University of Virginia Library

VI
CHARLESTON, S. C.

VI. May 25, 1861—June 24, 1861

CHARLESTON, S. C., May 25, 1861.—We have come
back to South Carolina from the Montgomery Congress,
stopping over at Mulberry. We came with
R. M. T. Hunter and Mr. Barnwell. Mr. Barnwell has excellent
reasons for keeping cotton at home, but I forget
what they are. Generally, people take what he says, also
Mr. Hunter's wisdom, as unanswerable. Not so Mr. Chesnut,
who growls at both, much as he likes them. We also
had Tom Lang and his wife, and Doctor Boykin. Surely
there never was a more congenial party. The younger men
had been in the South Carolina College while Mr. Barnwell
was President. Their love and respect for him were immeasurable
and he benignly received it, smiling behind
those spectacles.

Met John Darby at Atlanta and told him he was Surgeon
of the Hampton Legion, which delighted him. He
had had adventures. With only a few moments on the
platform to interchange confidences, he said he had remained
a little too long in the Medical College in Philadelphia,
where he was some kind of a professor, and they had
been within an ace of hanging him as a Southern spy.
"Rope was ready," he sniggered. At Atlanta when he
unguardedly said he was fresh from Philadelphia, he barely
escaped lynching, being taken for a Northern spy. "Lively
life I am having among you, on both sides," he said, hurrying
away. And I moaned, "Here was John Darby like

to have been killed by both sides, and no time to tell me
the curious coincidences." What marvelous experiences a
little war begins to produce.

May 27th.—They look for a fight at Norfolk. Beauregard
is there. I think if I were a man I'd be there, too.
Also Harper's Ferry is to be attacked. The Confederate
flag has been cut down at Alexandria by a man named Ellsworth,[1]
who was in command of Zouaves. Jackson was the
name of the person who shot Ellsworth in the act. Sixty
of our cavalry have been taken by Sherman's brigade.
Deeper and deeper we go in.

Thirty of Tom Boykin's company have come home from
Richmond. They went as a rifle company, armed with muskets.
They were sandhill tackeys—those fastidious ones,
not very anxious to fight with anything, or in any way,
I fancy. Richmond ladies had come for them in carriages,
fêted them, waved handkerchiefs to them, brought them
dainties with their own hands, in the faith that every Carolinian
was a gentleman, and every man south of Mason
and Dixon's line a hero. But these are not exactly descendants
of the Scotch Hay, who fought the Danes with his
plowshare, or the oxen's yoke, or something that could
hit hard and that came handy.

Johnny has gone as a private in Gregg's regiment. He
could not stand it at home any longer. Mr. Chesnut was
willing for him to go, because those sandhill men said
"this was a rich man's war," and the rich men would be
the officers and have an easy time and the poor ones would

be privates. So he said: "Let the gentlemen set the example;
let them go in the ranks." So John Chesnut is a
gentleman private. He took his servant with him all the
same.

Johnny reproved me for saying, "If I were a man, I
would not sit here and dole and drink and drivel and forget
the fight going on in Virginia." He said it was my
duty not to talk so rashly and make enemies. He "had the
money in his pocket to raise a company last fall, but it has
slipped through his fingers, and now he is a common soldier."
"You wasted it or spent it foolishly," said I.
"I do not know where it has gone," said he. "There was
too much consulting over me, too much good counsel was
given to me, and everybody gave me different advice."
"Don't you ever know your own mind?" "We will do
very well in the ranks; men and officers all alike; we know
everybody."

So I repeated Mrs. Lowndes's solemn words when she
heard that South Carolina had seceded alone: "As thy
days so shall thy strength be." Don't know exactly what
I meant, but thought I must be impressive as he was going
away. Saw him off at the train. Forgot to say anything
there, but cried my eyes out.

Sent Mrs. Wigfall a telegram—"Where shrieks the
wild sea-mew?" She answered: "Sea-mew at the Spotswood
Hotel. Will shriek soon. I will remain here."

June 6th.—Davin! Have had a talk concerning him
to-day with two opposite extremes of people.

Mrs. Chesnut, my mother-in-law, praises everybody,
good and bad. "Judge not," she says. She is a philosopher;
she would not give herself the pain to find fault.
The Judge abuses everybody, and he does it so well.
short, sharp, and incisive are his sentences, and he revels
in condemning the world en bloc, as the French say. So
nobody is the better for her good word, or the worse for
his bad one.

In Camden I found myself in a flurry of women.
"Traitors," they cried. "Spies; they ought to be
hanged; Davin is taken up, Dean and Davis are his accomplices."
"What has Davin done?" "He'll be hanged,
never you mind." "For what?" "They caught him
walking on the trestle work in the swamp, after no good,
you may be sure." "They won't hang him for that!"
"Hanging is too good for him!" "You wait till Colonel
Chesnut comes." "He is a lawyer," I said, gravely.
"Ladies, he will disappoint you. There will be no lynching
if he goes to that meeting to-day. He will not move a
step except by habeas corpus and trial by jury, and a
quantity of bench and bar to speak long speeches."

Mr. Chesnut did come, and gave a more definite account
of poor Davin's precarious situation. They had
intercepted treasonable letters of his at the Post Office. I
believe it was not a very black treason after all. At any
rate, Mr. Chesnut spoke for him with might and main at
the meeting. It was composed (the meeting) of intelligent
men with cool heads. And they banished Davin to Fort
Sumter. The poor Music Master can't do much harm in
the casemates there. He may thank his stars that Mr. Chesnut
gave him a helping hand. In the red hot state our
public mind now is in there will be a short shrift for spies.
Judge Withers said that Mr. Chesnut never made a more
telling speech in his life than he did to save this poor
Frenchman for whom Judge Lynch was ready. I had
never heard of Davin in my life until I heard he was to
be hanged.

Judge Stephen A. Douglas, the "little giant," is dead;
one of those killed by the war, no doubt; trouble of mind.

Charleston people are thin-skinned. They shrink from
Russell's touches. I find his criticisms mild. He has a
light touch. I expected so much worse. Those Englishmen
come, somebody says, with three P's—pen, paper, prejudices.
I dread some of those after-dinner stories. As to

that day in the harbor, he let us off easily. He says our
men are so fine looking. Who denies it? Not one of us.
Also that it is a silly impression which has gone abroad
that men can not work in this climate. We live in the open
air, and work like Trojans at all manly sports, riding hard,
hunting, playing at being soldiers. These fine, manly specimens
have been in the habit of leaving the coast when it
became too hot there, and also of fighting 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 December. Negroes
stand a tropical or semitropical sun at noon-day better
than white men. In fighting it is different. Men will
not then mind sun, or rain, or wind.

Major Emory,[2] when he was ordered West, placed his
resignation 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 copartnership, 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; not much given to kneeling to God or man
from all accounts.

If Major Emory comes to us won't he have a good time?
Mrs. Davis adores Mrs. Emory. No wonder I fell in
love with her myself. I heard of her before I saw her in

this wise. Little Banks told me the story. She was dancing
at a ball when some bad accident maker for the Evening
News rushed up and informed her that Major Emory
had been massacred by ten Indians somewhere out West.
She coolly answered him that she had later intelligence;
it was not so. Turning a deaf ear then, she went on
dancing. Next night the same officious fool met her with
this congratulation: "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
him; or, I think it was, "You delight in spiteful stories,"
or, "You are a harbinger of evil." Banks is a newspaper
man and knows how to arrange 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
with melancholy. But I hope to be in Richmond before
long myself. That is some comfort.

The war is making us all tenderly sentimental. No
casualties yet, no real mourning, nobody hurt. So it is all
parade, fife, and fine feathers. Posing we are en grande
tenue. There is no imagination here to forestall woe, and
only the excitement and wild awakening from every-day
stagnant life are felt. That is, when one gets away from
the two or three sensible men who are still left in the world.

When Beauregard's report of the capture of Fort Sumter
was printed, Willie Ancrum said: "How is this? Tom
Ancrum and Ham Boykin's names are not here. We
thought from what they told us that they did most of the
fighting."

Colonel Magruder[3] has done something splendid on the

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
come out! A Camden notable, called Jim Velipigue, said
in the street to-day: "At heart Robert E. Lee is against
us; that I know." What will not people say in war times!
Also, he said that Colonel Kershaw wanted General Beauregard
to change the name of the stream near Manassas
Station. Bull's Run is so unrefined. Beauregard answered:
"Let us try and make it as great a name as your
South Carolina Cowpens."[4]

Mrs. Chesnut, born in Philadelphia, can not see what
right we have to take Mt. Vernon from our Northern sisters.
She thinks that ought to be common to both parties.
We think they will get their share of this world's goods,
do what we may, and we will 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 him.

Mr. Petigru alone in South Carolina has not seceded.
When they pray for our President, he gets up from his
knees. He might risk a prayer for Mr. Davis. I doubt if

it would seriously do Mr. Davis any good. Mr. Petigru is
too clever to think himself one of the righteous whose
prayers avail so overly much. Mr. Petigru's disciple,
Mr. Bryan, followed his example. Mr. Petigru has such
a keen sense of the ridiculous he must be laughing in his
sleeve at the hubbub this untimely trait of independence
has raised.

Looking out for a battle at Manassas Station. I am always
ill. The name of my disease is a longing to get away
from here and to go to Richmond.

June 19th.—In England Mr. Gregory and Mr. Lyndsey
rise to say a good word for us. Heaven reward them;
shower down its choicest blessings on their devoted heads,
as the fiction folks say.

Barnwell Heyward telegraphed me to meet him at
Kingsville, but I was at Cool Spring, Johnny's plantation,
and all my clothes were at Sandy Hill, our home in the
Sand Hills; so I lost that good opportunity of the very
nicest escort to Richmond. Tried to rise above the agonies
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 intimates
that the noisy arming, drumming, marching, proclaiming
at the North, scares us. Yes, as the making of
faces and turning of somersaults by the Chinese scared the
English.

Mr. Binney[5] 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

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 Sumter
that night, when we expected to talk it all over. A letter
from my husband dated, "Headquarters, Manassas
Junction, June 16, 1861":

Mary Hammy and myself are off for Richmond. Rev.
Mr. Meynardie, of the Methodist persuasion, goes with us.
We are to be under his care. War-cloud lowering.

Isaac Hayne, the man who fought 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 we wanted an English prince to
the fore. Not we, indeed! Every man wants to be at the
head of affairs himself. If he can not be king himself,
then a republic, of course. It was hardly necessary to do
more than laugh at Russell's absurd idea. There was a
great 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 detriment.

June 24th.—Last night I was awakened by loud talking
and candles flashing, tramping of feet, growls dying away
in the distance, loud calls from point to point in the yard.
Up I started, my heart in my mouth. Some dreadful thing
had happened, a battle, a death, a horrible accident. Some
one was screaming aloft—that is, from the top of the stairway,
hoarsely like a boatswain in a storm. Old Colonel
Chesnut was storming at the sleepy negroes 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, only mamma
smells a smell; she thinks something is burning somewhere."
The whole yard was alive, literally swarming.
There are sixty or seventy people kept here to wait upon
this household, two-thirds of them too old or too young
to be of any use, but families remain intact. The old
Colonel has a magnificent voice. I am sure it can be heard
for miles. Literally, he was roaring from the piazza, giving

orders to the busy crowd who were hunting the smell
of fire.

Old Mrs. Chesnut is deaf; so she did not know what a
commotion she was creating. She is very sensitive to bad
odors. Candles have to be taken out of the room to be
snuffed. Lamps are extinguished 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 storm
she had raised, and in a mild, sweet voice was suggesting
places to be searched. I was weak enough to laugh hysterically.
The bombardment of Fort Sumter was nothing
to this.

After this alarm, enough to wake the dead, the smell was
found. A family had been boiling soap. Around the soap-pot
they had swept up some woolen rags. Raking up the
fire to make all safe before going to bed, this was heaped
up with the ashes, and its faint smoldering tainted the air,
at least to Mrs. Chesnut's nose, two hundred yards or more
away.

Yesterday some of the negro men on the plantation
were found with pistols. I have never before seen aught
about any negro to show that they knew we had a war on
hand in which they have any interest.

Mrs. John de Saussure bade me good-by and God bless
you. I was touched. Camden people never show any more
feeling 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.