University of Virginia Library

IX
RICHMOND, VA.

IX. July 13, 1861—September 2, 1861

RICHMOND, Va., July 13, 1861.— Now we feel safe
and comfortable. We can not be flanked. Mr. Preston
met us at Warrenton. Mr. Chesnut doubtless
had too many spies to receive from Washington, galloping
in with the exact numbers of the enemy done up in their
back hair.

Wade Hampton is here; Doctor Nott also—Nott and
Glyddon known to fame. Everybody is here, en route for
the army, or staying for the meeting of Congress.

Lamar is out on crutches. His father-in-law, once
known only as the humorist Longstreet,[1] author of Georgia
Scenes, now a staid Methodist, who has outgrown the
follies of his youth, bore him off to-day. They say Judge
Longstreet has lost the keen sense of fun that illuminated
his life in days of yore. Mrs. Lamar and her daughter
were here.

The President met us cordially, but he laughed at our
sudden retreat, with baggage lost, etc. He tried to keep us
from going; said it was a dangerous experiment. Dare say
he knows more about the situation of things than he
chooses to tell us.

To-day in the drawing-room, saw a vivandière in the

flesh. She was in the uniform of her regiment, but wore
Turkish pantaloons. She frisked about in her hat and
feathers; did not uncover her head as a man would have
done; played the piano; and sang war-songs. She had no
drum, but she gave us rataplan. She was followed at
every step by a mob of admiring soldiers and boys.

Yesterday, as we left the cars, we had a glimpse of war.
It was the saddest sight: the memory of it is hard to shake
off—sick soldiers, not wounded ones. There were quite two
hundred (they said) lying about as best they might on the
platform. Robert Barnwell[2] was there doing all he could.
Their pale, ghastly faces! So here is one of the horrors of
war we had not reckoned on. There were many good men
and women with Robert Barnwell, rendering all the service
possible in the circumstances.

Just now I happened to look up and saw Mr. Chesnut
with a smile on his face watching me from the passageway.
I flew across the room, and as I got half-way saw Mrs. Davis
touch him on the shoulder. She said he was to go at once
into Mr. Davis's room, where General Lee and General
Cooper were. After he left us, Mrs. Davis told me General
Beauregard had sent Mr. Chesnut here on some army
business.

July 14th.—Mr. Chesnut remained closeted with the
President and General Lee all the afternoon. The news
does not seem pleasant. At least, he is not inclined to tell
me any of it. He satisfied himself with telling me how sensible
and soldierly this handsome General Lee is. General
Lee's military sagacity was also his theme. Of course the
President dominated the party, as well by his weight of
brain as by his position. I did not care a fig for a description
of the war council. I wanted to know what is in
the wind now?

July 16th.— Dined to-day at the President's table. Joe
Davis, the nephew, asked me if I liked white port wine. I
said I did not know; "all that I had ever known had been
dark red." So he poured me out a glass. I drank it, and
it nearly burned up my mouth and throat. It was horrid,
but I did not let him see how it annoyed me. I pretended to
be glad that any one found me still young enough to play
off a practical joke upon me. It was thirty years since I
had thought of such a thing.

Met Colonel Baldwin in the drawing-room. He pointed
significantly to his Confederate colonel's buttons and gray
coat. At the White Sulphur last summer he was a "Union
man" to the last point. "How much have you changed
besides your coat?" "I was always true to our country,"
he said. "She leaves me no choice now."

As far as I can make out, Beauregard sent Mr. Chesnut
to the President to gain permission for the forces of Joe
Johnston and Beauregard to join, and, united, to push the
enemy, if possible, over the Potomac. Now every day we
grow weaker and they stronger; so we had better give a
telling blow at once. Already, we begin to cry out for
more ammunition, and already the blockade is beginning to
shut it all out.

A young Emory is here. His mother writes him to go
back. Her Franklin blood certainly calls him with no uncertain
sound to the Northern side, while his fatherland is
wavering and undecided, split in half by factions. Mrs.
Wigfall says he is half inclined to go. She wondered that
he did not. With a father in the enemy's army, he will
always be "suspect" here, let the President and Mrs. Davis
do for him what they will.

I did not know there was such a "bitter cry" left in
me, but I wept my heart away to-day when my husband
went off. Things do look so black. When he comes up
here he rarely brings his body-servant, a negro man. Lawrence
has charge of all Mr. Chesnut's things—watch,

clothes, and two or three hundred gold pieces that lie in the
tray of his trunk. All these, papers, etc., he tells Lawrence
to bring to me if anything happens to him. But I said:
"Maybe he will pack off to the Yankees and freedom
with all that." "Fiddlesticks! He is not going to leave
me for anybody else. After all, what can he ever be, better
than he is now—a gentleman's gentleman?" "He is
within sound of the enemy's guns, and when he gets to the
other army he is free." Maria said of Mr. Preston's man:
"What he want with anything more, ef he was free?
Don't he live just as well as Mars John do now?"

Mrs. McLane, Mrs. Joe Johnston, Mrs. Wigfall, all came.
I am sure so many clever women could divert a soul in
extremis. The Hampton Legion all in a snarl—about, I
forget what; standing on their dignity, I suppose. I have
come to detest a man who says, "My own personal dignity
and self-respect require." I long to cry, "No need to respect
yourself until you can make other people do it."

July 19th.—Beauregard telegraphed yesterday (they
say, to General Johnston), "Come down and help us, or we
shall be crushed by numbers." The President telegraphed
General Johnston to move down to Beauregard's aid. At
Bull Run, Bonham's Brigade, Ewell's, and Longstreet's
encountered the foe and repulsed him. Six hundred prisoners
have been sent here.

I arose, as the Scriptures say, and washed my face
and anointed my head and went down-stairs. At the
foot of them stood General Cooper, radiant, one finger nervously
arranging his shirt collar, or adjusting his neck to
it after his fashion. He called out: "Your South Carolina
man, Bonham, has done a capital thing at Bull Run—driven
back the enemy, if not defeated him; with killed and
prisoners," etc., etc. Clingman came to tell the particulars,
and Colonel Smith (one of the trio with Garnett, MeClellan,
who were sent to Europe to inspect and report on military
matters). Poor Garnett is killed. There was cowardice

or treachery on the part of natives up there, or
some of Governor Letcher's appointments to military posts.
I hear all these things said. I do not understand, but it
was a fatal business.

Mrs. MeLane says she finds we do not believe a word of
any news unless it comes in this guise: "A great battle
fought. Not one Confederate killed. Enemy's loss in
killed, wounded, and prisoners taken by us, immense." I
was in hopes there would be no battle until Mr. Chesnut
was forced to give up his amateur aideship to come and attend
to his regular duties in the Congress.

Keitt has come in. He says Bonham's battle was a skirmish
of outposts. Joe Davis, Jr., said: "Would Heaven
only send us a Napoleon!" Not one bit of use. If
Heaven did, Walker would not give him a commission.
Mrs. Davis and Mrs. Joe Johnston, "her dear Lydia," were
in fine spirits. The effect upon nous autres was evident;
we rallied visibly. South Carolina troops pass every day.
They go by with a gay step. Tom Taylor and John Rhett
bowed to us from their horses as we leaned out of the windows.
Such shaking of handkerchiefs. We are forever at
the windows.

It was not such a mere skirmish. We took three rifled
cannon and six hundred stands of arms. Mr. Davis has
gone to Manassas. He did not let Wigfall know he was
going. That ends the delusion of Wigfall's aideship. No
mistake to-day. I was too ill to move out of my bed. So
they all sat in my room.

July 22d.— Mrs. Davis came in so softly that I did not
know she was here until she leaned over me and said: "A
great battle has been fought.[3] Joe Johnston led the right

wing, and Beauregard the left wing of the army. Your
husband is all right. Wade Hampton is wounded.
Colonel Johnston of the Legion killed; so are Colonel Bee
and Colonel Bartow. Kirby Smith[4] is wounded or killed."

I had no breath to speak; she went on in that desperate,
calm way, to which people betake themselves under the
greatest excitement: "Bartow, rallying his men, leading
them into the hottest of the fight, died gallantly at the head
of his regiment. The President telegraphs me only that 'it
is a great victory.' General Cooper has all the other telegrams."

Still I said nothing; I was stunned; then I was so grateful.
Those nearest and dearest to me were safe still. She
then began, in the same concentrated voice, to read from a
paper she held in her hand: "Dead and dying cover the
field. Sherman's battery taken. Lynchburg regiment cut
to pieces. Three hundred of the Legion wounded."

That got me up. Times were too wild with excitement
to stay in bed. We went into Mrs. Preston's room, and she
made me lie down on her bed. Men, women, and children
streamed in. Every livign soul had a story to tell. "Complete
victory," you heard everywhere. We had been such
anxious wretches. The revulsion of feeling was almost too
much to bear.

To-day I met my friend, Mr. Hunter. I was on my
way to Mrs. Bartow's room and begged him to call at some
other time. I was too tearful just then for a morning visit
from even the most sympathetic person.

A woman from Mrs. Bartow's country was in a fury
because they had stopped her as she rushed to be the first
to tell Mrs. Bartow her husband was killed, it having been

decided that Mrs. Davis should tell her. Poor thing! She
was found lying on her bed when Mrs. Davis knocked.
"Come in," she said. When she saw it was Mrs. Davis, she
sat up, ready to spring to her feet, but then there was something
in Mrs. Davis's pale face that took the life out of her.
She stared at Mrs. Davis, then sank back, and covered her
face as she asked: "Is it bad news for me?" Mrs. Davis
did not speak. "Is he killed?" Afterward Mrs. Bartow
said to me: "As soon as I saw Mrs. Davis's face I could not
say one word. I knew it all in an instant. I knew it before
I wrapped the shawl about my head."

Maria, Mrs. Preston's maid, furiously patriotic, came
into my room. "These colored people say it is printed in
the papers here that the Virginia people done it all. Now
Mars Wade had so many of his men killed and he
wounded, it stands to reason that South Carolina was no
ways backward. If there was ever anything plain, that's
plain."

Tuesday.—Witnessed for the first time a military
funeral. As that march came wailing up, they say Mrs.
Bartow fainted. The empty saddle and the led war-horse
—we saw and heard it all, and now it seems we are never out
of the sound of the Dead March in Saul. It comes and it
comes, until I feel inclined to close my ears and scream.

Yesterday, Mrs. Singleton and ourselves sat on a bedside
and mingled our tears for those noble spirits—John
Darby, Theodore Barker, and James Lowndes. To-day we
find we wasted our grief; they are not so much as wounded.
I dare say all the rest is true about them—in the face of the
enemy, with flags in their hands, leading their men. "But
Dr. Darby is a surgeon." He is as likely to forget that as I
am. He is grandson of Colonel Thomson of the Revolution,
called, by way of pet name, by his soldiers, "Old Danger."
Thank Heaven they are all quite alive. And we will not
cry next time until officially notified.

July 24th.—Here Mr. Chesnut opened my door and

walked in. Out of the fulness of the heart the mouth
speaketh. I had to ask no questions. He gave me an account
of the battle as he saw it (walking up and down my
room, occasionally seating himself on a window sill, but
too restless to remain still many moments); and told what
regiments he was sent to bring up. He took the orders to
Colonel Jackson, whose regiment stood so stock still under
fire that they were called a "stone wall." Also, they call
Beauregard, Eugene, and Johnston, Marlboro. Mr. Chesnut
rode with Lay's cavalry after the retreating enemy in
the pursuit, they following them until midnight. Then
there came such a fall of rain—rain such as is only known
in semitropical lands.

In the drawing-room, Colonel Chesnut was the "belle
of the ball"; they crowded him so for news. He was the
first arrival that they could get at from the field of
battle. But the women had to give way to the dignitaries
of the land, who were as filled with curiosity as themselves
—Mr. Barnwell, Mr. Hunter, Mr. Cobb, Captain Ingraham,
etc.

Wilmot de Saussure says Wilson of Massachusetts, a
Senator of the United States,[5] came to Manassas, en route
to Richmond, with his dancing shoes ready for a festive
scene which was to celebrate a triumph. The New York
Tribune said: "In a few days we shall have Richmond,
Memphis, and New Orleans. They must be taken and at
once." For "a few days" maybe now they will modestly
substitute "in a few years."

They brought me a Yankee soldier's portfolio from the
battle-field. The letters had been franked by Senator Harlan.[6]

One might shed tears over some of the letters.
Women, wives and mothers, are the same everywhere.
What a comfort the spelling was! We had been willing to
admit that their universal free-school education had put
them, rank and file, ahead of us literarily, but these letters
do not attest that fact. The spelling is comically bad.

July 27th.—Mrs. Davis's drawing-room last night was
brilliant, and she was in great force. Outside a mob called
for the President. He did speak—an old war-horse, who
scents the battle-fields from afar. His enthusiasm was contagious.
They called for Colonel Chesnut, and he gave
them a capital speech, too. As public speakers say sometimes,
"It was the proudest moment of my life." I did
not hear a great deal of it, for always, when anything happens
of any moment, my heart beats up in my ears, but the
distinguished Carolinians who crowded round told me
how good a speech he made. I was dazed. There goes the
Dead March for some poor soul.

To-day, the President told us at dinner that Mr. Chesnut's
eulogy of Bartow in the Congress was highly praised.
Men liked it. Two eminently satisfactory speeches in twenty-four
hours is doing pretty well. And now I could be
happy, but this Cabinet of ours are in such bitter quarrels
among themselves—everybody abusing everybody.

Last night, while those splendid descriptions of the battle
were being given to the crowd below from our windows,
I said: "Then, why do we not go on to Washington?"
"You mean why did they not; the opportunity is lost."
Mr. Barnwell said to me: "Silence, we want to listen to
the speaker," and Mr. Hunter smiled compassionately,
"Don't ask awkward questions."

Kirby Smith came down on the turnpike in the very
nick of time. Still, the heroes who fought all day and

held the Yankees in check deserve credit beyond words, or
it would all have been over before the Joe Johnston contingent
came. It is another case of the eleventh-hour scrape;
the eleventh-hour men claim all the credit, and they who
bore the heat and brunt and burden of the day do not
like that.

Everybody said at first, "Pshaw! There will be no
war." Those who foresaw evil were called ravens, ill-foreboders.
Now the same sanguine people all cry, "The war
is over"—the very same who were packing to leave Richmond
a few days ago. Many were ready to move on at a
moment's warning, when the good news came. There are
such owls everywhere.

But, to revert to the other kind, the sage and circumspect,
those who say very little, but that little shows they
think the war barely begun. Mr. Rives and Mr. Seddon
have just called. Arnoldus Van der Horst came to see me
at the same time. He said there was no great show of victory
on our side until two o'clock, but when we began to
win, we did it in double-quick time. I mean, of course, the
battle last Sunday.

Arnold Harris told Mr. Wigfall the news from Washington
last Sunday. For hours the telegrams reported at
rapid intervals, "Great victory," "Defeating them at all
points." The couriers began to come in on horseback, and
at last, after two or three o'clock, there was a sudden cessation
of all news. About nine messengers with bulletins
came on foot or on horseback—wounded, weary, draggled,
footsore, panic-stricken—spreading in their path on every
hand terror and dismay. That was our opportunity. Wigfall
can see nothing that could have stopped us, and when
they explain why we did not go to Washington I understand
it all less than ever. Yet here we will dilly-dally,
and Congress orate, and generals parade, until they in the
North get up an army three times as large as McDowell's,
which we have just defeated.

Trescott says this victory will be our ruin. It lulls us
into a fool's paradise of conceit at our superior valor, and
the shameful farce of their flight will wake every inch of
their manhood. It was the very fillip they needed. There
are a quieter sort here who know their Yankees well. They
say if the thing begins to pay—government contracts, and
all that—we will never hear the end of it, at least, until
they get their pay in some way out of us. They will not
lose money by us. Of that we may be sure. Trust Yankee
shrewdness and vim for that.

There seems to be a battle raging at Bethel, but no mortal
here can be got to think of anything but Manassas.
Mrs. McLean says she does not see that it was such a great
victory, and if it be so great, how can one defeat hurt a
nation like the North.

John Waties fought the whole battle over for me. Now
I understand it. Before this nobody would take the time
to tell the thing consecutively, rationally, and in order.
Mr. Venable said he did not see a braver thing done than
the cool performance of a Columbia negro. He carried his
master a bucket of ham and rice, which he had cooked for
him, and he cried: "You must be so tired and hungry,
marster; make haste and eat." This was in the thickest of
the fight, under the heaviest of the enemy's guns.

The Federal Congressmen had been making a picnic of
it: their luggage was all ticketed to Richmond. Cameron
has issued a proclamation. They are making ready to come
after us on a magnificent scale. They acknowledge us at
last foemen worthy of their steel. The Lord help us, since
England and France won't, or don't. If we could only
get a friend outside and open a port.

One of these men told me he had seen a Yankee prisoner,
who asked him "what sort of a diggins Richmond was for
trade." He was tired of the old concern, and would like
to take the oath and settle here. They brought us handcuffs
found in the débacle of the Yankee army. For whom

were they? Jeff Davis, no doubt, and the ringleaders.
"Tell that to the marines." We have outgrown the handcuff
business on this side of the water.

Dr. Gibbes says he was at a country house near Manassas,
when a Federal soldier, who had lost his way, came in
exhausted. He asked for brandy, which the lady of the
house gave him. Upon second thought, he declined it. She
brought it to him so promptly he said he thought it might
be poisoned; his mind was; she was enraged, and said:
"Sir, I am a Virginia woman. Do you think I could be as
base as that? Here, Bill, Tom, disarm this man. He is our
prisoner." The negroes came running, and the man surrendered
without more ado.

Another Federal was drinking at the well. A negro
girl said: "You go in and see Missis." The man went in
and she followed, crying triumphantly: "Look here, Missis,
I got a prisoner, too!" This lady sent in her two prisoners,
and Beauregard complimented her on her pluck and
patriotism, and her presence of mind. These negroes were
rewarded by their owners.

Now if slavery is as disagreeable to negroes as we think
it, why don't they all march over the border where they
would be received with open arms? It all amazes me. I
am always studying these creatures. They are to me inscrutable
in their way and past finding out. Our negroes
were not ripe for John Brown.

This is how I saw Robert E. Lee for the first time:
though his family, then living at Arlington, called to see
me while I was in Washington (I thought because of old
Colonel Chesnut's intimacy with Nellie Custis in the old
Philadelphia days, Mrs. Lee being Nelly Custis's niece), I
had not known the head of the Lee family. He was somewhere
with the army then.

Last summer at the White Sulphur were Roony Lee and
his wife, that sweet little Charlotter Wickam, and I spoke of
Roony with great praise. Mrs. Izard said: "Don't waste

your admiration on him; wait till you see his father. He
is the nearest to a perfect man I ever saw." "How?"
"In every way—handsome, clever, agreeable, high-bred."

Now, Mrs. Stanard came for Mrs. Preston and me to
drive to the camp in an open carriage. A man riding a
beautiful horse joined us. He wore a hat with something
of a military look to it, sat his horse gracefully, and was
so distinguished at all points that I very much regretted
not catching his name as Mrs. Stanard gave it to us. He,
however, heard ours, and bowed as gracefully as he rode,
and the few remarks he made to each of us showed he knew
all about us.

But Mrs. Stanard was in ecstasies of pleasurable excitement.
I felt that she had bagged a big fish, for just then
they abounded in Richmond. Mrs. Stanard accused him
of being ambitious, etc. He remonstrated and said his
tastes were "of the simplest." He only wanted "a Virginia
farm, no end of cream and fresh butter and fried
chicken—not one fried chicken, or two, but unlimited fried
chicken."

To all this light chat did we seriously incline, because
the man and horse and everything about him were
so fine-looking; perfection, in fact; no fault to be found if
you hunted for it. As he left us, I said eagerly, "Who is
he?" "You did not know! Why, it was Robert E. Lee,
son of Light Horse Harry Lee, the first man in Virginia,"
raising her voice as she enumerated his glories. All the
same, I like Smith Lee better, and I like his looks, too. I
know Smith Lee well. Can anybody say they know his
brother? I doubt it. He looks so cold, quiet, and grand.

Kirby Smith is our Blücher; he came on the field in the
nick of time, as Blücher at Waterloo, and now we are as the
British, who do not remember Blücher. It is all Wellington.
So every individual man I see fought and won the
battle. From Kershaw up and down, all the eleventh-hour
men won the battle; turned the tide. The Marylanders—

A GROUP OF CONFEDERATE GENERALS.

"STONEWALL" JACKSON. ROBERT E. LEE.
JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. PIERRE G. T. BEAUREGARD.
JOHN B. HOOD. ALBERT SIDNEY JOHNSTON.

Elzey & Co.—one never hears of—as little as one hears of
Blücher in the English stories of Waterloo.

Mr. Venable was praising Hugh Garden and Kershaw's
regiment generally. This was delightful. They are my
friends and neighbors at home. I showed him Mary Stark's
letter, and we agreed with her. At the bottom of our hearts
we believe every Confederate soldier to be a hero, sans peur
et sans reproche.

Hope for the best to-day. Things must be on a pleasanter
footing all over the world. Met the President in the
corridor. He took me by both hands. "Have you breakfasted?"
said he. "Come in and breakfast with me?"
Alas! I had had my breakfast.

At the public dining-room, where I had taken my breakfast
with Mr. Chesnut, Mrs. Davis came to him, while we
were at table. She said she had been to our rooms. She
wanted Wigfall hunted up. Mr. Davis thought Chesnut
would be apt to know his whereabouts. I ran to Mrs. Wigfall's
room, who told me she was sure he could be found
with his regiment in camp, but Mr. Chesnut had not to go to
the camp, for Wigfall came to his wife's room while I was
there. Mr. Davis and Wigfall would be friends, if—if—

The Northern papers say we hung and quartered a
Zouave; cut him into four pieces; and that we tie prisoners
to a tree and bayonet them. In other words, we are savages.
It ought to teach us not to credit what our papers
say of them. It is so absurd an imagination of evil. We are
absolutely treating their prisoners as well as our own men:
we are complained of for it here. I am going to the hospitals
for the enemy's sick and wounded in order to see for
myself.

Why did we not follow the flying foe across the Potomac?
That is the question of the hour in the drawing-room
with those of us who are not contending as to "who
took Rickett's Battery?" Allen Green, for one, took it.
Allen told us that, finding a portmanteau with nice clean

shirts, he was so hot and dusty he stepped behind a tree
and put on a clean Yankee shirt, and was more comfortable.

The New York Tribune soothes the Yankee self-conceit,
which has received a shock, by saying we had 100,000 men
on the field at Manassas; we had about 15,000 effective men
in all. And then, the Tribune tries to inflame and envenom
them against us by telling lies as to our treatment of prisoners.
They say when they come against us next it will be
in overwhelming force. I long to see Russell's letter to the
London Times about Bull Run and Manassas. It will be
rich and rare. In Washington, it is crimination and recrimination.
Well, let them abuse one another to their
hearts' content.

August 1st.—Mrs. Wigfall, with the "Lone Star" flag
in her carriage, called for me. We drove to the fair
grounds. Mrs. Davis's landau, with her spanking bays,
rolled along in front of us. The fair grounds are as covered
with tents, soldiers, etc., as ever. As one regiment
moves off to the army, a fresh one from home comes to be
mustered in and take its place.

The President, with his aides, dashed by. My husband
was riding with him. The President presented the flag to
the Texans. Mr. Chesnut came to us for the flag, and bore
it aloft to the President. We seemed to come in for part of
the glory. We were too far off to hear the speech, but Jeff
Davis is very good at that sort of thing, and we were satisfied
that it was well done.

Heavens! how that redoubtable Wigfall did rush those
poor Texans about! He maneuvered and marched them
until I was weary for their sakes. Poor fellows; it was a
hot afternoon in August and the thermometer in the nineties.
Mr. Davis uncovered to speak. Wigfall replied with
his hat on. Is that military?

At the fair grounds to-day, such music, mustering, and
marching, such cheering and flying of flags, such firing of
guns and all that sort of thing. A gala day it was, with

double-distilled Fourth-of-July feeling. In the midst of
it all, a messenger came to tell Mrs. Wigfall that a telegram
had been received, saying her children were safe across the
lines in Gordonsville. That was something to thank God
for, without any doubt.

These two little girls came from somewhere in Connecticut,
with Mrs. Wigfall's sister—the one who gave me my
Bogotsky, the only person in the world, except Susan Rutledge
who ever seemed to think I had a soul to save. Now
suppose Seward had held Louisa and Fanny as hostages
for Louis Wigfall's good behavior; eh?

Excitement number two: that bold brigadier, the Georgia
General Toombs, charging about too recklessly, got
thrown. His horse dragged him up to the wheels of our
carriage. For a moment it was frightful. Down there
among the horses' hoofs was a face turned up toward us,
purple with rage. His foot was still in the stirrup, and he
had not let go the bridle. The horse was prancing over him,
tearing and plunging; everybody was hemming him in, and
they seemed so slow and awkward about it. We felt it an
eternity, looking down at him, and expecting him to be
killed before our very faces. However, he soon got it all
straight, and, though awfully tousled and tumbled, dusty,
rumpled, and flushed, with redder face and wilder hair
than ever, he rode off gallantly, having to our admiration
bravely remounted the recalcitrant charger.

Now if I were to pick out the best abused one, where all
catch it so bountifully, I should say Mr. Commissary-General
Northrop was the most "cussed" and villified man in
the Confederacy. He is held accountable for everything
that goes wrong in the army. He may not be efficient, but
having been a classmate and crony of Jeff Davis at West
Point, points the moral and adorns the tale. I hear that
alluded to oftenest of his many crimes. They say Beauregard
writes that his army is upon the verge of starvation.
Here every man, woman, and child is ready to hang to the

first lamp-post anybody of whom that army complains.
Every Manassas soldier is a hero dear to our patriotic
hearts. Put up with any neglect of the heroes of the 21st
July—never!

And now they say we did not move on right after the
flying foe because we had no provisions, no wagons, no
ammunition, etc. Rain, mud, and Northrop. Where were
the enemy's supplies that we bragged so of bagging? Echo
answers where? Where there is a will there is a way. We
stopped to plunder that rich convoy, and somehow, for a
day or so, everybody thought the war was over and stopped
to rejoice: so it appeared here. All this was our dinner-table
talk to-day. Mr. Mason dined with us and Mr. Barnwell
sits by me always. The latter reproved me sharply,
but Mr. Mason laughed at "this headlong, unreasonable
woman's harangue and female tactics and their war-ways."
A freshet in the autumn does not compensate for a drought
in the spring. Time and tide wait for no man, and there
was a tide in our affairs which might have led to Washington,
and we did not take it and lost our fortune this
round. Things which nobody could deny.

McClellan virtually supersedes the Titan Scott.
Physically General Scott is the largest man I ever saw.
Mrs. Scott said, "nobody but his wife could ever know
how little he was." And yet they say, old Winfield Scott
could have organized an army for them if they had had
patience. They would not give him time.

August 2d.—Prince Jerome[7] has gone to Washington.

Now the Yankees so far are as little trained as we are; raw
troops are they as yet. Suppose France takes the other side

and we have to meet disciplined and armed men, soldiers
who understand war, Frenchmen, with all the élan we
boast of.

Ransom Calhoun, Willie Preston, and Doctor Nott's
boys are here. These foolish, rash, hare-brained Southern
lads have been within an ace of a fight with a Maryland
company for their camping grounds. It is much too Irish
to be so ready to fight anybody, friend or foe. Men are
thrilling with fiery ardor. The red-hot Southern martial
spirit is in the air. These young men, however, were all
educated abroad. And it is French or German ideas that
they are filled with. The Marylanders were as rash and
reckless as the others, and had their coat-tails ready for
anybody to tread on, Donnybrook Fair fashion. One would
think there were Yankees enough and to spare for any killing
to be done. It began about picketing their horses. But
these quarrelsome young soldiers have lovely manners.
They are so sweet-tempered when seen here among us at
the Arlington.

August 5th.—A heavy, heavy heart. Another missive
from Jordan, querulous and fault-finding; things are all
wrong—Beauregard's Jordan had been crossed, not the
stream "in Canaan's fair and happy land, where our possessions
lie." They seem to feel that the war is over here,
except the President and Mr. Barnwell; above all that foreboding
friend of mine, Captain Ingraham. He thinks it
hardly begun.

Another outburst from Jordan. Beauregard is not seconded
properly. Hélas! To think that any mortal general
(even though he had sprung up in a month or so from
captain of artillery to general) could be so puffed up with
vanity, so blinded by any false idea of his own consequence
as to write, to intimate that man, or men, would sacrifice
their country, injure themselves, ruin their families, to
spite the aforesaid general! Conceit and self-assertion can
never reach a higher point than that. And yet they give

you to understand Mr. Davis does not like Beauregard. In
point of fact they fancy he is jealous of him, and rather
than Beauregard shall have a showing the President (who
would be hanged at least if things go wrong) will cripple
the army to spite Beauregard. Mr. Mallory says, "How
we could laugh, but you see it is no laughing matter to have
our fate in the hands of such self-sufficient, vain, army
idiots." So the amenities of life are spreading.

In the meantime we seem to be resting on our oars, debating
in Congress, while the enterprising Yankees are
quadrupling their army at their leisure. Every day some
of our regiments march away from here. The town is
crowded with soldiers. These new ones are fairly running
in; fearing the war will be over before they get a sight, of
the fun. Every man from every little precinct wants a
place in the picture.

Tuesday.—The North requires 600,000 men to invade us.
Truly we are a formidable power! The Herald says it is
useless to move with a man less than that. England has made
it all up with them, or rather, she will not break with them.
Jerome Napoleon is in Washington and not our friend.

Doctor Gibbes is a bird of ill omen. To-day he tells me
eight of our men have died at the Charlottesville Hospital.
It seems sickness is more redoubtable in an army than the
enemy's guns. There are 1,100 there hors de combat, and
typhoid fever is with them. They want money, clothes,
and nurses. So, as I am writing, right and left the letters
fly, calling for help from the sister societies at home. Good
and patriotic women at home are easily stirred to their work.

Mary Hammy has many strings to her bow—a fiancé, in
the army, and Doctor Berrien in town. To-day she drove
out with Major Smith and Colonel Hood. Yesterday, Custis
Lee was here. She is a prudent little puss and needs no
good advice, if I were one to give it.

Lawrence does all our shopping. All his master's money
has been in his hands until now. I thought it injudicious

when gold is at such a premium to leave it lying loose in
the tray of a trunk. So I have sewed it up in a belt, which
I can wear upon an emergency. The cloth is wadded and
my diamonds are there, too. It has strong strings, and can
be tied under my hoops about my waist if the worst comes
to the worst, as the saying is. Lawrence wears the same
bronze mask. No sign of anything he may feel or think of
my latest fancy. Only, I know he asks for twice as much
money now when he goes to buy things.

August 8th.—To-day I saw a sword captured at Manassas.
The man who brought the sword, in the early part
of the fray, was taken prisoner by the Yankees. They
stripped him, possessed themselves of his sleeve-buttons,
and were in the act of depriving him of his boots when the
rout began and the play was reversed; proceedings then
took the opposite tack.

From a small rill in the mountain has flowed the mighty
stream which has made at last Louis Wigfall the worst
enemy the President has in the Congress, a fact which complicates
our affairs no little. Mr. Davis's hands ought to
be strengthened; he ought to be upheld. A divided house
must fall, we all say.

Mrs. Sam Jones, who is called Becky by her friends and
cronies, male and female, said that Mrs. Pickens had confided
to the aforesaid Jones (née Taylor, and so of the
President Taylor family and cousin of Mr. Davis's first
wife), that Mrs. Wigfall "described Mrs. Davis to Mrs.
Pickens as a coarse Western woman." Now the fair Lucy
Holcombe and Mrs. Wigfall had a quarrel of their own out
in Texas, and, though reconciled, there was bitterness underneath.
At first, Mrs. Joe Johnston called Mrs. Davis
"a Western belle,"[8] but when the quarrel between General

Johnston and the President broke out, Mrs. Johnston
took back the "belle" and substituted "woman" in the
narrative derived from Mrs. Jones.

Commodore Barron[9] came with glad tidings. We had
taken three prizes at sea, and brought them in safely, one
laden with molasses. General Toombs told us the President
complimented Mr. Chesnut when he described the battle
scene to his Cabinet, etc. General Toombs is certain Colonel
Chesnut will be made one of the new batch of brigadiers.
Next came Mr. Clayton, who calmly informed us Jeff Davis
would not get the vote of this Congress for President, so
we might count him out.

Mr. Meynardie first told us how pious a Christian soldier
was Kershaw, how he prayed, got up, dusted his knees
and led his men on to victory with a dash and courage
equal to any Old Testament mighty man of war.

Governor Manning's account of Prince Jerome Napoleon:
"He is stout and he is not handsome. Neither
is he young, and as he reviewed our troops he was terribly
overheated." He heard him say "en avant," of
that he could testify of his own knowledge, and he was
told he had been heard to say with unction "Allons"
more than once. The sight of the battle-field had made
the Prince seasick, and he received gratefully a draft of
fiery whisky.

Arrago seemed deeply interested in Confederate statistics,
and praised our doughty deeds to the skies. It was
but soldier fare our guests received, though we did our
best. It was hard sleeping and worse eating in camp.
Beauregard is half Frenchman and speaks French like a
native. So one awkward mess was done away with, and it
was a comfort to see Beauregard speak without the agony

of finding words in the foreign language and forming them,
with damp brow, into sentences. A different fate befell
others who spoke "a little French."

General and Mrs. Cooper came to see us. She is Mrs.
Smith Lee's sister. They were talking of old George Mason
—in Virginia a name to conjure with. George Mason
violently opposed the extension of slavery. He was a thorough
aristocrat, and gave as his reason for refusing the
blessing of slaves to the new States, Southwest and Northwest,
that vulgar new people were unworthy of so sacred a
right as that of holding slaves. It was not an institution
intended for such people as they were. Mrs. Lee said:
"After all, what good does it do my sons that they are
Light Horse Harry Lee's grandsons and George Mason's?
I do not see that it helps them at all."

A friend in Washington writes me that we might have
walked into Washington any day for a week after Manassas,
such were the consternation and confusion there. But the
god Pan was still blowing his horn in the woods. Now she
says Northern troops are literally pouring in from all quarters.
The horses cover acres of ground. And she thinks
we have lost our chance forever.

A man named Grey (the same gentleman whom Secretary
of War Walker so astonished by greeting him with,
"Well, sir, and what is your business?") described the
battle of the 21st as one succession of blunders, redeemed by
the indomitable courage of the two-thirds who did not run
away on our side. Doctor Mason said a fugitive on the
other side informed him that "a million of men with the
devil at their back could not have whipped the rebels at
Bull Run." That's nice.

There must be opposition in a free country. But it is
very uncomfortable. "United we stand, divided we fall."
Mrs. Davis showed us in The New York Tribune an extract
from an Augusta (Georgia) paper saying, "Cobb is our
man. Davis is at heart a reconstructionist." We may be

flies on the wheel, we know our insignificance; but Mrs.
Preston and myself have entered into an agreement; our
oath is recorded on high. We mean to stand by our President
and to stop all fault-finding with the powers that be,
if we can and where we can, be the fault-finders generals
or Cabinet Ministers.

August 13th.—Hon. Robert Barnwell says, "The Mercury's
influence began this opposition to Jeff Davis before
he had time to do wrong. They were offended, not with him
so much as with the man who was put into what they considered
Barnwell Rhett's rightful place. The latter had
howled nullification and secession so long that when he
found his ideas taken up by all the Confederate world, he
felt he had a vested right to leadership."

Jordan, Beauregard's aide, still writes to Mr. Chesnut
that the mortality among the raw troops in that camp is
fearful. Everybody seems to be doing all they can. Think
of the British sick and wounded away off in the Crimea.
Our people are only a half-day's journey by rail from
Richmond. With a grateful heart I record the fact of reconciliation
with the Wigfalls. They dined at the President's
yesterday and the little Wigfall girls stayed all
night.

Seward is fêting the outsiders, the cousin of the Emperor,
Napoleon III., and Russell, of the omnipotent London
Times.

August 14th.—Last night there was a crowd of men to
see us and they were so markedly critical. I made a futile
effort to record their sayings, but sleep and heat overcame
me. To-day I can not remember a word. One of Mr. Mason's
stories relates to our sources of trustworthy information.
A man of very respectable appearance standing on
the platform at the depot, announced, "I am just from the
seat of war." Out came pencil and paper from the newspaper
men on the qui vive. "Is Fairfax Court House
burned?" they asked. "Yes, burned yesterday."

I am just from there,"said another; "left it standing
there all right an hour or so ago." "Oh! But I must do
them justice to say they burned only the tavern, for they
did not want to tear up and burn anything else after the
railroad." "There is no railroad at Fairfax Court
House," objected the man just from Fairfax. "Oh! Indeed!"
said the seat-of-war man, "I did not know that;
is that so? "And he coolly seated himself and began talking
of something else.

Our people are lashing themselves into a fury against
the prisoners. Only the mob in any country would do that.
But I am told to be quiet. Decency and propriety will not
be forgotten, and the prisoners will be treated as prisoners
of war ought to be in a civilized country.

August 15th.—Mrs. Randolph came. With her were the
Freelands, Rose and Maria. The men rave over Mrs.
Randolph's beauty; called her a magnificent specimen of
the finest type of dark-eyed, rich, and glowing Southern
woman-kind. Clear brunette she is, with the reddest lips,
the whitest teeth, and glorious eyes; there is no other word
for them. Having given Mrs. Randolph the prize among
Southern beauties, Mr. Clayton said Prentiss was the finest
Southern orator. Mr. Marshall and Mr. Barnwell dissented;
they preferred William C. Preston. Mr. Chesnut had
found Colquitt the best or most effective stump orator.

Saw Henry Deas Nott. He is just from Paris, via New
York. Says New York is ablaze with martial fire. At no
time during the Crimean war was there ever in Paris the
show of soldiers preparing for the war such as he saw at
New York. The face of the earth seemed covered with
marching regiments.

Not more than 500 effective men are in Hampton's Legion,
but they kept the whole Yankee army at bay until
half-past two. Then just as Hampton was wounded and
half his colonels shot, Cash and Kershaw (from Mrs. Smith
Lee audibly, "How about Kirby Smith?") dashed in and

not only turned the tide, but would have driven the fugitives
into Washington, but Beauregard recalled them. Mr.
Chesnut finds all this very amusing, as he posted many of
the regiments and all the time was carrying orders over the
field. The discrepancies in all these private memories amuse
him, but he smiles pleasantly and lets every man tell the
tale in his own way.

August 16th.—Mr. Barnwell says, Fame is an article
usually home made; you must create your own puffs or superintend
their manufacture. And you must see that the
newspapers print your own military reports. No one else
will give you half the credit you take to yourself. No one
will look after your fine name before the world with the
loving interest and faith you have yourself.

August 17th.—Captain Shannon, of the Kirkwood Rangers,
called and stayed three hours. Has not been under fire
yet, but is keen to see or to hear the flashing of the guns;
proud of himself, proud of his company, but proudest of all
that he has no end of the bluest blood of the low country in
his troop. He seemed to find my knitting a pair of socks a
day for the soldiers droll in some way. The yarn is coarse.
He has been so short a time from home he does not know how
the poor soldiers need them. He was so overpoweringly
flattering to my husband that I found him very pleasant
company.

August 18th.—Found it quite exciting to have a spy
drinking his tea with us—perhaps because I knew his profession.
I did not like his face. He is said to have a
scheme by which Washington will fall into our hands like
an overripe peach.

Mr. Barnwell urges Mr. Chesnut to remain in the Senate.
There are so many generals, or men anxious to be. He
says Mr. Chesnut can do his country most good by wise
counsels where they are most needed. I do not say to the
contrary; I dare not throw my influence on the army side,
for if anything happened!

Mr. Miles told us last night that he had another letter
from General Beauregard. The General wants to know
if Mr. Miles has delivered his message to Colonel Kershaw.
Mr. Miles says he has not done so; neither does he mean to
do it. They must settle these matters of veracity according
to their own military etiquette. He is a civilian once more.
It is a foolish wrangle. Colonel Kershaw ought to have reported
to his commander-in-chief, and not made an independent
report and published it. He meant no harm. He
is not yet used to the fine ways of war.

The New York Tribune is so unfair. It began by howling
to get rid of us: we were so wicked. Now that we are
so willing to leave them to their overrighteous self-consciousness,
they cry: "Crush our enemy, or they will subjugate
us." The idea that we want to invade or subjugate
anybody; we would be only too grateful to be left alone.
We ask no more of gods or men.

Went to the hospital with a carriage load of peaches and
grapes. Made glad the hearts of some men thereby. When
my supplies gave out, those who had none looked so wistfully
as I passed out that I made a second raid on the market.
Those eyes sunk in cavernous depths and following me
from bed to bed haunt me.

Wilmot de Saussure, harrowed my soul by an account
of a recent death by drowning on the beach at Sullivan's
Island. Mr. Porcher, who was trying to save his sister's
life, lost his own and his child's. People seem to die out
of the army quite as much as in it.

Mrs. Randolph presided in all her beautiful majesty at
an aid association. The ladies were old, and all wanted
their own way. They were cross-grained and contradictory,
and the blood mounted rebelliously into Mrs. Randolph's
clear-cut cheeks, but she held her own with dignity and
grace. One of the causes of disturbance was that Mrs. Randolph
proposed to divide everything sent on equally with
the Yankee wounded and sick prisoners. Some were enthusiastic

from a Christian point of view; some shrieked in
wrath at the bare idea of putting our noble soldiers on a par
with Yankees, living, dying, or dead. Fierce dames were
some of them, august, severe matrons, who evidently had not
been accustomed to hear the other side of any question from
anybody, and just old enough to find the last pleasure in
life to reside in power—the power to make their claws felt.

August 23d.—A brother of Doctor Garnett has come
fresh and straight from Cambridge, Mass., and says (or is
said to have said, with all the difference there is between the
two), that "recruiting up there is dead." He came by
Cincinnati and Pittsburg and says all the way through it
was so sad, mournful, and quiet it looked like Sunday.

I asked Mr. Brewster if it were true Senator Toombs
had turned brigadier. "Yes, soldiering is in the air.
Every one will have a touch of it. Toombs could not stay
in the Cabinet." "Why?" "Incompatibility of temper.
He rides too high a horse; that is, for so despotic a
person as Jeff Davis. I have tried to find out the sore, but
I can't. Mr. Toombs has been out with them all for
months." Dissension will break out. Everything does,
but it takes a little time. There is a perfect magazine of
discord and discontent in that Cabinet; only wants a hand
to apply the torch, and up they go. Toombs says old Memminger
has his back up as high as any.

Oh, such a day! Since I wrote this morning, I have
been with Mrs. Randolph to all the hospitals. I can never
again shut out of view the sights I saw there of human
misery. I sit thinking, shut my eyes, and see it all; thinking,
yes, and there is enough to think about now, God
knows. Gilland's was the worst, with long rows of ill men
on cots, ill of typhoid fever, of every human ailment; on
dinner-tables for eating and drinking, wounds being
dressed; all the horrors to be taken in at one glance.

Then we went to the St. Charles. Horrors upon horrors
again; want of organization, long rows of dead and

dying; awful sights. A boy from home had sent for me.
He was dying in a cot, ill of fever. Next him a man died
in convulsions as we stood there. I was making arrangements
with a nurse, hiring him to take care of this lad; but
I do not remember any more, for I fainted. Next that I
knew of, the doctor and Mrs. Randolph were having me, a
limp rag, put into a carriage at the door of the hospital.
Fresh air, I dare say, brought me to. As we drove home
the doctor came along with us, I was so upset. He said:
"Look at that Georgia regiment marching there; look at
their servants on the sidewalk. I have been counting them,
making an estimate. There is $16,000—sixteen thousand
dollars' worth of negro property which can go off on its
own legs to the Yankees whenever it pleases."

August 24th.—Daniel, of The Examiner, was at the
President's. Wilmot de Saussure wondered if a fellow did
not feel a little queer, paying his respects in person at the
house of a man whom he abused daily in his newspaper.

A fiasco: an aide engaged to two young ladies in the
same house. The ladies had been quarreling, but became
friends unexpectedly when his treachery, among many
other secrets, was revealed under that august roof. Fancy
the row when it all came out.

Mr. Lowndes said we have already reaped one good result
from the war. The orators, the spouters, the furious
patriots, that could hardly be held down, and who were so
wordily anxious to do or die for their country—they had
been the pest of our lives. Now they either have not tried
the battle-field at all, or have precipitately left it at their
earliest convenience: for very shame we are rid of them for
a while. I doubt it. Bright's speech[10] is dead against us.
Beading this does not brighten one.

August 25th.—Mr. Barnwell says democracies lead to
untruthfulness. To be always electioneering is to be always
false; so both we and the Yankees are unreliable as
regards our own exploits. "How about empires? Were
there ever more stupendous lies than the Emperor Napoleon's?"
Mr. Barnwell went on: "People dare not tell
the truth in a canvass; they must conciliate their constituents.
Now everybody in a democracy always wants an
office; at least, everybody in Richmond just now seems to
want one." Never heeding interruptions, he went on:
"As a nation, the English are the most truthful in the
world." "And so are our country gentlemen: they own
their constituents—at least, in some of the parishes, where
there are few whites; only immense estates peopled by
negroes. "Thackeray speaks of the lies that were told
on both sides in the British wars with France; England
kept quite alongside of her rival in that fine art. England
lied then as fluently as Russell lies about us now.

Went to see Agnes De Leon, my Columbia school friend.
She is fresh from Egypt, and I wished to hear of the Nile,
the crocodiles, the mummies, the Sphinx, and the Pyramids.
But her head ran upon Washington life, such as we knew
it, and her soul was here. No theme was possible but a discussion
of the latest war news.

Mr. Clayton, Assistant Secretary of State, says we
spend two millions a week. Where is all that money to
come from? They don't want us to plant cotton, but to
make provisions. Now, cotton always means money, or did
when there was an outlet for it and anybody to buy it.
Where is money to come from now?

Mr. Barnwell's new joke, I dare say, is a Joe Miller,
but Mr. Barnwell laughed in telling it till he cried. A man
was fined for contempt of court and then, his case coming
on, the Judge talked such arrant nonsense and was so
warped in his mind against the poor man, that the "fined
one" walked up and handed the august Judge a five-dollar

bill. "Why? What is that for?" said the Judge. "Oh,
I feel such a contempt of this court coming on again!"

I came up tired to death; took down my hair; had it
hanging over me in a Crazy Jane fashion; and sat still,
hands over my head (half undressed, but too lazy and
sleepy to move). I was sitting in a rocking-chair by an
open window taking my ease and the cool night air, when
suddenly the door opened and Captain—walked in.
He was in the middle of the room before he saw his mistake;
he stared and was transfixed, as the novels say. I dare say
I looked an ancient Gorgon. Then, with a more frantic
glare, he turned and fled without a word. I got up and
bolted the door after him, and then looked in the glass and
laughed myself into hysterics. I shall never forget to lock
the door again. But it does not matter in this case. I
looked totally unlike the person bearing my name, who,
covered with lace cap, etc., frequents the drawing-room. I
doubt if he would know me again.

August 26th.—The Terror has full swing at the North
now. All the papers favorable to us have been suppressed.
How long would our mob stand a Yankee paper here?
But newspapers against our government, such as the Examiner
and the Mercury flourish like green bay-trees. A
man up to the elbows in finance said to-day: "Clayton's
story is all nonsense. They do sometimes pay out two millions
a week; they paid the soldiers this week, but they don't
pay the soldiers every week." "Not by a long shot," cried
a soldier laddie with a grin.

"Why do you write in your diary at all," some one said
to me, "if, as you say, you have to contradict every day
what you wrote yesterday?" "Because I tell the tale as
it is told to me. I write current rumor. I do not vouch for
anything."

We went to Pizzini's, that very best of Italian confectioners.
From there we went to Miss Sally Tompkins's
hospital, loaded with good things for the wounded. The

men under Miss Sally's kind care looked so clean and comfortable
—cheerful, one might say. They were pleasant and
nice to see. One, however, was dismal in tone and aspect,
and he repeated at intervals with no change of words, in a
forlorn monotone: "What a hard time we have had since
we left home." But nobody seemed to heed his wailing,
and it did not impair his appetite.

At Mrs. Toombs's, who was raging; so anti-Davis she
will not even admit that the President is ill. "All humbug."
"But what good could pretending to be ill do
him!" "That reception now, was not that a humbug?
Such a failure. Mrs. Reagan could have done better than
that."

Mrs. Walker is a Montgomery beauty, with such magnificent
dresses. She was an heiress, and is so dissatisfied
with Richmond, accustomed as she is to being a belle under
different conditions. As she is as handsome and well
dressed as ever, it must be the men who are all wrong.

"Did you give Lawrence that fifty-dollar bill to go out
and change it?" I was asked. "Suppose he takes himself
off to the Yankees. He would leave us with not too many
fifty-dollar bills." He is not going anywhere, however. I
think his situation suits him. That wadded belt of mine,
with the gold pieces quilted in, has made me ashamed more
than once. I leave it under my pillow and my maid finds
it there and hangs it over the back of a chair, in evidence
as I reenter the room after breakfast. When I forget and
leave my trunk open, Lawrence brings me the keys and tells
me, "You oughten to do so, Miss Mary." Mr. Chesnut
leaves all his little money in his pockets, and Lawrence says
that's why he can't let any one but himself brush Mars
Jeems's clothes.

August 27th.—Theodore Barker and James Lowndes
came; the latter has been wretchedly treated. A man said,
"All that I wish on earth is to be at peace and on my own
plantation," to which Mr. Lowndes replied quietly, "I

wish I had a plantation to be on, but just now I can't see
how any one would feel justified in leaving the army." Mr.
Barker was bitter against the spirit of braggadocio so rampant
among us. The gentleman who had been answered so
completely by James Lowndes said, with spitefulness:
"Those women who are so frantic for their husbands to
join the army would like them killed, no doubt."

Things were growing rather uncomfortable, but an interruption
came in the shape of a card. An old classmate
of Mr. Chesnut's—Captain Archer, just now fresh from
California—followed his card so quickly that Mr. Chesnut
had hardly time to tell us that in Princeton College they
called him "Sally" Archer he was so pretty—when he entered.
He is good-looking still, but the service and consequent
rough life have destroyed all softness and girlishness.
He will never be so pretty again.

The North is consolidated; they move as one man, with
no States, but an army organized by the central power.
Russell in the Northern camp is cursed of Yankees for that
Bull Run letter. Russell, in his capacity of Englishman,
despises both sides. He divides us equally into North and
South. He prefers to attribute our victory at Bull Run to
Yankee cowardice rather than to Southern courage. He
gives no credit to either side; for good qualities, we are
after all mere Americans! Everything not "national" is
arrested. It looks like the business of Seward.

I do not know when I have seen a woman without, knitting
in her hand. Socks for the soldiers is the cry. One
poor man said he had dozens of socks and but one shirt.
He preferred more shirts and fewer stockings. We make
a quaint appearance with this twinkling of needles and the
everlasting sock dangling below.

They have arrested Win. B. Reed and Miss Winder, she
boldly proclaiming herself a secessionist. Why should she
seek a martyr's crown? Writing people love notoriety. It
is so delightful to be of enough consequence to be arrested.

I have often wondered if such incense was ever offered as
Napoleon's so-called persecution and alleged jealousy of
Madame de Staël.

Russell once more, to whom London, Paris, and India
have been an every-day sight, and every-night, too, streets
and all. How absurd for him to go on in indignation because
there have been women on negro plantations who
were not vestal virgins. Negro women get married, and
after marriage behave as well as other people. Marrying is
the amusement of their lives. They take life easily; so do
their class everywhere. Bad men are hated here as elsewhere.

"I hate slavery. I hate a man who—You say there
are no more fallen women on a plantation than in London
in proportion to numbers. But what do you say to this
—to a magnate who runs a hideous black harem, with its
consequences, under the same roof with his lovely white
wife and his beautiful and accomplished daughters? He
holds his head high and poses as the model of all human virtues
to these poor women whom God and the laws have
given him. From the height of his awful majesty he scolds
and thunders at them as if he never did wrong in his life.
Fancy such a man finding his daughter reading Don
Juan. 'You with that immoral book!' he would say,
and then he would order her out of his sight. You see Mrs.
Stowe did not hit the sorest spot. She makes Legree a
bachelor." "Remember George II. and his likes."

"Oh, I know half a Legree—a man said to be as cruel as
Legree, but the other half of him did not correspond. He
was a man of polished manners, and the best husband and
father and member of the church in the world." "Can
that be so?"

"Yes, I know it. Exceptional case, that sort of thing,
always. And I knew the dissolute half of Legree well. He

was high and mighty, but the kindest creature to his slaves.
And the unfortunate results of his bad ways were not sold,
had not to jump over ice-blocks. They were kept in full
view, and provided for handsomely in his will."

"The wife and daughters in the might of their purity
and innocence are supposed never to dream of what is as
plain before their eyes as the sunlight, and they play their
parts of unsuspecting angels to the letter. They profess to
adore the father as the model of all saintly goodness."
"Well, yes; if he is rich he is the fountain from whence all
blessings flow."

"The one I have in my eye—my half of Legree, the dissolute
half—was so furious in temper and thundered his
wrath so at the poor women, they were glad to let him
do as he pleased in peace if they could only escape his
everlasting fault-finding, and noisy bluster, making everybody
so uncomfortable." "Now—now, do you know any
woman of this generation who would stand that sort of
thing? No, never, not for one moment. The make-believe
angels were of the last century. We know, and we won't
have it."

"The condition of women is improving, it seems."
"Women are brought up not to judge their fathers or
their husbands. They take them as the Lord provides and
are thankful."

"If they should not go to heaven after all; think what
lives most women lead." "No heaven, no purgatory, no—
the other thing? Never. I believe in future rewards and
punishments."

"How about the wives of drunkards? I heard a woman
say once to a friend of her husband, tell it as a cruel matter
of fact, without bitterness, without comment, 'Oh, you
have not seen him! He has changed. He has not gone to
bed sober in thirty years.' She has had her purgatory, if
not 'the other thing,' here in this world. We all know
what a drunken man is. To think, for no crime, a person

may be condemned to live with one thirty years." "You
wander from the question I asked. Are Southern men
worse because of the slave system and the facile black
women?" "Not a bit. They see too much of them. The
barroom people don't drink, the confectionery people loathe
candy. They are sick of the black sight of them."

"You think a nice man from the South is the nicest
thing in the world?" "I know it. Put him by any other
man and see!"

Have seen Yankee letters taken at Manassas. The spelling
is often atrocious, and we thought they had all gone
through a course of blue-covered Noah Webster spelling-books.
Our soldiers do spell astonishingly. There is Horace
Greeley: they say he can't read his own handwriting. But
he is candid enough and disregards all time-serving. He
says in his paper that in our army the North has a hard
nut to crack, and that the rank and file of our army is
superior in education and general intelligence to theirs.

My wildest imagination will not picture Mr. Mason[11] as
a diplomat. He will say chaw for chew, and he will call
himself Jeems, and he will wear a dress coat to breakfast.
Over here, whatever a Mason does is right in his own eyes.
He is above law. Somebody asked him how he pronounced
his wife's maiden name: she was a Miss Chew from Philadelphia.

They say the English will like Mr. Mason; he is so
manly, so straightforward, so truthful and bold. "A fine
old English gentleman," so said Russell to me, "but for
tobacco." "I like Mr. Mason and Mr. Hunter better than
anybody else." "And yet they are wonderfully unlike."
"Now you just listen to me," said I. "Is Mrs. Davis in
hearing—no? Well, this sending Mr. Mason to London is
the maddest thing yet. Worse in some points of view than
Yancey, and that was a catastrophe."

August 29th.—No more feminine gossip, but the licensed
slanderer, the mighty Russell, of the Times. He
says the battle of the 21st was fought at long range: 500
yards apart were the combatants. The Confederates were
steadily retreating when some commotion in the wagon
train frightened the "Yanks," and they made tracks. In
good English, they fled amain. And on our side we were
too frightened to follow them—in high-flown English, to
pursue the flying foe.

In spite of all this, there are glimpses of the truth
sometimes, and the story leads to our credit with all the
sneers and jeers. When he speaks of the Yankees' cowardice,
falsehood, dishonesty, and braggadocio, the best words
are in his mouth. He repeats the thrice-told tale, so often
refuted and denied, that we were harsh to wounded prisoners.
Dr. Gibson told me that their surgeon-general has
written to thank our surgeons: Yankee officers write very
differently from Russell. I know that in that hospital with
the Sisters of Charity they were better off than our men
were at the other hospitals: that I saw with my own eyes.
These poor souls are jealously guarded night and day.
It is a hideous tale—what they tell of their sufferings.

Women who come before the public are in a bad box
now. False hair is taken off and searched for papers.
Bustles are "suspect." All manner of things, they say,
come over the border under the huge hoops now worn; so
they are ruthlessly torn off. Not legs but arms are looked

for under hoops, and, sad to say, found. Then women are
used as detectives and searchers, to see that no men slip
over in petticoats. So the poor creatures coming this way
are humiliated to the deepest degree. To men, glory,
honor, praise, and power, if they are patriots. To women,
daughters of Eve, punishment comes still in some shape, do
what they will.

Mary Hammy's eyes were starting from her head with
amazement, while a very large and handsome South Carolinian
talked rapidly. "What is it!" asked I after he had
gone. "Oh, what a year can bring forth—one year! Last
summer you remember how he swore he was in love with
me? He told you, he told me, he told everybody, and if I
did refuse to marry him I believed him. Now he says he
has seen, fallen in love with, courted, and married another
person, and he raves of his little daughter's beauty. And
they say time goes slowly"—thus spoke Mary Hammy,
with a sigh of wonder at his wonderful cure.

"Time works wonders," said the explainer-general.
"What conclusion did you come to as to Southern men at
the grand pow-wow, you know?" "They are nicer than
the nicest—the gentlemen, you know. There are not too
many of that kind anywhere. Ours are generous, truthful,
brave, and—and—devoted to us, you know. A Southern
husband is not a bad thing to have about the house."

Mrs. Frank Hampton said: "For one thing, you could
not flirt with these South Carolinians. They would not
stay at the tepid degree of flirtation. They grow so horridly
in earnest before you know where you are." "Do
you think two married people ever lived together without
finding each other out? I mean, knowing exactly how
good or how shabby, how weak or how strong, above all,
how selfish each was!" "Yes; unless they are dolts, they
know to a tittle; but you see if they have common sense
they make believe and get on, so so." Like the Marchioness's
orange-peel wine in Old Curiosity Shop.

A violent attack upon the North to-day in the Albion.
They mean to let freedom slide a while until they subjugate
us. The Albion says they use lettres de cachet, passports,
and all the despotic apparatus of regal governments. Russell
hears the tramp of the coming man—the king and
kaiser tyrant that is to rule them. Is it McClellan?—
"Little Mac"? We may tremble when he comes. We
down here have only "the many-headed monster thing,"
armed democracy. Our chiefs quarrel among themselves.

McClellan is of a forgiving spirit. He does not resent
Russell's slurs upon Yankees, but with good policy has Russell
with him as a guest.

The Adonis of an aide avers, as one who knows, that
"Sumter" Anderson's heart is with us; that he will not
fight the South. After all is said and done that sounds like
nonsense. "Sumter" Anderson's wife was a daughter of
Governor Clinch, of Georgia. Does that explain it? He
also told me something of Garnett (who was killed at Rich
Mountain).[12] He had been an unlucky man clear through.
In the army before the war, the aide had found him proud,
reserved, and morose, cold as an icicle to all. But for his
wife and child he was a different creature. He adored
them and cared for nothing else.

One day he went off on an expedition and was gone six
weeks. He was out in the Northwest, and the Indians were
troublesome. When he came back, his wife and child were
underground. He said not one word, but they found him
more frozen, stern, and isolated than ever; that was all.
The night before he left Richmond he said in his quiet way:
"They have not given me an adequate force. I can do
nothing. They have sent me to my death." It is acknowledged

that he threw away his life—"a dreary-hearted
man," said the aide, "and the unluckiest."

On the front steps every evening we take our seats and
discourse at our pleasure. A nicer or more agreeable set of
people were never assembled than our present Arlington
crowd. To-night it was Yancey[13] who occupied our tongues.
Send a man to England who had killed his father-in-law
in a street brawl! That was not knowing England or
Englishmen, surely. Who wants eloquence? We want
somebody who can hold his tongue. People avoid great
talkers, men who orate, men given to monologue, as they
would avoid fire, famine, or pestilence. Yancey will have
no mobs to harangue. No stump speeches will be possible,
superb as are his of their kind, but little quiet conversation
is best with slow, solid, common-sense people, who begin to
suspect as soon as any flourish of trumpets meets their ear.
If Yancey should use his fine words, who would care for
them over there?

Commodore Barron, when he was a middy, accompanied
Phil Augustus Stockton to claim his bride. He, the said
Stockton, had secretly wedded a fair heiress (Sally Cantey).
She was married by a magistrate and returned to Mrs.
Grillaud's boarding-school until it was time to go home
—that is, to Camden.

Lieutenant Stockton (a descendant of the Signer) was
the handsomest man in the navy, and irresistible. The
bride was barely sixteen. When he was to go down South
among those fire-eaters and claim her, Commodore Barron,
then his intimate friend, went as his backer. They were to
announce the marriage and defy the guardians. Commodore

Barron said he anticipated a rough job of it all, but
they were prepared for all risks. "You expected to find
us a horde of savages, no doubt," said I. "We did not
expect to get off under a half-dozen duels." They looked
for insults from every quarter and they found a polished
and refined people who lived en prince, to say the least of it.
They were received with a cold, stately, and faultless politeness,
which made them feel as if they had been sheep-stealing.

The young lady had confessed to her guardians and
they were for making the best of it; above all, for saving
her name from all gossip or publicity. Colonel John Boykin,
one of them, took Young Lochinvar to stay with him.
His friend, Barron, was also a guest. Colonel Deas sent for
a parson, and made assurance doubly sure by marrying
them over again. Their wish was to keep things quiet and
not to make a nine-days' wonder of the young lady.

Then came balls, parties, and festivities without end.
He was enchanted with the easy-going life of these people,
with dinners the finest in the world, deer-hunting, and fox-hunting,
dancing, and pretty girls, in fact everything that
heart could wish. But then, said Commodore Barron, "the
better it was, and the kinder the treatment, the more
ashamed I grew of my business down there. After all, it
was stealing an heiress, you know."

I told him how the same fate still haunted that estate in
Camden. Mr. Stockton sold it to a gentleman, who later sold
it to an old man who had married when near eighty, and
who left it to the daughter born of that marriage. This
pretty child of his old age was left an orphan quite young.
At the age of fifteen, she ran away and married a boy of
seventeen, a canny Scotchman. The young couple lived to
grow up, and it proved after all a happy marriage. This
last heiress left six children; so the estate will now be
divided, and no longer tempt the fortune-hunters.

The Commodore said: "To think how we two youngsters

in our blue uniforms went down there to bully those
people." He was much at Colonel Chesnut's. Mrs. Chesnut
being a Philadelphian, he was somewhat at ease with
them. It was the most thoroughly appointed establishment
he had then ever visited.

Went with our leviathan of loveliness to a ladies' meeting.
No scandal to-day, no wrangling, all harmonious,
everybody knitting. Dare say that soothing occupation
helped our perturbed spirits to be calm. Mrs. C—is
lovely, a perfect beauty. Said Brewster: "In Circassia,
think what a price would be set upon her, for there beauty
sells by the pound!"

Coming home the following conversation: "So Mrs.
Blank thinks purgatory will hold its own—never be abolished
while women and children have to live with drunken
fathers and brothers." "She knows." "She is too bitter.
She says worse than that. She says we have an institution
worse than the Spanish Inquisition, worse than Torquemada,
and all that sort of thing." "What does she
mean?" "You ask her. Her words are sharp arrows. I
am a dull creature, and I should spoil all by repeating what
she says."

"It is your own family that she calls the familiars of
the Inquisition. She declares that they set upon you, fall
foul of you, watch and harass you from morn till dewy
eve. They have a perfect right to your life, night and day,
unto the fourth and fifth generation. They drop in at
breakfast and say, 'Are you not imprudent to eat that?'
'Take care now, don't overdo it.' 'I think you eat too
much so early in the day.' And they help themselves to the
only thing you care for on the table. They abuse your
friends and tell you it is your duty to praise your enemies.
They tell you of all your faults candidly, because they love
you so; that gives them a right to speak. What family interest

they take in you. You ought to do this; you ought
to do that, and then the everlasting 'you ought to have
done,' which comes near making you a murderer, at least
in heart. 'Blood's thicker than water,' they say, and
there is where the longing to spill it comes in. No locks
or bolts or bars can keep them out. Are they not your
nearest family? They dine with you, dropping in after
you are at soup. They come after you have gone to bed,
when all the servants have gone away, and the man of the
house, in his nightshirt, standing sternly at the door with
the huge wooden bar in his hand, nearly scares them to
death, and you are glad of it."

"Private life, indeed!" She says her husband entered
public life and they went off to live in a far-away city.
Then for the first time in her life she knew privacy. She
never will forget how she jumped for joy as she told her
servant not to admit a soul until after two o'clock in the
day. Afterward, she took a fixed day at home. Then she
was free indeed. She could read and write, stay at home,
go out at her own sweet will, no longer sitting for hours
with her fingers between the leaves of a frantically interesting
book, while her kin slowly driveled nonsense by the
yard—waiting, waiting, yawning. Would they never go?
Then for hurting you, who is like a relative? They do it
from a sense of duty. For stinging you, for cutting you
to the quick, who like one of your own household? In point
of fact, they alone can do it. They know the sore, and how
to hit it every time. You are in their power. She says, did
you ever see a really respectable, responsible, revered and
beloved head of a family who ever opened his mouth at
home except to find fault? He really thinks that is his
business in life and that all enjoyment is sinful. He is
there to prevent the women from such frivolous things as
pleasure, etc., etc.

I sat placidly rocking in my chair by the window, trying
to hope all was for the best. Mary Hammy rushed in

literally drowned in tears. I never saw so drenched a face
in my life. My heart stopped still. "Commodore Barron
is taken prisoner," said she. "The Yankees have captured
him and all his lieutenants. Poor Imogen—and
there is my father scouting about, the Lord knows where.
I only know he is in the advance guard. The Barron's
time has come. Mine may come any minute. Oh, Cousin
Mary, when Mrs. Lee told Imogen, she fainted! Those
poor girls; they are nearly dead with trouble and fright."

"Go straight back to those children," I said. "Nobody
will touch a hair of their father's head. Tell them I
say so. They dare not. They are not savages quite. This
is a civilized war, you know."

Mrs. Lee said to Mrs. Eustis (Mr. Corcoran's daughter)
yesterday: "Have you seen those accounts of arrests in
Washington? "Mrs. Eustis answered calmly:" Yes, I
know all about it. I suppose you allude to the fact that my
father has been imprisoned." "No, no," interrupted the
explainer, "she means the incarceration of those mature
Washington belles suspected as spies." But Mrs. Eustis
continued, "I have no fears for my father's safety."

August 31st.—Congress adjourns to-day. Jeff Davis
ill. We go home on Monday if I am able to travel. Already
I feel the dread stillness and torpor of our Sahara
of a Sand Hill creeping into my veins. It chills the marrow
of my bones. I am reveling in the noise of city life. I
know what is before me. Nothing more cheering than the
cry of the lone whippoorwill will break the silence at Sandy
Hill, except as night draws near, when the screech-owl will
add his mournful note.

September 1st.—North Carolina writes for arms for her
soldiers. Have we any to send? No. Brewster, the plainspoken,
says, "The President is ill, and our affairs are in
the hands of noodles. All the generals away with the
army; nobody here; General Lee in Western Virginia.
Reading the third Psalm. The devil is sick, the devil a

saint would be. Lord, how are they increased that trouble
me? Many are they that rise up against me!"

September 2d.—Mr. Miles says he is not going anywhere
at all, not even home. He is to sit here permanently—chairman
of a committee to overhaul camps, commissariats, etc.,
etc.

We exchanged our ideas of Mr. Mason, in which we
agreed perfectly. In the first place, he has a noble presence
—really a handsome man; is a manly old Virginian,
straightforward, brave, truthful, clever, the very beau-ideal
of an independent, high-spirited F. F. V. If the English
value a genuine man they will have one here. In every particular
he is the exact opposite of Talleyrand. He has
some peculiarities. He had never an ache or a pain himself;
his physique is perfect, and he loudly declares that he
hates to see persons ill; seems to him an unpardonable weakness.

It began to grow late. Many people had come to say
good-by to me. I had fever as usual to-day, but in the excitement
of this crowd of friends the invalid forgot fever.
Mr. Chesnut held up his watch to me warningly and intimated
"it was late, indeed, for one who has to travel tomorrow."
So, as the Yankees say after every defeat, I
"retired in good order."

Not quite, for I forgot handkerchief and fan. Gonzales
rushed after and met me at the foot of the stairs. In
his foreign, pathetic, polite, high-bred way, he bowed low
and said he had made an excuse for the fan, for he had a
present to make me, and then, though "startled and
amazed, I paused and on the stranger gazed." Alas! I am
a woman approaching forty, and the offering proved to be
a bottle of cherry bounce. Nothing could have been more
opportune, and with a little ice, etc., will help, I am sure,
to save my life on that dreadful journey home.

No discouragement now felt at the North. They take
our forts and are satisfied for a while. Then the English

are strictly neutral. Like the woman who saw her husband
fight the bear, "It was the first fight she ever saw when she
did not care who whipped."

Mr. Davis was very kind about it all. He told Mr. Chesnut
to go home and have an eye to all the State defenses,
etc., and that he would give him any position he asked for
if he still wished to continue in the army. Now, this would
be all that heart could wish, but Mr. Chesnut will never ask
for anything. What will he ask for That's the rub. I
am certain of very few things in life now, but this is one
I am certain of: Mr. Chesnut will never ask mortal man
for any promotion for himself or for one of his own family.