At McMahan's our small colonel, Paul Hayne's son, came into
my room. To amuse the child I gave him a photograph album to look over. “You
have Lincoln in your book!” said he. “I am astonished at you. I hate him!” And
he placed the book on the floor and struck Old Abe in the face with his fist.
An Englishman told me Lincoln has said that had he known
such a war would follow his election he never would have set foot in
Washington, nor have been inaugurated. He had never dreamed of this awful
fratricidal bloodshed. That does not seem like the true John Brown spirit. I
was very glad to hear it — to hear something from the President of the United
States which was not merely a vulgar joke, and usually a joke so vulgar that
you were ashamed to laugh, funny though it was. They say Seward has gone to
England and his wily tongue will turn all hearts against us.
Browne told us there was a son of the Duke of Somerset in
Richmond. He laughed his fill at our ragged, dirty soldiers, but he stopped his
laughing when he saw them under fire. Our men strip the Yankee dead of their
shoes, but will not touch the shoes of a comrade. Poor fellows, they are nearly
barefoot.
Alex has come. I saw him ride up about dusk and go into the
graveyard. I shut up my windows on that side. Poor fellow!
SOURCE: Mary Boykin Chesnut, Edited by Isabella D. Martin
and Myrta Lockett Avary, A Diary From Dixie, p. 202-3
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