Saw General Preston ride off. He came to tell me good-by. I
told him he looked like a Crusader on his great white horse, with William, his
squire, at his heels. Our men are all consummate riders, and have their
servants well mounted behind them, carrying cloaks and traps — how different
from the same men packed like sardines in dirty railroad cars, usually floating
inch deep in liquid tobacco juice.
For the kitchen and Ellen's comfort I wanted a pine table
and a kitchen chair. A woman sold me one to-day for three thousand Confederate
dollars.
Mrs. Hamilton has been disappointed again. Prioleau Hamilton
says the person into whose house they expected to move to-day came to say she
could not take boarders for three reasons: First, “that they had smallpox in
the house.” “And the two others?” “Oh, I did not ask for the two others!”
SOURCES: Mary Boykin Chesnut, Edited by Isabella D. Martin
and Myrta Lockett Avary, A Diary From Dixie, p. 375-6
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