Commissioners of the State of South Carolina to James Buchanan, January 1, 1861

Washington, D. C,

January 1st, 1861.

Sir: We have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 30th December, in reply to a note addressed by us to you on the 28th of the same month, as Commissioners from South Carolina.

In reference to the declaration with which your reply commences, that “your position as President of the United States was clearly defined in the Message to Congress of the 3d instant,” that you possess “no power to change the relations heretofore existing” between South Carolina and the United States, “much less to acknowledge the independence of that State;” and that, consequently, you could meet us only as private gentlemen of the highest character, with an entire willingness to communicate to Congress any proposition we might have to make, we deem it only necessary to say, that the State of South Carolina having, in the exercise of that great right of self-government which underlies all our political organizations, declared herself sovereign and independent, we, as her representatives, felt no special solicitude as to the character in which you might recognize us. Satisfied that the State had simply exercised her unquestionable right, we were prepared, in order to reach substantial good, to waive the formal considerations which your constitutional scruples might have prevented you from extending. We came here, therefore, expecting to be received as you did receive us, and perfectly content with that entire willingness of which you assured us, to submit any proposition to Congress which we might have to make upon the subject of the independence of the State. That willingness was ample recognition of the condition of public affairs which rendered our presence necessary. In this position, however, it is our duty, both to the State which we represent and to ourselves, to correct several important misconceptions of our letter into which you have fallen.

You say, “It was my earnest desire that such a disposition might be made of the whole subject by Congress, who alone possesses the power to prevent the inauguration of a civil war between the parties in regard to the possession of the federal forts in the harbor of Charleston; and I, therefore, deeply regret that, in your opinion, ‘the events of the last twenty-four hours render this impossible.’” We expressed no such opinion, and the language which you quote as ours, is altered in its sense by the omission of a most important part of the sentence. What we did say was: “But the events of the last twenty-four hours render such an assurance impossible.” Place that “assurance” as contained in our letter, in the sentence, and we are prepared to repeat it.

Again, professing to quote our language, you say:— “Thus the authorities of South Carolina, without waiting or asking for any explanation, and, doubtless, believing, as you have expressed it, that the officer had acted not only without, but against my orders,” &c. We expressed no such opinion in reference to the belief of the people of South Carolina. The language which you have quoted, was applied solely and entirely to our assurance, obtained here, and based, as you well know, upon your own declaration — a declaration which, at that time, it was impossible for the authorities of South Carolina to have known. But, without following this letter into all its details, we propose only to meet the chief points of the argument.

Some weeks ago, the State of South Carolina declared her intention, in the existing condition of public affairs, to secede from the United States. She called a Convention of her people, to put her declaration in force. The Convention met, and passed the Ordinance of Secession. All this you anticipated, and your course of action was thoroughly considered. In your annual message, you declared you had no right, and would not attempt, to coerce a seceding State, but that you were bound by your constitutional oath, and would defend the property of the United States within the borders of South Carolina, if an attempt was made to take it by force. Seeing very early that this question of property was a difficult and delicate one, you manifested a desire to settle it without collision. You did not reinforce the garrisons in the harbor of Charleston. You removed a distinguished and veteran officer from the command of Fort Moultrie, because he attempted to increase his supply of ammunition. You refused to send additional troops to the same garrison when applied for by the officer appointed to succeed him. You accepted the resignation of the oldest and most eminent member of your Cabinet, rather than allow these garrisons to be strengthened. You compelled an officer stationed at Fort Sumter, to return immediately to the Arsenal, forty muskets which he had taken to arm his men. You expressed not to one, but to many, of the most distinguished of our public characters, whoso testimony will be placed upon the record, whenever it is necessary, your anxiety for a peaceful termination of this controversy, and your willingness not to disturb the military status of the forts, if Commissioners should be sent to the Government, whose communications you promised to submit to Congress. You received and acted on assurances from the highest official authorities of South Carolina, that no attempt would be made to disturb your possession of the forts and property of the United States, if you would not disturb their existing condition until Commissioners had been sent, and the attempt to negotiate had failed. You took from the members of the House of Representatives, a written memorandum that no such attempt should be made, “provided that no reinforcements shall be sent into those forts, and their relative military status shall remain as at present.” And, although you attach no force to the acceptance of such a paper, although you “considered it as nothing more in effect than the promise of highly honorable gentlemen,” as an obligation on one side without corresponding obligation on the other, it must be remembered (if we are rightly informed) that you were pledged, if you ever did send reinforcements, to return it to those from whom you had received it before you executed your resolution. You sent orders to your officers, commanding them strictly to follow a line of conduct in conformity with such an understanding.

Beside all this, you had received formal and official notice from the Governor of South Carolina, that we had been appointed Commissioners, and were on our way to Washington. You knew the implied condition under which we came; our arrival was notified to you, and an hour appointed for an interview. We arrived in Washington on Wednesday, at three o'clock, and you appointed an interview with us at one the next day. Early on that day, Thursday, the news was received here of the movement of Major Anderson. That news was communicated to you immediately, and you postponed our meeting until half-past two o'clock, on Friday, in order that you might consult your Cabinet. On Friday we saw you, and we called upon you then to redeem your pledge. You could not deny it. With the facts we have stated, and in the face of the crowning and conclusive fact, that your Secretary of War had resigned his seat in the Cabinet, upon the publicly avowed ground that the action of Major Anderson had violated the pledged faith of the Government, and that unless the pledge was instantly redeemed, he was dishonored; denial was impossible; you did not deny it. You do not deny it now, but you seek to escape from its obligation on two grounds: 1st, That we terminated all negotiation by demanding, as a preliminary, the withdrawal of the United States troops from the harbor of Charleston; and 2d, That the authorities of South Carolina, instead of asking explanation, and giving you the opportunity to vindicate yourself, took possession of other property of the United States. We will examine both.

In the first place, we deny positively, that we have ever, in any way, made any such demand. Our letter is in your possession; it will stand by this on the record. In it, we inform you of the objects of our mission. We say that it would have been our duty to have assured you of our readiness to commence negotiations with the most earnest and anxious desire to settle all questions between us amicably, and to our mutual advantage, but that events had rendered that assurance impossible. We stated the events, and we said that, until some satisfactory explanation of these events was given us, we could not proceed, and then, having made this request for explanation, we added, “and, in conclusion, we would urge upon you the immediate withdrawal of the troops from the harbor of Charleston. Under present circumstances they are a standing menace, which renders negotiation impossible,” &c. “Under present circumstances!” What circumstances? Why, clearly, the occupation of Fort Sumter, and the dismantling of Fort Moultrie by Major Anderson, in the face of your pledges, and without explanation or practical disavowal. And there is nothing in the letter, which would or could have prevented you from declining to withdraw the troops, and offering the restoration of the status to which you were pledged, if such had been your desire. It would have been wiser and better, in our opinion, to have withdrawn the troops, and this opinion we urged upon you, but we demanded nothing but such an explanation of the events of the last twenty-four hours as would restore our confidence in the spirit with which the negotiation should be conducted. In relation to this withdrawal of the troops from the harbor, we are compelled, however, to notice one passage of your letter. Referring to it, you say: “This I cannot do. This I will not do. Such an idea was never thought of by me in any possible contingency. No allusion to it had ever been made in any communication between myself and any human being.”

In reply to this statement, we are compelled to say, that your conversation with us left upon our minds the distinct impression that you did seriously contemplate the withdrawal of the troops from Charleston harbor. And, in support of this impression, we would add that we have the positive assurance of gentlemen of the highest possible public reputation, and the most unsullied integrity — men whose name and fame, secured by long service and patriotic achievement, place their testimony beyond cavil — that such suggestions had been made to, and urged upon you by them, and had formed the subject of more than one earnest discussion with you. And it was this knowledge that induced us to urge upon you a policy which had to recommend it, its own wisdom and the weight of such authority. As to the second point, that the authorities of South Carolina, instead of asking explanations, and giving you the opportunity to vindicate yourself, took possession of other property of the United States, we would observe, 1st. That, even if this were so, it does not avail you for defence, for the opportunity for decision was afforded you before these facts occurred. We arrived in Washington on Wednesday. The news from Major Anderson reached here early on Thursday, and was immediately communicated to you. All that day, men of the highest consideration — men who had striven successfully to lift you to your great office — who had been your tried and true friends through the troubles of your administration — sought you, and entreated you to act — to act at once. They told you that every hour complicated your position. They only asked you to give the assurance that, if the facts were so — that, if the commander had acted without, and against your orders, and in violation of your pledges, that you would restore the status you had pledged your honor to maintain.

You refused to decide. Your Secretary at War — your immediate and proper adviser in this whole matter — waited anxiously for your decision, until he felt that delay was becoming dishonor. More than twelve hours passed, and two Cabinet meetings had adjourned before you knew what the authorities of South Carolina had done, and your prompt decision at any moment of that time, would have avoided the subsequent complications. But if you had known the acts of the authorities of South Carolina, should that have prevented your keeping your faith? What was the condition of things? For the last sixty days, you have had in Charleston harbor, not force enough to hold the 2 forts against an equal enemy. Two of them were empty; one of those two, the most important in the harbor. It could have been taken at any time. You ought to know better than any man, that it would have been taken, but for the efforts of those who put their trust in your honor. Believing that they were threatened by Fort Sumter especially, the people were, with difficulty, restrained from securing, without blood, the possession of this important fortress. After many and reiterated assurances given on your behalf, which we cannot believe unauthorized, they determined to forbear, and in good faith sent on their Commissioners to negotiate with you. They meant you no harm; wished you no ill. They thought of you kindly, believed you true, and were willing, as far as was consistent with duty, to spare you unnecessary and hostile collision. Scarcely had their Commissioners left, than Major Anderson waged war. — No other words will describe his action. It was not a peaceful change from one fort to another; it was a hostile act in the highest sense — one only justified in the presence of a superior enemy, and in imminent peril. He abandoned his position, spiked his guns, burned his gun-carriages, made preparations for the destruction of his post, and withdrew under cover of the night to a safer position. This was war. No man could have believed (without your assurance) that any officer could have taken such a step, “not only without orders, but against orders.” What the State did, was in simple self-defence; for this act, with all its attending circumstances, was as much war as firing a volley; and war being thus begun, until those commencing it explained their action, and disavowed their intention, there was no room for delay; and, even at this moment, while we are writing, it is more than probable, from the tenor of your letter, that reinforcements are hurrying on to the conflict, so that when the first gun shall be fired, there will have been, on your part, one continuous consistent series of actions commencing in a demonstration essentially warlike, supported by regular reinforcement, and terminating in defeat or victory. And all this without the slightest provocation; for, among the many things which you have said, there is one thing you cannot say — you have waited anxiously for news from the seat of war, in hopes that delay would furnish some excuse for this precipitation. But this “tangible evidence of a design to proceed to a hostile act, on the part of the authorities of South Carolina,” (which is the only justification of Major Anderson,) you are forced to admit “has not yet been alleged.” But you have decided. You have resolved to hold by force what you have obtained through our misplaced confidence, and by refusing to disavow the action of Major Anderson, have converted his violation of orders into a legitimate act of your Executive authority. Be the issue what it may, of this we are assured, that, if Fort Moultrie has been recorded in history as a memorial of Carolina gallantry, Fort Sumter will live upon the succeeding page as an imperishable testimony of Carolina faith.

By your course, you have probably rendered civil war inevitable. Be it so. If you choose to force this issue upon us, the State of South Carolina will accept it, and, relying upon Him who is the God of justice as well as the God of hosts, will endeavor to perform the great duty which lies before her, hopefully, bravely and thoroughly.

Our mission being one for negotiation and peace, and your note leaving us without hope of a withdrawal of the troops from Fort Sumter, or of the restoration of the status quo existing at the time of our arrival, and intimating, as we think, your determination to reinforce the garrison in the harbor of Charleston, we respectfully inform you that we propose returning to Charleston on to-morrow afternoon.

We have the honor to be, sir, very respectfully,

Your obedient servants,

R. W. BARNWELL,

J. H. ADAMS,

JAMES L. ORR.

Commissioners.

To his Excellency, the President

of the United States.

[Endorsement.]

Executive Mansion,

3½ o'clock, Wednesday.

This paper, just presented to the President, is of such a character that he declines to receive it.

SOURCE: The Correspondence Between the Commissioners of the State of So. Ca. to the Government at Washington and the President of the United States, p. 12-20

Diary of Mary Boykin Chesnut: September 7, 1863

Major Edward Johnston did not get into the Confederacy until after the first battle of Manassas. For some cause, before he could evade that potentate, Seward rang his little bell and sent him to a prison in the harbor of New York. I forget whether he was exchanged or escaped of his own motion. The next thing I heard of my antebellum friend he had defeated Milroy in Western Virginia. There were so many Johnstons that for this victory they named him Alleghany Johnston.

He had an odd habit of falling into a state of incessant winking as soon as he became the least startled or agitated. In such times he seemed persistently to be winking one eye at you. He meant nothing by it, and in point of fact did not know himself that he was doing it. In Mexico he had been wounded in the eye, and the nerve vibrates independently of his will. During the winter of 1862 and 1863 he was on crutches. After a while he hobbled down Franklin Street with us, we proud to accommodate our pace to that of the wounded general. His ankle continued stiff; so when he sat down another chair had to be put before him. On this he stretched out his stiff leg, straight as a ramrod. At that time he was our only wounded knight, and the girls waited on him and made life pleasant for him.

One night I listened to two love-tales at once, in a distracted state of mind between the two. William Porcher Miles, in a perfectly modulated voice, in cadenced accents and low tones, was narrating the happy end of his affair. He had been engaged to sweet little Bettie Bierne, and I gave him my congratulations with all my heart. It was a capital match, suitable in every way, good for her, and good for him. I was deeply interested in Mr. Miles's story, but there was din and discord on the other hand; old Edward, our pet general, sat diagonally across the room with one leg straight out like a poker, wrapped in red carpet leggings, as red as a turkey-cock in the face. His head is strangely shaped, like a cone or an old-fashioned beehive; or, as Buck said, there are three tiers of it; it is like a pope's tiara.

There he sat, with a loud voice and a thousand winks, making love to Mary P. I make no excuse for listening. It was impossible not to hear him. I tried not to lose a word of Mr. Miles's idyl as the despair of the veteran was thundered into my other ear. I lent an ear to each conversationalist. Mary can not altogether control her voice, and her shrill screams of negation, “No, no, never,” etc., utterly failed to suppress her wounded lover's obstreperous asseverations of his undying affection for her.

Buck said afterward: “We heard every word of it on our side of the room, even when Mamie shrieked to him that he was talking too loud. Now, Mamie,” said we afterward, “do you think it was kind to tell him he was forty if he was a day?”

Strange to say, the pet general, Edward, rehabilitated his love in a day; at least two days after he was heard to say that he was “paying attentions now to his cousin, John Preston's second daughter; her name, Sally, but they called her Buck—Sally Buchanan Campbell Preston, a lovely girl.” And with her he now drove, rode, and hobbled on his crutches, sent her his photograph, and in due time cannonaded her, from the same spot where he had courted Mary, with proposals to marry him.

Buck was never so decided in her “Nos” as Mary. (“Not so loud, at least” — thus in amendment, says Buck, who always reads what I have written, and makes comments of assent or dissent.) So again he began to thunder in a woman's ears his tender passion. As they rode down Franklin Street, Buck says she knows the people on the sidewalk heard snatches of the conversation, though she rode as rapidly as she could, and she begged him not to talk so loud. Finally, they dashed up to our door as if they had been running a race. Unfortunate in love, but fortunate in war, our general is now winning new laurels with Ewell in the Valley or with the Army of the Potomac.

I think I have told how Miles, still “so gently o'er me leaning,” told of his successful love while General Edward Johnston roared unto anguish and disappointment over his failures. Mr. Miles spoke of sweet little Bettie Bierne as if she had been a French girl, just from a convent, kept far from the haunts of men wholly for him. One would think to hear him that Bettie had never cast those innocent blue eyes of hers on a man until he came along.

Now, since I first knew Miss Bierne in 1857, when Pat Calhoun was to the fore, she has been followed by a tale of men as long as a Highland chief's. Every summer at the Springs, their father appeared in the ballroom a little before twelve and chased the three beautiful Biernes home before him in spite of all entreaties, and he was said to frown away their too numerous admirers at all hours of the day.

This new engagement was confided to me as a profound secret. Of course, I did not mention it, even to my own household. Next day little Alston, Morgan's adjutant, and George Deas called. As Colonel Deas removed his gloves, he said: “Oh! the Miles and Bierne sensation — have you heard of it?” “No, what is the row about?” “They are engaged to be married; that's all.” “Who told you?” “Miles himself, as we walked down Franklin Street, this afternoon.” “And did he not beg you not to mention it, as Bettie did not wish it spoken of?” “God bless my soul, so he did. And I forgot that part entirely.”

Colonel Alston begged the stout Carolinian not to take his inadvertent breach of faith too much to heart. Miss Bettie's engagement had caused him a dreadful night. A young man, who was his intimate friend, came to his room in the depths of despair and handed him a letter from Miss Bierne, which was the cause of all his woe. Not knowing that she was already betrothed to Miles, he had proposed to her in an eloquent letter. In her reply, she positively stated that she was engaged to Mr. Miles, and instead of thanking her for putting him at once out of his misery, he considered the reason she gave as trebly aggravating the agony of the love-letter and the refusal. “Too late!” he yelled, “by Jingo!” So much for a secret.

Miss Bierne and I became fast friends. Our friendship was based on a mutual admiration for the honorable member from South Carolina. Colonel and Mrs. Myers and Colonel and Mrs. Chesnut were the only friends of Mr. Miles who were invited to the wedding. At the church door the sexton demanded our credentials. No one but those whose names he held in his hand were allowed to enter. Not twenty people were present — a mere handful grouped about the altar in that large church.

We were among the first to arrive. Then came a faint flutter and Mrs. Parkman (the bride's sister, swathed in weeds for her young husband, who had been killed within a year of her marriage) came rapidly up the aisle alone. She dropped upon her knees in the front pew, and there remained, motionless, during the whole ceremony, a mass of black crape, and a dead weight on my heart. She has had experience of war. A cannonade around Richmond interrupted her marriage service — a sinister omen — and in a year thereafter her bridegroom was stiff and stark — dead upon the field of battle.

While the wedding-march turned our thoughts from her and thrilled us with sympathy, the bride advanced in white satin and point d'Alençon. Mrs. Myers whispered that it was Mrs. Parkman's wedding-dress that the bride had on. She remembered the exquisite lace, and she shuddered with superstitious forebodings.

All had been going on delightfully in-doors, but a sharp shower cleared the church porch of the curious; and, as the water splashed, we wondered how we were to assemble ourselves at Mrs. McFarland's. All the horses in Richmond had been impressed for some sudden cavalry necessity a few days before. I ran between Mr. McFarland and Senator Semmes with my pretty Paris rose-colored silk turned over my head to save it, and when we arrived at the hospitable mansion of the McFarlands, Mr. McFarland took me straight into the drawing-room, man-like, forgetting that my ruffled plumes needed a good smoothing and preening.

Mrs. Lee sent for me. She was staying at Mrs. Caskie's. I was taken directly to her room, where she was lying on the bed. She said, before I had taken my seat: “You know there is a fight going on now at Brandy Station?”¹ “Yes, we are anxious. John Chesnut's company is there, too.” She spoke sadly, but quietly. “My son, Roony, is wounded; his brother has gone for him. They will soon be here and we shall know all about it unless Roony's wife takes him to her grandfather. Poor lame mother, I am useless to my children.” Mrs. Caskie said: “You need not be alarmed. The General said in his telegram that it was not a severe wound. You know even Yankees believe General Lee.”

That day, Mrs. Lee gave me a likeness of the General in a photograph taken soon after the Mexican War. She likes it so much better than the later ones. He certainly was a handsome man then, handsomer even than now. I shall prize it for Mrs. Lee's sake, too. She said old Mrs. Chesnut and her aunt, Nellie Custis (Mrs. Lewis) were very intimate during Washington's Administration in Philadelphia. I told her Mrs. Chesnut, senior, was the historical member of our family; she had so much to tell of Revolutionary times. She was one of the “white-robed choir” of little maidens who scattered flowers before Washington at Trenton Bridge, which everybody who writes a life of Washington asks her to give an account of.

Mrs. Ould and Mrs. Davis came home with me. Lawrence had a basket of delicious cherries. “If there were only some ice,” said I. Respectfully Lawrence answered, and also firmly: “Give me money and you shall have ice.” By the underground telegraph he had heard of an ice-house over the river, though its fame was suppressed by certain Sybarites, as they wanted it all. In a wonderfully short time we had mint-juleps and sherry-cobblers.

Altogether it has been a pleasant day, and as I sat alone I was laughing lightly now and then at the memory of some funny story. Suddenly, a violent ring; and a regular sheaf of telegrams were handed me. I could not have drawn away in more consternation if the sheets had been a nest of rattlesnakes. First, Frank Hampton was killed at Brandy Station. Wade Hampton telegraphed Mr. Chesnut to see Robert Barnwell, and make the necessary arrangements to recover the body. Mr. Chesnut is still at Wilmington. I sent for Preston Johnston, and my neighbor, Colonel Patton, offered to see that everything proper was done. That afternoon I walked out alone. Willie Mountford had shown me where the body, all that was left of Frank Hampton, was to be laid in the Capitol. Mrs. Petticola joined me after a while, and then Mrs. Singleton.

Preston Hampton and Peter Trezevant, with myself and Mrs. Singleton, formed the sad procession which followed the coffin. There was a company of soldiers drawn up in front of the State House porch. Mrs. Singleton said we had better go in and look at him before the coffin was finally closed. How I wish I had not looked. I remember him so well in all the pride of his magnificent manhood. He died of a saber-cut across the face and head, and was utterly disfigured. Mrs. Singleton seemed convulsed with grief. In all my life I had never seen such bitter weeping. She had her own troubles, but I did not know of them. We sat for a long time on the great steps of the State House. Everybody had gone and we were alone.

We talked of it all — how we had gone to Charleston to see Rachel in Adrienne Lecouvreur, and how, as I stood waiting in the passage near the drawing-room, I had met Frank Hampton bringing his beautiful bride from the steamer. They had just landed. Afterward at Mrs. Singleton's place in the country we had all spent a delightful week together. And now, only a few years have passed, but nearly all that pleasant company are dead, and our world, the only world we cared for, literally kicked to pieces. And she cried, “We are two lone women, stranded here.” Rev. Robert Barnwell was in a desperate condition, and Mary Barnwell, her daughter, was expecting her confinement every day.

Here now, later, let me add that it was not until I got back to Carolina that I heard of Robert Barnwell's death, with scarcely a day's interval between it and that of Mary and her new-born baby. Husband, wife, and child were buried at the same time in the same grave in Columbia. And now, Mrs. Singleton has three orphan grandchildren. What a woful year it has been to her.

Robert Barnwell had insisted upon being sent to the hospital at Staunton. On account of his wife's situation the doctor also had advised it. He was carried off on a mattress. His brave wife tried to prevent it, and said: “It is only fever.” And she nursed him to the last. She tried to say goodby cheerfully, and called after him: “As soon as my trouble is over I will come to you at Staunton.” At the hospital they said it was typhoid fever. He died the second day after he got there. Poor Mary fainted when she heard the ambulance drive away with him. Then she crept into a low trundle-bed kept for the children in her mother's room. She never left that bed again. When the message came from Staunton that fever was the matter with Robert and nothing more, Mrs. Singleton says she will never forget the expression in Mary's eyes as she turned and looked at her. “Robert will get well,” she said, “it is all right.” Her face was radiant, blazing with light. That night the baby was born, and Mrs. Singleton got a telegram that Robert was dead. She did not tell Mary, standing, as she did, at the window while she read it. She was at the same time looking for Robert's body, which might come any moment. As for Mary's life being in danger, she had never thought of such a thing. She was thinking only of Robert. Then a servant touched her and said: “Look at Mrs. Barnwell.” She ran to the bedside, and the doctor, who had come in, said, “It is all over; she is dead.” Not in anger, not in wrath, came the angel of death that day. He came to set Mary free from a world grown too hard to bear.

During Stoneman's raid² I burned some personal papers. Molly constantly said to me, “Missis, listen to de guns. Burn up everything. Mrs. Lyons says they are sure to come, and they'll put in their newspapers whatever you write here, every day.” The guns did sound very near, and when Mrs. Davis rode up and told me that if Mr. Davis left Richmond I must go with her, I confess I lost my head. So I burned a part of my journal but rewrote it afterward from memory — my implacable enemy that lets me forget none of the things I would. I am weak with dates. I do not always worry to look at the calendar and write them down. Besides I have not always a calendar at hand.

_______________

1 The battle of Brandy Station, Va., occurred June 9, 1863.

2 George S. Stoneman, a graduate of West Point, was now a Major-General, and Chief of Artillery in the Army of the Potomac. His raid toward Richmond in 1863 was a memorable incident of the war. After the war, he became Governor of California.

SOURCE: Mary Boykin Chesnut, Edited by Isabella D. Martin and Myrta Lockett Avary, A Diary From Dixie, p. 232-9

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 2, 1862

A battle¹ is said to be raging round Richmond. I am at the Prestons’. James Chesnut has gone to Richmond suddenly on business of the Military Department. It is always his luck to arrive in the nick of time and be present at a great battle.

Wade Hampton shot in the foot, and Johnston Pettigrew killed. A telegram says Lee and Davis were both on the field: the enemy being repulsed. Telegraph operator said: “Madam, our men are fighting.” “Of course they are. What else is there for them to do now but fight?” “But, madam, the news is encouraging.” Each army is burying its dead: that looks like a drawn battle. We haunt the bulletin-board.

Back to McMahan's. Mem Cohen is ill. Her daughter, Isabel, warns me not to mention the battle raging around Richmond. Young Cohen is in it. Mrs. Preston, anxious and unhappy about her sons. John is with General Huger at Richmond; Willie in the swamps on the coast with his company. Mem tells me her cousin, Edwin de Leon, is sent by Mr. Davis on a mission to England.

Rev. Robert Barnwell has returned to the hospital. Oh, that we had given our thousand dollars to the hospital and not to the gunboat! “Stonewall Jackson's movements,” the Herald says, “do us no harm; it is bringing out volunteers in great numbers.” And a Philadelphia paper abused us so fervently I felt all the blood in me rush to my head with rage.

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¹ The Battle of Fair Oaks or Seven Pines, took place a few miles east of Richmond, on May 31 and June 1, 1862, the Federals being commanded by McClellan and the Confederates by General Joseph E. Johnston.

SOURCE: Mary Boykin Chesnut, Edited by Isabella D. Martin and Myrta Lockett Avary, A Diary From Dixie, p. 171

Diary of Mary Boykin Chesnut: May 12, 1862

Mr. Chesnut says he is very glad he went to town. Everything in Charleston is so much more satisfactory than it is reported. Troops are in good spirits. It will take a lot of iron-clads to take that city.

Isaac Hayne said at dinner yesterday that both Beauregard and the President had a great opinion of Mr. Chesnut's natural ability for strategy and military evolution. Hon. Mr. Barnwell concurred; that is, Mr. Barnwell had been told so by the President. “Then why did not the President offer me something better than an aideship?” “I heard he offered to make you a general last year, and you said you could not go over other men's shoulders until you had earned promotion. You are too hard to please.” “No, not exactly that, I was only offered a colonelcy, and Mr. Barnwell persuaded me to stick to the Senate; then he wanted my place, and between the two stools I fell to the ground.”

My Molly will forget Lige and her babies, too. I asked her who sent me that beautiful bouquet I found on my center-table. “I give it to you. ’Twas give to me.” And Molly was all wriggle, giggle, blush.

SOURCE: Mary Boykin Chesnut, Edited by Isabella D. Martin and Myrta Lockett Avary, A Diary From Dixie, p. 163-4

Diary of Mary Boykin Chesnut: April 29, 1862

A grand smash, the news from New Orleans fatal to us. Met Mr. Weston. He wanted to know where he could find a place of safety for two hundred negroes. I looked into his face to see if he were in earnest; then to see if he were sane. There was a certain set of two hundred negroes that had grown to be a nuisance. Apparently all the white men of the family had felt bound to stay at home to take care of them. There are people who still believe negroes property — like Noah's neighbors, who insisted that the Deluge would only be a little shower after all.

These negroes, however, were Plowden Weston's, a totally different part of speech. He gave field-rifles to one company and forty thousand dollars to another. He is away with our army at Corinth. So I said: “You may rely upon Mr. Chesnut, who will assist you to his uttermost in finding a home for these people. Nothing belonging to that patriotic gentleman shall come to grief if we have to take charge of them on our own place.” Mr. Chesnut did get a place for them, as I said he would.

Had to go to the Governor's or they would think we had hoisted the black flag. Heard there we are going to be beaten as Cortez beat the Mexicans — by superior arms. Mexican bows and arrows made a poor showing in the face of Spanish accoutrements. Our enemies have such superior weapons of war, we hardly any but what we capture from them in the fray. The Saxons and the Normans were in the same plight.

War seems a game of chess, but we have an unequal number of pawns to begin with. We have knights, kings, queens, bishops, and castles enough. But our skilful generals, whenever they can not arrange the board to suit them exactly, burn up everything and march away. We want them to save the country. They seem to think their whole duty is to destroy ships and save the army.

Mr. Robert Barnwell wrote “that he had to hang his head for South Carolina. We had not furnished our quota of the new levy, five thousand men. To-day Colonel Chesnut published his statement to show that we have sent thirteen thousand, instead of the mere number required of us; so Mr. Barnwell can hold up his head again.

SOURCE: Mary Boykin Chesnut, Edited by Isabella D. Martin and Myrta Lockett Avary, A Diary From Dixie, p. 160-1

Diary of Mary Boykin Chesnut: August 25, 1861

Mr. Barnwell says democracies lead to untruthfulness. To be always electioneering is to be always false; so both we and the Yankees are unreliable as regards our own exploits. “How about empires? Were there ever more stupendous lies than the Emperor Napoleon's?” Mr. Barnwell went on: “People dare not tell the truth in a canvass; they must conciliate their constituents. Now everybody in a democracy always wants an office; at least, everybody in Richmond just now seems to want one.” Never heeding interruptions, he went on: “As a nation, the English are the most truthful in the world.” “And so are our country gentlemen: they own their constituents — at least, in some of the parishes, where there are few whites; only immense estates peopled by negroes.” Thackeray speaks of the lies that were told on both sides in the British wars with France; England kept quite alongside of her rival in that fine art. England lied then as fluently as Russell lies about us now.

Went to see Agnes De Leon, my Columbia school friend. She is fresh from Egypt, and I wished to hear of the Nile, the crocodiles, the mummies, the Sphinx, and the Pyramids. But her head ran upon Washington life, such as we knew it, and her soul was here. No theme was possible but a discussion of the latest war news.

Mr. Clayton, Assistant Secretary of State, says we spend two millions a week. Where is all that money to come from? They don't want us to plant cotton, but to make provisions. Now, cotton always means money, or did when there was an outlet for it and anybody to buy it. Where is money to come from now?

Mr. Barnwell's new joke, I dare say, is a Joe Miller, but Mr. Barnwell laughed in telling it till he cried. A man was fined for contempt of court and then, his case coming on, the Judge talked such arrant nonsense and was so warped in his mind against the poor man, that the “fined one” walked up and handed the august Judge a five-dollar bill, “Why? What is that for?” said the Judge. “Oh, I feel such a contempt of this court coming on again!”

I came up tired to death; took down my hair; had it hanging over me in a Crazy Jane fashion; and sat still, hands over my head (half undressed, but too lazy and sleepy to move). I was sitting in a rocking-chair by an open window taking my ease and the cool night air, when suddenly the door opened and Captain walked in.

He was in the middle of the room before he saw his mistake; he stared and was transfixed, as the novels say. I dare say I looked an ancient Gorgon. Then, with a more frantic glare, he turned and fled without a word. I got up and bolted the door after him, and then looked in the glass and laughed myself into hysterics. I shall never forget to lock the door again. But it does not matter in this case. I looked totally unlike the person bearing my name, who, covered with lace cap, etc., frequents the drawing-room. I doubt if he would know me again.

SOURCE: Mary Boykin Chesnut, Edited by Isabella D. Martin and Myrta Lockett Avary, A Diary From Dixie, p. 110-1

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 16, 1861

Mr. Barnwell says, Fame is an article usually home made; you must create your own puffs or superintend their manufacture. And you must see that the newspapers print your own military reports. No one else will give you half the credit you take to yourself. No one will look after your fine name before the world with the loving interest and faith you have yourself.

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

Diary of Mary Boykin Chesnut: August 13, 1861

Hon. Robert Barnwell says, “The Mercury's influence began this opposition to Jeff Davis before he had time to do wrong. They were offended, not with him so much as with the man who was put into what they considered Barnwell Rhett's rightful place. The latter had howled nullification and secession so long that when he found his ideas taken up by all the Confederate world, he felt he had a vested right to leadership.”

Jordan, Beauregard's aide, still writes to Mr. Chesnut that the mortality among the raw troops in that camp is fearful. Everybody seems to be doing all they can. Think of the British sick and wounded away off in the Crimea. Our people are only a half-day's journey by rail from Richmond. With a grateful heart I record the fact of reconciliation with the Wigfalls. They dined at the President's yesterday and the little Wigfall girls stayed all night.

Seward is fêting the outsiders, the cousin of the Emperor, Napoleon III., and Russell, of the omnipotent London Times.

SOURCE: Mary Boykin Chesnut, Edited by Isabella D. Martin and Myrta Lockett Avary, A Diary From Dixie, p. 104

Diary of Mary Boykin Chesnut: July 24, 1861

Here Mr. Chesnut opened my door and walked in. Out of the fulness of the heart the mouth speaketh. I had to ask no questions. He gave me an account of the battle as he saw it (walking up and down my room, occasionally seating himself on a window sill, but too restless to remain still many moments); and told what regiments he was sent to bring up. He took the orders to Colonel Jackson, whose regiment stood so stock still under fire that they were called a “stone wall.” Also, they call Beauregard, Eugene, and Johnston, Marlboro. Mr. Chesnut rode with Lay's cavalry after the retreating enemy in the pursuit, they following them until midnight. Then there came such a fall of rain — rain such as is only known in semitropical lands.

In the drawing-room, Colonel Chesnut was the “belle of the ball”; they crowded him so for news. He was the first arrival that they could get at from the field of battle. But the women had to give way to the dignitaries of the land, who were as filled with curiosity as themselves — Mr. Barnwell, Mr. Hunter, Mr. Cobb, Captain Ingraham, etc.

Wilmot de Saussure says Wilson of Massachusetts, a Senator of the United States,¹ came to Manassas, en route to Richmond, with his dancing shoes ready for a festive scene which was to celebrate a triumph. The New York Tribune said: “In a few days we shall have Richmond, Memphis, and New Orleans. They must be taken and at once.” For “a few days” maybe now they will modestly substitute “in a few years.”

They brought me a Yankee soldier's portfolio from the battle-field. The letters had been franked by Senator Harlan.¹ One might shed tears over some of the letters. Women, wives and mothers, are the same everywhere. What a comfort the spelling was! We had been willing to admit that their universal free-school education had put them, rank and file, ahead of us literarily, but these letters do not attest that fact. The spelling is comically bad.

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¹ Henry Wilson, son of a farm laborer and self-educated, who rose to much prominence in the Anti-Slavery contests before the war. He was elected United States Senator from Massachusetts in 1855, holding the office until 1873, when he resigned, having been elected Vice-President of the United States on the ticket with Ulysses S. Grant.

² James Harlan, United States Senator from Iowa from 1855 to 1865. In 1865 he was appointed Secretary of the Interior.

SOURCE: Mary Boykin Chesnut, Edited by Isabella D. Martin and Myrta Lockett Avary, A Diary From Dixie, p. 88-90

Diary of Mary Boykin Chesnut: April 27, 1861

MONTGOMERY, Ala. — Here we are once more. Hon. Robert Barnwell came with us. His benevolent spectacles give him a most Pickwickian expression. We Carolinians revere his goodness above all things. Everywhere, when the car stopped, the people wanted a speech, and we had one stream of fervid oratory. We came along with a man whose wife lived in Washington. He was bringing her to Georgia as the safest place.

The Alabama crowd are not as confident of taking Fort Pickens as we were of taking Fort Sumter.

Baltimore is in a blaze. They say Colonel Ben Huger is in command there — son of the “Olmutz” Huger. General Robert E. Lee, son of Light Horse Harry Lee, has been made General-in-Chief of Virginia. With such men to the fore, we have hope. The New York Herald says, “Slavery must be extinguished, if in blood.” It thinks we are shaking in our shoes at their great mass meetings. We are jolly as larks, all the same.

Mr. Chesnut has gone with Wade Hampton¹ to see President Davis about the legion Wade wants to get up. The President came across the aisle to speak to me at church to-day. He was very cordial, and I appreciated the honor.

Wigfall is black with rage at Colonel Anderson's account of the fall of Sumter. Wigfall did behave magnanimously, but Anderson does not seem to see it in that light. “Catch me risking my life to save him again,” says Wigfall. “He might have been man enough to tell the truth to those New Yorkers, however unpalatable to them a good word for us might have been. We did behave well to him. The only men of his killed, he killed himself, or they killed themselves firing a salute to their old striped rag.”

Mr. Chesnut was delighted with the way Anderson spoke to him when he went to demand the surrender. They parted quite tenderly. Anderson said: “If we do not meet again on earth, I hope we may meet in Heaven.” How Wigfall laughed at Anderson “giving Chesnut a howdy in the other world!”

What a kind welcome the old gentlemen gave me! One, more affectionate and homely than the others, slapped me on the back. Several bouquets were brought me, and I put them in water around my plate. Then General Owens gave me some violets, which I put in my breastpin.

“Oh,” said my “Gutta Percha” Hemphill,² “if I had known how those bouquets were to be honored I would have been up by daylight seeking the sweetest flowers!” Governor Moore came in, and of course seats were offered him. “This is a most comfortable chair,” cried an overly polite person. “The most comfortable chair is beside Mrs. Chesnut,” said the Governor, facing the music gallantly, as he sank into it gracefully. Well done, old fogies!

Browne said: “These Southern men have an awfully flattering way with women.” “Oh, so many are descendants of Irishmen, and so the blarney remains yet, even, and in spite of their gray hairs!'” For it was a group of silver-gray flatterers. Yes, blarney as well as bravery came in with the Irish.

At Mrs. Davis's reception dismal news, for civil war seems certain. At Mrs. Toombs's reception Mr. Stephens came by me. Twice before we have had it out on the subject of this Confederacy, once on the cars, coming from Georgia here, once at a supper, where he sat next to me. To-day he was not cheerful in his views. I called him half-hearted, and accused him of looking back. Man after man came and interrupted the conversation with some frivle-fravle, but we held on. He was deeply interesting, and he gave me some new ideas as to our dangerous situation. Fears for the future and not exultation at our successes pervade his discourse.

Dined at the President's and never had a pleasanter day. He is as witty as he is wise. He was very agreeable; he took me in to dinner. The talk was of Washington; nothing of our present difficulties.

A General Anderson from Alexandria, D. C, was in doleful dumps. He says the North are so much better prepared than we are. They are organized, or will be, by General Scott. We are in wild confusion. Their army is the best in the world. We are wretchedly armed, etc., etc. They have ships and arms that were ours and theirs.

Mrs. Walker, resplendently dressed, one of those gorgeously arrayed persons who fairly shine in the sun, tells me she mistook the inevitable Morrow for Mr. Chesnut, and added, “Pass over the affront to my powers of selection.” I told her it was “an insult to the Palmetto flag.” Think of a South Carolina Senator like that!

Men come rushing in from Washington with white lips, crying, “Danger, danger!” It is very tiresome to have these people always harping on this: “The enemy's troops are the finest body of men we ever saw.” “Why did you not make friends of them,” I feel disposed to say. We would have war, and now we seem to be letting our golden opportunity pass; we are not preparing for war. There is talk, talk, talk in that Congress — lazy legislators, and rash, reckless, headlong, devil-may-care, proud, passionate, unruly, raw material for soldiers. They say we have among us a regiment of spies, men and women, sent here by the wily Seward. Why? Our newspapers tell every word there is to be told, by friend or foe.

A two-hours' call from Hon. Robert Barnwell. His theory is, all would have been right if we had taken Fort Sumter six months ago. He made this very plain to me. He is clever, if erratic. I forget why it ought to have been attacked before. At another reception, Mrs. Davis was in fine spirits. Captain Dacier was here. Came over in his own yacht. Russell, of The London Times, wondered how we had the heart to enjoy life so thoroughly when all the Northern papers said we were to be exterminated in such a short time.

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¹ Wade Hampton was a son of another Wade Hampton, who was an aide to General Jackson at the battle of New Orleans, and a grandson of still another Wade Hampton, who was a general in the Revolution. He was not in favor of secession, but when the war began he enlisted as a private and then raised a command of infantry, cavalry, and artillery, which as “Hampton's Legion” won distinction in the war. After the war, he was elected Governor of South Carolina and was then elected to the United States Senate.

² John Hemphill was a native of South Carolina, who had removed to Texas, where he became Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the State, and in 1858 was elected United States Senator.

SOURCE: Mary Boykin Chesnut, Edited by Isabella D. Martin and Myrta Lockett Avary, A Diary From Dixie, p. 47-50