Diary of Mary Boykin Chesnut: February 19, 1865

The Fants say all the trouble at the hotel came from our servants' bragging. They represented us as millionaires, and the Middleton men servants smoked cigars. Mrs. Reed's averred that he had never done anything in his life but stand behind his master at table with a silver waiter in his hand. We were charged accordingly, but perhaps the landlady did not get the best of us after all, for we paid her in Confederate money. Now that they won't take Confederate money in the shops here how are we to live? Miss Middleton says quartermasters' families are all clad in good gray cloth, but the soldiers go naked. Well, we are like the families of whom the novels always say they are poor but honest. Poor? Well-nigh beggars are we, for I do not know where my next meal is to come from.

Called on Mrs. Ben Rutledge to-day. She is lovely, exquisitely refined. Her mother, Mrs. Middleton, came in. “You are not looking well, dear? Anything the matter?” “No — but, mamma, I have not eaten a mouthful to-day. The children can eat mush; I can't. I drank my tea, however.” She does not understand taking favors, and, blushing violently, refused to let me have Ellen make her some biscuit. I went home and sent her some biscuit all the same.

SOURCES: Mary Boykin Chesnut, Edited by Isabella D. Martin and Myrta Lockett Avary, A Diary From Dixie, p. 349

Diary of Mary Boykin Chesnut: February 18, 1865

Here I am, thank God, settled at the McLean's, in a clean, comfortable room, airy and cozy. With a grateful heart I stir up my own bright wood fire. My bill for four days at this splendid hotel here was $240, with $25 additional for fire. But once more my lines have fallen in pleasant places.

As we came up on the train from Charlotte a soldier took out of his pocket a filthy rag. If it had lain in the gutter for months it could not have looked worse. He unwrapped the thing carefully and took out two biscuits of the species known as “hard tack.” Then he gallantly handed me one, and with an ingratiating smile asked me “to take some.” Then he explained, saying, “Please take these two; swap with me; give me something softer that I can eat; I am very weak still.” Immediately, for his benefit, my basket of luncheon was emptied, but as for his biscuit, I would not choose any. Isabella asked, “But what did you say to him when he poked them under your nose?” and I replied, “I held up both hands, saying, ‘I would not take from you anything that is yours — far from it! I would not touch them for worlds.’”

A tremendous day's work and I helped with a will; our window glass was all to be washed. Then the brass andirons were to be polished. After we rubbed them bright how pretty they were.

Presently Ellen would have none of me. She was scrubbing the floor. “You go — dat's a good missis — an' stay to Miss Isabella's till de flo' dry.” I am very docile now, and I obeyed orders.

SOURCES: Mary Boykin Chesnut, Edited by Isabella D. Martin and Myrta Lockett Avary, A Diary From Dixie, p. 348-9

Diary of Mary Boykin Chesnut: February 16, 1865

LINCOLNTON, N. C., February 16, 1865.

A change has come o'er the spirit of my dream. Dear old quire of yellow, coarse, Confederate home-made paper, here you are again. An age of anxiety and suffering has passed over my head since last I wrote and wept over your forlorn pages.

My ideas of those last days are confused. The Martins left Columbia the Friday before I did, and Mammy, the negro woman, who had nursed them, refused to go with them. That daunted me. Then Mrs. McCord, who was to send her girls with me, changed her mind. She sent them up-stairs in her house and actually took away the staircase; that was her plan.

Then I met Mr. Christopher Hampton; arranging to take off his sisters. They were flitting, but were to go only as far as Yorkville. He said it was time to move on. Sherman was at Orangeburg, barely a day's journey from Columbia, and had left a track as bare and blackened as a fire leaves on the prairies.

So my time had come, too. My husband urged me to go home. He said Camden would be safe enough. They had no spite against that old town, as they have against Charleston and Columbia. Molly, weeping and wailing, came in while we were at table. Wiping her red-hot face with the cook's grimy apron, she said I ought to go among our own black people on the plantation; they would take care of me better than any one else. So I agreed to go to Mulberry or the Hermitage plantation, and sent Lawrence down with a wagon-load of my valuables.

Then a Miss Patterson called — a refugee from Tennessee. She had been in a country overrun by Yankee invaders, and she described so graphically all the horrors to be endured by those subjected to fire and sword, rapine and plunder, that I was fairly scared, and determined to come here. This is a thoroughly out-of-all-routes place. And yet I can go to Charlotte, am half-way to Kate at Flat Rock, and there is no Federal army between me and Richmond.

As soon as my mind was finally made up, we telegraphed to Lawrence, who had barely got to Camden in the wagon when the telegram was handed to him; so he took the train and came back. Mr. Chesnut sent him with us to take care of the party.

We thought that if the negroes were ever so loyal to us, they could not protect me from an army bent upon sweeping us from the face of the earth, and if they tried to do so so much the worse would it be for the poor things with their Yankee friends. I then left them to shift for themselves, as they are accustomed to do, and I took the same liberty. My husband does not care a fig for the property question, and never did. Perhaps, if he had ever known poverty, it would be different. He talked beautifully about it, as he always does about everything. I have told him often that, if at heaven's gate St. Peter would listen to him a while, and let him tell his own story, he would get in, and the angels might give him a crown extra.

Now he says he has only one care — that I should be safe, and not so harassed with dread; and then there is his blind old father. “A man,” said he, “can always die like a patriot and a gentleman, with no fuss, and take it coolly. It is hard not to envy those who are out of all this, their difficulties ended — those who have met death gloriously on the battle-field, their doubts all solved. One can but do his best, and leave the result to a higher power.”

After New Orleans, those vain, passionate, impatient little Creoles were forever committing suicide, driven to it by despair and “Beast” Butler. As we read these things, Mrs. Davis said: “If they want to die, why not first kill ‘Beast’ Butler, rid the world of their foe and be saved the trouble of murdering themselves?” That practical way of removing their intolerable burden did not occur to them. I repeated this suggestive anecdote to our corps of generals without troops, here in this house, as they spread out their maps on my table where lay this quire of paper from which I write. Every man Jack of them had a safe plan to stop Sherman, if ––

Even Beauregard and Lee were expected, but Grant had double-teamed on Lee. Lee could not save his own — how could he come to save us? Read the list of the dead in those last battles around Richmond and Petersburg¹ if you want to break your heart.

I took French leave of Columbia — slipped away without a word to anybody. Isaac Hayne and Mr. Chesnut came down to the Charlotte depot with me. Ellen, my maid, left her husband and only child, but she was willing to come, and, indeed, was very cheerful in her way of looking at it.

“I wan’ travel ‘roun’ wid Missis some time — stid uh Molly goin’ all de time.”

A woman, fifty years old at least, and uglier than she was old, sharply rebuked my husband for standing at the ear window for a last few words with me. She said rudely: '”Stand aside, sir! I want air!” With his hat off, and his grand air, my husband bowed politely, and said: “In one moment, madam; I have something important to say to my wife.”

She talked aloud and introduced herself to every man, claiming his protection. She had never traveled alone before in all her life. Old age and ugliness are protective in some cases. She was ardently patriotic for a while. Then she was joined by her friend, a man as crazy as herself to get out of this. From their talk I gleaned she had been for years in the Treasury Department. They were about to cross the lines. The whole idea was to get away from the trouble to come down here. They were Yankees, but were they not spies?

Here I am broken-hearted and an exile. And in such a place! We have bare floors, and for a feather-bed, pine table, and two chairs I pay $30 a day. Such sheets! But fortunately I have some of my own. At the door, before I was well out of the back, the woman of the house packed Lawrence back, neck and heels: she would not have him at any price. She treated him as Mr. F. 's aunt did Clenman in Little Dorrit. She said his clothes were too fine for a nigger. “His aim, indeed.” Poor Lawrence was humble and silent. He said at last, “Miss Mary, send me back to Mars Jeems.” I began to look for a pencil to write a note to my husband, but in the flurry could not find one. “Here is one,” said Lawrence, producing one with a gold case. “Go away,” she shouted, “I want no niggers here with gold pencils and airs.'” So Lawrence fled before the storm, but not before he had begged me to go back. He said, “if Mars Jeems knew how you was treated he'd never be willing for you to stay here.”

The Martins had seen my, to them, well-known traveling case as the hack trotted up Main Street, and they arrived at this juncture out of breath. We embraced and wept. I kept my room.

The Fants are refugees here, too; they are Virginians, and have been in exile since the second battle of Manassas. Poor things; they seem to have been everywhere, and seen and suffered everything. They even tried to go back to their own house, but found one chimney only standing alone; even that had been taken possession of by a Yankee, who had written his name upon it.

The day I left home I had packed a box of flour, sugar, rice, and coffee, but my husband would not let me bring it. He said I was coming to a land of plenty — unexplored North Carolina, where the foot of the Yankee marauder was unknown, and in Columbia they would need food. Now I have written for that box and many other things to be sent me by Lawrence, or I shall starve.

The Middletons have come. How joyously I sprang to my feet to greet them. Mrs. Ben Rutledge described the hubbub in Columbia. Everybody was flying in every direction like a flock of swallows. She heard the enemy's guns booming in the distance. The train no longer runs from Charlotte to Columbia. Miss Middleton possesses her soul in peace. She is as cool, clever, rational, and entertaining as ever, and we talked for hours. Mrs. Reed was in a state of despair. I can well understand that sinking of mind and body during the first days as the abject misery of it all closes in upon you. I remember my suicidal tendencies when I first came here.

_______________

¹ Battles at Hatcher's Run, in Virginia, had been fought on February 5, 6, and 7, 1865.

SOURCES: Mary Boykin Chesnut, Edited by Isabella D. Martin and Myrta Lockett Avary, A Diary From Dixie, p. 344-8

Diary of Mary Boykin Chesnut: January 17, 1865

The Bazaar for the benefit of the hospitals opens now. Sherman marches constantly. All the railroads are smashed, and if I laugh at any mortal thing it is that I may not weep. Generals are as plenty as blackberries, but none are in command.

The Peace Commissioner, Blair, came. They say he gave Mr. Davis the kiss of peace. And we send Stephens, Campbell, all who have believed in this thing, to negotiate for peace. No hope, no good. Who dares hope?

Repressed excitement in church. A great railroad character was called out. He soon returned and whispered something to Joe Johnston and they went out together. Somehow the whisper moved around to us that Sherman was at Branchville. “Grant us patience, good Lord,'” was prayed aloud. “Not Ulysses Grant, good Lord,” murmured Teddy, profanely. Hood came yesterday. He is staying at the Prestons' with Jack. They sent for us. What a heartfelt greeting he gave us. He can stand well enough without his crutch, but he does very slow walking. How plainly he spoke out dreadful words about “my defeat and discomfiture; my army destroyed, my losses,” etc., etc. He said he had nobody to blame but himself. A telegram from Beauregard to-day to my husband. He does not know whether Sherman intends to advance on Branchville, Charleston, or Columbia.

Isabella said: “Maybe you attempted the impossible,” and began one of her merriest stories. Jack Preston touched me on the arm and we slipped out. “He did not hear a word she was saying. He has forgotten us all. Did you notice how he stared in the fire? And the lurid spots which came out in his face, and the drops of perspiration that stood on his forehead?” “Yes. He is going over some bitter scene; he sees Willie Preston with his heart shot away. He sees the panic at Nashville and the dead on the battlefield at Franklin.” “That agony on his face comes again and again,” said tender-hearted Jack. “I can't keep him out of those absent fits.”

Governor McGrath and General Winder talk of preparations for a defense of Columbia. If Beauregard can't stop Sherman down there, what have we got here to do it with? Can we check or impede his march? Can any one?

Last night General Hampton came in. I am sure he would do something to save us if he were put in supreme command here. Hampton says Joe Johnston is equal, if not superior, to Lee as a commanding officer.

My silver is in a box and has been delivered for safe keeping to Isaac McLaughlin, who is really my beau-ideal of a grateful negro. I mean to trust him. My husband cares for none of these things now, and lets me do as I please.

Tom Archer died almost as soon as he got to Richmond. Prison takes the life out of men. He was only half-alive when here. He had a strange, pallid look and such a vacant stare until you roused him. Poor pretty Sally Archer: that is the end of you.¹

_______________

¹ Under last date entry, January 17th, the author chronicles events of later occurrence; it was her not infrequent custom to jot down happenings in dateless lines or paragraphs. Mr. Blair visited President Davis January 12th; Stephens, Hunter and Campbell were appointed Peace Commissioners, January 28th.

SOURCES: Mary Boykin Chesnut, Edited by Isabella D. Martin and Myrta Lockett Avary, A Diary From Dixie, p. 342-3

Diary of Mary Boykin Chesnut: January 28, 1865

Stephens, Hunter and Campbell were appointed Peace Commissioners.

SOURCES: Mary Boykin Chesnut, Edited by Isabella D. Martin and Myrta Lockett Avary, A Diary From Dixie, p. 343

Diary of Mary Boykin Chesnut: January 14, 1865

Yesterday I broke down — gave way to abject terror under the news of Sherman's advance with no news of my husband. To-day, while wrapped up on the sofa, too dismal even for moaning, there was a loud knock. Shawls on and all, just as I was, I rushed to the door to find a telegram from my husband: “All well; be at home Tuesday.” It was dated from Adam's Run. I felt as lighthearted as if the war were over. Then I looked at the date and the place — Adam's Run. It ends as it began — in a run — Bull's Run, from which their first sprightly running astounded the world, and now Adam's Run. But if we must run, who are left to run? From Bull Run they ran full-handed. But we have fought until maimed soldiers, women, and children are all that remain to run.

To-day Kershaw's brigade, or what is left of it, passed through. What shouts greeted it and what bold shouts of thanks it returned! It was all a very encouraging noise, absolutely comforting. Some true men are left, after all.

SOURCES: Mary Boykin Chesnut, Edited by Isabella D. Martin and Myrta Lockett Avary, A Diary From Dixie, p. 341

Diary of Mary Boykin Chesnut: January 16, 1865

My husband is at home once more — for how long, I do not know. His aides fill the house, and a group of hopelessly wounded haunt the place. The drilling and the marching go on outside. It rains a flood, with freshet after freshet. The forces of nature are befriending us, for our enemies have to make their way through swamps.

A month ago my husband wrote me a letter which I promptly suppressed after showing it to Mrs. McCord. He warned us to make ready, for the end had come. Our resources were exhausted, and the means of resistance could not be found. We could not bring ourselves to believe it, and now, he thinks, with the railroad all blown up, the swamps made impassable by the freshets, which have no time to subside, so constant is the rain, and the negroes utterly apathetic (would they be so if they saw us triumphant?), if we had but an army to seize the opportunity we might do something; but there are no troops; that is the real trouble.

To-day Mrs. McCord exchanged $16,000 in Confederate bills for $300 in gold — sixteen thousand for three hundred.

SOURCES: Mary Boykin Chesnut, Edited by Isabella D. Martin and Myrta Lockett Avary, A Diary From Dixie, p. 341-2

Diary of Mary Boykin Chesnut: January 10, 1865

You do the Anabasis business when you want to get out of the enemy's country, and the Thermopylae business when they want to get into your country. But we retreated in our own country and we gave up our mountain passes without a blow. But never mind the Greeks; if we had only our own Game Cock, Sumter, our own Swamp Fox, Marion. Marion's men or Sumter's, or the equivalent of them, now lie under the sod, in Virginia or Tennessee.

SOURCES: Mary Boykin Chesnut, Edited by Isabella D. Martin and Myrta Lockett Avary, A Diary From Dixie, p. 341

Diary of Mary Boykin Chesnut: January 7, 1865

Sherman is at Hardieville and Hood in Tennessee, the last of his men not gone, as Louis Wigfall so cheerfully prophesied.

Serena went for a half-hour to-day to the dentist. Her teeth are of the whitest and most regular, simply perfection. She fancied it was better to have a dentist look in her mouth before returning to the mountains. For that look she paid three hundred and fifty dollars in Confederate money. “Why, has this money any value at all?” she asked. Little enough in all truth, sad to say.

Brewster was here and stayed till midnight. Said he must see General Chesnut. He had business with him. His “me and General Hood” is no longer comic. He described Sherman's march of destruction and desolation. “Sherman leaves a track fifty miles wide, upon which there is no living thing to be seen,” said Brewster before he departed.

SOURCES: Mary Boykin Chesnut, Edited by Isabella D. Martin and Myrta Lockett Avary, A Diary From Dixie, p. 340-1

Diary of Mary Boykin Chesnut: December 27, 1864

Oh, why did we go to Camden? The very dismalest Christmas overtook us there. Miss Rhett went with us — a brilliant woman and very agreeable. '”The world, you know, is composed,” said she, “of men, women, and Rhetts” (see Lady Montagu). Now, we feel that if we are to lose our negroes, we would as soon see Sherman free them as the Confederate Government; freeing negroes is the last Confederate Government craze. We are a little too slow about it; that is all.

Sold fifteen bales of cotton and took a sad farewell look at Mulberry. It is a magnificent old country-seat, with old oaks, green lawns and all. So I took that last farewell of Mulberry, once so hated, now so beloved.

SOURCES: Mary Boykin Chesnut, Edited by Isabella D. Martin and Myrta Lockett Avary, A Diary From Dixie, p. 340

Diary of Mary Boykin Chesnut: December 19, 1864

The deep waters are closing over us and we are in this house, like the outsiders at the time of the flood. We care for none of these things. We eat, drink, laugh, dance, in lightness of heart.

Doctor Trezevant came to tell me the dismal news. How he piled on the agony! Desolation, mismanagement, despair. General Young, with the flower of Hampton's cavalry, is in Columbia. Horses can not be found to mount them. Neither the Governor of Georgia nor the Governor of South Carolina is moving hand or foot. They have given up. The Yankees claim another victory for Thomas.¹ Hope it may prove like most of their victories, brag and bluster. Can't say why, maybe I am benumbed, but I do not feel so intensely miserable.

_______________

¹ Reference is here made to the battle between Hood and Thomas at Nashville, the result of which was the breaking up of Hood's army as a fighting force.

SOURCES: Mary Boykin Chesnut, Edited by Isabella D. Martin and Myrta Lockett Avary, A Diary From Dixie, p. 339-40

Diary of Mary Boykin Chesnut: December 14, 1864

And now the young ones are in bed and I am wide awake. It is an odd thing; in all my life how many persons have I seen in love? Not a half-dozen. And I am a tolerably close observer, a faithful watcher have I been from my youth upward of men and manners. Society has been for me only an enlarged field for character study.

Flirtation is the business of society; that is, playing at love-making. It begins in vanity, it ends in vanity. It is spurred on by idleness and a want of any other excitement. Flattery, battledore and shuttlecock, how in this game flattery is dashed backward and forward. It is so soothing to self-conceit. If it begins and ends in vanity, vexation of spirit supervenes sometimes. They do occasionally burn their fingers awfully, playing with fire, but there are no hearts broken. Each party in a flirtation has secured a sympathetic listener, to whom he or she can talk of himself or herself—somebody who, for the time, admires one exclusively, and, as the French say, excessivement. It is a pleasant, but very foolish game, and so to bed.

Hood and Thomas have had a fearful fight, with carnage and loss of generals excessive in proportion to numbers. That means they were leading and urging their men up to the enemy. I know how Bartow and Barnard Bee were killed bringing up their men. One of Mr. Chesnut's sins thrown in his teeth by the Legislature of South Carolina was that he procured the promotion of Gist, “State Rights” Gist, by his influence in Richmond. What have these comfortable, stay-at-home patriots to say of General Gist now? “And how could man die better than facing fearful odds,” etc.

So Fort McAlister has fallen! Good-by, Savannah! Our Governor announces himself a follower of Joe Brown, of Georgia. Another famous Joe.

SOURCES: Mary Boykin Chesnut, Edited by Isabella D. Martin and Myrta Lockett Avary, A Diary From Dixie, p. 338-9

Diary of Mary Boykin Chesnut: December 5, 1864

Miss Olivia Middleton and Mr. Frederick Blake are to be married. We Confederates have invented the sit-up-all-night for the wedding night; Isabella calls it the wake, not the wedding, of the parties married. The ceremony will be performed early in the evening; the whole company will then sit up until five o'clock, at which hour the bridal couple take the train for Combahee. Hope Sherman will not be so inconsiderate as to cut short the honeymoon.

In tripped Brewster, with his hat on his head, both hands extended, and his greeting, “Well, here we are!” He was travel-stained, disheveled, grimy with dirt. The prophet would have to send him many times to bathe in Jordan before he could be pronounced clean.

Hood will not turn and pursue Sherman. Thomas is at his heels with forty thousand men, and can have as many more as he wants for the asking. Between Thomas and Sherman Hood would be crushed. So he was pushing — I do not remember where or what. I know there was no comfort in anything he said.

Serena's account of money spent: Paper and envelopes, $12.00; tickets to concert, $10.00; tooth-brush, $10.00; total, $32.00.

SOURCES: Mary Boykin Chesnut, Edited by Isabella D. Martin and Myrta Lockett Avary, A Diary From Dixie, p. 338

Diary of Mary Boykin Chesnut: December 3, 1864

We drank tea at Mrs. McCord's; she had her troubles, too. The night before a country cousin claimed her hospitality, one who fain would take the train at five this morning. A little after midnight Mrs. McCord was startled out of her first sleep by loud ringing of bells; an alarm at night may mean so much just now. In an instant she was on her feet. She found her guest, who thought it was daylight, and wanted to go. Mrs. McCord forcibly demonstrated how foolish it was to get up five hours too soon. Mrs. McCord, once more in her own warm bed, had fallen happily to sleep. She was waked by feeling two ice-cold hands pass cautiously over her face and person. It was pitch dark. Even Mrs. McCord gave a scream in her fright. She found it was only the irrepressible guest up and at her again. So, though it was only three o'clock, in order to quiet this perturbed spirit she rose and at five drove her to the station, where she had to wait some hours. But Mrs. McCord said, “anything for peace at home.” The restless people who will not let others rest!

SOURCES: Mary Boykin Chesnut, Edited by Isabella D. Martin and Myrta Lockett Avary, A Diary From Dixie, p. 337-8

Diary of Mary Boykin Chesnut: December 2, 1864

Isabella and I put on bonnets and shawls and went deliberately out for news. We determined to seek until we found. Met a man who was so ugly, I could not forget him or his sobriquet; he was awfully in love with me once. He did not know me, but blushed hotly when Isabella told him who I was. He had forgotten me, I hope, or else I am changed by age and care past all recognition. He gave us the encouraging information that Grahamville had been burned to the ground.

When the call for horses was made, Mrs. McCord sent in her fine bays. She comes now with a pair of mules, and looks too long and significantly at my ponies. If I were not so much afraid of her, I would hint that those mules would be of far more use in camp than my ponies. But they will seize the ponies, no doubt.

In all my life before, the stables were far off from the house and I had nothing to do with them. Now my ponies are kept under an open shed next to the back piazza. Here I sit with my work, or my desk, or my book, basking in our Southern sun, and I watch Nat feed, curry, and rub down the horses, and then he cleans their stables as thoroughly as Smith does my drawing-room. I see their beds of straw comfortably laid. Nat says, “Ow, Missis, ain't lady's business to look so much in de stables.” I care nothing for his grumbling, and I have never had horses in better condition. Poor ponies, you deserve every attention, and enough to eat. Grass does not grow under your feet. By night and day you are on the trot.

To-day General Chesnut was in Charleston on his way from Augusta to Savannah by rail. The telegraph is still working between Charleston and Savannah. Grahamville certainly is burned. There was fighting down there to-day. I came home with enough to think about, Heaven knows! And then all day long we compounded a pound cake in honor of Mrs. Cuthbert, who has things so nice at home. The cake was a success, but was it worth all that trouble?

As my party were driving off to the concert, an omnibus rattled up. Enter Captain Leland, of General Chesnut's staff, of as imposing a presence as a field-marshal, handsome and gray-haired. He was here on some military errand and brought me a letter. He said the Yankees had been repulsed, and that down in those swamps we could give a good account of ourselves if our government would send men enough. With a sufficient army to meet them down “there, they could be annihilated.” “Where are the men to come from?” asked Mamie, wildly. “General Hood has gone off to Tennessee. Even if he does defeat Thomas there, what difference would that make here?”

SOURCES: Mary Boykin Chesnut, Edited by Isabella D. Martin and Myrta Lockett Avary, A Diary From Dixie, p. 336-7

Diary of Mary Boykin Chesnut: December 1, 1864

At Coosawhatchie Yankees are landing in great force. Our troops down there are raw militia, old men and boys never under fire before; some college cadets, in all a mere handful. The cradle and the grave have been robbed by us, they say. Sherman goes to Savannah and not to Augusta.

SOURCES: Mary Boykin Chesnut, Edited by Isabella D. Martin and Myrta Lockett Avary, A Diary From Dixie, p. 336

Diary of Mary Boykin Chesnut: November 28, 1864

We dined at Mrs. McCord's. She is as strong a cordial for broken spirits and failing heart as one could wish. How her strength contrasts with our weakness. Like Doctor Palmer, she strings one up to bear bravely the worst. She has the intellect of a man and the perseverance and endurance of a woman.

We have lost nearly all of our men, and we have no money, and it looks as if we had taught the Yankees how to fight since Manassas. Our best and bravest are under the sod; we shall have to wait till another generation grows up. Here we stand, despair in our hearts (“Oh, Cassandra, don't!” shouts Isabella), with our houses burning or about to be, over our heads.

The North have just got things ship-shape; a splendid army, perfectly disciplined, with new levies coming in day and night. Their gentry do not go into the ranks. They hardly know there is a war up there.

SOURCES: Mary Boykin Chesnut, Edited by Isabella D. Martin and Myrta Lockett Avary, A Diary From Dixie, p. 335-6

Varina Howell Davis to Mary Boykin Chesnut: November 20, 1864

Richmond, Va., November 20, 1864.

Affairs West are looking so critical now that, before you receive this, you and I will be in the depths or else triumphant. I confess I do not sniff success in every passing breeze, but I am so tired, hoping, fearing, and being disappointed, that I have made up my mind not to be disconsolate, even though thieves break through and steal. Some people expect another attack upon Richmond shortly, but I think the avalanche will not slide until the spring breaks up its winter quarters. I have a blind kind of prognostics of victory for us, but somehow I am not cheered. The temper of Congress is less vicious, but more concerted in its hostile action

SOURCES: Mary Boykin Chesnut, Edited by Isabella D. Martin and Myrta Lockett Avary, A Diary From Dixie, p. 335

Diary of Mary Boykin Chesnut: November 25, 1864

Sherman is thundering at Augusta's very doors. My General was on the wing, somber, and full of care. The girls are merry enough; the staff, who fairly live here, no better. Cassandra, with a black shawl over her head, is chased by the gay crew from sofa to sofa, for she avoids them, being full of miserable anxiety. There is nothing but distraction and confusion. All things tend to the preparation for the departure of the troops. It rains all the time, such rains as I never saw before; incessant torrents. These men come in and out in the red mud and slush of Columbia streets. Things seem dismal and wretched to me to the last degree, but the staff, the girls, and the youngsters do not see it.

Mrs. S. (born in Connecticut) came, and she was radiant. She did not come to see me, but my nieces. She says exultingly that “Sherman will open a way out at last, and I will go at once to Europe or go North to my relatives there.” How she derided our misery and “mocked when our fear cometh.” I dare say she takes me for a fool. I sat there dumb, although she was in my own house, I have heard of a woman so enraged that she struck some one over the head with a shovel. To-day, for the first time in my life, I know how that mad woman felt. I could have given Mrs. S. the benefit of shovel and tongs both.

That splendid fellow, Preston Hampton; “home they brought their warrior, dead,” and wrapped in that very Legion flag he had borne so often in battle with his own hands.

A letter from Mrs. Davis to-day, under date of Richmond, Va., November 20, 1864. She says: “Affairs West are looking so critical now that, before you receive this, you and I will be in the depths or else triumphant. I confess I do not sniff success in every passing breeze, but I am so tired, hoping, fearing, and being disappointed, that I have made up my mind not to be disconsolate, even though thieves break through and steal. Some people expect another attack upon Richmond shortly, but I think the avalanche will not slide until the spring breaks up its winter quarters. I have a blind kind of prognostics of victory for us, but somehow I am not cheered. The temper of Congress is less vicious, but more concerted in its hostile action." Mrs. Davis is a woman that my heart aches for in the troubles ahead.

My journal, a quire of Confederate paper, lies wide open on my desk in the corner of my drawing-room. Everybody reads it who chooses. Buck comes regularly to see what I have written last, and makes faces when it does not suit her. Isabella still calls me Cassandra, and puts her hands to her ears when I begin to wail. Well, Cassandra only records what she hears; she does not vouch for it. For really, one nowadays never feels certain of anything.

SOURCES: Mary Boykin Chesnut, Edited by Isabella D. Martin and Myrta Lockett Avary, A Diary From Dixie, p. 334-5

Diary of Mary Boykin Chesnut: November 17, 1864

Although Sherman¹ took Atlanta, he does not mean to stay there, be it heaven or hell. Fire and the sword are for us here; that is the word. And now I must begin my Columbia life anew and alone. It will be a short shrift.

Captain Ogden came to dinner on Sunday and in the afternoon asked me to go with him to the Presbyterian Church and hear Mr. Palmer. We went, and I felt very youthful, as the country people say; like a girl and her beau. Ogden took me into a pew and my husband sat afar off. What a sermon! The preacher stirred my blood. My very flesh crept and tingled. A red-hot glow of patriotism passed through me. Such a sermon must strengthen the hearts and the hands of many people. There was more exhortation to fight and die, à la Joshua, than meek Christianity.

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¹ General Sherman had started from Chattanooga for his march across Georgia on May 6, 1864. He had won the battles of Dalton, Resaca, and New Hope Church in May, the battle of Kennesaw Mountain in June, the battles of Peach Tree Creek and Atlanta in July, and had formally occupied Atlanta on September 2d. On November 16th, he started on his march from Atlanta to the sea and entered Savannah on December 23d. Early in 1865 he moved his army northward through the Carolinas, and on April 26th received the surrender of General Joseph E. Johnston.

SOURCES: Mary Boykin Chesnut, Edited by Isabella D. Martin and Myrta Lockett Avary, A Diary From Dixie, p. 333-4