A grand smash, the news from New Orleans fatal to us. Met
Mr. Weston. He wanted to know where he could find a place of safety for two
hundred negroes. I looked into his face to see if he were in earnest; then to
see if he were sane. There was a certain set of two hundred negroes that had
grown to be a nuisance. Apparently all the white men of the family had felt
bound to stay at home to take care of them. There are people who still believe
negroes property — like Noah's neighbors, who insisted that the Deluge would
only be a little shower after all.
These negroes, however, were Plowden Weston's, a totally
different part of speech. He gave field-rifles to one company and forty
thousand dollars to another. He is away with our army at Corinth. So I said: “You
may rely upon Mr. Chesnut, who will assist you to his uttermost in finding a
home for these people. Nothing belonging to that patriotic gentleman shall come
to grief if we have to take charge of them on our own place.” Mr. Chesnut did
get a place for them, as I said he would.
Had to go to the Governor's or they would think we had
hoisted the black flag. Heard there we are going to be beaten as Cortez beat
the Mexicans — by superior arms. Mexican bows and arrows made a poor showing in
the face of Spanish accoutrements. Our enemies have such superior weapons of
war, we hardly any but what we capture from them in the fray. The Saxons and
the Normans were in the same plight.
War seems a game of chess, but we have an unequal number of
pawns to begin with. We have knights, kings, queens, bishops, and castles
enough. But our skilful generals, whenever they can not arrange the board to
suit them exactly, burn up everything and march away. We want them to save the
country. They seem to think their whole duty is to destroy ships and save the
army.
Mr. Robert Barnwell wrote “that he had to hang his head for
South Carolina. We had not furnished our quota of the new levy, five thousand
men. To-day Colonel Chesnut published his statement to show that we have sent
thirteen thousand, instead of the mere number required of us; so Mr. Barnwell
can hold up his head again.
SOURCE: Mary Boykin Chesnut, Edited by Isabella D. Martin
and Myrta Lockett Avary, A Diary From Dixie, p. 160-1
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