Diary of Mary Boykin Chesnut: August 23, 1861

A brother of Doctor Garnett has come fresh and straight from Cambridge, Mass., and says (or is said to have said, with all the difference there is between the two), that “recruiting up there is dead.” He came by Cincinnati and Pittsburg and says all the way through it was so sad, mournful, and quiet it looked like Sunday.

I asked Mr. Brewster if it were true Senator Toombs had turned brigadier. “Yes, soldiering is in the air. Every one will have a touch of it. Toombs could not stay in the Cabinet.” “Why?” “Incompatibility of temper. He rides too high a horse; that is, for so despotic a person as Jeff Davis. I have tried to find out the sore, but I can't. Mr. Toombs has been out with them all for months.” Dissension will break out. Everything does, but it takes a little time. There is a perfect magazine of discord and discontent in that Cabinet; only wants a hand to apply the torch, and up they go. Toombs says old Memminger has his back up as high as any.

Oh, such a day! Since I wrote this morning, I have been with Mrs. Randolph to all the hospitals. I can never again shut out of view the sights I saw there of human misery. I sit thinking, shut my eyes, and see it all; thinking, yes, and there is enough to think about now, God knows. Gilland's was the worst, with long rows of ill men on cots, ill of typhoid fever, of every human ailment; on dinner-tables for eating and drinking, wounds being dressed; all the horrors to be taken in at one glance.

Then we went to the St. Charles. Horrors upon horrors again; want of organization, long rows of dead and dying; awful sights. A boy from home had sent for me. He was dying in a cot, ill of fever. Next him a man died in convulsions as we stood there. I was making arrangements with a nurse, hiring him to take care of this lad; but I do not remember any more, for I fainted. Next that I knew of, the doctor and Mrs. Randolph were having me, a limp rag, put into a carriage at the door of the hospital. Fresh air, I dare say, brought me to. As we drove home the doctor came along with us, I was so upset. He said: “Look at that Georgia regiment marching there; look at their servants on the sidewalk. I have been counting them, making an estimate. There is $16,000 — sixteen thousand dollars' worth of negro property which can go off on its own legs to the Yankees whenever it pleases.”

SOURCE: Mary Boykin Chesnut, Edited by Isabella D. Martin and Myrta Lockett Avary, A Diary From Dixie, p. 108-9

Diary of Mary Boykin Chesnut: August 18, 1861

Found it quite exciting to have a spy drinking his tea with us — perhaps because I knew his profession. I did not like his face. He is said to have a scheme by which Washington will fall into our hands like an overripe peach.

Mr. Barnwell urges Mr. Chesnut to remain in the Senate. There are so many generals, or men anxious to be. He says Mr. Chesnut can do his country most good by wise counsels where they are most needed. I do not say to the contrary; I dare not throw my influence on the army side, for if anything happened!

Mr. Miles told us last night that he had another letter from General Beauregard. The General wants to know if Mr. Miles has delivered his message to Colonel Kershaw. Mr. Miles says he has not done so; neither does he mean to do it. They must settle these matters of veracity according to their own military etiquette. He is a civilian once more. It is a foolish wrangle. Colonel Kershaw ought to have reported to his commander-in-chief, and not made an independent report and published it. He meant no harm. He is not yet used to the fine ways of war.

The New York Tribune is so unfair. It began by howling to get rid of us: we were so wicked. Now that we are so willing to leave them to their overrighteous self-consciousness, they cry: “Crush our enemy, or they will subjugate us.”' The idea that we want to invade or subjugate anybody; we would be only too grateful to be left alone. We ask no more of gods or men.

Went to the hospital with a carriage load of peaches and grapes. Made glad the hearts of some men thereby. When my supplies gave out, those who had none looked so wistfully as I passed out that I made a second raid on the market. Those eyes sunk in cavernous depths and following me from bed to bed haunt me.

Wilmot de Saussure, harrowed my soul by an account of a recent death by drowning on the beach at Sullivan's Island. Mr. Porcher, who was trying to save his sister's life, lost his own and his child's. People seem to die out of the army quite as much as in it.

Mrs. Randolph presided in all her beautiful majesty at an aid association. The ladies were old, and all wanted their own way. They were cross-grained and contradictory, and the blood mounted rebelliously into Mrs. Randolph's clear-cut cheeks, but she held her own with dignity and grace. One of the causes of disturbance was that Mrs. Randolph proposed to divide everything sent on equally with the Yankee wounded and sick prisoners. Some were enthusiastic from a Christian point of view; some shrieked in wrath at the bare idea of putting our noble soldiers on a par with Yankees, living, dying, or dead. Fierce dames were some of them, august, severe matrons, who evidently had not been accustomed to hear the other side of any question from anybody, and just old enough to find the last pleasure in life to reside in power — the power to make their claws felt.

SOURCE: Mary Boykin Chesnut, Edited by Isabella D. Martin and Myrta Lockett Avary, A Diary From Dixie, p. 106-8

Diary of Mary Boykin Chesnut: August 15, 1861

Mrs. Randolph came. With her were the Freelands, Rose and Maria. The men rave over Mrs. Randolph's beauty; called her a magnificent specimen of the finest type of dark-eyed, rich, and glowing Southern woman-kind. Clear brunette she is, with the reddest lips, the whitest teeth, and glorious eyes; there is no other word for them. Having given Mrs. Randolph the prize among Southern beauties, Mr. Clayton said Prentiss was the finest Southern orator. Mr. Marshall and Mr. Barnwell dissented; they preferred William C. Preston. Mr. Chesnut had found Colquitt the best or most effective stump, orator.

Saw Henry Deas Nott. He is just from Paris, via New York. Says New York is ablaze with martial fire. At no time during the Crimean war was there ever in Paris the show of soldiers preparing for the war such as he saw at New York. The face of the earth seemed covered with marching regiments.

Not more than 500 effective men are in Hampton's Legion, but they kept the whole Yankee army at bay until half-past two. Then just as Hampton was wounded and half his colonels shot, Cash and Kershaw (from Mrs. Smith Lee audibly, “How about Kirby Smith?”) dashed in and not only turned the tide, but would have driven the fugitives into Washington, but Beauregard recalled them. Mr. Chesnut finds all this very amusing, as he posted many of the regiments and all the time was carrying orders over the field. The discrepancies in all these private memories amuse him, but he smiles pleasantly and lets every man tell the tale in his own way.

SOURCE: Mary Boykin Chesnut, Edited by Isabella D. Martin and Myrta Lockett Avary, A Diary From Dixie, p. 105-6