nice clean<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[96]</a></span> -shirts, he was so hot and dusty he stepped behind a tree -and put on a clean Yankee shirt, and was more comfortable.</p> - -<p>The New York Tribune soothes the Yankee self-conceit, -which has received a shock, by saying we had 100,000 men -on the field at Manassas; we had about 15,000 effective men -in all. And then, the Tribune tries to inflame and envenom -them against us by telling lies as to our treatment of prisoners. -They say when they come against us next it will be -in overwhelming force. I long to see Russell’s letter to the -London Times about Bull Run and Manassas. It will be -rich and rare. In Washington, it is crimination and recrimination. -Well, let them abuse one another to their -hearts’ content.</p> - -<p><i>August 1st.</i>—Mrs. Wigfall, with the “Lone Star” flag -in her carriage, called for me. We drove to the fair -grounds. Mrs. Davis’s landau, with her spanking bays, -rolled along in front of us. The fair grounds are as covered -with tents, soldiers, etc., as ever. As one regiment -moves off to the army, a fresh one from home comes to be -mustered in and take its place.</p> - -<p>The President, with his aides, dashed by. My husband -was riding with him. The President presented the flag to -the Texans. Mr. Chesnut came to us for the flag, and bore -it aloft to the President. We seemed to come in for part of -the glory. We were too far off to hear the speech, but Jeff -Davis is very good at that sort of thing, and we were satisfied -that it was well done.</p> - -<p>Heavens! how that redoubtable Wigfall did rush those -poor Texans about! He maneuvered and marched them -until I was weary for their sakes. Poor fellows; it was a -hot afternoon in August and the thermometer in the nineties. -Mr. Davis uncovered to speak. Wigfall replied with -his hat on. Is that military?</p> - -<p>At the fair grounds to-day, such music, mustering, and -marching, such cheering and flying of flags, such firing of -guns and all that sort of thing. A gala day it was, with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[97]</a></span> -double-distilled Fourth-of-July feeling. In the midst of -it all, a messenger came to tell Mrs. Wigfall that a telegram -had been received, saying her children were safe across the -lines in Gordonsville. That was something to thank God -for, without any doubt.</p> - -<p>These two little girls came from somewhere in Connecticut, -with Mrs. Wigfall’s sister—the one who gave me my -Bogotsky, the only person in the world, except Susan Rutledge -who ever seemed to think I had a soul to save. Now -suppose Seward had held Louisa and Fanny as hostages -for Louis Wigfall’s good behavior; eh?</p> - -<p>Excitement number two: that bold brigadier, the Georgia -General Toombs, charging about too recklessly, got -thrown. His horse dragged him up to the wheels of our -carriage. For a moment it was frightful. Down there -among the horses’ hoofs was a face turned up toward us, -purple with rage. His foot was still in the stirrup, and he -had not let go the bridle. The horse was prancing over him, -tearing and plunging; everybody was hemming him in, and -they seemed so slow and awkward about it. We felt it an -eternity, looking down at him, and expecting him to be -killed before our very faces. However, he soon got it all -straight, and, though awfully tousled and tumbled, dusty, -rumpled, and flushed, with redder face and wilder hair -than ever, he rode off gallantly, having to our admiration -bravely remounted the recalcitrant charger.</p> - -<p>Now if I were to pick out the best abused one, where all -catch it so bountifully, I should say Mr. Commissary-General -Northrop was the most “cussed” and vilified man in -the Confederacy. He is held accountable for everything -that goes wrong in the army. He may not be efficient, but -having been a classmate and crony of Jeff Davis at West -Point, points the moral and adorns the tale. I hear that -alluded to oftenest of his many crimes. They say Beauregard -writes that his army is upon the verge of starvation. -Here every man, woman, and child is ready to hang to the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[98]</a></span> -first lamp-post anybody of whom that army complains. -Every Manassas soldier is a hero dear to our patriotic -hearts. Put up with any neglect of the heroes of the 21st -July—never!</p> - -<p>And now they say we did not move on right after the -flying foe because we had no provisions, no wagons, no -ammunition, etc. Rain, mud, and Northrop. Where were -the enemy’s supplies that we bragged so of bagging? Echo -answers where? Where there is a will there is a way. We -stopped to plunder that rich convoy, and somehow, for a -day or so, everybody thought the war was over and stopped -to rejoice: so it appeared here. All this was our dinner-table -talk to-day. Mr. Mason dined with us and Mr. Barnwell -sits by me always. The latter reproved me sharply, -but Mr. Mason laughed at “this headlong, unreasonable -woman’s harangue and female tactics and their war-ways.” -A freshet in the autumn does not compensate for a drought -in the spring. Time and tide wait for no man, and there -was a tide in our affairs which might have led to Washington, -and we did not take it and lost our fortune this -round. Things which nobody could deny.</p> - -<p>McClellan virtually supersedes the Titan Scott. -Physically General Scott is the largest man I ever saw. -Mrs. Scott said, “nobody but his wife could ever know -how little he was.” And yet they say, old Winfield Scott -could have organized an army for them if they had had -patience. They would not give him time.</p> - -<p><i>August 2d.</i>—Prince Jerome<a name="FNanchor_55" id="FNanchor_55"></a><a href="#Footnote_55" class="fnanchor">[55]</a> has gone to Washington. -Now the Yankees so far are as little trained as we are; raw -troops are they as yet. Suppose France takes the other side<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[99]</a></span> -and we have to meet disciplined and armed men, soldiers -who understand war, Frenchmen, with all the <i lang="fr">élan</i> we -boast of.</p> - -<p>Ransom Calhoun, Willie Preston, and Doctor Nott’s -boys are here. These foolish, rash, hare-brained Southern -lads have been within an ace of a fight with a Maryland -company for their camping grounds. It is much too Irish -to be so ready to fight anybody, friend or foe. Men are -thrilling with fiery ardor. The red-hot Southern martial -spirit is in the air. These young men, however, were all -educated abroad. And it is French or German ideas that -they are filled with. The Marylanders were as rash and -reckless as the others, and had their coat-tails ready for -anybody to tread on, Donnybrook Fair fashion. One would -think there were Yankees enough and to spare for any killing -to be done. It began about picketing their horses. But -these quarrelsome young soldiers have lovely manners. -They are so sweet-tempered when seen here among us at -the Arlington.</p> - -<p><i>August 5th.</i>—A heavy, heavy heart. Another missive -from Jordan, querulous and fault-finding; things are all -wrong—Beauregard’s Jordan had been crossed, not the -stream “in Canaan’s fair and happy land, where our possessions -lie.” They seem to feel that the war is over here, -except the President and Mr. Barnwell; above all that foreboding -friend of mine, Captain Ingraham. He thinks it -hardly begun.</p> - -<p>Another outburst from Jordan. Beauregard is not seconded -properly. <i lang="fr">Hélas!</i> To think that any mortal general -(even though he had sprung up in a month or so from -captain of artillery to general) could be so puffed up with -vanity, so blinded by any false idea of his own consequence -as to write, to intimate that man, or men, would sacrifice -their country, injure themselves, ruin their families, to -spite the aforesaid general! Conceit and self-assertion can -never reach a higher point than that. And yet they give<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[100]</a></span> -you to understand Mr. Davis does not like Beauregard. In -point of fact they fancy he is jealous of him, and rather -than Beauregard shall have a showing the President (who -would be hanged at least if things go wrong) will cripple -the army to spite Beauregard. Mr. Mallory says, “How -we could laugh, but you see it is no laughing matter to have -our fate in the hands of such self-sufficient, vain, army -idiots.” So the amenities of life are spreading.</p> - -<p>In the meantime we seem to be resting on our oars, debating -in Congress, while the enterprising Yankees are -quadrupling their army at their leisure. Every day some -of our regiments march away from here. The town is -crowded with soldiers. These new ones are fairly running -in; fearing the war will be over before they get a sight of -the fun. Every man from every little precinct wants a -place in the picture.</p> - -<p><i>Tuesday.</i>—The North requires 600,000 men to invade us. -Truly we are a formidable power! The Herald says it is -useless to move with a man less than that. England has made -it all up with them, or rather, she will not break with them. -Jerome Napoleon is in Washington and not our friend.</p> - -<p>Doctor Gibbes is a bird of ill omen. To-day he tells me -eight of our men have died at the Charlottesville Hospital. -It seems sickness is more redoubtable in an army than the -enemy’s guns. There are 1,100 there <i lang="fr">hors de combat</i>, and -typhoid fever is with them. They want money, clothes, -and nurses. So, as I am writing, right and left the letters -fly, calling for help from the sister societies at home. Good -and patriotic women at home are easily stirred to their work.</p> - -<p>Mary Hammy has many strings to her bow—a <i lang="fr">fiancé</i> in -the army, and Doctor Berrien in town. To-day she drove -out with Major Smith and Colonel Hood. Yesterday, Custis -Lee was here. She is a prudent little puss and needs no -good advice, if I were one to give it.</p> - -<p>Lawrence does all our shopping. All his master’s money -has been in his hands until now. I thought it injudicious<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[101]</a></span> -when gold is at such a premium to leave it lying loose in -the tray of a trunk. So I have sewed it up in a belt, which -I can wear upon an emergency. The cloth is wadded and -my diamonds are there, too. It has strong strings, and can -be tied under my hoops about my waist if the worst comes -to the worst, as the saying is. Lawrence wears the same -bronze mask. No sign of anything he may feel or think of -my latest fancy. Only, I know he asks for twice as much -money now when he goes to buy things.</p> - -<p><i>August 8th.</i>—To-day I saw a sword captured at Manassas. -The man who brought the sword, in the early part -of the fray, was taken prisoner by the Yankees. They -stripped him, possessed themselves of his sleeve-buttons, -and were in the act of depriving him of his boots when the -rout began and the play was reversed; proceedings then -took the opposite tack.</p> - -<p>From a small rill in the mountain has flowed the mighty -stream which has made at last Louis Wigfall the worst -enemy the President has in the Congress, a fact which complicates -our affairs no little. Mr. Davis’s hands ought to -be strengthened; he ought to be upheld. A divided house -must fall, we all say.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Sam Jones, who is called Becky by her friends and -cronies, male and female, said that Mrs. Pickens had confided -to the aforesaid Jones (<i lang="fr">née</i> Taylor, and so of the -President Taylor family and cousin of Mr. Davis’s first -wife), that Mrs. Wigfall “described Mrs. Davis to Mrs. -Pickens as a coarse Western woman.” Now the fair Lucy -Holcombe and Mrs. Wigfall had a quarrel of their own out -in Texas, and, though reconciled, there was bitterness underneath. -At first, Mrs. Joe Johnston called Mrs. Davis -“a Western belle,”<a name="FNanchor_56" id="FNanchor_56"></a><a href="#Footnote_56" class="fnanchor">[56]</a> but when the quarrel between General<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[102]</a></span> -Johnston and the President broke out, Mrs. Johnston -took back the “belle” and substituted “woman” in the -narrative derived from Mrs. Jones.</p> - -<p>Commodore Barron<a name="FNanchor_57" id="FNanchor_57"></a><a href="#Footnote_57" class="fnanchor">[57]</a> came with glad tidings. We had -taken three prizes at sea, and brought them in safely, one -laden with molasses. General Toombs told us the President -complimented Mr. Chesnut when he described the battle -scene to his Cabinet, etc. General Toombs is certain Colonel -Chesnut will be made one of the new batch of brigadiers. -Next came Mr. Clayton, who calmly informed us Jeff Davis -would not get the vote of this Congress for President, so -we might count him out.</p> - -<p>Mr. Meynardie first told us how pious a Christian soldier -was Kershaw, how he prayed, got up, dusted his knees -and led his men on to victory with a dash and courage -equal to any Old Testament mighty man of war.</p> - -<p>Governor Manning’s account of Prince Jerome Napoleon: -“He is stout and he is not handsome. Neither -is he young, and as he reviewed our troops he was terribly -overheated.” He heard him say “<i lang="fr">en avant</i>,” of -that he could testify of his own knowledge, and he was -told he had been heard to say with unction “<i lang="fr">Allons</i>” -more than once. The sight of the battle-field had made -the Prince seasick, and he received gratefully a draft of -fiery whisky.</p> - -<p>Arrago seemed deeply interested in Confederate statistics, -and praised our doughty deeds to the skies. It was -but soldier fare our guests received, though we did our -best. It was hard sleeping and worse eating in camp. -Beauregard is half Frenchman and speaks French like a -native. So one awkward mess was done away with, and it -was a comfort to see Beauregard speak without the agony<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[103]</a></span> -of finding words in the foreign language and forming them, -with damp brow, into sentences. A different fate befell -others who spoke “a little French.”</p> - -<p>General and Mrs. Cooper came to see us. She is Mrs. -Smith Lee’s sister. They were talking of old George Mason—in -Virginia a name to conjure with. George Mason -violently opposed the extension of slavery. He was a thorough -aristocrat, and gave as his reason for refusing the -blessing of slaves to the new States, Southwest and Northwest, -that vulgar new people were unworthy of so sacred a -right as that of holding slaves. It was not an institution -intended for such people as they were. Mrs. Lee said: -“After all, what good does it do my sons that they are -Light Horse Harry Lee’s grandsons and George Mason’s? -I do not see that it helps them at all.”</p> - -<p>A friend in Washington writes me that we might have -walked into Washington any day for a week after Manassas, -such were the consternation and confusion there. But the -god Pan was still blowing his horn in the woods. Now she -says Northern troops are literally pouring in from all quarters. -The horses cover acres of ground. And she thinks -we have lost our chance forever.</p> - -<p>A man named Grey (the same gentleman whom Secretary -of War Walker so astonished by greeting him with, -“Well, sir, and what is your business?”) described the -battle of the 21st as one succession of blunders, redeemed by -the indomitable courage of the two-thirds who did not run -away on our side. Doctor Mason said a fugitive on the -other side informed him that “a million of men with the -devil at their back could not have whipped the rebels at -Bull Run.” That’s nice.</p> - -<p>There must be opposition in a free country. But it is -very uncomfortable. “United we stand, divided we fall.” -Mrs. Davis showed us in The New York Tribune an extract -from an Augusta (Georgia) paper saying, “Cobb is our -man. Davis is at heart a reconstructionist.” We may be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[104]</a></span> -flies on the wheel, we know our insignificance; but Mrs. -Preston and myself have entered into an agreement; our -oath is recorded on high. We mean to stand by our President -and to stop all fault-finding with the powers that be, -if we can and where we can, be the fault-finders generals -or Cabinet Ministers.</p> - -<p><i>August 13th.</i>—Hon. Robert Barnwell says, “The Mercury’s -influence began this opposition to Jeff Davis before -he had time to do wrong. They were offended, not with him -so much as with the man who was put into what they considered -Barnwell Rhett’s rightful place. The latter had -howled nullification and secession so long that when he -found his ideas taken up by all the Confederate world, he -felt he had a vested right to leadership.”</p> - -<p>Jordan, Beauregard’s aide, still writes to Mr. Chesnut -that the mortality among the raw troops in that camp is -fearful. Everybody seems to be doing all they can. Think -of the British sick and wounded away off in the Crimea. -Our people are only a half-day’s journey by rail from -Richmond. With a grateful heart I record the fact of reconciliation -with the Wigfalls. They dined at the President’s -yesterday and the little Wigfall girls stayed all -night.</p> - -<p>Seward is fêting the outsiders, the cousin of the Emperor, -Napoleon III., and Russell, of the omnipotent London -Times.</p> - -<p><i>August 14th.</i>—Last night there was a crowd of men to -see us and they were so markedly critical. I made a futile -effort to record their sayings, but sleep and heat overcame -me. To-day I can not remember a word. One of Mr. Mason’s -stories relates to our sources of trustworthy information. -A man of very respectable appearance standing on -the platform at the depot, announced, “I am just from the -seat of war.” Out came pencil and paper from the newspaper -men on the <i lang="fr">qui vive</i>. “Is Fairfax Court House -burned?” they asked. “Yes, burned yesterday.” “But<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[105]</a></span> -I am just from there,” said another; “left it standing -there all right an hour or so ago.” “Oh! But I must do -them justice to say they burned only the tavern, for they -did not want to tear up and burn anything else after the -railroad.” “There is no railroad at Fairfax Court -House,” objected the man just from Fairfax. “Oh! Indeed!” -said the seat-of-war man, “I did not know that; -is that so?” And he coolly seated himself and began talking -of something else.</p> - -<p>Our people are lashing themselves into a fury against -the prisoners. Only the mob in any country would do that. -But I am told to be quiet. Decency and propriety will not -be forgotten, and the prisoners will be treated as prisoners -of war ought to be in a civilized country.</p> - -<p><i>August 15th.</i>—Mrs. Randolph came. With her were the -Freelands, Rose and Maria. The men rave over Mrs. -Randolph’s beauty; called her a magnificent specimen of -the finest type of dark-eyed, rich, and glowing Southern -woman-kind. Clear brunette she is, with the reddest lips, -the whitest teeth, and glorious eyes; there is no other word -for them. Having given Mrs. Randolph the prize among -Southern beauties, Mr. Clayton said Prentiss was the finest -Southern orator. Mr. Marshall and Mr. Barnwell dissented; -they preferred William C. Preston. Mr. Chesnut had -found Colquitt the best or most effective stump orator.</p> - -<p>Saw Henry Deas Nott. He is just from Paris, via New -York. Says New York is ablaze with martial fire. At no -time during the Crimean war was there ever in Paris the -show of soldiers preparing for the war such as he saw at -New York. The face of the earth seemed covered with -marching regiments.</p> - -<p>Not more than 500 effective men are in Hampton’s Legion, -but they kept the whole Yankee army at bay until -half-past two. Then just as Hampton was wounded and -half his colonels shot, Cash and Kershaw (from Mrs. Smith -Lee audibly, “How about Kirby Smith?”) dashed in and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[106]</a></span> -not only turned the tide, but would have driven the fugitives -into Washington, but Beauregard recalled them. Mr. -Chesnut finds all this very amusing, as he posted many of -the regiments and all the time was carrying orders over the -field. The discrepancies in all these private memories amuse -him, but he smiles pleasantly and lets every man tell the -tale in his own way.</p> - -<p><i>August 16th.</i>—Mr. Barnwell says, Fame is an article -usually home made; you must create your own puffs or superintend -their manufacture. And you must see that the -newspapers print your own military reports. No one else -will give you half the credit you take to yourself. No one -will look after your fine name before the world with the -loving interest and faith you have yourself.</p> - -<p><i>August 17th.</i>—Captain Shannon, of the Kirkwood Rangers, -called and stayed three hours. Has not been under fire -yet, but is keen to see or to hear the flashing of the guns; -proud of himself, proud of his company, but proudest of all -that he has no end of the bluest blood of the low country in -his troop. He seemed to find my knitting a pair of socks a -day for the soldiers droll in some way. The yarn is coarse. -He has been so short a time from home he does not know how -the poor soldiers need them. He was so overpoweringly -flattering to my husband that I found him very pleasant -company.</p> - -<p><i>August 18th.</i>—Found it quite exciting to have a spy -drinking his tea with us—perhaps because I knew his profession. -I did not like his face. He is said to have a -scheme by which Washington will fall into our hands like -an overripe peach.</p> - -<p>Mr. Barnwell urges Mr. Chesnut to remain in the Senate. -There are so many generals, or men anxious to be. He -says Mr. Chesnut can do his country most good by wise -counsels where they are most needed. I do not say to the -contrary; I dare not throw my influence on the army side, -for if anything happened!</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[107]</a></span></p> - -<p>Mr. Miles told us last night that he had another letter -from General Beauregard. The General wants to know -if Mr. Miles has delivered his message to Colonel Kershaw. -Mr. Miles says he has not done so; neither does he mean to -do it. They must settle these matters of veracity according -to their own military etiquette. He is a civilian once more. -It is a foolish wrangle. Colonel Kershaw ought to have reported -to his commander-in-chief, and not made an independent -report and published it. He meant no harm. He -is not yet used to the fine ways of war.</p> - -<p>The New York Tribune is so unfair. It began by howling -to get rid of us: we were so wicked. Now that we are -so willing to leave them to their overrighteous self-consciousness, -they cry: “Crush our enemy, or they will subjugate -us.” The idea that we want to invade or subjugate -anybody; we would be only too grateful to be left alone. -We ask no more of gods or men.</p> - -<p>Went to the hospital with a carriage load of peaches and -grapes. Made glad the hearts of some men thereby. When -my supplies gave out, those who had none looked so wistfully -as I passed out that I made a second raid on the market. -Those eyes sunk in cavernous depths and following me -from bed to bed haunt me.</p> - -<p>Wilmot de Saussure, harrowed my soul by an account -of a recent death by drowning on the beach at Sullivan’s -Island. Mr. Porcher, who was trying to save his sister’s -life, lost his own and his child’s. People seem to die out -of the army quite as much as in it.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Randolph presided in all her beautiful majesty at -an aid association. The ladies were old, and all wanted -their own way. They were cross-grained and contradictory, -and the blood mounted rebelliously into Mrs. Randolph’s -clear-cut cheeks, but she held her own with dignity and -grace. One of the causes of disturbance was that Mrs. Randolph -proposed to divide everything sent on equally with -the Yankee wounded and sick prisoners. Some were enthusiastic<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[108]</a></span> -from a Christian point of view; some shrieked in -wrath at the bare idea of putting our noble soldiers on a par -with Yankees, living, dying, or dead. Fierce dames were -some of them, august, severe matrons, who evidently had not -been accustomed to hear the other side of any question from -anybody, and just old enough to find the last pleasure in -life to reside in power—the power to make their claws felt.</p> - -<p><i>August 23d.</i>—A brother of Doctor Garnett has come -fresh and straight from Cambridge, Mass., and says (or is -said to have said, with all the difference there is between the -two), that “recruiting up there is dead.” He came by -Cincinnati and Pittsburg and says all the way through it -was so sad, mournful, and quiet it looked like Sunday.</p> - -<p>I asked Mr. Brewster if it were true Senator Toombs -had turned brigadier. “Yes, soldiering is in the air. -Every one will have a touch of it. Toombs could not stay -in the Cabinet.” “Why?” “Incompatibility of temper. -He rides too high a horse; that is, for so despotic a -person as Jeff Davis. I have tried to find out the sore, but -I can’t. Mr. Toombs has been out with them all for -months.” Dissension will break out. Everything does, -but it takes a little time. There is a perfect magazine of -discord and discontent in that Cabinet; only wants a hand -to apply the torch, and up they go. Toombs says old Memminger -has his back up as high as any.</p> - -<p>Oh, such a day! Since I wrote this morning, I have -been with Mrs. Randolph to all the hospitals. I can never -again shut out of view the sights I saw there of human -misery. I sit thinking, shut my eyes, and see it all; thinking, -yes, and there is enough to think about now, God -knows. Gilland’s was the worst, with long rows of ill men -on cots, ill of typhoid fever, of every human ailment; on -dinner-tables for eating and drinking, wounds being -dressed; all the horrors to be taken in at one glance.</p> - -<p>Then we went to the St. Charles. Horrors upon horrors -again; want of organization, long rows of dead and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[109]</a></span> -dying; awful sights. A boy from home had sent for me. -He was dying in a cot, ill of fever. Next him a man died -in convulsions as we stood there. I was making arrangements -with a nurse, hiring him to take care of this lad; but -I do not remember any more, for I fainted. Next that I -knew of, the doctor and Mrs. Randolph were having me, a -limp rag, put into a carriage at the door of the hospital. -Fresh air, I dare say, brought me to. As we drove home -the doctor came along with us, I was so upset. He said: -“Look at that Georgia regiment marching there; look at -their servants on the sidewalk. I have been counting them, -making an estimate. There is $16,000—sixteen thousand -dollars’ worth of negro property which can go off on its -own legs to the Yankees whenever it pleases.”</p> - -<p><i>August 24th.</i>—Daniel, of The Examiner, was at the -President’s. Wilmot de Saussure wondered if a fellow did -not feel a little queer, paying his respects in person at the -house of a man whom he abused daily in his newspaper.</p> - -<p>A fiasco: an aide engaged to two young ladies in the -same house. The ladies had been quarreling, but became -friends unexpectedly when his treachery, among many -other secrets, was revealed under that august roof. Fancy -the row when it all came out.</p> - -<p>Mr. Lowndes said we have already reaped one good result -from the war. The orators, the spouters, the furious -patriots, that could hardly be held down, and who were so -wordily anxious to do or die for their country—they had -been the pest of our lives. Now they either have not tried -the battle-field at all, or have precipitately left it at their -earliest convenience: for very shame we are rid of them for -a while. I doubt it. Bright’s speech<a name="FNanchor_58" id="FNanchor_58"></a><a href="#Footnote_58" class="fnanchor">[58]</a> is dead against us. -Reading this does not brighten one.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[110]</a></span></p> - -<p><i>August 25th.</i>—Mr. Barnwell says democracies lead to -untruthfulness. To be always electioneering is to be always -false; so both we and the Yankees are unreliable as -regards our own exploits. “How about empires? Were -there ever more stupendous lies than the Emperor Napoleon’s?” -Mr. Barnwell went on: “People dare not tell -the truth in a canvass; they must conciliate their constituents. -Now everybody in a democracy always wants an -office; at least, everybody in Richmond just now seems to -want one.” Never heeding interruptions, he went on: -“As a nation, the English are the most truthful in the -world.” “And so are our country gentlemen: they own -their constituents—at least, in some of the parishes, where -there are few whites; only immense estates peopled by -negroes.” Thackeray speaks of the lies that were told -on both sides in the British wars with France; England -kept quite alongside of her rival in that fine art. England -lied then as fluently as Russell lies about us now.</p> - -<p>Went to see Agnes De Leon, my Columbia school friend. -She is fresh from Egypt, and I wished to hear of the Nile, -the crocodiles, the mummies, the Sphinx, and the Pyramids. -But her head ran upon Washington life, such as we knew -it, and her soul was here. No theme was possible but a discussion -of the latest war news.</p> - -<p>Mr. Clayton, Assistant Secretary of State, says we -spend two millions a week. Where is all that money to -come from? They don’t want us to plant cotton, but to -make provisions. Now, cotton always means money, or did -when there was an outlet for it and anybody to buy it. -Where is money to come from now?</p> - -<p>Mr. Barnwell’s new joke, I dare say, is a Joe Miller, -but Mr. Barnwell laughed in telling it till he cried. A man -was fined for contempt of court and then, his case coming -on, the Judge talked such arrant nonsense and was so -warped in his mind against the poor man, that the “fined -one” walked up and handed the august Judge a five-dollar<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[111]</a></span> -bill. “Why? What is that for?” said the Judge. “Oh, -I feel such a contempt of this court coming on again!”</p> - -<p>I came up tired to death; took down my hair; had it -hanging over me in a Crazy Jane fashion; and sat still, -hands over my head (half undressed, but too lazy and -sleepy to move). I was sitting in a rocking-chair by an -open window taking my ease and the cool night air, when -suddenly the door opened and Captain —— walked in. -He was in the middle of the room before he saw his mistake; -he stared and was transfixed, as the novels say. I dare say -I looked an ancient Gorgon. Then, with a more frantic -glare, he turned and fled without a word. I got up and -bolted the door after him, and then looked in the glass and -laughed myself into hysterics. I shall never forget to lock -the door again. But it does not matter in this case. I -looked totally unlike the person bearing my name, who, -covered with lace cap, etc., frequents the drawing-room. I -doubt if he would know me again.</p> - -<p><i>August 26th.</i>—The Terror has full swing at the North -now. All the papers favorable to us have been suppressed. -How long would our mob stand a Yankee paper here? -But newspapers against our government, such as the Examiner -and the Mercury flourish like green bay-trees. A -man up to the elbows in finance said to-day: “Clayton’s -story is all nonsense. They do sometimes pay out two millions -a week; they paid the soldiers this week, but they don’t -pay the soldiers every week.” “Not by a long shot,” cried -a soldier laddie with a grin.</p> - -<p>“Why do you write in your diary at all,” some one said -to me, “if, as you say, you have to contradict every day -what you wrote yesterday?” “Because I tell the tale as -it is told to me. I write current rumor. I do not vouch for -anything.”</p> - -<p>We went to Pizzini’s, that very best of Italian confectioners. -From there we went to Miss Sally Tompkins’s -hospital, loaded with good things for the wounded. The<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[112]</a></span> -men under Miss Sally’s kind care looked so clean and comfortable—cheerful, -one might say. They were pleasant and -nice to see. One, however, was dismal in tone and aspect, -and he repeated at intervals with no change of words, in a -forlorn monotone: “What a hard time we have had since -we left home.” But nobody seemed to heed his wailing, -and it did not impair his appetite.</p> - -<p>At Mrs. Toombs’s, who was raging; so anti-Davis she -will not even admit that the President is ill. “All humbug.” -“But what good could pretending to be ill do -him?” “That reception now, was not that a humbug? -Such a failure. Mrs. Reagan could have done better than -that.”</p> - -<p>Mrs. Walker is a Montgomery beauty, with such magnificent -dresses. She was an heiress, and is so dissatisfied -with Richmond, accustomed as she is to being a belle under -different conditions. As she is as handsome and well -dressed as ever, it must be the men who are all wrong.</p> - -<p>“Did you give Lawrence that fifty-dollar bill to go out -and change it?” I was asked. “Suppose he takes himself -off to the Yankees. He would leave us with not too many -fifty-dollar bills.” He is not going anywhere, however. I -think his situation suits him. That wadded belt of mine, -with the gold pieces quilted in, has made me ashamed more -than once. I leave it under my pillow and my maid finds -it there and hangs it over the back of a chair, in evidence -as I reenter the room after breakfast. When I forget and -leave my trunk open, Lawrence brings me the keys and tells -me, “You oughten to do so, Miss Mary.” Mr. Chesnut -leaves all his little money in his pockets, and Lawrence says -that’s why he can’t let any one but himself brush Mars -Jeems’s clothes.</p> - -<p><i>August 27th.</i>—Theodore Barker and James Lowndes -came; the latter has been wretchedly treated. A man said, -“All that I wish on earth is to be at peace and on my own -plantation,” to which Mr. Lowndes replied quietly, “I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[113]</a></span> -wish I had a plantation to be on, but just now I can’t see -how any one would feel justified in leaving the army.” Mr. -Barker was bitter against the spirit of braggadocio so rampant -among us. The gentleman who had been answered so -completely by James Lowndes said, with spitefulness: -“Those women who are so frantic for their husbands to -join the army would like them killed, no doubt.”</p> - -<p>Things were growing rather uncomfortable, but an interruption -came in the shape of a card. An old classmate -of Mr. Chesnut’s—Captain Archer, just now fresh from -California—followed his card so quickly that Mr. Chesnut -had hardly time to tell us that in Princeton College they -called him “Sally” Archer he was so pretty—when he entered. -He is good-looking still, but the service and consequent -rough life have destroyed all softness and girlishness. -He will never be so pretty again.</p> - -<p>The North is consolidated; they move as one man, with -no States, but an army organized by the central power. -Russell in the Northern camp is cursed of Yankees for that -Bull Run letter. Russell, in his capacity of Englishman, -despises both sides. He divides us equally into North and -South. He prefers to attribute our victory at Bull Run to -Yankee cowardice rather than to Southern courage. He -gives no credit to either side; for good qualities, we are -after all mere Americans! Everything not “national” is -arrested. It looks like the business of Seward.</p> - -<p>I do not know when I have seen a woman without knitting -in her hand. Socks for the soldiers is the cry. One -poor man said he had dozens of socks and but one shirt. -He preferred more shirts and fewer stockings. We make -a quaint appearance with this twinkling of needles and the -everlasting sock dangling below.</p> - -<p>They have arrested Wm. B. Reed and Miss Winder, she -boldly proclaiming herself a secessionist. Why should she -seek a martyr’s crown? Writing people love notoriety. It -is so delightful to be of enough consequence to be arrested.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[114]</a></span> -I have often wondered if such incense was ever offered as -Napoleon’s so-called persecution and alleged jealousy of -Madame de Staël.</p> - -<p class="tb">Russell once more, to whom London, Paris, and India -have been an every-day sight, and every-night, too, streets -and all. How absurd for him to go on in indignation because -there have been women on negro plantations who -were not vestal virgins. Negro women get married, and -after marriage behave as well as other people. Marrying is -the amusement of their lives. They take life easily; so do -their class everywhere. Bad men are hated here as elsewhere.</p> - -<p>“I hate slavery. I hate a man who—You say there -are no more fallen women on a plantation than in London -in proportion to numbers. But what do you say to this—to -a magnate who runs a hideous black harem, with its -consequences, under the same roof with his lovely white -wife and his beautiful and accomplished daughters? He -holds his head high and poses as the model of all human virtues -to these poor women whom God and the laws have -given him. From the height of his awful majesty he scolds -and thunders at them as if he never did wrong in his life. -Fancy such a man finding his daughter reading Don -Juan. ‘You with that immoral book!’ he would say, -and then he would order her out of his sight. You see Mrs. -Stowe did not hit the sorest spot. She makes Legree a -bachelor.” “Remember George II. and his likes.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, I know half a Legree—a man said to be as cruel as -Legree, but the other half of him did not correspond. He -was a man of polished manners, and the best husband and -father and member of the church in the world.” “Can -that be so?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, I know it. Exceptional case, that sort of thing, -always. And I knew the dissolute half of Legree well. He<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[115]</a></span> -was high and mighty, but the kindest creature to his slaves. -And the unfortunate results of his bad ways were not sold, -had not to jump over ice-blocks. They were kept in full -view, and provided for handsomely in his will.”</p> - -<p>“The wife and daughters in the might of their purity -and innocence are supposed never to dream of what is as -plain before their eyes as the sunlight, and they play their -parts of unsuspecting angels to the letter. They profess to -adore the father as the model of all saintly goodness.” -“Well, yes; if he is rich he is the fountain from whence all -blessings flow.”</p> - -<p>“The one I have in my eye—my half of Legree, the dissolute -half—was so furious in temper and thundered his -wrath so at the poor women, they were glad to let him -do as he pleased in peace if they could only escape his -everlasting fault-finding, and noisy bluster, making everybody -so uncomfortable.” “Now—now, do you know any -woman of this generation who would stand that sort of -thing? No, never, not for one moment. The make-believe -angels were of the last century. We know, and we won’t -have it.”</p> - -<p>“The condition of women is improving, it seems.” -“Women are brought up not to judge their fathers or -their husbands. They take them as the Lord provides and -are thankful.”</p> - -<p>“If they should not go to heaven after all; think what -lives most women lead.” “No heaven, no purgatory, no—the -other thing? Never. I believe in future rewards and -punishments.”</p> - -<p>“How about the wives of drunkards! I heard a woman -say once to a friend of her husband, tell it as a cruel matter -of fact, without bitterness, without comment, ‘Oh, you -have not seen him! He has changed. He has not gone to -bed sober in thirty years.’ She has had her purgatory, if -not ‘the other thing,’ here in this world. We all know -what a drunken man is. To think, <em>for no crime</em>, a person<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[116]</a></span> -may be condemned to live with one thirty years.” “You -wander from the question I asked. Are Southern men -worse because of the slave system and the facile black -women?” “Not a bit. They see too much of them. The -barroom people don’t drink, the confectionery people loathe -candy. They are sick of the black sight of them.”</p> - -<p>“You think a nice man from the South is the nicest -thing in the world?” “I know it. Put him by any other -man and see!”</p> - -<p class="tb">Have seen Yankee letters taken at Manassas. The spelling -is often atrocious, and we thought they had all gone -through a course of blue-covered Noah Webster spelling-books. -Our soldiers do spell astonishingly. There is Horace -Greeley: they say he can’t read his own handwriting. But -he is candid enough and disregards all time-serving. He -says in his paper that in our army the North has a hard -nut to crack, and that the rank and file of our army is -superior in education and general intelligence to theirs.</p> - -<p>My wildest imagination will not picture Mr. Mason<a name="FNanchor_59" id="FNanchor_59"></a><a href="#Footnote_59" class="fnanchor">[59]</a> as -a diplomat. He will say chaw for chew, and he will call -himself Jeems, and he will wear a dress coat to breakfast. -Over here, whatever a Mason does is right in his own eyes. -He is above law. Somebody asked him how he pronounced -his wife’s maiden name: she was a Miss Chew from Philadelphia.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[117]</a></span></p> - -<p>They say the English will like Mr. Mason; he is so -manly, so straightforward, so truthful and bold. “A fine -old English gentleman,” so said Russell to me, “but for -tobacco.” “I like Mr. Mason and Mr. Hunter better than -anybody else.” “And yet they are wonderfully unlike.” -“Now you just listen to me,” said I. “Is Mrs. Davis in -hearing—no? Well, this sending Mr. Mason to London is -the maddest thing yet. Worse in some points of view than -Yancey, and that was a catastrophe.”</p> - -<p><i>August 29th.</i>—No more feminine gossip, but the licensed -slanderer, the mighty Russell, of the Times. He -says the battle of the 21st was fought at long range: 500 -yards apart were the combatants. The Confederates were -steadily retreating when some commotion in the wagon -train frightened the “Yanks,” and they made tracks. In -good English, they fled amain. And on our side we were -too frightened to follow them—in high-flown English, to -pursue the flying foe.</p> - -<p>In spite of all this, there are glimpses of the truth -sometimes, and the story leads to our credit with all the -sneers and jeers. When he speaks of the Yankees’ cowardice, -falsehood, dishonesty, and braggadocio, the best words -are in his mouth. He repeats the thrice-told tale, so often -refuted and denied, that we were harsh to wounded prisoners. -Dr. Gibson told me that their surgeon-general has -written to thank our surgeons: Yankee officers write very -differently from Russell. I know that in that hospital with -the Sisters of Charity they were better off than our men -were at the other hospitals: that I saw with my own eyes. -These poor souls are jealously guarded night and day. -It is a hideous tale—what they tell of their sufferings.</p> - -<p>Women who come before the public are in a bad box -now. False hair is taken off and searched for papers. -Bustles are “suspect.” All manner of things, they say, -come over the border under the huge hoops now worn; so -they are ruthlessly torn off. Not legs but arms are looked<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[118]</a></span> -for under hoops, and, sad to say, found. Then women are -used as detectives and searchers, to see that no men slip -over in petticoats. So the poor creatures coming this way -are humiliated to the deepest degree. To men, glory, -honor, praise, and power, if they are patriots. To women, -daughters of Eve, punishment comes still in some shape, do -what they will.</p> - -<p>Mary Hammy’s eyes were starting from her head with -amazement, while a very large and handsome South Carolinian -talked rapidly. “What is it?” asked I after he had -gone. “Oh, what a year can bring forth—one year! Last -summer you remember how he swore he was in love with -me? He told you, he told me, he told everybody, and if I -did refuse to marry him I believed him. Now he says he -has seen, fallen in love with, courted, and married another -person, and he raves of his little daughter’s beauty. And -they say time goes slowly”—thus spoke Mary Hammy, -with a sigh of wonder at his wonderful cure.</p> - -<p>“Time works wonders,” said the explainer-general. -“What conclusion did you come to as to Southern men at -the grand pow-wow, you know?” “They are nicer than -the nicest—the gentlemen, you know. There are not too -many of that kind anywhere. Ours are generous, truthful, -brave, and—and—devoted to us, you know. A Southern -husband is not a bad thing to have about the house.”</p> - -<p>Mrs. Frank Hampton said: “For one thing, you could -not flirt with these South Carolinians. They would not -stay at the tepid degree of flirtation. They grow so horridly -in earnest before you know where you are.” “Do -you think two married people ever lived together without -finding each other out? I mean, knowing exactly how -good or how shabby, how weak or how strong, above all, -how selfish each was?” “Yes; unless they are dolts, they -know to a tittle; but you see if they have common sense -they make believe and get on, so so.” Like the Marchioness’s -orange-peel wine in Old Curiosity Shop.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[119]</a></span></p> - -<p>A violent attack upon the North to-day in the Albion. -They mean to let freedom slide a while until they subjugate -us. The Albion says they use <i lang="fr">lettres de cachet</i>, passports, -and all the despotic apparatus of regal governments. Russell -hears the tramp of the coming man—the king and -kaiser tyrant that is to rule them. Is it McClellan?—“Little -Mac”? We may tremble when he comes. We -down here have only “the many-headed monster thing,” -armed democracy. Our chiefs quarrel among themselves.</p> - -<p>McClellan is of a forgiving spirit. He does not resent -Russell’s slurs upon Yankees, but with good policy has Russell -with him as a guest.</p> - -<p>The Adonis of an aide avers, as one who knows, that -“Sumter” Anderson’s heart is with us; that he will not -fight the South. After all is said and done that sounds like -nonsense. “Sumter” Anderson’s wife was a daughter of -Governor Clinch, of Georgia. Does that explain it? He -also told me something of Garnett (who was killed at Rich -Mountain).<a name="FNanchor_60" id="FNanchor_60"></a><a href="#Footnote_60" class="fnanchor">[60]</a> He had been an unlucky man clear through. -In the army before the war, the aide had found him proud, -reserved, and morose, cold as an icicle to all. But for his -wife and child he was a different creature. He adored -them and cared for nothing else.</p> - -<p>One day he went off on an expedition and was gone six -weeks. He was out in the Northwest, and the Indians were -troublesome. When he came back, his wife and child were -underground. He said not one word, but they found him -more frozen, stern, and isolated than ever; that was all. -The night before he left Richmond he said in his quiet way: -“They have not given me an adequate force. I can do -nothing. They have sent me to my death.” It is acknowledged<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[120]</a></span> -that he threw away his life—“a dreary-hearted -man,” said the aide, “and the unluckiest.”</p> - -<p class="tb">On the front steps every evening we take our seats and -discourse at our pleasure. A nicer or more agreeable set of -people were never assembled than our present Arlington -crowd. To-night it was Yancey<a name="FNanchor_61" id="FNanchor_61"></a><a href="#Footnote_61" class="fnanchor">[61]</a> who occupied our tongues. -Send a man to England who had killed his father-in-law -in a street brawl! That was not knowing England or -Englishmen, surely. Who wants eloquence? We want -somebody who can hold his tongue. People avoid great -talkers, men who orate, men given to monologue, as they -would avoid fire, famine, or pestilence. Yancey will have -no mobs to harangue. No stump speeches will be possible, -superb as are his of their kind, but little quiet conversation -is best with slow, solid, common-sense people, who begin to -suspect as soon as any flourish of trumpets meets their ear. -If Yancey should use his fine words, who would care for -them over there?</p> - -<p>Commodore Barron, when he was a middy, accompanied -Phil Augustus Stockton to claim his bride. He, the said -Stockton, had secretly wedded a fair heiress (Sally Cantey). -She was married by a magistrate and returned to Mrs. -Grillaud’s boarding-school until it was time to go home—that -is, to Camden.</p> - -<p>Lieutenant Stockton (a descendant of the Signer) was -the handsomest man in the navy, and irresistible. The -bride was barely sixteen. When he was to go down South -among those fire-eaters and claim her, Commodore Barron, -then his intimate friend, went as his backer. They were to -announce the marriage and defy the guardians. Commodore<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[121]</a></span> -Barron said he anticipated a rough job of it all, but -they were prepared for all risks. “You expected to find -us a horde of savages, no doubt,” said I. “We did not -expect to get off under a half-dozen duels.” They looked -for insults from every quarter and they found a polished -and refined people who lived <i lang="fr">en prince</i>, to say the least of it. -They were received with a cold, stately, and faultless politeness, -which made them feel as if they had been sheep-stealing.</p> - -<p>The young lady had confessed to her guardians and -they were for making the best of it; above all, for saving -her name from all gossip or publicity. Colonel John Boykin, -one of them, took Young Lochinvar to stay with him. -His friend, Barron, was also a guest. Colonel Deas sent for -a parson, and made assurance doubly sure by marrying -them over again. Their wish was to keep things quiet and -not to make a nine-days’ wonder of the young lady.</p> - -<p>Then came balls, parties, and festivities without end. -He was enchanted with the easy-going life of these people, -with dinners the finest in the world, deer-hunting, and fox-hunting, -dancing, and pretty girls, in fact everything that -heart could wish. But then, said Commodore Barron, “the -better it was, and the kinder the treatment, the more -ashamed I grew of my business down there. After all, it -was stealing an heiress, you know.”</p> - -<p>I told him how the same fate still haunted that estate in -Camden. Mr. Stockton sold it to a gentleman, who later sold -it to an old man who had married when near eighty, and -who left it to the daughter born of that marriage. This -pretty child of his old age was left an orphan quite young. -At the age of fifteen, she ran away and married a boy of -seventeen, a canny Scotchman. The young couple lived to -grow up, and it proved after all a happy marriage. This -last heiress left six children; so the estate will now be -divided, and no longer tempt the fortune-hunters.</p> - -<p>The Commodore said: “To think how we two youngsters<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[122]</a></span> -in our blue uniforms went down there to bully those -people.” He was much at Colonel Chesnut’s. Mrs. Chesnut -being a Philadelphian, he was somewhat at ease with -them. It was the most thoroughly appointed establishment -he had then ever visited.</p> - -<p class="tb">Went with our leviathan of loveliness to a ladies’ meeting. -No scandal to-day, no wrangling, all harmonious, -everybody knitting. Dare say that soothing occupation -helped our perturbed spirits to be calm. Mrs. C—— is -lovely, a perfect beauty. Said Brewster: “In Circassia, -think what a price would be set upon her, for there beauty -sells by the pound!”</p> - -<p>Coming home the following conversation: “So Mrs. -Blank thinks purgatory will hold its own—never be abolished -while women and children have to live with drunken -fathers and brothers.” “She knows.” “She is too bitter. -She says worse than that. She says we have an institution -worse than the Spanish Inquisition, worse than Torquemada, -and all that sort of thing.” “What does she -mean?” “You ask her. Her words are sharp arrows. I -am a dull creature, and I should spoil all by repeating what -she says.”</p> - -<p>“It is your own family that she calls the familiars of -the Inquisition. She declares that they set upon you, fall -foul of you, watch and harass you from morn till dewy -eve. They have a perfect right to your life, night and day, -unto the fourth and fifth generation. They drop in at -breakfast and say, ‘Are you not imprudent to eat that?’ -‘Take care now, don’t overdo it.’ ‘I think you eat too -much so early in the day.’ And they help themselves to the -only thing you care for on the table. They abuse your -friends and tell you it is your duty to praise your enemies. -They tell you of all your faults candidly, because they love -you so; that gives them a right to speak. What family interest<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[123]</a></span> -they take in you. You ought to do this; you ought -to do that, and then the everlasting ‘you ought to have -done,’ which comes near making you a murderer, at least -in heart. ‘Blood’s thicker than water,’ they say, and -there is where the longing to spill it comes in. No locks -or bolts or bars can keep them out. Are they not your -nearest family? They dine with you, dropping in after -you are at soup. They come after you have gone to bed, -when all the servants have gone away, and the man of the -house, in his nightshirt, standing sternly at the door with -the huge wooden bar in his hand, nearly scares them to -death, and you are glad of it.”</p> - -<p>“Private life, indeed!” She says her husband entered -public life and they went off to live in a far-away city. -Then for the first time in her life she knew privacy. She -never will forget how she jumped for joy as she told her -servant not to admit a soul until after two o’clock in the -day. Afterward, she took a fixed day at home. Then she -was free indeed. She could read and write, stay at home, -go out at her own sweet will, no longer sitting for hours -with her fingers between the leaves of a frantically interesting -book, while her kin slowly driveled nonsense by the -yard—waiting, waiting, yawning. Would they never go? -Then for hurting you, who is like a relative? They do it -from a sense of duty. For stinging you, for cutting you -to the quick, who like one of your own household? In point -of fact, they alone can do it. They know the sore, and how -to hit it every time. You are in their power. She says, did -you ever see a really respectable, responsible, revered and -beloved head of a family who ever opened his mouth at -home except to find fault? He really thinks that is his -business in life and that all enjoyment is sinful. He is -there to prevent the women from such frivolous things as -pleasure, etc., etc.</p> - -<p>I sat placidly rocking in my chair by the window, trying -to hope all was for the best. Mary Hammy rushed in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[124]</a></span> -literally drowned in tears. I never saw so drenched a face -in my life. My heart stopped still. “Commodore Barron -is taken prisoner,” said she. “The Yankees have captured -him and all his lieutenants. Poor Imogen—and -there is my father scouting about, the Lord knows where. -I only know he is in the advance guard. The Barron’s -time has come. Mine may come any minute. Oh, Cousin -Mary, when Mrs. Lee told Imogen, she fainted! Those -poor girls; they are nearly dead with trouble and fright.”</p> - -<p>“Go straight back to those children,” I said. “Nobody -will touch a hair of their father’s head. Tell them I -say so. They dare not. They are not savages quite. This -is a civilized war, you know.”</p> - -<p>Mrs. Lee said to Mrs. Eustis (Mr. Corcoran’s daughter) -yesterday: “Have you seen those accounts of arrests in -Washington?” Mrs. Eustis answered calmly: “Yes, I -know all about it. I suppose you allude to the fact that my -father has been imprisoned.” “No, no,” interrupted the -explainer, “she means the incarceration of those mature -Washington belles suspected as spies.” But Mrs. Eustis -continued, “I have no fears for my father’s safety.”</p> - -<p><i>August 31st.</i>—Congress adjourns to-day. Jeff Davis -ill. We go home on Monday if I am able to travel. Already -I feel the dread stillness and torpor of our Sahara -of a Sand Hill creeping into my veins. It chills the marrow -of my bones. I am reveling in the noise of city life. I -know what is before me. Nothing more cheering than the -cry of the lone whippoorwill will break the silence at Sandy -Hill, except as night draws near, when the screech-owl will -add his mournful note.</p> - -<p><i>September 1st.</i>—North Carolina writes for arms for her -soldiers. Have we any to send? No. Brewster, the plain-spoken, -says, “The President is ill, and our affairs are in -the hands of noodles. All the generals away with the -army; nobody here; General Lee in Western Virginia. -Reading the third Psalm. The devil is sick, the devil a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[125]</a></span> -saint would be. Lord, how are they increased that trouble -me? Many are they that rise up against me!”</p> - -<p><i>September 2d.</i>—Mr. Miles says he is not going anywhere -at all, not even home. He is to sit here permanently—chairman -of a committee to overhaul camps, commissariats, etc., -etc.</p> - -<p>We exchanged our ideas of Mr. Mason, in which we -agreed perfectly. In the first place, he has a noble presence—really -a handsome man; is a manly old Virginian, -straightforward, brave, truthful, clever, the very beau-ideal -of an independent, high-spirited F. F. V. If the English -value a genuine man they will have one here. In every particular -he is the exact opposite of Talleyrand. He has -some peculiarities. He had never an ache or a pain himself; -his physique is perfect, and he loudly declares that he -hates to see persons ill; seems to him an unpardonable weakness.</p> - -<p>It began to grow late. Many people had come to say -good-by to me. I had fever as usual to-day, but in the excitement -of this crowd of friends the invalid forgot fever. -Mr. Chesnut held up his watch to me warningly and intimated -“it was late, indeed, for one who has to travel to-morrow.” -So, as the Yankees say after every defeat, I -“retired in good order.”</p> - -<p>Not quite, for I forgot handkerchief and fan. Gonzales -rushed after and met me at the foot of the stairs. In -his foreign, pathetic, polite, high-bred way, he bowed low -and said he had made an excuse for the fan, for he had a -present to make me, and then, though “startled and -amazed, I paused and on the stranger gazed.” Alas! I am -a woman approaching forty, and the offering proved to be -a bottle of cherry bounce. Nothing could have been more -opportune, and with a little ice, etc., will help, I am sure, -to save my life on that dreadful journey home.</p> - -<p>No discouragement now felt at the North. They take -our forts and are satisfied for a while. Then the English<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[126]</a></span> -are strictly neutral. Like the woman who saw her husband -fight the bear, “It was the first fight she ever saw when she -did not care who whipped.”</p> - -<p>Mr. Davis was very kind about it all. He told Mr. Chesnut -to go home and have an eye to all the State defenses, -etc., and that he would give him any position he asked for -if he still wished to continue in the army. Now, this would -be all that heart could wish, but Mr. Chesnut will never ask -for anything. What will he ask for? That’s the rub. I -am certain of very few things in life now, but this is one -I am certain of: Mr. Chesnut will never ask mortal man -for any promotion for himself or for one of his own family.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[127]</a></span></p> - -<h2 id="CHAPTER_X">X<br /> -<span class="smaller">CAMDEN, S. C.<br /> -<i>September 9, 1861-September 19, 1861</i></span></h2> - -<div> -<img class="dropcap" src="images/dropcap-c.jpg" width="100" height="115" alt="" /> -</div> - -<p class="dropcap">Camden, S. C., <i>September 9, 1861</i>.—Home again at -Mulberry, the fever in full possession of me. My -sister, Kate, is my ideal woman, the most agreeable -person I know in the world, with her soft, low, and sweet -voice, her graceful, gracious ways, and her glorious gray -eyes, that I looked into so often as we confided our very -souls to each other.</p> - -<p>God bless old Betsey’s yellow face! She is a nurse in a -thousand, and would do anything for “Mars Jeems’ wife.” -My small ailments in all this comfort set me mourning over -the dead and dying soldiers I saw in Virginia. How feeble -my compassion proves, after all.</p> - -<p>I handed the old Colonel a letter from his son in the -army. He said, as he folded up the missive from the seat -of war, “With this war we may die out. Your husband is -the last—of my family.” He means that my husband is -his only living son; his grandsons are in the army, and -they, too, may be killed—even Johnny, the gallant and gay, -may not be bullet-proof. No child have I.</p> - -<p>Now this old man of ninety years was born when it was -not the fashion for a gentleman to be a saint, and being -lord of all he surveyed for so many years, irresponsible, in -the center of his huge domain, it is wonderful he was not a -greater tyrant—the softening influence of that angel wife, -no doubt. Saint or sinner, he understands the world about -him—<i lang="fr">au fond</i>.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[128]</a></span></p> - -<p>Have had a violent attack of something wrong about my -heart. It stopped beating, then it took to trembling, creaking -and thumping like a Mississippi high-pressure steamboat, -and the noise in my ears was more like an ammunition -wagon rattling over the stones in Richmond. That was -yesterday, and yet I am alive. That kind of thing makes -one feel very mortal.</p> - -<p>Russell writes how disappointed Prince Jerome Napoleon -was with the appearance of our troops, and “he did -not like Beauregard at all.” Well! I give Bogar up to him. -But how a man can find fault with our soldiers, as I have -seen them individually and collectively in Charleston, -Richmond, and everywhere—that beats me.</p> - -<p>The British are the most conceited nation in the world, -the most self-sufficient, self-satisfied, and arrogant. But -each individual man does not blow his own penny whistle; -they brag wholesale. Wellington—he certainly left it for -others to sound his praises—though Mr. Binney thought the -statue of Napoleon at the entrance of Apsley House was a -little like “‘Who killed Cock Robin?’ ‘I, said the sparrow, -with my bow and arrow.’” But then it is so pleasant -to hear them when it is a lump sum of praise, with no private -crowing—praise of Trafalgar, Waterloo, the Scots -Greys.</p> - -<p>Fighting this and fighting that, with their crack corps -stirs the blood and every heart responds—three times three! -Hurrah!</p> - -<p>But our people feel that they must send forth their own -reported prowess: with an, “I did this and I did that.” I -know they did it; but I hang my head.</p> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 700px;" id="illus7"> -<img src="images/illus7.jpg" width="700" height="500" alt="" /> -<p class="caption">MULBERRY HOUSE, NEAR CAMDEN, S. C.</p> -<p class="caption">From a Recent Photograph.</p> -</div> - -<p>In those Tarleton Memoirs, in Lee’s Memoirs, in Moultrie’s, -and in Lord Rawdon’s letters, self is never brought -to the front. I have been reading them over and admire -their modesty and good taste as much as their courage and -cleverness. That kind of British eloquence takes me. It -is not, “<i lang="fr">Soldats! marchons, gloire!</i>” Not a bit of it; but,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[129]</a></span> -“Now, my lads, stand firm!” and, “Now up, and let them -have it!”</p> - -<p>Our name has not gone out of print. To-day, the Examiner, -as usual, pitches into the President. It thinks -Toombs, Cobb, Slidell, Lamar, or Chesnut would have been -far better in the office. There is considerable choice in that -lot. Five men more utterly dissimilar were never named -in the same paragraph.</p> - -<p><i>September 19th.</i>—A painful piece of news came to us -yesterday—our cousin, Mrs. Witherspoon, of Society Hill, -was found dead in her bed. She was quite well the night -before. Killed, people say, by family sorrows. She was a -proud and high-strung woman. Nothing shabby in word, -thought, or deed ever came nigh her. She was of a warm -and tender heart, too; truth and uprightness itself. Few -persons have ever been more loved and looked up to. She -was a very handsome old lady, of fine presence, dignified -and commanding.</p> - -<p>“Killed by family sorrows,” so they said when Mrs. -John N. Williams died. So Uncle John said yesterday of -his brother, Burwell. “Death deserts the army,” said that -quaint old soul, “and takes fancy shots of the most eccentric -kind nearer home.”</p> - -<p>The high and disinterested conduct our enemies seem to -expect of us is involuntary and unconscious praise. They -pay us the compliment to look for from us (and execrate -us for the want of it) a degree of virtue they were never -able to practise themselves. It is a crowning misdemeanor -for us to hold still in slavery those Africans whom they -brought here from Africa, or sold to us when they found it -did not pay to own them themselves. Gradually, they slid -or sold them off down here; or freed them prospectively, -giving themselves years in which to get rid of them in a -remunerative way. We want to spread them over other -lands, too—West and South, or Northwest, where the climate -would free them or kill them, or improve them out<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[130]</a></span> -of the world, as our friends up North do the Indians. If -they had been forced to keep the negroes in New England, -I dare say the negroes might have shared the Indians’ fate, -for they are wise in their generation, these Yankee children -of light. Those pernicious Africans! So have just spoken -Mr. Chesnut and Uncle John, both <i lang="fr">ci-devant</i> Union men, -now utterly for State rights.</p> - -<p>It is queer how different the same man may appear -viewed from different standpoints. “What a perfect gentleman,” -said one person of another; “so fine-looking, -high-bred, distinguished, easy, free, and above all graceful -in his bearing; so high-toned! He is always indignant at -any symptom of wrong-doing. He is charming—the man -of all others I like to have strangers see—a noble representative -of our country.” “Yes, every word of that is true,” -was the reply. “He is all that. And then the other side -of the picture is true, too. You can always find him. You -know <em>where</em> to find him! Wherever there is a looking-glass, -a bottle, or a woman, there will he be also.” “My -God! and you call yourself his friend.” “Yes, I know -him down to the ground.”</p> - -<p>This conversation I overheard from an upper window -when looking down on the piazza below—a complicated -character truly beyond La Bruyère—with what Mrs. Preston -calls refinement spread thin until it is skin-deep only.</p> - -<p>An iron steamer has run the blockade at Savannah. We -now raise our wilted heads like flowers after a shower. -This drop of good news revives us.<a name="FNanchor_62" id="FNanchor_62"></a><a href="#Footnote_62" class="fnanchor">[62]</a></p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[131]</a></span></p> - -<h2 id="CHAPTER_XI">XI<br /> -<span class="smaller">COLUMBIA, S. C.<br /> -<i>February 20, 1862-July 21, 1862</i></span></h2> - -<div> -<img class="dropcap" src="images/dropcap-c.jpg" width="100" height="115" alt="" /> -</div> - -<p class="dropcap">Columbia, S. C., <i>February 20, 1862</i>.—Had an appetite -for my dainty breakfast. Always breakfast in -bed now. But then, my Mercury contained such -bad news. That is an appetizing style of matutinal newspaper. -Fort Donelson<a name="FNanchor_63" id="FNanchor_63"></a><a href="#Footnote_63" class="fnanchor">[63]</a> has fallen, but no men fell with -it. It is prisoners for them that we can not spare, or prisoners -for us that we may not be able to feed: that is so much -to be “forefended,” as Keitt says. They lost six thousand, -we two thousand; I grudge that proportion. In vain, alas! -ye gallant few—few, but undismayed. Again, they make a -stand. We have Buckner, Beauregard, and Albert Sidney -Johnston. With such leaders and God’s help we may be -saved from the hated Yankees; who knows?</p> - -<p><i>February 21st.</i>—A crowd collected here last night and -there was a serenade. I am like Mrs. Nickleby, who never -saw a horse coming full speed but she thought the Cheerybles -had sent post-haste to take Nicholas into co-partnership. -So I got up and dressed, late as it was. I felt sure -England had sought our alliance at last, and we would<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[132]</a></span> -make a Yorktown of it before long. Who was it? Will -you ever guess?—Artemus Goodwyn and General Owens, -of Florida.</p> - -<p>Just then, Mr. Chesnut rushed in, put out the light, -locked the door and sat still as a mouse. Rap, rap, came -at the door. “I say, Chesnut, they are calling for you.” -At last we heard Janney (hotel-keeper) loudly proclaiming -from the piazza that “Colonel Chesnut was not here at all, -at all.” After a while, when they had all gone from the -street, and the very house itself had subsided into perfect -quiet, the door again was roughly shaken. “I say, Chesnut, -old fellow, come out—I know you are there. Nobody -here now wants to hear you make a speech. That crowd has -all gone. We want a little quiet talk with you. I am just -from Richmond.” That was the open sesame, and to-day I -hear none of the Richmond news is encouraging. Colonel -Shaw is blamed for the shameful Roanoke surrender.<a name="FNanchor_64" id="FNanchor_64"></a><a href="#Footnote_64" class="fnanchor">[64]</a></p> - -<p>Toombs is out on a rampage and swears he will not accept -a seat in the Confederate Senate given in the insulting -way his was by the Georgia Legislature: calls it shabby -treatment, and adds that Georgia is not the only place -where good men have been so ill used.</p> - -<p>The Governor and Council have fluttered the dove-cotes, -or, at least, the tea-tables. They talk of making a call for -all silver, etc. I doubt if we have enough to make the sacrifice -worth while, but we propose to set the example.</p> - -<p><i>February 22d.</i>—What a beautiful day for our Confederate -President to be inaugurated! God speed him; God -keep him; God save him!</p> - -<p>John Chesnut’s letter was quite what we needed. In -spirit it is all that one could ask. He says, “Our late -reverses are acting finely with the army of the Potomac. -A few more thrashings and every man will enlist for the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[133]</a></span> -war. Victories made us too sanguine and easy, not to say -vainglorious. Now for the rub, and let them have it!”</p> - -<p>A lady wrote to Mrs. Bunch: “Dear Emma: When -shall I call for you to go and see Madame de St. André?” -She was answered: “Dear Lou: I can not go with you to -see Madame de St. André, but will always retain the kindest -feeling toward you on account of our past relations,” -etc. The astounded friend wrote to ask what all this meant. -No answer came, and then she sent her husband to ask and -demand an explanation. He was answered thus: “My -dear fellow, there can be no explanation possible. Hereafter -there will be no intercourse between my wife and -yours; simply that, nothing more.” So the men meet at -the club as before, and there is no further trouble between -them. The lady upon whom the slur is cast says, “and I -am a woman and can’t fight!”</p> - -<p><i>February 23d.</i>—While Mr. Chesnut was in town I was at -the Prestons. John Cochran and some other prisoners had -asked to walk over the grounds, visit the Hampton Gardens, -and some friends in Columbia. After the dreadful -state of the public mind at the escape of one of the prisoners, -General Preston was obliged to refuse his request. Mrs. -Preston and the rest of us wanted him to say “Yes,” and -so find out who in Columbia were his treacherous friends. -Pretty bold people they must be, to receive Yankee invaders -in the midst of the row over one enemy already turned -loose amid us.</p> - -<p>General Preston said: “We are about to sacrifice life -and fortune for a fickle multitude who will not stand up -to us at last.” The harsh comments made as to his lenient -conduct to prisoners have embittered him. I told him -what I had heard Captain Trenholm say in his speech. He -said he would listen to no criticism except from a man with -a musket on his shoulder, and who had beside enlisted for -the war, had given up all, and had no choice but to succeed -or die.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[134]</a></span></p> - -<p><i>February 24th.</i>—Congress and the newspapers render -one desperate, ready to cut one’s own throat. They represent -everything in our country as deplorable. Then comes -some one back from our gay and gallant army at the front. -The spirit of our army keeps us up after all. Letters from -the army revive one. They come as welcome as the flowers -in May. Hopeful and bright, utterly unconscious of our -weak despondency.</p> - -<p><i>February 25th.</i>—They have taken at Nashville<a name="FNanchor_65" id="FNanchor_65"></a><a href="#Footnote_65" class="fnanchor">[65]</a> more -men than we had at Manassas; there was bad handling of -troops, we poor women think, or this would not be. Mr. -Venable added bitterly, “Giving up our soldiers to the enemy -means giving up the cause. We can not replace them.” -The up-country men were Union men generally, and the -low-country seceders. The former growl; they never liked -those aristocratic boroughs and parishes, they had themselves -a good and prosperous country, a good constitution, -and were satisfied. But they had to go—to leave all and -fight for the others who brought on all the trouble, and who -do not show too much disposition to fight for themselves.</p> - -<p>That is the extreme up-country view. The extreme low-country -says Jeff Davis is not enough out of the Union yet. -His inaugural address reads as one of his speeches did four -years ago in the United States Senate.</p> - -<p>A letter in a morning paper accused Mr. Chesnut of -staying too long in Charleston. The editor was asked for -the writer’s name. He gave it as Little Moses, the Governor’s -secretary. When Little Moses was spoken to, in a -great trepidation he said that Mrs. Pickens wrote it, and -got him to publish it; so it was dropped, for Little Moses is -such an arrant liar no one can believe him. Besides, if that -sort of thing amuses Mrs. Pickens, let her amuse herself.</p> - -<p><i>March 5th.</i>—Mary Preston went back to Mulberry with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[135]</a></span> -me from Columbia. She found a man there tall enough -to take her in to dinner—Tom Boykin, who is six feet four, -the same height as her father. Tom was very handsome in -his uniform, and Mary prepared for a nice time, but he -looked as if he would so much rather she did not talk to -him, and he set her such a good example, saying never -a word.</p> - -<p>Old Colonel Chesnut came for us. When the train -stopped, Quashie, shiny black, was seen on his box, as -glossy and perfect in his way as his blooded bays, but the -old Colonel would stop and pick up the dirtiest little negro -I ever saw who was crying by the roadside. This ragged -little black urchin was made to climb up and sit beside -Quash. It spoilt the symmetry of the turn-out, but it was -a character touch, and the old gentleman knows no law but -his own will. He had a biscuit in his pocket which he gave -this sniffling little negro, who proved to be his man Scip’s -son.</p> - -<p>I was ill at Mulberry and never left my room. Doctor -Boykin came, more military than medical. Colonel Chesnut -brought him up, also Teams, who said he was down in -the mouth. Our men were not fighting as they should. -We had only pluck and luck, and a dogged spirit of fighting, -to offset their weight in men and munitions of war. I -wish I could remember Teams’s words; this is only his idea. -His language was quaint and striking—no grammar, but -no end of sense and good feeling. Old Colonel Chesnut, -catching a word, began his litany, saying, “Numbers will -tell,” “Napoleon, you know,” etc., etc.</p> - -<p>At Mulberry the war has been ever afar off, but threats -to take the silver came very near indeed—silver that we had -before the Revolution, silver that Mrs. Chesnut brought -from Philadelphia. Jack Cantey and Doctor Boykin came -back on the train with us. Wade Hampton is the hero.</p> - -<p>Sweet May Dacre. Lord Byron and Disraeli make their -rosebuds Catholic; May Dacre is another Aurora Raby. I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[136]</a></span> -like Disraeli because I find so many clever things in him. -I like the sparkle and the glitter. Carlyle does not hold up -his hands in holy horror of us because of African slavery. -Lord Lyons<a name="FNanchor_66" id="FNanchor_66"></a><a href="#Footnote_66" class="fnanchor">[66]</a> has gone against us. Lord Derby and Louis -Napoleon are silent in our hour of direst need. People call -me Cassandra, for I cry that outside hope is quenched. -From the outside no help indeed cometh to this beleaguered -land.</p> - -<p><i>March 7th.</i>—Mrs. Middleton was dolorous indeed. General -Lee had warned the planters about Combahee, etc., that -they must take care of themselves now; he could not do it. -Confederate soldiers had committed some outrages on the -plantations and officers had punished them promptly. She -poured contempt upon Yancey’s letter to Lord Russell.<a name="FNanchor_67" id="FNanchor_67"></a><a href="#Footnote_67" class="fnanchor">[67]</a> -It was the letter of a shopkeeper, not in the style of a statesman -at all.</p> - -<p>We called to see Mary McDuffie.<a name="FNanchor_68" id="FNanchor_68"></a><a href="#Footnote_68" class="fnanchor">[68]</a> She asked Mary Preston -what Doctor Boykin had said of her husband as we came -along in the train. She heard it was something very complimentary. -Mary P. tried to remember, and to repeat it -all, to the joy of the other Mary, who liked to hear nice -things about her husband.</p> - -<p>Mary was amazed to hear of the list of applicants for -promotion. One delicate-minded person accompanied his -demand for advancement by a request for a written description -of the Manassas battle; he had heard Colonel Chesnut -give such a brilliant account of it in Governor Cobb’s -room.</p> - -<p>The Merrimac<a name="FNanchor_69" id="FNanchor_69"></a><a href="#Footnote_69" class="fnanchor">[69]</a> business has come like a gleam of lightning<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[137]</a></span> -illumining a dark scene. Our sky is black and lowering.</p> - -<p>The Judge saw his little daughter at my window and -he came up. He was very smooth and kind. It was really -a delightful visit; not a disagreeable word was spoken. He -abused no one whatever, for he never once spoke of any one -but himself, and himself he praised without stint. He did -not look at me once, though he spoke very kindly to me.</p> - -<p><i>March 10th.</i>—Second year of Confederate independence. -I write daily for my own diversion. These <i lang="fr">mémoires -pour servir</i> may at some future day afford facts about -these times and prove useful to more important people than -I am. I do not wish to do any harm or to hurt any one. If -any scandalous stories creep in they can easily be burned. -It is hard, in such a hurry as things are now, to separate -the wheat from the chaff. Now that I have made my protest -and written down my wishes, I can scribble on with a -free will and free conscience.</p> - -<p>Congress at the North is down on us. They talk largely -of hanging slave-owners. They say they hold Port Royal, -as we did when we took it originally from the aborigines, -who fled before us; so we are to be exterminated and improved, -<i lang="fr">à l’Indienne</i>, from the face of the earth.</p> - -<p>Medea, when asked: “Country, wealth, husband, children, -all are gone; and now what remains?” answered: -“Medea remains.” “There is a time in most men’s lives -when they resemble Job, sitting among the ashes and drinking -in the full bitterness of complicated misfortune.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[138]</a></span></p> - -<p><i>March 11th.</i>—A freshman came quite eager to be instructed -in all the wiles of society. He wanted to try his -hand at a flirtation, and requested minute instructions, as -he knew nothing whatever: he was so very fresh. “Dance -with her,” he was told, “and talk with her; walk with her -and flatter her; dance until she is warm and tired; then -propose to walk in a cool, shady piazza. It must be a somewhat -dark piazza. Begin your promenade slowly; warm -up to your work; draw her arm closer and closer; then, -break her wing.”</p> - -<p>“Heavens, what is that—break her wing?” “Why, -you do not know even that? Put your arm round her waist -and kiss her. After that, it is all plain sailing. She comes -down when you call like the coon to Captain Scott: ‘You -need not fire, Captain,’ etc.”</p> - -<p>The aspirant for fame as a flirt followed these lucid directions -literally, but when he seized the poor girl and -kissed her, she uplifted her voice in terror, and screamed -as if the house was on fire. So quick, sharp, and shrill -were her yells for help that the bold flirt sprang over the -banister, upon which grew a strong climbing rose. This he -struggled through, and ran toward the college, taking a bee -line. He was so mangled by the thorns that he had to go -home and have them picked out by his family. The girl’s -brother challenged him. There was no mortal combat, however, -for the gay young fellow who had led the freshman’s -ignorance astray stepped forward and put things straight. -An explanation and an apology at every turn hushed it -all up.</p> - -<p>Now, we all laughed at this foolish story most heartily. -But Mr. Venable remained grave and preoccupied, and was -asked: “Why are you so unmoved? It is funny.” -“I like more probable fun; I have been in college -and I have kissed many a girl, but never a one scrome -yet.”</p> - -<p>Last Saturday was the bloodiest we have had in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[139]</a></span> -proportion to numbers.<a name="FNanchor_70" id="FNanchor_70"></a><a href="#Footnote_70" class="fnanchor">[70]</a> The enemy lost 1,500. The handful -left at home are rushing to arms at last. Bragg has -gone to join Beauregard at Columbus, Miss. Old Abe truly -took the field in that Scotch cap of his.</p> - -<p>Mrs. McCord,<a name="FNanchor_71" id="FNanchor_71"></a><a href="#Footnote_71" class="fnanchor">[71]</a> the eldest daughter of Langdon Cheves, -got up a company for her son, raising it at her own expense. -She has the brains and energy of a man. To-day -she repeated a remark of a low-country gentleman, who is -dissatisfied: “This Government (Confederate) protects -neither person nor property.” Fancy the scornful turn of -her lip! Some one asked for Langdon Cheves, her brother. -“Oh, Langdon!” she replied coolly, “he is a pure patriot; -he has no ambition. While I was there, he was letting Confederate -soldiers ditch through his garden and ruin him at -their leisure.”</p> - -<p>Cotton is five cents a pound and labor of no value at all; -it commands no price whatever. People gladly hire out -their negroes to have them fed and clothed, which latter -can not be done. Cotton osnaburg at 37½ cents a yard, -leaves no chance to clothe them. Langdon was for martial -law and making the bloodsuckers disgorge their ill-gotten -gains. We, poor fools, who are patriotically ruining ourselves -will see our children in the gutter while treacherous -dogs of millionaires go rolling by in their coaches—coaches -that were acquired by taking advantage of our necessities.</p> - -<p>This terrible battle of the ships—Monitor, Merrimac, -etc. All hands on board the Cumberland went down. She -fought gallantly and fired a round as she sank. The Congress<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[140]</a></span> -ran up a white flag. She fired on our boats as they -went up to take off her wounded. She was burned. The -worst of it is that all this will arouse them to more furious -exertions to destroy us. They hated us so before, but how -now?</p> - -<p>In Columbia I do not know a half-dozen men who would -not gaily step into Jeff Davis’s shoes with a firm conviction -that they would do better in every respect than he does. -The monstrous conceit, the fatuous ignorance of these critics! -It is pleasant to hear Mrs. McCord on this subject, -when they begin to shake their heads and tell us what Jeff -Davis ought to do.</p> - -<p><i>March 12th.</i>—In the naval battle the other day we had -twenty-five guns in all. The enemy had fifty-four in the -Cumberland, forty-four in the St. Lawrence, besides a fleet -of gunboats, filled with rifled cannon. Why not? They -can have as many as they please. “No pent-up Utica contracts -their powers”; the whole boundless world being -theirs to recruit in. Ours is only this one little spot of -ground—the blockade, or stockade, which hems us in with -only the sky open to us, and for all that, how tender-footed -and cautious they are as they draw near.</p> - -<p>An anonymous letter purports to answer Colonel Chesnut’s -address to South Carolinians now in the army of the -Potomac. The man says, “All that bosh is no good.” He -knows lots of people whose fathers were notorious Tories -in our war for independence and made fortunes by selling -their country. Their sons have the best places, and they -are cowards and traitors still. Names are given, of course.</p> - -<p>Floyd and Pillow<a name="FNanchor_72" id="FNanchor_72"></a><a href="#Footnote_72" class="fnanchor">[72]</a> are suspended from their commands<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[141]</a></span> -because of Fort Donelson. The people of Tennessee demand -a like fate for Albert Sidney Johnston. They say he -is stupid. Can human folly go further than this Tennessee -madness?</p> - -<p>I did Mrs. Blank a kindness. I told the women when -her name came up that she was childless now, but that she -had lost three children. I hated to leave her all alone. -Women have such a contempt for a childless wife. Now, -they will be all sympathy and goodness. I took away her -“reproach among women.”</p> - -<p><i>March 13th.</i>—Mr. Chesnut fretting and fuming. From -the poor old blind bishop downward everybody is besetting -him to let off students, theological and other, from going -into the army. One comfort is that the boys will go. Mr. -Chesnut answers: “Wait until you have saved your country -before you make preachers and scholars. When you -have a country, there will be no lack of divines, students, -scholars to adorn and purify it.” He says he is a one-idea -man. That idea is to get every possible man into the ranks.</p> - -<p>Professor Le Conte<a name="FNanchor_73" id="FNanchor_73"></a><a href="#Footnote_73" class="fnanchor">[73]</a> is an able auxiliary. He has undertaken -to supervise and carry on the powder-making enterprise—the -very first attempted in the Confederacy, and -Mr. Chesnut is proud of it. It is a brilliant success, thanks -to Le Conte.</p> - -<p>Mr. Chesnut receives anonymous letters urging him to -arrest the Judge as seditious. They say he is a dangerous -and disaffected person. His abuse of Jeff Davis and the -Council is rabid. Mr. Chesnut laughs and throws the letters -into the fire. “Disaffected to Jeff Davis,” says he;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[142]</a></span> -“disaffected to the Council, that don’t count. He knows -what he is about; he would not injure his country for the -world.”</p> - -<p>Read Uncle Tom’s Cabin again. These negro women -have a chance here that women have nowhere else. They -can redeem themselves—the “impropers” can. They can -marry decently, and nothing is remembered against these -colored ladies. It is not a nice topic, but Mrs. Stowe revels -in it. How delightfully Pharisaic a feeling it must be to -rise superior and fancy we are so degraded as to defend -and like to live with such degraded creatures around us—such -men as Legree and his women.</p> - -<p>The best way to take negroes to your heart is to get as -far away from them as possible. As far as I can see, -Southern women do all that missionaries could do to prevent -and alleviate evils. The social evil has not been suppressed -in old England or in New England, in London or in -Boston. People in those places expect more virtue from a -plantation African than they can insure in practise among -themselves with all their own high moral surroundings—light, -education, training, and support. Lady Mary Montagu -says, “Only men and women at last.” “Male and -female, created he them,” says the Bible. There are cruel, -graceful, beautiful mothers of angelic Evas North as well -as South, I dare say. The Northern men and women who -came here were always hardest, for they expected an African -to work and behave as a white man. We do not.</p> - -<p>I have often thought from observation truly that perfect -beauty hardens the heart, and as to grace, what so -graceful as a cat, a tigress, or a panther. Much love, admiration, -worship hardens an idol’s heart. It becomes utterly -callous and selfish. It expects to receive all and to -give nothing. It even likes the excitement of seeing people -suffer. I speak now of what I have watched with horror -and amazement.</p> - -<p>Topsys I have known, but none that were beaten or ill-used.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[143]</a></span> -Evas are mostly in the heaven of Mrs. Stowe’s imagination. -People can’t love things dirty, ugly, and repulsive, -simply because they ought to do so, but they can be -good to them at a distance; that’s easy. You see, I can not -rise very high; I can only judge by what I see.</p> - -<p><i>March 14th.</i>—Thank God for a ship! It has run the -blockade with arms and ammunition.</p> - -<p>There are no negro sexual relations half so shocking as -Mormonism. And yet the United States Government makes -no bones of receiving Mormons into its sacred heart. Mr. -Venable said England held her hand over “the malignant -and the turbaned Turk” to save and protect him, slaves, -seraglio, and all. But she rolls up the whites of her eyes -at us when slavery, bad as it is, is stepping out into freedom -every moment through Christian civilization. They do not -grudge the Turk even his bag and Bosphorus privileges. -To a recalcitrant wife it is, “Here yawns the sack; there -rolls the sea,” etc. And France, the bold, the brave, the -ever free, she has not been so tender-footed in Algiers. But -then the “you are another” argument is a shabby one. -“You see,” says Mary Preston sagaciously, “we are white -Christian descendants of Huguenots and Cavaliers, and -they expect of us different conduct.”</p> - -<p>Went in Mrs. Preston’s landau to bring my boarding-school -girls here to dine. At my door met J. F., who wanted -me then and there to promise to help him with his commission -or put him in the way of one. At the carriage steps I -was handed in by Gus Smith, who wants his brother made -commissary. The beauty of it all is they think I have some -influence, and I have not a particle. The subject of Mr. -Chesnut’s military affairs, promotions, etc., is never mentioned -by me.</p> - -<p><i>March 15th.</i>—When we came home from Richmond, -there stood Warren Nelson, propped up against my door, -lazily waiting for me, the handsome creature. He said he -meant to be heard, so I walked back with him to the drawing-room.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[144]</a></span> -They are wasting their time dancing attendance -on me. I can not help them. Let them shoulder their -musket and go to the wars like men.</p> - -<p>After tea came “Mars Kit”—he said for a talk, but -that Mr. Preston would not let him have, for Mr. Preston -had arrived some time before him. Mr. Preston said -“Mars Kit” thought it “bad form” to laugh. After that -you may be sure a laugh from “Mars Kit” was secured. -Again and again, he was forced to laugh with a will. I reversed -Oliver Wendell Holmes’s good resolution—never -to be as funny as he could. I did my very utmost.</p> - -<p>Mr. Venable interrupted the fun, which was fast and -furious, with the very best of bad news! Newbern shelled -and burned, cotton, turpentine—everything. There were -5,000 North Carolinians in the fray, 12,000 Yankees. Now -there stands Goldsboro. One more step and we are cut in -two. The railroad is our backbone, like the Blue Ridge and -the Alleghanies, with which it runs parallel. So many discomforts, -no wonder we are down-hearted.</p> - -<p>Mr. Venable thinks as we do—Garnett is our most thorough -scholar; Lamar the most original, and the cleverest of -our men—L. Q. C. Lamar—time fails me to write all his -name. Then, there is R. M. T. Hunter. Muscoe Russell -Garnett and his Northern wife: that match was made at my -house in Washington when Garnett was a member of the -United States Congress.</p> - -<p><i>March 17th.</i>—Back to the Congaree House to await my -husband, who has made a rapid visit to the Wateree region. -As we drove up Mr. Chesnut said: “Did you see the stare -of respectful admiration E. R. bestowed upon you, so curiously -prolonged? I could hardly keep my countenance.” -“Yes, my dear child, I feel the honor of it, though my individual -self goes for nothing in it. I am the wife of the -man who has the appointing power just now, with so many -commissions to be filled. I am nearly forty, and they do my -understanding the credit to suppose I can be made to believe<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[145]</a></span> -they admire my mature charms. They think they fool -me into thinking that they believe me charming. There is -hardly any farce in the world more laughable.”</p> - -<p>Last night a house was set on fire; last week two houses. -“The red cock crows in the barn!” Our troubles thicken, -indeed, when treachery comes from that dark quarter.</p> - -<p>When the President first offered Johnston Pettigrew a -brigadier-generalship, his answer was: “Not yet. Too -many men are ahead of me who have earned their promotion -in the field. I will come after them, not before. So -far I have done nothing to merit reward,” etc. He would -not take rank when he could get it. I fancy he may cool his -heels now waiting for it. He was too high and mighty. -There was another conscientious man—Burnet, of Kentucky. -He gave up his regiment to his lieutenant-colonel -when he found the lieutenant-colonel could command the -regiment and Burnet could not maneuver it in the field. He -went into the fight simply as an aide to Floyd. Modest -merit just now is at a premium.</p> - -<p>William Gilmore Simms is here; read us his last poetry; -have forgotten already what it was about. It was not tiresome, -however, and that is a great thing when people will -persist in reading their own rhymes.</p> - -<p>I did not hear what Mr. Preston was saying. “The -last piece of Richmond news,” Mr. Chesnut said as he went -away, and he looked so fagged out I asked no questions. I -knew it was bad.</p> - -<p>At daylight there was a loud knocking at my door. I -hurried on a dressing-gown and flew to open the door. -“Mrs. Chesnut, Mrs. M. says please don’t forget her son. -Mr. Chesnut, she hears, has come back. Please get her son a -commission. He must have an office.” I shut the door in -the servant’s face. If I had the influence these foolish -people attribute to me why should I not help my own? I -have a brother, two brothers-in-law, and no end of kin, all -gentlemen privates, and privates they would stay to the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[146]</a></span> -end of time before they said a word to me about commissions. -After a long talk we were finally disgusted and the -men went off to the bulletin-board. Whatever else it shows, -good or bad, there is always woe for some house in the killed -and wounded. We have need of stout hearts. I feel a -sinking of mine as we drive near the board.</p> - -<p><i>March 18th.</i>—My war archon is beset for commissions, -and somebody says for every one given, you make one ingrate -and a thousand enemies.</p> - -<p>As I entered Miss Mary Stark’s I whispered: “He -has promised to vote for Louis.” What radiant faces. To -my friend, Miss Mary said, “Your son-in-law, what is he -doing for his country?” “He is a tax collector.” Then -spoke up the stout old girl: “Look at my cheek; it is red -with blushing for you. A great, hale, hearty young man! -Fie on him! fie on him! for shame! Tell his wife; run him -out of the house with a broomstick; send him down to the -coast at least.” Fancy my cheeks. I could not raise my -eyes to the poor lady, so mercilessly assaulted. My face -was as hot with compassion as the outspoken Miss Mary -pretended hers to be with vicarious mortification.</p> - -<p>Went to see sweet and saintly Mrs. Bartow. She read -us a letter from Mississippi—not so bad: “More men -there than the enemy suspected, and torpedoes to blow up -the wretches when they came.” Next to see Mrs. Izard. -She had with her a relative just from the North. This lady -had asked Seward for passports, and he told her to “hold -on a while; the road to South Carolina will soon be open to -all, open and safe.” To-day Mrs. Arthur Hayne heard -from her daughter that Richmond is to be given up. Mrs. -Buell is her daughter.</p> - -<p>Met Mr. Chesnut, who said: “New Madrid<a name="FNanchor_74" id="FNanchor_74"></a><a href="#Footnote_74" class="fnanchor">[74]</a> has been -given up. I do not know any more than the dead where -New Madrid is. It is bad, all the same, this giving up. I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[147]</a></span> -can’t stand it. The hemming-in process is nearly complete. -The ring of fire is almost unbroken.”</p> - -<p>Mr. Chesnut’s negroes offered to fight for him if he -would arm them. He pretended to believe them. He says -one man can not do it. The whole country must agree to it. -He would trust such as he would select, and he would give -so many acres of land and his freedom to each one as he enlisted.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Albert Rhett came for an office for her son John. -I told her Mr. Chesnut would never propose a kinsman for -office, but if any one else would bring him forward he would -vote for him certainly, as he is so eminently fit for position. -Now he is a private.</p> - -<p><i>March 19th.</i>—He who runs may read. Conscription -means that we are in a tight place. This war was a volunteer -business. To-morrow conscription begins—the <i lang="fr">dernier -ressort</i>. The President has remodeled his Cabinet, leaving -Bragg for North Carolina. His War Minister is Randolph, -of Virginia. A Union man <i lang="fr">par excellence</i>, Watts, of Alabama, -is Attorney-General. And now, too late by one year, -when all the mechanics are in the army, Mallory begins to -telegraph Captain Ingraham to build ships at any expense. -We are locked in and can not get “the requisites for naval -architecture,” says a magniloquent person.</p> - -<p>Henry Frost says all hands wink at cotton going out. -Why not send it out and buy ships? “Every now and then -there is a holocaust of cotton burning,” says the magniloquent. -Conscription has waked the Rip Van Winkles. The -streets of Columbia were never so crowded with men. To -fight and to be made to fight are different things.</p> - -<p>To my small wits, whenever people were persistent, -united, and rose in their might, no general, however great, -succeeded in subjugating them. Have we not swamps, forests, -rivers, mountains—every natural barrier? The Carthaginians -begged for peace because they were a luxurious -people and could not endure the hardship of war, though<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[148]</a></span> -the enemy suffered as sharply as they did! “Factions -among themselves” is the rock on which we split. Now for -the great soul who is to rise up and lead us. Why tarry his -footsteps?</p> - -<p><i>March 20th.</i>—The Merrimac is now called the Virginia. -I think these changes of names so confusing and so senseless. -Like the French “Royal Bengal Tiger,” “National -Tiger,” etc. <i lang="fr">Rue</i> this, and next day <i lang="fr">Rue</i> that, the very -days and months a symbol, and nothing signified.</p> - -<p>I was lying on the sofa in my room, and two men slowly -walking up and down the corridor talked aloud as if necessarily -all rooms were unoccupied at this midday hour. I -asked Maum Mary who they were. “Yeadon and Barnwell -Rhett, Jr.” They abused the Council roundly, and -my husband’s name arrested my attention. Afterward, -when Yeadon attacked Mr. Chesnut, Mr. Chesnut surprised -him by knowing beforehand all he had to say. Naturally -I had repeated the loud interchange of views I had -overheard in the corridor.</p> - -<p>First, Nathan Davis called. Then Gonzales, who presented -a fine, soldierly appearance in his soldier clothes, -and the likeness to Beauregard was greater than ever. -Nathan, all the world knows, is by profession a handsome -man.</p> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;" id="illus8"> -<img src="images/illus8.jpg" width="400" height="700" alt="" /> -<p class="caption">A GROUP OF CONFEDERATE WOMEN.</p> -<p class="caption">MISS S. B. C. PRESTON. MISS ISABELLA D. MARTIN. -MRS. JEFFERSON DAVIS. MRS. LOUISA S. McCORD. MRS. FRANCIS W. PICKENS. -MRS. DAVID R. WILLIAMS. (The author’s sister, Kate.)</p> -</div> - -<p>General Gonzales told us what in the bitterness of his -soul he had written to Jeff Davis. He regretted that he had -not been his classmate; then he might have been as well -treated as Northrop. In any case he would not have been -refused a brigadiership, citing General Trapier and Tom -Drayton. He had worked for it, had earned it; they had -not. To his surprise, Mr. Davis answered him, and in a -sharp note of four pages. Mr. Davis demanded from whom -he quoted, “not his classmate.” General Gonzales responded, -“from the public voice only.” Now he will fight -for us all the same, but go on demanding justice from Jeff -Davis until he get his dues—at least, until one of them gets<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[149]</a></span> -his dues, for he means to go on hitting Jeff Davis over the -head whenever he has a chance.</p> - -<p>“I am afraid,” said I, “you will find it a hard head -to crack.” He replied in his flowery Spanish way: “Jeff -Davis will be the sun, radiating all light, heat, and patronage; -he will not be a moon reflecting public opinion, for he -has the soul of a despot; he delights to spite public opinion. -See, people abused him for making Crittenden brigadier. -Straightway he made him major-general, and just after a -blundering, besotted defeat, too.” Also, he told the President -in that letter: “Napoleon made his generals after -great deeds on their part, and not for having been educated -at St. Cyr, or Brie, or the Polytechnique,” etc., etc. Nathan -Davis sat as still as a Sioux warrior, not an eyelash moved. -And yet he said afterward that he was amused while the -Spaniard railed at his great namesake.</p> - -<p>Gonzales said: “Mrs. Slidell would proudly say that she -was a Creole. They were such fools, they thought Creole -meant—” Here Nathan interrupted pleasantly: “At the -St. Charles, in New Orleans, on the bill of fare were -‘Creole eggs.’ When they were brought to a man who had -ordered them, with perfect simplicity, he held them up, -‘Why, they are only hens’ eggs, after all.’ What in Heaven’s -name he expected them to be, who can say?” smiled -Nathan the elegant.</p> - -<p>One lady says (as I sit reading in the drawing-room -window while Maum Mary puts my room to rights): “I -clothe my negroes well. I could not bear to see them in -dirt and rags; it would be unpleasant to me.” Another -lady: “Yes. Well, so do I. But not fine clothes, you -know. I feel—now—it was one of our sins as a nation, the -way we indulged them in sinful finery. We will be punished -for it.”</p> - -<p>Last night, Mrs. Pickens met General Cooper. Madam -knew General Cooper only as our adjutant-general, and -Mr. Mason’s brother-in-law. In her slow, graceful, impressive<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[150]</a></span> -way, her beautiful eyes eloquent with feeling, she inveighed -against Mr. Davis’s wickedness in always sending -men born at the North to command at Charleston. General -Cooper is on his way to make a tour of inspection there now. -The dear general settled his head on his cravat with the aid -of his forefinger; he tugged rather more nervously with the -something that is always wrong inside of his collar, and -looked straight up through his spectacles. Some one -crossed the room, stood back of Mrs. Pickens, and murmured -in her ear, “General Cooper was born in New -York.” Sudden silence.</p> - -<p>Dined with General Cooper at the Prestons. General -Hampton and Blanton Duncan were there also; the latter -a thoroughly free-and-easy Western man, handsome and -clever; more audacious than either, perhaps. He pointed -to Buck—Sally Buchanan Campbell Preston. “What’s -that girl laughing at?” Poor child, how amazed she -looked. He bade them “not despair; all the nice young men -would not be killed in the war; there would be a few left. -For himself, he could give them no hope; Mrs. Duncan was -uncommonly healthy.” Mrs. Duncan is also lovely. We -have seen her.</p> - -<p><i>March 24th.</i>—I was asked to the Tognos’ tea, so refused -a drive with Mary Preston. As I sat at my solitary casemate, -waiting for the time to come for the Tognos, saw -Mrs. Preston’s landau pass, and Mr. Venable making Mary -laugh at some of his army stories, as only Mr. Venable can. -Already I felt that I had paid too much for my whistle—that -is, the Togno tea. The Gibbeses, Trenholms, Edmund -Rhett, there. Edmund Rhett has very fine eyes and makes -fearful play with them. He sits silent and motionless, with -his hands on his knees, his head bent forward, and his eyes -fixed upon you. I could think of nothing like it but a setter -and a covey of partridges.</p> - -<p>As to President Davis, he sank to profounder deeps of -abuse of him than even Gonzales. I quoted Yancey: “A<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[151]</a></span> -crew may not like their captain, but if they are mad enough -to mutiny while a storm is raging, all hands are bound -to go to the bottom.” After that I contented myself with a -mild shake of the head when I disagreed with him, and at -last I began to shake so persistently it amounted to incipient -palsy. “Jeff Davis,” he said, “is conceited, -wrong-headed, wranglesome, obstinate—a traitor.” “Now -I have borne much in silence,” said I at last, “but that is -pernicious nonsense. Do not let us waste any more time -listening to your quotations from the Mercury.”</p> - -<p>He very good-naturedly changed the subject, which was -easy just then, for a delicious supper was on the table -ready for us. But Doctor Gibbes began anew the fighting. -He helped me to some <i lang="fr">pâté</i>—“Not <i lang="fr">foie gras</i>,” said -Madame Togno, “<i lang="fr">pâté perdreaux</i>.” Doctor Gibbes, however, -gave it a flavor of his own. “Eat it,” said he, “it -is good for you; rich and wholesome; healthy as cod-liver -oil.”</p> - -<p>A queer thing happened. At the post-office a man saw a -small boy open with a key the box of the Governor and the -Council, take the contents of the box and run for his life. -Of course, this man called to the urchin to stop. The urchin -did not heed, but seeing himself pursued, began tearing up -the letters and papers. He was caught and the fragments -were picked up. Finding himself a prisoner, he pointed -out the negro who gave him the key. The negro was arrested.</p> - -<p>Governor Pickens called to see me to-day. We began -with Fort Sumter. For an hour did we hammer at that -fortress. We took it, gun by gun. He was very pleasant -and friendly in his manner.</p> - -<p>James Chesnut has been so nice this winter; so reasonable -and considerate—that is, for a man. The night I -came from Madame Togno’s, instead of making a row about -the lateness of the hour, he said he was “so wide awake and -so hungry.” I put on my dressing-gown and scrambled<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[152]</a></span> -some eggs, etc., there on our own fire. And with our feet on -the fender and the small supper-table between us, we enjoyed -the supper and glorious gossip. Rather a pleasant -state of things when one’s own husband is in good humor -and cleverer than all the men outside.</p> - -<p>This afternoon, the <i lang="fr">entente cordiale</i> still subsisting, -Maum Mary beckoned me out mysteriously, but Mr. Chesnut -said: “Speak out, old woman; nobody here but myself.” -“Mars Nathum Davis wants to speak to her,” said -she. So I hurried off to the drawing-room, Maum Mary -flapping her down-at-the-heels shoes in my wake. “He’s -gwine bekase somebody done stole his boots. How could he -stay bedout boots?” So Nathan said good-by. Then -we met General Gist, Maum Mary still hovering near, and I -congratulated him on being promoted. He is now a brigadier. -This he received with modest complaisance. “I -knowed he was a general,” said Maum Mary as he passed -on, “he told me as soon as he got in his room befo’ his boy -put down his trunks.”</p> - -<p>As Nathan, the unlucky, said good-by, he informed me -that a Mr. Reed from Montgomery was in the drawing-room -and wanted to see me. Mr. Reed had traveled with -our foreign envoy, Yancey. I was keen for news from -abroad. Mr. Reed settled that summarily. “Mr. Yancey -says we need not have one jot of hope. He could bowstring -Mallory for not buying arms in time. The very best citizens -wanted to depose the State government and take -things into their own hands, the powers that be being inefficient. -Western men are hurrying to the front, bestirring -themselves. In two more months we shall be ready.” -What could I do but laugh? I do hope the enemy will be -considerate and charitable enough to wait for us.</p> - -<p>Mr. Reed’s calm faith in the power of Mr. Yancey’s -eloquence was beautiful to see. He asked for Mr. Chesnut. -I went back to our rooms, swelling with news like a pouter -pigeon. Mr. Chesnut said: “Well! four hours—a call<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[153]</a></span> -from Nathan Davis of four hours!” Men are too absurd! -So I bear the honors of my forty years gallantly. I can -but laugh. “Mr. Nathan Davis went by the five-o’clock -train,” I said; “it is now about six or seven, maybe eight. -I have had so many visitors. Mr. Reed, of Alabama, is asking -for you out there.” He went without a word, but I -doubt if he went to see Mr. Reed, my laughing had made -him so angry.</p> - -<p>At last Lincoln threatens us with a proclamation abolishing -slavery<a name="FNanchor_75" id="FNanchor_75"></a><a href="#Footnote_75" class="fnanchor">[75]</a>—here in the free Southern Confederacy; and -they say McClellan is deposed. They want more fighting—I -mean the government, whose skins are safe, they want -more fighting, and trust to luck for the skill of the new -generals.</p> - -<p><i>March 28th.</i>—I did leave with regret Maum Mary. She -was such a good, well-informed old thing. My Molly, -though perfection otherwise, does not receive the confidential -communications of new-made generals at the earliest -moment. She is of very limited military information. -Maum Mary was the comfort of my life. She saved me -from all trouble as far as she could. Seventy, if she is a -day, she is spry and active as a cat, of a curiosity that -knows no bounds, black and clean; also, she knows a joke -at first sight, and she is honest. I fancy the negroes are -ashamed to rob people as careless as James Chesnut and -myself.</p> - -<p>One night, just before we left the Congaree House, Mr. -Chesnut had forgotten to tell some all-important thing to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[154]</a></span> -Governor Gist, who was to leave on a public mission next -day. So at the dawn of day he put on his dressing-gown and -went to the Governor’s room. He found the door unlocked -and the Governor fast asleep. He shook him. Half-asleep, -the Governor sprang up and threw his arms around Mr. -Chesnut’s neck and said: “Honey, is it you?” The mistake -was rapidly set right, and the bewildered plenipotentiary -was given his instructions. Mr. Chesnut came into -my room, threw himself on the sofa, and nearly laughed -himself to extinction, imitating again and again the pathetic -tone of the Governor’s greeting.</p> - -<p>Mr. Chesnut calls Lawrence “Adolphe,” but says he is -simply perfect as a servant. Mary Stevens said: “I -thought Cousin James the laziest man alive until I knew his -man, Lawrence.” Lawrence will not move an inch or lift -a finger for any one but his master. Mrs. Middleton politely -sent him on an errand; Lawrence, too, was very polite; -hours after, she saw him sitting on the fence of the -front yard. “Didn’t you go?” she asked. “No, ma’am. -I am waiting for Mars Jeems.” Mrs. Middleton calls him -now, “Mr. Take-it-Easy.”</p> - -<p>My very last day’s experience at the Congaree. I was -waiting for Mars Jeems in the drawing-room when a lady -there declared herself to be the wife of an officer in Clingman’s -regiment. A gentleman who seemed quite friendly -with her, told her all Mr. Chesnut said, thought, intended -to do, wrote, and <em>felt</em>. I asked: “Are you certain of all -these things you say of Colonel Chesnut?” The man -hardly deigned to notice this impertinent interruption from -a stranger presuming to speak but who had not been introduced! -After he went out, the wife of Clingman’s officer -was seized with an intuitive curiosity. “Madam, will you -tell me your name?” I gave it, adding, “I dare say I -showed myself an intelligent listener when my husband’s -affairs were under discussion.” At first, I refused to give -my name because it would have embarrassed her friend if<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[155]</a></span> -she had told him who I was. The man was Mr. Chesnut’s -secretary, but I had never seen him before.</p> - -<p>A letter from Kate says she had been up all night preparing -David’s things. Little Serena sat up and helped -her mother. They did not know that they would ever see -him again. Upon reading it, I wept and James Chesnut -cursed the Yankees.</p> - -<p>Gave the girls a quantity of flannel for soldiers’ shirts; -also a string of pearls to be raffled for at the Gunboat Fair. -Mary Witherspoon has sent a silver tea-pot. We do not -spare our precious things now. Our silver and gold, what -are they?—when we give up to war our beloved.</p> - -<p><i>April 2d.</i>—Dr. Trezevant, attending Mr. Chesnut, who -was ill, came and found his patient gone; he could not stand -the news of that last battle. He got up and dressed, weak -as he was, and went forth to hear what he could for himself. -The doctor was angry with me for permitting this, -and more angry with him for such folly. I made him listen -to the distinction between feminine folly and virulent vagaries -and nonsense. He said: “He will certainly be salivated -after all that calomel out in this damp weather.”</p> - -<p>To-day, the ladies in their landaus were bitterly attacked -by the morning paper for lolling back in their silks and -satins, with tall footmen in livery, driving up and down -the streets while the poor soldiers’ wives were on the sidewalks. -It is the old story of rich and poor! My little barouche -is not here, nor has James Chesnut any of his horses -here, but then I drive every day with Mrs. McCord and -Mrs. Preston, either of whose turnouts fills the bill. The -Governor’s carriage, horses, servants, etc., are splendid—just -what they should be. Why not?</p> - -<p><i>April 14th.</i>—Our Fair is in full blast. We keep a -restaurant. Our waitresses are Mary and Buck Preston, -Isabella Martin, and Grace Elmore.</p> - -<p><i>April 15th.</i>—Trescott is too clever ever to be a bore; -that was proved to-day, for he stayed two hours; as usual,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[156]</a></span> -Mr. Chesnut said “four.” Trescott was very surly; calls -himself ex-Secretary of State of the United States; now, -nothing in particular of South Carolina or the Confederate -States. Then he yawned, “What a bore this war is. I -wish it was ended, one way or another.” He speaks of -going across the border and taking service in Mexico. -“Rubbish, not much Mexico for you,” I answered. Another -patriot came then and averred, “I will take my family -back to town, that we may all surrender together. I -gave it up early in the spring.” Trescott made a face behind -backs, and said: “<i lang="fr">Lache!</i>”</p> - -<p>The enemy have flanked Beauregard at Nashville. -There is grief enough for Albert Sidney Johnston now; we -begin to see what we have lost. We were pushing them into -the river when General Johnston was wounded. Beauregard -was lying in his tent, at the rear, in a green sickness—melancholy—but -no matter what the name of the malady. -He was too slow to move, and lost all the advantage gained -by our dead hero.<a name="FNanchor_76" id="FNanchor_76"></a><a href="#Footnote_76" class="fnanchor">[76]</a> Without him there is no head to our -Western army. Pulaski has fallen. What more is there -to fall?</p> - -<p><i>April 15th.</i>—Mrs. Middleton: “How did you settle -Molly’s little difficulty with Mrs. McMahan, that ‘piece of -her mind’ that Molly gave our landlady?” “Oh, paid our -way out of it, of course, and I apologized for Molly!”</p> - -<p>Gladden, the hero of the Palmettos in Mexico, is killed. -Shiloh has been a dreadful blow to us. Last winter Stephen, -my brother, had it in his power to do such a nice thing for -Colonel Gladden. In the dark he heard his name, also that -he had to walk twenty-five miles in Alabama mud or go on<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[157]</a></span> -an ammunition wagon. So he introduced himself as a -South Carolinian to Colonel Gladden, whom he knew only -by reputation as colonel of the Palmetto regiment in the -Mexican war. And they drove him in his carriage comfortably -to where he wanted to go—a night drive of fifty miles -for Stephen, for he had the return trip, too. I would -rather live in Siberia, worse still, in Sahara, than live in a -country surrendered to Yankees.</p> - -<p>The Carolinian says the conscription bill passed by Congress -is fatal to our liberties as a people. Let us be a people -“certain and sure,” as poor Tom B. said, and then talk of -rebelling against our home government.</p> - -<p>Sat up all night. Read Eothen straight through, our -old Wiley and Putnam edition that we bought in London in -1845. How could I sleep? The power they are bringing -to bear against our country is tremendous. Its weight may -be irresistible—I dare not think of that, however.</p> - -<p><i>April 21st.</i>—Have been ill. One day I dined at Mrs. -Preston’s, <i lang="fr">pâté de foie gras</i> and partridge prepared for -me as I like them. I had been awfully depressed for days -and could not sleep at night for anxiety, but I did not -know that I was bodily ill. Mrs. Preston came home with -me. She said emphatically: “Molly, if your mistress is -worse in the night send for me instantly.” I thought it -very odd. I could not breathe if I attempted to lie down, -and very soon I lost my voice. Molly raced out and sent -Lawrence for Doctor Trezevant. She said I had the croup. -The doctor said, “congestion of the lungs.”</p> - -<p>So here I am, stranded, laid by the heels. Battle after -battle has occurred, disaster after disaster. Every morning’s -paper is enough to kill a well woman and age a strong -and hearty one.</p> - -<p>To-day, the waters of this stagnant pool were wildly -stirred. The President telegraphed for my husband to -come on to Richmond, and offered him a place on his staff. -I was a joyful woman. It was a way opened by Providence<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[158]</a></span> -from this Slough of Despond, this Council whose counsel no -one takes. I wrote to Mr. Davis, “With thanks, and begging -your pardon, how I would like to go.” Mrs. Preston -agrees with me, Mr. Chesnut ought to go. Through Mr. -Chesnut the President might hear many things to the advantage -of our State, etc.</p> - -<p>Letter from Quinton Washington. That was the best -tonic yet. He writes so cheerfully. We have fifty thousand -men on the Peninsula and McClellan eighty thousand. We -expect that much disparity of numbers. We can stand that.</p> - -<p><i>April 23d.</i>—On April 23, 1840, I was married, aged -seventeen; consequently on the 31st of March, 1862, I was -thirty-nine. I saw a wedding to-day from my window, -which opens on Trinity Church. Nanna Shand married a -Doctor Wilson. Then, a beautiful bevy of girls rushed into -my room. Such a flutter and a chatter. Well, thank -Heaven for a wedding. It is a charming relief from the -dismal litany of our daily song.</p> - -<p>A letter to-day from our octogenarian at Mulberry. -His nephew, Jack Deas, had two horses shot under him; the -old Colonel has his growl, “That’s enough for glory, and -no hurt after all.” He ends, however, with his never-failing -refrain: We can’t fight all the world; two and two only -make four; it can’t make a thousand; numbers will not lie. -He says he has lost half a million already in railroad bonds, -bank stock, Western notes of hand, not to speak of negroes -to be freed, and lands to be confiscated, for he takes the -gloomiest views of all things.</p> - -<p><i>April 26th.</i>—Doleful dumps, alarm-bells ringing. Telegrams -say the mortar fleet has passed the forts at New -Orleans. Down into the very depths of despair are we.</p> - -<p><i>April 27th.</i>—New Orleans gone<a name="FNanchor_77" id="FNanchor_77"></a><a href="#Footnote_77" class="fnanchor">[77]</a> and with it the Confederacy.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[159]</a></span> -That Mississippi ruins us if lost. The Confederacy -has been done to death by the politicians. What -wonder we are lost.</p> - -<p>The soldiers have done their duty. All honor to the -army. Statesmen as busy as bees about their own places, -or their personal honor, too busy to see the enemy at a distance. -With a microscope they were examining their own -interests, or their own wrongs, forgetting the interests of the -people they represented. They were concocting newspaper -paragraphs to injure the government. No matter how -vital it may be, nothing can be kept from the enemy. They -must publish themselves, night and day, what they are doing, -or the omniscient Buncombe will forget them.</p> - -<p>This fall of New Orleans means utter ruin to the private -fortunes of the Prestons. Mr. Preston came from New -Orleans so satisfied with Mansfield Lovell and the tremendous -steam-rams he saw there. While in New Orleans -Burnside offered Mr. Preston five hundred thousand dollars, -a debt due to him from Burnside, and he refused to -take it. He said the money was safer in Burnside’s hands -than his. And so it may prove, so ugly is the outlook now. -Burnside is wide awake; he is not a man to be caught napping.</p> - -<p>Mary Preston was saying she had asked the Hamptons -how they relished the idea of being paupers. If the country -is saved none of us will care for that sort of thing. Philosophical -and patriotic, Mr. Chesnut came in, saying: -“Conrad has been telegraphed from New Orleans that the -great iron-clad Louisiana went down at the first shot.” -Mr. Chesnut and Mary Preston walked off, first to the bulletin-board -and then to the Prestons’.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[160]</a></span></p> - -<p><i>April 29th.</i>—A grand smash, the news from New Orleans -fatal to us. Met Mr. Weston. He wanted to know -where he could find a place of safety for two hundred negroes. -I looked into his face to see if he were in earnest; -then to see if he were sane. There was a certain set of -two hundred negroes that had grown to be a nuisance. Apparently -all the white men of the family had felt bound -to stay at home to take care of them. There are people -who still believe negroes property—like Noah’s neighbors, -who insisted that the Deluge would only be a little shower -after all.</p> - -<p>These negroes, however, were Plowden Weston’s, a totally -different part of speech. He gave field-rifles to one -company and forty thousand dollars to another. He is -away with our army at Corinth. So I said: “You may -rely upon Mr. Chesnut, who will assist you to his uttermost -in finding a home for these people. Nothing belonging to -that patriotic gentleman shall come to grief if we have to -take charge of them on our own place.” Mr. Chesnut did -get a place for them, as I said he would.</p> - -<p>Had to go to the Governor’s or they would think we -had hoisted the black flag. Heard there we are going to -be beaten as Cortez beat the Mexicans—by superior arms. -Mexican bows and arrows made a poor showing in the face -of Spanish accoutrements. Our enemies have such superior -weapons of war, we hardly any but what we capture from -them in the fray. The Saxons and the Normans were in -the same plight.</p> - -<p>War seems a game of chess, but we have an unequal -number of pawns to begin with. We have knights, kings, -queens, bishops, and castles enough. But our skilful generals, -whenever they can not arrange the board to suit them -exactly, burn up everything and march away. We want -them to save the country. They seem to think their whole -duty is to destroy ships and save the army.</p> - -<p>Mr. Robert Barnwell wrote that he had to hang his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[161]</a></span> -head for South Carolina. We had not furnished our quota -of the new levy, five thousand men. To-day Colonel Chesnut -published his statement to show that we have sent thirteen -thousand, instead of the mere number required of us; -so Mr. Barnwell can hold up his head again.</p> - -<p><i>April 30th.</i>—The last day of this month of calamities. -Lovell left the women and children to be shelled, and took -the army to a safe place. I do not understand why we do -not send the women and children to the safe place and let -the army stay where the fighting is to be. Armies are to -save, not to be saved. At least, to be saved is not their -<i lang="fr">raison d’être</i> exactly. If this goes on the spirit of our people -will be broken. One ray of comfort comes from Henry -Marshall. “Our Army of the Peninsula is fine; so good I -do not think McClellan will venture to attack it.” So mote -it be.</p> - -<p><i>May 6th.</i>—Mine is a painful, self-imposed task: but why -write when I have nothing to chronicle but disaster?<a name="FNanchor_78" id="FNanchor_78"></a><a href="#Footnote_78" class="fnanchor">[78]</a> So -I read instead: First, Consuelo, then Columba, two ends of -the pole certainly, and then a translated edition of Elective -Affinities. Food enough for thought in every one of this -odd assortment of books.</p> - -<p>At the Prestons’, where I am staying (because Mr. -Chesnut has gone to see his crabbed old father, whom he -loves, and who is reported ill), I met Christopher Hampton. -He tells us Wigfall is out on a war-path; wants them -to strike for Maryland. The President’s opinion of the -move is not given. Also Mr. Hampton met the first lieutenant -of the Kirkwoods, E. M. Boykin. Says he is just the -same man he was in the South Carolina College. In whatever -company you may meet him, he is the pleasantest man -there.</p> - -<p>A telegram reads: “We have repulsed the enemy at<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[162]</a></span> -Williamsburg.”<a name="FNanchor_79" id="FNanchor_79"></a><a href="#Footnote_79" class="fnanchor">[79]</a> Oh, if we could drive them back “to -their ain countree!” Richmond was hard pressed this day. -The Mercury of to-day says, “Jeff Davis now treats all -men as if they were idiotic insects.”</p> - -<p>Mary Preston said all sisters quarreled. No, we never -quarrel, I and mine. We keep all our bitter words for our -enemies. We are frank heathens; we hate our enemies and -love our friends. Some people (our kind) can never make -up after a quarrel; hard words once only and all is over. To -us forgiveness is impossible. Forgiveness means calm indifference; -philosophy, while love lasts. Forgiveness of -love’s wrongs is impossible. Those dutiful wives who -piously overlook—well, everything—do not care one fig for -their husbands. I settled that in my own mind years ago. -Some people think it magnanimous to praise their enemies -and to show their impartiality and justice by acknowledging -the faults of their friends. I am for the simple rule, -the good old plan. I praise whom I love and abuse whom -I hate.</p> - -<p>Mary Preston has been translating Schiller aloud. We -are provided with Bulwer’s translation, Mrs. Austin’s, -Coleridge’s, and Carlyle’s, and we show how each renders -the passage Mary is to convert into English. In Wallenstein -at one point of the Max and Thekla scene, I like Carlyle -better than Coleridge, though they say Coleridge’s Wallenstein -is the only translation in the world half so good as -the original. Mrs. Barstow repeated some beautiful scraps -by Uhland, which I had never heard before. She is to -write them for us. Peace, and a literary leisure for my -old age, unbroken by care and anxiety!</p> - -<p>General Preston accused me of degenerating into a -boarding-house gossip, and is answered triumphantly by<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[163]</a></span> -his daughters: “But, papa, one you love to gossip with -full well.”</p> - -<p>Hampton estate has fifteen hundred negroes on Lake -Washington, Mississippi. Hampton girls talking in the -language of James’s novels: “Neither Wade nor Preston—that -splendid boy!—would lay a lance in rest—or couch -it, which is the right phrase for fighting, to preserve slavery. -They hate it as we do.” “What are they fighting -for?” “Southern rights—whatever that is. And they -do not want to be understrappers forever to the Yankees. -They talk well enough about it, but I forget what they -say.” Johnny Chesnut says: “No use to give a reason—a -fellow could not stay away from the fight—not well.” It -takes four negroes to wait on Johnny satisfactorily.</p> - -<p class="tb">It is this giving up that kills me. Norfolk they talk of -now; why not Charleston next? I read in a Western letter, -“Not Beauregard, but the soldiers who stopped to drink -the whisky they had captured from the enemy, lost us Shiloh.” -Cock Robin is as dead as he ever will be now; what -matters it who killed him?</p> - -<p><i>May 12th.</i>—Mr. Chesnut says he is very glad he went to -town. Everything in Charleston is so much more satisfactory -than it is reported. Troops are in good spirits. It will -take a lot of ironclads to take that city.</p> - -<p>Isaac Hayne said at dinner yesterday that both Beauregard -and the President had a great opinion of Mr. Chesnut’s -natural ability for strategy and military evolution. -Hon. Mr. Barnwell concurred; that is, Mr. Barnwell had -been told so by the President. “Then why did not the President -offer me something better than an aideship?” “I -heard he offered to make you a general last year, and you -said you could not go over other men’s shoulders until you -had earned promotion. You are too hard to please.” “No, -not exactly that, I was only offered a colonelcy, and Mr. -Barnwell persuaded me to stick to the Senate; then he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[164]</a></span> -wanted my place, and between the two stools I fell to the -ground.”</p> - -<p>My Molly will forget Lige and her babies, too. I asked -her who sent me that beautiful bouquet I found on my center-table. -“I give it to you. ’Twas give to me.” And Molly -was all wriggle, giggle, blush.</p> - -<p><i>May 18th.</i>—Norfolk has been burned and the Merrimac -sunk without striking a blow since her <i lang="fr">coup d’état</i> in Hampton -Roads. Read Milton. See the speech of Adam to Eve -in a new light. Women will not stay at home; will go out -to see and be seen, even if it be by the devil himself.</p> - -<p>Very encouraging letters from Hon. Mr. Memminger -and from L. Q. Washington. They tell the same story in -very different words. It amounts to this: “Not one foot -of Virginia soil is to be given up without a bitter fight for -it. We have one hundred and five thousand men in all, -McClellan one hundred and ninety thousand. We can -stand that disparity.”</p> - -<p>What things I have been said to have said! Mr. —— -heard me make scoffing remarks about the Governor and the -Council—or he thinks he heard me. James Chesnut wrote -him a note that my name was to be kept out of it—indeed, -that he was never to mention my name again under any possible -circumstances. It was all preposterous nonsense, but it -annoyed my husband amazingly. He said it was a scheme -to use my chatter to his injury. He was very kind about it. -He knows my real style so well that he can always tell my -real impudence from what is fabricated for me.</p> - -<p>There is said to be an order from Butler<a name="FNanchor_80" id="FNanchor_80"></a><a href="#Footnote_80" class="fnanchor">[80]</a> turning over<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[165]</a></span> -the women of New Orleans to his soldiers. Thus is the -measure of his iniquities filled. We thought that generals -always restrained, by shot or sword if need be, the brutality -of soldiers. This hideous, cross-eyed beast orders his -men to treat the ladies of New Orleans as women of the -town—to punish them, he says, for their insolence.</p> - -<p>Footprints on the boundaries of another world once -more. Willie Taylor, before he left home for the army, -fancied one day—<em>day</em>, remember—that he saw Albert -Rhett standing by his side. He recoiled from the ghostly -presence. “You need not do that, Willie. You will soon -be as I am.” Willie rushed into the next room to tell them -what had happened, and fainted. It had a very depressing -effect upon him. And now the other day he died in Virginia.</p> - -<p><i>May 24th.</i>—The enemy are landing at Georgetown. -With a little more audacity where could they not land? -But we have given them such a scare, they are cautious. If -it be true, I hope some cool-headed white men will make -the negroes save the rice for us. It is so much needed. -They say it might have been done at Port Royal with a little -more energy. South Carolinians have pluck enough, but -they only work by fits and starts; there is no continuous -effort; they can’t be counted on for steady work. They -will stop to play—or enjoy life in some shape.</p> - -<p>Without let or hindrance Halleck is being reenforced. -Beauregard, unmolested, was making some fine speeches—and -issuing proclamations, while we were fatuously looking -for him to make a tiger’s spring on Huntsville. Why not? -Hope springs eternal in the Southern breast.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[166]</a></span></p> - -<p>My Hebrew friend, Mem Cohen, has a son in the war. -He is in John Chesnut’s company. Cohen is a high name -among the Jews: it means Aaron. She has long fits of -silence, and is absent-minded. If she is suddenly roused, -she is apt to say, with overflowing eyes and clasped hands, -“If it please God to spare his life.” Her daughter is the -sweetest little thing. The son is the mother’s idol. Mrs. -Cohen was Miriam de Leon. I have known her intimately -all my life.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Bartow, the widow of Colonel Bartow, who was -killed at Manassas, was Miss Berrien, daughter of Judge -Berrien, of Georgia. She is now in one of the departments -here, cutting bonds—Confederate bonds—for five hundred -Confederate dollars a year, a penniless woman. Judge -Carroll, her brother-in-law, has been urgent with her to -come and live in his home. He has a large family and she -will not be an added burden to him. In spite of all he can -say, she will not forego her resolution. She will be independent. -She is a resolute little woman, with the softest, -silkiest voice and ways, and clever to the last point.</p> - -<p>Columbia is the place for good living, pleasant people, -pleasant dinners, pleasant drives. I feel that I have put -the dinners in the wrong place. They are the climax of the -good things here. This is the most hospitable place in the -world, and the dinners are worthy of it.</p> - -<p>In Washington, there was an endless succession of state -dinners. I was kindly used. I do not remember ever being -condemned to two dull neighbors: on one side or the -other was a clever man; so I liked Washington dinners.</p> - -<p>In Montgomery, there were a few dinners—Mrs. Pollard’s, -for instance, but the society was not smoothed down -or in shape. Such as it was it was given over to balls and -suppers. In Charleston, Mr. Chesnut went to gentlemen’s -dinners all the time; no ladies present. Flowers were sent -to me, and I was taken to drive and asked to tea. There -could not have been nicer suppers, more perfect of their<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[167]</a></span> -kind than were to be found at the winding up of those festivities.</p> - -<p>In Richmond, there were balls, which I did not attend—very -few to which I was asked: the MacFarlands’ and -Lyons’s, all I can remember. James Chesnut dined out -nearly every day. But then the breakfasts—the Virginia -breakfasts—where were always pleasant people. Indeed, I -have had a good time everywhere—always clever people, -and people I liked, and everybody so good to me.</p> - -<p>Here in Columbia, family dinners are the specialty. -You call, or they pick you up and drive home with you. -“Oh, stay to dinner!” and you stay gladly. They send for -your husband, and he comes willingly. Then comes a perfect -dinner. You do not see how it could be improved; -and yet they have not had time to alter things or add because -of the unexpected guests. They have everything of -the best—silver, glass, china, table linen, and damask, etc. -And then the planters live “within themselves,” as they -call it. From the plantations come mutton, beef, poultry, -cream, butter, eggs, fruits, and vegetables.</p> - -<p>It is easy to live here, with a cook who has been sent for -training to the best eating-house in Charleston. Old Mrs. -Chesnut’s Romeo was apprenticed at Jones’s. I do not -know where Mrs. Preston’s got his degree, but he deserves -a medal.</p> - -<p>At the Prestons’, James Chesnut induced Buck to declaim -something about Joan of Arc, which she does in a -manner to touch all hearts. While she was speaking, my -husband turned to a young gentleman who was listening -to the chatter of several girls, and said: “<i lang="fr">Écoutez!</i>” The -youth stared at him a moment in bewilderment; then, -gravely rose and began turning down the gas. Isabella -said: “<i lang="fr">Écoutez</i>, then, means put out the lights.”</p> - -<p>I recall a scene which took place during a ball given by -Mrs. Preston while her husband was in Louisiana. Mrs. -Preston was resplendent in diamonds, point lace, and velvet.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[168]</a></span> -There is a gentle dignity about her which is very attractive; -her voice is low and sweet, and her will is iron. -She is exceedingly well informed, but very quiet, retiring, -and reserved. Indeed, her apparent gentleness almost -amounts to timidity. She has chiseled regularity of features, -a majestic figure, perfectly molded.</p> - -<p>Governor Manning said to me: “Look at Sister Caroline. -Does she look as if she had the pluck of a heroine?” -Then he related how a little while ago William, the butler, -came to tell her that John, the footman, was drunk in the -cellar—mad with drink; that he had a carving-knife which -he was brandishing in drunken fury, and he was keeping -everybody from their business, threatening to kill any one -who dared to go into the basement. They were like a -flock of frightened sheep down there. She did not speak -to one of us, but followed William down to the basement, -holding up her skirts. She found the servants scurrying -everywhere, screaming and shouting that John was -crazy and going to kill them. John was bellowing like -a bull of Bashan, knife in hand, chasing them at his -pleasure.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Preston walked up to him. “Give me that knife,” -she demanded. He handed it to her. She laid it on the -table. “Now come with me,” she said, putting her hand -on his collar. She led him away to the empty smoke-house, -and there she locked him in and put the key in her pocket. -Then she returned to her guests, without a ripple on her -placid face. “She told me of it, smiling and serene as you -see her now,” the Governor concluded.</p> - -<p>Before the war shut him in, General Preston sent to the -lakes for his salmon, to Mississippi for his venison, to the -mountains for his mutton and grouse. It is good enough, -the best dish at all these houses, what the Spanish call “the -hearty welcome.” Thackeray says at every American table -he was first served with “grilled hostess.” At the head -of the table sat a person, fiery-faced, anxious, nervous, inwardly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[169]</a></span> -murmuring, like Falstaff, “Would it were night, -Hal, and all were well.”</p> - -<p>At Mulberry the house is always filled to overflowing, -and one day is curiously like another. People are coming -and going, carriages driving up or driving off. It has the -air of a watering-place, where one does not pay, and where -there are no strangers. At Christmas the china closet gives -up its treasures. The glass, china, silver, fine linen reserved -for grand occasions come forth. As for the dinner itself, -it is only a matter of greater quantity—more turkey, more -mutton, more partridges, more fish, etc., and more solemn -stiffness. Usually a half-dozen persons unexpectedly dropping -in make no difference. The family let the housekeeper -know; that is all.</p> - -<p>People are beginning to come here from Richmond. -One swallow does not make a summer, but it shows how the -wind blows, these straws do—Mrs. “Constitution” Browne -and Mrs. Wise. The Gibsons are at Doctor Gibbes’s. It -does look squally. We are drifting on the breakers.</p> - -<p><i>May 29th.</i>—Betsey, recalcitrant maid of the W.’s, has -been sold to a telegraph man. She is as handsome as a mulatto -ever gets to be, and clever in every kind of work. My -Molly thinks her mistress “very lucky in getting rid of -her.” She was “a dangerous inmate,” but she will be a -good cook, a good chambermaid, a good dairymaid, a beautiful -clear-starcher, and the most thoroughly good-for-nothing -woman I know to her new owners, if she chooses. -Molly evidently hates her, but thinks it her duty “to stand -by her color.”</p> - -<p>Mrs. Gibson is a Philadelphia woman. She is true to -her husband and children, but she does not believe in us—the -Confederacy, I mean. She is despondent and hopeless; -as wanting in faith of our ultimate success as is Sally Baxter -Hampton. I make allowances for those people. If I -had married North, they would have a heavy handful in me -just now up there.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[170]</a></span></p> - -<p>Mrs. Chesnut, my mother-in-law, has been sixty years -in the South, and she has not changed in feeling or in taste -one iota. She can not like hominy for breakfast, or rice for -dinner, without a relish to give it some flavor. She can not -eat watermelons and sweet potatoes <i lang="fr">sans discrétion</i>, as we -do. She will not eat hot corn bread <i lang="fr">à discrétion</i>, and hot -buttered biscuit without any.</p> - -<p>“Richmond is obliged to fall,” sighed Mrs. Gibson. -“You would say so, too, if you had seen our poor soldiers.” -“Poor soldiers?” said I. “Are you talking of Stonewall -Jackson’s men? Poor soldiers, indeed!” She said her -mind was fixed on one point, and had ever been, though she -married and came South: she never would own slaves. -“Who would that was not born to it?” I cried, more excited -than ever. She is very handsome, very clever, and -has very agreeable manners.</p> - -<p>“Dear madam,” she says, with tears in her beautiful -eyes, “they have three armies.” “But Stonewall has -routed one of them already. Heath another.” She only -answered by an unbelieving moan. “Nothing seemed to -suit her,” I said, as we went away. “You did not certainly,” -said some one to me; “you contradicted every -word she said, with a sort of indignant protest.”</p> - -<p>We met Mrs. Hampton Gibbes at the door—another -Virginia woman as good as gold. They told us Mrs. Davis -was delightfully situated at Raleigh; North Carolinians so -loyal, so hospitable; she had not been allowed to eat a meal -at the hotel. “How different from Columbia,” said Doctor -Gibbes, looking at Mrs. Gibson, who has no doubt been -left to take all of her meals at his house. “Oh, no!” cried -Mary, “you do Columbia injustice. Mrs. Chesnut used to -tell us that she was never once turned over to the tender -mercies of the Congaree cuisine, and at McMahan’s it is -fruit, flowers, invitations to dinner every day.”</p> - -<p>After we came away, “Why did you not back me up?” -I was asked. “Why did you let them slander Columbia?”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[171]</a></span> -“It was awfully awkward,” I said, “but you see it would -have been worse to let Doctor Gibbes and Mrs. Gibson see -how different it was with other people.”</p> - -<p>Took a moonlight walk after tea at the Halcott Greens’. -All the company did honor to the beautiful night by walking -home with me.</p> - -<p>Uncle Hamilton Boykin is here, staying at the de -Saussures’. He says, “Manassas was play to Williamsburg,” -and he was at both battles. He lead a part of -Stuart’s cavalry in the charge at Williamsburg, riding a -hundred yards ahead of his company.</p> - -<p>Toombs is ready for another revolution, and curses -freely everything Confederate from the President down to -a horse boy. He thinks there is a conspiracy against him -in the army. Why? Heavens and earth—why?</p> - -<p><i>June 2d.</i>—A battle<a name="FNanchor_81" id="FNanchor_81"></a><a href="#Footnote_81" class="fnanchor">[81]</a> is said to be raging round Richmond. -I am at the Prestons’. James Chesnut has gone to -Richmond suddenly on business of the Military Department. -It is always his luck to arrive in the nick of time -and be present at a great battle.</p> - -<p>Wade Hampton shot in the foot, and Johnston Pettigrew -killed. A telegram says Lee and Davis were both on -the field: the enemy being repulsed. Telegraph operator -said: “Madam, our men are fighting.” “Of course they -are. What else is there for them to do now but fight?” -“But, madam, the news is encouraging.” Each army is -burying its dead: that looks like a drawn battle. We haunt -the bulletin-board.</p> - -<p>Back to McMahan’s. Mem Cohen is ill. Her daughter, -Isabel, warns me not to mention the battle raging around -Richmond. Young Cohen is in it. Mrs. Preston, anxious<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[172]</a></span> -and unhappy about her sons. John is with General Huger -at Richmond; Willie in the swamps on the coast with his -company. Mem tells me her cousin, Edwin de Leon, is sent -by Mr. Davis on a mission to England.</p> - -<p>Rev. Robert Barnwell has returned to the hospital. Oh, -that we had given our thousand dollars to the hospital and -not to the gunboat! “Stonewall Jackson’s movements,” -the Herald says, “do us no harm; it is bringing out volunteers -in great numbers.” And a Philadelphia paper abused -us so fervently I felt all the blood in me rush to my head -with rage.</p> - -<p><i>June 3d.</i>—Doctor John Cheves is making infernal machines -in Charleston to blow the Yankees up; pretty name -they have, those machines. My horses, the overseer says, -are too poor to send over. There was corn enough on the -place for two years, they said, in January; now, in June, -they write that it will not last until the new crop comes in. -Somebody is having a good time on the plantation, if it be -not my poor horses.</p> - -<p>Molly will tell me all when she comes back, and more. -Mr. Venable has been made an aide to General Robert E. -Lee. He is at Vicksburg, and writes, “When the fight is -over here, I shall be glad to go to Virginia.” He is in capital -spirits. I notice army men all are when they write.</p> - -<p><i lang="fr">Apropos</i> of calling Major Venable “Mr.” Let it be -noted that in social intercourse we are not prone to give -handles to the names of those we know well and of our -nearest and dearest. A general’s wife thinks it bad form -to call her husband anything but “Mr.” When she gives -him his title, she simply “drops” into it by accident. If -I am “mixed” on titles in this diary, let no one blame me.</p> - -<p>Telegrams come from Richmond ordering troops from -Charleston. Can not be sent, for the Yankees are attacking -Charleston, doubtless with the purpose to prevent Lee’s receiving -reenforcements from there.</p> - -<p>Sat down at my window in the beautiful moonlight, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[173]</a></span> -tried hard for pleasant thoughts. A man began to play on -the flute, with piano accompaniment, first, “Ever of thee -I am fondly dreaming,” and then, “The long, long, weary -day.” At first, I found this but a complement to the beautiful -scene, and it was soothing to my wrought-up nerves. -But Von Weber’s “Last Waltz” was too much; I broke -down. Heavens, what a bitter cry came forth, with such -floods of tears! the wonder is there was any of me left.</p> - -<p>I learn that Richmond women go in their carriages for -the wounded, carry them home and nurse them. One saw -a man too weak to hold his musket. She took it from him, -put it on her shoulder, and helped the poor fellow along.</p> - -<p>If ever there was a man who could control every expression -of emotion, who could play stoic, or an Indian chief, -it is James Chesnut. But one day when he came in from -the Council he had to own to a break-down. He was awfully -ashamed of his weakness. There was a letter from Mrs. -Gaillard asking him to help her, and he tried to read it to -the Council. She wanted a permit to go on to her son, who -lies wounded in Virginia. Colonel Chesnut could not control -his voice. There was not a dry eye there, when suddenly -one man called out, “God bless the woman.”</p> - -<p>Johnston Pettigrew’s aide says he left his chief mortally -wounded on the battle-field. Just before Johnston Pettigrew -went to Italy to take a hand in the war there for -freedom, I met him one day at Mrs. Frank Hampton’s. A -number of people were present. Some one spoke of the -engagement of the beautiful Miss —— to Hugh Rose. Some -one else asked: “How do you know they are engaged?” -“Well, I never heard it, but I saw it. In London, a month -or so ago, I entered Mrs. ——’s drawing-room, and I saw -these two young people seated on a sofa opposite the door.” -“Well, that amounted to nothing.” “No, not in itself. -But they looked so foolish and so happy. I have noticed -newly engaged people always look that way.” And so on. -Johnston Pettigrew was white and red in quick succession<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[174]</a></span> -during this turn of the conversation; he was in a rage of -indignation and disgust. “I think this kind of talk is taking -a liberty with the young lady’s name,” he exclaimed -finally, “and that it is an impertinence in us.” I fancy -him left dying alone! I wonder what they feel—those who -are left to die of their wounds—alone—on the battle-field.</p> - -<p>Free schools are not everything, as witness this spelling. -Yankee epistles found in camp show how illiterate they can -be, with all their boasted schools. Fredericksburg is spelled -“Fredrexbirg,” medicine, “metison,” and we read, “To -my sweat brother,” etc. For the first time in my life no -books can interest me. Life is so real, so utterly earnest, -that fiction is flat. Nothing but what is going on in this -distracted world of ours can arrest my attention for ten -minutes at a time.</p> - -<p><i>June 4th.</i>—Battles occur near Richmond, with bombardment -of Charleston. Beauregard is said to be fighting -his way out or in.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Gibson is here, at Doctor Gibbes’s. Tears are always -in her eyes. Her eldest son is Willie Preston’s lieutenant. -They are down on the coast. She owns that she -has no hope at all. She was a Miss Ayer, of Philadelphia, -and says, “We may look for Burnside now, our troops -which held him down to his iron flotilla have been withdrawn. -They are three to one against us now, and they -have hardly begun to put out their strength—in numbers, -I mean. We have come to the end of our tether, except we -wait for the yearly crop of boys as they grow up to the -requisite age.” She would make despondent the most sanguine -person alive. “As a general rule,” says Mrs. Gibson, -“government people are sanguine, but the son of one -high functionary whispered to Mary G., as he handed her -into the car, ‘Richmond is bound to go.’” The idea now is -that we are to be starved out. If they shut us in, prolong the -agony, it can then have but one end.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Preston and I speak in whispers, but Mrs. McCord<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[175]</a></span> -scorns whispers, and speaks out. She says: “There are our -soldiers. Since the world began there never were better, -but God does not deign to send us a general worthy of -them. I do not mean drill-sergeants or military old maids, -who will not fight until everything is just so. The real ammunition -of our war is faith in ourselves and enthusiasm in -our cause. West Point sits down on enthusiasm, laughs it -to scorn. It wants discipline. And now comes a new danger, -these blockade-runners. They are filling their pockets -and they gibe and sneer at the fools who fight. Don’t you -see this Stonewall, how he fires the soldiers’ hearts; he will -be our leader, maybe after all. They say he does not care -how many are killed. His business is to save the country, -not the army. He fights to win, God bless him, and he wins. -If they do not want to be killed, they can stay at home. -They say he leaves the sick and wounded to be cared for by -those whose business it is to do so. His business is war. -They say he wants to hoist the black flag, have a short, -sharp, decisive war and end it. He is a Christian soldier.”</p> - -<p><i>June 5th.</i>—Beauregard retreating and his rear-guard -cut off. If Beauregard’s veterans will not stand, why -should we expect our newly levied reserves to do it? The -Yankee general who is besieging Savannah announces his -orders are “to take Savannah in two weeks’ time, and then -proceed to erase Charleston from the face of the earth.”</p> - -<p>Albert Luryea was killed in the battle of June 1st. Last -summer when a bomb fell in the very thick of his company -he picked it up and threw it into the water. Think of that, -those of ye who love life! The company sent the bomb to -his father. Inscribed on it were the words, “Albert Luryea, -bravest where all are brave.” Isaac Hayne did the same -thing at Fort Moultrie. This race has brains enough, but -they are not active-minded like those old Revolutionary -characters, the Middletons, Lowndeses, Rutledges, Marions, -Sumters. They have come direct from active-minded fore-fathers, -or they would not have been here; but, with two<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[176]</a></span> -or three generations of gentlemen planters, how changed -has the blood become! Of late, all the active-minded men -who have sprung to the front in our government were immediate -descendants of Scotch, or Scotch-Irish—Calhoun, -McDuffie, Cheves, and Petigru, who Huguenotted his name, -but could not tie up his Irish. Our planters are nice fellows, -but slow to move; impulsive but hard to keep moving. -They are wonderful for a spurt, but with all their strength, -they like to rest.</p> - -<p><i>June 6th.</i>—Paul Hayne, the poet, has taken rooms here. -My husband came and offered to buy me a pair of horses. -He says I need more exercise in the open air. “Come, now, -are you providing me with the means of a rapid retreat?” -said I. “I am pretty badly equipped for marching.”</p> - -<p>Mrs. Rose Greenhow is in Richmond. One-half of the -ungrateful Confederates say Seward sent her. My husband -says the Confederacy owes her a debt it can never pay. -She warned them at Manassas, and so they got Joe Johnston -and his Paladins to appear upon the stage in the very nick -of time. In Washington they said Lord Napier left her a -legacy to the British Legation, which accepted the gift, unlike -the British nation, who would not accept Emma Hamilton -and her daughter, Horatia, though they were willed to -the nation by Lord Nelson.</p> - -<p>Mem Cohen, fresh from the hospital where she went -with a beautiful Jewish friend. Rachel, as we will call her -(be it her name or no), was put to feed a very weak patient. -Mem noticed what a handsome fellow he was and how quiet -and clean. She fancied by those tokens that he was a gentleman. -In performance of her duties, the lovely young -nurse leaned kindly over him and held the cup to his lips. -When that ceremony was over and she had wiped his -mouth, to her horror she felt a pair of by no means weak -arms around her neck and a kiss upon her lips, which she -thought strong, indeed. She did not say a word; she made -no complaint. She slipped away from the hospital, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[177]</a></span> -hereafter in her hospital work will minister at long range, -no matter how weak and weary, sick and sore, the patient -may be. “And,” said Mem, “I thought he was a gentleman.” -“Well, a gentleman is a man, after all, and she -ought not to have put those red lips of hers so near.”</p> - -<p><i>June 7th.</i>—Cheves McCord’s battery on the coast has -three guns and one hundred men. If this battery should be -captured John’s Island and James Island would be open -to the enemy, and so Charleston exposed utterly.</p> - -<p>Wade Hampton writes to his wife that Chickahominy -was not as decided a victory as he could have wished. -Fort Pillow and Memphis<a name="FNanchor_82" id="FNanchor_82"></a><a href="#Footnote_82" class="fnanchor">[82]</a> have been given up. Next! and -next!</p> - -<p><i>June 9th.</i>—When we read of the battles in India, in -Italy, in the Crimea, what did we care? Only an interesting -topic, like any other, to look for in the paper. Now -you hear of a battle with a thrill and a shudder. It has -come home to us; half the people that we know in the world -are under the enemy’s guns. A telegram reaches you, and -you leave it on your lap. You are pale with fright. You -handle it, or you dread to touch it, as you would a rattlesnake; -worse, worse, a snake could only strike you. How -many, many will this scrap of paper tell you have gone to -their death?</p> - -<p>When you meet people, sad and sorrowful is the greeting; -they press your hand; tears stand in their eyes or roll -down their cheeks, as they happen to possess more or less -self-control. They have brother, father, or sons as the -case may be, in battle. And now this thing seems never to -stop. We have no breathing time given us. It can not be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[178]</a></span> -so at the North, for the papers say gentlemen do not go into -the ranks there, but are officers, or clerks of departments. -Then we see so many members of foreign regiments among -our prisoners—Germans, Irish, Scotch. The proportion of -trouble is awfully against us. Every company on the field, -rank and file, is filled with our nearest and dearest, who are -common soldiers.</p> - -<p>Mem Cohen’s story to-day. A woman she knew heard -her son was killed, and had hardly taken in the horror of it -when they came to say it was all a mistake in the name. -She fell on her knees with a shout of joy. “Praise the -Lord, O my soul!” she cried, in her wild delight. The -household was totally upset, the swing-back of the pendulum -from the scene of weeping and wailing of a few moments -before was very exciting. In the midst of this hubbub -the hearse drove up with the poor boy in his metallic -coffin. Does anybody wonder so many women die? Grief -and constant anxiety kill nearly as many women at home -as men are killed on the battle-field. Mem’s friend is at the -point of death with brain fever; the sudden changes from -grief to joy and joy to grief were more than she could bear.</p> - -<p>A story from New Orleans. As some Yankees passed -two boys playing in the street, one of the boys threw a handful -of burned cotton at them, saying, “I keep this for you.” -The other, not to be outdone, spit at the Yankees, and said, -“I keep this for you.” The Yankees marked the house. -Afterward, a corporal’s guard came. Madam was affably -conversing with a friend, and in vain, the friend, who was -a mere morning caller, protested he was not the master of -the house; he was marched off to prison.</p> - -<p>Mr. Moise got his money out of New Orleans. He went -to a station with his two sons, who were quite small boys. -When he got there, the carriage that he expected was not to -be seen. He had brought no money with him, knowing he -might be searched. Some friend called out, “I will lend -you my horse, but then you will be obliged to leave the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[179]</a></span> -children.” This offer was accepted, and, as he rode off, -one of the boys called out, “Papa, here is your tobacco, -which you have forgotten.” Mr. Moise turned back and the -boy handed up a roll of tobacco, which he had held openly -in his hand all the time. Mr. Moise took it, and galloped -off, waving his hat to them. In that roll of tobacco was -encased twenty-five thousand dollars.</p> - -<p>Now, the Mississippi is virtually open to the Yankees. -Beauregard has evacuated Corinth.<a name="FNanchor_83" id="FNanchor_83"></a><a href="#Footnote_83" class="fnanchor">[83]</a></p> - -<p>Henry Nott was killed at Shiloh; Mrs. Auzé wrote to tell -us. She had no hope. To be conquered and ruined had -always been her fate, strive as she might, and now she knew -it would be through her country that she would be made -to feel. She had had more than most women to endure, -and the battle of life she had tried to fight with courage, -patience, faith. Long years ago, when she was young, her -lover died. Afterward, she married another. Then her -husband died, and next her only son. When New Orleans -fell, her only daughter was there and Mrs. Auzé went to -her. Well may she say that she has bravely borne her burden -till now.<a name="FNanchor_84" id="FNanchor_84"></a><a href="#Footnote_84" class="fnanchor">[84]</a></p> - -<p>Stonewall said, in his quaint way: “I like strong drink, -so I never touch it.” May heaven, who sent him to help us, -save him from all harm!</p> - -<p>My husband traced Stonewall’s triumphal career on -the map. He has defeated Frémont and taken all his -cannon; now he is after Shields. The language of -the telegram is vague: “Stonewall has taken plenty of -prisoners”—plenty, no doubt, and enough and to spare. -We can’t feed our own soldiers, and how are we to feed -prisoners?</p> - -<p>They denounce Toombs in some Georgia paper, which I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[180]</a></span> -saw to-day, for planting a full crop of cotton. They say he -ought to plant provisions for soldiers.</p> - -<p>And now every man in Virginia, and the eastern part of -South Carolina is in revolt, because old men and boys are -ordered out as a reserve corps, and worst of all, sacred -property, that is, negroes, have been seized and sent out to -work on the fortifications along the coast line. We are in -a fine condition to fortify Columbia!</p> - -<p><i>June 10th.</i>—General Gregg writes that Chickahominy<a name="FNanchor_85" id="FNanchor_85"></a><a href="#Footnote_85" class="fnanchor">[85]</a> -was a victory <i lang="fr">manqué</i>, because Joe Johnston received a disabling -wound and G. W. Smith was ill. The subordinates -in command had not been made acquainted with the plan -of battle.</p> - -<p>A letter from John Chesnut, who says it must be all a -mistake about Wade Hampton’s wound, for he saw him in -the field to the very last; that is, until late that night. -Hampton writes to Mary McDuffie that the ball was extracted -from his foot on the field, and that he was in the -saddle all day, but that, when he tried to take his boot off -at night his foot was so inflamed and swollen, the boot had -to be cut away, and the wound became more troublesome -than he had expected.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Preston sent her carriage to take us to see Mrs. -Herbemont, whom Mary Gibson calls her “Mrs. Burgamot.” -Miss Bay came down, ever-blooming, in a cap so -formidable, I could but laugh. It was covered with a -bristling row of white satin spikes. She coyly refused to -enter Mrs. Preston’s carriage—“to put foot into it,” to use -her own words; but she allowed herself to be overpersuaded.</p> - -<p>I am so ill. Mrs. Ben Taylor said to Doctor Trezevant, -“Surely, she is too ill to be going about; she ought to be in -bed.” “She is very feeble, very nervous, as you say, but -then she is living on nervous excitement. If you shut her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[181]</a></span> -up she would die at once.” A queer weakness of the heart, -I have. Sometimes it beats so feebly I am sure it has -stopped altogether. Then they say I have fainted, but I -never lose consciousness.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Preston and I were talking of negroes and cows. -A negro, no matter how sensible he is on any other subject, -can never be convinced that there is any necessity to feed a -cow. “Turn ’em out, and let ’em grass. Grass good nuff -for cow.”</p> - -<p>Famous news comes from Richmond, but not so good -from the coast. Mrs. Izard said, quoting I forget whom: -“If West Point could give brains as well as training!” -Smith is under arrest for disobedience of orders—Pemberton’s -orders. This is the third general whom Pemberton -has displaced within a few weeks—Ripley, Mercer, and now -Smith.</p> - -<p>When I told my husband that Molly was full of airs -since her late trip home, he made answer: “Tell her to go -to the devil—she or anybody else on the plantation who is -dissatisfied; let them go. It is bother enough to feed and -clothe them now.” When he went over to the plantation -he returned charmed with their loyalty to him, their affection -and their faithfulness.</p> - -<p>Sixteen more Yankee regiments have landed on James -Island. Eason writes, “They have twice the energy and -enterprise of our people.” I answered, “Wait a while. -Let them alone until climate and mosquitoes and sand-flies -and dealing with negroes takes it all out of them.” Stonewall -is a regular brick, going all the time, winning his -way wherever he goes. Governor Pickens called to see me. -His wife is in great trouble, anxiety, uncertainty. Her -brother and her brother-in-law are either killed or taken -prisoners.</p> - -<p>Tom Taylor says Wade Hampton did not leave the field -on account of his wound. “What heroism!” said some -one. No, what luck! He is the luckiest man alive. He’ll<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[182]</a></span> -never be killed. He was shot in the temple, but that did -not kill him. His soldiers believe in his luck.</p> - -<p>General Scott, on Southern soldiers, says, we have <i lang="fr">élan</i>, -courage, woodcraft, consummate horsemanship, endurance -of pain equal to the Indians, but that we will not submit to -discipline. We will not take care of things, or husband our -resources. Where we are there is waste and destruction. -If it could all be done by one wild, desperate dash, we would -do it. But he does not think we can stand the long, blank -months between the acts—the waiting! We can bear pain -without a murmur, but we will not submit to be bored, etc.</p> - -<p>Now, for the other side. Men of the North can wait; -they can bear discipline; they can endure forever. Losses -in battle are nothing to them. Their resources in men and -materials of war are inexhaustible, and if they see fit they -will fight to the bitter end. Here is a nice prospect for us—as -comfortable as the old man’s croak at Mulberry, “Bad -times, worse coming.”</p> - -<p>Mrs. McCord says, “In the hospital the better born, -that is, those born in the purple, the gentry, those who are -accustomed to a life of luxury, are the better patients. -They endure in silence. They are hardier, stronger, -tougher, less liable to break down than the sons of the soil.” -“Why is that?” I asked, and she answered, “Something -in man that is more than the body.”</p> - -<p>I know how it feels to die. I have felt it again and again. -For instance, some one calls out, “Albert Sidney Johnston -is killed.” My heart stands still. I feel no more. I am, -for so many seconds, so many minutes, I know not how -long, utterly without sensation of any kind—dead; and -then, there is that great throb, that keen agony of physical -pain, and the works are wound up again. The ticking of -the clock begins, and I take up the burden of life once -more. Some day it will stop too long, or my feeble heart -will be too worn out to make that awakening jar, and -all will be over. I do not think when the end comes that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[183]</a></span> -there will be any difference, except the miracle of the new -wind-up throb. And now good news is just as exciting as -bad. “Hurrah, Stonewall has saved us!” The pleasure -is almost pain because of my way of feeling it.</p> - -<p>Miriam’s Luryea and the coincidences of his life. He -was born Moses, and is the hero of the bombshell. His -mother was at a hotel in Charleston when kind-hearted -Anna De Leon Moses went for her sister-in-law, and gave -up her own chamber, that the child might be born in the -comfort and privacy of a home. Only our people are -given to such excessive hospitality. So little Luryea was -born in Anna De Leon’s chamber. After Chickahominy -when he, now a man, lay mortally wounded, Anna Moses, -who was living in Richmond, found him, and she brought -him home, though her house was crowded to the door-steps. -She gave up her chamber to him, and so, as he had been -born in her room, in her room he died.</p> - -<p><i>June 12th.</i>—New England’s Butler, best known to us as -“Beast” Butler, is famous or infamous now. His amazing -order to his soldiers at New Orleans and comments on it -are in everybody’s mouth. We hardly expected from Massachusetts -behavior to shame a Comanche.</p> - -<p>One happy moment has come into Mrs. Preston’s life. -I watched her face to-day as she read the morning papers. -Willie’s battery is lauded to the skies. Every paper gave -him a paragraph of praise.</p> - -<p>South Carolina was at Beauregard’s feet after Fort -Sumter. Since Shiloh, she has gotten up, and looks askance -rather when his name is mentioned. And without Price or -Beauregard who takes charge of the Western forces? -“Can we hold out if England and France hold off?” cries -Mem. “No, our time has come.”</p> - -<p>“For shame, faint heart! Our people are brave, our -cause is just; our spirit and our patient endurance beyond -reproach.” Here came in Mary Cantey’s voice: “I may -not have any logic, any sense. I give it up. My woman’s<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[184]</a></span> -instinct tells me, all the same, that slavery’s time has come. -If we don’t end it, they will.”</p> - -<p>After all this, tried to read Uncle Tom, but could not; -too sickening; think of a man sending his little son to beat -a human being tied to a tree. It is as bad as Squeers beating -Smike. Flesh and blood revolt; you must skip that; it -is too bad.</p> - -<p>Mr. Preston told a story of Joe Johnston as a boy. A -party of boys at Abingdon were out on a spree, more boys -than horses; so Joe Johnston rode behind John Preston, -who is his cousin. While going over the mountains they -tried to change horses and got behind a servant who was in -charge of them all. The servant’s horse kicked up, threw -Joe Johnston, and broke his leg; a bone showed itself. -“Hello, boys! come here and look: the confounded bone -has come clear through,” called out Joe, coolly.</p> - -<p>They had to carry him on their shoulders, relieving -guard. As one party grew tired, another took him up. -They knew he must suffer fearfully, but he never said so. -He was as cool and quiet after his hurt as before. He was -pretty roughly handled, but they could not help it. His -father was in a towering rage because his son’s leg was to -be set by a country doctor, and it might be crooked in the -process. At Chickahominy, brave but unlucky Joe had -already eleven wounds.</p> - -<p><i>June 13th.</i>—Decca’s wedding. It took place last year. -We were all lying on the bed or sofas taking it coolly as to -undress. Mrs. Singleton had the floor. They were engaged -before they went up to Charlottesville; Alexander was on -Gregg’s staff, and Gregg was not hard on him; Decca was -the worst in love girl she ever saw. “Letters came while -we were at the hospital, from Alex, urging her to let him -marry her at once. In war times human events, life especially, -are very uncertain.</p> - -<p>“For several days consecutively she cried without ceasing, -and then she consented. The rooms at the hospital<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[185]</a></span> -were all crowded. Decca and I slept together in the same -room. It was arranged by letter that the marriage should -take place; a luncheon at her grandfather Minor’s, and -then she was to depart with Alex for a few days at Richmond. -That was to be their brief slice of honeymoon.</p> - -<p>“The day came. The wedding-breakfast was ready, so -was the bride in all her bridal array; but no Alex, no -bridegroom. Alas! such is the uncertainty of a soldier’s -life. The bride said nothing, but she wept like a water-nymph. -At dinner she plucked up heart, and at my earnest -request was about to join us. And then the cry, ‘The -bridegroom cometh.’ He brought his best man and other -friends. We had a jolly dinner. ‘Circumstances over -which he had no control’ had kept him away.</p> - -<p>“His father sat next to Decca and talked to her all the -time as if she had been already married. It was a piece of -absent-mindedness on his part, pure and simple, but it was -very trying, and the girl had had much to stand that morning, -you can well understand. Immediately after dinner -the belated bridegroom proposed a walk; so they went for -a brief stroll up the mountain. Decca, upon her return, -said to me: ‘Send for Robert Barnwell. I mean to be -married to-day.’</p> - -<p>“‘Impossible. No spare room in the house. No getting -away from here; the trains all gone. Don’t you know this -hospital place is crammed to the ceiling?’ ‘Alex says I -promised to marry him to-day. It is not his fault; he could -not come before.’ I shook my head. ‘I don’t care,’ said -the positive little thing, ‘I promised Alex to marry him -to-day and I will. Send for the Rev. Robert Barnwell.’ -We found Robert after a world of trouble, and the bride, -lovely in Swiss muslin, was married.</p> - -<p>“Then I proposed they should take another walk, and I -went to one of my sister nurses and begged her to take me -in for the night, as I wished to resign my room to the young -couple. At daylight next day they took the train for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[186]</a></span> -Richmond.” Such is the small allowance of honeymoon -permitted in war time.</p> - -<p>Beauregard’s telegram: he can not leave the army of -the West. His health is bad. No doubt the sea breezes -would restore him, but—he can not come now. Such a -lovely name—Gustave Tautant Beauregard. But Jackson -and Johnston and Smith and Jones will do—and Lee, how -short and sweet.</p> - -<p>“Every day,” says Mem, “they come here in shoals—men -to say we can not hold Richmond, and we can not hold -Charleston much longer. Wretches, beasts! Why do you -come here? Why don’t you stay there and fight? Don’t -you see that you own yourselves cowards by coming away -in the very face of a battle? If you are not liars as to the -danger, you are cowards to run away from it.” Thus roars -the practical Mem, growing more furious at each word. -These Jeremiahs laugh. They think she means others, not -the present company.</p> - -<p>Tom Huger resigned his place in the United States -Navy and came to us. The Iroquois was his ship in the old -navy. They say, as he stood in the rigging, after he was -shot in the leg, when his ship was leading the attack upon -the Iroquois, his old crew in the Iroquois cheered him, and -when his body was borne in, the Federals took off their caps -in respect for his gallant conduct. When he was dying, -Meta Huger said to him: “An officer wants to see you: he -is one of the enemy.” “Let him come in; I have no enemies -now.” But when he heard the man’s name:</p> - -<p>“No, no. I do not want to see a Southern man who is -now in Lincoln’s navy.” The officers of the United States -Navy attended his funeral.</p> - -<p><i>June 14th.</i>—All things are against us. Memphis gone. -Mississippi fleet annihilated, and we hear it all as stolidly -apathetic as if it were a story of the English war against -China which happened a year or so ago.</p> - -<p>The sons of Mrs. John Julius Pringle have come. They<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[187]</a></span> -were left at school in the North. A young Huger is with -them. They seem to have had adventures enough. Walked, -waded, rowed in boats, if boats they could find; swam rivers -when boats there were none; brave lads are they. One -can but admire their pluck and energy. Mrs. Fisher, of -Philadelphia, <i lang="fr">née</i> Middleton, gave them money to make the -attempt to get home.</p> - -<p>Stuart’s cavalry have rushed through McClellan’s lines -and burned five of his transports. Jackson has been reenforced -by 16,000 men, and they hope the enemy will be -drawn from around Richmond, and the valley be the seat -of war.</p> - -<p>John Chesnut is in Whiting’s brigade, which has been -sent to Stonewall. Mem’s son is with the Boykin Rangers; -Company A, No. 1, we call it. And she has persistently -wept ever since she heard the news. It is no child’s play, -she says, when you are with Stonewall. He doesn’t play -at soldiering. He doesn’t take care of his men at all. He -only goes to kill the Yankees.</p> - -<p>Wade Hampton is here, shot in the foot, but he knows -no more about France than he does of the man in the moon. -Wet blanket he is just now. Johnston badly wounded. -Lee is King of Spades. They are all once more digging for -dear life. Unless we can reenforce Stonewall, the game is -up. Our chiefs contrive to dampen and destroy the enthusiasm -of all who go near them. So much entrenching and -falling back destroys the <i lang="fr">morale</i> of any army. This everlasting -retreating, it kills the hearts of the men. Then we -are scant of powder.</p> - -<p>James Chesnut is awfully proud of Le Conte’s powder -manufactory here. Le Conte knows how to do it. James -Chesnut provides him the means to carry out his plans.</p> - -<p>Colonel Venable doesn’t mince matters: “If we do not -deal a blow, a blow that will be felt, it will be soon all up -with us. The Southwest will be lost to us. We can not afford -to shilly-shally much longer.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[188]</a></span></p> - -<p>Thousands are enlisting on the other side in New Orleans. -Butler holds out inducements. To be sure, they are -principally foreigners who want to escape starvation. Tennessee -we may count on as gone, since we abandoned her at -Corinth, Fort Pillow, and Memphis. A man must be sent -there, or it is all gone now.</p> - -<p>“You call a spade by that name, it seems, and not an -agricultural implement?” “They call Mars Robert ‘Old -Spade Lee.’ He keeps them digging so.” “General Lee -is a noble Virginian. Respect something in this world. -Cæsar—call him Old Spade Cæsar? As a soldier, he was -as much above suspicion, as he required his wife to be, as -Cæsar’s wife, you know. If I remember Cæsar’s Commentaries, -he owns up to a lot of entrenching. You let Mars -Robert alone. He knows what he is about.”</p> - -<p>“Tell us of the women folk at New Orleans; how did -they take the fall of the city?” “They are an excitable -race,” the man from that city said. As my informant -was standing on the levee a daintily dressed lady -picked her way, parasol in hand, toward him. She -accosted him with great politeness, and her face was -as placid and unmoved as in antebellum days. Her -first question was: “Will you be so kind as to tell me -what is the last general order?” “No order that I know -of, madam; General Disorder prevails now.” “Ah! I -see; and why are those persons flying and yelling so noisily -and racing in the streets in that unseemly way?” “They -are looking for a shell to burst over their heads at any moment.” -“Ah!” Then, with a courtesy of dignity and -grace, she waved her parasol and departed, but stopped to -arrange that parasol at a proper angle to protect her face -from the sun. There was no vulgar haste in her movements. -She tripped away as gracefully as she came. My -informant had failed to discompose her by his fearful revelations. -That was the one self-possessed soul then in New -Orleans.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[189]</a></span></p> - -<p>Another woman drew near, so overheated and out of -breath, she had barely time to say she had run miles -of squares in her crazy terror and bewilderment, when a -sudden shower came up. In a second she was cool and calm. -She forgot all the questions she came to ask. “My bonnet, -I must save it at any sacrifice,” she said, and so turned her -dress over her head, and went off, forgetting her country’s -trouble and screaming for a cab.</p> - -<p>Went to see Mrs. Burroughs at the old de Saussure -house. She has such a sweet face, such soft, kind, beautiful, -dark-gray eyes. Such eyes are a poem. No wonder she -had a long love-story. We sat in the piazza at twelve -o’clock of a June day, the glorious Southern sun shining -its very hottest. But we were in a dense shade—magnolias -in full bloom, ivy, vines of I know not what, and roses in -profusion closed us in. It was a living wall of everything -beautiful and sweet. In all this flower-garden of -a Columbia, that is the most delicious corner I have been -in yet.</p> - -<p>Got from the Prestons’ French library, Fanny, with a -brilliant preface by Jules Janier. Now, then, I have come -to the worst. There can be no worse book than Fanny. -The lover is jealous of the husband. The woman is for the -polyandry rule of life. She cheats both and refuses to -break with either. But to criticize it one must be as shameless -as the book itself. Of course, it is clever to the last degree, -or it would be kicked into the gutter. It is not nastier -or coarser than Mrs. Stowe, but then it is not written in -the interests of philanthropy.</p> - -<p>We had an unexpected dinner-party to-day. First, -Wade Hampton came and his wife. Then Mr. and Mrs. -Rose. I remember that the late Colonel Hampton once -said to me, a thing I thought odd at the time, “Mrs. -James Rose” (and I forget now who was the other) “are -the only two people on this side of the water who know how -to give a state dinner.” Mr. and Mrs. James Rose: if anybody<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[190]</a></span> -wishes to describe old Carolina at its best, let them -try their hands at painting these two people.</p> - -<p>Wade Hampton still limps a little, but he is rapidly -recovering. Here is what he said, and he has fought so -well that he is listened to: “If we mean to play at war, -as we play a game of chess, West Point tactics prevailing, -we are sure to lose the game. They have every advantage. -They can lose pawns <i lang="la">ad infinitum</i>, to the end of time and -never feel it. We will be throwing away all that we had -hoped so much from—Southern hot-headed dash, reckless -gallantry, spirit of adventure, readiness to lead forlorn -hopes.”</p> - -<p>Mrs. Rose is Miss Sarah Parker’s aunt. Somehow it -came out when I was not in the room, but those girls tell -me everything. It seems Miss Sarah said: “The reason I -can not bear Mrs. Chesnut is that she laughs at everything -and at everybody.” If she saw me now she would give me -credit for some pretty hearty crying as well as laughing. -It was a mortifying thing to hear about one’s self, all the -same.</p> - -<p>General Preston came in and announced that Mr. Chesnut -was in town. He had just seen Mr. Alfred Huger, who -came up on the Charleston train with him. Then Mrs. McCord -came and offered to take me back to Mrs. McMahan’s -to look him up. I found my room locked up. Lawrence -said his master had gone to look for me at the Prestons’.</p> - -<p>Mrs. McCord proposed we should further seek for my -errant husband. At the door, we met Governor Pickens, -who showed us telegrams from the President of the most -important nature. The Governor added, “And I have one -from Jeems Chesnut, but I hear he has followed it so closely, -coming on its heels, as it were, that I need not show you -that one.”</p> - -<p>“You don’t look interested at the sound of your husband’s -name?” said he. “Is that his name?” asked I. -“I supposed it was James.” “My advice to you is to find<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[191]</a></span> -him, for Mrs. Pickens says he was last seen in the company -of two very handsome women, and now you may call him -any name you please.”</p> - -<p>We soon met. The two beautiful dames Governor -Pickens threw in my teeth were some ladies from Rafton -Creek, almost neighbors, who live near Camden.</p> - -<p>By way of pleasant remark to Wade Hampton: “Oh, -General! The next battle will give you a chance to be -major-general.” “I was very foolish to give up my Legion,” -he answered gloomily. “Promotion don’t really -annoy many people.” Mary Gibson says her father writes -to them, that they may go back. He thinks now that the -Confederates can hold Richmond. <i lang="la">Gloria in excelsis!</i></p> - -<p>Another personal defeat. Little Kate said: “Oh, Cousin -Mary, why don’t you cultivate heart? They say at Kirkwood -that you had better let your brains alone a while and -cultivate heart.” She had evidently caught up a phrase -and repeated it again and again for my benefit. So that is -the way they talk of me! The only good of loving any one -with your whole heart is to give that person the power -to hurt you.</p> - -<p><i>June 24th.</i>—Mr. Chesnut, having missed the Secessionville<a name="FNanchor_86" id="FNanchor_86"></a><a href="#Footnote_86" class="fnanchor">[86]</a> -fight by half a day, was determined to see the one -around Richmond. He went off with General Cooper and -Wade Hampton. Blanton Duncan sent them for a luncheon -on board the cars,—ice, wine, and every manner of good -thing.</p> - -<p>In all this death and destruction, the women are the -same—chatter, patter, clatter. “Oh, the Charleston refugees -are so full of airs; there is no sympathy for them -here!” “Oh, indeed! That is queer. They are not half -as exclusive as these Hamptons and Prestons. The airs -these people do give themselves.” “Airs, airs,” laughed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[192]</a></span> -Mrs. Bartow, parodying Tennyson’s Charge of the Light -Brigade. “Airs to the right of them, Airs to the left of -them, some one had blundered.” “Volleyed and thundered -rhymes but is out of place.”</p> - -<p>The worst of all airs came from a democratic landlady, -who was asked by Mrs. President Davis to have a carpet -shaken, and shook herself with rage as she answered, “You -know, madam, you need not stay here if my carpet or anything -else does not suit you.”</p> - -<p>John Chesnut gives us a spirited account of their ride -around McClellan. I sent the letter to his grandfather. -The women ran out screaming with joyful welcome as soon -as they caught sight of our soldiers’ gray uniforms; ran to -them bringing handfuls and armfuls of food. One gray-headed -man, after preparing a hasty meal for them, knelt -and prayed as they snatched it, as you may say. They were -in the saddle from Friday until Sunday. They were used -up; so were their horses. Johnny writes for clothes and -more horses. Miss S. C. says: “No need to send any more -of his fine horses to be killed or captured by the Yankees; -wait and see how the siege of Richmond ends.” The horses -will go all the same, as Johnny wants them.</p> - -<p><i>June 25th.</i>—I forgot to tell of Mrs. Pickens’s reception -for General Hampton. My Mem dear, described it all. -“The Governess” (“Tut, Mem! that is not the right name -for her—she is not a teacher.” “Never mind, it is the -easier to say than the Governor’s wife.” “<i lang="fr">Madame la -Gouvernante</i>” was suggested. “Why? That is worse than -the other!”) met him at the door, took his crutch away, -putting his hand upon her shoulder instead. “That is the -way to greet heroes,” she said. Her blue eyes were aflame, -and in response poor Wade smiled, and smiled until his -face hardened into a fixed grin of embarrassment and annoyance. -He is a simple-mannered man, you know, and -does not want to be made much of by women.</p> - -<p>The butler was not in plain clothes, but wore, as the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[193]</a></span> -other servants did, magnificent livery brought from the -Court of St. Petersburg, one mass of gold embroidery, etc. -They had champagne and Russian tea, the latter from a -samovar made in Russia. Little Moses was there. Now -for us they have never put their servants into Russian -livery, nor paraded Little Moses under our noses, but I -must confess the Russian tea and champagne set before us -left nothing to be desired. “How did General Hampton -bear his honors?” “Well, to the last he looked as if he -wished they would let him alone.”</p> - -<p>Met Mr. Ashmore fresh from Richmond. He says -Stonewall is coming up behind McClellan. And here comes -the tug of war. He thinks we have so many spies in Richmond, -they may have found out our strategic movements -and so may circumvent them.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Bartow’s story of a clever Miss Toombs. So many -men were in love with her, and the courtship, while it lasted, -of each one was as exciting and bewildering as a fox-chase. -She liked the fun of the run, but she wanted something -more than to know a man was in mad pursuit of her; that -he should love her, she agreed, but she must love him, too. -How was she to tell? Yet she must be certain of it before -she said “Yes.” So, as they sat by the lamp she would -look at him and inwardly ask herself, “Would I be willing -to spend the long winter evenings forever after sitting here -darning your old stockings?” Never, echo answered. No, -no, a thousand times no. So, each had to make way for -another.</p> - -<p><i>June 27th.</i>—We went in a body (half a dozen ladies, -with no man on escort duty, for they are all in the army) to -a concert. Mrs. Pickens came in. She was joined soon by -Secretary Moses and Mr. Follen. Doctor Berrien came to -our relief. Nothing could be more execrable than the singing. -Financially the thing was a great success, for though -the audience was altogether feminine, it was a very large -one.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[194]</a></span></p> - -<p>Telegram from Mr. Chesnut, “Safe in Richmond”; -that is, if Richmond be safe, with all the power of the -United States of America battering at her gates. Strange -not a word from Stonewall Jackson, after all! Doctor -Gibson telegraphs his wife, “Stay where you are; terrible -battle<a name="FNanchor_87" id="FNanchor_87"></a><a href="#Footnote_87" class="fnanchor">[87]</a> looked for here.”</p> - -<p>Decca is dead. That poor little darling! Immediately -after her baby was born, she took it into her head that Alex -was killed. He was wounded, but those around had not -told her of it. She surprised them by asking, “Does any -one know how the battle has gone since Alex was killed?” -She could not read for a day or so before she died. Her -head was bewildered, but she would not let any one else -touch her letters; so she died with several unopened ones in -her bosom. Mrs. Singleton, Decca’s mother, fainted dead -away, but she shed no tears. We went to the house and saw -Alex’s mother, a daughter of Langdon Cheves. Annie was -with us. She said: “This is the saddest thing for Alex.” -“No,” said his mother, “death is never the saddest thing. -If he were not a good man, that would be a far worse -thing.” Annie, in utter amazement, whimpered, “But -Alex is so good already.” “Yes, seven years ago the death -of one of his sisters that he dearly loved made him a Christian. -That death in our family was worth a thousand -lives.”</p> - -<p>One needs a hard heart now. Even old Mr. Shand shed -tears. Mary Barnwell sat as still as a statue, as white and -stony. “Grief which can relieve itself by tears is a thing to -pray for,” said the Rev. Mr. Shand. Then came a telegram -from Hampton, “All well; so far we are successful.” -Robert Barnwell had been telegraphed for. His answer -came, “Can’t leave here; Gregg is fighting across the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[195]</a></span> -Chickahominy.” Said Alex’s mother: “My son, Alex, may -never hear this sad news,” and her lip settled rigidly. -“Go on; what else does Hampton say?” asked she. “Lee -has one wing of the army, Stonewall the other.”</p> - -<p>Annie Hampton came to tell us the latest news—that -we have abandoned James Island and are fortifying -Morris Island. “And now,” she says, “if the enemy will -be so kind as to wait, we will be ready for them in two -months.”</p> - -<p>Rev. Mr. Shand and that pious Christian woman, Alex’s -mother (who looks into your very soul with those large -and lustrous blue eyes of hers) agreed that the Yankees, -even if they took Charleston, would not destroy it. I think -they will, sinner that I am. Mr. Shand remarked to her, -“Madam, you have two sons in the army.” Alex’s mother -replied, “I have had six sons in the army; I now have -five.”</p> - -<p>There are people here too small to conceive of any -larger business than quarreling in the newspapers. One -laughs at squibs in the papers now, in such times as these, -with the wolf at our doors. Men safe in their closets writing -fiery articles, denouncing those who are at work, are beneath -contempt. Only critics with muskets on their shoulders -have the right to speak now, as Trenholm said the other -night.</p> - -<p>In a pouring rain we went to that poor child’s funeral—to -Decca’s. They buried her in the little white frock -she wore when she engaged herself to Alex, and which -she again put on for her bridal about a year ago. She -lies now in the churchyard, in sight of my window. Is -she to be pitied? She said she had had “months of perfect -happiness.” How many people can say that? So many of -us live their long, dreary lives and then happiness never -comes to meet them at all. It seems so near, and yet it -eludes them forever.</p> - -<p><i>June 28th.</i>—Victory! Victory heads every telegram<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[196]</a></span> -now;<a name="FNanchor_88" id="FNanchor_88"></a><a href="#Footnote_88" class="fnanchor">[88]</a> one reads it on the bulletin-board. It is the anniversary -of the battle of Fort Moultrie. The enemy went off -so quickly, I wonder if it was not a trap laid for us, to lead -us away from Richmond, to some place where they can -manage to do us more harm. And now comes the list of -killed and wounded. Victory does not seem to soothe sore -hearts. Mrs. Haskell has five sons before the enemy’s illimitable -cannon. Mrs. Preston two. McClellan is routed and -we have twelve thousand prisoners. Prisoners! My God! -and what are we to do with them? We can’t feed our own -people.</p> - -<p>For the first time since Joe Johnston was wounded at -Seven Pines, we may breathe freely; we were so afraid of -another general, or a new one. Stonewall can not be -everywhere, though he comes near it.</p> - -<p>Magruder did splendidly at Big Bethel. It was a wonderful -thing how he played his ten thousand before McClellan -like fireflies and utterly deluded him. It was partly -due to the Manassas scare that we gave them; they will -never be foolhardy again. Now we are throwing up our -caps for R. E. Lee. We hope from the Lees what the first -sprightly running (at Manassas) could not give. We do -hope there will be no “ifs.” “Ifs” have ruined us. Shiloh -was a victory if Albert Sidney Johnston had not been -killed; Seven Pines if Joe Johnston had not been wounded. -The “ifs” bristle like porcupines. That victory at Manassas -did nothing but send us off in a fool’s paradise of conceit, -and it roused the manhood of the Northern people. -For very shame they had to move up.</p> - -<p>A French man-of-war lies at the wharf at Charleston to -take off French subjects when the bombardment begins. -William Mazyck writes that the enemy’s gunboats are<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[197]</a></span> -shelling and burning property up and down the Santee -River. They raise the white flag and the negroes rush -down on them. Planters might as well have let these -negroes be taken by the Council to work on the fortifications. -A letter from my husband:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Richmond</span>, <i>June 29, 1862</i>.</p> - -<p class="noindent"><span class="smcap">My Dear Mary</span>:</p> - -<p>For the last three days I have been a witness of the -most stirring events of modern times. On my arrival here, -I found the government so absorbed in the great battle -pending, that I found it useless to talk of the special business -that brought me to this place. As soon as it is over, -which will probably be to-morrow, I think that I can easily -accomplish all that I was sent for. I have no doubt that we -can procure another general and more forces, etc.</p> - -<p>The President and General Lee are inclined to listen to -me, and to do all they can for us. General Lee is vindicating -the high opinion I have ever expressed of him, and his -plans and executions of the last great fight will place him -high in the roll of really great commanders.</p> - -<p>The fight on Friday was the largest and fiercest of the -whole war. Some 60,000 or 70,000, with great preponderance -on the side of the enemy. Ground, numbers, armament, -etc., were all in favor of the enemy. But our men and -generals were superior. The higher officers and men behaved -with a resolution and dashing heroism that have -never been surpassed in any country or in any age.</p> - -<p>Our line was three times repulsed by superior numbers -and superior artillery impregnably posted. Then Lee, assembling -all his generals to the front, told them that victory -depended on carrying the batteries and defeating the army -before them, ere night should fall. Should night come -without victory all was lost, and the work must be done by -the bayonet. Our men then made a rapid and irresistible -charge, without powder, and carried everything. The enemy<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[198]</a></span> -melted before them, and ran with the utmost speed, -though of the regulars of the Federal army. The fight between -the artillery of the opposing forces was terrific and -sublime. The field became one dense cloud of smoke, so -that nothing could be seen, but the incessant flash of fire. -They were within sixteen hundred yards of each other and -it rained storms of grape and canister. We took twenty-three -pieces of their artillery, many small arms, and small -ammunition. They burned most of their stores, wagons, etc.</p> - -<p>The victory of the second day was full and complete. -Yesterday there was little or no fighting, but some splendid -maneuvering, which has placed us completely around them. -I think the end must be decisive in our favor. We have -lost many men and many officers; I hear Alex Haskell and -young McMahan are among them, as well as a son of Dr. -Trezevant. Very sad, indeed. We are fighting again to-day; -will let you know the result as soon as possible. Will -be at home some time next week. No letter from you yet.</p> - -<p class="center">With devotion, yours,</p> - -<p class="right"><span class="smcap">James Chesnut</span>.</p> - -</div> - -<p>A telegram from my husband of June 29th from Richmond: -“Was on the field, saw it all. Things satisfying -so far. Can hear nothing of John Chesnut. He is in -Stuart’s command. Saw Jack Preston; safe so far. No -reason why we should not bag McClellan’s army or cut it to -pieces. From four to six thousand prisoners already.” -Doctor Gibbes rushed in like a whirlwind to say we were -driving McClellan into the river.</p> - -<p><i>June 30th.</i>—First came Dr. Trezevant, who announced -Burnet Rhett’s death. “No, no; I have just seen the bulletin-board. -It was Grimké Rhett’s.” When the doctor went -out it was added: “Howell Trezevant’s death is there, too. -The doctor will see it as soon as he goes down to the board.” -The girls went to see Lucy Trezevant. The doctor was lying -still as death on a sofa with his face covered.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[199]</a></span></p> - -<p><i>July 1st.</i>—No more news. It has settled down into -this. The general battle, the decisive battle, has to be -fought yet. Edward Cheves, only son of John Cheves, -killed. His sister kept crying, “Oh, mother, what shall -we do; Edward is killed,” but the mother sat dead still, -white as a sheet, never uttering a word or shedding a tear. -Are our women losing the capacity to weep? The father -came to-day, Mr. John Cheves. He has been making infernal -machines in Charleston to blow up Yankee ships.</p> - -<p>While Mrs. McCord was telling me of this terrible -trouble in her brother’s family, some one said: “Decca’s -husband died of grief.” Stuff and nonsense; silly sentiment, -folly! If he is not wounded, he is alive. His -brother, John, may die of that shattered arm in this hot -weather. Alex will never die of a broken heart. Take my -word for it.</p> - -<p><i>July 3d.</i>—Mem says she feels like sitting down, as an -Irishwoman does at a wake, and howling night and day. -Why did Huger let McClellan slip through his fingers? -Arrived at Mrs. McMahan’s at the wrong moment. Mrs. -Bartow was reading to the stricken mother an account of -the death of her son. The letter was written by a man who -was standing by him when he was shot through the head. -“My God!” he said; that was all, and he fell dead. -James Taylor was color-bearer. He was shot three times -before he gave in. Then he said, as he handed the colors -to the man next him, “You see I can’t stand it any -longer,” and dropped stone dead. He was only seventeen -years old.</p> - -<p>If anything can reconcile me to the idea of a horrid failure -after all efforts to make good our independence of Yankees, -it is Lincoln’s proclamation freeing the negroes. Especially -yours, Messieurs, who write insults to your Governor -and Council, dated from Clarendon. Three hundred -of Mr. Walter Blake’s negroes have gone to the Yankees. -Remember, that recalcitrant patriot’s property on two legs<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[200]</a></span> -may walk off without an order from the Council to work on -fortifications.</p> - -<p>Have been reading The Potiphar Papers by Curtis. -Can this be a picture of New York socially? If it were not -for this horrid war, how nice it would be here. We might -lead such a pleasant life. This is the most perfectly appointed -establishment—such beautiful grounds, flowers, -and fruits; indeed, all that heart could wish; such delightful -dinners, such pleasant drives, such jolly talks, such -charming people; but this horrid war poisons everything.</p> - -<p><i>July 5th.</i>—Drove out with Mrs. “Constitution” -Browne, who told us the story of Ben McCulloch’s devotion -to Lucy Gwynn. Poor Ben McCulloch—another dead hero. -Called at the Tognos’ and saw no one; no wonder. They -say Ascelie Togno was to have been married to Grimké -Rhett in August, and he is dead on the battle-field. I had -not heard of the engagement before I went there.</p> - -<p><i>July 8th.</i>—Gunboat captured on the Santee. So much -the worse for us. We do not want any more prisoners, and -next time they will send a fleet of boats, if one will not do. -The Governor sent me Mr. Chesnut’s telegram with a note -saying, “I regret the telegram does not come up to what -we had hoped might be as to the entire destruction of McClellan’s -army. I think, however, the strength of the war -with its ferocity may now be considered as broken.”</p> - -<p>Table-talk to-day: This war was undertaken by us to -shake off the yoke of foreign invaders. So we consider our -cause righteous. The Yankees, since the war has begun, -have discovered it is to free the slaves that they are fighting. -So their cause is noble. They also expect to make the war -pay. Yankees do not undertake anything that does not pay. -They think we belong to them. We have been good milk -cows—milked by the tariff, or skimmed. We let them have -all of our hard earnings. We bear the ban of slavery; -they get the money. Cotton pays everybody who handles -it, sells it, manufactures it, but rarely pays the man who<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[201]</a></span> -grows it. Second hand the Yankees received the wages of -slavery. They grew rich. We grew poor. The receiver is -as bad as the thief. That applies to us, too, for we received -the savages they stole from Africa and brought to us in -their slave-ships. As with the Egyptians, so it shall be -with us: if they let us go, it must be across a Red Sea—but -one made red by blood.</p> - -<p><i>July 10th.</i>—My husband has come. He believes from -what he heard in Richmond that we are to be recognized as -a nation by the crowned heads across the water, at last. Mr. -Davis was very kind; he asked him to stay at his house, -which he did, and went every day with General Lee and Mr. -Davis to the battle-field as a sort of amateur aide to the -President. Likewise they admitted him to the informal -Cabinet meetings at the President’s house. He is so hopeful -now that it is pleasant to hear him, and I had not the heart -to stick the small pins of Yeadon and Pickens in him yet -a while.</p> - -<p>Public opinion is hot against Huger and Magruder for -McClellan’s escape. Doctor Gibbes gave me some letters -picked up on the battle-field. One signed “Laura,” tells -her lover to fight in such a manner that no Southerner can -ever taunt Yankees again with cowardice. She speaks of a -man at home whom she knows, “who is still talking of his -intention to seek the bubble reputation at the cannon’s -mouth.” “Miserable coward!” she writes, “I will never -speak to him again.” It was a relief to find one silly young -person filling three pages with a description of her new -bonnet and the bonnet still worn by her rival. Those fiery -Joan of Arc damsels who goad on their sweethearts bode us -no good.</p> - -<p>Rachel Lyons was in Richmond, hand in glove with Mrs. -Greenhow. Why not? “So handsome, so clever, so angelically -kind,” says Rachel of the Greenhow, “and she offers -to matronize me.”</p> - -<p>Mrs. Philips, another beautiful and clever Jewess, has<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[202]</a></span> -been put into prison again by “Beast” Butler because she -happened to be laughing as a Yankee funeral procession -went by.</p> - -<p>Captain B. told of John Chesnut’s pranks. Johnny was -riding a powerful horse, captured from the Yankees. The -horse dashed with him right into the Yankee ranks. A -dozen Confederates galloped after him, shouting, “Stuart! -Stuart!” The Yankees, mistaking this mad charge for -Stuart’s cavalry, broke ranks and fled. Daredevil Camden -boys ride like Arabs!</p> - -<p>Mr. Chesnut says he was riding with the President when -Colonel Browne, his aide, was along. The General commanding -rode up and, bowing politely, said: “Mr. President, -am I in command here?” “Yes.” “Then I forbid -you to stand here under the enemy’s guns. Any exposure -of a life like yours is wrong, and this is useless -exposure. You must go back.” Mr. Davis answered: -“Certainly, I will set an example of obedience to orders. -Discipline must be maintained.” But he did not go back.</p> - -<p>Mr. Chesnut met the Haynes, who had gone on to nurse -their wounded son and found him dead. They were standing -in the corridor of the Spotswood. Although Mr. Chesnut -was staying at the President’s, he retained his room at -the hotel. So he gave his room to them. Next day, when -he went back to his room he found that Mrs. Hayne had -thrown herself across the foot of the bed and never moved. -No other part of the bed had been touched. She got up and -went back to the cars, or was led back. He says these heart-broken -mothers are hard to face.</p> - -<p><i>July 12th.</i>—At McMahan’s our small colonel, Paul -Hayne’s son, came into my room. To amuse the child I -gave him a photograph album to look over. “You have -Lincoln in your book!” said he. “I am astonished at you. -I hate him!” And he placed the book on the floor and -struck Old Abe in the face with his fist.</p> - -<p>An Englishman told me Lincoln has said that had he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[203]</a></span> -known such a war would follow his election he never would -have set foot in Washington, nor have been inaugurated. -He had never dreamed of this awful fratricidal bloodshed. -That does not seem like the true John Brown spirit. I was -very glad to hear it—to hear something from the President -of the United States which was not merely a vulgar joke, -and usually a joke so vulgar that you were ashamed to -laugh, funny though it was. They say Seward has gone to -England and his wily tongue will turn all hearts against us.</p> - -<p>Browne told us there was a son of the Duke of Somerset -in Richmond. He laughed his fill at our ragged, dirty -soldiers, but he stopped his laughing when he saw them under -fire. Our men strip the Yankee dead of their shoes, -but will not touch the shoes of a comrade. Poor fellows, -they are nearly barefoot.</p> - -<p>Alex has come. I saw him ride up about dusk and go -into the graveyard. I shut up my windows on that side. -Poor fellow!</p> - -<p><i>July 13th.</i>—Halcott Green came to see us. Bragg is a -stern disciplinarian, according to Halcott. He did not in -the least understand citizen soldiers. In the retreat from -Shiloh he ordered that not a gun should be fired. A soldier -shot a chicken, and then the soldier was shot. “For a -chicken!” said Halcott. “A Confederate soldier for a -chicken!”</p> - -<p>Mrs. McCord says a nurse, who is also a beauty, had -better leave her beauty with her cloak and hat at the door. -One lovely lady nurse said to a rough old soldier, whose -wound could not have been dangerous, “Well, my good -soul, what can I do for you?” “Kiss me!” said he. Mrs. -McCord’s fury was “at the woman’s telling it,” for it -brought her hospital into disrepute, and very properly. -She knew there were women who would boast of an insult -if it ministered to their vanity. She wanted nurses to come -dressed as nurses, as Sisters of Charity, and not as fine ladies. -Then there would be no trouble. When she saw them<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[204]</a></span> -coming in angel sleeves, displaying all their white arms and -in their muslin, showing all their beautiful white shoulders -and throats, she felt disposed to order them off the premises. -That was no proper costume for a nurse. Mrs. Bartow goes -in her widow’s weeds, which is after Mrs. McCord’s own -heart. But Mrs. Bartow has her stories, too. A surgeon -said to her, “I give you no detailed instructions: a mother -necessarily is a nurse.” She then passed on quietly, “as -smilingly acquiescent, my dear, as if I had ever been a -mother.”</p> - -<p>Mrs. Greenhow has enlightened Rachel Lyons as to Mr. -Chesnut’s character in Washington. He was “one of the -very few men of whom there was not a word of scandal -spoken. I do not believe, my dear, that he ever spoke to a -woman there.” He did know Mrs. John R. Thompson, -however.</p> - -<p>Walked up and down the college campus with Mrs. McCord. -The buildings all lit up with gas, the soldiers seated -under the elms in every direction, and in every stage of -convalescence. Through the open windows, could see the -nurses flitting about. It was a strange, weird scene. Walked -home with Mrs. Bartow. We stopped at Judge Carroll’s. -Mrs. Carroll gave us a cup of tea. When we got home, -found the Prestons had called for me to dine at their house -to meet General Magruder.</p> - -<p>Last night the Edgefield Band serenaded Governor -Pickens. Mrs. Harris stepped on the porch and sang the -Marseillaise for them. It has been more than twenty years -since I first heard her voice; it was a very fine one then, but -there is nothing which the tooth of time lacerates more -cruelly than the singing voice of women. There is an incongruous -metaphor for you.</p> - -<p>The negroes on the coast received the Rutledge’s Mounted -Rifles apparently with great rejoicings. The troops were -gratified to find the negroes in such a friendly state of mind. -One servant whispered to his master, “Don’t you mind<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[205]</a></span> -’em, don’t trust ’em”—meaning the negroes. The master -then dressed himself as a Federal officer and went down to -a negro quarter. The very first greeting was, “Ki! massa, -you come fuh ketch rebels? We kin show you way you -kin ketch thirty to-night.” They took him to the Confederate -camp, or pointed it out, and then added for his edification, -“We kin ketch officer fuh you whenever you want -’em.”</p> - -<p>Bad news. Gunboats have passed Vicksburg. The -Yankees are spreading themselves over our fair Southern -land like red ants.</p> - -<p><i>July 21st.</i>—Jackson has gone into the enemy’s country. -Joe Johnston and Wade Hampton are to follow.</p> - -<p>Think of Rice, Mr. Senator Rice,<a name="FNanchor_89" id="FNanchor_89"></a><a href="#Footnote_89" class="fnanchor">[89]</a> who sent us the buffalo-robes. -I see from his place in the Senate that he -speaks of us as savages, who put powder and whisky into -soldiers’ canteens to make them mad with ferocity in the -fight. No, never. We admire coolness here, because we -lack it; we do not need to be fired by drink to be brave. -My classical lore is small, indeed, but I faintly remember -something of the Spartans who marched to the music of -lutes. No drum and fife were needed to revive their fainting -spirits. In that one thing we are Spartans.</p> - -<p>The Wayside Hospital<a name="FNanchor_90" id="FNanchor_90"></a><a href="#Footnote_90" class="fnanchor">[90]</a> is duly established at the Columbia<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[206]</a></span> -Station, where all the railroads meet. All honor to -Mrs. Fisher and the other women who work there so faithfully! -The young girls of Columbia started this hospital. -In the first winter of the war, moneyless soldiers, sick and -wounded, suffered greatly when they had to lie over here -because of faulty connections between trains. Rev. Mr. -Martin, whose habit it was to meet trains and offer his aid -to these unfortunates, suggested to the Young Ladies’ Hospital -Association their opportunity; straightway the blessed -maidens provided a room where our poor fellows might -have their wounds bound up and be refreshed. And now, -the “Soldiers’ Rest” has grown into the Wayside Hospital, -and older heads and hands relieve younger ones of the -grimmer work and graver responsibilities. I am ready to -help in every way, by subscription and otherwise, but too -feeble in health to go there much.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Browne heard a man say at the Congaree House, -“We are breaking our heads against a stone wall. We are -bound to be conquered. We can not keep it up much longer -against so powerful a nation as the United States. Crowds -of Irish, Dutch, and Scotch are pouring in to swell their -armies. They are promised our lands, and they believe -they will get them. Even if we are successful we can not -live without Yankees.” “Now,” says Mrs. Browne, “I -call that man a Yankee spy.” To which I reply, “If he -were a spy, he would not dare show his hand so plainly.”</p> - -<p>“To think,” says Mrs. Browne, “that he is not taken -up. Seward’s little bell would tinkle, a guard would come, -and the Grand Inquisition of America would order that -man put under arrest in the twinkling of an eye, if he had -ventured to speak against Yankees in Yankee land.”</p> - -<p>General Preston said he had “the right to take up any<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[207]</a></span> -one who was not in his right place and send him where he -belonged.” “Then do take up my husband instantly. He -is sadly out of his right place in this little Governor’s Council.” -The general stared at me and slowly uttered in his -most tragic tones, “If I could put him where I think he -ought to be!” This I immediately hailed as a high compliment -and was duly ready with my thanks. Upon reflection, -it is borne in upon me, that he might have been more explicit. -He left too much to the imagination.</p> - -<p>Then Mrs. Browne described the Prince of Wales, whose -manners, it seems, differ from those of Mrs. ——, who arraigned -us from morn to dewy eve, and upbraided us with -our ill-bred manners and customs. The Prince, when he -was here, conformed at once to whatever he saw was the -way of those who entertained him. He closely imitated -President Buchanan’s way of doing things. He took off -his gloves at once when he saw that the President wore -none. He began by bowing to the people who were presented -to him, but when he saw Mr. Buchanan shaking -hands, he shook hands, too. When smoking affably with -Browne on the White House piazza, he expressed his content -with the fine cigars Browne had given him. The President -said: “I was keeping some excellent ones for you, but -Browne has got ahead of me.” Long after Mr. Buchanan -had gone to bed, the Prince ran into his room in a jolly, -boyish way, and said: “Mr. Buchanan, I have come for the -fine cigars you have for me.”</p> - -<p>As I walked up to the Prestons’, along a beautiful -shaded back street, a carriage passed with Governor Means -in it. As soon as he saw me he threw himself half out and -kissed both hands to me again and again. It was a whole-souled -greeting, as the saying is, and I returned it with my -whole heart, too. “Good-by,” he cried, and I responded -“Good-by.” I may never see him again. I am not sure -that I did not shed a few tears.</p> - -<p>General Preston and Mr. Chesnut were seated on the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[208]</a></span> -piazza of the Hampton house as I walked in. I opened my -batteries upon them in this scornful style: “You cold, formal, -solemn, overly-polite creatures, weighed down by your -own dignity. You will never know the rapture of such a -sad farewell as John Means and I have just interchanged. -He was in a hack,” I proceeded to relate, “and I was on the -sidewalk. He was on his way to the war, poor fellow. The -hackman drove steadily along in the middle of the street; -but for our gray hairs I do not know what he might have -thought of us. John Means did not suppress his feelings -at an unexpected meeting with an old friend, and a good -cry did me good. It is a life of terror and foreboding we -lead. My heart is in my mouth half the time. But you -two, under no possible circumstances could you forget your -manners.”</p> - -<p>Read Russell’s India all day. Saintly folks those English -when their blood is up. Sepoys and blacks we do not -expect anything better from, but what an example of Christian -patience and humanity the white “angels” from the -West set them.</p> - -<p>The beautiful Jewess, Rachel Lyons, was here to-day. -She flattered Paul Hayne audaciously, and he threw back -the ball.</p> - -<p>To-day I saw the Rowena to this Rebecca, when Mrs. -Edward Barnwell called. She is the purest type of Anglo-Saxon—exquisitely -beautiful, cold, quiet, calm, ladylike, -fair as a lily, with the blackest and longest eyelashes, and -her eyes so light in color some one said “they were the -hue of cologne and water.” At any rate, she has a patent -right to them; there are no more like them to be had. The -effect is startling, but lovely beyond words.</p> - -<p>Blanton Duncan told us a story of Morgan in Kentucky. -Morgan walked into a court where they were trying some -Secessionists. The Judge was about to pronounce sentence, -but Morgan rose, and begged that he might be allowed to -call some witnesses. The Judge asked who were his witnesses.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[209]</a></span> -“My name is John Morgan, and my witnesses are -1,400 Confederate soldiers.”</p> - -<p>Mrs. Izard witnessed two instances of patriotism in the -caste called “Sandhill tackeys.” One forlorn, chill, and -fever-freckled creature, yellow, dirty, and dry as a nut, -was selling peaches at ten cents a dozen. Soldiers collected -around her cart. She took the cover off and cried, “Eat -away. Eat your fill. I never charge our soldiers anything.” -They tried to make her take pay, but when she -steadily refused it, they cheered her madly and said: -“Sleep in peace. Now we will fight for you and keep off -the Yankees.” Another poor Sandhill man refused to sell -his cows, and gave them to the hospital.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[210]</a></span></p> - -<h2 id="CHAPTER_XII">XII<br /> -<span class="smaller">FLAT ROCK, N. C.<br /> -<i>August 1, 1862-August 8, 1862</i></span></h2> - -<div> -<img class="dropcap" src="images/dropcap-f.jpg" width="100" height="115" alt="" /> -</div> - -<p class="dropcap">Flat Rock, N. C., <i>August 1, 1862</i>.—Being ill I left -Mrs. McMahan’s for Flat Rock<a name="FNanchor_91" id="FNanchor_91"></a><a href="#Footnote_91" class="fnanchor">[91]</a>. It was very hot -and disagreeable for an invalid in a boarding-house -in that climate. The La Bordes and the McCord girls came -part of the way with me.</p> - -<p>The cars were crowded and a lame soldier had to stand, -leaning on his crutches in the thoroughfare that runs between -the seats. One of us gave him our seat. You may -depend upon it there was no trouble in finding a seat for -our party after that. Dr. La Borde quoted a classic anecdote. -In some Greek assembly an old man was left standing. -A Spartan gave him his seat. The Athenians cheered -madly, though they had kept their seats. The comment was, -“Lacedemonians practise virtue; Athenians know how to -admire it.”</p> - -<p>Nathan Davis happened accidentally to be at the station -at Greenville. He took immediate charge of Molly and -myself, for my party had dwindled to us two. He went -with us to the hotel, sent for the landlord, told him who I -was, secured good rooms for us, and saw that we were made<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[211]</a></span> -comfortable in every way. At dinner I entered that immense -dining-room alone, but I saw friends and acquaintances -on every side. My first exploit was to repeat to Mrs. -Ives Mrs. Pickens’s blunder in taking a suspicious attitude -toward men born at the North, and calling upon General -Cooper to agree with her. Martha Levy explained the -grave faces of my auditors by saying that Colonel Ives was -a New Yorker. My distress was dire.</p> - -<p>Louisa Hamilton was there. She told me that Captain -George Cuthbert, with his arm in a sling from a wound by -no means healed, was going to risk the shaking of a stage-coach; -he was on his way to his cousin, William Cuthbert’s, -at Flat Rock. Now George Cuthbert is a type of the finest -kind of Southern soldier. We can not make them any better -than he is. Before the war I knew him; he traveled in -Europe with my sister, Kate, and Mary Withers. At once I -offered him a seat in the comfortable hack Nathan Davis -had engaged for me.</p> - -<p>Molly sat opposite to me, and often when I was tired -held my feet in her lap. Captain Cuthbert’s man sat with -the driver. We had ample room. We were a dilapidated -company. I was so ill I could barely sit up, and Captain -Cuthbert could not use his right hand or arm at all. I had -to draw his match, light his cigar, etc. He was very quiet, -grateful, gentle, and, I was going to say, docile. He is a -fiery soldier, one of those whose whole face becomes transfigured -in battle, so one of his men told me, describing his -way with his company. He does not blow his own trumpet, -but I made him tell me the story of his duel with the Mercury’s -reporter. He seemed awfully ashamed of wasting -time in such a scrape.</p> - -<p>That night we stopped at a country house half-way toward -our journey’s end. There we met Mr. Charles -Lowndes. Rawlins Lowndes, his son, is with Wade Hampton.</p> - -<p>First we drove, by mistake, into Judge King’s yard, our<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[212]</a></span> -hackman mistaking the place for the hotel. Then we made -Farmer’s Hotel (as the seafaring men say).</p> - -<p>Burnet Rhett, with his steed, was at the door; horse and -man were caparisoned with as much red and gold artillery -uniform as they could bear. He held his horse. The stirrups -were Mexican, I believe; they looked like little side-saddles. -Seeing his friend and crony, George Cuthbert, -alight and leave a veiled lady in the carriage, this handsome -and undismayed young artillerist walked round and -round the carriage, talked with the driver, looked in at the -doors, and at the front. Suddenly I bethought me to raise -my veil and satisfy his curiosity. Our eyes met, and I -smiled. It was impossible to resist the comic disappointment -on his face when a woman old enough to be George -Cuthbert’s mother, with the ravages of a year of gastric -fever, almost fainting with fatigue, greeted his vision. He -instantly mounted his gallant steed and pranced away to -his <i lang="fr">fiancée</i>. He is to marry the greatest heiress in the -State, Miss Aiken. Then Captain Cuthbert told me his -name.</p> - -<p>At Kate’s, I found Sally Rutledge, and then for weeks -life was a blank; I remember nothing. The illness which -had been creeping on for so long a time took me by the -throat. At Greenville I had met many friends. I witnessed -the wooing of Barny Heyward, once the husband of -the lovely Lucy Izard, now a widower and a <i lang="fr">bon parti</i>. -He was there nursing Joe, his brother. So was the beautiful -Henrietta Magruder Heyward, now a widow, for poor -Joe died. There is something magnetic in Tatty Clinch’s -large and lustrous black eyes. No man has ever resisted -their influence. She says her virgin heart has never beat -one throb the faster for any mortal here below—until now, -when it surrenders to Barny. Well, as I said, Joseph Heyward -died, and rapidly did the bereaved beauty shake the -dust of this poor Confederacy from her feet and plume her -wings for flight across the water.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[213]</a></span></p> - -<p>[Let me insert here now, much later, all I know of that -brave spirit, George Cuthbert. While I was living in the -winter of 1863 at the corner of Clay and Twelfth Streets in -Richmond, he came to see me. Never did man enjoy life -more. The Preston girls were staying at my house then, -and it was very gay for the young soldiers who ran down -from the army for a day or so. We had heard of him, as -usual, gallantly facing odds at Sharpsburg.<a name="FNanchor_92" id="FNanchor_92"></a><a href="#Footnote_92" class="fnanchor">[92]</a> And he asked -if he should chance to be wounded would I have him -brought to Clay Street.</p> - -<p>He was shot at Chancellorsville,<a name="FNanchor_93" id="FNanchor_93"></a><a href="#Footnote_93" class="fnanchor">[93]</a> leading his men. The -surgeon did not think him mortally wounded. He sent me -a message that “he was coming at once to our house.” He -knew he would soon get well there. Also that “I need not -be alarmed; those Yankees could not kill me.” He asked -one of his friends to write a letter to his mother. Afterward -he said he had another letter to write, but that he -wished to sleep first, he felt so exhausted. At his request -they then turned his face away from the light and left him. -When they came again to look at him, they found him dead. -He had been dead for a long time. It was bitter cold; -wounded men lost much blood and were weakened in that -way; they lacked warm blankets and all comforts. Many -died who might have been saved by one good hot drink or a -few mouthfuls of nourishing food.</p> - -<p>One of the generals said to me: “Fire and reckless courage -like Captain Cuthbert’s are contagious; such men in an<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[214]</a></span> -army are invaluable; losses like this weakened us, indeed.” -But I must not linger longer around the memory of the -bravest of the brave—a true exemplar of our old <i lang="fr">régime</i>, -gallant, gay, unfortunate.—M. B. C.]</p> - -<p class="tb"><i>August 8th.</i>—Mr. Daniel Blake drove down to my sister’s -in his heavy, substantial English phaeton, with stout -and strong horses to match. I went back with him and -spent two delightful days at his hospitable mansion. I met -there, as a sort of chaplain, the Rev. Mr. ——. He dealt unfairly -by me. We had a long argument, and when we knelt -down for evening prayers, he introduced an extemporaneous -prayer and prayed <em>for me</em> most palpably. There was -I down on my knees, red-hot with rage and fury. David -W. said it was a clear case of hitting a fellow when he was -down. Afterward the fun of it all struck me, and I found -it difficult to keep from shaking with laughter. It was not -an edifying religious exercise, to say the least, as far as I -was concerned.</p> - -<p>Before Chancellorsville, was fatal Sharpsburg.<a name="FNanchor_94" id="FNanchor_94"></a><a href="#Footnote_94" class="fnanchor">[94]</a> My -friend, Colonel Means, killed on the battle-field; his only -son, Stark, wounded and a prisoner. His wife had not recovered -from the death of her other child, Emma, who had -died of consumption early in the war. She was lying on a -bed when they told her of her husband’s death, and then -they tried to keep Stark’s condition from her. They think -now that she misunderstood and believed him dead, too. -She threw something over her face. She did not utter one -word. She remained quiet so long, some one removed the -light shawl which she had thrown over her head and found<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[215]</a></span> -she was dead. Miss Mary Stark, her sister, said afterward, -“No wonder! How was she to face life without her husband -and children? That was all she had ever lived for.” -These are sad, unfortunate memories. Let us run away -from them.</p> - -<p>What has not my husband been doing this year, 1862, -when all our South Carolina troops are in Virginia? Here -we were without soldiers or arms. He raised an army, so to -speak, and imported arms, through the Trenholm firm. He -had arms to sell to the Confederacy. He laid the foundation -of a niter-bed; and the Confederacy sent to Columbia to -learn of Professor Le Conte how to begin theirs. He bought -up all the old arms and had them altered and repaired. -He built ships. He imported clothes and shoes for our soldiers, -for which things they had long stood sorely in need. -He imported cotton cards and set all idle hands carding -and weaving. All the world was set to spinning cotton. He -tried to stop the sale of whisky, and alas, he called for reserves—that -is, men over age, and he committed the unforgivable -offense of sending the sacred negro property to -work on fortifications away from their owners’ plantations.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[216]</a></span></p> - -<h2 id="CHAPTER_XIII">XIII<br /> -<span class="smaller">PORTLAND, ALA.<br /> -<i>July 8, 1863-July 30, 1863</i></span></h2> - -<div> -<img class="dropcap" src="images/dropcap-p.jpg" width="100" height="115" alt="" /> -</div> - -<p class="dropcap">Portland, Ala., <i>July 8, 1863</i>.—My mother ill at -her home on the plantation near here—where I have -come to see her. But to go back first to my trip -home from Flat Rock to Camden. At the station, I saw -men sitting on a row of coffins smoking, talking, and laughing, -with their feet drawn up tailor-fashion to keep them -out of the wet. Thus does war harden people’s hearts.</p> - -<p>Met James Chesnut at Wilmington. He only crossed -the river with me and then went back to Richmond. He -was violently opposed to sending our troops into Pennsylvania: -wanted all we could spare sent West to make an -end there of our enemies. He kept dark about Vallandigham.<a name="FNanchor_95" id="FNanchor_95"></a><a href="#Footnote_95" class="fnanchor">[95]</a> -I am sure we could not trust him to do us any good, -or to do the Yankees any harm. The Coriolanus business -is played out.</p> - -<p>As we came to Camden, Molly sat by me in the cars. -She touched me, and, with her nose in the air, said: “Look, -Missis.” There was the inevitable bride and groom—at -least so I thought—and the irrepressible kissing and lolling -against each other which I had seen so often before. I was -rather astonished at Molly’s prudery, but there was a touch<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[217]</a></span> -in this scene which was new. The man required for his -peace of mind that the girl should brush his cheek with -those beautiful long eyelashes of hers. Molly became so -outraged in her blue-black modesty that she kept her head -out of the window not to see! When we were detained at a -little wayside station, this woman made an awful row about -her room. She seemed to know me and appealed to me; said -her brother-in-law was adjutant to Colonel K——, etc.</p> - -<p>Molly observed, “You had better go yonder, ma’am, -where your husband is calling you.” The woman drew -herself up proudly, and, with a toss, exclaimed: “Husband, -indeed! I’m a widow. That is my cousin. I loved -my dear husband too well to marry again, ever, ever!” -Absolutely tears came into her eyes. Molly, loaded as she -was with shawls and bundles, stood motionless, and said: -“After all that gwine-on in the kyars! O, Lord, I should -a let it go ’twas my husband and me! nigger as I am.”</p> - -<p>Here I was at home, on a soft bed, with every physical -comfort; but life is one long catechism there, due to the -curiosity of stay-at-home people in a narrow world.</p> - -<p>In Richmond, Molly and Lawrence quarreled. He declared -he could not put up with her tantrums. Unfortunately -I asked him, in the interests of peace and a quiet -house, to bear with her temper; I did, said I, but she was -so good and useful. He was shabby enough to tell her what -I had said at their next quarrel. The awful reproaches she -overwhelmed me with then! She said she “was mortified -that I had humbled her before Lawrence.”</p> - -<p>But the day of her revenge came. At negro balls in -Richmond, guests were required to carry “passes,” and, -in changing his coat Lawrence forgot his pass. Next day -Lawrence was missing, and Molly came to me laughing to -tears. “Come and look,” said she. “Here is the fine gentleman -tied between two black niggers and marched off to -jail.” She laughed and jeered so she could not stand without -holding on to the window. Lawrence disregarded her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[218]</a></span> -and called to me at the top of his voice: “Please, ma’am, -ask Mars Jeems to come take me out of this. I ain’t done -nothin’.”</p> - -<p>As soon as Mr. Chesnut came home I told him of Lawrence’s -sad fall, and he went at once to his rescue. There -had been a fight and a disturbance at the ball. The police -had been called in, and when every negro was required to -show his “pass,” Lawrence had been taken up as having -none. He was terribly chopfallen when he came home -walking behind Mr. Chesnut. He is always so respectable -and well-behaved and stands on his dignity.</p> - -<p>I went over to Mrs. Preston’s at Columbia. Camden -had become simply intolerable to me. There the telegram -found me, saying I must go to my mother, who was ill at her -home here in Alabama. Colonel Goodwyn, his wife, and -two daughters were going, and so I joined the party. I telegraphed -Mr. Chesnut for Lawrence, and he replied, forbidding -me to go at all; it was so hot, the cars so disagreeable, -fever would be the inevitable result. Miss Kate Hampton, -in her soft voice, said: “The only trouble in life is -when one can’t decide in which way duty leads. Once know -your duty, then all is easy.”</p> - -<p>I do not know whether she thought it my duty to obey -my husband. But I thought it my duty to go to my mother, -as I risked nothing but myself.</p> - -<p>We had two days of an exciting drama under our very -noses, before our eyes. A party had come to Columbia who -said they had run the blockade, had come in by flag of -truce, etc. Colonel Goodwyn asked me to look around and -see if I could pick out the suspected crew. It was easily -done. We were all in a sadly molting condition. We had -come to the end of our good clothes in three years, and -now our only resource was to turn them upside down, or -inside out, and in mending, darning, patching, etc.</p> - -<p>Near me on the train to Alabama sat a young woman -in a traveling dress of bright yellow; she wore a profusion<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[219]</a></span> -of curls, had pink cheeks, was delightfully airy and easy in -her manner, and was absorbed in a flirtation with a Confederate -major, who, in spite of his nice, new gray uniform and -two stars, had a very Yankee face, fresh, clean-cut, sharp, -utterly unsunburned, florid, wholesome, handsome. What -more in compliment can one say of one’s enemies? Two -other women faced this man and woman, and we knew -them to be newcomers by their good clothes. One of these -women was a German. She it was who had betrayed them. -I found that out afterward.</p> - -<p>The handsomest of the three women had a hard, Northern -face, but all were in splendid array as to feathers, flowers, -lace, and jewelry. If they were spies why were they -so foolish as to brag of New York, and compare us unfavorably -with the other side all the time, and in loud, shrill -accents? Surely that was not the way to pass unnoticed in -the Confederacy.</p> - -<p>A man came in, stood up, and read from a paper, “The -surrender of Vicksburg.”<a name="FNanchor_96" id="FNanchor_96"></a><a href="#Footnote_96" class="fnanchor">[96]</a> I felt as if I had been struck a -hard blow on the top of my head, and my heart took one of -its queer turns. I was utterly unconscious: not long, I dare -say. The first thing I heard was exclamations of joy and -exultation from the overdressed party. My rage and -humiliation were great. A man within earshot of this -party had slept through everything. He had a greyhound -face, eager and inquisitive when awake, but now he was as -one of the seven sleepers.</p> - -<p>Colonel Goodwyn wrote on a blank page of my book -(one of De Quincey’s—the note is there now), that the -sleeper was a Richmond detective.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[220]</a></span></p> - -<p>Finally, hot and tired out, we arrived at West -Point, on the Chattahoochee River. The dusty cars were -quite still, except for the giggling flirtation of the yellow -gown and her major. Two Confederate officers walked -in. I felt mischief in the air. One touched the smart major, -who was whispering to Yellow Gown. The major -turned quickly. Instantly, every drop of blood left his -face; a spasm seized his throat; it was a piteous sight. And -at once I was awfully sorry for him. He was marched out -of the car. Poor Yellow Gown’s color was fast, but the -whites of her eyes were lurid. Of the three women spies -we never heard again. They never do anything worse to -women, the high-minded Confederates, than send them out -of the country. But when we read soon afterward of the -execution of a male spy, we thought of the “major.”</p> - -<p>At Montgomery the boat waited for us, and in my haste -I tumbled out of the omnibus with Dr. Robert Johnson’s -assistance, but nearly broke my neck. The thermometer -was high up in the nineties, and they gave me a stateroom -over the boiler. I paid out my Confederate rags of money -freely to the maid in order to get out of that oven. Surely, -go where we may hereafter, an Alabama steamer in August -lying under the bluff with the sun looking down, will give -one a foretaste, almost an adequate idea, of what’s to come, -as far as heat goes. The planks of the floor burned one’s -feet under the bluff at Selma, where we stayed nearly all -day—I do not know why.</p> - -<p>Met James Boykin, who had lost 1,200 bales of cotton at -Vicksburg, and charged it all to Jeff Davis in his wrath, -which did not seem exactly reasonable to me. At Portland -there was a horse for James Boykin, and he rode away, -promising to have a carriage sent for me at once. But he -had to go seven miles on horseback before he reached my -sister Sally’s, and then Sally was to send back. On that -lonely riverside Molly and I remained with dismal swamps -on every side, and immense plantations, the white people<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[221]</a></span> -few or none. In my heart I knew my husband was right -when he forbade me to undertake this journey.</p> - -<p>There was one living thing at this little riverside inn—a -white man who had a store opposite, and oh, how drunk -he was! Hot as it was, Molly kept up a fire of pine knots. -There was neither lamp nor candle in that deserted house. -The drunken man reeled over now and then, lantern in -hand; he would stand with his idiotic, drunken glare, or go -solemnly staggering round us, but always bowing in his -politeness. He nearly fell over us, but I sprang out of his -way as he asked, “Well, madam, what can I do for you?”</p> - -<p>Shall I ever forget the headache of that night and the -fright? My temples throbbed with dumb misery. I sat -upon a chair, Molly on the floor, with her head resting -against my chair. She was as near as she could get to me, -and I kept my hand on her. “Missis,” said she, “now I -do believe you are scared, scared of that poor, drunken -thing. If he was sober I could whip him in a fair fight, -and drunk as he is I kin throw him over the banister, ef -he so much as teches you. I don’t value him a button!”</p> - -<p>Taking heart from such brave words I laughed. It -seemed an eternity, but the carriage came by ten o’clock, -and then, with the coachman as our sole protector, we poor -women drove eight miles or more over a carriage road, -through long lanes, swamps of pitchy darkness, with plantations -on every side.</p> - -<p>The house, as we drew near, looked like a graveyard in -a nightmare, so vague and phantom-like were its outlines.</p> - -<p>I found my mother ill in bed, feeble still, but better -than I hoped to see her. “I knew you would come,” was -her greeting, with outstretched hands. Then I went to bed -in that silent house, a house of the dead it seemed. I supposed -I was not to see my sister until the next day. But -she came in some time after I had gone to bed. She kissed -me quietly, without a tear. She was thin and pale, but her -voice was calm and kind.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[222]</a></span></p> - -<p>As she lifted the candle over her head, to show me something -on the wall, I saw that her pretty brown hair was -white. It was awfully hard not to burst out into violent -weeping. She looked so sweet, and yet so utterly broken-hearted. -But as she was without emotion, apparently, it -would not become me to upset her by my tears.</p> - -<p>Next day, at noon, Hetty, mother’s old maid, brought -my breakfast to my bedside. Such a breakfast it was! -Delmonico could do no better. “It is ever so late, I -know,” to which Hetty replied: “Yes, we would not let -Molly wake you.” “What a splendid cook you have here.” -“My daughter, Tenah, is Miss Sally’s cook. She’s well -enough as times go, but when our Miss Mary comes to see -us I does it myself,” and she courtesied down to the floor. -“Bless your old soul,” I cried, and she rushed over and -gave me a good hug.</p> - -<p>She is my mother’s factotum; has been her maid since -she was six years old, when she was bought from a Virginia -speculator along with her own mother and all her brothers -and sisters. She has been pampered until she is a rare old -tyrant at times. She can do everything better than any -one else, and my mother leans on her heavily. Hetty is -Dick’s wife; Dick is the butler. They have over a dozen -children and take life very easily.</p> - -<p>Sally came in before I was out of bed, and began at -once in the same stony way, pale and cold as ice, to tell me -of the death of her children. It had happened not two weeks -before. Her eyes were utterly without life; no expression -whatever, and in a composed and sad sort of manner she -told the tale as if it were something she had read and -wanted me to hear:</p> - -<p>“My eldest daughter, Mary, had grown up to be a lovely -girl. She was between thirteen and fourteen, you know. -Baby Kate had my sister’s gray eyes; she was evidently to -be the beauty of the family. Strange it is that here was -one of my children who has lived and has gone and you<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[223]</a></span> -have never seen her at all. She died first, and I would not -go to the funeral. I thought it would kill me to see her put -under the ground. I was lying down, stupid with grief -when Aunt Charlotte came to me after the funeral with this -news: ‘Mary has that awful disease, too.’ There was -nothing to say. I got up and dressed instantly and went to -Mary. I did not leave her side again in that long struggle -between life and death. I did everything for her with my -own hands. I even prepared my darling for the grave. I -went to her funeral, and I came home and walked straight -to my mother and I begged her to be comforted; I would -bear it all without one word if God would only spare me the -one child left me now.”</p> - -<p>Sally has never shed a tear, but has grown twenty -years older, cold, hard, careworn. With the same rigidity -of manner, she began to go over all the details of Mary’s illness. -“I had not given up hope, no, not at all. As I sat by -her side, she said: ‘Mamma, put your hand on my knees; -they are so cold.’ I put my hand on her knee; the cold -struck to my heart. I knew it was the coldness of death.” -Sally put out her hand on me, and it seemed to recall the -feeling. She fell forward in an agony of weeping that -lasted for hours. The doctor said this reaction was a blessing; -without it she must have died or gone mad.</p> - -<p>While the mother was so bitterly weeping, the little -girl, the last of them, a bright child of three or four, -crawled into my bed. “Now, Auntie,” she whispered, “I -want to tell you all about Mamie and Katie, but they watch -me so. They say I must never talk about them. Katie -died because she ate blackberries, I know that, and then -Aunt Charlotte read Mamie a letter and that made her die, -too. Maum Hetty says they have gone to God, but I know -the people saved a place between them in the ground for -me.”</p> - -<p>Uncle William was in despair at the low ebb of patriotism -out here. “West of the Savannah River,” said he,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[224]</a></span> -“it is property first, life next, honor last.” He gave me -an excellent pair of shoes. What a gift! For more than a -year I have had none but some dreadful things Armstead -makes for me, and they hurt my feet so. These do not fit, -but that is nothing; they are large enough and do not pinch -anywhere. I have absolutely a respectable pair of shoes!!</p> - -<p>Uncle William says the men who went into the war to -save their negroes are abjectly wretched. Neither side now -cares a fig for these beloved negroes, and would send them -all to heaven in a hand-basket, as Custis Lee says, to win -in the fight.</p> - -<p>General Lee and Mr. Davis want the negroes put into -the army. Mr. Chesnut and Major Venable discussed the -subject one night, but would they fight on our side or desert -to the enemy? They don’t go to the enemy, because -they are comfortable as they are, and expect to be free -anyway.</p> - -<p>When we were children our nurses used to give us tea -out in the open air on little pine tables scrubbed as clean as -milk-pails. Sometimes, as Dick would pass us, with his slow -and consequential step, we would call out, “Do, Dick, -come and wait on us.” “No, little missies, I never wait -on pine tables. Wait till you get big enough to put your -legs under your pa’s mahogany.”</p> - -<p>I taught him to read as soon as I could read myself, -perched on his knife-board. He won’t look at me now; -but looks over my head, scenting freedom in the air. He -was always very ambitious. I do not think he ever troubled -himself much about books. But then, as my father said, -Dick, standing in front of his sideboard, has heard all subjects -in earth or heaven discussed, and by the best heads -in our world. He is proud, too, in his way. Hetty, his -wife, complained that the other men servants looked finer -in their livery. “Nonsense, old woman, a butler never -demeans himself to wear livery. He is always in plain -clothes.” Somewhere he had picked that up.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[225]</a></span></p> - -<p>He is the first negro in whom I have felt a change. Others -go about in their black masks, not a ripple or an emotion -showing, and yet on all other subjects except the war -they are the most excitable of all races. Now Dick might -make a very respectable Egyptian Sphinx, so inscrutably -silent is he. He did deign to inquire about General Richard -Anderson. “He was my young master once,” said he. -“I always will like him better than anybody else.”</p> - -<p>When Dick married Hetty, the Anderson house was -next door. The two families agreed to sell either Dick or -Hetty, whichever consented to be sold. Hetty refused outright, -and the Andersons sold Dick that he might be with -his wife. This was magnanimous on the Andersons’ part, -for Hetty was only a lady’s-maid and Dick was a trained -butler, on whom Mrs. Anderson had spent no end of pains -in his dining-room education, and, of course, if they had -refused to sell Dick, Hetty would have had to go to them. -Mrs. Anderson was very much disgusted with Dick’s ingratitude -when she found he was willing to leave them. -As a butler he is a treasure; he is overwhelmed with dignity, -but that does not interfere with his work at all.</p> - -<p>My father had a body-servant, Simon, who could imitate -his master’s voice perfectly. He would sometimes call -out from the yard after my father had mounted his horse: -“Dick, bring me my overcoat. I see you there, sir, hurry -up.” When Dick hastened out, overcoat in hand, and only -Simon was visible, after several obsequious “Yes, marster; -just as marster pleases,” my mother had always to -step out and prevent a fight. Dick never forgave her -laughing.</p> - -<p>Once in Sumter, when my father was very busy preparing -a law case, the mob in the street annoyed him, and -he grumbled about it as Simon was making up his fire. -Suddenly he heard, as it were, himself speaking, “the Hon. -S. D. Miller—Lawyer Miller,” as the colored gentleman -announced himself in the dark—appeal to the gentlemen<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[226]</a></span> -outside to go away and leave a lawyer in peace to prepare -his case for the next day. My father said he could have -sworn the sound was that of his own voice. The crowd dispersed, -but some noisy negroes came along, and upon them -Simon rushed with the sulky whip, slashing around in the -dark, calling himself “Lawyer Miller,” who was determined -to have peace.</p> - -<p>Simon returned, complaining that “them niggers run -so he never got in a hundred yards of one of them.”</p> - -<p>At Portland, we met a man who said: “Is it not -strange that in this poor, devoted land of ours, there are -some men who are making money by blockade-running, -cheating our embarrassed government, and skulking the -fight?”</p> - -<p><i>Montgomery, July 30th.</i>—Coming on here from Portland -there was no stateroom for me. My mother alone had -one. My aunt and I sat nodding in armchairs, for the -floors and sofas were covered with sleepers, too. On the -floor that night, so hot that even a little covering of clothes -could not be borne, lay a motley crew. Black, white, and -yellow disported themselves in promiscuous array. Children -and their nurses, bared to the view, were wrapped -in the profoundest slumber. No caste prejudices were here. -Neither Garrison, John Brown, nor Gerrit Smith ever -dreamed of equality more untrammeled. A crow-black, -enormously fat negro man waddled in every now and then -to look after the lamps. The atmosphere of that cabin was -stifling, and the sight of those figures on the floor did not -make it more tolerable. So we soon escaped and sat out -near the guards.</p> - -<p>The next day was the very hottest I have ever known. -One supreme consolation was the watermelons, the very finest, -and the ice. A very handsome woman, whom I did not -know, rehearsed all our disasters in the field. And then, as -if she held me responsible, she faced me furiously, “And -where are our big men?” “Whom do you mean?” “I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[227]</a></span> -mean our leaders, the men we have a right to look to to save -us. They got us into this scrape. Let them get us out of -it. Where are our big men?” I sympathized with her and -understood her, but I answered lightly, “I do not know -the exact size you want them.”</p> - -<p>Here in Montgomery, we have been so hospitably received. -Ye gods! how those women talked! and all at the -same time! They put me under the care of General Dick -Taylor’s brother-in-law, a Mr. Gordon, who married one -of the Beranges. A very pleasant arrangement it was for -me. He was kind and attentive and vastly agreeable with -his New Orleans anecdotes. On the first of last January all -his servants left him but four. To these faithful few he -gave free papers at once, that they might lose naught by -loyalty should the Confederates come into authority once -more. He paid high wages and things worked smoothly for -some weeks. One day his wife saw some Yankee officers’ -cards on a table, and said to her maid, “I did not know -any of these people had called?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, Missis!” the maid replied, “they come to see me, -and I have been waiting to tell you. It is too hard! I can -not do it! I can not dance with those nice gentlemen at -night at our Union Balls and then come here and be your -servant the next day. I can’t!” “So,” said Mr. Gordon, -“freedom must be followed by fraternity and equality.” -One by one the faithful few slipped away and the family -were left to their own devices. Why not?</p> - -<p>When General Dick Taylor’s place was sacked his negroes -moved down to Algiers, a village near New Orleans. -An old woman came to Mr. Gordon to say that these negroes -wanted him to get word to “Mars Dick” that they -were dying of disease and starvation; thirty had died that -day. Dick Taylor’s help being out of the question, Mr. -Gordon applied to a Federal officer. He found this one not -a philanthropist, but a cynic, who said: “All right; it is -working out as I expected. Improve negroes and Indians<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[228]</a></span> -off the continent. Their strong men we put in the army. -The rest will disappear.”</p> - -<p>Joe Johnston can sulk. As he is sent West, he says, -“They may give Lee the army Joe Johnston trained.” -Lee is reaping where he sowed, he thinks, but then he was -backing straight through Richmond when they stopped his -retreating.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[229]</a></span></p> - -<h2 id="CHAPTER_XIV">XIV<br /> -<span class="smaller">RICHMOND, VA.<br /> -<i>August 10, 1863-September 7, 1863</i></span></h2> - -<div> -<img class="dropcap" src="images/dropcap-r.jpg" width="100" height="115" alt="" /> -</div> - -<p class="dropcap">Richmond, Va., <i>August 10, 1863</i>.—To-day I had a -letter from my sister, who wrote to inquire about -her old playmate, friend, and lover, Boykin McCaa. -It is nearly twenty years since each was married; each now -has children nearly grown. “To tell the truth,” she writes, -“in these last dreadful years, with David in Florida, where -I can not often hear from him, and everything dismal, anxious, -and disquieting, I had almost forgotten Boykin’s existence, -but he came here last night; he stood by my bedside -and spoke to me kindly and affectionately, as if we had just -parted. I said, holding out my hand, ‘Boykin, you are -very pale.’ He answered, ‘I have come to tell you good-by,’ -and then seized both my hands. His own hands were -as cold and hard as ice; they froze the marrow of my bones. -I screamed again and again until my whole household came -rushing in, and then came the negroes from the yard, all -wakened by my piercing shrieks. This may have been a -dream, but it haunts me.</p> - -<p>“Some one sent me an old paper with an account of his -wounds and his recovery, but I know he is dead.” -“Stop!” said my husband at this point, and then he read -from that day’s Examiner these words: “Captain Burwell -Boykin McCaa found dead upon the battle-field leading -a cavalry charge at the head of his company. He was -shot through the head.”</p> - -<p>The famous colonel of the Fourth Texas, by name John<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[230]</a></span> -Bell Hood,<a name="FNanchor_97" id="FNanchor_97"></a><a href="#Footnote_97" class="fnanchor">[97]</a> is here—him we call Sam, because his classmates -at West Point did so—for what cause is not known. -John Darby asked if he might bring his hero to us; bragged -of him extensively; said he had won his three stars, etc., -under Stonewall’s eye, and that he was promoted by Stonewall’s -request. When Hood came with his sad Quixote -face, the face of an old Crusader, who believed in his cause, -his cross, and his crown, we were not prepared for such a -man as a beau-ideal of the wild Texans. He is tall, thin, -and shy; has blue eyes and light hair; a tawny beard, and -a vast amount of it, covering the lower part of his face, the -whole appearance that of awkward strength. Some one -said that his great reserve of manner he carried only into -the society of ladies. Major Venable added that he had -often heard of the light of battle shining in a man’s eyes. -He had seen it once—when he carried to Hood orders from -Lee, and found in the hottest of the fight that the man was -transfigured. The fierce light of Hood’s eyes I can never -forget.</p> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;" id="illus9"> -<img src="images/illus9.jpg" width="400" height="700" alt="" /> -<p class="caption">ANOTHER GROUP OF CONFEDERATE GENERALS.</p> -<p class="caption">WADE HAMPTON. ROBERT TOOMBS. -JOHN C. PRESTON. JOHN H. MORGAN. JOSEPH B. KERSHAW. -JAMES CHESNUT, JR.</p> -</div> - -<p>Hood came to ask us to a picnic next day at Drury’s -Bluff.<a name="FNanchor_98" id="FNanchor_98"></a><a href="#Footnote_98" class="fnanchor">[98]</a> The naval heroes were to receive us and then we -were to drive out to the Texan camp. We accused John -Darby of having instigated this unlooked-for festivity. We -were to have bands of music and dances, with turkeys, -chickens, and buffalo tongues to eat. Next morning, just -as my foot was on the carriage-step, the girls standing behind -ready to follow me with Johnny and the Infant -Samuel (Captain Shannon by proper name), up rode John -Darby in red-hot haste, threw his bridle to one of the men -who was holding the horses, and came toward us rapidly, -clanking his cavalry spurs with a despairing sound as he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[231]</a></span> -cried: “Stop! it’s all up. We are ordered back to the -Rappahannock. The brigade is marching through Richmond -now.” So we unpacked and unloaded, dismissed the -hacks and sat down with a sigh.</p> - -<p>“Suppose we go and see them pass the turnpike,” some -one said. The suggestion was hailed with delight, and off -we marched. Johnny and the Infant were in citizens’ -clothes, and the Straggler—as Hood calls John Darby, since -the Prestons have been in Richmond—was all plaided and -plumed in his surgeon’s array. He never bated an inch of -bullion or a feather; he was courting and he stalked ahead -with Mary Preston, Buck, and Johnny. The Infant and -myself, both stout and scant of breath, lagged last. They -called back to us, as the Infant came toddling along, -“Hurry up or we will leave you.”</p> - -<p>At the turnpike we stood on the sidewalk and saw ten -thousand men march by. We had seen nothing like this before. -Hitherto we had seen only regiments marching spick -and span in their fresh, smart clothes, just from home and -on their way to the army. Such rags and tags as we saw -now. Nothing was like anything else. Most garments and -arms were such as had been taken from the enemy. Such -shoes as they had on. “Oh, our brave boys!” moaned -Buck. Such tin pans and pots as were tied to their waists, -with bread or bacon stuck on the ends of their bayonets. -Anything that could be spiked was bayoneted and held -aloft.</p> - -<p>They did not seem to mind their shabby condition; they -laughed, shouted, and cheered as they marched by. Not a -disrespectful or light word was spoken, but they went for -the men who were huddled behind us, and who seemed to be -trying to make themselves as small as possible in order to -escape observation.</p> - -<p>Hood and his staff finally came galloping up, dismounted, -and joined us. Mary Preston gave him a bouquet. -Thereupon he unwrapped a Bible, which he carried in his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[232]</a></span> -pocket. He said his mother had given it to him. He -pressed a flower in it. Mary Preston suggested that he had -not worn or used it at all, being fresh, new, and beautifully -kept. Every word of this the Texans heard as they -marched by, almost touching us. They laughed and joked -and made their own rough comments.</p> - -<p><i>September 7th.</i>—Major Edward Johnston did not get -into the Confederacy until after the first battle of Manassas. -For some cause, before he could evade that potentate, -Seward rang his little bell and sent him to a prison in the -harbor of New York. I forget whether he was exchanged -or escaped of his own motion. The next thing I heard of -my antebellum friend he had defeated Milroy in Western -Virginia. There were so many Johnstons that for this victory -they named him Alleghany Johnston.</p> - -<p>He had an odd habit of falling into a state of incessant -winking as soon as he became the least startled or agitated. -In such times he seemed persistently to be winking one eye -at you. He meant nothing by it, and in point of fact did -not know himself that he was doing it. In Mexico he had -been wounded in the eye, and the nerve vibrates independently -of his will. During the winter of 1862 and 1863 he -was on crutches. After a while he hobbled down Franklin -Street with us, we proud to accommodate our pace to that -of the wounded general. His ankle continued stiff; so when -he sat down another chair had to be put before him. On -this he stretched out his stiff leg, straight as a ramrod. At -that time he was our only wounded knight, and the girls -waited on him and made life pleasant for him.</p> - -<p>One night I listened to two love-tales at once, in a distracted -state of mind between the two. William Porcher -Miles, in a perfectly modulated voice, in cadenced accents -and low tones, was narrating the happy end of his affair. -He had been engaged to sweet little Bettie Bierne, and I -gave him my congratulations with all my heart. It was a -capital match, suitable in every way, good for her, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[233]</a></span> -good for him. I was deeply interested in Mr. Miles’s story, -but there was din and discord on the other hand; old Edward, -our pet general, sat diagonally across the room with -one leg straight out like a poker, wrapped in red carpet -leggings, as red as a turkey-cock in the face. His head is -strangely shaped, like a cone or an old-fashioned beehive; -or, as Buck said, there are three tiers of it; it is like a pope’s -tiara.</p> - -<p>There he sat, with a loud voice and a thousand winks, -making love to Mary P. I make no excuse for listening. -It was impossible not to hear him. I tried not to lose a -word of Mr. Miles’s idyl as the despair of the veteran was -thundered into my other ear. I lent an ear to each conversationalist. -Mary can not altogether control her voice, and -her shrill screams of negation, “No, no, never,” etc., utterly -failed to suppress her wounded lover’s obstreperous -asseverations of his undying affection for her.</p> - -<p>Buck said afterward: “We heard every word of it on -our side of the room, even when Mamie shrieked to him that -he was talking too loud. Now, Mamie,” said we afterward, -“do you think it was kind to tell him he was forty if he -was a day?”</p> - -<p>Strange to say, the pet general, Edward, rehabilitated -his love in a day; at least two days after he was heard to -say that he was “paying attentions now to his cousin, -John Preston’s second daughter; her name, Sally, but they -called her Buck—Sally Buchanan Campbell Preston, a -lovely girl.” And with her he now drove, rode, and hobbled -on his crutches, sent her his photograph, and in due -time cannonaded her, from the same spot where he had -courted Mary, with proposals to marry him.</p> - -<p>Buck was never so decided in her “Nos” as Mary. -(“Not so loud, at least”—thus in amendment, says Buck, -who always reads what I have written, and makes comments -of assent or dissent.) So again he began to thunder in -a woman’s ears his tender passion. As they rode down<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[234]</a></span> -Franklin Street, Buck says she knows the people on the -sidewalk heard snatches of the conversation, though she -rode as rapidly as she could, and she begged him not to talk -so loud. Finally, they dashed up to our door as if they -had been running a race. Unfortunate in love, but fortunate -in war, our general is now winning new laurels with -Ewell in the Valley or with the Army of the Potomac.</p> - -<p>I think I have told how Miles, still “so gently o’er me -leaning,” told of his successful love while General Edward -Johnston roared unto anguish and disappointment -over his failures. Mr. Miles spoke of sweet little Bettie -Bierne as if she had been a French girl, just from a convent, -kept far from the haunts of men wholly for him. -One would think to hear him that Bettie had never cast -those innocent blue eyes of hers on a man until he came -along.</p> - -<p>Now, since I first knew Miss Bierne in 1857, when Pat -Calhoun was to the fore, she has been followed by a tale of -men as long as a Highland chief’s. Every summer at the -Springs, their father appeared in the ballroom a little -before twelve and chased the three beautiful Biernes -home before him in spite of all entreaties, and he was said -to frown away their too numerous admirers at all hours of -the day.</p> - -<p>This new engagement was confided to me as a profound -secret. Of course, I did not mention it, even to my own -household. Next day little Alston, Morgan’s adjutant, and -George Deas called. As Colonel Deas removed his gloves, -he said: “Oh! the Miles and Bierne sensation—have you -heard of it?” “No, what is the row about?” “They -are engaged to be married; that’s all.” “Who told -you?” “Miles himself, as we walked down Franklin -Street, this afternoon.” “And did he not beg you not to -mention it, as Bettie did not wish it spoken of?” “God -bless my soul, so he did. And I forgot that part entirely.”</p> - -<p>Colonel Alston begged the stout Carolinian not to take<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[235]</a></span> -his inadvertent breach of faith too much to heart. Miss -Bettie’s engagement had caused him a dreadful night. A -young man, who was his intimate friend, came to his room -in the depths of despair and handed him a letter from Miss -Bierne, which was the cause of all his woe. Not knowing -that she was already betrothed to Miles, he had proposed -to her in an eloquent letter. In her reply, she positively -stated that she was engaged to Mr. Miles, and instead of -thanking her for putting him at once out of his misery, he -considered the reason she gave as trebly aggravating the -agony of the love-letter and the refusal. “Too late!” he -yelled, “by Jingo!” So much for a secret.</p> - -<p>Miss Bierne and I became fast friends. Our friendship -was based on a mutual admiration for the honorable member -from South Carolina. Colonel and Mrs. Myers and -Colonel and Mrs. Chesnut were the only friends of Mr. -Miles who were invited to the wedding. At the church -door the sexton demanded our credentials. No one but -those whose names he held in his hand were allowed to enter. -Not twenty people were present—a mere handful -grouped about the altar in that large church.</p> - -<p>We were among the first to arrive. Then came a faint -flutter and Mrs. Parkman (the bride’s sister, swathed in -weeds for her young husband, who had been killed within a -year of her marriage) came rapidly up the aisle alone. She -dropped upon her knees in the front pew, and there remained, -motionless, during the whole ceremony, a mass of -black crape, and a dead weight on my heart. She has had -experience of war. A cannonade around Richmond interrupted -her marriage service—a sinister omen—and in a -year thereafter her bridegroom was stiff and stark—dead -upon the field of battle.</p> - -<p>While the wedding-march turned our thoughts from her -and thrilled us with sympathy, the bride advanced in white -satin and point d’Alençon. Mrs. Myers whispered that it -was Mrs. Parkman’s wedding-dress that the bride had on.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[236]</a></span> -She remembered the exquisite lace, and she shuddered with -superstitious forebodings.</p> - -<p>All had been going on delightfully in-doors, but a sharp -shower cleared the church porch of the curious; and, as the -water splashed, we wondered how we were to assemble ourselves -at Mrs. McFarland’s. All the horses in Richmond -had been impressed for some sudden cavalry necessity a -few days before. I ran between Mr. McFarland and Senator -Semmes with my pretty Paris rose-colored silk turned -over my head to save it, and when we arrived at the hospitable -mansion of the McFarlands, Mr. McFarland took me -straight into the drawing-room, man-like, forgetting that -my ruffled plumes needed a good smoothing and preening.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Lee sent for me. She was staying at Mrs. Caskie’s. -I was taken directly to her room, where she was lying on the -bed. She said, before I had taken my seat: “You know -there is a fight going on now at Brandy Station?”<a name="FNanchor_99" id="FNanchor_99"></a><a href="#Footnote_99" class="fnanchor">[99]</a> “Yes, -we are anxious. John Chesnut’s company is there, too.” -She spoke sadly, but quietly. “My son, Roony, is wounded; -his brother has gone for him. They will soon be here -and we shall know all about it unless Roony’s wife takes -him to her grandfather. Poor lame mother, I am useless -to my children.” Mrs. Caskie said: “You need not be -alarmed. The General said in his telegram that it was not -a severe wound. You know even Yankees believe General -Lee.”</p> - -<p>That day, Mrs. Lee gave me a likeness of the General in -a photograph taken soon after the Mexican War. She likes -it so much better than the later ones. He certainly was a -handsome man then, handsomer even than now. I shall -prize it for Mrs. Lee’s sake, too. She said old Mrs. Chesnut -and her aunt, Nellie Custis (Mrs. Lewis) were very intimate -during Washington’s Administration in Philadelphia. -I told her Mrs. Chesnut, senior, was the historical member<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[237]</a></span> -of our family; she had so much to tell of Revolutionary -times. She was one of the “white-robed choir” of little -maidens who scattered flowers before Washington at Trenton -Bridge, which everybody who writes a life of Washington -asks her to give an account of.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Ould and Mrs. Davis came home with me. Lawrence -had a basket of delicious cherries. “If there were -only some ice,” said I. Respectfully Lawrence answered, -and also firmly: “Give me money and you shall have ice.” -By the underground telegraph he had heard of an ice-house -over the river, though its fame was suppressed by certain -Sybarites, as they wanted it all. In a wonderfully short -time we had mint-juleps and sherry-cobblers.</p> - -<p>Altogether it has been a pleasant day, and as I sat alone -I was laughing lightly now and then at the memory of -some funny story. Suddenly, a violent ring; and a regular -sheaf of telegrams were handed me. I could not have -drawn away in more consternation if the sheets had been a -nest of rattlesnakes. First, Frank Hampton was killed at -Brandy Station. Wade Hampton telegraphed Mr. Chesnut -to see Robert Barnwell, and make the necessary arrangements -to recover the body. Mr. Chesnut is still at Wilmington. -I sent for Preston Johnston, and my neighbor, Colonel -Patton, offered to see that everything proper was done. -That afternoon I walked out alone. Willie Mountford had -shown me where the body, all that was left of Frank Hampton, -was to be laid in the Capitol. Mrs. Petticola joined me -after a while, and then Mrs. Singleton.</p> - -<p>Preston Hampton and Peter Trezevant, with myself and -Mrs. Singleton, formed the sad procession which followed -the coffin. There was a company of soldiers drawn up in -front of the State House porch. Mrs. Singleton said we had -better go in and look at him before the coffin was finally -closed. How I wish I had not looked. I remember him so -well in all the pride of his magnificent manhood. He died -of a saber-cut across the face and head, and was utterly disfigured.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[238]</a></span> -Mrs. Singleton seemed convulsed with grief. In -all my life I had never seen such bitter weeping. She had -her own troubles, but I did not know of them. We sat for -a long time on the great steps of the State House. Everybody -had gone and we were alone.</p> - -<p>We talked of it all—how we had gone to Charleston to -see Rachel in Adrienne Lecouvreur, and how, as I stood -waiting in the passage near the drawing-room, I had met -Frank Hampton bringing his beautiful bride from the -steamer. They had just landed. Afterward at Mrs. Singleton’s -place in the country we had all spent a delightful -week together. And now, only a few years have passed, -but nearly all that pleasant company are dead, and our -world, the only world we cared for, literally kicked to -pieces. And she cried, “We are two lone women, stranded -here.” Rev. Robert Barnwell was in a desperate condition, -and Mary Barnwell, her daughter, was expecting her confinement -every day.</p> - -<p>Here now, later, let me add that it was not until I got -back to Carolina that I heard of Robert Barnwell’s death, -with scarcely a day’s interval between it and that of Mary -and her new-born baby. Husband, wife, and child were -buried at the same time in the same grave in Columbia. -And now, Mrs. Singleton has three orphan grandchildren. -What a woful year it has been to her.</p> - -<p>Robert Barnwell had insisted upon being sent to the hospital -at Staunton. On account of his wife’s situation the -doctor also had advised it. He was carried off on a mattress. -His brave wife tried to prevent it, and said: “It is only fever.” -And she nursed him to the last. She tried to say good-by -cheerfully, and called after him: “As soon as my trouble -is over I will come to you at Staunton.” At the hospital -they said it was typhoid fever. He died the second day -after he got there. Poor Mary fainted when she heard the -ambulance drive away with him. Then she crept into a -low trundle-bed kept for the children in her mother’s room.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[239]</a></span> -She never left that bed again. When the message came -from Staunton that fever was the matter with Robert and -nothing more, Mrs. Singleton says she will never forget the -expression in Mary’s eyes as she turned and looked at her. -“Robert will get well,” she said, “it is all right.” Her -face was radiant, blazing with light. That night the baby -was born, and Mrs. Singleton got a telegram that Robert -was dead. She did not tell Mary, standing, as she did, at -the window while she read it. She was at the same time -looking for Robert’s body, which might come any moment. -As for Mary’s life being in danger, she had never -thought of such a thing. She was thinking only of Robert. -Then a servant touched her and said: “Look at Mrs. Barnwell.” -She ran to the bedside, and the doctor, who had come -in, said, “It is all over; she is dead.” Not in anger, not in -wrath, came the angel of death that day. He came to set -Mary free from a world grown too hard to bear.</p> - -<p class="tb">During Stoneman’s raid<a name="FNanchor_100" id="FNanchor_100"></a><a href="#Footnote_100" class="fnanchor">[100]</a> I burned some personal papers. -Molly constantly said to me, “Missis, listen to de -guns. Burn up everything. Mrs. Lyons says they are sure -to come, and they’ll put in their newspapers whatever you -write here, every day.” The guns did sound very near, and -when Mrs. Davis rode up and told me that if Mr. Davis -left Richmond I must go with her, I confess I lost my head. -So I burned a part of my journal but rewrote it afterward -from memory—my implacable enemy that lets me forget -none of the things I would. I am weak with dates. I do -not always worry to look at the calendar and write them -down. Besides I have not always a calendar at hand.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[240]</a></span></p> - -<h2 id="CHAPTER_XV">XV<br /> -<span class="smaller">CAMDEN, S. C.<br /> -<i>September 10, 1863-November 5, 1863</i></span></h2> - -<div> -<img class="dropcap" src="images/dropcap-c.jpg" width="100" height="115" alt="" /> -</div> - -<p class="dropcap">Camden, S. C., <i>September 10, 1863</i>.—It is a comfort -to turn from small political jealousies to our grand -battles—to Lee and Kirby Smith after Council and -Convention squabbles. Lee has proved to be all that my -husband prophesied of him when he was so unpopular and -when Joe Johnston was the great god of war. The very -sound of the word convention or council is wearisome. Not -that I am quite ready for Richmond yet. We must look -after home and plantation affairs, which we have sadly -neglected. Heaven help my husband through the deep -waters.</p> - -<p>The wedding of Miss Aiken, daughter of Governor Aiken, -the largest slave-owner in South Carolina; Julia Rutledge, -one of the bridesmaids; the place Flat Rock. We -could not for a while imagine what Julia would do for a -dress. My sister Kate remembered some muslin she had in -the house for curtains, bought before the war, and laid -aside as not needed now. The stuff was white and thin, a -little coarse, but then we covered it with no end of beautiful -lace. It made a charming dress, and how altogether -lovely Julia looked in it! The night of the wedding it -stormed as if the world were coming to an end—wind, rain, -thunder, and lightning in an unlimited supply around the -mountain cottage.</p> - -<p>The bride had a <i lang="fr">duchesse</i> dressing-table, muslin and -lace; not one of the shifts of honest, war-driven poverty,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[241]</a></span> -but a millionaire’s attempt at appearing economical, in the -idea that that style was in better taste as placing the family -more on the same plane with their less comfortable compatriots. -A candle was left too near this light drapery and -it took fire. Outside was lightning enough to fire the -world; inside, the bridal chamber was ablaze, and there was -wind enough to blow the house down the mountainside.</p> - -<p>The English maid behaved heroically, and, with the aid -of Mrs. Aiken’s and Mrs. Mat Singleton’s servants, put the -fire out without disturbing the marriage ceremony, then being -performed below. Everything in the bridal chamber -was burned up except the bed, and that was a mass of cinders, -soot, and flakes of charred and blackened wood.</p> - -<p>At Kingsville I caught a glimpse of our army. Longstreet’s -corps was going West. God bless the gallant fellows! -Not one man was intoxicated; not one rude word did -I hear. It was a strange sight—one part of it. There were -miles, apparently, of platform cars, soldiers rolled in their -blankets, lying in rows, heads all covered, fast asleep. In -their gray blankets, packed in regular order, they looked -like swathed mummies. One man near where I sat was -writing on his knee. He used his cap for a desk and he was -seated on a rail. I watched him, wondering to whom that -letter was to go—home, no doubt. Sore hearts for him -there.</p> - -<p>A feeling of awful depression laid hold of me. All these -fine fellows were going to kill or be killed. Why? And a -phrase got to beating about my head like an old song, “The -Unreturning Brave.” When a knot of boyish, laughing, -young creatures passed me, a queer thrill of sympathy -shook me. Ah, I know how your home-folks feel, poor children! -Once, last winter, persons came to us in Camden -with such strange stories of Captain ——, Morgan’s man; -stories of his father, too; turf tales and murder, or, at least, -how he killed people. He had been a tremendous favorite -with my husband, who brought him in once, leading him<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[242]</a></span> -by the hand. Afterward he said to me, “With these girls -in the house we must be more cautious.” I agreed to -be coldly polite to ——. “After all,” I said, “I barely -know him.”</p> - -<p>When he called afterward in Richmond I was very glad -to see him, utterly forgetting that he was under a ban. We -had a long, confidential talk. He told me of his wife and -children; of his army career, and told Morgan stories. He -grew more and more cordial and so did I. He thanked me -for the kind reception given him in that house; told me I -was a true friend of his, and related to me a scrape he was -in which, if divulged, would ruin him, although he was innocent; -but time would clear all things. He begged me not -to repeat anything he had told me of his affairs, not even -to Colonel Chesnut; which I promised promptly, and then -he went away. I sat poking the fire thinking what a curiously -interesting creature he was, this famous Captain -——, when the folding-doors slowly opened and Colonel -Chesnut appeared. He had come home two hours ago from -the War Office with a headache, and had been lying on the -sofa behind that folding-door listening for mortal hours.</p> - -<p>“So, this is your style of being ‘coldly polite,’” he -said. Fancy my feelings. “Indeed, I had forgotten all -about what they had said of him. The lies they told of -him never once crossed my mind. He is a great deal cleverer, -and, I dare say, just as good as those who malign -him.”</p> - -<p>Mattie Reedy (I knew her as a handsome girl in Washington -several years ago) got tired of hearing Federals -abusing John Morgan. One day they were worse than ever -in their abuse and she grew restive. By way of putting a -mark against the name of so rude a girl, the Yankee officer -said, “What is your name?” “Write ‘Mattie Reedy’ -now, but by the grace of God one day I hope to call myself -the wife of John Morgan.” She did not know Morgan, -but Morgan eventually heard the story; a good joke it was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[243]</a></span> -said to be. But he made it a point to find her out; and, as -she was as pretty as she was patriotic, by the grace of God, -she is now Mrs. Morgan! These timid Southern women under -the guns can be brave enough.</p> - -<p>Aunt Charlotte has told a story of my dear mother. -They were up at Shelby, Ala., a white man’s country, -where negroes are not wanted. The ladies had with them -several negroes belonging to my uncle at whose house they -were staying in the owner’s absence. One negro man who -had married and dwelt in a cabin was for some cause particularly -obnoxious to the neighborhood. My aunt and my -mother, old-fashioned ladies, shrinking from everything -outside their own door, knew nothing of all this. They occupied -rooms on opposite sides of an open passageway. -Underneath, the house was open and unfinished. Suddenly, -one night, my aunt heard a terrible noise—apparently as -of a man running for his life, pursued by men and dogs, -shouting, hallooing, barking. She had only time to lock herself -in. Utterly cut off from her sister, she sat down, dumb -with terror, when there began loud knocking at the door, -with men swearing, dogs tearing round, sniffing, racing in -and out of the passage and barking underneath the house -like mad. Aunt Charlotte was sure she heard the panting -of a negro as he ran into the house a few minutes before. -What could have become of him? Where could he have -hidden? The men shook the doors and windows, loudly -threatening vengeance. My aunt pitied her feeble sister, -cut off in the room across the passage. This fright might -kill her!</p> - -<p>The cursing and shouting continued unabated. A man’s -voice, in harshest accents, made itself heard above all: -“Leave my house, you rascals!” said the voice. “If -you are not gone in two seconds, I’ll shoot!” There was a -dead silence except for the noise of the dogs. Quickly the -men slipped away. Once out of gunshot, they began to call -their dogs. After it was all over my aunt crept across the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[244]</a></span> -passage. “Sister, what man was it scared them away?” -My mother laughed aloud in her triumph. “I am the -man,” she said.</p> - -<p>“But where is John?” Out crept John from a corner -of the room, where my mother had thrown some rubbish -over him. “Lawd bless you, Miss Mary opened de do’ for -me and dey was right behind runnin’ me—” Aunt says -mother was awfully proud of her prowess. And she -showed some moral courage, too!</p> - -<p>At the President’s in Richmond once, General Lee was -there, and Constance and Hetty Cary came in; also Miss -Sanders and others. Constance Cary<a name="FNanchor_101" id="FNanchor_101"></a><a href="#Footnote_101" class="fnanchor">[101]</a> was telling some war -anecdotes, among them one of an attempt to get up a supper -the night before at some high and mighty F. F. V.’s -house, and of how several gentlefolks went into the kitchen -to prepare something to eat by the light of one forlorn candle. -One of the men in the party, not being of a useful -temperament, turned up a tub and sat down upon it. -Custis Lee, wishing also to rest, found nothing upon which -to sit but a gridiron.</p> - -<p>One remembrance I kept of the evening at the President’s: -General Lee bowing over the beautiful Miss Cary’s -hands in the passage outside. Miss —— rose to have her -part in the picture, and asked Mr. Davis to walk with her -into the adjoining drawing-room. He seemed surprised, -but rose stiffly, and, with a scowling brow, was led off. As -they passed where Mrs. Davis sat, Miss ——, with all sail -set, looked back and said: “Don’t be jealous, Mrs. Davis; -I have an important communication to make to the President.” -Mrs. Davis’s amusement resulted in a significant -“Now! Did you ever?”</p> - -<p>During Stoneman’s raid, on a Sunday I was in Mrs.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[245]</a></span> -Randolph’s pew. The battle of Chancellorsville was also -raging. The rattling of ammunition wagons, the tramp of -soldiers, the everlasting slamming of those iron gates of the -Capitol Square just opposite the church, made it hard to -attend to the service.</p> - -<p>Then began a scene calculated to make the stoutest heart -quail. The sexton would walk quietly up the aisle to deliver -messages to worshipers whose relatives had been -brought in wounded, dying, or dead. Pale-faced people -would then follow him out. Finally, the Rev. Mr. Minnegerode -bent across the chancel-rail to the sexton for a few -minutes, whispered with the sexton, and then disappeared. -The assistant clergyman resumed the communion which -Mr. Minnegerode had been administering. At the church -door stood Mrs. Minnegerode, as tragically wretched and as -wild-looking as ever Mrs. Siddons was. She managed to -say to her husband, “Your son is at the station, dead!” -When these agonized parents reached the station, however, -it proved to be some one else’s son who was dead—but a son -all the same. Pale and wan came Mr. Minnegerode back to -his place within the altar rails. After the sacred communion -was over, some one asked him what it all meant, and -he said: “Oh, it was not my son who was killed, but it -came so near it aches me yet!”</p> - -<p>At home I found L. Q. Washington, who stayed to -dinner. I saw that he and my husband were intently preoccupied -by some event which they did not see fit to communicate -to me. Immediately after dinner my husband -lent Mr. Washington one of his horses and they rode off together. -I betook myself to my kind neighbors, the Pattons, -for information. There I found Colonel Patton had gone, -too. Mrs. Patton, however, knew all about the trouble. -She said there was a raiding party within forty miles of us -and no troops were in Richmond! They asked me to stay -to tea—those kind ladies—and in some way we might learn -what was going on. After tea we went out to the Capitol<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[246]</a></span> -Square, Lawrence and three men-servants going along to -protect us. They seemed to be mustering in citizens by the -thousands. Company after company was being formed; -then battalions, and then regiments. It was a wonderful -sight to us, peering through the iron railing, watching them -fall into ranks.</p> - -<p>Then we went to the President’s, finding the family at -supper. We sat on the white marble steps, and General -Elzey told me exactly how things stood and of our immediate -danger. Pickets were coming in. Men were spurring -to and from the door as fast as they could ride, bringing -and carrying messages and orders. Calmly General Elzey -discoursed upon our present weakness and our chances for -aid. After a while Mrs. Davis came out and embraced me -silently.</p> - -<p>“It is dreadful,” I said. “The enemy is within forty -miles of us—only forty!” “Who told you that tale?” -said she. “They are within three miles of Richmond!” -I went down on my knees like a stone. “You had better be -quiet,” she said. “The President is ill. Women and children -must not add to the trouble.” She asked me to stay -all night, which I was thankful to do.</p> - -<p>We sat up. Officers were coming and going; and we -gave them what refreshment we could from a side table, -kept constantly replenished. Finally, in the excitement, -the constant state of activity and change of persons, we forgot -the danger. Officers told us jolly stories and seemed in -fine spirits, so we gradually took heart. There was not a -moment’s rest for any one. Mrs. Davis said something more -amusing than ever: “We look like frightened women and -children, don’t we?”</p> - -<p>Early next morning the President came down. He was -still feeble and pale from illness. Custis Lee and my husband -loaded their pistols, and the President drove off in -Dr. Garnett’s carriage, my husband and Custis Lee on -horseback alongside him. By eight o’clock the troops from<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[247]</a></span> -Petersburg came in, and the danger was over. The authorities -will never strip Richmond of troops again. We had a -narrow squeeze for it, but we escaped. It was a terrible -night, although we made the best of it.</p> - -<p>I was walking on Franklin Street when I met my husband. -“Come with me to the War Office for a few minutes,” -said he, “and then I will go home with you.” -What could I do but go? He took me up a dark stairway, -and then down a long, dark corridor, and he left me sitting -in a window, saying he “would not be gone a second”; -he was obliged to go into the Secretary of War’s room. -There I sat mortal hours. Men came to light the gas. -From the first I put down my veil so that nobody might -know me. Numbers of persons passed that I knew, but I -scarcely felt respectable seated up there in that odd way, -so I said not a word but looked out of the window. Judge -Campbell slowly walked up and down with his hands behind -his back—the saddest face I ever saw. He had jumped -down in his patriotism from Judge of the Supreme Court, -U. S. A., to be under-secretary of something or other—I do -not know what—C. S. A. No wonder he was out of spirits -that night!</p> - -<p>Finally Judge Ould came; him I called, and he joined -me at once, in no little amazement to find me there, and -stayed with me until James Chesnut appeared. In point -of fact, I sent him to look up that stray member of my -family.</p> - -<p>When my husband came he said: “Oh, Mr. Seddon and -I got into an argument, and time slipped away! The truth -is, I utterly forgot you were here.” When we were once -more out in the street, he began: “Now, don’t scold me, -for there is bad news. Pemberton has been fighting the -Yankees by brigades, and he has been beaten every time; -and now Vicksburg must go!” I suppose that was his -side of the argument with Seddon.</p> - -<p>Once again I visited the War Office. I went with Mrs.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[248]</a></span> -Ould to see her husband at his office. We wanted to arrange -a party on the river on the flag-of-truce boat, and to -visit those beautiful places, Claremont and Brandon. My -husband got into one of his “too careful” fits; said there -was risk in it; and so he upset all our plans. Then I was -to go up to John Rutherford’s by the canal-boat. That, too, -he vetoed “too risky,” as if anybody was going to trouble -us!</p> - -<p><i>October 24th.</i>—James Chesnut is at home on his way -back to Richmond; had been sent by the President to -make the rounds of the Western armies; says Polk is a -splendid old fellow. They accuse him of having been -asleep in his tent at seven o’clock when he was ordered to -attack at daylight, but he has too good a conscience to sleep -so soundly.</p> - -<p>The battle did not begin until eleven at Chickamauga<a name="FNanchor_102" id="FNanchor_102"></a><a href="#Footnote_102" class="fnanchor">[102]</a> -when Bragg had ordered the advance at daylight. Bragg -and his generals do not agree. I think a general worthless -whose subalterns quarrel with him. Something is wrong -about the man. Good generals are adored by their soldiers. -See Napoleon, Cæsar, Stonewall, Lee.</p> - -<p>Old Sam (Hood) received his orders to hold a certain -bridge against the enemy, and he had already driven the -enemy several miles beyond it, when the slow generals were -still asleep. Hood has won a victory, though he has only -one leg to stand on.</p> - -<p>Mr. Chesnut was with the President when he reviewed -our army under the enemy’s guns before Chattanooga. He -told Mr. Davis that every honest man he saw out West -thought well of Joe Johnston. He knows that the President -detests Joe Johnston for all the trouble he has given him,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[249]</a></span> -and General Joe returns the compliment with compound -interest. His hatred of Jeff Davis amounts to a religion. -With him it colors all things.</p> - -<p>Joe Johnston advancing, or retreating, I may say with -more truth, is magnetic. He does draw the good-will of -those by whom he is surrounded. Being such a good hater, -it is a pity he had not elected to hate somebody else than -the President of our country. He hates not wisely but too -well. Our friend Breckinridge<a name="FNanchor_103" id="FNanchor_103"></a><a href="#Footnote_103" class="fnanchor">[103]</a> received Mr. Chesnut with -open arms. There is nothing narrow, nothing self-seeking, -about Breckinridge. He has not mounted a pair of green -spectacles made of prejudices so that he sees no good except -in his own red-hot partizans.</p> - -<p><i>October 27th.</i>—Young Wade Hampton has been here -for a few days, a guest of our nearest neighbor and cousin, -Phil Stockton. Wade, without being the beauty or the athlete -that his brother Preston is, is such a nice boy. We lent -him horses, and ended by giving him a small party. What -was lacking in company was made up for by the excellence -of old Colonel Chesnut’s ancient Madeira and champagne. -If everything in the Confederacy were only as truly good -as the old Colonel’s wine-cellars! Then we had a salad and -a jelly cake.</p> - -<p>General Joe Johnston is so careful of his aides that -Wade has never yet seen a battle. Says he has always happened -to be sent afar off when the fighting came. He does -not seem too grateful for this, and means to be transferred -to his father’s command. He says, “No man exposes himself -more recklessly to danger than General Johnston, and -no one strives harder to keep others out of it.” But the -business of this war is to save the country, and a commander -must risk his men’s lives to do it. There is a French saying<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[250]</a></span> -that you can’t make an omelet unless you are willing to -break eggs.</p> - -<p><i>November 5th.</i>—For a week we have had such a tranquil, -happy time here. Both my husband and Johnny are -here still. James Chesnut spent his time sauntering around -with his father, or stretched on the rug before my fire reading -Vanity Fair and Pendennis. By good luck he had not -read them before. We have kept Esmond for the last. He -owns that he is having a good time. Johnny is happy, too. -He does not care for books. He will read a novel now and -then, if the girls continue to talk of it before him. Nothing -else whatever in the way of literature does he touch. He -comes pulling his long blond mustache irresolutely as if -he hoped to be advised not to read it—“Aunt Mary, shall -I like this thing?” I do not think he has an idea what we -are fighting about, and he does not want to know. He says, -“My company,” “My men,” with a pride, a faith, and an -affection which are sublime. He came into his inheritance -at twenty-one (just as the war began), and it was a goodly -one, fine old houses and an estate to match.</p> - -<p>Yesterday, Johnny went to his plantation for the first -time since the war began. John Witherspoon went with -him, and reports in this way: “How do you do, Marster! -How you come on?”—thus from every side rang the -noisiest welcome from the darkies. Johnny was silently -shaking black hands right and left as he rode into the -crowd.</p> - -<p>As the noise subsided, to the overseer he said: “Send -down more corn and fodder for my horses.” And to the -driver, “Have you any peas?” “Plenty, sir.” “Send -a wagon-load down for the cows at Bloomsbury while I -stay there. They have not milk and butter enough there -for me. Any eggs? Send down all you can collect. How -about my turkeys and ducks? Send them down two at a -time. How about the mutton? Fat? That’s good; send -down two a week.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[251]</a></span></p> - -<p>As they rode home, John Witherspoon remarked, “I -was surprised that you did not go into the fields to see your -crops.” “What was the use?” “And the negroes; you -had so little talk with them.”</p> - -<p>“No use to talk to them before the overseer. They are -coming down to Bloomsbury, day and night, by platoons -and they talk me dead. Besides, William and Parish go up -there every night, and God knows they tell me enough plantation -scandal—overseer feathering his nest; negroes ditto -at my expense. Between the two fires I mean to get something -to eat while I am here.”</p> - -<p>For him we got up a charming picnic at Mulberry. -Everything was propitious—the most perfect of days and -the old place in great beauty. Those large rooms were delightful -for dancing; we had as good a dinner as mortal -appetite could crave; the best fish, fowl, and game; wine -from a cellar that can not be excelled. In spite of blockade -Mulberry does the honors nobly yet. Mrs. Edward Stockton -drove down with me. She helped me with her taste and -tact in arranging things. We had no trouble, however. -All of the old servants who have not been moved to Bloomsbury -scented the prey from afar, and they literally flocked -in and made themselves useful.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[252]</a></span></p> - -<h2 id="CHAPTER_XVI">XVI<br /> -<span class="smaller">RICHMOND, VA.<br /> -<i>November 28, 1863-April 11, 1864</i></span></h2> - -<div> -<img class="dropcap" src="images/dropcap-r.jpg" width="100" height="115" alt="" /> -</div> - -<p class="dropcap">Richmond, Va., <i>November 28, 1863</i>.—Our pleasant -home sojourn was soon broken up. Johnny had to -go back to Company A, and my husband was ordered -by the President to make a second visit to Bragg’s -Army<a name="FNanchor_104" id="FNanchor_104"></a><a href="#Footnote_104" class="fnanchor">[104]</a>.</p> - -<p>So we came on here where the Prestons had taken apartments -for me. Molly was with me. Adam Team, the overseer, -with Isaac McLaughlin’s help, came with us to take -charge of the eight huge boxes of provisions I brought from -home. Isaac, Molly’s husband, is a servant of ours, the only -one my husband ever bought in his life. Isaac’s wife belonged -to Rev. Thomas Davis, and Isaac to somebody else. -The owner of Isaac was about to go West, and Isaac was -distracted. They asked one thousand dollars for him. He -is a huge creature, really a magnificent specimen of a colored -gentleman. His occupation had been that of a stage-driver. -Now, he is a carpenter, or will be some day. He is -awfully grateful to us for buying him; is really devoted to -his wife and children, though he has a strange way of showing -it, for he has a mistress, <i lang="fr">en titre</i>, as the French say, -which fact Molly never failed to grumble about as soon as -his back was turned. “Great big good-for-nothing thing -come a-whimpering to marster to buy him for his wife’s<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[253]</a></span> -sake, and all the time he an—” “Oh, Molly, stop that!” -said I.</p> - -<p>Mr. Davis visited Charleston and had an enthusiastic -reception. He described it all to General Preston. Governor -Aiken’s perfect old Carolina style of living delighted -him. Those old gray-haired darkies and their noiseless, automatic -service, the result of finished training—one does -miss that sort of thing when away from home, where your -own servants think for you; they know your ways and your -wants; they save you all responsibility even in matters of -your own ease and well doing. The butler at Mulberry -would be miserable and feel himself a ridiculous failure -were I ever forced to ask him for anything.</p> - -<p><i>November 30th.</i>—I must describe an adventure I had in -Kingsville. Of course, I know nothing of children: in point -of fact, am awfully afraid of them.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Edward Barnwell came with us from Camden. -She had a magnificent boy two years old. Now don’t expect -me to reduce that adjective, for this little creature is -a wonder of childlike beauty, health, and strength. Why -not? If like produces like, and with such a handsome pair -to claim as father and mother! The boy’s eyes alone would -make any girl’s fortune.</p> - -<p>At first he made himself very agreeable, repeating nursery -rhymes and singing. Then something went wrong. -Suddenly he changed to a little fiend, fought and kicked -and scratched like a tiger. He did everything that was -naughty, and he did it with a will as if he liked it, while his -lovely mamma, with flushed cheeks and streaming eyes, -was imploring him to be a good boy.</p> - -<p>When we stopped at Kingsville, I got out first, then -Mrs. Barnwell’s nurse, who put the little man down by me. -“Look after him a moment, please, ma’am,” she said. “I -must help Mrs. Barnwell with the bundles,” etc. She -stepped hastily back and the cars moved off. They ran -down a half mile to turn. I trembled in my shoes. This<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[254]</a></span> -child! No man could ever frighten me so. If he should -choose to be bad again! It seemed an eternity while I -waited for that train to turn and come back again. My little -charge took things quietly. For me he had a perfect contempt, -no fear whatever. And I was his abject slave for -the nonce.</p> - -<p>He stretched himself out lazily at full length. Then he -pointed downward. “Those are great legs,” said he solemnly, -looking at his own. I immediately joined him in admiring -them enthusiastically. Near him he spied a bundle. -“Pussy cat tied up in that bundle.” He was up in a second -and pounced upon it. If we were to be taken up as -thieves, no matter, I dared not meddle with that child. I -had seen what he could do. There were several cooked -sweet potatoes tied up in an old handkerchief—belonging -to some negro probably. He squared himself off comfortably, -broke one in half and began to eat. Evidently he had -found what he was fond of. In this posture Mrs. Barnwell -discovered us. She came with comic dismay in every feature, -not knowing what our relations might be, and whether -or not we had undertaken to fight it out alone as best we -might. The old nurse cried, “Lawsy me!” with both -hands uplifted. Without a word I fled. In another moment -the Wilmington train would have left me. She was -going to Columbia.</p> - -<p>We broke down only once between Kingsville and Wilmington, -but between Wilmington and Weldon we contrived -to do the thing so effectually as to have to remain -twelve hours at that forlorn station.</p> - -<p>The one room that I saw was crowded with soldiers. -Adam Team succeeded in securing two chairs for me, -upon one of which I sat and put my feet on the other. -Molly sat flat on the floor, resting her head against my chair. -I woke cold and cramped. An officer, who did not give his -name, but said he was from Louisiana, came up and urged -me to go near the fire. He gave me his seat by the fire,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[255]</a></span> -where I found an old lady and two young ones, with two -men in the uniform of common soldiers.</p> - -<p>We talked as easily to each other all night as if we had -known one another all our lives. We discussed the war, the -army, the news of the day. No questions were asked, no -names given, no personal discourse whatever, and yet if -these men and women were not gentry, and of the best sort, -I do not know ladies and gentlemen when I see them.</p> - -<p>Being a little surprised at the want of interest Mr. -Team and Isaac showed in my well-doing, I walked out to -see, and I found them working like beavers. They had been -at it all night. In the break-down my boxes were smashed. -They had first gathered up the contents and were trying -to hammer up the boxes so as to make them once more available.</p> - -<p>At Petersburg a smartly dressed woman came in, looked -around in the crowd, then asked for the seat by me. Now -Molly’s seat was paid for the same as mine, but she got up -at once, gave the lady her seat and stood behind me. I am -sure Molly believes herself my body-guard as well as my -servant.</p> - -<p>The lady then having arranged herself comfortably in -Molly’s seat began in plaintive accents to tell her melancholy -tale. She was a widow. She lost her husband in the -battles around Richmond. Soon some one went out and a -man offered her the vacant seat. Straight as an arrow she -went in for a flirtation with the polite gentleman. Another -person, a perfect stranger, said to me, “Well, look yonder. -As soon as she began whining about her dead beau I knew -she was after another one.” “Beau, indeed!” cried another -listener, “she said it was her husband.” “Husband -or lover, all the same. She won’t lose any time. It won’t -be her fault if she doesn’t have another one soon.”</p> - -<p>But the grand scene was the night before: the cars -crowded with soldiers, of course; not a human being that I -knew. An Irish woman, so announced by her brogue, came<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[256]</a></span> -in. She marched up and down the car, loudly lamenting -the want of gallantry in the men who would not make way -for her. Two men got up and gave her their seats, saying -it did not matter, they were going to get out at the next -stopping-place.</p> - -<p>She was gifted with the most pronounced brogue I ever -heard, and she gave us a taste of it. She continued to say -that the men ought all to get out of that; that car was -“shuteable” only for ladies. She placed on the vacant -seat next to her a large looking-glass. She continued to harangue -until she fell asleep.</p> - -<p>A tired soldier coming in, seeing what he supposed to -be an empty seat, quietly slipped into it. Crash went the -glass. The soldier groaned, the Irish woman shrieked. The -man was badly cut by the broken glass. She was simply a -mad woman. She shook her fist in his face; said she was a -lone woman and he had got into that seat for no good purpose. -How did he dare to?—etc. I do not think the man -uttered a word. The conductor took him into another car -to have the pieces of glass picked out of his clothes, and she -continued to rave. Mr. Team shouted aloud, and laughed -as if he were in the Hermitage Swamp. The woman’s unreasonable -wrath and absurd accusations were comic, no -doubt.</p> - -<p>Soon the car was silent and I fell into a comfortable -doze. I felt Molly give me a gentle shake. “Listen, Missis, -how loud Mars Adam Team is talking, and all about ole -marster and our business, and to strangers. It’s a shame.” -“Is he saying any harm of us?” “No, ma’am, not that. -He is bragging for dear life ’bout how ole ole marster is -and how rich he is, an’ all that. I gwine tell him stop.” Up -started Molly. “Mars Adam, Missis say please don’t talk -so loud. When people travel they don’t do that a way.”</p> - -<p>Mr. Preston’s man, Hal, was waiting at the depot with a -carriage to take me to my Richmond house. Mary Preston -had rented these apartments for me.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[257]</a></span></p> - -<p>I found my dear girls there with a nice fire. Everything -looked so pleasant and inviting to the weary traveler. Mrs. -Grundy, who occupies the lower floor, sent me such a real -Virginia tea, hot cakes, and rolls. Think of living in the -house with Mrs. Grundy, and having no fear of “what Mrs. -Grundy will say.”</p> - -<p>My husband has come; he likes the house, Grundy’s, and -everything. Already he has bought Grundy’s horses for -sixteen hundred Confederate dollars cash. He is nearer to -being contented and happy than I ever saw him. He has -not established a grievance yet, but I am on the lookout -daily. He will soon find out whatever there is wrong about -Cary Street.</p> - -<p>I gave a party; Mrs. Davis very witty; Preston girls -very handsome; Isabella’s fun fast and furious. No party -could have gone off more successfully, but my husband decides -we are to have no more festivities. This is not the -time or the place for such gaieties.</p> - -<p>Maria Freeland is perfectly delightful on the subject -of her wedding. She is ready to the last piece of lace, but -her hard-hearted father says “No.” She adores John -Lewis. That goes without saying. She does not pretend, -however, to be as much in love as Mary Preston. In point -of fact, she never saw any one before who was. But she is -as much in love as she can be with a man who, though he is -not <em>very</em> handsome, is as eligible a match as a girl could -make. He is all that heart could wish, and he comes of -such a handsome family. His mother, Esther Maria Coxe, -was the beauty of a century, and his father was a nephew -of General Washington. For all that, he is far better looking -than John Darby or Mr. Miles. She always intended to -marry better than Mary Preston or Bettie Bierne.</p> - -<p>Lucy Haxall is positively engaged to Captain Coffey, -an Englishman. She is convinced that she will marry him. -He is her first fancy.</p> - -<p>Mr. Venable, of Lee’s staff, was at our party, so out of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[258]</a></span> -spirits. He knows everything that is going on. His depression -bodes us no good. To-day, General Hampton sent -James Chesnut a fine saddle that he had captured from the -Yankees in battle array.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Scotch Allan (Edgar Allan Poe’s patron’s wife) -sent me ice-cream and lady-cheek apples from her farm. -John R. Thompson<a name="FNanchor_105" id="FNanchor_105"></a><a href="#Footnote_105" class="fnanchor">[105]</a>, the sole literary fellow I know in -Richmond, sent me Leisure Hours in Town, by A Country -Parson.</p> - -<p>My husband says he hopes I will be contented because -he came here this winter to please me. If I could have been -satisfied at home he would have resigned his aide-de-camp-ship -and gone into some service in South Carolina. I am a -good excuse, if good for nothing else.</p> - -<p>Old tempestuous Keitt breakfasted with us yesterday. -I wish I could remember half the brilliant things he said. -My husband has now gone with him to the War Office. -Colonel Keitt thinks it is time he was promoted. He wants -to be a brigadier.</p> - -<p>Now, Charleston is bombarded night and day. It fairly -makes me dizzy to think of that everlasting racket they are -beating about people’s ears down there. Bragg defeated, -and separated from Longstreet. It is a long street that -knows no turning, and Rosecrans is not taken after all.</p> - -<p><i>November 30th.</i>—Anxiety pervades. Lee is fighting -Meade. Misery is everywhere. Bragg is falling back before -Grant<a name="FNanchor_106" id="FNanchor_106"></a><a href="#Footnote_106" class="fnanchor">[106]</a>. Longstreet, the soldiers call him Peter the -Slow, is settling down before Knoxville.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[259]</a></span></p> - -<p>General Lee requires us to answer every letter, said Mr. -Venable, and to do our best to console the poor creatures -whose husbands and sons are fighting the battles of the -country.</p> - -<p><i>December 2d.</i>—Bragg begs to be relieved of his command. -The army will be relieved to get rid of him. He -has a winning way of earning everybody’s detestation. -Heavens, how they hate him! The rapid flight of his army -terminated at Ringgold. Hardie declines even a temporary -command of the Western army. Preston Johnston has been -sent out post-haste at a moment’s warning. He was not -even allowed time to go home and tell his wife good-by or, -as Browne, the Englishman, said, “to put a clean shirt into -his traveling bag.” Lee and Meade are facing each other -gallantly<a name="FNanchor_107" id="FNanchor_107"></a><a href="#Footnote_107" class="fnanchor">[107]</a>.</p> - -<p>The first of December we went with a party of Mrs. -Ould’s getting up, to see a French frigate which lay at -anchor down the river. The French officers came on board -our boat. The Lees were aboard. The French officers were -not in the least attractive either in manners or appearance, -but our ladies were most attentive and some showered bad -French upon them with a lavish hand, always accompanied -by queer grimaces to eke out the scanty supply of French -words, the sentences ending usually in a nervous shriek. -“Are they deaf?” asked Mrs. Randolph.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[260]</a></span></p> - -<p>The French frigate was a dirty little thing. Doctor -Garnett was so buoyed up with hope that the French were -coming to our rescue, that he would not let me say “an -English man-of-war is the cleanest thing known in the -world.” Captain —— said to Mary Lee, with a foreign -contortion of countenance, that went for a smile, “I’s -bashlor.” Judge Ould said, as we went to dinner on our -own steamer, “They will not drink our President’s health. -They do not acknowledge us to be a nation. Mind, none -of you say ‘Emperor,’ not once.” Doctor Garnett interpreted -the laws of politeness otherwise, and stepped forward, -his mouth fairly distended with so much French, and -said: “Vieff l’Emperor.” Young Gibson seconded him -quietly, “<i lang="fr">À la santé de l’Empereur</i>.” But silence prevailed. -Preston Hampton was the handsomest man on -board—“the figure of Hercules, the face of Apollo,” cried -an enthusiastic girl. Preston was as lazy and as sleepy as -ever. He said of the Frenchmen: “They can’t help not -being good-looking, but with all the world open to them, to -wear such shabby clothes!”</p> - -<p>The lieutenant’s name was Rousseau. On the French -frigate, lying on one of the tables was a volume of Jean -Jacques Rousseau’s works, side by side, strange to say, with -a map of South Carolina. This lieutenant was courteously -asked by Mary Lee to select some lady to whom she might -introduce him. He answered: “I shuse you,” with a bow -that was a benediction and a prayer.</p> - -<p>And now I am in a fine condition for Hetty Cary’s starvation -party, where they will give thirty dollars for the -music and not a cent for a morsel to eat. Preston said contentedly, -“I hate dancing, and I hate cold water; so I will -eschew the festivity to-night.”</p> - -<p>Found John R. Thompson at our house when I got home -so tired to-night. He brought me the last number of the -Cornhill. He knew how much I was interested in Trollope’s -story, Framley Parsonage.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[261]</a></span></p> - -<p><i>December 4th.</i>—My husband bought yesterday at the -Commissary’s one barrel of flour, one bushel of potatoes, -one peck of rice, five pounds of salt beef, and one peck of -salt—all for sixty dollars. In the street a barrel of flour -sells for one hundred and fifteen dollars.</p> - -<p><i>December 5th.</i>—Wigfall was here last night. He began -by wanting to hang Jeff Davis. My husband managed him -beautifully. He soon ceased to talk virulent nonsense, and -calmed down to his usual strong common sense. I knew it -was quite late, but I had no idea of the hour. My husband -beckoned me out. “It is all your fault,” said he. -“What?” “Why will you persist in looking so interested -in all Wigfall is saying? Don’t let him catch your eye. -Look into the fire. Did you not hear it strike two?”</p> - -<p>This attack was so sudden, so violent, so unlooked for, -I could only laugh hysterically. However, as an obedient -wife, I went back, gravely took my seat and looked into the -fire. I did not even dare raise my eyes to see what my husband -was doing—if he, too, looked into the fire. Wigfall -soon tired of so tame an audience and took his departure.</p> - -<p>General Lawton was here. He was one of Stonewall’s -generals. So I listened with all my ears when he said: -“Stonewall could not sleep. So, every two or three nights -you were waked up by orders to have your brigade in -marching order before daylight and report in person to the -Commander. Then you were marched a few miles out and -then a few miles in again. All this was to make us ready, -ever on the alert. And the end of it was this: Jackson’s -men would go half a day’s march before Peter Longstreet -waked and breakfasted. I think there is a popular delusion -about the amount of praying he did. He certainly preferred -a fight on Sunday to a sermon. Failing to manage -a fight, he loved best a long Presbyterian sermon, Calvinistic -to the core.</p> - -<p>“He had shown small sympathy with human infirmity. -He was a one-idea-ed man. He looked upon broken-down<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[262]</a></span> -men and stragglers as the same thing. He classed all who -were weak and weary, who fainted by the wayside, as men -wanting in patriotism. If a man’s face was as white as -cotton and his pulse so low you scarce could feel it, he -looked upon him merely as an inefficient soldier and rode -off impatiently. He was the true type of all great soldiers. -Like the successful warriors of the world, he did not value -human life where he had an object to accomplish. He -could order men to their death as a matter of course. His -soldiers obeyed him to the death. Faith they had in him -stronger than death. Their respect he commanded. I -doubt if he had so much of their love as is talked about -while he was alive. Now, that they see a few more years -of Stonewall would have freed them from the Yankees, -they deify him. Any man is proud to have been one of the -famous Stonewall brigade. But, be sure, it was bitter hard -work to keep up with him as all know who ever served under -him. He gave his orders rapidly and distinctly and -rode away, never allowing answer or remonstrance. It -was, ‘Look there—see that place—take it!’ When you -failed you were apt to be put under arrest. When you reported -the place taken, he only said, ‘Good!’”</p> - -<p>Spent seventy-five dollars to-day for a little tea and -sugar, and have five hundred left. My husband’s pay never -has paid for the rent of our lodgings. He came in with -dreadful news just now. I have wept so often for things -that never happened, I will withhold my tears now for a -certainty. To-day, a poor woman threw herself on her dead -husband’s coffin and kissed it. She was weeping bitterly. -So did I in sympathy.</p> - -<p>My husband, as I told him to-day, could see me and -everything that he loved hanged, drawn, and quartered -without moving a muscle, if a crowd were looking on; he -could have the same gentle operation performed on himself -and make no sign. To all of which violent insinuation he -answered in unmoved tones: “So would any civilized man.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[263]</a></span> -Savages, however—Indians, at least—are more dignified in -that particular than we are. Noisy, fidgety grief never -moves me at all; it annoys me. Self-control is what we all -need. You are a miracle of sensibility; self-control is what -you need.” “So you are civilized!” I said. “Some day I -mean to be.”</p> - -<p><i>December 9th.</i>—“Come here, Mrs. Chesnut,” said Mary -Preston to-day, “they are lifting General Hood out of his -carriage, here, at your door.” Mrs. Grundy promptly had -him borne into her drawing-room, which was on the first -floor. Mary Preston and I ran down and greeted him as -cheerfully and as cordially as if nothing had happened -since we saw him standing before us a year ago. How he -was waited upon! Some cut-up oranges were brought him. -“How kind people are,” said he. “Not once since I was -wounded have I ever been left without fruit, hard as it is -to get now.” “The money value of friendship is easily -counted now,” said some one, “oranges are five dollars -apiece.”</p> - -<p><i>December 10th.</i>—Mrs. Davis and Mrs. Lyons came. We -had luncheon brought in for them, and then a lucid explanation -of the <i lang="fr">chronique scandaleuse</i>, of which Beck J. -is the heroine. We walked home with Mrs. Davis and met -the President riding alone. Surely that is wrong. It must -be unsafe for him when there are so many traitors, not to -speak of bribed negroes. Burton Harrison<a name="FNanchor_108" id="FNanchor_108"></a><a href="#Footnote_108" class="fnanchor">[108]</a> says Mr. Davis -prefers to go alone, and there is none to gainsay him.</p> - -<p>My husband laid the law down last night. I felt it to -be the last drop in my full cup. “No more feasting in this -house,” said he. “This is no time for junketing and merrymaking.” -“And you said you brought me here to enjoy -the winter before you took me home and turned my face to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[264]</a></span> -a dead wall.” He is the master of the house; to hear is -to obey.</p> - -<p><i>December 14th.</i>—Drove out with Mrs. Davis. She had -a watch in her hand which some poor dead soldier wanted -to have sent to his family. First, we went to her mantua-maker, -then we drove to the Fair Grounds where the band -was playing. Suddenly, she missed the watch. She remembered -having it when we came out of the mantua-maker’s. -We drove back instantly, and there the watch was lying -near the steps of the little porch in front of the house. No -one had passed in, apparently; in any case, no one had -seen it.</p> - -<p>Preston Hampton went with me to see Conny Cary. The -talk was frantically literary, which Preston thought hard -on him. I had just brought the St. Denis number of Les -Misérables.</p> - -<p>Sunday, Christopher Hampton walked to church with -me. Coming out, General Lee was seen slowly making his -way down the aisle, bowing royally to right and left. I -pointed him out to Christopher Hampton when General Lee -happened to look our way. He bowed low, giving me a -charming smile of recognition. I was ashamed of being so -pleased. I blushed like a schoolgirl.</p> - -<p>We went to the White House. They gave us tea. The -President said he had been on the way to our house, coming -with all the Davis family, to see me, but the children became -so troublesome they turned back. Just then, little Joe -rushed in and insisted on saying his prayers at his father’s -knee, then and there. He was in his night-clothes.</p> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 700px;" id="illus10"> -<img src="images/illus10.jpg" width="700" height="500" alt="" /> -<p class="caption">THE DAVIS MANSION IN RICHMOND, THE “WHITE HOUSE” OF THE CONFEDERACY.</p> -<p class="caption">Now the Confederate Museum.</p> -</div> - -<p><i>December 19th.</i>—A box has come from home for me. -Taking advantage of this good fortune and a full larder, -have asked Mrs. Davis to dine with me. Wade Hampton -sent me a basket of game. We had Mrs. Davis and Mr. and -Mrs. Preston. After dinner we walked to the church to see -the Freeland-Lewis wedding. Mr. Preston had Mrs. Davis -on his arm. My husband and Mrs. Preston, and Burton<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[265]</a></span> -Harrison and myself brought up the rear. Willie Allan -joined us, and we had the pleasure of waiting one good -hour. Then the beautiful Maria, loveliest of brides, sailed -in on her father’s arm, and Major John Coxe Lewis followed -with Mrs. Freeland. After the ceremony such a -kissing was there up and down the aisle. The happy bridegroom -kissed wildly, and several girls complained, but he -said: “How am I to know Maria’s kin whom I was to kiss? -It is better to show too much affection for one’s new relations -than too little.”</p> - -<p><i>December 21st.</i>—Joe Johnston has been made Commander-in-chief -of the Army of the West. General Lee -had this done,’tis said. Miss Agnes Lee and “little Robert” -(as they fondly call General Lee’s youngest son in this -hero-worshiping community) called. They told us the -President, General Lee, and General Elzey had gone out to -look at the fortifications around Richmond. My husband -came home saying he had been with them, and lent General -Lee his gray horse.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Howell, Mrs. Davis’s mother, says a year ago on -the cars a man said, “We want a Dictator.” She replied, -“Jeff Davis will never consent to be a Dictator.” The -man turned sharply toward her “And, pray, who asks -him? Joe Johnston will be made Dictator by the Army of -the West.” “Imperator” was suggested. Of late the -Army of the West has not been in a condition to dictate to -friend or foe. Certainly Jeff Davis did hate to put Joe -Johnston at the head of what is left of it. Detached from -General Lee, what a horrible failure is Longstreet! Oh, -for a day of Albert Sidney Johnston out West! And -Stonewall, could he come back to us here!</p> - -<p>General Hood, the wounded knight, came for me to -drive. I felt that I would soon find myself chaperoning -some girls, but I asked no questions. He improved the time -between Franklin and Cary Streets by saying, “I do like -your husband so much.” “So do I,” I replied simply.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[266]</a></span> -Buck was ill in bed, so William said at the door, but she -recovered her health and came down for the drive in black -velvet and ermine, looking queenly. And then, with the top -of the landau thrown back, wrapped in furs and rugs, we -had a long drive that bitter cold day.</p> - -<p>One day as we were hieing us home from the Fair -Grounds, Sam, the wounded knight, asked Brewster what -are the symptoms of a man’s being in love. Sam (Hood -is called Sam entirely, but why I do not know) said for his -part he did not know; at seventeen he had fancied himself -in love, but that was “a long time ago.” Brewster spoke -on the symptoms of love: “When you see her, your -breath is apt to come short. If it amounts to mild strangulation, -you have got it bad. You are stupidly jealous, glowering -with jealousy, and have a gloomy fixed conviction -that she likes every fool you meet better than she does you, -especially people that you know she has a thorough contempt -for; that is, you knew it before you lost your head, -I mean, before you fell in love. The last stages of unmitigated -spooniness, I will spare you,” said Brewster, with a -giggle and a wave of the hand. “Well,” said Sam, drawing -a breath of relief, “I have felt none of these things so -far, and yet they say I am engaged to four young ladies, a -liberal allowance, you will admit, for a man who can not -walk without help.”</p> - -<p>Another day (the Sabbath) we called on our way from -church to see Mrs. Wigfall. She was ill, but Mr. Wigfall -insisted upon taking me into the drawing-room to rest -a while. He said Louly was there; so she was, and so was -Sam Hood, the wounded knight, stretched at full length on -a sofa and a rug thrown over him. Louis Wigfall said to -me: “Do you know General Hood?” “Yes,” said I, and -the General laughed with his eyes as I looked at him; but -he did not say a word. I felt it a curious commentary -upon the reports he had spoken of the day before. Louly -Wigfall is a very handsome girl.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[267]</a></span></p> - -<p><i>December 24th.</i>—As we walked, Brewster reported a -row he had had with General Hood. Brewster had told -those six young ladies at the Prestons’ that “old Sam” -was in the habit of saying he would not marry if he could -any silly, sentimental girl, who would throw herself away -upon a maimed creature such as he was. When Brewster -went home he took pleasure in telling Sam how the ladies -had complimented his good sense, whereupon the General -rose in his wrath and threatened to break his crutch over -Brewster’s head. To think he could be such a fool—to go -about repeating to everybody his whimperings.</p> - -<p>I was taking my seat at the head of the table when the -door opened and Brewster walked in unannounced. He -took his stand in front of the open door, with his hands in -his pockets and his small hat pushed back as far as it could -get from his forehead.</p> - -<p>“What!” said he, “you are not ready yet? The generals -are below. Did you get my note?” I begged my -husband to excuse me and rushed off to put on my bonnet -and furs. I met the girls coming up with a strange man. -The flurry of two major-generals had been too much for me -and I forgot to ask the new one’s name. They went up to -dine in my place with my husband, who sat eating his dinner, -with Lawrence’s undivided attention given to him, -amid this whirling and eddying in and out of the world militant. -Mary Preston and I then went to drive with the -generals. The new one proved to be Buckner<a name="FNanchor_109" id="FNanchor_109"></a><a href="#Footnote_109" class="fnanchor">[109]</a>, who is also -a Kentuckian. The two men told us they had slept together -the night before Chickamauga. It is useless to try: legs -can’t any longer be kept out of the conversation. So General -Buckner said: “Once before I slept with a man and he -lost his leg next day.” He had made a vow never to do so<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[268]</a></span> -again. “When Sam and I parted that morning, we said: -‘You or I may be killed, but the cause will be safe all the -same.’”</p> - -<p>After the drive everybody came in to tea, my husband -in famous good humor, we had an unusually gay evening. -It was very nice of my husband to take no notice of my conduct -at dinner, which had been open to criticism. All the -comfort of my life depends upon his being in good humor.</p> - -<p><i>Christmas Day, 1863.</i>—Yesterday dined with the Prestons. -Wore one of my handsomest Paris dresses (from -Paris before the war). Three magnificent Kentucky generals -were present, with Senator Orr from South Carolina, -and Mr. Miles. General Buckner repeated a speech of -Hood’s to him to show how friendly they were. “I prefer a -ride with you to the company of any woman in the world,” -Buckner had answered. “I prefer your company to that of -any man, certainly,” was Hood’s reply. This became the -standing joke of the dinner; it flashed up in every form. -Poor Sam got out of it so badly, if he got out of it at all. -General Buckner said patronizingly, “Lame excuses, all. -Hood never gets out of any scrape—that is, unless he can -fight out.” Others dropped in after dinner; some without -arms, some without legs; von Borcke, who can not speak because -of a wound in his throat. Isabella said: “We have -all kinds now, but a blind one.” Poor fellows, they laugh -at wounds. “And they yet can show many a scar.”</p> - -<p>We had for dinner oyster soup, besides roast mutton, -ham, boned turkey, wild duck, partridge, plum pudding, -sauterne, burgundy, sherry, and Madeira. There is -life in the old land yet!</p> - -<p>At my house to-day after dinner, and while Alex -Haskell and my husband sat over the wine, Hood gave -me an account of his discomfiture last night. He said -he could not sleep after it; it was the hardest battle he -had ever fought in his life, “and I was routed, as it were; -she told me there was no hope; that ends it. You know at<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[269]</a></span> -Petersburg on my way to the Western army she half-promised -me to think of it. She would not say ‘Yes,’ but she did -not say ‘No’—that is, not exactly. At any rate, I went off -saying, ‘I am engaged to you,’ and she said, ‘I am not engaged -to you.’ After I was so fearfully wounded I gave it -up. But, then, since I came,” etc.</p> - -<p>“Do you mean to say,” said I, “that you had proposed -to her before that conversation in the carriage, when you -asked Brewster the symptoms of love? I like your audacity.” -“Oh, she understood, but it is all up now, for she -says, ‘No!’”</p> - -<p>My husband says I am extravagant. “No, my friend, -not that,” said I. “I had fifteen hundred dollars and I -have spent every cent of it in my housekeeping. Not one -cent for myself, not one cent for dress nor any personal -want whatever.” He calls me “hospitality run mad.”</p> - -<p><i>January 1, 1864.</i>—General Hood’s an awful flatterer—I -mean an awkward flatterer. I told him to praise my husband -to some one else, not to me. He ought to praise me -to somebody who would tell my husband, and then praise -my husband to another person who would tell me. Man -and wife are too much one person—to wave a compliment -straight in the face of one about the other is not graceful.</p> - -<p>One more year of Stonewall would have saved us. -Chickamauga is the only battle we have gained since Stonewall -died, and no results follow as usual. Stonewall was -not so much as killed by a Yankee: he was shot by his own -men; that is hard. General Lee can do no more than keep -back Meade. “One of Meade’s armies, you mean,” said I, -“for they have only to double on him when Lee whips one -of them.”</p> - -<p>General Edward Johnston says he got Grant a place—<i lang="fr">esprit -de corps</i>, you know. He could not bear to see an old -army man driving a wagon; that was when he found him -out West, put out of the army for habitual drunkenness. -He is their right man, a bull-headed Suwarrow. He don’t<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[270]</a></span> -care a snap if men fall like the leaves fall; he fights to win, -that chap does. He is not distracted by a thousand side -issues; he does not see them. He is narrow and sure—sees -only in a straight line. Like Louis Napoleon, from a battle -in the gutter, he goes straight up. Yes, as with Lincoln, -they have ceased to carp at him as a rough clown, no gentleman, -etc. You never hear now of Lincoln’s nasty fun; only -of his wisdom. Doesn’t take much soap and water to wash -the hands that the rod of empire sway. They talked of Lincoln’s -drunkenness, too. Now, since Vicksburg they have -not a word to say against Grant’s habits. He has the disagreeable -habit of not retreating before irresistible veterans. -General Lee and Albert Sidney Johnston show blood and -breeding. They are of the Bayard and Philip Sidney order -of soldiers. Listen: if General Lee had had Grant’s resources -he would have bagged the last Yankee, or have had -them all safe back in Massachusetts. “You mean if he -had not the weight of the negro question upon him?” -“No, I mean if he had Grant’s unlimited allowance of the -powers of war—men, money, ammunition, arms.”</p> - -<p>Mrs. Ould says Mrs. Lincoln found the gardener of the -White House so nice, she would make him a major-general. -Lincoln remarked to the secretary: “Well, the little -woman must have her way sometimes.”</p> - -<p>A word of the last night of the old year. “Gloria Mundi” -sent me a cup of strong, good coffee. I drank two cups -and so I did not sleep a wink. Like a fool I passed my -whole life in review, and bitter memories maddened me -quite. Then came a happy thought. I mapped out a story -of the war. The plot came to hand, for it was true. Johnny -is the hero, a light dragoon and heavy swell. I will call it -F. F.’s, for it is the F. F.’s both of South Carolina and -Virginia. It is to be a war story, and the filling out of the -skeleton was the best way to put myself to sleep.</p> - -<p><i>January 4th.</i>—Mrs. Ives wants us to translate a French -play. A genuine French captain came in from his ship on<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[271]</a></span> -the James River and gave us good advice as to how to make -the selection. General Hampton sent another basket of -partridges, and all goes merry as a marriage bell.</p> - -<p>My husband came in and nearly killed us. He brought -this piece of news: “North Carolina wants to offer terms -of peace!” We needed only a break of that kind to finish -us. I really shivered nervously, as one does when the first -handful of earth comes rattling down on the coffin in the -grave of one we cared for more than all who are left.</p> - -<p><i>January 5th.</i>—At Mrs. Preston’s, met the Light Brigade -in battle array, ready to sally forth, conquering and to -conquer. They would stand no nonsense from me about -staying at home to translate a French play. Indeed, the -plays that have been sent us are so indecent I scarcely know -where a play is to be found that would do at all.</p> - -<p>While at dinner the President’s carriage drove up with -only General Hood. He sent up to ask in Maggie Howell’s -name would I go with them? I tied up two partridges between -plates with a serviette, for Buck, who is ill, and then -went down. We picked up Mary Preston. It was Maggie’s -drive; as the soldiers say, I was only on “escort -duty.” At the Prestons’, Major Venable met us at the door -and took in the partridges to Buck. As we drove off Maggie -said: “Major Venable is a Carolinian, I see.” “No; -Virginian to the core.” “But, then, he was a professor in -the South Carolina College before the war.” Mary Preston -said: “She is taking a fling at your weakness for all South -Carolina.”</p> - -<p>Came home and found my husband in a bitter mood. It -has all gone wrong with our world. The loss of our private -fortune the smallest part. He intimates, “with so much -human misery filling the air, we might stay at home and -think.” “And go mad?” said I. “Catch me at it! A -yawning grave, with piles of red earth thrown on one side; -that is the only future I ever see. You remember Emma -Stockton? She and I were as blithe as birds that day at<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[272]</a></span> -Mulberry. I came here the next day, and when I arrived -a telegram said: ‘Emma Stockton found dead in her bed.’ -It is awfully near, that thought. No, no. I will not stop -and think of death always.”</p> - -<p><i>January 8th.</i>—Snow of the deepest. Nobody can come -to-day, I thought. But they did! My girls, first; then -Constance Cary tripped in—the clever Conny. Hetty is -the beauty, so called, though she is clever enough, too; but -Constance is actually clever and has a classically perfect -outline. Next came the four Kentuckians and Preston -Hampton. He is as tall as the Kentuckians and ever so -much better looking. Then we had egg-nog.</p> - -<p>I was to take Miss Cary to the Semmes’s. My husband -inquired the price of a carriage. It was twenty-five dollars -an hour! He cursed by all his gods at such extravagance. -The play was not worth the candle, or carriage, in this instance. -In Confederate money it sounds so much worse -than it is. I did not dream of asking him to go with me -after that lively overture. “I did intend to go with you,” -he said, “but you do not ask me.” “And I have been -asking you for twenty years to go with me, in vain. Think -of that!” I said, tragically. We could not wait for him to -dress, so I sent the twenty-five-dollar-an-hour carriage back -for him. We were behind time, as it was. When he -came, the beautiful Hetty Cary and her friend, Captain -Tucker, were with him. Major von Borcke and Preston -Hampton were at the Cary’s, in the drawing-room when -we called for Constance, who was dressing. I challenge -the world to produce finer specimens of humanity than these -three: the Prussian von Borcke, Preston Hampton, and -Hetty Cary.</p> - -<p>We spoke to the Prussian about the vote of thanks -passed by Congress yesterday—“thanks of the country to -Major von Borcke.” The poor man was as modest as a -girl—in spite of his huge proportions. “That is a compliment, -indeed!” said Hetty. “Yes. I saw it. And the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[273]</a></span> -happiest, the proudest day of my life as I read it. It was -at the hotel breakfast-table. I try to hide my face with -the newspaper, I feel it grow so red. But my friend he has -his newspaper, too, and he sees the same thing. So he looks -my way—he says, pointing to me—‘Why does he grow so -red? He has got something there!’ and he laughs. Then -I try to read aloud the so kind compliments of the Congress—but—he—you—I -can not—” He puts his hand to his -throat. His broken English and the difficulty of his enunciation -with that wound in his windpipe makes it all very -touching—and very hard to understand.</p> - -<p>The Semmes charade party was a perfect success. The -play was charming. Sweet little Mrs. Lawson Clay had a -seat for me banked up among women. The female part of -the congregation, strictly segregated from the male, were -placed all together in rows. They formed a gay parterre, -edged by the men in their black coats and gray uniforms. -Toward the back part of the room, the mass of black and -gray was solid. Captain Tucker bewailed his fate. He was -stranded out there with those forlorn men, but could see us -laughing, and fancied what we were saying was worth a -thousand charades. He preferred talking to a clever woman -to any known way of passing a pleasant hour. “So do -I,” somebody said.</p> - -<p>On a sofa of state in front of all sat the President and -Mrs. Davis. Little Maggie Davis was one of the child actresses. -Her parents had a right to be proud of her; with -her flashing black eyes, she was a marked figure on the -stage. She is a handsome creature and she acted her part -admirably. The shrine was beautiful beyond words. The -Semmes and Ives families are Roman Catholics, and understand -getting up that sort of thing. First came the “Palmers -Gray,” then Mrs. Ives, a solitary figure, the loveliest of -penitent women. The Eastern pilgrims were delightfully -costumed; we could not understand how so much Christian -piety could come clothed in such odalisque robes. Mrs.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[274]</a></span> -Ould, as a queen, was as handsome and regal as heart could -wish for. She was accompanied by a very satisfactory -king, whose name, if I ever knew, I have forgotten. There -was a resplendent knight of St. John, and then an American -Indian. After their orisons they all knelt and laid -something on the altar as a votive gift.</p> - -<p>Burton Harrison, the President’s handsome young secretary, -was gotten up as a big brave in a dress presented to -Mr. Davis by Indians for some kindness he showed them -years ago. It was a complete warrior’s outfit, scant as that -is. The feathers stuck in the back of Mr. Harrison’s head -had a charmingly comic effect. He had to shave himself as -clean as a baby or he could not act the beardless chief, -Spotted Tail, Billy Bowlegs, Big Thunder, or whatever his -character was. So he folded up his loved and lost mustache, -the Christianized red Indian, and laid it on the altar, -the most sacred treasure of his life, the witness of his most -heroic sacrifice, on the shrine.</p> - -<p>Senator Hill, of Georgia, took me in to supper, where -were ices, chicken salad, oysters, and champagne. The -President came in alone, I suppose, for while we were talking -after supper and your humble servant was standing between -Mrs. Randolph and Mrs. Stanard, he approached, -offered me his arm and we walked off, oblivious of Mr. Senator -Hill. Remember this, ladies, and forgive me for recording -it, but Mrs. Stanard and Mrs. Randolph are the -handsomest women in Richmond; I am no older than they -are, or younger, either, sad to say. Now, the President -walked with me slowly up and down that long room, and -our conversation was of the saddest. Nobody knows so well -as he the difficulties which beset this hard-driven Confederacy. -He has a voice which is perfectly modulated, a comfort -in this loud and rough soldier world. I think there is -a melancholy cadence in his voice at times, of which he is -unconscious when he talks of things as they are now.</p> - -<p>My husband was so intensely charmed with Hetty Cary<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[275]</a></span> -that he declined at the first call to accompany his wife home -in the twenty-five-dollar-an-hour carriage. He ordered it -to return. When it came, his wife (a good manager) -packed the Carys and him in with herself, leaving the other -two men who came with the party, when it was divided into -“trips,” to make their way home in the cold. At our door, -near daylight of that bitter cold morning, I had the pleasure -to see my husband, like a man, stand and pay for that -carriage! To-day he is pleased with himself, with me, and -with all the world; says if there was no such word as “fascinating” -you would have to invent one to describe Hetty -Cary.</p> - -<p><i>January 9th.</i>—Met Mrs. Wigfall. She wants me to take -Halsey to Mrs. Randolph’s theatricals. I am to get him up -as Sir Walter Raleigh. Now, General Breckinridge has -come. I like him better than any of them. Morgan also is -here.<a name="FNanchor_110" id="FNanchor_110"></a><a href="#Footnote_110" class="fnanchor">[110]</a> These huge Kentuckians fill the town. Isabella says, -“They hold Morgan accountable for the loss of Chattanooga.” -The follies of the wise, the weaknesses of the -great! She shakes her head significantly when I begin to -tell why I like him so well. Last night General Buckner -came for her to go with him and rehearse at the Carys’ for -Mrs. Randolph’s charades.</p> - -<p>The President’s man, Jim, that he believed in as we all -believe in our own servants, “our own people,” as we call -them, and Betsy, Mrs. Davis’s maid, decamped last night. -It is miraculous that they had the fortitude to resist the -temptation so long. At Mrs. Davis’s the hired servants all -have been birds of passage. First they were seen with gold -galore, and then they would fly to the Yankees, and I am -sure they had nothing to tell. It is Yankee money wasted.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[276]</a></span> -I do not think it had ever crossed Mrs. Davis’s brain that -these two could leave her. She knew, however, that Betsy -had eighty dollars in gold and two thousand four hundred -dollars in Confederate notes.</p> - -<p>Everybody who comes in brings a little bad news—not -much, in itself, but by cumulative process the effect is depressing, -indeed.</p> - -<p><i>January 12th.</i>—To-night there will be a great gathering -of Kentuckians. Morgan gives them a dinner. The city of -Richmond entertains John Morgan. He is at free quarters. -The girls dined here. Conny Cary came back for more -white feathers. Isabella had appropriated two sets and -obstinately refused Constance Cary a single feather from -her pile. She said, sternly: “I have never been on the stage -before, and I have a presentiment when my father hears of -this, I will never go again. I am to appear before the footlights -as an English dowager duchess, and I mean to rustle -in every feather, to wear all the lace and diamonds these -two houses can compass”—(mine and Mrs. Preston’s). -She was jolly but firm, and Constance departed without any -additional plumage for her Lady Teazle.</p> - -<p><i>January 14th.</i>—Gave Mrs. White twenty-three dollars -for a turkey. Came home wondering all the way why she -did not ask twenty-five; two more dollars could not have -made me balk at the bargain, and twenty-three sounds odd.</p> - -<p><i>January 15th.</i>—What a day the Kentuckians have had! -Mrs. Webb gave them a breakfast; from there they proceeded -<i lang="fr">en masse</i> to General Lawton’s dinner, and then came -straight here, all of which seems equal to one of Stonewall’s -forced marches. General Lawton took me in to supper. In -spite of his dinner he had misgivings. “My heart is -heavy,” said he, “even here. All seems too light, too careless, -for such terrible times. It seems out of place here in -battle-scarred Richmond.” “I have heard something of -that kind at home,” I replied. “Hope and fear are both -gone, and it is distraction or death with us. I do not see<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[277]</a></span> -how sadness and despondency would help us. If it would -do any good, we would be sad enough.”</p> - -<p>We laughed at General Hood. General Lawton thought -him better fitted for gallantry on the battle-field than playing -a lute in my lady’s chamber. When Miss Giles was electrifying -the audience as the Fair Penitent, some one said: -“Oh, that is so pretty!” Hood cried out with stern reproachfulness: -“That is not pretty; it is elegant.”</p> - -<p>Not only had my house been rifled for theatrical properties, -but as the play went on they came for my black velvet -cloak. When it was over, I thought I should never get -away, my cloak was so hard to find. But it gave me an -opportunity to witness many things behind the scenes—that -cloak hunt did. Behind the scenes! I know a little what -that means now.</p> - -<p>General Jeb Stuart was at Mrs. Randolph’s in his cavalry -jacket and high boots. He was devoted to Hetty Cary. -Constance Cary said to me, pointing to his stars, “Hetty -likes them that way, you know—gilt-edged and with stars.”</p> - -<p><i>January 16th.</i>—A visit from the President’s handsome -and accomplished secretary, Burton Harrison. I lent him -Country Clergyman in Town and Elective Affinities. He -is to bring me Mrs. Norton’s Lost and Saved.</p> - -<p>At Mrs. Randolph’s, my husband complimented one of -the ladies, who had amply earned his praise by her splendid -acting. She pointed to a young man, saying, “You see -that wretch; he has not said one word to me!” My husband -asked innocently, “Why should he? And why is he -a wretch?” “Oh, you know!” Going home I explained -this riddle to him; he is always a year behindhand in -gossip. “They said those two were engaged last winter, -and now there seems to be a screw loose; but that sort of -thing always comes right.” The Carys prefer James Chesnut -to his wife. I don’t mind. Indeed, I like it. I do, too.</p> - -<p>Every Sunday Mr. Minnegerode cried aloud in anguish -his litany, “from pestilence and famine, battle, murder,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[278]</a></span> -and sudden death,” and we wailed on our knees, “Good -Lord deliver us,” and on Monday, and all the week long, -we go on as before, hearing of nothing but battle, murder, -and sudden death, which are daily events. Now I have a -new book; that is the unlooked-for thing, a pleasing incident -in this life of monotonous misery. We live in a huge -barrack. We are shut in, guarded from light without.</p> - -<p>At breakfast to-day came a card, and without an instant’s -interlude, perhaps the neatest, most fastidious man -in South Carolina walked in. I was uncombed, unkempt, -tattered, and torn, in my most comfortable, worst worn, -wadded green silk dressing-gown, with a white woolen -shawl over my head to keep off draughts. He has not been -in the war yet, and now he wants to be captain of an engineer -corps. I wish he may get it! He has always been my -friend; so he shall lack no aid that I can give. If he can -stand the shock of my appearance to-day, we may reasonably -expect to continue friends until death. Of all men, -the fastidious Barny Heywood to come in. He faced the -situation gallantly.</p> - -<p><i>January 18th.</i>—Invited to Dr. Haxall’s last night to -meet the Lawtons. Mr. Benjamin<a name="FNanchor_111" id="FNanchor_111"></a><a href="#Footnote_111" class="fnanchor">[111]</a> dropped in. He is a -friend of the house. Mrs. Haxall is a Richmond leader of -society, a <i lang="fr">ci-devant</i> beauty and belle, a charming person -still, and her hospitality is of the genuine Virginia type. -Everything Mr. Benjamin said we listened to, bore in mind, -and gave heed to it diligently. He is a Delphic oracle, of -the innermost shrine, and is supposed to enjoy the honor of -Mr. Davis’s unreserved confidence.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[279]</a></span></p> - -<p>Lamar was asked to dinner here yesterday; so he came -to-day. We had our wild turkey cooked for him yesterday, -and I dressed myself within an inch of my life with the best -of my four-year-old finery. Two of us, my husband and I, -did not damage the wild turkey seriously. So Lamar enjoyed -the <i lang="fr">réchauffé</i>, and commended the art with which -Molly had hid the slight loss we had inflicted upon its -mighty breast. She had piled fried oysters over the turkey -so skilfully, that unless we had told about it, no one would -ever have known that the huge bird was making his second -appearance on the board.</p> - -<p>Lamar was more absent-minded and distrait than ever. -My husband behaved like a trump—a well-bred man, with -all his wits about him; so things went off smoothly enough. -Lamar had just read Romola. Across the water he said it -was the rage. I am sure it is not as good as Adam Bede or -Silas Marner. It is not worthy of the woman who was to -“rival all but Shakespeare’s name below.” “What is the -matter with Romola?” he asked. “Tito is so mean, and -he is mean in such a very mean way, and the end is so repulsive. -Petting the husband’s illegitimate children and -left-handed wives may be magnanimity, but human nature -revolts at it.” “Woman’s nature, you mean!” “Yes, -and now another test. Two weeks ago I read this thing -with intense interest, and already her Savonarola has faded -from my mind. I have forgotten her way of showing Savonarola -as completely as I always do forget Bulwer’s -Rienzi.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, I understand you now! It is like Milton’s -devil—he has obliterated all other devils. You can’t fix -your mind upon any other. The devil always must be of -Miltonic proportions or you do not believe in him; Goethe’s -Mephistopheles disputes the crown of the causeway with -Lucifer. But soon you begin to feel that Mephistopheles -to be a lesser devil, an emissary of the devil only. Is -there any Cardinal Wolsey but Shakespeare’s? any Mirabeau<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[280]</a></span> -but Carlyle’s Mirabeau? But the list is too long of -those who have been stamped into your brain by genius. -The saintly preacher, the woman who stands by Hetty and -saves her soul; those heavenly minded sermons preached -by the author of Adam Bede, bear them well in mind while -I tell you how this writer, who so well imagines and depicts -female purity and piety, was a governess, or something of -that sort, and perhaps wrote for a living; at any rate, she -had an elective affinity, which was responded to, by George -Lewes, and so she lives with Lewes. I do not know that she -caused the separation between Lewes and his legal wife. -They are living in a villa on some Swiss lake, and Mrs. -Lewes, of the hour, is a charitable, estimable, agreeable, -sympathetic woman of genius.”</p> - -<p>Lamar seemed without prejudices on the subject; at -least, he expressed neither surprise nor disapprobation. He -said something of “genius being above law,” but I was not -very clear as to what he said on that point. As for me I -said nothing for fear of saying too much. “You know -that Lewes is a writer,” said he. “Some people say the -man she lives with is a noble man.” “They say she is kind -and good if—a fallen woman.” Here the conversation -ended.</p> - -<p><i>January 20th.</i>—And now comes a grand announcement -made by the Yankee Congress. They vote one million of -men to be sent down here to free the prisoners whom they -will not take in exchange. I actually thought they left all -these Yankees here on our hands as part of their plan to -starve us out. All Congressmen under fifty years of age -are to leave politics and report for military duty or be conscripted. -What enthusiasm there is in their councils! -Confusion, rather, it seems to me! Mrs. Ould says “the -men who frequent her house are more despondent now than -ever since this thing began.”</p> - -<p>Our Congress is so demoralized, so confused, so depressed. -They have asked the President, whom they have<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[281]</a></span> -so hated, so insulted, so crossed and opposed and thwarted -in every way, to speak to them, and advise them what to do.</p> - -<p><i>January 21st.</i>—Both of us were too ill to attend Mrs. -Davis’s reception. It proved a very sensational one. First, -a fire in the house, then a robbery—said to be an arranged -plan of the usual bribed servants there and some escaped -Yankee prisoners. To-day the Examiner is lost in wonder -at the stupidity of the fire and arson contingent. If they -had only waited a few hours until everybody was asleep; -after a reception the household would be so tired and so -sound asleep. Thanks to the editor’s kind counsel maybe -the arson contingent will wait and do better next time.</p> - -<p>Letters from home carried Mr. Chesnut off to-day. -Thackeray is dead. I stumbled upon Vanity Fair for myself. -I had never heard of Thackeray before. I think it -was in 1850. I know I had been ill at the New York Hotel<a name="FNanchor_112" id="FNanchor_112"></a><a href="#Footnote_112" class="fnanchor">[112]</a>, -and when left alone, I slipped down-stairs and into a bookstore -that I had noticed under the hotel, for something to -read. They gave me the first half of Pendennis. I can recall -now the very kind of paper it was printed on, and the -illustrations, as they took effect upon me. And yet when -I raved over it, and was wild for the other half, there were -people who said it was slow; that Thackeray was evidently -a coarse, dull, sneering writer; that he stripped human nature -bare, and made it repulsive, etc.</p> - -<p><i>January 22d.</i>—At Mrs. Lyons’s met another beautiful -woman, Mrs. Penn, the wife of Colonel Penn, who is making -shoes in a Yankee prison. She had a little son with her, -barely two years old, a mere infant. She said to him, -“<i lang="fr">Faites comme</i> Butler.” The child crossed his eyes and -made himself hideous, then laughed and rioted around as -if he enjoyed the joke hugely.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[282]</a></span></p> - -<p>Went to Mrs. Davis’s. It was sad enough. Fancy having -to be always ready to have your servants set your house -on fire, being bribed to do it. Such constant robberies, such -servants coming and going daily to the Yankees, carrying -one’s silver, one’s other possessions, does not conduce to -home happiness.</p> - -<p>Saw Hood on his legs once more. He rode off on a fine -horse, and managed it well, though he is disabled in one -hand, too. After all, as the woman said, “He has body -enough left to hold his soul.” “How plucky of him to ride -a gay horse like that.” “Oh, a Kentuckian prides himself -upon being half horse and half man!” “And the girl who -rode beside him. Did you ever see a more brilliant beauty? -Three cheers for South Carolina!!”</p> - -<p>I imparted a plan of mine to Brewster. I would have a -breakfast, a luncheon, a matinee, call it what you please, -but I would try and return some of the hospitalities of this -most hospitable people. Just think of the dinners, suppers, -breakfasts we have been to. People have no variety in war -times, but they make up for that lack in exquisite cooking.</p> - -<p>“Variety?” said he. “You are hard to please, with -terrapin stew, gumbo, fish, oysters in every shape, game, -and wine—as good as wine ever is. I do not mention juleps, -claret cup, apple toddy, whisky punches and all that. I -tell you it is good enough for me. Variety would spoil it. -Such hams as these Virginia people cure; such home-made -bread—there is no such bread in the world. Call yours a -‘cold collation.’” “Yes, I have eggs, butter, hams, game, -everything from home; no stint just now; even fruit.”</p> - -<p>“You ought to do your best. They are so generous and -hospitable and so unconscious of any merit, or exceptional -credit, in the matter of hospitality.” “They are no better -than the Columbia people always were to us.” So I fired -up for my own country.</p> - -<p><i>January 23d.</i>—My luncheon was a female affair exclusively. -Mrs. Davis came early and found Annie and Tudie<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[283]</a></span> -making the chocolate. Lawrence had gone South with my -husband; so we had only Molly for cook and parlor-maid. -After the company assembled we waited and waited. Those -girls were making the final arrangements. I made my way -to the door, and as I leaned against it ready to turn the -knob, Mrs. Stanard held me like Coleridge’s Ancient Mariner, -and told how she had been prevented by a violent attack -of cramps from running the blockade, and how providential -it all was. All this floated by my ear, for I heard -Mary Preston’s voice raised in high protest on the other -side of the door. “Stop!” said she. “Do you mean to -take away the whole dish?” “If you eat many more of -those fried oysters they will be missed. Heavens! She is -running away with a plug, a palpable plug, out of that -jelly cake!”</p> - -<p>Later in the afternoon, when it was over and I was safe, -for all had gone well and Molly had not disgraced herself -before the mistresses of those wonderful Virginia cooks, -Mrs. Davis and I went out for a walk. Barny Heyward and -Dr. Garnett joined us, the latter bringing the welcome -news that “Muscoe Russell’s wife had come.”</p> - -<p><i>January 25th.</i>—The President walked home with me -from church (I was to dine with Mrs. Davis). He walked -so fast I had no breath to talk; so I was a good listener for -once. The truth is I am too much afraid of him to say very -much in his presence. We had such a nice dinner. After -dinner Hood came for a ride with the President.</p> - -<p>Mr. Hunter, of Virginia, walked home with me. He -made himself utterly agreeable by dwelling on his friendship -and admiration of my husband. He said it was high -time Mr. Davis should promote him, and that he had told -Mr. Davis his opinion on that subject to-day.</p> - -<p>Tuesday, Barny Heyward went with me to the President’s -reception, and from there to a ball at the McFarlands’. -Breckinridge alone of the generals went with us. -The others went to a supper given by Mr. Clay, of Alabama.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[284]</a></span> -I had a long talk with Mr. Ould, Mr. Benjamin, and -Mr. Hunter. These men speak out their thoughts plainly -enough. What they said means “We are rattling down -hill, and nobody to put on the brakes.” I wore my black -velvet, diamonds, and point lace. They are borrowed for -all “theatricals,” but I wear them whenever they are -at home.</p> - -<p><i>February 1st.</i>—Mrs. Davis gave her “Luncheon to Ladies -Only” on Saturday. Many more persons there than -at any of these luncheons which we have gone to before. -Gumbo, ducks and olives, chickens in jelly, oysters, lettuce -salad, chocolate cream, jelly cake, claret, champagne, etc., -were the good things set before us.</p> - -<p>To-day, for a pair of forlorn shoes I have paid $85. -Colonel Ives drew my husband’s pay for me. I sent Lawrence -for it (Mr. Chesnut ordered him back to us; we needed -a man servant here). Colonel Ives wrote that he was -amazed I should be willing to trust a darky with that great -bundle of money, but it came safely. Mr. Petigru says you -take your money to market in the market basket, and bring -home what you buy in your pocket-book.</p> - -<p><i>February 5th.</i>—When Lawrence handed me my husband’s -money (six hundred dollars it was) I said: “Now I -am pretty sure you do not mean to go to the Yankees, for -with that pile of money in your hands you must have known -there was your chance.” He grinned, but said nothing.</p> - -<p>At the President’s reception Hood had a perfect ovation. -General Preston navigated him through the crowd, handling -him as tenderly, on his crutches, as if he were the -Princess of Wales’s new-born baby that I read of to-day. -It is bad for the head of an army to be so helpless. But old -Blücher went to Waterloo in a carriage, wearing a bonnet -on his head to shade his inflamed eyes—a heroic figure, -truly; an old, red-eyed, bonneted woman, apparently, back -in a landau. And yet, “Blücher to the rescue!”</p> - -<p>Afterward at the Prestons’, for we left the President’s<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[285]</a></span> -at an early hour. Major von Borcke was trying to teach -them his way of pronouncing his own name, and reciting -numerous travesties of it in this country, when Charles -threw open the door, saying, “A gentleman has called for -Major Bandbox.” The Prussian major acknowledged this -to be the worst he had heard yet.</p> - -<p>Off to the Ives’s theatricals. I walked with General -Breckinridge. Mrs. Clay’s Mrs. Malaprop was beyond our -wildest hopes. And she was in such bitter earnest when she -pinched Conny Cary’s (Lydia Languish’s) shoulder and -called her “an antricate little huzzy,” that Lydia showed -she felt it, and next day the shoulder was black and blue. -It was not that the actress had a grudge against Conny, but -that she was intense.</p> - -<p>Even the back of Mrs. Clay’s head was eloquent as -she walked away. “But,” said General Breckinridge, -“watch Hood; he has not seen the play before and Bob -Acres amazes him.” When he caught my eye, General -Hood nodded to me and said, “I believe that fellow Acres -is a coward.” “That’s better than the play,” whispered -Breckinridge, “but it is all good from Sir Anthony down -to Fag.”</p> - -<p>Between the acts Mrs. Clay sent us word to applaud. -She wanted encouragement; the audience was too cold. -General Breckinridge responded like a man. After that -she was fired by thunders of applause, following his lead. -Those mighty Kentuckians turned claqueurs, were a host in -themselves. Constance Cary not only acted well, but -looked perfectly beautiful.</p> - -<p>During the farce Mrs. Clay came in with all her feathers, -diamonds, and fallals, and took her seat by me. Said -General Breckinridge, “What a splendid head of hair you -have.” “And all my own,” said she. Afterward she said, -they could not get false hair enough, so they put a pair of -black satin boots on top of her head and piled hair over -them.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[286]</a></span></p> - -<p>We adjourned from Mrs. Ives’s to Mrs. Ould’s, where -we had the usual excellent Richmond supper. We did not -get home until three. It was a clear moonlight night—almost -as light as day. As we walked along I said to General -Breckinridge, “You have spent a jolly evening.” “I do -not know,” he answered. “I have asked myself more than -once to-night, ‘Are you the same man who stood gazing -down on the faces of the dead on that awful battle-field? -The soldiers lying there stare at you with their eyes wide -open. Is this the same world? Here and there?’”</p> - -<p>Last night, the great Kentucky contingent came in a -body. Hood brought Buck in his carriage. She said she -“did not like General Hood,” and spoke with a wild excitement -in those soft blue eyes of hers—or, are they gray or -brown? She then gave her reasons in the lowest voice, but -loud and distinct enough for him to hear: “Why? -He spoke so harshly to Cy, his body-servant, as we got out -of the carriage. I saw how he hurt Cy’s feelings, and I -tried to soothe Cy’s mortification.”</p> - -<p>“You see, Cy nearly caused me to fall by his awkwardness, -and I stormed at him,” said the General, vastly -amused. “I hate a man who speaks roughly to those who -dare not resent it,” said she. The General did own himself -charmed with her sentiments, but seemed to think his -wrong-doing all a good joke. He and Cy understand each -other.</p> - -<p><i>February 9th.</i>—This party for Johnny was the very -nicest I have ever had, and I mean it to be my last. I sent -word to the Carys to bring their own men. They came -alone, saying, “they did not care for men.” “That means -a raid on ours,” growled Isabella. Mr. Lamar was devoted -to Constance Cary. He is a free lance; so that created no -heart-burning.</p> - -<p>Afterward, when the whole thing was over, and a success, -the lights put out, etc., here trooped in the four girls, -who stayed all night with me. In dressing-gowns they<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[287]</a></span> -stirred up a hot fire, relit the gas, and went in for their supper; -<i lang="fr">réchauffé</i> was the word, oysters, hot coffee, etc. They -kept it up till daylight.</p> - -<p>Of course, we slept very late. As they came in to -breakfast, I remarked, “The church-bells have been going -on like mad. I take it as a rebuke to our breaking the Sabbath. -You know Sunday began at twelve o’clock last -night.” “It sounds to me like fire-bells,” somebody said.</p> - -<p>Soon the Infant dashed in, done up in soldier’s clothes: -“The Yankees are upon us!” said he. “Don’t you hear -the alarm-bells? They have been ringing day and night!” -Alex Haskell came; he and Johnny went off to report to -Custis Lee and to be enrolled among his “locals,” who are -always detailed for the defense of the city. But this time -the attack on Richmond has proved a false alarm.</p> - -<p>A new trouble at the President’s house: their trusty -man, Robert, broken out with the small-pox.</p> - -<p>We went to the Webb ball, and such a pleasant time we -had. After a while the P. M. G. (Pet Major-General) took -his seat in the comfortable chair next to mine, and declared -his determination to hold that position. Mr. Hunter and -Mr. Benjamin essayed to dislodge him. Mrs. Stanard said: -“Take him in the flirtation room; there he will soon be captured -and led away,” but I did not know where that room -was situated. Besides, my bold Texan made a most unexpected -sally: “I will not go, and I will prevent her from -going with any of you.” Supper was near at hand, and Mr. -Mallory said: “Ask him if the varioloid is not at his -house. I know it is.” I started as if I were shot, and I took -Mr. Clay’s arm and went in to supper, leaving the P. M. G. -to the girls. Venison and everything nice.</p> - -<p><i>February 12th.</i>—John Chesnut had a basket of champagne -carried to my house, oysters, partridges, and other -good things, for a supper after the reception. He is going -back to the army to-morrow.</p> - -<p>James Chesnut arrived on Wednesday. He has been<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[288]</a></span> -giving Buck his opinion of one of her performances last -night. She was here, and the General’s carriage drove up, -bringing some of our girls. They told her he could not -come up and he begged she would go down there for a moment. -She flew down, and stood ten minutes in that snow, -Cy holding the carriage-door open. “But, Colonel Chesnut, -there was no harm. I was not there ten minutes. I -could not get in the carriage because I did not mean to -stay one minute. He did not hold my hands—that is, not -half the time—Oh, you saw!—well, he did kiss my hands. -Where is the harm of that?” All men worship Buck. -How can they help it, she is so lovely.</p> - -<p>Lawrence has gone back ignominiously to South Carolina. -At breakfast already in some inscrutable way he -had become intoxicated; he was told to move a chair, and -he raised it high over his head, smashing Mrs. Grundy’s -chandelier. My husband said: “Mary, do tell Lawrence to -go home; I am too angry to speak to him.” So Lawrence -went without another word. He will soon be back, and -when he comes will say, “Shoo! I knew Mars Jeems could -not do without me.” And indeed he can not.</p> - -<p>Buck, reading my journal, opened her beautiful eyes in -amazement and said: “So little do people know themselves! -See what you say of me!” I replied: “The girls -heard him say to you, ‘Oh, you are so childish and so -sweet!’ Now, Buck, you know you are not childish. You -have an abundance of strong common sense. Don’t let men -adore you so—if you can help it. You are so unhappy -about men who care for you, when they are killed.”</p> - -<p>Isabella says that war leads to love-making. She says -these soldiers do more courting here in a day than they -would do at home, without a war, in ten years.</p> - -<p>In the pauses of conversation, we hear, “She is the noblest -woman God ever made!” “Goodness!” exclaims -Isabella. “Which one?” The amount of courting we hear -in these small rooms. Men have to go to the front, and they<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[289]</a></span> -say their say desperately. I am beginning to know all -about it. The girls tell me. And I overhear—I can not -help it. But this style is unique, is it not? “Since I saw -you—last year—standing by the turnpike gate, you know—my -battle-cry has been: ‘God, my country, and you!’” -So many are lame. Major Venable says: “It is not ‘the -devil on two sticks,’ now; the farce is ‘Cupid on -Crutches.’”</p> - -<p>General Breckinridge’s voice broke in: “They are my -cousins. So I determined to kiss them good-by. Good-by -nowadays is the very devil; it means forever, in all probability, -you know; all the odds against us. So I advanced -to the charge soberly, discreetly, and in the fear of the -Lord. The girls stood in a row—four of the very prettiest -I ever saw.” Sam, with his eyes glued to the floor, cried: -“You were afraid—you backed out.” “But I did nothing -of the kind. I kissed every one of them honestly, heartily.”</p> - -<p><i>February 13th.</i>—My husband is writing out some resolutions -for the Congress. He is very busy, too, trying -to get some poor fellows reprieved. He says they are good -soldiers but got into a scrape. Buck came in. She had on -her last winter’s English hat, with the pheasant’s wing. -Just then Hood entered most unexpectedly. Said the blunt -soldier to the girl: “You look mighty pretty in that hat; -you wore it at the turnpike gate, where I surrendered at -first sight.” She nodded and smiled, and flew down the -steps after Mr. Chesnut, looking back to say that she meant -to walk with him as far as the Executive Office.</p> - -<p>The General walked to the window and watched until -the last flutter of her garment was gone. He said: “The -President was finding fault with some of his officers in -command, and I said: ‘Mr. President, why don’t you come -and lead us yourself; I would follow you to the death.’” -“Actually, if you stay here in Richmond much longer you -will grow to be a courtier. And you came a rough Texan.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[290]</a></span></p> - -<p>Mrs. Davis and General McQueen came. He tells me -Muscoe Garnett is dead. Then the best and the cleverest -Virginian I know is gone. He was the most scholarly man -they had, and his character was higher than his requirements.</p> - -<p>To-day a terrible onslaught was made upon the President -for nepotism. Burton Harrison’s and John Taylor -Wood’s letters denying the charge that the President’s cotton -was unburned, or that he left it to be bought by the Yankees, -have enraged the opposition. How much these people -in the President’s family have to bear! I have never felt -so indignant.</p> - -<p><i>February 16th.</i>—Saw in Mrs. Howell’s room the little -negro Mrs. Davis rescued yesterday from his brutal negro -guardian. The child is an orphan. He was dressed up in -little Joe’s clothes and happy as a lord. He was very anxious -to show me his wounds and bruises, but I fled. There -are some things in life too sickening, and cruelty is one of -them.</p> - -<p>Somebody said: “People who knew General Hood before -the war said there was nothing in him. As for losing -his property by the war, some say he never had any, and -that West Point is a pauper’s school, after all. He has -only military glory, and that he has gained since the war -began.”</p> - -<p>“Now,” said Burton Harrison, “only military glory! -I like that! The glory and the fame he has gained during -the war—that is Hood. What was Napoleon before Toulon? -Hood has the impassive dignity of an Indian chief. He has -always a little court around him of devoted friends. Wigfall, -himself, has said he could not get within Hood’s lines.”</p> - -<p><i>February 17th.</i>—Found everything in Main Street -twenty per cent dearer. They say it is due to the new currency -bill.</p> - -<p>I asked my husband: “Is General Johnston ordered to -reenforce Polk? They said he did not understand the order.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[291]</a></span> -“After five days’ delay,” he replied. “They -say Sherman is marching to Mobile.<a name="FNanchor_113" id="FNanchor_113"></a><a href="#Footnote_113" class="fnanchor">[113]</a> When they once get -inside of our armies what is to molest them, unless it be -women with broomsticks?” General Johnston writes that -“the Governor of Georgia refuses him provisions and the -use of his roads.” The Governor of Georgia writes: “The -roads are open to him and in capital condition. I have furnished -him abundantly with provisions from time to time, -as he desired them.” I suppose both of these letters are -placed away side by side in our archives.</p> - -<p><i>February 20th.</i>—Mrs. Preston was offended by the story -of Buck’s performance at the Ive’s. General Breckinridge -told her “it was the most beautifully unconscious act he -ever saw.” The General was leaning against the wall, Buck -standing guard by him “on her two feet.” The crowd -surged that way, and she held out her arm to protect him -from the rush. After they had all passed she handed him -his crutches, and they, too, moved slowly away. Mrs. Davis -said: “Any woman in Richmond would have done the -same joyfully, but few could do it so gracefully. Buck is -made so conspicuous by her beauty, whatever she does can -not fail to attract attention.”</p> - -<p>Johnny stayed at home only one day; then went to his -plantation, got several thousand Confederate dollars, and -in the afternoon drove out with Mrs. K——. At the Bee -Store he spent a thousand of his money; bought us gloves -and linen. Well, one can do without gloves, but linen is -next to life itself.</p> - -<p>Yesterday the President walked home from church with -me. He said he was so glad to see my husband at church; -had never seen him there before; remarked on how well he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[292]</a></span> -looked, etc. I replied that he looked so well “because you -have never before seen him in the part of ‘the right man in -the right place.’” My husband has no fancy for being -planted in pews, but he is utterly Christian in his creed.</p> - -<p><i>February 23d.</i>—At the President’s, where General Lee -breakfasted, a man named Phelan told General Lee all he -ought to do; planned a campaign for him. General Lee -smiled blandly the while, though he did permit himself a -mild sneer at the wise civilians in Congress who refrained -from trying the battle-field in person, but from afar dictated -the movements of armies. My husband said that, to -his amazement, General Lee came into his room at the Executive -Office to “pay his respects and have a talk.” “Dear -me! Goodness gracious!” said I. “That was a compliment -from the head of the army, the very first man in the -world, we Confederates think.”</p> - -<p><i>February 24th.</i>—Friends came to make taffy and stayed -the livelong day. They played cards. One man, a soldier, -had only two teeth left in front and they lapped across each -other. On account of the condition of his mouth, he had -maintained a dignified sobriety of aspect, though he told -some funny stories. Finally a story was too much for him, -and he grinned from ear to ear. Maggie gazed, and then -called out as the negro fiddlers call out dancing figures, -“Forward two and cross over!” Fancy our faces. The -hero of the two teeth, relapsing into a decorous arrangement -of mouth, said: “Cavalry are the eyes of an army; -they bring the news; the artillery are the boys to make a -noise; but the infantry do the fighting, and a general or so -gets all the glory.”</p> - -<p><i>February 26th.</i>—We went to see Mrs. Breckinridge, -who is here with her husband. Then we paid our respects -to Mrs. Lee. Her room was like an industrial school: everybody -so busy. Her daughters were all there plying their -needles, with several other ladies. Mrs. Lee showed us a -beautiful sword, recently sent to the General by some Marylanders,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[293]</a></span> -now in Paris. On the blade was engraved, “<i lang="fr">Aide -toi et Dieu t’aidera</i>.” When we came out someone said, -“Did you see how the Lees spend their time? What a rebuke -to the taffy parties!”</p> - -<p>Another maimed hero is engaged to be married. Sally -Hampton has accepted John Haskell. There is a story that -he reported for duty after his arm was shot off; suppose in -the fury of the battle he did not feel the pain.</p> - -<p>General Breckinridge once asked, “What’s the name of -the fellow who has gone to Europe for Hood’s leg?” “Dr. -Darby.” “Suppose it is shipwrecked?” “No matter; -half a dozen are ordered.” Mrs. Preston raised her hands: -“No wonder the General says they talk of him as if he were -a centipede; his leg is in everybody’s mouth.”</p> - -<p><i>March 3d.</i>—Hetty, the handsome, and Constance, the -witty, came; the former too prudish to read Lost and Saved, -by Mrs. Norton, after she had heard the plot. Conny was -making a bonnet for me. Just as she was leaving the house, -her friendly labors over, my husband entered, and quickly -ordered his horse. “It is so near dinner,” I began. “But -I am going with the President. I am on duty. He goes to -inspect the fortifications. The enemy, once more, are within -a few miles of Richmond.” Then we prepared a luncheon -for him. Constance Cary remained with me.</p> - -<p>After she left I sat down to Romola, and I was absorbed -in it. How hardened we grow to war and war’s alarms! -The enemy’s cannon or our own are thundering in my ears, -and I was dreadfully afraid some infatuated and frightened -friend would come in to cheer, to comfort, and interrupt -me. Am I the same poor soul who fell on her knees -and prayed, and wept, and fainted, as the first gun boomed -from Fort Sumter? Once more we have repulsed the enemy. -But it is humiliating, indeed, that he can come -and threaten us at our very gates whenever he so pleases. -If a forlorn negro had not led them astray (and they -hanged him for it) on Tuesday night, unmolested, they<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[294]</a></span> -would have walked into Richmond. Surely there is horrid -neglect or mismanagement somewhere.</p> - -<p><i>March 4th.</i>—The enemy has been reenforced and is -on us again. Met Wade Hampton, who told me my husband -was to join him with some volunteer troops; so I hurried -home. Such a cavalcade rode up to luncheon! Captain -Smith Lee and Preston Hampton, the handsomest, the -oldest and the youngest of the party. This was at the Prestons’. -Smith Lee walked home with me; alarm-bells ringing; -horsemen galloping; wagons rattling. Dr. H. stopped -us to say “Beast” Butler was on us with sixteen thousand -men. How scared the Doctor looked! And, after all, it was -only a notice to the militia to turn out and drill.</p> - -<p><i>March 5th.</i>—Tom Fergurson walked home with me. He -told me of Colonel Dahlgren’s<a name="FNanchor_114" id="FNanchor_114"></a><a href="#Footnote_114" class="fnanchor">[114]</a> death and the horrid memoranda -found in his pocket. He came with secret orders to -destroy this devoted city, hang the President and his Cabinet, -and burn the town! Fitzhugh Lee was proud that the -Ninth Virginia captured him.</p> - -<p>Found Mrs. Semmes covering her lettuces and radishes -as calmly as if Yankee raiders were a myth. While -“Beast” Butler holds Fortress Monroe he will make -things lively for us. On the alert must we be now.</p> - -<p><i>March 7th.</i>—Shopping, and paid $30 for a pair of -gloves; $50 for a pair of slippers; $24 for six spools of -thread; $32 for five miserable, shabby little pocket handkerchiefs. -When I came home found Mrs. Webb. At her -hospital there was a man who had been taken prisoner by -Dahlgren’s party. He saw the negro hanged who had misled<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[295]</a></span> -them, unintentionally, in all probability. He saw Dahlgren -give a part of his bridle to hang him. Details are melancholy, -as Emerson says. This Dahlgren had also lost a -leg.</p> - -<p>Constance Cary, in words too fine for the occasion, described -the homely scene at my house; how I prepared sandwiches -for my husband; and broke, with trembling hand, -the last bottle of anything to drink in the house, a bottle I -destined to go with the sandwiches. She called it a Hector -and Andromache performance.</p> - -<p><i>March 8th.</i>—Mrs. Preston’s story. As we walked home, -she told me she had just been to see a lady she had known -more than twenty years before. She had met her in this -wise: One of the chambermaids of the St. Charles Hotel -(New Orleans) told Mrs. Preston’s nurse—it was when -Mary Preston was a baby—that up among the servants in -the garret there was a sick lady and her children. The maid -was sure she was a lady, and thought she was hiding from -somebody. Mrs. Preston went up, knew the lady, had -her brought down into comfortable rooms, and nursed her -until she recovered from her delirium and fever. She had -run away, indeed, and was hiding herself and her children -from a worthless husband. Now, she has one son in a Yankee -prison, one mortally wounded, and the last of them -dying there under her eyes of consumption. This last had -married here in Richmond, not wisely, and too soon, for he -was a mere boy; his pay as a private was eleven dollars a -month, and his wife’s family charged him three hundred -dollars a month for her board; so he had to work double -tides, do odd jobs by night and by day, and it killed him by -exposure to cold in this bitter climate to which his constitution -was unadapted.</p> - -<p>They had been in Vicksburg during the siege, and during -the bombardment sought refuge in a cave. The roar of -the cannon ceasing, they came out gladly for a breath of -fresh air. At the moment when they emerged, a bomb burst<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[296]</a></span> -there, among them, so to speak, struck the son already -wounded, and smashed off the arm of a beautiful little -grandchild not three years old. There was this poor little -girl with her touchingly lovely face, and her arm gone. This -mutilated little martyr, Mrs. Preston said, was really to her -the crowning touch of the woman’s affliction. Mrs. Preston -put up her hand, “Her baby face haunts me.”</p> - -<p><i>March 11th.</i>—Letters from home, including one from -my husband’s father, now over ninety, written with his own -hand, and certainly his own mind still. I quote: “Bad -times; worse coming. Starvation stares me in the face. -Neither John’s nor James’s overseer will sell me any corn.” -Now, what has the government to do with the fact that on -all his plantations he made corn enough to last for the -whole year, and by the end of January his negroes had -stolen it all? Poor old man, he has fallen on evil days, -after a long life of ease and prosperity.</p> - -<p>To-day, I read The Blithedale Romance. Blithedale -leaves such an unpleasant impression. I like pleasant, -kindly stories, now that we are so harrowed by real life. -Tragedy is for our hours of ease.</p> - -<p><i>March 12th.</i>—An active campaign has begun everywhere. -Kilpatrick still threatens us. Bragg has organized -his fifteen hundred of cavalry to protect Richmond. Why -can’t my husband be made colonel of that? It is a new -regiment. No; he must be made a general!</p> - -<p>“Now,” says Mary Preston, “Doctor Darby is at the -mercy of both Yankees and the rolling sea, and I am anxious -enough; but, instead of taking my bed and worrying -mamma, I am taking stock of our worldly goods and trying -to arrange the wedding paraphernalia for two girls.”</p> - -<p>There is love-making and love-making in this world. -What a time the sweethearts of that wretch, young Shakespeare, -must have had. What experiences of life’s delights -must have been his before he evolved the Romeo and Juliet -business from his own internal consciousness; also that delicious<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[297]</a></span> -Beatrice and Rosalind. The poor creature that he -left his second best bedstead to came in second best all the -time, no doubt; and she hardly deserved more. Fancy people -wondering that Shakespeare and his kind leave no progeny -like themselves! Shakespeare’s children would have -been half his only; the other half only the second best bedstead’s. -What would you expect of that commingling of -materials? Goethe used his lady-loves as school-books are -used: he studied them from cover to cover, got all that -could be got of self-culture and knowledge of human nature -from the study of them, and then threw them aside as if of -no further account in his life.</p> - -<p>Byron never could forget Lord Byron, poet and peer, -and <i lang="fr">mauvais sujet</i>, and he must have been a trying lover; -like talking to a man looking in the glass at himself. Lady -Byron was just as much taken up with herself. So, they -struck each other, and bounded apart.</p> - -<p>[Since I wrote this, Mrs. Stowe has taken Byron in hand. -But I know a story which might have annoyed my lord -more than her and Lady Byron’s imagination of wickedness—for -he posed a fiend, but was tender and kind. A -clerk in a country store asked my sister to lend him a -book, he “wanted something to read; the days were so -long.” “What style of book would you prefer?” she said. -“Poetry.” “Any particular poet?” “<em>Brown.</em> I hear -him much spoken of.” “Brown<em>ing</em>?” “No; Brown—short—that -is what they call him.” “Byron, you mean.” -“No, I mean the poet, Brown.”]</p> - -<p>“Oh, you wish you had lived in the time of the Shakespeare -creature!” He knew all the forms and phases of -true love. Straight to one’s heart he goes in tragedy or -comedy. He never misses fire. He has been there, in slang -phrase. No doubt the man’s bare presence gave pleasure to -the female world; he saw women at their best, and he effaced -himself. He told no tales of his own life. Compare -with him old, sad, solemn, sublime, sneering, snarling, fault-finding<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[298]</a></span> -Milton, a man whose family doubtless found “<i lang="fr">les -absences délicieuses</i>.” That phrase describes a type of man -at a touch; it took a Frenchwoman to do it.</p> - -<p>“But there is an Italian picture of Milton, taken in his -youth, and he was as beautiful as an angel.” “No doubt. -But love flies before everlasting posing and preaching—the -deadly requirement of a man always to be looked up to—a -domestic tyrant, grim, formal, and awfully learned. -Milton was only a mere man, for he could not do without -women. When he tired out the first poor thing, who did -not fall down, worship, and obey him, and see God in him, -and she ran away, he immediately arranged his creed so -that he could take another wife; for wife he must have, <i lang="fr">à -la</i> Mohammedan creed. The deer-stealer never once -thought of justifying theft simply because he loved venison -and could not come by it lawfully. Shakespeare was a better -man, or, may I say, a purer soul, than self-upholding, -Calvinistic, Puritanic, king-killing Milton. There is no -muddling of right and wrong in Shakespeare, and no pharisaical -stuff of any sort.”</p> - -<p>Then George Deas joined us, fresh from Mobile, where -he left peace and plenty. He went to sixteen weddings and -twenty-seven tea-parties. For breakfast he had everything -nice. Lily told of what she had seen the day before at the -Spottswood. She was in the small parlor, waiting for someone, -and in the large drawing-room sat Hood, solitary, sad, -with crutches by his chair. He could not see them. Mrs. -Buckner came in and her little girl who, when she spied -Hood, bounded into the next room, and sprang into his lap. -Hood smoothed her little dress down and held her close to -him. She clung around his neck for a while, and then, -seizing him by the beard, kissed him to an illimitable extent. -“Prettiest picture I ever saw,” said Lily. “The soldier -and the child.”</p> - -<p>John R. Thompson sent me a New York Herald only -three days old. It is down on Kilpatrick for his miserable<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[299]</a></span> -failure before Richmond. Also it acknowledges a defeat -before Charleston and a victory for us in Florida.</p> - -<p>General Grant is charmed with Sherman’s successful -movements; says he has destroyed millions upon millions of -our property in Mississippi. I hope that may not be true, -and that Sherman may fail as Kilpatrick did. Now, if we -still had Stonewall or Albert Sidney Johnston where Joe -Johnston and Polk are, I would not give a fig for Sherman’s -chances. The Yankees say that at last they have scared up -a man who succeeds, and they expect him to remedy all that -has gone wrong. So they have made their brutal Suwarrow, -Grant, lieutenant-general.</p> - -<p>Doctor —— at the Prestons’ proposed to show me a man -who was not an F. F. V. Until we came here, we had never -heard of our social position. We do not know how to be -rude to people who call. To talk of social position seems -vulgar. Down our way, that sort of thing was settled one -way or another beyond a peradventure, like the earth and -the sky. We never gave it a thought. We talked to whom -we pleased, and if they were not <i lang="fr">comme il faut</i>, we were -ever so much more polite to the poor things. No reflection -on Virginia. Everybody comes to Richmond.</p> - -<p>Somebody counted fourteen generals in church to-day, -and suggested that less piety and more drilling of commands -would suit the times better. There were Lee, Longstreet, -Morgan, Hoke, Clingman, Whiting, Pegram, Elzey, -Gordon, and Bragg. Now, since Dahlgren failed to -carry out his orders, the Yankees disown them, disavowing -all. He was not sent here to murder us all, to hang -the President, and burn the town. There is the note-book, -however, at the Executive Office, with orders to hang and -burn.</p> - -<p><i>March 15th.</i>—Old Mrs. Chesnut is dead. A saint is gone -and James Chesnut is broken-hearted. He adored his mother. -I gave $375 for my mourning, which consists of a black -alpaca dress and a crape veil. With bonnet, gloves, and all<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[300]</a></span> -it came to $500. Before the blockade such things as I -have would not have been thought fit for a chambermaid.</p> - -<p>Everybody is in trouble. Mrs. Davis says paper money -has depreciated so much in value that they can not live -within their income; so they are going to dispense with their -carriage and horses.</p> - -<p><i>March 18th.</i>—Went out to sell some of my colored -dresses. What a scene it was—such piles of rubbish, and -mixed up with it, such splendid Parisian silks and satins. -A mulatto woman kept the shop under a roof in an out-of-the-way -old house. The <i lang="fr">ci-devant</i> rich white women sell -to, and the negroes buy of, this woman.</p> - -<p>After some whispering among us Buck said: “Sally is -going to marry a man who has lost an arm, and she is proud -of it. The cause glorifies such wounds.” Annie said meekly, -“I fear it will be my fate to marry one who has lost his -head.” “Tudy has her eyes on one who has lost an eye. -What a glorious assortment of noble martyrs and heroes!” -“The bitterness of this kind of talk is appalling.”</p> - -<p>General Lee had tears in his eyes when he spoke of his -daughter-in-law just dead—that lovely little Charlotte -Wickham, Mrs. Roony Lee. Roony Lee says “Beast” Butler -was very kind to him while he was a prisoner. The -“Beast” has sent him back his war-horse. The Lees are -men enough to speak the truth of friend or enemy, fearing -not the consequences.</p> - -<p><i>March 19th.</i>—A new experience: Molly and Lawrence -have both gone home, and I am to be left for the first time -in my life wholly at the mercy of hired servants. Mr. Chesnut, -being in such deep mourning for his mother, we see no -company. I have a maid of all work.</p> - -<p>Tudy came with an account of yesterday’s trip to Petersburg. -Constance Cary raved of the golden ripples in -Tudy’s hair. Tudy vanished in a halo of glory, and Constance -Cary gave me an account of a wedding, as it was -given to her by Major von Borcke. The bridesmaids were<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[301]</a></span> -dressed in black, the bride in Confederate gray, homespun. -She had worn the dress all winter, but it had been washed -and turned for the wedding. The female critics pronounced -it “flabby-dabby.” They also said her collar was only -“net,” and she wore a cameo breastpin. Her bonnet was -self-made.</p> - -<p><i>March 24th.</i>—Yesterday, we went to the Capitol grounds -to see our returned prisoners. We walked slowly up and -down until Jeff Davis was called upon to speak. There I -stood, almost touching the bayonets when he left me. I -looked straight into the prisoners’ faces, poor fellows. They -cheered with all their might, and I wept for sympathy, and -enthusiasm. I was very deeply moved. These men were -so forlorn, so dried up, and shrunken, with such a strange -look in some of their eyes; others so restless and wild-looking; -others again placidly vacant, as if they had been dead -to the world for years. A poor woman was too much for -me. She was searching for her son. He had been expected -back. She said he was taken prisoner at Gettysburg. She -kept going in and out among them with a basket of provisions -she had brought for him to eat. It was too pitiful. -She was utterly unconscious of the crowd. The anxious -dread, expectation, hurry, and hope which led her on -showed in her face.</p> - -<p>A sister of Mrs. Lincoln is here. She brings the freshest -scandals from Yankeeland. She says she rode with -Lovejoy. A friend of hers commands a black regiment. -Two Southern horrors—a black regiment and Lovejoy.</p> - -<p><i>March 31st.</i>—Met Preston Hampton. Constance Cary -was with me. She showed her regard for him by taking his -overcoat and leaving him in a drenching rain. What boyish -nonsense he talked; said he was in love with Miss Dabney -now, that his love was so hot within him that he was -waterproof, the rain sizzed and smoked off. It did not so -much as dampen his ardor or his clothes.</p> - -<p><i>April 1st.</i>—Mrs. Davis is utterly depressed. She said<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[302]</a></span> -the fall of Richmond must come; she would send her children -to me and Mrs. Preston. We begged her to come to us -also. My husband is as depressed as I ever knew him to be. -He has felt the death of that angel mother of his keenly, -and now he takes his country’s woes to heart.</p> - -<p><i>April 11th.</i>—Drove with Mrs. Davis and all her infant -family; wonderfully clever and precocious children, with -unbroken wills. At one time there was a sudden uprising -of the nursery contingent. They laughed, fought, and -screamed. Bedlam broke loose. Mrs. Davis scolded, -laughed, and cried. She asked me if my husband would -speak to the President about the plan in South Carolina, -which everybody said suited him. “No, Mrs. Davis,” said -I. “That is what I told Mr. Davis,” said she. “Colonel -Chesnut rides so high a horse. Now Browne is so much -more practical. He goes forth to be general of conscripts -in Georgia. His wife will stay at the Cobbs’s.”</p> - -<p>Mrs. Ould gave me a luncheon on Saturday. I felt that -this was my last sad farewell to Richmond and the people -there I love so well. Mrs. Davis sent her carriage for me, -and we went to the Oulds’ together. Such good things were -served—oranges, guava jelly, etc. The Examiner says Mr. -Ould, when he goes to Fortress Monroe, replenishes his -larder; why not? The Examiner has taken another fling -at the President, as, “haughty and austere with his -friends, affable, kind, subservient to his enemies.” I wonder -if the Yankees would indorse that certificate. Both -sides abuse him. He can not please anybody, it seems. No -doubt he is right.</p> - -<p>My husband is now brigadier-general and is sent to -South Carolina to organize and take command of the reserve -troops. C. C. Clay and L. Q. C. Lamar are both -spoken of to fill the vacancy made among Mr. Davis’s aides -by this promotion.</p> - -<p>To-day, Captain Smith Lee spent the morning here and -gave a review of past Washington gossip. I am having<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[303]</a></span> -such a busy, happy life, with so many friends, and my -friends are so clever, so charming. But the change to that -weary, dreary Camden! Mary Preston said: “I do think -Mrs. Chesnut deserves to be canonized; she agrees to go -back to Camden.” The Prestons gave me a farewell dinner; -my twenty-fourth wedding day, and the very pleasantest -day I have spent in Richmond.</p> - -<p>Maria Lewis was sitting with us on Mrs. Huger’s steps, -and Smith Lee was lauding Virginia people as usual. As -Lee would say, there “hove in sight” Frank Parker, riding -one of the finest of General Bragg’s horses; by his side -Buck on Fairfax, the most beautiful horse in Richmond, -his brown coat looking like satin, his proud neck arched, -moving slowly, gracefully, calmly, no fidgets, aristocratic -in his bearing to the tips of his bridle-reins. There sat -Buck tall and fair, managing her horse with infinite ease, -her English riding-habit showing plainly the exquisite proportions -of her figure. “Supremely lovely,” said Smith -Lee. “Look at them both,” said I proudly; “can you -match those two in Virginia?” “Three cheers for South -Carolina!” was the answer of Lee, the gallant Virginia -sailor.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[304]</a></span></p> - -<h2 id="CHAPTER_XVII">XVII<br /> -<span class="smaller">CAMDEN, S. C.<br /> -<i>May 8, 1864-June 1, 1864</i></span></h2> - -<div> -<img class="dropcap" src="images/dropcap-c.jpg" width="100" height="115" alt="" /> -</div> - -<p class="dropcap">Camden, S. C., <i>May 8, 1864</i>.—My friends crowded -around me so in those last days in Richmond, I forgot -the affairs of this nation utterly; though I did -show faith in my Confederate country by buying poor -Bones’s (my English maid’s) Confederate bonds. I gave -her gold thimbles, bracelets; whatever was gold and would -sell in New York or London, I gave.</p> - -<p>My friends in Richmond grieved that I had to leave -them—not half so much, however, as I did that I must -come away. Those last weeks were so pleasant. No battle, -no murder, no sudden death, all went merry as a marriage -bell. Clever, cordial, kind, brave friends rallied around -me.</p> - -<p>Maggie Howell and I went down the river to see an -exchange of prisoners. Our party were the Lees, Mallorys, -Mrs. Buck Allan, Mrs. Ould. We picked up Judge Ould -and Buck Allan at Curl’s Neck. I had seen no genuine -Yankees before; prisoners, well or wounded, had been German, -Scotch, or Irish. Among our men coming ashore was -an officer, who had charge of some letters for a friend of -mine whose <i lang="fr">fiancé</i> had died; I gave him her address. One -other man showed me some wonderfully ingenious things -he had made while a prisoner. One said they gave him rations -for a week; he always devoured them in three days, he -could not help it; and then he had to bear the inevitable -agony of those four remaining days! Many were wounded,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[305]</a></span> -some were maimed for life. They were very cheerful. We -had supper—or some nondescript meal—with ice-cream -on board. The band played Home, Sweet Home.</p> - -<p>One man tapped another on the shoulder: “Well, how -do you feel, old fellow?” “Never was so near crying in -my life—for very comfort.”</p> - -<p>Governor Cummings, a Georgian, late Governor of Utah, -was among the returned prisoners. He had been in prison -two years. His wife was with him. He was a striking-looking -person, huge in size, and with snow-white hair, fat -as a prize ox, with no sign of Yankee barbarity or starvation -about him.</p> - -<p>That evening, as we walked up to Mrs. Davis’s carriage, -which was waiting for us at the landing, Dr. Garnett -with Maggie Howell, Major Hall with me, suddenly I heard -her scream, and some one stepped back in the dark and -said in a whisper. “Little Joe! he has killed himself!” -I felt reeling, faint, bewildered. A chattering -woman clutched my arm: “Mrs. Davis’s son? Impossible. -Whom did you say? Was he an interesting child? How -old was he?” The shock was terrible, and unnerved as -I was I cried, “For God’s sake take her away!”</p> - -<p>Then Maggie and I drove two long miles in silence except -for Maggie’s hysterical sobs. She was wild with terror. -The news was broken to her in that abrupt way at the -carriage door so that at first she thought it had all happened -there, and that poor little Joe was in the carriage.</p> - -<p>Mr. Burton Harrison met us at the door of the Executive -Mansion. Mrs. Semmes and Mrs. Barksdale were there, -too. Every window and door of the house seemed wide -open, and the wind was blowing the curtains. It was lighted, -even in the third story. As I sat in the drawing-room, I -could hear the tramp of Mr. Davis’s step as he walked up -and down the room above. Not another sound. The whole -house as silent as death. It was then twelve o’clock; so I -went home and waked General Chesnut, who had gone<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[306]</a></span> -to bed. We went immediately back to the President’s, -found Mrs. Semmes still there, but saw no one but her. -We thought some friends of the family ought to be in the -house.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Semmes said when she got there that little Jeff -was kneeling down by his brother, and he called out to her -in great distress: “Mrs. Semmes, I have said all the prayers -I know how, but God will not wake Joe.”</p> - -<p>Poor little Joe, the good child of the family, was so gentle -and affectionate. He used to run in to say his prayers at -his father’s knee. Now he was laid out somewhere above us, -crushed and killed. Mrs. Semmes, describing the accident, -said he fell from the high north piazza upon a brick pavement. -Before I left the house I saw him lying there, white -and beautiful as an angel, covered with flowers; Catherine, -his nurse, flat on the floor by his side, was weeping and wailing -as only an Irishwoman can.</p> - -<p>Immense crowds came to the funeral, everybody sympathetic, -but some shoving and pushing rudely. There were -thousands of children, and each child had a green bough or -a bunch of flowers to throw on little Joe’s grave, which was -already a mass of white flowers, crosses, and evergreens. -The morning I came away from Mrs. Davis’s, early as it -was, I met a little child with a handful of snow drops. -“Put these on little Joe,” she said; “I knew him so well,” -and then she turned and fled without another word. I did -not know who she was then or now.</p> - -<p>As I walked home I met Mr. Reagan, then Wade Hampton. -But I could see nothing but little Joe and his broken-hearted -mother. And Mr. Davis’s step still sounded in my -ears as he walked that floor the livelong night.</p> - -<p>General Lee was to have a grand review the very day we -left Richmond. Great numbers of people were to go up by -rail to see it. Miss Turner McFarland writes: “They did -go, but they came back faster than they went. They found -the army drawn up in battle array.” Many of the brave<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[307]</a></span> -and gay spirits that we saw so lately have taken flight, the -only flight they know, and their bodies are left dead upon -the battle-field. Poor old Edward Johnston is wounded -again, and a prisoner. Jones’s brigade broke first; he was -wounded the day before.</p> - -<p>At Wilmington we met General Whiting. He sent us to -the station in his carriage, and bestowed upon us a bottle of -brandy, which had run the blockade. They say Beauregard -has taken his sword from Whiting. Never! I will not believe -it. At the capture of Fort Sumter they said Whiting -was the brains, Beauregard only the hand. Lucifer, son of -the morning! How art thou fallen! That they should -even say such a thing!</p> - -<p>My husband and Mr. Covey got out at Florence to procure -for Mrs. Miles a cup of coffee. They were slow about -it and they got left. I did not mind this so very much, for -I remembered that we were to remain all day at Kingsville, -and that my husband could overtake me there by the next -train. My maid belonged to the Prestons. She was only -traveling home with me, and would go straight on to Columbia. -So without fear I stepped off at Kingsville. My old -Confederate silk, like most Confederate dresses, had seen -better days, and I noticed that, like Oliver Wendell -Holmes’s famous “one-hoss shay,” it had gone to pieces -suddenly, and all over. It was literally in strips. I became -painfully aware of my forlorn aspect when I asked the telegraph -man the way to the hotel, and he was by no means respectful -to me. I was, indeed, alone—an old and not too respectable-looking -woman. It was my first appearance in -the character, and I laughed aloud.</p> - -<p>A very haughty and highly painted dame greeted me -at the hotel. “No room,” said she. “Who are you?” -I gave my name. “Try something else,” said she. “Mrs. -Chesnut don’t travel round by herself with no servants and -no nothing.” I looked down. There I was, dirty, tired, tattered, -and torn. “Where do you come from?” said she.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[308]</a></span> -“My home is in Camden.” “Come, now, I know everybody -in Camden.” I sat down meekly on a bench in the -piazza, that was free to all wayfarers.</p> - -<p>“Which Mrs. Chesnut?” said she (sharply). “I -know both.” “I am now the only one. And now what is -the matter with you? Do you take me for a spy? I know -you perfectly well. I went to school with you at Miss Henrietta -de Leon’s, and my name was Mary Miller.” “The -Lord sakes alive! and to think you are her! Now I see. -Dear! dear me! Heaven sakes, woman, but you are -broke!” “And tore,” I added, holding up my dress. -“But I had had no idea it was so difficult to effect an entry -into a railroad wayside hotel.” I picked up a long strip of -my old black dress, torn off by a man’s spur as I passed him -getting off the train.</p> - -<p>It is sad enough at Mulberry without old Mrs. Chesnut, -who was the good genius of the place. It is so lovely here -in spring. The giants of the forest—the primeval oaks, -water-oaks, live-oaks, willow-oaks, such as I have not seen -since I left here—with opopanax, violets, roses, and yellow -jessamine, the air is laden with perfume. Araby the Blest -was never sweeter.</p> - -<p>Inside, are creature comforts of all kinds—green peas, -strawberries, asparagus, spring lamb, spring chicken, fresh -eggs, rich, yellow butter, clean white linen for one’s beds, -dazzling white damask for one’s table. It is such a contrast -to Richmond, where I wish I were.</p> - -<p>Fighting is going on. Hampton is frantic, for his laggard -new regiments fall in slowly; no fault of the soldiers; -they are as disgusted as he is. Bragg, Bragg, the head of -the War Office, can not organize in time.</p> - -<p>John Boykin has died in a Yankee prison. He had on a -heavy flannel shirt when lying in an open platform car on -the way to a cold prison on the lakes. A Federal soldier -wanted John’s shirt. Prisoners have no rights; so John -had to strip off and hand his shirt to him. That caused<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[309]</a></span> -his death. In two days he was dead of pneumonia—may be -frozen to death. One man said: “They are taking us there -to freeze.” But then their men will find our hot sun in August -and July as deadly as our men find their cold Decembers. -Their snow and ice finish our prisoners at a rapid -rate, they say. Napoleon’s soldiers found out all that in -the Russian campaign.</p> - -<p>Have brought my houseless, homeless friends, refugees -here, to luxuriate in Mulberry’s plenty. I can but remember -the lavish kindness of the Virginia people when I was -there and in a similar condition. The Virginia people do -the rarest acts of hospitality and never seem to know it is -not in the ordinary course of events.</p> - -<p>The President’s man, Stephen, bringing his master’s -Arabian to Mulberry for safe-keeping, said: “Why, Missis, -your niggers down here are well off. I call this Mulberry -place heaven, with plenty to eat, little to do, warm -house to sleep in, a good church.”</p> - -<p>John L. Miller, my cousin, has been killed at the head -of his regiment. The blows now fall so fast on our heads -they are bewildering. The Secretary of War authorizes -General Chesnut to reorganize the men who have been hitherto -detailed for special duty, and also those who have been -exempt. He says General Chesnut originated the plan and -organized the corps of clerks which saved Richmond in the -Dahlgren raid.</p> - -<p><i>May 27th.</i>—In all this beautiful sunshine, in the stillness -and shade of these long hours on this piazza, all comes -back to me about little Joe; it haunts me—that scene in -Richmond where all seemed confusion, madness, a bad -dream! Here I see that funeral procession as it wound -among those tall white monuments, up that hillside, the -James River tumbling about below over rocks and around -islands; the dominant figure, that poor, old, gray-haired -man, standing bareheaded, straight as an arrow, clear -against the sky by the open grave of his son. She, the bereft<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[310]</a></span> -mother, stood back, in her heavy black wrappings, and -her tall figure drooped. The flowers, the children, the procession -as it moved, comes and goes, but those two dark, -sorrow-stricken figures stand; they are before me now!</p> - -<p>That night, with no sound but the heavy tramp of his -feet overhead, the curtains flapping in the wind, the gas -flaring, I was numb, stupid, half-dead with grief and terror. -Then came Catherine’s Irish howl. Cheap, was that. -Where was she when it all happened? Her place was to -have been with the child. Who saw him fall? Whom will -they kill next of that devoted household?</p> - -<p>Read to-day the list of killed and wounded.<a name="FNanchor_115" id="FNanchor_115"></a><a href="#Footnote_115" class="fnanchor">[115]</a> One long -column was not enough for South Carolina’s dead. I see -Mr. Federal Secretary Stanton says he can reenforce Suwarrow -Grant at his leisure whenever he calls for more. He -has just sent him 25,000 veterans. Old Lincoln says, in his -quaint backwoods way, “Keep a-peggin’.” Now we can -only peg out. What have we left of men, etc., to meet these -“reenforcements as often as reenforcements are called -for?” Our fighting men have all gone to the front; only -old men and little boys are at home now.</p> - -<p>It is impossible to sleep here, because it is so solemn -and still. The moonlight shines in my window sad and -white, and the soft south wind, literally comes over a bank -of violets, lilacs, roses, with orange-blossoms and magnolia -flowers.</p> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 550px;" id="illus11"> -<img src="images/illus11.jpg" width="550" height="700" alt="" /> -<p class="caption">MRS. JAMES CHESNUT, SR.</p> -<p class="caption">From a Portrait in Oil by Gilbert Stuart.</p> -</div> - -<p>Mrs. Chesnut was only a year younger than her husband. -He is ninety-two or three. She was deaf; but he retains -his senses wonderfully for his great age. I have always -been an early riser. Formerly I often saw him sauntering -slowly down the broad passage from his room to hers, -in a flowing flannel dressing-gown when it was winter. In<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[311]</a></span> -the spring he was apt to be in shirt-sleeves, with suspenders -hanging down his back. He had always a large hair-brush -in his hand.</p> - -<p>He would take his stand on the rug before the fire in her -room, brushing scant locks which were fleecy white. Her -maid would be doing hers, which were dead-leaf brown, not -a white hair in her head. He had the voice of a stentor, and -there he stood roaring his morning compliments. The people -who occupied the room above said he fairly shook the -window glasses. This pleasant morning greeting ceremony -was never omitted.</p> - -<p>Her voice was “soft and low” (the oft-quoted). Philadelphia -seems to have lost the art of sending forth such -voices now. Mrs. Binney, old Mrs. Chesnut’s sister, came -among us with the same softly modulated, womanly, musical -voice. Her clever and beautiful daughters were <i lang="fr">criard</i>. -Judge Han said: “Philadelphia women scream like macaws.” -This morning as I passed Mrs. Chesnut’s room, the -door stood wide open, and I heard a pitiful sound. The -old man was kneeling by her empty bedside sobbing bitterly. -I fled down the middle walk, anywhere out of reach -of what was never meant for me to hear.</p> - -<p><i>June 1st.</i>—We have been to Bloomsbury again and hear -that William Kirkland has been wounded. A scene occurred -then, Mary weeping bitterly and Aunt B. frantic as -to Tanny’s danger. I proposed to make arrangements for -Mary to go on at once. The Judge took me aside, frowning -angrily. “You are unwise to talk in that way. She can -neither take her infant nor leave it. The cars are closed by -order of the government to all but soldiers.”</p> - -<p>I told him of the woman who, when the conductor -said she could not go, cried at the top of her voice, “Soldiers, -I want to go to Richmond to nurse my wounded husband.” -In a moment twenty men made themselves her -body-guard, and she went on unmolested. The Judge said -I talked nonsense. I said I would go on in my carriage if<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[312]</a></span> -need be. Besides, there would be no difficulty in getting -Mary a “permit.”</p> - -<p>He answered hotly that in no case would he let her go, -and that I had better <em>not</em> go back into the house. We were -on the piazza and my carriage at the door. I took it and -crossed over to see Mary Boykin. She was weeping, too, so -washed away with tears one would hardly know her. “So -many killed. My son and my husband—I do not hear a -word from them.”</p> - -<p>Gave to-day for two pounds of tea, forty pounds of coffee, -and sixty pounds of sugar, $800.</p> - -<p>Beauregard is a gentleman and was a genius as long as -Whiting did his engineering for him. Our Creole general -is not quite so clever as he thinks himself.</p> - -<p>Mary Ford writes for school-books for her boys. She is -in great distress on the subject. When Longstreet’s corps -passed through Greenville there was great enthusiasm; -handkerchiefs were waved, bouquets and flowers were -thrown the troops; her boys, having nothing else to throw, -threw their school-books.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[313]</a></span></p> - -<h2 id="CHAPTER_XVIII">XVIII<br /> -<span class="smaller">COLUMBIA, S. C.<br /> -<i>July 6, 1864-January 17, 1865</i></span></h2> - -<div> -<img class="dropcap" src="images/dropcap-c.jpg" width="100" height="115" alt="" /> -</div> - -<p class="dropcap">Columbia, S, C., <i>July 6, 1864</i>.—At the Prestons’ -Mary was laughing at Mrs. Lyons’s complaint—the -person from whom we rented rooms in Richmond. -She spoke of Molly and Lawrence’s deceitfulness. They -went about the house quiet as mice while we were at home; -or Lawrence sat at the door and sprang to his feet whenever -we passed. But when we were out, they sang, laughed, -shouted, and danced. If any of the Lyons family passed -him, Lawrence kept his seat, with his hat on, too. Mrs. -Chesnut had said: “Oh!” so meekly to the whole tirade, -and added, “I will see about it.”</p> - -<p>Colonel Urquhart and Edmund Rhett dined here; charming -men both—no brag, no detraction. Talk is never pleasant -where there is either. Our noble Georgian dined here. -He says Hampton was the hero of the Yankee rout -at Stony Creek.<a name="FNanchor_116" id="FNanchor_116"></a><a href="#Footnote_116" class="fnanchor">[116]</a> He claims that citizens, militia, and lame -soldiers kept the bridge at Staunton and gallantly repulsed -Wilson’s raiders.</p> - -<p>At Mrs. S.’s last night. She came up, saying, “In -New Orleans four people never met together without dancing.” -Edmund Rhett turned to me: “You shall be -pressed into service.” “No, I belong to the reserve corps—too<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[314]</a></span> -old to volunteer or to be drafted as a conscript.” But I -had to go.</p> - -<p>My partner in the dance showed his English descent; he -took his pleasure sadly. “Oh, Mr. Rhett, at his pleasure, -can be a most agreeable companion!” said someone. “I -never happened to meet him,” said I, “when he pleased to -be otherwise.” With a hot, draggled, old alpaca dress, and -those clod-hopping shoes, to tumble slowly and gracefully -through the mazes of a July dance was too much for me. -“What depresses you so?” he anxiously inquired. “Our -carnival of death.” What a blunder to bring us all together -here!—a reunion of consumptives to dance and sing -until one can almost hear the death-rattle!</p> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 700px;" id="illus12"> -<img src="images/illus12.jpg" width="700" height="500" alt="" /> -<p class="caption">MRS. CHESNUT’S HOME IN COLUMBIA IN THE LAST YEAR OF THE WAR.</p> -<p class="caption">Here Mrs. Chesnut entertained Jefferson Davis.</p> -</div> - -<p><i>July 25th.</i>—Now we are in a cottage rented from Doctor -Chisolm. Hood is a full general. Johnston<a name="FNanchor_117" id="FNanchor_117"></a><a href="#Footnote_117" class="fnanchor">[117]</a> has been removed -and superseded. Early is threatening Washington -City. Semmes, of whom we have been so proud, risked the -Alabama in a sort of duel of ships. He has lowered the flag -of the famous Alabama to the Kearsarge.<a name="FNanchor_118" id="FNanchor_118"></a><a href="#Footnote_118" class="fnanchor">[118]</a> Forgive who -may! I can not. We moved into this house on the 20th of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[315]</a></span> -July. My husband was telegraphed to go to Charleston. -General Jones sent for him. A part of his command is on -the coast.</p> - -<p>The girls were at my house. Everything was in the -utmost confusion. We were lying on a pile of mattresses -in one of the front rooms while the servants were reducing -things to order in the rear. All the papers are down on the -President for this change of commanders except the Georgia -papers. Indeed, Governor Brown’s constant complaints, I -dare say, caused it—these and the rage of the Georgia people -as Johnston backed down on them.</p> - -<p>Isabella soon came. She said she saw the Preston sisters -pass her house, and as they turned the corner there was -a loud and bitter cry. It seemed to come from the Hampton -house. Both girls began to run at full speed. “What is -the matter?” asked Mrs. Martin. “Mother, listen; that -sounded like the cry of a broken heart,” said Isabella; -“something has gone terribly wrong at the Prestons’.”</p> - -<p>Mrs. Martin is deaf, however, so she heard nothing and -thought Isabella fanciful. Isabella hurried over there, and -learned that they had come to tell Mrs. Preston that Willie -was killed—Willie! his mother’s darling. No country ever -had a braver soldier, a truer gentleman, to lay down his -life in her cause.</p> - -<p><i>July 26th.</i>—Isabella went with me to the bulletin-board. -Mrs. D. (with the white linen as usual pasted on her chin) -asked me to read aloud what was there written. As I slowly -read on, I heard a suppressed giggle from Isabella. I know -her way of laughing at everything, and tried to enunciate -more distinctly—to read more slowly, and louder, with -more precision. As I finished and turned round, I found -myself closely packed in by a crowd of Confederate soldiers -eager to hear the news. They took off their caps, thanked -me for reading all that was on the boards, and made way -for me, cap in hand, as I hastily returned to the carriage, -which was waiting for us. Isabella proposed, “Call out to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[316]</a></span> -them to give three cheers for Jeff Davis and his generals.” -“You forget, my child, that we are on our way to a funeral.”</p> - -<p>Found my new house already open hospitably to all -comers. My husband had arrived. He was seated at a pine -table, on which someone had put a coarse, red table-cover, -and by the light of one tallow candle was affably entertaining -Edward Barnwell, Isaac Hayne, and Uncle Hamilton. -He had given them no tea, however. After I had remedied -that oversight, we adjourned to the moonlighted piazza. -By tallow-candle-light and the light of the moon, we made -out that wonderful smile of Teddy’s, which identifies him -as Gerald Grey.</p> - -<p>We have laughed so at broken hearts—the broken hearts -of the foolish love stories. But Buck, now, is breaking her -heart for her brother Willie. Hearts do break in silence, -without a word or a sigh. Mrs. Means and Mary Barnwell -made no moan—simply turned their faces to the wall and -died. How many more that we know nothing of!</p> - -<p>When I remember all the true-hearted, the light-hearted, -the gay and gallant boys who have come laughing, singing, -and dancing in my way in the three years now past; how I -have looked into their brave young eyes and helped them -as I could in every way and then saw them no more forever; -how they lie stark and cold, dead upon the battle-field, or -moldering away in hospitals or prisons, which is worse—I -think if I consider the long array of those bright youths -and loyal men who have gone to their death almost before -my very eyes, my heart might break, too. Is anything -worth it—this fearful sacrifice, this awful penalty we pay -for war?</p> - -<p>Allen G. says Johnston was a failure. Now he will wait -and see what Hood can do before he pronounces judgment -on him. He liked his address to his army. It was grand -and inspiring, but every one knows a general has not time -to write these things himself. Mr. Kelly, from New Orleans,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[317]</a></span> -says Dick Taylor and Kirby Smith have quarreled. -One would think we had a big enough quarrel on hand for -one while already. The Yankees are enough and to spare. -General Lovell says, “Joe Brown, with his Georgians at his -back, who importuned our government to remove Joe Johnston, -they are scared now, and wish they had not.”</p> - -<p>In our democratic Republic, if one rises to be its head, -whomever he displeases takes a Turkish revenge and defiles -the tombs of his father and mother; hints that his father -was a horse-thief and his mother no better than she should -be; his sisters barmaids and worse, his brothers Yankee -turncoats and traitors. All this is hurled at Lincoln or -Jeff Davis indiscriminately.</p> - -<p><i>August 2d.</i>—Sherman again. Artillery parked and -a line of battle formed before Atlanta. When we asked -Brewster what Sam meant to do at Atlanta he answered, -“Oh—oh, like the man who went, he says he means to stay -there!” Hope he may, that’s all.</p> - -<p>Spent to-day with Mrs. McCord at her hospital. She is -dedicating her grief for her son, sanctifying it, one might -say, by giving up her soul and body, her days and nights, to -the wounded soldiers at her hospital. Every moment of her -time is surrendered to their needs.</p> - -<p>To-day General Taliaferro dined with us. He served -with Hood at the second battle of Manassas and at Fredericksburg, -where Hood won his major-general’s spurs. On -the battle-field, Hood, he said, “has military inspiration.” -We were thankful for that word. All now depends on that -army at Atlanta. If that fails us, the game is up.</p> - -<p><i>August 3d.</i>—Yesterday was such a lucky day for my -housekeeping in our hired house. Oh, ye kind Columbia -folk! Mrs. Alex Taylor, <i lang="fr">née</i> Hayne, sent me a huge bowl -of yellow butter and a basket to match of every vegetable -in season. Mrs. Preston’s man came with mushrooms freshly -cut and Mrs. Tom Taylor’s with fine melons.</p> - -<p>Sent Smith and Johnson (my house servant and a carpenter<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">[318]</a></span> -from home, respectively) to the Commissary’s with -our wagon for supplies. They made a mistake, so they said, -and went to the depot instead, and stayed there all day. I -needed a servant sadly in many ways all day long, but I -hope Smith and Johnson had a good time. I did not lose -patience until Harriet came in an omnibus because I had -neither servants nor horse to send to the station for her.</p> - -<p>Stephen Elliott is wounded, and his wife and father -have gone to him. Six hundred of his men were destroyed -in a mine; and part of his brigade taken prisoners: Stoneman -and his raiders have been captured. This last fact -gives a slightly different hue to our horizon of unmitigated -misery.</p> - -<p>General L—— told us of an unpleasant scene at the -President’s last winter. He called there to see Mrs. McLean. -Mrs. Davis was in the room and he did not speak to -her. He did not intend to be rude; it was merely an oversight. -And so he called again and tried to apologize, to -remedy his blunder, but the President was inexorable, and -would not receive his overtures of peace and good-will. -General L—— is a New York man. Talk of the savagery -of slavery, heavens! How perfect are our men’s manners -down here, how suave, how polished are they. Fancy one -of them forgetting to speak to Mrs. Davis in her own drawing-room.</p> - -<p><i>August 6th.</i>—Archer came, a classmate of my husband’s -at Princeton; they called him Sally Archer then, he was so -girlish and pretty. No trace of feminine beauty about this -grim soldier now. He has a hard face, black-bearded and -sallow, with the saddest black eyes. His hands are small, -white, and well-shaped; his manners quiet. He is abstracted -and weary-looking, his mind and body having been deadened -by long imprisonment. He seemed glad to be here, -and James Chesnut was charmed. “Dear Sally Archer,” -he calls him cheerily, and the other responds in a far-off, -faded kind of way.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">[319]</a></span></p> - -<p>Hood and Archer were given the two Texas regiments -at the beginning of the war. They were colonels and Wigfall -was their general. Archer’s comments on Hood are: -“He does not compare intellectually with General Johnston, -who is decidedly a man of culture and literary attainments, -with much experience in military matters. Hood, -however, has youth and energy to help counterbalance all -this. He has a simple-minded directness of purpose always. -He is awfully shy, and he has suffered terribly, but -then he has had consolations—such a rapid rise in his profession, -and then his luck to be engaged to the beautiful -Miss ——.”</p> - -<p>They tried Archer again and again on the heated controversy -of the day, but he stuck to his text. Joe Johnston -is a fine military critic, a capital writer, an accomplished -soldier, as brave as Cæsar in his own person, but cautious to -a fault in manipulating an army. Hood has all the dash -and fire of a reckless young soldier, and his Texans would -follow him to the death. Too much caution might be followed -easily by too much headlong rush. That is where the -swing-back of the pendulum might ruin us.</p> - -<p><i>August 10th.</i>—To-day General Chesnut and his staff departed. -His troops are ordered to look after the mountain -passes beyond Greenville on the North Carolina and Tennessee -quarter.</p> - -<p>Misery upon misery. Mobile<a name="FNanchor_119" id="FNanchor_119"></a><a href="#Footnote_119" class="fnanchor">[119]</a> is going as New Orleans -went. Those Western men have not held their towns as we -held and hold Charleston, or as the Virginians hold Richmond. -And they call us a “frill-shirt, silk-stocking chivalry,” -or “a set of dandy Miss Nancys.” They fight desperately -in their bloody street brawls, but we bear privation -and discipline best.</p> - -<p><i>August 14th.</i>—We have conflicting testimony. Young<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">[320]</a></span> -Wade Hampton, of Joe Johnston’s staff, says Hood lost -12,000 men in the battles of the 22d<a name="FNanchor_120" id="FNanchor_120"></a><a href="#Footnote_120" class="fnanchor">[120]</a> and 24th, but Brewster, -of Hood’s staff, says not three thousand at the utmost. -Now here are two people strictly truthful, who tell things -so differently. In this war people see the same things so -oddly one does not know what to believe.</p> - -<p>Brewster says when he was in Richmond Mr. Davis said -Johnston would have to be removed and Sherman blocked. -He could not make Hardee full general because, when he -had command of an army he was always importuning the -War Department for a general-in-chief to be sent there -over him. Polk would not do, brave soldier and patriot as -he was. He was a good soldier, and would do his best for -his country, and do his duty under whomever was put over -him by those in authority. Mr. Davis did not once intimate -to him who it was that he intended to promote to the head -of the Western Army.</p> - -<p>Brewster said to-day that this “blow at Joe Johnston, -cutting off his head, ruins the schemes of the enemies of the -government. Wigfall asked me to go at once, and get Hood -to decline to take this command, for it will destroy him if -he accepts it. He will have to fight under Jeff Davis’s orders; -no one can do that now and not lose caste in the Western -Army. Joe Johnston does not exactly say that Jeff -Davis betrays his plans to the enemy, but he says he dares -not let the President know his plans, as there is a spy in the -War Office who invariably warns the Yankees in time. Consulting -the government on military movements is played -out. That’s Wigfall’s way of talking. Now,” added -Brewster, “I blame the President for keeping a man at -the head of his armies who treats the government with -open scorn and contumely, no matter how the people at -large rate this disrespectful general.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">[321]</a></span></p> - -<p><i>August 19th.</i>—Began my regular attendance on the -Wayside Hospital. To-day we gave wounded men, as they -stopped for an hour at the station, their breakfast. Those -who are able to come to the table do so. The badly wounded -remain in wards prepared for them, where their wounds are -dressed by nurses and surgeons, and we take bread and butter, -beef, ham, and hot coffee to them.</p> - -<p>One man had hair as long as a woman’s, the result of a -vow, he said. He had pledged himself not to cut his hair -until peace was declared and our Southern country free. -Four made this vow together. All were dead but himself. -One was killed in Missouri, one in Virginia, and he left one -at Kennesaw Mountain. This poor creature had had one -arm taken off at the socket. When I remarked that he was -utterly disabled and ought not to remain in the army, he -answered quietly, “I am of the First Texas. If old Hood -can go with one foot, I can go with one arm, eh?”</p> - -<p>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, this war would have been -over long ago! What we want is a leader!” shouted a -cripple.</p> - -<p>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.</p> - -<p>Letters from the army. Grant’s dogged stay about -Richmond is very disgusting and depressing to the spirits. -Wade Hampton has been put in command of the Southern -cavalry.</p> - -<p>A Wayside incident. A pine box, covered with flowers, -was carefully put upon the train by some gentlemen. Isabella -asked whose remains were in the box. Dr. Gibbes replied: -“In that box lies the body of a young man whose<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">[322]</a></span> -family antedates the Bourbons of France. He was the last -Count de Choiseul, and he has died for the South.” Let -his memory be held in perpetual remembrance by all who -love the South!</p> - -<p><i>August 22d.</i>—Hope I may never know a raid except -from hearsay. Mrs. Huger describes the one at Athens. -The proudest and most timid of women were running madly -in the streets, corsets in one hand, stockings in the other—<i lang="fr">déshabillé</i> -as far as it will go. Mobile is half taken. The -railroad between us and Richmond has been tapped.</p> - -<p>Notes from a letter written by a young lady who is riding -a high horse. Her <i lang="fr">fiancé</i>, a maimed hero, has been -abused. “You say to me with a sneer, ‘So you love that -man.’ Yes, I do, and I thank God that I love better than all -the world the man who is to be my husband. ‘Proud of -him, are you?’ Yes, I am, in exact proportion to my love. -You say, ‘I am selfish.’ Yes, I am selfish. He is my second -self, so utterly absorbed am I in him. There is not a -moment, day or night, that I do not think of him. In point -of fact, I do not think of anything else.” No reply was -deemed necessary by the astounded recipient of this outburst -of indignation, who showed me the letter and continued -to observe: “Did you ever? She seems so shy, so -timid, so cold.”</p> - -<p>Sunday Isabella took us to a chapel, Methodist, of -course; her father had a hand in building it. It was not -clean, but it was crowded, hot, and stuffy. An eloquent -man preached with a delightful voice and wonderful fluency; -nearly eloquent, and at times nearly ridiculous. He -described a scene during one of his sermons when “beautiful -young faces were turned up to me, radiant faces -though bathed in tears, moral rainbows of emotion playing -over them,” etc.</p> - -<p>He then described his own conversion, and stripped himself -naked morally. All that is very revolting to one’s innate -sense of decency. He tackled the patriarchs. Adam,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">[323]</a></span> -Noah, and so on down to Joseph, who was “a man whose -modesty and purity were so transcendent they enabled him -to resist the greatest temptation to which fallen man is exposed.” -“Fiddlesticks! that is played out!” my neighbor -whispered. “Everybody gives up now that old Mrs. Pharaoh -was forty.” “Mrs. Potiphar, you goose, and she was -fifty!” “That solves the riddle.” “Sh-sh!” from the -devout Isabella.</p> - -<p>At home met General Preston on the piazza. He was -vastly entertaining. Gave us Darwin, Herodotus, and Livy. -We understood him and were delighted, but we did not know -enough to be sure when it was his own wisdom or when wise -saws and cheering words came from the authors of whom -he spoke.</p> - -<p><i>August 23d.</i>—All in a muddle, and yet the news, confused -as it is, seems good from all quarters. There is a row -in New Orleans. Memphis<a name="FNanchor_121" id="FNanchor_121"></a><a href="#Footnote_121" class="fnanchor">[121]</a> has been retaken; 2,000 prisoners -have been captured at Petersburg, and a Yankee raid on -Macon has come to grief.</p> - -<p>At Mrs. Izard’s met a clever Mrs. Calhoun. Mrs. Calhoun -is a violent partizan of Dick Taylor; says Taylor -does the work and Kirby Smith gets the credit for it. Mrs. -Calhoun described the behavior of some acquaintance of -theirs at Shreveport, one of that kind whose faith removes -mountains. Her love for and confidence in the Confederate -army were supreme. Why not? She knew so many of the -men who composed that dauntless band. When her husband -told her New Orleans had surrendered to a foe whom -she despised, she did not believe a word of it. He told her -to “pack up his traps, as it was time for him to leave -Shreveport.” She then determined to run down to the -levee and see for herself, only to find the Yankee gunboats -having it all their own way. She made a painful exhibition -of herself. First, she fell on her knees and prayed; then<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">[324]</a></span> -she got up and danced with rage; then she raved and -dashed herself on the ground in a fit. There was patriotism -run mad for you! As I did not know the poor soul, Mrs. -Calhoun’s fine acting was somewhat lost on me, but the -others enjoyed it.</p> - -<p>Old Edward Johnston has been sent to Atlanta against -his will, and Archer has been made major-general and, contrary -to his earnest request, ordered not to his beloved -Texans but to the Army of the Potomac.</p> - -<p>Mr. C. F. Hampton deplores the untimely end of McPherson.<a name="FNanchor_122" id="FNanchor_122"></a><a href="#Footnote_122" class="fnanchor">[122]</a> -He was so kind to Mr. Hampton at Vicksburg -last winter, and drank General Hampton’s health then and -there. Mr. Hampton has asked Brewster, if the report of his -death prove a mistake, and General McPherson is a prisoner, -that every kindness and attention be shown to him. -General McPherson said at his own table at Vicksburg that -General Hampton was the ablest general on our side.</p> - -<p>Grant can hold his own as well as Sherman. Lee has a -heavy handful in the new Suwarrow. He has worse odds -than any one else, for when Grant has ten thousand slain, -he has only to order another ten thousand, and they are -there, ready to step out to the front. They are like the -leaves of Vallambrosa.</p> - -<p><i>August 29th.</i>—I take my hospital duty in the morning. -Most persons prefer afternoon, but I dislike to give up my -pleasant evenings. So I get up at five o’clock and go down -in my carriage all laden with provisions. Mrs. Fisher and -old Mr. Bryan generally go with me. Provisions are commonly -sent by people to Mrs. Fisher’s. I am so glad to be a -hospital nurse once more. I had excuses enough, but at -heart I felt a coward and a skulker. I think I know how -men feel who hire a substitute and shirk the fight. There<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">[325]</a></span> -must be no dodging of duty. It will not do now to send -provisions and pay for nurses. Something inside of me -kept calling out, “Go, you shabby creature; you can’t bear -to see what those fine fellows have to bear.”</p> - -<p>Mrs. Izard was staying with me last night, and as I -slipped away I begged Molly to keep everything dead still -and not let Mrs. Izard be disturbed until I got home. -About ten I drove up and there was a row to wake the dead. -Molly’s eldest daughter, who nurses her baby sister, let the -baby fall, and, regardless of Mrs. Izard, as I was away, -Molly was giving the nurse a switching in the yard, accompanied -by howls and yells worthy of a Comanche! The -small nurse welcomed my advent, no doubt, for in two seconds -peace was restored. Mrs. Izard said she sympathized -with the baby’s mother; so I forgave the uproar.</p> - -<p>I have excellent servants; no matter for their shortcomings -behind my back. They save me all thought as to -household matters, and they are so kind, attentive, and -quiet. They must know what is at hand if Sherman is not -hindered from coming here—“Freedom! my masters!” -But these sphinxes give no sign, unless it be increased diligence -and absolute silence, as certain in their action and as -noiseless as a law of nature, at any rate when we are in the -house.</p> - -<p>That fearful hospital haunts me all day long, and is -worse at night. So much suffering, such loathsome wounds, -such distortion, with stumps of limbs not half cured, exhibited -to all. Then, when I was so tired yesterday, Molly -was looking more like an enraged lioness than anything else, -roaring that her baby’s neck was broken, and howling cries -of vengeance. The poor little careless nurse’s dark face -had an ashen tinge of gray terror. She was crouching near -the ground like an animal trying to hide, and her mother -striking at her as she rolled away. All this was my welcome -as I entered the gate. It takes these half-Africans but a -moment to go back to their naked savage animal nature.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">[326]</a></span> -Mrs. Izard is a charming person. She tried so to make me -forget it all and rest.</p> - -<p><i>September 2d.</i>—The battle has been raging at Atlanta,<a name="FNanchor_123" id="FNanchor_123"></a><a href="#Footnote_123" class="fnanchor">[123]</a> -and our fate hanging in the balance. Atlanta, indeed, is -gone. Well, that agony is over. Like David, when the -child was dead, I will get up from my knees, will wash my -face and comb my hair. No hope; we will try to have no -fear.</p> - -<p>At the Prestons’ I found them drawn up in line of battle -every moment looking for the Doctor on his way to Richmond. -Now, to drown thought, for our day is done, read -Dumas’s <i lang="fr">Maîtres d’Armes</i>. Russia ought to sympathize -with us. We are not as barbarous as this, even if Mrs. -Stowe’s word be taken. Brutal men with unlimited power -are the same all over the world. See Russell’s India—Bull -Run Russell’s. They say General Morgan has been killed. -We are hard as stones; we sit unmoved and hear any bad -news chance may bring. Are we stupefied?</p> - -<p><i>September 19th.</i>—My pink silk dress I have sold for -$600, to be paid for in instalments, two hundred a month -for three months. And I sell my eggs and butter from home -for two hundred dollars a month. Does it not sound well—four -hundred dollars a month regularly. But in what? -In Confederate money. <i lang="fr">Hélas!</i></p> - -<p><i>September 21st.</i>—Went with Mrs. Rhett to hear Dr. -Palmer. I did not know before how utterly hopeless was -our situation. This man is so eloquent, it was hard to listen -and not give way. Despair was his word, and martyrdom. -He offered us nothing more in this world than the martyr’s -crown. He is not for slavery, he says; he is for freedom, and -the freedom to govern our own country as we see fit. He is -against foreign interference in our State matters. That is -what Mr. Palmer went to war for, it appears. Every day<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">[327]</a></span> -shows that slavery is doomed the world over; for that he -thanked God. He spoke of our agony, and then came the -cry, “Help us, O God! Vain is the help of man.” And -so we came away shaken to the depths.</p> - -<p>The end has come. No doubt of the fact. Our army has -so moved as to uncover Macon and Augusta. We are going -to be wiped off the face of the earth. What is there to prevent -Sherman taking General Lee in the rear? We have -but two armies, and Sherman is between them now.<a name="FNanchor_124" id="FNanchor_124"></a><a href="#Footnote_124" class="fnanchor">[124]</a></p> - -<p><i>September 24th.</i>—These stories of our defeats in the valley -fall like blows upon a dead body. Since Atlanta fell I -have felt as if all were dead within me forever. Captain -Ogden, of General Chesnut’s staff, dined here to-day. Had -ever brigadier, with little or no brigade, so magnificent a -staff? The reserves, as somebody said, have been secured -only by robbing the cradle and the grave—the men too old, -the boys too young. Isaac Hayne, Edward Barnwell, -Bacon, Ogden, Richardson, Miles are the picked men of -the agreeable world.</p> - -<p><i>October 1st.</i>—Mary Cantey Preston’s wedding day has -come and gone and Mary is Mrs. John Darby now. Maggie -Howell dressed the bride’s hair beautifully, they said, but it -was all covered by her veil, which was of blond-lace, and -the dress tulle and blond-lace, with diamonds and pearls. -The bride walked up the aisle on her father’s arm, Mrs. Preston -on Dr. Darby’s. I think it was the handsomest wedding -party I ever saw. John Darby<a name="FNanchor_125" id="FNanchor_125"></a><a href="#Footnote_125" class="fnanchor">[125]</a> had brought his wedding<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">[328]</a></span> -uniform home with him from England, and it did all honor -to his perfect figure. I forget the name of his London -tailor—the best, of course! “Well,” said Isabella, “it -would be hard for any man to live up to those clothes.”</p> - -<p>And now, to the amazement of us all, Captain Chesnut -(Johnny) who knows everything, has rushed into a flirtation -with Buck such as never was. He drives her every day, -and those wild, runaway, sorrel colts terrify my soul as -they go tearing, pitching, and darting from side to side of -the street. And my lady enjoys it. When he leaves her, he -kisses her hand, bowing so low to do it unseen that we see -it all.</p> - -<p><i>Saturday.</i>—The President will be with us here in Columbia -next Tuesday, so Colonel McLean brings us word. -I have begun at once to prepare to receive him in my small -house. His apartments have been decorated as well as Confederate -stringency would permit. The possibilities were -not great, but I did what I could for our honored chief; besides -I like the man—he has been so kind to me, and his wife -is one of the few to whom I can never be grateful enough for -her generous appreciation and attention.</p> - -<p>I went out to the gate to greet the President, who met -me most cordially; kissed me, in fact. Custis Lee and -Governor Lubbock were at his back.</p> - -<p>Immediately after breakfast (the Presidential party -arrived a little before daylight) General Chesnut drove -off with the President’s aides, and Mr. Davis sat out on -our piazza. There was nobody with him but myself. Some -little boys strolling by called out, “Come here and look; -there is a man on Mrs. Chesnut’s porch who looks just like -Jeff Davis on postage-stamps.” People began to gather at -once on the street. Mr. Davis then went in.</p> - -<p>Mrs. McCord sent a magnificent bouquet—I thought, of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">[329]</a></span> -course, for the President; but she gave me such a scolding -afterward. She did not know he was there; I, in my mistake -about the bouquet, thought she knew, and so did not -send her word.</p> - -<p>The President was watching me prepare a mint julep -for Custis Lee when Colonel McLean came to inform us that -a great crowd had gathered and that they were coming to -ask the President to speak to them at one o’clock. An immense -crowd it was—men, women, and children. The -crowd overflowed the house, the President’s hand was nearly -shaken off. I went to the rear, my head intent on the dinner -to be prepared for him, with only a Confederate commissariat. -But the patriotic public had come to the rescue. -I had been gathering what I could of eatables for a month, -and now I found that nearly everybody in Columbia was -sending me whatever they had that they thought nice -enough for the President’s dinner. We had the sixty-year-old -Madeira from Mulberry, and the beautiful old china, -etc. Mrs. Preston sent a boned turkey stuffed with truffles, -stuffed tomatoes, and stuffed peppers. Each made a dish -as pretty as it was appetizing.</p> - -<p>A mob of small boys only came to pay their respects to -the President. He seemed to know how to meet that odd -delegation.</p> - -<p>Then the President’s party had to go, and we bade them -an affectionate farewell. Custis Lee and I had spent much -time gossiping on the back porch. While I was concocting -dainties for the dessert, he sat on the banister with a cigar -in his mouth. He spoke very candidly, telling me many a -hard truth for the Confederacy, and about the bad time -which was at hand.</p> - -<p><i>October 18th.</i>—Ten pleasant days I owe to my sister. -Kate has descended upon me unexpectedly from the mountains -of Flat Rock. We are true sisters; she understands -me without words, and she is the cleverest, sweetest woman -I know, so graceful and gracious in manner, so good and unselfish<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330">[330]</a></span> -in character, but, best of all, she is so agreeable. Any -time or place would be charming with Kate for a companion. -General Chesnut was in Camden; but I could not -wait. I gave the beautiful bride, Mrs. Darby, a dinner, -which was simply perfection. I was satisfied for once in -my life with my own table, and I know pleasanter guests -were never seated around any table whatsoever.</p> - -<p>My house is always crowded. After all, what a number -of pleasant people we have been thrown in with by war’s -catastrophes. I call such society glorious. It is the wind-up, -but the old life as it begins to die will die royally. General -Chesnut came back disheartened. He complains that -such a life as I lead gives him no time to think.</p> - -<p><i>October 28th.</i>—Burton Harrison writes to General Preston -that supreme anxiety reigns in Richmond.</p> - -<p>Oh, for one single port! If the Alabama had had in the -whole wide world a port to take her prizes to and where -she could be refitted, I believe she would have borne us -through. Oh, for one single port by which we could get at -the outside world and refit our whole Confederacy! If we -could have hired regiments from Europe, or even have imported -ammunition and food for our soldiers!</p> - -<p>“Some days must be dark and dreary.” At the mantua-maker’s, -however, I saw an instance of faith in our future: -a bride’s paraphernalia, and the radiant bride herself, the -bridegroom expectant and elect now within twenty miles of -Chattanooga and outward bound to face the foe.</p> - -<p>Saw at the Laurens’s not only Lizzie Hamilton, a perfect -little beauty, but the very table the first Declaration of -Independence was written upon. These Laurenses are -grandchildren of Henry Laurens, of the first Revolution. -Alas! we have yet to make good our second declaration of -independence—Southern independence—from Yankee meddling -and Yankee rule. Hood has written to ask them to -send General Chesnut out to command one of his brigades. -In whose place?</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_331" id="Page_331">[331]</a></span></p> - -<p>If Albert Sidney Johnston had lived! Poor old General -Lee has no backing. Stonewall would have saved us from -Antietam. Sherman will now catch General Lee by the rear, -while Grant holds him by the head, and while Hood and -Thomas are performing an Indian war-dance on the frontier. -Hood means to cut his way to Lee; see if he doesn’t. -The “Yanks” have had a struggle for it. More than once -we seemed to have been too much for them. We have been -so near to success it aches one to think of it. So runs the -table-talk.</p> - -<p>Next to our house, which Isabella calls “Tillytudlem,” -since Mr. Davis’s visit, is a common of green grass and very -level, beyond which comes a belt of pine-trees. On this open -space, within forty paces of us, a regiment of foreign deserters -has camped. They have taken the oath of allegiance -to our government, and are now being drilled and disciplined -into form before being sent to our army. They are -mostly Germans, with some Irish, however. Their close -proximity keeps me miserable. Traitors once, traitors forever.</p> - -<p>Jordan has always been held responsible for all the foolish -proclamations, and, indeed, for whatever Beauregard -reported or proclaimed. Now he has left that mighty chief, -and, lo, here comes from Beauregard the silliest and most -boastful of his military bulletins. He brags of Shiloh; that -was not the way the story was told to us.</p> - -<p>A letter from Mrs. Davis, who says: “Thank you, a -thousand times, my dear friend, for your more than maternal -kindness to my dear child.” That is what she calls her -sister, Maggie Howell. “As to Mr. Davis, he thinks the best -ham, the best Madeira, the best coffee, the best hostess in -the world, rendered Columbia delightful to him when he -passed through. We are in a sad and anxious state here -just now. The dead come in; but the living do not go out -so fast. However, we hope all things and trust in God as -the only one able to resolve the opposite state of feeling into<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_332" id="Page_332">[332]</a></span> -a triumphant, happy whole. I had a surprise of an unusually -gratifying nature a few days since. I found I could -not keep my horses, so I sold them. The next day they were -returned to me with a handsome anonymous note to the -effect that they had been bought by a few friends for me. -But I fear I can not feed them. Strictly between us, things -look very anxious here.”</p> - -<p><i>November 6th.</i>—Sally Hampton went to Richmond with -the Rev. Mr. Martin. She arrived there on Wednesday. On -Thursday her father, Wade Hampton, fought a great battle, -but just did not win it—a victory narrowly missed. -Darkness supervened and impenetrable woods prevented -that longed-for consummation. Preston Hampton rode -recklessly into the hottest fire. His father sent his brother, -Wade, to bring him back. Wade saw him reel in the saddle -and galloped up to him, General Hampton following. As -young Wade reached him, Preston fell from his horse, and -the one brother, stooping to raise the other, was himself shot -down. Preston recognized his father, but died without -speaking a word. Young Wade, though wounded, held his -brother’s head up. Tom Taylor and others hurried up. The -General took his dead son in his arms, kissed him, and handed -his body to Tom Taylor and his friends, bade them take -care of Wade, and then rode back to his post. At the head of -his troops in the thickest of the fray he directed the fight for -the rest of the day. Until night he did not know young -Wade’s fate; that boy might be dead, too! Now, he says, -no son of his must be in his command. When Wade recovers, -he must join some other division. The agony of such a -day, and the anxiety and the duties of the battle-field—it is -all more than a mere man can bear.</p> - -<p>Another letter from Mrs. Davis. She says: “I was -dreadfully shocked at Preston Hampton’s fate—his untimely -fate. I know nothing more touching in history than -General Hampton’s situation at the supremest moment of -his misery, when he sent one son to save the other and saw<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_333" id="Page_333">[333]</a></span> -both fall; and could not know for some moments whether -both were not killed.”</p> - -<p>A thousand dollars have slipped through my fingers already -this week. At the Commissary’s I spent five hundred -to-day for candles, sugar, and a lamp, etc. Tallow candles -are bad enough, but of them there seems to be an end, -too. Now we are restricted to smoky, terrabine lamps—terrabine -is a preparation of turpentine. When the chimney -of the lamp cracks, as crack it will, we plaster up the -place with paper, thick old letter-paper, preferring the -highly glazed kind. In the hunt for paper queer old letters -come to light.</p> - -<p>Sherman, in Atlanta, has left Thomas to take care of -Hood. Hood has thirty thousand men, Thomas forty thousand, -and as many more to be had as he wants; he has only -to ring the bell and call for them. Grant can get all that -he wants, both for himself and for Thomas. All the world -is open to them, while we are shut up in a bastile. We -are at sea, and our boat has sprung a leak.</p> - -<p><i>November 17th.</i>—Although Sherman<a name="FNanchor_126" id="FNanchor_126"></a><a href="#Footnote_126" class="fnanchor">[126]</a> took Atlanta, he -does not mean to stay there, be it heaven or hell. Fire and -the sword are for us here; that is the word. And now I -must begin my Columbia life anew and alone. It will be a -short shrift.</p> - -<p>Captain Ogden came to dinner on Sunday and in the -afternoon asked me to go with him to the Presbyterian -Church and hear Mr. Palmer. We went, and I felt very<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_334" id="Page_334">[334]</a></span> -youthful, as the country people say; like a girl and her -beau. Ogden took me into a pew and my husband sat afar -off. What a sermon! The preacher stirred my blood. My -very flesh crept and tingled. A red-hot glow of patriotism -passed through me. Such a sermon must strengthen the -hearts and the hands of many people. There was more exhortation -to fight and die, <i lang="fr">à la</i> Joshua, than meek Christianity.</p> - -<p><i>November 25th.</i>—Sherman is thundering at Augusta’s -very doors. My General was on the wing, somber, and full -of care. The girls are merry enough; the staff, who fairly -live here, no better. Cassandra, with a black shawl over her -head, is chased by the gay crew from sofa to sofa, for she -avoids them, being full of miserable anxiety. There is -nothing but distraction and confusion. All things tend to -the preparation for the departure of the troops. It rains all -the time, such rains as I never saw before; incessant torrents. -These men come in and out in the red mud and -slush of Columbia streets. Things seem dismal and -wretched to me to the last degree, but the staff, the girls, -and the youngsters do not see it.</p> - -<p>Mrs. S. (born in Connecticut) came, and she was radiant. -She did not come to see me, but my nieces. She -says exultingly that “Sherman will open a way out at last, -and I will go at once to Europe or go North to my relatives -there.” How she derided our misery and “mocked when -our fear cometh.” I dare say she takes me for a fool. I sat -there dumb, although she was in my own house. I have -heard of a woman so enraged that she struck some one over -the head with a shovel. To-day, for the first time in my -life, I know how that mad woman felt. I could have given -Mrs. S. the benefit of shovel and tongs both.</p> - -<p>That splendid fellow, Preston Hampton; “home they -brought their warrior, dead,” and wrapped in that very -Legion flag he had borne so often in battle with his own -hands.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_335" id="Page_335">[335]</a></span></p> - -<p>A letter from Mrs. Davis to-day, under date of Richmond, -Va., November 20, 1864. She says: “Affairs West -are looking so critical now that, before you receive this, you -and I will be in the depths or else triumphant. I confess I -do not sniff success in every passing breeze, but I am so -tired, hoping, fearing, and being disappointed, that I have -made up my mind not to be disconsolate, even though -thieves break through and steal. Some people expect another -attack upon Richmond shortly, but I think the avalanche -will not slide until the spring breaks up its winter -quarters. I have a blind kind of prognostics of victory for -us, but somehow I am not cheered. The temper of Congress -is less vicious, but more concerted in its hostile action.” -Mrs. Davis is a woman that my heart aches for in the -troubles ahead.</p> - -<p>My journal, a quire of Confederate paper, lies wide -open on my desk in the corner of my drawing-room. Everybody -reads it who chooses. Buck comes regularly to see -what I have written last, and makes faces when it does not -suit her. Isabella still calls me Cassandra, and puts her -hands to her ears when I begin to wail. Well, Cassandra -only records what she hears; she does not vouch for it. For -really, one nowadays never feels certain of anything.</p> - -<p><i>November 28th.</i>—We dined at Mrs. McCord’s. She is -as strong a cordial for broken spirits and failing heart as -one could wish. How her strength contrasts with our weakness. -Like Doctor Palmer, she strings one up to bear -bravely the worst. She has the intellect of a man and the -perseverance and endurance of a woman.</p> - -<p>We have lost nearly all of our men, and we have no -money, and it looks as if we had taught the Yankees how to -fight since Manassas. Our best and bravest are under the -sod; we shall have to wait till another generation grows up. -Here we stand, despair in our hearts (“Oh, Cassandra, -don’t!” shouts Isabella), with our houses burning or about -to be, over our heads.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_336" id="Page_336">[336]</a></span></p> - -<p>The North have just got things ship-shape; a splendid -army, perfectly disciplined, with new levies coming in day -and night. Their gentry do not go into the ranks. They -hardly know there is a war up there.</p> - -<p><i>December 1st.</i>—At Coosawhatchie Yankees are landing -in great force. Our troops down there are raw militia, old -men and boys never under fire before; some college cadets, -in all a mere handful. The cradle and the grave have been -robbed by us, they say. Sherman goes to Savannah and not -to Augusta.</p> - -<p><i>December 2d.</i>—Isabella and I put on bonnets and -shawls and went deliberately out for news. We determined -to seek until we found. Met a man who was so ugly, I could -not forget him or his sobriquet; he was awfully in love with -me once. He did not know me, but blushed hotly when Isabella -told him who I was. He had forgotten me, I hope, or -else I am changed by age and care past all recognition. He -gave us the encouraging information that Grahamville had -been burned to the ground.</p> - -<p>When the call for horses was made, Mrs. McCord sent -in her fine bays. She comes now with a pair of mules, and -looks too long and significantly at my ponies. If I were not -so much afraid of her, I would hint that those mules would -be of far more use in camp than my ponies. But they will -seize the ponies, no doubt.</p> - -<p>In all my life before, the stables were far off from the -house and I had nothing to do with them. Now my ponies -are kept under an open shed next to the back piazza. Here -I sit with my work, or my desk, or my book, basking in our -Southern sun, and I watch Nat feed, curry, and rub down -the horses, and then he cleans their stables as thoroughly as -Smith does my drawing-room. I see their beds of straw comfortably -laid. Nat says, “Ow, Missis, ain’t lady’s business -to look so much in de stables.” I care nothing for his -grumbling, and I have never had horses in better condition. -Poor ponies, you deserve every attention, and enough to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_337" id="Page_337">[337]</a></span> -eat. Grass does not grow under your feet. By night and -day you are on the trot.</p> - -<p>To-day General Chesnut was in Charleston on his way -from Augusta to Savannah by rail. The telegraph is still -working between Charleston and Savannah. Grahamville -certainly is burned. There was fighting down there to-day. -I came home with enough to think about, Heaven knows! -And then all day long we compounded a pound cake in -honor of Mrs. Cuthbert, who has things so nice at home. -The cake was a success, but was it worth all that trouble?</p> - -<p>As my party were driving off to the concert, an omnibus -rattled up. Enter Captain Leland, of General Chesnut’s -staff, of as imposing a presence as a field-marshal, handsome -and gray-haired. He was here on some military errand and -brought me a letter. He said the Yankees had been repulsed, -and that down in those swamps we could give a -good account of ourselves if our government would send -men enough. With a sufficient army to meet them down -there, they could be annihilated. “Where are the men to -come from?” asked Mamie, wildly. “General Hood has -gone off to Tennessee. Even if he does defeat Thomas -there, what difference would that make here?”</p> - -<p><i>December 3d.</i>—We drank tea at Mrs. McCord’s; she -had her troubles, too. The night before a country cousin -claimed her hospitality, one who fain would take the train -at five this morning. A little after midnight Mrs. McCord -was startled out of her first sleep by loud ringing of bells; -an alarm at night may mean so much just now. In an instant -she was on her feet. She found her guest, who -thought it was daylight, and wanted to go. Mrs. McCord -forcibly demonstrated how foolish it was to get up five -hours too soon. Mrs. McCord, once more in her own warm -bed, had fallen happily to sleep. She was waked by feeling -two ice-cold hands pass cautiously over her face and person. -It was pitch dark. Even Mrs. McCord gave a scream in her -fright. She found it was only the irrepressible guest up<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_338" id="Page_338">[338]</a></span> -and at her again. So, though it was only three o’clock, in -order to quiet this perturbed spirit she rose and at five -drove her to the station, where she had to wait some hours. -But Mrs. McCord said, “anything for peace at home.” -The restless people who will not let others rest!</p> - -<p><i>December 5th.</i>—Miss Olivia Middleton and Mr. Frederick -Blake are to be married. We Confederates have invented -the sit-up-all-night for the wedding night: Isabella -calls it the wake, not the wedding, of the parties married. -The ceremony will be performed early in the evening; the -whole company will then sit up until five o’clock, at which -hour the bridal couple take the train for Combahee. Hope -Sherman will not be so inconsiderate as to cut short the -honeymoon.</p> - -<p>In tripped Brewster, with his hat on his head, both -hands extended, and his greeting, “Well, here we are!” -He was travel-stained, disheveled, grimy with dirt. The -prophet would have to send him many times to bathe in -Jordan before he could be pronounced clean.</p> - -<p>Hood will not turn and pursue Sherman. Thomas is at -his heels with forty thousand men, and can have as many -more as he wants for the asking. Between Thomas and -Sherman Hood would be crushed. So he was pushing—I -do not remember where or what. I know there was no comfort -in anything he said.</p> - -<p>Serena’s account of money spent: Paper and envelopes, -$12.00; tickets to concert, $10.00; tooth-brush, $10.00; total, -$32.00.</p> - -<p><i>December 14th.</i>—And now the young ones are in bed -and I am wide awake. It is an odd thing; in all my life -how many persons have I seen in love? Not a half-dozen. -And I am a tolerably close observer, a faithful watcher -have I been from my youth upward of men and manners. -Society has been for me only an enlarged field for character -study.</p> - -<p>Flirtation is the business of society; that is, playing at<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_339" id="Page_339">[339]</a></span> -love-making. It begins in vanity, it ends in vanity. It is -spurred on by idleness and a want of any other excitement. -Flattery, battledore and shuttlecock, how in this game flattery -is dashed backward and forward. It is so soothing to -self-conceit. If it begins and ends in vanity, vexation of -spirit supervenes sometimes. They do occasionally burn -their fingers awfully, playing with fire, but there are no -hearts broken. Each party in a flirtation has secured a -sympathetic listener, to whom he or she can talk of himself -or herself—somebody who, for the time, admires one exclusively, -and, as the French say, <i lang="fr">excessivement</i>. It is a -pleasant, but very foolish game, and so to bed.</p> - -<p>Hood and Thomas have had a fearful fight, with carnage -and loss of generals excessive in proportion to numbers. -That means they were leading and urging their men -up to the enemy. I know how Bartow and Barnard Bee -were killed bringing up their men. One of Mr. Chesnut’s -sins thrown in his teeth by the Legislature of South Carolina -was that he procured the promotion of Gist, “State -Rights” Gist, by his influence in Richmond. What have -these comfortable, stay-at-home patriots to say of General -Gist now? “And how could man die better than facing -fearful odds,” etc.</p> - -<p>So Fort McAlister has fallen! Good-by, Savannah! -Our Governor announces himself a follower of Joe Brown, -of Georgia. Another famous Joe.</p> - -<p><i>December 19th.</i>—The deep waters are closing over us -and we are in this house, like the outsiders at the time of the -flood. We care for none of these things. We eat, drink, -laugh, dance, in lightness of heart.</p> - -<p>Doctor Trezevant came to tell me the dismal news. How -he piled on the agony! Desolation, mismanagement, despair. -General Young, with the flower of Hampton’s cavalry, -is in Columbia. Horses can not be found to mount -them. Neither the Governor of Georgia nor the Governor -of South Carolina is moving hand or foot. They have given<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_340" id="Page_340">[340]</a></span> -up. The Yankees claim another victory for Thomas.<a name="FNanchor_127" id="FNanchor_127"></a><a href="#Footnote_127" class="fnanchor">[127]</a> Hope -it may prove like most of their victories, brag and bluster. -Can’t say why, maybe I am benumbed, but I do not feel -so intensely miserable.</p> - -<p><i>December 27th.</i>—Oh, why did we go to Camden? The -very dismalest Christmas overtook us there. Miss Rhett -went with us—a brilliant woman and very agreeable. “The -world, you know, is composed,” said she, “of men, women, -and Rhetts” (see Lady Montagu). Now, we feel that if -we are to lose our negroes, we would as soon see Sherman -free them as the Confederate Government; freeing negroes -is the last Confederate Government craze. We are a little -too slow about it; that is all.</p> - -<p>Sold fifteen bales of cotton and took a sad farewell look -at Mulberry. It is a magnificent old country-seat, with old -oaks, green lawns and all. So I took that last farewell of -Mulberry, once so hated, now so beloved.</p> - -<p><i>January 7th.</i>—Sherman is at Hardieville and Hood in -Tennessee, the last of his men not gone, as Louis Wigfall -so cheerfully prophesied.</p> - -<p>Serena went for a half-hour to-day to the dentist. Her -teeth are of the whitest and most regular, simply perfection. -She fancied it was better to have a dentist look in her mouth -before returning to the mountains. For that look she paid -three hundred and fifty dollars in Confederate money. -“Why, has this money any value at all?” she asked. Little -enough in all truth, sad to say.</p> - -<p>Brewster was here and stayed till midnight. Said he -must see General Chesnut. He had business with him. -His “me and General Hood” is no longer comic. He -described Sherman’s march of destruction and desolation. -“Sherman leaves a track fifty miles wide, upon which there<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_341" id="Page_341">[341]</a></span> -is no living thing to be seen,” said Brewster before he departed.</p> - -<p><i>January 10th.</i>—You do the Anabasis business when you -want to get out of the enemy’s country, and the Thermopylæ -business when they want to get into your country. But -we retreated in our own country and we gave up our mountain -passes without a blow. But never mind the Greeks; if -we had only our own Game Cock, Sumter, our own Swamp -Fox, Marion. Marion’s men or Sumter’s, or the equivalent -of them, now lie under the sod, in Virginia or Tennessee.</p> - -<p><i>January 14th.</i>—Yesterday I broke down—gave way to -abject terror under the news of Sherman’s advance with no -news of my husband. To-day, while wrapped up on the -sofa, too dismal even for moaning, there was a loud knock. -Shawls on and all, just as I was, I rushed to the door to find -a telegram from my husband: “All well; be at home Tuesday.” -It was dated from Adam’s Run. I felt as light-hearted -as if the war were over. Then I looked at the date -and the place—Adam’s Run. It ends as it began—in a run—Bull’s -Run, from which their first sprightly running astounded -the world, and now Adam’s Run. But if we must -run, who are left to run? From Bull Run they ran fullhanded. -But we have fought until maimed soldiers, women, -and children are all that remain to run.</p> - -<p>To-day Kershaw’s brigade, or what is left of it, passed -through. What shouts greeted it and what bold shouts of -thanks it returned! It was all a very encouraging noise, absolutely -comforting. Some true men are left, after all.</p> - -<p><i>January 16th.</i>—My husband is at home once more—for -how long, I do not know. His aides fill the house, and a -group of hopelessly wounded haunt the place. The drilling -and the marching go on outside. It rains a flood, with -freshet after freshet. The forces of nature are befriending -us, for our enemies have to make their way through swamps.</p> - -<p>A month ago my husband wrote me a letter which I -promptly suppressed after showing it to Mrs. McCord. He<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_342" id="Page_342">[342]</a></span> -warned us to make ready, for the end had come. Our resources -were exhausted, and the means of resistance could -not be found. We could not bring ourselves to believe it, -and now, he thinks, with the railroad all blown up, the -swamps made impassable by the freshets, which have no time -to subside, so constant is the rain, and the negroes utterly -apathetic (would they be so if they saw us triumphant?), if -we had but an army to seize the opportunity we might do -something; but there are no troops; that is the real trouble.</p> - -<p>To-day Mrs. McCord exchanged $16,000 in Confederate -bills for $300 in gold—sixteen thousand for three hundred.</p> - -<p><i>January 17th.</i>—The Bazaar for the benefit of the hospitals -opens now. Sherman marches constantly. All the -railroads are smashed, and if I laugh at any mortal thing it -is that I may not weep. Generals are as plenty as blackberries, -but none are in command.</p> - -<p>The Peace Commissioner, Blair, came. They say he -gave Mr. Davis the kiss of peace. And we send Stephens, -Campbell, all who have believed in this thing, to negotiate -for peace. No hope, no good. Who dares hope?</p> - -<p>Repressed excitement in church. A great railroad -character was called out. He soon returned and whispered -something to Joe Johnston and they went out -together. Somehow the whisper moved around to us -that Sherman was at Branchville. “Grant us patience, -good Lord,” was prayed aloud. “Not Ulysses Grant, good -Lord,” murmured Teddy, profanely. Hood came yesterday. -He is staying at the Prestons’ with Jack. They sent -for us. What a heartfelt greeting he gave us. He can -stand well enough without his crutch, but he does very slow -walking. How plainly he spoke out dreadful words about -“nay defeat and discomfiture; my army destroyed, my -losses,” etc., etc. He said he had nobody to blame but himself. -A telegram from Beauregard to-day to my husband. -He does not know whether Sherman intends to advance on -Branchville, Charleston, or Columbia.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_343" id="Page_343">[343]</a></span></p> - -<p>Isabella said: “Maybe you attempted the impossible,” -and began one of her merriest stories. Jack Preston touched -me on the arm and we slipped out. “He did not hear a -word she was saying. He has forgotten us all. Did you notice -how he stared in the fire? And the lurid spots which -came out in his face and the drops of perspiration that -stood on his forehead?” “Yes. He is going over some -bitter scene; he sees Willie Preston with his heart shot away. -He sees the panic at Nashville and the dead on the battle-field -at Franklin.” “That agony on his face comes again -and again,” said tender-hearted Jack. “I can’t keep him -out of those absent fits.”</p> - -<p>Governor McGrath and General Winder talk of preparations -for a defense of Columbia. If Beauregard can’t -stop Sherman down there, what have we got here to do it -with? Can we check or impede his march? Can any one?</p> - -<p>Last night General Hampton came in. I am sure he -would do something to save us if he were put in supreme -command here. Hampton says Joe Johnston is equal, if -not superior, to Lee as a commanding officer.</p> - -<p>My silver is in a box and has been delivered for safe -keeping to Isaac McLaughlin, who is really my beau-ideal -of a grateful negro. I mean to trust him. My husband -cares for none of these things now, and lets me do as I -please.</p> - -<p>Tom Archer died almost as soon as he got to Richmond. -Prison takes the life out of men. He was only half-alive -when here. He had a strange, pallid look and such a vacant -stare until you roused him. Poor pretty Sally Archer: -that is the end of you.<a name="FNanchor_128" id="FNanchor_128"></a><a href="#Footnote_128" class="fnanchor">[128]</a></p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_344" id="Page_344">[344]</a></span></p> - -<h2 id="CHAPTER_XIX">XIX<br /> -<span class="smaller">LINCOLNTON, N. C.<br /> -<i>February 16, 1865-March 15, 1865</i></span></h2> - -<div> -<img class="dropcap" src="images/dropcap-l.jpg" width="100" height="115" alt="" /> -</div> - -<p class="dropcap">Lincolnton, N. C., <i>February 16, 1865</i>.—A change -has come o’er the spirit of my dream. Dear old -quire of yellow, coarse, Confederate home-made paper, -here you are again. An age of anxiety and suffering -has passed over my head since last I wrote and wept over -your forlorn pages.</p> - -<p>My ideas of those last days are confused. The Martins -left Columbia the Friday before I did, and Mammy, the -negro woman, who had nursed them, refused to go with -them. That daunted me. Then Mrs. McCord, who was to -send her girls with me, changed her mind. She sent them -up-stairs in her house and actually took away the staircase; -that was her plan.</p> - -<p>Then I met Mr. Christopher Hampton, arranging to -take off his sisters. They were flitting, but were to go only -as far as Yorkville. He said it was time to move on. Sherman -was at Orangeburg, barely a day’s journey from Columbia, -and had left a track as bare and blackened as a fire -leaves on the prairies.</p> - -<p>So my time had come, too. My husband urged me to go -home. He said Camden would be safe enough. They had -no spite against that old town, as they have against Charleston -and Columbia. Molly, weeping and wailing, came in -while we were at table. Wiping her red-hot face with the -cook’s grimy apron, she said I ought to go among our own -black people on the plantation; they would take care of me -better than any one else. So I agreed to go to Mulberry or<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_345" id="Page_345">[345]</a></span> -the Hermitage plantation, and sent Lawrence down with a -wagon-load of my valuables.</p> - -<p>Then a Miss Patterson called—a refugee from Tennessee. -She had been in a country overrun by Yankee invaders, -and she described so graphically all the horrors to be -endured by those subjected to fire and sword, rapine and -plunder, that I was fairly scared, and determined to come -here. This is a thoroughly out-of-all-routes place. And yet -I can go to Charlotte, am half-way to Kate at Flat Rock, -and there is no Federal army between me and Richmond.</p> - -<p>As soon as my mind was finally made up, we telegraphed -to Lawrence, who had barely got to Camden in the -wagon when the telegram was handed to him; so he took the -train and came back. Mr. Chesnut sent him with us to take -care of the party.</p> - -<p>We thought that if the negroes were ever so loyal to us, -they could not protect me from an army bent upon sweeping -us from the face of the earth, and if they tried to do so -so much the worse would it be for the poor things with -their Yankee friends. I then left them to shift for themselves, -as they are accustomed to do, and I took the same -liberty. My husband does not care a fig for the property -question, and never did. Perhaps, if he had ever known -poverty, it would be different. He talked beautifully about -it, as he always does about everything. I have told him -often that, if at heaven’s gate St. Peter would listen to him -a while, and let him tell his own story, he would get in, and -the angels might give him a crown extra.</p> - -<p>Now he says he has only one care—that I should be -safe, and not so harassed with dread; and then there is his -blind old father. “A man,” said he, “can always die like -a patriot and a gentleman, with no fuss, and take it coolly. -It is hard not to envy those who are out of all this, their difficulties -ended—those who have met death gloriously on the -battle-field, their doubts all solved. One can but do his -best and leave the result to a higher power.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_346" id="Page_346">[346]</a></span></p> - -<p>After New Orleans, those vain, passionate, impatient little -Creoles were forever committing suicide, driven to it by -despair and “Beast” Butler. As we read these things, -Mrs. Davis said: “If they want to die, why not first kill -‘Beast’ Butler, rid the world of their foe and be saved the -trouble of murdering themselves?” That practical way -of removing their intolerable burden did not occur to them. -I repeated this suggestive anecdote to our corps of generals -without troops, here in this house, as they spread out their -maps on my table where lay this quire of paper from which -I write. Every man Jack of them had a safe plan to stop -Sherman, if——</p> - -<p>Even Beauregard and Lee were expected, but Grant had -double-teamed on Lee. Lee could not save his own—how -could he come to save us? Read the list of the dead in those -last battles around Richmond and Petersburg<a name="FNanchor_129" id="FNanchor_129"></a><a href="#Footnote_129" class="fnanchor">[129]</a> if you want -to break your heart.</p> - -<p>I took French leave of Columbia—slipped away without -a word to anybody. Isaac Hayne and Mr. Chesnut -came down to the Charlotte depot with me. Ellen, my -maid, left her husband and only child, but she was willing -to come, and, indeed, was very cheerful in her way of looking -at it.</p> - -<p>“I wan’ travel ’roun’ wid Missis some time—stid uh -Molly goin’ all de time.”</p> - -<p>A woman, fifty years old at least, and uglier than she -was old, sharply rebuked my husband for standing at the -car window for a last few words with me. She said rudely: -“Stand aside, sir! I want air!” With his hat off, and his -grand air, my husband bowed politely, and said: “In one -moment, madam; I have something important to say to my -wife.”</p> - -<p>She talked aloud and introduced herself to every man,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_347" id="Page_347">[347]</a></span> -claiming his protection. She had never traveled alone before -in all her life. Old age and ugliness are protective in -some cases. She was ardently patriotic for a while. Then -she was joined by her friend, a man as crazy as herself to -get out of this. From their talk I gleaned she had been for -years in the Treasury Department. They were about to -cross the lines. The whole idea was to get away from the -trouble to come down here. They were Yankees, but were -they not spies?</p> - -<p>Here I am broken-hearted and an exile. And in such a -place! We have bare floors, and for a feather-bed, pine -table, and two chairs I pay $30 a day. Such sheets! But -fortunately I have some of my own. At the door, before I -was well out of the hack, the woman of the house packed -Lawrence back, neck and heels: she would not have him at -any price. She treated him as Mr. F.’s aunt did Clenman -in Little Dorrit. She said his clothes were too fine for a -nigger. “His airs, indeed.” Poor Lawrence was humble -and silent. He said at last, “Miss Mary, send me back to -Mars Jeems.” I began to look for a pencil to write a note -to my husband, but in the flurry could not find one. “Here -is one,” said Lawrence, producing one with a gold case. -“Go away,” she shouted, “I want no niggers here with -gold pencils and airs.” So Lawrence fled before the storm, -but not before he had begged me to go back. He said, “if -Mars Jeems knew how you was treated he’d never be willing -for you to stay here.”</p> - -<p>The Martins had seen my, to them, well-known traveling -case as the hack trotted up Main Street, and they arrived at -this juncture out of breath. We embraced and wept. I -kept my room.</p> - -<p>The Fants are refugees here, too; they are Virginians, -and have been in exile since the second battle of Manassas. -Poor things; they seem to have been everywhere, and seen -and suffered everything. They even tried to go back to -their own house, but found one chimney only standing<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_348" id="Page_348">[348]</a></span> -alone; even that had been taken possession of by a Yankee, -who had written his name upon it.</p> - -<p>The day I left home I had packed a box of flour, sugar, -rice, and coffee, but my husband would not let me bring it. -He said I was coming to a land of plenty—unexplored -North Carolina, where the foot of the Yankee marauder was -unknown, and in Columbia they would need food. Now I -have written for that box and many other things to be sent -me by Lawrence, or I shall starve.</p> - -<p>The Middletons have come. How joyously I sprang to -my feet to greet them. Mrs. Ben Rutledge described the -hubbub in Columbia. Everybody was flying in every direction -like a flock of swallows. She heard the enemy’s -guns booming in the distance. The train no longer runs -from Charlotte to Columbia. Miss Middleton possesses her -soul in peace. She is as cool, clever, rational, and entertaining -as ever, and we talked for hours. Mrs. Reed was in -a state of despair. I can well understand that sinking of -mind and body during the first days as the abject misery of -it all closes in upon you. I remember my suicidal tendencies -when I first came here.</p> - -<p><i>February 18th.</i>—Here I am, thank God, settled at the -McLean’s, in a clean, comfortable room, airy and cozy. -With a grateful heart I stir up my own bright wood fire. -My bill for four days at this splendid hotel here was $240, -with $25 additional for fire. But once more my lines have -fallen in pleasant places.</p> - -<p>As we came up on the train from Charlotte a soldier took -out of his pocket a filthy rag. If it had lain in the gutter -for months it could not have looked worse. He unwrapped -the thing carefully and took out two biscuits of the species -known as “hard tack.” Then he gallantly handed me one, -and with an ingratiating smile asked me “to take some.” -Then he explained, saying, “Please take these two; swap -with me; give me something softer that I can eat; I am very -weak still.” Immediately, for his benefit, my basket of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_349" id="Page_349">[349]</a></span> -luncheon was emptied, but as for his biscuit, I would not -choose any. Isabella asked, “But what did you say to him -when he poked them under your nose?” and I replied, “I -held up both hands, saying, ‘I would not take from you -anything that is yours—far from it! I would not touch -them for worlds.’”</p> - -<p>A tremendous day’s work and I helped with a will; our -window glass was all to be washed. Then the brass andirons -were to be polished. After we rubbed them bright how -pretty they were.</p> - -<p>Presently Ellen would have none of me. She was scrubbing -the floor. “You go—dat’s a good missis—an’ stay to -Miss Isabella’s till de flo’ dry.” I am very docile now, and -I obeyed orders.</p> - -<p><i>February 19th.</i>—The Fants say all the trouble at the -hotel came from our servants’ bragging. They represented -us as millionaires, and the Middleton men servants smoked -cigars. Mrs. Reed’s averred that he had never done anything -in his life but stand behind his master at table with -a silver waiter in his hand. We were charged accordingly, -but perhaps the landlady did not get the best of us after all, -for we paid her in Confederate money. Now that they -won’t take Confederate money in the shops here how are -we to live? Miss Middleton says quartermasters’ families -are all clad in good gray cloth, but the soldiers go naked. -Well, we are like the families of whom the novels always say -they are poor but honest. Poor? Well-nigh beggars are -we, for I do not know where my next meal is to come from.</p> - -<p>Called on Mrs. Ben Rutledge to-day. She is lovely, exquisitely -refined. Her mother, Mrs. Middleton, came in. -“You are not looking well, dear? Anything the matter?” -“No—but, mamma, I have not eaten a mouthful to-day. -The children can eat mush; I can’t. I drank my tea, however.” -She does not understand taking favors, and, blushing -violently, refused to let me have Ellen make her some -biscuit. I went home and sent her some biscuit all the same.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_350" id="Page_350">[350]</a></span></p> - -<p><i>February 22d.</i>—Isabella has been reading my diaries. -How we laugh because my sage divinations all come to -naught. My famous “insight into character” is utter folly. -The diaries were lying on the hearth ready to be -burned, but she told me to hold on to them; think of them -a while and don’t be rash. Afterward when Isabella and I -were taking a walk, General Joseph E. Johnston joined us. -He explained to us all of Lee’s and Stonewall Jackson’s -mistakes. We had nothing to say—how could we say anything? -He said he was very angry when he was ordered to -take command again. He might well have been in a genuine -rage. This on and off procedure would be enough to -bewilder the coolest head. Mrs. Johnston knows how to be -a partizan of Joe Johnston and still not make his enemies -uncomfortable. She can be pleasant and agreeable, as she -was to my face.</p> - -<p>A letter from my husband who is at Charlotte. He came -near being taken a prisoner in Columbia, for he was asleep -the morning of the 17th, when the Yankees blew up the railroad -depot. That woke him, of course, and he found everybody -had left Columbia, and the town was surrendered by -the mayor, Colonel Goodwyn. Hampton and his command -had been gone several hours. Isaac Hayne came away with -General Chesnut. There was no fire in the town when they -left. They overtook Hampton’s command at Meek’s Mill. -That night, from the hills where they encamped, they saw -the fire, and knew the Yankees were burning the town, as -we had every reason to expect they would. Molly was left -in charge of everything of mine, including Mrs. Preston’s -cow, which I was keeping, and Sally Goodwyn’s furniture.</p> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 700px;" id="illus13"> -<img src="images/illus13.jpg" width="700" height="500" alt="" /> -<p class="caption">RUINS OF MILLWOOD, WADE HAMPTON’S ANCESTRAL HOME.</p> -<p class="caption">From a Recent Photograph.</p> -</div> - -<p>Charleston and Wilmington have surrendered. I have -no further use for a newspaper. I never want to see another -one as long as I live. Wade Hampton has been made -a lieutenant-general, too late. If he had been made one and -given command in South Carolina six months ago I believe -he would have saved us. Shame, disgrace, beggary, all<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_351" id="Page_351">[351]</a></span> -have come at once, and are hard to bear—the grand smash! -Rain, rain, outside, and naught but drowning floods of tears -inside. I could not bear it; so I rushed down in that rainstorm -to the Martins’. Rev. Mr. Martin met me at the -door. “Madam,” said he, “Columbia is burned to the -ground.” I bowed my head and sobbed aloud. “Stop -that!” he said, trying to speak cheerfully. “Come here, -wife,” said he to Mrs. Martin. “This woman cries with -her whole heart, just as she laughs.” But in spite of his -words, his voice broke down, and he was hardly calmer than -myself.</p> - -<p><i>February 23d.</i>—I want to get to Kate, I am so utterly -heart-broken. I hope John Chesnut and General Chesnut -may at least get into the same army. We seem scattered -over the face of the earth. Isabella sits there calmly reading. -I have quieted down after the day’s rampage. May -our heavenly Father look down on us and have pity.</p> - -<p>They say I was the last refugee from Columbia who was -allowed to enter by the door of the cars. The government -took possession then and women could only be smuggled in -by the windows. Stout ones stuck and had to be pushed, -pulled, and hauled in by main force. Dear Mrs. Izard, -with all her dignity, was subjected to this rough treatment. -She was found almost too much for the size of the car windows.</p> - -<p><i>February 25th.</i>—The Pfeifers, who live opposite us here, -are descendants of those Pfeifers who came South with Mr. -Chesnut’s ancestors after the Fort Duquesne disaster. They -have now, therefore, been driven out of their Eden, the -valley of Virginia, a second time. The present Pfeifer is -the great man, the rich man <i lang="fr">par excellence</i> of Lincolnton. -They say that with something very near to tears in his eyes -he heard of our latest defeats. “It is only a question of -time with us now,” he said. “The raiders will come, you -know.”</p> - -<p>In Washington, before I knew any of them, except by<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_352" id="Page_352">[352]</a></span> -sight, Mrs. Davis, Mrs. Emory, and Mrs. Johnston were always -together, inseparable friends, and the trio were pointed -out to me as the cleverest women in the United States. -Now that I do know them all well, I think the world was -right in its estimate of them.</p> - -<p>Met a Mr. Ancrum of serenely cheerful aspect, happy -and hopeful. “All right now,” said he. “Sherman sure -to be thrashed. Joe Johnston is in command.” Dr. Darby -says, when the oft-mentioned Joseph, the malcontent, gave -up his command to Hood, he remarked with a smile, “I -hope you will be able to stop Sherman; it was more than I -could do.” General Johnston is not of Mr. Ancrum’s way -of thinking as to his own powers, for he stayed here several -days after he was ordered to the front. He must have -known he could do no good, and I am of his opinion.</p> - -<p>When the wagon, in which I was to travel to Flat Rock, -drove up to the door, covered with a tent-like white cloth, -in my embarrassment for an opening in the conversation I -asked the driver’s name. He showed great hesitation in -giving it, but at last said: “My name is Sherman,” adding, -“and now I see by your face that you won’t go with me. -My name is against me these times.” Here he grinned and -remarked: “But you would leave Lincolnton.”</p> - -<p>That name was the last drop in my cup, but I gave him -Mrs. Glover’s reason for staying here. General Johnston -had told her this “might be the safest place after all.” He -thinks the Yankees are making straight for Richmond and -General Lee’s rear, and will go by Camden and Lancaster, -leaving Lincolnton on their west flank.</p> - -<p>The McLeans are kind people. They ask no rent for -their rooms—only $20 a week for firewood. Twenty dollars! -and such dollars—mere waste paper.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Munroe took up my photograph book, in which I -have a picture of all the Yankee generals. “I want to see -the men who are to be our masters,” said she. “Not -mine” I answered, “thank God, come what may. This<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_353" id="Page_353">[353]</a></span> -was a free fight. We had as much right to fight to get out -as they had to fight to keep us in. If they try to play the -masters, anywhere upon the habitable globe will I go, -never to see a Yankee, and if I die on the way so much the -better.” Then I sat down and wrote to my husband in language -much worse than anything I can put in this book. -As I wrote I was blinded by tears of rage. Indeed, I nearly -wept myself away.</p> - -<p><i>February 26th.</i>—Mrs. Munroe offered me religious -books, which I declined, being already provided with the -Lamentations of Jeremiah, the Psalms of David, the denunciations -of Hosea, and, above all, the patient wail of Job. -Job is my comforter now. I should be so thankful to know -life never would be any worse with me. My husband is -well, and has been ordered to join the great Retreater. I -am bodily comfortable, if somewhat dingily lodged, and I -daily part with my raiment for food. We find no one who -will exchange eatables for Confederate money; so we are -devouring our clothes.</p> - -<p>Opportunities for social enjoyment are not wanting. -Miss Middleton and Isabella often drink a cup of tea with -me. One might search the whole world and not find two -cleverer or more agreeable women. Miss Middleton is brilliant -and accomplished. She must have been a hard student -all her life. She knows everybody worth knowing, and she -has been everywhere. Then she is so high-bred, high-hearted, -pure, and true. She is so clean-minded; she could not -harbor a wrong thought. She is utterly unselfish, a devoted -daughter and sister. She is one among the many large-brained -women a kind Providence has thrown in my way, -such as Mrs. McCord, daughter of Judge Cheves; Mary -Preston Darby, Mrs. Emory, granddaughter of old Franklin, -the American wise man, and Mrs. Jefferson Davis. How -I love to praise my friends!</p> - -<p>As a ray of artificial sunshine, Mrs. Munroe sent me an -Examiner. Daniel thinks we are at the last gasp, and now<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_354" id="Page_354">[354]</a></span> -England and France are bound to step in. England must -know if the United States of America are triumphant they -will tackle her next, and France must wonder if she will -not have to give up Mexico. My faith fails me. It is all too -late; no help for us now from God or man.</p> - -<p>Thomas, Daniel says, was now to ravage Georgia, but -Sherman, from all accounts, has done that work once for all. -There will be no aftermath. They say no living thing is -found in Sherman’s track, only chimneys, like telegraph -poles, to carry the news of Sherman’s army backward.</p> - -<p>In all that tropical down-pour, Mrs. Munroe sent me -overshoes and an umbrella, with the message, “Come over.” -I went, for it would be as well to drown in the streets as to -hang myself at home to my own bedpost. At Mrs. Munroe’s -I met a Miss McDaniel. Her father, for seven years, was -the Methodist preacher at our negro church. The negro -church is in a grove just opposite Mulberry house. She -says her father has so often described that fine old establishment -and its beautiful lawn, live-oaks, etc. Now, I -dare say there stand at Mulberry only Sherman’s sentinels—stacks -of chimneys. We have made up our minds for the -worst. Mulberry house is no doubt razed to the ground.</p> - -<p>Miss McDaniel was inclined to praise us. She said: -“As a general rule the Episcopal minister went to the -family mansion, and the Methodist missionary preached to -the negroes and dined with the overseer at his house, but at -Mulberry her father always stayed at the ‘House,’ and -the family were so kind and attentive to him.” It was -rather pleasant to hear one’s family so spoken of among -strangers.</p> - -<p>So, well equipped to brave the weather, armed cap-a-pie, -so to speak, I continued my prowl farther afield and -brought up at the Middletons’. I may have surprised them, -for “at such an inclement season” they hardly expected a -visitor. Never, however, did lonely old woman receive such -a warm and hearty welcome. Now we know the worst. Are<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_355" id="Page_355">[355]</a></span> -we growing hardened? We avoid all allusion to Columbia; -we never speak of home, and we begin to deride the certain -poverty that lies ahead.</p> - -<p>How it pours! Could I live many days in solitary confinement? -Things are beginning to be unbearable, but I -must sit down and be satisfied. My husband is safe so far. -Let me be thankful it is no worse with me. But there is the -gnawing pain all the same. What is the good of being here -at all? Our world has simply gone to destruction. And -across the way the fair Lydia languishes. She has not even -my resources against ennui. She has no Isabella, no Miss -Middleton, two as brilliant women as any in Christendom. -Oh, how does she stand it! I mean to go to church if it -rains cats and dogs. My feet are wet two or three times a -day. We never take cold; our hearts are too hot within us -for that.</p> - -<p>A carriage was driven up to the door as I was writing. -I began to tie on my bonnet, and said to myself in the glass, -“Oh, you lucky woman!” I was all in a tremble, so great -was my haste to be out of this. Mrs. Glover had the carriage. -She came for me to go and hear Mr. Martin preach. -He lifts our spirits from this dull earth; he takes us up to -heaven. That I will not deny. Still he can not hold my attention; -my heart wanders and my mind strays back to -South Carolina. Oh, vandal Sherman! what are you at -there, hard-hearted wretch that you are! A letter from General -Chesnut, who writes from camp near Charlotte under -date of February 28th:</p> - -<p>“I thank you a thousand, thousand times for your kind -letters. They are now my only earthly comfort, except the -hope that all is not yet lost. We have been driven like a -wild herd from our country. And it is not from a want of -spirit in the people or soldiers, nor from want of energy -and competency in our commanders. The restoration of -Joe Johnston, it is hoped, will redound to the advantage -of our cause and the reestablishment of our fortunes! I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_356" id="Page_356">[356]</a></span> -am still in not very agreeable circumstances. For the last -four days completely water-bound.</p> - -<p>“I am informed that a detachment of Yankees were -sent from Liberty Hill to Camden with a view to destroying -all the houses, mills, and provisions about that place. No -particulars have reached me. You know I expected the -worst that could be done, and am fully prepared for any report -which may be made.</p> - -<p>“It would be a happiness beyond expression to see you -even for an hour. I have heard nothing from my poor old -father. I fear I shall never see him again. Such is the fate -of war. I do not complain. I have deliberately chosen my -lot, and am prepared for any fate that awaits me. My care -is for you, and I trust still in the good cause of my country -and the justice and mercy of Cod.”</p> - -<p>It was a lively, rushing, young set that South Carolina -put to the fore. They knew it was a time of imminent danger, -and that the fight would be ten to one. They expected -to win by activity, energy, and enthusiasm. Then came the -wet blanket, the croakers; now, these are posing, wrapping -Cæsar’s mantle about their heads to fall with dignity. -Those gallant youths who dashed so gaily to the front lie -mostly in bloody graves. Well for them, maybe. There -are worse things than honorable graves. Wearisome -thoughts. Late in life we are to begin anew and have laborious, -difficult days ahead.</p> - -<p>We have contradictory testimony. Governor Aiken has -passed through, saying Sherman left Columbia as he found -it, and was last heard from at Cheraw. Dr. Chisolm walked -home with me. He says that is the last version of the story. -Now my husband wrote that he himself saw the fires which -burned up Columbia. The first night his camp was near -enough to the town for that.</p> - -<p>They say Sherman has burned Lancaster—that Sherman -nightmare, that ghoul, that hyena! But I do not believe -it. He takes his time. There are none to molest him.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_357" id="Page_357">[357]</a></span> -He does things leisurely and deliberately. Why stop to do -so needless a thing as burn Lancaster court-house, the -jail, and the tavern? As I remember it, that description -covers Lancaster. A raiding party they say did for -Camden.</p> - -<p>No train from Charlotte yesterday. Rumor says Sherman -is in Charlotte.</p> - -<p><i>February 29th.</i>—Trying to brave it out. They have -plenty, yet let our men freeze and starve in their prisons. -Would you be willing to be as wicked as they are? A -thousand times, no! But we must feed our army first—if -we can do so much as that. Our captives need not starve -if Lincoln would consent to exchange prisoners; but men -are nothing to the United States—things to throw away. -If they send our men back they strengthen our army, and -so again their policy is to keep everybody and everything -here in order to help starve us out. That, too, is what Sherman’s -destruction means—to starve us out.</p> - -<p>Young Brevard asked me to play accompaniments for -him. The guitar is my instrument, or was; so I sang and -played, to my own great delight. It was a distraction. -Then I made egg-nog for the soldier boys below and came -home. Have spent a very pleasant evening. Begone, dull -care; you and I never agree.</p> - -<p>Ellen and I are shut up here. It is rain, rain, everlasting -rain. As our money is worthless, are we not to starve? -Heavens! how grateful I was to-day when Mrs. McLean -sent me a piece of chicken. I think the emptiness of my -larder has leaked out. To-day Mrs. Munroe sent me hot -cakes and eggs for my breakfast.</p> - -<p><i>March 5th.</i>—Is the sea drying up? Is it going up into -mist and coming down on us in a water-spout? The rain, -it raineth every day. The weather typifies our tearful despair, -on a large scale. It is also Lent now—a quite convenient -custom, for we, in truth, have nothing to eat. So -we fast and pray, and go dragging to church like drowned -rats to be preached at.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_358" id="Page_358">[358]</a></span></p> - -<p>My letter from my husband was so—well, what in a -woman you would call heart-broken, that I began to get -ready for a run up to Charlotte. My hat was on my head, -my traveling-bag in my hand, and Ellen was saying -“Which umbrella, ma’am?” “Stop, Ellen,” said I, -“someone is speaking out there.” A tap came at the door, -and Miss McLean threw the door wide open as she said in a -triumphant voice: “Permit me to announce General Chesnut.” -As she went off she sang out, “Oh, does not a -meeting like this make amends?”</p> - -<p>We went after luncheon to see Mrs. Munroe. My husband -wanted to thank her for all her kindness to me. I was -awfully proud of him. I used to think that everybody had -the air and manners of a gentleman. I know now that these -accomplishments are things to thank God for. Father -O’Connell came in, fresh from Columbia, and with news -at last. Sherman’s men had burned the convent. Mrs. -Munroe had pinned her faith to Sherman because he was a -Roman Catholic, but Father O’Connell was there and saw -it. The nuns and girls marched to the old Hampton house -(Mrs. Preston’s now), and so saved it. They walked between -files of soldiers. Men were rolling tar barrels and -lighting torches to fling on the house when the nuns came. -Columbia is but dust and ashes, burned to the ground. -Men, women, and children have been left there homeless, -houseless, and without one particle of food—reduced to -picking up corn that was left by Sherman’s horses on picket -grounds and parching it to stay their hunger.</p> - -<p>How kind my friends were on this, my fête day! Mrs. -Rutledge sent me a plate of biscuit; Mrs. Munroe, nearly -enough food supplies for an entire dinner; Miss McLean a -cake for dessert. Ellen cooked and served up the material -happily at hand very nicely, indeed. There never was -a more successful dinner. My heart was too full to eat, but -I was quiet and calm; at least I spared my husband the trial -of a broken voice and tears. As he stood at the window,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_359" id="Page_359">[359]</a></span> -with his back to the room, he said: “Where are they now—my -old blind father and my sister? Day and night I see -her leading him out from under his own rooftree. That -picture pursues me persistently. But come, let us talk of -pleasanter things.” To which I answered, “Where will -you find them?”</p> - -<p>He took off his heavy cavalry boots and Ellen carried -them away to wash the mud off and dry them. She brought -them back just as Miss Middleton walked in. In his agony, -while struggling with those huge boots and trying to get -them on, he spoke to her volubly in French. She turned -away from him instantly, as she saw his shoeless plight, and -said to me, “I had not heard of your happiness. I did not -know the General was here.” Not until next day did we -have time to remember and laugh at that outbreak of -French. Miss Middleton answered him in the same language. -He told her how charmed he was with my surroundings, -and that he would go away with a much lighter heart -since he had seen the kind people with whom he would leave -me.</p> - -<p>I asked my husband what that correspondence between -Sherman and Hampton meant—this while I was preparing -something for our dinner. His back was still turned as he -gazed out of the window. He spoke in the low and steady -monotone that characterized our conversation the whole -day, and yet there was something in his voice that thrilled -me as he said: “The second day after our march from Columbia -we passed the M.’s. He was a bonded man and not -at home. His wife said at first that she could not find forage -for our horses, but afterward she succeeded in procuring -some. I noticed a very handsome girl who stood beside -her as she spoke, and I suggested to her mother the propriety -of sending her out of the track of both armies. -Things were no longer as heretofore; there was so much -straggling, so many camp followers, with no discipline, on -the outskirts of the army. The girl answered quickly, ‘I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_360" id="Page_360">[360]</a></span> -wish to stay with my mother.’ That very night a party of -Wheeler’s men came to our camp, and such a tale they told -of what had been done at the place of horror and destruction, -the mother left raving. The outrage had been committed -before her very face, she having been secured first. -After this crime the fiends moved on. There were only -seven of them. They had been gone but a short time when -Wheeler’s men went in pursuit at full speed and overtook -them, cut their throats and wrote upon their breasts: -‘These were the seven!’”</p> - -<p>“But the girl?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, she was dead!”</p> - -<p>“Are his critics as violent as ever against the President?” -asked I when recovered from pity and horror. -“Sometimes I think I am the only friend he has in the -world. At these dinners, which they give us everywhere, -I spoil the sport, for I will not sit still and hear Jeff Davis -abused for things he is no more responsible for than any -man at that table. Once I lost my temper and told them it -sounded like arrant nonsense to me, and that Jeff Davis -was a gentleman and a patriot, with more brains than the -assembled company.” “You lost your temper truly,” -said I. “And I did not know it. I thought I was as cool -as I am now. In Washington when we left, Jeff Davis -ranked second to none, in intellect, and may be first, from -the South, and Mrs. Davis was the friend of Mrs. Emory, -Mrs. Joe Johnston, and Mrs. Montgomery Blair, and others -of that circle. Now they rave that he is nobody, and never -was.” “And she?” I asked. “Oh, you would think to -hear them that he found her yesterday in a Mississippi -swamp!” “Well, in the French Revolution it was worse. -When a man failed he was guillotined. Mirabeau did not -die a day too soon, even Mirabeau.”</p> - -<p>He is gone. With despair in my heart I left that railroad -station. Allan Green walked home with me. I met his -wife and his four ragged little boys a day or so ago. She<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_361" id="Page_361">[361]</a></span> -is the neatest, the primmest, the softest of women. Her -voice is like the gentle cooing of a dove. That lowering -black future hangs there all the same. The end of the war -brings no hope of peace or of security to us. Ellen said I -had a little piece of bread and a little molasses in store for -my dinner to-day.</p> - -<p><i>March 6th.</i>—To-day came a godsend. Even a small -piece of bread and the molasses had become things of the -past. My larder was empty, when a tall mulatto woman -brought a tray covered by a huge white serviette. Ellen -ushered her in with a flourish, saying, “Mrs. McDaniel’s -maid.” The maid set down the tray upon my bare table, -and uncovered it with conscious pride. There were fowls -ready for roasting, sausages, butter, bread, eggs, and preserves. -I was dumb with delight. After silent thanks to -heaven my powers of speech returned, and I exhausted myself -in messages of gratitude to Mrs. McDaniel.</p> - -<p>“Missis, you oughtn’t to let her see how glad you was,” -said Ellen. “It was a lettin’ of yo’sef down.”</p> - -<p>Mrs. Glover gave me some yarn, and I bought five dozen -eggs with it from a wagon—eggs for Lent. To show that I -have faith yet in humanity, I paid in advance in yarn for -something to eat, which they promised to bring to-morrow. -Had they rated their eggs at $100 a dozen in “Confederick” -money, I would have paid it as readily as $10. But -I haggle in yarn for the millionth part of a thread.</p> - -<p>Two weeks have passed and the rumors from Columbia -are still of the vaguest. No letter has come from there, no -direct message, or messenger. “My God!” cried Dr. -Frank Miles, “but it is strange. Can it be anything so -dreadful they dare not tell us?” Dr. St. Julien Ravenel -has grown pale and haggard with care. His wife and children -were left there.</p> - -<p>Dr. Brumby has at last been coaxed into selling me -enough leather for the making of a pair of shoes, else I -should have had to give up walking. He knew my father<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_362" id="Page_362">[362]</a></span> -well. He intimated that in some way my father helped him -through college. His own money had not sufficed, and so -William C. Preston and my father advanced funds sufficient -to let him be graduated. Then my uncle, Charles Miller, -married his aunt. I listened in rapture, for all this tended -to leniency in the leather business, and I bore off the leather -gladly. When asked for Confederate money in trade I -never stop to bargain. I give them $20 or $50 cheerfully -for anything—either sum.</p> - -<p><i>March 8th.</i>—Colonel Childs came with a letter from my -husband and a newspaper containing a full account of Sherman’s -cold-blooded brutality in Columbia. Then we walked -three miles to return the call of my benefactress, Mrs. McDaniel. -They were kind and hospitable at her house, but -my heart was like lead; my head ached, and my legs were -worse than my head, and then I had a nervous chill. So I -came home, went to bed and stayed there until the Fants -brought me a letter saying my husband would be here to-day. -Then I got up and made ready to give him a cheerful -reception. Soon a man called, Troy by name, the same who -kept the little corner shop so near my house in Columbia, and -of whom we bought things so often. We had fraternized. -He now shook hands with me and looked in my face pitifully. -We seemed to have been friends all our lives. He -says they stopped the fire at the Methodist College, perhaps -to save old Mr. McCartha’s house. Mr. Sheriff Dent, being -burned out, took refuge in our house. He contrived to find -favor in Yankee eyes. Troy relates that a Yankee officer -snatched a watch from Mrs. McCord’s bosom. The soldiers -tore the bundles of clothes that the poor wretches tried to -save from their burning homes, and dashed them back into -the flames. They meant to make a clean sweep. They -were howling round the fires like demons, these Yankees -in their joy and triumph at our destruction. Well, we have -given them a big scare and kept them miserable for four -years—the little handful of us.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_363" id="Page_363">[363]</a></span></p> - -<p>A woman we met on the street stopped to tell us a painful -coincidence. A general was married but he could not -stay at home very long after the wedding. When his baby -was born they telegraphed him, and he sent back a rejoicing -answer with an inquiry, “Is it a boy or a girl?” He -was killed before he got the reply. Was it not sad? His -poor young wife says, “He did not live to hear that his son -lived.” The kind woman added, sorrowfully, “Died and -did not know the sect of his child.” “Let us hope it will -be a Methodist,” said Isabella, the irrepressible.</p> - -<p>At the venison feast Isabella heard a good word for me -and one for General Chesnut’s air of distinction, a thing -people can not give themselves, try as ever they may. Lord -Byron says, Everybody knows a gentleman when he sees -one, and nobody can tell what it is that makes a gentleman. -He knows the thing, but he can’t describe it. Now there are -some French words that can not be translated, and we all -know the thing they mean—<i lang="fr">gracieuse</i> and <i lang="fr">svelte</i>, for instance, -as applied to a woman. Not that anything was said -of me like that—far from it. I am fair, fat, forty, and -jolly, and in my unbroken jollity, as far as they know, they -found my charm. “You see, she doesn’t howl; she doesn’t -cry; she never, never tells anybody about what she was used -to at home and what she has lost.” High praise, and I intend -to try and deserve it ever after.</p> - -<p><i>March 10th.</i>—Went to church crying to Ellen, “It is -Lent, we must fast and pray.” When I came home my -good fairy, Colonel Childs, had been here bringing rice and -potatoes, and promising flour. He is a trump. He pulled -out his pocket-book and offered to be my banker. He stood -there on the street, Miss Middleton and Isabella witnessing -the generous action, and straight out offered me money. -“No, put up that,” said I. “I am not a beggar, and I -never will be; to die is so much easier.”</p> - -<p>Alas, after that flourish of trumpets, when he came with -a sack of flour, I accepted it gratefully. I receive things I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_364" id="Page_364">[364]</a></span> -can not pay for, but money is different. There I draw a -line, imaginary perhaps. Once before the same thing happened. -Our letters of credit came slowly in 1845, when we -went unexpectedly to Europe and our letters were to follow -us. I was a poor little, inoffensive bride, and a British -officer, who guessed our embarrassment, for we did not tell -him (he came over with us on the ship), asked my husband -to draw on his banker until the letters of credit should -arrive. It was a nice thing for a stranger to do.</p> - -<p>We have never lost what we never had. We have never -had any money—only unlimited credit, for my husband’s -richest kind of a father insured us all manner of credit. -It was all a mirage only at last, and it has gone just as we -drew nigh to it.</p> - -<p>Colonel Childs says eight of our Senators are for reconstruction, -and that a ray of light has penetrated inward -from Lincoln, who told Judge Campbell that Southern land -would not be confiscated.</p> - -<p><i>March 12th.</i>—Better to-day. A long, long weary day in -grief has passed away. I suppose General Chesnut is somewhere—but -where? that is the question. Only once has he -visited this sad spot, which holds, he says, all that he cares -for on earth. Unless he comes or writes soon I will cease, or -try to cease, this wearisome looking, looking, looking for -him.</p> - -<p><i>March 13th.</i>—My husband at last did come for a visit -of two hours. Brought Lawrence, who had been to Camden, -and was there, indeed, during the raid. My husband -has been ordered to Chester, S. C. We are surprised -to see by the papers that we behaved heroically in leaving -everything we had to be destroyed, without one thought of -surrender. We had not thought of ourselves from the heroic -point of view. Isaac McLaughlin hid and saved everything -we trusted him with. A grateful negro is Isaac.</p> - -<p><i>March 15th.</i>—Lawrence says Miss Chesnut is very proud -of the presence of mind and cool self-possession she showed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_365" id="Page_365">[365]</a></span> -in the face of the enemy. She lost, after all, only two bottles -of champagne, two of her brother’s gold-headed canes, -and her brother’s horses, including Claudia, the brood -mare, that he valued beyond price, and her own carriage, -and a fly-brush boy called Battis, whose occupation in life -was to stand behind the table with his peacock feathers and -brush the flies away. He was the sole member of his dusky -race at Mulberry who deserted “Ole Marster” to follow -the Yankees.</p> - -<p>Now for our losses at the Hermitage. Added to the -gold-headed canes and Claudia, we lost every mule and -horse, and President Davis’s beautiful Arabian was captured. -John’s were there, too. My light dragoon, Johnny, -and heavy swell, is stripped light enough for the fight now. -Jonathan, whom we trusted, betrayed us; and the plantation -and mills, Mulberry house, etc., were saved by Claiborne, -that black rascal, who was suspected by all the world. Claiborne -boldly affirmed that Mr. Chesnut would not be hurt -by destroying his place; the invaders would hurt only the -negroes. “Mars Jeems,” said he, “hardly ever come -here and he takes only a little sompen nur to eat when he -do come.”</p> - -<p>Fever continuing, I sent for St. Julien Ravenel. We -had a wrangle over the slavery question. Then, he fell foul -of everybody who had not conducted this war according to -his ideas. Ellen had something nice to offer him (thanks -to the ever-bountiful Childs!), but he was too angry, too -anxious, too miserable to eat. He pitched into Ellen after -he had disposed of me. Ellen stood glaring at him from the -fireplace, her blue eye nearly white, her other eye blazing -as a comet. Last Sunday, he gave her some Dover’s powders -for me; directions were written on the paper in which -the medicine was wrapped, and he told her to show these to -me, then to put what I should give her into a wine-glass -and let me drink it. Ellen put it all into the wine-glass and -let me drink it at one dose. “It was enough to last you<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_366" id="Page_366">[366]</a></span> -your lifetime,” he said. “It was murder.” Turning to -Ellen: “What did you do with the directions?” “I -nuvver see no d’rections. You nuvver gimme none.” “I -told you to show that paper to your mistress.” “Well, I -flung dat ole brown paper in de fire. What you makin’ all -dis fuss for? Soon as I give Missis de physic, she stop frettin’ -an’ flingin’ ’bout, she go to sleep sweet as a suckling -baby, an’ she slep two days an’ nights, an’ now she heap -better.” And Ellen withdrew from the controversy.</p> - -<p>“Well, all is well that ends well, Mrs. Chesnut. You -took opium enough to kill several persons. You were worried -out and needed rest. You came near getting it—thoroughly. -You were in no danger from your disease. But -your doctor and your nurse combined were deadly.” Maybe -I was saved by the adulteration, the feebleness, of Confederate -medicine.</p> - -<p class="tb">A letter from my husband, written at Chester Court -House on March 15th, says: “In the morning I send Lieut. -Ogden with Lawrence to Lincolnton to bring you down. I -have three vacant rooms; one with bedsteads, chairs, wash-stands, -basins, and pitchers; the two others bare. You -can have half of a kitchen for your cooking. I have also at -Dr. Da Vega’s, a room, furnished, to which you are invited -(board, also). You can take your choice. If you can -get your friends in Lincolnton to assume charge of your -valuables, only bring such as you may need here. Perhaps -it will be better to bring bed and bedding and the other -indispensables.”</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_367" id="Page_367">[367]</a></span></p> - -<h2 id="CHAPTER_XX">XX<br /> -<span class="smaller">CHESTER, S. C.<br /> -<i>March 21, 1865-May 1, 1865</i></span></h2> - -<div> -<img class="dropcap" src="images/dropcap-c.jpg" width="100" height="115" alt="" /> -</div> - -<p class="dropcap">Chester, S. C., <i>March 21, 1865</i>.—Another flitting has -occurred. Captain Ogden came for me; the splendid -Childs was true as steel to the last. Surely -he is the kindest of men. Captain Ogden was slightly incredulous -when I depicted the wonders of Colonel Childs’s -generosity. So I skilfully led out the good gentleman for -inspection, and he walked to the train with us. He offered -me Confederate money, silver, and gold; and finally offered -to buy our cotton and pay us now in gold. Of course, I -laughed at his overflowing bounty, and accepted nothing; -but I begged him to come down to Chester or Camden and -buy our cotton of General Chesnut there.</p> - -<p>On the train after leaving Lincolnton, as Captain Ogden -is a refugee, has had no means of communicating with his -home since New Orleans fell, and was sure to know how -refugees contrive to live, I beguiled the time acquiring information -from him. “When people are without a cent, -how do they live?” I asked. “I am about to enter the -noble band of homeless, houseless refugees, and Confederate -pay does not buy one’s shoe-strings.” To which he replied, -“Sponge, sponge. Why did you not let Colonel -Childs pay your bills?” “I have no bills,” said I. “We -have never made bills anywhere, not even at home, where -they would trust us, and nobody would trust me in Lincolnton.” -“Why did you not borrow his money? General -Chesnut could pay him at his leisure?” “I am by no<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_368" id="Page_368">[368]</a></span> -means sure General Chesnut will ever again have any -money,” said I.</p> - -<p>As the train rattled and banged along, and I waved my -handkerchief in farewell to Miss Middleton, Isabella, and -other devoted friends, I could only wonder if fate would -ever throw me again with such kind, clever, agreeable, congenial -companions? The McLeans refused to be paid for -their rooms. No plummet can sound the depths of the hospitality -and kindness of the North Carolina people.</p> - -<p>Misfortune dogged us from the outset. Everything -went wrong with the train. We broke down within two -miles of Charlotte, and had to walk that distance; which -was pretty rough on an invalid barely out of a fever. My -spirit was further broken by losing an invaluable lace veil, -which was worn because I was too poor to buy a cheaper -one—that is, if there were any veils at all for sale in our -region.</p> - -<p>My husband had ordered me to a house in Charlotte -kept by some great friends of his. They established me in -the drawing-room, a really handsome apartment; they made -up a bed there and put in a washstand and plenty of water, -with everything refreshingly clean and nice. But it continued -to be a public drawing-room, open to all, so that I -was half dead at night and wanted to go to bed. The piano -was there and the company played it.</p> - -<p>The landlady announced, proudly, that for supper there -were nine kinds of custard. Custard sounded nice and -light, so I sent for some, but found it heavy potato pie. I -said: “Ellen, this may kill me, though Dover’s powder did -not.” “Don’t you believe dat, Missis; try.” We barricaded -ourselves in the drawing-room that night and left the -next day at dawn. Arrived at the station, we had another -disappointment; the train was behind time. There we sat -on our boxes nine long hours; for the cars might come at -any moment, and we dared not move an inch from the spot.</p> - -<p>Finally the train rolled in overloaded with paroled prisoners,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_369" id="Page_369">[369]</a></span> -but heaven helped us: a kind mail agent invited us, -with two other forlorn women, into his comfortable and -clean mail-car. Ogden, true to his theory, did not stay at -the boarding-house as we did. Some Christian acquaintances -took him in for the night. This he explained with a -grin.</p> - -<p>My husband was at the Chester station with a carriage. -We drove at once to Mrs. Da Vega’s.</p> - -<p><i>March 24th.</i>—I have been ill, but what could you expect? -My lines, however, have again fallen in pleasant -places. Mrs. Da Vega is young, handsome, and agreeable, -a kind and perfect hostess; and as to the house, my room is -all that I could ask and leaves nothing to be desired; so -very fresh, clean, warm, and comfortable is it. It is the -drawing-room suddenly made into a bedroom for me. But -it is my very own. We are among the civilized of the earth -once more.</p> - -<p><i>March 27th.</i>—I have moved again, and now I am looking -from a window high, with something more to see than the -sky. We have the third story of Dr. Da Vega’s house, -which opens on the straight street that leads to the railroad -about a mile off.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Bedon is the loveliest of young widows. Yesterday -at church Isaac Hayne nestled so close to her cap-strings -that I had to touch him and say, “Sit up!” Josiah Bedon -was killed in that famous fight of the Charleston Light Dragoons. -The dragoons stood still to be shot down in their -tracks, having no orders to retire. They had been forgotten, -doubtless, and they scorned to take care of themselves.</p> - -<p>In this high and airy retreat, as in Richmond, then in -Columbia, and then in Lincolnton, my cry is still: If they -would only leave me here in peace and if I were sure things -never could be worse with me. Again am I surrounded by -old friends. People seem to vie with each other to show how -good they can be to me.</p> - -<p>To-day Smith opened the trenches and appeared laden<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_370" id="Page_370">[370]</a></span> -with a tray covered with a snow-white napkin. Here was -my first help toward housekeeping again. Mrs. Pride has -sent a boiled ham, a loaf of bread, a huge pancake; another -neighbor coffee already parched and ground; a loaf of -sugar already cracked; candles, pickles, and all the other -things one must trust to love for now. Such money as we -have avails us nothing, even if there were anything left in -the shops to buy.</p> - -<p>We had a jolly luncheon. James Lowndes called, the -best of good company. He said of Buck, “She is a queen, -and ought to reign in a palace. No Prince Charming yet; -no man has yet approached her that I think half good -enough for her.”</p> - -<p>Then Mrs. Prioleau Hamilton, <i lang="fr">née</i> Levy, came with the -story of family progress, not a royal one, from Columbia -here: “Before we left home,” said she, “Major Hamilton -spread a map of the United States on the table, and showed -me with his finger where Sherman was likely to go. Womanlike, -I demurred. I But, suppose he does not choose to -go that way?’ ‘Pooh, pooh! what do you know of war?’ -So we set out, my husband, myself, and two children, all in -one small buggy. The 14th of February we took up our line -of march, and straight before Sherman’s men for five weeks -we fled together. By incessant hurrying and scurrying -from pillar to post, we succeeded in acting as a sort of -<i lang="fr">avant-courier</i> of the Yankee army. Without rest and with -much haste, we got here last Wednesday, and here we mean -to stay and defy Sherman and his legions. Much the worse -for wear were we.”</p> - -<p>The first night their beauty sleep was rudely broken into -at Alston with a cry, “Move on, the Yanks are upon us!” -So they hurried on, half-awake, to Winnsboro, but with no -better luck. There they had to lighten the ship, leave -trunks, etc., and put on all sail, for this time the Yankees -were only five miles behind. “Whip and spur, ride for -your life!” was the cry. “Sherman’s objective point<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_371" id="Page_371">[371]</a></span> -seemed to be our buggy,” said she; “for you know that -when we got to Lancaster Sherman was expected there, and -he keeps his appointments; that is, he kept that one. Two -small children were in our chariot, and I began to think of -the Red Sea expedition. But we lost no time, and soon we -were in Cheraw, clearly out of the track. We thanked God -for all his mercies and hugged to our bosoms fond hopes of -a bed and bath so much needed by all, especially for the -children.</p> - -<p>“At twelve o’clock General Hardee himself knocked us -up with word to ‘March! march!’ for ‘all the blue bonnets -are over the border.’ In mad haste we made for Fayetteville, -when they said: ‘God bless your soul! This is the -seat of war now; the battle-ground where Sherman and -Johnston are to try conclusions.’ So we harked back, as the -hunters say, and cut across country, aiming for this place. -Clean clothes, my dear? Never a one except as we took off -garment by garment and washed it and dried it by our -camp fire, with our loins girded and in haste.” I was snug -and comfortable all that time in Lincolnton.</p> - -<p class="tb">To-day Stephen D. Lee’s corps marched through—only -to surrender. The camp songs of these men were a heartbreak; -so sad, yet so stirring. They would have warmed the -blood of an Icelander. The leading voice was powerful, -mellow, clear, distinct, pathetic, sweet. So, I sat down, as -women have done before, when they hung up their harps by -strange streams, and I wept the bitterness of such weeping. -Music? Away, away! Thou speakest to me of things which -in all my long life I have not found, and I shall not find. -There they go, the gay and gallant few, doomed; the last -gathering of the flower of Southern pride, to be killed, or -worse, to a prison. They continue to prance by, light and -jaunty. They march with as airy a tread as if they still believed -the world was all on their side, and that there were<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_372" id="Page_372">[372]</a></span> -no Yankee bullets for the unwary. What will Joe Johnston -do with them now?</p> - -<p>The Hood melodrama is over, though the curtain has not -fallen on the last scene. Cassandra croaks and makes many -mistakes, but to-day she believes that Hood stock is going -down. When that style of enthusiasm is on the wane, the -rapidity of its extinction is miraculous. It is like the snuffing -out of a candle; “one moment white, then gone forever.” -No, that is not right; it is the snow-flake on the -river that is referred to. I am getting things as much -mixed as do the fine ladies of society.</p> - -<p>Lee and Johnston have each fought a drawn battle; only -a few more dead bodies lie stiff and stark on an unknown -battle-field. For we do not so much as know where these -drawn battles took place.</p> - -<p>Teddy Barnwell, after sharing with me my first luncheon, -failed me cruelly. He was to come for me to go down -to the train and see Isabella pass by. One word with Isabella -worth a thousand ordinary ones! So, she has gone -by and I’ve not seen her.</p> - -<p>Old Colonel Chesnut refuses to say grace; but as he -leaves the table audibly declares, “I thank God for a good -dinner.” When asked why he did this odd thing he said: -“My way is to be sure of a thing before I return thanks for -it.” Mayor Goodwyn thanked Sherman for promised protection -to Columbia; soon after, the burning began.</p> - -<p>I received the wife of a post-office robber. The poor -thing had done no wrong, and I felt so sorry for her. Who -would be a woman? Who that fool, a weeping, pining, -faithful woman? She hath hard measures still when she -hopes kindest. And all her beauty only makes ingrates!</p> - -<p><i>March 29th.</i>—I was awakened with a bunch of violets -from Mrs. Pride. Violets always remind me of Kate and -of the sweet South wind that blew in the garden of paradise -part of my life. Then, it all came back: the dread unspeakable -that lies behind every thought now.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_373" id="Page_373">[373]</a></span></p> - -<p><i>Thursday.</i>—I find I have not spoken of the box-car -which held the Preston party that day on their way to -York from Richmond. In the party were Mr. and Mrs. -Lawson Clay, General and Mrs. Preston and their three -daughters, Captain Rodgers, and Mr. Portman, whose -father is an English earl, and connected financially and -happily with Portman Square. In my American ignorance -I may not state Mr. Portman’s case plainly. Mr. Portman -is, of course, a younger son. Then there was Cellie and her -baby and wet-nurse, with no end of servants, male and female. -In this ark they slept, ate, and drank, such being the -fortune of war. We were there but a short time, but Mr. -Portman, during that brief visit of ours, was said to have -eaten three luncheons, and the number of his drinks, toddies, -so called, were counted, too. Mr. Portman’s contribution -to the larder had been three small pigs. They were, -however, run over by the train, and made sausage meat of -unduly and before their time.</p> - -<p>General Lee says to the men who shirk duty, “This is -the people’s war; when they tire, I stop.” Wigfall says, -“It is all over; the game is up.” He is on his way to -Texas, and when the hanging begins he can step over into -Mexico.</p> - -<p>I am plucking up heart, such troops do I see go by every -day. They must turn the tide, and surely they are going -for something more than surrender. It is very late, and the -wind flaps my curtain, which seems to moan, “Too late.” -All this will end by making me a nervous lunatic.</p> - -<p>Yesterday while I was driving with Mrs. Pride, Colonel -McCaw passed us! He called out, “I do hope you are -in comfortable quarters.” “Very comfortable,” I replied. -“Oh, Mrs. Chesnut!” said Mrs. Pride, “how can you say -that?” “Perfectly comfortable, and hope it may never be -worse with me,” said I. “I have a clean little parlor, 16 -by 18, with its bare floor well scrubbed, a dinner-table, six -chairs, and—well, that is all; but I have a charming lookout<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_374" id="Page_374">[374]</a></span> -from my window high. My world is now thus divided into -two parts—where Yankees are and where Yankees are not.”</p> - -<p>As I sat disconsolate, looking out, ready for any new -tramp of men and arms, the magnificent figure of General -Preston hove in sight. He was mounted on a mighty steed, -worthy of its rider, followed by his trusty squire, William -Walker, who bore before him the General’s portmanteau. -When I had time to realize the situation, I perceived at -General Preston’s right hand Mr. Christopher Hampton -and Mr. Portman, who passed by. Soon Mrs. Pride, in some -occult way, divined or heard that they were coming here, -and she sent me at once no end of good things for my tea-table. -General Preston entered very soon after, and with -him Clement Clay, of Alabama, the latter in pursuit of his -wife’s trunk. I left it with the Rev. Mr. Martin, and have -no doubt it is perfectly safe, but where? We have written -to Mr. Martin to inquire. Then Wilmot de Saussure appeared. -“I am here,” he said, “to consult with General -Chesnut. He and I always think alike.” He added, emphatically: -“Slavery is stronger than ever.” “If you -think so,” said I, “you will find that for once you and -General Chesnut do not think alike. He has held that slavery -was a thing of the past, this many a year.”</p> - -<p>I said to General Preston: “I pass my days and nights -partly at this window. I am sure our army is silently dispersing. -Men are moving the wrong way, all the time. -They slip by with no songs and no shouts now. They have -given the thing up. See for yourself. Look there.” For a -while the streets were thronged with soldiers and then they -were empty again. But the marching now is without tap -of drum.</p> - -<p><i>March 31st.</i>—Mr. Prioleau Hamilton told us of a great -adventure. Mrs. Preston was put under his care on the train. -He soon found the only other women along were “strictly -unfortunate females,” as Carlyle calls them, beautiful and -aggressive. He had to communicate the unpleasant fact to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_375" id="Page_375">[375]</a></span> -Mrs. Preston, on account of their propinquity, and was lost -in admiration of her silent dignity, her quiet self-possession, -her calmness, her deafness and blindness, her thoroughbred -ignoring of all that she did not care to see. Some -women, no matter how ladylike, would have made a fuss -or would have fidgeted, but Mrs. Preston dominated the situation -and possessed her soul in innocence and peace.</p> - -<p>Met Robert Johnston from Camden. He has been a prisoner, -having been taken at Camden. The Yankees robbed -Zack Cantey of his forks and spoons. When Zack did not -seem to like it, they laughed at him. When he said he did -not see any fun in it, they pretended to weep and wiped -their eyes with their coat-tails. All this maddening derision -Zack said was as hard to bear as it was to see them ride -off with his horse, Albine. They stole all of Mrs. Zack’s -jewelry and silver. When the Yankee general heard of it -he wrote her a very polite note, saying how sorry he was -that she had been annoyed, and returned a bundle of Zack’s -love-letters, written to her before she was married. Robert -Johnston said Miss Chesnut was a brave and determined -spirit. One Yankee officer came in while they were at breakfast -and sat down to warm himself at the fire. “Rebels -have no rights,” Miss Chesnut said to him politely. “I -suppose you have come to rob us. Please do so and go. -Your presence agitates my blind old father.” The man -jumped up in a rage, and said, “What do you take me for—a -robber?” “No, indeed,” said she, and for very shame -he marched out empty-handed.</p> - -<p><i>April 3d.</i>—Saw General Preston ride off. He came to -tell me good-by. I told him he looked like a Crusader on -his great white horse, with William, his squire, at his heels. -Our men are all consummate riders, and have their servants -well mounted behind them, carrying cloaks and traps—how -different from the same men packed like sardines in dirty -railroad cars, usually floating inch deep in liquid tobacco -juice.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_376" id="Page_376">[376]</a></span></p> - -<p>For the kitchen and Ellen’s comfort I wanted a pine -table and a kitchen chair. A woman sold me one to-day for -three thousand Confederate dollars.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Hamilton has been disappointed again. Prioleau -Hamilton says the person into whose house they expected -to move to-day came to say she could not take boarders for -three reasons: First, “that they had small-pox in the -house.” “And the two others?” “Oh, I did not ask for -the two others!”</p> - -<p><i>April 5th.</i>—Miss Middleton’s letter came in answer to -mine, telling her how generous my friends here were to me. -“We long,” she says, “for our own small sufficiency of -wood, corn, and vegetables. Here is a struggle unto death, -although the neighbors continue to feed us, as you would -say, ‘with a spoon.’ We have fallen upon a new device. -We keep a cookery book on the mantelpiece, and when the -dinner is deficient we just read off a pudding or a <i lang="fr">crême</i>. -It does not entirely satisfy the appetite, this dessert in imagination, -but perhaps it is as good for the digestion.”</p> - -<p>As I was ready to go, though still up-stairs, some one -came to say General Hood had called. Mrs. Hamilton -cried out, “Send word you are not at home.” “Never!” -said I. “Why make him climb all these stairs when you -must go in five minutes?” “If he had come here dragging -Sherman as a captive at his chariot wheels I might say ‘not -at home,’ but not now.” And I ran down and greeted him -on the sidewalk in the face of all, and walked slowly beside -him as he toiled up the weary three stories, limping gallantly. -He was so well dressed and so cordial; not depressed in -the slightest. He was so glad to see me. He calls his report -self-defense; says Joe Johnston attacked him and he -was obliged to state things from his point of view. And -now follow statements, where one may read between the -lines what one chooses. He had been offered a command in -Western Virginia, but as General Lee was concerned because -he and Joe Johnston were not on cordial terms, and as the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_377" id="Page_377">[377]</a></span> -fatigue of the mountain campaign would be too great for -him, he would like the chance of going across the Mississippi. -Texas was true to him, and would be his home, as it -had voted him a ranch somewhere out there. They say General -Lee is utterly despondent, and has no plan if Richmond -goes, as go it must.</p> - -<p><i>April 7th.</i>—Richmond has fallen and I have no heart -to write about it. Grant broke through our lines and Sherman -cut through them. Stoneman is this side of Danville. -They are too many for us. Everything is lost in Richmond, -even our archives. Blue black is our horizon. Hood says -we shall all be obliged to go West—to Texas, I mean, for -our own part of the country will be overrun.</p> - -<p>Yes, a solitude and a wild waste it may become, but, as -to that, we can rough it in the bush at home.</p> - -<p>De Fontaine, in his newspaper, continues the old cry. -“Now Richmond is given up,” he says, “it was too heavy -a load to carry, and we are stronger than ever.” “Stronger -than ever?” Nine-tenths of our army are under ground -and where is another army to come from? Will they wait -until we grow one?</p> - -<p><i>April 15th.</i>—What a week it has been—madness, sadness, -anxiety, turmoil, ceaseless excitement. The Wigfalls -passed through on their way to Texas. We did not see -them. Louly told Hood they were bound for the Rio -Grande, and intended to shake hands with Maximilian, Emperor -of Mexico. Yankees were expected here every minute. -Mrs. Davis came. We went down to the cars at daylight -to receive her. She dined with me. Lovely Winnie, -the baby, came, too. Buck and Hood were here, and that -queen of women, Mary Darby. Clay behaved like a trump. -He was as devoted to Mrs. Davis in her adversity as if they -had never quarreled in her prosperity. People sent me -things for Mrs. Davis, as they did in Columbia for Mr. -Davis. It was a luncheon or breakfast only she stayed for -here. Mrs. Brown prepared a dinner for her at the station.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_378" id="Page_378">[378]</a></span> -I went down with her. She left here at five o’clock. -My heart was like lead, but we did not give way. She was -as calm and smiling as ever. It was but a brief glimpse of -my dear Mrs. Davis, and under altered skies.</p> - -<p><i>April 17th.</i>—A letter from Mrs. Davis, who writes: -“Do come to me, and see how we get on. I shall have a -spare room by the time you arrive, indifferently furnished, -but, oh, so affectionately placed at your service. You will -receive such a loving welcome. One perfect bliss have I. -The baby, who grows fat and is smiling always, is christened, -and not old enough to develop the world’s vices or to -be snubbed by it. The name so long delayed is Varina -Anne. My name is a heritage of woe.</p> - -<p>“Are you delighted with your husband? I am delighted -with him as well as with my own. It is well to lose -an Arabian horse if one elicits such a tender and at the -same time knightly letter as General Chesnut wrote to my -poor old Prometheus. I do not think that for a time he -felt the vultures after the reception of the General’s letter.</p> - -<p>“I hear horrid reports about Richmond. It is said -that all below Ninth Street to the Rocketts has been burned -by the rabble, who mobbed the town. The Yankee performances -have not been chronicled. May God take our -cause into His own hands.”</p> - -<p><i>April 19th.</i>—Just now, when Mr. Clay dashed up-stairs, -pale as a sheet, saying, “General Lee has capitulated,” I -saw it reflected in Mary Darby’s face before I heard him -speak. She staggered to the table, sat down, and wept -aloud. Mr. Clay’s eyes were not dry. Quite beside herself -Mary shrieked, “Now we belong to negroes and Yankees!” -Buck said, “I do not believe it.”</p> - -<p>How different from ours of them is their estimate of us. -How contradictory is their attitude toward us. To keep the -despised and iniquitous South within their borders, as part -of their country, they are willing to enlist millions of men -at home and abroad, and to spend billions, and we know<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_379" id="Page_379">[379]</a></span> -they do not love fighting <i lang="la">per se</i>, nor spending money. They -are perfectly willing to have three killed for our one. We -hear they have all grown rich, through “shoddy,” whatever -that is. Genuine Yankees can make a fortune trading jack-knives.</p> - -<p>“Somehow it is borne in on me that we will have to pay -the piper,” was remarked to-day. “No; blood can not be -squeezed from a turnip. You can not pour anything out -of an empty cup. We have no money even for taxes or to -be confiscated.”</p> - -<p>While the Preston girls are here, my dining-room is -given up to them, and we camp on the landing, with our one -table and six chairs. Beds are made on the dining-room -floor. Otherwise there is no furniture, except buckets of -water and bath-tubs in their improvised chamber. Night -and day this landing and these steps are crowded with the -<i lang="fr">élite</i> of the Confederacy, going and coming, and when night -comes, or rather, bedtime, more beds are made on the floor -of the landing-place for the war-worn soldiers to rest upon. -The whole house is a bivouac. As Pickens said of South -Carolina in 1861, we are “an armed camp.”</p> - -<p>My husband is rarely at home. I sleep with the girls, -and my room is given up to soldiers. General Lee’s few, -but undismayed, his remnant of an army, or the part from -the South and West, sad and crestfallen, pass through -Chester. Many discomfited heroes find their way up these -stairs. They say Johnston will not be caught as Lee was. -He can retreat; that is his trade. If he would not fight -Sherman in the hill country of Georgia, what will he do -but retreat in the plains of North Carolina with Grant, -Sherman, and Thomas all to the fore?</p> - -<p>We are to stay here. Running is useless now; so we -mean to bide a Yankee raid, which they say is imminent. -Why fly? They are everywhere, these Yankees, like red -ants, like the locusts and frogs which were the plagues of -Egypt.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_380" id="Page_380">[380]</a></span></p> - -<p>The plucky way in which our men keep up is beyond -praise. There is no howling, and our poverty is made a -matter of laughing. We deride our own penury. Of the -country we try not to speak at all.</p> - -<p><i>April 22d.</i>—This yellow Confederate quire of paper, -my journal, blotted by entries, has been buried three days -with the silver sugar-dish, tea-pot, milk-jug, and a few -spoons and forks that follow my fortunes as I wander. -With these valuables was Hood’s silver cup, which was -partly crushed when he was wounded at Chickamauga.</p> - -<p>It has been a wild three days, with aides galloping -around with messages, Yankees hanging over us like a -sword of Damocles. We have been in queer straits. We -sat up at Mrs. Bedon’s dressed, without once going to bed -for forty-eight hours, and we were aweary.</p> - -<p>Colonel Cadwallader Jones came with a despatch, a -sealed secret despatch. It was for General Chesnut. I -opened it. Lincoln, old Abe Lincoln, has been killed, murdered, -and Seward wounded! Why? By whom? It is -simply maddening, all this.</p> - -<p>I sent off messenger after messenger for General Chesnut. -I have not the faintest idea where he is, but I know -this foul murder will bring upon us worse miseries. Mary -Darby says, “But they murdered him themselves. No -Confederates are in Washington.” “But if they see fit to -accuse us of instigating it?” “Who murdered him? Who -knows?” “See if they don’t take vengeance on us, now -that we are ruined and can not repel them any longer.”</p> - -<p>The death of Lincoln I call a warning to tyrants. He -will not be the last President put to death in the capital, -though he is the first.</p> - -<p>Buck never submits to be bored. The bores came to tea -at Mrs. Bedon’s, and then sat and talked, so prosy, so -wearisome was the discourse, so endless it seemed, that we -envied Buck, who was mooning on the piazza. She rarely -speaks now.</p> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;" id="illus14"> -<img src="images/illus14.jpg" width="400" height="1000" alt="" /> -<p class="caption">A NEWSPAPER EXTRA.</p> - -<p class="center">HIGHLY IMPORTANT NEWS!</p> - -<p class="center">AN ARMISTICE AGREED UPON!!!</p> - -<hr /> - -<p class="center">Lincoln Assassinated and -Seward Mortally Wounded -in Washington!!</p> - -<hr /> - -<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Greensboro</span>, April 19, 1865.</p> - -<p class="noindent"><span class="smcap">General Order No. 14.</span></p> - -<p>It is announced to the Army that a suspension of arms has been -agreed upon pending negotiations between the two Governments.</p> - -<p>During its continuance the two armies are to occupy their present -position.</p> - -<p class="noindent">By command of General Johnston:</p> - -<p class="right">[<span class="smcap">Signed</span>,] ARCHER ANDERSON,<br /> -Lieut. Col. and A. A. G.</p> - -<p class="noindent">Official Copy: <span class="smcap">Isaac Hayne</span>.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Washington</span>, April 12, 1865.</p> - -<p class="noindent">To <span class="smcap">Major-General Sherman</span>:</p> - -<p><em>President Lincoln was murdered, about ten o’clock last night, in his -private box at Ford’s Theatre, in this city, by an assassin, who shot -him in the head with a pistol ball.</em> At the same hour Mr. Seward’s -house was entered by another assassin, who <em>stabbed the Secretary in -several places</em>. It is thought he may possibly recover, but his son -Fred may possibly die of the wounds he received.</p> - -<p>The assassin of the President leaped from the private box, brandishing -his dagger and exclaiming: “<i lang="la">Sic Semper Tyrannis</i>—<span class="smcap">Virginia -is revenged</span>!” Mr. Lincoln fell senseless from his seat, and -continued in that condition until 22 minutes past 10 o’clock this -morning, at which time he breathed his last.</p> - -<p>Vice President Johnson now becomes President, and will take -the oath of office and assume the duties to-day.</p> - -<p class="right">[<span class="smcap">Signed</span>,] E. M. STANTON</p> - -<hr /> - -<p class="center">TO THE CITIZENS OF CHESTER.</p> - -<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Chester</span>, S. C., April 22, 1865.</p> - -<p>FLOUR and MEAL given out to the citizens by order of Major -Mitchell, Chief Commissary of South Carolina, to be returned -when called for, is <em>badly wanted to ration General Johnston’s army</em>. -Please return the same at once.</p> - -<p class="right">E. M. GRAHAM, Agent Subsistence Dep’t.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p class="center">HEADQUARTERS RESERVE FORCES S. C.</p> - -<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Chesterville, April 20, 1865.</span></p> - -<p>The Brigadier-General Commanding has been informed that, in view of the -approach of the enemy, a large quantity of supplies of various kinds were given -out by the various Government officers at this post to the citizens of the place. He -now calls upon, and earnestly requests all citizens, who may have such stores in -their possession, to return them to the several Departments to which they belong. -The stores are much needed at this time for the use of soldiers, passing through the -place, and for the sick at the Hospital.</p> - -<p>By command of Brig. Gen. Chesnut:</p> - -<p class="right">M. R. CLARK, Major and A. A. General.</p> - -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_381" id="Page_381">[381]</a></span></p> - -<p><i>April 23d.</i>—My silver wedding-day, and I am sure the -unhappiest day of my life. Mr. Portman came with Christopher -Hampton. Portman told of Miss Kate Hampton, who -is perhaps the most thoroughly ladylike person in the world. -When he told her that Lee had surrendered she started -up from her seat and said, “That is a lie.” “Well, Miss -Hampton, I tell the tale as it was told me. I can do no -more.”</p> - -<p>No wonder John Chesnut is bitter. They say Mulberry -has been destroyed by a corps commanded by General Logan. -Some one asked coolly, “Will General Chesnut be -shot as a soldier, or hung as a senator?” “I am not of -sufficient consequence,” answered he. “They will stop -short of brigadiers. I resigned my seat in the United States -Senate weeks before there was any secession. So I can not -be hung as a senator. But after all it is only a choice between -drumhead court martial, short shrift, and a lingering -death at home from starvation.”</p> - -<p>These negroes are unchanged. The shining black mask -they wear does not show a ripple of change; they are -sphinxes. Ellen has had my diamonds to keep for a week -or so. When the danger was over she handed them back to -me with as little apparent interest in the matter as if they -had been garden peas.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Huger was in church in Richmond when the news -of the surrender came. Worshipers were in the midst of -the communion service. Mr. McFarland was called out to -send away the gold from his bank. Mr. Minnegerode’s English -grew confused. Then the President was summoned, -and distress of mind showed itself in every face. The night -before one of General Lee’s aides, Walter Taylor, was married, -and was off to the wars immediately after the ceremony.</p> - -<p>One year ago we left Richmond. The Confederacy has -double-quicked down hill since then. One year since I -stood in that beautiful Hollywood by little Joe Davis’s<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_382" id="Page_382">[382]</a></span> -grave. Now we have burned towns, deserted plantations, -sacked villages. “You seem resolute to look the worst in the -face,” said General Chesnut, wearily. “Yes, poverty, with -no future and no hope.” “But no slaves, thank God!” -cried Buck. “We would be the scorn of the world if the -world thought of us at all. You see, we are exiles and paupers.” -“Pile on the agony.” “How does our famous -captain, the great Lee, bear the Yankees’ galling chain?” -I asked. “He knows how to possess his soul in patience,” -answered my husband. “If there were no such word as -subjugation, no debts, no poverty, no negro mobs backed by -Yankees; if all things were well, you would shiver and feel -benumbed,” he went on, pointing at me in an oratorical -attitude. “Your sentence is pronounced—Camden for -life.”</p> - -<p><i>May 1st.</i>—In Chester still. I climb these steep steps -alone. They have all gone, all passed by. Buck went with -Mr. C. Hampton to York. Mary, Mrs. Huger, and Pinckney -took flight together. One day just before they began to -dissolve in air, Captain Gay was seated at the table, half-way -between me on the top step and John in the window, -with his legs outside. Said some one to-day, “She showed -me her engagement ring, and I put it back on her hand. -She is engaged, but not to me.” “By the heaven that is -above us all, I saw you kiss her hand.” “That I deny.” -Captain Gay glared in angry surprise, and insisted that -he had seen it. “Sit down, Gay,” said the cool captain in -his most mournful way. “You see, my father died when I -was a baby, and my grandfather took me in hand. To him -I owe this moral maxim. He is ninety years old, a wise old -man. Now, remember my grandfather’s teaching forever-more—‘A -gentleman must not kiss and tell.’”</p> - -<p>General Preston came to say good-by. He will take his -family abroad at once. Burnside, in New Orleans, owes -him some money and will pay it. “There will be no more -confiscation, my dear madam,” said he; “they must see -that we have been punished enough.” “They do not think<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_383" id="Page_383">[383]</a></span> -so, my dear general. This very day a party of Federals -passed in hot pursuit of our President.”</p> - -<p>A terrible fire-eater, one of the few men left in the world -who believe we have a right divine, being white, to hold -Africans, who are black, in bonds forever; he is six feet two; -an athlete; a splendid specimen of the animal man; but he -has never been under fire; his place in the service was a -bomb-proof office, so-called. With a face red-hot with rage -he denounced Jeff Davis and Hood. “Come, now,” said -Edward, the handsome, “men who could fight and did not, -they are the men who ruined us. We wanted soldiers. If -the men who are cursing Jeff Davis now had fought with -Hood, and fought as Hood fought, we’d be all right now.”</p> - -<p>And then he told of my trouble one day while Hood was -here. “Just such a fellow as you came up on this little -platform, and before Mrs. Chesnut could warn him, began -to heap insults on Jeff Davis and his satrap, Hood. Mrs. -Chesnut held up her hands. ‘Stop, not another word. -You shall not abuse my friends here! Not Jeff Davis behind -his back, not Hood to his face, for he is in that room -and hears you.’” Fancy how dumfounded this creature -was.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Huger told a story of Joe Johnston in his callow -days before he was famous. After an illness Johnston’s -hair all fell out; not a hair was left on his head, which -shone like a fiery cannon-ball. One of the gentlemen from -Africa who waited at table sniggered so at dinner that -he was ordered out by the grave and decorous black butler. -General Huger, feeling for the agonies of young Africa, as -he strove to stifle his mirth, suggested that Joe Johnston -should cover his head with his handkerchief. A red silk one -was produced, and turban-shaped, placed on his head. -That completely finished the gravity of the butler, who fled -in helplessness. His guffaw on the outside of the door became -plainly audible. General Huger then suggested, as -they must have the waiter back, or the dinner could not go -on, that Joe should eat with his hat on, which he did.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_384" id="Page_384">[384]</a></span></p> - -<h2 id="CHAPTER_XXI">XXI<br /> -<span class="smaller">CAMDEN, S. C.<br /> -<i>May 2, 1865-August 2, 1865</i></span></h2> - -<div> -<img class="dropcap" src="images/dropcap-c.jpg" width="100" height="115" alt="" /> -</div> - -<p class="dropcap">Camden, S. C., <i>May 2, 1865</i>.—Since we left Chester -nothing but solitude, nothing but tall blackened -chimneys, to show that any man has ever trod this -road before. This is Sherman’s track. It is hard not to -curse him. I wept incessantly at first. The roses of the -gardens are already hiding the ruins. My husband said Nature -is a wonderful renovator. He tried to say something -else and then I shut my eyes and made a vow that if we -were a crushed people, crushed by weight, I would never be -a whimpering, pining slave.</p> - -<p>We heard loud explosions of gunpowder in the direction -of Camden. Destroyers were at it there. Met William -Walker, whom Mr. Preston left in charge of a car-load of -his valuables. General Preston was hardly out of sight before -poor helpless William had to stand by and see the car -plundered. “My dear Missis! they have cleaned me out, -nothing left,” moaned William the faithful. We have nine -armed couriers with us. Can they protect us?</p> - -<p>Bade adieu to the staff at Chester. No general ever had -so remarkable a staff, so accomplished, so agreeable, so well -bred, and, I must say, so handsome, and can add so brave -and efficient.</p> - -<p><i>May 4th.</i>—Home again at Bloomsbury. From Chester -to Winnsboro we did not see one living thing, man, woman, -or animal, except poor William trudging home after his sad -disaster. The blooming of the gardens had a funereal effect.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_385" id="Page_385">[385]</a></span> -Nature is so luxuriant here, she soon covers the ravages of -savages. No frost has occurred since the seventh of March, -which accounts for the wonderful advance in vegetation. -This seems providential to these starving people. In this -climate so much that is edible can be grown in two months.</p> - -<p>At Winnsboro we stayed at Mr. Robertson’s. There we -left the wagon train. Only Mr. Brisbane, one of the general’s -couriers, came with us on escort duty. The Robertsons -were very kind and hospitable, brimful of Yankee anecdotes. -To my amazement the young people of Winnsboro -had a May-day celebration amid the smoking ruins. Irrepressible -is youth.</p> - -<p>The fidelity of the negroes is the principal topic. There -seems to be not a single case of a negro who betrayed his -master, and yet they showed a natural and exultant joy at -being free. After we left Winnsboro negroes were seen in -the fields plowing and hoeing corn, just as in antebellum -times. The fields in that respect looked quite cheerful. We -did not pass in the line of Sherman’s savages, and so saw -some houses standing.</p> - -<p>Mary Kirkland has had experience with the Yankees. -She has been pronounced the most beautiful woman on this -side of the Atlantic, and has been spoiled accordingly in all -society. When the Yankees came, Monroe, their negro manservant, -told her to stand up and hold two of her children -in her arms, with the other two pressed as close against her -knees as they could get. Mammy Selina and Lizzie then -stood grimly on each side of their young missis and her -children. For four mortal hours the soldiers surged -through the rooms of the house. Sometimes Mary and her -children were roughly jostled against the wall, but Mammy -and Lizzie were stanch supporters. The Yankee soldiers -taunted the negro women for their foolishness in standing -by their cruel slave-owners, and taunted Mary with being -glad of the protection of her poor ill-used slaves. Monroe -meanwhile had one leg bandaged and pretended to be lame,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_386" id="Page_386">[386]</a></span> -so that he might not be enlisted as a soldier, and kept making -pathetic appeals to Mary.</p> - -<p>“Don’t answer them back, Miss Mary,” said he. “Let -’em say what dey want to; don’t answer ’em back. Don’t -give ’em any chance to say you are impudent to ’em.”</p> - -<p>One man said to her: “Why do you shrink from us and -avoid us so? We did not come here to fight for negroes; we -hate them. At Port Royal I saw a beautiful white woman -driving in a wagon with a coal-black negro man. If she had -been anything to me I would have shot her through the -heart.” “Oh, oh!” said Lizzie, “that’s the way you talk -in here. I’ll remember that when you begin outside to beg -me to run away with you.”</p> - -<p>Finally poor Aunt Betsy, Mary’s mother, fainted from -pure fright and exhaustion. Mary put down her baby and -sprang to her mother, who was lying limp in a chair, and -fiercely called out, “Leave this room, you wretches! Do -you mean to kill my mother? She is ill; I must put her to -bed.” Without a word they all slunk out ashamed. “If I -had only tried that hours ago,” she now said. Outside they -remarked that she was “an insolent rebel huzzy, who thinks -herself too good to speak to a soldier of the United States,” -and one of them said: “Let us go in and break her mouth.” -But the better ones held the more outrageous back. Monroe -slipped in again and said: “Missy, for God’s sake, when -dey come in be sociable with ’em. Dey will kill you.”</p> - -<p>“Then let me die.”</p> - -<p>The negro soldiers were far worse than the white ones.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Bartow drove with me to Mulberry. On one side -of the house we found every window had been broken, -every bell torn down, every piece of furniture destroyed, -and every door smashed in. But the other side was intact. -Maria Whitaker and her mother, who had been left in -charge, explained this odd state of things. The Yankees -were busy as beavers, working like regular carpenters, destroying -everything when their general came in and stopped<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_387" id="Page_387">[387]</a></span> -them. He told them it was a sin to destroy a fine old house -like that, whose owner was over ninety years old. He would -not have had it done for the world. It was wanton mischief. -He explained to Maria that soldiers at such times were excited, -wild, and unruly. They carried off sacks full of our -books, since unfortunately they found a pile of empty sacks -in the garret. Our books, our letters, our papers were afterward -strewn along the Charleston road. Somebody found -things of ours as far away as Vance’s Ferry.</p> - -<p>This was Potter’s raid.<a name="FNanchor_130" id="FNanchor_130"></a><a href="#Footnote_130" class="fnanchor">[130]</a> Sherman took only our horses. -Potter’s raid came after Johnston’s surrender, and ruined -us finally, burning our mills and gins and a hundred bales -of cotton. Indeed, nothing is left to us now but the bare -land, and the debts contracted for the support of hundreds -of negroes during the war.</p> - -<p>J. H. Boykin was at home at the time to look after his -own interests, and he, with John de Saussure, has saved -the cotton on their estates, with the mules and farming utensils -and plenty of cotton as capital to begin on again. The -negroes would be a good riddance. A hired man would be a -good deal cheaper than a man whose father and mother, -wife and twelve children have to be fed, clothed, housed, -and nursed, their taxes paid, and their doctor’s bills, all -for his half-done, slovenly, lazy work. For years we have -thought negroes a nuisance that did not pay. They pretend -exuberant loyalty to us now. Only one man of Mr. Chesnut’s -left the plantation with the Yankees.</p> - -<p>When the Yankees found the Western troops were not at -Camden, but down below Swift Creek, like sensible folk -they came up the other way, and while we waited at Chester<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_388" id="Page_388">[388]</a></span> -for marching orders we were quickly ruined after the surrender. -With our cotton saved, and cotton at a dollar a -pound, we might be in comparatively easy circumstances. -But now it is the devil to pay, and no pitch hot. Well, all -this was to be.</p> - -<p>Godard Bailey, editor, whose prejudices are all against -us, described the raids to me in this wise: They were regularly -organized. First came squads who demanded arms -and whisky. Then came the rascals who hunted for silver, -ransacked the ladies’ wardrobes and scared women and -children into fits—at least those who could be scared. -Some of these women could not be scared. Then came -some smiling, suave, well-dressed officers, who “regretted -it all so much.” Outside the gate officers, men, and bummers -divided even, share and share alike, the piles of -plunder.</p> - -<p>When we crossed the river coming home, the ferry man -at Chesnut’s Ferry asked for his fee. Among us all we -could not muster the small silver coin he demanded. There -was poverty for you. Nor did a stiver appear among us -until Molly was hauled home from Columbia, where she was -waging war with Sheriff Dent’s family. As soon as her foot -touched her native heath, she sent to hunt up the cattle. -Many of our cows were found in the swamp; like Marion’s -men they had escaped the enemy. Molly sells butter for us -now on shares.</p> - -<p>Old Cuffey, head gardener at Mulberry, and Yellow -Abram, his assistant, have gone on in the even tenor of their -way. Men may come and men may go, but they dig on forever. -And they say they mean to “as long as old master -is alive.” We have green peas, asparagus, lettuce, spinach, -new potatoes, and strawberries in abundance—enough for -ourselves and plenty to give away to refugees. It is early -in May and yet two months since frost. Surely the wind -was tempered to the shorn lamb in our case.</p> - -<p>Johnny went over to see Hampton. His cavalry are ordered<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_389" id="Page_389">[389]</a></span> -to reassemble on the 20th—a little farce to let themselves -down easily; they know it is all over. Johnny, smiling -serenely, said, “The thing is up and forever.”</p> - -<p>Godard Bailey has presence of mind. Anne Sabb left a -gold card-case, which was a terrible oversight, among the -cards on the drawing-room table. When the Yankee raiders -saw it their eyes glistened. Godard whispered to her: -“Let them have that gilt thing and slip away and hide the -silver.” “No!” shouted a Yank, “you don’t fool me -that way; here’s your old brass thing; don’t you stir; fork -over that silver.” And so they deposited the gold card-case -in Godard’s hands, and stole plated spoons and forks, which -had been left out because they were plated. Mrs. Beach -says two officers slept at her house. Each had a pillow-case -crammed with silver and jewelry—“spoils of war,” they -called it.</p> - -<p>Floride Cantey heard an old negro say to his master: -“When you all had de power you was good to me, and I’ll -protect you now. No niggers nor Yankees shall tech you. -If you want anything call for Sambo. I mean, call for Mr. -Samuel; dat my name now.”</p> - -<p><i>May 10th.</i>—A letter from a Pharisee who thanks the -Lord she is not as other women are; she need not pray, as -the Scotch parson did, for a good conceit of herself. She -writes, “I feel that I will not be ruined. Come what may, -God will provide for me.” But her husband had strengthened -the Lord’s hands, and for the glory of God, doubtless, -invested some thousands of dollars in New York, where -Confederate moth did not corrupt nor Yankee bummers -break through and steal. She went on to tell us: “I have -had the good things of this world, and I have enjoyed them -in their season. But I only held them as steward for God. -My bread has been cast upon the waters and will return -to me.”</p> - -<p>E. M. Boykin said to-day: “We had a right to strike -for our independence, and we did strike a bitter blow.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_390" id="Page_390">[390]</a></span> -They must be proud to have overcome such a foe. I dare -look any man in the face. There is no humiliation in our -position after such a struggle as we made for freedom -from the Yankees.” He is sanguine. His main idea is -joy that he has no negroes to support, and need hire only -those he really wants.</p> - -<p>Stephen Elliott told us that Sherman said to Joe -Johnston, “Look out for yourself. This agreement -only binds the military, not the civil, authorities.” Is our -destruction to begin anew? For a few weeks we have had -peace.</p> - -<p>Sally Reynolds told a short story of a negro pet of Mrs. -Kershaw’s. The little negro clung to Mrs. Kershaw and -begged her to save him. The negro mother, stronger than -Mrs. Kershaw, tore him away from her. Mrs. Kershaw -wept bitterly. Sally said she saw the mother chasing the -child before her as she ran after the Yankees, whipping him -at every step. The child yelled like mad, a small rebel -blackamoor.</p> - -<p><i>May 16th.</i>—We are scattered and stunned, the remnant -of heart left alive within us filled with brotherly hate. We -sit and wait until the drunken tailor who rules the United -States of America issues a proclamation, and defines our -anomalous position.</p> - -<p>Such a hue and cry, but whose fault? Everybody is -blamed by somebody else. The dead heroes left stiff and -stark on the battle-field escape, blame every man who stayed -at home and did not fight. I will not stop to hear excuses. -There is not one word against those who stood out until the -bitter end, and stacked muskets at Appomattox.</p> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 550px;" id="illus15"> -<img src="images/illus15.jpg" width="550" height="700" alt="" /> -<p class="caption">COL. JAMES CHESNUT, SR.</p> -<p class="caption">From a Portrait in Oil by Gilbert Stuart.</p> -</div> - -<p><i>May 18th.</i>—A feeling of sadness hovers over me now, -day and night, which no words of mine can express. There -is a chance for plenty of character study in this Mulberry -house, if one only had the heart for it. Colonel Chesnut, -now ninety-three, blind and deaf, is apparently as strong as -ever, and certainly as resolute of will. Partly patriarch,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_391" id="Page_391">[391]</a></span> -partly grand seigneur, this old man is of a species that we -shall see no more—the last of a race of lordly planters who -ruled this Southern world, but now a splendid wreck. His -manners are unequaled still, but underneath this smooth -exterior lies the grip of a tyrant whose will has never been -crossed. I will not attempt what Lord Byron says he could -not do, but must quote again: “Everybody knows a gentleman -when he sees him. I have never met a man who -could describe one.” We have had three very distinct specimens -of the genus in this house—three generations of gentlemen, -each utterly different from the other—father, son, -and grandson.</p> - -<p>African Scipio walks at Colonel Chesnut’s side. He is -six feet two, a black Hercules, and as gentle as a dove in all -his dealings with the blind old master, who boldly strides -forward, striking with his stick to feel where he is going. -The Yankees left Scipio unmolested. He told them he was -absolutely essential to his old master, and they said, “If -you want to stay so bad, he must have been good to you -always.” Scip says he was silent, for it “made them mad -if you praised your master.”</p> - -<p>Sometimes this old man will stop himself, just as he is -going off in a fury, because they try to prevent his attempting -some feat impossible in his condition of lost faculties. -He will ask gently, “I hope that I never say or do -anything unseemly! Sometimes I think I am subject to -mental aberrations.” At every footfall he calls out, “Who -goes there?” If a lady’s name is given he uncovers and -stands, with hat off, until she passes. He still has the old-world -art of bowing low and gracefully.</p> - -<p>Colonel Chesnut came of a race that would brook no interference -with their own sweet will by man, woman, or -devil. But then such manners has he, they would clear any -man’s character, if it needed it. Mrs. Chesnut, his wife, -used to tell us that when she met him at Princeton, in the -nineties of the eighteenth century, they called him “the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_392" id="Page_392">[392]</a></span> -Young Prince.” He and Mr. John Taylor,<a name="FNanchor_131" id="FNanchor_131"></a><a href="#Footnote_131" class="fnanchor">[131]</a> of Columbia, -were the first up-country youths whose parents were -wealthy enough to send them off to college.</p> - -<p>When a college was established in South Carolina, Colonel -John Chesnut, the father of the aforesaid Young Prince, -was on the first board of trustees. Indeed, I may say that, -since the Revolution of 1776, there has been no convocation -of the notables of South Carolina, in times of peace and -prosperity, or of war and adversity, in which a representative -man of this family has not appeared. The estate has -been kept together until now. Mrs. Chesnut said she drove -down from Philadelphia on her bridal trip, in a chariot and -four—a cream-colored chariot with outriders.</p> - -<p>They have a saying here—on account of the large families -with which people are usually blessed, and the subdivision -of property consequent upon that fact, besides the tendency -of one generation to make and to save, and the next -to idle and to squander, that there are rarely more than -three generations between shirt-sleeves and shirt-sleeves. -But these Chesnuts have secured four, from the John Chesnut -who was driven out from his father’s farm in Virginia -by the French and Indians, when that father had been -killed at Fort Duquesne,<a name="FNanchor_132" id="FNanchor_132"></a><a href="#Footnote_132" class="fnanchor">[132]</a> to the John Chesnut who saunters<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_393" id="Page_393">[393]</a></span> -along here now, the very perfection of a lazy gentleman, -who cares not to move unless it be for a fight, a dance, or a -fox-hunt.</p> - -<p>The first comer of that name to this State was a lad -when he arrived after leaving his land in Virginia; and being -without fortune otherwise, he went into Joseph Kershaw’s -grocery shop as a clerk, and the Kershaws, I think, so -remember that fact that they have it on their coat-of-arms. -Our Johnny, as he was driving me down to Mulberry yesterday, -declared himself delighted with the fact that the -present Joseph Kershaw had so distinguished himself in -our war, that they might let the shop of a hundred years -ago rest for a while. “Upon my soul,” cried the cool captain, -“I have a desire to go in there and look at the Kershaw -tombstones. I am sure they have put it on their marble -tablets that we had an ancestor one day a hundred -years ago who was a clerk in their shop.” This clerk became -a captain in the Revolution.</p> - -<p>In the second generation the shop had so far sunk that -the John Chesnut of that day refused to let his daughter -marry a handsome, dissipated Kershaw, and she, a spoiled -beauty, who could not endure to obey orders when they were -disagreeable to her, went up to her room and therein remained, -never once coming out of it for forty years. Her -father let her have her own way in that; he provided servants -to wait upon her and every conceivable luxury that -she desired, but neither party would give in.</p> - -<p>I am, too, thankful that I am an old woman, forty-two -my last birthday. There is so little life left in me now to be -embittered by this agony. “Nonsense! I am a pauper,” -says my husband, “and I am as smiling and as comfortable -as ever you saw me.” “When you have to give up your -horses? How then?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_394" id="Page_394">[394]</a></span></p> - -<p><i>May 21st.</i>—They say Governor Magrath has absconded, -and that the Yankees have said, “If you have no visible -governor, we will send you one.” If we had one and they -found him, they would clap him in prison instanter.</p> - -<p>The negroes have flocked to the Yankee squad which has -recently come, but they were snubbed, the rampant freedmen. -“Stay where you are,” say the Yanks. “We have -nothing for you.” And they sadly “peruse” their way. -Now that they have picked up that word “peruse,” they -use it in season and out. When we met Mrs. Preston’s -William we asked, “Where are you going?” “Perusing -my way to Columbia,” he answered.</p> - -<p>When the Yanks said they had no rations for idle negroes, -John Walker answered mildly, “This is not at all -what we expected.” The colored women, dressed in their -gaudiest array, carried bouquets to the Yankees, making -the day a jubilee. But in this house there is not the slightest -change. Every negro has known for months that he or she -was free, but I do not see one particle of change in their -manner. They are, perhaps, more circumspect, polite, and -quiet, but that is all. Otherwise all goes on in antebellum -<i>statu quo</i>. Every day I expect to miss some familiar face, -but so far have been disappointed.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Huger we found at the hotel here, and we brought -her to Bloomsbury. She told us that Jeff Davis was traveling -leisurely with his wife twelve miles a day, utterly careless -whether he were taken prisoner or not, and that General -Hampton had been paroled.</p> - -<p>Fighting Dick Anderson and Stephen Elliott, of Fort -Sumter memory, are quite ready to pray for Andy Johnson, -and to submit to the powers that be. Not so our belligerent -clergy. “Pray for people when I wish they were dead?” -cries Rev. Mr. Trapier. “No, never! I will pray for President -Davis till I die. I will do it to my last gasp. My chief -is a prisoner, but I am proud of him still. He is a spectacle -to gods and men. He will bear himself as a soldier, a patriot,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_395" id="Page_395">[395]</a></span> -a statesman, a Christian gentleman. He is the martyr -of our cause.” And I replied with my tears.</p> - -<p>“Look here: taken in woman’s clothes?” asked Mr. -Trapier. “Rubbish, stuff, and nonsense. If Jeff Davis has -not the pluck of a true man, then there is no courage left on -this earth. If he does not die game, I give it up. Something, -you see, was due to Lincoln and the Scotch cap that -he hid his ugly face with, in that express car, when he -rushed through Baltimore in the night. It is that escapade -of their man Lincoln that set them on making up the woman’s -clothes story about Jeff Davis.”</p> - -<p>Mrs. W. drove up. She, too, is off for New York, to sell -four hundred bales of cotton and a square, or something, -which pays tremendously in the Central Park region, and -to capture and bring home her <i lang="fr">belle fille</i>, who remained -North during the war. She knocked at my door. The day -was barely dawning. I was in bed, and as I sprang up, -discovered that my old Confederate night-gown had to be -managed, it was so full of rents. I am afraid I gave undue -attention to the sad condition of my gown, but could nowhere -see a shawl to drape my figure.</p> - -<p>She was very kind. In case my husband was arrested -and needed funds, she offered me some “British securities” -and bonds. We were very grateful, but we did -not accept the loan of money, which would have been -almost the same as a gift, so slim was our chance of repaying -it. But it was a generous thought on her part; I own -that.</p> - -<p>Went to our plantation, the Hermitage, yesterday. Saw -no change; not a soul was absent from his or her post. I -said, “Good colored folks, when are you going to kick off -the traces and be free?” In their furious, emotional way, -they swore devotion to us all to their dying day. Just the -same, the minute they see an opening to better themselves -they will move on. William, my husband’s foster-brother, -came up. “Well, William, what do you want?” asked my<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_396" id="Page_396">[396]</a></span> -husband. “Only to look at you, marster; it does me -good.”</p> - -<p><i>June 1st.</i>—The New York Herald quotes General Sherman -as saying, “Columbia was burned by Hampton’s -sheer stupidity.” But then who burned everything on the -way in Sherman’s march to Columbia, and in the line of -march Sherman took after leaving Columbia? We came, for -three days of travel, over a road that had been laid bare by -Sherman’s torches. Nothing but smoking ruins was left in -Sherman’s track. That I saw with my own eyes. No living -thing was left, no house for man or beast. They who -burned the countryside for a belt of forty miles, did they -not also burn the town? To charge that to “Hampton’s -stupidity” is merely an afterthought. This Herald announces -that Jeff Davis will be hanged at once, not so much -for treason as for his assassination of Lincoln. “Stanton,” -the Herald says, “has all the papers in his hands to -convict him.”</p> - -<p>The Yankees here say, “The black man must go as the -red man has gone; this is a white man’s country.” The negroes -want to run with the hare, but hunt with the hounds. -They are charming in their professions to us, but declare -that they are to be paid by these blessed Yankees in lands -and mules for having been slaves. They were so faithful -to us during the war, why should the Yankees reward them, -to which the only reply is that it would be by way of punishing -rebels.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Adger<a name="FNanchor_133" id="FNanchor_133"></a><a href="#Footnote_133" class="fnanchor">[133]</a> saw a Yankee soldier strike a woman, and -she prayed God to take him in hand according to his deed.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_397" id="Page_397">[397]</a></span> -The soldier laughed in her face, swaggered off, stumbled -down the steps, and then his revolver went off by the concussion -and shot him dead.</p> - -<p>The black ball is in motion. Mrs. de Saussure’s cook -shook the dust off her feet and departed from her kitchen -to-day—free, she said. The washerwoman is packing -to go.</p> - -<p>Scipio Africanus, the Colonel’s body-servant, is a soldierly -looking black creature, fit to have delighted the eyes -of old Frederick William of Prussia, who liked giants. We -asked him how the Yankees came to leave him. “Oh, I -told them marster couldn’t do without me nohow; and then -I carried them some nice hams that they never could have -found, they were hid so good.”</p> - -<p>Eben dressed himself in his best and went at a run to -meet his Yankee deliverers—so he said. At the gate he met -a squad coming in. He had adorned himself with his watch -and chain, like the cordage of a ship, with a handful of -gaudy seals. He knew the Yankees came to rob white people, -but he thought they came to save niggers. “Hand over -that watch!” they said. Minus his fine watch and chain, -Eben returned a sadder and a wiser man. He was soon in -his shirt-sleeves, whistling at his knife-board. “Why? -You here? Why did you come back so soon?” he was -asked. “Well, I thought may be I better stay with ole -marster that give me the watch, and not go with them that -stole it.” The watch was the pride of his life. The iron -had entered his soul.</p> - -<p>Went up to my old house, “Kamschatka.” The Trapiers -live there now. In those drawing-rooms where the -children played Puss in Boots, where we have so often -danced and sung, but never prayed before, Mr. Trapier -held his prayer-meeting. I do not think I ever did as much -weeping or as bitter in the same space of time. I let myself -go; it did me good. I cried with a will. He prayed -that we might have strength to stand up and bear our bitter<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_398" id="Page_398">[398]</a></span> -disappointment, to look on our ruined homes and our desolated -country and be strong. And he prayed for the man -“we elected to be our ruler and guide.” We knew that -they had put him in a dungeon and in chains.<a name="FNanchor_134" id="FNanchor_134"></a><a href="#Footnote_134" class="fnanchor">[134]</a> Men watch -him day and night. By orders of Andy, the bloody-minded -tailor, nobody above the rank of colonel can take the benefit -of the amnesty oath, nobody who owns over twenty thousand -dollars, or who has assisted the Confederates. And -now, ye rich men, howl, for your misery has come upon you. -You are beyond the outlaw, camping outside. Howell Cobb -and R. M. T. Hunter have been arrested. Our turn will -come next, maybe. A Damocles sword hanging over a -house does not conduce to a pleasant life.</p> - -<p><i>June 12th.</i>—Andy, made lord of all by the madman, -Booth, says, “Destruction only to the wealthy classes.” -Better teach the negroes to stand alone before you break up -all they leaned on, O Yankees! After all, the number who -possess over $20,000 are very few.</p> - -<p>Andy has shattered some fond hopes. He denounces -Northern men who came South to espouse our cause. They -may not take the life-giving oath. My husband will remain -quietly at home. He has done nothing that he had not a -right to do, nor anything that he is ashamed of. He will not -fly from his country, nor hide anywhere in it. These are his -words. He has a huge volume of Macaulay, which seems to -absorb him. Slily I slipped Silvio Pellico in his way. He -looked at the title and moved it aside. “Oh,” said I, “I -only wanted you to refresh your memory as to a prisoner’s -life and what a despotism can do to make its captives -happy!”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_399" id="Page_399">[399]</a></span></p> - -<p>Two weddings—in Camden, Ellen Douglas Ancrum to -Mr. Lee, engineer and architect, a clever man, which is the -best investment now. In Columbia, Sally Hampton and -John Cheves Haskell, the bridegroom, a brave, one-armed -soldier.</p> - -<p>A wedding to be. Lou McCord’s. And Mrs. McCord -is going about frantically, looking for eggs “to mix and -make into wedding-cake,” and finding none. She now -drives the funniest little one-mule vehicle.</p> - -<p class="tb">I have been ill since I last wrote in this journal. Serena’s -letter came. She says they have been visited by bush-whackers, -the roughs that always follow in the wake of an -army. My sister Kate they forced back against the wall. -She had Katie, the baby, in her arms, and Miller, the brave -boy, clung to his mother, though he could do no more. -They tried to pour brandy down her throat. They knocked -Mary down with the butt end of a pistol, and Serena they -struck with an open hand, leaving the mark on her cheek -for weeks.</p> - -<p>Mr. Christopher Hampton says in New York people -have been simply intoxicated with the fumes of their own -glory. Military prowess is a new wrinkle of delight to -them. They are mad with pride that, ten to one, they -could, after five years’ hard fighting, prevail over us, handicapped, -as we were, with a majority of aliens, <i lang="la">quasi</i> foes, -and negro slaves whom they tried to seduce, shut up with us. -They pay us the kind of respectful fear the British meted -out to Napoleon when they sent him off with Sir Hudson -Lowe to St. Helena, the lone rock by the sea, to eat his -heart out where he could not alarm them more.</p> - -<p>Of course, the Yankees know and say they were too many -for us, and yet they would all the same prefer not to try us -again. Would Wellington be willing to take the chances of -Waterloo once more with Grouchy, Blücher, and all that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_400" id="Page_400">[400]</a></span> -left to haphazard? Wigfall said to old Cameron<a name="FNanchor_135" id="FNanchor_135"></a><a href="#Footnote_135" class="fnanchor">[135]</a> in 1861, -“Then you will a sutler be, and profit shall accrue.” -Christopher Hampton says that in some inscrutable way in -the world North, everybody “has contrived to amass fabulous -wealth by this war.”</p> - -<p>There are two classes of vociferous sufferers in this community: -1. Those who say, “If people would only pay me -what they owe me!” 2. Those who say, “If people would -only let me alone. I can not pay them. I could stand it if -I had anything with which to pay debts.”</p> - -<p>Now we belong to both classes. Heavens! the sums people -owe us and will not, or can not, pay, would settle all our -debts ten times over and leave us in easy circumstances for -life. But they will not pay. How can they?</p> - -<p>We are shut in here, turned with our faces to a dead -wall. No mails. A letter is sometimes brought by a man on -horseback, traveling through the wilderness made by Sherman. -All railroads have been destroyed and the bridges -are gone. We are cut off from the world, here to eat out our -hearts. Yet from my window I look out on many a gallant -youth and maiden fair. The street is crowded and it is -a gay sight. Camden is thronged with refugees from the -low country, and here they disport themselves. They call -the walk in front of Bloomsbury “the Boulevard.”</p> - -<p>H. Lang tells us that poor Sandhill Milly Trimlin is -dead, and that as a witch she had been denied Christian -burial. Three times she was buried in consecrated ground -in different churchyards, and three times she was dug up -by a superstitious horde, who put her out of their holy -ground. Where her poor, old, ill-used bones are lying now -I do not know. I hope her soul is faring better than her -body. She was a good, kind creature. Why supposed to be -a witch? That H. Lang could not elucidate.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_401" id="Page_401">[401]</a></span></p> - -<p>Everybody in our walk of life gave Milly a helping -hand. She was a perfect specimen of the Sandhill “tackey” -race, sometimes called “country crackers.” Her skin -was yellow and leathery, even the whites of her eyes were -bilious in color. She was stumpy, strong, and lean, hard-featured, -horny-fisted. Never were people so aided in -every way as these Sandhillers. Why do they remain -Sandhillers from generation to generation? Why should -Milly never have bettered her condition?</p> - -<p>My grandmother lent a helping hand to her grandmother. -My mother did her best for her mother, and I am sure -the so-called witch could never complain of me. As long as -I can remember, gangs of these Sandhill women traipsed in -with baskets to be filled by charity, ready to carry away -anything they could get. All are made on the same pattern, -more or less alike. They were treated as friends and neighbors, -not as beggars. They were asked in to take seats by -the fire, and there they sat for hours, stony-eyed, silent, -wearing out human endurance and politeness. But their -husbands and sons, whom we never saw, were citizens and -voters! When patience was at its last ebb, they would open -their mouths and loudly demand whatever they had come -to seek.</p> - -<p>One called Judy Bradly, a one-eyed virago, who played -the fiddle at all the Sandhill dances and fandangoes, made -a deep impression on my youthful mind. Her list of requests -was always rather long, and once my grandmother -grew restive and actually hesitated. “Woman, do you -mean to let me starve?” she cried furiously. My grandmother -then attempted a meek lecture as to the duty of -earning one’s bread. Judy squared her arms akimbo and -answered, “And pray, who made you a judge of the world? -Lord, Lord, if I had ’er knowed I had ter stand all this -jaw, I wouldn’t a took your ole things,” but she did take -them and came afterward again and again.</p> - -<p><i>June 27th.</i>—An awful story from Sumter. An old gentleman,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_402" id="Page_402">[402]</a></span> -who thought his son dead or in a Yankee prison, -heard some one try the front door. It was about midnight, -and these are squally times. He called out, “What is -that?” There came no answer. After a while he heard -some one trying to open a window and he fired. The house -was shaken by a fall. Then, after a long time of dead -silence, he went round the house to see if his shot had done -any harm, and found his only son bathed in his own blood -on his father’s door-step. The son was just back from a -Yankee prison—one of his companions said—and had been -made deaf by cold and exposure. He did not hear his -father hail him. He had tried to get into the house in -the same old way he used to employ when a boy.</p> - -<p>My sister-in-law in tears of rage and despair, her servants -all gone to “a big meeting at Mulberry,” though -she had made every appeal against their going. “Send -them adrift,” some one said, “they do not obey you, or -serve you; they only live on you.” It would break her -heart to part with one of them. But that sort of thing -will soon right itself. They will go off <em>to better themselves</em>—we -have only to cease paying wages—and that is -easy, for we have no money.</p> - -<p><i>July 4th.</i>—Saturday I was in bed with one of my worst -headaches. Occasionally there would come a sob and I -thought of my sister insulted and my little sweet Williams. -Another of my beautiful Columbia quartette had rough experiences. -A raider asked the plucky little girl, Lizzie Hamilton, -for a ring which she wore. “You shall not have it,” -she said. The man put a pistol to her head, saying, “Take -it off, hand it to me, or I will blow your brains out.” -“Blow away,” said she. The man laughed and put down -his pistol, remarking, “You knew I would not hurt you.” -“Of course, I knew you dared not shoot me. Even Sherman -would not stand that.”</p> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 700px;" id="illus16"> -<img src="images/illus16.jpg" width="700" height="475" alt="" /> -<p class="caption">SARSFIELD, NEAR CAMDEN, S. C.</p> -<p class="caption">Built by General Chesnut after the War, and -the Home of himself and Mrs. Chesnut until they Died.</p> -<p class="caption">From a Recent Photograph.</p> -</div> - -<p>There was talk of the negroes where the Yankees had -been—negroes who flocked to them and showed them where<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_403" id="Page_403">[403]</a></span> -silver and valuables had been hid by the white people. -Ladies’-maids dressed themselves in their mistresses’ gowns -before the owners’ faces and walked off. Now, before this -every one had told me how kind, faithful, and considerate -the negroes had proven. I am sure, after hearing these -tales, the fidelity of my own servants shines out brilliantly. -I had taken their conduct too much as a matter of course. -In the afternoon I had some business on our place, the Hermitage. -John drove me down. Our people were all at -home, quiet, orderly, respectful, and at their usual work. -In point of fact things looked unchanged. There was nothing -to show that any one of them had even seen the Yankees, -or knew that there was one in existence.</p> - -<p><i>July 26th.</i>—I do not write often now, not for want of -something to say, but from a loathing of all I see and hear, -and why dwell upon those things?</p> - -<p>Colonel Chesnut, poor old man, is worse—grows more -restless. He seems to be wild with “homesickness.” He -wants to be at Mulberry. When there he can not see the -mighty giants of the forest, the huge, old, wide-spreading -oaks, but he says he feels that he is there so soon as he hears -the carriage rattling across the bridge at the Beaver Dam.</p> - -<p>I am reading French with Johnny—anything to keep -him quiet. We gave a dinner to his company, the small -remnant of them, at Mulberry house. About twenty idle -negroes, trained servants, came without leave or license and -assisted. So there was no expense. They gave their time -and labor for a good day’s feeding. I think they love to be -at the old place.</p> - -<p>Then I went up to nurse Kate Withers. That lovely girl, -barely eighteen, died of typhoid fever. Tanny wanted his -sweet little sister to have a dress for Mary Boykin’s wedding, -where she was to be one of the bridesmaids. So Tanny -took his horses, rode one, and led the other thirty miles in -the broiling sun to Columbia, where he sold the led horse -and came back with a roll of Swiss muslin. As he entered<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_404" id="Page_404">[404]</a></span> -the door, he saw Kate lying there dying. She died praying -that she might die. She was weary of earth and wanted to -be at peace. I saw her die and saw her put in her coffin. -No words of mine can tell how unhappy I am. Six young -soldiers, her friends, were her pall-bearers. As they -marched out with that burden sad were their faces.</p> - -<p>Princess Bright Eyes writes: “Our soldier boys returned, -want us to continue our weekly dances.” Another -maiden fair indites: “Here we have a Yankee garrison. -We are told the officers find this the dullest place they were -ever in. They want the ladies to get up some amusement -for them. They also want to get into society.”</p> - -<p>From Isabella in Columbia: “General Hampton is -home again. He looks crushed. How can he be otherwise? -His beautiful home is in ruins, and ever present with him -must be the memory of the death tragedy which closed forever -the eyes of his glorious boy, Preston! Now! there -strikes up a serenade to General Ames, the Yankee commander, -by a military band, of course.... Your last -letters have been of the meagerest. What is the matter?”</p> - -<p class="tb"><i>August 2d.</i>—Dr. Boykin and John Witherspoon were -talking of a nation in mourning, of blood poured out like -rain on the battle-fields—for what? “Never let me hear -that the blood of the brave has been shed in vain! No; -it sends a cry down through all time.”</p> - -<hr /> - -<div class="footnotes"> - -<h2>FOOTNOTES</h2> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_1" id="Footnote_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> A reference to John Brown of Harper’s Ferry.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_2" id="Footnote_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> This and other French names to be met with in this Diary are of -Huguenot origin.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_3" id="Footnote_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> A reference to what was known as “the Bluffton movement” of -1844, in South Carolina. It aimed at secession, but was voted down.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_4" id="Footnote_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> Francis W. Pickens, Governor of South Carolina, 1860-62. He had -been elected to Congress in 1834 as a Nullifier, but had voted against -the “Bluffton movement.” From 1858 to 1860, he was Minister to Russia. -He was a wealthy planter and had fame as an orator.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_5" id="Footnote_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> The Convention, which on December 20, 1860, passed the famous -Ordinance of Secession, and had first met in Columbia, the State capital.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_6" id="Footnote_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> Robert Anderson, Major of the First Artillery, United States Army, -who, on November 20, 1860, was placed in command of the troops in -Charleston harbor. On the night of December 26th, fearing an attack, -he had moved his command to Fort Sumter. Anderson was a graduate -of West Point and a veteran of the Black Hawk, Florida, and Mexican -Wars.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_7" id="Footnote_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> A native of Georgia, Howell Cobb had long served in Congress, and -in 1849 was elected Speaker. In 1851 he was elected Governor of Georgia, -and in 1857 became Secretary of the Treasury in Buchanan’s Administration. -In 1861 he was a delegate from Georgia to the Provisional -Congress which adopted the Constitution of the Confederacy, and presided -over each of its four sessions.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_8" id="Footnote_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> Andrew Bary Moore, elected Governor of Alabama in 1859. In -1861, before Alabama seceded, he directed the seizure of United States -forts and arsenals and was active afterward in the equipment of State -troops.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_9" id="Footnote_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> Robert Toombs, a native of Georgia, who early acquired fame as a -lawyer, served in the Creek War under General Scott, became known in -1842 as a “State Rights Whig,” being elected to Congress, where he -was active in the Compromise measures of 1850. He served in the -United States Senate from 1853 to 1861, where he was a pronounced -advocate of the sovereignty of States, the extension of slavery, and secession. -He was a member of the Confederate Congress at its first session -and, by a single vote, failed of election as President of the Confederacy. -After the war, he was conspicuous for his hostility to the Union.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_10" id="Footnote_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_10"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> Robert Woodward Barnwell, of South Carolina, a graduate of -Harvard, twice a member of Congress and afterward United States -Senator. In 1860, after the passage of the Ordinance of Secession, he -was one of the Commissioners who went to Washington to treat with -the National Government for its property within the State. He was -a member of the Convention at Montgomery and gave the casting vote -which made Jefferson Davis President of the Confederacy.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_11" id="Footnote_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_11"><span class="label">[11]</span></a> Alexander H. Stephens, the eminent statesman of Georgia, who -before the war had been conspicuous in all the political movements of -his time and in 1861 became Vice-President of the Confederacy. After -the war he again became conspicuous in Congress and wrote a history -entitled “The War between the States.”</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_12" id="Footnote_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_12"><span class="label">[12]</span></a> Benjamin H. Hill, who had already been active in State and -National affairs when the Secession movement was carried through. -He had been an earnest advocate of the Union until in Georgia the resolution -was passed declaring that the State ought to secede. He then -became a prominent supporter of secession. He was a member of the -Confederate Congress, which met in Montgomery in 1861, and served -in the Confederate Senate until the end of the war. After the war, he -was elected to Congress and opposed the Reconstruction policy of that -body. In 1877 he was elected United States Senator from Georgia.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_13" id="Footnote_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor_13"><span class="label">[13]</span></a> Governor Herschel V. Johnson also declined, and doubtless for -similar reasons, to accept a challenge from Alexander H. Stephens, who, -though endowed with the courage of a gladiator, was very small and -frail.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_14" id="Footnote_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor_14"><span class="label">[14]</span></a> It was at this Congress that Jefferson Davis, on February 9, 1861, -was elected President, and Alexander H. Stephens Vice-President of -the Confederacy. The Congress continued to meet in Montgomery -until its removal to Richmond, in July, 1861.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_15" id="Footnote_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor_15"><span class="label">[15]</span></a> Stephen R. Mallory was the son of a shipmaster of Connecticut, -who had settled in Key West in 1820. From 1851 to 1861 Mr. Mallory -was United States Senator from Florida, and after the formation of the -Confederacy, became its Secretary of the Navy.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_16" id="Footnote_16"></a><a href="#FNanchor_16"><span class="label">[16]</span></a> John Archibald Campbell, who had settled in Montgomery and was -appointed Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court by -President Pierce in 1853. Before he resigned, he exerted all his influence -to prevent Civil War and opposed secession, although he believed that -States had a right to secede.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_17" id="Footnote_17"></a><a href="#FNanchor_17"><span class="label">[17]</span></a> Mrs. Chesnut’s father was Stephen Decatur Miller, who was born -in South Carolina in 1787, and died in Mississippi in 1838. He was -elected to Congress in 1816, as an Anti-Calhoun Democrat, and from -1828 to 1830 was Governor of South Carolina. He favored Nullification, -and in 1830 was elected United States Senator from South Carolina, -but resigned three years afterward in consequence of ill health. In -1835 he removed to Mississippi and engaged in cotton growing.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_18" id="Footnote_18"></a><a href="#FNanchor_18"><span class="label">[18]</span></a> John C. Calhoun had died in March, 1850.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_19" id="Footnote_19"></a><a href="#FNanchor_19"><span class="label">[19]</span></a> Joseph B. Kershaw, a native of Camden, S. C., who became famous -in connection with “The Kershaw Brigade” and its brilliant -record at Bull Run, Fredericksburg, Chickamauga, Spottsylvania, and -elsewhere throughout the war.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_20" id="Footnote_20"></a><a href="#FNanchor_20"><span class="label">[20]</span></a> Colonel Chesnut, the author’s father-in-law, was born about 1760. -He was a prominent South Carolina planter and a public-spirited man. -The family had originally settled in Virginia, where the farm had been -overrun by the French and Indians at the time of Braddock’s campaign, -the head of the family being killed at Fort Duquesne. Colonel -Chesnut, of Mulberry, had been educated at Princeton, and his wife was -a Philadelphia woman. In the final chapter of this Diary, the author -gives a charming sketch of Colonel Chesnut.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_21" id="Footnote_21"></a><a href="#FNanchor_21"><span class="label">[21]</span></a> John Lawrence Manning was a son of Richard I. Manning, a former -Governor of South Carolina. He was himself elected Governor of -that State in 1852, was a delegate to the convention that nominated -Buchanan, and during the War of Secession served on the staff of General -Beauregard. In 1865 he was chosen United States Senator from South -Carolina, but was not allowed to take his seat.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_22" id="Footnote_22"></a><a href="#FNanchor_22"><span class="label">[22]</span></a> Son of Langdon Cheves, an eminent lawyer of South Carolina, who -served in Congress from 1810 to 1814; he was elected Speaker of the -House of Representatives, and from 1819 to 1823 was President of the -United States Bank; he favored Secession, but died before it was accomplished—in -1857.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_23" id="Footnote_23"></a><a href="#FNanchor_23"><span class="label">[23]</span></a> William Henry Trescott, a native of Charleston, was Assistant -Secretary of State of the United States in 1860, but resigned after South -Carolina seceded. After the war he had a successful career as a lawyer -and diplomatist.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_24" id="Footnote_24"></a><a href="#FNanchor_24"><span class="label">[24]</span></a> James Louis Petigru before the war had reached great distinction -as a lawyer and stood almost alone in his State as an opponent of the -Nullification movement of 1830-1832. In 1860 he strongly opposed -disunion, although he was then an old man of 71. His reputation has -survived among lawyers because of the fine work he did in codifying -the laws of South Carolina.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_25" id="Footnote_25"></a><a href="#FNanchor_25"><span class="label">[25]</span></a> John Hugh Means was elected Governor of South Carolina in 1850, -and had long been an advocate of secession. He was a delegate to the -Convention of 1860 and affixed his name to the Ordinance of Secession. -He was killed at the second battle of Bull Run in August, 1862.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_26" id="Footnote_26"></a><a href="#FNanchor_26"><span class="label">[26]</span></a> James H. Adams was a graduate of Yale, who in 1832 strongly -opposed Nullification, and in 1855 was elected Governor of South Carolina.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_27" id="Footnote_27"></a><a href="#FNanchor_27"><span class="label">[27]</span></a> Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard was born in New Orleans in -1818, and graduated from West Point in the class of 1838. He served -in the war with Mexico; had been superintendent of the Military Academy -at West Point a few days only, when in February, 1861, he resigned -his commission in the Army of the United States and offered his services -to the Confederacy.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_28" id="Footnote_28"></a><a href="#FNanchor_28"><span class="label">[28]</span></a> Louis Trezevant Wigfall was a native of South Carolina, but -removed to Texas after being admitted to the bar, and from that State -was elected United States Senator, becoming an uncompromising defender -of the South on the slave question. After the war he lived in -England, but in 1873 settled in Baltimore. He had a wide Southern -reputation as a forcible and impassioned speaker.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_29" id="Footnote_29"></a><a href="#FNanchor_29"><span class="label">[29]</span></a> The annual balls of the St. Cecilia Society in Charleston are still -the social events of the season. To become a member of the St. Cecilia -Society is a sort of presentation at court in the sense of giving social -recognition to one who was without the pale.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_30" id="Footnote_30"></a><a href="#FNanchor_30"><span class="label">[30]</span></a> Charles Cotesworth Pinckney was a brigadier-general in the Revolution -and a member of the Convention that framed the Constitution -of the United States. He was an ardent Federalist and twice declined -to enter a National Cabinet, but in 1796 accepted the office of United -States Minister to France. He was the Federalist candidate for Vice-President -in 1800 and for President in 1804 and 1808. Other distinguished -men in this family were Thomas, Charles, Henry Laurens, and -Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, the second.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_31" id="Footnote_31"></a><a href="#FNanchor_31"><span class="label">[31]</span></a> Caroline Hampton, a daughter of General Wade Hampton, of the -Revolution, was the wife of John S. Preston, an ardent advocate of -secession, who served on the staff of Beauregard at Bull Run and -subsequently reached the rank of brigadier-general.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_32" id="Footnote_32"></a><a href="#FNanchor_32"><span class="label">[32]</span></a> William Howard Russell, a native of Dublin, who served as a correspondent -of the London Times during the Crimean War, the Indian -Mutiny, the War of Secession and the Franco-German War. He has -been familiarly known as “Bull Run Russell.” In 1875 he was honorary -Secretary to the Prince of Wales during the Prince’s visit to India.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_33" id="Footnote_33"></a><a href="#FNanchor_33"><span class="label">[33]</span></a> The “Sally Baxter” of the recently published “Thackeray Letters -to an American Family.”</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_34" id="Footnote_34"></a><a href="#FNanchor_34"><span class="label">[34]</span></a> William Gilmore Simms, the Southern novelist, was born in -Charleston in 1806. He was the author of a great many volumes dealing -with Southern life, and at one time they were widely read.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_35" id="Footnote_35"></a><a href="#FNanchor_35"><span class="label">[35]</span></a> Wade Hampton was a son of another Wade Hampton, who was -an aide to General Jackson at the battle of New Orleans, and a grandson -of still another Wade Hampton, who was a general in the Revolution. -He was not in favor of secession, but when the war began he enlisted as -a private and then raised a command of infantry, cavalry, and artillery, -which as “Hampton’s Legion” won distinction in the war. After the -war, he was elected Governor of South Carolina and was then elected -to the United States Senate.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_36" id="Footnote_36"></a><a href="#FNanchor_36"><span class="label">[36]</span></a> John Hemphill was a native of South Carolina, who had removed -to Texas, where he became Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the -State, and in 1858 was elected United States Senator.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_37" id="Footnote_37"></a><a href="#FNanchor_37"><span class="label">[37]</span></a> Matthias Ward was a native of Georgia, but had removed to Texas -in 1836. He was twice a delegate to National Democratic Conventions, -and in 1858 was appointed to fill a vacancy from Texas in the United -States Senate, holding that office until 1860.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_38" id="Footnote_38"></a><a href="#FNanchor_38"><span class="label">[38]</span></a> Mrs. Johnston was Lydia McLane, a daughter of Louis McLane, -United States Senator from Delaware from 1827 to 1829, and afterward -Minister to England. In 1831 he became Secretary of the Treasury -and in 1833 Secretary of State. General Joseph E. Johnston was graduated -from West Point in 1829 and had served in the Black Hawk, -Seminole, and Mexican Wars. He resigned his commission in the -United States Army on April 22, 1861.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_39" id="Footnote_39"></a><a href="#FNanchor_39"><span class="label">[39]</span></a> Mr. Hunter was a Virginian. He had long served in Congress, -was twice speaker of the House, and in 1844 was elected a United States -Senator, serving until 1861. He supported slavery and became active -in the secession movement. At the Charleston Convention in 1860, he -received the next highest vote to Stephen A. Douglas for President.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_40" id="Footnote_40"></a><a href="#FNanchor_40"><span class="label">[40]</span></a> Ephraim Elmer Ellsworth was a native of Saratoga County, New -York. In 1860 he organized a regiment of Zouaves and became its -Colonel. He accompanied Lincoln to Washington in 1861 and was soon -sent with his regiment to Alexandria, where, on seeing a Confederate -flag floating from a hotel, he personally rushed to the roof and tore it -down. The owner of the hotel, a man named Jackson, met him as he -was descending and shot him dead. Frank E. Brownell, one of Ellsworth’s -men, then killed Jackson.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_41" id="Footnote_41"></a><a href="#FNanchor_41"><span class="label">[41]</span></a> William H. Emory had served in Charleston harbor during the -Nullification troubles of 1831-1836. In 1846 he went to California, -afterward served in the Mexican War, and later assisted in running the -boundary line between Mexico and the United States under the Gadsden -Treaty of 1853. In 1854 he was in Kansas and in 1858 in Utah. After -resigning his commission, as related by the author, he was reappointed -a Lieutenant-Colonel in the United States Army and took an active part -in the war on the side of the North.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_42" id="Footnote_42"></a><a href="#FNanchor_42"><span class="label">[42]</span></a> John Bankhead Magruder was a graduate of West Point, who had -served in the Mexican War, and afterward while stationed at Newport, -R. I., had become famous for his entertainments. When Virginia -seceded, he resigned his commission in the United States Army. After -the war he settled in Houston, Texas.</p> - -<p>The battle of Big Bethel was fought on June 10, 1861. The Federals -lost in killed and wounded about 100, among them Theodore Winthrop, -of New York, author of Cecil Dreeme. The Confederate losses -were very slight.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_43" id="Footnote_43"></a><a href="#FNanchor_43"><span class="label">[43]</span></a> The battle of the Cowpens in South Carolina was fought on January -17, 1781; the British, under Colonel Tarleton, being defeated by -General Morgan, with a loss to the British of 300 killed and wounded and -500 prisoners.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_44" id="Footnote_44"></a><a href="#FNanchor_44"><span class="label">[44]</span></a> Horace Binney, one of the foremost lawyers of Philadelphia, who -was closely associated with the literary, scientific, and philanthropic -interests of his time. His wife was a sister of Mrs. Chesnut, the author’s -mother-in-law.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_45" id="Footnote_45"></a><a href="#FNanchor_45"><span class="label">[45]</span></a> Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus Lamar, a native of Georgia and of -Huguenot descent, who got his classical names from his father: his -father got them from an uncle who claimed the privilege of bestowing -upon his nephew the full name of his favorite hero. When the war -began, Mr. Lamar had lived for some years in Mississippi, where he -had become successful as a lawyer and had been elected to Congress. -He entered the Confederate Army as the Colonel of a Mississippi regiment. -He served in Congress after the war and was elected to the -United States Senate in 1877. In 1885 he became Secretary of the Interior, -and in 1888, a justice of the United States Supreme Court.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_46" id="Footnote_46"></a><a href="#FNanchor_46"><span class="label">[46]</span></a> Bradley Tyler Johnson, a native of Maryland, and graduate of -Princeton, who had studied law at Harvard. At the beginning of the -war he organized a company at his own expense in defense of the South. -He was the author of a Life of General Joseph E. Johnston.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_47" id="Footnote_47"></a><a href="#FNanchor_47"><span class="label">[47]</span></a> Faustin Elie Soulouque, a negro slave of Hayti, who, having been -freed, took part in the insurrection against the French in 1803, and rose -by successive steps until in August, 1849, by the unanimous action of -the parliament, he was proclaimed emperor.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_48" id="Footnote_48"></a><a href="#FNanchor_48"><span class="label">[48]</span></a> At Camden in August, 1780, was fought a battle between General -Gates and Lord Cornwallis, in which Gates was defeated. In April of -the following year near Camden, Lord Rawdon defeated General Greene.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_49" id="Footnote_49"></a><a href="#FNanchor_49"><span class="label">[49]</span></a> Augustus Baldwin Longstreet had great distinction in the South -as a lawyer, clergyman, teacher, journalist, and author, and was successively -president of five different colleges. His Georgia Scenes, a -series of humorous papers, enjoyed great popularity for many years.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_50" id="Footnote_50"></a><a href="#FNanchor_50"><span class="label">[50]</span></a> Rev. Robert Barnwell, nephew of Hon. Robert Barnwell, established -in Richmond a hospital for South Carolinians.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_51" id="Footnote_51"></a><a href="#FNanchor_51"><span class="label">[51]</span></a> The first battle of Bull Run, or Manassas, fought on July 21, 1861, -the Confederates being commanded by General Beauregard, and the -Federals by General McDowell. Bull Run is a small stream tributary -to the Potomac.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_52" id="Footnote_52"></a><a href="#FNanchor_52"><span class="label">[52]</span></a> Edmund Kirby Smith, a native of Florida, who had graduated -from West Point, served in the Mexican War, and been Professor of -Mathematics at West Point. He resigned his commission in the United -States Army after the secession of Florida.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_53" id="Footnote_53"></a><a href="#FNanchor_53"><span class="label">[53]</span></a> Henry Wilson, son of a farm laborer and self-educated, who rose -to much prominence in the Anti-Slavery contests before the war. He -was elected United States Senator from Massachusetts in 1855, holding -the office until 1873, when he resigned, having been elected Vice-President -of the United States on the ticket with Ulysses S. Grant.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_54" id="Footnote_54"></a><a href="#FNanchor_54"><span class="label">[54]</span></a> James Harlan, United States Senator from Iowa from 1855 to -1865. In 1865 he was appointed Secretary of the Interior.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_55" id="Footnote_55"></a><a href="#FNanchor_55"><span class="label">[55]</span></a> Jerome Napoleon Bonaparte, a grandson of Napoleon Bonaparte’s -brother Jerome and of Elizabeth Patterson of Baltimore. He was a -graduate of West Point, but had entered the French Army, where he -saw service in the Crimea, Algiers, and Italy, taking part in the battle -of Balaklava, the siege of Sebastopol, and the battle of Solferino. He -died in Massachusetts in 1893.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_56" id="Footnote_56"></a><a href="#FNanchor_56"><span class="label">[56]</span></a> Mrs. Davis was born in Natchez, Mississippi, and educated in -Philadelphia. She was married to Mr. Davis in 1845. In recent years -her home has been in New York City, where she still resides (Dec. 1904).</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_57" id="Footnote_57"></a><a href="#FNanchor_57"><span class="label">[57]</span></a> Samuel Barron was a native of Virginia, who had risen to be -a captain in the United States Navy. At the time of Secession he -received a commission as Commodore in the Confederate Navy.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_58" id="Footnote_58"></a><a href="#FNanchor_58"><span class="label">[58]</span></a> The reference is to John Bright, whose advocacy of the cause of -the Union in the British Parliament attracted a great deal of attention -at the time.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_59" id="Footnote_59"></a><a href="#FNanchor_59"><span class="label">[59]</span></a> James Murray Mason was a grandson of George Mason, and had -been elected United States Senator from Virginia in 1847. In 1851 -he drafted the Fugitive Slave Law. His mission to England in 1861 -was shared by John Slidell. On November 8, 1861, while on board the -British steamer Trent, in the Bahamas, they were captured by an -American named Wilkes, and imprisoned in Boston until January 2, -1862. A famous diplomatic difficulty arose with England over this -affair. John Slidell was a native of New York, who had settled in Louisiana -and became a Member of Congress from that State in 1843. In -1853 he was elected to the United States Senate.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_60" id="Footnote_60"></a><a href="#FNanchor_60"><span class="label">[60]</span></a> The battle of Rich Mountain, in Western Virginia, was fought July -11, 1861, and General Garnett, Commander of the Confederate forces, -pursued by General McClellan, was killed at Carrick’s Ford, July 13th, -while trying to rally his rear-guard.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_61" id="Footnote_61"></a><a href="#FNanchor_61"><span class="label">[61]</span></a> William Lowndes Yancey was a native of Virginia, who settled in -Alabama, and in 1844 was elected to Congress, where he became a leader -among the supporters of slavery and an advocate of secession. He was -famous in his day as an effective public speaker.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_62" id="Footnote_62"></a><a href="#FNanchor_62"><span class="label">[62]</span></a> By reason of illness, preoccupation in other affairs, and various -deterrent causes besides, Mrs. Chesnut allowed a considerable period -to elapse before making another entry in her diary.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_63" id="Footnote_63"></a><a href="#FNanchor_63"><span class="label">[63]</span></a> Fort Donelson stood on the Cumberland River about 60 miles -northwest of Nashville. The Confederate garrison numbered about -18,000 men. General Grant invested the Fort on February 13, 1862, -and General Buckner, who commanded it, surrendered on February -16th. The Federal force at the time of the surrender numbered 27,000 -men; their loss in killed and wounded being 2,660 men and the Confederate -loss about 2,000.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_64" id="Footnote_64"></a><a href="#FNanchor_64"><span class="label">[64]</span></a> General Burnside captured the Confederate garrison at Roanoke -Island on February 8, 1862.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_65" id="Footnote_65"></a><a href="#FNanchor_65"><span class="label">[65]</span></a> Nashville was evacuated by the Confederates under Albert Sidney -Johnston, in February, 1862.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_66" id="Footnote_66"></a><a href="#FNanchor_66"><span class="label">[66]</span></a> Richard, Lord Lyons, British minister to the United States from -1858 to 1865.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_67" id="Footnote_67"></a><a href="#FNanchor_67"><span class="label">[67]</span></a> Lord Russell was Foreign Secretary under the Palmerston administration -of 1859 to 1865.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_68" id="Footnote_68"></a><a href="#FNanchor_68"><span class="label">[68]</span></a> Mary McDuffie was the second wife of Wade Hampton.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_69" id="Footnote_69"></a><a href="#FNanchor_69"><span class="label">[69]</span></a> The Merrimac was formerly a 40-gun screw frigate of the United -States Navy. In April, 1861, when the Norfolk Navy-yard was abandoned -by the United States she was sunk. Her hull was afterward -raised by the Confederates and she was reconstructed on new plans, -and renamed the Virginia. On March 2, 1862, she destroyed the -Congress, a sailing-ship of 50 guns, and the Cumberland, a sailing-ship -of 30 guns, at Newport News. On March 7th she attacked the Minnesota, -but was met by the Monitor and defeated in a memorable engagement. -Many features of modern battle-ships have been derived from -the Merrimac and Monitor.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_70" id="Footnote_70"></a><a href="#FNanchor_70"><span class="label">[70]</span></a> On March 7 and 8, 1862, occurred the battle of Pea Ridge in -Western Arkansas, where the Confederates were defeated, and on March -8th and 9th, occurred the conflict in Hampton Roads between the warships -Merrimac, Cumberland, Congress, and Monitor.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_71" id="Footnote_71"></a><a href="#FNanchor_71"><span class="label">[71]</span></a> Louisa Susanna McCord, whose husband was David J. McCord, a -lawyer of Columbia, who died in 1855. She was educated in Philadelphia, -and was the author of several books of verse, including Caius -Gracchus, a tragedy; she was also a brilliant pamphleteer.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_72" id="Footnote_72"></a><a href="#FNanchor_72"><span class="label">[72]</span></a> John D. Floyd, who had been Governor of Virginia from 1850 to -1853, became Secretary of War in 1857. He was first in command -at Fort Donelson. Gideon J. Pillow had been a Major-General of volunteers -in the Mexican War and was second in command at Fort Donelson. -He and Floyd escaped from the Fort when it was invested by Grant, -leaving General Buckner to make the surrender.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_73" id="Footnote_73"></a><a href="#FNanchor_73"><span class="label">[73]</span></a> Joseph Le Conte, who afterward arose to much distinction as a -geologist and writer of text-books on geology. He died in 1901, while he -was connected with the University of California. His work at Columbia -was to manufacture, on a large scale, medicines for the Confederate -Army, his laboratory being the main source of supply. In Professor -Le Conte’s autobiography published in 1903, are several chapters devoted -to his life in the South.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_74" id="Footnote_74"></a><a href="#FNanchor_74"><span class="label">[74]</span></a> New Madrid, Missouri, had been under siege since March 3, 1862.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_75" id="Footnote_75"></a><a href="#FNanchor_75"><span class="label">[75]</span></a> The Emancipation Proclamation was not actually issued until -September 22, 1862, when it was a notice to the Confederates to return -to the Union, emancipation being proclaimed as a result of their failure -to do so. The real proclamation, freeing the slaves, was delayed until -January 1, 1863, when it was put forth as a war measure. Mrs. Chesnut’s -reference is doubtless to President Lincoln’s Message to Congress, -March 6, 1862, in which he made recommendations regarding the abolition -of slavery.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_76" id="Footnote_76"></a><a href="#FNanchor_76"><span class="label">[76]</span></a> The battle of Shiloh, or Pittsburg Landing, in Tennessee, eighty-eight -miles east of Memphis, had been fought on April 6 and 7, -1862. The Federals were commanded by General Grant who, on the -second day, was reenforced by General Buell. The Confederates were -commanded by Albert Sidney Johnston on the first day, when Johnston -was killed, and on the second day by General Beauregard.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_77" id="Footnote_77"></a><a href="#FNanchor_77"><span class="label">[77]</span></a> New Orleans had been seized by the Confederates at the outbreak -of the war. Steps to capture it were soon taken by the Federals and -on April 18, 1862, the mortar flotilla, under Farragut, opened fire -on its protecting forts. Making little impression on them, Farragut -ran boldly past the forts and destroyed the Confederate fleet, comprising -13 gunboats and two ironclads. On April 27th he took formal -possession of the city.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_78" id="Footnote_78"></a><a href="#FNanchor_78"><span class="label">[78]</span></a> The Siege of Yorktown was begun on April 5, 1862, the place -being evacuated by the Confederates on May 4th.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_79" id="Footnote_79"></a><a href="#FNanchor_79"><span class="label">[79]</span></a> The battle of Williamsburg was fought on May 5, 1862, by a part -of McClellan’s army, under General Hooker and others, the Confederates -being commanded by General Johnston.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_80" id="Footnote_80"></a><a href="#FNanchor_80"><span class="label">[80]</span></a> General Benjamin F. Butler took command of New Orleans on -May 2, 1862. The author’s reference is to his famous “Order No. 28,” -which reads: “As the officers and soldiers of the United States have -been subject to repeated insults from the women (calling themselves -ladies) of New Orleans, in return for the most scrupulous non-interference -and courtesy on our part, it is ordered that hereafter when any -female shall by word, gesture, or movement, insult or show contempt -for any officer or soldier of the United States she shall be regarded and -held liable to be treated as a woman of the town plying her vocation.” -This and other acts of Butler in New Orleans led Jefferson Davis to -issue a proclamation, declaring Butler to be a felon and an outlaw, and -if captured that he should be instantly hanged. In December Butler -was superseded at New Orleans by General Banks.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_81" id="Footnote_81"></a><a href="#FNanchor_81"><span class="label">[81]</span></a> The Battle of Fair Oaks or Seven Pines, took place a few miles -east of Richmond, on May 31 and June 1, 1862, the Federals being -commanded by McClellan and the Confederates by General Joseph E. -Johnston.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_82" id="Footnote_82"></a><a href="#FNanchor_82"><span class="label">[82]</span></a> Fort Pillow was on the Mississippi above Memphis. It had been -erected by the Confederates, but was occupied by the Federals on June -5, 1862, the Confederates having evacuated and partially destroyed -it the day before. On June 6, 1862, the Federal fleet defeated the -Confederates near Memphis. The city soon afterward was occupied -by the Federals.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_83" id="Footnote_83"></a><a href="#FNanchor_83"><span class="label">[83]</span></a> Corinth was besieged by the Federals, under General Halleck, in -May, 1862, and was evacuated by the Confederates under Beauregard -on May 29th.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_84" id="Footnote_84"></a><a href="#FNanchor_84"><span class="label">[84]</span></a> She lost her life in the Windsor Hotel fire in New York.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_85" id="Footnote_85"></a><a href="#FNanchor_85"><span class="label">[85]</span></a> This must be a reference to the Battle of Seven Pines or to the -Campaign of the Chickahominy, up to and inclusive of that battle.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_86" id="Footnote_86"></a><a href="#FNanchor_86"><span class="label">[86]</span></a> The battle of Secessionville occurred on James Island, in the -harbor of Charleston, June 16, 1862.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_87" id="Footnote_87"></a><a href="#FNanchor_87"><span class="label">[87]</span></a> Malvern Hill, the last of the Seven Days’ Battles, was fought near -Richmond on the James River, July 1, 1862. The Federals were commanded -by McClellan and the Confederates by Lee.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_88" id="Footnote_88"></a><a href="#FNanchor_88"><span class="label">[88]</span></a> The first battle of the Chickahominy, fought on June 27, 1862. -It is better known as the battle of Gaines’s Mill, or Cold Harbor. It -was participated in by a part of Lee’s army and a part of McClellan’s, -and its scene was about eight miles from Richmond.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_89" id="Footnote_89"></a><a href="#FNanchor_89"><span class="label">[89]</span></a> Henry M. Rice, United States Senator from Minnesota, who had -emigrated to that State from Vermont in 1835.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_90" id="Footnote_90"></a><a href="#FNanchor_90"><span class="label">[90]</span></a> Of ameliorations in modern warfare, Dr. John T. Darby said in -addressing the South Carolina Medical Association, Charleston, in -1873: “On the route from the army to the general hospital, wounds -are dressed and soldiers refreshed at wayside homes; and here be it -said with justice and pride that the credit of originating this system -is due to the women of South Carolina. In a small room in the capital -of this State, the first Wayside Home was founded; and during the -war, some seventy-five thousand soldiers were relieved by having their -wounds dressed, their ailments attended, and very frequently by being -clothed through the patriotic services and good offices of a few untiring -ladies in Columbia. From this little nucleus, spread that grand system -of wayside hospitals which was established during our own and the -late European wars.”</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_91" id="Footnote_91"></a><a href="#FNanchor_91"><span class="label">[91]</span></a> Flat Rock was the summer resort of many cultured families from -the low countries of the South before the war. Many attractive houses -had been built there. It lies in the region which has since become famous -as the Asheville region, and in which stands Biltmore.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_92" id="Footnote_92"></a><a href="#FNanchor_92"><span class="label">[92]</span></a> The battle of Sharpsburg, or Antietam, one of the bloodiest of -the war, was fought in western Maryland, a few miles north of Harper’s -Ferry, on September 16 and 17, 1862, the Federals being under -McClellan, and the Confederates under Lee.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_93" id="Footnote_93"></a><a href="#FNanchor_93"><span class="label">[93]</span></a> The battle of Chancellorsville, where the losses on each side were -more than ten thousand men, was fought about fifty miles northwest -of Richmond on May 2, 3, and 4, 1863. The Confederates were under -Lee and the Federals under Hooker. In this battle Stonewall Jackson -was killed.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_94" id="Footnote_94"></a><a href="#FNanchor_94"><span class="label">[94]</span></a> During the summer of 1862, after the battle of Malvern Hill and -before Sharpsburg, or Antietam, the following important battles had -taken place: Harrison’s Landing, July 3d and 4th; Harrison’s Landing -again, July 31st; Cedar Mountain, August 9th; Bull Run (second -battle), August 29th and 30th, and South Mountain, September 14th.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_95" id="Footnote_95"></a><a href="#FNanchor_95"><span class="label">[95]</span></a> Clement Baird Vallandigham was an Ohio Democrat who represented -the extreme wing of Northern sympathizers with the South. He -was arrested by United States troops in May, 1863, court-martialed -and banished to the Confederacy. Not being well received in the -South, he went to Canada, but after the war returned to Ohio.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_96" id="Footnote_96"></a><a href="#FNanchor_96"><span class="label">[96]</span></a> Vicksburg surrendered on July 4, 1863. Since the close of 1862, it -had again and again been assaulted by Grant and Sherman. It was commanded -by Johnston and Pemberton, Pemberton being in command at -the time of the surrender. John C. Pemberton was a native of Philadelphia, -a graduate of West Point, and had served in the Mexican War.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_97" id="Footnote_97"></a><a href="#FNanchor_97"><span class="label">[97]</span></a> Hood was a native of Kentucky and a graduate of West Point.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_98" id="Footnote_98"></a><a href="#FNanchor_98"><span class="label">[98]</span></a> Drury’s Bluff lies eight miles south of Richmond on the James -River. Here, on May 16, 1864, the Confederates under Beauregard -repulsed the Federals under Butler.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_99" id="Footnote_99"></a><a href="#FNanchor_99"><span class="label">[99]</span></a> The battle of Brandy Station, Va., occurred June 9, 1863.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_100" id="Footnote_100"></a><a href="#FNanchor_100"><span class="label">[100]</span></a> George S. Stoneman, a graduate of West Point, was now a Major-General, -and Chief of Artillery in the Army of the Potomac. His raid -toward Richmond in 1863 was a memorable incident of the war. -After the war, he became Governor of California.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_101" id="Footnote_101"></a><a href="#FNanchor_101"><span class="label">[101]</span></a> Miss Constance Cary afterward married Burton Harrison and settled -in New York where she became prominent socially and achieved -reputation as a novelist.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_102" id="Footnote_102"></a><a href="#FNanchor_102"><span class="label">[102]</span></a> The battle of Chickamauga was fought on the river of the same -name, near Chattanooga, September 19 and 20, 1863. The Confederates -were commanded by Bragg and the Federals by Rosecrans. It was -one of the bloodiest battles of the war; the loss on each side, including -killed, wounded, and prisoners, was over 15,000.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_103" id="Footnote_103"></a><a href="#FNanchor_103"><span class="label">[103]</span></a> John C. Breckinridge had been Vice-President of the United States -under Buchanan and was the candidate of the Southern Democrats for -President in 1860. He joined the Confederate Army in 1861.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_104" id="Footnote_104"></a><a href="#FNanchor_104"><span class="label">[104]</span></a> Braxton Bragg was a native of North Carolina and had won distinction -in the war with Mexico.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_105" id="Footnote_105"></a><a href="#FNanchor_105"><span class="label">[105]</span></a> John R. Thompson was a native of Richmond and in 1847 became -editor of the Southern Literary Messenger. Under his direction, that -periodical acquired commanding influence. Mr. Thompson’s health -failed afterward. During the war he spent a part of his time in Richmond -and a part in Europe. He afterward settled in New York and -became literary editor of the Evening Post.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_106" id="Footnote_106"></a><a href="#FNanchor_106"><span class="label">[106]</span></a> The siege of Chattanooga, which had been begun on September -21st, closed late in November, 1863, the final engagements beginning -on November 23d, and ending on November 25th. Lookout Mountain -and Missionary Ridge were the closing incidents of the siege. -Grant, Sherman, and Hooker were conspicuous on the Federal side and -Bragg and Longstreet on the Confederate.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_107" id="Footnote_107"></a><a href="#FNanchor_107"><span class="label">[107]</span></a> Following the battle of Gettysburg on July 1st, 2d, and 3d, of -this year, there had occurred in Virginia between Lee and Meade -engagements at Bristoe’s Station, Kelly’s Ford, and Rappahannock -Station, the latter engagement taking place on November 7th. The -author doubtless refers here to the positions of Lee and Meade at Mine -Run, December 1st. December 2d Meade abandoned his, because (as -he is reported to have said) it would have cost him 30,000 men to carry -Lee’s breastworks, and he shrank from ordering such slaughter.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_108" id="Footnote_108"></a><a href="#FNanchor_108"><span class="label">[108]</span></a> Burton Harrison, then secretary to Jefferson Davis, who married -Miss Constance Cary and became well known as a New York lawyer. -He died in Washington in 1904.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_109" id="Footnote_109"></a><a href="#FNanchor_109"><span class="label">[109]</span></a> Simon B. Buckner was a graduate of West Point and had served in -the Mexican War. In 1887 he was elected Governor of Kentucky and, -at the funeral of General Grant, acted as one of the pall-bearers.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_110" id="Footnote_110"></a><a href="#FNanchor_110"><span class="label">[110]</span></a> John H. Morgan, a native of Alabama, entered the Confederate -army in 1861 as a Captain and in 1862 was made a Major-General. He -was captured by the Federals in 1863 and confined in an Ohio penitentiary, -but he escaped and once more joined the Confederate army. -In September, 1864, he was killed in battle near Greenville, Tenn.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_111" id="Footnote_111"></a><a href="#FNanchor_111"><span class="label">[111]</span></a> Judah P. Benjamin, was born, of Jewish parentage, at St. Croix -in the West Indies, and was elected in 1852 to represent Louisiana -in the United States Senate, where he served until 1861. In the Confederate -administration he served successively from 1861 to 1865 as -Attorney-General, Secretary of War, and Secretary of State. At the -close of the war he went to England where he achieved remarkable -success at the bar.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_112" id="Footnote_112"></a><a href="#FNanchor_112"><span class="label">[112]</span></a> The New York Hotel, covering a block front on Broadway at -Waverley Place, was a favorite stopping place for Southerners for -many years before the war and after it. In comparatively recent times -it was torn down and supplanted by a business block.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_113" id="Footnote_113"></a><a href="#FNanchor_113"><span class="label">[113]</span></a> General Polk, commanding about 24,000 men scattered throughout -Mississippi and Alabama, found it impossible to check the advance of -Sherman at the head of some 40,000, and moved from Meridian south -to protect Mobile. February 16, 1864, Sherman took possession of -Meridian.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_114" id="Footnote_114"></a><a href="#FNanchor_114"><span class="label">[114]</span></a> Colonel Ulric Dahlgren was a son of the noted Admiral, John H. -Dahlgren, who, in July, 1863, had been placed in command of the South -Atlantic Blockading Squadron and conducted the naval operations -against Charleston, between July 10 and September 7, 1863. Colonel -Dahlgren distinguished himself at Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, -and Gettysburg. The raid in which he lost his life on March 4, 1864, -was planned by himself and General Kilpatrick.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_115" id="Footnote_115"></a><a href="#FNanchor_115"><span class="label">[115]</span></a> During the month of May, 1864, important battles had been fought -in Virginia, including that of the Wilderness on May 6th-7th, and the -series later in that month around Spottsylvania Court House.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_116" id="Footnote_116"></a><a href="#FNanchor_116"><span class="label">[116]</span></a> The battle of Stony Creek in Virginia was fought on June 28-29, -1864.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_117" id="Footnote_117"></a><a href="#FNanchor_117"><span class="label">[117]</span></a> General Johnston in 1863 had been appointed to command the -Army of the Tennessee, with headquarters at Dalton, Georgia. He was -to oppose the advance of Sherman’s army toward Atlanta. In May, -1864, he fought unsuccessful battles at Resaca and elsewhere, and in -July was compelled to retreat across the Chattahoochee River. Fault -was found with him because of his continual retreating. There were -tremendous odds against him. On July 17th he was superseded by -Hood.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_118" id="Footnote_118"></a><a href="#FNanchor_118"><span class="label">[118]</span></a> Raphael Semmes was a native of Maryland and had served in the -Mexican War. The Alabama was built for the Confederate States at -Birkenhead, England, and with an English crew and English equipment -was commanded by Semmes. In 1863 and 1864 the Alabama destroyed -much Federal shipping. On June 19, 1864, she was sunk by the -Federal ship Kearsarge in a battle off Cherbourg. Claims against England -for damages were made by the United States, and as a result the -Geneva Arbitration Court was created. Claims amounting to $15,500,000 -were finally awarded. This case has much importance in the history -of international law.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_119" id="Footnote_119"></a><a href="#FNanchor_119"><span class="label">[119]</span></a> The battle of Mobile Bay, won under Farragut, was fought on -August 5, 1864.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_120" id="Footnote_120"></a><a href="#FNanchor_120"><span class="label">[120]</span></a> On July 22d, Hood made a sortie from Atlanta, but after a battle -was obliged to return.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_121" id="Footnote_121"></a><a href="#FNanchor_121"><span class="label">[121]</span></a> General Forrest made his raid on Memphis in August of this year.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_122" id="Footnote_122"></a><a href="#FNanchor_122"><span class="label">[122]</span></a> General McPherson was killed before Atlanta during the sortie -made by Hood on July 22d. He was a native of Ohio, a graduate of -West Point, and under Sherman commanded the Army of the Tennessee.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_123" id="Footnote_123"></a><a href="#FNanchor_123"><span class="label">[123]</span></a> After the battle, Atlanta was taken possession of and partly burned -by the Federals.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_124" id="Footnote_124"></a><a href="#FNanchor_124"><span class="label">[124]</span></a> During the summer and autumn of 1864 several important battles -had occurred. In addition to the engagements by Sherman’s army -farther south, there had occurred in Virginia the battle of Cold Harbor -in the early part of June; those before Petersburg in the latter part of -June and during July and August; the battle of Winchester on September -19th, during Sheridan’s Shenandoah campaign, and the battle of -Cedar Creek on October 19th.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_125" id="Footnote_125"></a><a href="#FNanchor_125"><span class="label">[125]</span></a> After the war, Dr. Darby became professor of Surgery in the University -of the City of New York; he had served as Medical Director in -the Army of the Confederate States and as Professor of Anatomy and -Surgery in the University of South Carolina; had also served with distinction -in European wars.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_126" id="Footnote_126"></a><a href="#FNanchor_126"><span class="label">[126]</span></a> General Sherman had started from Chattanooga for his march -across Georgia on May 6, 1864. He had won the battles of Dalton, -Resaca, and New Hope Church in May, the battle of Kennesaw Mountain -in June, the battles of Peach Tree Creek and Atlanta in July, and -had formally occupied Atlanta on September 2d. On November -16th, he started on his march from Atlanta to the sea and entered Savannah -on December 23d. Early in 1865 he moved his army northward -through the Carolinas, and on April 26th received the surrender -of General Joseph E. Johnston.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_127" id="Footnote_127"></a><a href="#FNanchor_127"><span class="label">[127]</span></a> Reference is here made to the battle between Hood and Thomas -at Nashville, the result of which was the breaking up of Hood’s army -as a fighting force.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_128" id="Footnote_128"></a><a href="#FNanchor_128"><span class="label">[128]</span></a> Under last date entry, January 17th, the author chronicles events of -later occurrence; it was her not infrequent custom to jot down happenings -in dateless lines or paragraphs. Mr. Blair visited President Davis -January 12th; Stephens, Hunter and Campbell were appointed Peace -Commissioners, January 28th.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_129" id="Footnote_129"></a><a href="#FNanchor_129"><span class="label">[129]</span></a> Battles at Hatchen’s Run, in Virginia, had been fought on February -5, 6, and 7, 1865.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_130" id="Footnote_130"></a><a href="#FNanchor_130"><span class="label">[130]</span></a> The reference appears to be to General Edward E. Potter, a native -of New York City, who died in 1889. General Potter entered the Federal -service early in the war. He recruited a regiment of North Carolina -troops and engaged in operations in North and South Carolina and -Eastern Tennessee.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_131" id="Footnote_131"></a><a href="#FNanchor_131"><span class="label">[131]</span></a> John Taylor was graduated from Princeton in 1790 and became a -planter in South Carolina. He served in Congress from 1806 to 1810, -and in the latter year was chosen to fill a vacancy in the United States -Senate, caused by the resignation of Thomas Sumter. In 1826 he was -chosen Governor of South Carolina. He died in 1832.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_132" id="Footnote_132"></a><a href="#FNanchor_132"><span class="label">[132]</span></a> Fort Duquesne stood at the junction of the Monongahela and Alleghany -Rivers. Captain Trent, acting for the Ohio Company, with -some Virginia militiamen, began to build this fort in February, 1754. -On April 17th of the same year, 700 Canadians and French forced him -to abandon the work. The French then completed the fortress and -named it Fort Duquesne. The unfortunate expedition of General -Braddock, in the summer of 1755, was an attempt to retake the fort, -Braddock’s defeat occurring eight miles east of it. In 1758 General -Forbes marched westward from Philadelphia and secured possession -of the place, after the French, alarmed at his approach, had burned it. -Forbes gave it the name of Pittsburg.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_133" id="Footnote_133"></a><a href="#FNanchor_133"><span class="label">[133]</span></a> Elizabeth K. Adger, wife of the Rev. John B. Adger, D. D., of -Charleston, a distinguished Presbyterian divine, at one time a missionary -to Smyrna where he translated the Bible into the Armenian tongue. -He was afterward and before the war a professor in the Theological -Seminary at Columbia. His wife was a woman of unusual judgment -and intelligence, sharing her husband’s many hardships and notable -experiences in the East.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_134" id="Footnote_134"></a><a href="#FNanchor_134"><span class="label">[134]</span></a> Mr. Davis, while encamped near Irwinsville, Ga., had been captured -on May 10th by a body of Federal cavalry under Lieutenant-Colonel -Pritchard. He was taken to Fortress Monroe and confined -there for two years, his release being effected on May 13, 1867, when he -was admitted to bail in the sum of $100,000, the first name on his bail-bond -being that of Horace Greeley.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_135" id="Footnote_135"></a><a href="#FNanchor_135"><span class="label">[135]</span></a> Simon Cameron became Secretary of War in Lincoln’s Administration, -on March 4, 1861. On January 11, 1862, he resigned and was -made Minister to Russia.</p> - -</div> - -</div> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_405" id="Page_405">[405]</a></span></p> - -<h2 id="INDEX">INDEX</h2> - -<ul> - -<li class="ifrst">Adams, James H., <a href="#Page_26">26</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Adger, Mrs. John B., <a href="#Page_396">396</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Aiken, Gov. William, his style of living, <a href="#Page_253">253</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Aiken, Miss, her wedding, <a href="#Page_240">240-241</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Alabama, the, surrender of, <a href="#Page_314">314</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Alabama Convention, the, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Alexandria, Va., Ellsworth killed at, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Allan, Mrs. Scotch, <a href="#Page_258">258</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Allston, Ben, his duel, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">a call from, <a href="#Page_73">73</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Allston, Col., <a href="#Page_234">234</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Allston, Washington, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Anderson, Gen. Richard, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>, <a href="#Page_225">225</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Anderson, Major Robert, <a href="#Page_5">5</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his mistake, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">fired on, in Fort Sumter, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">when the fort surrendered, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his flag-staff, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his account of the fall of Fort Sumter, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">offered a regiment, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx" id="Antietam">Antietam, battle of, <a href="#Page_213">213</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Archer, Capt. Tom, a call from, <a href="#Page_113">113</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his comments on Hood, <a href="#Page_318">318</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his death, <a href="#Page_343">343</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Athens, Ga., the raid at, <a href="#Page_322">322</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Atlanta, battle of, <a href="#Page_326">326</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Auzé, Mrs. —, her troubled life, <a href="#Page_179">179</a>.</li> - -<li class="ifrst">Bailey, Godard, <a href="#Page_388">388</a>, <a href="#Page_389">389</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Baldwin, Col. —, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Baltimore, Seventh Regiment in, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">in a blaze, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Barker, Theodore, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Barnwell, Edward, <a href="#Page_316">316</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Barnwell, Mrs. Edward, <a href="#Page_208">208</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">and her boy, <a href="#Page_253">253-254</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Barnwell, Mary, <a href="#Page_194">194</a>, <a href="#Page_316">316</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Barnwell, Rev. Robert, establishes a hospital, <a href="#Page_83">83</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">back in the hospital, <a href="#Page_172">172</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">sent for to officiate at a marriage, <a href="#Page_185">185</a>, <a href="#Page_194">194</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his death, <a href="#Page_238">238</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Barnwell, Mrs. Robert, her death, <a href="#Page_239">239</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Barnwell, Hon. Robert W., sketch of, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">on Fort Sumter, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>, <a href="#Page_77">77</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">at dinner with, <a href="#Page_98">98</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">and the opposition to Mr. Davis, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">on fame, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">on democracies, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>, <a href="#Page_160">160</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">as to Gen. Chesnut, <a href="#Page_163">163</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Barron, Commodore Samuel, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">an anecdote of, when a middy, <a href="#Page_120">120-122</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">a prisoner, <a href="#Page_124">124</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Bartow, Col. —, <a href="#Page_2">2</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">and his wife, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">killed at Bull Run, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">eulogized in Congress, <a href="#Page_90">90</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Bartow, Mrs. —, hears of her husband’s death, <a href="#Page_87">87-88</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">her husband’s funeral, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">a call on, <a href="#Page_146">146</a>, <a href="#Page_162">162</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">in one of the departments, <a href="#Page_166">166</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">her story of Miss Toombs, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>, <a href="#Page_199">199</a>, <a href="#Page_204">204</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">goes to Mulberry, <a href="#Page_386">386</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Beauregard, Gen. P. G. T., <a href="#Page_28">28</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">a demigod, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">in council with the Governor, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">leaves Montgomery, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">at Norfolk, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his report of the capture of Fort Sumter, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_406" id="Page_406">[406]</a></span>and the name Bull Run, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">faith in him, <a href="#Page_77">77</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">a horse for, <a href="#Page_80">80</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">in Richmond, <a href="#Page_83">83-84</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his army in want of food, <a href="#Page_97">97</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">not properly supported, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">half Frenchman, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">letters from, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">at Columbus, Miss., <a href="#Page_139">139</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">flanked at Nashville, <a href="#Page_156">156</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">and Shiloh, <a href="#Page_163">163</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">at Huntsville, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">fighting his way, <a href="#Page_174">174</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">retreating, <a href="#Page_175">175</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">evacuates Corinth, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">in disfavor, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">and Whiting, <a href="#Page_307">307</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Bedon, Josiah, <a href="#Page_369">369</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Bedon, Mrs. —, <a href="#Page_369">369</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Benjamin, Judah P., <a href="#Page_278">278</a>, <a href="#Page_287">287</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Berrien, Dr. —, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Berrien, Judge, <a href="#Page_166">166</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Bibb, Judge, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Bierne, Bettie, her admirers, <a href="#Page_232">232</a>, <a href="#Page_234">234</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">her wedding, <a href="#Page_235">235</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Big Bethel, battle of, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">Magruder at, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Binney, Horace, his offer to Lincoln, <a href="#Page_64">64</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">quoted, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>, <a href="#Page_311">311</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Blair, Rochelle, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Blake, Daniel, <a href="#Page_214">214</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Blake, Frederick, <a href="#Page_338">338</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Blake, Walter, negroes leave him, <a href="#Page_199">199</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Bluffton, movement, the, <a href="#Page_3">3</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Bonaparte, Jerome Napoleon, goes to Washington, <a href="#Page_98">98</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">described, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">disappointed in Beauregard, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Boykin, A. H., <a href="#Page_35">35</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Boykin, Dr., <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_135">135</a>, <a href="#Page_404">404</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Boykin, E. M., <a href="#Page_161">161</a>, <a href="#Page_389">389</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Boykin, Hamilton, <a href="#Page_171">171</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Boykin, James, <a href="#Page_220">220</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Boykin, J. H., <a href="#Page_387">387</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Boykin, Col. John, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his death in prison, <a href="#Page_308">308</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Boykin, Kitty, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Boykin, Mary, <a href="#Page_312">312</a>, <a href="#Page_403">403</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Boykin, Tom, his company, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>, <a href="#Page_135">135</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Bradley, Judy, <a href="#Page_401">401</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Bragg, Gen. Braxton, joins Beauregard, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>, <a href="#Page_147">147</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">a stern disciplinarian, <a href="#Page_203">203</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">at Chickamauga, <a href="#Page_248">248</a>, <a href="#Page_252">252</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">defeated at Chattanooga, <a href="#Page_258">258</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">asks to be relieved, <a href="#Page_259">259</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">one of his horses, <a href="#Page_303">303</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Brandy Station, battle of, <a href="#Page_236">236</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Breckinridge, Gen. John C., <a href="#Page_249">249</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">in Richmond, <a href="#Page_275">275</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">at the Ives theatricals, <a href="#Page_285">285-286</a>, <a href="#Page_289">289</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Brewster, Mr. —, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">at Fauquier White Sulphur Springs, <a href="#Page_77">77</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">remark by, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">a talk with, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">quoted, <a href="#Page_108">108</a>, <a href="#Page_122">122</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">criticism of, <a href="#Page_124">124</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">and Hood’s love-affair, <a href="#Page_266">266-267</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">on Joe Johnston’s removal, <a href="#Page_320">320</a>, <a href="#Page_338">338</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Bright, John, his speeches in behalf of the Union, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Brooks, Preston, <a href="#Page_74">74</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Brown, Gov., of Georgia, <a href="#Page_315">315</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Brown, John, of Harper’s Ferry, <a href="#Page_1">1</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Browne, “Constitution,” going to Washington, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Browne, Mrs. —, on spies, <a href="#Page_206">206</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">describes the Prince of Wales, <a href="#Page_207">207</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Brumby, Dr. —, <a href="#Page_361">361</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Buchanan, James, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_207">207</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Buckner, Gen. Simon B., <a href="#Page_131">131</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">in Richmond, <a href="#Page_267">267-268</a>, <a href="#Page_275">275</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx" id="Bull_Run">Bull Run, objection to the name, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">battle of, <a href="#Page_85">85-90</a>.</li> -<li class="isub1"><a href="#Manassas">See <i>Manassas</i>.</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Burnside, Gen. Ambrose E., captures Roanoke Island, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">money due from, to Gen. Preston, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Burroughs, Mrs. —, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Butler, Gen. B. F., his Order No. <a href="#Page_28">28</a>, <a href="#Page_164">164-165</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_407" id="Page_407">[407]</a></span>at New Orleans, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">threatening Richmond, <a href="#Page_294">294</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">kind to Roony Lee, <a href="#Page_300">300</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">at New Orleans, <a href="#Page_346">346</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Byron, Lord, as a lover, <a href="#Page_297">297</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">quoted, <a href="#Page_391">391</a>.</li> - -<li class="ifrst">Calhoun, John C., anecdote of, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Calhoun, Mrs. —, <a href="#Page_323">323</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Camden, S. C., excitement at, <a href="#Page_3">3</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">dwelling in, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">the author’s absence from, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">the author in, <a href="#Page_42">42-46</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">battle of, <a href="#Page_75">75</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">a romance in, <a href="#Page_120">120-121</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">return to, <a href="#Page_127">127-130</a>, <a href="#Page_240">240-251</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">Gen. Chesnut in, <a href="#Page_250">250</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">a picnic near, at Mulberry, <a href="#Page_251">251</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">return to, <a href="#Page_304">304</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">the author in, <a href="#Page_384">384-404</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Cameron, Simon, a proclamation by, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>, <a href="#Page_400">400</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Campbell, Judge John A., his resignation, <a href="#Page_14">14</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his family, <a href="#Page_77">77</a>, <a href="#Page_247">247</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Cantey, Mary, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Cantey, Zack, <a href="#Page_375">375</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Capers, Mrs. —, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Carlyle, Thomas, and slavery in America, <a href="#Page_136">136</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Carroll, Chancellor, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Carroll, Judge, <a href="#Page_204">204</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Cary, Constance, <a href="#Page_263">263</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">a call on, <a href="#Page_264">264</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">a call from, <a href="#Page_272">272</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">a call for, <a href="#Page_272">272</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">as Lady Teazle, <a href="#Page_276">276</a>, <a href="#Page_277">277</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">as Lydia Languish, <a href="#Page_285">285</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">makes a bonnet, <a href="#Page_293">293</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">describes a wedding, <a href="#Page_300">300</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">and Preston Hampton, <a href="#Page_301">301</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Cary, Hetty, <a href="#Page_244">244</a>, <a href="#Page_260">260</a>, <a href="#Page_272">272</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">Gen. Chesnut with, <a href="#Page_274">274</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Chancellorsville, battle of, <a href="#Page_213">213</a>, <a href="#Page_245">245</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Charleston, the author in, <a href="#Page_1">1-5</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">Secession Convention adjourns to, <a href="#Page_3">3</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">Anderson in Fort Sumter, <a href="#Page_5">5</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">war steamer off, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">return to, <a href="#Page_21">21-41</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">Convention at, in a snarl, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">a ship fired into at, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">soldiers in streets of, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">Anderson refuses to capitulate at, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">the fort bombarded, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">Bull Run Russell in, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">return to, from Montgomery, <a href="#Page_57">57-67</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">thin-skinned people in, <a href="#Page_60">60</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">its condition good, <a href="#Page_163">163</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">bombardment of, <a href="#Page_174">174</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">under bombardment, <a href="#Page_258">258</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">surrender of, <a href="#Page_350">350</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Chase, Col. —, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Chattanooga, siege of, <a href="#Page_258">258</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Chesnut, Col. James, Sr., sketch of, <a href="#Page_xvii">XVII</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">looking for fire, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">and Nellie Custis, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>, <a href="#Page_122">122</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his family, <a href="#Page_127">127</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">anecdote of, <a href="#Page_135">135</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his losses from the war, <a href="#Page_158">158</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his old wines, <a href="#Page_249">249</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">a letter from, <a href="#Page_296">296</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">and his wife, <a href="#Page_310">310</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">refuses to say grace, <a href="#Page_372">372</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">sketch of, <a href="#Page_390">390-392</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">illness of, <a href="#Page_403">403</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Chesnut, Mrs. James, Sr., praises everybody, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">and Mt. Vernon, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">anecdote of, <a href="#Page_66">66-67</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">silver brought from Philadelphia by, <a href="#Page_135">135</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">sixty years in the South, <a href="#Page_170">170</a>, <a href="#Page_236">236</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">her death, <a href="#Page_299">299</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">and her husband, <a href="#Page_310">310-311</a>, <a href="#Page_391">391</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Chesnut, Gen. James, Jr., his death described, <a href="#Page_xviii">XVIII</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his resignation as U. S. Senator, <a href="#Page_3">3</a>, <a href="#Page_4">4</a>, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">with Mr. Davis, <a href="#Page_14">14</a>, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">averts a duel, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">at target practice, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">made an aide to Beauregard, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">goes to demand surrender of Fort Sumter, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his interview with Anderson, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">orders Fort Sumter fired on, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">asleep in Beauregard’s room, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">describes the surrender, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">with Wade Hampton, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_408" id="Page_408">[408]</a></span>his interview with Anderson, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">goes to Alabama, <a href="#Page_52">52</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">opposed to leaving Montgomery, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">and Davin the spy, <a href="#Page_60">60</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">letter from, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">and the first shot at Fort Sumter, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">letter from, at Manassas Junction, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">in Richmond, <a href="#Page_69">69</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">a letter from, <a href="#Page_74">74-75</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">orders to move on, received by, <a href="#Page_80">80</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">receiving spies from Washington, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">with Davis and Lee, <a href="#Page_83">83</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his servant Lawrence, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his account of the battle of Bull Run, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">speech by, <a href="#Page_90">90</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">carries orders at Bull Run, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">returns to Columbia, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">on slavery, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">news for, from Richmond, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">criticized, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his address to South Carolinians, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">asked to excuse students from military service, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his military affairs, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>, <a href="#Page_144">144</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">negroes offer to fight for, <a href="#Page_147">147</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">attacked, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">reasonable and considerate, <a href="#Page_151">151</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his adventure with Gov. Gist, <a href="#Page_153">153</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">illness of, <a href="#Page_155">155</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">offered a place on staff of Mr. Davis, <a href="#Page_157">157</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">and the fall of New Orleans, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">finds a home for negroes, <a href="#Page_160">160</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">on a visit to his father, <a href="#Page_161">161</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">as to Charleston’s defenses, <a href="#Page_163">163</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">promotion for, <a href="#Page_163">163</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">at dinner, <a href="#Page_166">166</a>, <a href="#Page_167">167</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">called to Richmond, <a href="#Page_171">171</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his self-control, <a href="#Page_173">173</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">and the negroes, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">returns to Columbia, <a href="#Page_190">190</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">off to Richmond, <a href="#Page_191">191</a>, <a href="#Page_194">194</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">letter from, on the Seven Days’ fighting, <a href="#Page_197">197</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">hears the Confederacy is to be recognized abroad, <a href="#Page_201">201</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">staying with President Davis, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his character in Washington, <a href="#Page_204">204</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">with Gen. Preston, <a href="#Page_207">207</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his busy life, <a href="#Page_215">215</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">in Wilmington, <a href="#Page_216">216</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">at Miss Bierne’s wedding, <a href="#Page_235">235</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">an anecdote of, <a href="#Page_242">242</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">when a raiding party was near Richmond, <a href="#Page_245">245</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">at the war office with, <a href="#Page_247">247</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">a tour of the West by, <a href="#Page_248">248</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">at home reading Thackeray’s novels, <a href="#Page_250">250</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">visits Bragg’s army again, <a href="#Page_252">252</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">contented, but opposed to more parties, <a href="#Page_257">257</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">receives a captured saddle from Gen. Wade Hampton, <a href="#Page_258">258</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">manages Judge Wigfall, <a href="#Page_261">261</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his stoicism, <a href="#Page_262">262</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">opposed to feasting, <a href="#Page_263">263</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">in good humor, <a href="#Page_268">268</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">in a better mood, <a href="#Page_271">271</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">denounces extravagance, <a href="#Page_272">272</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">and Hetty Cary, <a href="#Page_274">274</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">popularity of, with the Carys, <a href="#Page_277">277</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">with Col. Lamar at dinner, <a href="#Page_279">279</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">promotion for, <a href="#Page_280">280</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his pay, <a href="#Page_284">284</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">at church, <a href="#Page_292">292</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">going to see the President, <a href="#Page_293">293</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">made a brigadier-general, <a href="#Page_302">302</a>, <a href="#Page_305">305</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his return to South Carolina, <a href="#Page_307">307</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his work in saving Richmond, <a href="#Page_309">309</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">called to Charleston, <a href="#Page_315">315</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his new home in Columbia, <a href="#Page_316">316</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his friend Archer, <a href="#Page_318">318-319</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">returns to Columbia, <a href="#Page_330">330</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">in Charleston, <a href="#Page_337">337</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">says the end has come, <a href="#Page_341">341</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">urges his wife to go home, <a href="#Page_344">344-345</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">an anecdote of, <a href="#Page_346">346</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">escapes capture, <a href="#Page_350">350</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">a letter from, <a href="#Page_355">355</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">in Lincolnton, <a href="#Page_359">359</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">ordered to Chester, S. C., <a href="#Page_364">364</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">letter from, <a href="#Page_366">366</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his cotton, <a href="#Page_367">367</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">and slavery, <a href="#Page_374">374</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">receives news of Lincoln’s assassination, <a href="#Page_380">380</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">fate of, <a href="#Page_381">381</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Chesnut, Mrs. James, Jr., the author, importance of her diary, <a href="#Page_xiii">XIII</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">how she wrote it, <a href="#Page_xv">XV</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">her early life, <a href="#Page_xvi">XVI</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">her home described, <a href="#Page_xx">XX</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">history of her diary, <a href="#Page_xxi">XXI</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_409" id="Page_409">[409]</a></span>in Charleston, <a href="#Page_1">1-5</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">on keeping a journal, <a href="#Page_1">1</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">visits Mulberry, <a href="#Page_2">2</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">her husband’s resignation as Senator, <a href="#Page_3">3</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">in Montgomery, <a href="#Page_6">6-20</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">on the political outlook, <a href="#Page_7">7</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">hears a story from Robert Toombs, <a href="#Page_7">7</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">at dinners, etc., <a href="#Page_9">9-11</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">calls on Mrs. Davis, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">sees a woman sold at auction, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">sees the Confederate flag go up, <a href="#Page_14">14</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">at the Confederate Congress, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">in Charleston, <a href="#Page_21">21-41</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">at Mulberry again, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">a petition to, from house-servants, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">her father-in-law, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">goes to the Charleston Convention, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">one of her pleasantest days, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">her thirty-eighth birthday, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">a trip by, to Morris Island, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">her husband goes to Anderson with an ultimatum, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">on a housetop when Sumter was bombarded, <a href="#Page_35">35-36</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">watching the negroes for a change, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">in Camden, <a href="#Page_42">42-46</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">the lawn at Mulberry, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">her photograph-book, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">a story of her maid Maria, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">at Montgomery, <a href="#Page_47">47-56</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">a cordial welcome to, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">a talk by, with A. H. Stephens and others, <a href="#Page_49">49-54</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">a visit to Alabama, <a href="#Page_52">52</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">at luncheon with Mrs. Davis, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">in Charleston, <a href="#Page_57">57-67</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">goes to Richmond, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">letter to, from her husband, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">in Richmond, <a href="#Page_68">68-76</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">incidents in the journey, <a href="#Page_68">68-69</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">a talk by, with Mrs. Davis, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">at the Champ-de-Mars, <a href="#Page_72">72</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">at Mr. Davis’s table, <a href="#Page_73">73</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">letters to, from her husband, <a href="#Page_74">74</a>, <a href="#Page_75">75</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">at White Sulphur Springs, <a href="#Page_77">77-81</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">in Richmond, <a href="#Page_82">82-126</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">has a glimpse of war, <a href="#Page_83">83</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">weeps at her husband’s departure, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">the battle of Bull Run, <a href="#Page_85">85-91</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">Gen. Chesnut’s account of the battle, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">describes Robert E. Lee, <a href="#Page_93">93-94</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">at a flag presentation, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">her money-belt, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">goes to a hospital, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>, <a href="#Page_108">108</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">an unwelcome caller on, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">knitting socks, <a href="#Page_113">113</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">her fondness for city life, <a href="#Page_124">124</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">leaving Richmond, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">in Camden, <a href="#Page_127">127-130</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">her sister Kate, <a href="#Page_127">127</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">a letter to, from old Col. Chesnut, <a href="#Page_127">127</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">illness of, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">a hiatus in her diary, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">in Columbia, <a href="#Page_131">131-209</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">a visit to Mulberry, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">illness of, <a href="#Page_135">135</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">reading Uncle Tom’s Cabin, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">her influence with her husband in public matters, <a href="#Page_145">145</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">overhears her husband attacked, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">her husband and her callers, <a href="#Page_151">151-153</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">her husband’s secretary, <a href="#Page_154">154</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">depressed, <a href="#Page_157">157</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">anniversary of her wedding, <a href="#Page_158">158</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">at the Governor’s, <a href="#Page_160">160</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">as to love and hatred, <a href="#Page_162">162</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">her impression of hospitality in different cities, <a href="#Page_166">166-167</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">at Mulberry, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">a flood of tears, <a href="#Page_173">173</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">illness of, <a href="#Page_180">180</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">a call on, by Governor Pickens, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">knows how it feels to die, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">at Decca’s wedding, <a href="#Page_184">184-185</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">Gen. Chesnut in town, <a href="#Page_190">190</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">a letter to, from her husband, <a href="#Page_197">197</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">assisting the Wayside Hospital, <a href="#Page_205">205-206</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">goes to Flat Rock, <a href="#Page_210">210</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">illness of, <a href="#Page_210">210</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">in Alabama, <a href="#Page_216">216-228</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">meets her husband in Wilmington, <a href="#Page_216">216</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">a melancholy journey by, <a href="#Page_220">220-221</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">finds her mother ill, <a href="#Page_221">221</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">Dick, a negro whom she taught to read, <a href="#Page_224">224</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">her father’s body-servant Simon, <a href="#Page_225">225</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_410" id="Page_410">[410]</a></span>in Montgomery, <a href="#Page_226">226-227</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">in Richmond, <a href="#Page_229">229-239</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">asked to a picnic by Gen. Hood, <a href="#Page_230">230</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">hears two love-tales, <a href="#Page_232">232-233</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">at Miss Bierne’s wedding, <a href="#Page_235">235</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">receives from Mrs. Lee a likeness of the General, <a href="#Page_236">236</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">burns some personal papers, <a href="#Page_239">239</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">in Camden, <a href="#Page_240">240-251</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">sees Longstreet’s corps going West, <a href="#Page_241">241</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">a story of her mother, <a href="#Page_243">243</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">at church during the battle of Chancellorsville, <a href="#Page_244">244-245</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">to the War Office with her husband, <a href="#Page_247">247</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">a tranquil time at home, <a href="#Page_250">250</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">a picnic at Mulberry, <a href="#Page_251">251</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">in Richmond, <a href="#Page_252">252-303</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">lives in apartments, <a href="#Page_252">252</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">an adventure in Kingsville, <a href="#Page_255">255-257</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">gives a party, <a href="#Page_257">257</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">criticized for excessive hospitality, <a href="#Page_263">263</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">with Mrs. Davis, <a href="#Page_264">264</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">drives with Gen. Hood, <a href="#Page_265">265-267</a>, <a href="#Page_271">271</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">three generals at dinner, <a href="#Page_268">268</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">at a charade party, <a href="#Page_273">273-274</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">an ill-timed call, <a href="#Page_278">278</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">Thackeray’s death, <a href="#Page_282">282</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">gives a luncheon-party, <a href="#Page_282">282-283</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">at private theatricals, <a href="#Page_285">285</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">gives a party for John Chesnut, <a href="#Page_286">286</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">goes to a ball, <a href="#Page_287">287</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">a walk with Mr. Davis, <a href="#Page_291">291</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">selling her old clothes, <a href="#Page_300">300</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">her husband made a brigadier-general, <a href="#Page_302">302</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">in Camden, <a href="#Page_304">304</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">leaving Richmond, <a href="#Page_304">304</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">Little Joe’s funeral, <a href="#Page_306">306</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">experiences in a journey, <a href="#Page_307">307-308</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">friends with her at Mulberry, <a href="#Page_309">309</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">writes of her mother-in-law, <a href="#Page_310">310-311</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">at Bloomsbury again, <a href="#Page_311">311</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">in Columbia, <a href="#Page_313">313-343</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">at home in a cottage, <a href="#Page_314">314-316</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">attendance of, at the Wayside Hospital, <a href="#Page_321">321</a>, <a href="#Page_324">324</a>, <a href="#Page_325">325</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">at Mary Preston’s wedding, <a href="#Page_327">327</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">entertains President Davis, <a href="#Page_328">328-329</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">a visit to, from her sister, <a href="#Page_329">329</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">letters to, from Mrs. Davis, <a href="#Page_331">331</a>, <a href="#Page_332">332</a>, <a href="#Page_335">335</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">her ponies, <a href="#Page_336">336</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">distress of, at Sherman’s advance, <a href="#Page_341">341</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">her husband at home, <a href="#Page_341">341</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">in Lincolnton, <a href="#Page_344">344-366</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">her flight from Columbia, <a href="#Page_344">344-347</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">her larder empty, <a href="#Page_361">361</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">refuses an offer of money, <a href="#Page_363">363</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">her husband ordered to Chester, <a href="#Page_364">364</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">losses at the Hermitage, <a href="#Page_364">364</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">illness of, <a href="#Page_364">364</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">in Chester, <a href="#Page_367">367-383</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">incidents in a journey by, <a href="#Page_367">367-369</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">a call on, from Gen. Hood, <a href="#Page_376">376</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">on Lincoln’s assassination, <a href="#Page_380">380</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">in Camden, <a href="#Page_384">384-404</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">goes to Mulberry, <a href="#Page_386">386</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">sketch by, of her father-in-law, <a href="#Page_390">390-392</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">goes to the Hermitage, <a href="#Page_395">395</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">illness of, <a href="#Page_399">399</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">no heart to write more, <a href="#Page_403">403</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Chesnut, Capt. John, a soft-hearted slave-owner, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">enlists as a private, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his plantation, <a href="#Page_64">64</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">letter from, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">negroes to wait on, <a href="#Page_163">163</a>, <a href="#Page_187">187</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">and McClellan, <a href="#Page_192">192</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">in Stuart’s command, <a href="#Page_198">198</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">one of his pranks, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">goes to his plantation, <a href="#Page_250">250</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">joins his company, <a href="#Page_252">252</a>, <a href="#Page_287">287</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">a flirtation by, <a href="#Page_328">328</a>, <a href="#Page_351">351</a>, <a href="#Page_381">381</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Chesnut, John, Sr., <a href="#Page_392">392</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Chesnut, Miss, her presence of mind, <a href="#Page_364">364</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">bravery shown by, <a href="#Page_375">375</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Chesnut family, the, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Chester, S. C., the author in, <a href="#Page_367">367-383</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">the journey to, <a href="#Page_367">367-369</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">news of Lincoln’s assassination in, <a href="#Page_380">380</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Cheves, Edward, <a href="#Page_199">199</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_411" id="Page_411">[411]</a></span>Cheves, Dr. John, <a href="#Page_172">172</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Cheves, Langdon, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">a talk with, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">farewell to, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Chickahominy, battle on the, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">as a victory, <a href="#Page_180">180</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">another battle on the, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Chickamauga, battle of, <a href="#Page_248">248</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Childs, Col. —, <a href="#Page_362">362</a>, <a href="#Page_363">363</a>, <a href="#Page_364">364</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his generosity, <a href="#Page_367">367</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Childs, Mrs. Mary Anderson, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Chisolm, Dr. —, <a href="#Page_314">314</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Choiseul, Count de, <a href="#Page_322">322</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Clay, C. C., a supper given by, <a href="#Page_283">283</a>, <a href="#Page_302">302</a>, <a href="#Page_374">374</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Clay, Mrs. C. C., as Mrs. Malaprop, <a href="#Page_285">285</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Clay, Mrs. Lawson, <a href="#Page_273">273</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Clayton, Mr. —, <a href="#Page_2">2</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">on the Government, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Clemens, Jere, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Cobb, Howell, desired for President of the Confederacy, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his common sense, <a href="#Page_68">68</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">arrest of, <a href="#Page_398">398</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Cochran, John, a prisoner in Columbia, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Coffey, Capt. —, <a href="#Page_257">257</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Cohen, Mrs. Miriam, her son in the war, <a href="#Page_166">166</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">a hospital anecdote by, <a href="#Page_176">176</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">a sad story told by, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">her story of Luryea, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Colcock, Col. —, <a href="#Page_2">2</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Cold Harbor, battle of, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Columbia, Secession Convention in, <a href="#Page_2">2</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">small-pox in, <a href="#Page_3">3</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">pleasant people in, <a href="#Page_166">166</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">dinner in, <a href="#Page_167">167</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">Wade Hampton in, <a href="#Page_187">187</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">the author in, <a href="#Page_131">131-209</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">Governor and council in, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">a trip from, to Mulberry, <a href="#Page_135">135</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">critics of Mr. Davis in, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">hospitality in, <a href="#Page_166">166</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">people coming to, from Richmond, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">Wade Hampton in, wounded, <a href="#Page_187">187-193</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">Prof. Le Conte’s powder-factory in, <a href="#Page_187">187</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">the Wayside Hospital in, <a href="#Page_205">205</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">called from, to Alabama, <a href="#Page_218">218</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">the author takes a cottage in, <a href="#Page_314">314-316</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">President Davis visits, <a href="#Page_328">328-329</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">burning of, <a href="#Page_351">351</a>, <a href="#Page_358">358</a>, <a href="#Page_361">361</a>, <a href="#Page_362">362</a>, <a href="#Page_396">396</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Confederate flag, hoisting of, at Montgomery, <a href="#Page_14">14</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Congress, the, burning of, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Cooper, Gen. —, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>, <a href="#Page_103">103</a>, <a href="#Page_149">149</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Corinth, evacuated, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Cowpens, the, battle of, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Coxe, Esther Maria, <a href="#Page_257">257</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Cumberland, the, sinking of, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Cummings, Gen., a returned prisoner, <a href="#Page_200">200</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Curtis, George William, <a href="#Page_200">200</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Custis, Nellie, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>, <a href="#Page_236">236</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Cuthbert, Capt. George, wounded, <a href="#Page_211">211</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">shot at Chancellorsville, <a href="#Page_213">213</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Cuthbert, Mrs. George, <a href="#Page_337">337</a>.</li> - -<li class="ifrst">Dacre, May, <a href="#Page_135">135</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Dahlgren, Admiral John H., <a href="#Page_294">294</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Dahlgren, Col. U., his raid and death, <a href="#Page_294">294</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Daniel, Mr., of The Richmond Examiner, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Darby, Dr. John T., surgeon of the Hampton Legion, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">false report of his death, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>, <a href="#Page_205">205</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">with Gen. Hood, <a href="#Page_230">230</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">goes to Europe, <a href="#Page_293">293</a>, <a href="#Page_296">296</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his marriage, <a href="#Page_327">327</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Da Vega, Mrs. —, <a href="#Page_369">369</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Davin, —, as a spy, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Davis, President Jefferson, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_8">8</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">when Secretary of War, <a href="#Page_11">11</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">elected President, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">no seceder, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">and Hampton’s Legion, <a href="#Page_147">147</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_412" id="Page_412">[412]</a></span>a dinner at his house, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">a long war predicted by, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his want of faith in success, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">on his Arabian horse, <a href="#Page_72">72</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">at his table, <a href="#Page_73">73</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">the author met by, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">goes to Manassas, <a href="#Page_86">86</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">speech by, <a href="#Page_90">90</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">the author asked to breakfast with, <a href="#Page_95">95</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">presents flag to Texans, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">as a reconstructionist, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">ill, <a href="#Page_124">124</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">criticism of, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his inauguration, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his address criticized, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">a defense of, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">Gen. Gonzales complains to, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">abuse of, <a href="#Page_150">150</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">and Butler’s “Order No. 28,” <a href="#Page_165">165</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">on the battle-field, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">wants negroes in the army, <a href="#Page_224">224</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">a reception at his house, <a href="#Page_246">246</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">ill, <a href="#Page_246">246</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">in Charleston, <a href="#Page_253">253</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">riding alone, <a href="#Page_263">263</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">as a dictator, <a href="#Page_265">265</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his Christmas dinner, <a href="#Page_268">268</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">a talk with, <a href="#Page_274">274</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">Congress asks for advice, <a href="#Page_280">280</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">a walk home with, <a href="#Page_283">283</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">attacked for nepotism, <a href="#Page_290">290</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">walks home from church with the author, <a href="#Page_291">291</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">speaks to returned prisoners, <a href="#Page_301">301</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">when Little Joe died, <a href="#Page_305">305</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his Arabian horse, <a href="#Page_309">309</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">and Joe Johnston’s removal, <a href="#Page_326">326</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">in Columbia, <a href="#Page_328">328-329</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">on his visit to Columbia, <a href="#Page_331">331</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">praise of, <a href="#Page_360">360</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">when Lee surrendered, <a href="#Page_381">381</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">traveling leisurely, <a href="#Page_394">394</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">capture of, <a href="#Page_395">395</a>, <a href="#Page_398">398</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Davis, Jefferson, Jr., <a href="#Page_306">306</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Davis, Mrs. Jefferson, a call on, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">at one of her receptions, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">a talk with, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">at lunch with, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">adores Mrs. Emory, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">the author met by, <a href="#Page_69">69</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">her entourage, <a href="#Page_76">76</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">her ladies described, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">brings news of Bull Run, <a href="#Page_86">86</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">announces to Mrs. Bartow news of her husband’s death, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">in her drawing-room, <a href="#Page_90">90</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">“a Western woman,” <a href="#Page_102">102</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">a landlady’s airs to, <a href="#Page_192">192</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">says that the enemy are within three miles of Richmond, <a href="#Page_246">246</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">a call from, <a href="#Page_263">263</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">a drive with, <a href="#Page_264">264</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">at the Semmes’ charade, <a href="#Page_273">273</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">her servants, <a href="#Page_275">275</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">a reception by, <a href="#Page_281">281</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">a call on, <a href="#Page_282">282</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">gives a luncheon, <a href="#Page_284">284</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">her family unable to live on their income, <a href="#Page_300">300</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">depressed, <a href="#Page_301">301</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">a drive with, <a href="#Page_302">302</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">overlooked in her own drawing-room, <a href="#Page_318">318</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">letters from, <a href="#Page_331">331</a>, <a href="#Page_332">332</a>, <a href="#Page_335">335</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">in Chester, <a href="#Page_377">377</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">a letter from, <a href="#Page_378">378</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Davis, “Little Joe,” <a href="#Page_264">264</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his tragic death, <a href="#Page_305">305</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his funeral, <a href="#Page_306">306</a>, <a href="#Page_309">309</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Davis, Nathan, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">a call from, <a href="#Page_152">152</a>, <a href="#Page_210">210</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Davis, Nick, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Davis, Rev. Thomas, <a href="#Page_252">252</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Davis, Varina Anne (“Winnie, Daughter of the Confederacy”), <a href="#Page_378">378</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Deas, George, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>, <a href="#Page_298">298</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">De Leon, Agnes, back from Egypt, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">De Leon, Dr., <a href="#Page_9">9</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Derby, Lord, <a href="#Page_136">136</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Douglas, Stephen A., <a href="#Page_12">12</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his death, <a href="#Page_60">60</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Drayton, Tom, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Drury’s Bluff, battle of, <a href="#Page_230">230</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Duncan, Blanton, anecdote of, <a href="#Page_150">150</a>, <a href="#Page_208">208</a>.</li> - -<li class="ifrst">Eliot, George, <a href="#Page_279">279</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Elliott, Stephen, <a href="#Page_318">318</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Ellsworth, Col. E. E., his death at Alexandria, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_413" id="Page_413">[413]</a></span>Elmore, Grace, <a href="#Page_155">155</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Elzey, Gen. —, tells of the danger of Richmond, <a href="#Page_246">246</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Emancipation Proclamation, the, <a href="#Page_153">153</a>, <a href="#Page_199">199</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Emerson, R. W., the author reading, <a href="#Page_64">64</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Emory, Gen. William H., his resignation, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Emory, Mrs. William H., Franklin’s granddaughter, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">a clever woman, <a href="#Page_352">352</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Eustis, Mrs. —, <a href="#Page_124">124</a>.</li> - -<li class="ifrst">Fair Oaks or Seven Pines, battle of, <a href="#Page_171">171</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Farragut, Admiral D. G., captures New Orleans, <a href="#Page_158">158</a>, <a href="#Page_319">319</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Fauquier White Sulphur Springs, <a href="#Page_77">77</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Fernandina, Fla., <a href="#Page_2">2</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Fitzpatrick, Mrs. —, <a href="#Page_8">8</a>, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Floyd, John D., at Fort Donelson, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Ford, Mary, <a href="#Page_312">312</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Forrest, Gen. Nathan B., <a href="#Page_323">323</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Fort Donelson, surrender of, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Fort Duquesne, <a href="#Page_392">392</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Fort McAlister, <a href="#Page_339">339</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Fort Moultrie, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Fort Pickens, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Fort Pillow, given up, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Fort Sumter, Anderson in, <a href="#Page_5">5</a>, <a href="#Page_8">8</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">if it should be attacked, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">folly of an attack on, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">and Anderson, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">surrender of, demanded, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">bombardment of, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">on fire, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">surrender of, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">those who captured it, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">who fired the first shot at, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Freeland, Maria, <a href="#Page_257">257</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Frost, Henry, <a href="#Page_147">147</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Frost, Judge —, <a href="#Page_54">54</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Frost, Tom, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>.</li> - -<li class="ifrst">Gaillard, Mrs. —, <a href="#Page_173">173</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Garnett, Dr. —, his brother’s arrival from the North, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>, <a href="#Page_260">260</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Garnett, Mary, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Garnett, Muscoe Russell, <a href="#Page_144">144</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Garnett, Gen. R. S., killed at Rich Mountain, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Gay, Captain, <a href="#Page_382">382</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Georgetown, enemy landing in, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Gibbes, Dr. —, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">reports incidents of the war, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">bad news from, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Gibbes, Mrs. —, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Gibbes, Mrs. Hampton, <a href="#Page_170">170</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Gibson, Dr. —, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Gibson, Mrs., her prophecy, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">her despondency, <a href="#Page_174">174</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Gidiere, Mrs. —, <a href="#Page_4">4</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Gist, Gov., <a href="#Page_152">152</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">an anecdote of, <a href="#Page_153">153</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Gladden, Col. —, <a href="#Page_156">156</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Gonzales, Gen. —, his farewell to the author, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">complains of want of promotion, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Goodwyn, Artemus, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Goodwyn, Col. —, <a href="#Page_218">218</a>, <a href="#Page_350">350</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Gourdin, Robert, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Grahamville, to be burned, <a href="#Page_336">336</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Grant, Gen. U. S., and the surrender of Fort Donelson, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">at Vicksburg, <a href="#Page_219">219</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">a place for, <a href="#Page_269">269</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his success, <a href="#Page_270">270</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">pleased with Sherman’s work, <a href="#Page_299">299</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">reenforcements for, <a href="#Page_310">310</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">before Richmond, <a href="#Page_322">322</a>, <a href="#Page_333">333</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">closing in on Lee, <a href="#Page_346">346</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">Richmond falls before, <a href="#Page_377">377</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Greeley, Horace, quoted, <a href="#Page_116">116</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Green, Allen, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>, <a href="#Page_95">95</a>, <a href="#Page_360">360</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Green, Mrs. Allen, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Green, Halcott, <a href="#Page_171">171</a>, <a href="#Page_203">203</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Greenhow, Mrs. Rose, warned the Confederates at Manassas, <a href="#Page_176">176</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_414" id="Page_414">[414]</a></span>in Richmond, <a href="#Page_201">201</a>, <a href="#Page_204">204</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Gregg, Maxcy, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Grundy, Mrs., <a href="#Page_257">257</a>.</li> - -<li class="ifrst">Halleck, Gen., being reenforced, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">takes Corinth, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Hamilton, Jack, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Hamilton, Louisa, her baby, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>, <a href="#Page_211">211</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Hamilton, Prioleau, <a href="#Page_374">374</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Hamilton, Mrs. Prioleau, <a href="#Page_370">370</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Hammy, Mary, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>, <a href="#Page_76">76</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">her <i lang="fr">fiancé</i>, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">many strings to her bow, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">her disappointment, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">in tears, <a href="#Page_124">124</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Hampton, Christopher, <a href="#Page_161">161</a>, <a href="#Page_264">264</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">leaving Columbia, <a href="#Page_344">344</a>, <a href="#Page_399">399</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Hampton, Frank, his death and funeral, <a href="#Page_237">237</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">a memory of, <a href="#Page_238">238</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Hampton, Mrs. Frank, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">on flirting with South Carolinians, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>, <a href="#Page_173">173</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Hampton, Miss Kate, <a href="#Page_218">218</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">anecdote of, <a href="#Page_381">381</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Hampton Legion, the, Dr. Darby its surgeon, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">in a snarl, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">at Bull Run, <a href="#Page_105">105</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Hampton, Preston, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>, <a href="#Page_237">237</a>, <a href="#Page_260">260</a>, <a href="#Page_264">264</a>, <a href="#Page_272">272</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his death in battle, <a href="#Page_332">332</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Hampton Roads, the Merrimac in, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Hampton, Sally, <a href="#Page_293">293</a>, <a href="#Page_332">332</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">marriage of, <a href="#Page_399">399</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Hampton, Gen. Wade, of the Revolution, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Hampton, Mrs. Wade, the elder, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Hampton, Gen. Wade, his Legion, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">in Richmond, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">wounded, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">the hero of the hour, <a href="#Page_135">135</a>, <a href="#Page_150">150</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">shot in the foot, <a href="#Page_171">171</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his wound, <a href="#Page_180">180</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his heroism when wounded, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">in Columbia, <a href="#Page_187">187</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">at dinner, <a href="#Page_189">189-190</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">and his Legion, <a href="#Page_191">191</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">a reception to, <a href="#Page_192">192</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">sends a captured saddle to Gen. Chesnut, <a href="#Page_258">258</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">a basket of partridges from, <a href="#Page_271">271</a>, <a href="#Page_313">313</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">fights a battle, in which his two sons fall, <a href="#Page_332">332</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">tribute of, to Joe Johnston, <a href="#Page_343">343</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">made a lieutenant-general, <a href="#Page_350">350</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">correspondence of, with Gen. Sherman, <a href="#Page_359">359</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">home again, <a href="#Page_404">404</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Hampton, Mrs. Wade, <a href="#Page_136">136</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Hampton, Wade, Jr., <a href="#Page_249">249</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">wounded in battle, <a href="#Page_332">332</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Hardee, Gen. William J., <a href="#Page_371">371</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Harlan, James, <a href="#Page_90">90</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Harper’s Ferry, to be attacked, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">evacuated, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Harris, Arnold, brings news from Washington, <a href="#Page_91">91</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Harrison, Burton, <a href="#Page_246">246</a>, <a href="#Page_263">263</a>, <a href="#Page_264">264</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">at a charade, <a href="#Page_274">274</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">defends Mr. Davis, <a href="#Page_290">290</a>, <a href="#Page_305">305</a>, <a href="#Page_330">330</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Hartstein, Capt., <a href="#Page_25">25</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Haskell, Alexander, <a href="#Page_198">198</a>, <a href="#Page_268">268</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Haskell, John C., <a href="#Page_293">293</a>, <a href="#Page_399">399</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Haskell, Mrs. —, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Haskell, William, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Haxall, Lucy, <a href="#Page_257">257</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Haxall, Mrs., <a href="#Page_278">278</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Hayne, Mrs. Arthur, <a href="#Page_146">146</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Hayne, Isaac, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>, <a href="#Page_316">316</a>, <a href="#Page_346">346</a>, <a href="#Page_369">369</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Hayne, Mrs. Isaac, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">when her son died, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Hayne, Paul, <a href="#Page_176">176</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his son and Lincoln, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>, <a href="#Page_208">208</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Hemphill, John, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Hermitage, the, <a href="#Page_365">365</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Heyward, Barnwell, as an escort, <a href="#Page_64">64</a>, <a href="#Page_212">212</a>, <a href="#Page_278">278</a>, <a href="#Page_283">283</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Heyward, Henrietta Magruder, <a href="#Page_212">212</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Heyward, Joseph, <a href="#Page_212">212</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_415" id="Page_415">[415]</a></span>Heyward, Mrs. Joseph, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Heyward, Savage, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Hill, Benjamin H., refusal of, to fight a duel, <a href="#Page_11">11</a>, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">in Richmond, <a href="#Page_274">274</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Holmes, Oliver Wendell, <a href="#Page_144">144</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Hood, Gen. John B., <a href="#Page_100">100</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">described, <a href="#Page_230">230</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">with his staff, <a href="#Page_231">231</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">at Chickamauga, <a href="#Page_248">248</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">calls on the author, <a href="#Page_263">263</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">a drive with, <a href="#Page_265">265</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his love-affairs, <a href="#Page_266">266-269</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">a drive with, <a href="#Page_271">271</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">fitted for gallantry, <a href="#Page_277">277</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">on horseback, <a href="#Page_282">282</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">drives with Mr. Davis, <a href="#Page_283">283</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">has an ovation, <a href="#Page_284">284</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">at a ball, <a href="#Page_287">287</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his military glory, <a href="#Page_290">290</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">anecdote of, <a href="#Page_298">298</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">a full general, <a href="#Page_314">314</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his address to the army, <a href="#Page_316">316</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">losses of, before Atlanta, <a href="#Page_320">320</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his force, <a href="#Page_333">333</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">off to Tennessee, <a href="#Page_337">337</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">losses of, at the battle of Nashville, <a href="#Page_337">337</a>, <a href="#Page_340">340</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">in Columbia, <a href="#Page_342">342</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his glory on the wane, <a href="#Page_372">372</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">a call from, <a href="#Page_376">376</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his silver cup, <a href="#Page_380">380</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">abuse of, <a href="#Page_383">383</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Hooker, Gen. Joseph B., <a href="#Page_162">162</a>, <a href="#Page_213">213</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Howell, Maggie, <a href="#Page_76">76</a>, <a href="#Page_304">304</a>, <a href="#Page_327">327</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Howell, Mrs., <a href="#Page_265">265</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Huger, Alfred, <a href="#Page_2">2</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Huger, Gen. Benjamin, <a href="#Page_383">383</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Huger, Mrs., <a href="#Page_381">381</a>, <a href="#Page_394">394</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Huger, Thomas, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his death, <a href="#Page_186">186</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Humphrey, Capt., <a href="#Page_5">5</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Hunter, R. M. T., at dinner with, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>, <a href="#Page_144">144</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">a walk home with, <a href="#Page_283">283</a>, <a href="#Page_398">398</a>.</li> - -<li class="ifrst">Ingraham, Capt. —, <a href="#Page_8">8</a>, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>, <a href="#Page_14">14</a>, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>, <a href="#Page_54">54</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">says the war has hardly begun, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>, <a href="#Page_147">147</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Ives, Col. J. C., <a href="#Page_284">284</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Ives, Mrs. J. C., <a href="#Page_273">273</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">her theatricals, <a href="#Page_285">285</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Izard, Mrs. —, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">quoted, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>, <a href="#Page_146">146</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">tells of Sand Hill patriots, <a href="#Page_209">209</a>, <a href="#Page_351">351</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Izard, Lucy, <a href="#Page_212">212</a>.</li> - -<li class="ifrst">Jackson, Gen. “Stonewall,” at Bull Run, <a href="#Page_89">89</a>, <a href="#Page_170">170</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his movements, <a href="#Page_172">172</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his influence, <a href="#Page_175">175</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his triumphs, <a href="#Page_179">179</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">following up McClellan, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">faith in, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">killed, <a href="#Page_213">213</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">promoted Hood, <a href="#Page_230">230</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">described by Gen. Lawton, <a href="#Page_261">261-262</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">laments for, <a href="#Page_269">269</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Jameson, Mr. —, <a href="#Page_54">54</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">James Island, Federals land on, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">abandoned, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Johnson, President Andrew, <a href="#Page_394">394</a>, <a href="#Page_398">398</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Johnson, Mrs. Bradley T., as a heroine, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Johnson, Herschel V., <a href="#Page_11">11</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Johnson, Dr. Robert, <a href="#Page_220">220</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Johnston, Gen. Albert Sidney, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">killed at Shiloh, <a href="#Page_156">156</a>, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Johnston, General Edward, a prisoner in the North, <a href="#Page_232">232</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">help he once gave Grant, <a href="#Page_269">269</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Johnston, Gen. Joseph E., his command, <a href="#Page_75">75</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">evacuates Harper’s Ferry, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">retreating, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">to join Beauregard, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">at Bull Run, <a href="#Page_91">91</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">at Seven Pines, <a href="#Page_171">171</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">wounded, <a href="#Page_180">180</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his heroism as a boy, <a href="#Page_184">184</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">sulking, <a href="#Page_228">228</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">as a great god of war, <a href="#Page_240">240</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">thought well of, <a href="#Page_248">248</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his care for his men, <a href="#Page_249">249</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">made commander-in-chief of the West, <a href="#Page_265">265</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">orders to, <a href="#Page_290">290</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">suspended, <a href="#Page_314">314</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">cause of his removal, <a href="#Page_315">315</a>, <a href="#Page_317">317</a>, <a href="#Page_320">320</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">a talk with, <a href="#Page_350">350</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">in Lincolnton, <a href="#Page_352">352</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_416" id="Page_416">[416]</a></span>a drawn battle by, <a href="#Page_372">372</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">not to be caught, <a href="#Page_379">379</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">anecdote of, <a href="#Page_383">383</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Johnston, Mrs. Joseph E., <a href="#Page_53">53</a>, <a href="#Page_86">86</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">and Mrs. Davis, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>, <a href="#Page_350">350</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">her cleverness, <a href="#Page_352">352</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Johnston, Robert, <a href="#Page_375">375</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Jones, Col. Cadwallader, <a href="#Page_380">380</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Jones, Gen. —, <a href="#Page_315">315</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Jordan, Gen., an outburst from, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>.</li> - -<li class="ifrst">Kearsarge, the, <a href="#Page_314">314</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Keitt, Col. Lawrence, opposed to Mr. Davis, <a href="#Page_68">68</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">seeking promotion, <a href="#Page_258">258</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Kershaw’s brigade in Columbia, <a href="#Page_341">341</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Kershaw, Joseph, and the Chesnuts, <a href="#Page_393">393</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Kershaw, Gen. Joseph B., and his brigade, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">anecdote of, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his regiment praised, <a href="#Page_95">95</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his piety, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his independent report on Bull Run, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Kershaw, Mrs. Joseph B., <a href="#Page_390">390</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Kilpatrick, Gen. Judson, <a href="#Page_294">294</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">threatening Richmond, <a href="#Page_296">296</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his failure before Richmond, <a href="#Page_298">298</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">King, Judge, <a href="#Page_211">211</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Kingsville, <a href="#Page_3">3</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">an adventure in, <a href="#Page_253">253</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Kirkland, Mary, <a href="#Page_385">385</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Kirkland, Mrs. —, <a href="#Page_4">4</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Kirkland, William, <a href="#Page_311">311</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Kirkwood Rangers, the, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>.</li> - -<li class="ifrst">La Borde, Dr. —, <a href="#Page_210">210</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Lamar, Col. L. Q. C., in Richmond, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">a talk with, <a href="#Page_72">72</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">on the war, <a href="#Page_73">73</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">on crutches, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>, <a href="#Page_144">144</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">asked to dinner, <a href="#Page_278">278</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his talk of George Eliot, <a href="#Page_279">279-280</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">and Constance Cary, <a href="#Page_286">286</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">spoken of, for an aideship, <a href="#Page_302">302</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Lancaster, <a href="#Page_356">356</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Lane, Harriet, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Laurens, Henry, his grandchildren, <a href="#Page_330">330</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Lawrence, a negro, unchanged, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">fidelity of, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">quarrels of, with his wife, <a href="#Page_217">217</a>, <a href="#Page_237">237</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">sent home, <a href="#Page_288">288</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Lawton, Gen. Alexander R., talks of “Stonewall Jackson,” <a href="#Page_261">261</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">a talk with, <a href="#Page_276">276</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Le Conte, Prof. Joseph, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his powder manufactory, <a href="#Page_187">187</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Ledyard, Mr. —, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Lee, Custis, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>, <a href="#Page_246">246</a>, <a href="#Page_328">328</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Lee, Fitzhugh, <a href="#Page_294">294</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Lee, Light Horse Harry, <a href="#Page_94">94</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Lee, Gen. Robert E., made General-in-chief of Virginia, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">with Davis and Chesnut, <a href="#Page_83">83</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">seen by the author for the first time, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">warns planters, <a href="#Page_136">136</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">criticism of, <a href="#Page_188">188</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">faith in, <a href="#Page_197">197</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">warns Mr. Davis on the battle-field, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">and Antietam, <a href="#Page_213">213</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">wants negroes in the army, <a href="#Page_224">224</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">a likeness of, <a href="#Page_236">236</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">faith in him justified, <a href="#Page_240">240</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">at Mr. Davis’s house, <a href="#Page_244">244</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">fighting Meade, <a href="#Page_258">258</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">at church, <a href="#Page_264">264</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">in Richmond, <a href="#Page_265">265</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">if he had Grant’s resources, <a href="#Page_270">270</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">a sword for, <a href="#Page_292">292</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">instructed in the art of war, <a href="#Page_292">292</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his daughter-in-law’s death, <a href="#Page_300">300</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">a postponed review by, <a href="#Page_306">306</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">without backing, <a href="#Page_331">331</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">a drawn battle by, <a href="#Page_372">372</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">despondent, <a href="#Page_377">377</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">capitulation of, <a href="#Page_378">378</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">part of his army in Chester, <a href="#Page_379">379</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Lee, Mrs. Robert E., <a href="#Page_93">93</a>, <a href="#Page_124">124</a>, <a href="#Page_236">236</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_417" id="Page_417">[417]</a></span>a call on, <a href="#Page_292">292</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Lee, Roony, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">wounded, <a href="#Page_236">236</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">Butler kind to, <a href="#Page_300">300</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Lee, Capt. Smith, a walk with, <a href="#Page_294">294</a>, <a href="#Page_302">302</a>, <a href="#Page_303">303</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Lee, Stephen D., <a href="#Page_371">371</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Legree, of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, discussed, <a href="#Page_114">114-116</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Leland, Capt., <a href="#Page_337">337</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Leon, Edwin de, sent to England, <a href="#Page_172">172</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Levy, Martha, <a href="#Page_211">211</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Lewes, George Henry, <a href="#Page_280">280</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Lewis, John, <a href="#Page_257">257</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Lewis, Major John Coxe, <a href="#Page_265">265</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Lewis, Maria, her wedding, <a href="#Page_264">264</a>, <a href="#Page_303">303</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Lincoln, Abraham, his election, <a href="#Page_1">1</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">at his inauguration, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">in Baltimore, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his inaugural address, <a href="#Page_14">14</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his Scotch cap, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">described, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">as a humorist, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his army, <a href="#Page_76">76</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">anecdote of, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his emancipation proclamation, <a href="#Page_153">153</a>, <a href="#Page_199">199</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his portrait attacked by Paul Hayne’s son, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his regrets for the war, <a href="#Page_203">203</a>, <a href="#Page_270">270</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">assassination of, <a href="#Page_380">380</a>, <a href="#Page_396">396</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Lincoln, Mrs. Abraham, vulgarity of, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">her economy, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_270">270</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">her sister in Richmond, <a href="#Page_381">381</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Lincolnton, the author in, <a href="#Page_344">344-366</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">an exile in, <a href="#Page_347">347</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">taken for a millionaire in, <a href="#Page_349">349</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">Gen. Chesnut in, <a href="#Page_358">358-359</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Lomax, Col., <a href="#Page_6">6</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Longstreet, A. B., author of Georgia Scenes, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Longstreet, Gen. James, his army going West, <a href="#Page_241">241</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">separated from Bragg, <a href="#Page_258">258</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">failure of, <a href="#Page_265">265</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Lowe, Sir Hudson, <a href="#Page_399">399</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Lowndes, Charles, <a href="#Page_211">211</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Lowndes, Mrs. Charles, <a href="#Page_4">4</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Lowndes, James, a call from, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>, <a href="#Page_370">370</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Lowndes, Rawlins, <a href="#Page_211">211</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Lowndes, Mrs. —, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Lubbock, Gov. —, <a href="#Page_328">328</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Luryea, Albert, his death, <a href="#Page_175">175</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Lyons, Lord, <a href="#Page_136">136</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Lyons, Mrs., <a href="#Page_239">239</a>, <a href="#Page_281">281</a>, <a href="#Page_313">313</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Lyons, Rachel, <a href="#Page_208">208</a>.</li> - -<li class="ifrst">Magrath, Judge, <a href="#Page_2">2</a>, <a href="#Page_394">394</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Magruder, Gen. John B., wins battle of Big Bethel, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">public opinion against, <a href="#Page_201">201</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">in Columbia, <a href="#Page_204">204</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Mallory, Stephen R., <a href="#Page_13">13</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">meets the author in Richmond, <a href="#Page_69">69</a>, <a href="#Page_147">147</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Mallory, Mrs. S. R., <a href="#Page_27">27</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Malvern Hill, battle of, <a href="#Page_194">194</a>, <a href="#Page_214">214</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx" id="Manassas">Manassas, a sword captured at, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>.</li> -<li class="isub1"><a href="#Bull_Run">See <i>Bull Run</i>.</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Manassas Junction, letter from Gen. Chesnut at, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Manassas Station, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">looking for a battle at, <a href="#Page_64">64</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Manning, Gov. John, sketch of, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">at breakfast, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">news from, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">an aide to Beauregard, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">under fire, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his anecdote of Mrs. Preston, <a href="#Page_168">168</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Marshall, Henry, <a href="#Page_161">161</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Martin, Isabella D., <a href="#Page_155">155</a>, <a href="#Page_268">268</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">quoted, <a href="#Page_275">275</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">to appear in a play, <a href="#Page_276">276</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">on war and love-making, <a href="#Page_288">288</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">when Willie Preston died, <a href="#Page_315">315</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">takes the author to a chapel, <a href="#Page_322">322</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">a walk with, <a href="#Page_336">336</a>, <a href="#Page_343">343</a>, <a href="#Page_350">350</a>, <a href="#Page_363">363</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">letter from, <a href="#Page_404">404</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Martin, Rev. William, and the Wayside Hospital, <a href="#Page_206">206</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">at Lincolnton, <a href="#Page_351">351</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Martin, Mrs. William, <a href="#Page_315">315</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_418" id="Page_418">[418]</a></span>Mason, George, <a href="#Page_103">103</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Mason, James M., at dinner with, <a href="#Page_98">98</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">as an envoy to England, <a href="#Page_116">116-117</a>, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">on false news, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">McCaa, Col. Burwell Boykin, his death in battle, <a href="#Page_229">229</a>, <a href="#Page_373">373</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">McClellan, Gen. George B., advancing for a battle, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">supersedes Scott, <a href="#Page_98">98</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">as a coming king, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">said to have been removed, <a href="#Page_153">153</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his force of men on the Peninsula, <a href="#Page_158">158</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his army, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">at Fair Oaks, <a href="#Page_171">171</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his lines broken, <a href="#Page_187">187</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">followed by “Stonewall” Jackson, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">prisoners taken from, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">belief in his defeat, <a href="#Page_198">198</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">destruction of his army expected, <a href="#Page_200">200</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his escape, <a href="#Page_201">201</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">and Antietam, <a href="#Page_213">213</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">McCord, Cheves, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">McCord, Mrs. Louisa S., and her brother, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">her faith in Southern soldiers, <a href="#Page_175">175</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">of patients in the hospital, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">a talk with, <a href="#Page_199">199</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">on nurses, <a href="#Page_203">203</a>, <a href="#Page_239">239</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">at her hospital, <a href="#Page_317">317</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">sends a bouquet to President Davis, <a href="#Page_328">328</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">a dinner with, <a href="#Page_335">335</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">her horses, <a href="#Page_336">336</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">her troublesome country cousin, <a href="#Page_337">337</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">McCulloch, Ben, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">McDowell, Gen. Irvin, defeated at Bull Run, <a href="#Page_91">91</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">McDuffie, Mary, <a href="#Page_136">136</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">McFarland, Mrs., <a href="#Page_236">236</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">McLane, Col., <a href="#Page_329">329</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">McLane, Mrs., <a href="#Page_85">85-86</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">McLane, —, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">McMahan, Mrs., <a href="#Page_210">210</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Meade, Gen. George G., fighting Lee, <a href="#Page_258">258-259</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his armies, <a href="#Page_269">269</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Means, Gov. John H., <a href="#Page_26">26</a>, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">a good-by to, <a href="#Page_207">207</a>, <a href="#Page_214">214</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Means, Mrs. —, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Means, Stark, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Memminger, Hon. Mr., letter from, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Memphis given up, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">retaken, <a href="#Page_323">323</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Merrimac, the, <a href="#Page_136">136</a>, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">called the Virginia, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">sunk, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Meynardie, Rev. Mr., <a href="#Page_66">66</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">as a traveling companion, <a href="#Page_68">68</a>, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Middleton, Miss, <a href="#Page_348">348</a>, <a href="#Page_349">349</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">described, <a href="#Page_353">353</a>, <a href="#Page_359">359</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">a letter from, <a href="#Page_376">376</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Middleton, Mrs. —, <a href="#Page_136">136</a>, <a href="#Page_154">154</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Middleton, Mrs. Tom, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Middleton, Olivia, <a href="#Page_338">338</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Miles, Col. —, an aide to Beauregard, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">an anecdote by, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>, <a href="#Page_54">54</a>, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Miles, Dr. Frank, <a href="#Page_361">361</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Miles, William A., his love-affairs, <a href="#Page_232">232-234</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Miller, John L., <a href="#Page_309">309</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Miller, Stephen, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Miller, Stephen Decatur, sketch of, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his body-servant, Simon, <a href="#Page_225">225</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Miller, Mrs. Stephen Decatur, <a href="#Page_216">216</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">ill in Alabama, <a href="#Page_221">221</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">her return with the author, <a href="#Page_226">226</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">an anecdote of her bravery, <a href="#Page_243">243</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Milton, John, as a husband, <a href="#Page_298">298</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Minnegerode, Rev. Mr., his church during Stoneman’s raid, <a href="#Page_245">245</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his prayers, <a href="#Page_277">277</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Mobile Bay, battle of, <a href="#Page_319">319</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Moise, Mr. —, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Monitor, the, <a href="#Page_137">137</a>, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Montagu, Lady Mary, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Montgomery, Ala., the author in, <a href="#Page_6">6-20</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">Confederacy being organized at, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">speeches in Congress at, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">Confederate flag raised at, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">the author in, <a href="#Page_47">47-56</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">a trip from Portland, Ala., to, <a href="#Page_52">52</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_419" id="Page_419">[419]</a></span>removal of Congress from, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">society in, <a href="#Page_166">166</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">hospitality in, <a href="#Page_166">166</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">the author in, <a href="#Page_220">220</a>, <a href="#Page_226">226-228</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Montgomery Blues, the, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Montgomery Hall, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Moore, Gen. A. B., <a href="#Page_6">6</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">brings news, <a href="#Page_8">8</a>, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Morgan, Gen. John H., an anecdote of, <a href="#Page_208">208</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his romantic marriage, <a href="#Page_242">242</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">in Richmond, <a href="#Page_275">275</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">a dinner by, <a href="#Page_276">276</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his death reported, <a href="#Page_326">326</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Morgan, Mrs. John H., her romantic marriage, <a href="#Page_242">242</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Mormonism, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Morris Island, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">being fortified, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Moses, Little, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Mt. Vernon, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Mulberry, a visit to, <a href="#Page_2">2</a>, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">portrait of C. C. Pinckney at, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">the author at, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">a stop at, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">the author ill at, <a href="#Page_127">127</a>, <a href="#Page_135">135</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">hospitality at, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">a picnic at, <a href="#Page_251">251</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">in spring, <a href="#Page_308">308</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">Madeira from, <a href="#Page_329">329</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">a farewell to, <a href="#Page_340">340</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">fears for, <a href="#Page_354">354</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">reported destruction of, <a href="#Page_381">381</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">results of attack on, <a href="#Page_386">386</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">a dinner at, <a href="#Page_403">403</a>.</li> - -<li class="ifrst">Napier, Lord, <a href="#Page_176">176</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Napoleon III, <a href="#Page_136">136</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Nashville, evacuation of, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Nelson, Warren, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Newbern, lost, <a href="#Page_144">144</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">New Madrid, to be given up, <a href="#Page_146">146</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">New Orleans, taken by Farragut, <a href="#Page_158">158-159</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">a story from, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">men enlisting in, <a href="#Page_188">188</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">women at, <a href="#Page_188">188</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">New York Herald, the, quoted, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">criticism by, <a href="#Page_281">281</a>, <a href="#Page_298">298</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">New York Tribune, the, quoted, <a href="#Page_89">89</a>, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Nickleby, Mrs., <a href="#Page_131">131</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Norfolk, burned, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Northrop, Mr. —, abused as commissary-general, <a href="#Page_97">97</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Nott, Henry Deas, on the war, <a href="#Page_103">103</a>.</li> - -<li class="ifrst">Ogden, Capt. —, <a href="#Page_327">327</a>, <a href="#Page_333">333</a>, <a href="#Page_367">367</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Orange Court House, <a href="#Page_74">74</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Ordinance of Secession, passage of, <a href="#Page_4">4</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Ossoli, Margaret Fuller, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Ould, Judge, <a href="#Page_247">247</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Ould, Mrs., a party of hers, <a href="#Page_259">259</a>, <a href="#Page_274">274</a>, <a href="#Page_280">280</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">gives a luncheon, <a href="#Page_302">302</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Owens, Gen. —, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>.</li> - -<li class="ifrst">Palmer, Dr. —, <a href="#Page_326">326</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Palmetto Flag, raising the, <a href="#Page_2">2</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Parker, Frank, <a href="#Page_303">303</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Parkman, Mrs., <a href="#Page_235">235</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Patterson, Miss —, <a href="#Page_345">345</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Pea Ridge, battle of, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Pemberton, Gen. John C., <a href="#Page_219">219</a>, <a href="#Page_247">247</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Penn, Mrs. —, <a href="#Page_281">281</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Petersburg, an incident at, <a href="#Page_255">255</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">prisoners taken at, <a href="#Page_323">323</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Petigru, James L., his opposition to secession, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">refuses to pray for Mr. Davis, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>, <a href="#Page_284">284</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Pettigrew, Johnston, offered a brigadier-generalship, <a href="#Page_145">145</a>, <a href="#Page_171">171</a>, <a href="#Page_173">173</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Phillips, Mrs., <a href="#Page_201">201</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Pickens, Gov. Francis W., “insensible to fear,” <a href="#Page_3">3</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">and Fort Sumter, <a href="#Page_5">5</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">a telegram from, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">a fire-eater, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">orders a signal fired, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">a call from, <a href="#Page_151">151</a>, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">has telegram from Mr. Davis, <a href="#Page_190">190</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">serenaded, <a href="#Page_204">204</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_420" id="Page_420">[420]</a></span>Pickens, Mrs. Francis W., <a href="#Page_29">29</a>, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>, <a href="#Page_149">149</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">her reception to Gen. Wade Hampton, <a href="#Page_192">192-193</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Pillow, Gideon J., at Fort Donelson, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Pinckney, Charles C., <a href="#Page_32">32</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Pinckney, Miss —, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Pizzini’s, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Poe, Edgar Allan, <a href="#Page_258">258</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Polk, Gen. Leonidas, and Sherman, <a href="#Page_291">291</a>, <a href="#Page_298">298</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Pollard, Mr. —, dinner at home of, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Porcher, Mr. —, drowned, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Portland, Ala., a visit to, <a href="#Page_52">52</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Portman, Mr. —, <a href="#Page_373">373</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Port Royal, <a href="#Page_137">137</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Potter, Gen. Edward E., <a href="#Page_387">387</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Preston, Jack, <a href="#Page_343">343</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Preston, Gen. John S., at Warrenton, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">as to prisoners in Columbia, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">ruined by the fall of New Orleans, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">on gossiping, <a href="#Page_162">162</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his entertainments, <a href="#Page_168">168</a>, <a href="#Page_207">207</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">with Hood at a reception, <a href="#Page_284">284</a>, <a href="#Page_323">323</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">return of his party from Richmond, <a href="#Page_373">373</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">on horseback, <a href="#Page_374">374</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">a good-by from, <a href="#Page_375">375</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">going abroad, <a href="#Page_382">382</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Preston, Mrs. John S., <a href="#Page_39">39</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">goes to Manassas, <a href="#Page_69">69</a>, <a href="#Page_94">94</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">quoted, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">a dinner with, <a href="#Page_157">157</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">a ball given by, <a href="#Page_167">167</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">her fearlessness, <a href="#Page_168">168</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">a call with, <a href="#Page_180">180</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">at a concert, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">an anecdote by, <a href="#Page_295">295-296</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Preston, Mary C., goes to Mulberry, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>, <a href="#Page_136">136</a>, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">a drive by, with Mr. Venable, <a href="#Page_150">150</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">with Gen. Chesnut, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">a talk with, <a href="#Page_162">162</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">gives Hood a bouquet, <a href="#Page_231">231</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">made love to, <a href="#Page_233">233</a>, <a href="#Page_256">256</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">greets Gen. Hood, <a href="#Page_263">263</a>, <a href="#Page_283">283</a>, <a href="#Page_296">296</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">her marriage, <a href="#Page_327">327</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">a dinner to, <a href="#Page_330">330</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Preston, Sally Buchanan Campbell, called “Buck,” <a href="#Page_150">150</a>, <a href="#Page_167">167</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">made love to, <a href="#Page_233">233</a>, <a href="#Page_266">266</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">why she dislikes Gen. Hood, <a href="#Page_286">286</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">men who worship, <a href="#Page_288">288</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">and Gen. Hood, <a href="#Page_289">289</a>, <a href="#Page_291">291</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">on horseback, <a href="#Page_303">303</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Preston, Miss Susan, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Preston, Willie, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his death, <a href="#Page_315">315</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Preston, William C., <a href="#Page_105">105</a>, <a href="#Page_362">362</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Pride, Mrs. —, <a href="#Page_370">370</a>, <a href="#Page_372">372</a>, <a href="#Page_373">373</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Prince of Wales, the, his visit to Washington, <a href="#Page_207">207</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Pringle, Edward J., letter from, <a href="#Page_4">4</a>, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Pringle, Mrs. John J., <a href="#Page_186">186</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Pryor, Gen. Roger A., <a href="#Page_37">37</a>.</li> - -<li class="ifrst">Rachel, Madam, in Charleston, <a href="#Page_238">238</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Randolph, Gen. —, <a href="#Page_147">147</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Randolph, Mrs. —, described, <a href="#Page_105">105</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">and Yankee prisoners, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">her theatricals, <a href="#Page_275">275</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Ravenel, St. Julien, <a href="#Page_365">365</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Reed, Wm. B., arrested, <a href="#Page_113">113</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Reynolds, Mrs. —, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Rhett, Albert, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Rhett, Mrs. Albert, <a href="#Page_147">147</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Rhett, Barnwell, desired for President of the Confederacy, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">as a man for president, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Rhett, Barnwell, Jr., <a href="#Page_148">148</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Rhett, Burnet, to marry Miss Aiken, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Rhett, Edmund, <a href="#Page_150">150</a>, <a href="#Page_313">313-314</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Rhett, Grimké, <a href="#Page_200">200</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Rice, Henry M., <a href="#Page_205">205</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Rich Mountain, battle of, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Richmond, going to, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">the author in, <a href="#Page_68">68-76</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">return to, from White Sulphur Springs, <a href="#Page_82">82-126</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">a council of war in, <a href="#Page_83">83</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">when Bull Run was fought, <a href="#Page_85">85-89</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_421" id="Page_421">[421]</a></span>Robert E. Lee seen in, <a href="#Page_93">93-94</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">at the hospitals in, <a href="#Page_108">108-111</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">women knitting socks in, <a href="#Page_113">113</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">agreeable people in, <a href="#Page_120">120</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">Gen. Chesnut called to, <a href="#Page_157">157</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">hospitality in, <a href="#Page_167">167</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">a battle near, <a href="#Page_171">171</a>, <a href="#Page_174">174</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">the Seven Days’ fighting near, <a href="#Page_197">197-198</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">return to, <a href="#Page_229">229-239</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">Gen. Hood in, <a href="#Page_229">229-231</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">a march past in, <a href="#Page_231">231</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">a funeral in, <a href="#Page_237">237</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">during Stoneman’s raid, <a href="#Page_239">239</a>, <a href="#Page_247">247</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">at Mr. Davis’s in, <a href="#Page_244">244</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">the enemy within three miles of, <a href="#Page_246">246</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">at the War-Office in, <a href="#Page_247">247-248</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">return to, <a href="#Page_252">252-303</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">the journey to, <a href="#Page_252">252-256</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">to see a French frigate near, <a href="#Page_259">259</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">Gen. Hood in, <a href="#Page_265">265-269</a>, <a href="#Page_271">271</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">merriment in, <a href="#Page_272">272-277</a>, <a href="#Page_282">282-287</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">a huge barrack, <a href="#Page_278">278</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">almost taken, <a href="#Page_293">293-294</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">Dahlgren’s raid, <a href="#Page_294">294</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">Kilpatrick threatens, <a href="#Page_296">296</a>, <a href="#Page_298">298</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">fourteen generals at church in, <a href="#Page_299">299</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">returned prisoners in, <a href="#Page_301">301</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">a farewell to, <a href="#Page_302">302-304</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">Little Joe Davis’s death in, <a href="#Page_305">305-306</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">anxiety in, <a href="#Page_330">330</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">fall of, <a href="#Page_377">377</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Roanoke Island, surrender of, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Robertson, Mr. —, <a href="#Page_385">385</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Rosecrans, Gen. William S., <a href="#Page_248">248</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">at Chattanooga, <a href="#Page_258">258</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Russell, Lord, <a href="#Page_136">136</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Russell, William H., of the London Times, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">criticisms by, <a href="#Page_52">52</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his criticisms mild, <a href="#Page_60">60</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">rubbish in his letters, <a href="#Page_64">64</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">attacked, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">abuses the South, <a href="#Page_74">74</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his account of Bull Run, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>, <a href="#Page_113">113</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his criticisms of plantation morals, <a href="#Page_114">114</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">on Bull Run, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his “India,” <a href="#Page_208">208</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Rutledge, Mrs. Ben., <a href="#Page_348">348</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Rutledge, John, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Rutledge, Julia, <a href="#Page_240">240</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Rutledge, Robert, <a href="#Page_14">14</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Rutledge, Sally, <a href="#Page_212">212</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Rutledge, Susan, <a href="#Page_5">5</a>.</li> - -<li class="ifrst">Sanders, George, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Saussure, Mrs. John de, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">a good-by from, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Saussure, Wilmot de, <a href="#Page_89">89</a>, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Scipio Africanus, a negro, <a href="#Page_391">391</a>, <a href="#Page_397">397</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Scott, Gen. Winfield, anecdote of, <a href="#Page_7">7</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">and officers wishing to resign, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">on Southern soldiers, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Scott, Mrs. Winfield, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Secession in South Carolina, <a href="#Page_2">2</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">the Convention of, <a href="#Page_3">3</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">support for, <a href="#Page_5">5</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Secessionville, battle of, <a href="#Page_191">191</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Seddon, Mr. J. A., <a href="#Page_247">247</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Semmes, Admiral R., <a href="#Page_236">236</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">a charade-party at his house, <a href="#Page_272">272-273</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">and the surrender of the Alabama, <a href="#Page_314">314</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Semmes, Mrs., her calmness, <a href="#Page_294">294</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Seven Days’ Battle, last of the, <a href="#Page_194">194</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">Gen. Chesnut’s account of, <a href="#Page_197">197</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Seven Pines, battle of, <a href="#Page_171">171</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Seventh Regiment, of New York, the, in Baltimore, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Seward, William H., <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">quoted, <a href="#Page_146">146</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">reported to have gone to England, <a href="#Page_203">203</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">attempted assassination of, <a href="#Page_380">380</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Shakespeare, William, as a lover, <a href="#Page_296">296-297</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Shand, Nanna, <a href="#Page_158">158</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Shand, Rev. Mr., <a href="#Page_194">194</a>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Shannon, William M., <a href="#Page_21">21</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Shannon, Capt. —, a call from, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Sharpsburg. <a href="#Antietam">See <i>Antietam</i>.</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Sherman, Gen. William T., at Vicksburg, <a href="#Page_219">219</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">marching to Mobile, <a href="#Page_291">291</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his work in Mississippi, <a href="#Page_299">299</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">between Lee and Hood, <a href="#Page_327">327</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_422" id="Page_422">[422]</a></span>to catch Lee in the rear, <a href="#Page_331">331</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his march to the sea, <a href="#Page_333">333</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">at Augusta, <a href="#Page_334">334</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">going to Savannah, <a href="#Page_336">336</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">desolation in his path, <a href="#Page_340">340-341</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">marching constantly, <a href="#Page_342">342</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">no living thing in his path, <a href="#Page_354">354-355</a>, <a href="#Page_356">356</a>, <a href="#Page_357">357</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">burning of Columbia, <a href="#Page_358">358</a>, <a href="#Page_362">362</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">correspondence with Gen. Hampton, <a href="#Page_359">359</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">promise of protection by, to Columbia, <a href="#Page_372">372</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">at the fall of Richmond, <a href="#Page_377">377</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">ruin in his track, <a href="#Page_384">384</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">remark of, to Joe Johnston, <a href="#Page_390">390</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">accuses Wade Hampton of burning Columbia, <a href="#Page_396">396</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Shiloh, battle of, <a href="#Page_156">156</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Simms, William Gilmore, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>, <a href="#Page_145">145</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Singleton, Mrs., <a href="#Page_184">184</a>, <a href="#Page_194">194</a>, <a href="#Page_237">237</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">her orphan grandchildren, <a href="#Page_238">238</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Slidell, Mrs. —, <a href="#Page_149">149</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Smith, Gen. Kirby, wounded, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>, <a href="#Page_90">90</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">as a Blücher, <a href="#Page_94">94</a>, <a href="#Page_317">317</a>, <a href="#Page_323">323</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Somerset, Duke of, his son in Richmond, <a href="#Page_203">203</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Soulouque, F. E., his career in Hayti, <a href="#Page_74">74</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">South Carolina, the secession of, <a href="#Page_2">2</a>, <a href="#Page_4">4</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">attack on, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">a small State, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Spotswood Hotel, the, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">the author at, <a href="#Page_69">69</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">a miniature world, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">the drawing-room of, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Spottsylvania Court House, battles around, <a href="#Page_310">310</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Stanard, Mr. —, <a href="#Page_94">94</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Stanton, Edwin M., <a href="#Page_310">310</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Stark, Mary, <a href="#Page_95">95</a>, <a href="#Page_146">146</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">St. Cecilia Society, the, balls of, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">St. Michael’s Church, and the firing on Fort Sumter, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Stephens, Alexander H., <a href="#Page_10">10</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">elected Vice-President, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his fears for the future, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Stockton, Philip A., his clandestine marriage, <a href="#Page_120">120-122</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Stockton, Mrs. Edward, <a href="#Page_251">251</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Stockton, Emma, <a href="#Page_272">272</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Stoneman, Gen. G. S., his raid, <a href="#Page_239">239</a>, <a href="#Page_244">244</a>, <a href="#Page_245">245</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">before Atlanta, <a href="#Page_317">317</a>, <a href="#Page_377">377</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Stony Creek, battle of, <a href="#Page_313">313</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Stowe, Harriet Beecher, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Stuart, Gen. Jeb, his cavalry, <a href="#Page_187">187</a>, <a href="#Page_277">277</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Sue, Eugene, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Sumner, Charles, <a href="#Page_74">74</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Sumter, S. C., an awful story from, <a href="#Page_401">401</a>, <a href="#Page_402">402</a>.</li> - -<li class="ifrst">Taber, William, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Taliaferro, Gen. —, <a href="#Page_317">317</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Taylor, John, <a href="#Page_392">392</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Taylor, Gen. Richard, <a href="#Page_227">227</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Taylor, Willie, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Team, Adam, <a href="#Page_252">252</a>, <a href="#Page_254">254</a>, <a href="#Page_256">256</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Thackeray, W. M., quoted, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">on American hostesses, <a href="#Page_168">168</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his death, <a href="#Page_281">281</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Thomas, Gen. George H., his forces, <a href="#Page_333">333</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">and Gen. Hood, <a href="#Page_338">338</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">wins the battle of Nashville, <a href="#Page_339">339</a>, <a href="#Page_340">340</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Thompson, John R., <a href="#Page_258">258</a>, <a href="#Page_260">260</a>, <a href="#Page_298">298</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Thompson, Mrs. John R., <a href="#Page_204">204</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Togno, Madame —, <a href="#Page_151">151</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Tompkins, Miss Sally, her hospital, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Toombs, Robert, an anecdote told by, <a href="#Page_7">7</a>, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">thrown from his horse and remounts, <a href="#Page_97">97</a>, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">as a brigadier, <a href="#Page_108">108</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">in a rage, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his criticisms, <a href="#Page_171">171</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">denounced, <a href="#Page_179">179</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Toombs, Mrs. Robert, a reception given by, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">a call on, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_423" id="Page_423">[423]</a></span>Toombs, Miss —, anecdote of, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Trapier, Gen. —, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Trapier, Rev. Mr., <a href="#Page_394">394</a>, <a href="#Page_397">397</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Trenholm, Capt. —, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Trescott, William H., <a href="#Page_24">24</a>, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">says Bull Run is a victory leading to ruin, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his dinners, <a href="#Page_153">153</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Trezevant, Dr. —, <a href="#Page_198">198</a>, <a href="#Page_339">339</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Trimlin, Milly, <a href="#Page_400">400-401</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Tucker, Capt., <a href="#Page_273">273</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Tyler, Miss, <a href="#Page_14">14</a>.</li> - -<li class="ifrst">Uncle Tom’s Cabin, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>, <a href="#Page_184">184</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Urquhart, Col. —, <a href="#Page_313">313</a>.</li> - -<li class="ifrst">Vallandigham, Clement B., <a href="#Page_216">216</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Velipigue, Jim, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Venable, Col., <a href="#Page_36">36</a>, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">reports a brave thing at Bull Run, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">on the Confederate losses at Nashville, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his comment on an anecdote, <a href="#Page_138">138</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">on toleration of sexual immorality, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>, <a href="#Page_144">144</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">an aide to Gen. Lee, <a href="#Page_172">172</a>, <a href="#Page_187">187</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">describes Hood’s eyes, <a href="#Page_230">230</a>, <a href="#Page_257">257</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">quoted, <a href="#Page_289">289</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Vicksburg, gunboats pass, <a href="#Page_205">205</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">surrender of, reported, <a href="#Page_219">219</a>, <a href="#Page_220">220</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">must fall, <a href="#Page_247">247</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">a story of the siege of, <a href="#Page_295">295</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Virginia, and secession, <a href="#Page_5">5</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">von Borcke, Major —, <a href="#Page_268">268</a>, <a href="#Page_272">272</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his name, <a href="#Page_285">285</a>.</li> - -<li class="ifrst">Walker, John, <a href="#Page_394">394</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Walker, William, <a href="#Page_384">384</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Walker, Mrs. —, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Wallenstein, translations of, <a href="#Page_162">162</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Ward, Matthias, an anecdote by, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Washington, city of, deserted, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">alarming news from, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">why not entered after Bull Run, <a href="#Page_90">90</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">how news of that battle was received in, <a href="#Page_91">91</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">Confederates might have walked into, <a href="#Page_103">103</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">state dinners in, <a href="#Page_166">166</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Washington, George, at Trenton, <a href="#Page_237">237</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Washington, L. Q., letters from, <a href="#Page_158">158</a>, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>, <a href="#Page_245">245</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Watts, Col. Beaufort and Fort Sumter, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">a touching story of, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>, <a href="#Page_147">147</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Wayside Hospital, the, <a href="#Page_205">205</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">the author at, <a href="#Page_321">321</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Weston, Plowden, <a href="#Page_160">160</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">West Point, Ga., <a href="#Page_220">220</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Whitaker, Maria, and her twins, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>, <a href="#Page_386">386</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Whiting, Col. —, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Whiting, Gen. —, <a href="#Page_307">307</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Whitner, Judge, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Wigfall, Judge L. T., <a href="#Page_29">29</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">speech by, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">angry with Major Anderson, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>, <a href="#Page_69">69</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">and Mr. Brewster, <a href="#Page_73">73</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">quoted, <a href="#Page_91">91</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">with his Texans, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">an enemy of Mr. Davis, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">reconciled with Mr. Davis, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">still against Mr. Davis, <a href="#Page_261">261</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">and Joe Johnston’s removal, <a href="#Page_320">320</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">going to Texas, <a href="#Page_373">373</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">on the way to Texas, <a href="#Page_377">377</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">remark of, to Simon Cameron, <a href="#Page_400">400</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Wigfall, Mrs. L. T., <a href="#Page_28">28</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">a visit with, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">talk with, about the war, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">a telegram to, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">quoted, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">a drive with, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">a call on, <a href="#Page_266">266</a>, <a href="#Page_275">275</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Wilderness, the battle of the, <a href="#Page_310">310</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Williams, Mrs. David R. (the author’s sister, Kate), <a href="#Page_127">127</a>, <a href="#Page_329">329</a>, <a href="#Page_351">351</a>, <a href="#Page_399">399</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Williams, Mrs. John N., <a href="#Page_129">129</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Williamsburg, battle at, <a href="#Page_161">161</a>, <a href="#Page_171">171</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_424" id="Page_424">[424]</a></span>Wilson, Henry, at Manassas, <a href="#Page_89">89</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Winder, Miss, arrested, <a href="#Page_113">113</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Withers, Judge —, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_60">60</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Withers, Kate, death of, <a href="#Page_403">403</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Witherspoon, John, <a href="#Page_250">250</a>, <a href="#Page_404">404</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Witherspoon, Mrs. —, found dead, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>.</li> - -<li class="ifrst">Yancey, William L., talk from, <a href="#Page_120">120</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">letter from, to Lord Russell, <a href="#Page_136">136</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">“Yankee Doodle,” <a href="#Page_20">20</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Yorktown, siege and evacuation of, <a href="#Page_161">161</a>.</li> - -</ul> - -<hr /> - -<div class="ad"> - -<div class="border2"> - -<p class="center">“EVERY AMERICAN SHOULD READ IT.”—<cite>The News, Providence.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p class="noindent larger">The Life and Times of Thomas Jefferson.</p> - -<p>By <span class="smcap">Thomas E. Watson</span>, Author of “The Story of -France,” “Napoleon,” etc. Illustrated with many Portraits -and Views. 8vo. Attractively bound, $2.50 net; postage, -17 cents additional.</p> - -<div class="smaller"> - -<p>Mr. Watson long since acquired a national reputation in connection -with his political activities in Georgia. He startled the public soon -afterward by the publication of a history of France, which at once -attracted attention quite as marked, though different in kind. His book -became interesting not alone as the production of a Southern man -interested in politics, but as an entirely original conception of a great -theme. There was no question that a life of Jefferson from the hands of -such a writer would command very general attention, and the publishers -had no sooner announced the work as in preparation than negotiations -were begun with the author by two of the best-known newspapers in -America for its publication in serial form. During the past summer the -appearance of the story in this way has created widespread comment -which has now been drawn to the book just published.</p> - -</div> - -<p class="center"><i>Opinions by some of the Leading Papers.</i></p> - -<div class="smaller"> - -<p>“A vastly entertaining polemic. It directs attention to many undoubtedly -neglected facts which writers of the North have ignored or minimized.”—<cite>The -New York Times Saturday Review of Books.</cite></p> - -<p>“A noble work. It may well stand on the shelf beside Morley’s -‘Gladstone’ and other epochal biographical works that have come into -prominence. It is deeply interesting and thoroughly fair and just.”—<cite>The -Globe-Democrat, St. Louis.</cite></p> - -<p>“The book shows great research and is as complete as it could possibly be, -and every American should read it.”—<cite>The News, Providence.</cite></p> - -<p>“A unique historical work.”—<cite>The Commercial Advertiser, New York.</cite></p> - -<p>“Valuable as an historical document and as a witness to certain great facts -in the past life of the South which have seldom been acknowledged by -historians.”—<cite>The Post, Louisville.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<div class="border1"> - -<p class="center">D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK.</p> - -</div> - -</div> - -<hr /> - -<div class="ad"> - -<div class="border2"> - -<p class="center">UNLIKE ANY OTHER BOOK.</p> - -</div> - -<p class="noindent larger">A Virginia Girl in the Civil War.</p> - -<p>Being the Authentic Experiences of a Confederate -Major’s Wife who followed her Husband into Camp at -the Outbreak of the War, Dined and Supped with General -J. E. B. Stuart, ran the Blockade to Baltimore, and was -in Richmond when it was Evacuated. Collected and -edited by <span class="smcap">Myrta Lockett Avary</span>. 12mo. Cloth, $1.25 -net; postage additional.</p> - -<div class="smaller"> - -<p>“The people described are gentlefolk to the backbone, and the reader -must be a hard-hearted cynic if he does not fall in love with the ingenuous -and delightful girl who tells the story.”—<i>New York Sun.</i></p> - -<p>“The narrative is one that both interests and charms. The beginning of -the end of the long and desperate struggle is unusually well told, and how -the survivors lived during the last days of the fading Confederacy forms a -vivid picture of those distressful times.”—<i>Baltimore Herald.</i></p> - -<p>“The style of the narrative is attractively informal and chatty. Its -pathos is that of simplicity. It throws upon a cruel period of our national -career a side-light, bringing out tender and softening interests too little visible -in the pages of formal history.”—<i>New York World.</i></p> - -<p>“This is a tale that will appeal to every Southern man and woman, and -can not fail to be of interest to every reader. It is as fresh and vivacious, -even in dealing with dark days, as the young soul that underwent the hardships -of a most cruel war.”—<i>Louisville Courier-Journal.</i></p> - -<p>“The narrative is not formal, is often fragmentary, and is always warmly -human.... There are scenes among the dead and wounded, but as one -winks back a tear the next page presents a negro commanded to mount a -strange mule in midstream, at the injustice of which he strongly protests.”—<i>New -York Telegram.</i></p> - -<p>“Taken at this time, when the years have buried all resentment, dulled -all sorrows, and brought new generations to the scenes, a work of this kind -can not fail of value just as it can not fail in interest. Official history moves -with two great strides to permit of the smaller, more intimate events; fiction -lacks the realistic, powerful appeal of actuality; such works as this must be -depended upon to fill in the unoccupied interstices, to show us just what -were the lives of those who were in this conflict or who lived in the midst of -it without being able actively to participate in it. And of this type ‘A Virginia -Girl in the Civil War’ is a truly admirable example.”—<i>Philadelphia -Record.</i></p> - -</div> - -<div class="border1"> - -<p class="center">D. 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