As we walked, Brewster reported a row he had had with
General Hood. Brewster had told those six young ladies at the Prestons’ that “old
Sam” was in the habit of saying he would not marry if he could any silly,
sentimental girl, who would throw herself away upon a maimed creature such as
he was. When Brewster went home he took pleasure in telling Sam how the ladies
had complimented his good sense, whereupon the General rose in his wrath and
threatened to break his crutch over Brewster's head. To think he could be such
a fool — to go about repeating to everybody his whimperings.
I was taking my seat at the head of the table when the door
opened and Brewster walked in unannounced. He took his stand in front of the
open door, with his hands in his pockets and his small hat pushed back as far
as it could get from his forehead.
“What,” said he, “you are not ready yet? The generals are
below. Did you get my note?” I begged my husband to excuse me and rushed off to
put on my bonnet and furs. I met the girls coming up with a strange man. The
flurry of two major-generals had been too much for me and I forgot to ask the
new one's name. They went up to dine in my place with my husband, who sat
eating his dinner, with Lawrence's undivided attention given to him, amid this
whirling and eddying in and out of the world militant. Mary Preston and I then
went to drive with the generals. The new one proved to be Buckner,1
who is also a Kentuckian. The two men told us they had slept together the night
before Chickamauga. It is useless to try: legs can't any longer be kept out of
the conversation. So General Buckner said: “Once before I slept with a man and
he lost his leg next day.” He had made a vow never to do so again. “When Sam
and I parted that morning, we said: ‘You or I may be killed, but the cause will
be safe all the same.’”
After the drive everybody came in to tea, my husband in
famous good humor, we had an unusually gay evening. It was very nice of my
husband to take no notice of my conduct at dinner, which had been open to
criticism. All the comfort of my life depends upon his being in good humor.
_______________
1 Simon B. Buckner was a graduate of West Point
and had served in the Mexican War. In 1887 he was elected Governor of Kentucky
and, at the funeral of General Grant, acted as one of the pall-bearers.
SOURCE: Mary Boykin Chesnut, Edited by Isabella D. Martin
and Myrta Lockett Avary, A Diary From Dixie, p. 267-8
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