At Home — I am too nervous, too wretched to-day to write in
my diary, but that the employment will while away a few moments of this trying
time. Our friends and neighbors have left us. Every thing is broken up. The
Theological Seminary is closed; the High School dismissed. Scarcely any one is
left of the many families which surrounded us. The homes all look desolate; and
yet this beautiful country is looking more peaceful, more lovely than ever, as
if to rebuke the tumult of passion and the fanaticism of man. We are left
lonely indeed; our children are all gone — the girls to Clarke, where they may
be safer, and farther from the exciting scenes which may too soon surround us;
and the boys, the dear, dear boys, to the camp, to be drilled and prepared to
meet any emergency. Can it be that our country is to be carried on and on to
the horrors of civil war? I pray, oh how fervently do I pray, that our Heavenly
Father may yet avert it. I shut my eyes and hold my breath when the thought of
what may come upon us obtrudes itself; and yet I cannot believe it. It will, I
know the breach will be healed without the effusion of blood. The taking of
Sumter without bloodshed has some what soothed my fears, though I am told by
those who are wiser than I, that men must fall on both sides by the score, by
the hundred, and even by the thousand. But it is not my habit to look on the
dark side, so I try hard to employ myself, and hope for the best. To-day our
house seems so deserted, that I feel more sad than usual, for on this morning we
took leave of our whole household. Mr. and myself are now the sole occupants of
the house, which usually teems with life. I go from room to room, looking at
first one thing and then another, so full of sad associations. The closed
piano, the locked bookcase, the nicely-arranged tables, the formally-placed
chairs, ottomans and sofas in the parlor! Oh for some one to put them out of
order! And then the dinner-table, which has always been so well surrounded, so
social, so cheerful, looked so cheerless to-day, as we seated ourselves one at
the head, the other at the foot, with one friend, — but one, — at the side. I
could scarcely restrain my tears, and but for the presence of that one friend,
I believe I should have cried outright. After dinner, I did not mean to do it,
but I could not help going into the girls' room, and then into C.'s. I heard my
own footsteps so plainly, that I was startled by the absence of all other
sounds. There the furniture looked so quiet, the beds so fixed and smooth, the
wardrobes and bureaux so tightly locked, and the whole so lifeless! But the
writing-desks, work-boxes, and the numberless things so familiar to my eyes!
Where were they? I paused, to ask myself what it all meant. Why did we think it
necessary to send off all that was so dear to us from our own home? I threw
open the shutters, and the answer came at once, so mournfully! I heard
distinctly the drums beating in Washington. The evening was so still that I
seemed to hear nothing else. As I looked at the Capitol in the distance, I
could scarcely believe my senses. That Capitol of which I had always been so
proud! Can it be possible that it is no longer our Capitol? And are our
countrymen, under its very eaves, making mighty preparation to drain our
hearts' blood? And must this Union, which I was taught to revere, be rent
asunder? Once I thought such a suggestion sacrilege; but now that it is
dismembered, I trust it may never, never be reunited. We must be a separate
people — our nationality must be different, to insure lasting peace and good-will.
Why cannot we part in peace?
SOURCE: McGuire, Judith W., Diary of a Southern
Refugee, During the War, p. 9-11
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