 CHAPTER XVI Our pleasant home sojourn was soon broken up. Mollie had to go back to Company A, and my husband was ordered by the President to make a second visit to Bragg's army. Footnote. Braxton Bragg was a native of North Carolina and had won distinction in the war with Mexico. End footnote. So we came on here where the Prestons had taken apartments for me. Mollie was with me. Adam Teem, the overseer, with Isaac McLaughlin's help, came with us to take charge of the eight huge boxes of provisions I brought from home. Isaac, Mollie's husband, is a servant of ours, the only one my husband ever bought in his life. Isaac's wife belonged to Reverend Thomas Davis and Isaac to somebody else. The owner of Isaac was about to go west and Isaac was distracted. They asked one thousand dollars for him. He is a huge creature, really a magnificent specimen of a colored gentleman. His occupation had been that of a stage driver. Now he is a carpenter, or will be some day. He is awfully grateful to us for buying him, is really devoted to his wife and children, though he has a strange way of showing it, for he has a mistress, Antitha, as the French say, which fact Mollie never failed to grumble about as soon as his back was turned. Great big good for nothing then come a whimper and a must to buy him for his wife's sake, and all the time he and— Oh, Mollie, stop that, said I. Mr. Davis visited Charleston and had an enthusiastic reception. He described it all to General Preston. Governor Acons' perfect old Carolina style of living delighted him. Those old gray-haired darkies in their noiseless automatic service, the result of finished training. One does miss that sort of thing when away from home, where your own servants think for you. They know your ways and your wants. They save you all responsibility, even in matters of your own ease and well-doing. The butler at Mulberry would be miserable and feel himself a ridiculous failure where I ever forced to ask him for anything. November 30th. I must describe an adventure I had in Kingsville. Of course, I know nothing of children, in point of fact, I'm awfully afraid of them. Mrs. Edward Barnwell came with us from Camden. She had a magnificent boy two years old. Now, don't expect me to reduce that adjective, for this little creature is a wonder of childlike beauty, health, and strength. Why not? If like produces like, and with such a handsome pair to claim as father and mother. The boy's eyes alone would make any girl's fortune. At first he made himself very agreeable, repeating nursery rhymes and singing. Then something went wrong. Suddenly he changed to a little fiend, fought and kicked and scratched like a tiger. He did everything that was naughty, and he did it with a will as if he liked it, while his lovely mama, with flushed cheeks and streaming eyes, was imploring him to be a good boy. When we stopped at Kingsville, I got out first, then Mrs. Barnwell's nurse, who put the little man down by me. Look after him a moment, please, ma'am, she said. I must help Mrs. Barnwell with the bundles, etc. She stepped hastily back, and the cars moved off. They ran down a half mile to turn. I trembled in my shoes. This child, no man could ever frighten me so, if he should choose to be bad again. It seemed an eternity while I waited for that train to turn and come back again. My little charge took things quietly. For me he had a perfect contempt, no fear whatever, and I was his abject slave for the knots. He stretched himself out lazily at full length. Then he pointed downward. Those are great legs, said he solemnly, looking at his own. I immediately joined him in admiring them enthusiastically. Near him he spied a bundle. Pussycat tied up in that bundle. He was up in a second and pounced upon it. If we were to be taken up as thieves, no matter, I dared not meddle with that child. I had seen what he could do. There were several cooked sweet potatoes tied up in an old handkerchief, belonging to some negro, probably. He squared himself off comfortably, broke one in half, and began to eat. Evidently he had found what he was fond of. In this posture Mrs. Barnwell discovered us. She came with comic dismay in every feature, not knowing what our relations might be, and whether or not we had undertaken to fight it out alone as best we might. The old nurse cried, Lausie me, with both hands uplifted. Without a word I fled. In another moment the Wilmington train would have left me. She was going to Columbia. We broke down only once between Kingsville and Wilmington. But between Wilmington and Weldon we contrived to do the thing so effectually as to have to remain twelve hours at that forlorn station. The one room that I saw was crowded with soldiers. Some teams succeeded in securing two chairs for me, upon one of which I sat and put my feet on the other. Molly sat flat on the floor resting her head against my chair. I woke cold and cramped. An officer who did not give his name but said he was from Louisiana came up and urged me to go near the fire. He gave me his seat by the fire where I found an old lady and two young ones, with two men in the uniform of common soldiers. We talked as easily to each other all night as if we had known one another all our lives. We discussed the war, the army, the news of the day. No questions were asked, no names given, no personal discourse whatever. And yet if these men and women were not gentry and of the best sort, I do not know, ladies and gentlemen, when I see them. Being a little surprised at the want of interest Mr. Team and Isaac showed in my well-doing, I walked out to sea and I found them working like beavers. They had been at it all night. In the breakdown my boxes were smashed. They had first gathered up the contents and were trying to hammer up the boxes so as to make them once more available. At Petersburg a smartly dressed woman came in, looked around in the crowd, and then asked for the seat by me. Now Molly's seat was paid for the same as mine, but she got up at once, gave the lady her seat and stood behind me. I am sure Molly believes herself my bodyguard as well as my servant. The lady then having arranged herself comfortably in Molly's seat began in plaintive accents to tell her melancholy tale. She was a widow. She lost her husband in the battles around Richmond. Soon someone went out and a man offered her the vacant seat. Straight as an arrow she went in for a flirtation with the polite gentleman. Another person, a perfect stranger, said to me, Well, look yonder, as soon as she began whining about her dead bow I knew she was after another one. Bow, indeed, cried another listener. She said it was her husband. Husband or lover all the same. She won't lose any time. It won't be her fault if she doesn't have another one soon. But the grand scene was the night before. The cars crowded with soldiers, of course. What a human being that I knew. An Irish woman, so announced by her brogue, came in. She marched up and down the car, loudly lamenting the want of gallantry in the men who would not make way for her. Two men got up and gave her their seats, saying it did not matter they were going to get out at the next stopping place. She was gifted with the most pronounced brogue I ever heard, and she gave us a taste of it. She continued to say that the men ought all to get out of that. That car was shootable only for ladies. She placed on the vacant seat next to her a large looking glass. She continued to harangue until she fell asleep. A tired soldier coming in, seeing what he supposed to be an empty seat, quietly slipped into it. Crash went the glass. The soldier groaned, the Irish woman shrieked. The man was badly cut by the broken glass. She was simply a mad woman. She shook her fist in his face, said she was a lone woman and he had got into that seat for no good purpose. How did he dare to, etc. I do not think the man uttered a word. The conductor took him into another car to have the pieces of glass picked out of his clothes, and she continued to rave. Mr. Team shouted aloud and laughed as if he were in the hermitage swamp. The woman's unreasonable wrath and absurd accusations were comic, no doubt. During the car was silent and I fell into a comfortable dose. I felt Molly give me a gentle shake. Listen, Mrs., how loud Mars Adam Team is talking and all about old Moster and our business and the strangers is a shame. Is he saying any harm of us? No, ma'am, not that. He is bragging for dear life about how old old Moster is and how rich he is and all that. I go and tell him to stop. Up started Molly. Mars Adam, Mrs. Say, please don't talk so loud. When people travel they don't do that away. Mr. Preston's man, Hal, was waiting at the depot with a carriage to take me to my Richmond house. Mary Preston had rented these apartments for me. I found my dear girls there with a nice fire. Everything looked so pleasant and inviting to the weary traveller. Mrs. Grundy, who occupies the lower floor, sent me such a real Virginia tea, hotcakes and rolls. So living in the house with Mrs. Grundy and having no fear of what Mrs. Grundy will say. My husband has come. He likes the house, Grundy's, and everything. Already he has bought Grundy's horses for sixteen hundred Confederate dollars' cash. He is nearer to being contented and happy than I ever saw him. He has not established a grievance yet, but I am on the look-out daily. He will soon find out whatever there is wrong about Kerry Street. I gave a party. Mrs. Davis, very witty, Preston girls, very handsome. Isabella's fun, fast and furious. No party could have gone off more successfully, but my husband decides we are to have no more festivities. This is not the time or the place for such gayities. Maria Freeland is perfectly delightful on the subject of her wedding. She is ready to the last piece of lace, but her hard-hearted father says, No. She adores John Lewis. That goes without saying. She does not pretend, however, to be as much in love as Mary Preston. In point of fact she never saw anyone before who was. But she is as much in love as she can be with a man who, though he is not very handsome, is as eligible a match as a girl could make. He is all that heart could wish, and he comes of such a handsome family. His mother, Esther Maria Cox, was the beauty of a century, and his father was a nephew of General Washington. For all that he is far better looking than John Darby or Mr. Miles. She always intended to marry better than Mary Preston or Betty Byrne. Lucy Haxall is positively engaged to Captain Coffee and Englishman. She is convinced that she will marry him. He is her first fancy. Mr. Vinnable of Lee's staff was at our party, so out of spirits. He knows everything that is going on. His depression bodes us no good. Today General Hampton sent James Chestnut a fine saddle that he had captured from the Yankees in battle array. Mrs. Scotch Allen, Edgar Allen Poe's patron's wife, sent me ice cream and lady cheek apples from her farm. John R. Thompson, the sole literary fellow I know in Richmond, sent me leisure hours in town by a country parson. Footnote. John R. Thompson was a native of Richmond and in 1847 became editor of the Southern Literary Messenger. Under his direction that periodical acquired commanding influence. Mr. Thompson's health failed afterward. During the war he spent a part of his time in Richmond and a part in Europe. He afterward settled in New York and became literary editor of the evening post. In footnote. My husband says he hopes I will be contented because he came here this winter to please me. If I could have been satisfied at home he would have resigned his aid to campship and gone into some service in South Carolina. I am a good excuse, if good for nothing else. Old, tempestuous keat breakfasted with us yesterday. I wish I could remember half the brilliant things he said. My husband has now gone with him to the war-office. Colonel Keat thinks it is time he was promoted. He wants to be a brigadier. Now Charleston is bombarded night and day. It fairly makes me dizzy to think of that everlasting racket they are beating about people's ears down there. Bragg defeated and separated from Long Street. It is a Long Street that knows no turning and Rosecrams is not taken after all. Anxiety pervades. Lee is fighting mead. Misery is everywhere. Bragg is falling back before Grant. Footnote. The Siege of Chattanooga, which had been begun on September 21st, closed late in November 1863, the final engagements beginning on November 23rd and ending on November 25th. Look out, mountain and missionary ridge, with the closing incidents of the siege. Grant, Sherman, and Hooker were conspicuous on the federal side and Bragg and Long Street on the Confederate. End footnote. Long Street, the soldiers call him Peter at the Slow, is settling down before Knoxville. General Lee requires us to answer every letter, said Mr. Venable, and to do our best to console the poor creatures whose husbands and sons are fighting the battles of the country. December 2nd. Bragg begs to be relieved of his command. The army will be relieved to get rid of him. He has a winning way of earning everybody's detestation. Heavens how they hate him. The rapid flight of his army terminated at Ringgold. Hardy declines even a temporary command of the western army. Preston Johnston has been sent out post-haste at a moment's warning. He was not even allowed time to go home until his wife could buy, or as Brown the Englishman said, to put a clean shirt into his traveling bag. Lee and Meade are facing each other gallantly. Footnote. Following the Battle of Gettysburg on July 1st, 2nd, and 3rd of this year, there had occurred in Virginia between Lee and Meade engagements at Bristow Station, Kellys Ford, and Rappahannock Station, the latter engagement taking place on November 7th. The author doubtless refers here to the positions of Lee and Meade at Main Run, December 1st. December 2nd, Meade abandoned his. Because, as he is reported to have said, it would have cost him 30,000 men to carry Lee's breastworks, and he shrank from ordering such slaughter. In footnote. The 1st of December, we went with a party of Mrs. Olde getting up to see a French frigate which lay at anchor down the river. The French officers came on board our boat. The Lees were aboard. The French officers were not in the least attractive, either in manners or appearance. But our ladies were most attentive, and some showered bad friendship on them with a lavish hand, always accompanied by queer grimaces to eke out the scanty supply of French words, the sentences ending usually in a nervous shriek. Are they deaf? asked Mrs. Randolph. The French frigate was a dirty little thing. Dr. Garnet was so buoyed up with hope that the French were coming to our rescue that he would not let me say, an English man of war is the cleanest thing known in the world. Captain Blank said to Mary Lee, with a foreign contortion of countenance that went for a smile. I is bachelor. Judge Olde said, as we went to dinner on our own steamer, they will not drink our president's health. They do not acknowledge us to be a nation. Mind none of you say emperor, not once. Dr. Garnet interpreted the laws of politeness otherwise and stepped forward, his mouth fairly distended with so much French, and said, vif l'imperor. Young Gibson seconded him quietly, a la sante de l'imperor. But silence prevailed. Preston Hampton was the handsomest man on board. The figure of Hercules, the face of Apollo, cried an enthusiastic girl. Gibson was as lazy and as sleepy as ever. He said of the Frenchman, they can't help not being good looking, but with all the world open to them, to wear such shabby clothes. The lieutenant's name was Rousseau. On the French frigate, lying on one of the tables, was a volume of Jean-Jacques Rousseau's works side by side, strange to say, with a map of South Carolina. This lieutenant was courteously asked by Mary Lee to select some lady to whom she might introduce him. He answered, I shoes you with a bow that was a benediction and a prayer. And now I am in a fine condition for Heddy Carey's starvation party, for they will give thirty dollars for the music and not a cent for a morsel to eat. Preston said contentedly, I hate dancing and I hate cold water, so I will eschew the festivity tonight. Found John R. Thompson at our house when I got home so tired tonight, he brought me the last number of the corn hill. He knew how much I was interested in Trollop's story, family parsonage. December 4th. My husband bought yesterday at the commissaries one barrel of flour, one bushel of potatoes, one pack of rice, five pounds of salt beef, and one pack of salt, all for sixty dollars. In the street a barrel of flour sells for one hundred and fifteen dollars. December 5th. Wigfall was here last night. He began by wanting to hang Jeff Davis. My husband managed him beautifully. He soon ceased to talk virulent nonsense and calmed down to his usual strong common sense. I knew it was quite late, but I had no idea of the hour. My husband beckoned me out. It is all your fault, said he. What? Why will you persist in looking so interested in all Wigfall is saying? Don't let him catch your eye, look into the fire. Did you not hear it strike, too? This attack was so sudden, so violent, so unlooked for. I could only laugh hysterically. However, as an obedient wife, I went back, gravely took my seat, and looked into the fire. I did not even dare raise my eyes to see what my husband was doing, if he, too, looked into the fire. Wigfall soon tired of so tame an audience and took his departure. General Lawton was here. He was one of Stonewall's generals, so I listened with all my ears when he said, Stonewall could not sleep, so every two or three nights you are waked up by orders to have your brigade in marching order before daylight and report in person to the Commander. Then you were marched a few miles out and then a few miles in again. All this was to make us ready, ever on the alert. The end of it was this. Jackson's men would go half a day's march before Peter Longstreet waked and breakfasted. I think there is a popular delusion about the amount of praying he did. He certainly preferred a fight on Sunday to a sermon. Failing to manage a fight, he loved best a long Presbyterian sermon, Calvinistic to the core. He had shown small sympathy with human infirmity. He was a one-idead man. He looked upon broken-down men and stragglers as the same thing. He clasped all who were weak and weary, who fainted by the wayside, as men wanting in patriotism. If a man's face was as white as cotton and his pulse so low you scarce could feel it, he looked upon him merely as an inefficient soldier and rode off impatiently. He was the true type of all great soldiers. Like the successful warriors of the world, he did not value human life where he had an object to accomplish. He could order men to their death as a matter of course. His soldiers obeyed him to the death. Faith they had in him stronger than death. Their respect he commanded. I doubt if he had so much of their love as is talked about while he was alive. Now that they see a few more years of Stonewall would have freed them from the Yankees, they deify him. Any man is proud to have been one of the famous Stonewall Brigade. But be sure it was bitter hard work to keep up with him as all know who ever served under him. He gave his orders rapidly and distinctly and rode away, never allowing answer or remonstrance. It was, look there, see that place, take it. When you failed you were apt to be put under arrest. When you reported the place taken he only said, good. And seventy-five dollars today for a little tea and sugar and have five hundred left. My husband's pay never has paid for the rent of our lodgings. He came in with dreadful news just now. I have wept so often for things that never happen I will withhold my tears now for a certainty. Today a poor woman threw herself on her dead husband's coffin and kissed it. She was weeping bitterly. So did I in sympathy. My husband, as I told him today, could see me and everything that he loved hanged, drawn, and quartered without moving a muscle if a crowd were looking on. He could have the same gentle operation performed on himself and make no sign. To all of which violent insinuation he answered in unmoved tones. So would any civilized man. Savages, however, Indians at least, are more dignified in that particular than we are. See fidgety grief never moves me at all. It annoys me. Self-control is what we all need. You are a miracle of sensibility. Self-control is what you need. So you are civilized, I said. Someday I mean to be. December 9th. Come here, Mrs. Chestnut, said Mary Preston today. They are lifting gentle hood out of his carriage here at your door. His Grundy promptly had him born into her drawing room, which is on the first floor. Mary Preston and I ran down and greeted him as cheerfully and as cordially as if nothing had happened since we saw him standing before us a year ago. How he was weighted upon. Some cut-up oranges were brought him. How kind people are, said he. Not once since I was wounded have I ever been left without fruit, hard as it is to get now. The money value of friendship is easily counted now, said someone. Oranges are five dollars apiece. December 10th. Mrs. Davis and Mrs. Lyons came. We had lunch and brought in for them, and then a lucid explanation of the chronique scandalous of which Beck Jay is the heroine. We walked home with Mrs. Davis and met the President riding alone. Surely that is wrong. It must be unsafe for him when there are so many traders, not to speak of bribed negroes. Burton Harrison says Mr. Davis prefers to go alone, and there is none to gain say him. Footnote. Burton Harrison, then Secretary to Jefferson Davis, who married Miss Constance Carey and became well known as a New York lawyer. He died in Washington in 1904. In footnote. My husband laid the law down last night. I felt it to be the last drop in my full cup. No more feasting in this house, said he. This is no time for junketing and merry-making. And you said you brought me here to enjoy the winter before you took me home and turned my face to a dead wall. He is the master of the house. To hear is to obey. End of Chapter 16 Part 1. Chapter 16 Part 2 of a Diary from Dixie. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Died by Laurie Ann Walden. A Diary from Dixie by Mary Chestnut. Chapter 16. Richmond, Virginia. Part 2. December 14th. Drove out with Mrs. Davis. She had a watch in her hand which some poor dead soldier wanted to have sent to his family. First we went to her Mantua-maker. Then we drove to the fairgrounds where the band was playing. Suddenly she missed the watch. She remembered having it when we came out of the Mantua-makers. We drove back instantly, and there the watch was, lying near the steps of the little porch in front of the house. No one had passed in, apparently. In any case, no one had seen it. Preston Hampton went with me to see Connie Carey. The talk was frantically literary, which Preston thought hard on him. I had just brought the sand and e-number of Les Miserables. Sunday Christopher Hampton walked a church with me. Coming out, General Lee was seen slowly making his way down the aisle, bowing royally to right and left. I pointed him out to Christopher Hampton when General Lee happened to look our way. He bowed low, giving me a charming smile of recognition. I was ashamed of being so pleased. I blushed like a schoolgirl. We went to the White House. They gave us tea. The President said he had been on the way to our house, coming with all the Davis family, to see me. But the children became so troublesome they turned back. Just then little Joe rushed in and insisted on saying his prayers at his father's knee, then and there. He was in his nightclothes. December 19th. A box has come from home for me. Taking advantage of this good fortune and a full larder have asked Mrs. Davis to dine with me. Wade Hampton sent me a basket of game. We had Mrs. Davis and Mr. and Mrs. Preston. After dinner we walked to the church to see the Freeland-Lewis wedding. Mr. Preston had Mrs. Davis on his arm. My husband and Mrs. Preston and Burton Harrison and myself brought up the rear. Willie Allen joined us, and we had the pleasure of waiting one good hour. Then the beautiful Maria, loveliest of brides, sailed in on her father's arm, and Major John Cox Lewis followed with Mrs. Freeland. After the ceremony such a kissing was there up and down the aisle. The happy bridegroom kissed wildly, and several girls complained. But he said, How am I to know Maria's kin whom I was to kiss? It is better to show too much affection for one's new relations than too little. December 21st. Joe Johnston has been made Commander-in-Chief of the Army of the West. General Lee had this done, to said. Miss Agnes Lee and Little Robert, as they fondly call General Lee's youngest son in this hero-worshipping community, called. They told us the President, General Lee, and General Elsie had gone out to look at the fortifications around Richmond. My husband came home saying he had been with them and lent General Lee his gray horse. Mrs. Howell, Mrs. Davis' mother, says a year ago on the cars a man said, We want a dictator. She replied, Jeff Davis will never consent to be a dictator. The man turned sharply toward her. And pray, who asks him? Joe Johnston will be made dictator by the Army of the West. Imperator was suggested. Of late the Army of the West has not been in a condition to dictate to friend or foe. Certainly Jeff Davis did hate to put Joe Johnston at the head of what is left of it. Detached from General Lee, what a horrible failure is Longstreet. Oh for a day of Albert Sidney Johnston out west. And Stonewall, could he come back to us here? General Hood, the wounded knight, came for me to drive. I felt that I would soon find myself chaperoning some girls, but I asked no questions. He improved the time between Franklin and Kerry streets by saying, I do like your husband so much. So do I, I replied simply. Luck was ill in bed, so William said at the door, but she recovered her health and came down for the drive in black velvet and ermine, looking queenly. And then, with the top of the landow thrown back, wrapped in furs and rugs, we had a long drive that bitter cold day. One day as we were hiring us home from the fairgrounds, Sam, the wounded knight, asked Brewster what are the symptoms of a man's being in love. Sam, Hood is called Sam entirely, but why I do not know. Said for his part he did not know. At seventeen he had fancied himself in love, but that was a long time ago. Brewster spoke on the symptoms of love. When you see her, your breath is apt to come short. If it amounts to mild strangulation, you have got it bad. You are stupidly jealous, glowering with jealousy, and have a gloomy fixed conviction that she likes every fool you meet better than she does you, especially people that you know she has a thorough contempt for. That is, you knew it before you lost your head, I mean before you fell in love. The last stages of unmitigated spooniness I will spare you, said Brewster, with a giggle and a wave of the hand. Well, said Sam, drawing a breath of relief, I have felt none of these things so far, and yet they say I am engaged to four young ladies, a liberal allowance, you will admit, for a man who cannot walk without help. Another day, the Sabbath, we called on our way from church to see Mrs. Wigfall. She was ill, but Mr. Wigfall insisted upon taking me into the drawing room to rest awhile. He said Lully was there. So she was, and so was Sam Hood, the wounded knight, stretched at full length on a sofa and a rug thrown over him. Mrs. Wigfall said to me, Do you know General Hood? Yes, said I, and the general laughed with his eyes as I looked at him, but he did not say a word. I felt it a curious commentary upon the reports he had spoken of the day before. Lully Wigfall is a very handsome girl. December 24. As we walked Brewster reported a row he had had with General Hood. Brewster had told those six young ladies at the Prestons that old Sam was in the habit of saying he would not marry, if he could, any silly, sentimental girl who would throw herself away upon a maimed creature such as he was. When Brewster went home he took pleasure in telling Sam how the ladies had complimented his good sense, whereupon the general rose in his wrath and threatened to break his crutch over Brewster's head, to think he could be such a fool to go about repeating to everybody his whimperings. I was taking my seat at the head of the table when the door opened and Brewster walked in unannounced. He took his stand in front of the open door, with his hands in his pockets and his small hat pushed back as far as it could get from his forehead. What! said he. You are not ready yet? The generals are below. Did you get my note? I begged my husband to excuse me and rushed off to put on my bonnet and furs. I met the girls coming up with a strange man. The flurry of two major generals had been too much for me and I forgot to ask the new one's name. They went up to dine in my place with my husband, who sat eating his dinner, with Lawrence's undivided attention given to him, amid this whirling and eddying in and out of the world militant. Mary Preston and I then went to drive with the generals. The new one proved to be Buckner, who was also a Kentuckian. Footnote. Simon B. Buckner was a graduate of West Point and had served in the Mexican War. In 1887 he was elected governor of Kentucky and at the funeral of General Grant acted as one of the paul bearers. In footnote. The two men told us they had slept together the night before Chickamauga. It is useless to try. Legs can't any longer be kept out of conversation. So General Buckner said, Once before I slept with a man and he lost his leg next day. He had made a vow never to do so again. When Sam and I parted that morning we said, You or I may be killed, but the cause will be safe all the same. After the drive everybody came in to tea, my husband in famous good humor. We had an unusually gay evening. It was very nice of my husband to take no notice of my conduct at dinner, which had been open to criticism. All the comfort of my life depends upon his being in good humor. This day, 1863. Yesterday dined with the Prestons. War one of my handsomest Paris dresses from Paris before the war. Three magnificent Kentucky generals were present with Senator Orr from South Carolina and Mr. Miles. General Buckner repeated a speech of hoods to show him how friendly they were. I prefer a ride with you to the company of any woman in the world, Buckner had answered. I prefer your company to that of any man, certainly, was Hood's reply. This became the standing joke of the dinner. It flashed up in every form. Poor Sam got out of it so badly if he got out of it at all. General Buckner said patronizingly, Lame excuses all. Hood never gets out of any scrape, that is, unless he can fight out. Others dropped in after dinner, some without arms, some without legs. One borka who cannot speak because of a wound in his throat. Isabella said, We have all kinds now but a blind one. Poor fellows, they laugh at wounds, and they yet can show many a scar. We had for dinner oyster soup besides roast mutton, ham, bone turkey, wild duck, partridge, plum pudding, sautern, burgundy, sherry, and madira. There is life in the old land yet. At my house today after dinner, and while Alex Haskell and my husband sat over the line, Hood gave me an account of his discomforture last night. He said he could not sleep after it. It was the hardest battle he had ever fought in his life. And I was routed, as it were. She told me there was no hope. That ends it. You know at Petersburg, on my way to the Western Army, she half-promised me to think of it. She would not say yes, but she did not say no. That is, not exactly. At any rate, I went off saying, I am engaged to you. And she said, I am not engaged to you. After I was so fearfully wounded, I gave it up. But then, since I came, et cetera. Do you mean to say, said I, that you had proposed to her before that conversation in the carriage when you asked Brewster the symptoms of love? I like your audacity. Oh, she understood. But it is all up now, for she says no. My husband says I am extravagant. No, my friend, not that, said I. I had $1,500, and I have spent every cent of it in my housekeeping. Not one cent for myself, not one cent for dress, nor any personal want whatever. He calls me hospitality run mad. January 1, 1864. General Hood's an awful flatterer. I mean an awkward flatterer. I told him to praise my husband to someone else, not to me. He ought to praise me to somebody who would tell my husband, and then praise my husband to another person who would tell me. Men and wife are too much one person to wave a compliment straight in the face of one about the other is not graceful. One more year of Stonewall would have saved us. Chickamauga is the only battle we have gained since Stonewall died, and no results follow as usual. Stonewall was not so much as killed by a Yankee. He was shot by his own men. That is hard. General Lee can do no more than keep back Mead. One of Mead's armies, you mean, said I, for they have only to double on him when Lee whips one of them. General Edward Johnston says he got grant a place, a spree decor, you know. He could not bear to see an old army man driving a wagon. That was when he found him out west, put out of the army for habitual drunkenness. He is their right man, a bull-headed suaro. He don't care a snap if men fall like the leaves fall. He fights to win, that chap does. He is not distracted by a thousand side issues. He does not see them. He is narrow and sure, sees only in a straight line. Like Louis Napoleon, from a battle in the gutter he goes straight up. Yes, as with Lincoln, they have ceased to carp at him as a rough clown, no gentleman, et cetera. You never hear now of Lincoln's nasty fun, only of his wisdom. Doesn't take much soap and water to wash the hands that the rod of empire sway. They talked of Lincoln's drunkenness, too. Now since Vicksburg they have not a word to say against Grant's habits. He has the disagreeable habit of not retreating before irresistible veterans. General Lee and Albert Sidney Johnston show blood and breeding. They are of the Bayard and Philip Sidney order of soldiers. Listen, if General Lee had had Grant's resources he would have bagged the last Yankee, or have had them all safe back in Massachusetts. You mean if he had not the weight of the negro question upon him? No, I mean if he had had Grant's unlimited allowance of the powers of war, men, money, ammunition, arms. Mrs. Old says Mrs. Lincoln found the gardener of the White House so nice she would make him a major general. Lincoln remarked to the secretary, well, the little woman must have her way sometimes. A word of the last night of the old year. Gloria Mundy sent me a cup of strong good coffee. I drank two cups and so I did not sleep a wink. Like a fool I passed my whole life in review and bitter memories maddened me quite. Then came a happy thought. I mapped out a story of the war. The plot came to hand, for it was true. Johnny is the hero, a light dragoon and heavy swell. I will call it FFs, for it is the FFs both of South Carolina and Virginia. It is to be a war story, and the filling out of the skeleton was the best way to put myself to sleep. January 4th. Mrs. Ives wants us to translate a French play. A genuine French captain came in from his ship on the James River and gave us good advice as to how to make the selection. General Hampton sent another basket of partridges, and all goes merry as a marriage bell. My husband came in and nearly killed us. He brought this piece of news. North Carolina wants to offer terms of peace. We needed only a break of that kind to finish us. I really shivered nervously, as one does when the first handful of earth comes rattling down on the coffin in the grave of one we cared for more than all who were left. January 5th. At Mrs. Preston's met the Light Brigade in battle array, ready to Sally 4th, conquering and to conquer. They would stand no nonsense from me about staying at home to translate a French play. Indeed, the plays that have been sent us are so indecent I scarcely know where a play is to be found that would do it all. While at dinner the President's carriage drove up with only General Hood. He sent up to ask, in Maggie Howell's name, would I go with them. I tied up two partridges between plates with a serviette, for Buck, who was ill, and then went down. We picked up Mary Preston. It was Maggie's drive. As the soldiers say, I was only on escort duty. At the Preston's Major Vinnable met us at the door and took in the partridges to Buck. As we drove off, Maggie said, Major Vinnable is a Carolinian I see. No, Virginian to the core. But then he was a professor in the South Carolina College before the war. Mary Preston said, she is taking a fling at your weakness for all South Carolina. Came home and found my husband in a bitter mood. It has all gone wrong with our world, the loss of our private fortune, the smallest part. He intimates, with so much human misery filling the air, we might stay at home and think. And go mad, said I. Catch me at it, a yawning grave with piles of red earth thrown on one side, that is the only future I ever see. You remember Emma Stockton? She and I were as blithe as birds that day at Mulberry. I came here the next day, and when I arrived, a telegram said, Emma Stockton found dead in her bed. It is awfully near, that thought. No, no, I will not stop and think of death always. January 8th. Snow of the deepest. Nobody can come to-day, I thought. But they did. My girls first, then Constance Carey tripped in, the clever Connie. Hedy is the beauty, so called, though she is clever enough, too. But Constance is actually clever and has a classically perfect outline. Next came the four Kentuckians and Preston Hampton. He is as tall as the Kentuckians and ever so much better looking. Then we had Eggnog. I was to take Miss Carey to the Sims's. My husband inquired the price of a carriage. It was twenty-five dollars an hour. He cursed by all his gods at such extravagance. The play was not worth the candle or carriage in this instance. In Confederate money it sounds so much worse than it is. I did not dream of asking him to go with me after that lively overture. I did intend to go with you, he said, but you do not ask me. And I have been asking you for twenty years to go with me in vain. Think of that, I said tragically. We could not wait for him to dress, so I sent the twenty-five dollar an hour carriage back for him. We were behind time, as it was. When he came the beautiful Hedy Carey and her friend Captain Tucker were with him. Major von Borca and Preston Hampton were at the Careys in the drawing-room when we called for Constance, who was dressing. I challenged the world to produce finer specimens of humanity than these three, the Prussian, von Borca, Preston Hampton, and Hedy Carey. We spoke to the Prussian about the vote of thanks passed by Congress yesterday, thanks of the country to Major von Borca. The poor man was as modest as a girl in spite of his huge proportions. That is a compliment indeed, said Hedy. Yes, I saw it. And the happiest, the proudest day of my life as I read it. It was at the hotel breakfast table. I tried to hide my face with the newspaper. I feel it grow so red. But my friend, he has his newspaper too, and he sees the same thing. So he looks my way, he says, pointing to me, why does he grow so red? He has got something there. And he laughs. Then I try to read aloud the so kind compliments of the Congress. But he—you—I cannot— He puts his hand to his throat. His broken English and the difficulty of his enunciation with that wound in his windpipe makes it all very touching, and very hard to understand. The Sims charade party was a perfect success. The play was charming. The late little Mrs. Lawson Clay had a seat for me backed up among women. The female part of the congregation, strictly segregated from the male, were placed all together in rows. They formed a gay parterre, edged by the men in their black coats and gray uniforms. Toward the back part of the room, the mass of black and gray was solid. Captain Tucker bewailed his fate. He was stranded out there with those forlorn men, but could see us laughing, and fancied what we were saying was worth a thousand charades. He preferred talking to a clever woman to any known way of passing a pleasant hour. So do I, somebody said. On a sofa of stade in front of all sat the President and Mrs. Davis. Little Maggie Davis was one of the child actresses. Her parents had a right to be proud of her. With her flashing black eyes, she was a marked figure on the stage. She is a handsome creature, and she acted her part admirably. The shrine was beautiful beyond words. The Sims and Ives families are Roman Catholic, and understand getting up that sort of thing. First came the Palmer's Gray, then Mrs. Ives, a solitary figure, the loveliest of penitent women. The Eastern Pilgrims were delightfully costumed. We could not understand how so much Christian piety could come clothed in such otolisk robes. As old as a queen was as handsome and regal as heart could wish for. She was accompanied by a very satisfactory king, whose name, if I ever knew, I have forgotten. There was a resplendent night of St. John, and then an American Indian. After their horizons they all knelt and laid something on the altar as a votive gift. Burton Harrison, the President's handsome young secretary, was gotten up as a big brave and address presented to Mr. Davis by Indians for some kindness he showed them years ago. It was a complete warrior's outfit, scant as that is. The feathers stuck in the back of Mr. Harrison's head had a charmingly comic effect. He had to shave himself as clean as a baby, or he could not act the beardless chief, spotted tail, billy bow legs, big thunder, or whatever his character was. So he folded up his loved and lost mustache, the Christianized red Indian, and laid it on the altar, the most sacred treasure of his life, the witness of his most heroic sacrifice on the shrine. Senator Hill of Georgia took me into supper where were ices, chicken salad, oysters, and champagne. The President came in alone, I suppose. For while we were talking after supper and your humble servant was standing between Mrs. Randolph and Mrs. Stannard, he approached, offered me his arm, and we walked off, oblivious of Mr. Senator Hill. For this, ladies, and forgive me for recording it, but Mrs. Stannard and Mrs. Randolph are the handsomest women in Richmond. I am no older than they are, or younger either, sad to say. Now the President walked with me slowly up and down that long room, and our conversation was of the saddest. Nobody knows so well as he the difficulties which beset this hard-driven Confederacy. He has a voice which is perfectly modulated, a comfort in this loud and rough soldier world. I think there is a melancholy cadence in his voice at times, of which he is unconscious when he talks of things as they are now. My husband was so intensely charmed with heady-carry that he declined at the first call to accompany his wife home in the twenty-five-dollar-an-hour carriage. He ordered it to return. When it came, his wife, a good manager, packed the carries in him in with herself, leaving the other two men who came with the party when it was divided into trips to make their way home in the cold. At our door, near daylight of that bitter cold morning, I had the pleasure to see my husband, like a man, stand and pay for that carriage. Today he is pleased with himself, with me and with all the world, says if there was no such word as fascinating you would have to invent one to describe heady-carry. CHAPTER XVI January 9th. Met Mrs. Wigfall. She wants me to take Halsey to Mrs. Randolph's theatricals. I am to get him up as Sir Walter Raleigh. Now General Breckenridge has come. I like him better than any of them. Morgan also is here. FOOTNOAT John H. Morgan, a native of Alabama, entered the Confederate Army in 1861 as a captain, and in 1862 was made a major general. He was captured by the Federals in 1863 and confined in an Ohio penitentiary, but he escaped and once more joined the Confederate Army. In September 1864 he was killed in battle near Greenville, Tennessee. In Footnote. These huge Kentuckians fill the town. Isabella says they hold Morgan accountable for the loss of Chattanooga. The follies of the wise, the weaknesses of the great. She shakes her head significantly when I begin to tell why I like him so well. Last night General Buckner came for her to go with him and rehearse at the caries for Mrs. Randolph's charades. The President's man, Jim, that he believed in as we all believe in our own servants, our own people as we call them, and Betsy, Mrs. Davis' maid, decamped last night. It is miraculous that they had the fortitude to resist the temptation so long. At Mrs. Davis' the hired servants all have been birds of passage. First they were seen with gold galore and then they would fly to the Yankees and I am sure they had nothing to tell. It is Yankee money wasted. I do not think it had ever crossed Mrs. Davis' brain that these two could leave her. She knew, however, that Betsy had eighty dollars in gold and two thousand four hundred dollars in Confederate notes. Everybody who comes in brings a little bad news. Not much in itself, but by cumulative process the effect is depressing indeed. January 12. Tonight there will be a great gathering of Kentuckians. Morgan gives them a dinner. The city of Richmond entertained John Morgan. He is at free quarters. The girls dined here. Connie Carey came back from more white feathers. Isabella had appropriated two sets and obstinately refused Constance Carey a single feather from her pile. She said, sternly, I have never been on the stage before and I have a pre-sentiment when my father hears of this I will never go again. I am to appear before the footlights as an English Dowager duchess and I mean to rustle in every feather to wear all the lace and diamonds these two houses can compass, mine and Mrs. Preston's. She was jolly but firm and Constance departed without any additional plumage for her Lady Teasel. January 14. Gave Mrs. White twenty-three dollars for a turkey. Came home wondering all the way why she did not ask twenty-five. Two more dollars could not have made me balk at the bargain, and twenty-three sounds odd. January 15. What a day the Kentuckians have had! Mrs. Webb gave them a breakfast. From there they proceeded en masse to General Lawton's dinner, and then came straight here, all of which seems equal to one of Stonewall's forced marches. General Lawton took me in to supper. In spite of his dinner he had misgivings. "'My heart is heavy,' said he, even here. All seems too light, too careless, for such terrible times. It seems out of place here in battle-scarred Richmond.' "'I have heard something of that kind at home,' I replied. Hope and fear are both gone, and it is distraction or death with us. I do not see how sadness and despondency would help us. If it would do any good we would be sad enough.' We laughed at General Hood. General Lawton thought him better fitted for gallantry on the battlefield than playing a lute in my lady's chamber. When Miss Giles was electrifying the audience as the fair penitent, someone said, "'Oh, that is so pretty!' Hood cried out with stern reproachfulness. That is not pretty. It is elegant.' Not only had my house been rifled for theatrical properties, but as the play went on they came from my black velvet cloak. When it was over I thought I should never get away, my cloak was so hard to find. But it gave me an opportunity to witness many things behind the scenes that Cloak Hunt did. Behind the scenes I know a little what that means now.' General Jeb Stewart was at Mrs. Randolph's in his cavalry jacket in high boots. He was devoted to Heddy Carey. Constance Carey said to me, pointing to his stars, Heddy likes them that way, you know, guilt-edged and with stars. January 16th. A visit from the President's handsome and accomplished secretary, Burton Harrison. I lent him country clergymen in town and elective affinities. He is to bring me Mrs. Norton's lost and saved. At Mrs. Randolph's my husband complimented one of the ladies who had amply earned his praise by her splendid acting. She pointed to a young man saying, You see that wretch, he has not said one word to me. My husband asked innocently, Why should he? And why is he a wretch? Oh, you know. Going home I explained this riddle to him. He is always a year behind hand in gossip. They said those two were engaged last winter, and now there seems to be a screw loose, but that sort of thing always comes right. The Carey's preferred James Chestnut to his wife. I don't mind. Indeed, I like it. I do, too. Every Sunday Mr. Minergy Road cried aloud in anguish his litany. From pestilence and famine, battle, murder, and sudden death. And we wailed on our knees. Good Lord deliver us. And on Monday and all the week long we go on as before, hearing of nothing but battle, murder, and sudden death, which are daily events. Now I have a new book. That is the Unlooked-For Thing, a pleasing incident in this life of monotonous misery. We live in a huge barrack. We are shut in, guarded from light without. At breakfast today came a card. And without an instance interlude, perhaps the neatest, most fastidious man in South Carolina walked in. I was uncombed, unkempt, tattered, and torn in my most comfortable, worst-worn, wadded green silk dressing gown with a white woolen shawl over my head to keep off drafts. He has not been in the war yet. And now he wants to be captain of an engineer corps. I wish he may get it. He has always been my friend, so he shall lack no aid that I can give. If he can stand the shock of my appearance today, we may reasonably expect to continue friends until death. Of all men, the fastidious Barney Haywood to come in. He faced the situation gallantly. January 18th. Invited to Dr. Haxall's last night to meet the Lawtons, Mr. Benjamin dropped in. Footnote. Judah P. Benjamin was born of Jewish parentage at St. Croix in the West Indies, and was elected in 1852 to represent Louisiana in the United States Senate, where he served until 1861. In the Confederate administration, he served successively from 1861 to 1865 as Attorney General, Secretary of War, and Secretary of State. At the close of the war, he went to England where he achieved remarkable success at the bar. In footnote. He is a friend of the house. Mrs. Haxall is a Richmond leader of society, a c-devant beauty and belle, a charming person still, and her hospitality is of the genuine Virginia type. Everything Mr. Benjamin said we listened to, bore in mind, and gave heed to it diligently. He is a Delphic Oracle of the innermost shrine and is supposed to enjoy the honor of Mr. Davis's unreserved confidence. Lamar was asked to dinner here yesterday, so he came today. We had our wild turkey cooked for him yesterday, and I dressed myself within an inch of my life with the best of my four-year-old finery. Two of us, my husband and I, did not damage the wild turkey seriously. So Lamar enjoyed the reche fée and commended the art with which Molly had hid the slight loss we had inflicted upon its mighty breast. She had piled fried oysters over the turkey so skillfully that unless we had told about it, no one would ever have known that the huge bird was making his second appearance on the board. Lamar was more absent-minded and distraight than ever. My husband behaved like a trump, a well-bred man with all his wits about him, so things went off smoothly enough. Lamar had just read Ramola. Across the water he said it was the rage. I am sure it is not as good as Adam Bede or Silas Marner. It is not worthy of the woman who was to rival all but Shakespeare's name below. What is the matter with Ramola? he asked. Tito is so mean, and he is mean in such a very mean way, and the end is so repulsive. Petting the husband's illegitimate children and left-handed wives may be magnanimity, but human nature revolts at it. Woman's nature, you mean? Yes, and now another test. Two weeks ago I read this thing with intense interest, and already her Savonarola has faded from my mind. I have forgotten her way of showing Savonarola as completely as I always do forget Bulwer's Rienzi. Oh, I understand you now. It is like Milton's devil. He has obliterated all other devils. You can't fix your mind upon any other. The devil always must be of miltonic proportions, or you do not believe in him. Goethe's Mephistophilus disputes the crown of the causeway with Lucifer. But soon you begin to feel that Mephistophilus to be a lesser devil, an emissary of the devil only. Is there any cardinal Walzy but Shakespeare's? Any Mirabeau but Carlisle's Mirabeau? But the list is too long of those who have been stamped into your brain by genius. The saintly preacher, the woman who stands by Hetty and saves her soul, those heavenly-minded sermons preached by the author of Adam Bede, bear them well in mind while I tell you how this writer, who so well imagines and depicts female purity and piety, was a governess, or something of that sort, and perhaps wrote for a living. At any rate, she had an elective affinity which was responded to by George Lewis, and so she lives with Lewis. I do not know that she caused the separation between Lewis and his legal wife. They're living in a villa on some Swiss lake, and Mrs. Lewis of the hour is a charitable, estimable, agreeable, sympathetic woman of genius. Lamar seemed without prejudices on the subject. At least he expressed neither surprise nor disapprobation. He said something of genius being above law, but I was not very clear as to what he said on that point. As for me, I said nothing for fear of saying too much. You know that Lewis is a writer, said he. Some people say the man she lives with is a noble man. They say she is kind and good, if a fallen woman. Here the conversation ended. January 20th, and now comes a grand announcement made by the Yankee Congress. They vote one million of men to be sent down here to free the prisoners whom they will not take in exchange. I actually thought they left all these Yankees here on our hands as part of their plan to starve us out. All congressmen under 50 years of age are to leave politics and report for military duty or be conscripted. What enthusiasm there is in their councils. Confusion, rather, it seems to me. Mrs. Old says, the men who frequent her house are more despondent now than ever since this thing began. Our Congress is so demoralized, so confused, so depressed. They have asked the president whom they have so hated, so insulted, so crossed and opposed and thwarted in every way to speak to them and advise them what to do. January 21st, both of us were too ill to attend Mrs. Davis' reception. It proved a very sensational one. First a fire in the house, then a robbery, said to be an arranged plan of the usual bribed servants there and some escaped Yankee prisoners. Today the examiner is lost in wonder at the stupidity of the fire and arson contingent. If they had only waited a few hours until everybody was asleep, after a reception the household would be so tired and so sound asleep. Thanks to the editor's kind counsel, maybe the arson contingent will wait and do better next time. Letters from home carried Mr. Chestnut off today. Thackery is dead. I stumbled upon vanity fair for myself. I had never heard of Thackery before. I think it was in 1850. I know I had been ill at the New York Hotel and when left alone I slipped downstairs and into a bookstore that I had noticed under the hotel for something to read. Footnote, the New York Hotel, covering a block front on Broadway at Waverly Place, was a favorite stopping place for Southerners for many years before the war and after it. In comparatively recent times it was torn down and supplanted by a business block. In footnote. They gave me the first half of Pindennis. I can recall now the very kind of paper it was printed on and the illustrations as they took effect upon me. And yet when I raved over it and was wild for the other half there were people who said it was slow that Thackery was evidently a coarse, dull, sneering rider that he stripped human nature bare and made it repulsive, et cetera. In January 22nd at Mrs. Lyons met another beautiful woman, Mrs. Pinn, the wife of Colonel Pinn, who was making shoes in a Yankee prison. She had a little son with her, barely two years old, a mere infant. She said to him, "'Fake, calm butler.'" The child crossed his eyes and made himself hideous, then laughed and rioted around as if he enjoyed the joke hugely. Went to Mrs. Davis's, it was sad enough. Fancy having to be always ready to have your servants set your house on fire, being bribed to do it. Such constant robberies, such servants coming and going daily to the Yankees, carrying one silver, one's other possessions, does not conduce to home happiness. Saw Hood on his legs once more. He rode off on a fine horse and managed it well, though he is disabled in one hand too. After all, as the woman said, he has body enough left to hold his soul. How plucky of him to ride a gay horse like that. Oh, a Kentuckian prides himself upon being half horse and half man. And the girl who rode beside him, did you ever see a more brilliant beauty? Three cheers for South Carolina. I imparted a plan of mine to Brewster. I would have a breakfast, a luncheon, a matinee, call it what you please, but I would try and return some of the hospitalities of this most hospitable people. Just think of the dinners, suppers, breakfasts we have been to. People have no variety in wartimes, but they make up for that lack in exquisite cooking. Variety, said he, you are hard to please with terrapin stew, gumbo, fish, oysters in every shape, game and wine, as good as wine ever is. I do not mention julips, claret cup, apple toddy, whiskey punches and all that. I tell you, it is good enough for me, variety would spoil it. Such hams as these Virginia people cure, such homemade bread, there is no such bread in the world. Call yours a cult collation. Yes, I have eggs, butter, hams, game, everything from home, no stent just now, even fruit. You ought to do your best. They are so generous and hospitable and so unconscious of any merit or exceptional credit in the matter of hospitality. They are no better than the Columbia people always were to us. So I fired up for my own country. January 23rd, my luncheon was a female affair exclusively. Mrs. Davis came early and found Annie and Tooty making the chocolate. Lawrence had gone south with my husband, so he had only Molly for cook and parlor maid. After the company assembled, we waited and waited. Those girls were making the final arrangements. I made my way to the door and as I leaned against it, ready to turn the knob, Mrs. Stannard held me like Coleridge's ancient mariner and told how she had been prevented by a violent attack of cramps from running the blockade and how providential it all was. All this floated by my ear for I heard Mary Preston's voice raised in high protest on the other side of the door. Stop, said she. Do you mean to take away the whole dish? If you eat many more of those fried oysters, they will be missed. Heavens, she is running away with a plug, a palpable plug out of that jelly cake. Later in the afternoon, when it was over and I was safe, for all had gone well and Molly had not disgraced herself before the mistresses of those wonderful Virginia cooks. Mrs. Davis and I went out for a walk. Barney Hayward and Dr. Garnett joined us, the latter bringing the welcome news that Musko Russell's wife had come. January 25th. The president walked home with me from church. I was to dine with Mrs. Davis. He walked so fast I had no breath to talk, so I was a good listener for once. The truth is I am too much afraid of him to say very much in his presence. We had such a nice dinner. After dinner, Hood came for a ride with the president. Mr. Hunter of Virginia walked home with me. He made himself utterly agreeable by dwelling on his friendship and admiration of my husband. He said it was high time Mr. Davis should promote him and that he had told Mr. Davis his opinion on that subject today. Tuesday, Barney Hayward went with me to the president's reception and from there to a ball at the McFarland's. Breckenridge alone of the generals went with us. The others went to a supper given by Mr. Clay of Alabama. I had a long talk with Mr. Old, Mr. Benjamin and Mr. Hunter. These men speak out their thoughts plainly enough. What they said means we are rattling down hill and nobody to put on the brakes. I wore my black velvet, diamonds and point lace. They are borrowed for all theatricals but I'll wear them whenever they are at home. February 1st, Mrs. Davis gave her luncheons to ladies only on Saturday. Many more persons there than at any of these luncheons which we have gone to before. Gumbo, ducks and olives, chickens in jelly, oysters, lettuce salad, chocolate cream, jelly cake, claret, champagne, et cetera with a good thing set before us. Today for a pair of forlorn shoes I have paid $85. Colonel Ives drew my husband's pay for me. I sent Lawrence for it. Mr. Chestnut ordered him back to us. We needed a man servant here. Colonel Ives wrote that he was amazed I should be willing to trust a darkie with that great bundle of money but it came safely. Mr. Pettigrew says you take your money to market in the market basket and bring home what you buy in your pocketbook. End of chapter 16, part three. Chapter 16, part four of A Diary from Dixie. This Lubervox recording is in the public domain. Read by Laurie Ann Walden. A Diary from Dixie by Mary Chestnut. Chapter 16, Richmond, Virginia, part four. February 5th, when Lawrence handed me my husband's money, $600 it was, I said, now I am pretty sure you do not mean to go to the Yankees for with that pile of money in your hands you must have known there was your chance. He grinned but said nothing. At the president's reception, Hood had a perfect ovation. General Preston navigated him through the crowd handling him as tenderly on his crutches as if he were the princess of Wales's newborn baby that I read of today. It is bad for the head of an army to be so helpless. But old Blusher went to Waterloo in a carriage wearing a bonnet on his head to shade his inflamed eyes, a heroic figure truly, an old red-eyed, bonneted woman apparently, back in a landow, and yet, Blusher to the rescue. Afterward at the Preston's for we left the presidents at an early hour. Major Von Borca was trying to teach them his way of pronouncing his own name and reciting numerous travesties of it in this country when Charles threw up in the door saying, a gentleman has called for major band box. The Prussian major acknowledged this to be the worst he had heard yet. Off to the Ives's theatricals, I walked with General Breckenridge. Mrs. Clay's Mrs. Malaprop was beyond our wildest hopes. And she was in such bitter earnest when she pinched Connie Carey's Lydia Languages shoulder and called her an intricate little hussy that Lydia showed she felt it. And next day the shoulder was black and blue. It was not that the actress had a grudge against Connie but that she was intense. Even the back of Mrs. Clay's head was eloquent as she walked away. But said General Breckenridge, watch Hood, he has not seen the play before and Bob Acres amazes him. When he caught my eye, General Hood nodded to me and said, I believe that fella Acres is a coward. That's better than the play, whispered Breckenridge. But it is all good from Sir Anthony down to fag. Between the acts Mrs. Clay sent us word to applaud. She wanted encouragement. The audience was too cold. General Breckenridge responded like a man. After that she was fired by thunders of applause following his lead. Those mighty Kentuckians turned clacours were a host in themselves. Constance Carey not only acted well but looked perfectly beautiful. During the farce Mrs. Clay came in with all her feathers, diamonds and philals and took her seat by me. Said General Breckenridge, what a splendid head of hair you have. And all my own, said she. Afterward she said they could not get false hair enough so they put a pair of black satin boots on top of her head and piled hair over them. We adjourned from Mrs. Ives's to Mrs. Old's where we had the usual excellent Richmond supper. We did not get home until three. It was a clear moonlight night, almost as light as day. As we walked along I said to General Breckenridge, you have spent a jolly evening. I do not know, he answered. I have asked myself more than once tonight, are you the same man who stood gazing down on the faces of the dead on that awful battlefield? The soldiers lying there stare at you with their eyes wide open. Is this the same world, here and there? Last night the great Kentucky contingent came in a body. Hood brought Buck in his carriage. She said she did not like General Hood and spoke with a wild excitement in those soft blue eyes of hers. Or are they gray or brown? She then gave her reasons in the lowest voice, but loud and distinct enough for him to hear. Why? He spoke so harshly to Psy his body servant as we got out of the carriage. I saw how he hurt Psy's feelings and I tried to soothe Psy's mortification. You see Psy nearly caused me to fall by his awkwardness and I stormed at him, said the General, vastly amused. I hate a man who speaks roughly to those who dare not resent it, said she. The General did own himself charmed with her sentiments, but seemed to think his wrongdoing all a good joke. He and Psy understand each other. February 9th. This party for Johnny was the very nicest I have ever had and I mean it to be my last. I sent word to the caries to bring their own men. They came alone saying they did not care for men. That means a raid on ours, growled Isabella. Mr. Lamar was devoted to Constance Carey. He is a free lance, so that created no heart-burning. Afterward, when the whole thing was over and a success, the lights put out, et cetera. Here trooped in the four girls who stayed all night with me. In dressing gowns, they stirred up a hot fire, relit the gas, and went in for their supper. Reshophé was the word, oysters, hot coffee, et cetera. They kept it up till daylight. Of course we slept very late. As they came into breakfast, I remarked, the church bells have been going on like mad. I take it as a rebuke to our breaking the Sabbath. You know, Sunday began at 12 o'clock last night. It sounds to me like fire bells, somebody said. Soon the infant dashed in, done up in soldiers' clothes. The Yankees are upon us, said he. Don't you hear the alarm bells? They have been ringing day and night. Alex Haskell came. He and Johnny went off to report to Custis Lee and to be enrolled among his locals, who are always detailed for the defense of the city. But this time the attack on Richmond has proved a false alarm. A new trouble at the president's house. Their trusty man, Robert, broken out with smallpox. We went to the web ball, in such a pleasant time we had. After a while, the PMG, pet major general, took his seat in the comfortable chair next to mine and declared his determination to hold that position. Mr. Hunter and Mr. Benjamin essayed to dislodge him. Mrs. Stannard said, take him in the flirtation room. There he will soon be captured and led away. But I did not know where that room was situated. Besides, my bold Texan made a most unexpected sally. I will not go and I will prevent her from going with any of you. Supper was near at hand and Mr. Mallory said, ask him if the very alloyed is not at his house. I know it is. I started as if I were shot and I took Mr. Clay's arm and went in to supper, leaving the PMG to the girls. Venison and everything nice. February 12th, John Chestnut had a basket of champagne carried to my house, oysters, partridges and other good things for a supper after the reception. He is going back to the army tomorrow. James Chestnut arrived on Wednesday. He has been giving Buck his opinion of one of her performances last night. She was here and the general's carriage drove up, bringing some of our girls. They told her he could not come up and he begged she would go down there for a moment. She flew down and stood 10 minutes in that snow, sigh holding the carriage door open. But Colonel Chestnut, there was no harm. I was not there 10 minutes. I could not get in the carriage because I did not mean to stay one minute. He did not hold my hands, that is, not half the time. Oh, you saw. Well, he did kiss my hands. Where is the harm of that? All men worship Buck. How can they help it? She is so lovely. Lawrence has gone back ignominiously to South Carolina. At breakfast already in some inscrutable way he had become intoxicated. He was told to move a chair and he raised it high over his head, smashing Mrs. Grundy's chandelier. My husband said, Mary, do tell Lawrence to go home. I am too angry to speak to him. So Lawrence went without another word. He will soon be back and when he comes, he will say, Shoo, I knew Mars James could not do without me. And indeed he cannot. Buck, reading my journal, opened her beautiful eyes in amazement and said, So little do people know themselves. See what you say of me. I replied, the girls heard him say to you, Oh, you are so childish and so sweet. Now, Buck, you know you are not childish. You have an abundance of strong common sense. Don't let men adore you so if you can help it. You are so unhappy about men who care for you when they are killed. Isabella says that war leads to love-making. She says these soldiers do more courting here in a day than they would do at home without a war in 10 years. In the pauses of conversation, we hear, She is the noblest woman God ever made. Goodness, exclaims Isabella, which one? The amount of courting we hear in these small rooms. Men have to go to the front and they say their say desperately. I am beginning to know all about it. The girls tell me. And I over here, I cannot help it. But this style is unique, is it not? Since I saw you last year, standing by the turnpike gate, you know, my battle cry has been, God, my country, and you. So many are lame. Major Venable says, it is not the devil on two sticks now. The farce is Cupid on crutches. General Breckenridge's voice broke in. They are my cousins, so I determined to kiss them goodbye. Goodbye nowadays is the very devil. It means forever in all probability, you know, all the odds against us. So I advanced to the charge soberly, discreetly, and in the fear of the Lord. The girls stood in a row, four of the very prettiest I ever saw. Sam, with his eyes glued to the floor, cried, You were afraid, you backed out. But I did nothing of the kind. I kissed every one of them honestly, heartily. February 13th. My husband is writing out some resolutions for the Congress. He is very busy, too, trying to get some poor fellows reprieved. He says they are good soldiers, but got into a scrape. Buck came in. She had on her last winter's English hat with the pheasant's wing. Just then Hood entered most unexpectedly. Said the blunt soldier to the girl, You look mighty pretty in that hat. You wore it at the turnpike gate where I surrendered at first sight. She nodded and smiled and flew down the steps after Mr. Chestnut, looking back to say that she meant to walk with him as far as the executive office. The general walked to the window and watched until the last flutter of her garment was gone. He said, the President was finding fault with some of his officers in command, and I said, Mr. President, why don't you come and lead us yourself? I would follow you to the death. Actually, if you stay here in Richmond much longer, you will grow to be a courtier, and you came a rough Texan. Mrs. Davis and General McQueen came. He tells me Musko Garnett is dead. Then the best and the cleverest Virginian I know is gone. He was the most scholarly man they had, and his character was higher than his requirements. Today a terrible onslaught was made upon the President for nepotism. Burton Harrison's and John Taylor Wood's letters denying the charge that the President's cotton was unburned or that he left it to be bought by the Yankees have enraged the opposition. How much these people in the President's family have to bear? I have never felt so indignant. February 16th. Saw in Mrs. Howell's room the little negro Mrs. Davis rescued yesterday from his brutal negro guardian. The child is an orphan. He was dressed up in little Joe's clothes and happy as a Lord. He was very anxious to show me his wounds and bruises, but I fled. There are some things in life too sickening and cruelty is one of them. Somebody said, people who knew general Hood before the war said there was nothing in him. As for losing his property by the war, some say he never had any and that West Point is a pauper's school after all. He has only military glory and that he has gained since the war began. Now, said Burton Harrison, only military glory. I like that. The glory and the fame he has gained during the war, that is Hood. What was Napoleon before too long? Hood has the impassive dignity of an Indian chief. He has always a little court around him of devoted friends. Wigfall himself has said he could not get within Hood's lines. February 17th, found everything in Main Street 20% dearer. They say it is due to the new currency bill. I asked my husband, is General Johnson ordered to reinforce Polk? They say he did not understand the order. After five days delay, he replied. They say Sherman is marching to Mobile. When they once get inside of our armies, what is to molest them unless it be women with broomsticks? Footnote. General Polk, commanding about 24,000 men scattered throughout Mississippi and Alabama, found it impossible to check the advance of Sherman at the head of some 40,000 and moved from Meridian south to protect Mobile. February 16, 1864, Sherman took possession of Meridian. In footnote. General Johnston writes that the Governor of Georgia refuses him provisions in the use of his roads. The Governor of Georgia writes, the roads are open to him and in capital condition. I have furnished him abundantly with provisions from time to time as he desired them. I suppose both of these letters are placed away side by side in our archives. February 20th, Mrs. Preston was offended by the story of Buck's performance at the Iveses. General Breckenridge told her it was the most beautifully unconscious act he ever saw. The General was leaning against the wall, Buck standing guard by him on her two feet. The crowd surged that way and she held out her arm to protect him from the rush. After they had all passed she handed him his crutches and they too moved slowly away. Mrs. Davis said any woman in Richmond would have done the same joyfully, but few could do it so gracefully. Buck is made so conspicuous by her beauty, whatever she does she fails to attract attention. Johnny stayed at home only one day, then went to his plantation, got several thousand Confederate dollars and in the afternoon drove out with Mrs. K. At the bee's store he spent a thousand of his money, bought us gloves and linen. Well, one can do without gloves, but linen is next to life itself. Yesterday the President walked home from church with me. He said he was so glad to see my husband at church, had never seen him there before. Remarked on how well he looked, etc. I replied that he looked so well because you have never before seen him in the part of the right man in the right place. My husband has no fancy for being planted in pews, but he is utterly Christian in his creed. February 23rd At the Presidents where General Lee breathested a man named Phelan told General Lee all he ought to do planned a campaign for him. General Lee smiled blandly the while, though he did permit himself a mild sneer at the wise civilians in Congress who refrained from trying the battlefield in person, but from afar dictated the movements of armies. My husband said that, to his amazement, General Lee came into his room at the Executive Office to pay his respects and have a talk. Dear me, goodness gracious, said I, that was a compliment from the head of the army, the first man in the world we Confederates think. February 24th Friends came to make taffy and stayed the live long day. They played cards. One man, a soldier, had only two teeth left in front and they lapped across each other. On account of the condition of his mouth he had maintained a dignified sobriety of aspect, though he told some funny stories. Finally a story was too much for him and he grinned from ear to ear. Maggie gazed and then called out as the negro fiddlers call out dancing figures, forward to and crossover. Fancy our faces. The hero of the two teeth, relapsing into a decorous arrangement of mouth, said, Cavalry are the eyes of an army. They bring the news. The artillery are the boys to make a noise. But the infantry do the fighting and a general or so gets all the glory. February 26th We went to see Mrs. Breckenridge, who is here with her husband. Then we paid our respects to Mrs. Lee. Her room was like an industrial school, everybody so busy. Her daughters were all there applying their needles with several other ladies. Mrs. Lee shed us a beautiful sword recently sent to the general by some marilanders, now in Paris. On the blade was engraved et toi et deux tes bras. When we came out, someone said, did you see how the Lee spend their time? What a rebuke to the taffy parties. Another maimed hero is engaged to be married. Sally Hampton has accepted John Haskell. There is a story that he reported for duty after his arm was shot off. Suppose in the fury of the battle he did not feel the pain. General Breckenridge once asked, what's the name of the fellow who has gone to Europe for Hood's leg? Dr. Darby. Suppose it is shipwrecked. No matter, half a dozen are ordered. Mrs. Preston raised her hands. No wonder the general says they talk of him as if he were a centipede. His leg is in everybody's mouth. March 3. Hedy the handsome and Constance the witty came. The former too prudish to read lost and saved by Mrs. Norton after she had heard the plot. Connie was making a bonnet for me. Just as she was leaving the house her friendly labors over my husband entered and quickly ordered his horse. It is so near dinner, I began. But I am going with the President. I am on duty. He goes to inspect the fortifications. The enemy, once more, are within a few miles of Richmond. Then we prepared a luncheon for him. Constance Kerry remained with me. After she left I sat down to Ramola and I was absorbed in it. How hardened we grow to war and war's alarms. The enemy's cannon, or our own, are thundering in my ears. And I was dreadfully afraid some infatuated and frightened friend would come in to cheer, to comfort and interrupt me. Am I the same poor soul who fell on her knees and prayed and wept and fainted as the first gun boomed from Fort Sopter? Once more we have repulsed the enemy. But it is humiliating indeed that he can come and threaten us at our very gates whenever he so pleases. If a forlorn Negro had not led them astray and they hanged him for it, on Tuesday night, unmolested, they would have walked into Richmond. Surely there is horrid neglect or mismanagement somewhere. March 4th. The enemy has been reinforced and is on us again. Met Wade Hampton, who told me my husband was to join him with some volunteer troops, so I hurried home. Such a cavalcade rode up to luncheon. Captain Smith Lee and Preston Hampton, the handsomest, the oldest, and the youngest of the party. This was at the Prestons. Smith Lee walked home with me, alarm bells ringing, horsemen galloping, wagons rattling. Dr. H. stopped us to say Beast Butler was on us with sixteen thousand men. How scared the doctor looked. And after all it was only a notice to the militia to turn out and drill. March 5th. Tom Ferguson walked home with me. He told me of Colonel Dahlgren's death and the horrid memoranda found in his pocket. He came with secret orders to destroy this devoted city, hang the president and his cabinet, and burn the town. Fitzhugh Lee was proud that the 9th Virginia captured him. Footnote. Colonel Ulrich Dahlgren was a son of the noted admiral John H. Dahlgren, who in July 1863 was in command of the South Atlantic blockading squadron and conducted the naval operations against Charleston between July 10 and September 7, 1863. Colonel Dahlgren distinguished himself at Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, and Gettysburg. The raid in which he lost his life on March 4, 1864 was planned by himself and General Kilpatrick. Footnote. Found Mrs. Sims covering her lettuces and the raiders were a myth. While Beast Butler holds Fortress Monroe he will make things lively for us. On the alert must we be now. End of Chapter 16 Part 4 Chapter 16 Part 5 of Adare from Dixie This Lubrovok's recording is in the public domain. Read by Laurie Ann Walden. Adare from Dixie by Mary Chestnut. Chapter 16 Richmond, Virginia Part 5 March 7 Shopping and paid $30 for a pair of gloves, $50 for a pair of slippers, $24 for six spools of thread, $32 for five miserable, shabby little pocket handkerchiefs. When I came home found Mrs. Webb. At her hospital there was a man who had been taken prisoner by Dahlgren's party. He saw the Negro hanged who had misled them unintentionally in all probability. He saw Dahlgren give a part of his bridle to hang him. Details are melancholy, as Emerson says. This Dahlgren had also lost a leg. Constance Carey, in words too fine for the occasion, described the homely scene at my house, how I prepared sandwiches for my husband and broke, with trembling hand, the last bottle of anything to drink in the house, a bottle I destined to go with the sandwiches. She called it a hector and andromache performance. March 8. Mrs. Preston's story. As we walked home, she told me she had just been to see a lady she had known more than twenty years before. She had met her in this wise. One of the chambermaids of the St. Charles Hotel, New Orleans, told Mrs. Preston's nurse, it was when Mary Preston was a baby, that up among the servants in the garret there was a sick lady in her children. The maid was sure she was a lady and thought she was hiding from somebody. Mrs. Preston went up, knew the lady, had her brought down into comfortable rooms, and nursed her until she recovered from her delirium and fever. She had run away, indeed, and was hiding herself and her children from a worthless husband. Now she has one son in a Yankee prison, one mortally wounded, and the last of them dying there under her eyes of consumption. This last had married here in Richmond, not wisely and too soon, for he was a mere boy. His pay as a private was eleven dollars a month, and his wife's family charged him three hundred dollars a month for her board. So he had to work double tides, do odd jobs by night and by day, and it killed him by exposure to cold in this bitter climate to which his constitution was unadapted. They had been in Vicksburg during the siege, and during the bombardment sought refuge in a cave. The roar of the cannon ceasing out gladly for a breath of fresh air. At the moment when they emerged a bomb burst there, among them, so to speak, struck the son already wounded, and smashed off the arm of a beautiful little grandchild not three years old. There was this poor little girl with her touchingly lovely face and her arm gone. This mutilated little martyr, Mrs. Preston said, was really to her the crowning touch of the woman's affliction. Mrs. Preston held her hand. Her baby face haunts me. March 11. Letters from home, including one from my husband's father, now over 90 written with his own hand, and certainly his own mind still. I quote, Bad times, worse coming. Starvation stares me in the face. Neither John's nor James's overseer will sell me any corn. Now what has the government to do with the fact that on all his plantations have to last for the whole year, and by the end of January his negroes had stolen it all? Poor old man, he has fallen on evil days after a long life of ease and prosperity. Today I read the Blythe Dale romance. Blythe Dale leaves such an unpleasant impression. I like pleasant, kindly stories now that we are so harrowed by real life. Tragedy is for our hours of ease. March 12. An active campaign has begun everywhere. Kilpatrick still threatens us. Bragg has organized his 1500 of cavalry to protect Richmond. Why can't my husband be made colonel of that? It is a new regiment. No, he must be made a general. Now, says Mary Preston, Dr. Darby is at the mercy of both Yankees and the rolling sea, and I am anxious enough. But instead of taking my bed and worrying Mama, I am taking stock of our worldly goods and trying to arrange the wedding paraphernalia for two girls. There is love-making and love-making in this world. What a time the sweethearts of that wretch young Shakespeare must have had. What experiences of life's delights must have been his before he evolved the Romeo and Juliet business from his own internal consciousness. Also that delicious Beatrice in Rosalind. The poor creature that he left bedstead to came in second best all the time, no doubt, and she hardly deserved more. Fancy people wondering that Shakespeare and his kind leave no progeny like themselves. Shakespeare's children would have been half his only, the other half only the second best bedsteads. What would you expect of that commingling of materials? Goethe used his lady-loves as schoolbooks are used. He studied them from cover to cover, got all that could be got of self-culture and knowledge of human nature from the study of them, and then threw them aside as if of no further account in his life. Byron never could forget Lord Byron, poet and peer, and Mauvais Souget, and he must have been a trying lover, like talking to a man looking in the glass at himself. Lady Byron was just as much taken up with herself, so they struck each other and bounded apart. Since I wrote this Mrs. Stow has taken Byron in hand, but I know a story which might have annoyed my Lord more than her and Lady Byron's imagination of wickedness, for he posed a fiend but was tender and kind. A clerk in a country store asked my sister to lend him a book. He wanted something to read. The days were so long. What style of book would you prefer? She said. Poetry. Any particular poet? Brown. I hear him much spoken of. Browning? No. Brown. Short. That is what they call him. Byron, you mean? No. I mean the poet. Brown. Oh, you wish you had lived in the time of the Shakespeare creature. He knew all the forms and phases of true love. Straight to one's heart he goes in tragedy or comedy. He never misses fire. He has been there in slang phrase. No doubt the man's bare presence gave pleasure to the female world. He saw women at their best and he effaced himself. He told no tales of his own life. Compare with him old, sad, solemn, sublime, sneering, snarling, fault-finding Milton. A man whose family doubtless found l'absence d'élicieuse. That phrase describes a type of man at a touch. It took a French woman to do it. But there is an Italian picture of Milton taken in his youth and he was as beautiful as an angel. No doubt, but love flies before everlasting posing and preaching the deadly requirement of a man always to be looked up to. A domestic tyrant, grim, formal and awfully learned. Milton was only a mere man for he could not do without women. When he tired out the first poor thing who did not fall down, worship and obey him and see God in him and she ran away, he immediately arranged his creed so that he could take another wife, for a wife he must have, Allah Mohammedan creed. The dearest dealer never once thought of justifying theft simply because he loved venison and could not come by it lawfully. Shakespeare was a better man, or may I say, a purer soul than self-upholding, Calvinistic, puritanic, king-killing Milton. There is no muddling of right and wrong in Shakespeare and no thereseical stuff of any sort. Then George D. D. joined us fresh from Mobile where he left peace and plenty. He went to sixteen weddings and twenty-seven tea parties. For breakfast he had everything nice. Lily told of what she had seen the day before at the Spotswood. She was in the small parlor waiting for someone and in the large drawing room sat Hood, solitary, sad with crutches by his chair. He could not see them. Mrs. Buckner came in and her little who, when she spied Hood, bounded into the next room and sprang into his lap. Hood smoothed her little dress down and held her close to him. She clung around his neck for a while and then seizing him by the beard kissed him to an illimitable extent. Produced picture I ever saw said Lily, the soldier and the child. John R. Thompson sent me a New York Herald only three days old. It is down on Kilpatrick for his fatal failure before Richmond. Also it acknowledges a defeat before Charleston and a victory force in Florida. General Grant is charmed with Sherman's successful movements. Says he has destroyed millions upon millions of our property in Mississippi. I hope that may not be true and that Sherman may fail as Kilpatrick did. Now if we still had Stonewall or Albert Sidney Johnston where Joe Johnston and Polkar I would not give a fig for Sherman's chances. The Yankees say that at last they have scared up a man who succeeds and they expect him to remedy all that has gone wrong. So they have made their brutal suaro, Grant Lieutenant General. Dr. Blank at the Prestons proposed to show me a man who was not an FFV. Until we came here we had never heard of our social position. We do not know how to be rude to people who call. To talk of social position seems vulgar. Down our way that sort of thing was settled one way or another beyond a per-adventure like the earth and the sky. We never gave it a thought. We talked to whom we pleased and if they were not Camille Faux we were ever so much more polite to the poor things. No reflection on Virginia. Everybody comes to Richmond. Somebody counted fourteen generals in church today and suggested that less piety and more drilling of commands would suit the times better. There were Lee, Longstreet, Morgan, Hoke, Klingman, Whiting, Pigram, Elsie, Gordon, and Bragg. Now since Dogren failed to carry out his orders the Yankees disowned them disavowing all. He was not sent here to murder us all to hang the President and burn the town. There is the notebook however at the Executive Office with orders to hang and burn. March 15th Old Mrs. Chestnut is dead. A saint is gone and James Chestnut is brokenhearted. He adored his mother. I gave three hundred and seventy-five dollars for my mourning which consists of a black alpaca dress and a crepe veil. With bonnet gloves and all it came to five hundred dollars. Before the blockade such things as I have would not have been thought fit for a chambermaid. Everybody is in trouble. Mrs. Davis says paper money has depreciated so much in value that they cannot live income so they are going to dispense with their carriage and horses. March 18th Went out to sell some of my colored dresses. What a scene it was. Such piles of rubbish and mixed up with it such splendid Parisian silks and satins. A mulatto woman kept the shop under a roof in an out-of-the-way old house. The c-devant rich white women sell to and the Negroes buy of this woman. After some whispering among us Buck said, Sally is going to marry a man who has lost an arm and she is proud of it. The cause glorifies such wounds. Annie said meekly, I fear it will be my fate to marry one who has lost his head. Tooty has her eyes on one who has lost an eye. What a glorious assortment of noble martyrs and heroes. The bitterness of this kind of talk is appalling. General Lee had tears in his eyes when he spoke of his daughter-in-law just dead, that lovely little Charlotte Wickham, Mrs. Rooney Lee. Rooney Lee says Beast Butler was very kind to him while he was a prisoner. The Beast has sent him back his war-horse. The Lee's are men enough to speak the truth of friend or enemy, fearing not the consequences. March 19th. A new experience. Molly and Lawrence have both gone home and I am to be left for the first time in my life at the mercy of hired servants. Mr. Chestnut being in such deep mourning for his mother, we see no company. I have a maid of all work. Tooty came with an account of yesterday's trip to Petersburg. Constance Carey raved of the golden ripples in Tooty's hair. Tooty vanished in a halo of glory and Constance Carey gave me an account of a wedding as it was given to her by Major Von Borke. The bridesmaids were dressed in black, the bride in Confederate gray, homespun. They had worn the dress all winter, but it had been washed and turned for the wedding. The female critics pronounced it flabby-dabby. They also said her collar was only net and she wore a cameo breastpin. Her bonnet was self-made. March 24th. Yesterday we went to the capital grounds to see our returned prisoners. We walked slowly up and down until Jeff Davis was called upon to speak. There I stood, almost touching the bayonets when he left me. Straight into the prisoners' faces, poor fellows. They cheered with all their might and I wept for sympathy and enthusiasm. I was very deeply moved. These men were so forlorn, so dried up and trunkin' with such a strange look in some of their eyes. Others so restless and wild looking. Others again placidly vacant as if they had been dead to the world for years. A poor woman was too much for me. She was searching for her son. He had been expected back. She said he was taken prisoner at Gettysburg. She kept going in and out among them with a basket of provisions she had brought for him to eat. It was too pitiful. She was utterly unconscious of the crowd. The anxious dread, expectation, hurry and hope which let her own showed in her face. A sister of Mrs. Lincoln is here. She brings the freshest scandals from Yankee land. She says she rode with love gently and she says she rode with love joy. A friend of hers commands a black regiment. Two southern horrors, a black regiment and love joy. March 31st Met Preston Hampton. Constance Carey was with me. She showed her regard for him by taking his overcoat and leaving him in a drenching rain. What boyish nonsense he talked said he was in love with Miss Dabney now, that his love was so hot within him that it was waterproof, the rain seized and smoked off. It did not so much as dampen his ardour or his clothes. April 1st. Mrs. Davis is utterly depressed. She said the fall of Richmond must come. She would send her children to me and Mrs. Preston. We begged her to come to us also. My husband is as depressed as I ever knew him to be. He has felt the death of that angel mother of his keenly and now he takes his country's woes with him. April 11th. Drove with Mrs. Davis in all her infant family. Wonderfully clever and precocious children with unbroken wills. At one time there was a sudden uprising of the nursery contingent. They laughed, fought and screamed. Bedlam broke loose. Mrs. Davis scolded, laughed and cried. She asked me if my husband would speak to the President about the plan in South Carolina which everybody said suited him. Mrs. Davis said I. That is what I told Mr. Davis, said she. Colonel Chestnut rides so high a horse. Now Brown is so much more practical. He goes forth to be general of conscripts in Georgia. His wife will stay at the cobses. Mrs. Old gave me a luncheon on Saturday. I felt that this was my last sad farewell to Richmond and the people there I love so well. Mrs. Davis sent her carriage for me when I was there. Such good things were served, oranges, guava jelly, etc. The examiner says Mr. Old, when he goes to Fortress Monroe, replenishes his larder. Why not? The examiner has taken another fling at the President as haughty and austere with his friends, affable, kind, subservient to his enemies. I wonder if the Yankees would endorse that certificate. Both sides abuse him. No doubt he is right. My husband is now Brigadier General and is sent to South Carolina to organize and take command of the reserve troops. C. C. Clay and L. Q. C. Lamar are both spoken of to fill the vacancy made among Mr. Davis's aides by this promotion. Today Captain Smith Lee spent the morning here and gave a review of past Washington gossip. I am having such a busy, happy life with so many friends who are so clever, so charming, but the change to that weary, dreary Camden. Mary Preston said, I do think Mrs. Chestnut deserves to be canonized. She agrees to go back to Camden. The Prestons gave me a farewell dinner, my twenty-fourth wedding day, and the very pleasantest day I have spent in Richmond. Maria Lewis was sitting with us on Mrs. Eugie's steps, and Smith Lee was lauding Virginia as Lee would say their hove in sight Frank Parker, riding one of the finest of General Bragg's horses. By his side Buck on Fairfax, the most beautiful horse in Richmond, his brown coat looking like satin, his proud neck arched, moving slowly, gracefully, calmly, no fidgets, aristocratic in his bearing to the tips of his bridal reins. There sat Buck, tall and fair, managing her horse with infinite ease, her English parting habit showing plainly the exquisite proportions of her figure. Supremely lovely, said Smith Lee. Look at them both, said I proudly. Can you match those two in Virginia? Three cheers for South Carolina was the answer of Lee, the gallant Virginia sailor.