Beauregard retreating and his rear-guard cut off. If
Beauregard's veterans will not stand, why should we expect our newly levied
reserves to do it? The Yankee general who is besieging Savannah announces his
orders are “to take Savannah in two weeks' time, and then proceed to erase
Charleston from the face of the earth.”
Albert Luryea was killed in the battle of June 1st. Last
summer when a bomb fell in the very thick of his company he picked it up and
threw it into the water. Think of that, those of ye who love life! The company
sent the bomb to his father. Inscribed on it were the words,”Albert Luryea,
bravest where all are brave.” Isaac Hayne did the same thing at Fort Moultrie.
This race has brains enough, but they are not active-minded like those old Revolutionary
characters, the Middletons, Lowndeses, Rutledge, Marion, Sumters. They have
come direct from active-minded forefathers, or they would not have been here;
but, with two or three generations of gentlemen planters, how changed has the
blood become! Of late, all the active-minded men who have sprung to the front
in our government were immediate descendants of Scotch, or Scotch-Irish — Calhoun,
McDuffie, Cheves, and Petigru, who Huguenotted his name, but could not tie up
his Irish. Our planters are nice fellows, but slow to move; impulsive but hard
to keep moving. They are wonderful for a spurt, but with all their strength,
they like to rest.
SOURCE: Mary Boykin Chesnut, Edited by Isabella D. Martin
and Myrta Lockett Avary, A Diary From Dixie, p. 175-6
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