The Pfeifers, who live opposite us here, are descendants of
those Pfeifers who came South with Mr. Chesnut's ancestors after the Fort
Duquesne disaster. They have now, therefore, been driven out of their Eden, the
valley of Virginia, a second time. The present Pfeifer is the great man, the
rich man par excellence of Lincolnton. They say that with something very
near to tears in his eyes he heard of our latest defeats. “It is only a
question of time with us now,” he said. “The raiders will come, you know.”
In Washington, before I knew any of them, except by sight,
Mrs. Davis, Mrs. Emory, and Mrs. Johnston were always together, inseparable
friends, and the trio were pointed out to me as the cleverest women in the
United States. Now that I do know them all well, I think the world was right in
its estimate of them.
Met a Mr. Ancrum of serenely cheerful aspect, happy and
hopeful. “All right now,” said he. “Sherman sure to be thrashed. Joe Johnston
is in command.” Dr. Darby says, when the oft-mentioned Joseph, the malcontent,
gave up his command to Hood, he remarked with a smile, “I hope you will be able
to stop Sherman; it was more than I could do.” General Johnston is not of Mr.
Ancrum's way of thinking as to his own powers, for he stayed here several days
after he was ordered to the front. He must have known he could do no good, and
I am of his opinion.
When the wagon, in which I was to travel to Flat Rock, drove
up to the door, covered with a tent-like white cloth, in my embarrassment for
an opening in the conversation I asked the driver's name. He showed great
hesitation in giving it, but at last said: “My name is Sherman,” adding, “and
now I see by your face that you won't go with me. My name is against me these
times.” Here he grinned and remarked: “But you would leave Lincolnton.”
That name was the last drop in my cup, but I gave him Mrs.
Glover's reason for staying here. General Johnston had told her this “might be
the safest place after all.” He thinks the Yankees are making straight for
Richmond and General Lee's rear, and will go by Camden and Lancaster, leaving
Lincolnton on their west flank.
The McLeans are kind people. They ask no rent for their
rooms — only $20 a week for firewood. Twenty dollars! and such dollars — mere
waste paper.
Mrs. Munroe took up my photograph book, in which I have a
picture of all the Yankee generals. “I want to see the men who are to be our
masters,” said she. “Not mine” I answered, “thank God, come what may. This was
a free fight. We had as much right to fight to get out as they had to fight to
keep us in. If they try to play the masters, anywhere upon the habitable globe
will I go, never to see a Yankee, and if I die on the way so much the better.”
Then I sat down and wrote to my husband in language much worse than anything I
can put in this book. As I wrote I was blinded by tears of rage. Indeed, I
nearly wept myself away.
SOURCES: Mary Boykin Chesnut, Edited by Isabella D. Martin
and Myrta Lockett Avary, A Diary From Dixie, p. 351-3
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