We talked of this
move from Montgomery. Mr. Chesnut opposes it violently, because this is so
central a position for our government. He wants our troops sent into Maryland
in order to make our fight on the border, and so to encompass Washington. I see
that the uncomfortable hotels here will at last move the Congress. Our
statesmen love their ease, and it will be hot here in summer. “I do hope they
will go,” Mrs. Davis said. “The Yankees will make it hot for us, go where we will,
and truly so if war comes.” “And it has come,” said I. “Yes, I fancy these
dainty folks may live to regret losing even the fare of the Montgomery hotels.”
“Never.”
Mr. Chesnut has
three distinct manias. The Maryland scheme is one, and he rushes off to Jeff
Davis, who, I dare say, has fifty men every day come to him with infallible
plans to save the country. If only he can keep his temper. Mrs. Davis says he
answers all advisers in softly modulated, dulcet accents.
What a rough
menagerie we have here. And if nice people come to see you, up walks an irate
Judge, who engrosses the conversation and abuses the friends of the company
generally; that is, abuses everybody and prophesies every possible evil to the
country, provided he finds that denouncing your friends does not sufficiently
depress you. Everybody has manias — up North, too, by the papers. But of Mr.
Chesnut's three crazes: Maryland is to be made the seat of war, old Morrow's
idea of buying up steamers abroad for our coast defenses should be adopted,
and, last of all, but far from the least, we must make much cotton and send it
to England as a bank to draw on. The very cotton we have now, if sent across
the water, would be a gold mine to us.
SOURCE: Mary Boykin Chesnut, Edited by Isabella D. Martin
and Myrta Lockett Avary, A Diary From Dixie, p. 55-6
No comments:
Post a Comment