MONTGOMERY, Ala., – The brand-new Confederacy is making or
remodeling its Constitution. Everybody wants Mr. Davis to be General-in-Chief or
President. Keitt and Boyce and a party preferred Howell Cobb1 for
President. And the fire-eaters per se wanted Barnwell Rhett.
My brother Stephen brought the officers of the “Montgomery
Blues” to dinner. “Very soiled Blues,” they said, apologizing for their rough
condition. Poor fellows! they had been a month before Fort Pickens and not
allowed to attack it. They said Colonel Chase built it, and so were sure it was
impregnable. Colonel Lomax telegraphed to Governor Moore2 if he
might try to take it, “Chase or no Chase,” and got for his answer, “No.” “And
now,'” say the Blues, “we have worked like niggers, and when the fun and
fighting begin, they send us home and put regulars there.” They have an immense
amount of powder. The wheel of the car in which it was carried took fire. There
was an escape for you! We are packing a hamper of eatables for them.
I am despondent once more. If I thought them in earnest
because at first they put their best in front, what now? We have to meet
tremendous odds by pluck, activity, zeal, dash, endurance of the toughest,
military instinct. We have had to choose born leaders of men who could attract
love and secure trust. Everywhere political intrigue is as rife as in
Washington.Cecil's saying of Sir Walter Raleigh that he could “toil
terribly” was an electric touch. Above all, let the men who are to save South
Carolina be young and vigorous. While I was reflecting on what kind of men we
ought to choose, I fell on Clarendon, and it was easy to construct my man out
of his portraits. What has been may be again, so the men need not be purely
ideal types.
Mr. Toombs3 told us a story of General Scott and
himself. He said he was dining in Washington with Scott, who seasoned every
dish and every glass of wine with the eternal refrain, “Save the Union; the
Union must be preserved.” Toombs remarked that he knew why the Union was so
dear to the General, and illustrated his point by a steamboat anecdote, an
explosion, of course. While the passengers were struggling in the water a woman
ran up and down the bank crying, “Oh, save the red-headed man!” The red-headed
man was saved, and his preserver, after landing him noticed with surprise how
little interest in him the woman who had made such moving appeals seemed to
feel. He asked her, “Why did you make that pathetic outcry?” She answered, “Oh,
he owes me ten thousand dollars.” “Now, General,” said Toombs, “the Union owes
you seventeen thousand dollars a year!” I can imagine the scorn on old Scott's
face.
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1A native of Georgia, Howell Cobb had long served
in Congress, and in 1849 was elected Speaker. In 1851 he was elected Governor
of Georgia, and in 1857 became Secretary of the Treasury in Buchanan's
Administration. In 1861 he was a delegate from Georgia to the Provisional
Congress which adopted the Constitution of the Confederacy, and presided over
each of its four sessions.
2 Andrew Bary Moore, elected Governor of Alabama
in 1859. In 1861, before Alabama seceded, he directed the seizure of United
States forts and arsenals and was active afterward in the equipment of State
troops.
3 Robert Toombs, a native of Georgia, who early
acquired fame as a lawyer, served in the Creek War under General Scott, became
known in 1842 as a “State Rights_Whig,” being elected to Congress, where he was
active in the Compromise measures of 1850. He served in the United States
Senate from 1853 to 1861, where he was a pronounced advocate of the sovereignty
of States, the extension of slavery, and secession. He was a member of the
Confederate Congress at its first session and, by a single vote, failed of
election as President of the Confederacy. After the war, he was conspicuous for
his hostility to the Union.
SOURCE: Mary Boykin Chesnut, Edited by Isabella D. Martin
and Myrta Lockett Avary, A Diary From Dixie, p. 6-8
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