Part 8 (2/2)
142 ”disaffected to the Council, that don't count He knohat he is about; he would not injure his country for the world”
Read Uncle Toro women have a chance here that women have nowhere else They can redeem themselves - the ”i is reainst these colored ladies It is not a nice topic, but Mrs Stowe revels in it How delightfully Pharisaic a feeling it raded as to defend and like to live with such degraded creatures around us - such roes to your heart is to get as far away from them as possible As far as I can see, Southern women do all that missionaries could do to prevent and alleviate evils The social evil has not been suppressed in old England or in New England, in London or in Boston People in those places expect more virtue fro theht, education, training, and support Lady Mary Montagu says, ”Only men and women at last” ”Male and feraceful, beautiful elic Evas North as well as South, I dare say The Northern men and women who came here were always hardest, for they expected an African to work and behave as a white ht from observation truly that perfect beauty hardens the heart, and as to grace, what so graceful as a cat, a tigress, or a panther Much love, admiration, worshi+p hardens an idol's heart It becomes utterly callous and selfish It expects to receive all and to give nothing It even likes the excite people suffer I speak nohat I have watched with horror and amazement
Topsys I have known, but none that were beaten or ill-used
143 used Evas are ination People can't love things dirty, ugly, and repulsive, siood to theh; I can only judge by what I see
March 14th - Thank God for a shi+p! It has run the blockade with arro sexual relations half so shocking as Mormonism And yet the United States Govern Morland held her hand over ”the nant and the turbaned Turk” to save and protect hilio, and all But she rolls up the whites of her eyes at us when slavery, bad as it is, is stepping out into freedorudge the Turk even his bag and Bosphorus privileges To a recalcitrant wife it is, ”Here yawns the sack ; there rolls the sea,” etc And France, the bold, the brave, the ever free, she has not been so tender-footed in Algiers But then the ”you are another” arguaciously, ”we are white Christian descendants of Huguenots and Cavaliers, and they expect of us different conduct”
Went in Mrs Preston's landau to bring irls here to dine At my door met J F, anted me then and there to promise to help him with his coe steps I was handed in by Gus Smith, ants his brother made commissary The beauty of it all is they think I have some influence, and I have not a particle The subject of Mr Chesnut's military affairs, promotions, etc, is never mentioned by me
March 15th - When we came hoainstfor me, the handsome creature He said he -roo attendance on o to the wars like men
After tea came ”Mars Kit” - he said for a talk, but that Mr Preston would not let him have, for Mr Preston had arrived soht it ”bad forh froain, he was forced to laugh with a will I reversed Oliver Wendell Holood resolution - never to be as funny as he could I did my very utmost
Mr Venable interrupted the fun, which was fast and furious, with the very best of bad news! Newbern shelled and burned , cotton, turpentine - everything - There were 5,000 North Carolinians in the fray, 12,000 Yankees Now there stands Goldsboro One more step and we are cut in two The railroad is our backbone, like the Blue Ridge and the Alleghanies, hich it runs parallel So many discomforts, no wonder we are down-hearted
Mr Venable thinks as we do - Garnett is our inal, and the cleverest of our men - L Q C Lamar - time fails me to write all his name Then, there is R M T Hunter Muscoe Russell Garnett and his Northern wife: that ton when Garnett was a ress
March 17th - Back to the Congaree House to await ion As we drove up Mr Chesnut said: ”Did you see the stare of respectful aded? I could hardly keep my countenance” ”Yes, hin it I a power just noith so many commissions to be filled I a the credit to suppose I can be made to
145 believe they ad that they believe hable”
Last night a house was set on fire; last week two houses ”The red cock crows in the barn!” Our troubles thicken, indeed, when treachery comes from that dark quarter
When the President first offered Johnston Pettigrew a brigadier-generalshi+p, his ansas: ”Not yet Too many men are ahead of me who have earned their promotion in the field I will co to et it I fancy he hty There was another conscientious iment to his lieutenant-colonel when he found the lieutenant-colonel could coiment and Burnet could not ht simply as an aide to Floyd Modest merit just now is at a premium
Williaotten already what it was about It was not tireso when people will persist in reading their own rhy ”The last piece of Richmond news,” Mr Chesnut said as he went away, and he looked so fagged out I asked no questions I kneas bad
At daylight there was a loud knocking at own and flew to open the door ”Mrs Chesnut, Mrs M says please don't forget her son Mr Chesnut, she hears, has coet her son a commission He must have an office” I shut the door in the servant's face If I had the influence these foolish people attribute to me why should I not help my own? I have a brother, two brothers-in-law, and no end of kin, all gentlemen privates, and privates they would stay to the
146 end of time before they said a word to usted and the ood or bad, there is aloe for some house in the killed and wounded We have need of stout hearts I feel a sinking of mine as we drive near the board
March 18th - My war archon is beset for coiven, you rate and a thousand enemies
As I entered Miss Mary Stark's I whispered: ”He has promised to vote for Louis” What radiant faces Tofor his country?” ”He is a tax collector” Then spoke up the stout old girl: ”Look at reat, hale, hearty young man! Fie on him! fie on him! for shame! Tell his wife; run him out of the house with a broomstick; send him down to the coast at least” Fancy my cheeks I could not raise my eyes to the poor lady, so mercilessly assaulted My face was as hot with compassion as the outspoken Miss Mary pretended hers to be with vicarious mortification
Went to see sweet and saintly Mrs Bartow She read us a letter from Mississippi - not so bad: ”More men there than the enemy suspected, and torpedoes to blow up the wretches when they came” Next to see Mrs Izard She had with her a relative just from the North This lady had asked Seward for passports, and he told her to ”hold on a while; the road to South Carolina will soon be open to all, open and safe” To-day Mrs Arthur Hayne heard froiven up Mrs Buell is her daughter
Met Mr Chesnut, who said: ”New Madrid1 has been given up I do not know any more than the dead where New Madrid is It is bad, all the sa up I 1 New Madrid, Missouri, had been under siege since March 3, 1862
147 can't stand it The he of fire is alht for him if he would arm them He pretended to believe theree to it He would trust such as he would select, and he would give so many acres of land and his freedom to each one as he enlisted
Mrs Albert Rhett came for an office for her son John I told her Mr Chesnut would never propose a kins him forward he would vote for him certainly, as he is so eminently fit for position Now he is a private
March 19th - He who runs ht place This as a volunteer business To-ins - the dernier ressort The President has re for North Carolina His War Minister is Randolph, of Virginia A Union man par excellence, Watts, of Alabama, is Attorney-General And now, too late by one year, when all the raph Captain Ingraham to build shi+ps at any expense We are locked in and can not get ”the requisites for naval architecture,” says a niloquent person
Henry Frost says all hands wink at cotton going out Why not send it out and buy shi+ps? ”Every now and then there is a holocaust of cotton burning,” says the niloquent Conscription has waked the Rip Van Winkles The streets of Coluht and to be s
To my small wits, whenever people were persistent, united, and rose in theirthem Have we not swamps, forests, rivers, ed for peace because they were a luxurious people and could not endure the hardshi+p of war, though
148 the ene thereat soul who is to rise up and lead us Why tarry his footsteps?
March 20th - The Merries of naal Tiger,” ”National Tiger,” etc Rue this, and next day Rue that, the very days andon the sofa inup and down the corridor talked aloud as if necessarily all rooms were unoccupied at this midday hour I asked Maum Mary who they were ”Yeadon and Barnwell Rhett, Jr” They abused the Council roundly, and my husband's name arrested my attention Afterward, when Yeadon attacked Mr Chesnut, Mr Chesnut surprised hi beforehand all he had to say Naturally I had repeated the loud interchange of views I had overheard in the corridor
First, Nathan Davis called Then Gonzales, who presented a fine, soldierly appearance in his soldier clothes, and the likeness to Beauregard was greater than ever Nathan, all the world knows, is by profession a handsome man
General Gonzales told us what in the bitterness of his soul he had written to Jeff Davis He regretted that he had not been his classht have been as well treated as Northrop In any case he would not have been refused a brigadiershi+p, citing General Trapier and Tom Drayton He had worked for it, had earned it; they had not To his surprise, Mr Davis answered hies Mr Davis demanded from whom he quoted, ”not his classmate” General Gonzales responded, ”froht for us all the saet his dues - at least, until one of theets
148a A GROUP OF CONFEDERATE WOMEN
MISS S B C PRESTON MISS ISABELLA D MARTIN MRS JEFFERSON DAVIS MRS LOUISA S MCCORD MRS FRANCIS W PICKENS MRS DAVID R WILLIAMS
149 his dues, for heJeff Davis over the head whenever he has a chance
”I am afraid,” said I, ”you will find it a hard head to crack” He replied in his flowery Spanish way: ”Jeff Davis will be the sun, radiating all light, heat, and patronage; he will not be apublic opinion, for he has the soul of a despot; he delights to spite public opinion See, people abused hihtway he , besotted defeat, too” Also, he told the President in that letter: ”Napoleon reat deeds on their part, and not for having been educated at St Cyr, or Brie, or the Polytechnique,” etc, etc Nathan Davis sat as still as a Sioux warrior, not an eyelash moved And yet he said afterward that he was areat namesake
Gonzales said: ”Mrs Slidell would proudly say that she was a Creole They were such fools, they thought Creole meant - ” Here Nathan interrupted pleasantly: ”At the St Charles, in New Orleans, on the bill of fare were 'Creole eggs' When they were brought to a man who had ordered them, with perfect sis, after all' What in Heaven's name he expected theant
One lady says (as I sit reading in the drawing-roohts): ”I clothe s; it would be unpleasant to me” Another lady: ”Yes Well, so do I But not fine clothes, you know I feel - now - it was one of our sins as a nation, the e indulged them in sinful finery We will be punished for it”
Last night, Mrs Pickens met General Cooper Madaeneral, and Mr Mason's brother-in-law In her slow, graceful, impressive