Charleston, May 1861.
We came down on the 10 the Girls & Lewis the day before. All got down comfortably & found them well in Town.—Since that time the servants have been sick one after another, & I have been quite ailing, the house had to be rearranged to accomodate the family. Papa has the front room on the street, a very comfortable one which he seems to enjoy greatly, his servant, Charles, is with him and he looks better than he did in the country but he is an odd person in his manners. He quite ignores William in the Law case and seems rather vexed with him one can’t exactly tell for what. I expect the secret of the whole thing is that my Papa is not very sensible, which he can’t help, we are born with an unequal share of mental gifts.—
The boys are all up stairs in 2 rooms 5 of them, a sort of Barack, but they seem comfortable. Lewis is off on an electioneering effort at Whippy Swamp, to get Bing Smith made Col. that he may be Captain, & so go to war.—Heard from Mrs Butler, she had arrived at her comfortable home and seemed very thankful, gave the girls some pretty worked handkerchiefs, & me a lovely wooden butter tub, the top of which got broken in the Packing.—Elizabeth wrote to her, I think she will get along very comfortably there, her affairs seem very much involved. She wishes Papa to let her Mortgage the Money he has given her, 19 thousand dollars, & 10 thousand dollars, to Papa Lewis & James what she owes them. There was a very good crop harvested, & sold, and one never can understand this business.—We have seen Luise North, Marianna Petigru, Mrs C. Manigault, Harriet, Margaret Barnwell, & Ann, Dr Porcher, the Wilkinses, all of them, and are getting into the usual rutine of the summer.
We have not been able to get a pew in St. Michael’s Church this summer as yet and may as well give it up. The old lady we generally hire from goes down to the Island and Gen. Boregard objects to people going there as the Island is under Martial law.—