Part 20 (1/2)
They say Sherhoul, that hyena! But I do not believe it He takes his tis leisurely and deliberately Why stop to do so needless a thing as burn Lancaster court-house, the jail, and the tavern? As I re party they say did for Camden
No train from Charlotte yesterday Rumor says Sher to brave it out They have plenty, yet let ourto be as wicked as they are? A thousand times, no! But we must feed our army first - if we can do so much as that Our captives need not starve if Lincoln would consent to exchange prisoners; but s to throay If they send our ain their policy is to keep everybody and everything here in order to help starve us out That, too, is what Sher Brevard asked uitar is reat delight It was a distraction Then Ifor the soldier boys below and caone, dull care; you and I never agree
Ellen and I are shut up here It is rain, rain, everlasting rain As our rateful I was to-day when Mrs McLean sent me a piece of chicken I think the emptiness of my larder has leaked out To-day Mrs Munroe sent s for oing up intodown on us in a water-spout? The rain, it raineth every day The weather typifies our tearful despair, on a large scale It is also Lent now - a quite convenient custo to eat So we fast and pray, and go dragging to church like drowned rats to be preached at
358 My letter from my husband was so - well, what in a woet ready for a run up to Charlotte My hat was on”Which u out there” A tap came at the door, and Miss McLean threw the door wide open as she said in a triumphant voice: ”Per out, ”Oh, does not alike this make amends?”
We went after luncheon to see Mrs Munroe My husband wanted to thank her for all her kindness to me I fully proud of him I used to think that everybody had the air and entles to thank God for Father O'Connell came in, fresh from Columbia, and with news at last Sherman's men had burned the convent Mrs Munroe had pinned her faith to Sherman because he was a Roman Catholic, but Father O'Connell was there and saw it The nuns and girls marched to the old Hampton house (Mrs Preston's now), and so saved it They walked between files of soldiers Men were rolling tar barrels and lighting torches to fling on the house when the nuns caround Men, women, and children have been left there homeless, houseless, and without one particle of food - reduced to picking up corn that was left by Sher it to stay their hunger
How kind e sent h food supplies for an entire dinner; Miss McLean a cake for dessert Ellen cooked and served up the material happily at hand very nicely, indeed There never was a more successful dinner My heart was too full to eat, but I was quiet and calm; at least I spared my husband the trial of a broken voice and tears As he stood at the ,
359 with his back to the room, he said: ”Where are they now- ht I see her leading him out from under his own rooftree That picture pursues s” To which I answered, ”Where will you find them?”
He took off his heavy cavalry boots and Ellen carried theht theony, while struggling with those huge boots and trying to get them on, he spoke to her volubly in French She turned away froht, and said to me, ”I had not heard of your happiness I did not know the General was here” Not until next day did we have tih at that outbreak of French Miss Middleton answered hie He told her how charo aith a hter heart since he had seen the kind people hom he would leave me
I asked my husband what that correspondence between Sher for our dinner His back was still turned as he gazed out of theHe spoke in the low and steady monotone that characterized our conversation the whole day, and yet there was so in his voice that thrilled me as he said: ”The second day after our march from Columbia we passed the M's He was a bonded man and not at hoe for our horses, but afterward she succeeded in procuring soirl who stood beside her as she spoke, and I suggested to herher out of the track of both arer as heretofore; there was so , so many camp followers, with no discipline, on the outskirts of the arirl answered quickly, 'I
360 wish to stay with ht a party of Wheeler's men came to our camp, and such a tale they told of what had been done at the place of horror and destruction, the e had been co been secured firstAfter this crime the fiends one but a short time when Wheeler's men went in pursuit at full speed and overtook them, cut their throats and wrote upon their breasts: 'These were the seven!' ”
”But the girl?”
”Oh, she was dead!”
”Are his critics as violent as ever against the President?” asked I when recovered from pity and horror ”Sometimes I think I am the only friend he has in the world At these dinners, which they give us everywhere, I spoil the sport, for I will not sit still and hear Jeff Davis abused for things he is no more responsible for than any man at that table Once I lost my temper and told them it sounded like arrant nonsense to entleman and a patriot, with more brains than the assembled company” ”You lost your teht I was as cool as I aton e left, Jeff Davis ranked second to none, in intellect, and may be first, from the South, and Mrs Davis was the friend of Mrs Eomery Blair, and others of that circle Now they rave that he is nobody, and never was” ”And she?” I asked ”Oh, you would think to hear them that he found her yesterday in a Mississippi swamp!” ”Well, in the French Revolution it orse When a uillotined Mirabeau did not die a day too soon, even Mirabeau”
He is gone With despair in my heart I left that railroad station Allan Green walked hoed little boys a day or so ago She
361 is the neatest, the prientle cooing of a dove That lowering black future hangs there all the sas no hope of peace or of security to us Ellen said I had a little piece of bread and a little molasses in store for my dinner to-day
March 6th - To-day came a Godsend Even a ss of the past My larder was eht a tray covered by a huge white serviette Ellen ushered her in with a flourish, saying, ”Mrs McDaniel's maid” The maid set down the tray upon my bare table, and uncovered it with conscious pride There were fowls ready for roasting, sausages, butter, bread, eggs, and preserves I was duht After silent thanks to heaven es of gratitude to Mrs McDaniel
”Missis, you oughtn't to let her see how glad you was,” said Ellen ”It was a lettin' of yo'sef down”
Mrs Glover gave on - eggs for Lent To show that I have faith yet in hu to eat, which they pros at 100 a dozen in ”Confederick” le in yarn for the millionth part of a thread
Teeks have passed and the ruuest No letter has coer ”My God!” cried Dr Frank Miles, ”but it is strange Can it be anything so dreadful they dare not tell us?” Dr St Julien Ravenel has grown pale and haggard with care His wife and children were left there
Dr Bruh leather for the ive up walking He knew my father
362 well He intie His own money had not sufficed, and so William C Preston and raduated Then my uncle, Charles Miller, married his aunt I listened in rapture, for all this tended to leniency in the leather business, and I bore off the leather gladly When asked for Confederate ive the - either sum
March 8th - Colonel Childs ca a full account of Sherman's cold-blooded brutality in Columbia Then alked three miles to return the call of my benefactress, Mrs McDaniel They were kind and hospitable at her house, but s orse than my head, and then I had a nervous chill So I caht ot up and ive him a cheerful reception Soon a man called, Troy by name, the same who kept the little corner shop so near s so often We had fraternized He now shook hands with me and looked in my face pitifully We seemed to have been friends all our lives He says they stopped the fire at the Methodist College, perhaps to save old Mr McCartha's house Mr Sheriff Dent, being burned out, took refuge in our house He contrived to find favor in Yankee eyes Troy relates that a Yankee officer snatched a watch from Mrs McCord's bosom The soldiers tore the bundles of clothes that the poor wretches tried to save fro homes, and dashed them back into the fla round the fires like demons, these Yankees in their joy and triu scare and kept them miserable for four years - the little handful of us
363 A woman we met on the street stopped to tell us a painful coincidence A general wasafter the wedding When his baby was born they telegraphed hi ansith an inquiry, ”Is it a boy or a girl?” He was killed before he got the reply Was it not sad? His poor young wife says, ”He did not live to hear that his son lived” The kind woman added, sorrowfully, ”Died and did not know the sect of his child” ”Let us hope it will be a Methodist,” said Isabella, the irrepressible
At the venison feast Isabella heard a good word forpeople can not give themselves, try as ever they entleman when he sees one, and nobody can tell what it is that , but he can't describe it Now there are some French words that can not be translated, and we all know the thing they racieuse and svelte, for instance, as applied to a wo was said of me like that - far from it I am fair, fat, forty, and jolly, and in my unbroken jollity, as far as they know, they found my charm ”You see, she doesn't howl; she doesn't cry; she never, never tells anybody about what she was used to at hoh praise, and I intend to try and deserve it ever after
March 10th - Went to church crying to Ellen, ”It is Lent, we ood fairy, Colonel Childs, had been here bringing rice and potatoes, and pro flour He is a trump He pulled out his pocket-book and offered to be my banker He stood there on the street, Miss Middleton and Isabella witnessing the generous action, and straight out offered ar, and I never will be; to die is so much easier”
Alas, after that flourish of truratefully I receive things I
364 can not pay for, but inary perhaps Once before the sa happened Our letters of credit came slowly in 1845, ent unexpectedly to Europe and our letters were to follow us I was a poor little, inoffensive bride, and a British officer, who guessed our embarrassment, for we did not tell him (he came over with us on the shi+p), asked my husband to draw on his banker until the letters of credit should arrive It was a nice thing for a stranger to do
We have never lost e never had We have never had any money - only unlimited credit, for my husband's richest kind of a father insured us all e only at last, and it has gone just as we drew nigh to it
Colonel Childs says eight of our Senators are for reconstruction, and that a ray of light has penetrated inward froe Campbell that Southern land would not be confiscated
March 12th - Better to-day A long, long weary day in grief has passed away I suppose General Chesnut is somewhere - but where? that is the question Only once has he visited this sad spot, which holds, he says, all that he cares for on earth Unless he comes or writes soon I will cease, or try to cease, this weariso for him
March 13th - My husband at last did coht Lawrence, who had been to Ca the raid My husband has been ordered to Chester, S C We are surprised to see by the papers that we behaved heroically in leaving everything we had to be destroyed, without one thought of surrender We had not thought of ourselves frohlin hid and saved everything we trusted hiro is Isaac
March 15th - Lawrence says Miss Chesnut is very proud of the presence of mind and cool self-possession she showed
365 in the face of the enene, two of her brother's gold-headed canes, and her brother's horses, including Claudia, the brood e, and a fly-brush boy called Battis, whose occupation in life was to stand behind the table with his peacock feathers and brush the flies away He was the sole member of his dusky race at Mulberry who deserted ”Ole Marster” to follow the Yankees
Now for our losses at the Herold-headed canes and Claudia, we lost every mule and horse, and President Davis's beautiful Arabian was captured John's were there, too My light dragoon, Johnny, and heavy swell, is stripped light enough for the fight now Jonathan, e trusted, betrayed us; and the plantation and mills, Mulberry house, etc, were saved by Claiborne, that black rascal, as suspected by all the world Claiborne boldly affir his place; the invaders would hurt only the negroes ”Mars Jeems,” said he, ”hardly ever come here and he takes only a little so, I sent for St Julien Ravenel We had a wrangle over the slavery question Then, he fell foul of everybody who had not conducted this war according to his ideas Ellen had so nice to offer hiry, too anxious, too miserable to eat He pitched into Ellen after he had disposed ofat him from the fireplace, her blue eye nearly white, her other eye blazing as a coave her some Dover's powders for me; directions ritten on the paper in which the medicine rapped, and he told her to show these to lass and let lass and let h to last you
366 your lifeti to I Ellen: ”What did you do with the directions?” ”I nuvver see no d'rections You nuvver gimme none” ”I told you to show that paper to yourdat ole brown paper in de fire What you ive Missis de physic, she stop frettin' an' flingin' 'bout, she go to sleep sweet as a suckling baby, an' she slep two days an' nights, an' now she heap better” And Ellen withdrew from the controversy
”Well, all is well that ends well, Mrs Chesnut You took opiuh to kill several persons You orried out and needed rest You caer from your disease But your doctor and your nurse combined were deadly” Maybe I was saved by the adulteration, the feebleness, of Confederate medicine
A letter from my husband, written at Chester Court House on March 15th, says: ”In the den with Lawrence to Lincolnton to bring you down I have three vacant rooms; one with bedsteads, chairs, washstands, basins, and pitchers; the two others bare You can have half of a kitchen for your cooking I have also at Dr Da Vega's, a room, furnished, to which you are invited (board, also) You can take your choice If you can get your friends in Lincolnton to assu such as youbed and bedding and the other indispensables”
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