Diary of Congressman Rutherford B. Hayes: December 17, 1865

Corwin still living; wonderful tenacity of life. Macaulay, speaking of Sydney Smith, said to Mrs. Stowe: "Truly, wit, like charity, covers a multitude of sins. A man who has the faculty of raising a laugh in this sad, earnest world is remembered with indulgence and complacency always."

SOURCE: Charles Richard Williams, editor, Diary and Letters of Rutherford Birchard Hayes, Volume 3, p. 12

Thomas Wentworth Higginson to Louisa Storrow Higginson, July 10, 1859

July 10, 1859

Dearest Mother:

Emerson says, “To-day is a king in disguise”; and it is sometimes odd to think that these men and women of the "Atlantic Monthly," mere mortals to me, will one day be regarded as demi-gods, perhaps, and that it would seem as strange to another generation for me to have sat at the same table with Longfellow or Emerson, as it now seems that men should have sat at table with Wordsworth or with Milton. So I may as well tell you all about my inducting little Harriet Prescott into that high company.

She met me at twelve in Boston at Ticknor's and we spent a few hours seeing pictures and the aquarial gardens; the most prominent of the pictures being a sort of luncheon before our dinner; viz., Holmes and Longfellow in half length and very admirable, by Buchanan Read (I don't think any previous king in disguise ever had his portrait so well painted as this one, at any rate); also, by the same, a delicious painting of three Longfellow children — girls with their mother's eyes and Mary Greenleaf's coloring, at least three different modifications of it. . . .

In the course of these divertisements we stopped at Phillips's and Sampson's, where we encountered dear, dark, slender, simple, sensitive Whittier, trying to decide whether to "drink delight of battle with his peers" at the dinner-table, or slide shyly back to Amesbury in the next train. To introduce him to Harriet was like bringing a girl and a gazelle acquainted; each visibly wished to run away from the other; to Whittier a woman is a woman, and he was as bashful before the small authoress as if she were the greatest. Cheery John Wyman was persuading him to stay to dinner, and on my introducing him to my companion turned the battery of his good-nature upon her, pronouncing her story the most popular which had appeared in the magazine — “Oh, sir,” she whispered to me afterwards, “he spoke to me about my story — do you suppose anybody else will? I hope not.”

Duly at three we appeared at the Revere House. You are to understand that this was a special festival — prior to Mrs. Stowe's trip to Europe — and the admission of ladies was a new thing. Harriet was whirled away into some unknown dressing-room, and I found in another parlor Holmes, Lowell, Longfellow, Whipple, Edmund Quincy, Professor Stowe, Stillman the artist, Whittier (after all), Woodman, John Wyman, and Underwood. When dinner was confidentially announced, I saw a desire among the founders of the feast to do the thing handsomely toward the fair guests, and found, to my great amusement, that Mrs. Stowe and Harriet Prescott were the only ones! Nothing would have tempted my little damsel into such a position, I knew; but now she was in for it; to be handed in to dinner by the Autocrat himself, while Lowell took Mrs. Stowe I Miss Terry was at Saratoga and Mrs. Julia Howe suddenly detained; so these were alone. But how to get them downstairs — send up a servant or go ourselves? — that is, were they in a bedroom or a parlor; an obsequious attendant suddenly suggested the latter, so Lowell and I went up. In a small but superb room the authoress of “Uncle Tom” stood smoothing her ample plumage, while the junior lady hovered timidly behind. . . . Mrs. Stowe was quietly dressed in a Quakerish silk, but with a peculiar sort of artificial grape-leaf garland round her head which I could not examine more minutely; she looked very well, but I thought Harriet looked better; she had smoothed down her brown .curls, the only pretty thing about her, except a ladylike little figure, robed in the plainest imaginable black silk. . . .

Down we went: Dr. Holmes met us in the entry; each bowed lower than the other, and we all marched in together. Underwood had wished to place Edmund Quincy by Harriet, at his request, she being on Dr. Holmes's right — the Autocrat's right, think of the ordeal for a humble maiden at her first dinner party! but I told him the only chance for her to breathe was to place me there, which he did. On Dr. Holmes's left was Whittier, next, Professor Stowe, opposite me, while Mrs. S. was on Lowell's right at the other end.

By this lady's special stipulation the dinner was teetotal, which compulsory virtue caused some wry faces among the gentlemen, not used to such abstinence at “Atlantic” dinners; it was amusing to see how they nipped at the water and among the ban mots privately circulated thereupon, the best was Longfellow's proposition that Miss Prescott should send down into her Cellar for some wine, since Mrs. Stowe would not allow any abovestairs! This joke was broached early and carefully prevented from reaching the ears of either of its subjects, but I thought it capital, for you remember her racy description of wine, of which she knows about as much as she does of French novels, which I find most people suppose her to have lived upon — she having once perused “Consuelo”!

Little Dr. Holmes came down upon her instantly with her laurels. “I suppose you meet your story wherever you go,” said he, “like Madam d'Arblay" (and indeed the whole thing reminded me of her first introductions into literary society). . . . I seized the first opportunity to ask whether she and Mrs. Stowe had any conversation upstairs. “Yes,” said she meekly; “Mrs. Stowe asked me what time it was and I told her I didn't know.” There's intellectual intercourse for a young beginner! . . .

When the wife of Andrew Jackson Davis, the seer, was once asked if her husband, who was then staying at Fitzhenry Homer's, was not embarrassed by being in society superior to that in which he was trained, she replied indignantly that her husband, who was constantly in the society of the highest angels, was not likely to be overcome by Mrs. Fitzhenry Homer. And when I reflected on the entertainments which were described in “In a Cellar,” I felt no fear of Harriet's committing any solecism in manners at an “Atlantic” dinner, which she certainly did not, though a little frightened, occasionally, I could see, at the obsequiousness of the waiters and the absurd multiplicity of courses. . . .

I don't care so very much for " Atlantic " dinners — Professor Felton says they are more brilliant than London ones, but I think that Mary and I get up quite as good ones in Worcester — but Dr. Holmes is always effervescent and funny, and John Wyman is the best story-teller the world ever saw, and indeed everybody contributed something. The best thing Holmes said was in discoursing on his favorite theory of races and families. “Some families,” he said, “are constitutionally incapable of doing anything wrong; they try it as boys, but they relapse into virtue; as individuals, they attempt to do wrong, but the race is too strong for them and they end in pulpits. Look at the Wares, for instance; I don't believe that the Wares fell in Adam!”

SOURCE: Mary Potter Thacher Higginson, Editor, Letters and Journals of Thomas Wentworth Higginson, 1846-1906, p. 106-10

Lieutenant-Colonel William T. Lusk to Elizabeth Adams Lusk, August 17, 1863

Headquarters Del. Dept.,

Wilmington, Del., Aug. 17th, 1863.

My dear Mother:

The month is rapidly passing away, and I am awaiting impatiently the time of my release. Meanwhile I do not mean to pine, but am trying to enjoy myself the best way possible. For instance, Saturday evening, took tea with the Bishop. Yesterday, dined with the Chief Justice. Now we are making arrangements to get up a steamboat excursion to Fort Delaware — a little private party of our own to return some of the civilities that have been paid us. We (Ned and I) mean to have all the pretty girls. Mrs. LaMotte, a charming lady, is to play matron, and I think will have a tolerably good time. So you see, as I said before, we don't pine, still I shall be glad when I shall be at liberty to return home. Have just finished reading Mrs. Fanny Kemble's book on plantation life. By George! I never heard anything to compare with her descriptions. They make one's blood run cold. Though told with great simplicity and evident truth, compared with them Mrs. Stowe's book is a mild dish of horrors. In this State of Delaware I believe there is a larger proportion of extreme Abolitionists than in Massachusetts. People are tired of being ruled by the lottery and slave interests which heretofore have locked hands together. Gen. Tyler is an unconditional man. When one protests his loyalty, the Gen. always asks him if his loyalty is great enough to acquiesce in the emancipation proclamation, and according to the answer, "Yes" or "No," he is judged. Uncle Tom I fear, wouldn't stand much chance here. I had a few lines from Alfred Goddard a day or two ago. He seems to be well pleased with his position on Gen. Harland's Staff. The letter you enclosed to me from Harry Heffron, had all the latest news from the 79th. They have suffered much in following up Johnston in Mississippi from want of water, Johnston leaving in every well either a dead horse or a mule. Agreeable! They are now however on their way to Kentucky and rejoicing. McDonald is on Gen. Parke's Staff. I believe my handwriting grows daily more unformed. How I have degenerated from the example Grandfather Adams set us. However, I have to write fast and sacrifice beauty to utility.

Best love.

Affec'y.,

Will.

SOURCE: William Chittenden Lusk, Editor, War Letters of William Thompson Lusk, p. 292-4

Thomas Wentworth Higginson, after March 20, 1852*

Will nobody stop these Beechers? Here is Mrs. Stowe getting into trouble again. The "Christian Watchman " has his eye on her. Jesus of Nazareth was a dangerous innovator in his day, but what is he to Mrs. Stowe? He only sat at meat with publicans and sinners, but she is actually announced to write a novel in the same “Atlantic Monthly” which [endorses] . . . a man who says, "If we do our duty manfully in this world, we need give ourselves no great anxiety about our fate in the next one!”

_______________

* “Uncle Tom’s Cabin was first published in book form on March 20, 1852.

SOURCE: Mary Potter Thacher Higginson, Editor, Letters and Journals of Thomas Wentworth Higginson, 1846-1906, p. 54

3rd Sergeant Charles Wright Wills: October 10, 1861

Bird's Point, October 10, 1861.

I have just finished a dinner of cider, cake, bread, butter, etc. We have just been paid off and of course have to indulge in a few delicacies for awhile. Last Tuesday we were ordered to strike tents and pack for a march. It wasn't much of a march though for we were put on the cars and rolled out to Charleston, 12 miles from here, where we camped on a beautiful little prairie adjoining town. The 11th Illinois, Taylor's artillery and two companies of cavalry and our regiment formed the party. I think we were out looking after that damned Jeff Thompson, who is reported everywhere from Ironton down to New Madrid. I don't believe he has a thousand men, for there seems to be nothing reliable about any of the reports we have of him. The natives up at Charleston told us that Jeff was at Sykestown, 12 miles from there, with 5,000 or 6,000 troops, and our pickets had several little fights with his, or what we supposed to be his, but — well, the generals may know better but we that stay in the ranks think that there is no enemy nearer than Columbus save a few small bands of bushwhackers, who, under the impression that they are upholding principles eternal and doing their country service, gobble up everything sweet or sour, that weighs less than a ton. We came down from Charleston Thursday. We marched about 10 miles of the way through an immense (it seemed so to me) cypress swamp. I think Mrs. Stowes’ “Dred” would have enjoyed that swamp hugely. It was rather an interesting piece of scenery for a first view, but I don't think I should enjoy living in sight of it. The 18th, Colonel Lawler, worked six or eight weeks in this swamp repairing bridges the secesh had burnt, and it put half their men on the sick list. We got our pay in treasury notes but they are as good as the gold. Lots of the boys have traded them off for gold “even up.” I get $21 this time for two months and five days, our other boys got $14 or $15. I am third sergeant now, our second having been appointed sergeant major. I think I should rather be sergeant, for the field officers make a kind of servant of the sergeant major. I send you a couple of daguerreotypes to let you see what a “skeleton” I have become. Our boys are all very well. The 17th is in a pretty hard condition, nearly half of them sick and as a regiment pretty badly used up. We have been paid twice and they only $10 yet.

SOURCE: Charles Wright Wills, Army Life of an Illinois Soldier, p. 35-6

A Woman's Diary Of The Siege Of Vicksburg: January 7, 1863

I have had little to record here recently, for we have lived to ourselves, not visiting or visited. Every one H–– knows is absent, and I know no one but the family we staid with at first, and they are now absent. H–– tells me of the added triumph since the repulse of Sherman in December, and the one paper published here, shouts victory as much as its gradually diminishing size will allow. Paper is a serious want. There is a great demand for envelopes in the office where H–– is. He found and bought a lot of thick and smooth colored paper, cut a tin pattern, and we have whiled away some long evenings cutting envelopes and making them up. I have put away a package of the best to look at when we are old. The books I brought from Arkansas have proved a treasure, but we can get no more. I went to the only book-store open; there were none but Mrs. Stowe's “Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands.” The clerk said I could have that cheap, because he couldn't sell her books, so I got it and am reading it now. The monotony has only been broken by letters from friends here and there in the Confederacy. One of these letters tells of a Federal raid to their place, and says, “But the worst thing was, they would take every tooth-brush in the house, because we can't buy any more; and one cavalryman put my sister's new bonnet on his horse, and said ‘Get up, Jack,’ and her bonnet was gone.”

 

SOURCE: George W. Cable, “A Woman's Diary Of The Siege Of Vicksburg”, The Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine, Vol. XXX, No. 5, September 1885, p. 767

Diary of Mary Boykin Chesnut: September 2, 1864

The battle has been raging at Atlanta,¹ and our fate hanging in the balance. Atlanta, indeed, is gone. Well, that agony is over. Like David, when the child was dead, I will get up from my knees, will wash my face and comb my hair. No hope; we will try to have no fear.

At the Prestons' I found them drawn up in line of battle every moment looking for the Doctor on his way to Richmond. Now, to drown thought, for our day is done, read Dumas's Maîtres d'Armes. Russia ought to sympathize with us. We are not as barbarous as this, even if Mrs. Stowe's word be taken. Brutal men with unlimited power are the same all over the world. See Russell's India — Bull Run Russell's. They say General Morgan has been killed. We are hard as stones; we sit unmoved and hear any bad news chance may bring. Are we stupefied?

_______________

¹ After the battle, Atlanta was taken possession of and partly burned by the Federals.

SOURCE: Mary Boykin Chesnut, Edited by Isabella D. Martin and Myrta Lockett Avary, A Diary From Dixie, p. 326

Diary of Mary Boykin Chesnut: June 14, 1862

All things are against us. Memphis gone. Mississippi fleet annihilated, and we hear it all as stolidly apathetic as if it were a story of the English war against China which happened a year or so ago.

The sons of Mrs. John Julius Pringle have come. They were left at school in the North. A young Huger is with them. They seem to have had adventures enough. Walked, waded, rowed in boats, if boats they could find; swam rivers when boats there were none; brave lads are they. One can but admire their pluck and energy. Mrs. Fisher, of Philadelphia, nee Middleton, gave them money to make the attempt to get home.

Stuart's cavalry have rushed through McClellan's lines and burned five of his transports. Jackson has been reenforced by 16,000 men, and they hope the enemy will be drawn from around Richmond, and the valley be the seat of war.

John Chesnut is in Whiting's brigade, which has been sent to Stonewall. Mem's son is with the Boykin Rangers; Company A, No. 1, we call it. And she has persistently wept ever since she heard the news. It is no child's play, she says, when you are with Stonewall. He doesn't play at soldiering. He doesn't take care of his men at all. He only goes to kill the Yankees.

Wade Hampton is here, shot in the foot, but he knows no more about France than he does of the man in the moon. Wet blanket he is just how. Johnston badly wounded. Lee is King of Spades. They are all once more digging for dear life. Unless we can reenforce Stonewall, the game is up. Our chiefs contrive to dampen and destroy the enthusiasm of all who go near them. So much entrenching and falling back destroys the morale of any army. This everlasting retreating, it kills the hearts of the men. Then we are scant of powder.

James Chesnut is awfully proud of Le Conte's powder manufactory here. Le Conte knows how to do it. James Chesnut provides him the means to carry out his plans.

Colonel Venable doesn't mince matters: “If we do not deal a blow, a blow that will be felt, it will be soon all up with us. The Southwest will be lost to us. We can not afford to shilly-shally much longer.”

Thousands are enlisting on the other side in New Orleans. Butler holds out inducements. To be sure, they are principally foreigners who want to escape starvation. Tennessee we may count on as gone, since we abandoned her at Corinth, Fort Pillow, and Memphis. A man must be sent there, or it is all gone now.

“You call a spade by that name, it seems, and not an agricultural implement?” “They call Mars Robert ‘Old Spade Lee.’ He keeps them digging so.” “General Lee is a noble Virginian. Respect something in this world. Caesar — call him Old Spade Caesar? As a soldier, he was as much above suspicion, as he required his wife to be, as Caesar's wife, you know. If I remember Caesar's Commentaries, he owns up to a lot of entrenching. You let Mars Robert alone. He knows what he is about.”

“Tell us of the women folk at New Orleans; how did they take the fall of the city?” “They are an excitable race,” the man from that city said. As my informant was standing on the levee a daintily dressed lady picked her way, parasol in hand, toward him. She accosted him with great politeness, and her face was as placid and unmoved as in antebellum days. Her first question was: “Will you be so kind as to tell me what is the last general order?” “No order that I know of, madam; General Disorder prevails now.” “Ah! I see; and why are those persons flying and yelling so noisily and racing in the streets in that unseemly way?” “They are looking for a shell to burst over their heads at any moment.” “Ah!” Then, with a courtesy of dignity and grace, she waved her parasol and departed, but stopped to arrange that parasol at a proper angle to protect her face from the sun. There was no vulgar haste in her movements. She tripped away as gracefully as she came. My informant had failed to discompose her by his fearful revelations. That was the one self-possessed soul then in New Orleans.

Another woman drew near, so overheated and out of breath, she had barely time to say she had run miles of squares in her crazy terror and bewilderment, when a sudden shower came up. In a second she was cool and calm. She forgot all the questions she came to ask. '”My bonnet, I must save it at any sacrifice,” she said, and so turned her dress over her head, and went off, forgetting her country's trouble and screaming for a cab.

Went to see Mrs. Burroughs at the old de Saussure house. She has such a sweet face, such soft, kind, beautiful, dark-gray eyes. Such eyes are a poem. No wonder she had a long love-story. We sat in the piazza at twelve o'clock of a June day, the glorious Southern sun shining its very hottest. But we were in a dense shade — magnolias in full bloom, ivy, vines of I know not what, and roses in profusion closed us in. It was a living wall of everything beautiful and sweet. In all this flower-garden of a Columbia, that is the most delicious corner I have been in yet.

Got from the Prestons' French library, Fanny, with a brilliant preface by Jules Janier. Now, then, I have come to the worst. There can be no worse book than Fanny. The lover is jealous of the husband. The woman is for the polyandry rule of life. She cheats both and refuses to break with either. But to criticize it one must be as shameless as the book itself. Of course, it is clever to the last degree, or it would be kicked into the gutter. It is not nastier or coarser than Mrs. Stowe, but then it is not written in the interests of philanthropy.

We had an unexpected dinner-party to-day. First, Wade Hampton came and his wife. Then Mr. and Mrs. Rose. I remember that the late Colonel Hampton once said to me, a thing I thought odd at the time, “Mrs. James Rose” (and I forget now who was the other) “are the only two people on this side of the water who know how to give a state dinner.” Mr. and Mrs. James Rose: if anybody wishes to describe old Carolina at its best, let them try their hands at painting these two people.

Wade Hampton still limps a little, but he is rapidly recovering. Here is what he said, and he has fought so well that he is listened to: “If we mean to play at war, as we play a game of chess, West Point tactics prevailing, we are sure to lose the game. They have every advantage. They can lose pawns ad infinitum, to the end of time and never feel it. We will be throwing away all that we had hoped so much from — Southern hot-headed dash, reckless gallantry, spirit of adventure, readiness to lead forlorn hopes.”

Mrs. Rose is Miss Sarah Parker's aunt. Somehow it came out when I was not in the room, but those girls tell me everything. It seems Miss Sarah said: “The reason I can not bear Mrs. Chesnut is that she laughs at everything and at everybody.” If she saw me now she would give me credit for some pretty hearty crying as well as laughing. It was a mortifying thing to hear about one's self, all the same.

General Preston came in and announced that Mr. Chesnut was in town. He had just seen Mr. Alfred Huger, who came up on the Charleston train with him. Then Mrs. McCord came and offered to take me back to Mrs. McMahan's to look him up. I found my room locked up. Lawrence said his master had gone to look for me at the Prestons'.

Mrs. McCord proposed we should further seek for my errant husband. At the door, we met Governor Pickens, who showed us telegrams from the President of the most important nature. The Governor added, “And I have one from Jeems Chesnut, but I hear he has followed it so closely, coming on its heels, as it were, that I need not show you that one.”

“You don't look interested at the sound of your husband's name?” said he. “Is that his name?” asked I. “I supposed it was James.” “My advice to you is to find him, for Mrs. Pickens says he was last seen in the company of two very handsome women, and now you may call him any name you please.”

We soon met. The two beautiful dames Governor Pickens threw in my teeth were some ladies from Rafton Creek, almost neighbors, who live near Camden.

By way of pleasant remark to Wade Hampton: “Oh, General! The next battle will give you a chance to be major-general.” “I was very foolish to give up my Legion,” he answered gloomily. “Promotion don't really annoy many people.” Mary Gibson says her father writes to them, that they may go back. He thinks now that the Confederates can hold Richmond. Gloria in excelsis!

Another personal defeat. Little Kate said: “Oh, Cousin Mary, why don't you cultivate heart? They say at Kirkwood that you had better let your brains alone a while and cultivate heart.” She had evidently caught up a phrase and repeated it again and again for my benefit. So that is the way they talk of me! The only good of loving any one with your whole heart is to give that person the power to hurt you.

SOURCE: Mary Boykin Chesnut, Edited by Isabella D. Martin and Myrta Lockett Avary, A Diary From Dixie, p. 186-91

Diary of Mary Boykin Chesnut: March 13, 1862

Mr. Chesnut fretting and fuming. From the poor old blind bishop downward everybody is besetting him to let off students, theological and other, from going into the army. One comfort is that the boys will go. Mr. Chesnut answers: “Wait until you have saved your country before you make preachers and scholars. When you have a country, there will be no lack of divines, students, scholars to adorn and purify it.” He says he is a one-idea man. That idea is to get every possible man into the ranks.

Professor Le Conte¹ is an able auxiliary. He has undertaken to supervise and carry on the powder-making enterprise — the very first attempted in the Confederacy, and Mr. Chesnut is proud of it. It is a brilliant success, thanks to Le Conte.

Mr. Chesnut receives anonymous letters urging him to arrest the Judge as seditious. They say he is a dangerous and disaffected person. His abuse of Jeff Davis and the Council is rabid. Mr. Chesnut laughs and throws the letters into the fire. “Disaffected to Jeff Davis,” says he; “disaffected to the Council, that don't count. He knows what he is about; he would not injure his country for the world.”

Read Uncle Tom's Cabin again. These negro women have a chance here that women have nowhere else. They can redeem themselves — the “impropers” can. They can marry decently, and nothing is remembered against these colored ladies. It is not a nice topic, but Mrs. Stowe revels in it. How delightfully Pharisaic a feeling it must be to rise superior and fancy we are so degraded as to defend and like to live with such degraded creatures around us — such men as Legree and his women.

The best way to take negroes to your heart is to get as far away from them as possible. As far as I can see, Southern women do all that missionaries could do to prevent and alleviate evils. The social evil has not been suppressed in old England or in New England, in London or in Boston. People in those places expect more virtue from a plantation African than they can insure in practise among themselves with all their own high moral surroundings — light, education, training, and support. Lady Mary Montagu says, “Only men and women at last.” “Male and female, created he them,” says the Bible. There are cruel, graceful, beautiful mothers of angelic Evas North as well as South, I dare say. The Northern men and women who came here were always hardest, for they expected an African to work and behave as a white man. We do not.

I have often thought from observation truly that perfect beauty hardens the heart, and as to grace, what so graceful as a cat, a tigress, or a panther. Much love, admiration, worship hardens an idol's heart. It becomes utterly callous and selfish. It expects to receive all and to give nothing. It even likes the excitement of seeing people suffer. I speak now of what I have watched with horror and amazement.

Topsys I have known, but none that were beaten or ill-used. Evas are mostly in the heaven of Mrs. Stowe's imagination. People can't love things dirty, ugly, and repulsive, simply because they ought to do so, but they can be good to them at a distance; that's easy. You see, I can not rise very high; I can only judge by what I see.

_______________

¹ Joseph Le Conte, who afterward arose to much distinction as a geologist and writer of text-books on geology. He died in 1901, while he was connected with the University of California. His work at Columbia was to manufacture, on a large scale, medicines for the Confederate Army, his laboratory being the main source of supply. In Professor Le Conte's autobiography published in 1903, are several chapters devoted to his life in the South.

SOURCE: Mary Boykin Chesnut, Edited by Isabella D. Martin and Myrta Lockett Avary, A Diary From Dixie, p. 141-3

Diary of Mary Boykin Chesnut: August 27, 1861

Theodore Barker and James Lowndes came; the latter has been wretchedly treated. A man said, “All that I wish on earth is to be at peace and on my own plantation,” to which Mr. Lowndes replied quietly, “I wish I had a plantation to be on, but just now I can't see how any one would feel justified in leaving the army.” Mr. Barker was bitter against the spirit of braggadocio so rampant among us. The gentleman who had been answered so completely by James Lowndes said, with spitefulness: “Those women who are so frantic for their husbands to join the army would like them killed, no doubt.”

Things were growing rather uncomfortable, but an interruption came in the shape of a card. An old classmate of Mr. Chesnut's — Captain Archer, just now fresh from California — followed his card so quickly that Mr. Chesnut had hardly time to tell us that in Princeton College they called him “Sally” Archer he was so pretty — when he entered. He is good-looking still, but the service and consequent rough life have destroyed all softness and girlishness. He will never be so pretty again.

The North is consolidated; they move as one man, with no States, but an army organized by the central power. Russell in the Northern camp is cursed of Yankees for that Bull Run letter. Russell, in his capacity of Englishman, despises both sides. He divides us equally into North and South. He prefers to attribute our victory at Bull Run to Yankee cowardice rather than to Southern courage. He gives no credit to either side; for good qualities, we are after all mere Americans! Everything not '' national '' is arrested. It looks like the business of Seward.

I do not know when I have seen a woman without knitting in her hand. Socks for the soldiers is the cry. One poor man said he hid dozens of socks and but one shirt. He preferred more shirts and fewer stockings. We make a quaint appearance with this twinkling of needles and the everlasting sock dangling below.

They have arrested Wm. B. Reed and Miss Winder, she boldly proclaiming herself a secessionist. Why should she seek a martyr's crown? Writing people love notoriety. It is so delightful to be of enough consequence to be arrested. I have often wondered if such incense was ever offered as Napoleon's so-called persecution and alleged jealousy of Madame de Stael.

Russell once more, to whom London, Paris, and India have been an every-day sight, and every-night, too, streets and all. How absurd for him to go on in indignation because there have been women on negro plantations who were not vestal virgins. Negro women get married, and after marriage behave as well as other people. Marrying is the amusement of their lives. They take life easily; so do their class everywhere. Bad men are hated here as elsewhere.

“I hate slavery. I hate a man who — You say there are no more fallen women on a plantation than in London in proportion to numbers. But what do you say to this — to a magnate who runs a hideous black harem, with its consequences, under the same roof with his lovely white wife and his beautiful and accomplished daughters? He holds his head high and poses as the model of all human virtues to these poor women whom God and the laws have given him. From the height of his awful majesty he scolds and thunders at them as if he never did wrong in his life. Fancy such a man finding his daughter reading Don Juan. ‘You with that immoral book!’ he would say, and then he would order her out of his sight. You see Mrs. Stowe did not hit the sorest spot. She makes Legree a bachelor.” “Remember George II and his likes.”

“Oh, I know half a Legree — a man said to be as cruel as Legree, but the other half of him did not correspond. He was a man of polished manners, and the best husband and father and member of the church in the world.” “Can that be so?”

“Yes, I know it. Exceptional case, that sort of thing, always. And I knew the dissolute half of Legree well. He was high and mighty, but the kindest creature to his slaves. And the unfortunate results of his bad ways were not sold, had not to jump over ice-blocks. They were kept in full view, and provided for handsomely in his will.”

“The wife and daughters in the might of their purity and innocence are supposed never to dream of what is as plain before their eyes as the sunlight, and they play their parts of unsuspecting angels to the letter. They profess to adore the father as the model of all saintly goodness.” “Well, yes; if he is rich he is the fountain from whence all blessings flow.”

“The one I have in my eye — my half of Legree, the dissolute half — was so furious in temper and thundered his wrath so at the poor women, they were glad to let him do as he pleased in peace if they could only escape his everlasting fault-finding, and noisy bluster, making everybody so uncomfortable.” “Now — now, do you know any woman of this generation who would stand that sort of thing? No, never, not for one moment. The make-believe angels were of the last century. We know, and we won't have it.”

"The condition of women is improving, it seems." "Women are brought up not to judge their fathers or their husbands. They take them as the Lord provides and are thankful."

“If they should not go to heaven after all; think what lives most women lead.” “No heaven, no purgatory, no — the other thing? Never. I believe in future rewards and punishments.”

“How about the wives of drunkards? I heard a woman say once to a friend of her husband, tell it as a cruel matter of fact, without bitterness, without comment, ‘Oh, you have not seen him! He has changed. He has not gone to bed sober in thirty years.’ She has had her purgatory, if not ‘the other thing,’ here in this world. We all know what a drunken man is. To think, for no crime, a person may be condemned to live with one thirty years.” “You wander from the question I asked. Are Southern men worse because of the slave system and the facile black women?” “Not a bit. They see too much of them. The barroom people don't drink, the confectionery people loathe candy. They are sick of the black sight of them.”

“You think a nice man from the South is the nicest thing in the world?” “I know it. Put him by any other man and see!”

Have seen Yankee letters taken at Manassas. The spelling is often atrocious, and we thought they had all gone through a course of blue-covered Noah Webster spellingbooks. Our soldiers do spell astonishingly. There is Horace Greeley: they say he can't read his own handwriting. But he is candid enough and disregards all time-serving. He says in his paper that in our army the North has a hard nut to crack, and that the rank and file of our army is superior in education and general intelligence to theirs.

My wildest imagination will not picture Mr. Mason¹ as a diplomat. He will say chaw for chew, and he will call himself Jeems, and he will wear a dress coat to breakfast. Over here, whatever a Mason does is right in his own eyes. He is above law. Somebody asked him how he pronounced his wife's maiden name: she was a Miss Chew from Philadelphia.

They say the English will like Mr. Mason; he is so manly, so straightforward, so truthful and bold. “A fine old English gentleman,” so said Russell to me, “but for tobacco.” “I like Mr. Mason and Mr. Hunter better than anybody else.” “And yet they are wonderfully unlike.” “Now you just listen to me,” said I. “Is Mrs. Davis in hearing — no? Well, this sending Mr. Mason to London is the maddest thing yet. Worse in some points of view than Yancey, and that was a catastrophe.”

_______________

¹ James Murray Mason was a grandson of George Mason, and had been elected United States Senator from Virginia in 1847. In 1851 he drafted the Fugitive Slave Law. His mission to England in 1861 was shared by John Slidell. On November 8, 1861, while on board the British steamer Trent, in the Bahamas, they were captured by an American named Wilkes, and imprisoned in Boston until January 2, 1862. A famous diplomatic difficulty arose with England over this affair. John Slidell was a native of New York, who had settled in Louisiana and became a Member of Congress from that State in 1843. In 1853 he was elected to the United States Senate.

SOURCE: Mary Boykin Chesnut, Edited by Isabella D. Martin and Myrta Lockett Avary, A Diary From Dixie, p. 112-7

From the South

A letter appears in the Richmond Enquirer from a gentleman just arrived there from Europe, apparently one of the numerous secession emissaries, which contains some interesting statements.  Although evidently desiring to put the best appearance on the prospects of the confederacy, he frankly acknowledges the defeat of its expectations of foreign aid thus far.  He says:

“When I left Richmond in June last there was a very general expectation that the manufacturing necessities of England and France would force them to a speedy recognition and interference with the federal blockade.  There was, too, an equally confident impression that the commercial enterprise of England would spring at once to the enjoyment of the high prices the blockade established by sending forward cargoes of arms, munitions, medicines and other stores most needed in the confederacy.  The first thing I learned after my arrival was the great error of these expectations. – Immediately on getting to London I endeavored to start some shipments to the confederate states that had been suggested by certain parties from whom I carried messages, but soon I found it up hill work.  When I told of hundred per cent profits, they said ‘ten per cent without risk, or even five, and we are your men but no range of profits however high, will tempt us to risk uncertainties.”  Those who came back some months ago know what untiring efforts we made for this purpose, but I am sorry to say without the success we confidently anticipated.  This matter however, shows signs of continual improvement, and I hope the channels of trade will soon be opened.  The fallacy of popular expectations in reference to speedy recognition and interference with the blockade was even more strongly apparent, and should in my opinion, be taken into account in simple justice to the confederate commissioners in Europe.  The difficulties in the way of a speedy interference on the part of England and France, I consider among other things to have been – First – The fact that both of those governments are eminently conservative, which, coupled with the fact of both possessing important colonial possessions made them naturally cautious in encouraging innovations on the existing status of nations, and of encouraging a disposition to revolution that might be turned against them in some day of future trials of their own.  Second – A prevalent impression among nearly all classes that the differences between the South and North would be speedily settled, either by a peaceful division of the Union or a peaceful reconstruction.  Third – A very general fear among those particularly friendly to the South that she would be over run and conquered, in which case they said we should find a difficulty on our hands from interference, which would be anything but advantageous or agreeable.  Fourth – The influence of the old national party of England, especially to encourage within her own borders an independence in the monopoly of manufacturing stables.  Fifth – And the last, in this hurried letter is the abolition element of England and her people.  It is not to be distinguished that abolitionism at the outset of the war was the prevailing sentiment of the British nation.  This sentiment, planted by the labors of Wilberforce and Clarkson, and of late years by the active fanaticism of many of her most powerful writers, preachers and politicians, stimulated by the artful and insinuating fictions of writers of the Harriet Beecher Stowe order, and total ignorance of the mitigating features which have made America the greatest possible boon to the African, had grown not only the general, but the active and determined sentiment of the people.  It is true that many of the strongest abolitionists have been pitching into the Lincoln government, but it was from anything but a friendly motive to the South and constituted an influence from which nothing advantageous to her cause could be expected.

– Published in The Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, February 8, 1862, p. 2