November 17th.–Although Sherman[1] took Atlanta, he does not mean to stay there, be it heaven or hell. Fire and the sword are for us here; that is the word. And now I must begin my Columbia life anew and alone. It will be a short shrift. Captain Ogden came to dinner on Sunday and in [...]
November 6th.–Sally Hampton went to Richmond with the Rev. Mr. Martin. She arrived there on Wednesday. On Thursday her father, Wade Hampton, fought a great battle, but just did not win it–a victory narrowly missed. Darkness supervened and impenetrable woods prevented that longed-for consummation. Preston Hampton rode recklessly into the hottest fire. His father sent [...]
October 28th.—Burton Harrison writes to General Preston that supreme anxiety reigns in Richmond. Oh, for one single port! If the Alabama had had in the whole wide world a port to take her prizes to and where she could be refitted, I believe she would have borne us through. Oh, for one single port by [...]
October 18th.–Ten pleasant days I owe to my sister. Kate has descended upon me unexpectedly from the mountains of Flat Rock. We are true sisters; she understands me without words, and she is the cleverest, sweetest woman I know, so graceful and gracious in manner, so good and unselfish in character, but, best of all, [...]
Saturday.–The President will be with us here in Columbia next Tuesday, so Colonel McLean brings us word. I have begun at once to prepare to receive him in my small house. His apartments have been decorated as well as Confederate stringency would permit. The possibilities were not great, but I did what I could for [...]
October 1st.–Mary Cantey Preston’s wedding day has come and gone and Mary is Mrs. John Darby now. Maggie Howell dressed the bride’s hair beautifully, they said, but it was all covered by her veil, which was of blond-lace, and the dress tulle and blond-lace, with diamonds and pearls. The bride walked up the aisle on [...]
September 24th.–These stories of our defeats in the valley fall like blows upon a dead body. Since Atlanta fell I have felt as if all were dead within me forever. Captain Ogden, of General Chesnut’s staff, dined here to-day. Had ever brigadier, with little or no brigade, so magnificent a staff? The reserves, as somebody [...]
September 21st.—Went with Mrs. Rhett to hear Dr. Palmer. I did not know before how utterly hopeless was our situation. This man is so eloquent, it was hard to listen and not give way. Despair was his word, and martyrdom. He offered us nothing more in this world than the martyr’s crown. He is not [...]
September 19th.–My pink silk dress I have sold for $600, to be paid for in instalments, two hundred a month for three months. And I sell my eggs and butter from home for two hundred dollars a month. Does it not sound well –four hundred dollars a month regularly. But in what? In Confederate money. [...]
September 2d.–The battle has been raging at Atlanta,[1] and our fate hanging in the balance. Atlanta, indeed, is gone. Well, that agony is over. Like David, when the child was dead, I will get up from my knees, will wash my face and comb my hair. No hope; we will try to have no fear. [...]
August 29th.–I take my hospital duty in the morning. Most persons prefer afternoon, but I dislike to give up my pleasant evenings. So I get up at five o’clock and go down in my carriage all laden with provisions. Mrs. Fisher and old Mr. Bryan generally go with me. Provisions are commonly sent by people [...]
August 14th.–We have conflicting testimony. Young Wade Hampton, of Joe Johnston’s staff, says Hood lost 12,000 men in the battles of the 22d[1] and 24th, but Brewster, of Hood’s staff, says not three thousand at the utmost. Now here are two people strictly truthful, who tell things so differently. In this war people see the [...]
August 10th.–To-day General Chesnut and his staff departed. His troops are ordered to look after the mountain passes beyond Greenville on the North Carolina and Tennessee quarter. Misery upon misery. Mobile[1] is going as New Orleans went. Those Western men have not held their towns as we held and hold Charleston, or as the Virginians [...]
August 6th.–Archer came, a classmate of my husband’s at Princeton; they called him Sally Archer then, he was so girlish and pretty. No trace of feminine beauty about this grim soldier now. He has a hard face, black-bearded and sallow, with the saddest black eyes. His hands are small, white, and well-shaped; his manners quiet. [...]
August 2d.–Sherman again. Artillery parked and a line of battle formed before Atlanta. When we asked Brewster what Sam meant to do at Atlanta he answered, “Oh–oh, like the man who went, he says he means to stay there!” Hope he may, that’s all. Spent to-day with Mrs. McCord at her hospital. She is dedicating [...]
July 25th.–Now we are in a cottage rented from Doctor Chisolm. Hood is a full general. Johnston[1] has been removed and superseded. Early is threatening Washington City. Semmes, of whom we have been so proud, risked the Alabama in a sort of duel of ships. He has lowered the flag of the famous Alabama to [...]
Columbia, S C, July 6, 1864.–At the Prestons’ Mary was laughing at Mrs. Lyons’s complaint–the person from whom we rented rooms in Richmond. She spoke of Molly and Lawrence’s deceitfulness. They went about the house quiet as mice, while we were at home; or Lawrence sat at the door and sprang to his feet whenever [...]
June 1st.–We have been to Bloomsbury again and hear that William Kirkland has been wounded. A scene occurred then, Mary weeping bitterly and Aunt B. frantic as to Tanny’s danger. I proposed to make arrangements for Mary to go on at once. The Judge took me aside, frowning angrily. “You are unwise to talk in [...]
May 27th.–In all this beautiful sunshine, in the stillness and shade of these long hours on this piazza, all comes back to me about little Joe; it haunts me–that scene in Richmond where all seemed confusion, madness, a bad dream! Here I see that funeral procession as it wound among those tall white monuments, up [...]
Camden, S. C., May 8, 1864 — My friends crowded around me so in those last days in Richmond, I forgot the affairs of this nation utterly; though I did show faith in my Confederate country by buying poor Bones’s (my English maid’s) Confederate bonds. I gave her gold thimbles, bracelets; whatever was gold and [...]
April 11th.–Drove with Mrs. Davis and all her infant family; wonderfully clever and precocious children, with unbroken wills. At one time there was a sudden uprising of the nursery contingent. They laughed, fought, and screamed. Bedlam broke loose. Mrs. Davis scolded, laughed, and cried. She asked me if my husband would speak to the President [...]
April 1st.–Mrs. Davis is utterly depressed. She said the fall of Richmond must come; she would send her children to me and Mrs. Preston. We begged her to come to us also. My husband is as depressed as I ever knew him to be. He has felt the death of that angel mother of his [...]
March 31st.–Met Preston Hampton. Constance Cary was with me. She showed her regard for him by taking his overcoat and leaving him in a drenching rain. What boyish nonsense he talked; said he was in love with Miss Dabney now, that his love was so hot within him that he was waterproof, the rain sizzed [...]
March 24th.–Yesterday, we went to the Capitol grounds to see our returned prisoners. We walked slowly up and down until Jeff Davis was called upon to speak. There I stood, almost touching the bayonets when he left me. I looked straight into the prisoners’ faces, poor fellows. They cheered with all their might, and I [...]
March 19th.–A new experience: Molly and Lawrence have both gone home, and I am to be left for the first time in my life wholly at the mercy of hired servants. Mr. Chesnut, being in such deep mourning for his mother, we see no company. I have a maid of all work. Tudy came with [...]