Part 2 (1/2)

26 and we captured Mr Chesnut and Governor Means 1 The latter presented me with a book, a photo-book, in which I am to pillory all the celebrities

Doctor Gibbes says the Convention is in a snarl It was called as a Secession Convention A secession of places seems to be what it calls for first of all It has not stretched its eyes out to the Yankees yet; it has them turned inward; introspection is its occupation still

Last night, as I turned down the gas, I said to myself: ”Certainly this has been one of the pleasantest days of ive the skeleton of it, so ood talk, for, after all, it was talk, talk, talk la Caroline du Sud And yet the day began rather dismally Mrs Capers and Mrs Tonolia Cemetery I saw William Taber's broken coluraveyard business

The others were off at a dinner party I dined tte--tte with Langdon Cheves, so quiet, so intelligent, so very sensible withal There never was a pleasanter person, or a better e Whitner, Tom Frost, and Isaac Hayne ca conversation, for I was hearing what an honest and brave ed the newcomers and bore me off to drive on the Battery On the staircase met Mrs Izard, who came for the same purpose On the Battery Governor Ada he looked like Marshal Pelissier, and he cah Means was elected Governor of South Carolina in 1850, and had long been an advocate of secession He was a delegate to the Convention of 1860 and affixed his name to the Ordinance of Secession He was killed at the second battle of Bull Run in August, 1862

2 Jaly opposed Nullification, and in 1855 was elected Governor of South Carolina

27 that at last I had made a personal remark which pleased him, for once in my life When we came home Mrs Isaac Hayne and Chancellor Carroll called to ask us to join their excursion to the Island Forts to-morrow With them was William Haskell Last summer at the White Sulphur he was a pale, slim student from the university To-day he is a soldier, stout and robust A fewin the open air, has worked this wonder Ca out proves a wholesome life after all Then cairls We had a char topic in common - their clever brother Edward

A letter froot a letter froo, who said that there had recently been several atteton, but they proved dismal failures The Black Republicans were invited and came, and stared at their entertainers and their new Republican companions looked unhappy while they said they were enchanted showed no ill-te of our friends, who thus found themselves condemned to meet their despised enemy”

I had a letter froton offers a perfect realization of Goldse

Celebrated my 38th birthday, but I am too old now to dwell in public on that uni, dusty day ahead on those windy islands; never for me, so I was up early to write a note of excuse to Chancellor Carroll My husband went I hope Anderson will not pay theuns, as they pass Fort Sumter, as pass they must

Here I aes Are there such roses anywhere else in the world? Now a loud banging at et up in a pet and throide open ”Oh!” said John Manning,

28 standing there, s radiantly; ”pray excuse the noise I ht it was Rice's rooo with us to Quinby's Everybody will be there who are not at the Island To be photographed is the rage just now

We had a nice open carriage, and we les, and the Tradd Street Rutledges, the handsoallantly He had ordered dinner at six, and we dined tete-a-tete If he should prove as great a captain in ordering his line of battle as he is in ordering a dinner, it will be as well for the country as it was for me to-day

Fortunately for the men, the beautiful Mrs Joe Heyward sits at the next table, so they take her beauty as one of the goods the Gods provide And it helps to rouse and venison from the West Not to speak of the salan the feast They have me to listen, an appreciative audience, while they talk, and Mrs Joe Heyward to look at

Beauregard 1 called He is the hero of the hour That is, he is believed to be capable of great things A hero worshi+per was struck dumb because I said: ”So far, he has only been a captain of artillery, or engineers, or sofall did and reproachedout

Last Sunday at church beheld one of the peculiar local sights, old negroup to the co devoutly around the chancel rail

1 Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard was born in New Orleans in 1818, and graduated from West Point in the class of 1838 He served in the ith Mexico; had been superintendent of the Military Academy at West Point a few days only, when in February, 1861, he resigned his commission in the Army of the United States and offered his services to the Confederacy

29 Thepapers say Mr Chesnut et practice No war yet, thank God Likewise they tell me Mr Chesnut has made a capital speech in the Convention

Not one word of what is going on now ”Out of the fulness of the heart the mouth speaketh,” says the Psalmist Not so here Our hearts are in doleful duay, as -rooony ere out alone We longed for so brothers to come out and help us Well, they are out, too, and now it is Fort Sumter and that ill-advised Anderson There stands Fort Sufall 1 says before he left Washi+ngton, Pickens, our Governor, and Trescott were openly against secession; Trescott does not pretend to like it now He grumbles all the tiround ”At the White House Mrs Davis wore a badge Jeff Davis is no seceder,” says Mrs Wigfall

Captain Ingraha over each other out of hisat those people I think better of men who stop to think; it is too rash to rush on as sofall, ”the eleventh-hour men are rewarded; the half-hearted are traitors in this row”

April 3d - Met the lovely Lucy Holcoht at Isaac Hayne's I saw Miles now begging in dumb show for three violets she had in her 1 Louis Trezevant Wigfall was a native of South Carolina, but re admitted to the bar, and fro an unco defender of the South on the slave question After the war he lived in England, but in 1873 settled in Baltimore He had a wide Southern reputation as a forcible and impassioned speaker

30 breastpin She is a consummate actress and he well up in the part of hing in your sleeves at the scene, where did you get that huge bunch?” ”Oh, there is no senti!” ”Oh, oh!”

To-day at the breakfast table there was a tragic bestowal of heartsease on the well-known inquirer who, once more says in austere tones: ”Who is the flirt now?” And so we fool on into the black cloud ahead of us And after heartsease cometh rue

April 4th - Mr Hayne said his wife moaned over the hardness of the chaperones' seats at St Andrew's Hall at a Cecilia Ball 1 She was hopelessly deposited on one for hours ”And the walls are harder, s to those of the poor old fellows leaning there, with, their beautiful young wives waltzing as if they could never tire and in the arard, weary faces, the old boys, you know At church I had to move my pew The lovely Laura was too ed each other and quarreled so, for she gave thelance Wink, blink, and snicker as they would, she liked it I say, my dear, the old husbands have not exactly a bed of roses; their wives twirling in the ar the wall”

While ere at supper at the Haynes's, Wigfall was sent for to address a crowd before the Mills House piazza Like Jaain, it is to be in the saddle, etc So let Washi+ngton beware We were sad that we could not hear the speaking But the 1 The annual balls of the St Cecilia Society in Charleston are still the social events of the season To become a member of the St Cecilia Society is a sort of presentation at court in the sense of giving social recognition to one ithout the pale

31 supper was a consolation - pt de foie gras salad, biscuit glac and chane frapp

A shi+p was fired into yesterday, and went back to sea Is that the first shot? How can one settle down to anything; one's heart is in one's mouth all the time Any moment the cannon may open on us, the fleet come in

April 6th - The plot thickens, the air is red hot with ruroundless tales originate In spite of all, Toer came for us and ent on the Planter to take a look at Morris Island and its present inhabitants - Mrs Wigfall and the Cheves girls, Maxcy Gregg and Colonel Whiting, also John Rutledge, of the Navy, Dan Haurehead to be proud of He did not speak to us But he stood with a Scotch shawl draped about him, as handsome and stately a creature as ever Queen Elizabeth loved to look upon

There came up such a e could not land I was not too sorry, though it blew so hard (I a about the forts, what they lacked, etc, in thesupple all the deficiencies and shortcoard is a demiGod here to most of the natives, but there are always seers who see and say They give you to understand that Whiting has all the brains now in use for our defense He does the work and Beauregard reaps the glory Things see is clever enough for anything, so we es Mr Gregg told me that my husband was in a minority in the Convention; so much for cool sense when the atfall says we are mismatched She should pair with my cool, quiet, self-poised Colonel And her stormy petrel is but a male reflection of fall and I fall to settle a dispute ”Was she, indeed, fifty-five?” Fancy her face, more than ten years bestowed upon her so freely Then Mrs Gibbes asked fall (to payin her teeth), ”and she thinks this is her native heath and her na the Sabbath, for indeed it was Sunday

Allen Green caery It sent a shi+ver through aret Fuller Ossoli, but could not The air is too full of war news, and we are all so restless

Went to see Miss Pinckney, one of the last of the old-world Pinckneys She inquired particularly about a portrait of her father, Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, 1 which she said had been sent by hiood account of it It hangs in the place of honor in the drawing-roorandfather, my father's friend, was one of the handsomest men of his day” We came home, and soon Mr Robert Gourdin and Mr Miles called Governor Manning walked in, bowed gravely, and seated hiain he bowed low in rand wave of his hand, said: ”Madame, your country is invaded” When I had breath to speak, I asked, ”What does he mean?” He adier-general in the Revolution and a member of the Convention that framed the Constitution of the United States He was an ardent Federalist and twice declined to enter a National Cabinet, but in 1796 accepted the office of United States Minister to France He was the Federalist candidate for Vice-President in 1800 and for President in 1804 and 1808 Other distinguished men in this family were Thomas, Charles, Henry Laurens, and Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, the second

33 are six men-of-war outside the bar Talbot and Chew have coin Governor Pickens and Beauregard are holding a council of war Mr Chesnut then cafall next entered in boisterous spirits, and said: ”There was a sound of revelry by night” In any stir or confusion ony was so stifling I could hardly see or hear The men went off almost immediately And I crept silently to fall came in and we had it out on the subject of civil war We solaced ourselves with dwelling on all its known horrors, and then we added e had a right to expect with Yankees in front and negroes in the rear ”The slave-owners fall, to h

Suddenly loud shooting was heard We ran out Cannon after cannon roared We eith blanched cheeks and strea eyes Governor Means rushed out of his rooed us to be calm ”Governor Pickens,” said he, ”has ordered in the plenitude of his wisdoii in the streets has not begun yet”

So we retired Dr Gibbes calls Mrs Allen Green Da and Allen on the Island No sleep for anybody last night The streets were alive with soldiers, fall, the ”storhly happy person I see To-day things seem to have settled down a little One can but hope still Lincoln, or Seward, has s back There s are happening so fast My husband has been ard

Three hours ago ere quickly packing to go home The Convention has adjourned Now he tells ht; depends upon Anderson and the fleet outside The Herald says that this shoar outside of the bar is intended for Texas John Manning came in with his sword and red sash, pleased as a boy to be on Beauregard's staff, while the row goes on He has gone with Wigfall to Captain Hartstein with instructions Mr Chesnut is finishi+ng a report he had to make to the Convention

Mrs Hayne called She had, she said, but one feeling; pity for those who are not here Jack Preston, Willie Alston, ”the take-life-easys,” as they are called, with John Green, ”the big brave,” have gone down to the islands - volunteered as privates Seven hundredthe streets all night Anderson is burning blue lights, signs, and signals for the fleet outside, I suppose

To-day at dinner there was no allusion to things as they stand in Charleston Harbor There was an undercurrent of intense excitement There could not have been a more brilliant circle In addition to our usual quartette (Judge Withers, Langdon Cheves, and Trescott), our two ex-Governors dined with us, Means and Manning These htfully For once in an in earnest Governor Means had ruht it for Colonel Chesnut, who had gone to demand the surrender of Fort Sureen goose Anderson go into Fort Su Now they have intercepted a letter fro them to let him surrender