Here Mr. Chesnut
opened my door and walked in. Out of the fulness of the heart
the mouth speaketh. I had to ask no questions. He gave me an account of the
battle as he saw it (walking up and down my room, occasionally seating himself
on a window sill, but too restless to remain still many moments); and told what
regiments he was sent to bring up. He took the orders to Colonel Jackson, whose
regiment stood so stock still under fire that they were called a “stone wall.”
Also, they call Beauregard, Eugene, and Johnston, Marlboro. Mr. Chesnut rode
with Lay's cavalry after the retreating enemy in the pursuit, they following
them until midnight. Then there came such a fall of rain — rain such as is only
known in semitropical lands.
In the drawing-room,
Colonel Chesnut was the “belle of the ball”; they crowded him so for news. He
was the first arrival that they could get at from the field of battle. But the
women had to give way to the dignitaries of the land, who were as filled with
curiosity as themselves — Mr. Barnwell, Mr. Hunter, Mr. Cobb, Captain Ingraham,
etc.
Wilmot de Saussure
says Wilson of Massachusetts, a Senator of the United States,1 came
to Manassas, en route to Richmond, with his dancing shoes ready for a
festive scene which was to celebrate a triumph. The New York Tribune said: “In
a few days we shall have Richmond, Memphis, and New Orleans. They must be taken
and at once.” For “a few days” maybe now they will modestly substitute “in a
few years.”
They brought me a
Yankee soldier's portfolio from the battle-field. The letters had been franked
by Senator Harlan.1 One might shed tears over some of the letters.
Women, wives and mothers, are the same everywhere. What a comfort the spelling
was! We had been willing to admit that their universal free-school education
had put them, rank and file, ahead of us literarily, but these letters
do not attest that fact. The spelling is comically bad.
_______________
1 Henry Wilson, son of a farm laborer and
self-educated, who rose to much prominence in the Anti-Slavery contests before
the war. He was elected United States Senator from Massachusetts in 1855,
holding the office until 1873, when he resigned, having been elected
Vice-President of the United States on the ticket with Ulysses S. Grant.
2 James Harlan, United States Senator from
Iowa from 1855 to 1865. In 1865 he was appointed Secretary of the Interior.
SOURCE: Mary Boykin
Chesnut, Edited by Isabella D. Martin and Myrta Lockett Avary, A Diary
From Dixie, p. 88-90
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