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.