Diary of Mary Boykin Chesnut: May 2, 1865

CAMDEN, S. C. – Since we left Chester nothing but solitude, nothing but tall blackened chimneys, to show that any man has ever trod this road before. This is Sherman's track. It is hard not to curse him. I wept incessantly at first. The roses of the gardens are already hiding the ruins. My husband said Nature is a wonderful renovator. He tried to say something I else and then I shut my eyes and made a vow that if we were a crushed people, crushed by weight, I would never be a whimpering, pining slave.

We heard loud explosions of gunpowder in the direction of Camden. Destroyers were at it there. Met William Walker, whom Mr. Preston left in charge of a car-load of his valuables. General Preston was hardly out of sight before poor helpless William had to stand by and see the car plundered. “My dear Missis! they have cleaned me out, nothing left,” moaned William the faithful. We have nine armed couriers with us. Can they protect us?

Bade adieu to the staff at Chester. No general ever had so remarkable a staff, so accomplished, so agreeable, so well bred, and, I must say, so handsome, and can add so brave and efficient.

SOURCES: Mary Boykin Chesnut, Edited by Isabella D. Martin and Myrta Lockett Avary, A Diary From Dixie, p. 384

Diary of Mary Boykin Chesnut: March 13, 1865

My husband at last did come for a visit of two hours. Brought Lawrence, who had been to Camden, and was there, indeed, during the raid. My husband has been ordered to Chester, S. C. We are surprised to see by the papers that we behaved heroically in leaving everything we had to be destroyed, without one thought of surrender. We had not thought of ourselves from the heroic point of view. Isaac McLaughlin hid and saved everything we trusted him with. A grateful negro is Isaac.

SOURCES: Mary Boykin Chesnut, Edited by Isabella D. Martin and Myrta Lockett Avary, A Diary From Dixie, p. 364

Brigadier-General James Chesnut Jr., to Mary Boykin Chesnut, February 28, 1865

Camp Near Charlotte, February 28.

I thank you a thousand, thousand times for your kind letters. They are now my only earthly comfort, except the hope that all is not yet lost. We have been driven like a wild herd from our country. And it is not from a want of spirit in the people or soldiers, nor from want of energy and competency in our commanders. The restoration of Joe Johnston, it is hoped, will redound to the advantage of our cause and the reestablishment of our fortunes! I am still in not very agreeable circumstances. For the last four days completely water-bound.

I am informed that a detachment of Yankees were sent from Liberty Hill to Camden with a view to destroying all the houses, mills, and provisions about that place. No particulars have reached me. You know I expected the worst that could be done, and am fully prepared for any report which may be made.

It would be a happiness beyond expression to see you even for an hour. I have heard nothing from my poor old father. I fear I shall never see him again. Such is the fate of war. I do not complain. I have deliberately chosen my lot, and am prepared for any fate that awaits me. My care is for you, and I trust still in the good cause of my country and the justice and mercy of God.

SOURCES: Mary Boykin Chesnut, Edited by Isabella D. Martin and Myrta Lockett Avary, A Diary From Dixie, p. 355-6

Diary of Mary Boykin Chesnut: December 27, 1864

Oh, why did we go to Camden? The very dismalest Christmas overtook us there. Miss Rhett went with us — a brilliant woman and very agreeable. '”The world, you know, is composed,” said she, “of men, women, and Rhetts” (see Lady Montagu). Now, we feel that if we are to lose our negroes, we would as soon see Sherman free them as the Confederate Government; freeing negroes is the last Confederate Government craze. We are a little too slow about it; that is all.

Sold fifteen bales of cotton and took a sad farewell look at Mulberry. It is a magnificent old country-seat, with old oaks, green lawns and all. So I took that last farewell of Mulberry, once so hated, now so beloved.

SOURCES: Mary Boykin Chesnut, Edited by Isabella D. Martin and Myrta Lockett Avary, A Diary From Dixie, p. 340

Diary of Mary Boykin Chesnut: October 18, 1864

Ten pleasant days I owe to my sister. Kate has descended upon me unexpectedly from the mountains of Flat Rock. We are true sisters; she understands me without words, and she is the cleverest, sweetest woman I know, so graceful and gracious in manner, so good and unselfish in character, but, best of all, she is so agreeable. Any time or place would be charming with Kate for a companion. General Chesnut was in Camden; but I could not wait. I gave the beautiful bride, Mrs. Darby, a dinner, which was simply perfection. I was satisfied for once in my life with my own table, and I know pleasanter guests were never seated around any table whatsoever.

My house is always crowded. After all, what a number of pleasant people we have been thrown in with by war's catastrophes. I call such society glorious. It is the windup, but the old life as it begins to die will die royally. General Chesnut came back disheartened. He complains that such a life as I lead gives him no time to think.

SOURCES: Mary Boykin Chesnut, Edited by Isabella D. Martin and Myrta Lockett Avary, A Diary From Dixie, p. 329-30

Diary of Mary Boykin Chesnut: July 4, 1861

Russell abuses us in his letters. People here care a great deal for what Russell says, because he represents the London Times, and the Times reflects the sentiment of the English people. How we do cling to the idea of an alliance with England or France! Without France even Washington could not have done it.

We drove to the camp to see the President present a flag to a Maryland regiment. Having lived on the battlefield (Kirkwood), near Camden,¹ we have an immense respect for the Maryland line. When our militia in that fight ran away, Colonel Howard and the Marylanders held their own against Rawdon, Cornwallis, and the rest, and everywhere around are places named for a doughty captain killed in our defense — Kirkwood, De Kalb, etc. The last, however, was a Prussian count. A letter from my husband, written June 22d, has just reached me. He says:

"We are very strongly posted, entrenched, and have now at our command about 15,000 of the best troops in the world. We have besides, two batteries of artillery, a regiment of cavalry, and daily expect a battalion of flying artillery from Richmond. We have sent forward seven regiments of infantry and rifles toward Alexandria. Our outposts have felt the enemy several times, and in every instance the enemy recoils. General Johnston has had several encounters — the advancing columns of the two armies — and with him, too, the enemy, although always superior in numbers, are invariably driven back.

"There is great deficiency in the matter of ammunition. General Johnston's command, in the very face of overwhelming numbers, have only thirty rounds each. If they had been well provided in this respect, they could and would have defeated Cadwallader and Paterson with great ease. I find the opinion prevails throughout the army that there is great imbecility and shameful neglect in the War Department.

"Unless the Republicans fall back, we must soon come together on both lines, and have a decided engagement. But the opinion prevails here that Lincoln's army will not meet us if they can avoid it. They have already fallen back before a slight check from 400 of Johnston's men. They had 700 and were badly beaten. You have no idea how dirty and irksome the camp life is. You would hardly know your best friend in camp guise.''

Noise of drums, tramp of marching regiments all day long; rattling of artillery wagons, bands of music, friends from every quarter coming in. We ought to be miserable and anxious, and yet these are pleasant days. Perhaps we are unnaturally exhilarated and excited.

Heard some people in the drawing-room say: “Mrs. Davis's ladies are not young, are not pretty,” and I am one of them. The truthfulness of the remark did not tend to alleviate its bitterness. We must put Maggie Howell and Mary Hammy in the foreground, as youth and beauty are in request. At least they are young things — bright spots in a somber-tinted picture. The President does not forbid our going, but he is very much averse to it. We are consequently frightened by our own audacity, but we are wilful women, and so we go.

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¹ At Camden in August, 1780, was fought a battle between General Gates and Lord Cornwallis. in which Gates was defeated. In April of the following year near Camden, Lord Rawdon defeated General Greene.

SOURCE: Mary Boykin Chesnut, Edited by Isabella D. Martin and Myrta Lockett Avary, A Diary From Dixie, p. 74-6

Diary of Mary Boykin Chesnut: June 6, 1861

Davin! Have had a talk concerning him to-day with two opposite extremes of people.

Mrs. Chesnut, my mother-in-law, praises everybody, good and bad. “Judge not,” she says. She is a philosopher; she would not give herself the pain to find fault. The Judge abuses everybody, and he does it so well — short, sharp, and incisive are his sentences, and he revels in condemning the world en Hoc, as the French say. So nobody is the better for her good word, or the worse for his bad one.

In Camden I found myself in a flurry of women. “Traitors,” they cried. “Spies; they ought to be hanged; Davin is taken up, Dean and Davis are his accomplices.” “What has Davin done?” “He'll be hanged, never you mind.” “For what?” “They caught him walking on the trestle work in the swamp, after no good, you may be sure.” “They won't hang him for that!” “Hanging is too good for him!” “You wait till Colonel Chesnut comes.” “He is a lawyer,” I said, gravely. “Ladies, he will disappoint you. There will be no lynching if he goes to that meeting to-day. He will not move a step except by habeas corpus and trial by jury, and a quantity of bench and bar to speak long speeches.”

Mr. Chesnut did come, and gave a more definite account of poor Davin's precarious situation. They had intercepted treasonable letters of his at the Post Office. I believe it was not a very black treason after all. At any rate, Mr. Chesnut spoke for him with might and main at the meeting. It was composed (the meeting) of intelligent men with cool heads. And they banished Davin to Fort Sumter. The poor Music Master can't do much harm in the casemates there. He may thank his stars that Mr. Chesnut gave him a helping hand. In the red hot state our public mind now is in there will be a short shrift for spies. Judge Withers said that Mr. Chesnut never made a more telling speech in his life than he did to save this poor Frenchman for whom Judge Lynch was ready. I had never heard of Davin in my life until I heard he was to be hanged.

Judge Stephen A. Douglas, the “little giant,” is dead; one of those killed by the war, no doubt; trouble of mind.

Charleston people are thin-skinned. They shrink from Russell's touches. I find his criticisms mild. He has a light touch. I expected so much worse. Those Englishmen come, somebody says, with three P's — pen, paper, prejudices. I dread some of those after-dinner stories. As to that day in the harbor, he let us off easily. He says our men are so fine looking. Who denies it? Not one of us. Also that it is a silly impression which has gone abroad that men can not work in this climate. We live in the open air, and work like Trojans at all manly sports, riding hard, hunting, playing at being soldiers. These fine, manly specimens have been in the habit of leaving the coast when it became too hot there, and also of fighting a duel or two, if kept long sweltering under a Charleston sun. Handsome youths, whose size and muscle he admired so much as they prowled around the Mills House, would not relish hard work in the fields between May and December. Negroes stand a tropical or semitropical sun at noon-day better than white men. In fighting it is different. Men will not then mind sun, or rain, or wind. Major Emory,¹ when he was ordered West, placed his resignation in the hands of his Maryland brothers. After the Baltimore row the brothers sent it in, but Maryland declined to secede. Mrs. Emory, who at least is two-thirds of that copartnership, being old Franklin's granddaughter, and true to her blood, tried to get it back. The President refused point blank, though she went on her knees. That I do not believe. The Franklin race are stiff-necked and stiff-kneed; not much given to kneeling to God or man from all accounts.

If Major Emory comes to us won't he have a good time? Mrs. Davis adores Mrs. Emory. No wonder I fell in love with her myself. I heard of her before I saw her in this wise. Little Banks told me the story. She was dancing at a ball when some bad accident maker for the Evening News rushed up and informed her that Major Emory had been massacred by ten Indians somewhere out West. She coolly answered him that she had later intelligence; it was not so. Turning a deaf ear then, she went on dancing. Next night the same officious fool met her with this congratulation: “Oh, Mrs. Emory, it was all a hoax! The Major is alive.” She cried: “You are always running about with your bad news,” and turned her back on him; or, I think it was, “You delight in spiteful stories,” or, “You are a harbinger of evil.” Banks is a newspaper man and knows how to arrange an anecdote for effect.

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¹ William H. Emory had served in Charleston harbor during the Nullification troubles of 1831-1836. In 1846 he went to California, afterward served in the Mexican War, and later assisted in running the boundary line between Mexico and the United States under the Gadsden Treaty of 1853. In 1854 he was in Kansas and in 1858 in Utah. After resigning his commission, as related by the author, he was reappointed a Lieutenant-Colonel in the United States Army and took an active part in the war on the side of the North.

SOURCE: Mary Boykin Chesnut, Edited by Isabella D. Martin and Myrta Lockett Avary, A Diary From Dixie, p. 59-62