At Mrs. Preston's, met the Light Brigade in battle array,
ready to sally forth, conquering and to conquer. They would stand no nonsense
from me about staying at home to translate a French play. Indeed, the plays
that have been sent us are so indecent I scarcely know where a play is to be
found that would do at all.
While at dinner the President's carriage drove up with only
General Hood. He sent up to ask in Maggie Howell's name would I go with them? I
tied up two partridges between plates with a serviette, for Buck, who is ill,
and then went down. We picked up Mary Preston. It was Maggie's drive; as the
soldiers say, I was only on “escort duty.” At the Prestons', Major Venable met
us at the door and took in the partridges to Buck. As we drove off Maggie said:
“Major Venable is a Carolinian, I see.” “No; Virginian to the core.” “But,
then, he was a professor in the South Carolina College before the war.” Mary
Preston said: “She is taking a fling at your weakness for all South Carolina.”
Came home and found my husband in a bitter mood. It has all
gone wrong with our world. The loss of our private fortune the smallest part.
He intimates, “with so much human misery filling the air, we might stay at home
and think.” “And go mad?” said I. “Catch me at it! A yawning grave, with piles
of red earth thrown on one side; that is the only future I ever see. You
remember Emma Stockton? She and I were as blithe as birds that day at Mulberry.
I came here the next day, and when I arrived a telegram said: ‘Emma Stockton
found dead in her bed.’ It is awfully near, that thought. No, no. I will not stop
and think of death always.”
SOURCE: Mary Boykin Chesnut, Edited by Isabella D. Martin
and Myrta Lockett Avary, A Diary From Dixie, p. 271-2
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