Diary of Mary Boykin Chesnut: June 12, 1865

Andy, made lord of all by the madman, Booth, says, “Destruction only to the wealthy classes.” Better teach the negroes to stand alone before you break up all they leaned on, O Yankees! After all, the number who possess over $20,000 are very few.

Andy has shattered some fond hopes. He denounces Northern men who came South to espouse our cause. They may not take the life-giving oath. My husband will remain quietly at home. He has done nothing that he had not a right to do, nor anything that he is ashamed of. He will not fly from his country, nor hide anywhere in it. These are his words. He has a huge volume of Macaulay, which seems to absorb him. Slily I slipped Silvio Pellico in his way. He looked at the title and moved it aside. “Oh,” said I, “I only wanted you to refresh your memory as to a prisoner's life and what a despotism can do to make its captives happy!”

Two weddings — in Camden, Ellen Douglas Ancrum to Mr. Lee, engineer and architect, a clever man, which is the best investment now. In Columbia, Sally Hampton and John Cheves Haskell, the bridegroom, a brave, one-armed soldier.

A wedding to be. Lou McCord's. And Mrs. McCord is going about frantically, looking for eggs “to mix and make into wedding-cake,” and finding none. She now drives the funniest little one-mule vehicle.

I have been ill since I last wrote in this journal. Serena 's letter came. She says they have been visited by bushwhackers, the roughs that always follow in the wake of an army. My sister Kate they forced back against the wall. She had Katie, the baby, in her arms, and Miller, the brave boy, clung to his mother, though he could do no more. They tried to pour brandy down her throat. They knocked Mary down with the butt end of a pistol, and Serena they struck with an open hand, leaving the mark on her cheek for weeks.

Mr. Christopher Hampton says in New York people have been simply intoxicated with the fumes of their own glory. Military prowess is a new wrinkle of delight to them. They are mad with pride that, ten to one, they could, after five years' hard fighting, prevail over us, handicapped, as we were, with a majority of aliens, quasi foes, and negro slaves whom they tried to seduce, shut up with us. They pay us the kind of respectful fear the British meted out to Napoleon when they sent him off with Sir Hudson Lowe to St. Helena, the lone rock by the sea, to eat his heart out where he could not alarm them more.

Of course, the Yankees know and say they were too many for us, and yet they would all the same prefer not to try us again. Would Wellington be willing to take the chances of Waterloo once more with Grouchy, Blucher, and all that left to haphazard? Wigfall said to old Cameron¹ in 1861, “Then you will a sutler be, and profit shall accrue.” Christopher Hampton says that in some inscrutable way in the world North, everybody “has contrived to amass fabulous wealth by this war.'”

There are two classes of vociferous sufferers in this community: 1. Those who say, “If people would only pay me what they owe me!” 2. Those who say, “If people would only let me alone. I can not pay them. I could stand it if I had anything with which to pay debts.”

Now we belong to both classes. Heavens! the sums people owe us and will not, or can not, pay, would settle all our debts ten times over and leave us in easy circumstances for life. But they will not pay. How can they?

We are shut in here, turned with our faces to a dead wall. No mails. A letter is sometimes brought by a man on horseback, traveling through the wilderness made by Sherman. All railroads have been destroyed and the bridges are gone. We are cut off from the world, here to eat out our hearts. Yet from my window I look out on many a gallant youth and maiden fair. The street is crowded and it is a gay sight. Camden is thronged with refugees from the low country, and here they disport themselves. They call the walk in front of Bloomsbury “the Boulevard.”

H. Lang tells us that poor Sandhill Milly Trimlin is dead, and that as a witch she had been denied Christian burial. Three times she was buried in consecrated ground in different churchyards, and three times she was dug up by a superstitious horde, who put her out of their holy ground. Where her poor, old, ill-used bones are lying now I do not know. I hope her soul is faring better than her body. She was a good, kind creature. Why supposed to be a witch? That H. Lang could not elucidate.

Everybody in our walk of life gave Milly a helping hand. She was a perfect specimen of the Sandhill “tackey” race, sometimes called “country crackers.” Her skin was yellow and leathery, even the whites of her eyes were bilious in color. She was stumpy, strong, and lean, hard-featured, horny-fisted. Never were people so aided in every way as these Sandhillers. Why do they remain Sandhillers from generation to generation? Why should Milly never have bettered her condition?

My grandmother lent a helping hand to her grandmother. My mother did her best for her mother, and I am sure the so-called witch could never complain of me. As long as I can remember, gangs of these Sandhill women traipsed in with baskets to be filled by charity, ready to carry away anything they could get. All are made on the same pattern, more or less alike. They were treated as friends and neighbors, not as beggars. They were asked in to take seats by the fire, and there they sat for hours, stony-eyed, silent, wearing out human endurance and politeness. But their husbands and sons, whom we never saw, were citizens and voters! When patience was at its last ebb, they would open their mouths and loudly demand whatever they had come to seek.

One called Judy Bradly, a one-eyed virago, who played the fiddle at all the Sandhill dances and fandangoes, made a deep impression on my youthful mind. Her list of requests was always rather long, and once my grandmother grew restive and actually hesitated. “Woman, do you mean to let me starve?” she cried furiously. My grandmother then attempted a meek lecture as to the duty of earning one's bread. Judy squared her arms akimbo and answered, “And pray, who made you a judge of the world? Lord, Lord, if I had 'er knowed I had ter stand all this jaw, I wouldn't a took your ole things,” but she did take them and came afterward again and again.

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¹ Simon Cameron became Secretary of War in Lincoln's Administration, on March 4, 1861. On January 11, 1862, he resigned and was made Minister to Russia.

SOURCES: Mary Boykin Chesnut, Edited by Isabella D. Martin and Myrta Lockett Avary, A Diary From Dixie, p. 398-401

Diary of Mary Boykin Chesnut: August 10, 1863

RICHMOND, Va. — To-day I had a letter from my sister, who wrote to inquire about her old playmate, friend, and lover, Boykin McCaa. It is nearly twenty years since each was married; each now has children nearly grown. “To tell the truth,” she writes, “in these last dreadful years, with David in Florida, where I can not often hear from him, and everything dismal, anxious, and disquieting, I had almost forgotten Boykin's existence, but he came here last night; he stood by my bedside and spoke to me kindly and affectionately, as if we had just parted. I said, holding out my hand, ‘Boykin, you are very pale.’ He answered, ‘I have come to tell you goodby,’ and then seized both my hands. His own hands were as cold and hard as ice; they froze the marrow of my bones. I screamed again and again until my whole household came rushing in, and then came the negroes from the yard, all wakened by my piercing shrieks. This may have been a dream, but it haunts me.

'”Some one sent me an old paper with an account of his wounds and his recovery, but I know he is dead.” “Stop!” said my husband at this point, and then he read from that day's Examiner these words: “Captain Burwell Boykin McCaa found dead upon the battle-field leading a cavalry charge at the head of his company. He was shot through the head.”

The famous colonel of the Fourth Texas, by name John Bell Hood,¹ is here — him we call Sam, because his classmates at West Point did so — for what cause is not known. John Darby asked if he might bring his hero to us; bragged of him extensively; said he had won his three stars, etc., under Stonewall's eye, and that he was promoted by Stonewall's request. When Hood came with his sad Quixote face, the face of an old Crusader, who believed in his cause, his cross, and his crown, we were not prepared for such a man as a beau-ideal of the wild Texans. He is tall, thin, and shy; has blue eyes and light hair; a tawny beard, and a vast amount of it, covering the lower part of his face, the whole appearance that of awkward strength. Some one said that his great reserve of manner he carried only into the society of ladies. Major Venable added that he had often heard of the light of battle shining in a man's eyes. He had seen it once — when he carried to Hood orders from Lee, and found in the hottest of the fight that the man was transfigured. The fierce light of Hood's eyes I can never forget.

Hood came to ask us to a picnic next day at Drury's Bluff.² The naval heroes were to receive us and then we were to drive out to the Texan camp. We accused John Darby of having instigated this unlooked-for festivity. We were to have bands of music and dances, with turkeys, chickens, and buffalo tongues to eat. Next morning, just as my foot was on the carriage-step, the girls standing behind ready to follow me with Johnny and the Infant Samuel (Captain Shannon by proper name), up rode John Darby in red-hot haste, threw his bridle to one of the men who was holding the horses, and came toward us rapidly, clanking his cavalry spurs with a despairing sound as he cried: “Stop! it's all up. We are ordered back to the Rappahannock. The brigade is marching through Richmond now.” So we unpacked and unloaded, dismissed the hacks and sat down with a sigh.

“Suppose we go and see them pass the turnpike,” some one said. The suggestion was hailed with delight, and off we marched. Johnny and the Infant were in citizens' clothes, and the Straggler — as Hood calls John Darby, since the Prestons have been in Richmond — was all plaided and plumed in his surgeon's array. He never bated an inch of bullion or a feather; he was courting and he stalked ahead with Mary Preston, Buck, and Johnny. The Infant and myself, both stout and scant of breath, lagged last. They called back to us, as the Infant came toddling along, “Hurry up or we will leave you.”

At the turnpike we stood on the sidewalk and saw ten thousand men march by. We had seen nothing like this before. Hitherto we had seen only regiments marching spick and span in their fresh, smart clothes, just from home and on their way to the army. Such rags and tags as we saw now. Nothing was like anything else. Most garments and arms were such as had been taken from the enemy. Such shoes as they had on. “Oh, our brave boys!” moaned Buck. Such tin pans and pots as were tied to their waists, with bread or bacon stuck on the ends of their bayonets. Anything that could be spiked was bayoneted and held aloft.

They did not seem to mind their shabby condition; they laughed, shouted, and cheered as they marched by. Not a disrespectful or light word was spoken, but they went for the men who were huddled behind us, and who seemed to be trying to make themselves as small as possible in order to escape observation.

Hood and his staff finally came galloping up, dismounted, and joined us. Mary Preston gave him a bouquet. Thereupon he unwrapped a Bible, which he carried in his pocket. He said his mother had given it to him. He pressed a flower in it. Mary Preston suggested that he had not worn or used it at all, being fresh, new, and beautifully kept. Every word of this the Texans heard as they marched by, almost touching us. They laughed and joked and made their own rough comments.

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¹ Hood was a native of Kentucky and a graduate of West Point.

² Drury's Bluff lies eight miles south of Richmond on the James River. Here, on May 16, 1864, the Confederates under Beauregard repulsed the Federals under Butler.

SOURCE: Mary Boykin Chesnut, Edited by Isabella D. Martin and Myrta Lockett Avary, A Diary From Dixie, p. 229-32

Diary of Mary Boykin Chesnut: March 28, 1862

I did leave with regret Maum Mary. She was such a good, well-informed old thing. My Molly, though perfection otherwise, does not receive the confidential communications of new-made generals at the earliest moment. She is of very limited military information. Maum Mary was the comfort of my life. She saved me from all trouble as far as she could. Seventy, if she is a day, she is spry and active as a cat, of a curiosity that knows no bounds, black and clean; also, she knows a joke at first sight, and she is honest. I fancy the negroes are ashamed to rob people as careless as James Chesnut and myself.

One night, just before we left the Congaree House, Mr. Chesnut had forgotten to tell some all-important thing to Governor Gist, who was to leave on a public mission next day. So at the dawn of day he put on his dressing-gown and went to the Governor's room. He found the door unlocked and the Governor fast asleep. He shook him. Half-asleep, the Governor sprang up and threw his arms around Mr. Chesnut's neck and said: “Honey, is it you?” The mistake was rapidly set right, and the bewildered plenipotentiary was given his instructions. Mr. Chesnut came into my room, threw himself on the sofa, and nearly laughed himself to extinction, imitating again and again the pathetic tone of the Governor's greeting.

Mr. Chesnut calls Lawrence “Adolphe,” but says he is simply perfect as a servant. Mary Stevens said: “I thought Cousin James the laziest man alive until I knew his man, Lawrence.” Lawrence will not move an inch or lift a finger for any one but his master. Mrs. Middleton politely sent him on an errand; Lawrence, too, was very polite; hours after, she saw him sitting on the fence of the front yard. “Didn't you go?” she asked. “No, ma'am. I am waiting for Mars Jeems.” Mrs. Middleton calls him now, “Mr. Take-it-Easy.”

My very last day's experience at the Congaree. I was waiting for Mars Jeems in the drawing-room when a lady there declared herself to be the wife of an officer in Clingman's regiment. A gentleman who seemed quite friendly with her, told her all Mr. Chesnut said, thought, intended to do, wrote, and felt. I asked: “Are you certain of all these things you say of Colonel Chesnut?” The man hardly deigned to notice this impertinent interruption from a stranger presuming to speak but who had not been introduced! After he went out, the wife of Clingman's officer was seized with an intuitive curiosity. “Madam, will you tell me your name?” I gave it, adding, “I dare say I showed myself an intelligent listener when my husband's affairs were under discussion.” At first, I refused to give my name because it would have embarrassed her friend if she had told him who I was. The man was Mr. Chesnut's secretary, but I had never seen him before.

A letter from Kate says she had been up all night preparing David's things. Little Serena sat up and helped her mother. They did not know that they would ever see him again. Upon reading it, I wept and James Chesnut cursed the Yankees.

Gave the girls a quantity of flannel for soldiers' shirts; also a string of pearls to be raffled for at the Gunboat Fair. Mary Witherspoon has sent a silver tea-pot. We do not spare our precious things now. Our silver and gold, what are they? — when we give up to war our beloved.

SOURCE: Mary Boykin Chesnut, Edited by Isabella D. Martin and Myrta Lockett Avary, A Diary From Dixie, p. 153-5