Found it quite exciting to have a spy drinking his tea with
us — perhaps because I knew his profession. I did not like his face. He is said
to have a scheme by which Washington will fall into our hands like an overripe
peach.
Mr. Barnwell urges Mr. Chesnut to remain in the Senate.
There are so many generals, or men anxious to be. He says Mr. Chesnut can do
his country most good by wise counsels where they are most needed. I do not say
to the contrary; I dare not throw my influence on the army side, for if
anything happened!
Mr. Miles told us last night that he had another letter from
General Beauregard. The General wants to know if Mr. Miles has delivered his
message to Colonel Kershaw. Mr. Miles says he has not done so; neither does he
mean to do it. They must settle these matters of veracity according to their
own military etiquette. He is a civilian once more. It is a foolish wrangle.
Colonel Kershaw ought to have reported to his commander-in-chief, and not made
an independent report and published it. He meant no harm. He is not yet used to
the fine ways of war.
The New York Tribune is so unfair. It began by howling to
get rid of us: we were so wicked. Now that we are so willing to leave them to
their overrighteous self-consciousness, they cry: “Crush our enemy, or they
will subjugate us.”' The idea that we want to invade or subjugate anybody; we
would be only too grateful to be left alone. We ask no more of gods or men.
Went to the hospital with a carriage load of peaches and
grapes. Made glad the hearts of some men thereby. When my supplies gave out,
those who had none looked so wistfully as I passed out that I made a second
raid on the market. Those eyes sunk in cavernous depths and following me from
bed to bed haunt me.
Wilmot de Saussure, harrowed my soul by an account of a
recent death by drowning on the beach at Sullivan's Island. Mr. Porcher, who
was trying to save his sister's life, lost his own and his child's. People seem
to die out of the army quite as much as in it.
Mrs. Randolph presided in all her beautiful majesty at an
aid association. The ladies were old, and all wanted their own way. They were
cross-grained and contradictory, and the blood mounted rebelliously into Mrs.
Randolph's clear-cut cheeks, but she held her own with dignity and grace. One
of the causes of disturbance was that Mrs. Randolph proposed to divide
everything sent on equally with the Yankee wounded and sick prisoners. Some
were enthusiastic from a Christian point of view; some shrieked in wrath at the
bare idea of putting our noble soldiers on a par with Yankees, living, dying,
or dead. Fierce dames were some of them, august, severe matrons, who evidently
had not been accustomed to hear the other side of any question from anybody,
and just old enough to find the last pleasure in life to reside in power — the
power to make their claws felt.
SOURCE: Mary Boykin Chesnut, Edited by Isabella D. Martin
and Myrta Lockett Avary, A Diary From Dixie, p. 106-8
No comments:
Post a Comment