Diary of Judith Brockenbrough McGuire: Tuesday Morning, May 3, 1864

Yesterday passed as usual. We attended Mr. Peterkin's prayer-meeting before breakfast, which we generally do, and which was very interesting. Then came by market for our daily supplies; and at nine I commenced my labour in the office, while Mr. went to his hospital, which occupies a great deal of his time.

Washington, North Carolina, has been evacuated by the Federals, who have retired to Newbern. All quiet on the Rapidan. Six steamers have run the blockade within a few days, laden with ammunition, etc. Surely God is with us. It is a delightful thing to contemplate that so many of our officers of high position, who are leading and giving an example to our soldiers, should be God-fearing men; from the President and General Lee down, I believe a majority of them are professing Christians. On Sunday I saw General R. Ransom (who has lately been put in command here) and General Kemper, who has just recovered from the wound received at Gettysburg, both at the communion-table.

On Saturday our President had a most heart-rending accident in his family. His little son was playing on the back-portico, fell over, and was picked up apparently lifeless. Both parents were absent, nor did they get home in time to see their child alive. The neighbours collected around him, physicians were immediately called in, but the little fellow could not be aroused; he breathed for about three-quarters of an hour. His devoted parents returned to find their boy, whom they had left two hours before full of “life in every limb,” now cold in death. They have the deep sympathy of the community.

SOURCE: Judith W. McGuire, Diary of a Southern Refugee, During the War, p. 261-2

Diary of Mary Boykin Chesnut: May 27, 1864

In all this beautiful sunshine, in the stillness and shade of these long hours on this piazza, all comes back to me about little Joe; it haunts me — that scene in Richmond where all seemed confusion, madness, a bad dream! Here I see that funeral procession as it wound among those tall white monuments, up that hillside, the James River tumbling about below over rocks and around islands; the dominant figure, that poor, old, gray-haired man, standing bareheaded, straight as an arrow, clear against the sky by the open grave of his son. She, the bereft mother, stood back, in her heavy black wrappings, and her tall figure drooped. The flowers, the children, the procession as it moved, comes and goes, but those two dark, sorrow-stricken figures stand; they are before me now!

That night, with no sound but the heavy tramp of his feet overhead, the curtains flapping in the wind, the gas flaring, I was numb, stupid, half-dead with grief and terror. Then came Catherine's Irish howl. Cheap, was that. Where was she when it all happened? Her place was to have been with the child. Who saw him fall? Whom will they kill next of that devoted household?

Read to-day the list of killed and wounded.¹ One long column was not enough for South Carolina's dead. I see Mr. Federal Secretary Stanton says he can reenforce Suwarrow Grant at his leisure whenever he calls for more. He has just sent him 25,000 veterans. Old Lincoln says, in his quaint backwoods way, “Keep a-peggin’.” Now we can only peg out. What have we left of men, etc., to meet these “reenforcements as often as reenforcements are called for?” Our fighting men have all gone to the front; only old men and little boys are at home now.

It is impossible to sleep here, because it is so solemn and still. The moonlight shines in my window sad and white, and the soft south wind, literally comes over a bank of violets, lilacs, roses, with orange-blossoms and magnolia flowers.

Mrs. Chesnut was only a year younger than her husband. He is ninety-two or three. She was deaf; but he retains his senses wonderfully for his great age. I have always been an early riser. Formerly I often saw him sauntering slowly down the broad passage from his room to hers, in a flowing flannel dressing-gown when it was winter. In the spring, he was apt to be in shirt-sleeves, with suspenders hanging down his back. He had always a large hair-brush in his hand.

He would take his stand on the rug before the fire in her room, brushing scant locks which were fleecy white. Her maid would be doing hers, which were dead-leaf brown, not a white hair in her head. He had the voice of a stentor, and there he stood roaring his morning compliments. The people who occupied the room above said he fairly shook the window glasses. This pleasant morning greeting ceremony was never omitted.

Her voice was “soft and low” (the oft-quoted). Philadelphia seems to have lost the art of sending forth such voices now. Mrs. Binney, old Mrs. Chesnut's sister, came among us with the same softly modulated, womanly, musical voice. Her clever and beautiful daughters were criard. Judge Han said: “Philadelphia women scream like macaws.” This morning as I passed Mrs. Chesnut's room, the door stood wide open, and I heard a pitiful sound. The old man was kneeling by her empty bedside sobbing bitterly. I fled down the middle walk, anywhere out of reach of what was never meant for me to hear.

_______________

¹ During the month of May, 1864, important battles had been fought in Virginia, including that of the Wilderness on May 6th-7th, and the series later in that month around Spottsylvania Court House.

SOURCE: Mary Boykin Chesnut, Edited by Isabella D. Martin and Myrta Lockett Avary, A Diary From Dixie, p. 309-11

Diary of Mary Boykin Chesnut: May 8, 1864

CAMDEN, S.C., May 8, 1864. – My friends crowded around me so in those last days in Richmond, I forgot the affairs of this nation utterly; though I did show faith in my Confederate country by buying poor Bones's (my English maid's) Confederate bonds. I gave her gold thimbles, bracelets; whatever was gold and would sell in New York or London, I gave.

My friends in Richmond grieved that I had to leave them—not half so much, however, as I did that I must come away. Those last weeks were so pleasant. No battle, no murder, no sudden death, all went merry as a marriage bell. Clever, cordial, kind, brave friends rallied around me.

Maggie Howell and I went down the river to see an exchange of prisoners. Our party were the Lees, Mallorys, Mrs. Buck Allan, Mrs. Ould. We picked up Judge Ould and Buck Allan at Curl's Neck. I had seen no genuine Yankees before; prisoners, well or wounded, had been German, Scotch, or Irish. Among our men coming ashore was an officer, who had charge of some letters for a friend of mine whose fiancé had died; I gave him her address. One other man showed me some wonderfully ingenious things he had made while a prisoner. One said they gave him rations for a week; he always devoured them in three days, he could not help it; and then he had to bear the inevitable agony of those four remaining days! Many were wounded, some were maimed for life. They were very cheerful. We had supper — or some nondescript meal — with ice-cream on board. The band played Home, Sweet Home.

One man tapped another on the shoulder: '”Well, how do you feel, old fellow?” “Never was so near crying in my life — for very comfort.”

Governor Cummings, a Georgian, late Governor of Utah, was among the returned prisoners. He had been in prison two years. His wife was with him. He was a striking-looking person, huge in size, and with snow-white hair, fat as a prize ox, with no sign of Yankee barbarity or starvation about him.

That evening, as we walked up to Mrs. Davis's carriage, which was waiting for us at the landing, Dr. Garnett with Maggie Howell, Major Hall with me, suddenly I heard her scream, and some one stepped back in the dark and said in a whisper. “Little Joe! he has killed himself!” I felt reeling, faint, bewildered. A chattering woman clutched my arm: “Mrs. Davis's son? Impossible. Whom did you say? Was he an interesting child? How old was he?” The shock was terrible, and unnerved as I was I cried, “For God's sake take her away!”

Then Maggie and I drove two long miles in silence except for Maggie's hysterical sobs. She was wild with terror. The news was broken to her in that abrupt way at the carriage door so that at first she thought it had all happened there, and that poor little Joe was in the carriage.

Mr. Burton Harrison met us at the door of the Executive Mansion. Mrs. Semmes and Mrs. Barksdale were there, too. Every window and door of the house seemed wide open, and the wind was blowing the curtains. It was lighted, even in the third story. As I sat in the drawing-room, I could hear the tramp of Mr. Davis's step as he walked up and down the room above. Not another sound. The whole house as silent as death. It was then twelve o'clock; so I went home and waked General Chesnut, who had gone to bed. We went immediately back to the President's, found Mrs. Semmes still there, but saw no one but her. We thought some friends of the family ought to be in the house.

Mrs. Semmes said when she got there that little Jeff was kneeling down by his brother, and he called out to her in great distress: “Mrs. Semmes, I have said all the prayers I know how, but God will not wake Joe.'”

Poor little Joe, the good child of the family, was so gentle and affectionate. He used to run in to say his prayers at his father's knee. Now he was laid out somewhere above us, crushed and killed. Mrs. Semmes, describing the accident, said he fell from the high north piazza upon a brick pavement. Before I left the house I saw him lying there, white and beautiful as an angel, covered with flowers; Catherine, his nurse, flat on the floor by his side, was weeping and wailing as only an Irishwoman can.

Immense crowds came to the funeral, everybody sympathetic, but some shoving and pushing rudely. There were thousands of children, and each child had a green bough or a bunch of flowers to throw on little Joe's grave, which was already a mass of white flowers, crosses, and evergreens. The morning I came away from Mrs. Davis's, early as it was, I met a little child with a handful of snow drops. “Put these on little Joe,” she said; “I knew him so well.” and then she turned and fled without another word. I did not know who she was then or now.

As I walked home I met Mr. Reagan, then Wade Hampton. But I could see nothing but little Joe and his brokenhearted mother. And Mr. Davis's step still sounded in my ears as he walked that floor the livelong night.

General Lee was to have a grand review the very day we left Richmond. Great numbers of people were to go up by rail to see it. Miss Turner McFarland writes: “They did go, but they came back faster than they went. They found the army drawn up in battle array.” Many of the brave and gay spirits that we saw so lately have taken flight, the only flight they know, and their bodies are left dead upon the battle-field. Poor old Edward Johnston is wounded again, and a prisoner. Jones's brigade broke first; he was wounded the day before.

At Wilmington we met General Whiting. He sent us to the station in his carriage, and bestowed upon us a bottle of brandy, which had run the blockade. They say Beauregard has taken his sword from Whiting. Never! I will not believe it. At the capture of Fort Sumter they said Whiting was the brains, Beauregard only the hand. Lucifer, son of the morning! How art thou fallen! That they should even say such a thing!

My husband and Mr. Covey got out at Florence to procure for Mrs. Miles a cup of coffee. They were slow about it and they got left. I did not mind this so very much, for I remembered that we were to remain all day at Kingsville, and that my husband could overtake me there by the next train. My maid belonged to the Prestons. She was only traveling home with me, and would go straight on to Columbia. So without fear I stepped off at Kingsville. My old Confederate silk, like most Confederate dresses, had seen better days, and I noticed that, like Oliver Wendell Holmes's famous “one-hoss shay,” it had gone to pieces suddenly, and all over. It was literally in strips. I became painfully aware of my forlorn aspect when I asked the telegraph man the way to the hotel, and he was by no means respectful to me. I was, indeed, alone — an old and not too respectable-looking woman. It was my first appearance in the character, and I laughed aloud.

A very haughty and highly painted dame greeted me at the hotel. “No room,” said she. “Who are you?” I gave my name. “Try something else,” said she. "Mrs. Chesnut don't travel round by herself with no servants and no nothing.” I looked down. There I was, dirty, tired, tattered, and torn. “Where do you come from?” said she. “My home is in Camden.” “Come, now, I know everybody in Camden.” I sat down meekly on a bench in the piazza, that was free to all wayfarers.

“Which Mrs. Chesnut?” said she (sharply). “I know both.” “I am now the only one. And now what is the matter with you? Do you take me for a spy? I know you perfectly well. I went to school with you at Miss Henrietta de Leon's, and my name was Mary Miller.” “The Lord sakes alive! and to think you are her! Now I see. Dear! dear me! Heaven sakes, woman, but you are broke!” “And tore,” I added, holding up my dress. “But I had had no idea it was so difficult to effect an entry into a railroad wayside hotel.” I picked up a long strip of my old black dress, torn off by a man's spur as I passed him getting off the train.

It is sad enough at Mulberry without old Mrs. Chesnut, who was the good genius of the place. It is so lovely here in spring. The giants of the forest — the primeval oaks, water-oaks, live-oaks, willow-oaks, such as I have not seen since I left here — with opopanax, violets, roses, and yellow jessamine, the air is laden with perfume. Araby the Blest was never sweeter.

Inside, are creature comforts of all kinds — green peas, strawberries, asparagus, spring lamb, spring chicken, fresh eggs, rich, yellow butter, clean white linen for one's beds, dazzling white damask for one's table. It is such a contrast to Richmond, where I wish I were.

Fighting is going on. Hampton is frantic, for his laggard new regiments fall in slowly; no fault of the soldiers; they are as disgusted as he is. Bragg, Bragg, the head of the War Office, can not organize in time.

John Boykin has died in a Yankee prison. He had on a heavy flannel shirt when lying in an open platform car on the way to a cold prison on the lakes. A Federal soldier wanted John's shirt. Prisoners have no rights; so John had to strip off and hand his shirt to him. That caused his death. In two days he was dead of pneumonia — may be frozen to death. One man said: “They are taking us there to freeze.” But then their men will find our hot sun in August and July as deadly as our men find their cold Decembers. Their snow and ice finish our prisoners at a rapid rate, they say. Napoleon's soldiers found out all that in the Russian campaign.

Have brought my houseless, homeless friends, refugees here, to luxuriate in Mulberry's plenty. I can but remember the lavish kindness of the Virginia people when I was there and in a similar condition. The Virginia people do the rarest acts of hospitality and never seem to know it is not in the ordinary course of events.

The President's man, Stephen, bringing his master's Arabian to Mulberry for safe-keeping, said: “Why, Missis, your niggers down here are well off. I call this Mulberry place heaven, with plenty to eat, little to do, warm house to sleep in, a good church.”

John L. Miller, my cousin, has been killed at the head of his regiment. The blows now fall so fast on our heads they are bewildering. The Secretary of War authorizes General Chesnut to reorganize the men who have been hitherto detailed for special duty, and also those who have been exempt. He says General Chesnut originated the plan and organized the corps of clerks which saved Richmond in the Dahlgren raid.

SOURCE: Mary Boykin Chesnut, Edited by Isabella D. Martin and Myrta Lockett Avary, A Diary From Dixie, p. 304-9

Diary of Mary Boykin Chesnut: December 14, 1863

Drove out with Mrs. Davis. She had a watch in her hand which some poor dead soldier wanted to have sent to his family. First, we went to her mantua-maker, then we drove to the Fair Grounds where the band was playing. Suddenly, she missed the watch. She remembered having it when we came out of the mantua-maker's. We drove back instantly, and there the watch was lying near the steps of the little porch in front of the house. No one had passed in, apparently; in any case, no one had seen it.

Preston Hampton went with me to see Conny Cary. The talk was frantically literary, which Preston thought hard on him. I had just brought the St. Denis number of Les Miserables.

Sunday, Christopher Hampton walked to church with me. Coming out, General Lee was seen slowly making his way down the aisle, bowing royally to right and left. I pointed him out to Christopher Hampton when General Lee happened to look our way. He bowed low, giving me a charming smile of recognition. I was ashamed of being so pleased. I blushed like a schoolgirl.

We went to the White House. They gave us tea. The President said he had been on the way to our house, coming with all the Davis family, to see me, but the children became so troublesome they turned back. Just then, little Joe rushed in and insisted on saying his prayers at his father's knee, then and there. He was in his night-clothes.

SOURCE: Mary Boykin Chesnut, Edited by Isabella D. Martin and Myrta Lockett Avary, A Diary From Dixie, p. 264