Part 4 (1/2)
Charleston people are thin-skinned They shrink froht touch I expected so lishmen come, somebody says, with three P's - pen, paper, prejudices I dread some of those after-dinner stories As to
61 that day in the harbor, he let us off easily He says ourWho denies it? Not one of us Also that it is a silly ione abroad that men can not work in this climate We live in the open air, and work like Trojans at allsoldiers These fine,the coast when it beca a duel or two, if kept long sweltering under a Charleston sun Handsome youths, whose size and muscle he admired so much as they prowled around the Mills House, would not relish hard work in the fields between May and Deceroes stand a tropical or se it is different Men will not then mind sun, or rain, or wind
Major Enation in the hands of his Maryland brothers After the Baltimore row the brothers sent it in, but Maryland declined to secede Mrs Emory, who at least is two-thirds of that copartnershi+p, being old Franklin's granddaughter, and true to her blood, tried to get it back The President refused point blank, though she went on her knees That I do not believe The Franklin race are stiff-necked and stiff-kneed; notto God or man from all accounts
If Major Eood time? Mrs Davis adores Mrs Emory No wonder I fell in love with her myself I heard of her before I saw her in 1 Willia the Nullification troubles of 1831-1836 In 1846 he went to California, afterward served in the Mexican War, and later assisted in running the boundary line between Mexico and the United States under the Gadsden Treaty of 1853 In 1854 he was in Kansas and in 1858 in Utah After resigning his commission, as related by the author, he was reappointed a Lieutenant-Colonel in the United States Army and took an active part in the war on the side of the North
62 this wise Little Banks toldat a ball when so News rushed up and informed her that Major Emory had been massacred by ten Indians somewhere out West She coolly answered hi a deaf ear then, she went on dancing Next night the saratulation: ”Oh, Mrs Emory, it was all a hoax! The Major is alive” She cried: ”You are always running about with your bad news,” and turned her back on hiht in spiteful stories,” or, ”You are a harbinger of evil” Banks is a newspaper e an anecdote for effect
June 12th - Have been looking at Mrs O'Dowd as she burnished the ”Meejor's arrms” before Waterloo And I have been busy, too My husband has gone to join Beauregard, somewhere beyond Richmond I feel blue-black withus all tenderly senti, nobody hurt So it is all parade, fife, and fine feathers Posing we are en grande tenue There is no iination here to forestall woe, and only the excitenant life are felt That is, when one gets away from the two or three sensible ard's report of the capture of Fort Sumter was printed, Willie Ancrum said: ”How is this? Toht fro”
Colonel Magruder1 has done soraduate of West Point, who had served in the Mexican War, and afterhile stationed at Newport, R I, had becoinia seceded, he resigned his commission in the United States Army After the war he settled in Houston, Texas The battle of Big Bethel was fought on June 10, 1861 The Federals lost in killed and wounded about 100, a them Theodore Winthrop, of New York, author of Cecil Dreeht
63 peninsula Bethel is the name of the battle Three hundred of the enemy killed, they say
Our people, Southerners, I mean, continue to drop in from the outside world And what a contempt those who seceded a few days sooner feel for those who have just coue, said in the street to-day: ”At heart Robert E Lee is against us; that I know” What will not people say in war tiard to change the name of the streaard answered: ”Let us try and reat a name as your South Carolina Cowpens”1 Mrs Chesnut, born in Philadelphia, can not see what right we have to take Mt Vernon froht to be coet their share of this world's goods, do e may, and ill keep Mt Vernon if we can No comfort in Mr Chesnut's letter from Richmond Unutterable confusion prevails, and discord already
In Charleston a butcher has been clandestinely supplying the Yankee fleet outside the bar with beef They say he gave the information which led to the capture of the Savannah They will hang hiru alone in South Carolina has not seceded When they pray for our President, he gets up froht risk a prayer for Mr Davis I doubt if 1 The battle of the Cowpens in South Carolina was fought on January 17, 1781; the British, under Colonel Tarleton, being defeated by General Morgan, with a loss to the British of 300 killed and wounded and 500 prisoners
64 it would seriously do Mr Davis any good Mr Petigru is too clever to think hihteous whose prayers avail so overly ru's disciple, Mr Bryan, followed his exaru has such a keen sense of the ridiculous hein his sleeve at the hubbub this unti out for a battle at Manassas Station I aet away froland Mr Gregory and Mr Lyndsey rise to say a good word for us Heaven reward thes on their devoted heads, as the fiction folks say
Barnwell Heyward telegraphed , Johnny's plantation, and all my clothes were at Sandy Hill, our hoood opportunity of the very nicest escort to Richonies of every-day life Read Emerson; too restless - Manassas on the brain
Russell's letters are filled with rubbish about our wanting an English prince to reign over us He actually inti at the North, scares us Yes, as theof solish
Mr Binney1 has written a letter It is in the Intelligencer of Philadelphia He offers Lincoln his life and fortune; all that he has put at Lincoln's disposal to conquer us Queer; we only want to separate from them, and 1 Horace Binney, one of the foremost lawyers of Philadelphia, as closely associated with the literary, scientific, and philanthropic interests of his time His as a sister of Mrs Chesnut, the author's mother-in-law
65 they put such an inordinate value on us They are willing to risk all, life and limb, and all their money to keep us, they love us so
Mr Chesnut is accused of firing the first shot, and his cousin, an ex-West Pointer, writes in a martial fury They confounded the best shot made on the Island the day of the picnic with the first shot at Fort Sumter This last is claimed by Captain James Others say it was one of the Gibbeses who first fired But it was Anderson who fired the train which blew up the Union He slipped into Fort Suht, e expected to talk it all over A letter from my husband dated, ”Headquarters, Manassas Junction, June 16, 1861”: MY DEAR MARY: I wrote you a short letter from Richmond last Wednesday, and ca for a vigorous defense We have here at this caihborhood, six others - say, ten thousand good men The General and the men feel confident that they can whip twice that number of the enemy, at least
I have been in the saddle for two days, all day, with the General, to becoraphy of the country, and the posts he intends to assume, and the communications between them
We learned General Johnston has evacuated Harper's Ferry, and taken up his position at Winchester, tocut off by the three colu upon hiard considers Harper's Ferry as very iic point of view
I think it most probable that the next battle you will hear of will be between the forces of Johnston and McClellan
I think e particularly need is a head in the field - a Major-General to coeneral and energetic can Still, we have all confidence that ill defeat the eneeh the majority of the people
66 just around here are with us, still there are ainst us
God bless you
Yours, JAMES CHESNUT, JR
Mary Hammy and myself are off for Richoes with us We are to be under his care War-cloud lowering
Isaac Hayne, the ht a duel with Ben Alston across the dinner-table and yet lives, is the bravest of the brave He attacks Russell in the Mercury - in the public prints - for saying anted an English prince to the fore Not we, indeed! Every man wants to be at the head of affairs hi himself, then a republic, of course It was hardly necessary to do reat deal of the wildest kind of talk at the Mills House Russell writes candidly enough of the British in India We can hardly expect him to suppress what is to our detriht I akened by loud talking and candles flashi+ng, tra away in the distance, loud calls from point to point in the yard Up I started,had happened, a battle, a death, a horrible accident So aloft - that is, from the top of the stairway, hoarsely like a boatswain in a storroes looking for fire, with lighted candles, in closets and everywhere else I dressed and came upon the scene of action
”What is it? Any news?” ”No, no, onlyso There are sixty or seventy people kept here to wait upon this household, two-thirds of the to be of any use, but fanificent voice I a fro
67 orders to the busy croere hunting the smell of fire
Old Mrs Chesnut is deaf; so she did not knohat a co She is very sensitive to bad odors Candles have to be taken out of the roouished only in the porticoes, or farther afield She finds violets oppressive; can only tolerate a single kind of sweet rose A tea-rose she will not have in her room She was totally innocent of the stor places to be searched I eak enough to laugh hysterically The bo to this
After this alarh to wake the dead, the s soap Around the soap-pot they had swept up sooing to bed, this was heaped up with the ashes, and its faint s tainted the air, at least to Mrs Chesnut's nose, two hundred yards or ro men on the plantation were found with pistols I have never before seen aught about any negro to show that they knee had a war on hand in which they have any interest
Mrs John de Saussure bade ood-by and God bless you I was touched Ca or sympathy than red Indians, except at a funeral It is expected of all to howl then, and if you don't ”show feeling,” indignation awaits the delinquent
68
VII RICHMOND, VA
June 27, 1861 - July 4, 1861 RICHMOND, Va, June 27, 1861 - Mr Meynardie was perfect in the part of traveling companion He had his pleasures, too The most pious and eloquent of parsons is human, and he enjoyed the converse of the ”eave their views freely on all matters of state
Mr Lawrence Keitt joined us en route With him came his wife and baby We don't think alike, but Mr Keitt is always original and entertaining Already he pronounces Jeff Davis a failure and his Cabinet a farce ”Prophetic,” I suggested, as he gave his opinion before the adot under way He was fierce in his fault-finding as to Mr Chesnut's vote for Jeff Davis He says Mr Chesnut overpersuaded the Judge, and those two turned the tide, at least with the South Carolina delegation We wrangled, as ays do He says Howell Cobb's coht have saved us
Two quiet, unobtrusive Yankee school-teachers were on the train I had spoken to them, and they had told me all about themselves So I wrote on a scrap of paper, ”Do not abuse our ho North Those girls are school from whence they came”
Soldiers everywhere They seem to be in the air, and certainly to fill all space Keitt quoted a funny Georgia man who says we try our soldiers to see if they are hot
69 enough before we enlist them If , ater is thrown on them they do not sizz, they won't do; their patriotism is too cool
To show they ide awake and sy enthusiastically, every woman from everyof every house we passed waved a handkerchief, if she had one This fluttering of white flags from every side never ceased froirls ca They always stood (the girls , I enerally in their eyes, theyat this peculiarity of her sister patriots