A battle1 is said to be raging round Richmond. I
am at the Prestons’. James Chesnut has gone to Richmond suddenly on business of
the Military Department. It is always his luck to arrive in the nick of time
and be present at a great battle.
Wade Hampton shot in the foot, and Johnston Pettigrew
killed. A telegram says Lee and Davis were both on the field: the enemy being
repulsed. Telegraph operator said: “Madam, our men are fighting.” “Of course
they are. What else is there for them to do now but fight?” “But, madam, the
news is encouraging.” Each army is burying its dead: that looks like a drawn
battle. We haunt the bulletin-board.
Back to McMahan's. Mem Cohen is ill. Her daughter, Isabel,
warns me not to mention the battle raging around Richmond. Young Cohen is in
it. Mrs. Preston, anxious and unhappy about her sons. John is with General
Huger at Richmond; Willie in the swamps on the coast with his company. Mem
tells me her cousin, Edwin de Leon, is sent by Mr. Davis on a mission to
England.
Rev. Robert Barnwell has returned to the hospital. Oh, that
we had given our thousand dollars to the hospital and not to the gunboat! “Stonewall
Jackson's movements,” the Herald says, “do us no harm; it is bringing out
volunteers in great numbers.” And a Philadelphia paper abused us so fervently I
felt all the blood in me rush to my head with rage.
_______________
1 The Battle of Fair Oaks or Seven Pines, took
place a few miles east of Richmond, on May 31 and June 1, 1862, the Federals
being commanded by McClellan and the Confederates by General Joseph E.
Johnston.
SOURCE: Mary Boykin Chesnut, Edited by Isabella D. Martin
and Myrta Lockett Avary, A Diary From Dixie, p. 171
No comments:
Post a Comment