CAMDEN, S.C., May 8,
1864. – My friends crowded around me so in those last days in Richmond, I
forgot the affairs of this nation utterly; though I did show faith in my
Confederate country by buying poor Bones's (my English maid's) Confederate
bonds. I gave her gold thimbles, bracelets; whatever was gold and would sell in
New York or London, I gave.
My friends in Richmond grieved that I had to leave them—not
half so much, however, as I did that I must come away. Those last weeks were so
pleasant. No battle, no murder, no sudden death, all went merry as a marriage
bell. Clever, cordial, kind, brave friends rallied around me.
Maggie Howell and I went down the river to see an exchange
of prisoners. Our party were the Lees, Mallorys, Mrs. Buck Allan, Mrs. Ould. We
picked up Judge Ould and Buck Allan at Curl's Neck. I had seen no genuine
Yankees before; prisoners, well or wounded, had been German, Scotch, or Irish.
Among our men coming ashore was an officer, who had charge of some letters for
a friend of mine whose fiancé had died; I gave him her address. One other
man showed me some wonderfully ingenious things he had made while a prisoner.
One said they gave him rations for a week; he always devoured them in three
days, he could not help it; and then he had to bear the inevitable agony of
those four remaining days! Many were wounded, some were maimed for life. They
were very cheerful. We had supper — or some nondescript meal — with ice-cream
on board. The band played Home, Sweet Home.
One man tapped another on the shoulder: '”Well, how do you
feel, old fellow?” “Never was so near crying in my life — for very comfort.”
Governor Cummings, a Georgian, late Governor of Utah, was
among the returned prisoners. He had been in prison two years. His wife was
with him. He was a striking-looking person, huge in size, and with snow-white
hair, fat as a prize ox, with no sign of Yankee barbarity or starvation about
him.
That evening, as we walked up to Mrs. Davis's carriage,
which was waiting for us at the landing, Dr. Garnett with Maggie Howell, Major
Hall with me, suddenly I heard her scream, and some one stepped back in the
dark and said in a whisper. “Little Joe! he has killed himself!” I felt
reeling, faint, bewildered. A chattering woman clutched my arm: “Mrs. Davis's
son? Impossible. Whom did you say? Was he an interesting child? How old was he?”
The shock was terrible, and unnerved as I was I cried, “For God's sake take her
away!”
Then Maggie and I drove two long miles in silence except for
Maggie's hysterical sobs. She was wild with terror. The news was broken to her
in that abrupt way at the carriage door so that at first she thought it had all
happened there, and that poor little Joe was in the carriage.
Mr. Burton Harrison met us at the door of the Executive
Mansion. Mrs. Semmes and Mrs. Barksdale were there, too. Every window and door
of the house seemed wide open, and the wind was blowing the curtains. It was
lighted, even in the third story. As I sat in the drawing-room, I could hear
the tramp of Mr. Davis's step as he walked up and down the room above. Not another
sound. The whole house as silent as death. It was then twelve o'clock; so I
went home and waked General Chesnut, who had gone to bed. We went immediately
back to the President's, found Mrs. Semmes still there, but saw no one but her.
We thought some friends of the family ought to be in the house.
Mrs. Semmes said when she got there that little Jeff was
kneeling down by his brother, and he called out to her in great distress: “Mrs.
Semmes, I have said all the prayers I know how, but God will not wake Joe.'”
Poor little Joe, the good child of the family, was so gentle
and affectionate. He used to run in to say his prayers at his father's knee.
Now he was laid out somewhere above us, crushed and killed. Mrs. Semmes,
describing the accident, said he fell from the high north piazza upon a brick
pavement. Before I left the house I saw him lying there, white and beautiful as
an angel, covered with flowers; Catherine, his nurse, flat on the floor by his
side, was weeping and wailing as only an Irishwoman can.
Immense crowds came to the funeral, everybody sympathetic,
but some shoving and pushing rudely. There were thousands of children, and each
child had a green bough or a bunch of flowers to throw on little Joe's grave,
which was already a mass of white flowers, crosses, and evergreens. The morning
I came away from Mrs. Davis's, early as it was, I met a little child with a
handful of snow drops. “Put these on little Joe,” she said; “I knew him so
well.” and then she turned and fled without another word. I did not know who
she was then or now.
As I walked home I met Mr. Reagan, then Wade Hampton. But I
could see nothing but little Joe and his brokenhearted mother. And Mr. Davis's
step still sounded in my ears as he walked that floor the livelong night.
General Lee was to have a grand review the very day we left
Richmond. Great numbers of people were to go up by rail to see it. Miss Turner
McFarland writes: “They did go, but they came back faster than they went. They
found the army drawn up in battle array.” Many of the brave and gay spirits
that we saw so lately have taken flight, the only flight they know, and their
bodies are left dead upon the battle-field. Poor old Edward Johnston is wounded
again, and a prisoner. Jones's brigade broke first; he was wounded the day
before.
At Wilmington we met General Whiting. He sent us to the
station in his carriage, and bestowed upon us a bottle of brandy, which had run
the blockade. They say Beauregard has taken his sword from Whiting. Never! I
will not believe it. At the capture of Fort Sumter they said Whiting was the
brains, Beauregard only the hand. Lucifer, son of the morning! How art thou
fallen! That they should even say such a thing!
My husband and Mr. Covey got out at Florence to procure for Mrs.
Miles a cup of coffee. They were slow about it and they got left. I did not
mind this so very much, for I remembered that we were to remain all day at
Kingsville, and that my husband could overtake me there by the next train. My
maid belonged to the Prestons. She was only traveling home with me, and would
go straight on to Columbia. So without fear I stepped off at Kingsville. My old
Confederate silk, like most Confederate dresses, had seen better days, and I
noticed that, like Oliver Wendell Holmes's famous “one-hoss shay,” it had gone
to pieces suddenly, and all over. It was literally in strips. I became
painfully aware of my forlorn aspect when I asked the telegraph man the way to
the hotel, and he was by no means respectful to me. I was, indeed, alone — an
old and not too respectable-looking woman. It was my first appearance in the
character, and I laughed aloud.
A very haughty and highly painted dame greeted me at the
hotel. “No room,” said she. “Who are you?” I gave my name. “Try something else,”
said she. "Mrs. Chesnut don't travel round by herself with no servants and
no nothing.” I looked down. There I was, dirty, tired, tattered, and torn. “Where
do you come from?” said she. “My home is in Camden.” “Come, now, I know
everybody in Camden.” I sat down meekly on a bench in the piazza, that was free
to all wayfarers.
“Which Mrs. Chesnut?” said she (sharply). “I know both.” “I
am now the only one. And now what is the matter with you? Do you take me for a
spy? I know you perfectly well. I went to school with you at Miss Henrietta de
Leon's, and my name was Mary Miller.” “The Lord sakes alive! and to think you
are her! Now I see. Dear! dear me! Heaven sakes, woman, but you are broke!” “And
tore,” I added, holding up my dress. “But I had had no idea it was so difficult
to effect an entry into a railroad wayside hotel.” I picked up a long strip of
my old black dress, torn off by a man's spur as I passed him getting off the
train.
It is sad enough at Mulberry without old Mrs. Chesnut, who was
the good genius of the place. It is so lovely here in spring. The giants of the
forest — the primeval oaks, water-oaks, live-oaks, willow-oaks, such as I have
not seen since I left here — with opopanax, violets, roses, and yellow
jessamine, the air is laden with perfume. Araby the Blest was never sweeter.
Inside, are creature comforts of all kinds — green peas,
strawberries, asparagus, spring lamb, spring chicken, fresh eggs, rich, yellow
butter, clean white linen for one's beds, dazzling white damask for one's
table. It is such a contrast to Richmond, where I wish I were.
Fighting is going on. Hampton is frantic, for his laggard
new regiments fall in slowly; no fault of the soldiers; they are as disgusted
as he is. Bragg, Bragg, the head of the War Office, can not organize in time.
John Boykin has died in a Yankee prison. He had on a heavy
flannel shirt when lying in an open platform car on the way to a cold prison on
the lakes. A Federal soldier wanted John's shirt. Prisoners have no rights; so
John had to strip off and hand his shirt to him. That caused his death. In two
days he was dead of pneumonia — may be frozen to death. One man said: “They are
taking us there to freeze.” But then their men will find our hot sun in August
and July as deadly as our men find their cold Decembers. Their snow and ice
finish our prisoners at a rapid rate, they say. Napoleon's soldiers found out
all that in the Russian campaign.
Have brought my houseless, homeless friends, refugees here,
to luxuriate in Mulberry's plenty. I can but remember the lavish kindness of
the Virginia people when I was there and in a similar condition. The Virginia
people do the rarest acts of hospitality and never seem to know it is not in
the ordinary course of events.
The President's man, Stephen, bringing his master's Arabian
to Mulberry for safe-keeping, said: “Why, Missis, your niggers down here are
well off. I call this Mulberry place heaven, with plenty to eat, little to do,
warm house to sleep in, a good church.”
John L. Miller, my cousin, has been killed at the head of
his regiment. The blows now fall so fast on our heads they are bewildering. The
Secretary of War authorizes General Chesnut to reorganize the men who have been
hitherto detailed for special duty, and also those who have been exempt. He
says General Chesnut originated the plan and organized the corps of clerks
which saved Richmond in the Dahlgren raid.
SOURCE: Mary Boykin Chesnut, Edited by Isabella D. Martin
and Myrta Lockett Avary, A Diary From Dixie, p. 304-9
