The enemy are landing at Georgetown. With a little more audacity
where could they not land? But we have given them such a scare, they are
cautious. If it be true, I hope some cool-headed white men will make the
negroes save the rice for us. It is so much needed. They say it might have been
done at Port Royal with a little more energy. South Carolinians have pluck
enough, but they only work by fits and starts; there is no continuous effort;
they can't be counted on for steady work. They will stop to play — or enjoy
life in some shape.
Without let or hindrance Halleck is being reenforced.
Beauregard, unmolested, was making some fine speeches — and issuing proclamations,
while we were fatuously looking for him to make a tiger's spring on Huntsville.
Why not? Hope springs eternal in the Southern breast.
My Hebrew friend, Mem Cohen, has a son in the war. He is in
John Chesnut's company. Cohen is a high name among the Jews: it means Aaron.
She has long fits of silence, and is absent-minded. If she is suddenly roused,
she is apt to say, with overflowing eyes and clasped hands, “If it please God
to spare his life.” Her daughter is the sweetest little thing. The son is the
mother's idol. Mrs. Cohen was Miriam de Leon. I have known her intimately all
my life.
Mrs. Bartow, the widow of Colonel Bartow, who was killed at
Manassas, was Miss Berrien, daughter of Judge Berrien, of Georgia. She is now
in one of the departments here, cutting bonds — Confederate bonds — for five
hundred Confederate dollars a year, a penniless woman. Judge Carroll, her
brother-in-law, has been urgent with her to come and live in his home. He has a
large family and she will not be an added burden to him. In spite of all he can
say, she will not forego her resolution. She will be independent. She is a
resolute little woman, with the softest, silkiest voice and ways, and clever to
the last point.
Columbia is the place for good living, pleasant people,
pleasant dinners, pleasant drives. I feel that I have put the dinners in the
wrong place. They are the climax of the good things here. This is the most
hospitable place in the world, and the dinners are worthy of it.
In Washington, there was an endless succession of state
dinners. I was kindly used. I do not remember ever being condemned to two dull
neighbors: on one side or the other was a clever man; so I liked Washington
dinners.
In Montgomery, there were a few dinners — Mrs. Pollard's,
for instance, but the society was not smoothed down or in shape. Such as it was
it was given over to balls and suppers. In Charleston, Mr. Chesnut went to
gentlemen's dinners all the time; no ladies present. Flowers were sent to me,
and I was taken to drive and asked to tea. There could not have been nicer
suppers, more perfect of their kind than were to be found at the winding up of
those festivities.
In Richmond, there were balls, which I did not attend — very
few to which I was asked: the MacFarlands' and Lyons's, all I can remember.
James Chesnut dined out nearly every day. But then the breakfasts — the
Virginia breakfasts — where were always pleasant people. Indeed, I have had a
good time everywhere — always clever people, and people I liked, and everybody
so good to me.
Here in Columbia, family dinners are the specialty. You
call, or they pick you up and drive home with you. “Oh, stay to dinner!” and
you stay gladly. They send for your husband, and he comes willingly. Then comes
a perfect dinner. You do not see how it could be improved; and yet they have
not had time to alter things or add because of the unexpected guests. They have
everything of the best — silver, glass, china, table linen, and damask, etc.
And then the planters live “within themselves,” as they call it. From the
plantations come mutton, beef, poultry, cream, butter, eggs, fruits, and
vegetables.
It is easy to live here, with a cook who has been sent for
training to the best eating-house in Charleston. Old Mrs. Chesnut's Romeo was
apprenticed at Jones's. I do not know where Mrs. Preston's got his degree, but
he deserves a medal.
At the Prestons', James Chesnut induced Buck to declaim
something about Joan of Arc, which she does in a manner to touch all hearts.
While she was speaking, my husband turned to a young gentleman who was
listening to the chatter of several girls, and said: "Ecoutez!" The
youth stared at him a moment in bewilderment; then, gravely rose and began
turning down the gas. Isabella said: “Écoutez, then, means put out the lights.”
I recall a scene which took place during a ball given by
Mrs. Preston while her husband was in Louisiana. Mrs. Preston was resplendent
in diamonds, point lace, and velvet. There is a gentle dignity about her which
is very attractive; her voice is low and sweet, and her will is iron. She is
exceedingly well informed, but very quiet, retiring, and reserved. Indeed, her
apparent gentleness almost amounts to timidity. She has chiseled regularity of
features, a majestic figure, perfectly molded.
Governor Manning said to me: “Look at Sister Caroline. Does
she look as if she had the pluck of a heroine?” Then he related how a little
while ago William, the butler, came to tell her that John, the footman, was
drunk in the cellar — mad with drink; that he had a carving-knife which he was
brandishing in drunken fury, and he was keeping everybody from their business,
threatening to kill any one who dared to go into the basement. They were like a
flock of frightened sheep down there. She did not speak to one of us, but
followed William down to the basement, holding up her skirts. She found the
servants scurrying everywhere, screaming and shouting that John was crazy and
going to kill them. John was bellowing like a bull of Bashan, knife in hand,
chasing them at his pleasure.
Mrs. Preston walked up to him. “Give me that knife,” she
demanded. He handed it to her. She laid it on the table. “Now come with me,”
she said, putting her hand on his collar. She led him away to the empty
smoke-house, and there she locked him in and put the key in her pocket. Then
she returned to her guests, without a ripple on her placid face. “She told me
of it, smiling and serene as you see her now,” the Governor concluded.
Before the war shut him in, General Preston sent to the
lakes for his salmon, to Mississippi for his venison, to the mountains for his
mutton and grouse. It is good enough, the best dish at all these houses, what
the Spanish call “the hearty welcome.” Thackeray says at every American table
he was first served with “grilled hostess.” At the head of the table sat a
person, fiery-faced, anxious, nervous, inwardly murmuring, like Falstaff, “Would
it were night, Hal, and all were well.”
At Mulberry the house is always filled to overflowing, and
one day is curiously like another. People are coming and going, carriages
driving up or driving off. It has the air of a watering-place, where one does
not pay, and where there are no strangers. At Christmas the china closet gives
up its treasures. The glass, china, silver, fine linen reserved for grand
occasions come forth. As for the dinner itself, it is only a matter of greater
quantity — more turkey, more mutton, more partridges, more fish, etc., and more
solemn stiffness. Usually a half-dozen persons unexpectedly dropping in make no
difference. The family let the housekeeper know; that is all.
People are beginning to come here from Richmond. One swallow
does not make a summer, but it shows how the wind blows, these straws do — Mrs.
“Constitution” Browne and Mrs. Wise. The Gibsons are at Doctor Gibbes's. It
does look squally. We are drifting on the breakers.
SOURCE: Mary Boykin Chesnut, Edited by Isabella D. Martin
and Myrta Lockett Avary, A Diary From Dixie, p. 165-9
