Diary of Mary Boykin Chesnut: December 14, 1864

And now the young ones are in bed and I am wide awake. It is an odd thing; in all my life how many persons have I seen in love? Not a half-dozen. And I am a tolerably close observer, a faithful watcher have I been from my youth upward of men and manners. Society has been for me only an enlarged field for character study.

Flirtation is the business of society; that is, playing at love-making. It begins in vanity, it ends in vanity. It is spurred on by idleness and a want of any other excitement. Flattery, battledore and shuttlecock, how in this game flattery is dashed backward and forward. It is so soothing to self-conceit. If it begins and ends in vanity, vexation of spirit supervenes sometimes. They do occasionally burn their fingers awfully, playing with fire, but there are no hearts broken. Each party in a flirtation has secured a sympathetic listener, to whom he or she can talk of himself or herself—somebody who, for the time, admires one exclusively, and, as the French say, excessivement. It is a pleasant, but very foolish game, and so to bed.

Hood and Thomas have had a fearful fight, with carnage and loss of generals excessive in proportion to numbers. That means they were leading and urging their men up to the enemy. I know how Bartow and Barnard Bee were killed bringing up their men. One of Mr. Chesnut's sins thrown in his teeth by the Legislature of South Carolina was that he procured the promotion of Gist, “State Rights” Gist, by his influence in Richmond. What have these comfortable, stay-at-home patriots to say of General Gist now? “And how could man die better than facing fearful odds,” etc.

So Fort McAlister has fallen! Good-by, Savannah! Our Governor announces himself a follower of Joe Brown, of Georgia. Another famous Joe.

SOURCES: Mary Boykin Chesnut, Edited by Isabella D. Martin and Myrta Lockett Avary, A Diary From Dixie, p. 338-9

Charlotte Cross Wigfall to Louise Wigfall, July 21, 1861

RICHMOND, July 21st.

No news except that Gen. Johnston has joined Beauregard with a large force. A part of his troops are left still at Winchester, but the greater part are with him. The President went down to-day, but I don't know exactly in what capacity, whether he will command or not.  . . . The troops are pouring in, and a general battle at Manassas is expected very soon. We brought up by one train, upwards of 50 prisoners brought from Winchester, and crowds gathered on the way, at every roadside station, to see “the Yankees.” I was almost sorry for them.

9 o'clock. You will have heard that we have gained a second victory, and a “glorious though a dear bought one,” Mr. Davis telegraphs, at Manassas. Only some of the deaths are known as yet; Lieut. Colonel Johnson of the Hampton Legion and poor Col. Bartow they say are killed; Wade Hampton slightly wounded. All Beauregard's staff are safe. Poor Mrs. Bartow is here, but does not yet know the sad tidings. The enemy they say were in full retreat. All is excitement here and the people seem almost wild.

SOURCE: Louise Wigfall Wright, A Southern Girl in ’61, p. 73

Diary of John Beauchamp Jones: July 25, 1861

Bartow's body has arrived, and lies in state at the Capitol. Among the chief mourners was his young friend Barton, who loved him as a son loves his father. From Lamar I learned some interesting particulars of the battle. He said when Bartow's horse was killed, he, Lamar, was sent to another part of the field for another, and also to order up certain regiments, Bartow then being in command of a brigade. Lamar galloped through a hot cross-fire to the regiments and delivered the order, but got no horse. He galloped back, however, through the terrible fire, with the intention of giving his own horse to Bartow, if none other could be had. On his return he encountered Col. Jones, of the 4th Alabama, wounded, his arms being around the necks of two friends, who were endeavoring to support him in a standing attitude. One of these called to Lamar, and asked for his horse, hoping that Col. Jones might be able to ride (his thigh-bone was terribly shattered), and thus get off the field. Lamar paused, and promised as soon as he could report to Bartow he would return with that or another horse. Col. Jones thanked him kindly, but cautioned him against any neglect of Bartow's orders, saying he probably could not ride. Lamar promised to return immediately; and putting spurs to his noble steed, started off in a gallop. He had not gone fifty yards before his horse fell, throwing him over his head. He saw that the noble animal had been pierced by as many as eight balls, from a single volley. He paused a moment and turned away, when the poor horse endeavored to rise and follow, but could not. He returned and patted the groaning and tearful steed on his neck; and, while doing this, five more balls struck him, and he died instantly. Lamar then proceeded on foot through a storm of bullets, and, untouched, rejoined Bartow in time to witness his fall.

Our prisons are filled with Yankees, and Brig.-Gen. Winder has employment. There is a great pressure for passports to visit the battle-field. At my suggestion, all physicians taking amputating instruments, and relatives of the wounded and slain, have been permitted by the Secretary to go thither.

SOURCE: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 1, p. 66-7

Diary of John Beauchamp Jones: July 24, 1861

Yesterday we received a letter from Col. Bartow, written just before the battle (in which he fell, his letter being received after the announcement of his death), urging the appointment of his gallant young friend Lamar to a lieutenancy. I noted these facts on the back of his letter, with the Secretary's approbation, and also that the request had been granted, and placed the letter, perhaps the last he ever wrote, in the archives for preservation.

SOURCE: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 1, p. 66

Diary of Mary Boykin Chesnut: Tuesday, July 23, 1861

Witnessed for the first time a military funeral. As that march came wailing up, they say Mrs. Bartow fainted. The empty saddle and the led war-horse — we saw and heard it all, and now it seems we are never out of the sound of the Dead March in Saul. It comes and it comes, until I feel inclined to close my ears and scream.

Yesterday, Mrs. Singleton and ourselves sat on a bedside and mingled our tears for those noble spirits — John Darby, Theodore Barker, and James Lowndes. To-day we find we wasted our grief; they are not so much as wounded. I dare say all the rest is true about them — in the face of the enemy, with flags in their hands, leading their men. “But Dr. Darby is a surgeon.” He is as likely to forget that as I am. He is grandson of Colonel Thomson of the Revolution, called, by way of pet name, by his soldiers, “Old Danger.'” Thank Heaven they are all quite alive. And we will not cry next time until officially notified.

SOURCE: Mary Boykin Chesnut, Edited by Isabella D. Martin and Myrta Lockett Avary, A Diary From Dixie, p. 88

Diary of Mary Boykin Chesnut: July 22, 1861

Mrs. Davis came in so softly that I did not know she was here until she leaned over me and said: “A great battle has been fought.¹ Joe Johnston led the right wing, and Beauregard the left wing of the army. Your husband is all right. Wade Hampton is wounded. Colonel Johnston of the Legion killed; so are Colonel Bee and Colonel Bartow. Kirby Smith² is wounded or killed."

I had no breath to speak; she went on in that desperate, calm way, to which people betake themselves under the greatest excitement: “Bartow, rallying his men, leading them into the hottest of the fight, died gallantly at the head of his regiment. The President telegraphs me only that ‘it is a great victory.’ General Cooper has all the other telegrams.”

Still I said nothing; I was stunned; then I was so grateful. Those nearest and dearest to me were safe still. She then began, in the same concentrated voice, to read from a paper she held in her hand: “Dead and dying cover the field. Sherman's battery taken. Lynchburg regiment cut to pieces. Three hundred of the Legion wounded.”

That got me up. Times were too wild with excitement to stay in bed. We went into Mrs. Preston's room, and she made me lie down on her bed. Men, women, and children streamed in. Every living soul had a story to tell. “Complete victory,” you heard everywhere. We had been such anxious wretches. The revulsion of feeling was almost too much to bear.

To-day I met my friend, Mr. Hunter. I was on my way to Mrs. Bartow's room and begged him to call at some other time. I was too tearful just then for a morning visit from even the most sympathetic person. A woman from Mrs. Bartow's country was in a fury because they had stopped her as she rushed to be the first to tell Mrs. Bartow her husband was killed, it having been decided that Mrs. Davis should tell her. Poor thing! She was found lying on her bed when Mrs. Davis knocked. “Come in,” she said. When she saw it was Mrs. Davis, she sat up, ready to spring to her feet, but then there was something in Mrs. Davis's pale face that took the life out of her. She stared at Mrs. Davis, then sank back, and covered her face as she asked: “Is it bad news for me?” Mrs. Davis did not speak. “Is he killed?” Afterward Mrs. Bartow said to me: “As soon as I saw Mrs. Davis's face I could not say one word. I knew it all in an instant. I knew it before I wrapped the shawl about my head.”

Maria, Mrs. Preston's maid, furiously patriotic, came into my room. “These colored people say it is printed in the papers here that the Virginia people done it all. Now Mars Wade had so many of his men killed and he wounded, it stands to reason that South Carolina was no ways backward. If there was ever anything plain, that's plain.”

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¹ The first battle of Bull Run, or Manassas, fought on July 21, 1861, the Confederates being commanded by General Beauregard, and the Federals by General McDowell. Bull Run is a small stream tributary to the Potomac.

² Edmund Kirby Smith, a native of Florida, who had graduated from West Point, served in the Mexican War, and been Professor of Mathematics at West Point. He resigned his commission in the United States Army after the secession of Florida.

SOURCE: Mary Boykin Chesnut, Edited by Isabella D. Martin and Myrta Lockett Avary, A Diary From Dixie, p. 86-8