Diary of Judith Brockenbrough McGuire: May 18, 1864

W. B. certainly captured. I thank God for it, as the least of casualties.

Generals Lee and Grant still fighting.

On the south side, Beauregard has driven Butler to Bermuda Hundreds, where he is under shelter of his gunboats. Oh! when will this fearful state of things end?

SOURCE: Judith W. McGuire, Diary of a Southern Refugee, During the War, p. 269

Diary of Sarah Morgan: Sunday, January 4, 1863

One just from Baton Rouge tells us that my presentiment about our house is verified; Yankees do inhabit it, a Yankee colonel and his wife. They say they look strangely at home on our front gallery, pacing up and down. . . . And a stranger and a Yankee occupies our father's place at the table where he presided for thirty-one years. . . . And the old lamp that lighted up so many eager, laughing faces around the dear old table night after night; that with its great beaming eye watched us one by one as we grew up and left our home; that witnessed every parting and every meeting; by which we sang, read, talked, danced, and made merry; the lamp that Hal asked for as soon as he beheld the glittering chandeliers of the new innovation, gas; the lamp that all agreed should go to me among other treasures, and be cased in glass to commemorate the old days, — our old lamp has passed into the hands of strangers who neither know nor care for its history. And mother's bed (which, with the table and father's little ebony stand, alone remained uninjured) belongs now to a Yankee woman! Father prized his ebony table. He said he meant to have a gold plate placed in its centre, with an inscription, and I meant to have it done myself when he died so soon after. A Yankee now sips his tea over it, just where some beau or beauty of the days of Charles II may have rested a laced sleeve or dimpled arm. . .¹  Give the devil his due. Bless Yankees for one thing; they say they tried hard to save our State House.

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¹ This “little ebony table” — which happened to be mahogany so darkened with age as to be recognized only by an expert many years after the war — and a mahogany rocking-chair are the two pieces of furniture which survived the sacking of Judge Morgan's house and remain to his descendants to-day. Such other furniture as could be utilized was appropriated by negroes. — W. D.

SOURCE: Sarah Morgan Dawson, A Confederate Girl's Diary, p. 308-9

Diary of 5th Sergeant Alexander G. Downing: Saturday, March 18, 1865

We started at 8 a. m. and marched twelve miles, the Third Division being in the advance. We had to cross a swamp four miles wide and the water in places was knee-deep. Our progress was slow because we had to lay a great deal of corduroy so that the artillery and trains could pass over the deep holes. A great many of the men are almost barefooted and their clothing is nearly worn out. The men on forage take everything in the clothing line that is fit to wear, regardless of the cut or color. Some have on white vests and straw hats, and occasionally one can be seen in the ranks wearing a swallow-tailed coat and white vest. This morning our men drew a few pairs of shoes, brought from Washington.

Source: Alexander G. Downing, Edited by Olynthus B., Clark, Downing’s Civil War Diary, p. 262

Diary of 5th Sergeant Alexander G. Downing: Sunday, March 19, 1865

We were off at 7 a. m. and marched ten miles through fine country. The roads were good and no swamps to cross. They had good crops here last year, and there was plenty of forage, so this evening we had our haversacks replenished. There was some heavy cannonading off on the left in front of the Twentieth Corps. The weather is fine.

Source: Alexander G. Downing, Edited by Olynthus B., Clark, Downing’s Civil War Diary, p. 262

Diary of 5th Sergeant Alexander G. Downing: Monday, March 20, 1865

Reveille sounded at 1 a. m. At 3 o'clock with the Fifteenth Corps in front, we took up the line of march and moved forward twenty-one miles, where we found the rebels fortified on the west side of the Neuse river near Bentonville. We drove them back inside of their works, and forming a line of battle moved up as close to their works as we could, and then built a line of rifle pits. We left our wagon trains far in the rear under guard. The rebels' force is reported to be about thirty-five thousand men under the command of General Johnston. General Schofield has been moving up this way from the coast, and we just learned that he reached Goldsboro and took possession of the place this afternoon. We are informed that General Sherman will now open up communications from Goldsboro southeast to Newbern.

Source: Alexander G. Downing, Edited by Olynthus B., Clark, Downing’s Civil War Diary, p. 262-3

Diary of 5th Sergeant Alexander G. Downing: Tuesday, March 21, 1865

We advanced our line of battle a half mile, driving in the rebel skirmishers. Our loss was quite large in killed and wounded. All our artillery was brought into action and at times this afternoon the roar of cannon was fearful; but the rebels made no reply. Their loss in killed and wounded was large. There was some hard skirmishing on both sides. The Fifth and Twenty-fourth Corps under command of General Ord joined us this afternoon, thus reinforcing General Sherman's army. The army is in fine spirits for all that the men are poorly clothed and short of rations; but anything that General Sherman wants done now, they are willing to do. All know that when we gain this battle, we will have a short rest and a chance to draw some clothing, besides securing rations, for forage is scarce.

Source: Alexander G. Downing, Edited by Olynthus B., Clark, Downing’s Civil War Diary, p. 263

Diary of 5th Sergeant Alexander G. Downing: Wednesday, March 22, 1865

Companies E and F of the Eleventh Iowa were sent out at 6 o'clock this morning on the skirmish line, but there were no rebels to be seen in our front. They left during the night, crossing the Neuse river, and retreating towards Raleigh, the state capital. Kilpatrick's cavalry pursued them for several miles. The rebels fought in the pine woods, which were set on fire by the shells from our artillery. The fire compelled them to fall back, and they left their dead and wounded on the battlefield, to the mercy of the flames; the clothing was entirely burned off some of the bodies. The loss was very light on both sides. We remained all day in bivouac at the rifle pits, while the Fourteenth and Twentieth Corps moved back towards Goldsboro.

Source: Alexander G. Downing, Edited by Olynthus B., Clark, Downing’s Civil War Diary, p. 263

Diary of John Beauchamp Jones: May 16, 1862

McClellan is intrenching — that is, at least, significant of a respite, and of apprehension of attack.

SOURCE: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 1, p. 125

Diary of John Beauchamp Jones: May 17, 1862

Gen. Lee has admonished Major Griswold on the too free granting of passports. Will it do any good?

SOURCE: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 1, p. 125

Diary of John Beauchamp Jones: May 18, 1862

All quiet to-day except the huzzas as fresh troops arrive.

SOURCE: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 1, p. 126

Diary of Mary Boykin Chesnut: June 1, 1865

The New York Herald quotes General Sherman as saying, “Columbia was burned by Hampton's sheer stupidity.'” But then who burned everything on the way in Sherman's march to Columbia, and in the line of march Sherman took after leaving Columbia? We came, for three days of travel, over a road that had been laid bare by Sherman's torches. Nothing but smoking ruins was left in Sherman's track. That I saw with my own eyes. No living thing was left, no house for man or beast. They who burned the countryside for a belt of forty miles, did they not also burn the town? To charge that to “Hampton's stupidity “ is merely an afterthought. This Herald announces that Jeff Davis will be hanged at once, not so much for treason as for his assassination of Lincoln. “Stanton, '” the Herald says, '”has all the papers in his hands to convict him.”

The Yankees here say, “The black man must go as the red man has gone; this is a white man's country.” The negroes want to run with the hare, but hunt with the hounds. They are charming in their professions to us, but declare that they are to be paid by these blessed Yankees in lands and mules for having been slaves. They were so faithful to us during the war, why should the Yankees reward them, to which the only reply is that it would be by way of punishing rebels.

Mrs. Adger¹ saw a Yankee soldier strike a woman, and she prayed God to take him in hand according to his deed. The soldier laughed in her face, swaggered off, stumbled down the steps, and then his revolver went off by the concussion and shot him dead.

The black ball is in motion. Mrs. de Saussure's cook shook the dust off her feet and departed from her kitchen to-day—free, she said. The washerwoman is packing to go.

Scipio Africanus, the Colonel's body-servant, is a soldierly looking black creature, fit to have delighted the eyes of old Frederick William of Prussia, who liked giants. We asked him how the Yankees came to leave him. “Oh, I told them marster couldn't do without me no how; and then I carried them some nice hams that they never could have found, they were hid so good.”

Eben dressed himself in his best and went at a run to meet his Yankee deliverers — so he said. At the gate he met a squad coming in. He had adorned himself with his watch and chain, like the cordage of a ship, with a handful of gaudy seals. He knew the Yankees came to rob white people, but he thought they came to save niggers. “Hand over that watch!” they said. Minus his fine watch and chain, Eben returned a sadder and a wiser man. He was soon in his shirt-sleeves, whistling at his knife-board. “Why? You here? Why did you come back so soon?” he was asked. “Well, I thought may be I better stay with ole marster that give me the watch, and not go with them that stole it.” The watch was the pride of his life. The iron had entered his soul.

Went up to my old house, “Kamschatka.” The Trapiers live there now. In those drawing-rooms where the children played Puss in Boots, where we have so often danced and sung, but never prayed before, Mr. Trapier held his prayer-meeting. I do not think I ever did as much weeping or as bitter in the same space of time. I let myself go; it did me good. I cried with a will. He prayed that we might have strength to stand up and bear our bitter disappointment, to look on our ruined homes and our desolated country and be strong. And he prayed for the man '”we elected to be our ruler and guide.” We knew that they had put him in a dungeon and in chains.² Men watch him day and night. By orders of Andy, the bloody-minded tailor, nobody above the rank of colonel can take the benefit of the amnesty oath, nobody who owns over twenty thousand dollars, or who has assisted the Confederates. And now, ye rich men, howl, for your misery has come upon you .You are beyond the outlaw, camping outside. Howell Cobb and R. M. T. Hunter have been arrested. Our turn will come next, maybe. A Damocles sword hanging over a house does not conduce to a pleasant life.

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¹ Elizabeth K. Adger, wife of the Rev. John B. Adger, D. D., of Charleston, a distinguished Presbyterian divine, at one time a missionary to Smyrna where he translated the Bible into the Armenian tongue. He was afterward and before the war a professor in the Theological Seminary at Columbia. His wife was a woman of unusual judgment and intelligence, sharing her husband's many hardships and notable experiences in the East.

² Mr. Davis, while encamped near Irwinsville, Ga., had been captured on May 10th by a body of Federal cavalry under Lieutenant-Colonel Pritchard. He was taken to Fortress Monroe and confined there for two years, his release being effected on May 13, 1867, when he was admitted to bail in the sum of $100,000, the first name on his bail-bond being that of Horace Greeley.

SOURCES: Mary Boykin Chesnut, Edited by Isabella D. Martin and Myrta Lockett Avary, A Diary From Dixie, p. 396

Diary of Judith Brockenbrough McGuire: Tuesday Morning, May 17, 1864

For some days the cannon has been resounding in our ears, from the south side of James River. Colonel Garnett has come in to tell us that for the first two days there was only heavy skirmishing, but that on yesterday there was a terrific fight all along the lines. Yesterday evening a brigadier, his staff, and 840 men, were lodged in the Libby Prison. Nothing definite has been heard since that time. The impression is, that we have been generally successful. Very brilliant reports are afloat on the streets, but whether they are reliable is the question. My nephew, Major B., has just called to tell me that his brother W. is reported “missing.” His battery suffered dreadfully, and he has not been seen. God grant that he may be only a prisoner! We suppose that it would have been known to the fragment, of his battery which is left, if he had fallen.

SOURCE: Judith W. McGuire, Diary of a Southern Refugee, During the War, p. 268

Diary of Sarah Morgan: Thursday, January 1, 1863

1863! Why I have hardly become accustomed to writing '62 yet! Where has this year gone? With all its troubles and anxieties, it is the shortest I ever spent! '61 and '62 together would hardly seem three hundred and sixty-five days to me. Well, let time fly. Every hour brings us nearer our freedom, and we are two years nearer peace now than we were when South Carolina seceded. That is one consolation. ... I learn, to my unspeakable grief, that the State House is burned down.

SOURCE: Sarah Morgan Dawson, A Confederate Girl's Diary, p. 307-8

Diary of 5th Sergeant Alexander G. Downing: Friday, March 17, 1865

Our division is still in the lead. We started at 7 a. m. and marched fifteen miles. Our regiment was train guard and we did not get into bivouac until midnight. The rebels are in our front and hard to drive; their main force, however, is on our left, in front of the Fourteenth and Twentieth Corps. It was clear today and quite pleasant.

Source: Alexander G. Downing, Edited by Olynthus B., Clark, Downing’s Civil War Diary, p. 262

Diary of John Beauchamp Jones: May 15, 1862

The enemy's gun-boats, Monitor, Galena, etc. are at Drewry's Bluff, eight miles below the city, shelling our batteries, and our batteries are bravely shelling them. The President rode down to the vicinity this morning, and observed the firing.

The guns are heard distinctly in the city, and yet there is no consternation manifested by the people. If the enemy pass the obstructions, the city will be, it is true, very much at their mercy. They may shell us out of it, and this may occur any hour. South of the city the enemy have no forces, and we can find refuge there. I suppose the government would go to Lynchburg. I shall remain with the army, and see that the tobacco be burnt, at all hazards, according to law. I have seen some of our generals, and am convinced that the Baltimore rabble, and those that direct them, will be suppressed, or exterminated, if they attempt to throw impediments in the way of our soldiers in the work of destroying the tobacco, as enjoined by Congress.

Our marksmen will keep up an incessant fire into the port-holes of the gun-boats; and if it be at all practicable, we will board them. So hope is by no means extinct. But it is apprehended, if the enemy get within shelling distance of the city, there will be an attack along our lines by McClellan. We must beat him there, as we could never save our guns, stores, etc. retreating across the river. And we will beat him, for we have 80,000 men, and more are coming.

Joyful tidings! the gun-boats have been repulsed! A heavy shot from one of our batteries ranged through the Galena from stem to stern, making frightful slaughter, and disabling the ship; and the whole fleet turned about and steamed down the river! We have not lost a dozen men. We breathe freely; and the government will lose no time in completing the obstructions and strengthening the batteries.

SOURCE: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 1, p. 125

Diary of Mary Boykin Chesnut: May 21, 1865

They say Governor Magrath has absconded, and that the Yankees have said, “If you have no visible governor, we will send you one.” If we had one and they found him, they would clap him in prison instanter.

The negroes have flocked to the Yankee squad which has recently come, but they were snubbed, the rampant freedmen. “Stay where you are,” say the Yanks. “We have nothing for you.” And they sadly “peruse”  their way. Now that they have picked up that word “peruse,” they use it in season and out. When we met Mrs. Preston's William we asked, “Where are you going?” “Perusing my way to Columbia,” he answered.

When the Yanks said they had no rations for idle negroes, John Walker answered mildly, “This is not at all what we expected.” The colored women, dressed in their gaudiest array, carried bouquets to the Yankees, making the day a jubilee. But in this house there is not the slightest change. Every negro has known for months that he or she was free, but I do not see one particle of change in their manner. They are, perhaps, more circumspect, polite, and quiet, but that is all. Otherwise all goes on in antebellum status quo. Every day I expect to miss some familiar face, but so far have been disappointed.

Mrs. Huger we found at the hotel here, and we brought her to Bloomsbury. She told us that Jeff Davis was traveling leisurely with his wife twelve miles a day, utterly careless whether he were taken prisoner or not, and that General Hampton had been paroled.

Fighting Dick Anderson and Stephen Elliott, of Fort Sumter memory, are quite ready to pray for Andy Johnson, and to submit to the powers that be. Not so our belligerent clergy. “Pray for people when I wish they were dead?” cries Rev. Mr. Trapier. '”No, never! I will pray for President Davis till I die. I will do it to my last gasp. My chief is a prisoner, but I am proud of him still. He is a spectacle to gods and men. He will bear himself as a soldier, a patriot, a statesman, a Christian gentleman. He is the martyr of our cause.” And I replied with my tears.

“Look here: taken in woman's clothes?” asked Mr. Trapier. “Rubbish, stuff, and nonsense. If Jeff Davis has not the pluck of a true man, then there is no courage left on this earth. If he does not die game, I give it up. Something, you see, was due to Lincoln and the Scotch cap that he hid his ugly face with, in that express car, when he rushed through Baltimore in the night. It is that escapade of their man Lincoln that set them on making up the woman's clothes story about Jeff Davis.”

Mrs. W. drove up. She, too, is off for New York, to sell four hundred bales of cotton and a square, or something, which pays tremendously in the Central Park region, and to capture and bring home her belle fille, who remained North during the war. She knocked at my door. The day was barely dawning. I was in bed, and as I sprang up, discovered that my old Confederate night-gown had to be managed, it was so full of rents. I am afraid I gave undue attention to the sad condition of my gown, but could nowhere see a shawl to drape my figure.

She was very kind. In case my husband was arrested and needed funds, she offered me some “British securities” and bonds. We were very grateful, but we did not accept the loan of money, which would have been almost the same as a gift, so slim was our chance of repaying it. But it was a generous thought on her part; I own that.

Went to our plantation, the Hermitage, yesterday. Saw no change; not a soul was absent from his or her post. I said, “Good colored folks, when are you going to kick off the traces and be free?” In their furious, emotional way, they swore devotion to us all to their dying day. Just the same, the minute they see an opening to better themselves they will move on. William, my husband's foster-brother, came up. “Well, William, what do you want?” asked my husband. “Only to look at you, marster; it does me good.”

SOURCES: Mary Boykin Chesnut, Edited by Isabella D. Martin and Myrta Lockett Avary, A Diary From Dixie, p. 394-6

Diary of Judith Brockenbrough McGuire: May 14, 1864

The cavalry fight on the Chickahominy was very severe. The Yankees escaped on Thursday night; they should not have been allowed to get off. Our sad deficiency in numbers is always in our way.

The death of another of our beloved E. H. S. boys has shocked us greatly — I mean that of Colonel Robert Randolph, of Fauquier, for a long time the chivalric captain of the famous “Black Horse Company.” After fighting desperately for hours, he was ordered to change his position; he immediately raised himself in his saddle, exclaiming, “Boys, we will give them one round more before we go!” fired, and was at that moment struck in the forehead by a Minié ball, and laid low, a few hours after the fall of his General. Thus our young men, of the first blood of the country — first in character and education, and, what is more important to us now, first in gallantry and patriotism — fall one by one. What a noble army of martyrs has already passed away! I tremble for the future ; but we must not think of the future. “Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.”

General Lee's last telegram tells of a furious fight on Thursday, near Spottsylvania Court-House. The enemy was repulsed, and driven back; and yet General Grant prepares for a fresh attack. It is said that 15,000 wounded Yankees are in Fredericksburg. We have heard cannon all day in the direction of Drury's Bluff; yet we are calm!

SOURCE: Judith W. McGuire, Diary of a Southern Refugee, During the War, p. 267-8

Diary of Sarah Morgan: Friday, December 26, 1862

Monday Dr. Woods and Mr. Van Ingen stopped, just from their regiment in Kentucky and on their way home, and I begged so hard to see the Doctor, and promised so faithfully to retire if I suffered too much, that Mrs. Badger yielded, like an angel, and I carried my point. The Doctor! We looked in vain at each other; I for my dandy friend in irreproachable broadcloth, immaculate shirt bosoms and perfect boots; he for the brusque, impulsive girl who in ordinary circumstances would have run dancing into the parlor, would have given him half-glad, half-indifferent greeting, and then found either occasion to laugh at him or would have turned elsewhere for amusement. We looked, I say, in vain. Before me stood my pattern of neatness in a rough uniform of brown homespun. A dark flannel shirt replaced the snowy cambric one, and there was neither cravat nor collar to mark the boundary line between his dark face and the still darker material. And the dear little boots! O ye gods and little fishes! they were clumsy, and mud-spattered! If my mouth twitched with laughter as I silently commented, the Doctor's did not! I, who always danced on my way, came in lying back on my pillows, and wheeled in by a servant. The Doctor's sympathy was really touching, and poor consolation he gave when he heard the story. “You will recover, to a certain extent; but will feel it more or less all your life.”

I am the ruin of all these puns; the gentlemen will hate me; I must learn to ignore their conundrums until they answer them themselves, and to wait patiently for the pun instead of catching it and laughing before it is half-spoken. Why can't I do as the others do? There was Mr. Van Ingen with his constant stream of them, that I anticipated several times. He said to me, “If I were asked what town in Louisiana I would rather be in this evening, what would my answer be?” I should have looked perfectly innocent, and politely inquisitive; but I did neither. I saw the answer instantly, and laughed. “Ah, you have guessed! I can see it in your eyes!” he said. Of course I had, but I told him I was afraid to say it, for fear he might think I was flattering myself. Then we both laughed. The place he referred to was Bayou, Sarah. . . .

Yesterday, being a beautiful day, I was carried down in honor of Christmas, to meet Captain Fenner and Mr. Duggan who were to dine with us. The cars had brought Miriam a beautiful little set of collars and cuffs from Dellie, and the oddest, sweetest little set for me, from Morgan, for our Christmas gift. It is all Lilly. . . .

We had an exquisite Christmas gift the night before, a magnificent serenade, a compliment from Colonel Breaux. It very singularly happened that Miriam, Anna, and Ned Badger were sitting up in the parlor, watching alone for Christmas, when the band burst forth at the steps, and startled them into a stampede upstairs. But Gibbes, who came with the serenaders, caught them and brought them back into the parlor, where there were only eight gentlemen; and in this novel, unheard-of style, only these two girls, with Gibbes to play propriety, entertained all these people at midnight while the band played without. . . .

I commenced writing to-day expressly to speak of our pleasant Christmas; yet it seems as though I would write about anything except that, since I have not come to it yet. Perhaps it is because I feel I could not do it justice. At least, I can say who was there. At sunset came Captain Bradford and Mr. Conn, the first stalking in with all the assurance which a handsome face and fine person can lend, the second following with all the timidity of a first appearance. . . . Again, after a long pause, the door swung open, and enter Mr. Halsey, who bows and takes the seat on the other side of me, and Mr. Bradford, of Colonel Allen memory, once more returned to his regiment, who laughs, shakes hands all around, and looks as happy as a schoolboy just come home for the holidays, who has never-ending visions of plumcakes, puddings, and other sweet things. While all goes on merrily, another rap comes, and enter Santa Claus, dressed in the old uniform of the Mexican War, with a tremendous cocked hat, and preposterous beard of false hair, which effectually conceal the face, and but for the mass of tangled short curls no one could guess that the individual was Bud. It was a device of the General's, which took us all by surprise. Santa Claus passes slowly around the circle, and pausing before each lady, draws from his basket a cake which he presents with a bow, while to each gentleman he presents a wineglass replenished from a most suspicious-looking black bottle which also reposes there. Leaving us all wonder and laughter, Santa Claus retires with a basket much lighter than it had been at his entrance. ... Then follow refreshments, and more and more talk and laughter, until the clock strikes twelve, when all these ghosts bid a hearty goodnight and retire.

SOURCE: Sarah Morgan Dawson, A Confederate Girl's Diary, p. 304-7

Diary of 5th Sergeant Alexander G. Downing: Thursday, March 16, 1865

We had a thunderstorm yesterday at 2 p. m. and today we had an all-day rain. We marched twelve miles in the mud, our division taking the lead. Our regiment crossed the South river after dark, on the stringers of the bridge, the rebels having burned a part of the bridge. The engineers have to lay the pontoons for the artillery and teams to cross. The country is very poor and forage is scarce.

Source: Alexander G. Downing, Edited by Olynthus B., Clark, Downing’s Civil War Diary, p. 262

Diary of John Beauchamp Jones: May 14, 1862

Our army has fallen back to within four miles of Richmond. Much anxiety is felt for the fate of the city. Is there no turning point in this long lane of downward progress? Truly it may be said, our affairs at this moment are in a critical condition. I trust in God, and the chivalry and patriotism of the South in the field.

The enemy's fleet of gun-boats are ascending James River, and the obstructions are not completed. We have but one or two casemated guns in battery, but we have brave men there.

SOURCE: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 1, p. 124-5