For a week we have had such a tranquil, happy time here.
Both my husband and Johnny are here still. James Chesnut spent his time
sauntering around with his father, or stretched on the rug before my fire
reading Vanity Fair and Pendennis. By good luck he had not read them before. We
have kept Esmond for the last. He owns that he is having a good time. Johnny is
happy, too. He does not care for books. He will read a novel now and then, if
the girls continue to talk of it before him. Nothing else whatever in the way
of literature does he touch. He comes pulling his long blond mustache
irresolutely as if he hoped to be advised not to read it — “Aunt Mary, shall I
like this thing?” I do not think he has an idea what we are fighting about, and
he does not want to know. He says, “My company,” “My men,” with a pride, a
faith, and an affection which are sublime. He came into his inheritance at
twenty-one (just as the war began), and it was a goodly one, fine old houses
and an estate to match.
Yesterday, Johnny went to his plantation for the first time
since the war began. John Witherspoon went with him, and reports in this way: “How
do you do, Marster! How you come on?” — thus from every side rang the noisiest
welcome from the darkies. Johnny was silently shaking black hands right and
left as he rode into the crowd.
As the noise subsided, to the overseer he said: “Send down
more corn and fodder for my horses.” And to the driver, “Have you any peas?” “Plenty,
sir.” “Send a wagon-load down for the cows at Bloomsbury while I stay there.
They have not milk and butter enough there for me. Any eggs? Send down
all you can collect. How about my turkeys and ducks? Send them down two at a
time. How about the mutton? Fat? That's good; send down two a week.”
As they rode home, John Witherspoon remarked, “I was
surprised that you did not go into the fields to see your crops.” “What was the
use?” “And the negroes; you had so little talk with them.”
“No use to talk to them before the overseer. They are coming
down to Bloomsbury, day and night, by platoons and they talk me dead. Besides,
William and Parish go up there every night, and God knows they tell me enough
plantation scandal — overseer feathering his nest; negroes ditto at my expense.
Between the two fires I mean to get something to eat while I am here.'”
For him we got up a charming picnic at Mulberry. Everything
was propitious — the most perfect of days and the old place in great beauty.
Those large rooms were delightful for dancing; we had as good a dinner as
mortal appetite could crave; the best fish, fowl, and game; wine from a cellar
that can not be excelled. In spite of blockade Mulberry does the honors nobly
yet. Mrs. Edward Stockton drove down with me. She helped me with her taste and
tact in arranging things. We had no trouble, however. All of the old servants
who have not been moved to Bloomsbury scented the prey from afar, and they
literally flocked in and made themselves useful.
SOURCE: Mary Boykin Chesnut, Edited by Isabella D. Martin
and Myrta Lockett Avary, A Diary From Dixie, p. 250-1
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