“What is it? Any news?” “No, no, only mamma smells a smell; she thinks

something is burning somewhere.” The whole yard was alive, literally

swarming. There are sixty or seventy people kept here to wait upon this

household, two-thirds of them too old or too young to be of any use,

but families remain intact. The old Colonel has a magnificent voice. I

am sure it can be heard for miles. Literally, he was roaring from the

piazza, giving orders to the busy crowd who were hunting the smell of

fire.

Old Mrs. Chesnut is deaf; so she did not know what a commotion she

was creating. She is very sensitive to bad odors. Candles have to be

taken out of the room to be snuffed. Lamps are extinguished only in the

porticoes, or farther afield. She finds violets oppressive; can only

tolerate a single kind of sweet rose. A tea-rose she will not have in

her room. She was totally innocent of the storm she had raised, and in a

mild, sweet voice was suggesting places to be searched. I was weak enough

to laugh hysterically. The bombardment of Fort Sumter was nothing to this.

After this alarm, enough to wake the dead, the smell was found. A family

had been boiling soap. Around the soap-pot they had swept up some woolen

rags. Raking up the fire to make all safe before going to bed, this was

heaped up with the ashes, and its faint smoldering tainted the air, at

least to Mrs. Chesnut’s nose, two hundred yards or more away.

Yesterday some of the negro men on the plantation were found with

pistols. I have never before seen aught about any negro to show that they

knew we had a war on hand in which they have any interest.

Mrs. John de Saussure bade me good-by and God bless you. I was touched.

Camden people never show any more feeling or sympathy than red Indians,

except at a funeral. It is expected of all to howl then, and if you don’t

“show feeling,” indignation awaits the delinquent.

VII

RICHMOND, VA.

_June 27, 1861-July 4, 1861_

Richmond, Va., _June 27, 1861_.—Mr. Meynardie was perfect in the part

of traveling companion. He had his pleasures, too. The most pious and

eloquent of parsons is human, and he enjoyed the converse of the “eminent

persons” who turned up on every hand and gave their views freely on all

matters of state.

Mr. Lawrence Keitt joined us _en route_. With him came his wife and

baby. We don’t think alike, but Mr. Keitt is always original and

entertaining. Already he pronounces Jeff Davis a failure and his

Cabinet a farce. “Prophetic,” I suggested, as he gave his opinion

before the administration had fairly got under way. He was fierce in

his fault-finding as to Mr. Chesnut’s vote for Jeff Davis. He says Mr.

Chesnut overpersuaded the Judge, and those two turned the tide, at least

with the South Carolina delegation. We wrangled, as we always do. He says

Howell Cobb’s common sense might have saved us.

Two quiet, unobtrusive Yankee school-teachers were on the train. I had

spoken to them, and they had told me all about themselves. So I wrote on

a scrap of paper, “Do not abuse our home and house so before these Yankee

strangers, going North. Those girls are schoolmistresses returning from

whence they came.”

Soldiers everywhere. They seem to be in the air, and certainly to fill

all space. Keitt quoted a funny Georgia man who says we try our soldiers

to see if they are hot enough before we enlist them. If, when water is

thrown on them they do not sizz, they won’t do; their patriotism is too

cool.

To show they were wide awake and sympathizing enthusiastically, every

woman from every window of every house we passed waved a handkerchief, if

she had one. This fluttering of white flags from every side never ceased

from Camden to Richmond. Another new symptom—parties of girls came to

every station simply to look at the troops passing. They always stood

(the girls, I mean) in solid phalanx, and as the sun was generally in

their eyes, they made faces. Mary Hammy never tired of laughing at this

peculiarity of her sister patriots.

At the depot in Richmond, Mr. Mallory, with Wigfall and Garnett, met us.

We had no cause to complain of the warmth of our reception. They had a

carriage for us, and our rooms were taken at the Spotswood. But then the

people who were in the rooms engaged for us had not departed at the time

they said they were going. They lingered among the delights of Richmond,

and we knew of no law to make them keep their words and go. Mrs. Preston

had gone for a few days to Manassas. So we took her room. Mrs. Davis

is as kind as ever. She met us in one of the corridors accidentally,

and asked us to join her party and to take our meals at her table. Mr.

Preston came, and we moved into a room so small there was only space for

a bed, washstand, and glass over it. My things were hung up out of the

way on nails behind the door.

As soon as my husband heard we had arrived, he came, too. After dinner he

sat smoking, the solitary chair of the apartment tilted against the door

as he smoked, and my poor dresses were fumigated. I remonstrated feebly.

“War times,” said he; “nobody is fussy now. When I go back to Manassas

to-morrow you will be awfully sorry you snubbed me about those trumpery

things up there.” So he smoked the pipe of peace, for I knew that his

remarks were painfully true. As soon as he was once more under the

enemy’s guns, I would repent in sackcloth and ashes.

Captain Ingraham came with Colonel Lamar.[45] The latter said he could

only stay five minutes; he was obliged to go back at once to his camp.

That was a little before eight. However, at twelve he was still talking

to us on that sofa. We taunted him with his fine words to the F. F. V.

crowd before the Spotswood: “Virginia has no grievance. She raises her

strong arm to catch the blow aimed at her weaker sisters.” He liked it

well, however, that we knew his speech by heart.

This Spotswood is a miniature world. The war topic is not so much

avoided, as that everybody has some personal dignity to take care of and

everybody else is indifferent to it. I mean the “personal dignity of”

_autrui_. In this wild confusion everything likely and unlikely is told

you, and then everything is as flatly contradicted. At any rate, it is

safest not to talk of the war.

Trescott was telling us how they laughed at little South Carolina in

Washington. People said it was almost as large as Long Island, which is

hardly more than a tail-feather of New York. Always there is a child who

sulks and won’t play; that was our rôle. And we were posing as San Marino

and all model-spirited, though small, republics, pose.

He tells us that Lincoln is a humorist. Lincoln sees the fun of things;

he thinks if they had left us in a corner or out in the cold a while

pouting, with our fingers in our mouth, by hook or by crook he could have

got us back, but Anderson spoiled all.

In Mrs. Davis’s drawing-room last night, the President took a seat by

me on the sofa where I sat. He talked for nearly an hour. He laughed at

our faith in our own powers. We are like the British. We think every

Southerner equal to three Yankees at least. We will have to be equivalent

to a dozen now. After his experience of the fighting qualities of

Southerners in Mexico, he believes that we will do all that can be done

by pluck and muscle, endurance, and dogged courage, dash, and red-hot

patriotism. And yet his tone was not sanguine. There was a sad refrain

running through it all. For one thing, either way, he thinks it will

be a long war. That floored me at once. It has been too long for me

already. Then he said, before the end came we would have many a bitter

experience. He said only fools doubted the courage of the Yankees, or

their willingness to fight when they saw fit. And now that we have stung

their pride, we have roused them till they will fight like devils.

Mrs. Bradley Johnson is here, a regular heroine. She outgeneraled the

Governor of North Carolina in some way and has got arms and clothes and

ammunition for her husband’s regiment.[46] There was some joke. The

regimental breeches were all wrong, but a tailor righted that—hind part

before, or something odd.

Captain Hartstein came to-day with Mrs. Bartow. Colonel Bartow is Colonel

of a Georgia regiment now in Virginia. He was the Mayor of Savannah who

helped to wake the patriotic echoes the livelong night under my sleepless

head into the small hours in Charleston in November last. His wife is a

charming person, witty and wise, daughter of Judge Berrien. She had on a

white muslin apron with pink bows on the pockets. It gave her a gay and

girlish air, and yet she must be as old as I am.

Mr. Lamar, who does not love slavery more than Sumner does, nor than I

do, laughs at the compliment New England pays us. We want to separate

from them; to be rid of the Yankees forever at any price. And they

hate us so, and would clasp us, or grapple us, as Polonius has it, to

their bosoms “with hooks of steel.” We are an unwilling bride. I think

incompatibility of temper began when it was made plain to us that we got

all the opprobrium of slavery and they all the money there was in it with

their tariff.

Mr. Lamar says, the young men are light-hearted because there is a fight

on hand, but those few who look ahead, the clear heads, they see all the

risk, the loss of land, limb, and life, home, wife, and children. As in

“the brave days of old,” they take to it for their country’s sake. They

are ready and willing, come what may. But not so light-hearted as the

_jeunesse dorée_.

_June 29th._—Mrs. Preston, Mrs. Wigfall, Mary Hammy and I drove in a

fine open carriage to see the _Champ de Mars_. It was a grand tableau

out there. Mr. Davis rode a beautiful gray horse, the Arab Edwin de

Leon brought him from Egypt. His worst enemy will allow that he is a

consummate rider, graceful and easy in the saddle, and Mr. Chesnut, who

has talked horse with his father ever since he was born, owns that Mr.

Davis knows more about horses than any man he has met yet. General Lee

was there with him; also Joe Davis and Wigfall acting as his aides.

Poor Mr. Lamar has been brought from his camp—paralysis or some sort

of shock. Every woman in the house is ready to rush into the Florence

Nightingale business. I think I will wait for a wounded man, to make my

first effort as Sister of Charity. Mr. Lamar sent for me. As everybody

went, Mr. Davis setting the example, so did I. Lamar will not die this

time. Will men flatter and make eyes, until their eyes close in death, at

the ministering angels? He was the same old Lamar of the drawing-room.

It is pleasant at the President’s table. My seat is next to Joe Davis,

with Mr. Browne on the other side, and Mr. Mallory opposite. There is

great constraint, however. As soon as I came I repeated what the North

Carolina man said on the cars, that North Carolina had 20,000 men

ready and they were kept back by Mr. Walker, etc. The President caught

something of what I was saying, and asked me to repeat it, which I did,

although I was scared to death. “Madame, when you see that person tell

him his statement is false. We are too anxious here for troops to refuse

a man who offers himself, not to speak of 20,000 men.” Silence ensued—of

the most profound.

Uncle H. gave me three hundred dollars for his daughter Mary’s expenses,

making four in all that I have of hers. He would pay me one hundred,

which he said he owed my husband for a horse. I thought it an excuse to

lend me money. I told him I had enough and to spare for all my needs

until my Colonel came home from the wars.

Ben Allston, the Governor’s son, is here—came to see me; does not show

much of the wit of the Petigrus; pleasant person, however. Mr. Brewster

and Wigfall came at the same time. The former, chafing at Wigfall’s

anomalous position here, gave him fiery advice. Mr. Wigfall was calm and

full of common sense. A brave man, and without a thought of any necessity

for displaying his temper, he said: “Brewster, at this time, before the

country is strong and settled in her new career, it would be disastrous

for us, the head men, to engage in a row among ourselves.”

As I was brushing flies away and fanning the prostrate Lamar, I reported

Mr. Davis’s conversation of the night before. “He is all right,” said

Mr. Lamar, “the fight had to come. We are men, not women. The quarrel

had lasted long enough. We hate each other so, the fight had to come.

Even Homer’s heroes, after they had stormed and scolded enough, fought

like brave men, long and well. If the athlete, Sumner, had stood on his

manhood and training and struck back when Preston Brooks assailed him,

Preston Brooks’s blow need not have been the opening skirmish of the war.

Sumner’s country took up the fight because he did not. Sumner chose his

own battle-field, and it was the worse for us. What an awful blunder that

Preston Brooks business was!” Lamar said Yankees did not fight for the

fun of it; they always made it pay or let it alone.

Met Mr. Lyon with news, indeed—a man here in the midst of us, taken with

Lincoln’s passports, etc., in his pocket—a palpable spy. Mr. Lyon said he

would be hanged—in all human probability, that is.

A letter from my husband written at Camp Pickens, and saying: “If you and

Mrs. Preston can make up your minds to leave Richmond, and can come up to

a nice little country house near Orange Court House, we could come to see

you frequently while the army is stationed here. It would be a safe place

for the present, near the scene of action, and directly in the line of

news from all sides.” So we go to Orange Court House.

Read the story of Soulouque,[47] the Haytian man: he has wonderful

interest just now. Slavery has to go, of course, and joy go with it.

These Yankees may kill us and lay waste our land for a while, but conquer

us—never!

_July 4th._—Russell abuses us in his letters. People here care a great

deal for what Russell says, because he represents the London Times, and

the Times reflects the sentiment of the English people. How we do cling

to the idea of an alliance with England or France! Without France even

Washington could not have done it.

We drove to the camp to see the President present a flag to a Maryland

regiment. Having lived on the battle-field (Kirkwood), near Camden,[48]

we have an immense respect for the Maryland line. When our militia in

that fight ran away, Colonel Howard and the Marylanders held their own

against Rawdon, Cornwallis, and the rest, and everywhere around are

places named for a doughty captain killed in our defense—Kirkwood, De

Kalb, etc. The last, however, was a Prussian count. A letter from my

husband, written June 22d, has just reached me. He says:

“We are very strongly posted, entrenched, and have now at our command

about 15,000 of the best troops in the world. We have besides, two

batteries of artillery, a regiment of cavalry, and daily expect a

battalion of flying artillery from Richmond. We have sent forward seven

regiments of infantry and rifles toward Alexandria. Our outposts have

felt the enemy several times, and in every instance the enemy recoils.

General Johnston has had several encounters—the advancing columns of the

two armies—and with him, too, the enemy, although always superior in

numbers, are invariably driven back.

“There is great deficiency in the matter of ammunition. General

Johnston’s command, in the very face of overwhelming numbers, have only

thirty rounds each. If they had been well provided in this respect, they

could and would have defeated Cadwallader and Paterson with great ease.

I find the opinion prevails throughout the army that there is great

imbecility and shameful neglect in the War Department.

“Unless the Republicans fall back, we must soon come together on both

lines, and have a decided engagement. But the opinion prevails here that

Lincoln’s army will not meet us if they can avoid it. They have already

fallen back before a slight check from 400 of Johnston’s men. They had

700 and were badly beaten. You have no idea how dirty and irksome the

camp life is. You would hardly know your best friend in camp guise.”

Noise of drums, tramp of marching regiments all day long; rattling of

artillery wagons, bands of music, friends from every quarter coming in.

We ought to be miserable and anxious, and yet these are pleasant days.

Perhaps we are unnaturally exhilarated and excited.

Heard some people in the drawing-room say: “Mrs. Davis’s ladies are not

young, are not pretty,” and I am one of them. The truthfulness of the

remark did not tend to alleviate its bitterness. We must put Maggie

Howell and Mary Hammy in the foreground, as youth and beauty are in

request. At least they are young things—bright spots in a somber-tinted

picture. The President does not forbid our going, but he is very much

averse to it. We are consequently frightened by our own audacity, but we

are wilful women, and so we go.

VIII

FAUQUIER WHITE SULPHUR SPRINGS, VA.

_July 6, 1861-July 11, 1861_

Fauquier White Sulphur Springs, Va., _July 6, 1861_.—Mr. Brewster came

here with us. The cars were jammed with soldiers to the muzzle. They were

very polite and considerate, and we had an agreeable journey, in spite

of heat, dust, and crowd. Rev. Robert Barnwell was with us. He means

to organize a hospital for sick and wounded. There was not an inch of

standing-room even; so dusty, so close, but everybody in tip-top spirits.

Mr. Preston and Mr. Chesnut met us at Warrenton. Saw across the lawn, but

did not speak to them, some of Judge Campbell’s family. There they wander

disconsolate, just outside the gates of their Paradise: a resigned Judge

of the Supreme Court of the United States; resigned, and for a cause that

he is hardly more than half in sympathy with, Judge Campbell’s is one of

the hardest cases.

_July 7th._—This water is making us young again. How these men enjoy the

baths. They say Beauregard can stop the way with sixty thousand; that

many are coming.

An antique female, with every hair curled and frizzed, said to be a

Yankee spy, sits opposite us. Brewster solemnly wondered “with eternity

and the judgment to come so near at hand, how she could waste her few

remaining minutes curling her hair.” He bade me be very polite, for she

would ask me questions. When we were walking away from table, I demanded

his approval of my self-control under such trying circumstances. It seems

I was not as calm and forbearing as I thought myself. Brewster answered

with emphasis: “Do you always carry brickbats like that in your pocket

ready for the first word that offends you? You must not do so, when you

are with spies from the other side.” I do not feel at all afraid of spies

hearing anything through me, for I do not know anything.

But our men could not tarry with us in these cool shades and comfortable

quarters, with water unlimited, excellent table, etc. They have gone back

to Manassas, and the faithful Brewster with them to bring us the latest

news. They left us in excellent spirits, which we shared until they

were out of sight. We went with them to Warrenton, and then heard that

General Johnston was in full retreat, and that a column was advancing

upon Beauregard. So we came back, all forlorn. If our husbands are taken

prisoners, what will they do with them? Are they soldiers or traitors?

Mrs. Ould read us a letter from Richmond. How horrified they are there

at Joe Johnston’s retreating. And the enemies of the War Department

accuse Walker of not sending General Johnston ammunition in sufficient

quantities; say that is the real cause of his retreat. Now will they not

make the ears of that slow-coach, the Secretary of War, buzz?

Mrs. Preston’s maid Maria has a way of rushing in—“Don’t you hear the

cannon?” We fly to the windows, lean out to our waists, pull all the

hair away from our ears, but can not hear it. Lincoln wants four hundred

millions of money and men in proportion. Can he get them? He will find us

a heavy handful. Midnight. I hear Maria’s guns.

We are always picking up some good thing of the rough Illinoisan’s

saying. Lincoln objects to some man—“Oh, he is too _interruptious_”; that

is a horrid style of man or woman, the interruptions. I know the thing,

but had no name for it before.

_July 9th._—Our battle summer. May it be our first and our last, so

called. After all we have not had any of the horrors of war. Could there

have been a gayer, or pleasanter, life than we led in Charleston. And

Montgomery, how exciting it all was there! So many clever men and women

congregated from every part of the South. Mosquitoes, and a want of

neatness, and a want of good things to eat, drove us away. In Richmond

the girls say it is perfectly delightful. We found it so, too, but the

bickering and quarreling have begun there.

At table to-day we heard Mrs. Davis’s ladies described. They were said to

wear red frocks and flats on their heads. We sat mute as mice. One woman

said she found the drawing-room of the Spotswood was warm, stuffy, and

stifling. “Poor soul,” murmured the inevitable Brewster, “and no man came

to air her in the moonlight stroll, you know. Why didn’t somebody ask her

out on the piazza to see the comet?” Heavens above, what philandering

was done in the name of the comet! When you stumbled on a couple on the

piazza they lifted their eyes, and “comet” was the only word you heard.

Brewster came back with a paper from Washington with terrific threats of

what they will do to us. Threatened men live long.

There was a soft, sweet, low, and slow young lady opposite to us. She

seemed so gentle and refined, and so uncertain of everything. Mr.

Brewster called her Miss Albina McClush, who always asked her maid when a

new book was mentioned, “Seraphina, have I perused that volume?”

Mary Hammy, having a _fiancé_ in the wars, is inclined at times to be sad

and tearful. Mrs. Preston quoted her negro nurse to her: “Never take any

more trouble in your heart than you can kick off at the end of your toes.”

_July 11th._—We did hear cannon to-day. The woman who slandered Mrs.

Davis’s republican court, of which we are honorable members, by saying

they—well, were not young; that they wore gaudy colors, and dressed

badly—I took an inventory to-day as to her charms. She is darkly,

deeply, beautifully freckled; she wears a wig which is kept in place by

a tiara of mock jewels; she has the fattest of arms and wears black bead

bracelets.

The one who is under a cloud, shadowed as a Yankee spy, has confirmed our

worst suspicions. She exhibited unholy joy, as she reported seven hundred

sick soldiers in the hospital at Culpeper, and that Beauregard had sent a

flag of truce to Washington.

What a night we had! Maria had seen suspicious persons hovering about

all day, and Mrs. Preston a ladder which could easily be placed so as to

reach our rooms. Mary Hammy saw lights glancing about among the trees,

and we all heard guns. So we sat up. Consequently, I am writing in bed

to-day. A letter from my husband saying, in particular: “Our orders are

to move on,” the date, July 10th. “Here we are still and no more prospect

of movement now than when I last wrote to you. It is true, however, that

the enemy is advancing slowly in our front, and we are preparing to

receive him. He comes in great force, being more than three times our

number.”

The spy, so-called, gave us a parting shot: said Beauregard had arrested

her brother in order that he might take a fine horse which the aforesaid

brother was riding. Why? Beauregard, at a moment’s notice, could have

any horse in South Carolina, or Louisiana, for that matter. This man was

arrested and sent to Richmond, and “will be acquitted as they always

are,” said Brewster. “They send them first to Richmond to see and hear

everything there; then they acquit them, and send them out of the country

by way of Norfolk to see everything there. But, after all, what does it

matter? They have no need for spies: our newspapers keep no secrets hid.

The thoughts of our hearts are all revealed. Everything with us is open

and aboveboard.

“At Bethel the Yankees fired too high. Every daily paper is jeering them

about it yet. They’ll fire low enough next time, but no newspaper man

will be there to get the benefit of their improved practise, alas!”

IX

RICHMOND, VA.

_July 13, 1861-September 2, 1861_

Richmond, Va., _July 13, 1861_.—Now we feel safe and comfortable. We can

not be flanked. Mr. Preston met us at Warrenton. Mr. Chesnut doubtless

had too many spies to receive from Washington, galloping in with the

exact numbers of the enemy done up in their back hair.

Wade Hampton is here; Doctor Nott also—Nott and Glyddon known to fame.

Everybody is here, _en route_ for the army, or staying for the meeting of

Congress.

Lamar is out on crutches. His father-in-law, once known only as the

humorist Longstreet,[49] author of Georgia Scenes, now a staid Methodist,

who has outgrown the follies of his youth, bore him off to-day. They say

Judge Longstreet has lost the keen sense of fun that illuminated his life

in days of yore. Mrs. Lamar and her daughter were here.

The President met us cordially, but he laughed at our sudden retreat,

with baggage lost, etc. He tried to keep us from going; said it was a

dangerous experiment. Dare say he knows more about the situation of

things than he chooses to tell us.

To-day in the drawing-room, saw a _vivandière_ in the flesh. She was in

the uniform of her regiment, but wore Turkish pantaloons. She frisked

about in her hat and feathers; did not uncover her head as a man would

have done; played the piano; and sang war-songs. She had no drum, but she

gave us rataplan. She was followed at every step by a mob of admiring

soldiers and boys.

Yesterday, as we left the cars, we had a glimpse of war. It was the

saddest sight: the memory of it is hard to shake off—sick soldiers, not

wounded ones. There were quite two hundred (they said) lying about as

best they might on the platform. Robert Barnwell[50] was there doing all

he could. Their pale, ghastly faces! So here is one of the horrors of war

we had not reckoned on. There were many good men and women with Robert

Barnwell, rendering all the service possible in the circumstances.

Just now I happened to look up and saw Mr. Chesnut with a smile on his

face watching me from the passageway. I flew across the room, and as I

got half-way saw Mrs. Davis touch him on the shoulder. She said he was to

go at once into Mr. Davis’s room, where General Lee and General Cooper

were. After he left us, Mrs. Davis told me General Beauregard had sent

Mr. Chesnut here on some army business.

_July 14th._—Mr. Chesnut remained closeted with the President and General

Lee all the afternoon. The news does not seem pleasant. At least, he is

not inclined to tell me any of it. He satisfied himself with telling me

how sensible and soldierly this handsome General Lee is. General Lee’s

military sagacity was also his theme. Of course the President dominated

the party, as well by his weight of brain as by his position. I did not

care a fig for a description of the war council. I wanted to know what is

in the wind now?

_July 16th._—Dined to-day at the President’s table. Joe Davis, the

nephew, asked me if I liked white port wine. I said I did not know; “all

that I had ever known had been dark red.” So he poured me out a glass. I

drank it, and it nearly burned up my mouth and throat. It was horrid, but

I did not let him see how it annoyed me. I pretended to be glad that any

one found me still young enough to play off a practical joke upon me. It

was thirty years since I had thought of such a thing.

Met Colonel Baldwin in the drawing-room. He pointed significantly to his

Confederate colonel’s buttons and gray coat. At the White Sulphur last

summer he was a “Union man” to the last point. “How much have you changed

besides your coat?” “I was always true to our country,” he said. “She

leaves me no choice now.”

As far as I can make out, Beauregard sent Mr. Chesnut to the President to

gain permission for the forces of Joe Johnston and Beauregard to join,

and, united, to push the enemy, if possible, over the Potomac. Now every

day we grow weaker and they stronger; so we had better give a telling

blow at once. Already, we begin to cry out for more ammunition, and

already the blockade is beginning to shut it all out.

A young Emory is here. His mother writes him to go back. Her Franklin

blood certainly calls him with no uncertain sound to the Northern

side, while his fatherland is wavering and undecided, split in half by

factions. Mrs. Wigfall says he is half inclined to go. She wondered

that he did not. With a father in the enemy’s army, he will always be

“suspect” here, let the President and Mrs. Davis do for him what they

will.

I did not know there was such a “bitter cry” left in me, but I wept my

heart away to-day when my husband went off. Things do look so black. When

he comes up here he rarely brings his body-servant, a negro man. Lawrence

has charge of all Mr. Chesnut’s things—watch, clothes, and two or three

hundred gold pieces that lie in the tray of his trunk. All these, papers,

etc., he tells Lawrence to bring to me if anything happens to him. But I

said: “Maybe he will pack off to the Yankees and freedom with all that.”

“Fiddlesticks! He is not going to leave me for anybody else. After all,

what can he ever be, better than he is now—a gentleman’s gentleman?” “He

is within sound of the enemy’s guns, and when he gets to the other army

he is free.” Maria said of Mr. Preston’s man: “What he want with anything

more, ef he was free? Don’t he live just as well as Mars John do now?”

Mrs. McLane, Mrs. Joe Johnston, Mrs. Wigfall, all came. I am sure so many

clever women could divert a soul _in extremis_. The Hampton Legion all

in a snarl—about, I forget what; standing on their dignity, I suppose.

I have come to detest a man who says, “My own personal dignity and

self-respect require.” I long to cry, “No need to respect yourself until

you can make other people do it.”

_July 19th._—Beauregard telegraphed yesterday (they say, to General

Johnston), “Come down and help us, or we shall be crushed by numbers.”

The President telegraphed General Johnston to move down to Beauregard’s

aid. At Bull Run, Bonham’s Brigade, Ewell’s, and Longstreet’s encountered

the foe and repulsed him. Six hundred prisoners have been sent here.

I arose, as the Scriptures say, and washed my face and anointed my head

and went down-stairs. At the foot of them stood General Cooper, radiant,

one finger nervously arranging his shirt collar, or adjusting his neck to

it after his fashion. He called out: “Your South Carolina man, Bonham,

has done a capital thing at Bull Run—driven back the enemy, if not

defeated him; with killed and prisoners,” etc., etc. Clingman came to

tell the particulars, and Colonel Smith (one of the trio with Garnett,

McClellan, who were sent to Europe to inspect and report on military

matters). Poor Garnett is killed. There was cowardice or treachery on

the part of natives up there, or some of Governor Letcher’s appointments

to military posts. I hear all these things said. I do not understand, but

it was a fatal business.

Mrs. McLane says she finds we do not believe a word of any news unless it

comes in this guise: “A great battle fought. Not one Confederate killed.

Enemy’s loss in killed, wounded, and prisoners taken by us, immense.” I

was in hopes there would be no battle until Mr. Chesnut was forced to

give up his amateur aideship to come and attend to his regular duties in

the Congress.

Keitt has come in. He says Bonham’s battle was a skirmish of outposts.

Joe Davis, Jr., said: “Would Heaven only send us a Napoleon!” Not one

bit of use. If Heaven did, Walker would not give him a commission. Mrs.

Davis and Mrs. Joe Johnston, “her dear Lydia,” were in fine spirits. The

effect upon _nous autres_ was evident; we rallied visibly. South Carolina

troops pass every day. They go by with a gay step. Tom Taylor and John

Rhett bowed to us from their horses as we leaned out of the windows. Such

shaking of handkerchiefs. We are forever at the windows.

It was not such a mere skirmish. We took three rifled cannon and six

hundred stands of arms. Mr. Davis has gone to Manassas. He did not let

Wigfall know he was going. That ends the delusion of Wigfall’s aideship.

No mistake to-day. I was too ill to move out of my bed. So they all sat

in my room.

_July 22d._—Mrs. Davis came in so softly that I did not know she was here

until she leaned over me and said: “A great battle has been fought.[51]

Joe Johnston led the right wing, and Beauregard the left wing of the

army. Your husband is all right. Wade Hampton is wounded. Colonel

Johnston of the Legion killed; so are Colonel Bee and Colonel Bartow.

Kirby Smith[52] is wounded or killed.”

I had no breath to speak; she went on in that desperate, calm way, to

which people betake themselves under the greatest excitement: “Bartow,

rallying his men, leading them into the hottest of the fight, died

gallantly at the head of his regiment. The President telegraphs me only

that ‘it is a great victory.’ General Cooper has all the other telegrams.”

Still I said nothing; I was stunned; then I was so grateful. Those

nearest and dearest to me were safe still. She then began, in the same

concentrated voice, to read from a paper she held in her hand: “Dead and

dying cover the field. Sherman’s battery taken. Lynchburg regiment cut to

pieces. Three hundred of the Legion wounded.”

That got me up. Times were too wild with excitement to stay in bed. We

went into Mrs. Preston’s room, and she made me lie down on her bed.

Men, women, and children streamed in. Every living soul had a story to

tell. “Complete victory,” you heard everywhere. We had been such anxious

wretches. The revulsion of feeling was almost too much to bear.

To-day I met my friend, Mr. Hunter. I was on my way to Mrs. Bartow’s room

and begged him to call at some other time. I was too tearful just then

for a morning visit from even the most sympathetic person.

A woman from Mrs. Bartow’s country was in a fury because they had stopped

her as she rushed to be the first to tell Mrs. Bartow her husband was

killed, it having been decided that Mrs. Davis should tell her. Poor

thing! She was found lying on her bed when Mrs. Davis knocked. “Come in,”

she said. When she saw it was Mrs. Davis, she sat up, ready to spring to

her feet, but then there was something in Mrs. Davis’s pale face that

took the life out of her. She stared at Mrs. Davis, then sank back, and

covered her face as she asked: “Is it bad news for me?” Mrs. Davis did

not speak. “Is he killed?” Afterward Mrs. Bartow said to me: “As soon as

I saw Mrs. Davis’s face I could not say one word. I knew it all in an

instant. I knew it before I wrapped the shawl about my head.”

Maria, Mrs. Preston’s maid, furiously patriotic, came into my room.

“These colored people say it is printed in the papers here that the

Virginia people done it all. Now Mars Wade had so many of his men killed

and he wounded, it stands to reason that South Carolina was no ways

backward. If there was ever anything plain, that’s plain.”

_Tuesday._—Witnessed for the first time a military funeral. As that march

came wailing up, they say Mrs. Bartow fainted. The empty saddle and the

led war-horse—we saw and heard it all; and now it seems we are never out

of the sound of the Dead March in Saul. It comes and it comes, until I

feel inclined to close my ears and scream.

Yesterday, Mrs. Singleton and ourselves sat on a bedside and mingled our

tears for those noble spirits—John Darby, Theodore Barker, and James

Lowndes. To-day we find we wasted our grief; they are not so much as

wounded. I dare say all the rest is true about them—in the face of the

enemy, with flags in their hands, leading their men. “But Dr. Darby is

a surgeon.” He is as likely to forget that as I am. He is grandson of

Colonel Thomson of the Revolution, called, by way of pet name, by his

soldiers, “Old Danger.” Thank Heaven they are all quite alive. And we

will not cry next time until officially notified.

_July 24th._—Here Mr. Chesnut opened my door and walked in. Out of the

fulness of the heart the mouth speaketh. I had to ask no questions. He

gave me an account of the battle as he saw it (walking up and down my

room, occasionally seating himself on a window sill, but too restless to

remain still many moments); and told what regiments he was sent to bring

up. He took the orders to Colonel Jackson, whose regiment stood so stock

still under fire that they were called a “stone wall.” Also, they call

Beauregard, Eugene, and Johnston, Marlboro. Mr. Chesnut rode with Lay’s

cavalry after the retreating enemy in the pursuit, they following them

until midnight. Then there came such a fall of rain—rain such as is only

known in semitropical lands.

In the drawing-room, Colonel Chesnut was the “belle of the ball”;

they crowded him so for news. He was the first arrival that they

could get at from the field of battle. But the women had to give way

to the dignitaries of the land, who were as filled with curiosity as

themselves—Mr. Barnwell, Mr. Hunter, Mr. Cobb, Captain Ingraham, etc.

Wilmot de Saussure says Wilson of Massachusetts, a Senator of the United

States,[53] came to Manassas, _en route_ to Richmond, with his dancing

shoes ready for a festive scene which was to celebrate a triumph. The New

York Tribune said: “In a few days we shall have Richmond, Memphis, and

New Orleans. They must be taken and at once.” For “a few days” maybe now

they will modestly substitute “in a few years.”

They brought me a Yankee soldier’s portfolio from the battle-field.

The letters had been franked by Senator Harlan.[54] One might shed

tears over some of the letters. Women, wives and mothers, are the same

everywhere. What a comfort the spelling was! We had been willing to admit

that their universal free-school education had put them, rank and file,

ahead of us _literarily_, but these letters do not attest that fact. The

spelling is comically bad.

_July 27th._—Mrs. Davis’s drawing-room last night was brilliant, and

she was in great force. Outside a mob called for the President. He did

speak—an old war-horse, who scents the battle-fields from afar. His

enthusiasm was contagious. They called for Colonel Chesnut, and he gave

them a capital speech, too. As public speakers say sometimes, “It was

the proudest moment of my life.” I did not hear a great deal of it, for

always, when anything happens of any moment, my heart beats up in my

ears, but the distinguished Carolinians who crowded round told me how

good a speech he made. I was dazed. There goes the Dead March for some

poor soul.

To-day, the President told us at dinner that Mr. Chesnut’s eulogy of

Bartow in the Congress was highly praised. Men liked it. Two eminently

satisfactory speeches in twenty-four hours is doing pretty well. And now

I could be happy, but this Cabinet of ours are in such bitter quarrels

among themselves—everybody abusing everybody.

Last night, while those splendid descriptions of the battle were being

given to the crowd below from our windows, I said: “Then, why do we

not go on to Washington?” “You mean why did they not; the opportunity

is lost.” Mr. Barnwell said to me: “Silence, we want to listen to the

speaker,” and Mr. Hunter smiled compassionately, “Don’t ask awkward

questions.”

Kirby Smith came down on the turnpike in the very nick of time. Still,

the heroes who fought all day and held the Yankees in check deserve

credit beyond words, or it would all have been over before the Joe

Johnston contingent came. It is another case of the eleventh-hour scrape;

the eleventh-hour men claim all the credit, and they who bore the heat

and brunt and burden of the day do not like that.

Everybody said at first, “Pshaw! There will be no war.” Those who foresaw

evil were called ravens, ill-foreboders. Now the same sanguine people all

cry, “The war is over”—the very same who were packing to leave Richmond a

few days ago. Many were ready to move on at a moment’s warning, when the

good news came. There are such owls everywhere.

But, to revert to the other kind, the sage and circumspect, those who

say very little, but that little shows they think the war barely begun.

Mr. Rives and Mr. Seddon have just called. Arnoldus Van der Horst came

to see me at the same time. He said there was no great show of victory

on our side until two o’clock, but when we began to win, we did it in

double-quick time. I mean, of course, the battle last Sunday.

Arnold Harris told Mr. Wigfall the news from Washington last Sunday.

For hours the telegrams reported at rapid intervals, “Great victory,”

“Defeating them at all points.” The couriers began to come in on

horseback, and at last, after two or three o’clock, there was a

sudden cessation of all news. About nine messengers with bulletins

came on foot or on horseback—wounded, weary, draggled, footsore,

panic-stricken—spreading in their path on every hand terror and dismay.

That was our opportunity. Wigfall can see nothing that could have stopped

us, and when they explain why we did not go to Washington I understand it

all less than ever. Yet here we will dilly-dally, and Congress orate, and

generals parade, until they in the North get up an army three times as

large as McDowell’s, which we have just defeated.

Trescott says this victory will be our ruin. It lulls us into a fool’s

paradise of conceit at our superior valor, and the shameful farce of

their flight will wake every inch of their manhood. It was the very

fillip they needed. There are a quieter sort here who know their Yankees

well. They say if the thing begins to pay—government contracts, and all

that—we will never hear the end of it, at least, until they get their pay

in some way out of us. They will not lose money by us. Of that we may be

sure. Trust Yankee shrewdness and vim for that.

There seems to be a battle raging at Bethel, but no mortal here can be

got to think of anything but Manassas. Mrs. McLean says she does not see

that it was such a great victory, and if it be so great, how can one

defeat hurt a nation like the North.

John Waties fought the whole battle over for me. Now I understand it.

Before this nobody would take the time to tell the thing consecutively,

rationally, and in order. Mr. Venable said he did not see a braver thing

done than the cool performance of a Columbia negro. He carried his master

a bucket of ham and rice, which he had cooked for him, and he cried: “You

must be so tired and hungry, marster; make haste and eat.” This was in

the thickest of the fight, under the heaviest of the enemy’s guns.

The Federal Congressmen had been making a picnic of it: their luggage was

all ticketed to Richmond. Cameron has issued a proclamation. They are

making ready to come after us on a magnificent scale. They acknowledge us

at last foemen worthy of their steel. The Lord help us, since England and

France won’t, or don’t. If we could only get a friend outside and open a

port.

One of these men told me he had seen a Yankee prisoner, who asked him

“what sort of a diggins Richmond was for trade.” He was tired of the old

concern, and would like to take the oath and settle here. They brought us

handcuffs found in the _débacle_ of the Yankee army. For whom were they?

Jeff Davis, no doubt, and the ringleaders. “Tell that to the marines.” We

have outgrown the handcuff business on this side of the water.

Dr. Gibbes says he was at a country house near Manassas, when a Federal

soldier, who had lost his way, came in exhausted. He asked for brandy,

which the lady of the house gave him. Upon second thought, he declined

it. She brought it to him so promptly he said he thought it might be

poisoned; his mind was; she was enraged, and said: “Sir, I am a Virginia

woman. Do you think I could be as base as that? Here, Bill, Tom, disarm

this man. He is our prisoner.” The negroes came running, and the man

surrendered without more ado.

Another Federal was drinking at the well. A negro girl said: “You go in

and see Missis.” The man went in and she followed, crying triumphantly:

“Look here, Missis, I got a prisoner, too!” This lady sent in her two

prisoners, and Beauregard complimented her on her pluck and patriotism,

and her presence of mind. These negroes were rewarded by their owners.

Now if slavery is as disagreeable to negroes as we think it, why don’t

they all march over the border where they would be received with open

arms? It all amazes me. I am always studying these creatures. They are to

me inscrutable in their way and past finding out. Our negroes were not

ripe for John Brown.

This is how I saw Robert E. Lee for the first time: though his family,

then living at Arlington, called to see me while I was in Washington (I

thought because of old Colonel Chesnut’s intimacy with Nellie Custis in

the old Philadelphia days, Mrs. Lee being Nelly Custis’s niece), I had

not known the head of the Lee family. He was somewhere with the army then.

Last summer at the White Sulphur were Roony Lee and his wife, that sweet

little Charlotte Wickam, and I spoke of Roony with great praise. Mrs.

Izard said: “Don’t waste your admiration on him; wait till you see his

father. He is the nearest to a perfect man I ever saw.” “How?” “In every

way—handsome, clever, agreeable, high-bred.”

Now, Mrs. Stanard came for Mrs. Preston and me to drive to the camp in

an open carriage. A man riding a beautiful horse joined us. He wore a

hat with something of a military look to it, sat his horse gracefully,

and was so distinguished at all points that I very much regretted not

catching his name as Mrs. Stanard gave it to us. He, however, heard ours,

and bowed as gracefully as he rode, and the few remarks he made to each

of us showed he knew all about us.

But Mrs. Stanard was in ecstasies of pleasurable excitement. I felt that

she had bagged a big fish, for just then they abounded in Richmond. Mrs.

Stanard accused him of being ambitious, etc. He remonstrated and said his

tastes were “of the simplest.” He only wanted “a Virginia farm, no end of

cream and fresh butter and fried chicken—not one fried chicken, or two,

but unlimited fried chicken.”

To all this light chat did we seriously incline, because the man and

horse and everything about him were so fine-looking; perfection, in fact;

no fault to be found if you hunted for it. As he left us, I said eagerly,

“Who is he?” “You did not know! Why, it was Robert E. Lee, son of Light

Horse Harry Lee, the first man in Virginia,” raising her voice as she

enumerated his glories. All the same, I like Smith Lee better, and I like

his looks, too. I know Smith Lee well. Can anybody say they know his

brother? I doubt it. He looks so cold, quiet, and grand.

[Illustration: A GROUP OF CONFEDERATE GENERALS.

“STONEWALL” JACKSON.

ROBERT E. LEE.

JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON.

PIERRE G. T. BEAUREGARD.

JOHN B. HOOD.

ALBERT SIDNEY JOHNSTON.]

Kirby Smith is our Blücher; he came on the field in the nick of time, as

Blücher at Waterloo, and now we are as the British, who do not remember

Blücher. It is all Wellington. So every individual man I see fought and

won the battle. From Kershaw up and down, all the eleventh-hour men won

the battle; turned the tide. The Marylanders—Elzey & Co.—one never hears

of—as little as one hears of Blücher in the English stories of Waterloo.

Mr. Venable was praising Hugh Garden and Kershaw’s regiment generally.

This was delightful. They are my friends and neighbors at home. I showed

him Mary Stark’s letter, and we agreed with her. At the bottom of our

hearts we believe every Confederate soldier to be a hero, _sans peur et

sans reproche_.

Hope for the best to-day. Things must be on a pleasanter footing all over

the world. Met the President in the corridor. He took me by both hands.

“Have you breakfasted?” said he. “Come in and breakfast with me?” Alas! I

had had my breakfast.

At the public dining-room, where I had taken my breakfast with Mr.

Chesnut, Mrs. Davis came to him, while we were at table. She said she

had been to our rooms. She wanted Wigfall hunted up. Mr. Davis thought

Chesnut would be apt to know his whereabouts. I ran to Mrs. Wigfall’s

room, who told me she was sure he could be found with his regiment in

camp, but Mr. Chesnut had not to go to the camp, for Wigfall came to his

wife’s room while I was there. Mr. Davis and Wigfall would be friends,

if—if——

The Northern papers say we hung and quartered a Zouave; cut him into four

pieces; and that we tie prisoners to a tree and bayonet them. In other

words, we are savages. It ought to teach us not to credit what our papers

say of them. It is so absurd an imagination of evil. We are absolutely

treating their prisoners as well as our own men: we are complained of for

it here. I am going to the hospitals for the enemy’s sick and wounded in

order to see for myself.

Why did we not follow the flying foe across the Potomac? That is the

question of the hour in the drawing-room with those of us who are not

contending as to “who took Rickett’s Battery?” Allen Green, for one, took

it. Allen told us that, finding a portmanteau with nice clean shirts, he

was so hot and dusty he stepped behind a tree and put on a clean Yankee

shirt, and was more comfortable.

The New York Tribune soothes the Yankee self-conceit, which has received

a shock, by saying we had 100,000 men on the field at Manassas; we

had about 15,000 effective men in all. And then, the Tribune tries to

inflame and envenom them against us by telling lies as to our treatment

of prisoners. They say when they come against us next it will be in

overwhelming force. I long to see Russell’s letter to the London Times

about Bull Run and Manassas. It will be rich and rare. In Washington, it

is crimination and recrimination. Well, let them abuse one another to

their hearts’ content.

_August 1st._—Mrs. Wigfall, with the “Lone Star” flag in her carriage,

called for me. We drove to the fair grounds. Mrs. Davis’s landau, with

her spanking bays, rolled along in front of us. The fair grounds are as

covered with tents, soldiers, etc., as ever. As one regiment moves off

to the army, a fresh one from home comes to be mustered in and take its

place.

The President, with his aides, dashed by. My husband was riding with him.

The President presented the flag to the Texans. Mr. Chesnut came to us

for the flag, and bore it aloft to the President. We seemed to come in

for part of the glory. We were too far off to hear the speech, but Jeff

Davis is very good at that sort of thing, and we were satisfied that it

was well done.

Heavens! how that redoubtable Wigfall did rush those poor Texans about!

He maneuvered and marched them until I was weary for their sakes. Poor

fellows; it was a hot afternoon in August and the thermometer in the

nineties. Mr. Davis uncovered to speak. Wigfall replied with his hat on.

Is that military?

At the fair grounds to-day, such music, mustering, and marching, such

cheering and flying of flags, such firing of guns and all that sort of

thing. A gala day it was, with double-distilled Fourth-of-July feeling.

In the midst of it all, a messenger came to tell Mrs. Wigfall that a

telegram had been received, saying her children were safe across the

lines in Gordonsville. That was something to thank God for, without any

doubt.

These two little girls came from somewhere in Connecticut, with Mrs.

Wigfall’s sister—the one who gave me my Bogotsky, the only person in the

world, except Susan Rutledge who ever seemed to think I had a soul to

save. Now suppose Seward had held Louisa and Fanny as hostages for Louis

Wigfall’s good behavior; eh?

Excitement number two: that bold brigadier, the Georgia General Toombs,

charging about too recklessly, got thrown. His horse dragged him up to

the wheels of our carriage. For a moment it was frightful. Down there

among the horses’ hoofs was a face turned up toward us, purple with rage.

His foot was still in the stirrup, and he had not let go the bridle. The

horse was prancing over him, tearing and plunging; everybody was hemming

him in, and they seemed so slow and awkward about it. We felt it an

eternity, looking down at him, and expecting him to be killed before our

very faces. However, he soon got it all straight, and, though awfully

tousled and tumbled, dusty, rumpled, and flushed, with redder face and

wilder hair than ever, he rode off gallantly, having to our admiration

bravely remounted the recalcitrant charger.

Now if I were to pick out the best abused one, where all catch it so

bountifully, I should say Mr. Commissary-General Northrop was the most

“cussed” and vilified man in the Confederacy. He is held accountable for

everything that goes wrong in the army. He may not be efficient, but

having been a classmate and crony of Jeff Davis at West Point, points

the moral and adorns the tale. I hear that alluded to oftenest of his

many crimes. They say Beauregard writes that his army is upon the verge

of starvation. Here every man, woman, and child is ready to hang to the

first lamp-post anybody of whom that army complains. Every Manassas

soldier is a hero dear to our patriotic hearts. Put up with any neglect

of the heroes of the 21st July—never!

And now they say we did not move on right after the flying foe because

we had no provisions, no wagons, no ammunition, etc. Rain, mud, and

Northrop. Where were the enemy’s supplies that we bragged so of bagging?

Echo answers where? Where there is a will there is a way. We stopped

to plunder that rich convoy, and somehow, for a day or so, everybody

thought the war was over and stopped to rejoice: so it appeared here.

All this was our dinner-table talk to-day. Mr. Mason dined with us and

Mr. Barnwell sits by me always. The latter reproved me sharply, but Mr.

Mason laughed at “this headlong, unreasonable woman’s harangue and female

tactics and their war-ways.” A freshet in the autumn does not compensate

for a drought in the spring. Time and tide wait for no man, and there was

a tide in our affairs which might have led to Washington, and we did not

take it and lost our fortune this round. Things which nobody could deny.

McClellan virtually supersedes the Titan Scott. Physically General Scott

is the largest man I ever saw. Mrs. Scott said, “nobody but his wife

could ever know how little he was.” And yet they say, old Winfield Scott

could have organized an army for them if they had had patience. They

would not give him time.

_August 2d._—Prince Jerome[55] has gone to Washington. Now the Yankees so

far are as little trained as we are; raw troops are they as yet. Suppose

France takes the other side and we have to meet disciplined and armed

men, soldiers who understand war, Frenchmen, with all the _élan_ we boast

of.

Ransom Calhoun, Willie Preston, and Doctor Nott’s boys are here. These

foolish, rash, hare-brained Southern lads have been within an ace of a

fight with a Maryland company for their camping grounds. It is much too

Irish to be so ready to fight anybody, friend or foe. Men are thrilling

with fiery ardor. The red-hot Southern martial spirit is in the air.

These young men, however, were all educated abroad. And it is French or

German ideas that they are filled with. The Marylanders were as rash and

reckless as the others, and had their coat-tails ready for anybody to

tread on, Donnybrook Fair fashion. One would think there were Yankees

enough and to spare for any killing to be done. It began about picketing

their horses. But these quarrelsome young soldiers have lovely manners.

They are so sweet-tempered when seen here among us at the Arlington.

_August 5th._—A heavy, heavy heart. Another missive from Jordan,

querulous and fault-finding; things are all wrong—Beauregard’s Jordan had

been crossed, not the stream “in Canaan’s fair and happy land, where our

possessions lie.” They seem to feel that the war is over here, except the

President and Mr. Barnwell; above all that foreboding friend of mine,

Captain Ingraham. He thinks it hardly begun.

Another outburst from Jordan. Beauregard is not seconded properly.

_Hélas!_ To think that any mortal general (even though he had sprung up

in a month or so from captain of artillery to general) could be so puffed

up with vanity, so blinded by any false idea of his own consequence as

to write, to intimate that man, or men, would sacrifice their country,

injure themselves, ruin their families, to spite the aforesaid general!

Conceit and self-assertion can never reach a higher point than that. And

yet they give you to understand Mr. Davis does not like Beauregard. In

point of fact they fancy he is jealous of him, and rather than Beauregard

shall have a showing the President (who would be hanged at least if

things go wrong) will cripple the army to spite Beauregard. Mr. Mallory

says, “How we could laugh, but you see it is no laughing matter to have

our fate in the hands of such self-sufficient, vain, army idiots.” So the

amenities of life are spreading.

In the meantime we seem to be resting on our oars, debating in Congress,

while the enterprising Yankees are quadrupling their army at their

leisure. Every day some of our regiments march away from here. The town

is crowded with soldiers. These new ones are fairly running in; fearing

the war will be over before they get a sight of the fun. Every man from

every little precinct wants a place in the picture.

_Tuesday._—The North requires 600,000 men to invade us. Truly we are a

formidable power! The Herald says it is useless to move with a man less

than that. England has made it all up with them, or rather, she will not

break with them. Jerome Napoleon is in Washington and not our friend.

Doctor Gibbes is a bird of ill omen. To-day he tells me eight of our men

have died at the Charlottesville Hospital. It seems sickness is more

redoubtable in an army than the enemy’s guns. There are 1,100 there _hors

de combat_, and typhoid fever is with them. They want money, clothes, and

nurses. So, as I am writing, right and left the letters fly, calling for

help from the sister societies at home. Good and patriotic women at home

are easily stirred to their work.

Mary Hammy has many strings to her bow—a _fiancé_ in the army, and Doctor

Berrien in town. To-day she drove out with Major Smith and Colonel Hood.

Yesterday, Custis Lee was here. She is a prudent little puss and needs no

good advice, if I were one to give it.

Lawrence does all our shopping. All his master’s money has been in his

hands until now. I thought it injudicious when gold is at such a premium

to leave it lying loose in the tray of a trunk. So I have sewed it up in

a belt, which I can wear upon an emergency. The cloth is wadded and my

diamonds are there, too. It has strong strings, and can be tied under my

hoops about my waist if the worst comes to the worst, as the saying is.

Lawrence wears the same bronze mask. No sign of anything he may feel or

think of my latest fancy. Only, I know he asks for twice as much money

now when he goes to buy things.

_August 8th._—To-day I saw a sword captured at Manassas. The man who

brought the sword, in the early part of the fray, was taken prisoner

by the Yankees. They stripped him, possessed themselves of his

sleeve-buttons, and were in the act of depriving him of his boots when

the rout began and the play was reversed; proceedings then took the

opposite tack.

From a small rill in the mountain has flowed the mighty stream which

has made at last Louis Wigfall the worst enemy the President has in the

Congress, a fact which complicates our affairs no little. Mr. Davis’s

hands ought to be strengthened; he ought to be upheld. A divided house

must fall, we all say.

Mrs. Sam Jones, who is called Becky by her friends and cronies, male and

female, said that Mrs. Pickens had confided to the aforesaid Jones (_née_

Taylor, and so of the President Taylor family and cousin of Mr. Davis’s

first wife), that Mrs. Wigfall “described Mrs. Davis to Mrs. Pickens as

a coarse Western woman.” Now the fair Lucy Holcombe and Mrs. Wigfall had

a quarrel of their own out in Texas, and, though reconciled, there was

bitterness underneath. At first, Mrs. Joe Johnston called Mrs. Davis

“a Western belle,”[56] but when the quarrel between General Johnston

and the President broke out, Mrs. Johnston took back the “belle” and

substituted “woman” in the narrative derived from Mrs. Jones.

Commodore Barron[57] came with glad tidings. We had taken three prizes

at sea, and brought them in safely, one laden with molasses. General

Toombs told us the President complimented Mr. Chesnut when he described

the battle scene to his Cabinet, etc. General Toombs is certain Colonel

Chesnut will be made one of the new batch of brigadiers. Next came Mr.

Clayton, who calmly informed us Jeff Davis would not get the vote of this

Congress for President, so we might count him out.

Mr. Meynardie first told us how pious a Christian soldier was Kershaw,

how he prayed, got up, dusted his knees and led his men on to victory

with a dash and courage equal to any Old Testament mighty man of war.

Governor Manning’s account of Prince Jerome Napoleon: “He is stout and

he is not handsome. Neither is he young, and as he reviewed our troops

he was terribly overheated.” He heard him say “_en avant_,” of that he

could testify of his own knowledge, and he was told he had been heard to

say with unction “_Allons_” more than once. The sight of the battle-field

had made the Prince seasick, and he received gratefully a draft of fiery

whisky.

Arrago seemed deeply interested in Confederate statistics, and praised

our doughty deeds to the skies. It was but soldier fare our guests

received, though we did our best. It was hard sleeping and worse eating

in camp. Beauregard is half Frenchman and speaks French like a native.

So one awkward mess was done away with, and it was a comfort to see

Beauregard speak without the agony of finding words in the foreign

language and forming them, with damp brow, into sentences. A different

fate befell others who spoke “a little French.”

General and Mrs. Cooper came to see us. She is Mrs. Smith Lee’s sister.

They were talking of old George Mason—in Virginia a name to conjure

with. George Mason violently opposed the extension of slavery. He was a

thorough aristocrat, and gave as his reason for refusing the blessing of

slaves to the new States, Southwest and Northwest, that vulgar new people

were unworthy of so sacred a right as that of holding slaves. It was not

an institution intended for such people as they were. Mrs. Lee said:

“After all, what good does it do my sons that they are Light Horse Harry

Lee’s grandsons and George Mason’s? I do not see that it helps them at

all.”

A friend in Washington writes me that we might have walked into

Washington any day for a week after Manassas, such were the consternation

and confusion there. But the god Pan was still blowing his horn in the

woods. Now she says Northern troops are literally pouring in from all

quarters. The horses cover acres of ground. And she thinks we have lost

our chance forever.

A man named Grey (the same gentleman whom Secretary of War Walker so

astonished by greeting him with, “Well, sir, and what is your business?”)

described the battle of the 21st as one succession of blunders, redeemed

by the indomitable courage of the two-thirds who did not run away on our

side. Doctor Mason said a fugitive on the other side informed him that “a

million of men with the devil at their back could not have whipped the

rebels at Bull Run.” That’s nice.

There must be opposition in a free country. But it is very uncomfortable.

“United we stand, divided we fall.” Mrs. Davis showed us in The New

York Tribune an extract from an Augusta (Georgia) paper saying, “Cobb

is our man. Davis is at heart a reconstructionist.” We may be flies on

the wheel, we know our insignificance; but Mrs. Preston and myself have

entered into an agreement; our oath is recorded on high. We mean to stand

by our President and to stop all fault-finding with the powers that be,

if we can and where we can, be the fault-finders generals or Cabinet

Ministers.

_August 13th._—Hon. Robert Barnwell says, “The Mercury’s influence began

this opposition to Jeff Davis before he had time to do wrong. They

were offended, not with him so much as with the man who was put into

what they considered Barnwell Rhett’s rightful place. The latter had

howled nullification and secession so long that when he found his ideas

taken up by all the Confederate world, he felt he had a vested right to

leadership.”

Jordan, Beauregard’s aide, still writes to Mr. Chesnut that the mortality

among the raw troops in that camp is fearful. Everybody seems to be doing

all they can. Think of the British sick and wounded away off in the

Crimea. Our people are only a half-day’s journey by rail from Richmond.

With a grateful heart I record the fact of reconciliation with the

Wigfalls. They dined at the President’s yesterday and the little Wigfall

girls stayed all night.

Seward is fêting the outsiders, the cousin of the Emperor, Napoleon III.,

and Russell, of the omnipotent London Times.

_August 14th._—Last night there was a crowd of men to see us and they

were so markedly critical. I made a futile effort to record their

sayings, but sleep and heat overcame me. To-day I can not remember a

word. One of Mr. Mason’s stories relates to our sources of trustworthy

information. A man of very respectable appearance standing on the

platform at the depot, announced, “I am just from the seat of war.” Out

came pencil and paper from the newspaper men on the _qui vive_. “Is

Fairfax Court House burned?” they asked. “Yes, burned yesterday.” “But I

am just from there,” said another; “left it standing there all right an

hour or so ago.” “Oh! But I must do them justice to say they burned only

the tavern, for they did not want to tear up and burn anything else after

the railroad.” “There is no railroad at Fairfax Court House,” objected

the man just from Fairfax. “Oh! Indeed!” said the seat-of-war man, “I

did not know that; is that so?” And he coolly seated himself and began

talking of something else.

Our people are lashing themselves into a fury against the prisoners. Only

the mob in any country would do that. But I am told to be quiet. Decency

and propriety will not be forgotten, and the prisoners will be treated as

prisoners of war ought to be in a civilized country.

_August 15th._—Mrs. Randolph came. With her were the Freelands, Rose

and Maria. The men rave over Mrs. Randolph’s beauty; called her a

magnificent specimen of the finest type of dark-eyed, rich, and glowing

Southern woman-kind. Clear brunette she is, with the reddest lips, the

whitest teeth, and glorious eyes; there is no other word for them. Having

given Mrs. Randolph the prize among Southern beauties, Mr. Clayton said

Prentiss was the finest Southern orator. Mr. Marshall and Mr. Barnwell

dissented; they preferred William C. Preston. Mr. Chesnut had found

Colquitt the best or most effective stump orator.

Saw Henry Deas Nott. He is just from Paris, via New York. Says New York

is ablaze with martial fire. At no time during the Crimean war was there

ever in Paris the show of soldiers preparing for the war such as he saw

at New York. The face of the earth seemed covered with marching regiments.

Not more than 500 effective men are in Hampton’s Legion, but they kept

the whole Yankee army at bay until half-past two. Then just as Hampton

was wounded and half his colonels shot, Cash and Kershaw (from Mrs. Smith

Lee audibly, “How about Kirby Smith?”) dashed in and not only turned the

tide, but would have driven the fugitives into Washington, but Beauregard

recalled them. Mr. Chesnut finds all this very amusing, as he posted many

of the regiments and all the time was carrying orders over the field.

The discrepancies in all these private memories amuse him, but he smiles

pleasantly and lets every man tell the tale in his own way.

_August 16th._—Mr. Barnwell says, Fame is an article usually home made;

you must create your own puffs or superintend their manufacture. And you

must see that the newspapers print your own military reports. No one else

will give you half the credit you take to yourself. No one will look

after your fine name before the world with the loving interest and faith

you have yourself.

_August 17th._—Captain Shannon, of the Kirkwood Rangers, called and

stayed three hours. Has not been under fire yet, but is keen to see or to

hear the flashing of the guns; proud of himself, proud of his company,

but proudest of all that he has no end of the bluest blood of the low

country in his troop. He seemed to find my knitting a pair of socks a day

for the soldiers droll in some way. The yarn is coarse. He has been so

short a time from home he does not know how the poor soldiers need them.

He was so overpoweringly flattering to my husband that I found him very

pleasant company.

_August 18th._—Found it quite exciting to have a spy drinking his tea

with us—perhaps because I knew his profession. I did not like his face.

He is said to have a scheme by which Washington will fall into our hands

like an overripe peach.

Mr. Barnwell urges Mr. Chesnut to remain in the Senate. There are so many

generals, or men anxious to be. He says Mr. Chesnut can do his country

most good by wise counsels where they are most needed. I do not say to

the contrary; I dare not throw my influence on the army side, for if

anything happened!

Mr. Miles told us last night that he had another letter from General

Beauregard. The General wants to know if Mr. Miles has delivered his

message to Colonel Kershaw. Mr. Miles says he has not done so; neither

does he mean to do it. They must settle these matters of veracity

according to their own military etiquette. He is a civilian once more.

It is a foolish wrangle. Colonel Kershaw ought to have reported to his

commander-in-chief, and not made an independent report and published it.

He meant no harm. He is not yet used to the fine ways of war.

The New York Tribune is so unfair. It began by howling to get rid of us:

we were so wicked. Now that we are so willing to leave them to their

overrighteous self-consciousness, they cry: “Crush our enemy, or they

will subjugate us.” The idea that we want to invade or subjugate anybody;

we would be only too grateful to be left alone. We ask no more of gods or

men.

Went to the hospital with a carriage load of peaches and grapes. Made

glad the hearts of some men thereby. When my supplies gave out, those who

had none looked so wistfully as I passed out that I made a second raid on

the market. Those eyes sunk in cavernous depths and following me from bed

to bed haunt me.

Wilmot de Saussure, harrowed my soul by an account of a recent death by

drowning on the beach at Sullivan’s Island. Mr. Porcher, who was trying

to save his sister’s life, lost his own and his child’s. People seem to

die out of the army quite as much as in it.

Mrs. Randolph presided in all her beautiful majesty at an aid

association. The ladies were old, and all wanted their own way. They were

cross-grained and contradictory, and the blood mounted rebelliously into

Mrs. Randolph’s clear-cut cheeks, but she held her own with dignity and

grace. One of the causes of disturbance was that Mrs. Randolph proposed

to divide everything sent on equally with the Yankee wounded and sick

prisoners. Some were enthusiastic from a Christian point of view; some

shrieked in wrath at the bare idea of putting our noble soldiers on a par

with Yankees, living, dying, or dead. Fierce dames were some of them,

august, severe matrons, who evidently had not been accustomed to hear the

other side of any question from anybody, and just old enough to find the

last pleasure in life to reside in power—the power to make their claws

felt.

_August 23d._—A brother of Doctor Garnett has come fresh and straight

from Cambridge, Mass., and says (or is said to have said, with all the

difference there is between the two), that “recruiting up there is dead.”

He came by Cincinnati and Pittsburg and says all the way through it was

so sad, mournful, and quiet it looked like Sunday.

I asked Mr. Brewster if it were true Senator Toombs had turned brigadier.

“Yes, soldiering is in the air. Every one will have a touch of it. Toombs

could not stay in the Cabinet.” “Why?” “Incompatibility of temper. He

rides too high a horse; that is, for so despotic a person as Jeff Davis.

I have tried to find out the sore, but I can’t. Mr. Toombs has been out

with them all for months.” Dissension will break out. Everything does,

but it takes a little time. There is a perfect magazine of discord and

discontent in that Cabinet; only wants a hand to apply the torch, and up

they go. Toombs says old Memminger has his back up as high as any.

Oh, such a day! Since I wrote this morning, I have been with Mrs.

Randolph to all the hospitals. I can never again shut out of view the

sights I saw there of human misery. I sit thinking, shut my eyes, and

see it all; thinking, yes, and there is enough to think about now, God

knows. Gilland’s was the worst, with long rows of ill men on cots, ill of

typhoid fever, of every human ailment; on dinner-tables for eating and

drinking, wounds being dressed; all the horrors to be taken in at one

glance.

Then we went to the St. Charles. Horrors upon horrors again; want of

organization, long rows of dead and dying; awful sights. A boy from home

had sent for me. He was dying in a cot, ill of fever. Next him a man died

in convulsions as we stood there. I was making arrangements with a nurse,

hiring him to take care of this lad; but I do not remember any more, for

I fainted. Next that I knew of, the doctor and Mrs. Randolph were having

me, a limp rag, put into a carriage at the door of the hospital. Fresh

air, I dare say, brought me to. As we drove home the doctor came along

with us, I was so upset. He said: “Look at that Georgia regiment marching

there; look at their servants on the sidewalk. I have been counting them,

making an estimate. There is $16,000—sixteen thousand dollars’ worth of

negro property which can go off on its own legs to the Yankees whenever

it pleases.”

_August 24th._—Daniel, of The Examiner, was at the President’s. Wilmot

de Saussure wondered if a fellow did not feel a little queer, paying his

respects in person at the house of a man whom he abused daily in his

newspaper.

A fiasco: an aide engaged to two young ladies in the same house. The

ladies had been quarreling, but became friends unexpectedly when his

treachery, among many other secrets, was revealed under that august roof.

Fancy the row when it all came out.

Mr. Lowndes said we have already reaped one good result from the war. The

orators, the spouters, the furious patriots, that could hardly be held

down, and who were so wordily anxious to do or die for their country—they

had been the pest of our lives. Now they either have not tried the

battle-field at all, or have precipitately left it at their earliest

convenience: for very shame we are rid of them for a while. I doubt it.

Bright’s speech[58] is dead against us. Reading this does not brighten

one.

_August 25th._—Mr. Barnwell says democracies lead to untruthfulness.

To be always electioneering is to be always false; so both we and the

Yankees are unreliable as regards our own exploits. “How about empires?

Were there ever more stupendous lies than the Emperor Napoleon’s?” Mr.

Barnwell went on: “People dare not tell the truth in a canvass; they must

conciliate their constituents. Now everybody in a democracy always wants

an office; at least, everybody in Richmond just now seems to want one.”

Never heeding interruptions, he went on: “As a nation, the English are

the most truthful in the world.” “And so are our country gentlemen: they

own their constituents—at least, in some of the parishes, where there are

few whites; only immense estates peopled by negroes.” Thackeray speaks of

the lies that were told on both sides in the British wars with France;

England kept quite alongside of her rival in that fine art. England lied

then as fluently as Russell lies about us now.

Went to see Agnes De Leon, my Columbia school friend. She is fresh from

Egypt, and I wished to hear of the Nile, the crocodiles, the mummies, the

Sphinx, and the Pyramids. But her head ran upon Washington life, such as

we knew it, and her soul was here. No theme was possible but a discussion

of the latest war news.

Mr. Clayton, Assistant Secretary of State, says we spend two millions a

week. Where is all that money to come from? They don’t want us to plant

cotton, but to make provisions. Now, cotton always means money, or did

when there was an outlet for it and anybody to buy it. Where is money to

come from now?

Mr. Barnwell’s new joke, I dare say, is a Joe Miller, but Mr. Barnwell

laughed in telling it till he cried. A man was fined for contempt of

court and then, his case coming on, the Judge talked such arrant nonsense

and was so warped in his mind against the poor man, that the “fined one”

walked up and handed the august Judge a five-dollar bill. “Why? What

is that for?” said the Judge. “Oh, I feel such a contempt of this court

coming on again!”

I came up tired to death; took down my hair; had it hanging over me in a

Crazy Jane fashion; and sat still, hands over my head (half undressed,

but too lazy and sleepy to move). I was sitting in a rocking-chair by an

open window taking my ease and the cool night air, when suddenly the door

opened and Captain —— walked in. He was in the middle of the room before

he saw his mistake; he stared and was transfixed, as the novels say. I

dare say I looked an ancient Gorgon. Then, with a more frantic glare, he

turned and fled without a word. I got up and bolted the door after him,

and then looked in the glass and laughed myself into hysterics. I shall

never forget to lock the door again. But it does not matter in this case.

I looked totally unlike the person bearing my name, who, covered with

lace cap, etc., frequents the drawing-room. I doubt if he would know me

again.

_August 26th._—The Terror has full swing at the North now. All the papers

favorable to us have been suppressed. How long would our mob stand a

Yankee paper here? But newspapers against our government, such as the

Examiner and the Mercury flourish like green bay-trees. A man up to the

elbows in finance said to-day: “Clayton’s story is all nonsense. They do

sometimes pay out two millions a week; they paid the soldiers this week,

but they don’t pay the soldiers every week.” “Not by a long shot,” cried

a soldier laddie with a grin.

“Why do you write in your diary at all,” some one said to me, “if, as you

say, you have to contradict every day what you wrote yesterday?” “Because

I tell the tale as it is told to me. I write current rumor. I do not

vouch for anything.”

We went to Pizzini’s, that very best of Italian confectioners. From there

we went to Miss Sally Tompkins’s hospital, loaded with good things for

the wounded. The men under Miss Sally’s kind care looked so clean and

comfortable—cheerful, one might say. They were pleasant and nice to see.

One, however, was dismal in tone and aspect, and he repeated at intervals

with no change of words, in a forlorn monotone: “What a hard time we have

had since we left home.” But nobody seemed to heed his wailing, and it

did not impair his appetite.

At Mrs. Toombs’s, who was raging; so anti-Davis she will not even admit

that the President is ill. “All humbug.” “But what good could pretending

to be ill do him?” “That reception now, was not that a humbug? Such a

failure. Mrs. Reagan could have done better than that.”

Mrs. Walker is a Montgomery beauty, with such magnificent dresses. She

was an heiress, and is so dissatisfied with Richmond, accustomed as she

is to being a belle under different conditions. As she is as handsome and

well dressed as ever, it must be the men who are all wrong.

“Did you give Lawrence that fifty-dollar bill to go out and change it?” I

was asked. “Suppose he takes himself off to the Yankees. He would leave

us with not too many fifty-dollar bills.” He is not going anywhere,

however. I think his situation suits him. That wadded belt of mine, with

the gold pieces quilted in, has made me ashamed more than once. I leave

it under my pillow and my maid finds it there and hangs it over the back

of a chair, in evidence as I reenter the room after breakfast. When I

forget and leave my trunk open, Lawrence brings me the keys and tells

me, “You oughten to do so, Miss Mary.” Mr. Chesnut leaves all his little

money in his pockets, and Lawrence says that’s why he can’t let any one

but himself brush Mars Jeems’s clothes.

_August 27th._—Theodore Barker and James Lowndes came; the latter has

been wretchedly treated. A man said, “All that I wish on earth is to be

at peace and on my own plantation,” to which Mr. Lowndes replied quietly,

“I wish I had a plantation to be on, but just now I can’t see how any

one would feel justified in leaving the army.” Mr. Barker was bitter

against the spirit of braggadocio so rampant among us. The gentleman who

had been answered so completely by James Lowndes said, with spitefulness:

“Those women who are so frantic for their husbands to join the army would

like them killed, no doubt.”

Things were growing rather uncomfortable, but an interruption came in

the shape of a card. An old classmate of Mr. Chesnut’s—Captain Archer,

just now fresh from California—followed his card so quickly that Mr.

Chesnut had hardly time to tell us that in Princeton College they called

him “Sally” Archer he was so pretty—when he entered. He is good-looking

still, but the service and consequent rough life have destroyed all

softness and girlishness. He will never be so pretty again.

The North is consolidated; they move as one man, with no States, but an

army organized by the central power. Russell in the Northern camp is

cursed of Yankees for that Bull Run letter. Russell, in his capacity

of Englishman, despises both sides. He divides us equally into North

and South. He prefers to attribute our victory at Bull Run to Yankee

cowardice rather than to Southern courage. He gives no credit to either

side; for good qualities, we are after all mere Americans! Everything not

“national” is arrested. It looks like the business of Seward.

I do not know when I have seen a woman without knitting in her hand.

Socks for the soldiers is the cry. One poor man said he had dozens of

socks and but one shirt. He preferred more shirts and fewer stockings.

We make a quaint appearance with this twinkling of needles and the

everlasting sock dangling below.

They have arrested Wm. B. Reed and Miss Winder, she boldly proclaiming

herself a secessionist. Why should she seek a martyr’s crown? Writing

people love notoriety. It is so delightful to be of enough consequence to

be arrested. I have often wondered if such incense was ever offered as

Napoleon’s so-called persecution and alleged jealousy of Madame de Staël.

* * * * *

Russell once more, to whom London, Paris, and India have been an

every-day sight, and every-night, too, streets and all. How absurd for

him to go on in indignation because there have been women on negro

plantations who were not vestal virgins. Negro women get married, and

after marriage behave as well as other people. Marrying is the amusement

of their lives. They take life easily; so do their class everywhere. Bad

men are hated here as elsewhere.

“I hate slavery. I hate a man who—You say there are no more fallen women

on a plantation than in London in proportion to numbers. But what do

you say to this—to a magnate who runs a hideous black harem, with its

consequences, under the same roof with his lovely white wife and his

beautiful and accomplished daughters? He holds his head high and poses

as the model of all human virtues to these poor women whom God and the

laws have given him. From the height of his awful majesty he scolds and

thunders at them as if he never did wrong in his life. Fancy such a man

finding his daughter reading Don Juan. ‘You with that immoral book!’

he would say, and then he would order her out of his sight. You see

Mrs. Stowe did not hit the sorest spot. She makes Legree a bachelor.”

“Remember George II. and his likes.”

“Oh, I know half a Legree—a man said to be as cruel as Legree, but the

other half of him did not correspond. He was a man of polished manners,

and the best husband and father and member of the church in the world.”

“Can that be so?”

“Yes, I know it. Exceptional case, that sort of thing, always. And I

knew the dissolute half of Legree well. He was high and mighty, but the

kindest creature to his slaves. And the unfortunate results of his bad

ways were not sold, had not to jump over ice-blocks. They were kept in

full view, and provided for handsomely in his will.”

“The wife and daughters in the might of their purity and innocence are

supposed never to dream of what is as plain before their eyes as the

sunlight, and they play their parts of unsuspecting angels to the letter.

They profess to adore the father as the model of all saintly goodness.”

“Well, yes; if he is rich he is the fountain from whence all blessings

flow.”

“The one I have in my eye—my half of Legree, the dissolute half—was so

furious in temper and thundered his wrath so at the poor women, they

were glad to let him do as he pleased in peace if they could only escape

his everlasting fault-finding, and noisy bluster, making everybody so

uncomfortable.” “Now—now, do you know any woman of this generation who

would stand that sort of thing? No, never, not for one moment. The

make-believe angels were of the last century. We know, and we won’t have

it.”

“The condition of women is improving, it seems.” “Women are brought up

not to judge their fathers or their husbands. They take them as the Lord

provides and are thankful.”

“If they should not go to heaven after all; think what lives most women

lead.” “No heaven, no purgatory, no—the other thing? Never. I believe in

future rewards and punishments.”

“How about the wives of drunkards! I heard a woman say once to a friend

of her husband, tell it as a cruel matter of fact, without bitterness,

without comment, ‘Oh, you have not seen him! He has changed. He has not

gone to bed sober in thirty years.’ She has had her purgatory, if not

‘the other thing,’ here in this world. We all know what a drunken man

is. To think, _for no crime_, a person may be condemned to live with

one thirty years.” “You wander from the question I asked. Are Southern

men worse because of the slave system and the facile black women?” “Not

a bit. They see too much of them. The barroom people don’t drink, the

confectionery people loathe candy. They are sick of the black sight of

them.”

“You think a nice man from the South is the nicest thing in the world?”

“I know it. Put him by any other man and see!”

* * * * *

Have seen Yankee letters taken at Manassas. The spelling is often

atrocious, and we thought they had all gone through a course of

blue-covered Noah Webster spelling-books. Our soldiers do spell

astonishingly. There is Horace Greeley: they say he can’t read his own

handwriting. But he is candid enough and disregards all time-serving. He

says in his paper that in our army the North has a hard nut to crack, and

that the rank and file of our army is superior in education and general

intelligence to theirs.

My wildest imagination will not picture Mr. Mason[59] as a diplomat. He

will say chaw for chew, and he will call himself Jeems, and he will wear

a dress coat to breakfast. Over here, whatever a Mason does is right in

his own eyes. He is above law. Somebody asked him how he pronounced his

wife’s maiden name: she was a Miss Chew from Philadelphia.

They say the English will like Mr. Mason; he is so manly, so

straightforward, so truthful and bold. “A fine old English gentleman,”

so said Russell to me, “but for tobacco.” “I like Mr. Mason and Mr.

Hunter better than anybody else.” “And yet they are wonderfully unlike.”

“Now you just listen to me,” said I. “Is Mrs. Davis in hearing—no? Well,

this sending Mr. Mason to London is the maddest thing yet. Worse in some

points of view than Yancey, and that was a catastrophe.”

_August 29th._—No more feminine gossip, but the licensed slanderer, the

mighty Russell, of the Times. He says the battle of the 21st was fought

at long range: 500 yards apart were the combatants. The Confederates were

steadily retreating when some commotion in the wagon train frightened the

“Yanks,” and they made tracks. In good English, they fled amain. And on

our side we were too frightened to follow them—in high-flown English, to

pursue the flying foe.

In spite of all this, there are glimpses of the truth sometimes, and the

story leads to our credit with all the sneers and jeers. When he speaks

of the Yankees’ cowardice, falsehood, dishonesty, and braggadocio, the

best words are in his mouth. He repeats the thrice-told tale, so often

refuted and denied, that we were harsh to wounded prisoners. Dr. Gibson

told me that their surgeon-general has written to thank our surgeons:

Yankee officers write very differently from Russell. I know that in that

hospital with the Sisters of Charity they were better off than our men

were at the other hospitals: that I saw with my own eyes. These poor

souls are jealously guarded night and day. It is a hideous tale—what they

tell of their sufferings.

Women who come before the public are in a bad box now. False hair is

taken off and searched for papers. Bustles are “suspect.” All manner of

things, they say, come over the border under the huge hoops now worn;

so they are ruthlessly torn off. Not legs but arms are looked for

under hoops, and, sad to say, found. Then women are used as detectives

and searchers, to see that no men slip over in petticoats. So the poor

creatures coming this way are humiliated to the deepest degree. To

men, glory, honor, praise, and power, if they are patriots. To women,

daughters of Eve, punishment comes still in some shape, do what they will.

Mary Hammy’s eyes were starting from her head with amazement, while a

very large and handsome South Carolinian talked rapidly. “What is it?”

asked I after he had gone. “Oh, what a year can bring forth—one year!

Last summer you remember how he swore he was in love with me? He told

you, he told me, he told everybody, and if I did refuse to marry him I

believed him. Now he says he has seen, fallen in love with, courted, and

married another person, and he raves of his little daughter’s beauty. And

they say time goes slowly”—thus spoke Mary Hammy, with a sigh of wonder

at his wonderful cure.

“Time works wonders,” said the explainer-general. “What conclusion did

you come to as to Southern men at the grand pow-wow, you know?” “They are

nicer than the nicest—the gentlemen, you know. There are not too many of

that kind anywhere. Ours are generous, truthful, brave, and—and—devoted

to us, you know. A Southern husband is not a bad thing to have about the

house.”

Mrs. Frank Hampton said: “For one thing, you could not flirt with these

South Carolinians. They would not stay at the tepid degree of flirtation.

They grow so horridly in earnest before you know where you are.” “Do you

think two married people ever lived together without finding each other

out? I mean, knowing exactly how good or how shabby, how weak or how

strong, above all, how selfish each was?” “Yes; unless they are dolts,

they know to a tittle; but you see if they have common sense they make

believe and get on, so so.” Like the Marchioness’s orange-peel wine in

Old Curiosity Shop.

A violent attack upon the North to-day in the Albion. They mean to let

freedom slide a while until they subjugate us. The Albion says they use

_lettres de cachet_, passports, and all the despotic apparatus of regal

governments. Russell hears the tramp of the coming man—the king and

kaiser tyrant that is to rule them. Is it McClellan?—“Little Mac”? We may

tremble when he comes. We down here have only “the many-headed monster

thing,” armed democracy. Our chiefs quarrel among themselves.

McClellan is of a forgiving spirit. He does not resent Russell’s slurs

upon Yankees, but with good policy has Russell with him as a guest.

The Adonis of an aide avers, as one who knows, that “Sumter” Anderson’s

heart is with us; that he will not fight the South. After all is said and

done that sounds like nonsense. “Sumter” Anderson’s wife was a daughter

of Governor Clinch, of Georgia. Does that explain it? He also told me

something of Garnett (who was killed at Rich Mountain).[60] He had been

an unlucky man clear through. In the army before the war, the aide had

found him proud, reserved, and morose, cold as an icicle to all. But for

his wife and child he was a different creature. He adored them and cared

for nothing else.

One day he went off on an expedition and was gone six weeks. He was out

in the Northwest, and the Indians were troublesome. When he came back,

his wife and child were underground. He said not one word, but they found

him more frozen, stern, and isolated than ever; that was all. The night

before he left Richmond he said in his quiet way: “They have not given me

an adequate force. I can do nothing. They have sent me to my death.” It

is acknowledged that he threw away his life—“a dreary-hearted man,” said

the aide, “and the unluckiest.”

* * * * *

On the front steps every evening we take our seats and discourse at our

pleasure. A nicer or more agreeable set of people were never assembled

than our present Arlington crowd. To-night it was Yancey[61] who occupied

our tongues. Send a man to England who had killed his father-in-law in

a street brawl! That was not knowing England or Englishmen, surely. Who

wants eloquence? We want somebody who can hold his tongue. People avoid

great talkers, men who orate, men given to monologue, as they would avoid

fire, famine, or pestilence. Yancey will have no mobs to harangue. No

stump speeches will be possible, superb as are his of their kind, but

little quiet conversation is best with slow, solid, common-sense people,

who begin to suspect as soon as any flourish of trumpets meets their ear.

If Yancey should use his fine words, who would care for them over there?

Commodore Barron, when he was a middy, accompanied Phil Augustus Stockton

to claim his bride. He, the said Stockton, had secretly wedded a fair

heiress (Sally Cantey). She was married by a magistrate and returned to

Mrs. Grillaud’s boarding-school until it was time to go home—that is, to

Camden.

Lieutenant Stockton (a descendant of the Signer) was the handsomest man

in the navy, and irresistible. The bride was barely sixteen. When he was

to go down South among those fire-eaters and claim her, Commodore Barron,

then his intimate friend, went as his backer. They were to announce the

marriage and defy the guardians. Commodore Barron said he anticipated a

rough job of it all, but they were prepared for all risks. “You expected

to find us a horde of savages, no doubt,” said I. “We did not expect to

get off under a half-dozen duels.” They looked for insults from every

quarter and they found a polished and refined people who lived _en

prince_, to say the least of it. They were received with a cold, stately,

and faultless politeness, which made them feel as if they had been

sheep-stealing.

The young lady had confessed to her guardians and they were for making

the best of it; above all, for saving her name from all gossip or

publicity. Colonel John Boykin, one of them, took Young Lochinvar to stay

with him. His friend, Barron, was also a guest. Colonel Deas sent for a

parson, and made assurance doubly sure by marrying them over again. Their

wish was to keep things quiet and not to make a nine-days’ wonder of the

young lady.

Then came balls, parties, and festivities without end. He was enchanted

with the easy-going life of these people, with dinners the finest in the

world, deer-hunting, and fox-hunting, dancing, and pretty girls, in fact

everything that heart could wish. But then, said Commodore Barron, “the

better it was, and the kinder the treatment, the more ashamed I grew of

my business down there. After all, it was stealing an heiress, you know.”

I told him how the same fate still haunted that estate in Camden. Mr.

Stockton sold it to a gentleman, who later sold it to an old man who

had married when near eighty, and who left it to the daughter born of

that marriage. This pretty child of his old age was left an orphan

quite young. At the age of fifteen, she ran away and married a boy

of seventeen, a canny Scotchman. The young couple lived to grow up,

and it proved after all a happy marriage. This last heiress left six

children; so the estate will now be divided, and no longer tempt the

fortune-hunters.

The Commodore said: “To think how we two youngsters in our blue uniforms

went down there to bully those people.” He was much at Colonel Chesnut’s.

Mrs. Chesnut being a Philadelphian, he was somewhat at ease with them. It

was the most thoroughly appointed establishment he had then ever visited.

* * * * *

Went with our leviathan of loveliness to a ladies’ meeting. No scandal

to-day, no wrangling, all harmonious, everybody knitting. Dare say that

soothing occupation helped our perturbed spirits to be calm. Mrs. C——

is lovely, a perfect beauty. Said Brewster: “In Circassia, think what a

price would be set upon her, for there beauty sells by the pound!”

Coming home the following conversation: “So Mrs. Blank thinks purgatory

will hold its own—never be abolished while women and children have to

live with drunken fathers and brothers.” “She knows.” “She is too bitter.

She says worse than that. She says we have an institution worse than the

Spanish Inquisition, worse than Torquemada, and all that sort of thing.”

“What does she mean?” “You ask her. Her words are sharp arrows. I am a

dull creature, and I should spoil all by repeating what she says.”

“It is your own family that she calls the familiars of the Inquisition.

She declares that they set upon you, fall foul of you, watch and harass

you from morn till dewy eve. They have a perfect right to your life,

night and day, unto the fourth and fifth generation. They drop in at

breakfast and say, ‘Are you not imprudent to eat that?’ ‘Take care now,

don’t overdo it.’ ‘I think you eat too much so early in the day.’ And

they help themselves to the only thing you care for on the table. They

abuse your friends and tell you it is your duty to praise your enemies.

They tell you of all your faults candidly, because they love you so; that

gives them a right to speak. What family interest they take in you. You

ought to do this; you ought to do that, and then the everlasting ‘you

ought to have done,’ which comes near making you a murderer, at least in

heart. ‘Blood’s thicker than water,’ they say, and there is where the

longing to spill it comes in. No locks or bolts or bars can keep them

out. Are they not your nearest family? They dine with you, dropping in

after you are at soup. They come after you have gone to bed, when all the

servants have gone away, and the man of the house, in his nightshirt,

standing sternly at the door with the huge wooden bar in his hand, nearly

scares them to death, and you are glad of it.”

“Private life, indeed!” She says her husband entered public life and

they went off to live in a far-away city. Then for the first time in her

life she knew privacy. She never will forget how she jumped for joy as

she told her servant not to admit a soul until after two o’clock in the

day. Afterward, she took a fixed day at home. Then she was free indeed.

She could read and write, stay at home, go out at her own sweet will,

no longer sitting for hours with her fingers between the leaves of a

frantically interesting book, while her kin slowly driveled nonsense

by the yard—waiting, waiting, yawning. Would they never go? Then for

hurting you, who is like a relative? They do it from a sense of duty.

For stinging you, for cutting you to the quick, who like one of your own

household? In point of fact, they alone can do it. They know the sore,

and how to hit it every time. You are in their power. She says, did you

ever see a really respectable, responsible, revered and beloved head of a

family who ever opened his mouth at home except to find fault? He really

thinks that is his business in life and that all enjoyment is sinful. He

is there to prevent the women from such frivolous things as pleasure,

etc., etc.

I sat placidly rocking in my chair by the window, trying to hope all was

for the best. Mary Hammy rushed in literally drowned in tears. I never

saw so drenched a face in my life. My heart stopped still. “Commodore

Barron is taken prisoner,” said she. “The Yankees have captured him

and all his lieutenants. Poor Imogen—and there is my father scouting

about, the Lord knows where. I only know he is in the advance guard. The

Barron’s time has come. Mine may come any minute. Oh, Cousin Mary, when

Mrs. Lee told Imogen, she fainted! Those poor girls; they are nearly dead

with trouble and fright.”

“Go straight back to those children,” I said. “Nobody will touch a hair

of their father’s head. Tell them I say so. They dare not. They are not

savages quite. This is a civilized war, you know.”

Mrs. Lee said to Mrs. Eustis (Mr. Corcoran’s daughter) yesterday: “Have

you seen those accounts of arrests in Washington?” Mrs. Eustis answered

calmly: “Yes, I know all about it. I suppose you allude to the fact that

my father has been imprisoned.” “No, no,” interrupted the explainer,

“she means the incarceration of those mature Washington belles suspected

as spies.” But Mrs. Eustis continued, “I have no fears for my father’s

safety.”

_August 31st._—Congress adjourns to-day. Jeff Davis ill. We go home on

Monday if I am able to travel. Already I feel the dread stillness and

torpor of our Sahara of a Sand Hill creeping into my veins. It chills the

marrow of my bones. I am reveling in the noise of city life. I know what

is before me. Nothing more cheering than the cry of the lone whippoorwill

will break the silence at Sandy Hill, except as night draws near, when

the screech-owl will add his mournful note.

_September 1st._—North Carolina writes for arms for her soldiers. Have we

any to send? No. Brewster, the plain-spoken, says, “The President is ill,

and our affairs are in the hands of noodles. All the generals away with

the army; nobody here; General Lee in Western Virginia. Reading the third

Psalm. The devil is sick, the devil a saint would be. Lord, how are they

increased that trouble me? Many are they that rise up against me!”

_September 2d._—Mr. Miles says he is not going anywhere at all, not even

home. He is to sit here permanently—chairman of a committee to overhaul

camps, commissariats, etc., etc.

We exchanged our ideas of Mr. Mason, in which we agreed perfectly. In

the first place, he has a noble presence—really a handsome man; is a

manly old Virginian, straightforward, brave, truthful, clever, the very

beau-ideal of an independent, high-spirited F. F. V. If the English value

a genuine man they will have one here. In every particular he is the

exact opposite of Talleyrand. He has some peculiarities. He had never an

ache or a pain himself; his physique is perfect, and he loudly declares

that he hates to see persons ill; seems to him an unpardonable weakness.

It began to grow late. Many people had come to say good-by to me. I had

fever as usual to-day, but in the excitement of this crowd of friends the

invalid forgot fever. Mr. Chesnut held up his watch to me warningly and

intimated “it was late, indeed, for one who has to travel to-morrow.” So,

as the Yankees say after every defeat, I “retired in good order.”

Not quite, for I forgot handkerchief and fan. Gonzales rushed after and

met me at the foot of the stairs. In his foreign, pathetic, polite,

high-bred way, he bowed low and said he had made an excuse for the fan,

for he had a present to make me, and then, though “startled and amazed, I

paused and on the stranger gazed.” Alas! I am a woman approaching forty,

and the offering proved to be a bottle of cherry bounce. Nothing could

have been more opportune, and with a little ice, etc., will help, I am

sure, to save my life on that dreadful journey home.

No discouragement now felt at the North. They take our forts and are

satisfied for a while. Then the English are strictly neutral. Like the

woman who saw her husband fight the bear, “It was the first fight she

ever saw when she did not care who whipped.”

Mr. Davis was very kind about it all. He told Mr. Chesnut to go home and

have an eye to all the State defenses, etc., and that he would give him

any position he asked for if he still wished to continue in the army.

Now, this would be all that heart could wish, but Mr. Chesnut will never

ask for anything. What will he ask for? That’s the rub. I am certain of

very few things in life now, but this is one I am certain of: Mr. Chesnut

will never ask mortal man for any promotion for himself or for one of his

own family.

X

CAMDEN, S. C.

_September 9, 1861-September 19, 1861_

Camden, S. C., _September 9, 1861_.—Home again at Mulberry, the fever

in full possession of me. My sister, Kate, is my ideal woman, the most

agreeable person I know in the world, with her soft, low, and sweet

voice, her graceful, gracious ways, and her glorious gray eyes, that I

looked into so often as we confided our very souls to each other.

God bless old Betsey’s yellow face! She is a nurse in a thousand, and

would do anything for “Mars Jeems’ wife.” My small ailments in all

this comfort set me mourning over the dead and dying soldiers I saw in

Virginia. How feeble my compassion proves, after all.

I handed the old Colonel a letter from his son in the army. He said, as

he folded up the missive from the seat of war, “With this war we may die

out. Your husband is the last—of my family.” He means that my husband is

his only living son; his grandsons are in the army, and they, too, may

be killed—even Johnny, the gallant and gay, may not be bullet-proof. No

child have I.

Now this old man of ninety years was born when it was not the fashion for

a gentleman to be a saint, and being lord of all he surveyed for so many

years, irresponsible, in the center of his huge domain, it is wonderful

he was not a greater tyrant—the softening influence of that angel wife,

no doubt. Saint or sinner, he understands the world about him—_au fond_.

Have had a violent attack of something wrong about my heart. It stopped

beating, then it took to trembling, creaking and thumping like a

Mississippi high-pressure steamboat, and the noise in my ears was more

like an ammunition wagon rattling over the stones in Richmond. That was

yesterday, and yet I am alive. That kind of thing makes one feel very

mortal.

Russell writes how disappointed Prince Jerome Napoleon was with the

appearance of our troops, and “he did not like Beauregard at all.” Well!

I give Bogar up to him. But how a man can find fault with our soldiers,

as I have seen them individually and collectively in Charleston,

Richmond, and everywhere—that beats me.

The British are the most conceited nation in the world, the most

self-sufficient, self-satisfied, and arrogant. But each individual man

does not blow his own penny whistle; they brag wholesale. Wellington—he

certainly left it for others to sound his praises—though Mr. Binney

thought the statue of Napoleon at the entrance of Apsley House was a

little like “‘Who killed Cock Robin?’ ‘I, said the sparrow, with my bow

and arrow.’” But then it is so pleasant to hear them when it is a lump

sum of praise, with no private crowing—praise of Trafalgar, Waterloo, the

Scots Greys.

Fighting this and fighting that, with their crack corps stirs the blood

and every heart responds—three times three! Hurrah!

But our people feel that they must send forth their own reported prowess:

with an, “I did this and I did that.” I know they did it; but I hang my

head.

[Illustration: MULBERRY HOUSE, NEAR CAMDEN, S. C.

From a Recent Photograph.]

In those Tarleton Memoirs, in Lee’s Memoirs, in Moultrie’s, and in Lord

Rawdon’s letters, self is never brought to the front. I have been reading

them over and admire their modesty and good taste as much as their

courage and cleverness. That kind of British eloquence takes me. It is

not, “_Soldats! marchons, gloire!_” Not a bit of it; but, “Now, my lads,

stand firm!” and, “Now up, and let them have it!”

Our name has not gone out of print. To-day, the Examiner, as usual,

pitches into the President. It thinks Toombs, Cobb, Slidell, Lamar, or

Chesnut would have been far better in the office. There is considerable

choice in that lot. Five men more utterly dissimilar were never named in

the same paragraph.

_September 19th._—A painful piece of news came to us yesterday—our

cousin, Mrs. Witherspoon, of Society Hill, was found dead in her bed. She

was quite well the night before. Killed, people say, by family sorrows.

She was a proud and high-strung woman. Nothing shabby in word, thought,

or deed ever came nigh her. She was of a warm and tender heart, too;

truth and uprightness itself. Few persons have ever been more loved

and looked up to. She was a very handsome old lady, of fine presence,

dignified and commanding.

“Killed by family sorrows,” so they said when Mrs. John N. Williams died.

So Uncle John said yesterday of his brother, Burwell. “Death deserts the

army,” said that quaint old soul, “and takes fancy shots of the most

eccentric kind nearer home.”

The high and disinterested conduct our enemies seem to expect of us is

involuntary and unconscious praise. They pay us the compliment to look

for from us (and execrate us for the want of it) a degree of virtue they

were never able to practise themselves. It is a crowning misdemeanor

for us to hold still in slavery those Africans whom they brought here

from Africa, or sold to us when they found it did not pay to own them

themselves. Gradually, they slid or sold them off down here; or freed

them prospectively, giving themselves years in which to get rid of them

in a remunerative way. We want to spread them over other lands, too—West

and South, or Northwest, where the climate would free them or kill

them, or improve them out of the world, as our friends up North do the

Indians. If they had been forced to keep the negroes in New England,

I dare say the negroes might have shared the Indians’ fate, for they

are wise in their generation, these Yankee children of light. Those

pernicious Africans! So have just spoken Mr. Chesnut and Uncle John, both

_ci-devant_ Union men, now utterly for State rights.

It is queer how different the same man may appear viewed from different

standpoints. “What a perfect gentleman,” said one person of another;

“so fine-looking, high-bred, distinguished, easy, free, and above all

graceful in his bearing; so high-toned! He is always indignant at any

symptom of wrong-doing. He is charming—the man of all others I like to

have strangers see—a noble representative of our country.” “Yes, every

word of that is true,” was the reply. “He is all that. And then the

other side of the picture is true, too. You can always find him. You

know _where_ to find him! Wherever there is a looking-glass, a bottle,

or a woman, there will he be also.” “My God! and you call yourself his

friend.” “Yes, I know him down to the ground.”

This conversation I overheard from an upper window when looking down on

the piazza below—a complicated character truly beyond La Bruyère—with

what Mrs. Preston calls refinement spread thin until it is skin-deep only.

An iron steamer has run the blockade at Savannah. We now raise our wilted

heads like flowers after a shower. This drop of good news revives us.[62]

XI

COLUMBIA, S. C.

_February 20, 1862-July 21, 1862_

Columbia, S. C., _February 20, 1862_.—Had an appetite for my dainty

breakfast. Always breakfast in bed now. But then, my Mercury contained

such bad news. That is an appetizing style of matutinal newspaper. Fort

Donelson[63] has fallen, but no men fell with it. It is prisoners for

them that we can not spare, or prisoners for us that we may not be able

to feed: that is so much to be “forefended,” as Keitt says. They lost

six thousand, we two thousand; I grudge that proportion. In vain, alas!

ye gallant few—few, but undismayed. Again, they make a stand. We have

Buckner, Beauregard, and Albert Sidney Johnston. With such leaders and

God’s help we may be saved from the hated Yankees; who knows?

_February 21st._—A crowd collected here last night and there was a

serenade. I am like Mrs. Nickleby, who never saw a horse coming full

speed but she thought the Cheerybles had sent post-haste to take Nicholas

into co-partnership. So I got up and dressed, late as it was. I felt sure

England had sought our alliance at last, and we would make a Yorktown

of it before long. Who was it? Will you ever guess?—Artemus Goodwyn and

General Owens, of Florida.

Just then, Mr. Chesnut rushed in, put out the light, locked the door

and sat still as a mouse. Rap, rap, came at the door. “I say, Chesnut,

they are calling for you.” At last we heard Janney (hotel-keeper) loudly

proclaiming from the piazza that “Colonel Chesnut was not here at all,

at all.” After a while, when they had all gone from the street, and the

very house itself had subsided into perfect quiet, the door again was

roughly shaken. “I say, Chesnut, old fellow, come out—I know you are

there. Nobody here now wants to hear you make a speech. That crowd has

all gone. We want a little quiet talk with you. I am just from Richmond.”

That was the open sesame, and to-day I hear none of the Richmond

news is encouraging. Colonel Shaw is blamed for the shameful Roanoke

surrender.[64]

Toombs is out on a rampage and swears he will not accept a seat in the

Confederate Senate given in the insulting way his was by the Georgia

Legislature: calls it shabby treatment, and adds that Georgia is not the

only place where good men have been so ill used.

The Governor and Council have fluttered the dove-cotes, or, at least, the

tea-tables. They talk of making a call for all silver, etc. I doubt if we

have enough to make the sacrifice worth while, but we propose to set the

example.

_February 22d._—What a beautiful day for our Confederate President to be

inaugurated! God speed him; God keep him; God save him!

John Chesnut’s letter was quite what we needed. In spirit it is all that

one could ask. He says, “Our late reverses are acting finely with the

army of the Potomac. A few more thrashings and every man will enlist

for the war. Victories made us too sanguine and easy, not to say

vainglorious. Now for the rub, and let them have it!”

A lady wrote to Mrs. Bunch: “Dear Emma: When shall I call for you to go

and see Madame de St. André?” She was answered: “Dear Lou: I can not go

with you to see Madame de St. André, but will always retain the kindest

feeling toward you on account of our past relations,” etc. The astounded

friend wrote to ask what all this meant. No answer came, and then she

sent her husband to ask and demand an explanation. He was answered thus:

“My dear fellow, there can be no explanation possible. Hereafter there

will be no intercourse between my wife and yours; simply that, nothing

more.” So the men meet at the club as before, and there is no further

trouble between them. The lady upon whom the slur is cast says, “and I am

a woman and can’t fight!”

_February 23d._—While Mr. Chesnut was in town I was at the Prestons. John

Cochran and some other prisoners had asked to walk over the grounds,

visit the Hampton Gardens, and some friends in Columbia. After the

dreadful state of the public mind at the escape of one of the prisoners,

General Preston was obliged to refuse his request. Mrs. Preston and the

rest of us wanted him to say “Yes,” and so find out who in Columbia were

his treacherous friends. Pretty bold people they must be, to receive

Yankee invaders in the midst of the row over one enemy already turned

loose amid us.

General Preston said: “We are about to sacrifice life and fortune for a

fickle multitude who will not stand up to us at last.” The harsh comments

made as to his lenient conduct to prisoners have embittered him. I told

him what I had heard Captain Trenholm say in his speech. He said he would

listen to no criticism except from a man with a musket on his shoulder,

and who had beside enlisted for the war, had given up all, and had no

choice but to succeed or die.

_February 24th._—Congress and the newspapers render one desperate, ready

to cut one’s own throat. They represent everything in our country as

deplorable. Then comes some one back from our gay and gallant army at the

front. The spirit of our army keeps us up after all. Letters from the

army revive one. They come as welcome as the flowers in May. Hopeful and

bright, utterly unconscious of our weak despondency.

_February 25th._—They have taken at Nashville[65] more men than we had at

Manassas; there was bad handling of troops, we poor women think, or this

would not be. Mr. Venable added bitterly, “Giving up our soldiers to the

enemy means giving up the cause. We can not replace them.” The up-country

men were Union men generally, and the low-country seceders. The former

growl; they never liked those aristocratic boroughs and parishes, they

had themselves a good and prosperous country, a good constitution, and

were satisfied. But they had to go—to leave all and fight for the others

who brought on all the trouble, and who do not show too much disposition

to fight for themselves.

That is the extreme up-country view. The extreme low-country says Jeff

Davis is not enough out of the Union yet. His inaugural address reads as

one of his speeches did four years ago in the United States Senate.

A letter in a morning paper accused Mr. Chesnut of staying too long in

Charleston. The editor was asked for the writer’s name. He gave it as

Little Moses, the Governor’s secretary. When Little Moses was spoken to,

in a great trepidation he said that Mrs. Pickens wrote it, and got him to

publish it; so it was dropped, for Little Moses is such an arrant liar no

one can believe him. Besides, if that sort of thing amuses Mrs. Pickens,

let her amuse herself.

_March 5th._—Mary Preston went back to Mulberry with me from Columbia.

She found a man there tall enough to take her in to dinner—Tom Boykin,

who is six feet four, the same height as her father. Tom was very

handsome in his uniform, and Mary prepared for a nice time, but he looked

as if he would so much rather she did not talk to him, and he set her

such a good example, saying never a word.

Old Colonel Chesnut came for us. When the train stopped, Quashie, shiny

black, was seen on his box, as glossy and perfect in his way as his

blooded bays, but the old Colonel would stop and pick up the dirtiest

little negro I ever saw who was crying by the roadside. This ragged

little black urchin was made to climb up and sit beside Quash. It spoilt

the symmetry of the turn-out, but it was a character touch, and the old

gentleman knows no law but his own will. He had a biscuit in his pocket

which he gave this sniffling little negro, who proved to be his man

Scip’s son.

I was ill at Mulberry and never left my room. Doctor Boykin came, more

military than medical. Colonel Chesnut brought him up, also Teams,

who said he was down in the mouth. Our men were not fighting as they

should. We had only pluck and luck, and a dogged spirit of fighting, to

offset their weight in men and munitions of war. I wish I could remember

Teams’s words; this is only his idea. His language was quaint and

striking—no grammar, but no end of sense and good feeling. Old Colonel

Chesnut, catching a word, began his litany, saying, “Numbers will tell,”

“Napoleon, you know,” etc., etc.

At Mulberry the war has been ever afar off, but threats to take the

silver came very near indeed—silver that we had before the Revolution,

silver that Mrs. Chesnut brought from Philadelphia. Jack Cantey and

Doctor Boykin came back on the train with us. Wade Hampton is the hero.

Sweet May Dacre. Lord Byron and Disraeli make their rosebuds Catholic;

May Dacre is another Aurora Raby. I like Disraeli because I find so many

clever things in him. I like the sparkle and the glitter. Carlyle does

not hold up his hands in holy horror of us because of African slavery.

Lord Lyons[66] has gone against us. Lord Derby and Louis Napoleon are

silent in our hour of direst need. People call me Cassandra, for I cry

that outside hope is quenched. From the outside no help indeed cometh to

this beleaguered land.

_March 7th._—Mrs. Middleton was dolorous indeed. General Lee had warned

the planters about Combahee, etc., that they must take care of themselves

now; he could not do it. Confederate soldiers had committed some outrages

on the plantations and officers had punished them promptly. She poured

contempt upon Yancey’s letter to Lord Russell.[67] It was the letter of a

shopkeeper, not in the style of a statesman at all.

We called to see Mary McDuffie.[68] She asked Mary Preston what Doctor

Boykin had said of her husband as we came along in the train. She heard

it was something very complimentary. Mary P. tried to remember, and to

repeat it all, to the joy of the other Mary, who liked to hear nice

things about her husband.

Mary was amazed to hear of the list of applicants for promotion. One

delicate-minded person accompanied his demand for advancement by a

request for a written description of the Manassas battle; he had heard

Colonel Chesnut give such a brilliant account of it in Governor Cobb’s

room.

The Merrimac[69] business has come like a gleam of lightning illumining

a dark scene. Our sky is black and lowering.

The Judge saw his little daughter at my window and he came up. He

was very smooth and kind. It was really a delightful visit; not a

disagreeable word was spoken. He abused no one whatever, for he never

once spoke of any one but himself, and himself he praised without stint.

He did not look at me once, though he spoke very kindly to me.

_March 10th._—Second year of Confederate independence. I write daily

for my own diversion. These _mémoires pour servir_ may at some future

day afford facts about these times and prove useful to more important

people than I am. I do not wish to do any harm or to hurt any one. If any

scandalous stories creep in they can easily be burned. It is hard, in

such a hurry as things are now, to separate the wheat from the chaff. Now

that I have made my protest and written down my wishes, I can scribble on

with a free will and free conscience.

Congress at the North is down on us. They talk largely of hanging

slave-owners. They say they hold Port Royal, as we did when we took it

originally from the aborigines, who fled before us; so we are to be

exterminated and improved, _à l’Indienne_, from the face of the earth.

Medea, when asked: “Country, wealth, husband, children, all are gone; and

now what remains?” answered: “Medea remains.” “There is a time in most

men’s lives when they resemble Job, sitting among the ashes and drinking

in the full bitterness of complicated misfortune.”

_March 11th._—A freshman came quite eager to be instructed in all

the wiles of society. He wanted to try his hand at a flirtation, and

requested minute instructions, as he knew nothing whatever: he was so

very fresh. “Dance with her,” he was told, “and talk with her; walk with

her and flatter her; dance until she is warm and tired; then propose to

walk in a cool, shady piazza. It must be a somewhat dark piazza. Begin

your promenade slowly; warm up to your work; draw her arm closer and

closer; then, break her wing.”

“Heavens, what is that—break her wing?” “Why, you do not know even that?

Put your arm round her waist and kiss her. After that, it is all plain

sailing. She comes down when you call like the coon to Captain Scott:

‘You need not fire, Captain,’ etc.”

The aspirant for fame as a flirt followed these lucid directions

literally, but when he seized the poor girl and kissed her, she uplifted

her voice in terror, and screamed as if the house was on fire. So quick,

sharp, and shrill were her yells for help that the bold flirt sprang over

the banister, upon which grew a strong climbing rose. This he struggled

through, and ran toward the college, taking a bee line. He was so mangled

by the thorns that he had to go home and have them picked out by his

family. The girl’s brother challenged him. There was no mortal combat,

however, for the gay young fellow who had led the freshman’s ignorance

astray stepped forward and put things straight. An explanation and an

apology at every turn hushed it all up.

Now, we all laughed at this foolish story most heartily. But Mr. Venable

remained grave and preoccupied, and was asked: “Why are you so unmoved?

It is funny.” “I like more probable fun; I have been in college and I

have kissed many a girl, but never a one scrome yet.”

Last Saturday was the bloodiest we have had in proportion to

numbers.[70] The enemy lost 1,500. The handful left at home are rushing

to arms at last. Bragg has gone to join Beauregard at Columbus, Miss. Old

Abe truly took the field in that Scotch cap of his.

Mrs. McCord,[71] the eldest daughter of Langdon Cheves, got up a company

for her son, raising it at her own expense. She has the brains and energy

of a man. To-day she repeated a remark of a low-country gentleman, who

is dissatisfied: “This Government (Confederate) protects neither person

nor property.” Fancy the scornful turn of her lip! Some one asked for

Langdon Cheves, her brother. “Oh, Langdon!” she replied coolly, “he is

a pure patriot; he has no ambition. While I was there, he was letting

Confederate soldiers ditch through his garden and ruin him at their

leisure.”

Cotton is five cents a pound and labor of no value at all; it commands

no price whatever. People gladly hire out their negroes to have them fed

and clothed, which latter can not be done. Cotton osnaburg at 37½ cents

a yard, leaves no chance to clothe them. Langdon was for martial law

and making the bloodsuckers disgorge their ill-gotten gains. We, poor

fools, who are patriotically ruining ourselves will see our children in

the gutter while treacherous dogs of millionaires go rolling by in their

coaches—coaches that were acquired by taking advantage of our necessities.

This terrible battle of the ships—Monitor, Merrimac, etc. All hands on

board the Cumberland went down. She fought gallantly and fired a round as

she sank. The Congress ran up a white flag. She fired on our boats as

they went up to take off her wounded. She was burned. The worst of it is

that all this will arouse them to more furious exertions to destroy us.

They hated us so before, but how now?

In Columbia I do not know a half-dozen men who would not gaily step into

Jeff Davis’s shoes with a firm conviction that they would do better in

every respect than he does. The monstrous conceit, the fatuous ignorance

of these critics! It is pleasant to hear Mrs. McCord on this subject,

when they begin to shake their heads and tell us what Jeff Davis ought to

do.

_March 12th._—In the naval battle the other day we had twenty-five guns

in all. The enemy had fifty-four in the Cumberland, forty-four in the St.

Lawrence, besides a fleet of gunboats, filled with rifled cannon. Why

not? They can have as many as they please. “No pent-up Utica contracts

their powers”; the whole boundless world being theirs to recruit in.

Ours is only this one little spot of ground—the blockade, or stockade,

which hems us in with only the sky open to us, and for all that, how

tender-footed and cautious they are as they draw near.

An anonymous letter purports to answer Colonel Chesnut’s address to South

Carolinians now in the army of the Potomac. The man says, “All that bosh

is no good.” He knows lots of people whose fathers were notorious Tories

in our war for independence and made fortunes by selling their country.

Their sons have the best places, and they are cowards and traitors still.

Names are given, of course.

Floyd and Pillow[72] are suspended from their commands because of Fort

Donelson. The people of Tennessee demand a like fate for Albert Sidney

Johnston. They say he is stupid. Can human folly go further than this

Tennessee madness?

I did Mrs. Blank a kindness. I told the women when her name came up that

she was childless now, but that she had lost three children. I hated to

leave her all alone. Women have such a contempt for a childless wife.

Now, they will be all sympathy and goodness. I took away her “reproach

among women.”

_March 13th._—Mr. Chesnut fretting and fuming. From the poor old

blind bishop downward everybody is besetting him to let off students,

theological and other, from going into the army. One comfort is that

the boys will go. Mr. Chesnut answers: “Wait until you have saved your

country before you make preachers and scholars. When you have a country,

there will be no lack of divines, students, scholars to adorn and purify

it.” He says he is a one-idea man. That idea is to get every possible man

into the ranks.