Below are two excerpts from the book Diary from Dixie that has the writings of the events as told by Mary Chesnut while living in Columbia, SC.
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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 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.
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. Andre, 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 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 Team'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 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. It was the letter of a shopkeeper, not in the
style of a statesman at all.
We
called to see Mary McDuffie. 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
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. 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, 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 37 1/2 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 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 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.
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 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.
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 drawingroom 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 - 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. 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 - 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 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?
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 warpath; 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."
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 iron-clads 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 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 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