Part 1 (1/2)

A Diary From Dixie

Mary Boykin Miller Chesnut

INTRODUCTION

THE AUTHOR AND HER BOOK

IN Mrs Chesnut's Diary are vivid pictures of the social life that went on uninterruptedly in the midst of war; of the economic conditions that resulted from blockaded ports; of the manner in which the spirits of the people rose and fell with each victory or defeat, and of the omery, and Richmond But the Diary has an importance quite apart from the interest that lies in these pictures

Mrs Chesnut was close to forty years of age when the war began, and thus had lived through thescenes in the controversies that led to it In this Diary, as perhaps nowhere else in the literature of the ill be found the Southern spirit of that ti as literature, but genuinely huhtfully unconscious frankness Her words are the farthest possible re deliberate, acade so true that they start echoes TheNorthern heart can scarcely fail to be h it be with that old Southern fire which overwheltenacity of the South and the stern conditions in which the as prosecuted, the Diary has further i there was no Southern leader, in so far as we can gather

xiv from Mrs Chesnut's reports of her talks with them, who had any hope that the South would win in the end, provided the North should be able to enlist her full resources The result, however, was that the South struck so like terror to reat European poould recognize her independence The South fought as long as she had any soldiers left ere capable of fighting, and at last ”robbed the cradle and the grave” Nothing then rerow up” The North, so far as her stock of e was concerned, had done scarcely , while the South was virtually exhausted when the as half over

Unlike the South, the North was never reduced to extre generals to gather in Washi+ngton hotels and private drawing-rooms, in order to knit heavy socks for soldiers whose feet otherould go bare: scenes like these were common in Richmond, and Mrs Chesnut often ently nurtured wo shoes, such as negro cobblers ether Gold ht rise in the North to 280, but there came a time in the South, when a thousand dollars in paper money were needed to buy a kitchen utensil, which before the war could have been bought for less than one dollar in gold Long before the conflict ended it was a co toyour purchases home in your pocket”

In the North the counterpart to these facts were such items as butter at 50 cents a pound and flour at 12 a barrel People in the North actually thrived on high prices Villages and se cities, had their ”bloated bondholders” in plenty, while farmers everywhere

xv were able to clear their lands of es and put money in the bank besides Planters in the South, roes in idleness at ho at the front Old Colonel Chesnut, the author's father-in-law, in April, 1862, estimated that he had already lost half a million in bank stock and railroad bonds When the war closed, he had borrowed such large sue sums due to hiations on either side ever being discharged

Mrs Chesnut wrote her Diary from day to day, as the mood or an occasion proed the place of her abode aled, but wherever she an to write in Charleston when the Convention was passing the Ordinance of Secession Thence she went to Montgoanized and Jefferson Davis was inaugurated as its President She went to receptions where, sitting aside on sofas with Davis, Stephens, Toombs, Cobb, or Hunter, she talked of the probable outco down in her Diary what she heard fro to Charleston, where her husband, in a small boat, conveyed to Major Anderson the ultimatum of the Governor of South Carolina, she saw from a housetop the first act of war co four years, Mrs Chesnut's time was mainly passed between Columbia and Richmond For shorter periods she was at the Fauquier White Sulphur Springs in Virginia, Flat Rock in North Carolina, Portland in Alabama (the home of her mother), Camden and Chester in South Carolina, and Lincolnton in North Carolina

In all these places Mrs Chesnut was in close touch with men and women ere in the forefront of the

xvi social, military, and political life of the South Those who live in her pages ue of the heroes of, the Confederacy-President Jefferson Davis, Vice-President Alexander H Stephens, General Robert E Lee, General ”Stonewall” Jackson, General Joseph E Johnston, General Pierre G T Beauregard, General Wade Hampton, General Joseph B Kershaw, General John B Hood, General John S Preston, General Robert Toofall, and so many others that one alerated lance at the index, which has been prepared with a view to the inclusion of all important names mentioned in the text

As her Diary constantly shows, Mrs Chesnut was a woman of society in the best sense She had love of coe of books, and a searching insight into the motives of iven to hospitality; and her heart was of the warmest and tenderest, as those who knew her well bore witness

Mary Boykin Miller, born March 31, 1823, was the daughter of Stephen Decatur Miller, a man of distinction in the public affairs of South Carolina Mr Miller was elected to Congress in 1817, became Governor in 1828, and was chosen United States Senator in 1830 He was a strong supporter of the Nullification ned his seat in the Senate and not long afterward re until his death, in March, 1838

His daughter, Mary, was married to Jae Thenceforth her home was mainly at Mulberry, near Camden, one of several plantations owned by her father-in-law Of the do picture has come down

xvii to us, as preserved in a time-worn scrap-book and written some years before the war: ”In our drive of about three miles to Mulberry, ere struck with the wealth of forest trees along our way for which the environs of Cae co branches; and, for the reh an aromatic avenue of crab-trees with the Yellow Jessa every shrub, post, and pillar within reach and lending an almost tropical luxuriance and sweetness to the way

”But here is the house - a brick building, capacious and e family, one of the hos cluster, sacred alike for its joys and its sorrows Birthdays, wedding-days, 'Merry Christs have enriched this abode with the treasures of life

”A elco with things without; nothing is tawdry; there is no gingerbread gilding; all is handsome and substantial In the 'old arm-chair' sits the venerable mother The father is on his usual ride about the plantation; but will be back presently A lovely old age is this mother's, calentle autuo, a fair young bride

”The Old Colonel enters He bears hiait, and needs no spectacles,

xviii yet he is over eighty He is a typical Southern planter Froent patrons of the Wateree Mission to the Negroes, taking a personal interest in the with his own people May his children see to it that this holy charity is continued to their servants forever!”

James Chesnut, Jr, was the son and heir of Colonel James Chesnut, whose as Mary coxe, of Philadelphia Mary coxe's sister married Horace Binney, the eminent Philadelphia lawyer Jaraduated froislature of South Carolina, and in January, 1859, was appointed to fill a vacancy in the United States Senate In Novened from the Senate and thenceforth was active in the Southern cause, first as an aide to General Beauregard, then as an aide to President Davis, and finally as a brigadier-general of reserves in command of the coast of South Carolina

General Chesnut was active in public life in South Carolina after the war, in so far as the circuate from that State to the National convention which nominated Horatio Seymour for President His death occurred at Sarsfield, February 1, 1885 One who knew hi with tribute to this knightly gentleman, whose services to his State were part of her history in her pri his public virtues - I thought there was another phase of his character which the world did not know and the press did not chronicle - that

xix which showed his beautiful kindness and his courtesy to his own household, and especially to his dependents

”A all the preachers of the South Carolina Conference, a few rehest honors conferred upon theospel to the slaves of the Southern plantations Some of these retained kind recollections of the cordial hospitality shown the plantation missionary at Mulberry and Sandy Hill, and of the care taken at these places that the plantation chapel should be neat and comfortable, and that the slaves should have their spiritual as well as their bodily needs supplied

”To these it was no matter of surprise to learn that at his death General Chesnut, statesman and soldier, was surrounded by faithful friends, born in slavery on his own plantation, and that the last prayer he ever heard caro man, old Scipio, his father's body-servant; and that he was borne to his grave amid the tears and lamentations of those whom no Emancipation Proclamation could sever from hiood to me! He was all to us! We have lost our best friend!'

”Mrs Chesnut's anguish when her husband died, is not to be forgotten; the 'bitter cry' never quite spent itself, though she was brave and bright to the end Her friends were near in that supreme moment at Sarsfield, when, on November 22, 1886, her own heart ceased to beat Her servants had been true to her; no blandishments of freedom had drawn Ellen or Molly away from 'Miss Mary' Mrs Chesnut lies buried in the

xx faht's Hill, where also sleep her husband and many other members of the Chesnut family”

The Chesnuts settled in South Carolina at the close of the ith France, but lived originally on the frontier of Virginia Their Virginia home had been invaded by French and Indians, and in an expedition to Fort Duquesne the father was killed John Chesnut reinia to South Carolina soon afterward and served in the Revolution as a captain His son James, the ”Old Colonel,” was educated at Princeton, took an active part in public affairs in South Carolina, and prospered greatly as a planter He survived until after the War, being a nonogenarian when the conflict closed In a chares of this Diary, occurs the following passage: ”Colonel Chesnut, now ninety-three, blind and deaf, is apparently as strong as ever, and certainly as resolute of will Partly patriarch, partly grand seigneur, this old man is of a species that we shall see no more; the last of a race of lordly planters who ruled this Southern world, but now a splendid wreck”

Threeone of the raids cohborhood by Sherman's men early in 1865, the house escaped destruction almost as if by accident The picture of it in this book is froe has indeed come over it, since the days when the household servants and dependents numbered between sixty and seventy, and its oas lord of a thousand slaves After the war, Mulberry ceased to be the author's ho for theave the naiven, still stands in the pine lands not far from Mulberry Bloos, survived the march of Sherman, and is now the

xxi ho, his wife, whose children roarandchildren of the author's sister Kate Other Chesnut plantations were Cool Spring, Knight's Hill, The Here, and Sandy Hill

The Diary, as it now exists in forty-eight thin volumes, of the s She originally wrote it on as known as ”Confederate paper,” but transcribed it afterward When Rich, she buried it or in some other way secreted it fro-place with fa-cup which had been presented to General Hood by the ladies of Riches of the Diary current newspaper accounts of cans and battles, or lists of killed and wounded One item of this kind, a newspaper ”extra,” issued in Chester, S C, and announcing the assassination of Lincoln, is reproduced in this voluave the Diary to her friend whose nanatures to this Introduction In the Diary, here and there, Mrs Chesnut's expectation that the ould some day be printed is disclosed, but at the time of her death it did not seem wise to undertake publication for a considerable period Yelloith age as the pages now are, the only har of many years, is that a few corners have been broken and frayed, as shown in one of the pages here reproduced in facsimile

In the summer of 1904, the wo the Diary for the press, went South to collect inia Girl in the Civil War Her investigations led her to Coluuest of Miss Martin, she learned of the Diary's existence Soon afterward an arrangement was made with her publishers under which the Diary's owner and herself agreed to condense

xxii and revise the manuscript for publication The Diary was found to be of too great length for reproduction in full, parts of it being of personal or local interest rather than general The editing of the book called also for the insertion of a considerable number of foot-notes, in order that persons naht be the better understood by the present generation

Mrs Chesnut was a conspicuous exah-bred woe, supported the Southern cause Born and reared when Nullification was in the ascendant, and acquiring an education which developed and refined her natural literary gifts, she found in the throes of a great conflict at arht into vital expression in words her steadfast loyalty to the waning fortunes of a political faith, which, in South Carolina, had becoion

Many men have produced narratives of the war between the States, and a feoiven to the world a record more radiant than hers, or one more passionately sincere Every line in this Diary throbs with the tumult of deep spiritual passion, and bespeaks the luminous mind, the unconquered soul, of the woman rote it

ISABELLA D MARTIN,