General Hood's an
awful flatterer— I mean an awkward flatterer. I told him to praise my husband
to some one else, not to me. He ought to praise me to somebody who would tell
my husband, and then praise my husband to another person who would tell me. Man
and wife are too much one person — to wave a compliment straight in the face of
one about the other is not graceful.
One more year of
Stonewall would have saved us. Chickamauga is the only battle we have gained
since Stonewall died, and no results follow as usual. Stonewall was not so much
as killed by a Yankee: he was shot by his own men; that is hard. General Lee
can do no more than keep back Meade. “One of Meade's armies, you mean,” said I,
“for they have only to double on him when Lee whips one of them.”
General Edward Johnston
says he got Grant a place — esprit de
corps, you know. He could not bear to see an old army man driving a wagon;
that was when he found him out West, put out of the army for habitual
drunkenness. He is their right man, a bull-headed Suwarrow. He don't care a
snap if men fall like the leaves fall; he fights to win, that chap does. He is
not distracted by a thousand side issues; he does not see them. He is narrow
and sure — sees only in a straight line. Like Louis Napoleon, from a battle in
the gutter, he goes straight up. Yes, as with Lincoln, they have ceased to carp
at him as a rough clown, no gentleman, etc. You never hear now of Lincoln's
nasty fun; only of his wisdom. Doesn't take much soap and water to wash the
hands that the rod of empire sway. They talked of Lincoln’s drunkenness, too.
Now, since Vicksburg they have not a word to say against Grant's habits. He has
the disagreeable habit of not retreating before irresistible veterans. General
Lee and Albert Sidney Johnston show blood and breeding. They are of the Bayard
and Philip Sidney order of soldiers. Listen: if General Lee had had Grant's
resources, he would have bagged the last Yankee, or have had them all safe back
in Massachusetts. “You mean if he had not the weight of the negro question upon
him?” “No, I mean if he had Grant's unlimited allowance of the powers of war —
men, money, ammunition, arms.”
Mrs. Ould says Mrs.
Lincoln found the gardener of the White House so nice, she would make him a
major-general. Lincoln remarked to the secretary: “Well, the little woman must
have her way sometimes.”
A word of the last
night of the old year. “Gloria Mundi” sent me a cup of strong, good coffee. I
drank two cups and so I did not sleep a wink. Like a fool I passed my whole
life in review, and bitter memories maddened me quite. Then came a happy
thought. I mapped out a story of the war. The plot came to hand, for it was
true. Johnny is the hero, a light dragoon and heavy swell. I will call it F.
F.'s, for it is the F. F.'s both of South Carolina and Virginia. It is to be a
war story, and the filling out of the skeleton was the best way to put myself
to sleep.
SOURCE: Mary Boykin Chesnut, Edited by Isabella D. Martin
and Myrta Lockett Avary, A Diary From Dixie, p. 269-70
