 CHAPTER XI CHILD I gave him a photograph album to look over. You have Lincoln in your book, said he. I am astonished at you. I hate him. And he placed the book on the floor and struck old Abe in the face with his fist. An Englishman told me, Lincoln has said that had he known such a war would follow his election he never would have set foot in Washington nor have been inaugurated. He had never dreamed of this awful, fratricidal bloodshed. That does not seem like the true John Brown spirit. I was very glad to hear it, to hear something from the President of the United States which was not merely a vulgar joke, and usually a joke so vulgar that you were ashamed to laugh, funny though it was. They say Seward has gone to England and his wily tongue will turn all hearts against us. Brown told us there was a son of the Duke of Somerset in Richmond. He laughed his fill at our ragged, dirty soldiers, but he stopped his laughing when he saw them under fire. Our men stripped the Yankee dead of their shoes but will not touch the shoes of a comrade. Poor fellows, they are nearly barefoot. Alex has come. I saw him ride up about dusk and go into the graveyard. I shut up my windows on that side. Poor fellow. July 13th. Halcott Green came to see us. Bragg is a stern disciplinarian, according to Halcott. He did not, in the least, understand citizen soldiers. In the retreat from Shiloh he ordered that not a gun should be fired. A soldier shot a chicken, and then the soldier was shot. "'For a chicken,' said Halcott. A confederate soldier for a chicken. Mrs. McCord says a nurse who is also a beauty had better leave her beauty with her cloaking hat at the door. One lovely lady nurse said to a rough old soldier whose wound could not have been dangerous. "'Well, my good soul, what can I do for you?' "'Kiss me,' said he. Mrs. McCord's fury was at the woman's telling it, for it brought her hospital into disrepute and very properly. She knew there were women who would boast of an insult if administered to their vanity. She wanted nurses to come dressed as nurses, as sisters of charity, and not as fine ladies. Then there would be no trouble. When she saw them coming in angel's sleeves displaying all their white arms and in their muslin showing all their beautiful white shoulders and throats, she felt disposed to order them off the premises. That was no proper costume for a nurse. Mrs. Bartow goes in her widow's weeds, which is after Mrs. McCord's own heart. But Mrs. Bartow has her stories, too. A surgeon said to her, I give you no detailed instructions. A mother, necessarily, is a nurse. She then passed on quietly. As smilingly acquiescent, my dear, as if I had ever been a mother. Mrs. Greenhow has enlightened Rachel Lyons as to Mr. Chestnut's character in Washington. He was one of the very few men of whom there was not a word of scandal spoken. I do not believe, my dear, that he ever spoke to a woman there. He did know Mrs. John R. Thompson, however. Walked up and down the college campus with Mrs. McCord. The buildings all lit up with gas. The soldiers seated under the elms in every direction and in every stage of convalescence. Through the open windows could see the nurses flitting about. It was a strange, weird scene. Walked home with Mrs. Bartow. We stopped at Judge Carroll's. Mrs. Carroll gave us a cup of tea. When we got home found the Prestons had called for me to dine at their house to meet General McGruder. Last night the Edgefield band serenaded Governor Pickens. The Terrace stepped on the porch and sang the Marseillais for them. It had been more than twenty years since I first heard her voice. It was a very fine one then, but there is nothing which the tooth of time lacerates more cruelly than the singing voice of women. There is an incongruous metaphor for you. The Negroes on the coast received the relages mounted rifles apparently with great rejoicings. The troops were gratified to find the Negroes in such a friendly state of mind. The servant whispered to his master, Don't you mind them, don't trust them, meaning the Negroes. The master then dressed himself as a federal officer and went down to the Negro quarter. The very first greeting was, Kai, Massa, you come for catch rebels? We can show you away, you can catch thirty tonight. They took him to the Confederate camp or pointed it out and then added for his edification. We can catch officer for you whenever you want him. Red news. Gun boats have passed Vicksburg. The Yankees are spreading themselves over our fair southern land like red ants. July twenty first. Jackson has gone into the enemy's country. Joe Johnston and Wade Hampton are to follow. Think of Rice, Mr. Senator Rice, who sent us the Buffalo robes. Footnote. Henry M. Rice, United States Senator from Minnesota, who had immigrated to that state from Vermont in eighteen thirty-five. End footnote. I see from his place in the Senate that he speaks of us as savages who put powder and whiskey into soldiers' canteens to make them mad with ferocity in the fight. No, never. We admire coolness here because we lack it. We do not need to be fired by drink to be brave. My classical lore is small indeed, but I faintly remember something of the Spartans who marched to the music of Lutes. No drum and fife were needed to revive their fainting spirits. That one thing we are Spartans. The Wayside Hospital is duly established at the Columbia Station where all the railroads meet. Footnote. Of ameliorations and modern warfare, Dr. John T. Darby said in addressing the South Carolina Medical Association, Charleston, in eighteen seventy-three. On the route from the Army to the General Hospital, wounds are dressed and soldiers refreshed at Wayside Homes, and here be it said with justice and pride that the credit of originating this system is due to the women of South Carolina. In a small room in the capital of this state, the first Wayside home was founded, and during the war some seventy-five thousand soldiers were relieved by having their wounds dressed, their ailments attended, and very frequently by being clothed through the patriotic services and good offices of a few untiring ladies in Columbia. From this little nucleus spread that grand system of Wayside hospitals which was established during our own and the late European wars. End Footnote. All honor to Mrs. Fisher and the other women who work there so faithfully. The young girls of Columbia started this hospital. In the first winter of the war, moneyless soldiers, sick and wounded, suffered greatly when they had to lie over here because of faulty connections between trains. Reverend Mr. Martin, whose habit it was to meet trains and offer his aid to these unfortunate, suggested to the young ladies' hospital association their opportunity. Straightway the blessed maidens provided a room where our poor fellows might have their wounds bound up and be refreshed. And now the soldier's rest has grown into the Wayside hospital and older heads and hands relieve younger ones of the grimmer work and graver responsibilities. I am ready to help in every way by subscription and otherwise, but too feeble in health to go there much. Mrs. Brown heard a man say at the Congaree House, We are breaking our heads against a stone wall. We are bound to be conquered. We cannot keep it up much longer against so powerful a nation as the United States. Crowds of Irish, Dutch, and Scotch are pouring in to swell their armies. They are promised our lands and they believe they will get them. Even if we are successful we cannot live without Yankees. Now, says Mrs. Brown, I call that man a Yankee spy. To which I reply, if he were a spy he would not dare show his hand so plainly. To think, says Mrs. Brown, that he is not taken up. Seward's little bell would tinkle, a guard would come, and the grand inquisition of America would order that man put under arrest in the twinkling of an eye if he had ventured to speak against Yankees and Yankeeland. General Preston said he had the right to take up anyone who was not in his right place and sent him where he belonged. Then do take up my husband instantly, he is sadly out of his right place in this little governor's council. The general stared at me and slowly uttered in his most tragic tones. If I could put him where I think he ought to be. This I immediately hailed as a high compliment and was duly ready with my thanks. Upon reflection it is borne in upon me that he might have been more explicit. He left too much to the imagination. Then Mrs. Brown described the Prince of Wales, whose manners it seems differ from those of Mrs. Blank, who arraigned us from mourn to dewy eve and uprated us with our ill-bred manners and customs. The Prince, when he was here, conformed at once to whatever he saw was the way of those who entertained him. He closely imitated President Buchanan's way of doing things. He took off his gloves at once when he saw that the President wore none. He began by bowing to the people who were presented to him, but when he saw Mr. Buchanan shaking hands, he shook hands too. When smoking affably with Brown on the White House Piazza, he expressed his content with the fine cigars Brown had given him. The President said, I was keeping some excellent ones for you, but Brown has got ahead of me. Long after Mr. Buchanan had gone to bed, the Prince ran into his room in a jolly, boyish way and said, Mr. Buchanan, I have come for the fine cigars you have for me. As I walked up to the Prestons, along a beautiful shaded back street, a carriage passed with Governor Means in it. As soon as he saw me, he threw himself half out and kissed both hands to me again and again. It was a whole, sold greeting as the saying is, and I returned it with my whole heart too. Good-bye, he cried, and I responded, good-bye. I may never see him again. I am not sure that I did not shed a few tears. General Preston and Mr. Chestnut were seated on the Piazza of the Hampton House as I walked in. I opened my batteries upon them in this scornful style. You cold, formal, solemn, overly polite creatures weighed down by your own dignity. I will never know the rapture of just such a sad farewell as John Means and I have just interchanged. He was in a hack, I proceeded to relate. And I was on the sidewalk. He was on his way to the war, poor fellow. The Hackman drove steadily along in the middle of the street. But for our gray hairs I do not know what he might have thought of us. John Means did not suppress his feelings at an unexpected meeting with an old friend, and a good cry did me good. It is a life of terror and foreboding we lead. My heart is in my mouth half the time. But you too, under no possible circumstances, could you forget your manners. Red Russell's India all day. Saintly folks, those English, when their blood is up. Sepoys and blacks we do not expect anything better from. But what an example of Christian patience and humanity the white angels from the West set them. The beautiful Jewess Rachel Lyons was here today. She flattered Paul Hain audaciously, and he threw back the ball. Today I saw the Rowena to this Rebecca, when Mrs. Edward Barnwell called. She is the purest type of Anglo-Saxon, exquisitely beautiful, cold, quiet, calm, ladylike, fair as a lily, with the blackest and longest eyelashes, and her eyes so light in color someone said they were the hue of cologne and water. At any rate she has a patent right to them. There are no more like them to be had. The effect is startling, but lovely beyond words. Lantan Duncan told us a story of Morgan in Kentucky. Morgan walked into a court where they were trying some secessionists. The judge was about to pronounce sentence, but Morgan rose and begged that he might be allowed to call some witnesses. The judge asked who were his witnesses. My name is John Morgan, and my witnesses are fourteen hundred Confederate soldiers. Mrs. Izzard witnessed two instances of patriotism in the cast called Sandhill Tackies. One forlorn, chill, and fever-freckled creature, yellow, dirty, and dry as a nut, was selling peaches at ten cents a dozen. Soldiers collected around her cart. She took the cover off and cried, Eat away, eat your fill. I never charge our soldiers anything. They tried to make her take pay, but when she steadily refused it they cheered her madly and said, Sleep in peace. Now we will fight for you and keep off the Yankees. Another poor Sandhill man refused to sell his cows and gave them to the hospital. CHAPTER XI. Being ill I left Mrs. MacMayans for Flat Rock. Flat Rock was the summer resort of many cultured families from the low countries of the south before the war. Many attractive houses had been built there. It lies in the region which has since become famous as the Asheville region and in which stands Biltmore. In footnote. It was very hot and disagreeable for an invalid in a boarding house in that climate. The Labords and the McCord girls came part of the way with me. The cars were crowded and a lame soldier had to stand, leaning on his crutches in the thoroughfare that runs between the seats. One of us gave him our seat. You may depend upon it. There was no trouble in finding a seat for our party after that. Dr. Labord quoted a classic anecdote. In some Greek assembly an old man was left standing. A Spartan gave him his seat. The Athenians cheered madly, though they had kept their seats. The comment was, Lacedemonians practice virtue. Nathen Davis happened accidentally to be at the station at Greenville. He took immediate charge of Molly and myself, for my party had dwindled to us too. He went with us to the hotel, sent for the landlord, told him who I was, secured good rooms for us, and saw that we were made comfortable in every way. At dinner I entered that immense dining room alone, but I saw friends and acquaintances on every side. My first exploit was to repeat to Mrs. Ives, Mrs. Pickens' blunder, and taking a suspicious attitude toward men born at the North, and calling upon General Cooper to agree with her. Martha Levy explained the gray faces of my auditors by saying that Colonel Ives was a New Yorker. My distress was dire. Louisa Hamilton was there. She told me that Captain George Cuthbert, with his arm and a sling from a wound by no means healed, was going to risk the shaking of a stagecoach. He was on his way to his cousin, William Cuthbert's, at Flat Rock. Now George Cuthbert is a type of the finest kind of Southern soldier. We cannot make them any better than he is. Before the war I knew him. He traveled in Europe with my sister, Kate, and Mary Withers. At once I offered him a seat in the comfortable hack Nathen Davis had engaged for me. Alley sat opposite to me, and often when I was tired held my feet in her lap. Captain Cuthbert's man sat with the driver. We had ample room. We were a dilapidated company. I was so ill I could barely sit up, and Captain Cuthbert could not use his right hand or arm at all. I had to draw his match, light his cigar, etc. He was very quiet, grateful, gentle, and I was going to say, docile. He is a fiery soldier, one of those whose whole face becomes transfigured in battle, so one of his men told me, describing his way with his company. He does not blow his own trumpet, but I made him tell me the story of his duel with the Mercury's reporter. He seemed awfully ashamed of wasting time in such a scrape. That night we stopped at a country house, halfway toward our journey's end. There we met Mr. Charles Lownes. Rawlins Lownes, his son, is with Wade Hampton. First we drove, by mistake, into Judge Kingsyard, our hackman mistaking the place for the hotel. Then we made Farmer's Hotel, as the seafaring men say. Burnett Rhett, with his steed, was at the door. Horse and manned were comparisoned with as much red and gold artillery uniform as they could bear. He held his horse. The stirrups were Mexican, I believe. They looked like little side-settles. Seeing his friend and crony, George Cuthbert, a light and leave-a-veiled lady in the carriage, this handsome and undismayed young artillerist walked round and round the carriage, talked with the driver, looked in at the doors and at the front. Suddenly I bethought me to raise my veil and satisfy his curiosity. Our eyes met, and I smiled. It was impossible to resist the comic disappointment on his face when a woman old enough to be George Cuthbert's mother, with the ravages of a year of gastric fever, almost fainting with fatigue, greeted his vision. He instantly mounted his gallant steed and pranced away to his fiancee. He is to marry the greatest heiress in the state, Miss Aiken. Then Captain Cuthbert told me his name. At Cates I found Sally Rutledge, and then for weeks life was a blank, I remember nothing. The illness which had been creeping on for so long a time took me by the throat. At Greenville I had met many friends. I witnessed the wooing of Barney Hayward, once the husband of the lovely Lucy Izard, now a widower and a bon-partie. He was there nursing Joe, his brother. So was the beautiful Henrietta Magruder Hayward, now a widow, for poor Joe died. There is something magnetic in Teddy Clinch's large and lustrous black eyes. No man has ever resisted their influence. She says her virgin heart has never beat one throb the faster for any mortal here below, until now when it surrenders to Barney. Well, as I said, Joseph Hayward died, and rapidly did the bereaved beauty shake the dust of this poor confederacy from her feet and plume her wings for flight across the water. Let me insert here now, much later, all I know of that brave spirit George Cuthbert. While I was living in the winter of 1863 at the corner of Clay and Twelth Street's Enrichment, he came to see me. Never did man enjoy life more. The Preston girls were staying at my house then, and it was very gay for the young soldiers who ran down from the army for a day or so. We had heard of him, as usual, gallantly facing odds at Sharpsburg. Footnote. The battle of Sharpsburg, or Antietam, one of the bloodiest of the war, was fought in western Maryland, a few miles north of Harper's Ferry, on September 16 and 17, 1862, the Federals being under McClellan and the Confederates under Lee, in Footnote. And he asked, if he should chance to be wounded, what I have him brought to Clay Street. He was shot at Chancellorsville, leading his men. Footnote. The battle of Chancellorsville, where the losses on each side were more than ten thousand men, was fought about fifty miles northwest of Richmond on May 2, 3, and 4, 1863. The Confederates were under Lee and the Federals under Hooker. And this battle, Stonewall Jackson, was killed. In Footnote. The surgeon did not think him mortally wounded. He sent me a message that he was coming at once to our house. He knew he would soon get well there. Also that I need not be alarmed those Yankees could not kill me. He asked one of his friends to write a letter to his mother. Afterward he said he had another letter to write, but that he wished to sleep first he felt so exhausted. At his request they then turned his face away from the light and left him. When they came again to look at him they found him dead. He had been dead for a long time. It was bitter cold. Wounded men lost much blood and were weakened in that way. They lacked warm blankets in all comforts. Many died who might have been saved by one good hot drink or a few mouthfuls of nourishing food. One of the generals said to me, fire and reckless courage like Captain Cuthbert's are contagious. Such men in an army are invaluable. Losses like this weakened us indeed. But I must not linger longer around the memory of the bravest of the brave, a true exemplar of our old regime, gallant, gay, unfortunate. M.B.C. August 8. Mr. Daniel Blake drove down to my sisters in his heavy, substantial English faton with stout and strong horses to match. I went back with him and spent two delightful days at his hospitable mansion. I met there as a sort of chaplain, the Reverend Mr. Blank. He dealt unfairly by me. We had a long argument, and when we knelt down for evening prayers he introduced an extemporaneous prayer and prayed for me most palpably. There was I, down on my knees, red hot with rage and fury. David W. said it was a clear case of hitting a fellow when he was down. Afterward the fun of it all struck me, and I found it difficult to keep from shaking with laughter. It was not an edifying religious exercise, to say the least, as far as I was concerned. Before Chancellorsville was Fatal Sharpsburg. In footnote. During the summer of 1862, after the battle of Malvern Hill and before Sharpsburg or Antietam, the following important battles had taken place. Harrison's Landing, July 3 and 4, Harrison's Landing again, July 31, Cedar Mountain, August 9, Bull Run, 2nd Battle, August 29 and 30, and South Mountain, September 14. In footnote. My friend Colonel Means killed on the battlefield, his only son, Stark, wounded and a prisoner. His wife had not recovered from the death of her other child, Emma, who had died of consumption early in the war. She was lying on a bed when they told her of her husband's death, and then they tried to keep Stark's condition from her. They think now that she misunderstood and believed him dead too. She threw something over her face. She did not utter one word. She remained quiet so long, someone removed the light shawl which she had thrown over her head, and found she was dead. Miss Mary Stark, her sister, said afterward, No wonder, how was she to face life without her husband and children. That was all she had ever lived for. These are sad, unfortunate memories. Let us run away from them. What has not my husband been doing this year, 1862, when all our South Carolina troops are in Virginia? Here we were without soldiers or arms. He raised an army, so to speak, and imported arms through the Trenum firm. He had arms to sell to the Confederacy. He laid the foundation of a nighter bed, and the Confederacy sent to Columbia to learn of Professor Laconte how to begin theirs. He bought up all the old arms and had them altered and repaired. He built ships. He imported clothes and shoes for our soldiers, for which things they had long stood sorely in need. He imported cotton cards and set all idle hands carding and weaving. All the world was set to spinning cotton. He tried to stop the sale of whiskey, and alas he called for reserves, that is, men over age, and he committed the unforgivable offense of sending the sacred Negro property to work on fortifications away from their owner's plantations. CHAPTER XIII My mother ill at her home on the plantation near here, where I have come to see her. But to go back first to my trip home from Flat Rock to Camden. At the station I saw men sitting on a row of coffins, smoking, talking, and laughing, with their feet drawn up, tailor-fashioned, to keep them out of the wet. Thus does war harden people's hearts. Met James Chestnut at Wilmington. He only crossed the river with me, and then went back to Richmond. He was violently opposed to sending our troops into Pennsylvania, wanted all we could spare sent west to make an end to there of our enemies. He kept dark about Velandigum. I am sure we could not trust him to do us any good or to do the Yankees any harm. The Coriolanus business is played out. FOOT NOTE. Clement Baird Velandigum was an Ohio Democrat who represented the extreme wing of northern sympathizers with the South. He was arrested by United States troops in May 1863, court-martialed, and banished to the Confederacy. Not being well received in the South, he went to Canada, but after the war returned to Ohio. In footnote. As we came to Camden, Molly sat by me in the cars. She touched me, and with her nose in the air said, Look, Mrs. There was the inevitable bride and groom, at least so I thought, and the irrepressible kissing and lawling against each other which I had seen so often before. I was rather astonished at Molly's prudery, but there was a touch in this scene which was new. The man required for his peace of mind that the girl should brush his cheek with those beautiful long eyelashes of hers. Molly became so outraged in her blue-black modesty that she kept her head out of the window not to see. When we were detained at a little wayside station, this woman made an awful row about her room. She seemed to know me and appealed to me, said her brother-in-law was adjutant to Colonel Kay, et cetera. Molly observed, You had better go yonder, ma'am, where your husband is calling you. The woman drew herself up proudly, and with a toss exclaimed, Husband indeed, I'm a widow, that is, my cousin. I loved my dear husband too well to marry again, ever, ever. Absolutely tears came into her eyes. Molly, loaded as she was with shawls and bundles, stood motionless and said, After all that guanone in the kyaars, O Lord, I should have let it go, Twas my husband and me, nigger as I am. Here I was at home, on a soft bed, with every physical comfort. But life is one long catechism there, due to the curiosity of stay-at-home people in a narrow world. In Richmond, Molly and Lawrence quarreled. He declared he could not put up with her tantrums. Unfortunately I asked him, in the interests of peace and a quiet house, to bear with her temper. I did, said I, but she was so good and useful. He was shabby enough to tell her what I had said at their next quarrel. The awful reproaches she overwhelmed me with then. She said she was mortified that I had humbled her before Lawrence. But the day of her revenge came. At negro balls in Richmond, guests were required to carry passes, and in changing his coat Lawrence forgot his pass. Next day Lawrence was missing, and Molly came to me laughing to tears. Come and look, said she. Here is the fine gentleman tied between two black niggers and marched off to jail. She laughed and jeered, so she could not stand without holding on to the window. Lawrence disregarded her, and called to me at the top of his voice. His ma'am, ask Morris James to come take me out of this. I ain't done nothing. As soon as Mr. Chestnut came home I told him of Lawrence's sad fall, and he went at once to his rescue. There had been a fight and a disturbance at the ball. The police had been called in, and when every negro was required to show his pass, Lawrence had been taken up as having none. He was terribly chop-fallen when he came home walking behind Mr. Chestnut. He is always so respectable and well-behaved, and stands on his dignity. I went over to Mrs. Preston's at Columbia. Camden had become simply intolerable to me. There the telegram found me, saying I must go to my mother, who was ill at her home here in Alabama. Colonel Goodwin, his wife, and two daughters were going, and so I joined the party. I telegraphed Mr. Chestnut for Lawrence, and he replied, forbidding me to go at all. It was so hot, the car so disagreeable, fever would be the inevitable result. Miss Kate Hampton in her soft voice said, The only trouble in life is when one can't decide in which way duty leads. Wants know your duty, then all is easy. I do not know whether she thought it my duty to obey my husband, but I thought it my duty to go to my mother, as I risked nothing but myself. We had two days of an exciting drama under our very noses, before our eyes. A party had come to Columbia, who said they had run the blockade, had come in by flag of truce, etc. Colonel Goodwin asked me to look around and see if I could pick out the suspected crew. It was easily done. We were all in a sadly molting condition. We had come to the end of our good clothes in three years, and now our only resource was to turn them upside down or inside out, and in mending, darning, patching, etc. Near me on the train to Alabama sat a young woman in a travelling dress of bright yellow. She wore a profusion of curls, had pink cheeks, was delightfully airy and easy in her manner, and was absorbed in her flirtation with a confederate major, who, in spite of his nice new grey uniform and two stars, had a very yanky face, fresh, clean cut, sharp, utterly unsunburned, floored, wholesome, handsome. What more in compliment can one say of one's enemies? Two other women faced this man and woman, and we knew them to be newcomers by their good clothes. One of these women was a German. She it was who had betrayed them. I found that out afterward. The handsomest of the three women had a hard northern face, but all were in splendid array as to feathers, flowers, lace, and jewelry. If they were spies, why were they so foolish as to brag of New York and compare us unfavorably with the other side all the time, and in loud shrill accents? Surely that was not the way to pass unnoticed in the confederacy. A man came in, stood up, and read from a paper, The Surrender of Vicksburg. In footnote, Vicksburg surrendered on July 4, 1863. Since the close of 1862 it had, again and again, been assaulted by Grant and Sherman. It was commanded by Johnston and Pemberton, Pemberton being in command at the time of the surrender. John C. Pemberton was a native of Philadelphia, a graduate of West Point, and had served in the Mexican War. In footnote. I felt as if I had been struck a hard blow on the top of my head, and my heart took one of its queer turns. I was utterly unconscious, not long, I daresay. The first thing I heard was exclamations of joy and exultation from the overdressed party. My rage and humiliation were great. A man within earshot of this party had slept through everything. He had a greyhound face, eager and inquisitive when awake, but now he was as one of the seven sleepers. Colonel Goodwin wrote on a blank page of my book, one of DeQuincy's, the notice there now, that the sleeper was a Richmond detective. Finally, hot and tired out, we arrived at West Point on the Chattahoochee River. The dusty cars were quite still except for the giggling flirtation of the yellow gown and her major. Two Confederate officers walked in. I felt mischief in the air. One touched the smart major, who was whispering to yellow gown. The major turned quickly. Instantly every drop of blood left his face, a spasm seized his throat. It was a piteous sight. And at once I was awfully sorry for him. He was marched out of the car. Poor yellow gown's color was fast, but the whites of her eyes were lurid. Of the three women's spies we never heard again. They never do anything worse to women, the high-minded Confederates, than send them out of the country. But when we read soon afterward of the execution of a male spy we thought of the major. At Montgomery the boat waited for us, and in my haste I tumbled out of the omnibus with Dr. Robert Johnson's assistance, but nearly broke my neck. The thermometer was high up in the nineties, and they gave me a state room over the boiler. I paid out my Confederate rags of money freely to the maid in order to get out of that oven. Suddenly go where we may hereafter, an Alabama steamer in August lying under the bluff with the sun looking down, will give one a foretaste, almost an adequate idea of what's to come as far as heat goes. The planks of the floor burned one's feet under the bluff at Selma, where we stayed nearly all day. I do not know why. Met James Boykin, who had lost twelve hundred bales of cotton at Vicksburg, and charged it all to Jeff Davis in his wrath, which did not seem exactly reasonable to me. At Portland there was a horse for James Boykin, and he rode away, promising to have a carriage sent for me at once. But he had to go seven miles on horseback before he reached my sister Sally's, and then Sally was to send back. On that lonely riverside Molly and I remained with dismal swamps on every side, and immense plantations, the white people few or none. In my heart I knew my husband was right when he forbade me to undertake this journey. There was one living thing at this little riverside in, a white man who had a store opposite, and oh how drunk he was! How does it was, Molly kept up a fire of pine knots. There was neither lamp nor candle in that deserted house. The drunken man reeled over, now and then, lantern in hand. He would stand with his idiotic drunken glare, or go solemnly staggering round us, but always bowing in his politeness. He nearly fell over us, but I sprang out of his way as he asked, Well, madam, what can I do for you? Shall I ever forget the headache of that night and the fright? My temples throbbed with dumb misery. I sat upon a chair, Molly on the floor, with her head resting against my chair. She was as near as she could get to me, and I kept my hand on her. Mrs. said she, Now I do believe you are scared, scared of that poor drunken thing. If he was sober I could whip him in a fair fight, and drunk as he is I can throw him over the banister if he so much as touches you. I don't value him a button. Taking heart from such brave words I laughed. It seemed an eternity, but the carriage came by ten o'clock. And then with the coachman as our sole protector, we poor women drove eight miles or more over a carriage road, through long lanes, swamps of pitchy darkness, with plantations on every side. The house, as we drew near, looked like a graveyard in a nightmare, so vague and phantom-like were its outlines. I found my mother ill in bed, feeble still, but better than I hoped to see her. I knew you would come, was her greeting, with outstretched hands. Then I went to bed in that silent house, a house of the dead it seemed. I supposed I was not to see my sister until the next day, but she came in some time after I had gone to bed. She kissed me quietly, without a tear. She was thin and pale, but her voice was calm and kind. As she lifted the candle over her head to show me something on the wall, I saw that her pretty brown hair was white. It was awfully hard not to burst out into violent weeping. She looked so sweet and yet so utterly brokenhearted. But as she was without emotion, apparently, it would not become me to upset her by my tears. Next day at noon, Heddy, mother's old maid, brought my breakfast to my bedside. Such a breakfast it was, Delmonico could do no better. It is ever so late, I know. To which Heddy replied, Yes, we would not let Molly wake you. What a splendid cook you have here. My daughter, Tina, is Miss Sally's cook. She's well enough as times go, but when our Miss Mary comes to see us, I does it myself, and she curtsied down to the floor. It's your old soul, I cried, and she rushed over and gave me a good hug. She is my mother's factotum, has been her maid since she was six years old when she was bought from a Virginia speculator along with her own mother and all her brothers and sisters. She has been pampered until she is a rare old tyrant at times. She can do everything better than anyone else, and my mother leans on her heavily. Heddy is Dick's wife, Dick is the butler. I have over a dozen children and take life very easily. Sally came in before I was out of bed and began at once in the same stony way, pale and cold as ice, to tell me of the death of her children. It had happened not two weeks before. Her eyes were utterly without life, no expression whatever, and in a composed and sad sort of manner she told the tale as if it were something she had read and wanted me to hear. My eldest daughter, Mary, had grown up to be a lovely girl. She was between thirteen and fourteen, you know. Baby Kate had my sister's gray eyes. She was evidently to be the beauty of the family. Strange it is that here was one of my children who has lived and has gone, and you have never seen her at all. She died first, and I would not go to the funeral. I thought it would kill me to see her put under the ground. I was lying down, stupid with grief, when Aunt Charlotte came to me after the funeral with this news. Mary has that awful disease, too. There was nothing to say. I got up and dressed instantly and went to Mary. I did not leave her side again in that long struggle between life and death. I did everything for her with my own hands. I even prepared my darling for the grave. I went to her funeral, and I came home and walked straight to my mother, and I begged her to be comforted. I would bear it all without one word if God would only spare me the one child left me now. Sally has never shed a tear, but has grown twenty years older, cold, hard, care-worn. With the same rigidity of manner, she began to go over all the details of Mary's illness. I had not given up hope. No, not at all. As I sat by her side, she said, Mama, put your hand on my knees. They are so cold. I put my hand on her knee. The cold struck to my heart. I knew it was the coldness of death. Sally put out her hand on me, and it seemed to recall the feeling. She fell forward in an agony of weeping that lasted for hours. The doctor said this reaction was a blessing. Without it, she must have died or gone mad. While the mother was so bitterly weeping, the little girl, the last of them, a bright child of three or four, crawled into my bed. Now, Auntie, she whispered, I want to tell you all about Mamie and Katie, but they watch me so. They say I must never talk about them. Katie died because she ate blackberries. I know that. And then Aunt Charlotte read Mamie a letter, and that made her die, too. Mom, Headie, says they have gone to God. But I know the people saved a place between them and the ground for me. Uncle William was in despair at the low ebb of patriotism out here. West of the Savannah River, said he, it is property first, life next, honor last. He gave me an excellent pair of shoes. What a gift! For more than a year I have had none but some dreadful things Armstead makes for me, and they hurt my feet so. These do not fit, but that is nothing. They are large enough and do not pinch anywhere. I have absolutely a respectable pair of shoes. Uncle William says the men who went into the war to save their negroes are abjectly wretched. Neither side now cares a fig for these beloved negroes, and would send them all to heaven in a handbasket, as Custis Lee says, to win in the fight. General Lee and Mr. Davis want the negroes put into the army. Mr. Chestnut and Major Vinnable discussed the subject one night, but would they fight on our side or desert to the enemy? They don't go to the enemy, because they are comfortable as they are, and expect to be free anyway. When we were children, our nurses used to give us tea out in the open air on little pine tables, scrubbed as clean as milk fails. Sometimes as Dick would pass us, with his slow and consequential step, we would call out, Do, Dick, come and wait on us. No little missies, I never wait on pine tables. Wait till you get big enough to put your legs under your paws, mahogany. I taught him to read as soon as I could read myself, perched on his knife-board. He won't look at me now, but looks over my head, sensing freedom in the air. He was always very ambitious. I do not think he ever troubled himself much about books. But then, as my father said, Dick, standing in front of his sideboard, has heard all subjects in earth or heaven discussed, and by the best heads in our world. He is proud, too, in his way. Heady, his wife, complained that the other men-servants looked finer in their livery. Nonsense, old woman! A butler never demeans himself to wear livery. He is always in plain clothes. Somewhere he had picked that up. He is the first negro in whom I have felt a change. Others go about in their black masks, not a ripple or an emotion showing. And yet, on all other subjects except the war, they are the most excitable of all races. Now Dick might make a very respectable Egyptian sphinx so inscrutably silent, is he? He did dane to inquire about General Richard Anderson. He was my young master once, said he. I will always like him better than anybody else. When Dick married Heady, the Anderson house was next door. The two families agreed to sell either Dick or Heady, whichever consented to be sold. Heady refused outright, and the Anderson sold Dick that he might be with his wife. This was magnanimous on the Anderson's part, for Heady was only a lady's maid, and Dick was a trained butler, on whom Mrs. Anderson had spent no end of pains in his dining-room education. And of course, if they had refused to sell Dick, Heady would have had to go to them. Mrs. Anderson was very much disgusted with Dick's ingratitude when she found he was willing to leave them. As a butler, he is a treasure. He is overwhelmed with dignity. But that does not interfere with his work at all. My father had a body-servant, Simon, who could imitate his master's voice perfectly. He would sometimes call out from the yard after my father had mounted his horse. Dick, bring me my overcoat. I see you there, sir. Hurry up. When Dick hastened out, overcoat in hand, and only Simon was visible, after several obsequious, yes, master, just as master pleases, my mother had always to step out and prevent a fight. Dick never forgave her laughing. Once insomptor, when my father was very busy preparing a law case, the mob in the street annoyed him, and he grumbled about it as Simon was making up his fire. Suddenly he heard, as it were, himself speaking. The Honorable S. D. Miller, Lawyer Miller, as the colored gentleman announced himself in the dark, appeal to the gentleman outside to go away and leave a lawyer in peace to prepare his case for the next day. My father said he could have sworn the sound was that of his own voice. The crowd dispersed, but some noisy negroes came along, and upon them Simon rushed with the sulky whip, slashing around in the dark, culling himself Lawyer Miller, who was determined to have peace. Simon returned, complaining that, them niggers run so he never got in a hundred yards of one of them. At Portland we met a man who said, is it not strange that in this poor, devoted land of ours there are some men who are making money by blockade running, cheating our embarrassed government, and skulking the fight? Montgomery, July 30th. Known here from Portland, there was no state room for me. My mother alone had one. My aunt and I sat knotting in armchairs, for the floors and sofas were covered with sleepers, too. On the floor that night, so hot that even a little covering of clothes could not be born lay a motley crew. Black, white, and yellow, disported themselves in promiscuous array. Children and their nurses, bared to the view, were wrapped in the profoundest slumber. No cast prejudices were here. Neither Garrison, John Brown, nor Garrett Smith ever dreamed of equality more untrammeled. A crow-black, enormously fat Negro man waddled in every now and then to look after the lamps. The atmosphere of that cabin was stifling, and the sight of those figures on the floor did not make it more tolerable. So we soon escaped and sat out near the guards. The next day was the very hottest I have ever known. One supreme consolation was the watermelons, the very finest, and the ice. A very handsome woman, whom I did not know, rehearsed all our disasters in the field. And then, as if she held me responsible, she faced me furiously. And where are our big men? Whom do you mean? I mean our leaders, the men we have a right to look to to save us. They got us into this scrape. Let them get us out of it. Where are our big men? I sympathized with her and understood her, but I answered lightly. I do not know the exact size you want them. Here in Montgomery we have been so hospitably received. Ye gods, how those women talked, and all at the same time. They put me under the care of General Dick Taylor's brother-in-law, a Mr. Gordon, who married one of the Barangies. A very pleasant arrangement it was for me. He was kind and attentive and vastly agreeable with his New Orleans anecdotes. On the first of last January all his servants left him, but four. To these faithful few he gave free papers at once, that they might lose not by loyalty should the Confederates come into authority once more. He paid high wages and things worked smoothly for some weeks. One day his wife saw some Yankee officer's cards on a table and said to her maid, I did not know any of these people had called. Oh, Mrs. the maid replied, they come to see me and I have been waiting to tell you. It is too hard, I cannot do it. I cannot dance with those nice gentlemen at night at our union balls and then come here and be your servant the next day. I can't. So, said Mr. Gordon, freedom must be followed by fraternity and equality. One by one the faithful few slipped away and the family were left to their own devices. Why not? When General Dick Taylor's place was sacked his negroes moved down to Algiers, a village near New Orleans. An old woman came to Mr. Gordon to say that these negroes wanted him to get word to Mars Dick that they were dying of disease and starvation. Thirty had died that day. Dick Taylor's help being out of the question Mr. Gordon applied to a federal officer. He found this one not a philanthropist but a cynic, who said, All right, it is working out as I expected. Improve negroes and Indians off the continent. Their strong men we put in the army, the rest will disappear. Joe Johnston can sulk. As he is sent west, he says, they may give Lee the army Joe Johnston trained. Lee is reaping where he sowed, he thinks, but then he was backing straight through Richmond when they stopped his retreating. End of Chapter 13. Chapter 14 of A Diary from Dixie. This Lubrovach recording is in the public domain. Read by Laurie Ann Walden. A Diary from Dixie by Mary Chestnut. Chapter 14. Richmond, Virginia. August 10, 1863 to September 7, 1863. Richmond, Virginia. August 10, 1863. Today I had a letter from my sister who wrote to inquire about her old playmate, friend and lover, Boykin Macaw. It is nearly twenty years since each was married. Each now has children nearly grown. To tell the truth, she writes, in these last dreadful years with David in Florida, where I cannot often hear from him and everything dismal, anxious and disquieting, I had almost forgotten Boykin's existence. But he came here last night. He stood by my bedside and spoke to me kindly and affectionately as if we had just parted. I said, holding out my hand, Boykin, you are very pale. He answered, I have come to tell you good-bye. And then seized both my hands. His own hands were as cold and hard as ice. They froze the marrow of my bones. I screamed again and again until my whole household came rushing in, and then came the negroes from the yard, all wakened by my piercing shrieks. This may have been a dream, but it haunts me. One sent me an old paper with an account of his wounds and his recovery, but I know he is dead. Stop, said my husband at this point. And then he read from that day's examiner these words. Captain Burwell Boykin Macaw found dead upon the battlefield leading a cavalry charge at the head of his company. He was shot through the head. The famous colonel of the Fourth Texas, by name John Bell Hood, is here. Him we call Sam, because his classmates at West Point did so, for what cause is not known. Footnote. Hood was a native of Kentucky and a graduate of West Point in footnote. John Darby asked if he might bring his hero to us, bragged of him extensively, said he had won his three stars, et cetera, under Stonewall's eye, and that he was promoted by Stonewall's request. When Hood came with his sad Quixote face, the face of an old crusader who believed in his cause, his cross, and his crown. We were not prepared for such a man as a beau ideal of the wild Texans. He is tall, thin, and shy, has blue eyes and light hair, a tawny beard, and a vast amount of it, covering the lower part of his face, the whole appearance that of awkward strength. Someone said that his great reserve of manner he carried only into the society of ladies. Major Vinnable added that he had often heard of the light of battle shining in a man's eyes. He had seen it once, when he carried to Hood orders from Lee, and found in the hottest of the fight that the man was transfigured. The fierce light of Hood's eyes, I can never forget. Hood came to ask us to a picnic next day at Drury's Bluff. Footnote, Drury's Bluff flies eight miles south of Richmond on the James River. Here on May 16, 1864, the Confederates under Beauregard repulsed the Federals under Butler. Infant note, the naval heroes were to receive us, and then we were to drive out to the Texan camp. We accused John Darby of having instigated this unlooked-for festivity. We were to have bands of music and dances with turkeys, chickens, and buffalo tongues to eat. Next morning, just as my foot was on the carriage step, the girl standing behind, ready to follow me with Johnny and the infant Samuel, Captain Shannon by proper name, uprode John Darby in red hot haste, through his bridle to one of the men who was holding the horses, and came toward us rapidly, clanking his cavalry spurs with a despairing sound as he cried, stop, it's all up. We are ordered back to the Rappahannock. The brigade is marching through Richmond now. So we unpacked and unloaded, dismissed the hacks, and sat down with a sigh. Suppose we go and see them past the turnpike, someone said. The suggestion was hailed with delight, and off we marched. Johnny and the infant were in citizens' clothes, and the straggler, as Hood calls John Darby, since the Prestons have been in Richmond, was all plated and plumed in his surgeon's array. He never baited an inch of bullion or a feather. He was courting, and he stalked ahead with Mary Preston, Buck, and Johnny. The infant and myself, both stout and scant of breath, lagged last. They called back to us as the infant came toddling along. Hurry up, or we will leave you. At the turnpike we stood on the sidewalk and saw 10,000 men march by. We had seen nothing like this before. Hither, too, we had seen only regiments marching, speak and span, in their fresh, smart clothes, just from home and on their way to the army. Such rags and tags as we saw now. Nothing was like anything else. Most garments and arms were such as had been taken from the enemy. Such shoes as they had on. Oh, our brave boys, moaned Buck. Such tin pans and pots as were tied to their waists with bread or bacon stuck on the ends of their bayonets. Anything that could be spiked was bayoneted and held aloft. They did not seem to mind their shabby condition. They laughed, shouted and cheered as they marched by. Not a disrespectful or light word was spoken, but they went for the men who were huddled behind us and who seemed to be trying to make themselves as small as possible in order to escape observation. Hood and his staff finally came galloping up, dismounted and joined us. Mary Preston gave him a bouquet. Thereupon he unwrapped a Bible which he carried in his pocket. He said his mother had given it to him. He pressed a flower in it. Mary Preston suggested that he had not worn or used it at all, being fresh, new, and beautifully kept. Every word of this the Texans heard as they marched by, almost touching us. They laughed and joked and made their own rough comments. September 7th. 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 Millroy in Western Virginia. There were so many Johnstons that for this victory they named him Allegheny 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 hoppled 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 Porche 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 Betty Byrne 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 tears 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 idol as the despair of the veteran was thundered into my other ear. I lent an ear to each conversationalist. Mary cannot altogether control her voice and her shrill screams of negation, no, no, never, et cetera, 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 40 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, cannonated her from the same spot where he had courted Mary with proposals to marry him. Buck was never so decided in her nose as Mary. Not so loud at least. Thus in amendment says Buck, who always reads what I have written and makes comments of ascent or descent. 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 or me leaning, told of his successful love while general Edward Johnston roared unto anguish and disappointment over his failures. Mr. Miles spoke a sweet little Betty Beern as if she had been a French girl just from a convent kept far from the haunts of men, holy for him. One would think to hear him that Betty had never cast those innocent blue eyes of hers on a man until he came along. Now, since I first knew Miss Beern in 1857, when Pat Calhoun was to the fore, she has been followed by a tale of men as long as a Highland chiefs. Every summer at the springs, their father appeared in the ballroom a little before 12 and chased the three beautiful Beerns home before him in spite of all entreaties. And he was said to frown away their two 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 D's called. As Colonel D's removed his gloves, he said, oh, the Miles and Beern 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 Betty 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 Betty'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 Beern, 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 Gingo. So much for a secret. Miss Beern 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. Chestnut 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 crepe 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 poin d'alesson. 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 indoors, 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 Sims with my pretty Paris rose-colored silk turned over my head to save it, and when we arrived at the hospitable mansion of the McFarland's, Mr. McFarland took me straight into the drawing room, manlike, forgetting that my ruffled plumes needed a good smoothing and preening. Mrs. Lee sent for me. She was staying at Mrs. Kasky'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? Footnote, the battle of Brandy Station, Virginia, occurred June 9, 1863 in Footnote. Yes, we are anxious. John Chestnut's company is there too. She spoke sadly but quietly. My son, Rooney, is wounded. His brother has gone for him. They will soon be here and we shall know all about it unless Rooney's wife takes him to her grandfather. Poor lame mother, I am useless to my children. Mrs. Kasky 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. Chestnut and her aunt, Nelly Custis, Mrs. Lewis, were very intimate during Washington's administration in Philadelphia. I told her Mrs. Chestnut, Sr., 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. Old 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 Siborites, as they wanted it all. In a wonderfully short time we had meant julips 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. Chestnut to see Robert Barnwell and make the necessary arrangements to recover the body. Mr. Chestnut 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 capital. 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 Statehouse 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 sabrecut across the face and head, and was utterly disfigured. Mrs. Singleton seemed convulsed with grief, and all my life I have 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 Statehouse. Everybody had gone, and we were alone. We talked of it all, how we had gone to Charleston to see Rachel and Adrienne like a roux, 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. Reverend 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 newborn 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 woeful year it has been to her. Robert Barnwell had insisted upon being sent to the hospital at Stanton. 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 goodbye cheerfully and called after him. As soon as my trouble is over I will come to you at Stanton. 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 Stanton 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 raid, I burned some personal papers. Footnote. 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. In footnote. Molly constantly said to me, Mrs. listen to the guns, burn up everything. Mrs. Lyon 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 wrote 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. End of Chapter 14. Chapter 15 of A Diary from Dixie. This Lubrivox recording is in the public domain. Read by Laurie Ann Walden. A Diary from Dixie by Mary Chestnut. Chapter 15. Camden, South Carolina, September 10, 1863 to November 5, 1863. Camden, South Carolina, September 10, 1863. It is a comfort to turn from small political jealousies to our grand battles to Lee and Kirby Smith after counsel and convention squabbles. Lee has proved to be all that my husband prophesied of him when he was so unpopular and when Joe Johnston was the great God of war. The very sound of the word convention or council is wearisome. Not that I am quite ready for Richmond yet. We must look after home and plantation affairs, which we have sadly neglected. Heaven help my husband through the deep waters. The wedding of Miss Aiken, daughter of Governor Aiken, the largest slave owner in South Carolina, Julia Rutledge, one of the bridesmaids, the place Flat Rock. We could not for a while imagine what Julia would do for a dress. My sister Kate remembered some muslin she had in the house for curtains, bought before the war, and laid aside as not needed now. The stuff was white and thin, a little coarse, but then we covered it with no end of beautiful lace. It made a charming dress and how altogether lovely Julia looked in it. The night of the wedding it stormed as if the world were coming to an end. Wind, rain, thunder and lightning and an unlimited supply around the mountain cottage. The bride had a duchess dressing table, muslin and lace, not one of the shifts of honest war-driven poverty, but a millionaire's attempt at appearing economical, and the idea that that style was in better taste as placing the family more on the same plane with their less comfortable compatriots. A candle was left too near this light drapery and it took fire. Outside was lightning enough to fire the world, inside the bridal chamber was a blaze, and there was wind enough to blow the house down the mountainside. The English maid behaved heroically, and with the aid of Mrs. Acons and Mrs. Matt Singleton's servants put the fire out without disturbing the marriage ceremony, then being performed below. Everything in the bridal chamber was burned up except the bed, and that was a mass of cinders, soot, and flakes of charred and blackened wood. At Kingsville I caught a glimpse of our army. Longstreet's core was going west. God bless the gallant fellows. Not one man was intoxicated. Not one rude word did I hear. It was a strange sight, one part of it. There were miles, apparently, of platform cars. Soldiers rolled in their blankets, lying in rows, heads all covered, fast asleep. In their grey blankets, packed in regular order, they looked like swathed mummies. One man near where I sat was riding on his knee. He used his cap for a desk, and he was seated on a rail. I watched him, wondering to whom that letter was to go. Home, no doubt. Sore hearts for him there. A feeling of awful depression laid hold of me. All these fine fellows were going to kill or be killed. Why? And a phrase got to beating about my head like an old song, the unreturning brave. When a knot of boyish, laughing young creatures passed me, a queer thrill of sympathy shook me. Ah, I know how your home folks feel, poor children. Once last winter persons came to us in Camden with such strange stories of Captain Blank, Morgan's man, stories of his father too, Turf tales and murder, or at least how he killed people. He had been a tremendous favourite with my husband, who brought him in once, leading him by the hand. Afterward he said to me, With these girls in the house we must be more cautious. I agreed to be coldly polite to Blank. After all, I said, I barely know him. When he called afterward in Richmond I was very glad to see him, utterly forgetting that he was under a ban. We had a long, confidential talk. He told me of his wife and children, of his army career, and told Morgan's stories. He grew more and more cordial, and so did I. He thanked me for the kind reception given him in that house. Told me I was a true friend of his, and related to me a scrape he was in which, if divulged, would ruin him, although he was innocent, but time would clear all things. He begged me not to repeat anything he had told me of his affairs, not even to Colonel Chestnut, which I promised promptly, and then he went away. I sat poking the fire, thinking what a curiously interesting creature he was, this famous Captain Blank, when the folding doors slowly opened and Colonel Chestnut appeared. He had come home two hours ago from the War Office with a headache, and had been lying on the sofa behind that folding door listening for mortal hours. So this is your style of being coldly polite, he said. Fancy my feelings. Indeed I had forgotten all about what they had said of him. The lies they told of him never once crossed my mind. He is a great deal cleverer, and I dare say just as good as those who malign him. Maddie Reedy, I knew her as a handsome girl in Washington several years ago, got tired of hearing Federals abusing John Morgan. One day they were worse than ever in their abuse, and she grew restive. By way of putting a mark against the name of so rude a girl, the Yankee officer said, What is your name? Right, Maddie Reedy now, but by the grace of God one day I hoped to call myself the wife of John Morgan. She did not know Morgan, but Morgan eventually heard the story. A good joke it was said to be. But he made it a point to find her out, and as she was as pretty as she was patriotic, by the grace of God she is now Mrs. Morgan. These timid southern women under the guns can be brave enough. Aunt Charlotte has told a story of my dear mother. They were up at Shelby, Alabama, a white man's country, where Negroes are not wanted. The ladies had with them several Negroes belonging to my uncle, at whose house they were staying in the owner's absence. One Negro man who had married and dwelt in a cabin was for some cause particularly obnoxious to the neighborhood. My aunt and my mother, old fashioned ladies, shrinking from everything outside their own door, knew nothing of all this. They occupied rooms on opposite sides of an open passageway. Underneath the house was open and unfinished. Suddenly one night my aunt heard a terrible noise. Apparently as of a man running for his life, pursued by men and dogs, shouting, hallowing, barking. She had only time to lock herself in. Utterly cut off from her sister, she sat down, dumb with terror, when there began loud knocking at the door with men swearing, dogs tearing round, sniffing, racing in and out of the passage and barking underneath the house like mad. Aunt Charlotte was sure she heard the panting of a Negro as he ran into the house a few minutes before. What could have become of him? Where could he have hidden? The men shook the doors and windows, loudly threatening vengeance. My aunt pitied her feeble sister, cut off in the room across the passage. This fright might kill her. The cursing and shouting continued, unabated. A man's voice and harshest accents made itself heard above all. Leave my house, you rascals, said the voice. If you are not gone in two seconds I'll shoot. There was a dead silence except for the noise of the dogs. Quickly the men slipped away. Once out of gunshot they began to call their dogs. After it was all over my aunt crept across the passage. Sister, what man was it scared them away? My mother laughed aloud in her triumph. I am the man, she said. But where is John? Out crept John from a corner of the room where my mother had thrown some rubbish over him. Lord bless you, Miss Mary opened a door for me and they was right behind running me. Aunt says mother was awfully proud of her prowess and she showed some moral courage too. At the President's Enrichment once General Lee was there and Constance and Hedy Carey came in. Also Miss Sanders and others. Constance Carey was telling some more anecdotes. Among them one of an attempt to get up a supper the night before at some high and mighty FFV's house and of how several gentlefolks went into the kitchen to prepare something to eat by the light of one forlorn candle. One of the men in the party, not being of a useful temperament, turned up a tub and sat down upon it. Custis Lee, wishing also to rest, found nothing upon which to sit but a gridiron. Footnote. Miss Constance Carey afterward married Burton Harrison and settled in New York where she became prominent socially and achieved reputation as a novelist. In footnote. One remembrance I kept of the evening at the President's. General Lee bowing over the beautiful Miss Carey's hand in the passage outside. Miss Blank rose to have her part in the picture and asked Mr. Davis to walk with her into the adjoining drawing room. He seemed surprised but rose stiffly and with a scowling brow was led off. As they passed where Mrs. Davis sat, Miss Blank, with all sail set, looked back and said, Don't be jealous, Mrs. Davis. I have an important communication to make to the President. Mrs. Davis's amusement resulted in a significant. Now, did you ever? During Stoneman's raid on a Sunday I was in Mrs. Randolph's pew. The battle of Chancellorsville was also raging. The rattling of ammunition wagons, the tramp of soldiers, the everlasting slamming of those iron gates of the capital square just opposite the church, made it hard to attend to the service. Then began a scene calculated to make the stoutest heart quail. The sexton would walk quietly up the aisle to deliver messages to worshipers whose relatives had been brought in, wounded, dying, or dead. Pale-faced people would then follow him out. Finally, the reverend, Mr. Minigeroad, bent across the Chancellorail to the sexton for a few minutes, whispered with the sexton, and then disappeared. The assistant clergyman resumed the communion which Mr. Minigeroad had been administering. At the church door stood Mrs. Minigeroad, as tragically wretched and as wild-looking as ever Mrs. Sidon's was. She managed to say to her husband, your son is at the station, dead. When these agonized parents reached the station, however, it proved to be someone else's son who was dead, but a son all the same. Pale and Juan came Mr. Minigeroad back to his place within the altar rails. After the sacred communion was over, someone asked him what it all meant, and he said, Oh, it was not my son who was killed, but it came so near it aches me yet. At home I found L. Q. Washington who stayed to dinner. I saw that he and my husband were intently preoccupied by some event which they did not see fit to communicate to me. Immediately after dinner my husband lent Mr. Washington one of his horses, and they rode off together. I betook myself to my kind neighbors the patents for information. There I found Colonel Patton had gone too. Mrs. Patton, however, knew all about the trouble. She said there was a raiding party within forty miles of us and no troops were enrichment. They asked me to stay to tea, those kind ladies, and in some way we might learn what was going on. After tea we went out to the Capitol Square, Lawrence and three men servants going along to protect us. They seemed to be mustering in citizens by the thousands. Company after company was being formed, then battalions, and then regiments. It was a wonderful sight to us, peering through the iron railing, watching them fall into ranks. Then we went to the Presidents, finding the family at supper. We sat on the white marble steps, and General Elsie told me exactly how things stood and of our immediate danger. Pickets were coming in. Men were spurring to and from the door as fast as they could ride, bringing and carrying messages and orders. Calmly General Elsie discoursed upon our present weakness and our chances for aid. After a while Mrs. Davis came out and embraced me silently. It is dreadful, I said. The enemy is within forty miles of us, only forty. Who told you that tale, said she? They are within three miles of Richmond. I went down on my knees like a stone. You had better be quiet, she said. The President is ill. Women and children must not add to the trouble. She asked me to stay all night, which I was thankful to do. We sat up. Officers were coming and going, and we gave them what refreshment we could from a side table kept constantly replenished. Finally, in the excitement, the constant state of activity and change of persons, we forgot the danger. Officers told us jolly stories and seemed in fine spirits, so we gradually took heart. There was not a moment's rest for anyone. Mrs. Davis said something more amusing than ever. We look like frightened women and children, don't we? Early next morning the President came down. He was still feeble and pale from illness. Custis Lee and my husband loaded their pistols, and the President drove off in Dr. Garnett's carriage, my husband and Custis Lee on horseback alongside him. By eight o'clock the troops from Petersburg came in, and the danger was over. The authorities will never strip Richmond of troops again. We had a narrow squeeze for it, but we escaped. It was a terrible night, although we made the best of it. I was walking on Franklin Street when I met my husband. Come with me to the war-office for a few minutes, said he, and then I will go home with you. What could I do but go? He took me up a dark stairway, and then down a long dark corridor, and he left me sitting in a window saying he would not be gone a second. He was obliged to go into the Secretary of War's room. There I sat mortal hours. Men came to light the gas. From the first I put down my veil so that nobody might know me. Numbers of persons passed that I knew, but I scarcely felt respectable seated up there in that odd way, so I said not a word but looked out of the window. Judge Campbell slowly walked up and down with his hands behind his back, the saddest face I ever saw. He had jumped down in his patriotism from Judge of the Supreme Court, U.S.A., to be under Secretary of something or other, I do not know what, C.S.A. No wonder he was out of spirits that night. Finally Judge Old came, him I called, and he joined me at once, and no little amazement defined me there, and stayed with me until James Chesnut appeared. In point of fact I sent him to look up that stray member of my family. When my husband came he said, Oh, Mr. Seddon and I got into an argument, and time slipped away. The truth is I utterly forgot you were here. When we were once more out in the street he began. Now don't scold me, for there is bad news. Pemberton has been fighting the Yankees by brigades, and he has been beaten every time, and now Vicksburg must go. I suppose that was his side of the argument with Seddon. Once again I visited the War Office. I went with Mrs. Old to see her husband at his office. We wanted to arrange a party on the river on the flag of Truce Boat, and to visit those beautiful places, Claremont and Brandon. My husband got into one of his too careful fits, said there was risk in it, and so he upset all our plans. Then I was to go up to John Rutherford's by the canal boat. That too he vetoed too risky, as if anybody was going to trouble us. October 24th. James Chestnut is at home on his way back to Richmond, had been sent by the President to make the rounds of the Western armies. Says Polk is a splendid old fellow. They accuse him of having been asleep in his tent at seven o'clock when he was ordered to attack at daylight, but he has too good a conscience to sleep so soundly. The battle did not begin until 11 at Chickamauga, when Bragg had ordered the advance at daylight. Footnote. The battle of Chickamauga was fought on the river of the same name near Chattanooga, September 19 and 20, 1863. The Confederates were commanded by Bragg and the Federals by Rosecrans. It was one of the bloodiest battles of the war. The loss on each side, including killed, wounded and prisoners, was over fifteen thousand. End footnote. Bragg and his generals do not agree. I think a general worthless whose subalterns quarrel with him. Something is wrong about the man. Good generals are adored by their soldiers. See Napoleon, Caesar, Stonewall, Lee. Old Sam Hood received his orders to hold a certain bridge against the enemy, and he had already driven the enemy several miles beyond it when the slow generals were still asleep. Hood has won a victory, though he has only one leg to stand on. Mr. Chestnut was with the President when he reviewed our army under the enemy's guns before Chattanooga. He told Mr. Davis that every honest man he saw out west thought well of Joe Johnston. He knows that the President detests Joe Johnston for all the trouble he has given him, and General Joe returns the compliment with compound interest. His hatred of Jeff Davis amounts to a religion. With him it colors all things. Joe Johnston advancing, or retreating, I may say with more truth, is magnetic. He does draw the good will of those by whom he is surrounded. Being such a good hater, it is a pity he had not elected to hate somebody else than the President of our country. He hates, not wisely, but too well. Our friend Breckenridge received Mr. Chestnut with open arms. Footnote. John C. Breckenridge had been Vice President of the United States under Buchanan, and was the candidate of the Southern Democrats for President in 1860. He joined the Confederate Army in 1861. In footnote. There is nothing narrow, nothing self-seeking, about Breckenridge. He has not mounted a pair of green spectacles made of prejudices, so that he sees no good except in his own red-hot partisans. October 27. Young Wade Hampton has been here for a few days, a guest of our nearest neighbor and cousin, Phil Stockton. Wade, without being the beauty or the athlete that his brother Preston is, is such a nice boy. We lent him horses, and ended by giving him a small party. What was lacking in company was made up for by the excellence of old Colonel Chestnut's ancient Madeira and Champagne. If everything in the Confederacy were only as truly good as the old Colonel's wine cellars, then we had a salad and a jelly cake. General Joe Johnston is so careful of his age that Wade has never yet seen a battle, says he has always happened to be sent afar off when the fighting came. He does not seem too grateful for this, and means to be transferred to his father's command. He says, no man exposes himself more recklessly to danger than General Johnston, and no one strives harder to keep others out of it. But the business of this war is to save the country. And a commander must risk his men's lives to do it. There is a French saying that you can't make an omelet unless you are willing to break eggs. November 5th. For a week we have had such a tranquil happy time here. Both my husband and Johnny are here still. James Chestnut spent his time sauntering around with his father, or stretched on the rug before my fire reading Vanity Fair and Pindinus. By good luck he had not read them before. We have kept Esmond for the last. He owns that he is having a good time. Johnny is happy too. He does not care for books. He will read a novel now and then, if the girls continue to talk of it before him. Nothing else whatever in the way of literature does he touch. He comes pulling his long blonde mustache irresolutely as if he hoped to be advised not to read it. And Mary, shall I like this thing? I do not think he has an idea of what we are fighting about, and he does not want to know. He says, my company, my men, with a pride, a faith, and an affection which are sublime. He came into his inheritance at twenty-one, just as the war began, and it was a goodly one, fine old houses, and an estate to match. Yesterday Johnny went to his plantation for the first time since the war began. John Witherspoon went with him and reports in this way. How do you do, master? How do you come on? Thus from every side rang the noisiest welcome from the darkies. Johnny was silently shaking black hands right and left as he rode into the crowd. As the nois subsided to the overseer, he said, send down more corn and fodder from our horses. And to the driver. Have you any peas? Plenty, sir. Send a wagon load down for the cows at Bloomsbury while I stay there. They have not milk and butter enough there for me. Any eggs? Send down all you can collect. How about my turkeys and ducks? Send them down two at a time. How about the mutton? Fat? That's good. Send down two a week. As they rode home, John Witherspoon remarked, I was surprised that you did not go into the fields to see your crops. What was the use? And the negroes, you had so little talk with them. No use to talk to them before the overseer. They are coming down to Bloomsbury day and night by platoons and they talk me dead. Besides, William and Parrish go up there every night, and God knows they tell me enough plantation scandal. Overseer feathering his nest, negroes ditto at my expense. Between the two fires I mean to get something to eat while I am here. For him we got up a charming picnic at Mulberry. Everything was propitious, the most perfect of days, and the old place in great beauty. Those large rooms were delightful for dancing. We had as good a dinner as mortal appetite could crave. The best fish, fowl, and game. Wine from a cellar that cannot be excelled. In spite of blockade, Mulberry does the honors nobly yet. Mrs. Edward Stockton drove down with me. She helped me with her taste and tact in arranging things. We had no trouble, however. All of the old servants who have not been moved to Bloomsbury scented the prey from afar, and they literally flocked in and made themselves useful.