Decca's wedding. It took place last year. We were all lying
on the bed or sofas taking it coolly as to undress. Mrs. Singleton had the
floor. They were engaged before they went up to Charlottesville; Alexander was
on Gregg's staff, and Gregg was not hard on him; Decca was the worst in love
girl she ever saw. “Letters came while we were at the hospital, from Alex,
urging her to let him marry her at once. In war times human events, life
especially, are very uncertain.” For several days consecutively she cried
without ceasing, and then she consented. The rooms at the hospital were all
crowded. Decca and I slept together in the same room. It was arranged by letter
that the marriage should take place; a luncheon at her grandfather Minor's, and
then she was to depart with Alex for a few days at Richmond. That was to be
their brief slice of honeymoon.
The day came. The wedding-breakfast was ready, so was the
bride in all her bridal array, but no Alex, no bridegroom. Alas! such is the
uncertainty of a soldier's life. The bride said nothing, but she wept like a
water-nymph. At dinner she plucked up heart, and at my earnest request was
about to join us. And then the cry, “The bridegroom cometh.” He brought his best man and other friends. We
had a jolly dinner. “Circumstances over which he had no control” had kept him
away.
His father sat next to Decca and talked to her all the time
as if she had been already married. It was a piece of absent-mindedness on his
part, pure and simple, but it was very trying, and the girl had had much to
stand that morning, you can well understand. Immediately after dinner the belated
bridegroom proposed a walk; so they went for a brief stroll up the mountain.
Decca, upon her return, said to me: “Send for Robert Barnwell. I mean to be
married to-day.”
“Impossible. No spare room in the house. No getting away
from here; the trains all gone. Don't you know this hospital place is crammed
to the ceiling?” “Alex says I promised to marry him to-day. It is not his fault;
he could not. come before.” I shook my head. “I don't care,” said the positive
little thing, “I promised Alex to marry him to-day and I will. Send for the
Rev. Robert Barnwell.” We found Robert after a world of trouble, and the bride,
lovely in Swiss muslin, was married.
Then I proposed they should take another walk, and I went to
one of my sister nurses and begged her to take me in for the night, as I wished
to resign my room to the young couple. At daylight next day they took the train
for Richmond. Such is the small
allowance of honeymoon permitted in war time.
Beauregard's telegram: he can not leave the army of the
West. His health is bad. No doubt the sea breezes would restore him, but — he
can not come now. Such a lovely name — Gustave Tautant Beauregard. But Jackson
and Johnston and Smith and Jones will do — and Lee, how short and sweet.
“Every day,” says Mem, “they come here in shoals — men to
say we can not hold Richmond, and we can not hold Charleston much longer.
Wretches, beasts! Why do you come here? Why don't you stay there and fight?
Don't you see that you own yourselves cowards by coming away in the very face
of a battle? If you are not liars as to the danger, you are cowards to run away
from it.'” Thus roars the practical Mem, growing more furious at each word.
These Jeremiahs laugh. They think she means others, not the present company.
Tom Huger resigned his place in the United States Navy and
came to us. The Iroquois was his ship in the old navy. They say, as he stood in
the rigging, after he was shot in the leg, when his ship was leading the attack
upon the Iroquois, his old crew in the Iroquois cheered him, and when his body
was borne in, the Federals took off their caps in respect for his gallant
conduct. When he was dying, Meta Huger said to him: “An officer wants to see
you: he is one of the enemy.” “Let him come in; I have no enemies now.” But
when he heard the man's name:
“No, no. I do not want to see a Southern man who is now in
Lincoln's navy.” The officers of the United States Navy attended his funeral.
SOURCE: Mary Boykin Chesnut, Edited by Isabella D. Martin
and Myrta Lockett Avary, A Diary From Dixie, p. 184-6
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