RICHMOND, Va. — Now
we feel safe and comfortable. We can not be flanked. Mr. Preston met us at
Warrenton. Mr. Chesnut doubtless had too many spies to receive from Washington,
galloping in with the exact numbers of the enemy done up in their back hair.
Wade Hampton is
here; Doctor Nott also — Nott and Glyddon known to fame. Everybody is here, en
route for the army, or staying for the meeting of Congress.
Lamar is out on
crutches. His father-in-law, once known only as the humorist Longstreet,1
author of Georgia Scenes, now a staid Methodist, who has outgrown the follies
of his youth, bore him off to-day. They say Judge Longstreet has lost the keen
sense of fun that illuminated his life in days of yore. Mrs. Lamar and her
daughter were here.
The President met
us cordially, but he laughed at our sudden retreat, with baggage lost, etc. He
tried to keep us from going; said it was a dangerous experiment. Dare say he
knows more about the situation of things than he chooses to tell us.
To-day in the
drawing-room, saw a vivandiรจre in
the flesh. She was in the uniform of her regiment, but wore Turkish pantaloons.
She frisked about in her hat and feathers; did not uncover her head as a man
would have done; played the piano; and sang war-songs. She had no drum, but she
gave us rataplan. She was followed at every step by a mob of admiring soldiers
and boys.
Yesterday, as we
left the cars, we had a glimpse of war. It was the saddest sight: the memory of
it is hard to shake off — sick soldiers, not wounded ones. There were quite two
hundred (they said) lying about as best they might on the platform. Robert
Barnwell2 was there doing all he could. Their pale, ghastly faces!
So here is one of the horrors of war we had not reckoned on. There were many
good men and women with Robert Barnwell, rendering all the service possible in
the circumstances.
Just now I happened
to look up and saw Mr. Chesnut with a smile on his face watching me from the
passageway. I flew across the room, and as I got half-way saw Mrs. Davis touch
him on the shoulder. She said he was to go at once into Mr. Davis's room, where
General Lee and General Cooper were. After he left us, Mrs. Davis told me
General Beauregard had sent Mr. Chesnut here on some army business.
_______________
1 Augustus Baldwin Longstreet had great
distinction in the South as a lawyer, clergyman, teacher, journalist, and
author, and was successively president of five different colleges. His Georgia
Scenes, a series of humorous papers, enjoyed great popularity for many years.
2 Rev. Robert Barnwell, nephew of Hon. Robert
Barnwell, established in Richmond a hospital for South Carolinians.
SOURCE: Mary Boykin Chesnut, Edited by Isabella D. Martin
and Myrta Lockett Avary, A Diary From Dixie, p. 82-3
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