University of Virginia Library

XV
CAMDEN, S. C.

XV. September 10, 1863—November 5, 1863

CAMDEN, S. C., September 10, 1863.—It is a comfort
to turn from small political jealousies to our grand
battles—to Lee and Kirby Smith after Council and
Convention squabbles. Lee has proved to be all that my
husband prophesied of him when he was so unpopular and
when Joe Johnston was the great god of war. The very
sound of the word convention or council is wearisome. Not
that I am quite ready for Richmond yet. We must look
after home and plantation affairs, which we have sadly
neglected. Heaven help my husband through the deep
waters.

The wedding of Miss Aiken, daughter of Governor Aiken,
the largest slave-owner in South Carolina; Julia Rutledge,
one of the bridesmaids; the place Flat Bock. We
could not for a while imagine what Julia would do for a
dress. My sister Kate remembered some muslin she had in
the house for curtains, bought before the war, and laid
aside as not needed now. The stuff was white and thin, a
little coarse, but then we covered it with no end of beautiful
lace. It made a charming dress, and how altogether
lovely Julia looked in it! The night of the wedding it
stormed as if the world were coming to an end—wind, rain,
thunder, and lightning in an unlimited supply around the
mountain cottage.

The bride had a duchesse dressing-table, muslin and
lace; not one of the shifts of honest, war-driven poverty,

but a millionaire's attempt at appearing economical, in the
idea that that style was in better taste as placing the family
more on the same plane with their less comfortable compatriots.
A candle was left too near this light drapery and
it took fire. Outside was lightning enough to fire the
world; inside, the bridal chamber was ablaze, and there was
wind enough to blow the house down the mountainside.

The English maid behaved heroically, and, with the aid
of Mrs. Aiken's and Mrs. Mat Singleton's servants, put the
fire out without disturbing the marriage ceremony, then being
performed below. Everything in the bridal chamber
was burned up except the bed, and that was a mass of cinders,
soot, and flakes of charred and blackened wood.

At Kingsville I caught a glimpse of our army. Longstreet's
corps was going West. God bless the gallant fellows
! Not one man was intoxicated; not one rude word did
I hear. It was a strange sight—one part of it. There were
miles, apparently, of platform cars, soldiers rolled in their
blankets, lying in rows, heads all covered, fast asleep. In
their gray blankets, packed in regular order, they looked
like swathed mummies. One man near where I sat was
writing on his knee. He used his cap for a desk and he was
seated on a rail. I watched him, wondering to whom that
letter was to go—home, no doubt. Sore hearts for him
there.

A feeling of awful depression laid hold of me. All these
fine fellows were going to kill or be killed. Why? And a
phrase got to beating about my head like an old song, " The
Unreturning Brave." When a, knot of boyish, laughing,
young creatures passed me, a queer thrill of sympathy
shook me. Ah, I know how your home-folks feel, poor children!
Once, last winter, persons came to us in Camden
with such strange stories of Captain—, Morgan's man;
stories of his father, too; turf tales and murder, or, at least,
how he killed people. He had been a tremendous favorite
with my husband, who brought him in once, leading him

by the hand. Afterward he said to me, "With these girls
in the house we must be more cautious." I agreed to
be coldly polite to—. "After all," I said, "I barely
know him."

When he called afterward in Richmond I was very glad
to see him, utterly forgetting that he was under a ban. We
had a long, confidential talk. He told me of his wife and
children; of his army career, and told Morgan stories. He
grew more and more cordial and so did I. He thanked me
for the kind reception given him in that house; told me I
was a true friend of his, and related to me a scrape he was
in which, if divulged, would ruin him, although he was innocent;
but time would clear all things. He begged me not
to repeat anything he had told me of his affairs, not even
to Colonel Chesnut; which I promised promptly, and then
he went away. I sat poking the fire thinking what a curiously
interesting creature he was, this famous Captain
—, when the folding-doors slowly opened and Colonel
Chesnut appeared. He had come home two hours ago from
the War Office with a headache, and had been lying on the
sofa behind that folding-door listening for mortal hours.

"So, this is your style of being ' coldly polite,'" he
said. Fancy my feelings. "Indeed, I had forgotten all
about what they had said of him. The lies they told of
him never once crossed my mind. He is a great deal cleverer,
and, I dare say, just as good as those who malign
him."

Mattie Reedy (I knew her as a handsome girl in Washington
several years ago) got tired of hearing Federals
abusing John Morgan. One day they were worse than ever
in their abuse and she grew restive. By way of putting a
mark against the name of so rude a girl, the Yankee officer
said, "What is your name?" "Write ' Mattie Reedy '
now, but by the grace of God one day I hope to call myself
the wife of John Morgan." She did not know Morgan,
but Morgan eventually heard the story; a good joke it was

said to be. But he made it a point to find her out; and, as
she was as pretty as she was patriotic, by the grace of God,
she is now Mrs. Morgan! These timid Southern women under
the guns can be brave enough.

Aunt Charlotte has told a story of my dear mother.
They were up at Shelby, Ala., a white man's country,
where negroes are not wanted. The ladies had with them
several negroes belonging to my uncle at whose house they
were staying in the owner's absence. One negro man who
had married and dwelt in a cabin was for some cause particularly
obnoxious to the neighborhood. My aunt and my
mother, old-fashioned ladies, shrinking from everything
outside their own door, knew nothing of all this. They occupied
rooms on opposite sides of an open passage-way.
Underneath, the house was open and unfinished. Suddenly,
one night, my aunt heard a terrible noise—apparently as
of a man running for his life, pursued by men and dogs,
shouting, hallooing, barking. She had only time to lock herself
in. Utterly cut off from her sister, she sat down, dumb
with terror, when there began loud knocking at the door,
with men swearing, dogs tearing round, sniffing, racing in
and out of the passage and barking underneath the house
like mad. Aunt Charlotte was sure she heard the panting
of a negro as he ran into the house a few minutes before.
What could have become of him? Where could he have
hidden? The men shook the doors and windows, loudly
threatening vengeance. My aunt pitied her feeble sister,
cut off in the room across the passage. This fright might
kill her!

The cursing and shouting continued unabated. A man's
voice, in harshest accents, made itself heard above all:
"Leave my house, you rascals!" said the voice. "If
you are not gone in two seconds, I '11 shoot!" There was a
dead silence except for the noise of the dogs. Quickly the
men slipped a, way. Once out of gunshot, they began to call
their dogs. After it was all over my aunt crept across the

passage. "Sister, what man was it scared them away?"
My mother laughed aloud in her triumph. "I am the
man," she said.

"But where is John?" Out crept John from a corner
of the room, where my mother had thrown some rubbish
over him. "Lawd bless you, Miss Mary opened de do' for
me and dey was right behind rannin' me—" Aunt says
mother was awfully proud of her prowess. And she
showed some moral courage, too!

At the President's in Richmond once, General Lee was
there, and Constance and Hetty Gary came in; also Miss
Sanders and others. Constance Cary[1] was telling some war
anecdotes, among them one of an attempt to get up a supper
the night before at some high and mighty P. F. V.'s
house, and of how several gentlefolks went into the kitchen
to prepare something to eat by the light of one forlorn candle.
One of the men in the party, not being of a useful
temperament, turned up a tub and sat down upon it.
Custis Lee, wishing also to rest, found nothing upon which
to sit but a gridiron.

One remembrance I kept of the evening at the President's:
General Lee bowing over the beautiful Miss Gary's
hands in the passage outside. Miss—rose to have her
part in the picture, and asked Mr. Davis to walk with her
into the adjoining drawing-room. He seemed surprised,
but rose stiffly, and, with a scowling brow, was led off. As
they passed where Mrs. Davis sat, Miss—, with all sail
set, looked back and said: " Don't be jealous, Mrs. Davis;
I have an important communication to make to the President."
Mrs. Davis's amusement resulted in a significant
"Now! Did you ever?"

During Stoneman's raid, on a Sunday I was in Mrs.

Randolph's pew. The battle of Chancellorsville was also
raging. The rattling of ammunition wagons, the tramp of
soldiers, the everlasting slamming of those iron gates of the
Capitol Square just opposite the church, made it hard to
attend to the service.

Then began a scene calculated to make the stoutest heart
quail. The sexton would walk quietly up the aisle to de
liver messages to worshipers whose relatives had been
brought in wounded, dying, or dead. Pale-faced people
would then follow him out. Finally, the Rev. Mr. Minnegerode
bent across the chancel-rail to the sexton for a few
minutes, whispered with the sexton, and then disappeared.
The assistant clergyman resumed the communion which
Mr. Minnegerode had been administering. At the church
door stood Mrs. Minnegerode, as tragically wretched and as
wild-looking as ever Mrs. Siddons was. She managed to
say to her husband, " Your son is at the station, dead! "
When these agonized parents reached the station, however,
it proved to be some one else's son who was dead—but a son
all the same. Pale and wan came Mr. Minnegerode back to
his place within the altar rails. After the sacred communion
was over, some one asked him what it all meant, and
he said: " Oh, it was not my son who was killed, but it
came so near it aches me yet!"

At home I found L. Q. Washington, who stayed to
dinner. I saw that he and my husband were intently preoccupied
by some event which they did not see fit to communicate
to me. Immediately after dinner my husband
lent Mr. Washington one of his horses and they rode off together.
I betook myself to my kind neighbors, the Pattons,
for information. There I found Colonel Patton had gone,
too. Mrs. Patton, however, knew all about the trouble.
She said there was a raiding party within forty miles of us
and no troops were in Richmond! They asked me to stay
to tea—those kind ladies—and in some way we might learn
what was going on. After tea we went out to the Capitol

Square, Lawrence and three men-servants going along to
protect us. They seemed to be mustering in citizens by the
thousands. Company after company was being formed;
then battalions, and then regiments. It was a wonderful
sight to us, peering through the iron railing, watching them
fall into ranks.

Then we went to the President's, finding the family at
supper. We sat on the white marble steps, and General
Elzey told me exactly how things stood and of our immediate
danger. Pickets were coming in. Men were spurring
to and from the door as fast as they could ride, bringing
and carrying messages and orders. Calmly General Elzey
discoursed upon our present weakness and our chances for
aid. After a while Mrs. Davis came out and embraced me
silently.

"It is dreadful," I said. "The enemy is within forty
miles of us—only forty!" "Who told you that tale?"
said she. "They are within three miles of Eichmond!"
I went down on my knees like a stone. "You had better be
quiet," she said." The President is ill. Women and children
must not add to the trouble." She asked me to stay
all night, which I was thankful to do.

We sat up. Officers were coming and going; and we
gave them what refreshment we could from a side table,
kept constantly replenished. Finally, in the excitement,
the constant state of activity and change of persons, we forgot
the danger. Officers told us jolly stories and seemed in
fine spirits, so we gradually took heart. There was not a
moment's rest for any one. Mrs. Davis said something more
amusing than ever: " We look like frightened women and
children, don't we?"

Early next morning the President came down. He was
still feeble and pale from illness. Custis Lee and my husband
loaded their pistols, and the President drove off in
Dr. Garnett's carriage, my husband and Custis Lee on
horseback alongside him. By eight o'clock the troops from

Petersburg came in, and the danger was over. The authorities
will never strip Richmond of troops again. We had a
narrow squeeze for it, but we escaped. It was a terrible
night, although we made the best of it.

I was walking on Franklin Street when I met my husband.
"Come with me to the War Office for a few minutes,"
said he, "and then I will go home with you."
What could I do but go? He took me up a dark stairway,
and then down a long, dark corridor, and he left me sitting
in a window, saying he " would not be gone a second";
he was obliged to go into the Secretary of War's room.
There I sat mortal hours. Men came to light the gas.
From the first I put down my veil so that nobody might
know me. Numbers of persons passed that I knew, but I
scarcely felt respectable seated up there in that odd way,
so I said not a word but looked out of the window. Judge
Campbell slowly walked up and down with his hands behind
his back—the saddest face I ever saw. He had jumped
down in his patriotism from Judge of the Supreme Court,
U. S. A., to be under-secretary of something or other—I do
not know what—C. S. A. No wonder he was out of spirits
that night!

Finally Judge Ould came; him I called, and he joined
me at once, in no little amazement to find me there, and
stayed with me until James Chesnut appeared. In point
of fact, I sent him to look up that stray member of my
family.

When my husband came he said: "Oh, Mr. Seddon and
I got into an argument, and time slipped away! The truth
is, I utterly forgot you were here." When we were once
more out in the street, he began: "Now, don't scold me,
for there is bad news. Pemberton has been fighting the
Yankees by brigades, and he has been beaten every time;
and now Vicksburg must go! " I suppose that was his
side of the argument with Seddon.

Once again I visited the War Office. I went with Mrs.

Ould to see her husband at his office. We wanted to arrange
a party on the river on the flag-of-truce boat, and to
visit those beautiful places, Claremont and Brandon. My
husband got into one of his " too careful "fits; said there
was risk in it; and so he upset all our plans. Then I was
to go up to John Rutherford's by the canal-boat. That, too,
he vetoed " too risky," as if anybody was going to trouble
us!

October 24th.—James Chesnut is at home on his way
back to Richmond; had been sent by the President to
make the rounds of the Western armies; says Polk is a
splendid old fellow. They accuse him of having been
asleep in his tent at seven o'clock when he was ordered to
attack at daylight, but he has too good a conscience to sleep
so soundly.

The battle did not begin until eleven at Chickamauga[2] when Bragg had ordered the advance at daylight. Bragg
and his generals do not agree. I think a general worthless
whose subalterns quarrel with him. Something is wrong
about the man. Good generals are adored by their soldiers.
See Napoleon, Cæssar, Stonewall, Lee.

Old Sam (Hood) received his orders to hold a certain
bridge against the enemy, and he had already driven the
enemy several miles beyond it, when the slow generals were
still asleep. Hood has won a victory, though he has only
one leg to stand on.

Mr. Chesnut was with the President when he reviewed
our army under the enemy's guns before Chattanooga. He
told Mr. Davis that every honest man he saw out West
thought well of Joe Johnston. He knows that the President
detests Joe Johnston for all the trouble he has given him,

and General Joe returns the compliment with compound
interest. His hatred of Jeff Davis amounts to a religion.
With him it colors all things.

Joe Johnston advancing, or retreating, I may say with
more truth, is magnetic. He does draw the good-will of
those by whom he is surrounded. Being such a good hater,
it is a pity he had not elected to hate somebody else than
the President of our country. He hates not wisely but too
well. Our friend Breckinridge[3] received Mr. Chesnut with
open arms. There is nothing narrow, nothing self-seeking,
about Breckinridge. He has not mounted a pair of green
spectacles made of prejudices so that he sees no good except
in his own red-hot partizans.

October 27th.—Young Wade Hampton has been here
for a few days, a guest of our nearest neighbor and cousin,
Phil Stoekton. Wade, without being the beauty or the athlete
that his brother Preston is, is such a nice boy. We lent
him horses, and ended by giving him a small party. What
was lacking in company was made up for by the excellence
of old Colonel Chesnut's ancient Madeira and champagne.
If everything in the Confederacy were only as truly good
as the old Colonel's wine-cellars! Then we had a salad and
a jelly cake.

General Joe Johnston is so careful of his aides that
Wade has never yet seen a battle. Says he has always happened
to be sent afar off when the fighting came. He does
not seem too grateful for this, and means to be transferred
to his father's command. He says, " No man exposes himself
more recklessly to danger than General Johnston, and
no one strives harder to keep others out of it." But the
business of this war is to save the country, and a commander
must risk his men's lives to do it. There is a French saying

that you can't make an omelet unless you are willing to
break eggs.

November 5th.—For a week we have had such a tranquil,
happy time here. Both my husband and Johnny are
here still. James Chesnut spent his time sauntering around
with his father, or stretched on the rug before my fire reading
Vanity Fair and Pendennis. By good luck he had not
read them before. We have kept Esmond for the last. He
owns that he is having a good time. Johnny is happy, too.
He does not care for books. He will read a novel now and
then, if the girls continue to talk of it before him. Nothing
else whatever in the way of literature does he touch. He
comes pulling his long blond mustache irresolutely as if
he hoped to be advised not to read it—"Aunt Mary, shall
I like this thing?" I do not think he has an idea what we
are fighting about, and he does not want to know. He says,
"My company," "My men," with a pride, a faith, and an
affection which are sublime. He came into his inheritance
at twenty-one (just as the war began), and it was a goodly
one, fine old houses and an estate to match.

Yesterday, Johnny went to his plantation for the first
time since the war began. John Witherspoon went with
him, and reports in this way: " How do you do, Marster!
How you come on? "—thus from every side rang the
noisiest welcome from the darkies. Johnny was silently
shaking black hands right and left as he rode into the
crowd.

As the noise subsided, to the overseer he said: "Send
down more corn and fodder for my horses." And to the
driver, "Have you any peas?" "Plenty, sir." "Send
a wagon-load down for the cows at Bloomsbury while I
stay there. They have not milk and butter enough there
for me. Any eggs? Send down all you can collect. How
about my turkeys and ducks? Send them down two at a
time. How about the mutton? Fat? That's good; send
down two a week."

As they rode home, John Witherspoon remarked, "I
was surprised that you did not go into the fields to see your
crops." "What was the use?" "And the negroes; you
had so little talk with them."

"No use to talk to them before the overseer. They are
coming down to Bloomsbury, day and night, by platoons
and they talk me dead. Besides, William and Parish go up
there every night, and God knows they tell me enough plantation
scandal—overseer feathering his nest; negroes ditto
at my expense. Between the two fires I mean to get something
to eat while I am here."

For him we got up a charming picnic at Mulberry.
Everything was propitious—the most perfect of days and
the old place in great beauty. Those large rooms were delightful
for dancing; we had as good a dinner as mortal
appetite could crave; the best fish, fowl, and game; wine
from a cellar that can not be excelled. In spite of blockade
Mulberry does the honors nobly yet. Mrs. Edward Stockton
drove down with me. She helped me with her taste and
tact in arranging things. We had no trouble, however.
All of the old servants who have not been moved to Bloomsbury
scented the prey from afar, and they literally flocked
in and made themselves useful.