_August 8th._—Mr. Daniel Blake drove down to my sister’s in his heavy,

substantial English phaeton, with stout and strong horses to match.

I went back with him and spent two delightful days at his hospitable

mansion. I met there, as a sort of chaplain, the Rev. Mr. ——. He dealt

unfairly by me. We had a long argument, and when we knelt down for

evening prayers, he introduced an extemporaneous prayer and prayed _for

me_ most palpably. There was I down on my knees, red-hot with rage and

fury. David W. said it was a clear case of hitting a fellow when he was

down. Afterward the fun of it all struck me, and I found it difficult

to keep from shaking with laughter. It was not an edifying religious

exercise, to say the least, as far as I was concerned.

Before Chancellorsville, was fatal Sharpsburg.[94] My friend, Colonel

Means, killed on the battle-field; his only son, Stark, wounded and a

prisoner. His wife had not recovered from the death of her other child,

Emma, who had died of consumption early in the war. She was lying on a

bed when they told her of her husband’s death, and then they tried to

keep Stark’s condition from her. They think now that she misunderstood

and believed him dead, too. She threw something over her face. She did

not utter one word. She remained quiet so long, some one removed the

light shawl which she had thrown over her head and found she was dead.

Miss Mary Stark, her sister, said afterward, “No wonder! How was she to

face life without her husband and children? That was all she had ever

lived for.” These are sad, unfortunate memories. Let us run away from

them.

What has not my husband been doing this year, 1862, when all our South

Carolina troops are in Virginia? Here we were without soldiers or arms.

He raised an army, so to speak, and imported arms, through the Trenholm

firm. He had arms to sell to the Confederacy. He laid the foundation of

a niter-bed; and the Confederacy sent to Columbia to learn of Professor

Le Conte how to begin theirs. He bought up all the old arms and had them

altered and repaired. He built ships. He imported clothes and shoes for

our soldiers, for which things they had long stood sorely in need. He

imported cotton cards and set all idle hands carding and weaving. All the

world was set to spinning cotton. He tried to stop the sale of whisky,

and alas, he called for reserves—that is, men over age, and he committed

the unforgivable offense of sending the sacred negro property to work on

fortifications away from their owners’ plantations.

XIII

PORTLAND, ALA.

_July 8, 1863-July 30, 1863_

Portland, Ala., _July 8, 1863_.—My mother ill at her home on the

plantation near here—where I have come to see her. But to go back first

to my trip home from Flat Rock to Camden. At the station, I saw men

sitting on a row of coffins smoking, talking, and laughing, with their

feet drawn up tailor-fashion to keep them out of the wet. Thus does war

harden people’s hearts.

Met James Chesnut at Wilmington. He only crossed the river with me and

then went back to Richmond. He was violently opposed to sending our

troops into Pennsylvania: wanted all we could spare sent West to make an

end there of our enemies. He kept dark about Vallandigham.[95] I am sure

we could not trust him to do us any good, or to do the Yankees any harm.

The Coriolanus business is played out.

As we came to Camden, Molly sat by me in the cars. She touched me, and,

with her nose in the air, said: “Look, Missis.” There was the inevitable

bride and groom—at least so I thought—and the irrepressible kissing and

lolling against each other which I had seen so often before. I was rather

astonished at Molly’s prudery, but there was a touch in this scene which

was new. The man required for his peace of mind that the girl should

brush his cheek with those beautiful long eyelashes of hers. Molly became

so outraged in her blue-black modesty that she kept her head out of the

window not to see! When we were detained at a little wayside station,

this woman made an awful row about her room. She seemed to know me and

appealed to me; said her brother-in-law was adjutant to Colonel K——, etc.

Molly observed, “You had better go yonder, ma’am, where your husband

is calling you.” The woman drew herself up proudly, and, with a toss,

exclaimed: “Husband, indeed! I’m a widow. That is my cousin. I loved my

dear husband too well to marry again, ever, ever!” Absolutely tears came

into her eyes. Molly, loaded as she was with shawls and bundles, stood

motionless, and said: “After all that gwine-on in the kyars! O, Lord, I

should a let it go ’twas my husband and me! nigger as I am.”

Here I was at home, on a soft bed, with every physical comfort; but life

is one long catechism there, due to the curiosity of stay-at-home people

in a narrow world.

In Richmond, Molly and Lawrence quarreled. He declared he could not put

up with her tantrums. Unfortunately I asked him, in the interests of

peace and a quiet house, to bear with her temper; I did, said I, but she

was so good and useful. He was shabby enough to tell her what I had said

at their next quarrel. The awful reproaches she overwhelmed me with then!

She said she “was mortified that I had humbled her before Lawrence.”

But the day of her revenge came. At negro balls in Richmond, guests were

required to carry “passes,” and, in changing his coat Lawrence forgot

his pass. Next day Lawrence was missing, and Molly came to me laughing

to tears. “Come and look,” said she. “Here is the fine gentleman tied

between two black niggers and marched off to jail.” She laughed and

jeered so she could not stand without holding on to the window. Lawrence

disregarded her and called to me at the top of his voice: “Please,

ma’am, ask Mars Jeems to come take me out of this. I ain’t done nothin’.”

As soon as Mr. Chesnut came home I told him of Lawrence’s sad fall, and

he went at once to his rescue. There had been a fight and a disturbance

at the ball. The police had been called in, and when every negro was

required to show his “pass,” Lawrence had been taken up as having none.

He was terribly chopfallen when he came home walking behind Mr. Chesnut.

He is always so respectable and well-behaved and stands on his dignity.

I went over to Mrs. Preston’s at Columbia. Camden had become simply

intolerable to me. There the telegram found me, saying I must go to

my mother, who was ill at her home here in Alabama. Colonel Goodwyn,

his wife, and two daughters were going, and so I joined the party. I

telegraphed Mr. Chesnut for Lawrence, and he replied, forbidding me to

go at all; it was so hot, the cars so disagreeable, fever would be the

inevitable result. Miss Kate Hampton, in her soft voice, said: “The only

trouble in life is when one can’t decide in which way duty leads. Once

know your duty, then all is easy.”

I do not know whether she thought it my duty to obey my husband. But I

thought it my duty to go to my mother, as I risked nothing but myself.

We had two days of an exciting drama under our very noses, before our

eyes. A party had come to Columbia who said they had run the blockade,

had come in by flag of truce, etc. Colonel Goodwyn asked me to look

around and see if I could pick out the suspected crew. It was easily

done. We were all in a sadly molting condition. We had come to the end of

our good clothes in three years, and now our only resource was to turn

them upside down, or inside out, and in mending, darning, patching, etc.

Near me on the train to Alabama sat a young woman in a traveling dress

of bright yellow; she wore a profusion of curls, had pink cheeks,

was delightfully airy and easy in her manner, and was absorbed in a

flirtation with a Confederate major, who, in spite of his nice, new gray

uniform and two stars, had a very Yankee face, fresh, clean-cut, sharp,

utterly unsunburned, florid, wholesome, handsome. What more in compliment

can one say of one’s enemies? Two other women faced this man and woman,

and we knew them to be newcomers by their good clothes. One of these

women was a German. She it was who had betrayed them. I found that out

afterward.

The handsomest of the three women had a hard, Northern face, but all were

in splendid array as to feathers, flowers, lace, and jewelry. If they

were spies why were they so foolish as to brag of New York, and compare

us unfavorably with the other side all the time, and in loud, shrill

accents? Surely that was not the way to pass unnoticed in the Confederacy.

A man came in, stood up, and read from a paper, “The surrender of

Vicksburg.”[96] I felt as if I had been struck a hard blow on the top

of my head, and my heart took one of its queer turns. I was utterly

unconscious: not long, I dare say. The first thing I heard was

exclamations of joy and exultation from the overdressed party. My rage

and humiliation were great. A man within earshot of this party had slept

through everything. He had a greyhound face, eager and inquisitive when

awake, but now he was as one of the seven sleepers.

Colonel Goodwyn wrote on a blank page of my book (one of De Quincey’s—the

note is there now), that the sleeper was a Richmond detective.

Finally, hot and tired out, we arrived at West Point, on the

Chattahoochee River. The dusty cars were quite still, except for the

giggling flirtation of the yellow gown and her major. Two Confederate

officers walked in. I felt mischief in the air. One touched the smart

major, who was whispering to Yellow Gown. The major turned quickly.

Instantly, every drop of blood left his face; a spasm seized his throat;

it was a piteous sight. And at once I was awfully sorry for him. He was

marched out of the car. Poor Yellow Gown’s color was fast, but the whites

of her eyes were lurid. Of the three women spies we never heard again.

They never do anything worse to women, the high-minded Confederates, than

send them out of the country. But when we read soon afterward of the

execution of a male spy, we thought of the “major.”

At Montgomery the boat waited for us, and in my haste I tumbled out of

the omnibus with Dr. Robert Johnson’s assistance, but nearly broke my

neck. The thermometer was high up in the nineties, and they gave me a

stateroom over the boiler. I paid out my Confederate rags of money freely

to the maid in order to get out of that oven. Surely, go where we may

hereafter, an Alabama steamer in August lying under the bluff with the

sun looking down, will give one a foretaste, almost an adequate idea, of

what’s to come, as far as heat goes. The planks of the floor burned one’s

feet under the bluff at Selma, where we stayed nearly all day—I do not

know why.

Met James Boykin, who had lost 1,200 bales of cotton at Vicksburg, and

charged it all to Jeff Davis in his wrath, which did not seem exactly

reasonable to me. At Portland there was a horse for James Boykin, and

he rode away, promising to have a carriage sent for me at once. But he

had to go seven miles on horseback before he reached my sister Sally’s,

and then Sally was to send back. On that lonely riverside Molly and I

remained with dismal swamps on every side, and immense plantations, the

white people few or none. In my heart I knew my husband was right when

he forbade me to undertake this journey.

There was one living thing at this little riverside inn—a white man who

had a store opposite, and oh, how drunk he was! Hot as it was, Molly

kept up a fire of pine knots. There was neither lamp nor candle in that

deserted house. The drunken man reeled over now and then, lantern in

hand; he would stand with his idiotic, drunken glare, or go solemnly

staggering round us, but always bowing in his politeness. He nearly fell

over us, but I sprang out of his way as he asked, “Well, madam, what can

I do for you?”

Shall I ever forget the headache of that night and the fright? My temples

throbbed with dumb misery. I sat upon a chair, Molly on the floor, with

her head resting against my chair. She was as near as she could get to

me, and I kept my hand on her. “Missis,” said she, “now I do believe you

are scared, scared of that poor, drunken thing. If he was sober I could

whip him in a fair fight, and drunk as he is I kin throw him over the

banister, ef he so much as teches you. I don’t value him a button!”

Taking heart from such brave words I laughed. It seemed an eternity, but

the carriage came by ten o’clock, and then, with the coachman as our sole

protector, we poor women drove eight miles or more over a carriage road,

through long lanes, swamps of pitchy darkness, with plantations on every

side.

The house, as we drew near, looked like a graveyard in a nightmare, so

vague and phantom-like were its outlines.

I found my mother ill in bed, feeble still, but better than I hoped to

see her. “I knew you would come,” was her greeting, with outstretched

hands. Then I went to bed in that silent house, a house of the dead it

seemed. I supposed I was not to see my sister until the next day. But she

came in some time after I had gone to bed. She kissed me quietly, without

a tear. She was thin and pale, but her voice was calm and kind.

As she lifted the candle over her head, to show me something on the wall,

I saw that her pretty brown hair was white. It was awfully hard not to

burst out into violent weeping. She looked so sweet, and yet so utterly

broken-hearted. But as she was without emotion, apparently, it would not

become me to upset her by my tears.

Next day, at noon, Hetty, mother’s old maid, brought my breakfast to my

bedside. Such a breakfast it was! Delmonico could do no better. “It is

ever so late, I know,” to which Hetty replied: “Yes, we would not let

Molly wake you.” “What a splendid cook you have here.” “My daughter,

Tenah, is Miss Sally’s cook. She’s well enough as times go, but when our

Miss Mary comes to see us I does it myself,” and she courtesied down to

the floor. “Bless your old soul,” I cried, and she rushed over and gave

me a good hug.

She is my mother’s factotum; has been her maid since she was six years

old, when she was bought from a Virginia speculator along with her own

mother and all her brothers and sisters. She has been pampered until she

is a rare old tyrant at times. She can do everything better than any one

else, and my mother leans on her heavily. Hetty is Dick’s wife; Dick is

the butler. They have over a dozen children and take life very easily.

Sally came in before I was out of bed, and began at once in the same

stony way, pale and cold as ice, to tell me of the death of her children.

It had happened not two weeks before. Her eyes were utterly without life;

no expression whatever, and in a composed and sad sort of manner she told

the tale as if it were something she had read and wanted me to hear:

“My eldest daughter, Mary, had grown up to be a lovely girl. She was

between thirteen and fourteen, you know. Baby Kate had my sister’s gray

eyes; she was evidently to be the beauty of the family. Strange it is

that here was one of my children who has lived and has gone and you have

never seen her at all. She died first, and I would not go to the funeral.

I thought it would kill me to see her put under the ground. I was lying

down, stupid with grief when Aunt Charlotte came to me after the funeral

with this news: ‘Mary has that awful disease, too.’ There was nothing to

say. I got up and dressed instantly and went to Mary. I did not leave her

side again in that long struggle between life and death. I did everything

for her with my own hands. I even prepared my darling for the grave. I

went to her funeral, and I came home and walked straight to my mother and

I begged her to be comforted; I would bear it all without one word if God

would only spare me the one child left me now.”

Sally has never shed a tear, but has grown twenty years older, cold,

hard, careworn. With the same rigidity of manner, she began to go over

all the details of Mary’s illness. “I had not given up hope, no, not at

all. As I sat by her side, she said: ‘Mamma, put your hand on my knees;

they are so cold.’ I put my hand on her knee; the cold struck to my

heart. I knew it was the coldness of death.” Sally put out her hand on

me, and it seemed to recall the feeling. She fell forward in an agony

of weeping that lasted for hours. The doctor said this reaction was a

blessing; without it she must have died or gone mad.

While the mother was so bitterly weeping, the little girl, the last

of them, a bright child of three or four, crawled into my bed. “Now,

Auntie,” she whispered, “I want to tell you all about Mamie and Katie,

but they watch me so. They say I must never talk about them. Katie died

because she ate blackberries, I know that, and then Aunt Charlotte read

Mamie a letter and that made her die, too. Maum Hetty says they have gone

to God, but I know the people saved a place between them in the ground

for me.”

Uncle William was in despair at the low ebb of patriotism out here. “West

of the Savannah River,” said he, “it is property first, life next, honor

last.” He gave me an excellent pair of shoes. What a gift! For more than

a year I have had none but some dreadful things Armstead makes for me,

and they hurt my feet so. These do not fit, but that is nothing; they are

large enough and do not pinch anywhere. I have absolutely a respectable

pair of shoes!!

Uncle William says the men who went into the war to save their negroes

are abjectly wretched. Neither side now cares a fig for these beloved

negroes, and would send them all to heaven in a hand-basket, as Custis

Lee says, to win in the fight.

General Lee and Mr. Davis want the negroes put into the army. Mr. Chesnut

and Major Venable discussed the subject one night, but would they fight

on our side or desert to the enemy? They don’t go to the enemy, because

they are comfortable as they are, and expect to be free anyway.

When we were children our nurses used to give us tea out in the open air

on little pine tables scrubbed as clean as milk-pails. Sometimes, as

Dick would pass us, with his slow and consequential step, we would call

out, “Do, Dick, come and wait on us.” “No, little missies, I never wait

on pine tables. Wait till you get big enough to put your legs under your

pa’s mahogany.”

I taught him to read as soon as I could read myself, perched on his

knife-board. He won’t look at me now; but looks over my head, scenting

freedom in the air. He was always very ambitious. I do not think he ever

troubled himself much about books. But then, as my father said, Dick,

standing in front of his sideboard, has heard all subjects in earth or

heaven discussed, and by the best heads in our world. He is proud, too,

in his way. Hetty, his wife, complained that the other men servants

looked finer in their livery. “Nonsense, old woman, a butler never

demeans himself to wear livery. He is always in plain clothes.” Somewhere

he had picked that up.

He is the first negro in whom I have felt a change. Others go about in

their black masks, not a ripple or an emotion showing, and yet on all

other subjects except the war they are the most excitable of all races.

Now Dick might make a very respectable Egyptian Sphinx, so inscrutably

silent is he. He did deign to inquire about General Richard Anderson. “He

was my young master once,” said he. “I always will like him better than

anybody else.”

When Dick married Hetty, the Anderson house was next door. The two

families agreed to sell either Dick or Hetty, whichever consented to

be sold. Hetty refused outright, and the Andersons sold Dick that he

might be with his wife. This was magnanimous on the Andersons’ part, for

Hetty was only a lady’s-maid and Dick was a trained butler, on whom Mrs.

Anderson had spent no end of pains in his dining-room education, and, of

course, if they had refused to sell Dick, Hetty would have had to go to

them. Mrs. Anderson was very much disgusted with Dick’s ingratitude when

she found he was willing to leave them. As a butler he is a treasure; he

is overwhelmed with dignity, but that does not interfere with his work at

all.

My father had a body-servant, Simon, who could imitate his master’s voice

perfectly. He would sometimes call out from the yard after my father

had mounted his horse: “Dick, bring me my overcoat. I see you there,

sir, hurry up.” When Dick hastened out, overcoat in hand, and only Simon

was visible, after several obsequious “Yes, marster; just as marster

pleases,” my mother had always to step out and prevent a fight. Dick

never forgave her laughing.

Once in Sumter, when my father was very busy preparing a law case, the

mob in the street annoyed him, and he grumbled about it as Simon was

making up his fire. Suddenly he heard, as it were, himself speaking, “the

Hon. S. D. Miller—Lawyer Miller,” as the colored gentleman announced

himself in the dark—appeal to the gentlemen outside to go away and

leave a lawyer in peace to prepare his case for the next day. My father

said he could have sworn the sound was that of his own voice. The crowd

dispersed, but some noisy negroes came along, and upon them Simon rushed

with the sulky whip, slashing around in the dark, calling himself “Lawyer

Miller,” who was determined to have peace.

Simon returned, complaining that “them niggers run so he never got in a

hundred yards of one of them.”

At Portland, we met a man who said: “Is it not strange that in this

poor, devoted land of ours, there are some men who are making money by

blockade-running, cheating our embarrassed government, and skulking the

fight?”

_Montgomery, July 30th._—Coming on here from Portland there was no

stateroom for me. My mother alone had one. My aunt and I sat nodding in

armchairs, for the floors and sofas were covered with sleepers, too.

On the floor that night, so hot that even a little covering of clothes

could not be borne, lay a motley crew. Black, white, and yellow disported

themselves in promiscuous array. Children and their nurses, bared to the

view, were wrapped in the profoundest slumber. No caste prejudices were

here. Neither Garrison, John Brown, nor Gerrit Smith ever dreamed of

equality more untrammeled. A crow-black, enormously fat negro man waddled

in every now and then to look after the lamps. The atmosphere of that

cabin was stifling, and the sight of those figures on the floor did not

make it more tolerable. So we soon escaped and sat out near the guards.

The next day was the very hottest I have ever known. One supreme

consolation was the watermelons, the very finest, and the ice. A very

handsome woman, whom I did not know, rehearsed all our disasters in the

field. And then, as if she held me responsible, she faced me furiously,

“And where are our big men?” “Whom do you mean?” “I mean our leaders,

the men we have a right to look to to save us. They got us into this

scrape. Let them get us out of it. Where are our big men?” I sympathized

with her and understood her, but I answered lightly, “I do not know the

exact size you want them.”

Here in Montgomery, we have been so hospitably received. Ye gods! how

those women talked! and all at the same time! They put me under the care

of General Dick Taylor’s brother-in-law, a Mr. Gordon, who married one

of the Beranges. A very pleasant arrangement it was for me. He was kind

and attentive and vastly agreeable with his New Orleans anecdotes. On

the first of last January all his servants left him but four. To these

faithful few he gave free papers at once, that they might lose naught by

loyalty should the Confederates come into authority once more. He paid

high wages and things worked smoothly for some weeks. One day his wife

saw some Yankee officers’ cards on a table, and said to her maid, “I did

not know any of these people had called?”

“Oh, Missis!” the maid replied, “they come to see me, and I have been

waiting to tell you. It is too hard! I can not do it! I can not dance

with those nice gentlemen at night at our Union Balls and then come

here and be your servant the next day. I can’t!” “So,” said Mr. Gordon,

“freedom must be followed by fraternity and equality.” One by one the

faithful few slipped away and the family were left to their own devices.

Why not?

When General Dick Taylor’s place was sacked his negroes moved down to

Algiers, a village near New Orleans. An old woman came to Mr. Gordon to

say that these negroes wanted him to get word to “Mars Dick” that they

were dying of disease and starvation; thirty had died that day. Dick

Taylor’s help being out of the question, Mr. Gordon applied to a Federal

officer. He found this one not a philanthropist, but a cynic, who said:

“All right; it is working out as I expected. Improve negroes and Indians

off the continent. Their strong men we put in the army. The rest will

disappear.”

Joe Johnston can sulk. As he is sent West, he says, “They may give Lee

the army Joe Johnston trained.” Lee is reaping where he sowed, he thinks,

but then he was backing straight through Richmond when they stopped his

retreating.

XIV

RICHMOND, VA.

_August 10, 1863-September 7, 1863_

Richmond, Va., _August 10, 1863_.—To-day I had a letter from my sister,

who wrote to inquire about her old playmate, friend, and lover, Boykin

McCaa. It is nearly twenty years since each was married; each now has

children nearly grown. “To tell the truth,” she writes, “in these last

dreadful years, with David in Florida, where I can not often hear from

him, and everything dismal, anxious, and disquieting, I had almost

forgotten Boykin’s existence, but he came here last night; he stood by

my bedside and spoke to me kindly and affectionately, as if we had just

parted. I said, holding out my hand, ‘Boykin, you are very pale.’ He

answered, ‘I have come to tell you good-by,’ and then seized both my

hands. His own hands were as cold and hard as ice; they froze the marrow

of my bones. I screamed again and again until my whole household came

rushing in, and then came the negroes from the yard, all wakened by my

piercing shrieks. This may have been a dream, but it haunts me.

“Some one sent me an old paper with an account of his wounds and his

recovery, but I know he is dead.” “Stop!” said my husband at this point,

and then he read from that day’s Examiner these words: “Captain Burwell

Boykin McCaa found dead upon the battle-field leading a cavalry charge at

the head of his company. He was shot through the head.”

The famous colonel of the Fourth Texas, by name John Bell Hood,[97] is

here—him we call Sam, because his classmates at West Point did so—for

what cause is not known. John Darby asked if he might bring his hero to

us; bragged of him extensively; said he had won his three stars, etc.,

under Stonewall’s eye, and that he was promoted by Stonewall’s request.

When Hood came with his sad Quixote face, the face of an old Crusader,

who believed in his cause, his cross, and his crown, we were not prepared

for such a man as a beau-ideal of the wild Texans. He is tall, thin,

and shy; has blue eyes and light hair; a tawny beard, and a vast amount

of it, covering the lower part of his face, the whole appearance that

of awkward strength. Some one said that his great reserve of manner he

carried only into the society of ladies. Major Venable added that he had

often heard of the light of battle shining in a man’s eyes. He had seen

it once—when he carried to Hood orders from Lee, and found in the hottest

of the fight that the man was transfigured. The fierce light of Hood’s

eyes I can never forget.

[Illustration: ANOTHER GROUP OF CONFEDERATE GENERALS.

WADE HAMPTON.

ROBERT TOOMBS.

JOHN C. PRESTON.

JOHN H. MORGAN.

JOSEPH B. KERSHAW.

JAMES CHESNUT, JR.]

Hood came to ask us to a picnic next day at Drury’s Bluff.[98] The naval

heroes were to receive us and then we were to drive out to the Texan

camp. We accused John Darby of having instigated this unlooked-for

festivity. We were to have bands of music and dances, with turkeys,

chickens, and buffalo tongues to eat. Next morning, just as my foot

was on the carriage-step, the girls standing behind ready to follow me

with Johnny and the Infant Samuel (Captain Shannon by proper name), up

rode John Darby in red-hot haste, threw his bridle to one of the men

who was holding the horses, and came toward us rapidly, clanking his

cavalry spurs with a despairing sound as he cried: “Stop! it’s all up.

We are ordered back to the Rappahannock. The brigade is marching through

Richmond now.” So we unpacked and unloaded, dismissed the hacks and sat

down with a sigh.

“Suppose we go and see them pass the turnpike,” some one said. The

suggestion was hailed with delight, and off we marched. Johnny and the

Infant were in citizens’ clothes, and the Straggler—as Hood calls John

Darby, since the Prestons have been in Richmond—was all plaided and

plumed in his surgeon’s array. He never bated an inch of bullion or a

feather; he was courting and he stalked ahead with Mary Preston, Buck,

and Johnny. The Infant and myself, both stout and scant of breath, lagged

last. They called back to us, as the Infant came toddling along, “Hurry

up or we will leave you.”

At the turnpike we stood on the sidewalk and saw ten thousand men march

by. We had seen nothing like this before. Hitherto we had seen only

regiments marching spick and span in their fresh, smart clothes, just

from home and on their way to the army. Such rags and tags as we saw

now. Nothing was like anything else. Most garments and arms were such as

had been taken from the enemy. Such shoes as they had on. “Oh, our brave

boys!” moaned Buck. Such tin pans and pots as were tied to their waists,

with bread or bacon stuck on the ends of their bayonets. Anything that

could be spiked was bayoneted and held aloft.

They did not seem to mind their shabby condition; they laughed, shouted,

and cheered as they marched by. Not a disrespectful or light word was

spoken, but they went for the men who were huddled behind us, and who

seemed to be trying to make themselves as small as possible in order to

escape observation.

Hood and his staff finally came galloping up, dismounted, and joined

us. Mary Preston gave him a bouquet. Thereupon he unwrapped a Bible,

which he carried in his pocket. He said his mother had given it to him.

He pressed a flower in it. Mary Preston suggested that he had not worn

or used it at all, being fresh, new, and beautifully kept. Every word

of this the Texans heard as they marched by, almost touching us. They

laughed and joked and made their own rough comments.

_September 7th._—Major Edward Johnston did not get into the Confederacy

until after the first battle of Manassas. For some cause, before he

could evade that potentate, Seward rang his little bell and sent him to

a prison in the harbor of New York. I forget whether he was exchanged or

escaped of his own motion. The next thing I heard of my antebellum friend

he had defeated Milroy in Western Virginia. There were so many Johnstons

that for this victory they named him Alleghany Johnston.

He had an odd habit of falling into a state of incessant winking as soon

as he became the least startled or agitated. In such times he seemed

persistently to be winking one eye at you. He meant nothing by it, and

in point of fact did not know himself that he was doing it. In Mexico

he had been wounded in the eye, and the nerve vibrates independently of

his will. During the winter of 1862 and 1863 he was on crutches. After a

while he hobbled down Franklin Street with us, we proud to accommodate

our pace to that of the wounded general. His ankle continued stiff;

so when he sat down another chair had to be put before him. On this

he stretched out his stiff leg, straight as a ramrod. At that time he

was our only wounded knight, and the girls waited on him and made life

pleasant for him.

One night I listened to two love-tales at once, in a distracted state of

mind between the two. William Porcher Miles, in a perfectly modulated

voice, in cadenced accents and low tones, was narrating the happy end

of his affair. He had been engaged to sweet little Bettie Bierne, and I

gave him my congratulations with all my heart. It was a capital match,

suitable in every way, good for her, and good for him. I was deeply

interested in Mr. Miles’s story, but there was din and discord on the

other hand; old Edward, our pet general, sat diagonally across the room

with one leg straight out like a poker, wrapped in red carpet leggings,

as red as a turkey-cock in the face. His head is strangely shaped, like a

cone or an old-fashioned beehive; or, as Buck said, there are three tiers

of it; it is like a pope’s tiara.

There he sat, with a loud voice and a thousand winks, making love to

Mary P. I make no excuse for listening. It was impossible not to hear

him. I tried not to lose a word of Mr. Miles’s idyl as the despair of

the veteran was thundered into my other ear. I lent an ear to each

conversationalist. Mary can not altogether control her voice, and her

shrill screams of negation, “No, no, never,” etc., utterly failed to

suppress her wounded lover’s obstreperous asseverations of his undying

affection for her.

Buck said afterward: “We heard every word of it on our side of the room,

even when Mamie shrieked to him that he was talking too loud. Now,

Mamie,” said we afterward, “do you think it was kind to tell him he was

forty if he was a day?”

Strange to say, the pet general, Edward, rehabilitated his love in a

day; at least two days after he was heard to say that he was “paying

attentions now to his cousin, John Preston’s second daughter; her name,

Sally, but they called her Buck—Sally Buchanan Campbell Preston, a lovely

girl.” And with her he now drove, rode, and hobbled on his crutches, sent

her his photograph, and in due time cannonaded her, from the same spot

where he had courted Mary, with proposals to marry him.

Buck was never so decided in her “Nos” as Mary. (“Not so loud, at

least”—thus in amendment, says Buck, who always reads what I have

written, and makes comments of assent or dissent.) So again he began to

thunder in a woman’s ears his tender passion. As they rode down Franklin

Street, Buck says she knows the people on the sidewalk heard snatches of

the conversation, though she rode as rapidly as she could, and she begged

him not to talk so loud. Finally, they dashed up to our door as if they

had been running a race. Unfortunate in love, but fortunate in war, our

general is now winning new laurels with Ewell in the Valley or with the

Army of the Potomac.

I think I have told how Miles, still “so gently o’er me leaning,” told of

his successful love while General Edward Johnston roared unto anguish and

disappointment over his failures. Mr. Miles spoke of sweet little Bettie

Bierne as if she had been a French girl, just from a convent, kept far

from the haunts of men wholly for him. One would think to hear him that

Bettie had never cast those innocent blue eyes of hers on a man until he

came along.

Now, since I first knew Miss Bierne in 1857, when Pat Calhoun was to

the fore, she has been followed by a tale of men as long as a Highland

chief’s. Every summer at the Springs, their father appeared in the

ballroom a little before twelve and chased the three beautiful Biernes

home before him in spite of all entreaties, and he was said to frown away

their too numerous admirers at all hours of the day.

This new engagement was confided to me as a profound secret. Of course,

I did not mention it, even to my own household. Next day little Alston,

Morgan’s adjutant, and George Deas called. As Colonel Deas removed his

gloves, he said: “Oh! the Miles and Bierne sensation—have you heard of

it?” “No, what is the row about?” “They are engaged to be married; that’s

all.” “Who told you?” “Miles himself, as we walked down Franklin Street,

this afternoon.” “And did he not beg you not to mention it, as Bettie did

not wish it spoken of?” “God bless my soul, so he did. And I forgot that

part entirely.”

Colonel Alston begged the stout Carolinian not to take his inadvertent

breach of faith too much to heart. Miss Bettie’s engagement had caused

him a dreadful night. A young man, who was his intimate friend, came

to his room in the depths of despair and handed him a letter from Miss

Bierne, which was the cause of all his woe. Not knowing that she was

already betrothed to Miles, he had proposed to her in an eloquent letter.

In her reply, she positively stated that she was engaged to Mr. Miles,

and instead of thanking her for putting him at once out of his misery,

he considered the reason she gave as trebly aggravating the agony of the

love-letter and the refusal. “Too late!” he yelled, “by Jingo!” So much

for a secret.

Miss Bierne and I became fast friends. Our friendship was based on a

mutual admiration for the honorable member from South Carolina. Colonel

and Mrs. Myers and Colonel and Mrs. Chesnut were the only friends of Mr.

Miles who were invited to the wedding. At the church door the sexton

demanded our credentials. No one but those whose names he held in his

hand were allowed to enter. Not twenty people were present—a mere handful

grouped about the altar in that large church.

We were among the first to arrive. Then came a faint flutter and Mrs.

Parkman (the bride’s sister, swathed in weeds for her young husband, who

had been killed within a year of her marriage) came rapidly up the aisle

alone. She dropped upon her knees in the front pew, and there remained,

motionless, during the whole ceremony, a mass of black crape, and a dead

weight on my heart. She has had experience of war. A cannonade around

Richmond interrupted her marriage service—a sinister omen—and in a year

thereafter her bridegroom was stiff and stark—dead upon the field of

battle.

While the wedding-march turned our thoughts from her and thrilled us

with sympathy, the bride advanced in white satin and point d’Alençon.

Mrs. Myers whispered that it was Mrs. Parkman’s wedding-dress that the

bride had on. She remembered the exquisite lace, and she shuddered with

superstitious forebodings.

All had been going on delightfully in-doors, but a sharp shower cleared

the church porch of the curious; and, as the water splashed, we wondered

how we were to assemble ourselves at Mrs. McFarland’s. All the horses in

Richmond had been impressed for some sudden cavalry necessity a few days

before. I ran between Mr. McFarland and Senator Semmes with my pretty

Paris rose-colored silk turned over my head to save it, and when we

arrived at the hospitable mansion of the McFarlands, Mr. McFarland took

me straight into the drawing-room, man-like, forgetting that my ruffled

plumes needed a good smoothing and preening.

Mrs. Lee sent for me. She was staying at Mrs. Caskie’s. I was taken

directly to her room, where she was lying on the bed. She said, before

I had taken my seat: “You know there is a fight going on now at Brandy

Station?”[99] “Yes, we are anxious. John Chesnut’s company is there,

too.” She spoke sadly, but quietly. “My son, Roony, is wounded; his

brother has gone for him. They will soon be here and we shall know all

about it unless Roony’s wife takes him to her grandfather. Poor lame

mother, I am useless to my children.” Mrs. Caskie said: “You need not be

alarmed. The General said in his telegram that it was not a severe wound.

You know even Yankees believe General Lee.”

That day, Mrs. Lee gave me a likeness of the General in a photograph

taken soon after the Mexican War. She likes it so much better than the

later ones. He certainly was a handsome man then, handsomer even than

now. I shall prize it for Mrs. Lee’s sake, too. She said old Mrs. Chesnut

and her aunt, Nellie Custis (Mrs. Lewis) were very intimate during

Washington’s Administration in Philadelphia. I told her Mrs. Chesnut,

senior, was the historical member of our family; she had so much to tell

of Revolutionary times. She was one of the “white-robed choir” of little

maidens who scattered flowers before Washington at Trenton Bridge, which

everybody who writes a life of Washington asks her to give an account of.

Mrs. Ould and Mrs. Davis came home with me. Lawrence had a basket of

delicious cherries. “If there were only some ice,” said I. Respectfully

Lawrence answered, and also firmly: “Give me money and you shall have

ice.” By the underground telegraph he had heard of an ice-house over

the river, though its fame was suppressed by certain Sybarites, as

they wanted it all. In a wonderfully short time we had mint-juleps and

sherry-cobblers.

Altogether it has been a pleasant day, and as I sat alone I was laughing

lightly now and then at the memory of some funny story. Suddenly, a

violent ring; and a regular sheaf of telegrams were handed me. I could

not have drawn away in more consternation if the sheets had been a nest

of rattlesnakes. First, Frank Hampton was killed at Brandy Station.

Wade Hampton telegraphed Mr. Chesnut to see Robert Barnwell, and make

the necessary arrangements to recover the body. Mr. Chesnut is still at

Wilmington. I sent for Preston Johnston, and my neighbor, Colonel Patton,

offered to see that everything proper was done. That afternoon I walked

out alone. Willie Mountford had shown me where the body, all that was

left of Frank Hampton, was to be laid in the Capitol. Mrs. Petticola

joined me after a while, and then Mrs. Singleton.

Preston Hampton and Peter Trezevant, with myself and Mrs. Singleton,

formed the sad procession which followed the coffin. There was a company

of soldiers drawn up in front of the State House porch. Mrs. Singleton

said we had better go in and look at him before the coffin was finally

closed. How I wish I had not looked. I remember him so well in all the

pride of his magnificent manhood. He died of a saber-cut across the face

and head, and was utterly disfigured. Mrs. Singleton seemed convulsed

with grief. In all my life I had never seen such bitter weeping. She had

her own troubles, but I did not know of them. We sat for a long time on

the great steps of the State House. Everybody had gone and we were alone.

We talked of it all—how we had gone to Charleston to see Rachel in

Adrienne Lecouvreur, and how, as I stood waiting in the passage near the

drawing-room, I had met Frank Hampton bringing his beautiful bride from

the steamer. They had just landed. Afterward at Mrs. Singleton’s place in

the country we had all spent a delightful week together. And now, only a

few years have passed, but nearly all that pleasant company are dead, and

our world, the only world we cared for, literally kicked to pieces. And

she cried, “We are two lone women, stranded here.” Rev. Robert Barnwell

was in a desperate condition, and Mary Barnwell, her daughter, was

expecting her confinement every day.

Here now, later, let me add that it was not until I got back to Carolina

that I heard of Robert Barnwell’s death, with scarcely a day’s interval

between it and that of Mary and her new-born baby. Husband, wife, and

child were buried at the same time in the same grave in Columbia. And

now, Mrs. Singleton has three orphan grandchildren. What a woful year it

has been to her.

Robert Barnwell had insisted upon being sent to the hospital at Staunton.

On account of his wife’s situation the doctor also had advised it. He

was carried off on a mattress. His brave wife tried to prevent it, and

said: “It is only fever.” And she nursed him to the last. She tried to

say good-by cheerfully, and called after him: “As soon as my trouble

is over I will come to you at Staunton.” At the hospital they said it

was typhoid fever. He died the second day after he got there. Poor Mary

fainted when she heard the ambulance drive away with him. Then she crept

into a low trundle-bed kept for the children in her mother’s room. She

never left that bed again. When the message came from Staunton that fever

was the matter with Robert and nothing more, Mrs. Singleton says she

will never forget the expression in Mary’s eyes as she turned and looked

at her. “Robert will get well,” she said, “it is all right.” Her face

was radiant, blazing with light. That night the baby was born, and Mrs.

Singleton got a telegram that Robert was dead. She did not tell Mary,

standing, as she did, at the window while she read it. She was at the

same time looking for Robert’s body, which might come any moment. As for

Mary’s life being in danger, she had never thought of such a thing. She

was thinking only of Robert. Then a servant touched her and said: “Look

at Mrs. Barnwell.” She ran to the bedside, and the doctor, who had come

in, said, “It is all over; she is dead.” Not in anger, not in wrath, came

the angel of death that day. He came to set Mary free from a world grown

too hard to bear.

* * * * *

During Stoneman’s raid[100] I burned some personal papers. Molly

constantly said to me, “Missis, listen to de guns. Burn up everything.

Mrs. Lyons says they are sure to come, and they’ll put in their

newspapers whatever you write here, every day.” The guns did sound very

near, and when Mrs. Davis rode up and told me that if Mr. Davis left

Richmond I must go with her, I confess I lost my head. So I burned a part

of my journal but rewrote it afterward from memory—my implacable enemy

that lets me forget none of the things I would. I am weak with dates. I

do not always worry to look at the calendar and write them down. Besides

I have not always a calendar at hand.

XV

CAMDEN, S. C.

_September 10, 1863-November 5, 1863_

Camden, S. C., _September 10, 1863_.—It is a comfort to turn from small

political jealousies to our grand battles—to Lee and Kirby Smith after

Council and Convention squabbles. Lee has proved to be all that my

husband prophesied of him when he was so unpopular and when Joe Johnston

was the great god of war. The very sound of the word convention or

council is wearisome. Not that I am quite ready for Richmond yet. We must

look after home and plantation affairs, which we have sadly neglected.

Heaven help my husband through the deep waters.

The wedding of Miss Aiken, daughter of Governor Aiken, the largest

slave-owner in South Carolina; Julia Rutledge, one of the bridesmaids;

the place Flat Rock. We could not for a while imagine what Julia would

do for a dress. My sister Kate remembered some muslin she had in the

house for curtains, bought before the war, and laid aside as not needed

now. The stuff was white and thin, a little coarse, but then we covered

it with no end of beautiful lace. It made a charming dress, and how

altogether lovely Julia looked in it! The night of the wedding it stormed

as if the world were coming to an end—wind, rain, thunder, and lightning

in an unlimited supply around the mountain cottage.

The bride had a _duchesse_ dressing-table, muslin and lace; not one of

the shifts of honest, war-driven poverty, but a millionaire’s attempt

at appearing economical, in the idea that that style was in better taste

as placing the family more on the same plane with their less comfortable

compatriots. A candle was left too near this light drapery and it took

fire. Outside was lightning enough to fire the world; inside, the bridal

chamber was ablaze, and there was wind enough to blow the house down the

mountainside.

The English maid behaved heroically, and, with the aid of Mrs. Aiken’s

and Mrs. Mat Singleton’s servants, put the fire out without disturbing

the marriage ceremony, then being performed below. Everything in the

bridal chamber was burned up except the bed, and that was a mass of

cinders, soot, and flakes of charred and blackened wood.

At Kingsville I caught a glimpse of our army. Longstreet’s corps was

going West. God bless the gallant fellows! Not one man was intoxicated;

not one rude word did I hear. It was a strange sight—one part of it.

There were miles, apparently, of platform cars, soldiers rolled in their

blankets, lying in rows, heads all covered, fast asleep. In their gray

blankets, packed in regular order, they looked like swathed mummies. One

man near where I sat was writing on his knee. He used his cap for a desk

and he was seated on a rail. I watched him, wondering to whom that letter

was to go—home, no doubt. Sore hearts for him there.

A feeling of awful depression laid hold of me. All these fine fellows

were going to kill or be killed. Why? And a phrase got to beating about

my head like an old song, “The Unreturning Brave.” When a knot of boyish,

laughing, young creatures passed me, a queer thrill of sympathy shook me.

Ah, I know how your home-folks feel, poor children! Once, last winter,

persons came to us in Camden with such strange stories of Captain ——,

Morgan’s man; stories of his father, too; turf tales and murder, or, at

least, how he killed people. He had been a tremendous favorite with my

husband, who brought him in once, leading him by the hand. Afterward he

said to me, “With these girls in the house we must be more cautious.” I

agreed to be coldly polite to ——. “After all,” I said, “I barely know

him.”

When he called afterward in Richmond I was very glad to see him, utterly

forgetting that he was under a ban. We had a long, confidential talk. He

told me of his wife and children; of his army career, and told Morgan

stories. He grew more and more cordial and so did I. He thanked me for

the kind reception given him in that house; told me I was a true friend

of his, and related to me a scrape he was in which, if divulged, would

ruin him, although he was innocent; but time would clear all things. He

begged me not to repeat anything he had told me of his affairs, not even

to Colonel Chesnut; which I promised promptly, and then he went away.

I sat poking the fire thinking what a curiously interesting creature

he was, this famous Captain ——, when the folding-doors slowly opened

and Colonel Chesnut appeared. He had come home two hours ago from the

War Office with a headache, and had been lying on the sofa behind that

folding-door listening for mortal hours.

“So, this is your style of being ‘coldly polite,’” he said. Fancy my

feelings. “Indeed, I had forgotten all about what they had said of him.

The lies they told of him never once crossed my mind. He is a great deal

cleverer, and, I dare say, just as good as those who malign him.”

Mattie Reedy (I knew her as a handsome girl in Washington several years

ago) got tired of hearing Federals abusing John Morgan. One day they were

worse than ever in their abuse and she grew restive. By way of putting a

mark against the name of so rude a girl, the Yankee officer said, “What

is your name?” “Write ‘Mattie Reedy’ now, but by the grace of God one day

I hope to call myself the wife of John Morgan.” She did not know Morgan,

but Morgan eventually heard the story; a good joke it was said to be.

But he made it a point to find her out; and, as she was as pretty as she

was patriotic, by the grace of God, she is now Mrs. Morgan! These timid

Southern women under the guns can be brave enough.

Aunt Charlotte has told a story of my dear mother. They were up at

Shelby, Ala., a white man’s country, where negroes are not wanted. The

ladies had with them several negroes belonging to my uncle at whose house

they were staying in the owner’s absence. One negro man who had married

and dwelt in a cabin was for some cause particularly obnoxious to the

neighborhood. My aunt and my mother, old-fashioned ladies, shrinking

from everything outside their own door, knew nothing of all this. They

occupied rooms on opposite sides of an open passageway. Underneath, the

house was open and unfinished. Suddenly, one night, my aunt heard a

terrible noise—apparently as of a man running for his life, pursued by

men and dogs, shouting, hallooing, barking. She had only time to lock

herself in. Utterly cut off from her sister, she sat down, dumb with

terror, when there began loud knocking at the door, with men swearing,

dogs tearing round, sniffing, racing in and out of the passage and

barking underneath the house like mad. Aunt Charlotte was sure she heard

the panting of a negro as he ran into the house a few minutes before.

What could have become of him? Where could he have hidden? The men shook

the doors and windows, loudly threatening vengeance. My aunt pitied her

feeble sister, cut off in the room across the passage. This fright might

kill her!

The cursing and shouting continued unabated. A man’s voice, in harshest

accents, made itself heard above all: “Leave my house, you rascals!”

said the voice. “If you are not gone in two seconds, I’ll shoot!” There

was a dead silence except for the noise of the dogs. Quickly the men

slipped away. Once out of gunshot, they began to call their dogs. After

it was all over my aunt crept across the passage. “Sister, what man was

it scared them away?” My mother laughed aloud in her triumph. “I am the

man,” she said.

“But where is John?” Out crept John from a corner of the room, where

my mother had thrown some rubbish over him. “Lawd bless you, Miss Mary

opened de do’ for me and dey was right behind runnin’ me—” Aunt says

mother was awfully proud of her prowess. And she showed some moral

courage, too!

At the President’s in Richmond once, General Lee was there, and Constance

and Hetty Cary came in; also Miss Sanders and others. Constance Cary[101]

was telling some war anecdotes, among them one of an attempt to get up

a supper the night before at some high and mighty F. F. V.’s house, and

of how several gentlefolks went into the kitchen to prepare something

to eat by the light of one forlorn candle. One of the men in the party,

not being of a useful temperament, turned up a tub and sat down upon it.

Custis Lee, wishing also to rest, found nothing upon which to sit but a

gridiron.

One remembrance I kept of the evening at the President’s: General Lee

bowing over the beautiful Miss Cary’s hands in the passage outside. Miss

—— rose to have her part in the picture, and asked Mr. Davis to walk

with her into the adjoining drawing-room. He seemed surprised, but rose

stiffly, and, with a scowling brow, was led off. As they passed where

Mrs. Davis sat, Miss ——, with all sail set, looked back and said: “Don’t

be jealous, Mrs. Davis; I have an important communication to make to the

President.” Mrs. Davis’s amusement resulted in a significant “Now! Did

you ever?”

During Stoneman’s raid, on a Sunday I was in Mrs. Randolph’s pew. The

battle of Chancellorsville was also raging. The rattling of ammunition

wagons, the tramp of soldiers, the everlasting slamming of those iron

gates of the Capitol Square just opposite the church, made it hard to

attend to the service.

Then began a scene calculated to make the stoutest heart quail. The

sexton would walk quietly up the aisle to deliver messages to worshipers

whose relatives had been brought in wounded, dying, or dead. Pale-faced

people would then follow him out. Finally, the Rev. Mr. Minnegerode bent

across the chancel-rail to the sexton for a few minutes, whispered with

the sexton, and then disappeared. The assistant clergyman resumed the

communion which Mr. Minnegerode had been administering. At the church

door stood Mrs. Minnegerode, as tragically wretched and as wild-looking

as ever Mrs. Siddons was. She managed to say to her husband, “Your son is

at the station, dead!” When these agonized parents reached the station,

however, it proved to be some one else’s son who was dead—but a son all

the same. Pale and wan came Mr. Minnegerode back to his place within the

altar rails. After the sacred communion was over, some one asked him what

it all meant, and he said: “Oh, it was not my son who was killed, but it

came so near it aches me yet!”

At home I found L. Q. Washington, who stayed to dinner. I saw that he and

my husband were intently preoccupied by some event which they did not see

fit to communicate to me. Immediately after dinner my husband lent Mr.

Washington one of his horses and they rode off together. I betook myself

to my kind neighbors, the Pattons, for information. There I found Colonel

Patton had gone, too. Mrs. Patton, however, knew all about the trouble.

She said there was a raiding party within forty miles of us and no troops

were in Richmond! They asked me to stay to tea—those kind ladies—and in

some way we might learn what was going on. After tea we went out to the

Capitol Square, Lawrence and three men-servants going along to protect

us. They seemed to be mustering in citizens by the thousands. Company

after company was being formed; then battalions, and then regiments. It

was a wonderful sight to us, peering through the iron railing, watching

them fall into ranks.

Then we went to the President’s, finding the family at supper. We sat

on the white marble steps, and General Elzey told me exactly how things

stood and of our immediate danger. Pickets were coming in. Men were

spurring to and from the door as fast as they could ride, bringing and

carrying messages and orders. Calmly General Elzey discoursed upon our

present weakness and our chances for aid. After a while Mrs. Davis came

out and embraced me silently.

“It is dreadful,” I said. “The enemy is within forty miles of us—only

forty!” “Who told you that tale?” said she. “They are within three miles

of Richmond!” I went down on my knees like a stone. “You had better be

quiet,” she said. “The President is ill. Women and children must not add

to the trouble.” She asked me to stay all night, which I was thankful to

do.

We sat up. Officers were coming and going; and we gave them what

refreshment we could from a side table, kept constantly replenished.

Finally, in the excitement, the constant state of activity and change of

persons, we forgot the danger. Officers told us jolly stories and seemed

in fine spirits, so we gradually took heart. There was not a moment’s

rest for any one. Mrs. Davis said something more amusing than ever: “We

look like frightened women and children, don’t we?”

Early next morning the President came down. He was still feeble and pale

from illness. Custis Lee and my husband loaded their pistols, and the

President drove off in Dr. Garnett’s carriage, my husband and Custis Lee

on horseback alongside him. By eight o’clock the troops from Petersburg

came in, and the danger was over. The authorities will never strip

Richmond of troops again. We had a narrow squeeze for it, but we escaped.

It was a terrible night, although we made the best of it.

I was walking on Franklin Street when I met my husband. “Come with me to

the War Office for a few minutes,” said he, “and then I will go home with

you.” What could I do but go? He took me up a dark stairway, and then

down a long, dark corridor, and he left me sitting in a window, saying he

“would not be gone a second”; he was obliged to go into the Secretary of

War’s room. There I sat mortal hours. Men came to light the gas. From the

first I put down my veil so that nobody might know me. Numbers of persons

passed that I knew, but I scarcely felt respectable seated up there in

that odd way, so I said not a word but looked out of the window. Judge

Campbell slowly walked up and down with his hands behind his back—the

saddest face I ever saw. He had jumped down in his patriotism from Judge

of the Supreme Court, U. S. A., to be under-secretary of something or

other—I do not know what—C. S. A. No wonder he was out of spirits that

night!

Finally Judge Ould came; him I called, and he joined me at once, in no

little amazement to find me there, and stayed with me until James Chesnut

appeared. In point of fact, I sent him to look up that stray member of my

family.

When my husband came he said: “Oh, Mr. Seddon and I got into an argument,

and time slipped away! The truth is, I utterly forgot you were here.”

When we were once more out in the street, he began: “Now, don’t scold

me, for there is bad news. Pemberton has been fighting the Yankees by

brigades, and he has been beaten every time; and now Vicksburg must go!”

I suppose that was his side of the argument with Seddon.

Once again I visited the War Office. I went with Mrs. Ould to see her

husband at his office. We wanted to arrange a party on the river on the

flag-of-truce boat, and to visit those beautiful places, Claremont and

Brandon. My husband got into one of his “too careful” fits; said there

was risk in it; and so he upset all our plans. Then I was to go up to

John Rutherford’s by the canal-boat. That, too, he vetoed “too risky,” as

if anybody was going to trouble us!

_October 24th._—James Chesnut is at home on his way back to Richmond; had

been sent by the President to make the rounds of the Western armies; says

Polk is a splendid old fellow. They accuse him of having been asleep in

his tent at seven o’clock when he was ordered to attack at daylight, but

he has too good a conscience to sleep so soundly.

The battle did not begin until eleven at Chickamauga[102] when Bragg had

ordered the advance at daylight. Bragg and his generals do not agree. I

think a general worthless whose subalterns quarrel with him. Something

is wrong about the man. Good generals are adored by their soldiers. See

Napoleon, Cæsar, Stonewall, Lee.

Old Sam (Hood) received his orders to hold a certain bridge against the

enemy, and he had already driven the enemy several miles beyond it, when

the slow generals were still asleep. Hood has won a victory, though he

has only one leg to stand on.

Mr. Chesnut was with the President when he reviewed our army under the

enemy’s guns before Chattanooga. He told Mr. Davis that every honest man

he saw out West thought well of Joe Johnston. He knows that the President

detests Joe Johnston for all the trouble he has given him, and General

Joe returns the compliment with compound interest. His hatred of Jeff

Davis amounts to a religion. With him it colors all things.

Joe Johnston advancing, or retreating, I may say with more truth, is

magnetic. He does draw the good-will of those by whom he is surrounded.

Being such a good hater, it is a pity he had not elected to hate somebody

else than the President of our country. He hates not wisely but too well.

Our friend Breckinridge[103] received Mr. Chesnut with open arms. There

is nothing narrow, nothing self-seeking, about Breckinridge. He has not

mounted a pair of green spectacles made of prejudices so that he sees no

good except in his own red-hot partizans.

_October 27th._—Young Wade Hampton has been here for a few days, a guest

of our nearest neighbor and cousin, Phil Stockton. Wade, without being

the beauty or the athlete that his brother Preston is, is such a nice

boy. We lent him horses, and ended by giving him a small party. What

was lacking in company was made up for by the excellence of old Colonel

Chesnut’s ancient Madeira and champagne. If everything in the Confederacy

were only as truly good as the old Colonel’s wine-cellars! Then we had a

salad and a jelly cake.

General Joe Johnston is so careful of his aides that Wade has never yet

seen a battle. Says he has always happened to be sent afar off when the

fighting came. He does not seem too grateful for this, and means to be

transferred to his father’s command. He says, “No man exposes himself

more recklessly to danger than General Johnston, and no one strives

harder to keep others out of it.” But the business of this war is to save

the country, and a commander must risk his men’s lives to do it. There is

a French saying that you can’t make an omelet unless you are willing to

break eggs.

_November 5th._—For a week we have had such a tranquil, happy time here.

Both my husband and Johnny are here still. James Chesnut spent his time

sauntering around with his father, or stretched on the rug before my fire

reading Vanity Fair and Pendennis. By good luck he had not read them

before. We have kept Esmond for the last. He owns that he is having a

good time. Johnny is happy, too. He does not care for books. He will read

a novel now and then, if the girls continue to talk of it before him.

Nothing else whatever in the way of literature does he touch. He comes

pulling his long blond mustache irresolutely as if he hoped to be advised

not to read it—“Aunt Mary, shall I like this thing?” I do not think he

has an idea what we are fighting about, and he does not want to know. He

says, “My company,” “My men,” with a pride, a faith, and an affection

which are sublime. He came into his inheritance at twenty-one (just as

the war began), and it was a goodly one, fine old houses and an estate to

match.

Yesterday, Johnny went to his plantation for the first time since the war

began. John Witherspoon went with him, and reports in this way: “How do

you do, Marster! How you come on?”—thus from every side rang the noisiest

welcome from the darkies. Johnny was silently shaking black hands right

and left as he rode into the crowd.

As the noise subsided, to the overseer he said: “Send down more corn and

fodder for my horses.” And to the driver, “Have you any peas?” “Plenty,

sir.” “Send a wagon-load down for the cows at Bloomsbury while I stay

there. They have not milk and butter enough there for me. Any eggs? Send

down all you can collect. How about my turkeys and ducks? Send them down

two at a time. How about the mutton? Fat? That’s good; send down two a

week.”

As they rode home, John Witherspoon remarked, “I was surprised that you

did not go into the fields to see your crops.” “What was the use?” “And

the negroes; you had so little talk with them.”

“No use to talk to them before the overseer. They are coming down to

Bloomsbury, day and night, by platoons and they talk me dead. Besides,

William and Parish go up there every night, and God knows they tell me

enough plantation scandal—overseer feathering his nest; negroes ditto at

my expense. Between the two fires I mean to get something to eat while I

am here.”

For him we got up a charming picnic at Mulberry. Everything was

propitious—the most perfect of days and the old place in great beauty.

Those large rooms were delightful for dancing; we had as good a dinner as

mortal appetite could crave; the best fish, fowl, and game; wine from a

cellar that can not be excelled. In spite of blockade Mulberry does the

honors nobly yet. Mrs. Edward Stockton drove down with me. She helped me

with her taste and tact in arranging things. We had no trouble, however.

All of the old servants who have not been moved to Bloomsbury scented the

prey from afar, and they literally flocked in and made themselves useful.

XVI

RICHMOND, VA.

_November 28, 1863-April 11, 1864_

Richmond, Va., _November 28, 1863_.—Our pleasant home sojourn was soon

broken up. Johnny had to go back to Company A, and my husband was ordered

by the President to make a second visit to Bragg’s Army[104].

So we came on here where the Prestons had taken apartments for me. Molly

was with me. Adam Team, the overseer, with Isaac McLaughlin’s help, came

with us to take charge of the eight huge boxes of provisions I brought

from home. Isaac, Molly’s husband, is a servant of ours, the only one my

husband ever bought in his life. Isaac’s wife belonged to Rev. Thomas

Davis, and Isaac to somebody else. The owner of Isaac was about to go

West, and Isaac was distracted. They asked one thousand dollars for

him. He is a huge creature, really a magnificent specimen of a colored

gentleman. His occupation had been that of a stage-driver. Now, he is a

carpenter, or will be some day. He is awfully grateful to us for buying

him; is really devoted to his wife and children, though he has a strange

way of showing it, for he has a mistress, _en titre_, as the French say,

which fact Molly never failed to grumble about as soon as his back was

turned. “Great big good-for-nothing thing come a-whimpering to marster to

buy him for his wife’s sake, and all the time he an—” “Oh, Molly, stop

that!” said I.

Mr. Davis visited Charleston and had an enthusiastic reception. He

described it all to General Preston. Governor Aiken’s perfect old

Carolina style of living delighted him. Those old gray-haired darkies and

their noiseless, automatic service, the result of finished training—one

does miss that sort of thing when away from home, where your own servants

think for you; they know your ways and your wants; they save you all

responsibility even in matters of your own ease and well doing. The

butler at Mulberry would be miserable and feel himself a ridiculous

failure were I ever forced to ask him for anything.

_November 30th._—I must describe an adventure I had in Kingsville. Of

course, I know nothing of children: in point of fact, am awfully afraid

of them.

Mrs. Edward Barnwell came with us from Camden. She had a magnificent boy

two years old. Now don’t expect me to reduce that adjective, for this

little creature is a wonder of childlike beauty, health, and strength.

Why not? If like produces like, and with such a handsome pair to claim as

father and mother! The boy’s eyes alone would make any girl’s fortune.

At first he made himself very agreeable, repeating nursery rhymes and

singing. Then something went wrong. Suddenly he changed to a little

fiend, fought and kicked and scratched like a tiger. He did everything

that was naughty, and he did it with a will as if he liked it, while his

lovely mamma, with flushed cheeks and streaming eyes, was imploring him

to be a good boy.

When we stopped at Kingsville, I got out first, then Mrs. Barnwell’s

nurse, who put the little man down by me. “Look after him a moment,

please, ma’am,” she said. “I must help Mrs. Barnwell with the bundles,”

etc. She stepped hastily back and the cars moved off. They ran down a

half mile to turn. I trembled in my shoes. This child! No man could

ever frighten me so. If he should choose to be bad again! It seemed an

eternity while I waited for that train to turn and come back again. My

little charge took things quietly. For me he had a perfect contempt, no

fear whatever. And I was his abject slave for the nonce.

He stretched himself out lazily at full length. Then he pointed

downward. “Those are great legs,” said he solemnly, looking at his own.

I immediately joined him in admiring them enthusiastically. Near him he

spied a bundle. “Pussy cat tied up in that bundle.” He was up in a second

and pounced upon it. If we were to be taken up as thieves, no matter, I

dared not meddle with that child. I had seen what he could do. There were

several cooked sweet potatoes tied up in an old handkerchief—belonging

to some negro probably. He squared himself off comfortably, broke one in

half and began to eat. Evidently he had found what he was fond of. In

this posture Mrs. Barnwell discovered us. She came with comic dismay in

every feature, not knowing what our relations might be, and whether or

not we had undertaken to fight it out alone as best we might. The old

nurse cried, “Lawsy me!” with both hands uplifted. Without a word I fled.

In another moment the Wilmington train would have left me. She was going

to Columbia.

We broke down only once between Kingsville and Wilmington, but between

Wilmington and Weldon we contrived to do the thing so effectually as to

have to remain twelve hours at that forlorn station.

The one room that I saw was crowded with soldiers. Adam Team succeeded

in securing two chairs for me, upon one of which I sat and put my feet

on the other. Molly sat flat on the floor, resting her head against my

chair. I woke cold and cramped. An officer, who did not give his name,

but said he was from Louisiana, came up and urged me to go near the fire.

He gave me his seat by the fire, where I found an old lady and two young

ones, with two men in the uniform of common soldiers.

We talked as easily to each other all night as if we had known one

another all our lives. We discussed the war, the army, the news of the

day. No questions were asked, no names given, no personal discourse

whatever, and yet if these men and women were not gentry, and of the best

sort, I do not know ladies and gentlemen when I see them.

Being a little surprised at the want of interest Mr. Team and Isaac

showed in my well-doing, I walked out to see, and I found them working

like beavers. They had been at it all night. In the break-down my boxes

were smashed. They had first gathered up the contents and were trying to

hammer up the boxes so as to make them once more available.

At Petersburg a smartly dressed woman came in, looked around in the

crowd, then asked for the seat by me. Now Molly’s seat was paid for the

same as mine, but she got up at once, gave the lady her seat and stood

behind me. I am sure Molly believes herself my body-guard as well as my

servant.

The lady then having arranged herself comfortably in Molly’s seat began

in plaintive accents to tell her melancholy tale. She was a widow. She

lost her husband in the battles around Richmond. Soon some one went out

and a man offered her the vacant seat. Straight as an arrow she went in

for a flirtation with the polite gentleman. Another person, a perfect

stranger, said to me, “Well, look yonder. As soon as she began whining

about her dead beau I knew she was after another one.” “Beau, indeed!”

cried another listener, “she said it was her husband.” “Husband or lover,

all the same. She won’t lose any time. It won’t be her fault if she

doesn’t have another one soon.”

But the grand scene was the night before: the cars crowded with soldiers,

of course; not a human being that I knew. An Irish woman, so announced by

her brogue, came in. She marched up and down the car, loudly lamenting

the want of gallantry in the men who would not make way for her. Two men

got up and gave her their seats, saying it did not matter, they were

going to get out at the next stopping-place.

She was gifted with the most pronounced brogue I ever heard, and she gave

us a taste of it. She continued to say that the men ought all to get out

of that; that car was “shuteable” only for ladies. She placed on the

vacant seat next to her a large looking-glass. She continued to harangue

until she fell asleep.

A tired soldier coming in, seeing what he supposed to be an empty seat,

quietly slipped into it. Crash went the glass. The soldier groaned, the

Irish woman shrieked. The man was badly cut by the broken glass. She was

simply a mad woman. She shook her fist in his face; said she was a lone

woman and he had got into that seat for no good purpose. How did he dare

to?—etc. I do not think the man uttered a word. The conductor took him

into another car to have the pieces of glass picked out of his clothes,

and she continued to rave. Mr. Team shouted aloud, and laughed as if he

were in the Hermitage Swamp. The woman’s unreasonable wrath and absurd

accusations were comic, no doubt.

Soon the car was silent and I fell into a comfortable doze. I felt Molly

give me a gentle shake. “Listen, Missis, how loud Mars Adam Team is

talking, and all about ole marster and our business, and to strangers.

It’s a shame.” “Is he saying any harm of us?” “No, ma’am, not that. He

is bragging for dear life ’bout how ole ole marster is and how rich he

is, an’ all that. I gwine tell him stop.” Up started Molly. “Mars Adam,

Missis say please don’t talk so loud. When people travel they don’t do

that a way.”

Mr. Preston’s man, Hal, was waiting at the depot with a carriage to take

me to my Richmond house. Mary Preston had rented these apartments for me.

I found my dear girls there with a nice fire. Everything looked so

pleasant and inviting to the weary traveler. Mrs. Grundy, who occupies

the lower floor, sent me such a real Virginia tea, hot cakes, and rolls.

Think of living in the house with Mrs. Grundy, and having no fear of

“what Mrs. Grundy will say.”

My husband has come; he likes the house, Grundy’s, and everything.

Already he has bought Grundy’s horses for sixteen hundred Confederate

dollars cash. He is nearer to being contented and happy than I ever saw

him. He has not established a grievance yet, but I am on the lookout

daily. He will soon find out whatever there is wrong about Cary Street.

I gave a party; Mrs. Davis very witty; Preston girls very handsome;

Isabella’s fun fast and furious. No party could have gone off more

successfully, but my husband decides we are to have no more festivities.

This is not the time or the place for such gaieties.

Maria Freeland is perfectly delightful on the subject of her wedding.

She is ready to the last piece of lace, but her hard-hearted father says

“No.” She adores John Lewis. That goes without saying. She does not

pretend, however, to be as much in love as Mary Preston. In point of

fact, she never saw any one before who was. But she is as much in love

as she can be with a man who, though he is not _very_ handsome, is as

eligible a match as a girl could make. He is all that heart could wish,

and he comes of such a handsome family. His mother, Esther Maria Coxe,

was the beauty of a century, and his father was a nephew of General

Washington. For all that, he is far better looking than John Darby or Mr.

Miles. She always intended to marry better than Mary Preston or Bettie

Bierne.

Lucy Haxall is positively engaged to Captain Coffey, an Englishman. She

is convinced that she will marry him. He is her first fancy.

Mr. Venable, of Lee’s staff, was at our party, so out of spirits. He

knows everything that is going on. His depression bodes us no good.

To-day, General Hampton sent James Chesnut a fine saddle that he had

captured from the Yankees in battle array.

Mrs. Scotch Allan (Edgar Allan Poe’s patron’s wife) sent me ice-cream and

lady-cheek apples from her farm. John R. Thompson[105], the sole literary

fellow I know in Richmond, sent me Leisure Hours in Town, by A Country

Parson.

My husband says he hopes I will be contented because he came here this

winter to please me. If I could have been satisfied at home he would

have resigned his aide-de-camp-ship and gone into some service in South

Carolina. I am a good excuse, if good for nothing else.

Old tempestuous Keitt breakfasted with us yesterday. I wish I could

remember half the brilliant things he said. My husband has now gone with

him to the War Office. Colonel Keitt thinks it is time he was promoted.

He wants to be a brigadier.

Now, Charleston is bombarded night and day. It fairly makes me dizzy to

think of that everlasting racket they are beating about people’s ears

down there. Bragg defeated, and separated from Longstreet. It is a long

street that knows no turning, and Rosecrans is not taken after all.

_November 30th._—Anxiety pervades. Lee is fighting Meade. Misery is

everywhere. Bragg is falling back before Grant[106]. Longstreet, the

soldiers call him Peter the Slow, is settling down before Knoxville.

General Lee requires us to answer every letter, said Mr. Venable, and to

do our best to console the poor creatures whose husbands and sons are

fighting the battles of the country.

_December 2d._—Bragg begs to be relieved of his command. The army will be

relieved to get rid of him. He has a winning way of earning everybody’s

detestation. Heavens, how they hate him! The rapid flight of his army

terminated at Ringgold. Hardie declines even a temporary command of the

Western army. Preston Johnston has been sent out post-haste at a moment’s

warning. He was not even allowed time to go home and tell his wife

good-by or, as Browne, the Englishman, said, “to put a clean shirt into

his traveling bag.” Lee and Meade are facing each other gallantly[107].

The first of December we went with a party of Mrs. Ould’s getting

up, to see a French frigate which lay at anchor down the river. The

French officers came on board our boat. The Lees were aboard. The

French officers were not in the least attractive either in manners or

appearance, but our ladies were most attentive and some showered bad

French upon them with a lavish hand, always accompanied by queer grimaces

to eke out the scanty supply of French words, the sentences ending

usually in a nervous shriek. “Are they deaf?” asked Mrs. Randolph.

The French frigate was a dirty little thing. Doctor Garnett was so buoyed

up with hope that the French were coming to our rescue, that he would

not let me say “an English man-of-war is the cleanest thing known in

the world.” Captain —— said to Mary Lee, with a foreign contortion of

countenance, that went for a smile, “I’s bashlor.” Judge Ould said, as we

went to dinner on our own steamer, “They will not drink our President’s

health. They do not acknowledge us to be a nation. Mind, none of you say

‘Emperor,’ not once.” Doctor Garnett interpreted the laws of politeness

otherwise, and stepped forward, his mouth fairly distended with so much

French, and said: “Vieff l’Emperor.” Young Gibson seconded him quietly,

“_À la santé de l’Empereur_.” But silence prevailed. Preston Hampton was

the handsomest man on board—“the figure of Hercules, the face of Apollo,”

cried an enthusiastic girl. Preston was as lazy and as sleepy as ever. He

said of the Frenchmen: “They can’t help not being good-looking, but with

all the world open to them, to wear such shabby clothes!”

The lieutenant’s name was Rousseau. On the French frigate, lying on

one of the tables was a volume of Jean Jacques Rousseau’s works, side

by side, strange to say, with a map of South Carolina. This lieutenant

was courteously asked by Mary Lee to select some lady to whom she

might introduce him. He answered: “I shuse you,” with a bow that was a

benediction and a prayer.

And now I am in a fine condition for Hetty Cary’s starvation party, where

they will give thirty dollars for the music and not a cent for a morsel

to eat. Preston said contentedly, “I hate dancing, and I hate cold water;

so I will eschew the festivity to-night.”

Found John R. Thompson at our house when I got home so tired to-night.

He brought me the last number of the Cornhill. He knew how much I was

interested in Trollope’s story, Framley Parsonage.

_December 4th._—My husband bought yesterday at the Commissary’s one

barrel of flour, one bushel of potatoes, one peck of rice, five pounds of

salt beef, and one peck of salt—all for sixty dollars. In the street a

barrel of flour sells for one hundred and fifteen dollars.

_December 5th._—Wigfall was here last night. He began by wanting to hang

Jeff Davis. My husband managed him beautifully. He soon ceased to talk

virulent nonsense, and calmed down to his usual strong common sense.

I knew it was quite late, but I had no idea of the hour. My husband

beckoned me out. “It is all your fault,” said he. “What?” “Why will you

persist in looking so interested in all Wigfall is saying? Don’t let him

catch your eye. Look into the fire. Did you not hear it strike two?”

This attack was so sudden, so violent, so unlooked for, I could only

laugh hysterically. However, as an obedient wife, I went back, gravely

took my seat and looked into the fire. I did not even dare raise my

eyes to see what my husband was doing—if he, too, looked into the fire.

Wigfall soon tired of so tame an audience and took his departure.

General Lawton was here. He was one of Stonewall’s generals. So I

listened with all my ears when he said: “Stonewall could not sleep.

So, every two or three nights you were waked up by orders to have your

brigade in marching order before daylight and report in person to the

Commander. Then you were marched a few miles out and then a few miles

in again. All this was to make us ready, ever on the alert. And the end

of it was this: Jackson’s men would go half a day’s march before Peter

Longstreet waked and breakfasted. I think there is a popular delusion

about the amount of praying he did. He certainly preferred a fight on

Sunday to a sermon. Failing to manage a fight, he loved best a long

Presbyterian sermon, Calvinistic to the core.

“He had shown small sympathy with human infirmity. He was a one-idea-ed

man. He looked upon broken-down men and stragglers as the same thing.

He classed all who were weak and weary, who fainted by the wayside, as

men wanting in patriotism. If a man’s face was as white as cotton and

his pulse so low you scarce could feel it, he looked upon him merely as

an inefficient soldier and rode off impatiently. He was the true type

of all great soldiers. Like the successful warriors of the world, he

did not value human life where he had an object to accomplish. He could

order men to their death as a matter of course. His soldiers obeyed him

to the death. Faith they had in him stronger than death. Their respect

he commanded. I doubt if he had so much of their love as is talked about

while he was alive. Now, that they see a few more years of Stonewall

would have freed them from the Yankees, they deify him. Any man is proud

to have been one of the famous Stonewall brigade. But, be sure, it was

bitter hard work to keep up with him as all know who ever served under

him. He gave his orders rapidly and distinctly and rode away, never

allowing answer or remonstrance. It was, ‘Look there—see that place—take

it!’ When you failed you were apt to be put under arrest. When you

reported the place taken, he only said, ‘Good!’”

Spent seventy-five dollars to-day for a little tea and sugar, and have

five hundred left. My husband’s pay never has paid for the rent of

our lodgings. He came in with dreadful news just now. I have wept so

often for things that never happened, I will withhold my tears now for

a certainty. To-day, a poor woman threw herself on her dead husband’s

coffin and kissed it. She was weeping bitterly. So did I in sympathy.

My husband, as I told him to-day, could see me and everything that he

loved hanged, drawn, and quartered without moving a muscle, if a crowd

were looking on; he could have the same gentle operation performed on

himself and make no sign. To all of which violent insinuation he answered

in unmoved tones: “So would any civilized man. Savages, however—Indians,

at least—are more dignified in that particular than we are. Noisy,

fidgety grief never moves me at all; it annoys me. Self-control is what

we all need. You are a miracle of sensibility; self-control is what you

need.” “So you are civilized!” I said. “Some day I mean to be.”

_December 9th._—“Come here, Mrs. Chesnut,” said Mary Preston to-day,

“they are lifting General Hood out of his carriage, here, at your

door.” Mrs. Grundy promptly had him borne into her drawing-room, which

was on the first floor. Mary Preston and I ran down and greeted him as

cheerfully and as cordially as if nothing had happened since we saw

him standing before us a year ago. How he was waited upon! Some cut-up

oranges were brought him. “How kind people are,” said he. “Not once since

I was wounded have I ever been left without fruit, hard as it is to get

now.” “The money value of friendship is easily counted now,” said some

one, “oranges are five dollars apiece.”

_December 10th._—Mrs. Davis and Mrs. Lyons came. We had luncheon brought

in for them, and then a lucid explanation of the _chronique scandaleuse_,

of which Beck J. is the heroine. We walked home with Mrs. Davis and met

the President riding alone. Surely that is wrong. It must be unsafe for

him when there are so many traitors, not to speak of bribed negroes.

Burton Harrison[108] says Mr. Davis prefers to go alone, and there is

none to gainsay him.

My husband laid the law down last night. I felt it to be the last drop

in my full cup. “No more feasting in this house,” said he. “This is no

time for junketing and merrymaking.” “And you said you brought me here to

enjoy the winter before you took me home and turned my face to a dead

wall.” He is the master of the house; to hear is to obey.

_December 14th._—Drove out with Mrs. Davis. She had a watch in her hand

which some poor dead soldier wanted to have sent to his family. First,

we went to her mantua-maker, then we drove to the Fair Grounds where the

band was playing. Suddenly, she missed the watch. She remembered having

it when we came out of the mantua-maker’s. We drove back instantly, and

there the watch was lying near the steps of the little porch in front of

the house. No one had passed in, apparently; in any case, no one had seen

it.

Preston Hampton went with me to see Conny Cary. The talk was frantically

literary, which Preston thought hard on him. I had just brought the St.

Denis number of Les Misérables.

Sunday, Christopher Hampton walked to church with me. Coming out, General

Lee was seen slowly making his way down the aisle, bowing royally to

right and left. I pointed him out to Christopher Hampton when General

Lee happened to look our way. He bowed low, giving me a charming smile

of recognition. I was ashamed of being so pleased. I blushed like a

schoolgirl.

We went to the White House. They gave us tea. The President said he had

been on the way to our house, coming with all the Davis family, to see

me, but the children became so troublesome they turned back. Just then,

little Joe rushed in and insisted on saying his prayers at his father’s

knee, then and there. He was in his night-clothes.

[Illustration: THE DAVIS MANSION IN RICHMOND, THE “WHITE HOUSE” OF THE

CONFEDERACY.

Now the Confederate Museum.]

_December 19th._—A box has come from home for me. Taking advantage of

this good fortune and a full larder, have asked Mrs. Davis to dine

with me. Wade Hampton sent me a basket of game. We had Mrs. Davis and

Mr. and Mrs. Preston. After dinner we walked to the church to see the

Freeland-Lewis wedding. Mr. Preston had Mrs. Davis on his arm. My husband

and Mrs. Preston, and Burton Harrison and myself brought up the rear.

Willie Allan joined us, and we had the pleasure of waiting one good hour.

Then the beautiful Maria, loveliest of brides, sailed in on her father’s

arm, and Major John Coxe Lewis followed with Mrs. Freeland. After the

ceremony such a kissing was there up and down the aisle. The happy

bridegroom kissed wildly, and several girls complained, but he said: “How

am I to know Maria’s kin whom I was to kiss? It is better to show too

much affection for one’s new relations than too little.”

_December 21st._—Joe Johnston has been made Commander-in-chief of the

Army of the West. General Lee had this done,’tis said. Miss Agnes Lee and

“little Robert” (as they fondly call General Lee’s youngest son in this

hero-worshiping community) called. They told us the President, General

Lee, and General Elzey had gone out to look at the fortifications around

Richmond. My husband came home saying he had been with them, and lent

General Lee his gray horse.

Mrs. Howell, Mrs. Davis’s mother, says a year ago on the cars a man said,

“We want a Dictator.” She replied, “Jeff Davis will never consent to be

a Dictator.” The man turned sharply toward her “And, pray, who asks him?

Joe Johnston will be made Dictator by the Army of the West.” “Imperator”

was suggested. Of late the Army of the West has not been in a condition

to dictate to friend or foe. Certainly Jeff Davis did hate to put Joe

Johnston at the head of what is left of it. Detached from General Lee,

what a horrible failure is Longstreet! Oh, for a day of Albert Sidney

Johnston out West! And Stonewall, could he come back to us here!

General Hood, the wounded knight, came for me to drive. I felt that I

would soon find myself chaperoning some girls, but I asked no questions.

He improved the time between Franklin and Cary Streets by saying, “I do

like your husband so much.” “So do I,” I replied simply. Buck was ill in

bed, so William said at the door, but she recovered her health and came

down for the drive in black velvet and ermine, looking queenly. And then,

with the top of the landau thrown back, wrapped in furs and rugs, we had

a long drive that bitter cold day.

One day as we were hieing us home from the Fair Grounds, Sam, the wounded

knight, asked Brewster what are the symptoms of a man’s being in love.

Sam (Hood is called Sam entirely, but why I do not know) said for his

part he did not know; at seventeen he had fancied himself in love, but

that was “a long time ago.” Brewster spoke on the symptoms of love: “When

you see her, your breath is apt to come short. If it amounts to mild

strangulation, you have got it bad. You are stupidly jealous, glowering

with jealousy, and have a gloomy fixed conviction that she likes every

fool you meet better than she does you, especially people that you

know she has a thorough contempt for; that is, you knew it before you

lost your head, I mean, before you fell in love. The last stages of

unmitigated spooniness, I will spare you,” said Brewster, with a giggle

and a wave of the hand. “Well,” said Sam, drawing a breath of relief, “I

have felt none of these things so far, and yet they say I am engaged to

four young ladies, a liberal allowance, you will admit, for a man who can

not walk without help.”

Another day (the Sabbath) we called on our way from church to see Mrs.

Wigfall. She was ill, but Mr. Wigfall insisted upon taking me into the

drawing-room to rest a while. He said Louly was there; so she was, and

so was Sam Hood, the wounded knight, stretched at full length on a sofa

and a rug thrown over him. Louis Wigfall said to me: “Do you know General

Hood?” “Yes,” said I, and the General laughed with his eyes as I looked

at him; but he did not say a word. I felt it a curious commentary upon

the reports he had spoken of the day before. Louly Wigfall is a very

handsome girl.

_December 24th._—As we walked, Brewster reported a row he had had with

General Hood. Brewster had told those six young ladies at the Prestons’

that “old Sam” was in the habit of saying he would not marry if he could

any silly, sentimental girl, who would throw herself away upon a maimed

creature such as he was. When Brewster went home he took pleasure in

telling Sam how the ladies had complimented his good sense, whereupon

the General rose in his wrath and threatened to break his crutch over

Brewster’s head. To think he could be such a fool—to go about repeating

to everybody his whimperings.

I was taking my seat at the head of the table when the door opened and

Brewster walked in unannounced. He took his stand in front of the open

door, with his hands in his pockets and his small hat pushed back as far

as it could get from his forehead.

“What!” said he, “you are not ready yet? The generals are below. Did you

get my note?” I begged my husband to excuse me and rushed off to put on

my bonnet and furs. I met the girls coming up with a strange man. The

flurry of two major-generals had been too much for me and I forgot to ask

the new one’s name. They went up to dine in my place with my husband, who

sat eating his dinner, with Lawrence’s undivided attention given to him,

amid this whirling and eddying in and out of the world militant. Mary

Preston and I then went to drive with the generals. The new one proved

to be Buckner[109], who is also a Kentuckian. The two men told us they

had slept together the night before Chickamauga. It is useless to try:

legs can’t any longer be kept out of the conversation. So General Buckner

said: “Once before I slept with a man and he lost his leg next day.”

He had made a vow never to do so again. “When Sam and I parted that

morning, we said: ‘You or I may be killed, but the cause will be safe all

the same.’”

After the drive everybody came in to tea, my husband in famous good

humor, we had an unusually gay evening. It was very nice of my husband to

take no notice of my conduct at dinner, which had been open to criticism.

All the comfort of my life depends upon his being in good humor.

_Christmas Day, 1863._—Yesterday dined with the Prestons. Wore one of my

handsomest Paris dresses (from Paris before the war). Three magnificent

Kentucky generals were present, with Senator Orr from South Carolina, and

Mr. Miles. General Buckner repeated a speech of Hood’s to him to show

how friendly they were. “I prefer a ride with you to the company of any

woman in the world,” Buckner had answered. “I prefer your company to that

of any man, certainly,” was Hood’s reply. This became the standing joke

of the dinner; it flashed up in every form. Poor Sam got out of it so

badly, if he got out of it at all. General Buckner said patronizingly,

“Lame excuses, all. Hood never gets out of any scrape—that is, unless he

can fight out.” Others dropped in after dinner; some without arms, some

without legs; von Borcke, who can not speak because of a wound in his

throat. Isabella said: “We have all kinds now, but a blind one.” Poor

fellows, they laugh at wounds. “And they yet can show many a scar.”

We had for dinner oyster soup, besides roast mutton, ham, boned turkey,

wild duck, partridge, plum pudding, sauterne, burgundy, sherry, and

Madeira. There is life in the old land yet!

At my house to-day after dinner, and while Alex Haskell and my husband

sat over the wine, Hood gave me an account of his discomfiture last

night. He said he could not sleep after it; it was the hardest battle he

had ever fought in his life, “and I was routed, as it were; she told me

there was no hope; that ends it. You know at Petersburg on my way to

the Western army she half-promised me to think of it. She would not say

‘Yes,’ but she did not say ‘No’—that is, not exactly. At any rate, I went

off saying, ‘I am engaged to you,’ and she said, ‘I am not engaged to

you.’ After I was so fearfully wounded I gave it up. But, then, since I

came,” etc.

“Do you mean to say,” said I, “that you had proposed to her before that

conversation in the carriage, when you asked Brewster the symptoms of

love? I like your audacity.” “Oh, she understood, but it is all up now,

for she says, ‘No!’”

My husband says I am extravagant. “No, my friend, not that,” said I.

“I had fifteen hundred dollars and I have spent every cent of it in my

housekeeping. Not one cent for myself, not one cent for dress nor any

personal want whatever.” He calls me “hospitality run mad.”

_January 1, 1864._—General Hood’s an awful flatterer—I mean an awkward

flatterer. I told him to praise my husband to some one else, not to me.

He ought to praise me to somebody who would tell my husband, and then

praise my husband to another person who would tell me. Man and wife are

too much one person—to wave a compliment straight in the face of one

about the other is not graceful.

One more year of Stonewall would have saved us. Chickamauga is the only

battle we have gained since Stonewall died, and no results follow as

usual. Stonewall was not so much as killed by a Yankee: he was shot by

his own men; that is hard. General Lee can do no more than keep back

Meade. “One of Meade’s armies, you mean,” said I, “for they have only to

double on him when Lee whips one of them.”

General Edward Johnston says he got Grant a place—_esprit de corps_, you

know. He could not bear to see an old army man driving a wagon; that was

when he found him out West, put out of the army for habitual drunkenness.

He is their right man, a bull-headed Suwarrow. He don’t care a snap

if men fall like the leaves fall; he fights to win, that chap does. He

is not distracted by a thousand side issues; he does not see them. He

is narrow and sure—sees only in a straight line. Like Louis Napoleon,

from a battle in the gutter, he goes straight up. Yes, as with Lincoln,

they have ceased to carp at him as a rough clown, no gentleman, etc. You

never hear now of Lincoln’s nasty fun; only of his wisdom. Doesn’t take

much soap and water to wash the hands that the rod of empire sway. They

talked of Lincoln’s drunkenness, too. Now, since Vicksburg they have

not a word to say against Grant’s habits. He has the disagreeable habit

of not retreating before irresistible veterans. General Lee and Albert

Sidney Johnston show blood and breeding. They are of the Bayard and

Philip Sidney order of soldiers. Listen: if General Lee had had Grant’s

resources he would have bagged the last Yankee, or have had them all safe

back in Massachusetts. “You mean if he had not the weight of the negro

question upon him?” “No, I mean if he had Grant’s unlimited allowance of

the powers of war—men, money, ammunition, arms.”

Mrs. Ould says Mrs. Lincoln found the gardener of the White House so

nice, she would make him a major-general. Lincoln remarked to the

secretary: “Well, the little woman must have her way sometimes.”

A word of the last night of the old year. “Gloria Mundi” sent me a cup of

strong, good coffee. I drank two cups and so I did not sleep a wink. Like

a fool I passed my whole life in review, and bitter memories maddened me

quite. Then came a happy thought. I mapped out a story of the war. The

plot came to hand, for it was true. Johnny is the hero, a light dragoon

and heavy swell. I will call it F. F.’s, for it is the F. F.’s both of

South Carolina and Virginia. It is to be a war story, and the filling out

of the skeleton was the best way to put myself to sleep.

_January 4th._—Mrs. Ives wants us to translate a French play. A genuine

French captain came in from his ship on the James River and gave us good

advice as to how to make the selection. General Hampton sent another

basket of partridges, and all goes merry as a marriage bell.

My husband came in and nearly killed us. He brought this piece of news:

“North Carolina wants to offer terms of peace!” We needed only a break of

that kind to finish us. I really shivered nervously, as one does when the

first handful of earth comes rattling down on the coffin in the grave of

one we cared for more than all who are left.

_January 5th._—At Mrs. Preston’s, met the Light Brigade in battle array,

ready to sally forth, conquering and to conquer. They would stand no

nonsense from me about staying at home to translate a French play.

Indeed, the plays that have been sent us are so indecent I scarcely know

where a play is to be found that would do at all.

While at dinner the President’s carriage drove up with only General Hood.

He sent up to ask in Maggie Howell’s name would I go with them? I tied

up two partridges between plates with a serviette, for Buck, who is ill,

and then went down. We picked up Mary Preston. It was Maggie’s drive;

as the soldiers say, I was only on “escort duty.” At the Prestons’,

Major Venable met us at the door and took in the partridges to Buck. As

we drove off Maggie said: “Major Venable is a Carolinian, I see.” “No;

Virginian to the core.” “But, then, he was a professor in the South

Carolina College before the war.” Mary Preston said: “She is taking a

fling at your weakness for all South Carolina.”

Came home and found my husband in a bitter mood. It has all gone wrong

with our world. The loss of our private fortune the smallest part. He

intimates, “with so much human misery filling the air, we might stay at

home and think.” “And go mad?” said I. “Catch me at it! A yawning grave,

with piles of red earth thrown on one side; that is the only future I

ever see. You remember Emma Stockton? She and I were as blithe as birds

that day at Mulberry. I came here the next day, and when I arrived a

telegram said: ‘Emma Stockton found dead in her bed.’ It is awfully near,

that thought. No, no. I will not stop and think of death always.”

_January 8th._—Snow of the deepest. Nobody can come to-day, I thought.

But they did! My girls, first; then Constance Cary tripped in—the clever

Conny. Hetty is the beauty, so called, though she is clever enough, too;

but Constance is actually clever and has a classically perfect outline.

Next came the four Kentuckians and Preston Hampton. He is as tall as the

Kentuckians and ever so much better looking. Then we had egg-nog.

I was to take Miss Cary to the Semmes’s. My husband inquired the price of

a carriage. It was twenty-five dollars an hour! He cursed by all his gods

at such extravagance. The play was not worth the candle, or carriage, in

this instance. In Confederate money it sounds so much worse than it is.

I did not dream of asking him to go with me after that lively overture.

“I did intend to go with you,” he said, “but you do not ask me.” “And I

have been asking you for twenty years to go with me, in vain. Think of

that!” I said, tragically. We could not wait for him to dress, so I sent

the twenty-five-dollar-an-hour carriage back for him. We were behind

time, as it was. When he came, the beautiful Hetty Cary and her friend,

Captain Tucker, were with him. Major von Borcke and Preston Hampton were

at the Cary’s, in the drawing-room when we called for Constance, who was

dressing. I challenge the world to produce finer specimens of humanity

than these three: the Prussian von Borcke, Preston Hampton, and Hetty

Cary.

We spoke to the Prussian about the vote of thanks passed by Congress

yesterday—“thanks of the country to Major von Borcke.” The poor man

was as modest as a girl—in spite of his huge proportions. “That is a

compliment, indeed!” said Hetty. “Yes. I saw it. And the happiest,

the proudest day of my life as I read it. It was at the hotel

breakfast-table. I try to hide my face with the newspaper, I feel it

grow so red. But my friend he has his newspaper, too, and he sees the

same thing. So he looks my way—he says, pointing to me—‘Why does he grow

so red? He has got something there!’ and he laughs. Then I try to read

aloud the so kind compliments of the Congress—but—he—you—I can not—”

He puts his hand to his throat. His broken English and the difficulty

of his enunciation with that wound in his windpipe makes it all very

touching—and very hard to understand.

The Semmes charade party was a perfect success. The play was charming.

Sweet little Mrs. Lawson Clay had a seat for me banked up among women.

The female part of the congregation, strictly segregated from the male,

were placed all together in rows. They formed a gay parterre, edged by

the men in their black coats and gray uniforms. Toward the back part of

the room, the mass of black and gray was solid. Captain Tucker bewailed

his fate. He was stranded out there with those forlorn men, but could

see us laughing, and fancied what we were saying was worth a thousand

charades. He preferred talking to a clever woman to any known way of

passing a pleasant hour. “So do I,” somebody said.

On a sofa of state in front of all sat the President and Mrs. Davis.

Little Maggie Davis was one of the child actresses. Her parents had a

right to be proud of her; with her flashing black eyes, she was a marked

figure on the stage. She is a handsome creature and she acted her part

admirably. The shrine was beautiful beyond words. The Semmes and Ives

families are Roman Catholics, and understand getting up that sort of

thing. First came the “Palmers Gray,” then Mrs. Ives, a solitary figure,

the loveliest of penitent women. The Eastern pilgrims were delightfully

costumed; we could not understand how so much Christian piety could

come clothed in such odalisque robes. Mrs. Ould, as a queen, was as

handsome and regal as heart could wish for. She was accompanied by a very

satisfactory king, whose name, if I ever knew, I have forgotten. There

was a resplendent knight of St. John, and then an American Indian. After

their orisons they all knelt and laid something on the altar as a votive

gift.

Burton Harrison, the President’s handsome young secretary, was gotten

up as a big brave in a dress presented to Mr. Davis by Indians for some

kindness he showed them years ago. It was a complete warrior’s outfit,

scant as that is. The feathers stuck in the back of Mr. Harrison’s head

had a charmingly comic effect. He had to shave himself as clean as a baby

or he could not act the beardless chief, Spotted Tail, Billy Bowlegs, Big

Thunder, or whatever his character was. So he folded up his loved and

lost mustache, the Christianized red Indian, and laid it on the altar,

the most sacred treasure of his life, the witness of his most heroic

sacrifice, on the shrine.

Senator Hill, of Georgia, took me in to supper, where were ices, chicken

salad, oysters, and champagne. The President came in alone, I suppose,

for while we were talking after supper and your humble servant was

standing between Mrs. Randolph and Mrs. Stanard, he approached, offered

me his arm and we walked off, oblivious of Mr. Senator Hill. Remember

this, ladies, and forgive me for recording it, but Mrs. Stanard and Mrs.

Randolph are the handsomest women in Richmond; I am no older than they

are, or younger, either, sad to say. Now, the President walked with

me slowly up and down that long room, and our conversation was of the

saddest. Nobody knows so well as he the difficulties which beset this

hard-driven Confederacy. He has a voice which is perfectly modulated,

a comfort in this loud and rough soldier world. I think there is a

melancholy cadence in his voice at times, of which he is unconscious when

he talks of things as they are now.

My husband was so intensely charmed with Hetty Cary that he

declined at the first call to accompany his wife home in the

twenty-five-dollar-an-hour carriage. He ordered it to return. When

it came, his wife (a good manager) packed the Carys and him in with

herself, leaving the other two men who came with the party, when it was

divided into “trips,” to make their way home in the cold. At our door,

near daylight of that bitter cold morning, I had the pleasure to see

my husband, like a man, stand and pay for that carriage! To-day he is

pleased with himself, with me, and with all the world; says if there was

no such word as “fascinating” you would have to invent one to describe

Hetty Cary.

_January 9th._—Met Mrs. Wigfall. She wants me to take Halsey to Mrs.

Randolph’s theatricals. I am to get him up as Sir Walter Raleigh. Now,

General Breckinridge has come. I like him better than any of them.

Morgan also is here.[110] These huge Kentuckians fill the town. Isabella

says, “They hold Morgan accountable for the loss of Chattanooga.” The

follies of the wise, the weaknesses of the great! She shakes her head

significantly when I begin to tell why I like him so well. Last night

General Buckner came for her to go with him and rehearse at the Carys’

for Mrs. Randolph’s charades.

The President’s man, Jim, that he believed in as we all believe in our

own servants, “our own people,” as we call them, and Betsy, Mrs. Davis’s

maid, decamped last night. It is miraculous that they had the fortitude

to resist the temptation so long. At Mrs. Davis’s the hired servants all

have been birds of passage. First they were seen with gold galore, and

then they would fly to the Yankees, and I am sure they had nothing to

tell. It is Yankee money wasted. I do not think it had ever crossed Mrs.

Davis’s brain that these two could leave her. She knew, however, that

Betsy had eighty dollars in gold and two thousand four hundred dollars in

Confederate notes.

Everybody who comes in brings a little bad news—not much, in itself, but

by cumulative process the effect is depressing, indeed.

_January 12th._—To-night there will be a great gathering of Kentuckians.

Morgan gives them a dinner. The city of Richmond entertains John Morgan.

He is at free quarters. The girls dined here. Conny Cary came back for

more white feathers. Isabella had appropriated two sets and obstinately

refused Constance Cary a single feather from her pile. She said, sternly:

“I have never been on the stage before, and I have a presentiment when

my father hears of this, I will never go again. I am to appear before

the footlights as an English dowager duchess, and I mean to rustle in

every feather, to wear all the lace and diamonds these two houses can

compass”—(mine and Mrs. Preston’s). She was jolly but firm, and Constance

departed without any additional plumage for her Lady Teazle.

_January 14th._—Gave Mrs. White twenty-three dollars for a turkey. Came

home wondering all the way why she did not ask twenty-five; two more

dollars could not have made me balk at the bargain, and twenty-three

sounds odd.

_January 15th._—What a day the Kentuckians have had! Mrs. Webb gave them

a breakfast; from there they proceeded _en masse_ to General Lawton’s

dinner, and then came straight here, all of which seems equal to one

of Stonewall’s forced marches. General Lawton took me in to supper. In

spite of his dinner he had misgivings. “My heart is heavy,” said he,

“even here. All seems too light, too careless, for such terrible times.

It seems out of place here in battle-scarred Richmond.” “I have heard

something of that kind at home,” I replied. “Hope and fear are both

gone, and it is distraction or death with us. I do not see how sadness

and despondency would help us. If it would do any good, we would be sad

enough.”

We laughed at General Hood. General Lawton thought him better fitted for

gallantry on the battle-field than playing a lute in my lady’s chamber.

When Miss Giles was electrifying the audience as the Fair Penitent,

some one said: “Oh, that is so pretty!” Hood cried out with stern

reproachfulness: “That is not pretty; it is elegant.”

Not only had my house been rifled for theatrical properties, but as the

play went on they came for my black velvet cloak. When it was over, I

thought I should never get away, my cloak was so hard to find. But it

gave me an opportunity to witness many things behind the scenes—that

cloak hunt did. Behind the scenes! I know a little what that means now.

General Jeb Stuart was at Mrs. Randolph’s in his cavalry jacket and high

boots. He was devoted to Hetty Cary. Constance Cary said to me, pointing

to his stars, “Hetty likes them that way, you know—gilt-edged and with

stars.”

_January 16th._—A visit from the President’s handsome and accomplished

secretary, Burton Harrison. I lent him Country Clergyman in Town and

Elective Affinities. He is to bring me Mrs. Norton’s Lost and Saved.

At Mrs. Randolph’s, my husband complimented one of the ladies, who had

amply earned his praise by her splendid acting. She pointed to a young

man, saying, “You see that wretch; he has not said one word to me!” My

husband asked innocently, “Why should he? And why is he a wretch?” “Oh,

you know!” Going home I explained this riddle to him; he is always a year

behindhand in gossip. “They said those two were engaged last winter, and

now there seems to be a screw loose; but that sort of thing always comes

right.” The Carys prefer James Chesnut to his wife. I don’t mind. Indeed,

I like it. I do, too.

Every Sunday Mr. Minnegerode cried aloud in anguish his litany, “from

pestilence and famine, battle, murder, and sudden death,” and we wailed

on our knees, “Good Lord deliver us,” and on Monday, and all the week

long, we go on as before, hearing of nothing but battle, murder, and

sudden death, which are daily events. Now I have a new book; that is

the unlooked-for thing, a pleasing incident in this life of monotonous

misery. We live in a huge barrack. We are shut in, guarded from light

without.

At breakfast to-day came a card, and without an instant’s interlude,

perhaps the neatest, most fastidious man in South Carolina walked in. I

was uncombed, unkempt, tattered, and torn, in my most comfortable, worst

worn, wadded green silk dressing-gown, with a white woolen shawl over my

head to keep off draughts. He has not been in the war yet, and now he

wants to be captain of an engineer corps. I wish he may get it! He has

always been my friend; so he shall lack no aid that I can give. If he

can stand the shock of my appearance to-day, we may reasonably expect to

continue friends until death. Of all men, the fastidious Barny Heywood to

come in. He faced the situation gallantly.

_January 18th._—Invited to Dr. Haxall’s last night to meet the Lawtons.

Mr. Benjamin[111] dropped in. He is a friend of the house. Mrs. Haxall is

a Richmond leader of society, a _ci-devant_ beauty and belle, a charming

person still, and her hospitality is of the genuine Virginia type.

Everything Mr. Benjamin said we listened to, bore in mind, and gave heed

to it diligently. He is a Delphic oracle, of the innermost shrine, and is

supposed to enjoy the honor of Mr. Davis’s unreserved confidence.

Lamar was asked to dinner here yesterday; so he came to-day. We had our

wild turkey cooked for him yesterday, and I dressed myself within an

inch of my life with the best of my four-year-old finery. Two of us, my

husband and I, did not damage the wild turkey seriously. So Lamar enjoyed

the _réchauffé_, and commended the art with which Molly had hid the

slight loss we had inflicted upon its mighty breast. She had piled fried

oysters over the turkey so skilfully, that unless we had told about it,

no one would ever have known that the huge bird was making his second

appearance on the board.

Lamar was more absent-minded and distrait than ever. My husband behaved

like a trump—a well-bred man, with all his wits about him; so things

went off smoothly enough. Lamar had just read Romola. Across the water

he said it was the rage. I am sure it is not as good as Adam Bede or

Silas Marner. It is not worthy of the woman who was to “rival all but

Shakespeare’s name below.” “What is the matter with Romola?” he asked.

“Tito is so mean, and he is mean in such a very mean way, and the end is

so repulsive. Petting the husband’s illegitimate children and left-handed

wives may be magnanimity, but human nature revolts at it.” “Woman’s

nature, you mean!” “Yes, and now another test. Two weeks ago I read this

thing with intense interest, and already her Savonarola has faded from my

mind. I have forgotten her way of showing Savonarola as completely as I

always do forget Bulwer’s Rienzi.”

“Oh, I understand you now! It is like Milton’s devil—he has obliterated

all other devils. You can’t fix your mind upon any other. The devil

always must be of Miltonic proportions or you do not believe in him;

Goethe’s Mephistopheles disputes the crown of the causeway with

Lucifer. But soon you begin to feel that Mephistopheles to be a lesser

devil, an emissary of the devil only. Is there any Cardinal Wolsey but

Shakespeare’s? any Mirabeau but Carlyle’s Mirabeau? But the list is

too long of those who have been stamped into your brain by genius. The

saintly preacher, the woman who stands by Hetty and saves her soul; those

heavenly minded sermons preached by the author of Adam Bede, bear them

well in mind while I tell you how this writer, who so well imagines and

depicts female purity and piety, was a governess, or something of that

sort, and perhaps wrote for a living; at any rate, she had an elective

affinity, which was responded to, by George Lewes, and so she lives with

Lewes. I do not know that she caused the separation between Lewes and

his legal wife. They are living in a villa on some Swiss lake, and Mrs.

Lewes, of the hour, is a charitable, estimable, agreeable, sympathetic

woman of genius.”

Lamar seemed without prejudices on the subject; at least, he expressed

neither surprise nor disapprobation. He said something of “genius being

above law,” but I was not very clear as to what he said on that point.

As for me I said nothing for fear of saying too much. “You know that

Lewes is a writer,” said he. “Some people say the man she lives with is a

noble man.” “They say she is kind and good if—a fallen woman.” Here the

conversation ended.

_January 20th._—And now comes a grand announcement made by the Yankee

Congress. They vote one million of men to be sent down here to free the

prisoners whom they will not take in exchange. I actually thought they

left all these Yankees here on our hands as part of their plan to starve

us out. All Congressmen under fifty years of age are to leave politics

and report for military duty or be conscripted. What enthusiasm there is

in their councils! Confusion, rather, it seems to me! Mrs. Ould says “the

men who frequent her house are more despondent now than ever since this

thing began.”

Our Congress is so demoralized, so confused, so depressed. They have

asked the President, whom they have so hated, so insulted, so crossed

and opposed and thwarted in every way, to speak to them, and advise them

what to do.

_January 21st._—Both of us were too ill to attend Mrs. Davis’s reception.

It proved a very sensational one. First, a fire in the house, then a

robbery—said to be an arranged plan of the usual bribed servants there

and some escaped Yankee prisoners. To-day the Examiner is lost in wonder

at the stupidity of the fire and arson contingent. If they had only

waited a few hours until everybody was asleep; after a reception the

household would be so tired and so sound asleep. Thanks to the editor’s

kind counsel maybe the arson contingent will wait and do better next time.

Letters from home carried Mr. Chesnut off to-day. Thackeray is dead. I

stumbled upon Vanity Fair for myself. I had never heard of Thackeray

before. I think it was in 1850. I know I had been ill at the New York

Hotel[112], and when left alone, I slipped down-stairs and into a

bookstore that I had noticed under the hotel, for something to read. They

gave me the first half of Pendennis. I can recall now the very kind of

paper it was printed on, and the illustrations, as they took effect upon

me. And yet when I raved over it, and was wild for the other half, there

were people who said it was slow; that Thackeray was evidently a coarse,

dull, sneering writer; that he stripped human nature bare, and made it

repulsive, etc.

_January 22d._—At Mrs. Lyons’s met another beautiful woman, Mrs. Penn,

the wife of Colonel Penn, who is making shoes in a Yankee prison. She had

a little son with her, barely two years old, a mere infant. She said to

him, “_Faites comme_ Butler.” The child crossed his eyes and made himself

hideous, then laughed and rioted around as if he enjoyed the joke hugely.

Went to Mrs. Davis’s. It was sad enough. Fancy having to be always ready

to have your servants set your house on fire, being bribed to do it. Such

constant robberies, such servants coming and going daily to the Yankees,

carrying one’s silver, one’s other possessions, does not conduce to home

happiness.

Saw Hood on his legs once more. He rode off on a fine horse, and managed

it well, though he is disabled in one hand, too. After all, as the woman

said, “He has body enough left to hold his soul.” “How plucky of him to

ride a gay horse like that.” “Oh, a Kentuckian prides himself upon being

half horse and half man!” “And the girl who rode beside him. Did you ever

see a more brilliant beauty? Three cheers for South Carolina!!”

I imparted a plan of mine to Brewster. I would have a breakfast, a

luncheon, a matinee, call it what you please, but I would try and return

some of the hospitalities of this most hospitable people. Just think of

the dinners, suppers, breakfasts we have been to. People have no variety

in war times, but they make up for that lack in exquisite cooking.

“Variety?” said he. “You are hard to please, with terrapin stew, gumbo,

fish, oysters in every shape, game, and wine—as good as wine ever is. I

do not mention juleps, claret cup, apple toddy, whisky punches and all

that. I tell you it is good enough for me. Variety would spoil it. Such

hams as these Virginia people cure; such home-made bread—there is no such

bread in the world. Call yours a ‘cold collation.’” “Yes, I have eggs,

butter, hams, game, everything from home; no stint just now; even fruit.”

“You ought to do your best. They are so generous and hospitable and

so unconscious of any merit, or exceptional credit, in the matter of

hospitality.” “They are no better than the Columbia people always were to

us.” So I fired up for my own country.

_January 23d._—My luncheon was a female affair exclusively. Mrs. Davis

came early and found Annie and Tudie making the chocolate. Lawrence

had gone South with my husband; so we had only Molly for cook and

parlor-maid. After the company assembled we waited and waited. Those

girls were making the final arrangements. I made my way to the door, and

as I leaned against it ready to turn the knob, Mrs. Stanard held me like

Coleridge’s Ancient Mariner, and told how she had been prevented by a

violent attack of cramps from running the blockade, and how providential

it all was. All this floated by my ear, for I heard Mary Preston’s voice

raised in high protest on the other side of the door. “Stop!” said she.

“Do you mean to take away the whole dish?” “If you eat many more of those

fried oysters they will be missed. Heavens! She is running away with a

plug, a palpable plug, out of that jelly cake!”

Later in the afternoon, when it was over and I was safe, for all had gone

well and Molly had not disgraced herself before the mistresses of those

wonderful Virginia cooks, Mrs. Davis and I went out for a walk. Barny

Heyward and Dr. Garnett joined us, the latter bringing the welcome news

that “Muscoe Russell’s wife had come.”

_January 25th._—The President walked home with me from church (I was to

dine with Mrs. Davis). He walked so fast I had no breath to talk; so I

was a good listener for once. The truth is I am too much afraid of him to

say very much in his presence. We had such a nice dinner. After dinner

Hood came for a ride with the President.

Mr. Hunter, of Virginia, walked home with me. He made himself utterly

agreeable by dwelling on his friendship and admiration of my husband. He

said it was high time Mr. Davis should promote him, and that he had told

Mr. Davis his opinion on that subject to-day.

Tuesday, Barny Heyward went with me to the President’s reception, and

from there to a ball at the McFarlands’. Breckinridge alone of the

generals went with us. The others went to a supper given by Mr. Clay, of

Alabama. I had a long talk with Mr. Ould, Mr. Benjamin, and Mr. Hunter.

These men speak out their thoughts plainly enough. What they said means

“We are rattling down hill, and nobody to put on the brakes.” I wore

my black velvet, diamonds, and point lace. They are borrowed for all

“theatricals,” but I wear them whenever they are at home.

_February 1st._—Mrs. Davis gave her “Luncheon to Ladies Only” on

Saturday. Many more persons there than at any of these luncheons which we

have gone to before. Gumbo, ducks and olives, chickens in jelly, oysters,

lettuce salad, chocolate cream, jelly cake, claret, champagne, etc., were

the good things set before us.

To-day, for a pair of forlorn shoes I have paid $85. Colonel Ives drew

my husband’s pay for me. I sent Lawrence for it (Mr. Chesnut ordered him

back to us; we needed a man servant here). Colonel Ives wrote that he was

amazed I should be willing to trust a darky with that great bundle of

money, but it came safely. Mr. Petigru says you take your money to market

in the market basket, and bring home what you buy in your pocket-book.

_February 5th._—When Lawrence handed me my husband’s money (six hundred

dollars it was) I said: “Now I am pretty sure you do not mean to go to

the Yankees, for with that pile of money in your hands you must have

known there was your chance.” He grinned, but said nothing.

At the President’s reception Hood had a perfect ovation. General Preston

navigated him through the crowd, handling him as tenderly, on his

crutches, as if he were the Princess of Wales’s new-born baby that I

read of to-day. It is bad for the head of an army to be so helpless. But

old Blücher went to Waterloo in a carriage, wearing a bonnet on his head

to shade his inflamed eyes—a heroic figure, truly; an old, red-eyed,

bonneted woman, apparently, back in a landau. And yet, “Blücher to the

rescue!”

Afterward at the Prestons’, for we left the President’s at an early

hour. Major von Borcke was trying to teach them his way of pronouncing

his own name, and reciting numerous travesties of it in this country,

when Charles threw open the door, saying, “A gentleman has called for

Major Bandbox.” The Prussian major acknowledged this to be the worst he

had heard yet.

Off to the Ives’s theatricals. I walked with General Breckinridge. Mrs.

Clay’s Mrs. Malaprop was beyond our wildest hopes. And she was in such

bitter earnest when she pinched Conny Cary’s (Lydia Languish’s) shoulder

and called her “an antricate little huzzy,” that Lydia showed she felt

it, and next day the shoulder was black and blue. It was not that the

actress had a grudge against Conny, but that she was intense.

Even the back of Mrs. Clay’s head was eloquent as she walked away. “But,”

said General Breckinridge, “watch Hood; he has not seen the play before

and Bob Acres amazes him.” When he caught my eye, General Hood nodded to

me and said, “I believe that fellow Acres is a coward.” “That’s better

than the play,” whispered Breckinridge, “but it is all good from Sir

Anthony down to Fag.”

Between the acts Mrs. Clay sent us word to applaud. She wanted

encouragement; the audience was too cold. General Breckinridge responded

like a man. After that she was fired by thunders of applause, following

his lead. Those mighty Kentuckians turned claqueurs, were a host in

themselves. Constance Cary not only acted well, but looked perfectly

beautiful.

During the farce Mrs. Clay came in with all her feathers, diamonds, and

fallals, and took her seat by me. Said General Breckinridge, “What a

splendid head of hair you have.” “And all my own,” said she. Afterward

she said, they could not get false hair enough, so they put a pair of

black satin boots on top of her head and piled hair over them.

We adjourned from Mrs. Ives’s to Mrs. Ould’s, where we had the usual

excellent Richmond supper. We did not get home until three. It was a

clear moonlight night—almost as light as day. As we walked along I said

to General Breckinridge, “You have spent a jolly evening.” “I do not

know,” he answered. “I have asked myself more than once to-night, ‘Are

you the same man who stood gazing down on the faces of the dead on that

awful battle-field? The soldiers lying there stare at you with their eyes

wide open. Is this the same world? Here and there?’”

Last night, the great Kentucky contingent came in a body. Hood brought

Buck in his carriage. She said she “did not like General Hood,” and spoke

with a wild excitement in those soft blue eyes of hers—or, are they

gray or brown? She then gave her reasons in the lowest voice, but loud

and distinct enough for him to hear: “Why? He spoke so harshly to Cy,

his body-servant, as we got out of the carriage. I saw how he hurt Cy’s

feelings, and I tried to soothe Cy’s mortification.”

“You see, Cy nearly caused me to fall by his awkwardness, and I stormed

at him,” said the General, vastly amused. “I hate a man who speaks

roughly to those who dare not resent it,” said she. The General did own

himself charmed with her sentiments, but seemed to think his wrong-doing

all a good joke. He and Cy understand each other.

_February 9th._—This party for Johnny was the very nicest I have ever

had, and I mean it to be my last. I sent word to the Carys to bring

their own men. They came alone, saying, “they did not care for men.”

“That means a raid on ours,” growled Isabella. Mr. Lamar was devoted to

Constance Cary. He is a free lance; so that created no heart-burning.

Afterward, when the whole thing was over, and a success, the lights put

out, etc., here trooped in the four girls, who stayed all night with me.

In dressing-gowns they stirred up a hot fire, relit the gas, and went

in for their supper; _réchauffé_ was the word, oysters, hot coffee, etc.

They kept it up till daylight.

Of course, we slept very late. As they came in to breakfast, I remarked,

“The church-bells have been going on like mad. I take it as a rebuke to

our breaking the Sabbath. You know Sunday began at twelve o’clock last

night.” “It sounds to me like fire-bells,” somebody said.

Soon the Infant dashed in, done up in soldier’s clothes: “The Yankees

are upon us!” said he. “Don’t you hear the alarm-bells? They have been

ringing day and night!” Alex Haskell came; he and Johnny went off to

report to Custis Lee and to be enrolled among his “locals,” who are

always detailed for the defense of the city. But this time the attack on

Richmond has proved a false alarm.

A new trouble at the President’s house: their trusty man, Robert, broken

out with the small-pox.

We went to the Webb ball, and such a pleasant time we had. After a while

the P. M. G. (Pet Major-General) took his seat in the comfortable chair

next to mine, and declared his determination to hold that position. Mr.

Hunter and Mr. Benjamin essayed to dislodge him. Mrs. Stanard said: “Take

him in the flirtation room; there he will soon be captured and led away,”

but I did not know where that room was situated. Besides, my bold Texan

made a most unexpected sally: “I will not go, and I will prevent her from

going with any of you.” Supper was near at hand, and Mr. Mallory said:

“Ask him if the varioloid is not at his house. I know it is.” I started

as if I were shot, and I took Mr. Clay’s arm and went in to supper,

leaving the P. M. G. to the girls. Venison and everything nice.

_February 12th._—John Chesnut had a basket of champagne carried to my

house, oysters, partridges, and other good things, for a supper after the

reception. He is going back to the army to-morrow.