A Diary From Dixie Part 10

Before the war shut him in, General Preston sent to the lakes for his salmon, to Mississippi for his venison, to the mountains for his mutton and grouse. It is good enough, the best dish at all these houses, what the Spanish call "the hearty welcome." Thackeray says at every American table he was first served with "grilled hostess." At the head of the table sat a person, fiery-faced, anxious, nervous, * * *

169 inwardly murmuring, like Falstaff, "Would it were night, Hal, and all were well."

At Mulberry the house is always filled to overflowing, and one day is curiously like another. People are coming and going, carriages driving up or driving off. It has the air of a watering-place, where one does not pay, and where there are no strangers. At Christmas the china closet gives up its treasures. The gla.s.s, china, silver, fine linen reserved for grand occasions come forth. As for the dinner itself, it is only a matter of greater quant.i.ty - more turkey, more mutton, more partridges, more fish, etc., and more solemn stiffness. Usually a half-dozen persons unexpectedly dropping in make no difference. The family let the housekeeper know; that is all.

People are beginning to come here from Richmond. One swallow does not make a summer, but it shows how the wind blows, these straws do - Mrs. "Const.i.tution" Browne and Mrs. Wise. The Gibsons are at Doctor Gibbes's It does look squally. We are drifting on the breakers.

May 29th. - Betsey, recalcitrant maid of the W.'s, has been sold to a telegraph man. She is as handsome as a mulatto ever gets to be, and clever in every kind of work. My Molly thinks her mistress "very lucky in getting rid of her." She was "a dangerous inmate," but she will be a good cook, a good chambermaid, a good dairymaid, a beautiful clear-starcher, and the most thoroughly good-for-nothing woman I know to her new owners, if she chooses. Molly evidently hates her, but thinks it her duty "to stand by her color."

Mrs. Gibson is a Philadelphia woman. She is true to her husband and children, but she does not believe in us- the Confederacy, I mean. She is despondent and hopeless; as wanting in faith of our ultimate success as is Sally Baxter Hampton. I make allowances for those people. If I had married North, they would have a heavy handful in me just now up there.

170 Mrs. Chesnut, my mother-in-law, has been sixty years in the South, and she has not changed in feeling or in taste one iota. She can not like hominy for breakfast, or rice for dinner, without a relish to give it some flavor. She can not eat watermelons and sweet potatoes sans discrtion, as we do. She will not eat hot corn bread discrtion, and hot b.u.t.tered biscuit without any.

"Richmond is obliged to fall," sighed Mrs. Gibson. "You would say so, too, if you had seen our poor soldiers." "Poor soldiers?" said I. "Are you talking of Stonewall Jackson's men? Poor soldiers, indeed!" She said her mind was fixed on one point, and had ever been, though she married and came South: she never would own slaves. "Who would that was not born to it?" I cried, more excited than ever. She is very handsome, very clever, and has very agreeable manners.

"Dear madam," she says, with tears in her beautiful eyes, "they have three armies." "But Stonewall has routed one of them already. Heath another." She only answered by an unbelieving moan. "Nothing seemed to suit her," I said, as we went away. "You did not certainly," said some one to me; "you contradicted every word she said, with a sort of indignant protest."

We met Mrs. Hampton Gibbes at the door - another Virginia woman as good as gold. They told us Mrs. Davis was delightfully situated at Raleigh; North Carolinians so loyal, so hospitable; she had not been allowed to eat a meal at the hotel. "How different from Columbia," said Doctor Gibbes, looking at Mrs. Gibson, who has no doubt been left to take all of her meals at his house. "Oh, no!" cried Mary, "you do Columbia injustice. Mrs. Chesnut used to tell us that she was never once turned over to the tender mercies of the Congaree cuisine, and at McMahan's it is fruit, flowers, invitations to dinner every day."

After we came away, "Why did you not back me up?" I was asked. "Why did you let them slander Columbia?"

171 "It was awfully awkward," I said, "but you see it would have been worse to let Doctor Gibbes and Mrs. Gibson see how different it was with other people."

Took a moonlight walk after tea at the Halcott Greens'. All the company did honor to the beautiful night by walking home with me.

Uncle Hamilton Boykin is here, staying at the de Saussures'. He says, "Mana.s.sas was play to Williamsburg," and he was at both battles. He lead a part of Stuart's cavalry in the charge at Williamsburg, riding a hundred yards ahead of his company.

Toombs is ready for another revolution, and curses freely everything Confederate from the President down to a horse boy. He thinks there is a conspiracy against him in the army. Why? Heavens and earth - why?

June 2d. - A battle1 is said to be raging round Richmond. I am at the Prestons'. James Chesnut has gone to Richmond suddenly on business of the Military Department. It is always his luck to arrive in the nick of time and be present at a great battle.

Wade Hampton shot in the foot, and Johnston Pettigrew killed. A telegram says Lee and Davis were both on the field: the enemy being repulsed. Telegraph operator said: "Madam, our men are fighting." "Of course they are. What else is there for them to do now but fight?" "But, madam, the news is encouraging." Each army is burying its dead: that looks like a drawn battle. We haunt the bulletin-board.

Back to McMahan's. Mem Cohen is ill. Her daughter, Isabel, warns me not to mention the battle raging around Richmond. Young Cohen is in it. Mrs. Preston, anxious 1. The Battle of Fair Oaks or Seven Pines, took place a few miles east of Richmond, on May 31 and June 1, 1862, the Federals being commanded by McClellan and the Confederates by General Joseph E. Johnston.

172 and unhappy about her sons. John is with General Huger at Richmond; Willie in the swamps on the coast with his company. Mem tells me her cousin, Edwin de Leon, is sent by Mr. Davis on a mission to England.

Rev. Robert Barnwell has returned to the hospital. Oh, that we had given our thousand dollars to the hospital and not to the gunboat! "Stonewall Jackson's movements," the Herald says, "do us no harm; it is bringing out volunteers in great numbers." And a Philadelphia paper abused us so fervently I felt all the blood in me rush to my head with rage.

June 3d. - Doctor John Cheves is making infernal machines in Charleston to blow the Yankees up; pretty name they have, those machines. My horses, the overseer says, are too poor to send over. There was corn enough on the place for two years, they said, in January; now, in June, they write that it will not last until the new crop comes in. Somebody is having a good time on the plantation, if it be not my poor horses.

Molly will tell me all when she comes back, and more. Mr. Venable has been made an aide to General Robert E. Lee. He is at Vicksburg, and writes, "When the fight is over here, I shall be glad to go to Virginia." He is in capital spirits. I notice army men all are when they write.

Apropos of calling Major Venable "Mr." Let it be noted that in social intercourse we are not p.r.o.ne to give handles to the names of those we know well and of our nearest and dearest. A general's wife thinks it bad form to call her husband anything but "Mr." When she gives him his t.i.tle, she simply "drops" into it by accident. If I am "mixed" on t.i.tles in this diary, let no one blame me.

Telegrams come from Richmond ordering troops from Charleston. Can not be sent, for the Yankees are attacking Charleston, doubtless with the purpose to prevent Lee's receiving reenforcements from there.

Sat down at my window in the beautiful moonlight, and * * *

173 tried hard for pleasant thoughts. A man began to play on the flute, with piano accompaniment, first, "Ever of thee I am fondly dreaming," and then, "The long, long, weary day." At first, I found this but a complement to the beautiful scene, and it was soothing to my wrought-up nerves. But Von Weber's "Last Waltz" was too much; I broke down. Heavens, what a bitter cry came forth, with such floods of tears! the wonder is there was any of me left.

I learn that Richmond women go in their carriages for the wounded, carry them home and nurse them. One saw a man too weak to hold his musket. She took it from him, put it on her shoulder, and helped the poor fellow along.

If ever there was a man who could control every expression of emotion, who could play stoic, or an Indian chief, it is James Chesnut. But one day when he came in from the Council he had to own to a break-down. He was awfully ashamed of his weakness. There was a letter from Mrs. Gaillard asking him to help her, and he tried to read it to the Council. She wanted a permit to go on to her son, who lies wounded in Virginia. Colonel Chesnut could not control his voice. There was not a dry eye there, when suddenly one man called out, "G.o.d bless the woman."

Johnston Pettigrew's aide says he left his chief mortally wounded on the battle-field. Just before Johnston Pettigrew went to Italy to take a hand in the war there for freedom, I met him one day at Mrs. Frank Hampton's. A number of people were present. Some one spoke of the engagement of the beautiful Miss - to Hugh Rose. Some one else asked: "How do you know they are engaged?" "Well, I never heard it, but I saw it. In London, a month or so ago, I entered Mrs. - 's drawing-room, and I saw these two young people seated on a sofa opposite the door." "Well, that amounted to nothing." "No, not in itself. But they looked so foolish and so happy. I have noticed newly engaged people always look that way." And so on. Johnston Pettigrew was white and red in quick succession * * *

174 during this turn of the conversation; he was in a rage of indignation and disgust. "I think this kind of talk is taking a liberty with the young lady's name," he exclaimed finally, "and that it is an impertinence in us." I fancy him left dying alone! I wonder what they feel - those who are left to die of their wounds - alone - on the battle-field.

Free schools are not everything, as witness this spelling. Yankee epistles found in camp show how illiterate they can be, with all their boasted schools. Fredericksburg is spelled "Fredrexbirg," medicine, "metison," and we read, "To my sweat brother," etc. For the first time in my life no books can interest me. Life is so real, so utterly earnest, that fiction is flat. Nothing but what is going on in this distracted world of ours can arrest my attention for ten minutes at a time.

June 4th. - Battles occur near Richmond, with bombardment of Charleston. Beauregard is said to be fighting his way out or in.

Mrs. Gibson is here, at Doctor Gibbes's. Tears are always in her eyes. Her eldest son is Willie Preston's lieutenant. They are down on the coast. She owns that she has no hope at all. She was a Miss Ayer, of Philadelphia, and says, "We may look for Burnside now, our troops which held him down to his iron flotilla have been withdrawn. They are three to one against us now, and they have hardly begun to put out their strength - in numbers, I mean. We have come to the end of our tether, except we wait for the yearly crop of boys as they grow up to the requisite age." She would make despondent the most sanguine person alive. "As a general rule," says Mrs. Gibson, "government people are sanguine, but the son of one high functionary whispered to Mary G., as he handed her into the car, 'Richmond is bound to go.' " The idea now is that we are to be starved out. If they shut us in, prolong the agony, it can then have but one end.

Mrs. Preston and I speak in whispers, but Mrs. McCord * * *

175 scorns whispers, and speaks out. She says: "There are our soldiers. Since the world began there never were better but G.o.d does not deign to send us a general worthy of them. I do not mean drill-sergeants or military old maids, who will not fight until everything is just so. The real ammunition of our war is faith in ourselves and enthusiasm in our cause. West Point sits down on enthusiasm, laughs it to scorn. It wants discipline. And now comes a new danger, these blockade-runners. They are filling their pockets and they gibe and sneer at the fools who fight. Don't you see this Stonewall, how he fires the soldiers' hearts; he will be our leader, maybe after all. They say he does not care how many are killed. His business is to save the country, not the army. He fights to win, G.o.d bless him, and he wins. If they do not want to be killed, they can stay at home. They say he leaves the sick and wounded to be cared for by those whose business it is to do so. His business is war. They say he wants to hoist the black flag, have a short, sharp, decisive war and end it. He is a Christian soldier."

June 5th. - Beauregard retreating and his rear-guard cut off. If Beauregard's veterans will not stand, why should we expect our newly levied reserves to do it? The Yankee general who is besieging Savannah announces his orders are "to take Savannah in two weeks' time, and then proceed to erase Charleston from the face of the earth."

Albert Luryea was killed in the battle of June 1st. Last summer when a bomb fell in the very thick of his company he picked it up and threw it into the water. Think of that, those of ye who love life! The company sent the bomb to his father. Inscribed on it were the words, "Albert Luryea, bravest where all are brave." Isaac Hayne did the same thing at Fort Moultrie. This race has brains enough, but they are not active-minded like those old Revolutionary characters, the Middletons, Lowndeses, Rutledges, Marions, Summers. They have come direct from active-minded forefathers, or they would not have been here; but, with two * * *

176 or three generations of gentlemen planters, how changed has the blood become! Of late, all the active-minded men who have sprung to the front in our government were immediate descendants of Scotch, or Scotch-Irish-Calhoun, McDuffie, Cheves, and Petigru, who Huguenotted his name, but could not tie up his Irish. Our planters are nice fellows, but slow to move; impulsive but hard to keep moving. They are wonderful for a spurt, but with all their strength, they like to rest.

June 6th. - Paul Hayne, the poet, has taken rooms here. My husband came and offered to buy me a pair of horses. He says I need more exercise in the open air. "Come, now, are you providing me with the means of a rapid retreat?" said I. "I am pretty badly equipped for marching."

Mrs. Rose Greenhow is in Richmond. One-half of the ungrateful Confederates say Seward sent her. My husband says the Confederacy owes her a debt it can never pay. She warned them at Mana.s.sas, and so they got Joe Johnston and his Paladins to appear upon the stage in the very nick of time. In Was.h.i.+ngton they said Lord Napier left her a legacy to the British Legation, which accepted the gift, unlike the British nation, who would not accept Emma Hamilton and her daughter, Horatia, though they were willed to the nation by Lord Nelson.

Mem Cohen, fresh from the hospital where she went with a beautiful Jewish friend. Rachel, as we will call her (be it her name or no), was put to feed a very weak patient. Mem noticed what a handsome fellow he was and how quiet and clean. She fancied by those tokens that he was a gentleman. In performance of her duties, the lovely young nurse leaned kindly over him and held the cup to his lips. When that ceremony was over and she had wiped his mouth, to her horror she felt a pair of by no means weak arms around her neck and a kiss upon her lips, which she thought strong, indeed. She did not say a word; she made no complaint. She slipped away from the hospital, and * * *

177 hereafter in her hospital work will minister at long range, no matter how weak and weary, sick and sore, the patient may be. "And," said Mem, "I thought he was a gentleman." "Well, a gentleman is a man, after all, and she ought not to have put those red lips of hers so near."

June 7th. - Cheves McCord's battery on the coast has three guns and one hundred men. If this battery should be captured John's Island and James Island would be open to the enemy, and so Charleston exposed utterly.

Wade Hampton writes to his wife that Chickahominy was not as decided a victory as he could have wished. Fort Pillow and Memphis1 have been given up. Next! and next!

June 9th. - When we read of the battles in India, in Italy, in the Crimea, what did we care? Only an interesting topic, like any other, to look for in the paper. Now you hear of a battle with a thrill and a shudder. It has come home to us; half the people that we know in the world are under the enemy's guns. A telegram reaches you, and you leave it on your lap. You are pale with fright. You handle it, or you dread to touch it, as you would a rattlesnake; worse, worse, a snake could only strike you. How many, many will this sc.r.a.p of paper tell you have gone to their death?

When you meet people, sad and sorrowful is the greeting; they press your hand; tears stand in their eyes or roll down their cheeks, as they happen to possess more or less self-control. They have brother, father, or sons as the case may be, in battle. And now this thing seems never to stop. We have no breathing time given us. It can not be 1. Fort Pillow was on the Mississippi above Memphis. It had been erected by the Confederates, but was occupied by the Federals on June 5, 1862, the Confederates having evacuated and partially destroyed it the day before. On June 6, 1862, the Federal fleet defeated the Confederates near Memphis. The city soon afterward was occupied by the Federals.

178 so at the North, for the papers say gentlemen do not go into the ranks there, but are officers, or clerks of departments. Then we see so many members of foreign regiments among our prisoners - Germans, Irish, Scotch. The proportion of trouble is awfully against us. Every company on the field, rank and file, is filled with our nearest and dearest, who are common soldiers.

Mem Cohen's story to-day. A woman she knew heard her son was killed, and had hardly taken in the horror of it when they came to say it was all a mistake in the name. She fell on her knees with a shout of joy. "Praise the Lord, O my soul!" she cried, in her wild delight. The household was totally upset, the swing-back of the pendulum from the scene of weeping and wailing of a few moments before was very exciting. In the midst of this hubbub the hea.r.s.e drove up with the poor boy in his metallic coffin. Does anybody wonder so many women die? Grief and constant anxiety kill nearly as many women at home as men are killed on the battle-field. Mem's friend is at the point of death with brain fever; the sudden changes from grief to joy and joy to grief were more than she could bear.

A story from New Orleans. As some Yankees pa.s.sed two boys playing in the street, one of the boys threw a handful of burned cotton at them, saying, "I keep this for you." The other, not to be outdone, spit at the Yankees, and said, "I keep this for you." The Yankees marked the house. Afterward, a corporal's guard came. Madam was affably conversing with a friend, and in vain, the friend, who was a mere morning caller, protested he was not the master of the house; he was marched off to prison.

Mr. Moise got his money out of New Orleans. He went to a station with his two sons, who were quite small boys. When he got there, the carriage that he expected was not to be seen. He had brought no money with him, knowing he might be searched. Some friend called out, "I will lend you my horse, but then you will be obliged to leave the * * *

179 children." This offer was accepted, and, as he rode off, one of the boys called out, "Papa, here is your tobacco, which you have forgotten." Mr. Moise turned back and the boy handed up a roll of tobacco, which he had held openly in his hand all the time. Mr. Moise took it, and galloped off, waving his hat to them. In that roll of tobacco was encased twenty-five thousand dollars.

Now, the Mississippi is virtually open to the Yankees. Beauregard has evacuated Corinth.1 Henry Nott was killed at s.h.i.+loh; Mrs. Auz wrote to tell us. She had no hope. To be conquered and ruined had always been her fate, strive as she might, and now she knew it would be through her country that she would be made to feel. She had had more than most women to endure, and the battle of life she had tried to fight with courage, patience, faith. Long years ago, when she was young, her lover died. Afterward, she married another. Then her husband died, and next her only son. When New Orleans fell, her only daughter was there and Mrs. Auz went to her. Well may she say that she has bravely borne her burden till now.2 Stonewall said, in his quaint way: "I like strong drink, so I never touch it." May heaven, who sent him to help us, save him from all harm!

My husband traced Stonewall's triumphal career on the map. He has defeated Frmont and taken all his cannon; now he is after s.h.i.+elds. The language of the telegram is vague: "Stonewall has taken plenty of prisoners" - plenty, no doubt, and enough and to spare. We can't feed our own soldiers, and how are we to feed prisoners?

They denounce Toombs in some Georgia paper, which I 1. Corinth was besieged by the Federals, under General Halleck, in May, 1862, and was evacuated by the Confederates under Beauregard on May 29th.

2. She lost her life in the Windsor Hotel fire in New York.

180 saw to-day, for planting a full crop of cotton. They say he ought to plant provisions for soldiers.

And now every man in Virginia, and the eastern part of South Carolina is in revolt, because old men and boys are ordered out as a reserve corps, and worst of all, sacred property, that is, negroes, have been seized and sent out to work on the fortifications along the coast line. We are in a fine condition to fortify Columbia!

June 10th. - General Gregg writes that Chickahominy1 was a victory manqu, because Joe Johnston received a disabling wound and G. W. Smith was ill. The subordinates in command had not been made acquainted with the plan of battle.

A letter from John Chesnut, who says it must be all a mistake about Wade Hampton's wound, for he saw him in the field to the very last; that is, until late that night. Hampton writes to Mary McDuffie that the ball was extracted from his foot on the field, and that he was in the saddle all day, but that, when he tried to take his boot off at night his foot was so inflamed and swollen, the boot had to be cut away, and the wound became more troublesome than he had expected.

Mrs. Preston sent her carriage to take us to see Mrs. Herbemont, whom Mary Gibson calls her "Mrs. Burgamot." Miss Bay came down, ever-blooming, in a cap so formidable, I could but laugh. It was covered with a bristling row of white satin spikes. She coyly refused to enter Mrs. Preston's carriage - "to put foot into it," to use her own words; but she allowed herself to be overpersuaded.

I am so ill. Mrs. Ben Taylor said to Doctor Trezevant, "Surely, she is too ill to be going about; she ought to be in bed." "She is very feeble, very nervous, as you say, but then she is living on nervous excitement. If you shut her 1. This must be a reference to the Battle of Seven Pines or to the Campaign of the Chickahominy, up to and inclusive of that battle.

181 up she would die at once." A queer weakness of the heart, I have. Sometimes it beats so feebly I am sure it has stopped altogether. Then they say I have fainted, but I never lose consciousness.

Mrs. Preston and I were talking of negroes and cows. A negro, no matter how sensible he is on any other subject, can never be convinced that there is any necessity to feed a cow. "Turn 'em out, and let 'em gra.s.s. Gra.s.s good nuff for cow."

Famous news comes from Richmond, but not so good from the coast. Mrs. Izard said, quoting I forget whom: "If West Point could give brains as well as training!" Smith is under arrest for disobedience of orders - Pemberton's orders. This is the third general whom Pemberton has displaced within a few weeks - Ripley, Mercer, and now Smith.

When I told my husband that Molly was full of airs since her late trip home, he made answer: "Tell her to go to the devil - she or anybody else on the plantation who is dissatisfied; let them go. It is bother enough to feed and clothe them now." When he went over to the plantation he returned charmed with their loyalty to him, their affection and their faithfulness.

Sixteen more Yankee regiments have landed on James Island. Eason writes, "They have twice the energy and enterprise of our people." I answered, "Wait a while. Let them alone until climate and mosquitoes and sand-flies and dealing with negroes takes it all out of them." Stonewall is a regular brick, going all the time, winning his way wherever he goes. Governor Pickens called to see me. His wife is in great trouble, anxiety, uncertainty. Her brother and her brother-in-law are either killed or taken prisoners.

Tom Taylor says Wade Hampton did not leave the field on account of his wound. "What heroism!" said some one. No, what luck! He is the luckiest man alive. He'll * * *

182 never be killed. He was shot in the temple, but that did not kill him. His soldiers believe in his luck.

General Scott, on Southern soldiers, says, we have lan, courage, woodcraft, consummate horsemans.h.i.+p, endurance of pain equal to the Indians, but that we will not submit to discipline. We will not take care of things, or husband our resources. Where we are there is waste and destruction. If it could all be done by one wild, desperate dash, we would do it. But he does not think we can stand the long, blank months between the acts - the waiting! We can bear pain without a murmur, but we will not submit to be bored, etc.

Now, for the other side. Men of the North can wait; they can bear discipline; they can endure forever. Losses in battle are nothing to them. Their resources in men and materials of war are inexhaustible, and if they see fit they will fight to the bitter end. Here is a nice prospect for us- as comfortable as the old man's croak at Mulberry, "Bad times, worse coming."

Mrs. McCord says, "In the hospital the better born, that is, those born in the purple, the gentry, those who are accustomed to a life of luxury, are the better patients. They endure in silence. They are hardier, stronger, tougher, less liable to break down than the sons of the soil." "Why is that?" I asked, and she answered, "Something in man that is more than the body."

I know how it feels to die. I have felt it again and again. For instance, some one calls out, "Albert Sidney Johnston is killed." My heart stands still. I feel no more. I am, for so many seconds, so many minutes, I know not how long, utterly without sensation of any kind - dead; and then, there is that great throb, that keen agony of physical pain, and the works are wound up again. The ticking of the clock begins, and I take up the burden of life once more. Some day it will stop too long, or my feeble heart will be too worn out to make that awakening jar, and all will be over. I do not think when the end comes that * * *

183 there will be any difference, except the miracle of the new wind-up throb. And now good news is just as exciting as bad. "Hurrah, Stonewall has saved us!" The pleasure is almost pain because of my way of feeling it.

Miriam's Luryea and the coincidences of his life. He was born Moses, and is the hero of the bombsh.e.l.l. His mother was at a hotel in Charleston when kind-hearted Anna De Leon Moses went for her sister-in-law, and gave up her own chamber, that the child might be born in the comfort and privacy of a home. Only our people are given to such excessive hospitality. So little Luryea was born in Anna De Leon's chamber. After Chickahominy when he, now a man, lay mortally wounded, Anna Moses, who was living in Richmond, found him, and she brought him home, though her house was crowded to the door-steps. She gave up her chamber to him, and so, as he had been born in her room, in her room he died.

June 12th. - New England's Butler, best known to us as "Beast" Butler, is famous or infamous now. His amazing order to his soldiers at New Orleans and comments on it are in everybody's mouth. We hardly expected from Ma.s.sachusetts behavior to shame a Comanche.

One happy moment has come into Mrs. Preston's life. I watched her face to-day as she read the morning papers. Willie's battery is lauded to the skies. Every paper gave him a paragraph of praise.

South Carolina was at Beauregard's feet after Fort Sumter. Since s.h.i.+loh, she has gotten up, and looks askance rather when his name is mentioned. And without Price or Beauregard who takes charge of the Western forces? "Can we hold out if England and France hold off?" cries Mem. "No, our time has come."

"For shame, faint heart! Our people are brave, our cause is just; our spirit and our patient endurance beyond reproach." Here came in Mary Cantey's voice: "I may not have any logic, any sense. I give it up. My woman's * * *

184 instinct tells me, all the same, that slavery's time has come. If we don't end it, they will."

After all this, tried to read Uncle Tom, but could not; too sickening; think of a man sending his little son to beat a human being tied to a tree. It is as bad as Squeers beating Smike. Flesh and blood revolt; you must skip that; it is too bad.

Mr. Preston told a story of Joe Johnston as a boy. A party of boys at Abingdon were out on a spree, more boys than horses; so Joe Johnston rode behind John Preston, who is his cousin. While going over the mountains they tried to change horses and got behind a servant who was in charge of them all. The servant's horse kicked up, threw Joe Johnston, and broke his leg; a bone showed itself. "h.e.l.lo, boys! come here and look: the confounded bone has come clear through," called out Joe, coolly.

They had to carry him on their shoulders, relieving guard. As one party grew tired, another took him up. They knew he must suffer fearfully, but he never said so. He was as cool and quiet after his hurt as before. He was pretty roughly handled, but they could not help it. His father was in a towering rage because his son's leg was to be set by a country doctor, and it might be crooked in the process. At Chickahominy, brave but unlucky Joe had already eleven wounds.

June 13th. - Decca's wedding. It took place last year. We were all lying on the bed or sofas taking it coolly as to undress. Mrs. Singleton had the floor. They were engaged before they went up to Charlottesville; Alexander was on Gregg's staff, and Gregg was not hard on him; Decca was the worst in love girl she ever saw. "Letters came while we were at the hospital, from Alex, urging her to let him marry her at once. In war times human events, life especially, are very uncertain.

"For several days consecutively she cried without ceasing, and then she consented. The rooms at the hospital * * *

185 were all crowded. Decca and I slept together in the same room. It was arranged by letter that the marriage should take place; a luncheon at her grandfather Minor's, and then she was to depart with Alex for a few days at Richmond. That was to be their brief slice of honeymoon.

"The day came. The wedding-breakfast was ready, so was the bride in all her bridal array; but no Alex, no bridegroom. Alas! such is the uncertainty of a soldier's life. The bride said nothing, but she wept like a water-nymph. At dinner she plucked up heart, and at my earnest request was about to join us. And then the cry, 'The bridegroom cometh' He brought his best man and other friends. We had a jolly dinner. 'Circ.u.mstances over which he had no control' had kept him away.

"His father sat next to Decca and talked to her all the time as if she had been already married. It was a piece of absent-mindedness on his part, pure and simple, but it was very trying, and the girl had had much to stand that morning, you can well understand. Immediately after dinner the belated bridegroom proposed a walk; so they went for a brief stroll up the mountain. Decca, upon her return, said to me: 'Send for Robert Barnwell. I mean to be married to-day.'

" 'Impossible. No spare room in the house. No getting away from here; the trains all gone. Don't you know this hospital place is crammed to the ceiling?' 'Alex says I promised to marry him to-day. It is not his fault; he could not come before.' I shook my head. 'I don't care,' said the positive little thing, 'I promised Alex to marry him to-day and I will. Send for the Rev. Robert Barnwell.' We found Robert after a world of trouble, and the bride, lovely in Swiss muslin, was married.

"Then I proposed they should take another walk, and I went to one of my sister nurses and begged her to take me in for the night, as I wished to resign my room to the young couple. At daylight next day they took the train for * * *

186 Richmond." Such is the small allowance of honeymoon permitted in war time.

Beauregard's telegram: he can not leave the army of the West. His health is bad. No doubt the sea breezes would restore him, but - he can not come now. Such a lovely name - -Gustave Tautant Beauregard. But Jackson and Johnston and Smith and Jones will do - and Lee, how short and sweet.

"Every day," says Mem, "they come here in shoals - men to say we can not hold Richmond, and we can not hold Charleston much longer. Wretches, beasts! Why do you come here? Why don't you stay there and fight? Don't you see that you own yourselves cowards by coming away in the very face of a battle? If you are not liars as to the danger, you are cowards to run away from it." Thus roars the practical Mem, growing more furious at each word. These Jeremiahs laugh. They think she means others, not the present company.

Tom Huger resigned his place in the United States Navy and came to us. The Iroquois was his s.h.i.+p in the old navy. They say, as he stood in the rigging, after he was shot in the leg, when his s.h.i.+p was leading the attack upon the Iroquois, his old crew in the Iroquois cheered him, and when his body was borne in, the Federals took off their caps in respect for his gallant conduct. When he was dying, Meta Huger said to him: "An of officer wants to see you: he is one of the enemy." "Let him come in; I have no enemies now." But when he heard the man's name: "No, no. I do not want to see a Southern man who is now in Lincoln's navy." The officers of the United States Navy attended his funeral.

June 14th. - All things are against us. Memphis gone. Mississippi fleet annihilated, and we hear it all as stolidly apathetic as if it were a story of the English war against China which happened a year or so ago.