Diary of Mary Boykin Chesnut: March 15, 1864

Old Mrs. Chesnut is dead. A saint is gone and James Chesnut is broken-hearted. He adored his mother. I gave $375 for my mourning, which consists of a black alpaca dress and a crape veil. With bonnet, gloves, and all it came to $500. Before the blockade such things as I have would not have been thought fit for a chamber-maid.

Everybody is in trouble. Mrs. Davis says paper money has depreciated so much in value that they can not live within their income; so they are going to dispense with their carriage and horses.

SOURCE: Mary Boykin Chesnut, Edited by Isabella D. Martin and Myrta Lockett Avary, A Diary From Dixie, p. 299-300

Diary of Mary Boykin Chesnut: March 12, 1864

An active campaign has begun everywhere. Kilpatrick still threatens us. Bragg has organized his fifteen hundred of cavalry to protect Richmond. Why can't my husband be made colonel of that? It is a new regiment. No; he must be made a general!

“Now,” says Mary Preston, “Doctor Darby is at the mercy of both Yankees and the rolling sea, and I am anxious enough; but, instead of taking my bed and worrying mamma, I am taking stock of our worldly goods and trying to arrange the wedding paraphernalia for two girls.”

There is love-making and love-making in this world. What a time the sweethearts of that wretch, young Shakespeare, must have had. What experiences of life's delights must have been his before he evolved the Romeo and Juliet business from his own internal consciousness; also that delicious Beatrice and Rosalind. The poor creature that he left his second best bedstead to came in second best all the time, no doubt; and she hardly deserved more. Fancy people wondering that Shakespeare and his kind leave no progeny like themselves! Shakespeare's children would have been half his only; the other half only the second best bedstead's. What would you expect of that commingling of materials? Goethe used his lady-loves as school-books are used: he studied them from cover to cover, got all that could be got of self-culture and knowledge of human nature from the study of them, and then threw them aside as if of no further account in his life.

Byron never could forget Lord Byron, poet and peer, and mauvais sujet, and he must have been a trying lover; like talking to a man looking in the glass at himself. Lady Byron was just as much taken up with herself. So, they struck each other, and bounded apart.

[Since I wrote this, Mrs. Stowe has taken Byron in hand. But I know a story which might have annoyed my lord more than her and Lady Byron's imagination of wickedness — for he posed a fiend, but was tender and kind. A clerk in a country store asked my sister to lend him a book, he “wanted something to read; the days were so long.” “What style of book would you prefer?” she said. “Poetry.” “Any particular poet?” “Brown. I hear him much spoken of.” “Browningr?” “No; Brown — short — that is what they call him.” “Byron, you mean.” “No, I mean the poet, Brown.”]

“Oh, you wish you had lived in the time of the Shakespeare creature!” He knew all the forms and phases of true love. Straight to one's heart he goes in tragedy or comedy. He never misses fire. He has been there, in slang phrase. No doubt the man's bare presence gave pleasure to the female world; he saw women at their best, and he effaced himself. He told no tales of his own life. Compare with him old, sad, solemn, sublime, sneering, snarling, fault finding Milton, a man whose family doubtless found “les absences délicieuses.” That phrase describes a type of man at a touch; it took a Frenchwoman to do it.

“But there is an Italian picture of Milton, taken in his youth, and he was as beautiful as an angel.” “No doubt. But love flies before everlasting posing and preaching — the deadly requirement of a man always to be looked up to — a domestic tyrant, grim, formal, and awfully learned. Milton was only a mere man, for he could not do without women. When he tired out the first poor thing, who did not fall down, worship, and obey him, and see God in him, and she ran away, he immediately arranged his creed so that he could take another wife; for wife he must have, a la Mohammedan creed. The deer-stealer never once thought of justifying theft simply because he loved venison and could not come by it lawfully. Shakespeare was a better man, or, may I say, a purer soul, than self-upholding, Calvinistic, Puritanic, king-killing Milton. There is no muddling of right and wrong in Shakespeare, and no Pharisaical stuff of any sort.'”

Then George Deas joined us, fresh from Mobile, where he left peace and plenty. He went to sixteen weddings and twenty-seven tea-parties. For breakfast he had everything nice. Lily told of what she had seen the day before at the Spottswood. She was in the small parlor, waiting for someone, and in the large drawing-room sat Hood, solitary, sad, with crutches by his chair. He could not see them. Mrs. Buckner came in and her little girl who, when she spied Hood, bounded into the next room, and sprang into his lap. Hood smoothed her little dress down and held her close to him. She clung around his neck for a while, and then, seizing him by the beard, kissed him to an illimitable extent. “Prettiest picture I ever saw,” said Lily. “The soldier and the child.”

John R. Thompson sent me a New York Herald only three days old. It is down on Kilpatrick for his miserable failure before Richmond. Also it acknowledges a defeat before Charleston and a victory for us in Florida.

General Grant is charmed with Sherman's successful movements; says he has destroyed millions upon millions of our property in Mississippi. I hope that may not be true, and that Sherman may fail as Kilpatrick did. Now, if we still had Stonewall or Albert Sidney Johnston where Joe Johnston and Polk are, I would not give a fig for Sherman's chances. The Yankees say that at last they have scared up a man who succeeds, and they expect him to remedy all that has gone wrong. So they have made their brutal Suwarrow, Grant, lieutenant-general.

Doctor at the Prestons' proposed to show me a man who was not an F. F. V. Until we came here, we had never heard of our social position. We do not know how to be rude to people who call. To talk of social position seems vulgar. Down our way, that sort of thing was settled one way or another beyond a peradventure, like the earth and the sky. We never gave it a thought. We talked to whom we pleased, and if they were not comme il faut, we were ever so much more polite to the poor things. No reflection on Virginia. Everybody comes to Richmond.

Somebody counted fourteen generals in church to-day, and suggested that less piety and more drilling of commands would suit the times better. There were Lee, Longstreet, Morgan, Hoke, Clingman, Whiting, Pegram, Elzey, Gordon, and Bragg. Now, since Dahlgren failed to carry out his orders, the Yankees disown them, disavowing all. He was not sent here to murder us all, to hang the President, and burn the town. There is the note-book, however, at the Executive Office, with orders to hang and burn.

SOURCE: Mary Boykin Chesnut, Edited by Isabella D. Martin and Myrta Lockett Avary, A Diary From Dixie, p. 296-9

Mary Boykin Chesnut to Charlotte Cross Wigfall, late January 1863

My dear friend,

My heart is heavier to-day than it has been since this murderous war began. I daresay I have told you, over and over, as I always talk of what is uppermost, that my cronies in Columbia, my bosom friends, were Mrs. Preston, Mrs. McCord and Mrs. Izard. Captain Cheves McCord, only son of my friend, lies dead at a Mr. Meyers' only a few doors below us. I did not know he was here. Mr. Chesnut had a letter from him yesterday dated Fredericksburg. He was wounded at the Second Manassas, two balls in his leg, and one in his head. Contrary to the advice of his doctors, he had rejoined his company, and this is the end. He died in convulsions from a pressure on the brain. His mother is expected by every train — poor thing — I could not sleep for thinking of her. She seemed to have but one thought in this world — “My Son.” He is barely twenty-one—is married— his wife a beautiful girl—unfortunate and miserable and wretched is it all!

. . . I will try to see you as soon as possible, but I will not, as I had hoped, take the box with you. This unhappy boy, lying dead so near me, makes the thought of theatres hateful to me just now.  . . . I feel you are too true hearted a mother not to sympathize.

Your friend,

M. B. C.

SOURCE: Louise Wigfall Wright, A Southern Girl in ’61, p. 83-4

EDITOR’S NOTE: Captain Langdon Cheves McCord, son of David James McCord and Louisa Susannah Cheves, died January 23rd 1863.  This undated letter, citing the fact that Captain McCord “lies dead at a Mr. Meyers' only a few doors below us,” it is evident this letter was written shortly after his death and before his burial.

Diary of William Howard Russell: April 17, 1861

There was a large crowd around the pier staring at the men in uniform on the boat, which was filled with bales of goods, commissariat stores, trusses of hay, and hampers, supplies for the volunteer army on Morris' Island. I was amused by the names of the various corps, “Tigers,” “Lions,” “Scorpions,” “Palmetto Eagles,” “Guards,” of Pickens, Sumter, Marion, and of various other denominations, painted on the boxes. The original formation of these volunteers is in companies, and they know nothing of battalions or regiments. The tendency in volunteer outbursts is sometimes to gratify the greatest vanity of the greatest number. These companies do not muster more than fifty or sixty strong. Some were “dandies,” and “swells,” and affected to look down on their neighbors and comrades. Major Whiting told me there was difficulty in getting them to obey orders at first, as each man had an idea that he was as good an engineer as anybody else, “and a good deal better, if it came to that.” It was easy to perceive it was the old story of volunteer and regular in this little army.

As we got on deck, the Major saw a number of rough, longhaired-looking fellows in coarse gray tunics, with pewter buttons and worsted braid lying on the hay-bales smoking their cigars. “Gentlemen,” quoth he, very courteously, “you'll oblige me by not smoking over the hay. There's powder below.” “I don't believe we're going to burn the hay this time, kernel,” was the reply, “and anyway, we'll put it out afore it reaches the ’bustibles,” and they went on smoking. The Major grumbled, and worse, and drew off.

Among the passengers were some brethren of mine belonging to the New York and local papers. I saw a short time afterwards a description of the trip by one of these gentlemen, in which he described it as an affair got up specially for himself, probably in order to avenge himself on his military persecutors, for he had complained to me the evening before, that the chief of General Beauregard's staff told him to go to ----, when he applied at head-quarters for some information. I found from the tone and looks of my friends, that these literary gentlemen were received with great disfavor, and Major Whiting, who is a bibliomaniac, and has a very great liking for the best English writers, could not conceal his repugnance and antipathy to my unfortunate confreres. “If I had my way, I would fling them into the water; but the General has given them orders to come on board. It is these fellows who have brought all this trouble on our country.”

The traces of dislike of the freedom of the press, which I, to my astonishment, discovered in the North, are broader and deeper in the South, and they are not accompanied by the signs of dread of its power which exist in New York, where men speak of the chiefs of the most notorious journals very much as people in Italian cities of past time might have talked of the most infamous bravo or the chief of some band of assassins. Whiting comforted himself by the reflection that they would soon have their fingers in a vice, and then pulling out a ragged little sheet, turned suddenly on the representative thereof, and proceeded to give the most unqualified contradiction to most of the statements contained in “the full and accurate particulars of the Bombardment and Fall of Fort Sumter,” in the said journal, which the person in question listened to with becoming meekness and contrition. “If I knew who wrote it,” said the Major, “I'd make him eat it.”

I was presented to many judges, colonels, and others of the mass of society on board, and, “after compliments,” as the Orientals say, I was generally asked, in the first place, what I thought of the capture of Sumter, and in the second, what England would do when the news reached the other side. Already the Carolinians regard the Northern States as an alien and detested enemy, and entertain, or profess, an immense affection for Great Britain.

When we had shipped all our passengers, nine tenths of them in uniform, and a larger proportion engaged in chewing, the whistle blew, and the steamer sidled off from the quay into the yellowish muddy water of the Ashley River, which is a creek from the sea, with a streamlet running into the head waters some distance up.

The shore opposite Charleston is more than a mile distant and is low and sandy, covered here and there with patches of brilliant vegetation, and long lines of trees. It is cut up with creeks, which divide it into islands, so that passages out to sea exist between some of them for light craft, though the navigation is perplexed and difficult. The city lies on a spur or promontory between the Ashley and the Cooper rivers, and the land behind it is divided in the same manner by similar creeks, and is sandy and light, bearing, nevertheless, very fine crops, and trees of magnificent vegetation. The steeples, the domes of public buildings, the rows of massive warehouses and cotton stores on the wharves, and the bright colors of the houses, render the appearance of Charleston, as seen from the river front, rather imposing. From the mastheads of the few large vessels in harbor floated the Confederate flag. Looking to our right, the same standard was visible, waving on the low, white parapets of the earthworks which had been engaged in reducing Sumter.

That much-talked-of fortress lay some two miles ahead of us now, rising up out of the water near the middle of the passage out to sea between James' Island and Sullivan's Island. It struck me at first as being like one of the smaller forts off Cronstadt, but a closer inspection very much diminished its importance; the material is brick, not stone, and the size of the place is exaggerated by the low background, and by contrast with the sea-line. The land contracts on both sides opposite the fort, a projection of Morris' Island, called “Cumming's Point,” running out on the left. There is a similar promontory from Sullivan's Island, on which is erected Fort Moultrie, on the right from the sea entrance. Castle Pinckney, which stands on a small island at the exit of the Cooper River, is a place of no importance, and it was too far from Sumter to take any share in the bombardment: the same remarks apply to Fort Johnson on James' Island, on the right bank of the Ashley River below Charleston. The works which did the mischief were the batteries of sand on Morris' Island, at Cumming's Point, and Fort Moultrie. The floating battery, covered with railroad-iron, lay a long way off, and could not have contributed much to the result.

As we approached Morris' Island, which is an accumulation of sand covered with mounds of the same material, on which there is a scanty vegetation alternating with salt-water marshes, we could perceive a few tents in the distance among the sandhills. The sand-bag batteries, and an ugly black parpapet, with guns peering through port-holes as if from a ship's side, lay before us. Around them men were swarming like ants, and a crowd in uniform were gathered on the beach to receive us as we landed from the boat of the steamer, all eager for news and provisions and newspapers, of which an immense flight immediately fell upon them. A guard with bayonets crossed in a very odd sort of manner, prevented any unauthorized persons from landing. They wore the universal coarse gray jacket and trousers, with worsted braid and yellow facings, uncouth caps, lead buttons stamped with the palmetto-tree. Their unbronzed firelocks were covered with rust. The soldiers lounging about were mostly tall, well-grown men, young and old, some with the air of gentlemen; others coarse, longhaired fellows, without any semblance of military bearing, but full of fight, and burning with enthusiasm, not unaided, in some instances, by coarser stimulus.

The day was exceedingly warm and unpleasant, the hot wind blew the fine white sand into our faces, and wafted it in minute clouds inside eyelids, nostrils, and clothing; but it was necessary to visit the batteries, so on we trudged into one and out of another, walked up parapets, examined profiles, looked along guns, and did everything that could be required of us. The result of the examination was to establish in my mind the conviction, that if the commander of Sumter had been allowed to open his guns on the island, the first time he saw an indication of throwing up a battery against him, he could have saved his fort. Moultrie, in its original state, on the opposite side, could have been readily demolished by Sumter. The design of the works was better than their execution — the sand-bags were rotten, the sand not properly revetted or banked up, and the traverses imperfectly constructed. The barbette guns of the fort looked into many of the embrasures, and commanded them.

The whole of the island was full of life and excitement. Officers were galloping about as if on a field-day or in action. Commissariat carts were toiling to and fro between the beach and the camps, and sounds of laughter and revelling came from the tents. These were pitched without order, and were of all shapes, hues, and sizes, many being disfigured by rude charcoal drawings outside, and inscriptions such as “Live Tigers,” “Rattlesnake's-hole,” “Yankee Smashers,” &c. The vicinity of the camps was in an intolerable state, and on calling the attention of the medical officer who was with me, to the danger arising from such a condition of things, he said with a sigh, “I know it all. But we can do nothing. Remember they're all volunteers, and do just as they please.”

In every tent was hospitality, and a hearty welcome to all comers. Cases of champagne and claret, French pâtés, and the like, were piled outside the canvas walls, when there was no room for them inside. In the middle of these excited gatherings I felt like a man in the full possession of his senses coming in late to a wine party. “Won't you drink with me, sir, to the — (something awful) — of Lincoln and all Yankees?” “No! if you'll be good enough to excuse me.” “Well, I think you're the only Englishman who won't.” Our Carolinians are very fine fellows, but a little given to the Bobadil style — hectoring after a cavalier fashion, which they fondly believe to be theirs by hereditary right. They assume that the British crown rests on a cotton bale, as the Lord Chancellor sits on a pack of wool.

In one long tent there was a party of roystering young men, opening claret, and mixing “cup” in large buckets; whilst others were helping the servants to set out a table for a banquet to one of their generals. Such heat, tobacco-smoke, clamor, toasts, drinking, hand-shaking, vows of friendship! Many were the excuses made for the more demonstrative of the Edonian youths by their friends. “Tom is a little cut, sir; but he's a splendid fellow — he's worth half-a-million of dollars.” This reference to a money standard of value was not unusual or perhaps unnatural, but it was made repeatedly; and I was told wonderful tales of the riches of men who were lounging round, dressed as privates, some of whom at that season, in years gone by, were looked for at the watering places as the great lions of American fashion. But Secession is the fashion here. Young ladies sing for it; old ladies pray for it; young men are dying to fight for it; old men are ready to demonstrate it. The founder of the school was St. Calhoun. Here his pupils carry out their teaching in thunder and fire. States' Rights are displayed after its legitimate teaching, and the Palmetto flag and the red bars of the Confederacy are its exposition. The utter contempt and loathing for the venerated Stars and Stripes, the abhorrence of the very words United States, the intense hatred of the Yankee on the part of these people, cannot be conceived by any one who has not seen them. I am more satisfied than ever that the Union can never be restored as it was, and that it has gone to pieces, never to be put together again, in the old shape, at all events, by any power on earth.

After a long and tiresome promenade in the dust, heat, and fine sand, through the tents, our party returned to the beach, where we took boat, and pushed off for Fort Sumter. The Confederate flag rose above the walls. On near approach the marks of the shot against the pain coupé, and the embrasures near the salient were visible enough; but the damage done to the hard brickwork was trifling, except at the angles: the edges of the parapets were ragged and pock-marked, and the quay wall was rifted here and there by shot; but no injury of a kind to render the work untenable could be made out. The greatest damage inflicted was, no doubt, the burning of the barracks, which were culpably erected inside the fort, close to the flank wall facing Cumming's Point.

As the boat touched the quay of the fort, a tall, powerful-looking man came through the shattered gateway, and with uneven steps strode over the rubbish towards a skiff which was waiting to receive him, and into which he jumped and rowed off. Recognizing one of my companions as he passed our boat he suddenly stood up, and with a leap and a scramble tumbled in among us, to the imminent danger of upsetting the party. Our new friend was dressed in the blue frock-coat of a civilian, round which he had tied a red silk sash — his waistbelt supported a straight sword, something like those worn with Court dress. His muscular neck was surrounded with a loosely-fastened silk handkerchief; and wild masses of black hair, tinged with gray, fell from under a civilian's hat over his collar; his unstrapped trousers were gathered up high on his legs, displaying ample boots, garnished with formidable brass spurs. But his face was one not to be forgotten — a straight, broad brow, from which the hair rose up like the vegetation on a river bank, beetling black eyebrows — a mouth coarse and grim, yet full of power, a square jaw —a thick argumentative nose — a new growth of scrubby beard and mustache — these were relieved by eyes of wonderful depth and light, such as I never saw before but in the head of a wild beast. If you look some day when the sun is not too bright into the eye of the Bengal tiger, in the Regent's Park, as the keeper is coming round, you will form some notion of the expression I mean. It was flashing, fierce, yet calm — with a well of fire burning behind and spouting through it, an eye pitiless in anger, which now and then sought to conceal its expression beneath half-closed lids, and then burst out with an angry glare, as if disdaining concealment.

This was none other than Louis T. Wigfall, Colonel (then of his own creation) in the Confederate army, and Senator from Texas in the United States — a good type of the men whom the institutions of the country produce or throw off — a remarkable man, noted for his ready, natural eloquence; his exceeding ability as a quick, bitter debater; the acerbity of his taunts; and his readiness for personal encounter. To the last he stood in his place in the Senate at Washington, when nearly every other Southern man had seceded, lashing with a venomous and instant tongue, and covering with insults, ridicule, and abuse, such men as Mr. Chandler, of Michigan, and other Republicans: never missing a sitting of the House, and seeking out adversaries in the bar-rooms or at gambling tables. The other day, when the fire against Sumter was at its height, and the fort, in flames, was reduced almost to silence, a small boat put off from the shore, and steered through the shot and the splashing waters right for the walls. It bore the Colonel and a negro oarsman. Holding up a white handkerchief on the end of his sword, Wigfall landed on the quay, clambered through an embrasure, and presented himself before the astonished Federals with a proposal to surrender, quite unauthorized, and “on his own hook,” which led to the final capitulation of Major Anderson.

I am sorry to say, our distinguished friend had just been paying his respects sans bornes to Bacchus or Bourbon, for he was decidedly unsteady in his gait and thick in speech; but his head was quite clear, and he was determined 1 should know all about his exploit. Major Whiting desired to show me round the work, but he had no chance. “Here is where I got in,” quoth Colonel Wigfall. “I found a Yankee standing here by the traverse, out of the way of our shot. He was pretty well scared when he saw me, but I told him not to be alarmed, but to take me to the officers. There they were, huddled up in that corner behind the brickwork, for our shells were tumbling into the yard, and bursting like —” &c. (The Colonel used strong illustrations and strange expletives in narrative.) Major Whiting shook his military head, and said something uncivil to me, in private, in reference to volunteer colonels and the like, which gave him relief; whilst the martial Senator — I forgot to say that he has the name, particularly in the North, of having killed more than half a dozen men in duels — (I had an escape of being another) —conducted me through the casemates with uneven steps, stopping at every traverse to expatiate on some phase of his personal experiences, with his sword dangling between his legs, and spurs involved in rubbish and soldiers' blankets.

In my letter I described the real extent of the damage inflicted, and the state of the fort as I found it. At first the batteries thrown up by the Carolinians were so poor, that the United States officers in the fort were mightily amused at them, and anticipated easy work in enfilading, ricocheting, and battering them to pieces, if they ever dared to open fire. One morning, however, Capt. Foster, to whom really belongs the credit of putting Sumter into a tolerable condition of defence with the most limited means, was unpleasantly surprised by seeing through his glass a new work in the best possible situation for attacking the place, growing up under the strenuous labors of a band of negroes. “I knew at once,” he said, “the rascals had got an engineer at last.” In fact, the Carolinians were actually talking of an escalade when the officers of the regular army, who had “seceded,” came down and took the direction of affairs, which otherwise might have had very different results.

There was a working party of volunteers clearing away the rubbish in the place. It was evident they were not accustomed to labor. And on asking why negroes were not employed, I was informed: “The niggers would blow us all up, they're so stupid; and the State would have to pay the owners for any of them who were killed and injured.” “In one respect, then, white men are not so valuable as negroes?” “Yes, sir, — that's a fact.”

Very few shell craters were visible in the terreplein; the military mischief, such as it was, showed most conspicuously on the parapet platforms, over which shells had been burst as heavily as could be, to prevent the manning of the barbette guns. A very small affair, indeed, that shelling of Fort Sumter. And yet who can tell what may arise from it? “Well, sir,” exclaimed one of my companions, “I thank God for it, if it's only because we are beginning to have a history for Europe. The universal Yankee nation swallowed us up.”

Never did men plunge into unknown depth of peril and trouble more recklessly than these Carolinians. They fling themselves against the grim, black future, as the Cavaliers under Rupert may have rushed against the grim, black Ironsides. Will they carry the image farther? Well! The exploration of Sumter was finished at last, not till we had visited the officers of the garrison, who lived in a windowless, shattered room, reached by a crumbling staircase, and who produced whiskey and crackers, many pleasant stories and boundless welcome. One young fellow grumbled about pay. He said: “I have not received a cent since I came to Charleston for this business.” But Major Whiting, some days afterwards, told me he had not got a dollar on account of his pay, though on leaving the United States army he had abandoned nearly all his means of subsistence. These gentlemen were quite satisfied it would all be right eventually; and no one questioned the power or inclination of the Government, which had just been inaugurated under such strange auspices, to perpetuate its principles and reward its servants.

After a time our party went down to the boats, in which we were rowed to the steamer that lay waiting for us at Morris' Island. The original intention of the officers was to carry us over to Fort Moultrie, on the opposite side of the Channel, and to examine it and the floating iron battery; but it was too late to do so when we got off, and the steamer only ran across and swept around homewards by the other shore. Below, in the cabin, there was spread a lunch or quasi dinner; and the party of Senators, past and present, aides-de-camp, journalists, and flaneurs, were not indisposed to join it. For me there was only one circumstance which marred the pleasure of that agreeable reunion. Colonel and Senator Wigfall, who had not sobered himself by drinking deeply, in the plenitude of his exultation alluded to the assault on Senator Sumner as a type of the manner in which the Southerners would deal with the Northerners generally, and cited it as a good exemplification of the fashion in which they would bear their “whipping.” Thence, by a natural digression, he adverted to the inevitable consequences of the magnificent outburst of Southern indignation against the Yankees on all the nations of the world, and to the immediate action of England in the matter as soon as the news came. Suddenly reverting to Mr. Sumner, whose name he loaded with obloquy, he spoke of Lord Lyons in terms so coarse, that, forgetting the condition of the speaker, I resented the language applied to the English Minister, in a very unmistakable manner; and then rose and left the cabin. In a moment I was followed on deck by Senator Wigfall: his manner much calmer, his hair brushed back, his eye sparkling. There was nothing left to be desired in his apologies, which were repeated and energetic. We were joined by Mr. Manning, Major Whiting, and Senator Chestnut, and others, to whom I expressed my complete contentment with Mr. Wigfall's explanations. And so we returned to Charleston. The Colonel and Senator, however, did not desist from his attentions to the good — or bad — things below. It was a strange scene — these men, hot and red-handed in rebellion, with their lives on the cast, trifling and jesting, and carousing as if they had no care on earth — all excepting the gentlemen of the local press, who were assiduous in note and food-taking. It was near nightfall before we set foot on the quay of Charleston. The city was indicated by the blaze of lights, and by the continual roll of drums, and the noisy music, and the yelling cheers which rose above its streets. As I walked towards the hotel, the evening drove of negroes, male and female, shuffling through the streets in all haste, in order to escape the patrol and the last peal of the curfew bell, swept by me; and as I passed the guard-house of the police, one of my friends pointed out the armed sentries pacing up and down before the porch, and the gleam of arms in the room inside. Further on, a squad of mounted horsemen, heavily armed, turned up a bystreet, and with jingling spurs and sabres disappeared in the dust and darkness. That is the horse patrol. They scour the country around the city, and meet at certain places during the night to see if the niggers are all quiet. Ah, Fuscus! these are signs of trouble.

“Integer vitӕ, scelerisque purus

Non eget Mauri jaculis neque arcu,

Nec venenatis gravida, sagittis,

Fusce, pharetra”

But Fuscus is going to his club; a kindly, pleasant, chatty, card-playing, cocktail-consuming place. He nods proudly to an old white-woolled negro steward or head-waiter — a slave — as a proof which I cannot accept, with the curfew tolling in my ears, of the excellencies of the domestic institution. The club was filled with officers; one of them, Mr. Ransome Calhoun,* asked me what was the object which most struck me at Morris' Island; I tell him — as was indeed the case — that it was a letter-copying machine, a case of official stationery, and a box of Red Tape, lying on the beach, just landed and ready to grow with the strength of the young independence.

But listen! There is a great tumult, as of many voices coming up the street, heralded by blasts of music. It is a speech-making from the front of the hotel. Such an agitated, lively multitude! How they cheer the pale, frantic man, limber and dark-haired, with uplifted arms and clinched fists, who is perorating on the balcony! “What did he say?” “Who is he?” “Why it's he again!” “That's Roger Pryor — he says that if them Yankee trash don't listen to reason, and stand from under, we'll march to the North and dictate the terms of peace in Faneuil Hall! Yes, sir — and so we will certa-i-n su-re!” “No matter, for all that; we have shown we can whip the Yankees whenever we meet them — at Washington or down here.” How much I heard of all this to-day — how much more this evening! The hotel as noisy as ever — more men in uniform arriving every few minutes, and the hall and passages crowded with tall, good-looking Carolinians.

_______________

* Since killed in a duel by Mr. Rhett.

SOURCE: William Howard Russell, My Diary North and South, p. 101-11

Diary of Mary Boykin Chesnut: March 4, 1864

The enemy has been reenforced and is on us again. Met Wade Hampton, who told me my husband was to join him with some volunteer troops; so I hurried home. Such a cavalcade rode up to luncheon! Captain Smith Lee and Preston Hampton, the handsomest, the oldest and the youngest of the party. This was at the Prestons'. Smith Lee walked home with me; alarm-bells ringing; horsemen galloping; wagons rattling. Dr. H. stopped us to say “Beast” Butler was on us with sixteen thousand men. How scared the Doctor looked! And, after all, it was only a notice to the militia to turn out and drill.

SOURCE: Mary Boykin Chesnut, Edited by Isabella D. Martin and Myrta Lockett Avary, A Diary From Dixie, p. 294

Diary of Mary Boykin Chesnut: March 3, 1864

Betty, the handsome, and Constance, the witty, came; the former too prudish to read Lost and Saved, by Mrs. Norton, after she had heard the plot. Conny was making a bonnet for me. Just as she was leaving the house, her friendly labors over, my husband entered, and quickly ordered his horse. “It is so near dinner,” I began. “But I am going with the President. I am on duty. He goes to inspect the fortifications. The enemy, once more, are within a few miles of Richmond.” Then we prepared a luncheon for him. Constance Cary remained with me.

After she left I sat down to Romola, and I was absorbed in it. How hardened we grow to war and war's alarms! The enemy's cannon or our own are thundering in my ears, and I was dreadfully afraid some infatuated and frightened friend would come in to cheer, to comfort, and interrupt me. Am I the same poor soul who fell on her knees and prayed, and wept, and fainted, as the first gun boomed from Fort Sumter? Once more we have repulsed the enemy. But it is humiliating, indeed, that he can come and threaten us at our very gates whenever he so pleases. If a forlorn negro had not led them astray (and they hanged him for it) on Tuesday night, unmolested, they would have walked into Richmond. Surely there is horrid neglect or mismanagement somewhere.

SOURCE: Mary Boykin Chesnut, Edited by Isabella D. Martin and Myrta Lockett Avary, A Diary From Dixie, p. 293-4

Diary of Mary Boykin Chesnut: February 23, 1864

At the President's, where General Lee breakfasted, a man named Phelan told General Lee all he ought to do; planned a campaign for him. General Lee smiled blandly the while, though he did permit himself a mild sneer at the wise civilians in Congress who refrained from trying the battle-field in person, but from afar dictated the movements of armies. My husband said that, to his amazement, General Lee came into his room at the Executive Office to “pay his respects and have a talk.” “Dear me! Goodness gracious!” said I. “That was a compliment from the head of the army, the very first man in the world, we Confederates think.”

SOURCE: Mary Boykin Chesnut, Edited by Isabella D. Martin and Myrta Lockett Avary, A Diary From Dixie, p. 292

Diary of William Howard Russell: April 16, 1861

Early next morning [the 16th], soon after dawn, I crossed the Cape Fear River, on which Wilmington is situated, by a steam ferry-boat. On the quay lay quantities of shot and shell. “How came these here?” I inquired. “They're anti-abolition pills,” said my neighbor; “they've been waiting here for two months back, but now that Sumter's taken, I guess they won't be wanted.” To my mind, the conclusion was by no means legitimate. From the small glance I had of Wilmington, with its fleet of schooners and brigs crowding the broad and rapid river, I should think it was a thriving place. Confederate flags waved over the public buildings, and I was informed that the forts had been seized without opposition or difficulty. I can see no sign here of the “affection to the Union,” which, according to Mr. Seward, underlies all “secession proclivities.”

As we traversed the flat and uninteresting country, through which the rail passes, Confederate flags and sentiments greeted us everywhere; men and women repeated the national cry; at every station militia-men and volunteers were waiting for the train, and the everlasting word “Sumter” ran through all the conversation in the cars.

The Carolinians are capable of turning out a fair force of cavalry. At each stopping-place I observed saddle-horses tethered under the trees, and light driving vehicles, drawn by wiry muscular animals, not remarkable for size, but strong-looking and active. Some farmers in blue jackets, and yellow braid and facings, handed round their swords to be admired by the company. A few blades had flashed in obscure Mexican skirmishes — one, however, had been borne against “the Britishers.” I inquired of a fine, tall, fair-haired young fellow whom they expected to fight. “That's more than I can tell,” quoth he. “The Yankees ain't such cussed fools as to think they can come here and whip us, let alone the British.” “Why, what have the British got to do with it?” “They are bound to take our part: if they don't, we'll just give them a hint about cotton, and that will set matters right.” This was said very much with the air of a man who knows what he is talking about, and who was quite satisfied “he had you there.” I found it was still displeasing to most people, particularly one or two of the fair sex, that more Yankees were not killed at Sumter. All the people who addressed me prefixed my name, which they soon found out, by “Major” or “Colonel” — “Captain” is very low, almost indicative of contempt. The conductor who took our tickets was called “Captain.”

At the Pedee River the rail is carried over marsh and stream on trestle work for two miles. “This is the kind of country we'll catch the Yankees in, if they come to invade us. They'll have some pretty tall swimming, and get knocked on the head, if ever they gets to land. I wish there was ten thousand of the cusses in it this minute.” At Nichol's station on the frontiers of South Carolina, our baggage was regularly examined at the Custom House, but I did not see any one pay duties. As the train approached the level and marshy land near Charleston, the square block of Fort Sumter was seen rising above the water with the “stars and bars” flying over it, and the spectacle created great enthusiasm among the passengers. The smoke was still rising from an angle of the walls. Outside the village-like suburbs of the city a regiment was marching for old Virginny amid the cheers of the people — cavalry were picketed in the fields and gardens — tents and men were visible in the by-ways.

It was nearly dark when we reached the station. I was recommended to go to the Mills House, and on arriving there found Mr. Ward, whom I had already met in New York and Washington, and who gave me an account of the bombardment and surrender of the fort. The hotel was full of notabilities. I was introduced to ex-Governor Manning, Senator Chestnut, Hon. Porcher Miles, on the staff of General Beauregard, and to Colonel Lucas, aide-de-camp to Governor Pickens. I was taken after dinner and introduced to General Beauregard, who was engaged, late as it was, in his room at the Head-Quarters writing despatches. The General is a small, compact man, about thirty-six years of age, with a quick, and intelligent eye and action, and a good deal of the Frenchman in his manner and look. He received me in the most cordial manner, and introduced me to his engineer officer, Major Whiting, whom he assigned to lead me over the works next day.

After some general conversation I took my leave; but before I went, the General said, “You shall go everywhere and see everything; we rely on your discretion, and knowledge of what is fair in dealing with what you see. Of course you don't expect to find regular soldiers in our camps or very scientific works.” I answered the General, that he might rely on my making no improper use of what I saw in this country, but, “unless you tell me to the contrary, I shall write an account of all I see to the other side of the water, and if, when it comes back, there are things you would rather not have known, you must not blame me.” He smiled, and said, “I dare say we'll have great changes by that time.”

That night I sat in the Charleston Club with John Manning. Who that has ever met him can be indifferent to the charms of manner and of personal appearance, which render the ex-Governor of the State so attractive? There were others present, senators or congressmen, like Mr. Chestnut and Mr. Porcher Miles. We talked long, and at last angrily, as might be between friends, of political affairs.

I own it was a little irritating to me to hear men indulge in extravagant broad menace and rodomontade, such as came from their lips. “They would welcome the world in arms with hospitable hands to bloody graves.” “They never could be conquered.” “Creation could not do it,” and so on. I was obliged to handle the question quietly at first — to ask them “if they admitted the French were a brave and warlike people!” “Yes, certainly.” “Do you think you could better defend yourselves against invasion than the people of France?” “Well, no; but we'd make it pretty hard business for the Yankees.” “Suppose the Yankees, as you call them, come with such preponderance of men and materiel, that they are three to your one, will you not be forced to submit?” “Never.” “Then either you are braver, better disciplined, more warlike than the people and soldiers of France, or you alone, of all the nations in the world, possess the means of resisting physical laws which prevail in war, as in other affairs of life.” “No. The Yankees are cowardly rascals. We have proved it by kicking and cuffing them till we are tired of it; besides, we know John Bull very well. He will make a great fuss about non-interference at first, but when he begins to want cotton he'll come off his perch.” I found this was the fixed idea everywhere. The doctrine of “cotton is king,” — to us who have not much considered the question a grievous delusion or an unmeaning babble — to them is a lively all-powerful faith without distracting heresies or schisms. They have in it enunciated their full belief, and indeed there is some truth in it, in so far as we year after year by the stimulants of coal, capital, and machinery have been working up a manufacture on which four or five millions of our population depend for bread and life, which cannot be carried on without the assistance of a nation, that may at any time refuse us an adequate supply, or be cut off from giving it by war.

Political economy, we are well aware, is a fine science, but its followers are capable of tremendous absurdities in practice. The dependence of such a large proportion of the English people on this sole article of American cotton is fraught with the utmost danger to our honor and to our prosperity. Here were these Southern gentlemen exulting in their power to control the policy of Great Britain, and it was small consolation to me to assure them they were mistaken; in case we did not act as they anticipated, it could not be denied Great Britain would plunge an immense proportion of her people — a nation of manufacturers — into pauperism, which must leave them dependent on the national funds, or more properly on the property and accumulated capital of the district.

About 8:30, P. M., a deep bell began to toll. “What is that?” "It's for all the colored people to clear out of the streets and go home. The guards will arrest any who are found out without passes in half an hour.” There was much noise in the streets, drums beating, men cheering, and marching, and the hotel is crammed full with soldiers.

SOURCE: William Howard Russell, My Diary North and South, p. 95-8

Diary of Mary Boykin Chesnut: February 13, 1864

My husband is writing out some resolutions for the Congress. He is very busy, too, trying to get some poor fellows reprieved. He says they are good soldiers but got into a scrape. Buck came in. She had on her last winter's English hat, with the pheasant's wing. Just then Hood entered most unexpectedly. Said the blunt soldier to the girl: “You look mighty pretty in that hat; you wore it at the turnpike gate, where I surrendered at first sight.” She nodded and smiled, and flew down the steps after Mr. Chesnut, looking back to say that she meant to walk with him as far as the Executive Office.

The General walked to the window and watched until the last flutter of her garment was gone. He said: “The President was finding fault with some of his officers in command, and I said: ‘Mr. President, why don't you come and lead us yourself; I would follow you to the death.’” '”Actually, if you stay here in Richmond much longer you will grow to be a courtier. And you came a rough Texan.'”

Mrs. Davis and General McQueen came. He tells me Muscoe Garnett is dead. Then the best and the cleverest Virginian I know is gone. He was the most scholarly man they had, and his character was higher than his requirements.

To-day a terrible onslaught was made upon the President for nepotism. Burton Harrison's and John Taylor Wood's letters denying the charge that the President's cotton was unburned, or that he left it to be bought by the Yankees, have enraged the opposition. How much these people in the President's family have to bear! I have never felt so indignant.

SOURCE: Mary Boykin Chesnut, Edited by Isabella D. Martin and Myrta Lockett Avary, A Diary From Dixie, p. 289-90

Diary of Mary Boykin Chesnut: February 12, 1864

John Chesnut had a basket of champagne carried to my house, oysters, partridges, and other good things, for a supper after the reception. He is going back to the army to-morrow.

James Chesnut arrived on Wednesday. He has been giving Buck his opinion of one of her performances last night. She was here, and the General's carriage drove up, bringing some of our girls. They told her he could not come up and he begged she would go down there for a moment. She flew down, and stood ten minutes in that snow, Cy holding the carriage-door open. “But, Colonel Chesnut, there was no harm. I was not there ten minutes. I could not get in the carriage because I did not mean to stay one minute. He did not hold my hands — that is, not half the time — Oh, you saw! — well, he did kiss my hands. Where is the harm of that?” All men worship Buck. How can they help it, she is so lovely.

Lawrence has gone back ignominiously to South Carolina. At breakfast already in some inscrutable way he had become intoxicated; he was told to move a chair, and he raised it high over his head, smashing Mrs. Grundy's chandelier. My husband said: “Mary, do tell Lawrence to go home; I am too angry to speak to him.” So Lawrence went without another word. He will soon be back, and when he comes will say, '”Shoo! I knew Mars Jeems could not do without me.” And indeed he can not.

Buck, reading my journal, opened her beautiful eyes in amazement and said: “So little do people know themselves! See what you say of me!” I replied: “The girls heard him say to you, ‘Oh, you are so childish and so sweet!’ Now, Buck, you know you are not childish. You have an abundance of strong common sense. Don't let men adore you so — if you can help it. You are so unhappy about men who care for you, when they are killed.”

Isabella says that war leads to love-making. She says these soldiers do more courting here in a day than they would do at home, without a war, in ten years.

In the pauses of conversation, we hear, “She is the noblest woman God ever made!” “Goodness!” exclaimed Isabella. “Which one?” The amount of courting we hear in these small rooms. Men have to go to the front, and they say their say desperately. I am beginning to know all about it. The girls tell me. And I overhear — I can not help it. But this style is unique, is it not? “Since I saw you — last year — standing by the turnpike gate, you know — my battle-cry has been: ‘God, my country, and you!’” So many are lame. Major Venable says: “It is not ‘the devil on two sticks,’ now; the farce is ‘Cupid on Crutches.’”

General Breckinridge's voice broke in: “They are my cousins. So I determined to kiss them good-by. Good-by nowadays is the very devil; it means forever, in all probability, you know; all the odds against us. So I advanced to the charge soberly, discreetly, and in the fear of the Lord. The girls stood in a row — four of the very prettiest I ever saw.” Sam, with his eyes glued to the floor, cried: “You were afraid — you backed out.” “But I did nothing of the kind. I kissed every one of them honestly, heartily.”

SOURCE: Mary Boykin Chesnut, Edited by Isabella D. Martin and Myrta Lockett Avary, A Diary From Dixie, p. 287-9

Diary of Mary Boykin Chesnut: February 1, 1864

Mrs. Davis gave her “Luncheon to Ladies Only” on Saturday. Many more persons there than at any of these luncheons which we have gone to before. Gumbo, ducks and olives, chickens in jelly, oysters, lettuce salad, chocolate cream, jelly cake, claret, champagne, etc., were the good things set before us.

To-day, for a pair of forlorn shoes I have paid $85. Colonel Ives drew my husband's pay for me. I sent Lawrence for it (Mr. Chesnut ordered him back to us; we needed a man servant here). Colonel Ives wrote that he was amazed I should be willing to trust a darky with that great bundle of money, but it came safely. Mr. Petigru says you take your money to market in the market basket, and bring home what you buy in your pocket-book.

SOURCE: Mary Boykin Chesnut, Edited by Isabella D. Martin and Myrta Lockett Avary, A Diary From Dixie, p. 284

Diary of Mary Boykin Chesnut: January 25, 1864

The President walked home with me from church (I was to dine with Mrs. Davis). He walked so fast I had no breath to talk; so I was a good listener for once. The truth is I am too much afraid of him to say very much in his presence. We had such a nice dinner. After dinner Hood came for a ride with the President.

Mr. Hunter, of Virginia, walked home with me. He made himself utterly agreeable by dwelling on his friendship and admiration of my husband. He said it was high time Mr. Davis should promote him, and that he had told Mr. Davis his opinion on that subject to-day.

Tuesday, Barny Heyward went with me to the President's reception, and from there to a ball at the McFarlands'. Breckinridge alone of the generals went with us. The others went to a supper given by Mr. Clay, of Alabama. I had a long talk with Mr. Ould, Mr. Benjamin, and Mr. Hunter. These men speak out their thoughts plainly enough. What they said means “We are rattling down hill, and nobody to put on the brakes.” I wore my black velvet, diamonds, and point lace. They are borrowed for all “theatricals,” but I wear them whenever they are at home.

SOURCE: Mary Boykin Chesnut, Edited by Isabella D. Martin and Myrta Lockett Avary, A Diary From Dixie, p. 283-4

Diary of Mary Boykin Chesnut: January 23, 1864

My luncheon was a female affair exclusively. Mrs. Davis came early and found Annie and Tudie making the chocolate. Lawrence had gone South with my husband; so we had only Molly for cook and parlor-maid. After the company assembled we waited and waited. Those girls were making the final arrangements. I made my way to the door, and as I leaned against it ready to turn the knob, Mrs. Stanard held me like Coleridge's Ancient Mariner, and told how she had been prevented by a violent attack of cramps from running the blockade, and how providential it all was. All this floated by my ear, for I heard Mary Preston's voice raised in high protest on the other side of the door. “Stop!” said she. “Do you mean to take away the whole dish?” “If you eat many more of those fried oysters they will be missed. Heavens! She is running away with a plug, a palpable plug, out of that jelly cake!”

Later in the afternoon, when it was over and I was safe, for all had gone well and Molly had not disgraced herself before the mistresses of those wonderful Virginia cooks, Mrs. Davis and I went out for a walk. Barny Heyward and Dr. Garnett joined us, the latter bringing the welcome news that “Muscoe Russell's wife had come.”

SOURCE: Mary Boykin Chesnut, Edited by Isabella D. Martin and Myrta Lockett Avary, A Diary From Dixie, p. 282-3

Diary of Mary Boykin Chesnut: January 21, 1864

Both of us were too ill to attend Mrs. Davis's reception. It proved a very sensational one. First, a fire in the house, then a robbery — said to be an arranged plan of the usual bribed servants there and some escaped Yankee prisoners. To-day the Examiner is lost in wonder at the stupidity of the fire and arson contingent. If they had only waited a few hours until everybody was asleep; after a reception the household would be so tired and so sound asleep. Thanks to the editor's kind counsel maybe the arson contingent will wait and do better next time.

Letters from home carried Mr. Chesnut off to-day. Thackeray is dead. I stumbled upon Vanity Fair for myself. I had never heard of Thackeray before. I think it was in 1850. I know I had been ill at the New York Hotel,¹ and when left alone, I slipped down-stairs and into a bookstore that I had noticed under the hotel, for something to read. They gave me the first half of Pendennis. I can recall now the very kind of paper it was printed on, and the illustrations, as they took effect upon me. And yet when I raved over it, and was wild for the other half, there were people who said it was slow; that Thackeray was evidently a coarse, dull, sneering writer; that he stripped human nature bare, and made it repulsive, etc.

_______________

¹ The New York Hotel, covering a block front on Broadway at Waverley Place, was a favorite stopping place for Southerners for many years before the war and after it. In comparatively recent times it was torn down and supplanted by a business block.

SOURCE: Mary Boykin Chesnut, Edited by Isabella D. Martin and Myrta Lockett Avary, A Diary From Dixie, p. 281

Diary of Mary Boykin Chesnut: January 18, 1864

Invited to Dr. Haxall's last night to meet the Lawtons. Mr. Benjamin¹ dropped in. He is a friend of the house. Mrs. Haxall is a Richmond leader of society, a ci-devant beauty and belle, a charming person still, and her hospitality is of the genuine Virginia type. Everything Mr. Benjamin said we listened to, bore in mind, and gave heed to it diligently. He is a Delphic oracle, of the innermost shrine, and is supposed to enjoy the honor of Mr. Davis's unreserved confidence.

Lamar was asked to dinner here yesterday; so he came to-day. We had our wild turkey cooked for him yesterday, and I dressed myself within an inch of my life with the best of my four-year-old finery. Two of us, my husband and I, did not damage the wild turkey seriously. So Lamar enjoyed the réchauffé, and commended the art with which Molly had hid the slight loss we had inflicted upon its mighty breast. She had piled fried oysters over the turkey so skilfully, that unless we had told about it, no one would ever have known that the huge bird was making his second appearance on the board.

Lamar was more absent-minded and distrait than ever. My husband behaved like a trump — a well-bred man, with all his wits about him; so things went off smoothly enough. Lamar had just read Romola. Across the water he said it was the rage. I am sure it is not as good as Adam Bede or Silas Marner. It is not worthy of the woman who was to “rival all but Shakespeare's name below.” “What is the matter with Romola?” he asked. “Tito is so mean, and he is mean in such a very mean way, and the end is so repulsive. Petting the husband's illegitimate children and left-handed wives may be magnanimity, but human nature revolts at it.” “Woman's nature, you mean!” “Yes, and now another test. Two weeks ago I read this thing with intense interest, and already her Savonarola has faded from my mind. I have forgotten her way of showing Savonarola as completely as I always do forget Bulwer's Rienzi.”

“Oh, I understand you now! It is like Milton's devil — he has obliterated all other devils. You can't fix your mind upon any other. The devil always must be of Miltonic proportions or you do not believe in him; Goethe's Mephistopheles disputes the crown of the causeway with Lucifer. But soon you begin to feel that Mephistopheles to be a lesser devil, an emissary of the devil only. Is there any Cardinal Wolsey but Shakespeare's? any Mirabeau but Carlyle's Mirabeau? But the list is too long of those who have been stamped into your brain by genius. The saintly preacher, the woman who stands by Hetty and saves her soul; those heavenly minded sermons preached by the author of Adam Bede, bear them well in mind while I tell you how this writer, who so well imagines and depicts female purity and piety, was a governess, or something of that sort, and perhaps wrote for a living; at any rate, she had an elective affinity, which was responded to, by George Lewes, and so she lives with Lewes. I do not know that she caused the separation between Lewes and his legal wife. They are living in a villa on some Swiss lake, and Mrs. Lewes, of the hour, is a charitable, estimable, agreeable, sympathetic woman of genius.'”

Lamar seemed without prejudices on the subject; at least, he expressed neither surprise nor disapprobation. He said something of “genius being above law,” but I was not very clear as to what he said on that point. As for me I said nothing for fear of saying too much. “You know that Lewes is a writer,” said he. “Some people say the man she lives with is a noble man.” “They say she is kind and good if — a fallen woman.” Here the conversation ended.

_______________

¹ Judah P. Benjamin, was born, of Jewish parentage, at St. Croix in the West Indies, and was elected in 1852 to represent Louisiana in the United States Senate, where he served until 1861. In the Confederate administration he served successively from 1861 to 1865 as Attorney-General, Secretary of War, and Secretary of State. At the close of the war he went to England where he achieved remarkable success at the bar.

SOURCE: Mary Boykin Chesnut, Edited by Isabella D. Martin and Myrta Lockett Avary, A Diary From Dixie, p. 278-80

Diary of Mary Boykin Chesnut: January 16, 1864

A visit from the President's handsome and accomplished secretary, Burton Harrison. I lent him Country Clergyman in Town and Elective Affinities. He is to bring me Mrs. Norton's Lost and Saved.

At Mrs. Randolph's, my husband complimented one of the ladies, who had amply earned his praise by her splendid acting. She pointed to a young man, saying, “You see that wretch; he has not said one word to me!” My husband asked innocently, “Why should he? And why is he a wretch?” “Oh, you know!” Going home I explained this riddle to him; he is always a year behindhand in gossip. “They said those two were engaged last winter, and now there seems to be a screw loose; but that sort of thing always comes right.” The Carys prefer James Chessnut to his wife. I don't mind. Indeed, I like it. I do, too.

Every Sunday Mr. Minnegerode cried aloud in anguish his litany, “from pestilence and famine, battle, murder, and sudden death,” and we wailed on our knees, “Good Lord deliver us,” and on Monday, and all the week long, we go on as before, hearing of nothing but battle, murder, and sudden death, which are daily events. Now I have a new book; that is, the unlooked-for thing, a pleasing incident in this life of monotonous misery. We. live in a huge barrack. We are shut in, guarded from light without.

At breakfast to-day came a card, and without an instant's interlude, perhaps the neatest, most fastidious man in South Carolina walked in. I was uncombed, unkempt, tattered, and torn, in my most comfortable, worst worm wadded green silk dressing-gown, with a white woolen shawl over my head to keep off draughts. He has not been in the war yet, and now he wants to be captain of an engineer corps. I wish he may get it! He has always been my friend; so he shall lack no aid that I can give. If he can stand the shock of my appearance to-day, we may reasonably expect to continue friends until death. Of all men, the fastidious Barny Heywood to come in. He faced the situation gallantly.

SOURCE: Mary Boykin Chesnut, Edited by Isabella D. Martin and Myrta Lockett Avary, A Diary From Dixie, p. 277-8

Diary of Mary Boykin Chesnut: January 8, 1864

Snow of the deepest. Nobody can come to-day, I thought. But they did! My girls, first; then Constance Cary tripped in — the clever Conny. Hetty is the beauty, so called, though she is clever enough, too; but Constance is actually clever and has a classically perfect outline. Next came the four Kentuckians and Preston Hampton. He is as tall as the Kentuckians and ever so much better looking. Then we had egg-nog.

I was to take Miss Cary to the Semmes's. My husband inquired the price of a carriage. It was twenty-five dollars an hour! He cursed by all his gods at such extravagance. The play was not worth the candle, or carriage, in this instance. In Confederate money it sounds so much worse than it is. I did not dream of asking him to go with me after that lively overture. “I did intend to go with you,” he said, “but you do not ask me.” “And I have been asking you for twenty years to go with me, in vain. Think of that!” I said, tragically. We could not wait for him to dress, so I sent the twenty-five-dollar-an-hour carriage back for him. We were behind time, as it was. When he came, the beautiful Hetty Cary and her friend, Captain Tucker, were with him. Major von Borcke and Preston Hampton were at the Cary's, in the drawing-room when we called for Constance, who was dressing. I challenge the world to produce finer specimens of humanity than these three: the Prussian von Borcke, Preston Hampton, and Hetty Cary.

We spoke to the Prussian about the vote of thanks passed by Congress yesterday — “thanks of the country to Major von Borcke.” The poor man was as modest as a girl — in spite of his huge proportions. “That is a compliment, indeed!” said Hetty. “Yes. I saw it. And the happiest, the proudest day of my life as I read it. It was at the hotel breakfast-table. I try to hide my face with the newspaper, I feel it grow so red. But my friend he has his newspaper, too, and he sees the same thing. So he looks my way — he says, pointing to me — ‘Why does he grow so red? He has got something there!’ and he laughs. Then I try to read aloud the so kind compliments of the Congress — but — he — you — I can not —“ He puts his hand to his throat. His broken English and the difficulty of his enunciation with that wound in his windpipe makes it all very touching — and very hard to understand.

The Semmes charade party was a perfect success. The play was charming. Sweet little Mrs. Lawson Clay had a seat for me banked up among women. The female part of the congregation, strictly segregated from the male, were placed all together in rows. They formed a gay parterre, edged by the men in their black coats and gray uniforms. Toward the back part of the room, the mass of black and gray was solid. Captain Tucker bewailed his fate. He was stranded out there with those forlorn men, but could see us laughing, and fancied what we were saying was worth a thousand charades. He preferred talking to a clever woman to any known way of passing a pleasant hour. “So do I,” somebody said.

On a sofa of state in front of all sat the President and Mrs. Davis. Little Maggie Davis was one of the child actresses. Her parents had a right to be proud of her; with her flashing black eyes, she was a marked figure on the stage. She is a handsome creature, and she acted her part admirably. The shrine was beautiful beyond words. The Semmes and Ives families are Roman Catholics, and understand getting up that sort of thing. First came the “Palmers Gray,” then Mrs. Ives, a solitary figure, the loveliest of penitent women. The Eastern pilgrims were delightfully costumed; we could not understand how so much Christian piety could come clothed in such odalisque robes. Mrs. Ould, as a queen, was as handsome and regal as heart could wish for. She was accompanied by a very satisfactory king, whose name, if I ever knew, I have forgotten. There was a resplendent knight of St. John, and then an American Indian. After their orisons they all knelt and laid something on the altar as a votive gift.

Burton Harrison, the President's handsome young secretary, was gotten up as a big brave in a dress presented to Mr. Davis by Indians for some kindness he showed them years ago. It was a complete warrior's outfit, scant as that is. The feathers stuck in the back of Mr. Harrison's head had a charmingly comic effect. He had to shave himself as clean as a baby or he could not act the beardless chief, Spotted Tail, Billy Bowlegs, Big Thunder, or whatever his character was. So he folded up his loved and lost mustache, the Christianized red Indian, and laid it on the altar, the most sacred treasure of his life, the witness of his most heroic sacrifice, on the shrine.

Senator Hill, of Georgia, took me in to supper, where were ices, chicken salad, oysters, and champagne. The President came in alone, I suppose, for while we were talking after supper and your humble servant was standing between Mrs. Randolph and Mrs. Stanard, he approached, offered me his arm and we walked off, oblivious of Mr. Senator Hill. Remember this, ladies, and forgive me for recording it, but Mrs. Stanard and Mrs. Randolph are the handsomest women in Richmond; I am no older than they are, or younger, either, sad to say. Now, the President walked with me slowly up and down that long room, and our conversation was of the saddest. Nobody knows so well as he the difficulties which beset this hard-driven Confederacy, he has a voice which is perfectly modulated, a comfort in this loud and rough soldier world. I think there is a melancholy cadence in his voice at times, of which he is unconscious when he talks of things as they are now.

My husband was so intensely charmed with Hetty Cary that he declined at the first call to accompany his wife home in the twenty-five-dollar-an-hour carriage. He ordered it to return. When it came, his wife (a good manager) packed the Carys and him in with herself, leaving the other two men who came with the party, when it was divided into “trips,” to make their way home in the cold. At our door, near daylight of that bitter cold morning, I had the pleasure to see my husband, like a man, stand and pay for that carriage! To-day he is pleased with himself, with me, and with all the world; says if there was no such word as “fascinating” you would have to invent one to describe Hetty Cary.

SOURCE: Mary Boykin Chesnut, Edited by Isabella D. Martin and Myrta Lockett Avary, A Diary From Dixie, p. 272-5

Diary of Mary Boykin Chesnut: January 5, 1864

At Mrs. Preston's, met the Light Brigade in battle array, ready to sally forth, conquering and to conquer. They would stand no nonsense from me about staying at home to translate a French play. Indeed, the plays that have been sent us are so indecent I scarcely know where a play is to be found that would do at all.

While at dinner the President's carriage drove up with only General Hood. He sent up to ask in Maggie Howell's name would I go with them? I tied up two partridges between plates with a serviette, for Buck, who is ill, and then went down. We picked up Mary Preston. It was Maggie's drive; as the soldiers say, I was only on “escort duty.” At the Prestons', Major Venable met us at the door and took in the partridges to Buck. As we drove off Maggie said: “Major Venable is a Carolinian, I see.” “No; Virginian to the core.” “But, then, he was a professor in the South Carolina College before the war.” Mary Preston said: “She is taking a fling at your weakness for all South Carolina.”

Came home and found my husband in a bitter mood. It has all gone wrong with our world. The loss of our private fortune the smallest part. He intimates, “with so much human misery filling the air, we might stay at home and think.” “And go mad?” said I. “Catch me at it! A yawning grave, with piles of red earth thrown on one side; that is the only future I ever see. You remember Emma Stockton? She and I were as blithe as birds that day at Mulberry. I came here the next day, and when I arrived a telegram said: ‘Emma Stockton found dead in her bed.’ It is awfully near, that thought. No, no. I will not stop and think of death always.”

SOURCE: Mary Boykin Chesnut, Edited by Isabella D. Martin and Myrta Lockett Avary, A Diary From Dixie, p. 271-2

Diary of Mary Boykin Chesnut: January 4, 1864

Mrs. Ives wants us to translate a French play. A genuine French captain came in from his ship on the James River and gave us good advice as to how to make the selection. General Hampton sent another basket of partridges, and all goes merry as a marriage bell.

My husband came in and nearly killed us. He brought this piece of news: “North Carolina wants to offer terms of peace!” We needed only a break of that kind to finish us. I really shivered nervously, as one does when the first handful of earth comes rattling down on the coffin in the grave of one we cared for more than all who are left.

SOURCE: Mary Boykin Chesnut, Edited by Isabella D. Martin and Myrta Lockett Avary, A Diary From Dixie, p. 270-1

Diary of Mary Boykin Chesnut: January 1, 1864

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