Part 17 (1/2)
Maria Leas sitting with us on Mrs Huger's steps, and Sinia people as usual As Lee would say, there ”hove in sight” Frank Parker, riding one of the finest of General Bragg's horses; by his side Buck on Fairfax, thelike satin, his proud neck arched, ets, aristocratic in his bearing to the tips of his bridle-reins There sat Buck tall and fair, -habit showing plainly the exquisite proportions of her figure ”Supremely lovely,” said Smith Lee ”Look at theinia?” ”Three cheers for South Carolina!” was the answer of Lee, the gallant Virginia sailor
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XVII CAMDEN, S C
May 8,1864 - June 1,1864 CAMDEN, S C, May 8, 1864 - My friends crowded around ot the affairs of this nation utterly; though I did show faith in lish old thiold and would sell in New York or London, I gave
My friends in Richrieved that I had to leave them - not half so much, however, as I did that I must come away Those last weeks were so pleasant No battle, no e bell Clever, cordial, kind, brave friends rallied around me
Maggie Howell and I went down the river to see an exchange of prisoners Our party were the Lees, Mallorys, Mrs Buck Allan, Mrs Ould We picked up Judge Ould and Buck Allan at Curl's Neck I had seen no genuine Yankees before; prisoners, well or wounded, had been Ger ashore was an officer, who had charge of soave hienious things he had ave him rations for a week; he always devoured them in three days, he could not help it; and then he had to bear the inevitable agony of those four re days! Many ounded,
305 some were maimed for life They were very cheerful We had supper - or some nondescript meal - with ice-cream on board The band played Home, Sweet Home
One man tapped another on the shoulder: ”Well, how do you feel, old fellow?” ”Never was so near crying in s, a Georgian, late Governor of Utah, was a the returned prisoners He had been in prison two years His ith hie in size, and with snohite hair, fat as a prize ox, with no sign of Yankee barbarity or starvation about hie, which aiting for us at the landing, Dr Garnett with Maggie Howell, Major Hall with me, suddenly I heard her scream, and some one stepped back in the dark and said in a whisper ”Little Joe! he has killed hi woman clutched my arm: ”Mrs Davis's son? I child? How old was he?” The shock was terrible, and unnerved as I was I cried, ”For God's sake take her away!”
Then Maggie and I drove two long ie's hysterical sobs She ith terror The neas broken to her in that abrupt way at the carriage door so that at first she thought it had all happened there, and that poor little Joe was in the carriage
Mr Burton Harrison met us at the door of the Executive Mansion Mrs Semmes and Mrs Barksdale were there, too Everyand door of the house see the curtains It was lighted, even in the third story As I sat in the drawing-room, I could hear the tramp of Mr Davis's step as he walked up and down the room above Not another sound The whole house as silent as death It was then twelve o'clock; so I went hoone
306 to bed We went immediately back to the President's, found Mrs Seht soht to be in the house
Mrs Se down by his brother, and he called out to her in great distress: ”Mrs Semmes, I have said all the prayers I kno, but God will not wake Joe”
Poor little Joe, the good child of the faentle and affectionate He used to run in to say his prayers at his father's knee Noas laid out so the accident, said he fell froh north piazza upon a brick pave there, white and beautiful as an angel, covered with flowers; Catherine, his nurse, flat on the floor by his side, eeping and wailing as only an Irishwoman can
Immense crowds ca and pushi+ng rudely There were thousands of children, and each child had a green bough or a bunch of flowers to throw on little Joe's grave, which was already aI came away from Mrs Davis's, early as it was, I met a little child with a handful of snow drops ”Put these on little Joe,” she said; ”I knew him so well,” and then she turned and fled without another word I did not knoho she was then or now
As I walked hoan, then Wade Ha but little Joe and his brokenhearted mother And Mr Davis's step still sounded in ht
General Lee was to have a grand review the very day we left Richo up by rail to see it Miss Turner McFarland writes: ”They did go, but they came back faster than they went They found the army drawn up in battle array” Many of the brave
307 and gay spirits thatso lately have taken flight, the only flight they know, and their bodies are left dead upon the battle-field Poor old Edward Johnston is wounded again, and a prisoner Jones's brigade broke first; he ounded the day before
At Wil He sent us to the station in his carriage, and bestowed upon us a bottle of brandy, which had run the blockade They say Beauregard has taken his sword fro Never! I will not believe it At the capture of Fort Suard only the hand Lucifer, son of the ! How art thou fallen! That they should even say such a thing!
My husband and Mr Covey got out at Florence to procure for Mrs Miles a cup of coffee They were slow about it and they got left I did not mind this so very sville, and that my husband could overtake ed to the Prestons She was only traveling hoht on to Colusville My old Confederate silk, like most Confederate dresses, had seen better days, and I noticed that, like Oliver Wendell Holone to pieces suddenly, and all over It was literally in strips I becaraph man the way to the hotel, and he was by no means respectful to me I was, indeed, alone - an old and not too respectable-looking wohed aloud
A very haughty and highly painted dareeted aveelse,” said she ”Mrs Chesnut don't travel round by herself with no servants and no nothing” I looked down There I was, dirty, tired, tattered, and torn ”Where do you come from?” said she
308 ”My home is in Camden” ”Come, now, I know everybody in Camden” I sat down meekly on a bench in the piazza, that was free to all wayfarers
”Which Mrs Chesnut?” said she (sharply) ”I know both” ”I am now the only one And nohat is the matter with you? Do you take me for a spy? I know you perfectly well I went to school with you at Miss Henrietta de Leon's, and my name was Mary Miller” ”The Lord sakes alive! and to think you are her! Now I see Dear! dear me! Heaven sakes, wo up my dress ”But I had had no idea it was so difficult to effect an entry into a railroad wayside hotel” I picked up a long strip of my old black dress, torn off by aoff the train
It is sad enough at Mulberry without old Mrs Chesnut, as the good genius of the place It is so lovely here in spring The giants of the forest - the primeval oaks, water-oaks, live-oaks, -oaks, such as I have not seen since I left here-with opopanax, violets, roses, and yellow jessamine, the air is laden with perfume Araby the Blest was never sweeter
Inside, are creature cous, spring las, rich, yellow butter, clean white linen for one's beds, dazzling white damask for one's table It is such a contrast to Rich on Haiments fall in slowly; no fault of the soldiers; they are as disgusted as he is Bragg, Bragg, the head of the War Office, can not organize in time
John Boykin has died in a Yankee prison He had on a heavy flannel shi+rt when lying in an open platform car on the way to a cold prison on the lakes A Federal soldier wanted John's shi+rt Prisoners have no rights; so John had to strip off and hand his shi+rt to him That caused
309 his death In two days he was dead of pneu us there to freeze” But then their ust and July as deadly as our men find their cold Decembers Their snow and ice finish our prisoners at a rapid rate, they say Napoleon's soldiers found out all that in the Russian caht ees here, to luxuriate in Mulberry's plenty I can but reinia people when I was there and in a siinia people do the rarest acts of hospitality and never seem to know it is not in the ordinary course of events
The President'shis , said: ”Why, Missis, your niggers down here are well off I call this Mulberry place heaven, with plenty to eat, little to do, warood church”
John L Miller, iment The blo fall so fast on our heads they are bewildering The Secretary of War authorizes General Chesnut to reorganize the men who have been hitherto detailed for special duty, and also those who have been exeanized the corps of clerks which saved Richren raid
May 27th - In all this beautiful sunshi+ne, in the stillness and shade of these long hours on this piazza, all comes back to me about little Joe; it haunts me - that scene in Richmond where all seemed confusion, madness, a bad drea those tall whiteabout below over rocks and around islands; the do bareheaded, straight as an arrow, clear against the sky by the open grave of his son She, the bereft
310 s, and her tall figure drooped The flowers, the children, the procession as it ures stand; they are before ht, with no sound but the heavy tra in the wind, the gas flaring, I was nurief and terror Then came Catherine's Irish howl Cheap, was that Where was she when it all happened? Her place was to have been with the child Who saw him fall? Whom will they kill next of that devoted household?
Read to-day the list of killed and wounded1 One long coluh for South Carolina's dead I see Mr Federal Secretary Stanton says he can reenforce Su Grant at his leisure whenever he calls for more He has just sent him 25,000 veterans Old Lincoln says, in his quaint backwoods way, ”Keep a-peggin'” Noe can only peg out What have we left of men, etc, to meet these ”reenforce one to the front; only old men and little boys are at home now
It is impossible to sleep here, because it is so soleht shi+nes in mysad and white, and the soft south wind, literally coe-blossonolia flowers
Mrs Chesnut was only a year younger than her husband He is ninety-two or three She was deaf; but he retains his senses wonderfully for his great age I have always been an early riser For slowly down the broad passage froohen it inter In 1 During the inia, including that of the Wilderness on May 6th-7th, and the series later in that month around Spottsylvania Court House
310a MRS JAMES CHESNUT, SR
Fro he was apt to be in shi+rt-sleeves, with suspenders hanging down his back He had always a large hair-brush in his hand
He would take his stand on the rug before the fire in her roo scant locks which were fleecy white Herhers, which were dead-leaf brown, not a white hair in her head He had the voice of a stentor, and there he stood roaring hiscompliments The people who occupied the roolasses This pleasantceremony was never omitted
Her voice was ”soft and low” (the oft-quoted) Philadelphia see forth such voices now Mrs Binney, old Mrs Chesnut's sister, ca us with the same softly modulated, wohters were criard Judge Han said: ”Philadelphia wo as I passed Mrs Chesnut's room, the door stood wide open, and I heard a pitiful sound The oldbitterly I fled down the middle walk, anywhere out of reach of as never meant for ain and hear that William Kirkland has been wounded A scene occurred then, Mary weeping bitterly and Aunt B frantic as to Tanny's danger I proposed to e took rily ”You are unwise to talk in that way She can neither take her infant nor leave it The cars are closed by order of the government to all but soldiers”