University of Virginia Library

I
CHARLESTON, S. C.

I. November 8, 1860—December 27, 1860

CHARLESTON, S. C., November 8, 1860.—Yesterday
on the train, just before we reached Fernandina, a
woman called out: "That settles the hash." Tanny
touched me on the shoulder and said: "Lincoln's elected."
"How do you know?" "The man over there has a telegram."

The excitement was very great. Everybody was talking
at the same time. One, a little more moved than the
others, stood up and said despondently: "The die is cast;
no more vain regrets; sad forebodings are useless; the
stake is life or death." "Did you ever!" was the prevailing
exclamation, and some one cried out: "Now that the
black radical Republicans have the power I suppose they
will Brown[1] us all." No doubt of it.

I have always kept a journal after a fashion of my
own, with dates and a line of poetry or prose, mere quotations,
which I understood and no one else, and I have kept
letters and extracts from the papers. From to-day forward
I will tell the story in my own way. I now wish I had a
chronicle of the two delightful and eventful years that have
just passed. Those delights have fled and one's breath is
taken away to think what events have since crowded in.
Like the woman's record in her journal, we have had
"earthquakes, as usual"—daily shocks.

At Fernandina I saw young men running up a Palmetto
flag, and shouting a little prematurely, "South Carolina
has seceded! "I was overjoyed to find Florida so
sympathetic, but Tanny told me the young men were Gadsdens,
Porchers, and Gourdins,[2] names as inevitably South
Carolinian as Moses and Lazarus are Jewish.

From my window I can hear a grand and mighty
flow of eloquence. Bartow and a delegation from Savannah
are having a supper given to them in the dining-room
below. The noise of the speaking and cheering is pretty
hard on a tired traveler. Suddenly I found myself listening
with pleasure. Voice, tone, temper, sentiment, language,
all were perfect. I sent Tanny to see who it was
that spoke. He came back saying, "Mr. Alfred Huger,
the old postmaster." He may not have been the wisest or
wittiest man there, but he certainly made the best after-supper
speech.

December 10th.—We have been up to the Mulberry
Plantation with Colonel Colcock and Judge Magrath, who
were sent to Columbia by their fellow-citizens in the low
country, to hasten the slow movement of the wisdom assembled
in the State Capital. Their message was, they said:
"Go ahead, dissolve the Union, and be done with it, or
it will be worse for you. The fire in the rear is hottest."
And yet people talk of the politicians leading! Everywhere
that I have been people have been complaining bitterly
of slow and lukewarm public leaders.

Judge Magrath is a local celebrity, who has been
stretched across the street in effigy, showing him tearing off
his robes of office. The painting is in vivid colors, the
canvas huge, and the rope hardly discernible. He is
depicted with a countenance flaming with contending emotions
—rage, disgust, and disdain. We agreed that the time

had now come. We had talked so much heretofore. Let the
fire-eaters have it out. Massachusetts and South Carolina
are always coming up before the footlights.

As a woman, of course, it is easy for me to be brave
under the skins of other people; so I said: "Fight it out.
Bluffton[3] has brought on a fever that only bloodletting will
cure." My companions breathed fire and fury, but I dare
say they were amusing themselves with my dismay, for,
talk as I would, that I could not hide.

At Kingsville we encountered James Chesnut, fresh
from Columbia, where he had resigned his seat in the
United States Senate the day before. Said some one spitefully,
"Mrs. Chesnut does not look at all resigned." For
once in her life, Mrs. Chesnut held her tongue: she was
dumb. In the high-flown style which of late seems to have
gotten into the very air, she was offering up her life to
the cause.

We have had a brief pause. The men who are all, like
Pickens,[4] "insensible to fear," are very sensible in case of
small-pox. There being now an epidemic of small-pox in
Columbia, they have adjourned to Charleston. In Camden
we were busy and frantic with excitement, drilling, marching,
arming, and wearing high blue cockades. Red sashes,
guns, and swords were ordinary fireside accompaniments.
So wild were we, I saw at a grand parade of the home-guard
a woman, the wife of a man who says he is a secessionist
per se, driving about to see the drilling of this new company,
although her father was buried the day before.

Edward J. Pringle writes me from San Francisco
on November 30th: "I see that Mr. Chesnut has resigned

and that South Carolina is hastening into a Convention,
perhaps to secession. Mr. Chesnut is probably to
be President of the Convention. I see all of the leaders
in the State are in favor of secession. But I confess I
hope the black Republicans will take the alarm and submit
some treaty of peace that will enable us now and forever
to settle the question, and save our generation from
the prostration of business and the decay of prosperity
that must come both to the North and South from a disruption
of the Union. However, I won't speculate. Before
this reaches you, South Carolina may be off on her own
hook—a separate republic."

December 21st.—Mrs. Charles Lowndes was sitting with
us to-day, when Mrs. Kirkland brought in a copy of the
Secession Ordinance. I wonder if my face grew as white
as hers. She said after a moment: "God help us. As our
day, so shall our strength be." How grateful we were for
this pious ejaculation of hers! They say I had better take
my last look at this beautiful place, Combahee. It is on the
coast, open to gunboats.

We mean business this time, because of this convocation
of the notables, this convention.[5] In it are all our wisest
and best. They really have tried to send the ablest men,
the good men and true. South Carolina was never more
splendidly represented. Patriotism aside, it makes society
delightful. One need not regret having left Washington.

December 27th.—Mrs. Gidiere came in quietly from her
marketing to-day, and in her neat, incisive manner exploded
this bombshell: "Major Anderson[6] has moved into

THE OLD BAPTIST CHURCH IN COLUMBIA, S. C.

Here First Met the South Carolina Secession Convention.

Fort Sumter, while Governor Pickens slept serenely." The
row is fast and furious now. State after State is taking its
forts and fortresses. They say if we had been left out in
the cold alone, we might have sulked a while, but back we
would have had to go, and would merely have fretted and
fumed and quarreled among ourselves. We needed a little
wholesome neglect. Anderson has blocked that game, but
now our sister States have joined us, and we are strong.
I give the condensed essence of the table-talk: "Anderson
has united the cotton States. Now for Virginia!" "Anderson
has opened the ball." Those who want a row are in
high glee. Those who dread it are glum and thoughtful
enough.

A letter from Susan Rutledge: "Captain Humphrey
folded the United States Army flag just before dinnertime.
Ours was run up in its place. You know the Arsenal
is in sight. What is the next move? I pray God to guide
us. We stand in need of wise counsel; something more
than courage. The talk is: 'Fort Sumter must be taken;
and it is one of the strongest forts.' How in the name of
sense are they to manage? I shudder to think of rash
moves."