Diary of Malvina S. Waring, February 20, 1865

The adulation we receive in this city is enough to turn our heads completely. But for this dreadful suspense I believe it would. The most appalling rumors reach us, but nothing more. Dr. S saw one of Wheeler's cavalrymen, who left Columbia on Friday morning, at which time Hampton had notified the Mayor that the Reserves could no longer hold the city. The South Carolina depot was already in ruins, and the Congaree bridge burned, while thousands of the inhabitants were flying from the enemy. On Friday night, at Winnsboro, this same soldier reports having seen a tremendous illumination in the sky, which all who saw believed to be Columbia in flames. My God! How terrible, if true! What has been the fate of my parents, and Johnnie! Despite this horrible uncertainty, we have been to church, and are trying to keep calm and hopeful. But why was I ever persuaded to leave my home and dear ones in this time of danger!

SOURCE: South Carolina State Committee United Daughters of the Confederacy, South Carolina Women in the Confederacy, Vol. 1, “A Confederate Girl's Diary,” p. 276

Major General William T. Sherman to Senator John Sherman, April 2, 1866

HEADQUARTERS MILITARY DIVISION                

OF THE MISSISSIPPI,        

ST. Louis, Mo., April 2, 1866.

Dear Brother: I know the railroad depot and three large bridges were burned before a soldier of ours had entered Columbia, and I know that six hours before the real conflagration began I saw half-a-dozen piles of cotton on fire in the streets one large pile near the market house where the great conflagration began, which fire our soldiers were putting out as I rode by it. . . . Wade Hampton defended Columbia as long as he dared, and then ran away, leaving the city full of cotton blowing about like flakes of snow. So that trees and frame houses and garden fences were literally white. Of course a mayor could expect no terms. Being helpless, he took what he could get. I told him, of course, I had no intention to burn or destroy anything except what my previous orders defined. I saw Wade Hampton's cotton order printed in a Columbia paper, but kept no copy, as it was notorious; for he openly declared that Yankee footsteps should not pollute his threshold, and he commanded everything like corn fodder, etc., to be burnt, lest we should get it. . . .

They boasted that we would find a Moscow and its consequences.

The treatment of our officers, prisoners at Columbia, was enough to have warranted its utter annihilation, and after the fire began it required all our efforts to prevent its extending to the suburbs, including the Old Hampton house, now owned by Preston, brother-inlaw of Wade Hampton, which was saved by John Logan.

Affectionately yours,

W. T. SHERMAN.

SOURCE: Rachel Sherman Thorndike, Editor, The Sherman Letters: Correspondence Between General and Senator Sherman from 1837 to 1891, p. 267

Major General William T. Sherman to Senator John Sherman, probably April 6-7, 1866.

HEADQUARTERS MILITARY DIVISION OF THE MISSISSIPPI,        

IN THE FIELD NEAR COLUMBIA, S.C., Feb. 16, 1865.

Special Field Orders,}

No.

EXTRACT.

The next series of movements will be at Fayetteville, N.C., and thence to Wilmington or Goldsboro, according to events. Great care must be taken to collect forage and food, and at the same time in covering the wagon trains from cavalry dashes.

General Howard will cross the Saluda and Broad rivers as near their mouths as possible, occupy Columbia, destroy the public buildings, railroad property, manufacturing and machine shops, but will spare libraries, and asylums, and private dwellings. He will then move to Winnsboro, destroying en route utterly that section of the railroad.

By order of Major-General

W. T. SHERMAN.

L. M. DAYTON, Assistant Adjutant-General.

This order was made the day before we entered Columbia, about the time the rebels were cannonading our camps on the west side of the Congaree, and burning their three splendid bridges (Saluda and Broad unite at Columbia and make the Congaree). During the 16th Howard crossed the Saluda at the factory above Columbia, and that night crossed Stone's brigade to the east side of the Broad River, and under its cover laid the pontoon bridge, completing it about noon of the 17th. Stone's brigade went into Columbia about 11 A.M., the mayor having come out three miles and notified him that Beauregard and Hampton had evacuated. They evacuated because they knew that Slocum and Kilpatrick were moving straight for Winnsboro, 26 miles in their rear, and I wanted them to stay in Columbia another day. Their hasty evacuation was not to spare Columbia, but to save being caught in the forks of the Congaree and Catawba, which would have resulted, had they given time for Slocum to reach Winnsboro. Mayor Goodwin complained to me of the cotton-burning order of Wade Hampton, and especially that Hampton and Beauregard would not consent to his request that the liquor (which had run the blockade and been transferred from the coast to Columbia for safety) was not removed or destroyed. This liquor, which our men got in bucketfuls, was an aggravation, and occasioned much of the disorder at night after the fires had got headway. We all know how the soldiers and junior officers hated South Carolina, and I can hardly say what excesses would have resulted had the general officers allowed them free scope.

W. T. SHERMAN.

SOURCE: Rachel Sherman Thorndike, Editor, The Sherman Letters: Correspondence Between General and Senator Sherman from 1837 to 1891, p. 268-9

Diary of 5th Sergeant Alexander G. Downing: Saturday, February 18, 1865

Columbia was almost completely destroyed by fire last night. Only a few houses in the outskirts are left standing, and many people are without homes this morning. Collumbia was a very nice town situated on the Congaree at the head of navigation. Three railroads run through the town. A new stone State House was being built, which it is said was to have been the capital of the Southern Confederacy. Last night I passed by the sheds where the fine marble columns for the building were carved and stored, and this morning they were all in ruins and the sheds in ashes. It is a sad sight to see the citizens standing in groups on the streets, holding little bundles of their most valued effects and not knowing what to do. It is said that some even came here from Charleston to escape Sherman's army. The people certainly have paid dearly for the privilege of seceding from the Union. The Seventeenth Corps passed through Columbia this morning and we were more than three hours in going through town. Our division marched out northwest along the railroad, destroying it all the way, and went into bivouac about six miles from town.

Source: Alexander G. Downing, Edited by Olynthus B., Clark, Downing’s Civil War Diary, p. 254-5

Diary of 5th Sergeant Alexander G. Downing: Sunday, February 19, 1865

We marched out on the railroad today and destroyed seven miles of track, then returned to camp, where we had left our knapsacks. We heard the sounds today of heavy explosions down in Columbia, and it is reported that our men have blown up the new State House.¹

_______________

¹ The sound of the explosions in Columbia, which we heard on that day, was due to the destruction by our men of the fixed ammunition found there. General Sherman saved the beautiful new state capitol building, though it bore some of the ear marks of our shot and shell. The burning of Columbia resulted from the Confederates' setting fire to the bales of cotton in the streets; then at night some of the Union soldiers, getting too much poor whisky and burning with revenge, set fire to some of the vacant houses, and the high wind soon spread it over the whole town. — A. G. D.

Source: Alexander G. Downing, Edited by Olynthus B., Clark, Downing’s Civil War Diary, p. 255

Diary of 5th Sergeant Alexander G. Downing: Friday, February 17, 1865

The Seventeenth Army Corps remained all day on the south bank of the Congaree river, near the Saluda cotton mills, while the Fifteenth Corps early this morning crossed the north fork, the Broad river, on pontoons, having laid them during the night, and moved down upon Columbia. But when they entered the place they found that the rebels had already left it. In the meantime the Thirteenth Iowa Regiment, being on our skirmish line in front of the city, crossed the river in skiffs and after a little skirmishing succeeded in placing their flag on the State House before any of the Fifteenth Corps even got into town.¹ So a part of the Seventeenth Corps was the first to enter Columbia.² Our corps crossed the forks late this afternoon and went into camp a short distance from town.

_______________

¹ This is precisely the substance of the original entry of Mr. Downing's diary. In the following footnote, after almost fifty years, he explains the flag episode more fully and also speaks Incidentally of the burning of Columbia, though he makes no mention of it in his original; that he did not is, however, not to be wondered at, since such burnings were common. In his revision fifty years later he does not enter into the discussion of “Who Burned Columbia,” but makes a single statement, which seems to hold the Confederates responsible. — Ed.

² It was a bright sunshiny day with a high wind blowing from the south. From where we were, on the south bank of the river just opposite the city, we could see men on foot and on horseback in the main street of Columbia, lighting the cotton bales which they before had piled up in the streets for defenses. In the forenoon, a detachment of men from the Thirteenth Iowa Regiment crossed the river, and driving the enemy's skirmishers into the city, they placed their regimental flag on the State House, thus having the honor of being the first to place the Stars and Stripes on the capitol of the first state to secede from the Union.

The Thirteenth Iowa was in Crocker's Brigade, or the Third Brigade of the Fourth Division of the Seventeenth Army Corps. The boys of the Thirteenth Iowa made the mistake of not placing a guard about their flag, for about an hour after they had raised their flag, the Iowa Brigade in the Fifteenth Army Corps entered the city from the west, and the Thirtieth Iowa Regiment of that brigade, being on the skirmish line, naturally made for the State House. Upon approaching the capitol and seeing no Union soldiers around, they proceeded to investigate a little, and upon entering the building and finding no guard, they took down the flag of the Thirteenth Iowa, and put up their own instead. They then left a guard to defend it. The Thirteenth Iowa was without a flag for two or three days, when the Thirtieth Iowa finally returned to them their flag.

Our corps, the Seventeenth, moved up the river, and by dark had crossed the forks, the Saluda and Broad rivers, on the pontoons. As soon as we had stacked arms, I left for the city to replenish my haversack, which had become rather flat, and I did not get back to our bivouac until 2 o'clock in the morning, and then without anything to eat in my haversack. On entering town I passed by the abandoned Confederate commissary department, and seeing a great abundance of food stuffs, I thought that I would go down into town for a while, and then on my way back would fill up my haversack. But when I returned, I found the building in flames and food and all was In ashes before daylight.—A. G. D.

Source: Alexander G. Downing, Edited by Olynthus B., Clark, Downing’s Civil War Diary, p. 253-4

Diary of Mary Boykin Chesnut: March 27, 1865

I have moved again, and now I am looking from a window high, with something more to see than the sky. We have the third story of Dr. Da Vega's house, which opens on the straight street that leads to the railroad about a mile off.

Mrs. Bedon is the loveliest of young widows. Yesterday at church Isaac Hayne nestled so close to her cap-strings that I had to touch him and say, “Sit up!” Josiah Bedon was killed in that famous fight of the Charleston Light Dragoons. The dragoons stood still to be shot down in their tracks, having no orders to retire. They had been forgotten, doubtless, and they scorned to take care of themselves.

In this high and airy retreat, as in Richmond, then in Columbia, and then in Lincolnton, my cry is still: If they would only leave me here in peace and if I were sure things never could be worse with me. Again am I surrounded by old friends. People seem to vie with each other to show how good they can be to me.

To-day Smith opened the trenches and appeared laden with a tray covered with a snow-white napkin. Here was my first help toward housekeeping again. Mrs. Pride has sent a boiled ham, a loaf of bread, a huge pancake; another neighbor coffee already parched and ground; a loaf of sugar already cracked; candles, pickles, and all the other things one must trust to love for now. Such money as we have avails us nothing, even if there were anything left in the shops to buy.

We had a jolly luncheon. James Lowndes called, the best of good company. He said of Buck, “She is a queen, and ought to reign in a palace. No Prince Charming yet; no man has yet approached her that I think half good enough for her.”

Then Mrs. Prioleau Hamilton, née Levy, came with the story of family progress, not a royal one, from Columbia here: “Before we left home,” said she, “Major Hamilton spread a map of the United States on the table, and showed me with his finger where Sherman was likely to go. Womanlike, I demurred. “But, suppose he does not choose to go that way?” “Pooh, pooh! what do you know of war?” So we set out, my husband, myself, and two children, all in one small buggy. The 14th of February we took up our line of march, and straight before Sherman's men for five weeks we fled together. By incessant hurrying and scurrying from pillar to post, we succeeded in acting as a sort of avant-courier of the Yankee army. Without rest and with much haste, we got here last Wednesday, and here we mean to stay and defy Sherman and his legions. Much the worse for wear were we.”

The first night their beauty sleep was rudely broken into at Alston with a cry, “Move on, the Yanks are upon us!” So they hurried on, half-awake, to Winnsboro, but with no better luck. There they had to lighten the ship, leave trunks, etc., and put on all sail, for this time the Yankees were only five miles behind. “Whip and spur, ride for your life!” was the cry. “Sherman's objective point seemed to be our buggy,” said she; “for you know that when we got to Lancaster Sherman was expected there, and he keeps his appointments; that is, he kept that one. Two small children were in our chariot, and I began to think of the Red Sea expedition. But we lost no time, and soon we were in Cheraw, clearly out of the track. We thanked God for all his mercies and hugged to our bosoms fond hopes of a bed and bath so much needed by all, especially for the children.

At twelve o'clock General Hardee himself knocked us up with word to “March! march!” for “all the blue bonnets are over the border.” In mad haste we made for Fayetteville, when they said:  “God bless your soul! This is the seat of war now; the battle-ground where Sherman and Johnston are to try conclusions.” So we harked back, as the hunters say, and cut across country, aiming for this place. Clean clothes, my dear? Never a one except as we took off garment by garment and washed it and dried it by our camp fire, with our loins girded and in haste.” I was snug and comfortable all that time in Lincolnton.

*          *          *          *          *          *          *

To-day Stephen D. Lee's corps marched through — only to surrender. The camp songs of these men were a heartbreak; so sad, yet so stirring. They would have warmed the blood of an Icelander. The leading voice was powerful, mellow, clear, distinct, pathetic, sweet. So, I sat down, as women have done before, when they hung up their harps by strange streams, and I wept the bitterness of such weeping. Music? Away, away! Thou speakest to me of things which in all my long life I have not found, and I shall not find. There they go, the gay and gallant few, doomed; the last gathering of the flower of Southern pride, to be killed, or worse, to a prison. They continue to prance by, light and jaunty. They march with as airy a tread as if they still believed the world was all on their side, and that there were no Yankee bullets for the unwary. What will Joe Johnston do with them now?

The Hood melodrama is over, though the curtain has not fallen on the last scene. Cassandra croaks and makes many mistakes, but to-day she believes that Hood stock is going down. When that style of enthusiasm is on the wane, the rapidity of its extinction is miraculous. It is like the snuffing out of a candle; “one moment white, then gone forever.” No, that is not right; it is the snow-flake on the river that is referred to. I am getting things as much mixed as do the fine ladies of society.

Lee and Johnston have each fought a drawn battle; only a few more dead bodies lie stiff and stark on an unknown battle-field. For we do not so much as know where these drawn battles took place.

Teddy Barnwell, after sharing with me my first luncheon, failed me cruelly. He was to come for me to go down to the train and see Isabella pass by. One word with Isabella worth a thousand ordinary ones! So, she has gone by and I've not seen her.

Old Colonel Chesnut refuses to say grace; but as he leaves the table audibly declares, “I thank God for a good dinner.” When asked why he did this odd thing he said: '' My way is to be sure of a thing before I return thanks for it." Mayor Goodwyn thanked Sherman for promised protection to Columbia ; soon after, the burning began.

I received the wife of a post-office robber. The poor thing had done no wrong, and I felt so sorry for her. Who would be a woman? Who that fool, a weeping, pissing, faithful woman? She hath hard measures still when she hopes kindest. And all her beauty only makes ingrates!

SOURCES: Mary Boykin Chesnut, Edited by Isabella D. Martin and Myrta Lockett Avary, A Diary From Dixie, p. 369-72

Lydia McLane Johnston to Louise Wigfall, Sunday, February 19, 1865

charlotte, N. C,

Feb. 19th, 1865.

. . . I take advantage of this sweet, quiet Sunday afternoon for a little chat with you. It is so quiet in my little nook and the bright sunshine outside looks so cheerful and calm that ’tis hard to realize the terrible storm of war that is raging within a few miles of us, or the scene of excitement and fatigue I have gone through myself. At last Sherman has planted himself upon Carolina soil, and the pretty little town of Columbia, we learn to-day, has been partially destroyed; and alas the poor women and children, who were forced to remain there, of their fate we know nothing; but oh horrors, have everything to fear from the nature of the savages who are desolating their homes. What a sight it was to see the poor people flying almost terror stricken to know what they could do — many leaving with only little bundles of clothes — and many compelled to remain, for they had nothing but God to look to for shelter.  . . . I left at the last moment on the car that brought the powder out. We only saved our clothes. How fortunate we were to do that, for many saved nothing. We left with the roar of the cannon in our ears!

. . . I arrived here, after spending two days and nights on the road — three hundred poor women on the car ahead of us — none of us able to get rooms. A gentleman came down to the cars at twelve at night and brought me to this home and gave me this delicious little room, and here I am quite sick, with a Doctor visiting me. I am waiting to hear from the General to know what to do. Oh these terrible times of shipwreck — everything looks hopeless to me now, and then if we are to go down — we are so far apart that we can see nothing of each other, but the glimpse of a pale face as it sinks out of sight! What a glorious struggle our brave people have made for their liberties! The sight of this town to-day is lamentable: women hunting in every direction for shelter — and the people themselves beginning to move off for a safer place.

SOURCE: Louise Wigfall Wright, A Southern Girl in ’61, p. 228-9

Diary of Mary Boykin Chesnut: March 8, 1865

Colonel Childs came with a letter from my husband and a newspaper containing a full account of Sherman 's cold-blooded brutality in Columbia. Then we walked three miles to return the call of my benefactress, Mrs. MeDaniel. They were kind and hospitable at her house, but my heart was like lead; my head ached, and my legs were worse than my head, and then I had a nervous chill. So I came home, went to bed and stayed there until the Fants brought me a letter saying my husband would be here today. Then I got up and made ready to give him a cheerful reception. Soon a man called, Troy by name, the same who kept the little corner shop so near my house in Columbia, and of whom we bought things so often. We had fraternized. He now shook hands with me and looked in my face pitifully. We seemed to have been friends all our lives. He says they stopped the fire at the Methodist College, perhaps to save old Mr. McCartha's house. Mr. Sheriff Dent, being burned out, took refuge in our house. He contrived to find favor in Yankee eyes. Troy relates that a Yankee officer snatched a watch from Mrs. McCord's bosom. The soldiers tore the bundles of clothes that the poor wretches tried to save from their burning homes, and dashed them back into the flames. They meant to make a clean sweep. They were howling round the fires, like demons, these Yankees in their joy and triumph at our destruction. Well, we have given them a big scare and kept them miserable for four years — the little handful of us.

A woman we met on the street stopped to tell us a painful coincidence. A general was married but he could not stay at home very long after the wedding. When his baby was born they telegraphed him, and he sent back a rejoicing answer with an inquiry, “Is it a boy or a girl?” He was killed before he got the reply. Was it not sad? His poor young wife says, “He did not live to hear that his son lived.” The kind woman added, sorrowfully, “Died and did not know the sect of his child.” “Let us hope it will be a Methodist,” said Isabella, the irrepressible.

At the venison feast Isabella heard a good word for me and one for General Chesnut's air of distinction, a thing people can not give themselves, try as ever they may. Lord Byron says, Everybody knows a gentleman when he sees one, and nobody can tell what it is that makes a gentleman. He knows the thing, but he can't describe it. Now there are some French words that can not be translated, and we all know the thing they mean — gracieuse and svelte, for instance, as applied to a woman. Not that anything was said of me like that — far from it. I am fair, fat, forty, and jolly, and in my unbroken jollity, as far as they know, they found my charm. “You see, she doesn't howl; she doesn't cry; she never, never tells anybody about what she was used to at home and what she has lost.” High praise, and I intend to try and deserve it ever after.

SOURCES: Mary Boykin Chesnut, Edited by Isabella D. Martin and Myrta Lockett Avary, A Diary From Dixie, p. 362-3

Diary of Mary Boykin Chesnut: March 5, 1865

Is the sea drying up? Is it going up into mist and coming down on us in a water-spout? The rain, it raineth every day. The weather typifies our tearful despair, on a large scale. It is also Lent now — a quite convenient custom, for we, in truth, have nothing to eat. So we fast and pray, and go dragging to church like drowned rats to be preached at.

My letter from my husband was so — well, what in a woman you would call heart-broken, that I began to get ready for a run up to Charlotte. My hat was on my head, my traveling-bag in my hand, and Ellen was saying “Which umbrella, ma'am?” “Stop, Ellen,” said I, “someone is speaking out there.” A tap came at the door, and Miss McLean threw the door wide open as she said in a triumphant voice: “Permit me to announce General Chesnut.” As she went off she sang out, “Oh, does not a meeting like this make amends?”

We went after luncheon to see Mrs. Munroe. My husband wanted to thank her for all her kindness to me. I was awfully proud of him. I used to think that everybody had the air and manners of a gentleman. I know now that these accomplishments are things to thank God for. Father O'Connell came in, fresh from Columbia, and with news at last. Sherman's men had burned the convent. Mrs. Munroe had pinned her faith to Sherman because he was a Roman Catholic, but Father O'Connell was there and saw it. The nuns and girls marched to the old Hampton house (Mrs. Preston's now), and so saved it. They walked between files of soldiers. Men were rolling tar barrels and lighting torches to fling on the house when the nuns came. Columbia is but dust and ashes, burned to the ground. Men, women, and children have been left there homeless, houseless, and without one particle of food — reduced to picking up corn that was left by Sherman's horses on picket grounds and parching it to stay their hunger.

How kind my friends were on this, my fete day! Mrs. Rutledge sent me a plate of biscuit; Mrs. Munroe, nearly enough food supplies for an entire dinner; Miss McLean a cake for dessert. Ellen cooked and served up the material happily at hand very nicely, indeed. There never was a more successful dinner. My heart was too full to eat, but I was quiet and calm; at least I spared my husband the trial of a broken voice and tears. As he stood at the window, with his back to the room, he said: “Where are they now — my old blind father and my sister? Day and night I see her leading him out from under his own rooftree. That picture pursues me persistently. But come, let us talk of pleasanter things.” To which I answered, “Where will you find them?”

He took off his heavy cavalry boots and Ellen carried them away to wash the mud off and dry them. She brought them back just as Miss Middleton walked in. In his agony, while struggling with those huge boots and trying to get them on, he spoke to her volubly in French. She turned away from him instantly, as she saw his shoeless plight, and said to me, “I had not heard of your happiness. I did not know the General was here.” Not until next day did we have time to remember and laugh at that outbreak of French, Miss Middleton answered him in the same language. He told her how charmed he was with my surroundings, and that he would go away with a much lighter heart since he had seen the kind people with whom he would leave me.

I asked my husband what that correspondence between Sherman and Hampton meant — this while I was preparing something for our dinner. His back was still turned as he gazed out of the window. He spoke in the low and steady monotone that characterized our conversation the whole day, and yet there was something in his voice that thrilled me as he said: “The second day after our march from Columbia we passed the M.’s. He was a bonded man and not at home. His wife said at first that she could not find forage for our horses, but afterward she succeeded in procuring some. I noticed a very handsome girl who stood beside her as she spoke, and I suggested to her mother the propriety of sending her out of the track of both armies. Things were no longer as heretofore; there was so much struggling, so many camp followers, with no discipline, on the outskirts of the army. The girl answered quickly, ‘I wish to stay with my mother.’ That very night a party of Wheeler's men came to our camp, and such a tale they told of what had been done at the place of horror and destruction, the mother left raving. The outrage had been committed before her very face, she having been secured first. After this crime the fiends moved on. There were only seven of them. They had been gone but a short time when Wheeler's men went in pursuit at full speed and overtook them, cut their throats and wrote upon their breasts: ‘These were the seven!’”

“But the girl?”

“Oh, she was dead!”

"Are his critics as violent as ever against the President?" asked I when recovered from pity and horror. “Sometimes I think I am the only friend he has in the world. At these dinners, which they give us everywhere, I spoil the sport, for I will not sit still and hear Jeff Davis abused for things he is no more responsible for than any man at that table. Once I lost my temper and told them it sounded like arrant nonsense to me, and that Jeff Davis was a gentleman and a patriot, with more brains than the assembled company.” “You lost your temper truly,” said I. '”And I did not know it. I thought I was as cool as I am now. In Washington when we left, Jeff Davis ranked second to none, in intellect, and may be first, from the South, and Mrs. Davis was the friend of Mrs. Emory, Mrs. Joe Johnston, and Mrs. Montgomery Blair, and others of that circle. Now they rave that he is nobody, and never was.” “And she?” I asked. “Oh, you would think to hear them that he found her yesterday in a Mississippi swamp!” “Well, in the French Revolution it was worse. When a man failed he was guillotined. Mirabeau did not die a day too soon, even Mirabeau.”

He is gone. With despair in my heart I left that railroad station. Allan Green walked home with me. I met his wife and his four ragged little boys a day or so ago. She is the neatest, the primmest, the softest of women. Her voice is like the gentle cooing of a dove. That lowering black future hangs there all the same. The end of the war brings no hope of peace or of security to us. Ellen said I had a little piece of bread and a little molasses in store for my dinner to-day.

SOURCES: Mary Boykin Chesnut, Edited by Isabella D. Martin and Myrta Lockett Avary, A Diary From Dixie, p. 357-61

Diary of Mary Boykin Chesnut: February 26, 1865

Mrs. Munroe offered me religious books, which I declined, being already provided with the Lamentations of Jeremiah, the Psalms of David, the denunciations of Hosea, and, above all, the patient wail of Job. Job is my comforter now. I should be so thankful to know life never would be any worse with me. My husband is well, and has been ordered to join the great Retreater. I am bodily comfortable, if somewhat dingily lodged, and I daily part with my raiment for food. We find no one who will exchange eatables for Confederate money; so we are devouring our clothes.

Opportunities for social enjoyment are not wanting. Miss Middleton and Isabella often drink a cup of tea with me. One might search the whole world and not find two cleverer or more agreeable women. Miss Middleton is brilliant and accomplished. She must have been a hard student all her life. She knows everybody worth knowing, and she has been everywhere. Then she is so high-bred, high-hearted, pure, and true. She is so clean-minded; she could not harbor a wrong thought. She is utterly unselfish, a devoted daughter and sister. She is one among the many large-brained women a kind Providence has thrown in my way, such as Mrs. McCord, daughter of Judge Cheves; Mary Preston Darby, Mrs. Emory, granddaughter of old Franklin, the American wise man, and Mrs. Jefferson Davis. How I love to praise my friends!

As a ray of artificial sunshine, Mrs. Munroe sent me an Examiner. Daniel thinks we are at the last gasp, and now England and France are bound to step in. England must know if the United States of America are triumphant they will tackle her next, and France must wonder if she will not have to give up Mexico. My faith fails me. It is all too late; no help for us now from God or man.

Thomas, Daniel says, was now to ravage Georgia, but Sherman, from all accounts, has done that work once for all. There will be no aftermath. They say no living thing is found in Sherman's track, only chimneys, like telegraph poles, to carry the news of Sherman's army backward.

In all that tropical down-pour, Mrs. Munroe sent me overshoes and an umbrella, with the message, “Come over.” I went, for it would be as well to drown in the streets as to hang myself at home to my own bedpost. At Mrs. Munroe's I met a Miss McDaniel. Her father, for seven years, was the Methodist preacher at our negro church. The negro church is in a grove just opposite Mulberry house. She says her father has so often described that fine old establishment and its beautiful lawn, live-oaks, etc. Now, I dare say there stand at Mulberry only Sherman's sentinels — stacks of chimneys. We have made up our minds for the worst. Mulberry house is no doubt razed to the ground.

Miss McDaniel was inclined to praise us. She said: “As a general rule the Episcopal minister went to the family mansion, and the Methodist missionary preached to the negroes and dined with the overseer at his house, but at Mulberry her father always stayed at the ‘House,’ and the family were so kind and attentive to him.” It was rather pleasant to hear one's family so spoken of among strangers.

So, well equipped to brave the weather, armed cap-a-pie, so to speak, I continued my prowl farther afield and brought up at the Middletons'. I may have surprised them, for at such an inclement season they hardly expected a visitor. Never, however, did lonely old woman receive such a warm and hearty welcome. Now we know the worst. Are we growing hardened? We avoid all allusion to Columbia; we never speak of home, and we begin to deride the certain poverty that lies ahead.

How it pours! Could I live many days in solitary confinement? Things are beginning to be unbearable, but I must sit down and be satisfied. My husband is safe so far. Let me be thankful it is no worse with me. But there is the gnawing pain all the same. What is the good of being here at all? Our world has simply gone to destruction. And across the way the fair Lydia languishes. She has not even my resources against ennui. She has no Isabella, no Miss Middleton, two as brilliant women as any in Christendom. Oh, how does she stand it! I mean to go to church if it rains cats and dogs. My feet are wet two or three times a day. We never take cold; our hearts are too hot within us for that.

A carriage was driven up to the door as I was writing. I began to tie on my bonnet, and said to myself in the glass, “Oh, you lucky woman!” I was all in a tremble, so great was my haste to be out of this. Mrs. Glover had the carriage. She came for me to go and hear Mr. Martin preach. He lifts our spirits from this dull earth; he takes us up to heaven. That I will not deny. Still he can not hold my attention; my heart wanders and my mind strays back to South Carolina. Oh, vandal Sherman! what are you at there, hard-hearted wretch that you are! A letter from General Chesnut, who writes from camp near Charlotte under date of February 28th:

“I thank you a thousand, thousand times for your kind letters. They are now my only earthly comfort, except the hope that all is not yet lost. We have been driven like a wild herd from our country. And it is not from a want of spirit in the people or soldiers, nor from want of energy and competency in our commanders. The restoration of Joe Johnston, it is hoped, will redound to the advantage of our cause and the reestablishment of our fortunes! I am still in not very agreeable circumstances. For the last four days completely water-bound.

“I am informed that a detachment of Yankees were sent from Liberty Hill to Camden with a view to destroying all the houses, mills, and provisions about that place. No particulars have reached me. You know I expected the worst that could be done, and am fully prepared for any report which may be made.

“It would be a happiness beyond expression to see you even for an hour. I have heard nothing from my poor old father. I fear I shall never see him again. Such is the fate of war. I do not complain. I have deliberately chosen my lot, and am prepared for any fate that awaits me. My care is for you, and I trust still in the good cause of my country and the justice and mercy of God.”

It was a lively, rushing, young set that South Carolina put to the fore. They knew it was a time of imminent danger, and that the fight would be ten to one. They expected to win by activity, energy, and enthusiasm. Then came the wet blanket, the croakers; now, these are posing, wrapping Caesar's mantle about their heads to fall with dignity. Those gallant youths who dashed so gaily to the front lie mostly in bloody graves. Well for them, maybe. There are worse things than honorable graves. Wearisome thoughts. Late in life we are to begin anew and have laborious, difficult days ahead.

We have contradictory testimony. Governor Aiken has passed through, saying Sherman left Columbia as he found it, and was last heard from at Cheraw. Dr. Chisolm walked home with me. He says that is the last version of the story. Now my husband wrote that he himself saw the fires which burned up Columbia. The first night his camp was near enough to the town for that.

They say Sherman has burned Lancaster — that Sherman nightmare, that ghoul, that hyena! But I do not believe it. He takes his time. There are none to molest him. He does things leisurely and deliberately. Why stop to do so needless a thing as burn Lancaster courthouse, the jail, and the tavern? As I remember it, that description covers Lancaster. A raiding party they say did for Camden.

No train from Charlotte yesterday. Rumor says Sherman is in Charlotte.

SOURCES: Mary Boykin Chesnut, Edited by Isabella D. Martin and Myrta Lockett Avary, A Diary From Dixie, p. 353-7

Diary of Mary Boykin Chesnut: February 22, 1865

Isabella has been reading my diaries. How we laugh because my sage divinations all come to naught. My famous “insight into character” is utter folly. The diaries were lying on the hearth ready to be burned, but she told me to hold on to them; think of them a while and don't be rash. Afterward when Isabella and I were taking a walk, General Joseph E. Johnston joined us. He explained to us all of Lee's and Stonewall Jackson's mistakes. We had nothing to say — how could we say anything? He said he was very angry when he was ordered to take command again. He might well have been in a genuine rage. This on and off procedure would be enough to bewilder the coolest head. Mrs. Johnston knows how to be a partizan of Joe Johnston and still not make his enemies uncomfortable. She can be pleasant and agreeable, as she was to my face.

A letter from my husband who is at Charlotte. He came near being taken a prisoner in Columbia, for he was asleep the morning of the 17th, when the Yankees blew up the railroad depot. That woke him, of course, and he found everybody had left Columbia, and the town was surrendered by the mayor, Colonel Goodwyn. Hampton and his command had been gone several hours. Isaac Hayne came away with General Chesnut. There was no fire in the town when they left. They overtook Hampton's command at Meek's Mill. That night, from the hills where they encamped, they saw the fire, and knew the Yankees were burning the town, as we had every reason to expect they would. Molly was left in charge of everything of mine, including Mrs. Preston's cow, which I was keeping, and Sally Goodwyn's furniture.

Charleston and Wilmington have surrendered. I have no further use for a newspaper. I never want to see another one as long as I live. Wade Hampton has been made a lieutenant-general, too late. If he had been made one and given command in South Carolina six months ago I believe he would have saved us. Shame, disgrace, beggary, all have come at once, and are hard to bear — the grand smash! Rain, rain, outside, and naught but drowning floods of tears inside. I could not bear it; so I rushed down in that rainstorm to the Martins’. Rev. Mr. Martin met me at the door. “Madam,” said he, “Columbia is burned to the ground.” I bowed my head and sobbed aloud. “Stop that!” he said, trying to speak cheerfully. “Come here, wife,” said he to Mrs. Martin. “This woman cries with her whole heart, just as she laughs.” But in spite of his words, his voice broke down, and he was hardly calmer than myself.

SOURCES: Mary Boykin Chesnut, Edited by Isabella D. Martin and Myrta Lockett Avary, A Diary From Dixie, p. 350-1