Diary of Mary Boykin Chesnut: July 13, 1862

Halcott Green came to see us. Bragg is a stern disciplinarian, according to Halcott. He did not in the least understand citizen soldiers. In the retreat from Shiloh he ordered that not a gun should be fired. A soldier shot a chicken, and then the soldier was shot. “For a chicken!” said Halcott. “A Confederate soldier for a chicken!”

Mrs. McCord says a nurse, who is also a beauty, had better leave her beauty with her cloak and hat at the door. One lovely lady nurse said to a rough old soldier, whose wound could not have been dangerous, “Well, my good soul, what can I do for you?” “Kiss me!” said he. Mrs. McCord's fury was “at the woman's telling it,” for it brought her hospital into disrepute, and very properly. She knew there were women who would boast of an insult if it ministered to their vanity. She wanted nurses to come dressed as nurses, as Sisters of Charity, and not as fine ladies. Then there would be no trouble. When she saw them coming in angel sleeves, displaying all their white arms and in their muslin, showing all their beautiful white shoulders and throats, she felt disposed to order them off the premises. That was no proper costume for a nurse. Mrs. Bartow goes in her widow's weeds, which is after Mrs. McCord's own heart. But Mrs. Bartow has her stories, too. A surgeon said to her, “I give you no detailed instructions: a mother necessarily is a nurse.” She then passed on quietly, “as smilingly acquiescent, my dear, as if I had ever been a mother.”

Mrs. Greenhow has enlightened Rachel Lyons as to Mr. Chesnut's character in Washington. He was “one of the very few men of whom there was not a word of scandal spoken. I do not believe, my dear, that he ever spoke to a woman there.” He did know Mrs. John R. Thompson, however.

Walked up and down the college campus with Mrs. McCord. The buildings all lit up with gas, the soldiers seated under the elms in every direction, and in every stage of convalescence. Through the open windows, could see the nurses flitting about. It was a strange, weird scene. Walked home with Mrs. Bartow. We stopped at Judge Carroll's. Mrs. Carroll gave us a cup of tea. When we got home, found the Prestons had called for me to dine at their house to meet General Magruder.

Last night the Edgefield Band serenaded Governor Pickens. Mrs. Harris stepped on the porch and sang the Marseillaise for them. It has been more than twenty years since I first heard her voice; it was a very fine one then, but there is nothing which the tooth of time lacerates more cruelly than the singing voice of women. There is an incongruous metaphor for you.

The negroes on the coast received the Rutledge's Mounted Rifles apparently with great rejoicings. The troops were gratified to find the negroes in such a friendly state of mind. One servant whispered to his master, “Don't you mind ’em, don't trust ’em” — meaning the negroes. The master then dressed himself as a Federal officer and went down to a negro quarter. The very first greeting was, “Ki! massa, you come fuh ketch rebels? We kin show you way you kin ketch thirty to-night.” They took him to the Confederate camp, or pointed it out, and then added for his edification, “We kin ketch officer fuh you whenever you want ’em.”

Bad news. Gunboats have passed Vicksburg. The Yankees are spreading themselves over our fair Southern land like red ants.

SOURCE: Mary Boykin Chesnut, Edited by Isabella D. Martin and Myrta Lockett Avary, A Diary From Dixie, p. 203-5

Diary of Mary Boykin Chesnut: June 6, 1862

Paul Hayne, the poet, has taken rooms here. My husband came and offered to buy me a pair of horses. He says I need more exercise in the open air. “Come, now, are you providing me with the means of a rapid retreat?” said I. “I am pretty badly equipped for marching.”

Mrs. Rose Greenhow is in Richmond. One-half of the ungrateful Confederates say Seward sent her. My husband says the Confederacy owes her a debt it can never pay. She warned them at Manassas, and so they got Joe Johnston and his Paladins to appear upon the stage in the very nick of time. In Washington they said Lord Napier left her a legacy to the British Legation, which accepted the gift, unlike the British nation, who would not accept Emma Hamilton and her daughter, Horatia, though they were willed to the nation by Lord Nelson.

Mem Cohen, fresh from the hospital where she went with a beautiful Jewish friend. Rachel, as we will call her (be it her name or no), was put to feed a very weak patient. Mem noticed what a handsome fellow he was, and how quiet and clean. She fancied by those tokens that he was a gentleman. In performance of her duties, the lovely young nurse leaned kindly over him and held the cup to his lips. When that ceremony was over and she had wiped his mouth, to her horror she felt a pair of by no means weak arms around her neck and a kiss upon her lips, which she thought strong, indeed. She did not say a word; she made no complaint. She slipped away from the hospital, and hereafter in her hospital work will minister at long range, no matter how weak and weary, sick and sore, the patient may be. “And,” said Mem, “I thought he was a gentleman.” “Well, a gentleman is a man, after all, and she ought not to have put those red lips of hers so near.”

SOURCE: Mary Boykin Chesnut, Edited by Isabella D. Martin and Myrta Lockett Avary, A Diary From Dixie, p. 176-7

Rose O’Neal Greenhow to William H. Seward, November 17, 1861

Washington, November 17, 1861.

398, 16th Street.

HON. WM. H. SEWARD, SEC. OF STATE.

Sir, — For nearly three months I have been confined a close prisoner, shut out from air and exercise, and denied all communion with family and friends.

“Patience is said to be a great virtue,” and I have practised it to my utmost capacity of endurance.

I am told, sir, that upon your ipse dixit the fate of citizens depends, and that the sign-manual of the ministers of Louis XIV. and XV. was not more potential in their day than that of the Secretary of State in 1861.

I therefore most respectfully submit that on Friday, August 23rd, without warrant or other show of authority, I was arrested by the detective police, and my house taken in charge by them: that all my private letters and papers of a life-time were read and examined by them: that every law of decency was violated in the search of my house and person, and by the surveillance over me.

We read in history that the poor Marie Antoinette had a paper torn from her bosom by lawless hands, and that even a change of linen had to be effected in sight of her brutal captors. It is my sad experience to record even more revolting outrages than that, for during the first days of my imprisonment, whatever necessity forced me to seek my chamber, a detective stood sentinel at the open door. And thus, for a period of seven days, I, with my little child, was placed absolutely at the mercy of men without character or responsibility; that during the first evening a portion of those men became brutally drunk, and boasted in my hearing of the nice times they expected to have with the female prisoners, and that rude violence was used towards a servant girl during that first evening. For any show of decorum afterwards practised towards me I was indebted to the detective called Captain Dennis.

In the careful analysis of my papers I deny the existence of a line that I had not a perfect right to have written or to have received. Freedom of speech and of opinion is the birthright of Americans, guaranteed to us by our charter of liberty — the Constitution of the United States. I have exercised my prerogative, and have openly avowed my sentiments. During the political struggle I opposed your Republican party with every instinct of self-preservation. I believed your success a virtual nullification of the Constitution, and that it would entail upon us all the direful consequences which have ensued. These sentiments have doubtless been found recorded among my papers, and I hold them as rather a proud record of my sagacity.

I must be permitted to quote from a letter of yours, in regard to “Russell of the London Times,” which you conclude with these admirable words: “Individual errors of opinion may be tolerated, so long as good sense is left to combat them.”

By way of illustrating theory and practice, here am I — a prisoner in sight of the executive mansion — in sight of the Capitol, where the proud statesmen of our land have sung their pagans to the blessings of our free institutions. Comment is idle. Freedom of speech, freedom of thought, every right pertaining to the citizen, has been suspended by what, I suppose, the President calls a “military necessity.” A blow has been struck by this total disregard of all civil rights against the present system of government far greater in its effects than the severance of the Southern States. The people have been taught to contemn the supremacy of the law, to which all have hitherto bowed, and to look to the military power for protection against its decrees. A military spirit has been developed which will only be subordinate to a military dictatorship. Read history, and you will find that the causes which bring about a revolution rarely predominate at its close, and no people have ever returned to the point from which they started. Even should the Southern States be subdued, and forced back into the Union (which I regard as impossible, with a full knowledge of their resources), a different form of government will be found needful to meet the new developments of national character. There is no class of society, no branch of industry, which this change has not reached, and the dull plodding methodical habits of the past can never be resumed.

You have held me, sir, to a man's accountability, and I therefore claim the right to speak on subjects usually considered beyond a woman's ken, and which you may class as “errors of opinion.” I offer no excuse for this long digression, as a three months’ imprisonment, without formula of law, gives me authority for occupying even the precious moments of a Secretary of State.

My object is to call your attention to the fact, that during this long imprisonment I am yet ignorant of the causes of my arrest; that my house has been seized and converted into a prison by the Government; that the valuable furniture it contained has been abused and destroyed; that during some period of my imprisonment I have suffered greatly for want of proper and sufficient food. Also, I have to complain that more recently a woman of bad character —  recognised as having been seen in the streets of Chicago as such, by several of the guard — calling herself Mrs. Onderdunk, was placed here in my house in a room adjoining mine.

In making this exposition, I have no object of appeal to your sympathies. If the justice of my complaint and a decent regard for the world’s opinion do not move you, I should but waste time to claim your attention on any other score.

I may, however, recall to your mind that but a little while since you were quite as much proscribed by public sentiment here, for the opinions and principles you held, as I am now for mine.

I could easily have escaped arrest, having had timely warning. I thought it possible that your statesmanship might prevent such a proclamation of weakness to the world as even the fragment of a once great Government turning its arms against the breasts of women and children. You have the power, sir, and may still further abuse it. You may prostrate the physical strength, by confinement in close rooms and insufficient food. You may subject me to harsher, ruder treatment than I have already received; but you cannot imprison the soul. Every cause worthy of success has had its martyrs. The words of the heroine Corday are applicable here: “C’est le crime qui fait la honte, et non pas l’échafaud.” My sufferings will afford a significant lesson to the women of the South, that sex or condition is no bulwark against the surging billows of the “irrepressible conflict.”

The “iron heel” of power may keep down, but it cannot crush out, the spirit of resistance in a people armed for the defence of their rights; and I tell you now, sir, that you are standing over a crater whose smothered fires in a moment may burst forth.

It is your boast that thirty-three bristling fortifications surround Washington. The fortifications of Paris did not protect Louis Philippe when his hour had come.

In conclusion, I respectfully ask your attention to this my protest, and have the honour to be, &c,

&c, &c,

ROSE O'N. Geeenhow.

SOURCE: Rose O'Neal Greenhow, My Imprisonment and the First Year of Abolition rule at Washington, p. 118-24

We understand that . . .

. . . a commission of gentlemen – among the Judge Pierpont, of New York and Major General Dix – had an interview on Saturday last, at the Provost Marshal’s quarters with Mrs. Greenhow and Mrs. Morris, (alias Mason,) – who our readers are perhaps aware, have been for some months past kept in durance in this city, on charges of treasonable conduct – to ascertain whether those ladies would come under such pledges of loyalty and such renunciation of devotion to the insurgent cause as to authorize the Government to set them at liberty.  But the examination, we learn, resulted in nothing satisfactory.  The ladies would confess nothing, promise nothing, give their parole for nothing, renounce nothing; and they were reconveyed to their quarters at the Old Capitol.  Thus the examination ended in furnishing at least one instance of the truth of the ungallant old sarcasm on female willfulness:

“If she will she will, you may depend on’t;

If she wont she wont, and there’s an end on’t.”-

            –{National Intelligencer.

– Published in The Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, April 5, 1862, p. 2

From Washington

WASHINGTON, March 24.

Col. Segur representative from the Accomac district, arrived here this evening, confirming the intelligence about the destruction of the Privateer Nashville, and Fort Macon, by the rebels.

Times’ Correspondence

The commission on State prisoners will to-morrow take up the case of the celebrated Mrs. Greenough [sic], who will probably be transferred from a State prison to a lunatic asylum.

Gen. Montgomery has been transferred from his post as military governor of Alexandria and placed in a like command at Annapolis.

Painful rumors have been afloat for two days affecting a prominent officer in the civil department of the government.  We are promised the denouncement this week.

It is not true that the steamer Vanderbilt has been purchased by the Government to be altered to an iron-clad vessel.  She is merely charted for a short time as transport.

The commanding officer at Fort Craig writes to the Government that he has not a doubt of being able to hold that post.

Tribune Correspondence.

It is rumored that Green Clay will be transferred from the Secretaryship of Legation at St. Petersburg to that at Turin, the present incumbent, Mr. Fry, having resigned on account of ill health.

Dr. John Evans, of Chicago, has been nominated and confirmed as Governor of Colorado Territory, vice Gov. Gilpin.

Stephen S. Harding, of Ind., was, on Friday, nominated Governor of Utah, vice Gov. Dawson, rejected.

Small squads of rebel horsemen are scouring the country within five miles of Manassas, impressing all the able bodied men left, robbing the former for the hundredth time, and destroying what they can’t carry away.

The Saturday’s work of the ways and means committee on demands of delegations for modifications of the tax bill, was to put a 3 per cent ad valorem charge upon paper of every description; to adopt the schedules on leather substantially as they were presented to the committee by Mr. Alley, a tanner and a member of the House; to fix the rate on hoop skirts, umbrellas, and parasols, at 5 per cent ad valorem; on ready made clothing, at 3 per cent ad valorem; to leave salt as is in the bill; and after long discussion, to let the tax as first reported on tobacco and all its manufacturers stand unaltered.  The tax on billiard tables was reduced half to ten dollars a year; on rock oil, petroleum and coal oils, the only change was of phraseology, so that gas, tar, and the products from redistillation shall not be changed; for brokers the committee took off the tenth of one per cent on their stock sales, thinking that through their use of powers of attorney, transferred stamps and other assessable incidents of the business, they would get taxed enough.  Flour was not disposed, the desire to tax it of course duly exists of; the only difficulty in fixing the rate has been presented by the Canadian reciprocity treaty.  The belief has at least obtained in committee that flour can be taxed by branding the barrels and taxing the sales without violating the stipulations of that treaty; the charge on the gross receipts of horse railroads was reduced one half; it was decided not to tax coal at all; because it enters into the business and domestic life of nearly the whole nation.

During the discussions on the bill the work on the tariff progresses.  Reference is continually had to it, when an article is tax for internal revenue; at the same time an equivalent customs entry is placed on the tax list.  This principle will be adhered to throughout.

Herald’s Dispatch.

The party which left here on Tuesday ot look for the remains. Of Col. Slocum, Major Ballou, and Capt. tower of the 2d Rhode Island regiment, killed at Bull Run, returned this morning bringing their remains.  The party was composed of Gov. Sprague, Col. Arnold, Mr. Walter Coleman, his secretary Tristram Burges, Lieut. Col. Sayles and Capt. Dennison and Surgeon Greely, of the R. I. Cavalry, accompanied by two of the R. I. volunteers, who had been twin prisoners at Bull Run, and had noted the place where the officers were buried.  The party arrived Friday at Sudley’s Church.

Col. Slocum and Maj. Ballou were buried in the yard of a building near by, which was used as a hospital on the day of the battle.  This building had been destroyed by the rebels, but the graves were found.  After they had commenced to dig a negro girl inquired if they were digging for the body of Col. Slocum, and stated that about six weeks after the battle some soldiers of a Georgia regiment had dug it up, cut off the head, and buried the body at the side of the run close by, and taken the coffin away to bury a dead negro.  Her story was corroborated by a white boy and a white man who lived in the same neighborhood.  On repairing to the spot indicated, there was found a pile of ashes and bones, which were pronounced by the surgeon to be human. – Col. Slocum had been buried in a box, and Maj. Ballou in a coffin.  Upon opening the graves the box was recognized by Mr. Richardson, who was present at the interment, and the remains in it were identified as Col. Slocum.  Upon opening the other grave it was found to be empty, showing that the body dug up and burned by the Georgia barbarians was that of Maj. Ballou, only those two having been buried in that yard.

Gen. Hitchcock is here, aiding the war department by his advice.

Senator Lane, of Ind., has received advices from Savannah, Tenn., of the formation of a Union regiment in Alabama.

The Republican asserts that the President has remove Gen. Denver from the command of the department of Kansas.

The entire national debt is now four hundred millions of dollars.

The Senate to-day confirmed about 400 army appointment, principally of minor ranks.  Among them in the Adjutant General’s office department is R. J. Wagoner, of Ky.; Assistant Ad.t. Gen., with rank of Captain.  The only two Brigadier Generals of volunteers confirmed are Wm. K. Strong and Col. Mahon M. Monson [sic], of Ind.

Postmaster General Blair to-day issued the following notice to the Postmasters of the U. S.:

“The Secretary of War now regulates the transmission of information by telegraph affecting the conduct of the war.  In order to prevent the communication of such information to the rebels, it is also thought necessary by the secretary to put restrictions on the publication of facts of this character, however derived, and the aid of this department is requested for this purpose.

“You will therefore notify publishers not to publish any fact which has been excluded from the telegraph and that a disregard of this order will subject the paper to be excluded from the mails.

Signed,

M. BLAIR, P. M. Gen.”

– Published in The Davenport Daily Gazette, Davenport, Iowa, Tuesday Morning, March 25, 1862, p. 1

Specials to the New York Papers

(Herald’s Special.)

Washington, April 13.

The rebellion ladies Greenhow, Morris and Bayley have not yet packed their trunks for the South, as they are required to do under the decision of the commissioners and the order of the Military Governor. They are allowed to remain until their preparations are completed. Mrs. Greenhow is quite oracular in reference to the campaign. She predicts that General McClellan will not be able to strike a blow at Yorktown for many days, and that when he does he will be defeated by the rebel army which will be 125,000 strong.


(Tribune Correspondence.)

Further information from Pittsburg Landing shows that there was terrible carnage among the Illinois troops, of whom many regiments were in the battle. There were more than 4000 troops from the First District (Washburne’s) engaged. They lost two colonels, Ellis and Davis, Major Goddard, and many other officers. Many more known to have been wounded.


(Tribune’s Special.)

Our special correspondent with McDowell’s command reports all quiet on Cedar Run, 15 miles beyond Manassas. The railroad bridge at that point destroyed by the rebels, will be reconstructed this week. The railway track beyond will be rapidly repaired. Rebel scouts are constantly prowling about our camps and occasionally a straggler is picked up by our cavalry. Two privates of General Blenker’s Division, who said they had just returned from the vicinity of the Rappahannock, reported that Gen. Blenker and his body guard had been surrounded by rebel cavalry and captured. Doubtful.

– Published in The Gate City, Keokuk, Iowa, Tuesday, April 15, 1862