Diary of Mary Boykin Chesnut: June 28, 1862

Victory! Victory heads every telegram now;¹ one reads it on the bulletin-board. It is the anniversary of the battle of Fort Moultrie. The enemy went off so quickly, I wonder if it was not a trap laid for us, to lead us away from Richmond, to some place where they can manage to do us more harm. And now comes the list of killed and wounded. Victory does not seem to soothe sore hearts. Mrs. Haskell has five sons before the enemy's illimitable cannon. Mrs. Preston two. McClellan is routed and we have twelve thousand prisoners. Prisoners! My God! and what are we to do with them? We can't feed our own people.

For the first time since Joe Johnston was wounded at Seven Pines, we may breathe freely; we were so afraid of another general, or a new one. Stonewall can not be everywhere, though he comes near it.

Magruder did splendidly at Big Bethel. It was a wonderful thing how he played his ten thousand before McClellan like fireflies and utterly deluded him. It was partly due to the Manassas scare that we gave them; they will never be foolhardy again. Now we are throwing up our caps for R. E. Lee. We hope from the Lees what the first sprightly running (at Manassas) could not give. We do hope there will be no “ifs.” “Ifs” have ruined us. Shiloh was a victory if Albert Sidney Johnston had not been killed; Seven Pines if Joe Johnston had not been wounded. The “ifs” bristle like porcupines. That victory at Manassas did nothing but send us off in a fool's paradise of conceit, and it roused the manhood of the Northern people. For very shame they had to move up.

A French man-of-war lies at the wharf at Charleston to take off French subjects when the bombardment begins. William Mazyck writes that the enemy's gunboats are shelling and burning property up and down the Santee River. They raise the white flag and the negroes rush down on them. Planters might as well have let these negroes be taken by the Council to work on the fortifications.

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¹ The first battle of the Chickahominy, fought on June 27, 1862. It is better known as the battle of Gaines's Mill, or Cold Harbor. It was participated in by a part of Lee's army and a part of McClellan's, and its scene was about eight miles from Richmond.

SOURCE: Mary Boykin Chesnut, Edited by Isabella D. Martin and Myrta Lockett Avary, A Diary From Dixie, p. 195-7

Diary of John Beauchamp Jones: June 11, 1861

It is coming in earnest! The supposed thunder, heard down the river yesterday, turns out to have been artillery. A fight has occurred at Bethel, and blood — Yankee blood — has flowed pretty freely. Magruder was assailed by some five thousand Yankees at Bethel, on the Peninsula. His force was about nine hundred; but he was behind intrenchments. We lost but one man killed and five wounded. The enemy's loss is several hundred. That road to Richmond is a hard one to travel! But I learn there is a panic about Williamsburg. Several young men from that vicinity have shouldered their pens and are applying for clerkships in the departments. But most of the men of proper age in the literary institutions are volunteering in defense of their native land.

SOURCE: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 1, p. 51

George William Curtis to John J. Pinkerton, July 9, 1861

North Shore, Richmond Co., N. Y.,

July 9, '61.

My Dear Pinkerton, — I have been long meaning to say how d’ ye do, and now your note is most welcome. No, I stayed at home, resisting several very tempting calls, nor shall I be lured to any college halls this year.

I have two brothers at the war, and my wife has one. My neighbor and friend, Theodore Winthrop, died, at Great Bethel, as he had lived. Many other warm friends are in arms, and I hold myself ready when the call comes. I envy no other age. I believe with all my heart in the cause, and in Abe Lincoln. His message is the most truly American message ever delivered. Think upon what a millennial year we have fallen when the President of the United States declares officially that this government is founded upon the rights of man! Wonderfully acute, simple, sagacious, and of antique honesty! I can forgive the jokes and the big hands, and the inability to make bows. Some of us who doubted were wrong. This people is not rotten. What the young men dream, the old men shall see. Well, I will not discuss Seward just now. I do not believe him to be a coward or traitor. Chase said to a friend's friend of mine last week, “Mr. Seward stands by my strongest measures.”

I should like greatly to sit with you and the P. M. and the D. A., and talk the night away, even if the newspaper did find us out and tattle! But I can only shake your hand and theirs, which I do with all my heart.

My wife sends her kind remembrance. We have a little girl, born on the day of the Proclamation.

Yours always,

George William Curtis.

SOURCE: Edward Cary, George William Curtis, p. 147-8

By Telegraph

(Reported expressly for the Gazette.)

From Island No. 10.

The Rebels concentrating Corinth, Miss.

BIG BETHEL OCCUPIED.

SANTA FE TAKEN BY THE REBELS.

– Published in The Davenport Daily Gazette, Davenport, Iowa, Saturday Morning, March 29, 1862, p. 2