University of Virginia Library

XIX
LINCOLNTON, N. C.

XIX. February 16, 1865—March 15, 1865

LINCOLNTON, N. C., February 16, 1865.—A change
has come o'er the spirit of my dream. Dear old
quire of yellow, coarse, Confederate home-made paper,
here you are again. An age of anxiety and suffering
has passed over my head since last I wrote and wept over
your forlorn pages.

My ideas of those last days are confused. The Martins
left Columbia the Friday before I did, and Mammy, the
negro woman, who had nursed them, refused to go with
them. That daunted me. Then Mrs. McCord, who was to
send her girls with me, changed her mind. She sent them
up-stairs in her house and actually took away the staircase;
that was her plan.

Then I met Mr. Christopher Hampton, arranging to
take off his sisters. They were flitting, but were to go only
as far as Yorkville. He said it was time to move on. Sherman
was at Orangeburg, barely a day's journey from Columbia,
and had left a track as bare and blackened as a fire
leaves on the prairies.

So my time had come, too. My husband urged me to go
home. He said Camden would be safe enough. They had
no spite against that old town, as they have against Charleston
and Columbia. Molly, weeping and wailing, came in
while we were at table. Wiping her red-hot face with the
cook's grimy apron, she said I ought to go simong our own
black people on the plantation; they would take care of me
better than any one else. So I agreed to go to Mulberry or

the Hermitage plantation, and sent Lawrence down with a
wagon-load of my valuables.

Then a Miss Patterson called—a refugee from Tennessee.
She had been in a country overrun by Yankee invaders,
and she described so graphically all the horrors to be
endured by those subjected to fire and sword, rapine and
plunder, that I was fairly scared, and determined to come
here. This is a thoroughly out-of-all-routes place. And yet
I can go to Charlotte, arn half-way to Kate at Flat Rock,
and there is no Federal army between me and Richmond.

As soon as my mind was finally made up, we telegraphed
to Lawrence, who had barely got to Camden in the
wagon when the telegram was handed to him; so he took the
train and came back. Mr. Chesnut sent him with us to take
care of the party.

We thought that if the negroes were ever so loyal to us,
they could not protect me from an army bent upon sweeping
us from the face of the earth, and if they tried to do so
so much the worse would it be for the poor things with
their Yankee friends. I then left them to shift for themselves,
as they are accustomed to do, and I took the same
liberty. My husband does not care a fig for the property
question, and never did. Perhaps, if he had ever known
poverty, it would be different. He talked beautifully about
it, as he always does about everything. I have told him
often that, if at heaven's gate St. Peter would listen to him
a while, and let him tell his own story, he would get in, and
the angels might give him a crown extra.

Now he says he has only one care—that I should be
safe, and not so harassed with dread; and then there is his
blind old father. " A man," said he, " can always die like
a patriot and a gentleman, with no fuss, and take it coolly.
It is hard not to envy those who are out of all this, their difficulties
ended—those who have met death gloriously on the
battle-field, their doubts all solved. One can but do his
best and leave the result to a higher power."

After New Orleans, those vain, passionate, impatient little
Creoles were forever committing suicide, driven to it by
despair and " Beast " Butler. As we read these things,
Mrs. Davis said: " If they want to die, why not first kill
' Beast ' Butler, rid the world of their foe and be saved the
trouble of murdering themselves? " That practical way
of removing their intolerable burden did not occur to them.
I repeated this suggestive anecdote to our corps of generals
without troops, here in this house, as they spread out their
maps on my table where lay this quire of paper from which
I write. Every man Jack of them had a safe plan to stop
Sherman, if—

Even Beauregard and Lee were expected, but Grant had
double-teamed on Lee. Lee could not save his own—how
could he come to save us? Read the list of the dead in those
last battles around Richmond and Petersburg[1] if yon want
to break your heart.

I took French leave of Columbia—slipped away without
a word to anybody. Isaac Hayne and Mr. Chesnut
came down to the. Charlotte depot with me. Ellen, my
maid, left her husband and only child, but she was willing
to come, and, indeed, was very cheerful in her way of looking
at it.

"I wan' travel 'roun' wid Missis some time—stid uh
Molly goin' all de time."

A woman, fifty years old at least, and uglier than she
was old, sharply rebuked my husband for standing at the
car window for a last few words with me. She said rudely:
" Stand aside, sir! I want air! " With his hat off, and his
grand air, my husband bowed politely, and said: " In one
moment, madam; I have something important to say to my
wife."

She talked aloud and introduced herself to every man,

claiming his protection. She had never traveled alone before
in all her life. Old age and ugliness are protective in
some cases. She was ardently patriotic for a while. Then
she was joined by her friend, a man as crazy as herself to
get out of this. From their talk I gleaned she had been for
years in the Treasury Department. They were about to
cross the lines. The whole idea was to get away from the
trouble to come down here. They were Yankees, but were
they not spies?

Here I am broken-hearted and an exile. And in such a
place! We have bare floors, and for a feather-bed, pine
table, and two chairs I pay $30 a day. Such sheets I But
fortunately I have some of my own. At the door, before I
was well out of the hack, the woman of the house packed
Lawrence back, neck and heels: she would not have him at
any price. She treated him as Mr. F.'s aunt did Clenman
in Little Dorrit. She said his clothes were too fine for a
nigger. " His airs, indeed." Poor Lawrence was humble
and silent. He said at last, " Miss Mary, send me back to
Mars Jeems." I began to look for a pencil to write a note
to my husband, but in the flurry could not find one. " Here
is one," said Lawrence, producing one with a gold case.
" Go away," she shouted, " I want no niggers here with
gold pencils and airs." So Lawrence fled before the storm,
but not before he had begged me to go back. He said, " if
Mars Jeems knew how you was treated he'd never be willing
for you to stay here."

The Martins had seen my, to them, well-known traveling
case as the hack trotted up Main Street, and they arrived at
this juncture out of breath. We embraced and wept. I
kept my room.

The Fants are refugees here, too; they are Virginians,
and have been in exile since the second battle of Manassas.
Poor things; they seem to have been everywhere, and seen
and suffered everything. They even tried to go back to
their own house, but found one chimney only standing

alone; even that had been taken possession of by a Yankee,
who had written his name upon it.

The day I left home I had packed a box of flour, sugar,
rice, and coffee, but my husband would not let me bring it.
He said I was coming to a land of plenty—unexplored
North Carolina, where the foot of the Yankee marauder was
unknown, and in Columbia they would need food. Now I
have written for that box and many other things to be sent
me by Lawrence, or I shall starve.

The Middletons have come. How joyously I sprang to
my feet to greet them. Mrs. Ben Rutledge described the
hubbub in Columbia. Everybody was flying in every direction
like a flock of swallows. She heard the enemy's
guns booming in the distance. The train no longer runs
from Charlotte to Columbia. Miss Middleton possesses her
soul in peace. She is as cool, clever, rational, and entertaining
as ever, and we talked for hours. Mrs. Reed was in
a state of despair. I can well understand that sinking of
mind and body during the first days as the abject misery of
it all closes in upon you. I remember my suicidal tendencies
when I first came here.

February 18th.—Here I am, thank God, settled at the
McLean's, in a clean, comfortable room, airy and cozy.
With a grateful heart I stir up my own bright wood fire.
My bill for four days at this splendid hotel here was $240,
with $25 additional for fire. But once more my lines have
fallen in pleasant places.

As we came up on the train from Charlotte a soldier took
out of his pocket a filthy rag. If it had lain in the gutter
for months it could not have looked worse. He unwrapped
the thing carefully and took out two biscuits of the species
known as "hard tack." Then he gallantly handed me one,
and with an ingratiating smile asked me "to take some."
Then he explained, saying, " Please take these two; swap
with me; give me something softer that I can eat; I am very
weak still." Immediately, for his benefit, my basket of

luncheon was emptied, but as for his biscuit, I would not
choose any. Isabella asked, " But what did you say to him
when he poked them under your nose? " and I replied, " I
held up both hands, saying, ' I would not take from you
anything that is yours—far from it! I would not touch
them for worlds.' "

A tremendous day's work and I helped with a will; our
window glass was all to be washed. Then the brass andirons
were to be polished. After we rubbed them bright how
pretty they were.

Presently Ellen would have none of me. She was scrubbing
the floor. " You go—dat's a good missis—an' stay to
Miss Isabella's till de no' dry." I am very docile now, and
I obeyed orders.

February 19th.—The Fants say all the trouble at the
hotel came from our servants' bragging. They represented
us as millionaires, and the Middleton men servants smoked
cigars. Mrs. Reed's averred that he had never done anything
in his life but stand behind his master at table with
a silver waiter in his hand. We were charged accordingly,
but perhaps the landlady did not get the best of us after all,
for we paid her in Confederate money. Now that they
won't take Confederate money in the shops here how are
we to live? Miss Middleton says quartermasters' families
are all clad in good gray cloth, but the soldiers go naked.
Well, we are like the families of whom the novels always say
they are poor but honest. Poor? Well-nigh beggars are
we, for I do not know where my next meal is to come from.

Called on Mrs. Ben Rutledge to-day. She is lovely, exquisitely
refined. Her mother, Mrs. Middleton, came in.
" You are not looking well, dear? Anything the matter? "
" No—but, mamma, I have not eaten a mouthful to-day.
The children can eat mush; I can't. I drank my tea, however."
She does not understand taking favors, and, blushing
violently, refused to let me have Ellen make her some
biscuit. I went home and sent her some biscuit all the same.

February 22d.—Isabella has been reading my diaries.
How we laugh because my sage divinations all come to
naught. My famous "insight into character" is utter folly.
The diarias were lying on the hearth ready to be
burned, but she told me to hold on to them; think of them
a while and don't be rash. Afterward when Isabella and I
were taking a walk. General Joseph E. Johnston joined us.
He explained to us all of Lee's and Stonewall Jackson's
mistakes. We had nothing to say how could we say anything!
He said he was very angry when he was ordered to
take command again. He might well have been in a genuine
rage. This on and off procedure would be enough to
be wilder the coolest head. Mrs. Johnston knows how to be
a partizan of Joe Johnston and still not make his enemies
uncomfortable. She can be pleasant and agreeable, as she
was to my face.

A letter from my husband who is at Charlotte. He came
near being taken a prisoner in Columbia, for he was asleep
the morning of the 17th, when the Yankees blew up the railroad
depot. That woke him, of course, and he found everybody
had left Columbia, and the town was surrendered by
the mayor, Colonel Goodwyn Hampton and his command
had been gone several hours. Isaac Hayne came away with
General Chesnut. There was no firm in the town when they
left. They overtook Hampton's command at Meek's Mill.
That night, from the halls where they encamped, they saw
the fire, and knew the Yankees were burning the town, as
we had every reason to expect they would Molly was left
in charge of everything of mine, including Mrs. Preston's
cow, which I was keeping and Sally Goodwyn's furniture.

Charleston and Wilmington have surrendered. I have
no further use for a newspaper. I never want to see another
one as long as I live. Wade Hampton has been made
a lieutenant-general, too late. If he had been made one and
given command in South Carolina six months ago I believe
he would have saved as. Shame, disgrace, beggary, all

RUINS OF MILLWOOD, WADE HAMPTON'S ANCESTRAL HOME.

From a Recent Photograph.

have come at once, and are hard to bear—the grand smash!
Rain, rain, outside, and naught but drowning floods of tears
inside. I could not bear it; so I rushed down in that rainstorm
to the Martins'. Rev. Mr. Martin met me at the
door. " Madam," said he, " Columbia is burned to the
ground." I bowed my head and sobbed aloud. " Stop
that! " he said, trying to speak cheerfully. " Come here,
wife," said he to Mrs. Martin. " This woman cries with
her whole heart, just as she laughs." But in spite of his
words, his voice broke down, and he was hardly calmer than
myself.

February 23d.—I want to get to Kate, I am so utterly
heart-broken. I hope John Chesnut and General Chesnut
may at least get into the same army. We seem scattered
over the face of the earth. Isabella sits there calmly reading.
I have quieted down after the day's rampage. May
our heavenly Father look down on us and have pity.

They say I was the last refugee from Columbia who was
allowed to enter by the door of the cars. The government
took possession then and women could only be smuggled in
by the windows. Stout ones stuck and had to be pushed,
pulled, and hauled in by main force. Dear Mrs. Izard,
with all her dignity, was subjected to this rough treatment.
She was found almost too much for the size of the car windows.

February 25th.—The Pfeifers, who live opposite us here,
are descendants of those Pfeifers who came South with Mr.
Chesnut's ancestors after the Fort Duquesne disaster. They
have now, therefore, been driven out of their Eden, the
valley of Virginia, a second time. The present Pfeifer is
the great man, the rich man par excellence of Lincolnton.
They say that with something very near to tears in his eyes
he heard of our latest defeats. " It is only a question of
time with us now," he said. " The raiders will come, you
know."

In Washington, before I knew any of them, except by

sight, Mrs. Davis, Mrs. Emory, and Mrs. Johnston were always
together, inseparable friends, and the trio were pointed
out to me as the cleverest women in the United States.
Now that I do know them all well, I think the world was
right in its estimate of them.

Met a Mr. Ancrum of serenely cheerful aspect, happy
and hopeful. " All right now," said he. " Sherman sure
to be thrashed. Joe Johnston is in command." Dr. Darby
says, when the oft-mentioned Joseph, the malcontent, gave
up his command to Hood, he remarked with a smile, " I
hope you will be able to stop Sherman; it was more than I
could do." General Johnston is not of Mr. Ancrum's way
of thinking as to his own powers, for he stayed here several
days after he was ordered to the front. He must have
known he could do no good, and I am of his opinion.

When the wagon, in which I was to travel to Flat Rock,
drove up to the door, covered with a tent-like white cloth,
in my embarrassment for an opening in the conversation I
asked the driver's name. He showed great hesitation in
giving it, but at last said:"My name is Sherman," adding,
" and now I see by your face that you won't go with me.
My name is against me these times." Here he grinned and
remarked:" But you would leave Lincolnton."

That name was the last drop in my cup, but I gave him
Mrs. Glover's reason for staying here. General Johnston
had told her this " might be the safest place after all." He
thinks the Yankees are making straight for Richmond and
General Lee's rear, and will go by Camden and Lancaster,
leaving Lincolnton on their west flank.

The McLeans are kind people. They ask no rent for
their rooms—only $20 a week for firewood. Twenty dollars!
and such dollars—mere waste paper.

Mrs. Munroe took up my photograph book, in which I
have a picture of all the Yankee generals. " I want to see
the men who are to be our masters," said she. " Not
mine " I answered, " thank God.' come what may. This

was a free fight. We had as much right to fight to get out
as they had to fight to keep us in. If they try to play the
masters, anywhere upon the habitable globe will I go,
never to see a Yankee, and if I die on the way so much the
better." Then I sat down and wrote to my husband in language
much worse than anything I can put in this book.
As I wrote I was blinded by tears of rage. Indeed, I nearly
wept myself away.

February 26th.—Mrs. Munroe offered me religious
books, which I declined, being already provided with the
Lamentations of Jeremiah, the Psalms of David, the denunciations
of Hosea, and, above all, the patient wail of Job.
Job is my comforter now. I should be so thankful to know
life never would be any worse with me. My husband is
well, and has been ordered to join the great Retreater. I
am bodily comfortable, if somewhat dingily lodged, and I
daily part with my raiment for food. We find no one who
will exchange eatables for Confederate money; so we are
devouring our clothes.

Opportunities for social enjoyment are not wanting.
Miss Middleton and Isabella often drink a cup of tea with
me. One might search the whole world and not find two
cleverer or more agreeable women. Miss Middleton is brilliant
and accomplished. She must have been a hard student
all her life. She knows everybody worth knowing, and she
has been everywhere. Then she is so high-bred, high-hearted,
pure, and true. She is so clean-minded; she could not
harbor a wrong thought. She is utterly unselfish, a devoted
daughter and sister. She is one among the many large-brained
women a kind Providence has thrown in my way,
such as Mrs. McCord, daughter of Judge Cheves; Mary
Preston Darby, Mrs. Emory, granddaughter of old Franklin,
the American wise man, and Mrs. Jefferson Davis. How
I love to praise my friends!

As a ray of artificial sunshine, Mrs. Munroe sent me an
Examiner, Daniel thinks we are at the last gasp, and now

England and France are bound to step in. England must
know if the United States of America are triumphant they
will tackle her next, and France must wonder if she will
not have to give up Mexico. My faith fails me. It is all too
late; no help for us now from God or man.

Thomas, Daniel says, was now to ravage Georgia, but
Sherman, from all accounts, has done that work once for all.
There will be no aftermath. They say no living thing is
found in Sherman's track, only chimneys, like telegraph
poles, to carry the news of Sherman's army backward.

In all that tropical down-pour, Mrs. Munroe sent me
overshoes and an umbrella, with the message, " Come over."
I went, for it would be as well to drown in the streets as to
hang myself at home to my own bedpost. At Mrs. Munroe's
I met a Miss McDaniel. Her father, for seven years, was
the Methodist preacher at our negro church. The negro
church is in a grove just opposite Mulberry house. She
says her father has so often described that fine old establishment
and its beautiful lawn, live-oaks, etc. Now, I
dare say there stand at Mulberry only Sherman's sentinels
—stacks of chimneys. We have made up our minds for the
worst. Mulberry house is no doubt razed to the ground.

Miss McDaniel was inclined to praise us. She said:
" As a general rule the Episcopal minister went to the
family mansion, and the Methodist missionary preached to
the negroes and dined with the overseer at his house, but at
Mulberry her father always stayed at the ' House,' and
the family were so kind and attentive to him." It was
rather pleasant to hear one's family so spoken of among
strangers.

So, well equipped to brave the weather, armed cap-a-pie,
so to speak, I continued my prowl farther afield and
brought up at the Middletons'. I may have surprised them,
for " at such an inclement season " they hardly expected a
visitor. Never, however, did lonely old woman receive such
a warm and hearty welcome. Now we know the worst. Are

we growing hardened? We avoid all allusion to Columbia;
we never speak of home, and we begin to deride the certain
poverty that lies ahead.

How it pours! Could I live many days in solitary confinement?
Things are beginning to be unbearable, but I
must sit down and be satisfied. My husband is safe so far.
Let me be thankful it is no worse with me. But there is the
gnawing pain all the same. What is the good of being here
at all? Our world has simply gone to destruction. And
across the way the fair Lydia languishes. She has not even
my resources against ennui. She has no Isabella, no Miss
Middleton, two as brilliant women as any in Christendom.
Oh, how does she stand it! I mean to go to church if it
rains cats and dogs. My feet are wet two or three times a
day. We never take cold; our hearts are too hot within us
for that.

A carriage was driven up to the door as I was writing.
I began to tie on my bonnet, and said to myself in the glass,
" Oh, you lucky woman! " I was all in a tremble, so great
was my haste to be out of this. Mrs. Glover had the carriage.
She came for me to go and hear Mr. Martin preach.
He lifts our spirits from this dull earth; he takes us up to
heaven. That I will not deny. Still he can not hold my attention;
my heart wanders and my mind strays back to
South Carolina. Oh, vandal Sherman! what are you at
there, hard-hearted wretch that you are! A letter from General
Chesnut, who writes from camp near Charlotte under
date of February 28th:

" I thank you a thousand, thousand times for your kind
letters. They are now my only earthly comfort, except the
hope that all is not yet lost. We have been driven like a
wild herd from our country. And it is not from a want of
spirit in the people or soldiers, nor from want of energy
and competency in our commanders. The restoration of
Joe Johnston, it is hoped, will redound to the advantage
of our cause and the reestablishment of our fortunes! I

am still in not very agreeable circumstances. For the last
four days completely water-bound.

" I am informed that a detachment of Yankees were
sent from Liberty Hill to Camden with a view to destroying
all the houses, mills, and provisions about that place. No
particulars have reached me. You know I expected the
worst that could be done, and am fully prepared for any report
which may be made.

" It would be a happiness beyond expression to see you
even for an hour. I have heard nothing from my poor old
father. I fear I shall never see him again. Such is the fate
of war. I do not complain. I have deliberately chosen my
lot, and am prepared for any fate that awaits me. My care
is for you, and I trust still in the good cause of my country
and the justice and mercy of God."

It was a lively, rushing, young set that South Carolina
put to the fore. They knew it was a time of imminent danger,
and that the fight would be ten to one. They expected
to win by activity, energy, and enthusiasm. Then came the
wet blanket, the croakers; now, these are posing, wrapping
Cæsar's mantle about their heads to fall with dignity.
Those gallant youths who dashed so gaily to the front lie
mostly in bloody graves. Well for them, maybe. There
are worse things than honorable graves. Wearisome
thoughts. Late in life we are to begin anew and have laborious,
difficult days ahead.

We have contradictory testimony. Governor Aiken has
passed through, saying Sherman left Columbia as he found
it, and was last heard from at Cheraw. Dr. Chisolm walked
home with me. He says that is the last version of the story.
Now my husband wrote that he himself saw the fires which
burned up Columbia. The first night his camp was near
enough to the town for that.

They say Sherman has burned Lancaster—that Sherman
nightmare, that ghoul, that hyena! But I do not believe
it. He takes his time. There are none to molest him.

He does things leisurely and deliberately. Why stop to do
so needless a thing as burn Lancaster court-house, the
jail, and the tavern? As I remember it, that description
covers Lancaster. A raiding party they say did for
Camden.

No train from Charlotte yesterday. Rumor says Sherman
is in Charlotte.

February 29th.—Trying to brave it out. They have
plenty, yet let our men freeze and starve in their prisons.
Would you be willing to be as wicked as they are? A
thousand times, no! But we must feed our army first—if
we can do so much as that. Our captives need not starve
if Lincoln would consent to exchange prisoners; but men
are nothing to the United States—things to throw away.
If they send our men back they strengthen our army, and
so again their policy is to keep everybody and everything
here in order to help starve us out. That, too, is what Sherman's
destruction means—to starve us out.

Young Brevard asked me to play accompaniments for
him. The guitar is my instrument, or was; so I sang and
played, to my own great delight. It was a distraction.
Then I made egg-nog for the soldier boys below and came
home. Have spent a very pleasant evening. Begone, dull
care; you and I never agree.

Ellen and I are shut up here. It is rain, rain, everlasting
rain. As our money is worthless, are we not to starve?
Heavens! how grateful I was to-day when Mrs. McLean
sent me a piece of chicken. I think the emptiness of my
larder has leaked out. To-day Mrs. Munroe sent me hot
cakes and eggs for my breakfast.

March 5th.—Is the sea drying up? Is it going up into
mist and coming down on us in a water-spout? The rain,
it raineth every day. The weather typifies our tearful despair,
on a large scale. It is also Lent now—a quite convenient
custom, for we, in truth, have nothing to eat. So
we fast and pray, and go dragging to church like drowned
rats to be preached at.

My letter from my husband was so—well, what in a
woman you would call heart-broken, that I began to get
ready for a run up to Charlotte. My hat was on my head,
my traveling-bag in my hand, and Ellen was saying
"Which umbrella, ma'am?" "Stop, Ellen," said I,
" someone is speaking out there." A tap came at the door,
and Miss McLean threw the door wide open as she said in a
triumphant voice: " Permit me to announce General Chesnut."
As she went off she sang out, " Oh, does not a
meeting like this make amends? "

We went after luncheon to see Mrs. Munroe. My husband
wanted to thank her for all her kindness to me. I was
awfully proud of him. I used to think that everybody had
the air and manners of a gentleman. I know now that these
accomplishments are things to thank God for. Father
O'Connell came in, fresh from Columbia, and with news
at last. Sherman's men had burned the convent. Mrs.
Munroe had pinned her faith to Sherman because he was a
Roman Catholic, but Father 0'Connell was there and saw
it. The nuns and girls marched to the old Hampton house
(Mrs. Preston's now), and so saved it. They walked between
files of soldiers. Men were rolling tar barrels and
lighting torches to fling on the house when the nuns came.
Columbia is but dust and ashes, burned to the ground.
Men, women, and children have been left there homeless,
houseless, and without one particle of food—reduced to
picking up corn that was left by Sherman's horses on picket
grounds and parching it to stay their hunger.

How kind my friends were on this, my fete day! Mrs.
Rutledge sent me a plate of biscuit; Mrs. Munroe, nearly
enough food supplies for an entire dinner; Miss MeLean a
cake for dessert. Ellen cooked and served up the material
happily at hand very nicely, indeed. There never was
a more successful dinner. My heart was too full to eat, but
I was quiet and calm; at least I spared my husband the trial
of a broken voice and tears. As he stood at the window,

with his back to the room, he said:" Where are they now—
my old blind father and my sister? Day and night I see
her leading him out from under his own rooftree. That
picture pursues me persistently. But come, let us talk of
pleasanter things." To which I answered, " Where will
you find them? "

He took off his heavy cavalry boots and Ellen carried
them away to wash the mud off and dry them. She brought
them back just as Miss Middleton walked in. In his agony,
while struggling with those huge boots and trying to get
them on, he spoke to her volubly in French. She turned
away from him instantly, as she saw his shoeless plight, and
said to me," I had not heard of your happiness. I did not
know the General was here." Not until next day did we
have time to remember and laugh at that outbreak of
French. Miss Middleton answered him in the same language.
He told her how charmed he was with my surroundings,
and that he would go away with a much lighter heart
since he had seen the kind people with whom he would leave
me.

I asked my husband what that correspondence between
Sherman and Hampton meant—this while I was preparing
something for our dinner. His back was still turned as he
gazed out of the window. He spoke in the low and steady
monotone that characterized our conversation the whole
day, and yet there was something in his voice that thrilled
me as he said:" The second day after our march from Columbia
we passed the M. 's. He was a bonded man and not
at home. His wife said at first that she could not find forage
for our horses, but afterward she succeeded in procuring
some. I noticed a very handsome girl who stood beside
her as she spoke, and I suggested to her mother the propriety
of sending her out of the track of both armies.
Things were no longer as heretofore; there was so much
straggling, so many camp followers, with no discipline, on
the outskirts of the army. The girl answered quickly, ' I

wish to stay with my mother.' That very night a party of
Wheeler's men came to our camp, and such a tale they told
of what had been done at the place of horror and destruction,
the mother left raving. The outrage had been committed
before her very face, she having been secured first.
After this crime the fiends moved on. There were only
seven of them. They had been gone but a short time when
Wheeler's men went in pursuit at full speed and overtook
them, cut their throats and wrote upon their breasts:
' These were the seven! ' "

" But the girl? "

" Oh, she was dead! "

" Are his critics as violent as ever against the President?
" asked I when recovered from pity and horror.
" Sometimes I think I am the only friend he has in the
world. At these dinners, which they give us everywhere,
I spoil the sport, for I will not sit still and hear Jeff Davis
abused for things he is no more responsible for than any
man at that table. Once I lost my temper and told them it
sounded like arrant nonsense to me, and that Jeff Davis
was a gentleman and a patriot, with more brains than the
assembled company." " You lost your temper truly,"
said I. " And I did not know it. I thought I was as cool
as I am now. In Washington when we left, Jeff Davis
ranked second to none, in intellect, and may be first, from
the South, and Mrs. Davis was the friend of Mrs. Emory,
Mrs. Joe Johnston, and Mrs. Montgomery Blair, and others
of that circle. Now they rave that he is nobody, and never
was." "And she? " I asked. " Oh, you would think to
hear them that he found her yesterday in a Mississippi
swamp!" "Well, in the French Revolution it was worse.
When a man failed he was guillotined. Mirabeau did not
die a day too soon, even Mirabeau."

He is gone. With despair in my heart I left that railroad
station. Allan Green walked home with me. I met his
wife and his four ragged little boys a day or so ago. She

is the neatest, the primmest, the softest of women. Her
voice is like the gentle cooing of a dove. That lowering
black future hangs there all the same. The end of the war
brings no hope of peace or of security to us. Ellen said I
had a little piece of bread and a little molasses in store for
my dinner to-day.

March 6th.—To-day came a godsend. Even a small
piece of bread and the molasses had become things of the
past. My larder was empty, when a tall mulatto woman
brought a tray covered by a huge white serviette. Ellen
ushered her in with a flourish, saying, " Mrs. McDaniel's
maid." The maid set down the tray upon my bare table,
and uncovered it with conscious pride. There were fowls
ready for roasting, sausages, butter, bread, eggs, and preserves.
I was dumb with delight. After silent thanks to
heaven my powers of speech returned, and I exhausted myself
in messages of gratitude to Mrs. McDaniel.

" Missis, you oughtn't to let her see how glad you was,"
said Ellen. " It was a lettin' of yo'sef down."

Mrs. Glover gave me some yarn, and I bought five dozen
eggs with it from a wagon—eggs for Lent. To show that I
have faith yet in humanity, I paid in advance in yarn for
something to eat, which they promised to bring to-morrow.
Had they rated their eggs at $100 a dozen in " Confederick "
money, I would have paid it as readily as $10. But
I haggle in yarn for the millionth part of a thread.

Two weeks have passed and the rumors from Columbia
are still of the vaguest. No letter has come from there, no
direct message, or messenger. " My God! " cried Dr.
Frank Miles, " but it is strange. Can it be anything so
dreadful they dare not tell us? " Dr. St. Julien Ravenel
has grown pale and haggard with care. His wife and children
were left there.

Dr. Brumby has at last been coaxed into selling me
enough leather for the making of a pair of shoes, else I
should have had to give up walking. He knew my father

well. He intimated that in some way my father helped him
through college. His own money had not sufficed, and so
William C. Preston and my father advanced funds sufficient
to let him be graduated. Then my uncle, Charles Miller,
married his aunt. I listened in rapture, for all this tended
to leniency in the leather business, and I bore off the leather
gladly. When asked for Confederate money in trade I
never stop to bargain. I give them $20 or $50 cheerfully
for anything—either sum.

March 8th.—Colonel Childs came with a letter from my
husband and a newspaper containing a full account of Sherman's
cold-blooded brutality in Columbia. Then we walked
three miles to return the call of my benefactress, Mrs. McDaniel.
They were kind and hospitable at her house, but
my heart was like lead; my head ached, and my legs were
worse than my head, and then I had a nervous chill. So I
came home, went to bed and stayed there until the Fants
brought me a letter saying my husband would be here today.
Then I got up and made ready to give him a cheerful
reception. Soon a man called, Troy by name, the same who
kept the little comer shop so near my house in Columbia, and
of whom we bought things so often. We had fraternized.
He now shook hands with me and looked in my face pitifully.
We seemed to have been friends all our lives. He
says they stopped the fire at the Methodist College, perhaps
to save old Mr. McCartha's house. Mr. Sheriff Dent, being
burned out, took refuge in our house. He contrived to find
favor in Yankee eyes. Troy relates that a Yankee officer
snatched a watch from Mrs. McCord's bosom. The soldiers
tore the bundles of clothes that the poor wretches tried to
save from their burning homes, and dashed them back into
the flames. They meant to make a clean sweep. They
were howling round the fires like demons, these Yankees
in their joy and triumph at our destruction. Well, we have
given them a big scare and kept them miserable for four
years—the little handful of us.

A woman we met on the street stopped to tell us a painful
coincidence. A general was married but he could not
stay at home very long after the wedding. When his baby
was born they telegraphed him, and he sent back a rejoicing
answer with an inquiry, " Is it a boy or a girl! " He
was killed before he got the reply. Was it not sad? His
poor young wife says, " He did not live to hear that his son
lived." The kind woman added, sorrowfully, " Died and
did not know the sect of his child." " Let us hope it will
be a Methodist," said Isabella, the irrepressible.

At the venison feast Isabella heard a good word for me
and one for General Chesnut's air of distinction, a thing
people can not give themselves, try as ever they may. Lord
Byron says, Everybody knows a gentleman when he sees
one, and nobody can tell what it is that makes a gentleman.
He knows the thing, but he can't describe it. Now there are
some French words that can not be translated, and we all
know the thing they mean—gracieuse and svelte, for instance,
as applied to a woman. Not that anything was said
of me like that—far from it. I am fair, fat, forty, and
jolly, and in my unbroken jollity, as far as they know, they
found my charm. " You see, she doesn't howl; she doesn't
cry; she never, never tells anybody about what she was used
to at home and what she has lost." High praise, and I intend
to try and deserve it ever after.

March 10th.—Went to church crying to Ellen, " It is
Lent, we must fast and pray." When I came home my
good fairy, Colonel Childs, had been here bringing rice and
potatoes, and promising flour. He is a trump. He pulled
out his pocket-book and offered to be my banker. He stood
there on the street, Miss Middleton and Isabella witnessing
the generous action, and straight out offered me money.
" No, put up that," said I. "I am not a beggar, and I
never will be; to die is so much easier."

Alas, after that flourish of trumpets, when he came with
a sack of flour, I accepted it gratefully. I receive things I

can not pay for, but money is different. There I draw a
line, imaginary perhaps. Once before the same thing happened.
Our letters of credit came slowly in 1845, when we
went unexpectedly to Europe and our letters were to follow
us. I was a poor little, inoffensive bride, and a British
officer, who guessed our embarrassment, for we did not tell
him (he came over with us on the ship), asked my husband
to draw on his banker until the letters of credit should
arrive. It was a nice thing for a stranger to do.

We have never lost what we never had. We have never
had any money—only unlimited credit, for my husband's
richest kind of a father insured us all manner of credit.
It was all a mirage only at last, and it has gone just as we
drew nigh to it.

Colonel Childs says eight of our Senators are for reconstruction,
and that a ray of light has penetrated inward
from Lincoln, who told Judge Campbell that Southern land
would not be confiscated.

March 12th.—Better to-day. A long, long weary day in
grief has passed away. I suppose General Chesnut is somewhere
—but where? that is the question. Only once has he
visited this sad spot, which holds, he says, all that he cares
for on earth. Unless he comes or writes soon I will cease, or
try to cease, this wearisome looking, looking, looking for
him.

March 13th.—My husband at last did come for a visit
of two hours. Brought Lawrence, who had been to Camden,
and was there, indeed, during the raid. My husband
has been ordered to Chester, S. C. We are surprised
to see by the papers that we behaved heroically in leaving
everything we had to be destroyed, without one thought of
surrender. We had not thought of ourselves from the heroic
point of view. Isaac McLaughlin hid and saved everything
we trusted him with. A grateful negro is Isaac.

March 15th.—Lawrence says Miss Chesnut is very proud
of the presence of mind and cool self-possession she showed

in the face of the enemy. She lost, after all, only two bottles
of champagne, two of her brother's gold-headed canes,
and her brother's horses, including Claudia, the brood
mare, that he valued beyond price, and her own carriage,
and a fly-brush boy called Battis, whose occupation in life
was to stand behind the table with his peacock feathers and
brush the flies away. He was the sole member of his dusky
race at Mulberry who deserted " Ole Marster " to follow
the Yankees.

Now for our losses at the Hermitage. Added to the
gold-headed canes and Claudia, we lost every mule and
horse, and President Davis's beautiful Arabian was captured.
John's were there, too. My light dragoon, Johnny,
and heavy swell, is stripped light enough for the fight now.
Jonathan, whom we trusted, betrayed us; and the plantation
and mills, Mulberry house, etc., were saved by Claiborne,
that black rascal, who was suspected by all the world. Claiborne
boldly affirmed that Mr. Chesnut would not be hurt
by destroying his place; the invaders would hurt only the
negroes. " Mars Jeems," said he, " hardly ever come
here and he takes only a little sompen nur to eat when he
do come."

Fever continuing, I sent for St. Julien Ravenel. We
had a wrangle over the slavery question. Then, he fell foul
of everybody who had not conducted this war according to
his ideas. Ellen had something nice to offer him (thanks
to the ever-bountiful Childs!), but he was too angry, too
anxious, too miserable to eat. He pitched into Ellen after
he had disposed of me. Ellen stood glaring at him from the
fireplace, her blue eye nearly white, her other eye blazing
as a comet. Last Sunday, he gave her some Dover's powders
for me; directions were written on the paper in which
the medicine was wrapped, and he told her to show these to
me, then to put what I should give her into a wine-glass
and let me drink it. Ellen put it all into the wine-glass and
let me drink it at one dose. " It was enough to last you

your lifetime," he said. " It was murder." Turning to
Ellen: " What did you do with the directions?" "I
nuvver see no d'rections. You nuvver gimme none." " I
told you to show that paper to your mistress." " Well, I
flung dat ole brown paper in de fire. What you makin' all
dis fuss for? Soon as I give Missis de physic, she stop frettin'
an' flingin' 'bout, she go to sleep sweet as a suckling
baby, an' she slep two days an' nights, an' now she heap
better." And Ellen withdrew from the controversy.

" Well, all is well that ends well, Mrs. Chesnut. You
took opium enough to kill several persons. You were worried
out and needed rest. You came near getting it—thoroughly.
You were in no danger from your disease. But
your doctor and your nurse combined were deadly." Maybe
I was saved by the adulteration, the feebleness, of Confederate
medicine.

  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  

A letter from my husband, written at Chester Court
House on March 15th, says: " In the morning I send Lieut.
Ogden with Lawrence to Lincolnton to bring you down. I
have three vacant rooms; one with bedsteads, chairs, washstands,
basins, and pitchers; the two others bare. You
can have half of a kitchen for your cooking. I have also at
Dr. Da Vega's, a room, furnished, to which you are invited
(board, also). You can take your choice. If you can
get your friends in Lincolnton to assume charge of your
valuables, only bring such as you may need here. Perhaps
it will be better to bring bed and bedding and the other
indispensables."