Think of Rice, Mr. Senator Rice,1 who sent us the
buffalo-robes. I see from his place in the Senate that he speaks of us as
savages, who put powder and whisky into soldiers' canteens to make them mad
with ferocity in the fight. No, never. We admire coolness here, because we lack
it; we do not need to be fired by drink to be brave. My classical lore is
small, indeed, but I faintly remember something of the Spartans who marched to
the music of lutes. No drum and fife were needed to revive their fainting
spirits. In that one thing we are Spartans.
The Wayside Hospital2 is duly established at the
Columbia Station, where all the railroads meet. All honor to Mrs. Fisher and
the other women who work there so faithfully! The young girls of Columbia
started this hospital. In the first winter of the war, moneyless soldiers, sick
and wounded, suffered greatly when they had to lie over here because of faulty
connections between trains. Rev. Mr. Martin, whose habit it was to meet trains
and offer his aid to these unfortunates, suggested to the Young Ladies'
Hospital Association their opportunity; straightway the blessed maidens
provided a room where our poor fellows might have their wounds bound up and be
refreshed. And now, the “Soldiers' Rest” has grown into the Wayside Hospital,
and older heads and hands relieve younger ones of the grimmer work and graver
responsibilities. I am ready to help in every way, by subscription and
otherwise, but too feeble in health to go there much.
Mrs. Browne heard a man say at the Congaree House, “We are
breaking our heads against a stone wall. We are bound to be conquered. We can
not keep it up much longer against so powerful a nation as the United States.
Crowds of Irish, Dutch, and Scotch are pouring in to swell their (armies. They
are promised our lands, and they believe they will get them. Even if we are
successful we can not live without Yankees.” “Now,” says Mrs. Browne, “I call
that man a Yankee spy.” To which I reply, “If he were a spy, he would not dare
show his hand so plainly.” “To think,” says Mrs. Browne, “that he is not taken
up. Seward's little bell would tinkle, a guard would come, and the Grand
Inquisition of America would order that man put under arrest in the twinkling
of an eye, if he had ventured to speak against Yankees in Yankee land.”
General Preston said he had “the right to take up any one
who was not in his right place and send him where he belonged.” “Then do take
up my husband instantly. He is sadly out of his right place in this little
Governor's Council.” The general stared at me and slowly uttered in his most
tragic tones, “If I could put him where I think he ought to be!” This I
immediately hailed as a high compliment and was duly ready with my thanks. Upon
reflection, it is borne in upon me, that he might have been more explicit. He
left too much to the imagination.
Then Mrs. Browne described the Prince of Wales, whose
manners, it seems, differ from those of Mrs. –––, who arraigned us from morn to
dewy eve, and upbraided us with our ill-bred manners and customs. The Prince,
when he was here, conformed at once to whatever he saw was the way of those who
entertained him. He closely imitated President Buchanan's way of doing things.
He took off his gloves at once when he saw that the President wore none. He
began by bowing to the people who were presented to him, but when he saw Mr.
Buchanan shaking hands, he shook hands, too. When smoking affably with Browne
on the White House piazza, he expressed his content with the fine cigars Browne
had given him. The President said: “I was keeping some excellent ones for you, but
Browne has got ahead of me.” Long after Mr. Buchanan had gone to bed, the
Prince ran into his room in a jolly, boyish way, and said: “Mr. Buchanan, I have
come for the fine cigars you have for me.”
As I walked up to the Prestons', along a beautiful shaded
back street, a carriage passed with Governor Means in it. As soon as he saw me
he threw himself half out and kissed both hands to me again and again. It was a
whole-souled greeting, as the saying is, and I returned it with my whole heart,
too. “Good-by,” he cried, and I responded “Good-by.” I may never see him again.
I am not sure that I did not shed a few tears.
General Preston and Mr. Chesnut were seated on the piazza of
the Hampton house as I walked in. I opened my batteries upon them in this
scornful style: “You cold, formal, solemn, overly-polite creatures, weighed
down by your own dignity. You will never know the rapture of such a sad
farewell as John Means and I have just interchanged. He was in a hack,” I proceeded
to relate, “and I was on the sidewalk. He was on his way to the war, poor
fellow. The hackman drove steadily along in the middle of the street; but for
our gray hairs I do not know what he might have thought of us. John Means did
not suppress his feelings at an unexpected meeting with an old friend, and a
good cry did me good. It is a life of terror and foreboding we lead. My heart
is in my mouth half the time. But you two, under no possible circumstances
could you forget your manners.”
Read Russell's India all day. Saintly folks those English
when their blood is up. Sepoys and blacks we do not expect anything better
from, but what an example of Christian patience and humanity the white “angels”
from the West set them.
The beautiful Jewess, Rachel Lyons, was here to-day. She
flattered Paul Hayne audaciously, and he threw back the ball.
To-day I saw the Rowena to this Rebecca, when Mrs. Edward
Barnwell called. She is the purest type of Anglo-Saxon — exquisitely beautiful,
cold, quiet, calm, lady-like, fair as a lily, with the blackest and longest
eyelashes, and her eyes so light in color some one said “they were the hue of
cologne and water.” At any rate, she has a patent right to them; there are no
more like them to be had. The effect is startling, but lovely beyond words.
Blanton Duncan told us a story of Morgan in Kentucky. Morgan
walked into a court where they were trying some Secessionists. The Judge was
about to pronounce sentence, but Morgan rose, and begged that he might be
allowed to call some witnesses. The Judge asked who were his witnesses. “My
name is John Morgan, and my witnesses are 1,400 Confederate soldiers.”
Mrs. Izard witnessed two instances of patriotism in the
caste called “Sandhill tackeys.” One forlorn, chills, and fever-freckled
creature, yellow, dirty, and dry as a nut, was selling peaches at ten cents a
dozen. Soldiers collected around her cart. She took the cover off and cried, “Eat
away. Eat your fill. I never charge our soldiers anything.” They tried to make
her take pay, but when she steadily refused it, they cheered her madly and
said: “Sleep in peace. Now we will fight for you and keep off the Yankees.”
Another poor Sandhill man refused to sell his cows, and gave them to the hospital.
_______________
1 Henry M. Rice, United States Senator from
Minnesota, who had emigrated to that State from Vermont in 1835.
2 Of ameliorations in modern warfare, Dr. John T.
Darby said in addressing the South Carolina Medical Association, Charleston, in
1873: “On the route from the army to the general hospital, wounds are dressed
and soldiers refreshed at wayside homes; and here be it said with justice and
pride that the credit of originating this system is due to the women of South
Carolina. In a small room in the capital of this State, the first Wayside Home
was founded; and during the war, some seventy-five thousand soldiers were
relieved by having their wounds dressed, their ailments attended, and very
frequently by being clothed through the patriotic services and good offices of
a few untiring ladies in Columbia. From this little nucleus, spread that grand
system of wayside hospitals which was established during our own and the late
European wars."
SOURCE: Mary Boykin Chesnut, Edited by Isabella D. Martin
and Myrta Lockett Avary, A Diary From Dixie, p. 205-9
