Diary of John Beauchamp Jones: December 15, 1862

Yesterday evening several trains laden with wounded arrived in the city. The remains of Brig.-Gen. T. R. R. Cobb, of Georgia, were brought down. Brig.-Gen. Gregg, of South Carolina, is said to be mortally wounded. It is now believed that Major-Gen. Hood, of Texas, did not fall. The number of our killed and wounded is estimated, by a surgeon who came with the wounded, to be not over a thousand.

To-day, stragglers from the battle-field say that our loss in killed and wounded is 3000. It is all conjecture.

There was heavy skirmishing all day yesterday, and until to day at noon, when the telegraph operator reports that the firing had ceased. We know not (yet) what this means. We are still sending artillery ammunition to Gen. Lee.

Gen. Evans dispatches from Kinston, N. C., that on the 14th, yesterday, he repulsed the enemy, 15,000 strong, and drove them back to their boats in Neuse River. A portion of Gen. R. A. Pryor's command, in Isle of Wight County, was engaged with the enemy's advance the same day. They have also landed at Gloucester Point. This is pronounced a simultaneous attack on our harbors and cities in Virginia and North Carolina. Perhaps we shall have more before night. Our people seem prepared for any event.

Another long train of negroes have just passed through the city, singing, to work on the fortifications.

SOURCE: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 1, p. 213-4

Diary of Judith Brockenbrough McGuire: December 14, 1862

Firing in the direction of Fredericksburg renewed this morning, but at irregular intervals. Telegraph wires are cut. No news except from passengers in the trains. The cars are not allowed to go to the town, but stop at a point some miles below. They report that every thing goes on well for us, of which we were sure, from the receding sound of the cannon. Praise the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me praise His holy name! How can we be thankful enough for such men as General Lee, General Jackson, and our glorious army, rank and file!

Nine o'Clock at Night. — A sad, sad train passed down a short time ago, bearing the bodies of Generals Cobb, of Georgia, and Maxcy Gregg, of South Carolina. Two noble spirits have thus passed away from us. Peace to their honoured remains! The gentlemen report many wounded on the train, but not very severely. I fear it has been another bloody Sabbath. The host of wounded will pass to-morrow; we must be up early to prepare to administer to their comfort. The sound of cannon this evening was much more distant, and not constant enough for a regular fight. We are victorious again! Will they now go from our shores forever? We dread to hear of the casualties. Who may not be among the wounded to-morrow?

SOURCE: Judith W. McGuire, Diary of a Southern Refugee, During the War, p. 175-6

Diary of Mary Boykin Chesnut: June 27, 1862

We went in a body (half a dozen ladies, with no man on escort duty, for they are all in the army) to a concert. Mrs. Pickens came in. She was joined soon by Secretary Moses and Mr. Follen. Doctor Berrien came to our relief. Nothing could be more execrable than the singing. Financially the thing was a great success, for though the audience was altogether feminine, it was a very large one.

Telegram from Mr. Chesnut, “Safe in Richmond”; that is, if Richmond be safe, with all the power of the United States of America battering at her gates. Strange not a word from Stonewall Jackson, after all! Doctor Gibson telegraphs his wife, “Stay where you are; terrible battle¹ looked for here.”

Decca is dead. That poor little darling! Immediately after her baby was born, she took it into her head that Alex was killed. He was wounded, but those around had not told her of it. She surprised them by asking, “Does any one know how the battle has gone since Alex was killed?” She could not read for a day or so before she died. Her head was bewildered, but she would not let any one else touch her letters; so she died with several unopened ones in her bosom. Mrs. Singleton, Decca's mother, fainted dead away, but she shed no tears. We went to the house and saw Alex's mother, a daughter of Langdon Cheves. Annie was with us. She said: “This is the saddest thing for Alex.” “No,” said his mother, “death is never the saddest thing. If he were not a good man, that would be a far worse thing.” Annie, in utter amazement, whimpered, “But Alex is so good already.” “Yes, seven years ago the death of one of his sisters that he dearly loved made him a Christian. That death in our family was worth a thousand lives.”

One needs a hard heart now. Even old Mr. Shand shed tears. Mary Barnwell sat as still as a statue, as white and stony. “Grief which can relieve itself by tears is a thing to pray for,” said the Rev. Mr. Shand. Then came a telegram from Hampton, “All well; so far we are successful." Robert Barnwell had been telegraphed for. His answer came, “Can't leave here; Gregg is fighting across the Chickahominy.” Said Alex's mother: “My son, Alex, may never hear this sad news,” and her lip settled rigidly. “Go on; what else does Hampton says,” asked she. “Lee has one wing of the army, Stonewall the other.”

Annie Hampton came to tell us the latest news — that we have abandoned James Island and are fortifying Morris Island. “And now,” she says, “if the enemy will be so kind as to wait, we will be ready for them in two months.”

Rev. Mr. Shand and that pious Christian woman, Alex's mother (who looks into your very soul with those large and lustrous blue eyes of hers) agreed that the Yankees, even if they took Charleston, would not destroy it. I think they will, sinner that I am. Mr. Shand remarked to her, “Madam, you have two sons in the army.” Alex's mother replied, “I have had six sons in the army; I now have five.”

There are people here too small to conceive of any larger business than quarreling in the newspapers. One laughs at squibs in the papers now, in such times as these, with the wolf at our doors. Men safe in their closets writing fiery articles, denouncing those who are at work, are beneath contempt. Only critics with muskets on their shoulders have the right to speak now, as Trenholm said the other night.

In a pouring rain we went to that poor child's funeral — to Decca's. They buried her in the little white frock she wore when she engaged herself to Alex, and which she again put on for her bridal about a year ago. She lies now in the churchyard, in sight of my window. Is she to be pitied? She said she had had “months of perfect happiness.” How many people can say that? So many of us live their long, dreary lives and then happiness never comes to meet them at all. It seems so near, and yet it eludes them forever.

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¹ Malvern Hill, the last of the Seven Days' Battles, was fought near Richmond on the James River, July 1, 1862. The Federals were commanded by McClellan and the Confederates by Lee.

SOURCE: Mary Boykin Chesnut, Edited by Isabella D. Martin and Myrta Lockett Avary, A Diary From Dixie, p. 193-5

Diary of Mary Boykin Chesnut: June 13, 1862

Decca's wedding. It took place last year. We were all lying on the bed or sofas taking it coolly as to undress. Mrs. Singleton had the floor. They were engaged before they went up to Charlottesville; Alexander was on Gregg's staff, and Gregg was not hard on him; Decca was the worst in love girl she ever saw. “Letters came while we were at the hospital, from Alex, urging her to let him marry her at once. In war times human events, life especially, are very uncertain.” For several days consecutively she cried without ceasing, and then she consented. The rooms at the hospital were all crowded. Decca and I slept together in the same room. It was arranged by letter that the marriage should take place; a luncheon at her grandfather Minor's, and then she was to depart with Alex for a few days at Richmond. That was to be their brief slice of honeymoon.

The day came. The wedding-breakfast was ready, so was the bride in all her bridal array, but no Alex, no bridegroom. Alas! such is the uncertainty of a soldier's life. The bride said nothing, but she wept like a water-nymph. At dinner she plucked up heart, and at my earnest request was about to join us. And then the cry, “The bridegroom cometh.”  He brought his best man and other friends. We had a jolly dinner. “Circumstances over which he had no control” had kept him away.

His father sat next to Decca and talked to her all the time as if she had been already married. It was a piece of absent-mindedness on his part, pure and simple, but it was very trying, and the girl had had much to stand that morning, you can well understand. Immediately after dinner the belated bridegroom proposed a walk; so they went for a brief stroll up the mountain. Decca, upon her return, said to me: “Send for Robert Barnwell. I mean to be married to-day.”

“Impossible. No spare room in the house. No getting away from here; the trains all gone. Don't you know this hospital place is crammed to the ceiling?” “Alex says I promised to marry him to-day. It is not his fault; he could not. come before.” I shook my head. “I don't care,” said the positive little thing, “I promised Alex to marry him to-day and I will. Send for the Rev. Robert Barnwell.” We found Robert after a world of trouble, and the bride, lovely in Swiss muslin, was married.

Then I proposed they should take another walk, and I went to one of my sister nurses and begged her to take me in for the night, as I wished to resign my room to the young couple. At daylight next day they took the train for Richmond.  Such is the small allowance of honeymoon permitted in war time.

Beauregard's telegram: he can not leave the army of the West. His health is bad. No doubt the sea breezes would restore him, but — he can not come now. Such a lovely name — Gustave Tautant Beauregard. But Jackson and Johnston and Smith and Jones will do — and Lee, how short and sweet.

“Every day,” says Mem, “they come here in shoals — men to say we can not hold Richmond, and we can not hold Charleston much longer. Wretches, beasts! Why do you come here? Why don't you stay there and fight? Don't you see that you own yourselves cowards by coming away in the very face of a battle? If you are not liars as to the danger, you are cowards to run away from it.'” Thus roars the practical Mem, growing more furious at each word. These Jeremiahs laugh. They think she means others, not the present company.

Tom Huger resigned his place in the United States Navy and came to us. The Iroquois was his ship in the old navy. They say, as he stood in the rigging, after he was shot in the leg, when his ship was leading the attack upon the Iroquois, his old crew in the Iroquois cheered him, and when his body was borne in, the Federals took off their caps in respect for his gallant conduct. When he was dying, Meta Huger said to him: “An officer wants to see you: he is one of the enemy.” “Let him come in; I have no enemies now.” But when he heard the man's name:

“No, no. I do not want to see a Southern man who is now in Lincoln's navy.” The officers of the United States Navy attended his funeral.

SOURCE: Mary Boykin Chesnut, Edited by Isabella D. Martin and Myrta Lockett Avary, A Diary From Dixie, p. 184-6

Diary of Mary Boykin Chesnut: June 10, 1862

General Gregg writes that Chickahominy¹ was a victory manqué, because Joe Johnston received a disabling wound and G. W. Smith was ill. The subordinates in command had not been made acquainted with the plan of battle.

A letter from John Chesnut, who says it must be all a mistake about Wade Hampton's wound, for he saw him in the field to the very last; that is, until late that night. Hampton writes to Mary McDuffie that the ball was extracted from his foot on the field, and that he was in the saddle all day, but that, when he tried to take his boot off at night his foot was so inflamed and swollen, the boot had to be cut away, and the wound became more troublesome than he had expected.

Mrs. Preston sent her carriage to take us to see Mrs. Herbemont, whom Mary Gibson calls her “Mrs. Burgamot.” Miss Bay came down, ever-blooming, in a cap so formidable, I could but laugh. It was covered with a bristling row of white satin spikes. She coyly refused to enter Mrs. Preston's carriage — “to put foot into it,” to use her own words; but she allowed herself to be over-persuaded.

I am so ill. Mrs. Ben Taylor said to Doctor Trezevant, “Surely, she is too ill to be going about; she ought to be in bed.” “She is very feeble, very nervous, as you say, but then she is living on nervous excitement. If you shut her up she would die at once.” A queer weakness of the heart, I have. Sometimes it beats so feebly I am sure it has stopped altogether. Then they say I have fainted, but I never lose consciousness.

Mrs. Preston and I were talking of negroes and cows. A negro, no matter how sensible he is on any other subject, can never be convinced that there is any necessity to feed a cow. “Turn 'em out, and let 'em grass. Grass good nuff for cow.”

Famous news comes from Richmond, but not so good from the coast. Mrs. Izard said, quoting I forget whom: “If West Point could give brains as well as training!” Smith is under arrest for disobedience of orders — Pemberton's orders. This is the third general whom Pemberton has displaced within a few weeks — Ripley, Mercer, and now Smith.

When I told my husband that Molly was full of airs since her late trip home, he made answer: “Tell her to go to the devil — she or anybody else on the plantation who is dissatisfied; let them go. It is bother enough to feed and clothe them now.” When he went over to the plantation he returned charmed with their loyalty to him, their affection and their faithfulness.

Sixteen more Yankee regiments have landed on James Island. Eason writes, “They have twice the energy and enterprise of our people.” I answered, “Wait a while. Let them alone until climate and mosquitoes and sand-flies and dealing with negroes takes it all out of them.” Stonewall is a regular brick, going all the time, winning his way wherever he goes. Governor Pickens called to see me. His wife is in great trouble, anxiety, uncertainty. Her brother and her brother-in-law are either killed or taken prisoners.

Tom Taylor says Wade Hampton did not leave the field on account of his wound. “What heroism! “ said some one. No, what luck! He is the luckiest man alive. He'll never be killed. He was shot in the temple, but that did not kill him. His soldiers believe in his luck.

General Scott, on Southern soldiers, says, we have élan, courage, woodcraft, consummate horsemanship, endurance of pain equal to the Indians, but that we will not submit to discipline. We will not take care of things, or husband our resources. Where we are there is waste and destruction. If it could all be done by one wild, desperate dash, we would do it. But he does not think we can stand the long, blank months between the acts — the waiting! We can bear pain without a murmur, but we will not submit to be bored, etc.

Now, for the other side. Men of the North can wait; they can bear discipline; they can endure forever. Losses in battle are nothing to them. Their resources in men and materials of war are inexhaustible, and if they see fit they will fight to the bitter end. Here is a nice prospect for us —  as comfortable as the old man's croak at Mulberry, “Bad times, worse coming.”

Mrs. McCord says, “In the hospital the better born, that is, those born in the purple, the gentry, those who are accustomed to a life of luxury, are the better patients. They endure in silence. They are hardier, stronger, tougher, less liable to break down than the sons of the soil.” “Why is that?” I asked, and she answered, “Something in man that is more than the body.”

I know how it feels to die. I have felt it again and again. For instance, some one calls out, “Albert Sidney Johnston is killed.” My heart stands still. I feel no more. I am, for so many seconds, so many minutes, I know not how long, utterly without sensation of any kind — dead; and then, there is that great throb, that keen agony of physical pain, and the works are wound up again. The ticking of the clock begins, and I take up the burden of life once more. Some day it will stop too long, or my feeble heart will be too worn out to make that awakening jar, and all will be over. I do not think when the end comes that there will be any difference, except the miracle of the new wind-up throb. And now good news is just as exciting as bad. “Hurrah, Stonewall has saved us!” The pleasure is almost pain because of my way of feeling it.

Miriam's Luryea and the coincidences of his life. He was born Moses, and is the hero of the bombshell. His mother was at a hotel in Charleston when kind-hearted Anna De Leon Moses went for her sister-in-law, and gave up her own chamber, that the child might be born in the comfort and privacy of a home. Only our people are given to such excessive hospitality. So little Luryea was born in Anna De Leon's chamber. After Chickahominy when he, now a man, lay mortally wounded, Anna Moses, who was living in Richmond, found him, and she brought him home, though her house was crowded to the door-steps. She gave up her chamber to him, and so, as he had been born in her room, in her room he died.

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¹ This must be a reference to the Battle of Seven Pines or to the Campaign of the Chickahominy, up to and inclusive of that battle.

SOURCE: Mary Boykin Chesnut, Edited by Isabella D. Martin and Myrta Lockett Avary, A Diary From Dixie, p. 180

Diary of Mary Boykin Chesnut: April 6, 1861

The plot thickens, the air is red hot with rumors; the mystery is to find out where these utterly groundless tales originate. In spite of all, Tom Huger came for us and we went on the Planter to take a look at Morris Island and its present inhabitants — Mrs. Wigfall and the Cheves girls, Maxcy Gregg and Colonel Whiting, also John Rutledge, of the Navy, Dan Hamilton, and William Haskell. John Rutledge was a figurehead to be proud of. He did not speak to us. But he stood with a Scotch shawl draped about him, as handsome and stately a creature as ever Queen Elizabeth loved to look upon.

There came up such a wind we could not land. I was not too sorry, though it blew so hard (I am never seasick). Colonel Whiting explained everything about the forts, what they lacked, etc., in the most interesting way, and Maxcy Gregg supplemented his report by stating all the deficiencies and shortcomings by land.

Beauregard is a demigod here to most of the natives, but there are always seers who see and say. They give you to understand that Whiting has all the brains now in use for our defense. He does the work and Beauregard reaps the glory. Things seem to draw near a crisis. And one must think. Colonel Whiting is clever enough for anything, so we made up our minds to-day, Maxcy Gregg and I, as judges. Mr. Gregg told me that my husband was in a minority in the Convention; so much for cool sense when the atmosphere is phosphorescent. Mrs. Wigfall says we are mismatched. She should pair with my cool, quiet, self-poised Colonel. And her stormy petrel is but a male reflection of me.

SOURCE: Mary Boykin Chesnut, Edited by Isabella D. Martin and Myrta Lockett Avary, A Diary From Dixie, p. 31

Major-General Thomas J. Jackson to Mary Anna Morrison Jackson, December 16, 1862

Yesterday, I regret to say, I did not send you a letter. I was on the front from before dawn until after sunset. The enemy, through God's blessing, was repulsed at all points on Saturday, and I trust that our Heavenly Father will continue to bless us. We have renewed reason for gratitude to Him for my preservation during the last engagement. We have to mourn the deaths of Generals Maxey Gregg and Thomas R. R. Cobb. The enemy has recrossed to the north side of the Rappahannock.  . . . I was made very happy at hearing through my baby daughter's last letter that she had entirely recovered, and that she “no longer saw the doctor’s gray whiskers.” 1 was much gratified to learn that she was beginning to notice and smile when caressed. I tell you, I would love to caress her and see her smile. Kiss the little darling for her father and give my grateful love to sister H–––.

SOURCE: Mary Anna Jackson, Life and Letters of General Thomas J. Jackson (Stonewall Jackson), p. 386