 CHAPTER XI PART III. March 24. I was asked to the Tanyos tea, so refused to drive with Mary Preston. As I sat at my solitary casement, waiting for the time to come for the Tanyos, saw Mrs. Preston's land owl pass, and Mr. Vinnable making Mary laugh at some of his army stories, was only Mr. Vinnable can. Already I felt that I had paid too much for my whistle, that is, the Tanyos tea. The gives his trinums Edmund Rhett there. Edmund Rhett has very fine eyes and makes fearful play with them. He sits silent and motionless, with his hands on his knees, his head bent forward, and his eyes fixed upon you. I could think of nothing like it but a setter and a covey of partridges. As to President Davis, he sank to profounder deeps of abuse of him than even Gonzales. I quoted Yancey. A crew may not like their captain, but if they are mad enough to mutiny while a storm is raging, all hands are bound to go to the bottom. After that I contented myself with a mild shake of the head when I disagreed with him, and at last I began to shake so persistently it amounted to incipient palsy. Jeff Davis, he said, is conceited, wrong-headed, wranglesome, obstinate, a traitor. Now I have borne much in silence, said I at last, but that is pernicious nonsense. Do not let us waste any more time listening to your quotations from the Mercury. He very good-naturedly changed the subject, which was easy just then, for a delicious supper was on the table ready for us. But Dr. Gibbs began anew the fighting. He helped me to some pâté. Not foie gras, said Madame Tanya, pâté pro-dreau. Dr. Gibbs, however, gave it a flavor of his own. Eat it, said he. It is good for you, rich and wholesome, healthy as cod liver oil. A queer thing happened. At the post office a man saw a small boy open with a key the box of the governor and the council, take the contents of the box, and run for his life. Of course this man called to the urchin to stop. The urchin did not heed, but seeing himself pursued began tearing up the letters in papers. He was called, and the fragments were picked up. Finding himself a prisoner, he pointed out the negro who gave him the key. The negro was arrested. Governor Pickens called to see me today. We began with Fort Sumter. For an hour did we hammer at that fortress. We took it gun by gun. He was very pleasant and friendly in his manner. James Chesnut has been so nice this winter, so reasonable and considerate. That is, for a man. The night I came from Madame Tanya's, instead of making a row about the lateness of the hour, he said he was so wide awake and so hungry. I put on my dressing gown and scrambled some eggs, et cetera, there on our own fire. And with our feet on the fender and the small supper table between us, we enjoyed the supper and glorious gossip. Rather a pleasant state of things when one's own husband is in good humor and cleverer than all the men outside. This afternoon the entente cordial still subsisting, Ma Mary beckoned me out mysteriously. But Mr. Chesnut said, Speak out, old woman, nobody here but myself. Ma's Nathan Davis wants to speak to her, said she. So I hurried off to the drawing-room, Ma Mary flapping her down at the heels' shoes in my back. He's guine because somebody done stole his boots. How could he stay but out boots? So Nathan said good-bye. Then we met General Jist, Ma Mary still hovering near, and I congratulated him on being promoted. He is now a brigadier. This he received with modest complacence. I knowed he was a general, said Ma Mary as he passed on. He told me as soon as he got in his room before his boy put down his trunks. As Nathan, the unlucky, said good-bye, he informed me that a Mr. Reed from Montgomery was in the drawing-room and wanted to see me. Mr. Reed had traveled with our foreign envoy, Yancey. I was keen for news from abroad. Mr. Reed settled that summarily. Mr. Yancey says we need not have one jot of hope. He could both string Mallory for not buying arms in time. The very best citizens wanted to depose the state government and take things into their own hands, the powers that be being inefficient. Western men are hurrying to the front, besturing themselves. In two more months we shall be ready. What could I do but laugh? I do hope the enemy will be considerate and charitable enough to wait for us. Mr. Reed's calm faith in the power of Mr. Yancey's eloquence was beautiful to see. He asked for Mr. Chesnut. I went back to our rooms, swelling with news like a powder pigeon. Mr. Chesnut said, Well, four hours. A call from Nathan Davis of four hours. Men are too absurd, so I bear the honors of my forty years gallantly. I can but laugh. Mr. Nathan Davis went by the five o'clock train, I said. It is now about six or seven, maybe eight. I have had so many visitors. Mr. Reed of Alabama is asking for you out there. He went without a word, but I doubt if he went to see Mr. Reed, my laughing had made him so angry. At last Lincoln threatens us with a proclamation abolishing slavery here in the free Southern Confederacy. And they say McClellan is deposed. They want more fighting. I mean the government whose skins are safe, they want more fighting, and trust to luck for the skill of the new generals. Footnote. The Emancipation Proclamation was not actually issued until September 22, 1862, when it was a notice to the Confederates to return to the Union, emancipation being proclaimed as a result of their failure to do so. The real proclamation, freeing the slaves, was delayed until January 1, 1863, when it was put forth as a war measure. Mrs. Chestnut's reference is doubtless to President Lincoln's message to Congress, March 6, 1862, in which he made recommendations regarding the abolition of slavery. Footnote. March 28. I did leave with regret, Mom Mary. She was such a good, well-informed old thing. My Molly, though perfection otherwise, does not receive the confidential communications of new-made generals at the earliest moment. She is of very limited military information. Mom Mary was the comfort of my life. She saved me from all trouble as far as she could. Seventy, if she is a day, she is as spry and active as a cat, of a curiosity that knows no bounds, black and clean. Also, she knows a joke at first sight, and she is honest. I fancy the Negroes are ashamed to rob people as careless as James Chestnut and myself. One night, just before we left the Congaree house, Mr. Chestnut had forgotten to tell some all-important thing to Governor Gist, who was to leave on a public mission next day. So at the dawn of day he put on his dressing-gown and went to the Governor's room. He found the door unlocked, and the Governor fast asleep. He shook him. Half asleep, the Governor sprang up and threw his arms around Mr. Chestnut's neck and said, Honey, is it you? The mistake was rapidly set right, and the bewildered plenipotentiary was given his instructions. Mr. Chestnut came into my room, threw himself on the sofa, and nearly laughed himself to extinction, imitating, again and again, the pathetic tone of the Governor's greeting. Mr. Chestnut calls Lawrence a dolf, but says he is simply perfect as a servant. Mary Stevens said, I thought Cousin James the laziest man alive until I knew his man, Lawrence. Lawrence will not move an inch or lift a finger for any one but his master. Mrs. Middleton politely sent him on an errand. Lawrence, too, was very polite. Hours after she saw him sitting on the fence of the front yard. Didn't you go? She asked. No, ma'am, I am waiting for Morris James. Mrs. Middleton calls him now. Mr. Take it easy. My very last day's experience at the Congaree. I was waiting for Morris James in the drawing room when a lady there declared herself to be the wife of an officer in Klingman's regiment. A gentleman who seemed quite friendly with her told her all Mr. Chestnut said, thought, intended to do, wrote, and felt. I asked, are you certain of all these things you say of Colonel Chestnut? The man hardly deigned to notice this impertinent interruption from a stranger presuming to speak but who had not been introduced. After he went out the wife of Klingman's officer was seized with an intuitive curiosity. Madam, will you tell me your name? I gave it, adding, I dare say I showed myself an intelligent listener when my husband's affairs were under discussion. At first I refused to give my name because it would have embarrassed her friend if she had told him who I was. The man was Mr. Chestnut's secretary, but I had never seen him before. A letter from Kate says she had been up all night preparing David's things. Little Serena sat up and helped her mother. They did not know that they would ever see him again. Upon reading it I wept, and James Chestnut cursed the Yankees. Gave the girls a quantity of flannel for soldiers' shirts, also a string of pearls to be raffled for at the gunboat fair. Mary Witherspoon has sent a silver teapot. We do not spare our precious things now. Our silver and gold, what are they, when we give up to war, are beloved. April 2nd. Dr. Trezevant, attending Mr. Chestnut, who was ill, came and found his patient gone. He could not stand the news of that last battle. He got up and dressed weak as he was, and went forth to hear what he could for himself. The doctor was angry with me for permitting this, and more angry with him for such folly. I made him listen to the distinction between feminine folly and virulent vagaries and nonsense. He said he will certainly be salivated after all that calamel out in this damp weather. Today the ladies in their landals were bitterly attacked by the morning paper for lulling back in their silks and satins, with tall footmen in livery, driving up and down the streets while the poor soldier's wives were on the sidewalks. It is the old story of rich and poor. My little barouche is not here, nor has James Chestnut any of his horses here. But then I drive every day with Mrs. McCord and Mrs. Preston, either of whose turnouts fits the bill. The governor's carriage, horses, servants, etc., are splendid, just what they should be. Why not? April 14th. Our fare is in full blast. We keep a restaurant. Our waitresses are Mary and Buck Preston, Isabella Martin, and Grace Elmore. April 15th. Trescott is too clever ever to be a boar. That was proved today, for he stayed two hours. As usual, Mr. Chestnut said, four. Trescott was very surly, calls himself ex-Secretary of State of the United States. Now nothing in particular of South Carolina or the Confederate States. Then he yawned, what a boar this war is. I wish it was ended one way or another. He speaks of going across the border and taking service in Mexico. Rubbish, not much Mexico for you, I answered. Another patriot came then and averred. I will take my family back to town that we may all surrender together. I gave it up early in the spring. Trescott made a face behind backs and said, Lush. The enemy have flanked Beauregard at Nashville. There is grief enough for Albert Sidney Jotston now. We begin to see what we have lost. We were pushing them into the river when General Jotston was wounded. Beauregard was lying in his tent at the rear in a green sickness melancholy, but no matter what the name of the malady. He was too slow to move and lost all the advantage gained by our dead hero. Without him there is no head to our Western army. Pulaski has fallen. What more is there to fall? Footnote. The battle of Shiloh or Pittsburgh Landing in Tennessee, eighty-eight miles east of Memphis, had been fought on April 6 and 7, 1862. The Federals were commanded by General Grant, who, on the second day, was reinforced by General Buell. The Confederates were commanded by Albert Sidney Jotston on the first day, when Jotston was killed, and on the second day by General Beauregard. In footnote. April 15. Mrs. Middleton. How did you settle Molly's little difficulty with Mrs. McMahon, that piece of her mind that Molly gave our landlady? Oh, paid our way out of it, of course, and I apologize for Molly. Gladden, the hero of the Palmetto's in Mexico, is killed. Shiloh has been a dreadful blow to us. Last winter, Stephen, my brother, headed in his power to do such a nice thing for Colonel Gladden. In the dark he heard his name, also that he had to walk twenty-five miles in Alabama mud or go on an ammunition wagon. So he introduced himself as a South Carolinian to Colonel Gladden, whom he knew only by reputation as Colonel of the Palmetto Regiment in the Mexican War. And they drove him in his carriage comfortably to where he wanted to go, a night drive of fifty miles for Stephen, for he had the return trip, too. I would rather live in Siberia, worse still in Sahara, than live in a country surrendered to Yankees. The Carolinian says the conscription bill passed by Congress is fatal to our liberties as a people. Let us be a people certain and sure, as poor Tom B. said, and then talk of rebelling against our home government. Sat up all night, read Eathan straight through our old Wiley and Putnam edition that we bought in London in eighteen forty five. How could I sleep? The power they are bringing to bear against our country is tremendous. Its weight may be irresistible. They're not think of that, however. April twenty-first. Have been ill. One day I dined at Mrs. Preston's paté de foie gras and partridge prepared for me as I like them. I had been awfully depressed for days and could not sleep at night for anxiety. But I did not know that I was bodily ill. Mrs. Preston came home with me. She said emphatically, Molly, if your mistress is worse than the night, send for me instantly. I thought it very odd. I could not breathe if I attempted to lie down, and very soon I lost my voice. Molly raced out and sent Lawrence for Dr. Trezevant. She said I had the croup. The doctor said, congestion of the lungs. So here I am, stranded, laid by the heels. Battle after battle has occurred, disaster after disaster. Every morning's paper is enough to kill a well woman and age a strong and hardy one. Today the waters of this stagnant pool were wildly stirred. The president telegraphed for my husband to come on to Richmond and offered him a place on his staff. I was a joyful woman. It was a way opened by providence from this slew of despond, this counsel whose counsel no one takes. I wrote to Mr. Davis, with thanks and begging your pardon, how I would like to go. Mrs. Preston agrees with me. Mr. Chestnut ought to go. Through Mr. Chestnut the president might hear many things to the advantage of our state, et cetera. Letter from Quentin Washington. That was the best tonic yet. He writes so cheerfully. We have fifty thousand men on the peninsula, and McClellan eighty thousand. We expect that much disparity of numbers. We can stand that. April twenty-third. On April twenty-three, eighteen forty, I was married, aged seventeen. Consequently on the thirty-first of March, eighteen sixty-two, I was thirty-nine. I saw a wedding today from my window, which opens on Trinity Church. Nana Shand married a Dr. Wilson. Then a beautiful bevy of girls rushed into my room. Such a flutter and a chatter. Well, thank heaven for a wedding. It is a charming relief from the dismal litany of our daily song. A letter today from our octogenarian at Mulberry. His nephew, Jack Dees, had two horses shot under him. The old colonel has his growl. That's enough for glory and no hurt after all. He ends, however, with his never-failing refrain. We can't fight all the world. Two and two only make four. It can't make a thousand. Numbers will not lie. He says he has lost half a million already in railroad bonds, bank stock, western notes of hand, not to speak of negroes to be freed and lands to be confiscated, for he takes the gloomiest views of all things. April 26th, doleful dumps, alarm bells ringing. Telegrams say the mortar fleet has passed the forts at New Orleans. Down into the very depth of despair, are we? April 27th, New Orleans gone, and with it the Confederacy. That Mississippi ruins us if lost. The Confederacy has been done to death by the politicians. What wonder we are lost. Footnote. New Orleans had been seized by the Confederates at the outbreak of the war. Steps to capture it were soon taken by the Federals, and on April 18, 1862, the mortar flotilla under Farragut opened fire on its protecting forts. Making little impression on them, Farragut ran boldly past the forts and destroyed the Confederate fleet, comprising thirteen gun boats and two iron clads. On April 27th, he took formal possession of the city. In footnote. The soldiers have done their duty, all honor to the army. Statesmen as busy as bees about their own places or their personal honor, too busy to see the enemy at a distance. With a microscope, they were examining their own interests or their own wrongs, forgetting the interests of the people they represented. They were concocting newspaper paragraphs to injure the government. No matter how vital it may be, nothing can be kept from the enemy. They must publish themselves night and day what they are doing, or the omniscient bunkum will forget them. The fall of New Orleans means utter ruin to the private fortunes of the Prestons. Mr. Preston came from New Orleans so satisfied with Mansfield level and the tremendous steam ramps he saw there. While in New Orleans, Burnside offered Mr. Preston five hundred thousand dollars, a debt due to him from Burnside, and he refused to take it. He said the money was safer in Burnside's hands than his. And so it may prove so ugly as the outlook now. Burnside is wide awake. He is not a man to be caught napping. Mary Preston was saying she had asked the Hamptons how they relished the idea of being paupers. If the country is saved, none of us will care for that sort of thing. Philosophical and patriotic Mr. Chestnut came in saying, Conrad has been telegraphed from New Orleans that the great ironclad Louisiana went down at the first shot. Mr. Chestnut and Mary Preston walked off, first to the bulletin board, and then to the Prestons. End of Chapter 11 Part 3. Chapter 11, Part 4 of Adairi from Dixie. This Lubri Fox recording is in the public domain. Read by Laurie Ann Walden. Adairi from Dixie by Mary Chestnut. Chapter 11, Columbia, South Carolina. Part 4. April 29. A grand smash. The news from New Orleans fatal to us. Met Mr. Weston. He wanted to know where he could find a place of safety for two hundred Negroes. I looked into his face to see if he were in earnest, then to see if he were sane. There was a certain set of two hundred Negroes that had grown to be a nuisance. Apparently all the white men of the family had felt bound to stay at home to take care of them. There are people who still believe Negroes' property, like Noah's neighbors who insisted that the deluge would only be a little shower after all. These Negroes, however, were plowed in Weston's, a totally different part of speech. He gave field rifles to one company and forty thousand dollars to another. He is away with our army at Corinth. So I said, you may rely upon Mr. Chestnut who will assist you to his utter most in finding a home for these people. Nothing belonging to that patriotic gentleman shall come to grief if we have to take charge of them on our own place. Mr. Chestnut did get a place for them, as I said he would. Had to go to the governors or they would think we had hoisted the black flag. Heard there we are going to be beaten as Cortes beat the Mexicans by superior arms. Mexican bows and arrows made a poor showing in the face of Spanish accoutrements. Our enemies have such superior weapons of war, we hardly any, but what we capture from them in the fray. The Saxons and the Normans were in the same plight. War seems a game of chess, but we have an unequal number of pawns to begin with. We have knights, kings, queens, bishops, and castles enough. But our skillful generals, whenever they cannot arrange the board to suit them exactly, burn up everything and march away. We want them to save the country. They seem to think their whole duty is to destroy ships and save the army. Mr. Robert Barnwell wrote that he had to hang his head for South Carolina. We had not furnished our quota of the new levy, five thousand men. Today Colonel Chestnut published his statement to show that we have sent thirteen thousand instead of the mere number required of us. So Mr. Barnwell can hold up his head again. April thirtieth. The last day of this month of calamities. Lovell left the women and children to be shelled and took the army to a safe place. I do not understand why we do not send the women and children to the safe place and let the army stay where the fighting is to be. Armies are to save, not to be saved. At least to be saved is not their raison d'etre exactly. If this goes on the spirit of our people will be broken. One ray of comfort comes from Henry Marshall. Our army of the peninsula is fine. So good, I do not think McClellan will venture to attack it. So moat it be. May sixth. Mine is a painful, self-imposed task. But why write when I have nothing to chronicle but disaster? Footnote. The siege of Yorktown was begun on April five, 1862. The place being evacuated by the Confederates on May fourth. In footnote. So I read instead. First Consuelo, then Columba. Two ends of the pole, certainly. And then a translated edition of elective affinities. Food enough for thawed in every one of this odd assortment of books. At the Prestons where I am staying because Mr. Chestnut has gone to see his crab-dulled father whom he loves and who is reported ill. I met Christopher Hampton. He tells us Wigfall is out on a warpath, wants them to strike from Maryland. The President's opinion of the move is not given. Also Mr. Hampton met the first Lieutenant of the Kirkwoods, E. M. Boykin, says he is just the same man he was in the South Carolina College. In whatever company you may meet him, he is the pleasantest man there. A telegram reads, We have repulsed the enemy at Williamsburg. Footnote. The battle of Williamsburg was fought on May five, 1862, by a part of McClellan's army under General Hooker and others, the Confederates being commanded by General Johnston. In footnote. Oh, if we could drive them back to their aim country. Richmond was hard-pressed this day. The Mercury of today says, Jeff Davis now treats all men as if they were idiotic insects. Mary Preston said all sisters quarreled. No, we never quarrel, I and mine. We keep all our bitter words for our enemies. We are frank heathens. We hate our enemies and love our friends. Some people, our kind, can never make up after a quarrel. Hard words once only and all is over. To us, forgiveness is impossible. Forgiveness means calm indifference, philosophy while love lasts. Forgiveness of love's wrongs is impossible. Those dutiful wives who piously overlook, well, everything, do not care one fig for their husband. I settled that in my own mind years ago. Some people think it magnanimous to praise their enemies and to show their impartiality and justice by acknowledging the faults of their friends. I am for the simple rule, the good old plan, I praise whom I love and abuse whom I hate. Mary Preston has been translating Schiller aloud. We are provided with Bulwer's translation, Mrs. Austen's, Coleridge's and Carlyle's, and we show how each renders the passage Mary is to convert into English. In Vollenstein, at one point of the Max and Theklas scene, I like Carlyle better than Coleridge, though they say Coleridge's Vollenstein is the only translation in the world half so good as the original. Mrs. Barstow repeated some beautiful scraps by Uland, which I had never heard before. She is to write them for us. Peace and a literary leisure for my old age, unbroken by care and anxiety. General Preston accused me of degenerating into a boarding-house gossip and is answered triumphantly by his daughters. But, Papa, one new love to gossip with full well. Hampton Estate has 1500 Negroes unlike Washington, Mississippi. Hampton Girls talking in the language of James's novels. Neither Wade nor Preston, that splendid boy, would lay a lance in rest or couch it, which is the right phrase for fighting, to preserve slavery. They hate it as we do. What are they fighting for? Southern Rites, whatever that is. And they do not want to be understrapers forever to the Yankees. They talk well enough about it, but I forget what they say. Johnny Chestnut says, No use to give a reason, a fellow could not stay away from the fight, not well. It takes four Negroes to wait on Johnny satisfactorily. It is this giving up that kills me. Nor fault they talk of now, why not Charleston next. I read in a Western letter, not Beauregard, but the soldiers who stopped to drink the whiskey they had captured from the enemy lost us Shiloh. Cock Robin is as dead as he ever will be now. What matters it who killed him? May 12th. Mr. Chestnut says he is very glad he went to town. Everything in Charleston is so much more satisfactory than it is reported. Troops are in good spirits. It will take a lot of ironclads to take that city. Isaac Haines said at dinner yesterday that both Beauregard and the President had a great opinion of Mr. Chestnut's natural ability for strategy and military evolution. Honorable Mr. Barnwell concurred. That is, Mr. Barnwell had been told so by the President. Then why did not the President offer me something better than an aideship? I heard he offered to make you a general last year, and you said you could not go over other men's shoulders until you had earned promotion. You are too hard to please. No, not exactly that. I was only offered a colonelcy, and Mr. Barnwell persuaded me to stick to the Senate. Then he wanted my place, and between the two stools I fell to the ground. My Molly will forget Lige and her babies too. I asked her who sent me that beautiful bouquet I found on my center table. I give it to you, to as give to me. And Molly was all wriggle, giggle, blush. May 18th. Norfolk has been burned, and the Merrimack sunk without striking a blow since her coup d'etat in Hampton Roads. Red Milton. See the speech of Adam to Eve in a new light. Women will not stay at home, will go out to see and be seen, even if it be by the devil himself. Very encouraging letters from Honorable Mr. Mimminger and from L. Q. Washington. They tell the same story in very different words. It amounts to this. Not one foot of Virginia soil is to be given up without a bitter fight for it. We have 105,000 men in all, McClellan 190,000. We can stand that disparity. What things I have been said to have said. Mr. Blank heard me make scoffing remarks about the Governor and the Council. Or he thinks he heard me. James Chestnut wrote him a note that my name was to be kept out of it. Indeed, that he was never to mention my name again under any possible circumstances. It was all preposterous nonsense, but it annoyed my husband amazingly. He said it was a scheme to use my chatter to his injury. He was very kind about it. He knows my real style so well that he can always tell my real impudence from what is fabricated for me. There is said to be an order from Butler turning over the women of New Orleans to his soldiers. Thus is the measure of his iniquities filled. We thought that generals always restrained by shot or sword if need be, the brutality of soldiers. This hideous cross-eyed beast orders his men to treat the ladies of New Orleans as women of the town to punish them, he says, for their insolence. Footnote. General Benjamin F. Butler took command of New Orleans on May 2, 1862. The author's reference is to his famous order number 28, which reads, as the officers and soldiers of the United States have been subject to repeated insults from the women, calling themselves ladies of New Orleans, in return for the most scrupulous non-interference and courtesy on our part. It is ordered that hereafter, when any female shall, by word, gesture or movement, insult or show contempt for any officer or soldier of the United States, she shall be regarded and held liable to be treated as a woman of the town, implying her vocation. This and other acts of Butler in New Orleans led Jefferson Davis to issue a proclamation, declaring Butler to be a felon and an outlaw, and have captured that he should be instantly hanged. In December Butler was superseded at New Orleans by general banks. In footnote. Footprints on the boundaries of another world once more. Willie Taylor, before he left home for the army, fancied one day, day remember, that he saw Albert Rhett standing by his side. He recoiled from the ghostly presence. You need not do that, Willie. You will soon be as I am. Willie rushed into the next room to tell them what had happened and fainted. It had a very depressing effect upon him. And now the other day he died in Virginia. May 24th. The enemy are landing at Georgetown. With a little more audacity, where could they not land? But we have given them such a scare, they are cautious. If it be true, I hope some cool-headed white men will make the Negroes save the rice for us. It is so much needed. They say it might have been done at Port Royal with a little more energy. South Carolinians have pluck enough, but they only work by fits and starts. There is no continuous effort. They can't be counted on for steady work. They will stop to play or enjoy life in some shape. Without let or hindrance, Halleck is being reinforced. Beauregard, unmolested, was making some fine speeches and issuing proclamations while we were fatuously looking for him to make a tiger's spring on Huntsville. Why not? Hope springs eternal in the southern breast. My Hebrew friend, Mim Cohen, has a son in the war. He is in John Chestnut's company. Cohen is a high name among the Jews. It means Aaron. She has long fits of silence and is absent-minded. If she is suddenly roused, she is apt to say with overflowing eyes and clashed hands. If it please God to spare his life. Her daughter is the sweetest little thing. The son is the mother's idol. Mrs. Cohen was Miriam De Leon. I have known her intimately all my life. Mrs. Bartow, the widow of Colonel Bartow, who was killed at Manassas, was Miss Barion, daughter of Judge Barion of Georgia. She is now in one of the departments here cutting bonds, Confederate bonds, for five hundred Confederate dollars a year, a penniless woman. Judge Carol, her brother-in-law, has been urgent with her to come and live in his home. He has a large family and she will not be an added burden to him. In spite of all he can say, she will not forego her resolution. She will be independent. She is a resolute little woman, with the softest, silkiest voice in ways, and clever to the last point. Columbia is the place for good living, pleasant people, pleasant dinners, pleasant drives. I feel that I have put the dinners in the wrong place. They are the climax of the good things here. This is the most hospitable place in the world and the dinners are worthy of it. In Washington there was an endless succession of state dinners. I was kindly used. I do not remember ever being condemned to two dull neighbors. On one side or the other was a clever man. So I liked Washington dinners. In Montgomery there were a few dinners, Mrs. Pollards, for instance, but the society was not smoothed down or in shape. Such as it was, it was given over to balls and suppers. In Charleston Mr. Chestnut went to gentlemen's dinners all the time, no ladies present. Flowers were sent to me and I was taken to drive and asked to tea. There could not have been nicer suppers, more perfect of their kind than were to be found at the winding up of those festivities. In Richmond there were balls, which I did not attend. Very few to which I was asked. The McFarland's and Lyons, all I can remember. James Chestnut dined out nearly every day. But then the breakfasts, the Virginia breakfasts, were always pleasant people. Indeed, I have had a good time everywhere. Always clever people and people I liked and everybody so good to me. Here in Columbia family dinners are the specialty. You call or they pick you up and drive home with you. Oh, stay to dinner and you stay gladly. They send for your husband and he comes willingly. Then comes a perfect dinner. You do not see how it could be improved and yet they have not had time to alter things or add because of the unexpected guests. They have everything of the best, silver, glass, china, table linen, and damask, etc. And then the planters live within themselves as they call it. From the plantations come mutton, beef, poultry, cream, butter, eggs, fruits, and vegetables. It is easy to live here with a cook who has been sent for training to the best eating house in Charleston. Old Mrs. Chestnut's Romeo was a apprentice at Jones's. I do not know where Mrs. Preston's got his degree, but he deserves a medal. At the Preston's James Chestnut induced Buck to declaim something about Joan of Arc, which she does in a manner to touch all hearts. While she was speaking, my husband turned to a young gentleman who was listening to the chatter of several girls and said, Ecouté. The youth stared at him a moment in bewilderment. Then gravely rose and began turning down the gas. Isabella said, Ecouté then means put out the lights. I recall a scene which took place during a ball given by Mrs. Preston while her husband was in Louisiana. Mrs. Preston was resplendent in diamonds, point lace, and velvet. There is a gentle dignity about her which is very attractive. Her voice is low and sweet, and her will is iron. She is exceedingly well informed, but very quiet, retiring, and reserved. Indeed, her apparent gentleness almost amounts to timidity. She has chiseled regularity of features. A majestic figure perfectly molded. Governor Manning said to me, Look at Sister Caroline. Does she look as if she had the pluck of a heroin? Then he related how a little while ago William, the butler, came to tell her that John, the footman, was drunk in the cellar, mad with drink, that he had a carving knife which he was brandishing in drunken fury, and he was keeping everybody from their business, threatening to kill anyone who dared to go into the basement. They were like a flock of frightened sheep down there. She did not speak to one of us, but followed William down to the basement, holding up her skirts. She found the servants scurrying everywhere, screaming and shouting that John was crazy and going to kill them. John was bellowing like a bull of bastion, knife in hand, chasing them at his pleasure. Mrs. Preston walked up to him. Give me that knife, she demanded. He handed it to her. She laid it on the table. Now come with me, she said, putting her hand on his collar. She led him away to the empty smokehouse, and there she locked him in and put the key in her pocket. Then she returned to her guests, without a ripple on her placid face. She told me of it smiling and serene as you see her now, the governor concluded. Before the war shut him in, General Preston sent to the lakes for his salmon, to Mississippi for his venison, to the mountains for his mutton and grouse. It is good enough, the best dish at all these houses, what the Spanish call the hearty welcome. Thackeray says at every American table he was first served with grilled hostess. At the head of the table sat a person fiery-faced, anxious, nervous, inwardly murmuring like Falstaff. Would it were night, Hal, and all were well. At Mulberry the house is always filled to overflowing, and one day is curiously like another. People are coming and going, carriages driving up or driving off. It has the air of a watering place, where one does not pay, and where there are no strangers. At Christmas the china closet gives up its treasures. The glass, china, silver, fine linen reserved for grand occasions come forth. As for the dinner itself, it is only a matter of greater quantity, more turkey, more mutton, more partridges, more fish, etc., and more solemn stiffness. Usually a half dozen persons unexpectedly dropping in make no difference. The family let the housekeeper know, that is all. People are beginning to come here from Richmond. One swallow does not make a summer, but it shows how the wind blows, these straws too, Mrs. Constitution Brown and Mrs. Wise. The Gibson's are at Dr. Gibson's. It does look squally. We are drifting on the breakers. End of Chapter 11, Part 4. Chapter 11, Part 5 of Adari from Dixie. This Lubrivox recording is in the public domain. Recorded by Laurie Ann Walden. Adari from Dixie by Mary Chestnut. Chapter 11, Columbia, South Carolina, Part 5. May 29th. Betsy, recalcitrant maid of the W's, has been sold to a telegraph man. She is as handsome as a mulatto ever gets to be, and clever in every kind of work. My Molly thinks her mistress very lucky in getting rid of her. She was a dangerous inmate. But she will be a good cook, a good chambermaid, a good dairymaid, a beautiful, clear stature, and the most thoroughly good-for-nothing woman I know to her new owners, if she chooses. Molly evidently hates her, but thanks at her duty to stand by her color. Mrs. Gibson is a Philadelphia woman. She is true to her husband and children, but she does not believe in us, the Confederacy, I mean. She is despondent and hopeless, as wanting in faith of our ultimate success, as is Sally Baxter Hampton. I make allowances for those people. If I had married north, they would have a heavy handful in me just now up there. Mrs. Chestnut, my mother-in-law, has been sixty years in the South, and she has not changed in feeling or in taste one iota. She cannot like hominy for breakfast or rice for dinner without a relish to give it some flavor. She cannot eat watermelons and sweet potatoes sans discretion as we do. She will not eat hot cornbread à discretion and hot buttered biscuit without any. Richmond is obliged to fall, sighed Mrs. Gibson. You would say so too if you had seen our poor soldiers. Poor soldiers, said I. Are you talking of Stonewall Jackson's men? Poor soldiers indeed. She said her mind was fixed on one point and had ever been, though she married and came south. She never would own slaves. Who would that was not born to it? I cried, more excited than ever. She is very handsome, very clever, and has very agreeable manners. Dear Madam, she says, with tears in her beautiful eyes, they have three armies. But Stonewall has routed one of them already, Heath another. She only answered by an unbelieving moan. Nothing seemed to suit her, I said, as we went away. You did not, certainly, said someone to me. You contradicted every word she said with a sort of indignant protest. We met Mrs. Hampton Gibbs at the door, another Virginia woman, as good as gold. They told us Mrs. Davis was delightfully situated at Raleigh, North Carolinians so loyal, so hospitable. She had not been allowed to eat a meal at the hotel. How different from Columbia, said Dr. Gibbs, looking at Mrs. Gibson, who has, no doubt, been left to take all of her meals at his house. Oh no, cried Mary, you do Columbia injustice. Mrs. Chestnut used to tell us that she was never once turned over to the tender mercies of the Congaree cuisine, and at McMahon's it is fruit, flowers, invitations to dinner every day. After we came away, why did you not back me up, I was asked? Why did you let them slander Columbia? It was awfully awkward, I said, but you see it would have been worse to let Dr. Gibbs and Mrs. Gibson see how different it was with other people. Took a moonlight walk after tea at the Halcott Greens. All the company did honor to the beautiful night by walking home with me. Uncle Hamilton Boykin is here, staying at the Desesures. He says, Manassas was play to Williamsburg, and he was at both battles. He led a part of Stewart's cavalry at the charge at Williamsburg, riding a hundred yards ahead of his company. Tombs is ready for another revolution, and curses freely everything Confederate from the President down to a horse-boy. He thinks there is a conspiracy against him in the army. Why? Heavens and Earth, why? June 2nd, a battle is said to be raging round Richmond. I am at the Prestons. James Chestnut has gone to Richmond suddenly on business of the military department. It is always his luck to arrive in the nick of time and be present at a great battle. Footnote, the battle of Fair Oaks, or Seven Pines, took place a few miles east of Richmond on May 31 and June 1, 1862, the Federals being commanded by McClellan and the Confederates by General Joseph E. Johnston. In footnote. Wade Hampton shot in the foot and Johnston Pettigrew killed. A telegram says Lee and Davis were both on the field, the enemy being repulsed. Telegraph operator said, Madam, our men are fighting. Of course they are. What else is there for them to do now but fight? But Madam, the news is encouraging. Each army is burying its dead. That looks like a drawn battle. We haunt the bulletin board. Back to McMayons. Mem Cohen is ill. Her daughter, Isabel, warns me not to mention the battle raging around Richmond. Young Cohen is in it. Mrs. Preston, anxious and unhappy about her sons. John is with General U.G. at Richmond. Willie in the swamps on the coast with his company. Mem tells me her cousin, Edwin D. Leon, is sent by Mr. Davis on a mission to England. Reverend Robert Barnwell has returned to the hospital. Oh, that we had given our thousand dollars to the hospital and not to the gunboat. Stonewall Jackson's movements, the Herald says, do us no harm. It is bringing out volunteers in great numbers. And a Philadelphia paper abused us so fervently I felt all the blood in me rushed to my head with rage. June 3rd. Dr. John Chavis is making infernal machines in Charleston to blow the Yankees up. Pretty name they have those machines. My horses, the overseer says, are too poor to send over. There was corn enough on the place for two years, they said, in January. Now in June they write that it will not last until the new crop comes in. Somebody is having a good time on the plantation if it be not my poor horses. Molly will tell me all when she comes back and more. Mr. Venable has been made an aide to General Robert E. Lee. He is at Vicksburg and writes, When the fight is over here I shall be glad to go to Virginia. He is in capital spirits. I notice armymen all are when they write. Apropos of calling Major Venable Mr. Let it be noted that in social intercourse we are not prone to give handles to the names of those we know well and of our nearest and dearest. A General's wife thinks it bad form to call her husband anything but Mr. When she gives him his title she simply drops into it by accident. If I am mixed on titles in this diary let no one blame me. Telegrams come from Richmond ordering troops from Charleston. Cannot be sent, for the Yankees are attacking Charleston, doubtless with the purpose to prevent Lees receiving reinforcements from there. Sat down at my window in the beautiful moonlight and tried hard for pleasant thoughts. A man began to play on the flute with piano accompaniment. First, ever of thee I am fondly dreaming, and then, the long, long weary day. At first I found this but a compliment to the beautiful scene, and it was soothing to my wrought-up nerves. But Fawn Weber's last waltz was too much, I broke down. Heaven's what a bitter cry came forth with such floods of tears. The wonder is there was any of me left. I learned that Richmond women go in their carriages for the wounded, carry them home, and nurse them. One saw a man too weak to hold his musket. She took it from him, put it on her shoulder, and helped the poor fellow along. If ever there was a man who could control every expressions of emotion, who could play stoic or an Indian chief, it is James Chestnut. But one day when he came in from the council, he had to own to a breakdown. He was awfully ashamed of his weakness. There was a letter from Mrs. Gillyard asking him to help her, and he tried to read it to the council. She wanted a permit to go on to her son, who liars wounded in Virginia. Colonel Chestnut could not control his voice. There was not a dry eye there when suddenly one man called out. God bless the woman. Justin Pettigrew's aide says he left his chief mortally wounded on the battlefield. Just before Justin Pettigrew went to Italy to take a hand in the war there for freedom, I met him one day at Mrs. Frank Captain's. A number of people were present. Someone spoke of the engagement of the beautiful Miss Blank to Hugh Rose. Someone else asked, how do you know they are engaged? Well, I never heard it, but I saw it. In London a month or so ago I entered Mrs. Blank's drawing room, and I saw these two young people seated on a sofa opposite the door. Well, that amounted to nothing. No, not in itself, but they looked so foolish and so happy. I have noticed newly engaged people always look that way. And so on. Justin Pettigrew was white and red in quick succession during this turn of the conversation. He was in a rage of indignation and disgust. I think this kind of talk is taking a liberty with the young lady's name, he exclaimed finally, and that it is an impertinence in us. I fancy him left dying alone. I wonder what they feel those who are left to die of their wounds alone on the battlefield. Free schools are not everything as witnessed this spelling. Yankee epistles found in camp show how illiterate they can be with all their boasted schools. Fredericksburg is spelled F-R-E-D-R-E-X-B-I-R-G medicine M-E-T-I-S-O-N and we read to my S-W-E-A-T brother, etc. For the first time in my life no books can interest me. Life is so real, so utterly earnest, that fiction is flat. Nothing but what is going on in this distracted world of ours can arrest my attention for ten minutes at a time. June 4th. Battles occur near Richmond with bombardment of Charleston. Beauregard is said to be fighting his way out or in. Mrs. Gibson is here at Dr. Gibson's. Tears are always in her eyes. Her eldest son is Willie Preston's lieutenant. They are down on the coast. She owns that she has no hope at all. She was a miss heir of Philadelphia and says, We may look for Burnside now. Our troops which held him down to his iron flotilla have been withdrawn. They are three to one against us now, and they have hardly begun to put out their strength, in numbers, I mean. We have come to the end of our tether, except we wait for the yearly crop of boys as they grow up to the requisite age. She would make despondent the most sanguine person alive. As a general rule, says Mrs. Gibson, government people are sanguine, but the son of one high-functionary whispered to Mary G. as he handed her into the car. Richmond is bound to go. The idea now is that we are to be starved out. If they shut us in, prolong the agony, it can then have but one end. Mrs. Preston and I speak in whispers, but Mrs. McCord scorns whispers and speaks out. She says, There are our soldiers, since the world began, there never were better, but God does not deign to send us a general worthy of them. I do not mean drill sergeants or military old maids who will not fight until everything is just so. The real ammunition of our war is faith in ourselves and enthusiasm in our cause. West Point sits down on enthusiasm, laughs it to scorn. It wants discipline. And now comes a new danger, these blockade runners. They are filling their pockets, and they jive and sneer at the fools who fight. Don't you see this stonewall, how he fires the soldier's hearts? He will be our leader, maybe after all. They say he does not care how many are killed. His business is to save the country, not the army. He fights to win, God bless him, and he wins. If they do not want to be killed, they can stay at home. They say he leaves the sick and wounded to be cared for by those whose business it is to do so. His business is war. They say he wants to hoist the black flag, have a short, sharp, decisive war, and end it. He is a Christian soldier. June 5th, Beauregard retreating and his rearguard cut off. If Beauregard's veterans will not stand, why should we expect our newly levied reserves to do it? The Yankee general who is besieging Savannah announces his orders are to take Savannah in two weeks' time and then proceed to erase Charleston from the face of the earth. Albert Luria was killed in the Battle of June 1st. Last summer, when a bomb fell in the very thick of his company, he picked it up and threw it into the water. Think of that, those of you who love life. The company sent the bomb to his father, and scribed on it were the words, Albert Luria, bravest, where all are brave. Isaac Hain did the same thing at Fort Moultrie. This race has brains enough, but they are not active-minded like those old revolutionary characters, the Middletons, Lounzes, Rutledgees, Marians, Sumptors. They have come direct from active-minded forefathers, or they would not have been here. But with two or three generations of gentlemen planters, how changed has the blood become? Of late, all the active-minded men who have sprung to the front in our government were immediate descendants of Scotch or Scotch Irish, Calhoun, McDuffie, Chevis and Pettigrew, who huganotted his name but could not tie up his Irish. Our planters are nice fellows, but slow to move, impulsive but hard to keep moving. They are wonderful for a spurt, but with all their strength they liked rest. June 6th. Paul Hain, the poet, has taken rooms here. My husband came and offered to buy me a pair of horses. He says I need more exercise in the open air. Come now, are you providing me with the means of a rapid retreat? Said I. I am pretty badly equipped for marching. Mrs. Rose Greenhowe is in Richmond. One half of the ungrateful Confederates say Seward's Center. My husband says the Confederacy owes her a debt it can never pay. She warned them at Manassas, and so they got Joe Johnston and his paladins to appear upon the stage in the very nick of time. In Washington they said Lord Napier left a legacy to the British legation, which accepted the gift, unlike the British nation who would not accept Emma Hamilton and her daughter, Horatia, though they were willed to the nation by Lord Nelson. Mem Cohen, fresh from the hospital where she went with a beautiful Jewish friend. Rachel, as we will call her, be it her name or no, was put to feed a very weak patient. Mem noticed what a handsome fellow he was and how quiet and clean. She fancied by those tokens that he was a gentleman. In performance of her duties the lovely young nurse leaned kindly over him and held the cup to his lips. When that ceremony was over and she had wiped his mouth, to her horror she felt a pair of by no means weak arms around her neck and a kiss upon her lips, which she thought strong indeed. She did not say a word. She made no complaint. She slipped away from the hospital and hereafter in her hospital work will minister at long range, no matter how weak and weary, sick and sore the patient may be. And, said Mem, I thought he was a gentleman. Well, a gentleman is a man, after all, and she ought not to have put those red lips of hers so near. June 7th. Chavis McCord's battery on the coast has three guns and one hundred men. If this battery should be captured, John's Island and James Island would be open to the enemy, and so Charleston exposed utterly. Wade Hampton writes to his wife that Chickahominy was not as decided a victory as he could have wished. Fort Pillow and Memphis have been given up. Next and next. Footnote. Fort Pillow was on the Mississippi above Memphis. It had been erected by the Confederates but was occupied by the Federals on June 5th, 1862, the Confederates having evacuated and partially destroyed it the day before. On June 6th, 1862, the Federal Fleet defeated the Confederates near Memphis. The city, soon afterward, was occupied by the Federals. End of Chapter 11, Part 5. Chapter 11, Part 6 of A Diary from Dixie. This looper-box recording is in the public domain. Read by Laurie Ann Walden. A Diary from Dixie by Mary Chestnut. Chapter 11, Columbia, South Carolina. Part 6. June 9th. When we read of the battles in India, in Italy, in the Crimea, what did we care? Only an interesting topic like any other to look for in the paper. Now you hear of a battle with a thrill and a shudder. It has come home to us. Half the people that we know in the world are under the enemy's guns. A telegram reaches you and you leave it on your lap. You are pale with fright. You handle it or you dread to touch it as you would a rattlesnake. Worse, worse, a snake could only strike you. How many, many will this scrap of paper tell you have gone to their death? When you meet people, sad and sorrowful is the greeting. They press your hand. Tears stand in their eyes or roll down their cheeks as they happen to possess more or less self-control. They have brother, father, or sons as the case may be in battle. And now this thing seems never to stop. We have no breathing time given us. It cannot be so at the north, for the papers say gentlemen do not go into the ranks there, but are officers or clerks of departments. Then we see so many members of foreign regiments among our prisoners, Germans, Irish, Scotch. The proportion of trouble is awfully against us. Every company on the field, rank and file, is filled with our nearest and dearest, who are common soldiers. Mim Cohen's story today. A woman she knew heard her son was killed and had hardly taken in the horror of it when they came to say it was all a mistake in the name. She fell on her knees with a shout of joy. Praise the Lord, O my soul! She cried in her wild delight. The household was totally upset. The swing back of the pendulum from the scene of weeping and wailing of a few moments before was very exciting. In the midst of this hubbub, the hearst drove up with the poor boy in his metallic coffin. Does anybody wonder so many women die? Grief and constant anxiety kill nearly as many women at home as men are killed on the battlefield. Mim's friend is at the point of death with brain fever. The sudden changes from grief to joy and joy to grief were more than she could bear. A story from New Orleans. As some Yankees passed two boys playing in the street, one of the boys threw a handful of burned cotton at them saying, I keep this for you. The other, not to be outdone, spit at the Yankees and said, I keep this for you. The Yankees marked the house. Afterward a corporal's guard came. Madam was affably conversing with the friend, and in vain the friend, who was a mere morning collar, protested he was not the master of the house. He was marched off to prison. Mr. Moyes got his money out of New Orleans. He went to a station with his two sons, who were quite small boys. When he got there the carriage that he expected was not to be seen. He had brought no money with him knowing he might be searched. Some friend called out, I will lend you my horse, but then you will be obliged to leave the children. This offer was accepted, and as he rode off one of the boys called out, Papa, here is your tobacco which you have forgotten. Mr. Moyes turned back and the boy handed up a roll of tobacco which he had held openly in his hand all the time. Mr. Moyes took it and galloped off waving his hat to them. In that roll of tobacco was encased twenty-five thousand dollars. Now the Mississippi is virtually open to the Yankees. Beauregard has evacuated Corinth. Footnote. Corinth was besieged by the Federals under General Halleck in May 1862, and was evacuated by the Confederates under Beauregard on May 29th. End footnote. Henry Knot was killed at Shiloh. Mrs. Arzay wrote to tell us. She had no hope. To be conquered and ruined had always been her fate, strive as she might. And now she knew it would be through her country that she would be made to feel. She had had more than most women to endure, and the battle of life she had tried to fight with courage, patience, faith. Long years ago, when she was young, her lover died. Afterward she married another. Then her husband died, and next her only son. When New Orleans fell, her only daughter was there, and Mrs. Arzay went to her. Well, may she say that she has bravely borne her burden till now. Footnote. She lost her life in the Windsor Hotel fire in New York. End footnote. Stonewall said in his quaint way, I like strong drink, so I never touch it. May heaven who sent him to help us save him from all harm. My husband traced Stonewall's triumphal career on the map. He has defeated Fremont and taken all his cannon. Now he is after shields. The language of the telegram is vague. Stonewall has taken plenty of prisoners. Plenty no doubt, and enough and to spare. We can't feed our own soldiers, and how are we to feed prisoners? They denounce tombs in some Georgia paper, which I saw today, for planting a full crop of cotton. They say he ought to plant provisions for soldiers. And now every man in Virginia and the eastern part of South Carolina is in revolt, because old men and boys are ordered out as a reserve corps. And worst of all, sacred property, that is, Negroes, have been seized and sent out to work on the fortifications along the coastline. We are in a fine condition to fortify Columbia. June 10th. General Gregg writes that Chickahominy was a victory monkey, because Joe Johnston received a disabling wound, and G. W. Smith was ill. The subordinates in command had not been made acquainted with the plan of battle. Footnote. This must be a reference to the Battle of Seven Pines or to the campaign of the Chickahominy, up to and inclusive of that battle, in footnote. A letter from John Chestnut, who says it must be all a mistake about Wade Hampton's wound, for he saw him in the field to the very last, that is, until late that night. Hampton writes to Mary McDuffie that the ball was extracted from his foot on the field, and that he was in the saddle all day, but that when he tried to take his boot off at night his foot was so inflamed and swollen the boot had to be cut away, and the wound became more troublesome than he had expected. Mrs. Preston sent her carriage to take us to see Mrs. Urbamot, whom Mary Gibson calls her Mrs. Burgamot. Mrs. Bay came down, ever blooming, in a cap so formidable I could but laugh. It was covered with a bristling row of white satin spikes. She coyly refused to enter Mrs. Preston's carriage, to put foot into it, to use her own words. But she allowed herself to be over persuaded. I am so ill, Mrs. Ben Taylor said to Dr. Trezevant. Surely she is too ill to be going about, she ought to be in bed. She is very feeble, very nervous as you say, but then she is living on nervous excitement. If you shut her up she would die at once. A queer weakness of the heart I have. Sometimes it beats so feebly I am sure it has stopped altogether. Then they say I have fainted, but I never lose consciousness. Mrs. Preston and I were talking of negroes and cows. A negro, no matter how sensible he is on any other subject, can never be convinced that there is any necessity to feed a cow. Turn him out and let him grass. Grass good enough for cow. Famous news comes from Richmond, but not so good from the coast. Mrs. Izard said, quoting, I forget whom, if West Point could give brains as well as training. Smith is under arrest for disobedience of orders, Pemberton's orders. This is the third general whom Pemberton has displaced within a few weeks, Ripley, Mercer, and now Smith. When I told my husband that Molly was full of air since her late trip home, he made answer, Tell her to go to the devil. She or anybody else on the plantation who is dissatisfied, let them go. It is bother enough to feed and clothe them now. When he went over to the plantation, he returned charmed with their loyalty to him, their affection, and their faithfulness. Sixteen more Yankee regiments have landed on James Island. Easton writes, They have twice the energy and enterprise of our people. I answered, Wait a while. Let them alone until climate and mosquitoes and sand flies and dealing with negroes takes it all out of them. Stonewall is a regular brick, going all the time, winning his way wherever he goes. Governor Pickens called to see me. His wife is in great trouble, anxiety, uncertainty. Her brother and her brother-in-law are either killed or taken prisoners. Tom Taylor says Wade Hampton did not leave the field on account of his wound. What heroism, said someone. No, what luck. He is the luckiest man alive. He'll never be killed. He was shot in the temple, but that did not kill him. His soldiers believe in his luck. General Scott, on Southern soldiers, says, We have a lawn, courage, woodcraft, consummate horsemanship, endurance of pain equal to the Indians, but that we will not submit to discipline. We will not take care of things or husband our resources. Where we are there is waste and destruction. If it could all be done by one wild, desperate dash, we would do it. But he does not think we can stand the long, blank months between the axe, the waiting. We can bear pain without a murmur, but we will not submit to be bored, etc. Now for the other side. Men of the North can wait. They can bear discipline. They can endure forever. Losses in battle are nothing to them. Their resources in men and materials of war are inexhaustible, and if they see fit, they will fight to the bitter end. Here is a nice prospect for us, as comfortable as the old man's croak at Mulberry. Bad times, worse coming. Mrs. McCord says, In the hospital the better-born, that is, those born in the purple, the gentry, those who are accustomed to a life of luxury, are the better patients. They endure in silence. They are hardier, stronger, tougher, less liable to break down than the sons of the soil. Why is that? I asked. And she answered, Something in man that is more than the body. I know how it feels to die. I have felt it again and again. For instance, someone calls out, Albert Sidney Johnston is killed. My heart stands still. I feel no more. I am, for so many seconds, so many minutes, I know not how long, utterly without sensation of any kind, dead. And then there is that great throb, that keen agony of physical pain, and the works are wound up again. The ticking of the clock begins, and I take up the burden of life once more. Someday it will stop too long, or my feeble heart will be too worn out to make that awakening jar, and all will be over. I do not think when the end comes, that there will be any difference, except the miracle of the new, wind-up throb. And now good news is just as exciting as bad. Hurrah, Stonewall has saved us. The pleasure is almost pain, because of my way of feeling it. Miriam's Luria and the coincidences of his life. He was born Moses, and is the hero of the bombshell. His mother was at a hotel in Charleston, when kind-hearted Anna de Leon Moses went for her sister-in-law, and gave up her own chamber, that the child might be born in the comfort and privacy of a home. Only our people are given to such excessive hospitality. So little Luria was born in Anna de Leon's chamber. After Chickahominy, when he, now a man, lay mortally wounded, Anna Moses, who was living in Richmond, found him, and she brought him home, though her house was crowded to the doorsteps. She gave up her chamber to him, and so, as he had been born in her room, in her room he died. June 12th. New England's butler, best known to us as Beast Butler, is famous, or infamous, now. His amazing order to his soldiers at New Orleans and comments on it are in everybody's mouth. We hardly expected, from Massachusetts, behavior to shame a Comanche. One happy moment has come into Mrs. Preston's life. I watched her face today, as she read the morning papers. Willie's battery is lauded to the skies. Every paper gave him a paragraph of praise. South Carolina was at Beauregard's feet after Fort Sumter. Since Shiloh, she has gotten up, and looks a-scant, rather, when his name is mentioned. And without price or Beauregard, who takes charge of the Western forces? Can we hold out if England and France hold off? Cries, Mim. No, our time has come. For shame, faint heart, our people are brave, our cause is just, our spirit and our patient endurance beyond reproach. Here came in Mary Canty's voice. I may not have any logic, any sense. I give it up. My woman's instinct tells me, all the same, that slavery's time has come. If we don't end it, they will. After all this, tried to read Uncle Tom, but could not. Too sickening. Think of a man sending his little son to beat a human being tied to a tree. It is as bad as Squeers beating Smyke. Flesh and blood revolt. You must skip that. It is too bad. Mr. Preston told a story of Joe Johnston as a boy. A party of boys at Abingdon were out on a spree. More boys than horses. So Joe Johnston rode behind John Preston, who is his cousin. While going over the mountains, they tried to change horses and got behind a servant who was in charge of them all. The servant's horse kicked up through Joe Johnston and broke his leg. A bone showed itself. Hello, boys. Come here and look. The confounded bone has come clear through, called out Joe Cooley. They had to carry him on their shoulders, relieving guard. As one party grew tired, another took him up. They knew he must suffer fearfully, but he never said so. He was as cool and quiet after his hurt as before. He was pretty roughly handled, but they could not help it. His father was in a towering rage because his son's leg was to be set by a country doctor, and it might be crooked in the process. Jessica Hommany, brave but unlucky Joe, had already eleven wounds. June 13th. Deca's wedding. It took place last year. We were all lying on the bed or sofas, taking it Cooley as to undress. Mrs. Singleton had the floor. They were engaged before they went up to Charlottesville. Alexander was on Greg's staff and Greg was not hard on him. Deca was the worst in love girl she ever saw. Letters came while we were at the hospital from Alex, urging her to let him marry her at once. In war times, human events, life especially, are very uncertain. For several days consecutively she cried without ceasing and then she consented. The rooms at the hospital were all crowded. Deca and I slept together in the same room. It was arranged by letter that the marriage should take place. A luncheon at her grandfather Miners and then she was to depart with Alex for a few days at Richmond. We could see their brief slice of honeymoon. The day came. The wedding breakfast was ready. So was the bride in all her bridal array but no Alex, no bridegroom. Alas, such is the uncertainty of a soldier's life. The bride said nothing but she wept like a water nymph. At dinner she plucked up heart and at my earnest request was about to join us. And then the cry, the bridegroom cometh. He brought his best man and other friends. We had a jolly dinner. Circumstances over which he had no control had kept him away. His father sat next to Deca and talked to her all the time as if she had been already married. It was a piece of absent mindedness on his part, pure and simple. But it was very trying and the girl had had much to stand that morning you can well understand. Immediately after dinner the belated bridegroom proposed a walk on. Deca, upon her return, said to me send for Robert Barnwell I mean to be married today. Impossible, no spare room in the house no getting away from here the trains all gone. Don't you know this hospital place is crammed to the ceiling? Alex says I promise to marry him today. It is not his fault he could not come before. I shook my head. I don't care, said the positive to him today and I will send for the Reverend Robert Barnwell. We found Robert after a world of trouble and the bride, lovely in Swiss Muslim, was married. Then I proposed they should take another walk and I went to one of my sister, nurses and beg her to take me in for the night as I wished to resign my room to the young couple. At daylight next day they took the train for Richmond such is the small allowance Beauregard's telegram he cannot leave the army of the west his health is bad no doubt the sea breezes would restore him but he cannot come now such a lovely name Gustave Taltant Beauregard but Jackson and Johnston and Smith and Jones will do and Lee how short and sweet Every day, says Mim they come here in shoals meant to say we cannot hold Richmond and we cannot hold Charleston much longer wretches, beasts why do you come here? why don't you stay there and fight? don't you see that you own yourselves cowards by coming away in the very face of a battle if you are not liars as to the danger you are cowards to run away from it thus roars the practical Mim growing more furious at each word these Jeremiah's laugh they think she means others not the present company Tom U.G. resigned his place in the United States Navy and came to us the Iroquois was his ship in the old Navy they say as he stood in the rigging after he was shot in the leg when his ship was leading the attack upon the Iroquois the old crew in the Iroquois cheered him and when his body was born in the Federals took off their caps in respect for his gallant conduct when he was dying Metta U.G. said to him an officer wants to see you he is one of the enemy let him come in but when he heard the man's name no, no I do not want to see a southern man who is now in Lincoln's Navy the officers of the United States Navy attended his funeral End of Chapter 11, Part 6 Chapter 11, Part 7 of Adari from Dixie this Lubravok's recording is in the public domain read by Laurie Ann Walden Adari from Dixie by Mary Chestnut Chapter 11, Columbia, South Carolina Part 7 June 14th all things are against us Memphis gone Mississippi Fleet annihilated and we hear it all as stolidly apathetic as if it were a story of the English war against China which happened a year or so ago the sons of Mrs. John Julius Pringle have come they were left at school in the north a young U.G. is with them they seem to have had adventures enough walked, waited, rode in boats, if boats they could find swam rivers when boats there were none brave lads are they one can but admire their pluck and energy Mrs. Fisher of Philadelphia Naye Middleton gave them money to make the attempt to get home Stuart's cavalry have rushed through McClellan's lines and burned five of his transports Jackson has been reinforced by 16,000 men and they hope the enemy will be drawn from around Richmond until they be the seat of war John Chestnut is in Whiting's brigade which has been sent to Stonewall Mimson is with the Boykin Rangers Company A No. 1 we call it and she has persistently wept ever since she heard the news it is no child's play, she says when you are with Stonewall he doesn't play at soldiering he doesn't take care of his men at all he only goes to kill the Yankees Wade Hampton is here he is not in the foot but he knows no more about France than he does of the man in the moon wet blanket he is just now Johnston badly wounded Lee is king of spades they are all once more digging for dear life unless we can reinforce Stonewall the game is up our chiefs contrive to dampen and destroy the enthusiasm of all who go near them so much entrenching and falling back destroys the morale of any army it is everlasting retreating it kills the hearts of the men then we are scant of powder James Chestnut is awfully proud of Laconte's powder manufactory here Laconte knows how to do it James Chestnut provides him the means to carry out his plans Colonel Vinnable doesn't mince matters if we do not deal a blow a blow that will be felt it will be soon all up with us the south west will be lost to us we cannot afford to shilly-shally much longer thousands are enlisting on the other side in New Orleans Butler holds out inducements to be sure they are principally foreigners who want to escape starvation Tennessee we may count on is gone since we abandoned her at Corinth Fort Pillow in Memphis a man must be sent there or it is all gone now you call a spade by that name it seems and not an agricultural implement they call Mars Robert old spade Lee he keeps them digging so General Lee is a noble Virginian respect something in this world Caesar call him old spade Caesar as a soldier he was as much above suspicion as he required his wife to be as Caesar's wife you know if I remember Caesar's commentaries he owns up to a lot of entrenching you let Mars Robert alone he knows what he is about tell us of the women folk at New Orleans how did they take the fall of the city they are an excitable race the man from that city said as my informant was standing on the levy a daintily dressed lady picked her way parasol in hand toward him she accosted him with great politeness and her face was as placid and unmoved as in antebellum days her first question was will you be so kind as to tell me what is the last general order no order that I know of madam general disorder prevails now ah, I see and why are those persons flying and yelling so noisily and racing in the streets in that unseemly way they are looking for a shell to burst over their heads at any moment ah then with a courtesy of dignity and grace she waved her parasol and departed but stopped to arrange that parasol at a proper angle to protect her face from the sun there was no vulgar haste in her movements she tripped away as gracefully as she came my informant had failed to discompose her by his fearful revelations that was the one self-possessed soul then in New Orleans another woman drew near so overheated and out of breath she had barely time to say she had run miles of squares in her crazy terror and bewilderment when a sudden shower came up in a second she was cool and calm she forgot all the questions she came to ask my bonnet I must save it at any sacrifice she said and so turned her dress over her head and went off forgetting her country's trouble and screaming for a cab went to see Mrs. Burroughs at the old desisur house she has such a sweet face such soft kind, beautiful dark gray eyes such eyes are a poem no wonder she had a long love story she sat in the piazza at twelve o'clock of a June day the glorious southern sun shining its very hottest but we were in a dense shade magnolias in full bloom ivy, vines of I know not what and roses in profusion closed us in it was a living wall of everything beautiful and sweet in all this flower garden of a Columbia that is the most delicious corner I have been in yet got from the Preston's French Library Fanny with a brilliant preface by Georges Jaunet now then I have come to the worst there can be no worse book than Fanny the lover is jealous of the husband the woman is for the polyandry rule of life she cheats both and refuses to break with either but to criticize it one must be as shameless as the book itself of course it is clever to the last degree or it would be kicked into the gutter it is not nastier or coarser than Mrs. Stowe but then it is not written in the interests of philanthropy we had an unexpected dinner party today first Wade Hampton came and his wife then Mr. and Mrs. Rose I remember that the late Colonel Hampton once said to me a thing I thought odd at the time Mrs. James Rose and I forget now who was the other are the only two people on this side of the water who know how to give a state dinner Mr. and Mrs. James Rose if anybody wishes to describe old Carolina at its best let them try their hands at painting these two people Wade Hampton still limps a little but he is rapidly recovering here's what he said and he has fought so well that he has listened to if we mean to play at war as we play a game of chess West Point tactics prevailing we are sure to lose the game they have every advantage they can lose palms add infant item to the end of time and never feel it we will be throwing away all that we had hoped so much from southern hot-headed dash reckless gallantry, spirit of adventure readiness to lead for Lorne hopes Mrs. Rose is Miss Sarah Parker's aunt somehow it came out when I was not in the room but those girls tell me everything it seems Miss Sarah said the reason I cannot bear Mrs. Chestnut is that she laughs at everything and at everybody if she saw me now she would give me credit for some pretty hearty crying as well as laughing it was a mortifying thing to hear about oneself all the same General Preston came in and announced that Mr. Chestnut was in town he had just seen Mr. Alfred U.G. who came up on the Charleston train with him then Mrs. McCord came and offered to take me back to Mrs. McMahon's to look him up I found my room locked up Lawrence said his master had gone to look for me Mrs. McCord proposed we should further seek for my errant husband at the door we met Governor Pickens who showed us telegrams from the president of the most important nature the governor added and I have one from James Chestnut but I hear he has followed it so closely coming on its heels as it were that I need not show you that one you don't look interested at the sound of your husband's name said he is that his name, asked I suppose it was James my advice to you is to find him for Mrs. Pickens says he was last seen in the company of two very handsome women and now you may call him any name you please we soon met the two beautiful dames Governor Pickens threw in my teeth were some ladies from Rafton Creek almost neighbors who live near Camden by way of pleasant remark to Wade Hampton oh general the next battle will give you a chance to be major general I was very foolish to give up my legion he answered gloomily promotion don't really annoy many people Mary Gibson says her father writes to them that they may go back he thinks now that the Confederates can hold Richmond, Gloria and Excelsis another personal defeat little Kate said oh cousin Mary why don't you cultivate heart they say at Kirkwood you better let your brains alone a while and cultivate heart she had evidently caught up a phrase and repeated it again and again for my benefit so that is the way they talk off me the only good of loving anyone with your whole heart is to give that person the power to hurt you June 24th Mr. Chestnut having missed the Secessionville fight by half a day was determined to see the one around Richmond footnote the battle of Secessionville occurred on James Island in the harbor of Charleston June 16 1862 in footnote he went off with General Cooper and Wade Hampton Blanton Duncan sent them for a luncheon on board the cars ice, wine and every manner of good thing in all this death and destruction the women are the same chatter, patter, clatter oh the Charleston refugees are so full of heirs there is no sympathy for them here oh indeed that is queer they are not half as exclusive as these Hamptons and Prestons the heirs these people do give themselves heirs, heirs left Mrs. Bartow parodying Tennyson's charge of the light brigade heirs to the right of them heirs to the left of them someone had blundered volleyed and thundered rhymes but is out of place the worst of all heirs came from a democratic landlady who was asked by Mrs. President Davis to have a carpet shaken and shook herself with rage as she answered you know madam you need not stay here if my carpet or anything else does not suit you John Chestnut gives us a spirited account of their ride around McClellan I sent the letter to his grandfather the women ran out screaming with joyful welcome as soon as they caught sight of our soldiers gray uniforms ran to them bringing handfuls and armfuls of food one gray-headed man after preparing a hasty meal for them knelt and prayed as they snatched it as you may say they were in the saddle from Friday until Sunday they were used up so were their horses Johnny writes for clothes and more horses Mrs. S. C. says no need to send any more of his fine horses to be killed or captured by the Yankees wait and see how the siege of Richmond ends the horses will go all the same as Johnny wants them June 25th I forgot to tell of Mrs. Pickens' reception for General Hampton my mem, dear, described it all the governess tut mem, that is not the right name for her she is not a teacher never mind it is easier to say than the governer's wife Madame Laguvernant was suggested why, that is worse than the other met him at the door took his crutch away putting his hand upon her shoulder instead that is the way to greet heroes she said her blue eyes were aflame and in response poor Wade smiled and smiled until his face hardened into a fixed grin of embarrassment and annoyance he is a simple mannered man, you know and does not want to be made much of by women the butler was not in plain clothes but wore, as the other servants did magnificent livery brought from the court of St. Petersburg one mass of gold embroidery, etc they had champagne and Russian tea the latter from a samovar made in Russia little Moses was there now for us they have never put their servants into Russian livery nor paraded little Moses under our noses but I must confess the Russian tea and champagne set before us left nothing to be desired how did General Hampton bear his honors well to the last he looked as if he wished they would let him alone met Mr. Ashmore fresh from Richmond he says Stonewall is coming up behind McClellan and here comes the tug of war he thinks we have so many spies in Richmond they may have found out our strategic movements and so may circumvent them Mrs. Bartow's story of a clever Miss Tombs so many men were in love with her and the courtship while it lasted of each one was as exciting and bewildering as the house chase she liked the fun of the run but she wanted something more than to know a man was in mad pursuit of her that he should love her, she agreed but she must love him too how was she to tell yet she must be certain of it before she said yes so as they sat by the lamp she would look at him and inwardly ask herself would I be willing to spend the long winter evenings forever after sitting here darning your old stockings or echo answered no, no, a thousand times no so each had to make way for another June 27th we went in a body half a dozen ladies with no man on escort duty for they are all in the army to a concert Mrs. Pickens came in she was joined soon by Secretary Moses and Mr. Fallon Dr. Berrien came to our relief nothing could be more exegrable than the singing financially the thing was a great success for though the audience was altogether feminine it was a very large one telegram from Mr. Chestnut safe in Richmond that is, if Richmond be safe with all the power of the United States of America battering at her gates strange, not a word from Stonewall Jackson after all Dr. Gibson telegraphs his wife stay where you are terrible battle looked for here footnote Malvern Hill, Belasse of the Seven Days Battles was fought near Richmond on the James River July 1, 1862 the Federals were commanded by McClellan and the Confederates by Lee in footnote Deca is dead that poor little darling immediately after her baby was born she took it into her head that Alex was killed he was wounded but those around had not told her of it she surprised them by asking does anyone know how the battle has gone since Alex was killed? she could not read for a day or so before she died her head was bewildered but she would not let anyone else touch her letters so she died with several unopened ones in her bosom Mrs. Singleton, Deca's mother fainted dead away but she shed no tears we went to the house and saw Alex's mother a daughter of Langdon Chavis Annie was with us this is the saddest thing for Alex no said his mother death is never the saddest thing if he were not a good man that would be a far worse thing Annie in utter amazement whimpered but Alex is so good already yes, seven years ago the death of one of his sisters that he dearly loved made him a Christian that death in our family was worth a thousand lives one needs a hard heart now even old Mr. Shand shed tears Mary Barnwell sat as still as a statue as white and stony grief which can relieve itself by tears is a thing to pray for said the Reverend Mr. Shand then came a telegram from Hampton all well so far we are successful Robert Barnwell had been telegraphed for his answer came can't leave here Greg is fighting across the country and he is not alone can't leave here Greg is fighting across the Chikahomani said Alex's mother my son Alex may never hear this sad news and her lips settled rigidly go on what else does Hampton say asked she Lee has one wing of the army stonewall the other Annie Hampton came to tell us the latest news that we have abandoned James Island and are fortifying Morris Island and now she says we will be so kind as to wait we will be ready for them in two months Reverend Mr. Shand and that pious Christian woman Alex's mother who looks into your very soul with those large and lustrous blue eyes of hers agreed that the Yankees even if they took Charleston would not destroy it I think they will sinner that I am Mr. Shand remarked to her Madam you have two sons in the army Alex's mother replied I have had six sons in the army I now have five there are people here too small to conceive of any larger business than quarreling in the newspapers one laughs at squibs in the papers now in such times as these with the wolf at our doors men safe in their closets writing fiery articles denouncing those who are at work are beneath contempt only critics with muskets on their shoulders have the right to speak now Shinnom said the other night in a pouring rain we went to that poor child's funeral to decos they buried her in the little white frock she wore when she engaged herself to Alex in which she again put on for her bridal about a year ago she lies now in the churchyard inside of my window is she to be pitied she said she had had months of perfect happiness how many people can say that so many people live their long dreary lives and then happiness never comes to meet them at all it seems so near and yet it eludes them forever end of chapter 11 part 7 chapter 11 part 8 of a diary from Dixie this looper-box recording is in the public domain read by Laurie Ann Walden a diary from Dixie by Mary Chestnut chapter 11 Columbia, South Carolina part 8 June 28th victory victory heads every telegram now one reads it on the bulletin board footnote, the first battle of the Chickahominy fought on June 27, 1862 it is better known as the battle of Gaines Mill, or Cold Harbor it was participated in by a part of Lee's army and a part of McClellands and its scene was about 8 miles from Richmond in footnote it is the anniversary of the battle of Fort Maltry the enemy went off so quickly I wonder if it was not a trap laid for us to lead us away from Richmond to some place where they can manage to do us more harm and now comes the list of killed and wounded victory does not seem to soothe sore hearts Mrs. Haskell has five sons before the enemy's illimitable cannon Mrs. Preston, too McClelland is routed and we have 12,000 prisoners prisoners my god and what are we to do with them we can't feed our own people for the first time since Joe Johnston was wounded at seven pines we may breathe freely we were so afraid of another general or a new one Stonewall cannot be everywhere though he comes near it Magruder did splendidly at Big Bethel it was a wonderful thing how he played his 10,000 before McClelland like fireflies and utterly diluted him it was partly due to the Manassas scare that we gave them they will never be full hearty again now we are throwing up our caps for the Lee we hope from the Lee's what the first sprightly running at Manassas could not give we do hope there will be no ifs ifs have ruined us Shiloh was a victory if Albert Sidney Johnston had not been killed seven pines if Joe Johnston had not been wounded the ifs bristle like porcupines that victory at Manassas did nothing but send us off in a fool's paradise of conceit and aroused the manhood of the northern people for very shame they had to move up a French man of war lies at the wharf at Charleston to take off French subjects when the bombardment begins William Mazick writes that the enemy's gunboats are shelling and burning property up and down the sandy river they raise the white flag and the negroes rush down on them planters might as well have let these negroes be taken by the council to work on the fortifications a letter from my husband Richmond June 29 1862 my dear Mary for the last three days I have been a witness of the most stirring events of modern times on my arrival here I found the government so absorbed in the great battle pending that I found it useless to talk of the special business that brought me to this place as soon as it is over which will probably be tomorrow I think that I can easily accomplish all that I was sent for I have no doubt that we can procure more forces etc the president and general Lee are inclined to listen to me and to do all they can for us general Lee is vindicating the high opinion I have ever expressed of him and his plans and executions of the last great fight will place him high in the role of really great commanders the fight on Friday was the largest and fiercest of the whole war some 60,000 or 70,000 with great preponderance on the side of the enemy ground, numbers, armament etc. were all in favor of the enemy but our men and generals were superior the higher officers and men behaved with a resolution and dashing heroism that have never been surpassed in any country or in any age our line was three times repulsed by superior numbers and superior artillery impregnably posted then Lee assembling all his generals to the front told them that victory depended on carrying the batteries and defeating the army before them ere night should fall should night come without victory all was lost and the work must be done by the bayonet our men then made a rapid and irresistible charge without powder and carried everything the enemy melted before them and ran with the utmost speed though of the regulars of the federal army the fight between the artillery of the opposing forces was terrific and sublime the world became one dense cloud of smoke so that nothing could be seen but the incessant flash of fire they were within 1600 yards of each other and it rained storms of grape and canister we took 23 pieces of their artillery many small arms and small ammunition they burned most of their stores wagons etc the victory of the second day was full and complete yesterday there was little or no fighting but some splendid maneuvering the enemy was greatly around them I think the end must be decisive in our favour we have lost many men and many officers I hear Alex Haskell and young McMahon are among them as well as a son of Dr. Trezevant very sad indeed we are fighting again today we'll let you know the result as soon as possible we'll be at home sometime next week no letter from you yet with devotion, yours, James Chestnut a telegram from my husband June 29th from Richmond was on the field, saw it all things satisfying so far can hear nothing of John Chestnut he is in Stuart's command saw Jack Preston, safe so far no reason why we should not bag McClellan's army or cut it to pieces from four to six thousand prisoners already Dr. Gibbs rushed in like a whirlwind to say we were driving McClellan into the river June 30th was the first Trezevant who announced Burnett Rhett's death no no I have just seen the bulletin board it was Grimke Rhett's when the doctor went out it was added Howell Trezevant's death is there too the doctor will see it as soon as he goes down to the board the girls went to see Lucy Trezevant the doctor was lying still is death on a sofa with his face covered July 1st no more news it is settled down into this decisive battle has to be fought yet Edward Chavis, only son of John Chavis, killed his sister kept crying oh mother what shall we do Edward is killed but the mother sat dead still white as a sheet never uttering a word or shedding a tear are our women losing the capacity to weep the father came today Mr. John Chavis he has been making infernal machines in Charleston to blow up Yankee ships while Mrs. McCord was telling me of this terrible trouble in her brother's family someone said Deca's husband died of grief stuffing nonsense silly sentiment folly, if he is not wounded he is alive his brother John may die of that shattered arm in this hot weather Alex will never die of a broken heart take my word for it July 3rd Mim says she feels like sitting down as an Irish woman does at awake and howling night and day why did UG let McClellan slip through his fingers arrived at Mrs. McMahon's at the wrong moment Mrs. Bartow was reading to the stricken mother an account of the death of her son the letter was written by a man who was standing by him when he was shot through the head my god he said that was all and he fell dead James Taylor was color bearer he was shot three times before he gave in then he said as he handed the colors to the man next to him you see I can't stand it any longer and dropped stone dead he was only 17 years old if anything can reconcile me to the idea of a hard failure after all efforts to make good our independence of Yankees it is Lincoln's proclamation freeing the Negroes especially yours who write insults to your governor and council dated from Clarendon 300 of Mr. Walter Blake's Negroes have gone to the Yankees remember that recalcitrant patriot's property on two legs may walk off without an order from the council to work on fortifications have been reading the Potterfar papers by Curtis can this be a picture of New York socially? if it were not for this hard war how nice it would be here we might lead such a pleasant life this is the most perfectly appointed establishment such beautiful grounds, flowers and fruits indeed all that Hart could wish such delightful dinners such pleasant drives, such jolly talks such charming people but this hard war poisons everything July 5th drove out with Mrs. Constitution Brown who told us the story of Ben McCulloch's devotion to Lucy Gwynn poor Ben McCulloch another dead hero called it the Tognos and saw no one no wonder they say a silly Togno was to have been married to Grimke Rhett in August and he is dead on the battlefield I had not heard of the engagement before I went there July 8th gunboat captured on the Santy so much the worse for us we do not want any more prisoners and next time they will send a fleet of boats if one will not do the governor sent me Mr. Chestnut's telegram with a note saying the telegram does not come up to what we had hoped might be as to the entire destruction of McClellan's army I think however the strength of the war with its ferocity may now be considered as broken table talk today this war was undertaken by us to shake off the yoke of foreign invaders so we consider our cause righteous the Yankees, since the war has begun have discovered it is to free the slaves that they are fighting so their cause is noble they also expect to make the war pay Yankees do not undertake anything that does not pay they think we belong to them we have been good milk cows milked by the tariff or skimmed we let them have all of our hard earnings we bear the ban of slavery they get the money cotton pays everybody who handles it sells it manufactures it but rarely pays the man who grows it second hand the Yankees received the wages of slavery we grew poor the receiver is as bad as the thief that applies to us too for we received the savages they stole from Africa and brought to us in their slave ships as with the Egyptians so it shall be with us if they let us go it must be across a red sea but one made red by blood July 10th my husband has come he believes from what he heard in Richmond that we are to be recognized as a nation for the order at last Mr. Davis was very kind he asked him to stay at his house which he did and went every day with General Lee and Mr. Davis to the battlefield as a sort of amateur aid to the President likewise they admitted him to the informal cabinet meetings at the President's house he is so hopeful now that it is pleasant to hear him and I had not the heart to stick the small pins of Yadon and Pickens in him yet a while public opinion is hot against P.G. and Magruder for McClellan's escape Dr. Gibbs gave me some letters picked up on the battlefield one signed Laura tells her lover to fight in such a manner that no southerner can ever talk Yankees again with cowardice she speaks of a man at home whom she knows who is still talking of his intention to seek the bubble reputation at the cannon's mouth miserable coward she writes I will never speak to him again it was a relief to find one silly young person filling three pages with a description of her new bonnet and the bonnet still worn by her rival those fiery Joan of Arc damsels who goad on their sweethearts bodus no good Rachel Lyons was enrichment hand in glove with Mrs. Greenhouse why not? so handsome so clever so angelically kind says Rachel of the Greenhouse and she offers to matronize me Mrs. Phillips another beautiful and clever Jewess has been put into prison again by Beast Butler because she happened to be laughing as a Yankee funeral procession went by Captain B told of John Chestnut's pranks Johnny was riding a powerful horse captured from the Yankees the horse dashed with him right into the Yankee ranks a dozen confederates galloped after him shouting Stuart! Stuart! the Yankees mistaking this mad charge for Stuart's cavalry broke ranks and fled after Devil Camden Boy's ride like Arabs Mr. Chestnut says he was riding with the President when Colonel Brown, his aide, was along the general commanding rode up and bowing politely said Mr. President, am I in command here? yes then I forbid you to stand here under the enemy's guns any exposure of a life like yours is wrong and this is useless exposure you must go back Mr. Davis answered certainly I will set an example of obedience to orders discipline must be maintained but he did not go back Mr. Chestnut met the Haynes who had gone on to nurse their wounded son and found him dead they were standing in the corridor of the Spotswood although Mr. Chestnut was staying at the President's he retained his room at the hotel so he gave his room to them next day when he went back to his room he found that Mrs. Haynes had thrown herself into the bed and never moved no other part of the bed had been touched she got up and went back to the cars or was led back he says these heartbroken mothers are hard to face End of chapter 11 part 8