Mr. Daniel Blake drove down to my sister's in his heavy,
substantial English phaeton, with stout and strong horses to match. I went back
with him and spent two delightful days at his hospitable mansion. I met there,
as a sort of chaplain, the Rev. Mr. –––. He dealt unfairly by me. We had a long
argument, and when we knelt down for evening prayers, he introduced an
extemporaneous prayer and prayed for me most palpably. There was I down
on my knees, red-hot with rage and fury. David W. said it was a clear case of
hitting a fellow when he was down. Afterward the fun of it all struck me, and I
found it difficult to keep from shaking with laughter. It was not an edifying
religious exercise, to say the least, as far as I was concerned.
Before Chancellorsville, was fatal Sharpsburg.1
My friend, Colonel Means, killed on the battle-field; his only son, Stark,
wounded and a prisoner. His wife had not recovered from the death of her other
child, Emma, who had died of consumption early in the war. She was lying on a
bed when they told her of her husband's death, and then they tried to keep
Stark's condition from her. They think now that she misunderstood and believed
him dead, too. She threw something over her face. She did not utter one word.
She remained quiet so long, some one removed the light shawl which she had
thrown over her head and found she was dead. Miss Mary Stark, her sister, said
afterward, “No wonder! How was she to face life without her husband and
children? That was all she had ever lived for.” These are sad, unfortunate
memories. Let us run away from them.
What has not my husband been doing this year, 1862, when all
our South Carolina troops are in Virginia? Here we were without soldiers or
arms. He raised an army, so to speak, and imported arms, through the Trenholm
firm. He had arms to sell to the Confederacy. He laid the foundation of a
niter-bed; and the Confederacy sent to Columbia to learn of Professor Le Conte
how to begin theirs. He bought up all the old arms and had them altered and
repaired. He built ships. He imported clothes and shoes for our soldiers, for
which things they had long stood sorely in need. He imported cotton cards and
set all idle hands carding and weaving. All the world was set to spinning
cotton. He tried to stop the sale of whisky, and alas, he called for reserves —
that is, men over age, and he committed the unforgivable offense of sending the
sacred negro property to work on fortifications away from their owners'
plantations.
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1 During the summer of 1862, after the battle of
Malvern Hill and before Sharpsburg, or Antietam, the following important
battles had taken place: Harrison's Landing, July 3d and 4th; Harrison's
Landing again, July 31st; Cedar Mountain, August 9th; Bull Run (second battle),
August 29th and 30th, and South Mountain, September 14th.
SOURCE: Mary Boykin Chesnut, Edited by Isabella D. Martin
and Myrta Lockett Avary, A Diary From Dixie, p. 214-5
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