We stood on the
balcony to see our Confederate flag go up. Roars of cannon, etc., etc. Miss
Sanders complained (so said Captain Ingraham) of the deadness of the mob. “It
was utterly spiritless,” she said; “no cheering, or so little, and no
enthusiasm.” Captain Ingraham suggested that gentlemen “are apt to be quiet,”
and this was “a thoughtful crowd, the true mob element with us just now is
hoeing corn.” And yet! It is uncomfortable that the idea has gone abroad that
we have no joy, no pride, in this thing. The band was playing “Massa in the
cold, cold ground.” Miss Tyler, daughter of the former President of the United
States, ran up the flag.
Captain Ingraham
pulled out of his pocket some verses sent to him by a Boston girl. They were
well rhymed and amounted to this: she held a rope ready to hang him, though she
shed tears when she remembered his heroic rescue of Koszta. Koszta, the rebel!
She calls us rebels, too. So it depends upon whom one rebels against — whether
to save or not shall be heroic.
I must read
Lincoln's inaugural. Oh, “comes he in peace, or comes he in war, or to tread
but one measure as Young Lochinvar?” Lincoln's aim is to seduce the border
States. The people, the natives, I mean, are astounded that I calmly affirm, in
all truth and candor, that if there were awful things in society in Washington,
I did not see or hear of them. One must have been hard to please who did not
like the people I knew in Washington. Mr. Chesnut has gone with a list of names
to the President — de Treville, Kershaw, Baker, and Robert Rutledge. They are
taking a walk, I see. I hope there will be good places in the army for our
list.
SOURCE: Mary Boykin Chesnut, Edited by Isabella D. Martin
and Myrta Lockett Avary, A Diary From Dixie, p. 14
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