A Diary From Dixie Part 6

August 1st. - Mrs. Wigfall, with the "Lone Star" flag in her carriage, called for me. We drove to the fair grounds. Mrs. Davis's landau, with her spanking bays, rolled along in front of us. The fair grounds are as covered with tents, soldiers, etc., as ever. As one regiment moves off to the army, a fresh one from home comes to be mustered in and take its place.

The President, with his aides, dashed by. My husband was riding with him. The President presented the flag to the Texans. Mr. Chesnut came to us for the flag, and bore it aloft to the President. We seemed to come in for part of the glory. We were too far off to hear the speech, but Jeff Davis is very good at that sort of thing, and we were satisfied that it was well done.

Heavens! how that redoubtable Wigfall did rush those poor Texans about! He maneuvered and marched them until I was weary for their sakes. Poor fellows; it was a hot afternoon in August and the thermometer in the nineties. Mr. Davis uncovered to speak. Wigfall replied with his hat on. Is that military?

At the fair grounds to-day, such music, mustering, and marching, such cheering and flying of flags, such firing of guns and all that sort of thing. A gala day it was, with * * *

97 double-distilled Fourth-of-July feeling. In the midst of it all, a messenger came to tell Mrs. Wigfall that a telegram had been received, saying her children were safe across the lines in Gordonsville. That was something to thank G.o.d for, without any doubt.

These two little girls came from somewhere in Connecticut, with Mrs. Wigfall's sister - the one who gave me my Bogotsky, the only person in the world, except Susan Rutledge who ever seemed to think I had a soul to save. Now suppose Seward had held Louisa and f.a.n.n.y as hostages for Louis Wigfall's good behavior; eh?

Excitement number two: that bold brigadier, the Georgia General Toombs, charging about too recklessly, got thrown. His horse dragged him up to the wheels of our carriage. For a moment it was frightful. Down there among the horses' hoofs was a face turned up toward us, purple with rage. His foot was still in the stirrup, and he had not let go the bridle. The horse was prancing over him, tearing and plunging; everybody was hemming him in, and they seemed so slow and awkward about it. We felt it an eternity, looking down at him, and expecting him to be killed before our very faces. However, he soon got it all straight, and, though awfully tousled and tumbled, dusty, rumpled, and flushed, with redder face and wilder hair than ever, he rode off gallantly, having to our admiration bravely remounted the recalcitrant charger.

Now if I were to pick out the best abused one, where all catch it so bountifully, I should say Mr. Commissary-General Northrop was the most "cussed " and villified man in the Confederacy. He is held accountable for everything that goes wrong in the army. He may not be efficient, but having been a cla.s.smate and crony of Jeff Davis at West Point, points the moral and adorns the tale. I hear that alluded to oftenest of his many crimes. They say Beauregard writes that his army is upon the verge of starvation. Here every man, woman, and child is ready to hang to the * * *

98 first lamp-post anybody of whom that army complains. Every Mana.s.sas soldier is a hero dear to our patriotic hearts. Put up with any neglect of the heroes of the 21st July - never!

And now they say we did not move on right after the flying foe because we had no provisions, no wagons, no ammunition, etc. Rain, mud, and Northrop. Where were the enemy's supplies that we bragged so of bagging? Echo answers where? Where there is a will there is a way. We stopped to plunder that rich convoy, and somehow, for a day or so, everybody thought the war was over and stopped to rejoice: so it appeared here. All this was our dinner-table talk to-day. Mr. Mason dined with us and Mr. Barnwell sits by me always. The latter reproved me sharply, but Mr. Mason laughed at "this headlong, unreasonable woman's harangue and female tactics and their war-ways." A freshet in the autumn does not compensate for a drought in the spring. Time and tide wait for no man, and there was a tide in our affairs which might have led to Was.h.i.+ngton, and we did not take it and lost our fortune this round. Things which n.o.body could deny.

McClellan virtually supersedes the t.i.tan Scott. Physically General Scott is the largest man I ever saw. Mrs. Scott said, "n.o.body but his wife could ever know how little he was." And yet they say, old Winfield Scott could have organized an army for them if they had had patience. They would not give him time.

August 2d. - Prince Jerome1 has gone to Was.h.i.+ngton. Now the Yankees so far are as little trained as we are; raw troops are they as yet. Suppose France takes the other side 1. Jerome Napoleon Bonaparte, a grandson of Napoleon Bonaparte's brother Jerome and of Elizabeth Patterson of Baltimore. He was a graduate of West Point, but had entered the French Army, where he saw service in the Crimea, Algiers, and Italy, taking part in the battle of Balaklava, the siege of Sebastopol, and the battle of Solferino. He died in Ma.s.sachusetts in 1893.

99 and we have to meet disciplined and armed men, soldiers who understand war, Frenchmen, with all the elan we boast of .

Ransom Calhoun, Willie Preston, and Doctor Nott's boys are here. These foolish, rash, hare-brained Southern lads have been within an ace of a fight with a Maryland company for their camping grounds. It is much too Irish to be so ready to fight anybody, friend or foe. Men are thrilling with fiery ardor. The red-hot Southern martial spirit is in the air. These young men, however, were all educated abroad. And it is French or German ideas that they are filled with. The Marylanders were as rash and reckless as the others, and had their coat-tails ready for anybody to tread on, Donnybrook Fair fas.h.i.+on. One would think there were Yankees enough and to spare for any killing to be done. It began about picketing their horses. But these quarrelsome young soldiers have lovely manners. They are so sweet-tempered when seen here among us at the Arlington.

August 5th. - A heavy, heavy heart. Another missive from Jordan, querulous and fault-finding; things are all wrong - Beauregard's Jordan had been crossed, not the stream "in Canaan's fair and happy land, where our possessions lie." They seem to feel that the war is over here, except the President and Mr. Barnwell; above all that foreboding friend of mine, Captain Ingraham. He thinks it hardly begun.

Another outburst from Jordan. Beauregard is not seconded properly. Hlas! To think that any mortal general (even though he had sprung up in a month or so from captain of artillery to general) could be so puffed up with vanity, so blinded by any false idea of his own consequence as to write, to intimate that man, or men, would sacrifice their country, injure themselves, ruin their families, to spite the aforesaid general! Conceit and self-a.s.sertion can never reach a higher point than that. And yet they give * * *

100 you to understand Mr. Davis does not like Beauregard. In point of fact they fancy he is jealous of him, and rather than Beauregard shall have a showing the President (who would be hanged at least if things go wrong) will cripple the army to spite Beauregard. Mr. Mallory says, "How we could laugh, but you see it is no laughing matter to have our fate in the hands of such self-sufficient, vain, army idiots." So the amenities of life are spreading.

In the meantime we seem to be resting on our oars, debating in Congress, while the enterprising Yankees are quadrupling their army at their leisure. Every day some of our regiments march away from here. The town is crowded with soldiers. These new ones are fairly running in; fearing the war will be over before they get a sight of the fun. Every man from every little precinct wants a place in the picture.

Tuesday. - The North requires 600,000 men to invade us. Truly we are a formidable power! The Herald says it is useless to move with a man less than that. England has made it all up with them, or rather, she will not break with them. Jerome Napoleon is in Was.h.i.+ngton and not our friend.

Doctor Gibbes is a bird of ill omen. To-day he tells me eight of our men have died at the Charlottesville Hospital. It seems sickness is more redoubtable in an army than the enemy's guns. There are 1,100 there hors de combat, and typhoid fever is with them. They want money, clothes, and nurses. So, as I am writing, right and left the letters fly, calling for help from the sister societies at home. Good and patriotic women at home are easily stirred to their work.

Mary Hammy has many strings to her bow - a fianc in the army, and Doctor Berrien in town. To-day she drove out with Major Smith and Colonel Hood. Yesterday, Custis Lee was here. She is a prudent little puss and needs no good advice, if I were one to give it.

Lawrence does all our shopping. All his master's money has been in his hands until now. I thought it injudicious * * *

101 when gold is at such a premium to leave it lying loose in the tray of a trunk. So I have sewed it up in a belt, which I can wear upon an emergency. The cloth is wadded and my diamonds are there, too. It has strong strings, and can be tied under my hoops about my waist if the worst comes to the worst, as the saying is. Lawrence wears the same bronze mask. No sign of anything he may feel or think of my latest fancy. Only, I know he asks for twice as much money now when he goes to buy things.

August 8th. - To-day I saw a sword captured at Mana.s.sas. The man who brought the sword, in the early part of the fray, was taken prisoner by the Yankees. They stripped him, possessed themselves of his sleeve-b.u.t.tons, and were in the act of depriving him of his boots when the rout began and the play was reversed; proceedings then took the opposite tack.

From a small rill in the mountain has flowed the mighty stream which has made at last Louis Wigfall the worst enemy the President has in the Congress, a fact which complicates our affairs no little. Mr. Davis's hands ought to be strengthened; he ought to be upheld. A divided house must fall, we all say.

Mrs. Sam Jones, who is called Becky by her friends and cronies, male and female, said that Mrs. Pickens had confided to the aforesaid Jones (ne Taylor, and so of the President Taylor family and cousin of Mr. Davis's first wife), that Mrs. Wigfall "described Mrs. Davis to Mrs. Pickens as a coa.r.s.e Western woman." Now the fair Lucy Holcombe and Mrs. Wigfall had a quarrel of their own out in Texas, and, though reconciled, there was bitterness underneath. At first, Mrs. Joe Johnston called Mrs. Davis "a Western belle,"1 but when the quarrel between General 1. Mrs. Davis was born in Natchez, Mississippi, and educated in Philadelphia. She was married to Mr. Davis in 1845. In recent years her home has been in New York City, where she still resides (Dec. 1904).

102 Johnston and the President broke out, Mrs. Johnston took back the "belle" and subst.i.tuted "woman" in the narrative derived from Mrs. Jones.

Commodore Barron1 came with glad tidings. We had taken three prizes at sea, and brought them in safely, one laden with mola.s.ses. General Toombs told us the President complimented Mr. Chesnut when he described the battle scene to his Cabinet, etc. General Toombs is certain Colonel Chesnut will be made one of the new batch of brigadiers. Next came Mr. Clayton, who calmly informed us Jeff Davis would not get the vote of this Congress for President, so we might count him out.

Mr. Meynardie first told us how pious a Christian Soldier was Kershaw, how he prayed, got up, dusted his knees and led his men on to victory with a dash and courage equal to any Old Testament mighty man of war.

Governor Manning's account of Prince Jerome Napoleon: "He is stout and he is not handsome. Neither is he young, and as he reviewed our troops he was terribly overheated." He heard him say "en avant," of that he could testify of his own knowledge, and he was told he had been heard to say with unction "Allons" more than once. The sight of the battle-field had made the Prince seasick, and he received gratefully a draft of fiery whisky.

Arrago seemed deeply interested in Confederate statistics, and praised our doughty deeds to the skies. It was but soldier fare our guests received, though we did our best. It was hard sleeping and worse eating in camp. Beauregard is half Frenchman and speaks French like a native. So one awkward mess was done away with, and it was a comfort to see Beauregard speak without the agony 1. Samuel Barron was a native of Virginia, who had risen to be a captain in the United States Navy. At the time of Secession he received a commission as Commodore in the Confederate Navy.

103 of finding words in the foreign language and forming them, with damp brow, into sentences. A different fate befell others who spoke "a little French."

General and Mrs. Cooper came to see us. She is Mrs. Smith Lee's sister. They were talking of old George Mason - in Virginia a name to conjure with. George Mason violently opposed the extension of slavery. He was a thorough aristocrat, and gave as his reason for refusing the blessing of slaves to the new States, Southwest and Northwest, that vulgar new people were unworthy of so sacred a right as that of holding slaves. It was not an inst.i.tution intended for such people as they were. Mrs. Lee said: "After all, what good does it do my sons that they are Light Horse Harry Lee's grandsons and George Mason's? I do not see that it helps them at all."

A friend in Was.h.i.+ngton writes me that we might have walked into Was.h.i.+ngton any day for a week after Mana.s.sas, such were the consternation and confusion there. But the G.o.d Pan was still blowing his horn in the woods. Now she says Northern troops are literally pouring in from all quarters. The horses cover acres of ground. And she thinks we have lost our chance forever.

A man named Grey (the same gentleman whom Secretary of War Walker so astonished by greeting him with, "Well, sir, and what is your business?") described the battle of the 21st as one succession of blunders, redeemed by the indomitable courage of the two-thirds who did not run away on our side. Doctor Mason said a fugitive on the other side informed him that "a million of men with the devil at their back could not have whipped the rebels at Bull Run." That's nice.

There must be opposition in a free country. But it is very uncomfortable. "United we stand, divided we fall." Mrs. Davis showed us in The New York Tribune an extract from an Augusta (Georgia) paper saying, "Cobb is our man. Davis is at heart a reconstructionist." We may be * * *

104 flies on the wheel, we know our insignificance; but Mrs. Preston and myself have entered into an agreement; our oath is recorded on high. We mean to stand by our President and to stop all fault-finding with the powers that be, if we can and where we can, be the fault-finders generals or Cabinet Ministers.

August 13th. - Hon. Robert Barnwell says, "The Mercury's influence began this opposition to Jeff Davis before he had time to do wrong. They were offended, not with him so much as with the man who was put into what they considered Barnwell Rhett's rightful place. The latter had howled nullification and secession so long that when he found his ideas taken up by all the Confederate world, he felt he had a vested right to leaders.h.i.+p."

Jordan, Beauregard's aide, still writes to Mr. Chesnut that the mortality among the raw troops in that camp is fearful. Everybody seems to be doing all they can. Think of the British sick and wounded away off in the Crimea. Our people are only a half-day's journey by rail from Richmond. With a grateful heart I record the fact of reconciliation with the Wigfalls. They dined at the President's yesterday and the little Wigfall girls stayed all night.

Seward is fting the outsiders, the cousin of the Emperor, Napoleon III., and Russell, of the omnipotent London Times.

August 14th. - Last night there was a crowd of men to see us and they were so markedly critical. I made a futile effort to record their sayings, but sleep and heat overcame me. To-day I can not remember a word. One of Mr. Mason's stories relates to our sources of trustworthy information. A man of very respectable appearance standing on the platform at the depot, announced, "I am just from the seat of war." Out came pencil and paper from the newspaper men on the qui vive. "Is Fairfax Court House burned?" they asked. "Yes, burned yesterday." "But * * *

105 I am just from there," said another; "left it standing there all right an hour or so ago." "Oh! But I must do them justice to say they burned only the tavern, for they did not want to tear up and burn anything else after the railroad." "There is no railroad at Fairfax Court House," objected the man just from Fairfax. "Oh! Indeed!" said the seat-of-war man, "I did not know that; is that so?" And he coolly seated himself and began talking of something else.

Our people are las.h.i.+ng themselves into a fury against the prisoners. Only the mob in any country would do that. But I am told to be quiet. Decency and propriety will not be forgotten, and the prisoners will be treated as prisoners of war ought to be in a civilized country.

August 15th. - Mrs. Randolph came. With her were the Freelands, Rose and Maria. The men rave over Mrs. Randolph's beauty; called her a magnificent specimen of the finest type of dark-eyed, rich, and glowing Southern woman-kind. Clear brunette she is, with the reddest lips, the whitest teeth, and glorious eyes; there is no other word for them. Having given Mrs. Randolph the prize among Southern beauties, Mr. Clayton said Prentiss was the finest Southern orator. Mr. Marshall and Mr. Barnwell dissented; they preferred William C. Preston. Mr. Chesnut had found Colquitt the best or most effective stump orator.

Saw Henry Deas Nott. He is just from Paris, via New York. Says New York is ablaze with martial fire. At no time during the Crimean war was there ever in Paris the show of soldiers preparing for the war such as he saw at New York. The face of the earth seemed covered with marching regiments.

Not more than 500 effective men are in Hampton's Legion, but they kept the whole Yankee army at bay until half-past two. Then just as Hampton was wounded and half his colonels shot, Cash and Kershaw (from Mrs. Smith Lee audibly, "How about Kirby Smith?") dashed in and * * *

106 not only turned the tide, but would have driven the fugitives into Was.h.i.+ngton, but Beauregard recalled them. Mr. Chesnut finds all this very amusing, as he posted many of the regiments and all the time was carrying orders over the filed. The discrepancies in all these private memories amuse him, but he smiles pleasantly and lets every man tell the tale in his own way.

August 16th. - Mr. Barnwell says, Fame is an article usually home made; you must create your own puffs or superintend their manufacture. And you must see that the newspapers print your own military reports. No one else will give you half the credit you take to yourself. No one will look after your fine name before the world with the loving interest and faith you have yourself.

August 17th. - Captain Shannon, of the Kirkwood Rangers, called and stayed three hours. Has not been under fire yet, but is keen to see or to hear the flas.h.i.+ng of the guns; proud of himself, proud of his company, but proudest of all that he has no end of the bluest blood of the low country in his troop. He seemed to find my knitting a pair of socks a day for the soldiers droll in some way. The yarn is coa.r.s.e. He has been so short a time from home he does not know how the poor soldiers need them. He was so overpoweringly flattering to my husband that I found him very pleasant company.

August 18th. - Found it quite exciting to have a spy drinking his tea with us - perhaps because I knew his profession. I did not like his face. He is said to have a scheme by which Was.h.i.+ngton will fall into our hands like an overripe peach.

Mr. Barnwell urges Mr. Chesnut to remain in the Senate. There are so many generals, or men anxious to be. He says Mr. Chesnut can do his country most good by wise counsels where they are most needed. I do not say to the contrary; I dare not throw my influence on the army side, for if anything happened!

107 Mr. Miles told us last night that he had another letter from General Beauregard. The General wants to know if Mr. Miles has delivered his message to Colonel Kershaw. Mr. Miles says he has not done so; neither does he mean to do it. They must settle these matters of veracity according to their own military etiquette. He is a civilian once more. It is a foolish wrangle. Colonel Kershaw ought to have reported to his commander-in-chief, and not made an independent report and published it. He meant no harm. He is not yet used to the fine ways of war.

The New York Tribune is so unfair. It began by howling to get rid of us: we were so wicked. Now that we are so willing to leave them to their overrighteous self-consciousness, they cry: "Crush our enemy, or they will subjugate us." The idea that we want to invade or subjugate anybody; we would be only too grateful to be left alone. We ask no more of G.o.ds or men.

Went to the hospital with a carriage load of peaches and grapes. Made glad the hearts of some men thereby. When my supplies gave out, those who had none looked so wistfully as I pa.s.sed out that I made a second raid on the market. Those eyes sunk in cavernous depths and following me from bed to bed haunt me.

Wilmot de Saussure, harrowed my soul by an account of a recent death by drowning on the beach at Sullivan's Island. Mr. Porcher, who was trying to save his sister's life, lost his own and his child's. People seem to die out of the army quite as much as in it.

Mrs. Randolph presided in all her beautiful majesty at an aid a.s.sociation. The ladies were old, and all wanted their own way. They were cross-grained and contradictory, and the blood mounted rebelliously into Mrs. Randolph's clear-cut cheeks, but she held her own with dignity and grace. One of the causes of disturbance was that Mrs. Randolph proposed to divide everything sent on equally with the Yankee wounded and sick prisoners. Some were enthusiastic * * *

108 from a Christian point of view; some shrieked in wrath at the bare idea of putting our n.o.ble soldiers on a par with Yankees, living, dying, or dead. Fierce dames were some of them, august, severe matrons, who evidently had not been accustomed to hear the other side of any question from anybody, and just old enough to find the last pleasure in life to reside in power - the power to make their claws felt.

August 23d. - A brother of Doctor Garnett has come fresh and straight from Cambridge, Ma.s.s., and says (or is said to have said, with all the difference there is between the two), that "recruiting up there is dead." He came by Cincinnati and Pittsburg and says all the way through it was so sad, mournful, and quiet it looked like Sunday.

I asked Mr. Brewster if it were true Senator Toombs had turned brigadier. "Yes, soldiering is in the air. Every one will have a touch of it. Toombs could not stay in the Cabinet." "Why?" "Incompatibility of temper. He rides too high a horse; that is, for so despotic a person as Jeff Davis. I have tried to find out the sore, but I can't. Mr. Toombs has been out with them all for months." Dissension will break out. Everything does, but it takes a little time. There is a perfect magazine of discord and discontent in that Cabinet; only wants a hand to apply the torch, and up they go. Toombs says old Memminger has his back up as high as any.

Oh, such a day! Since I wrote this morning, I have been with Mrs. Randolph to all the hospitals. I can never again shut out of view the sights I saw there of human misery. I sit thinking, shut my eyes, and see it all; thinking, yes, and there is enough to think about now, G.o.d knows. Gilland's was the worst, with long rows of ill men on cots, ill of typhoid fever, of every human ailment; on dinner-tables for eating and drinking, wounds being dressed; all the horrors to be taken in at one glance.

Then we went to the St. Charles. Horrors upon horrors again; want of organization, long rows of dead and * * *

109 dying; awful sights. A boy from home had sent for me. He was dying in a cot, ill of fever. Next him a man died in convulsions as we stood there. I was making arrangements with a nurse, hiring him to take care of this lad; but I do not remember any more, for I fainted. Next that I knew of, the doctor and Mrs. Randolph were having me, a limp rag, put into a carriage at the door of the hospital. Fresh air, I dare say, brought me to. As we drove home the doctor came along with us, I was so upset. He said: "Look at that Georgia regiment marching there; look at their servants on the sidewalk. I have been counting them, making an estimate. There is $16,000 - sixteen thousand dollars' worth of negro property which can go off on its own legs to the Yankees whenever it pleases."

August 24th. - Daniel, of The Examiner, was at the President's. Wilmot de Saussure wondered if a fellow did not feel a little queer, paying his respects in person at the house of a man whom he abused daily in his newspaper.

A fiasco: an aide engaged to two young ladies in the same house. The ladies had been quarreling, but became friends unexpectedly when his treachery, among many other secrets, was revealed under that august roof. Fancy the row when it all came out.

Mr. Lowndes said we have already reaped one good result from the war. The orators, the spouters, the furious patriots, that could hardly be held down, and who were so wordily anxious to do or die for their country - they had been the pest of our lives. Now they either have not tried the battle-field at all, or have precipitately left it at their earliest convenience: for very shame we are rid of them for a while. I doubt it. Bright's speech1 is dead against us. Reading this does not brighten one.

1. The reference is to John Bright, whose advocacy of the cause of the Union in the British Parliament attracted a great deal of attention at the time.

110 August 25th. - Mr. Barnwell says democracies lead to untruthfulness. To be always electioneering is to be always false; so both we and the Yankees are unreliable as regards our own exploits. "How about empires? Were there ever more stupendous lies than the Emperor Napoleon's?" Mr. Barnwell went on: "People dare not tell the truth in a canva.s.s; they must conciliate their const.i.tuents. Now everybody in a democracy always wants an office; at least, everybody in Richmond just now seems to want one." Never heeding interruptions, he went on: "As a nation, the English are the most truthful in the world." "And so are our country gentlemen: they own their const.i.tuents - at least, in some of the parishes, where there are few whites; only immense estates peopled by negroes. " Thackeray speaks of the lies that were told on both sides in the British wars with France; England kept quite alongside of her rival in that fine art. England lied then as fluently as Russell lies about us now.

Went to see Agnes De Leon, my Columbia school friend. She is fresh from Egypt, and I wished to hear of the Nile, the crocodiles, the mummies, the Sphinx, and the Pyramids. But her head ran upon Was.h.i.+ngton life, such as we knew it, and her soul was here. No theme was possible but a discussion of the latest war news.

Mr. Clayton, a.s.sistant Secretary of State, says we spend two millions a week. Where is all that money to come from? They don't want us to plant cotton, but to make provisions. Now, cotton always means money, or did when there was an outlet for it and anybody to buy it. Where is money to come from now?

Mr. Barnwell's new joke, I dare say, is a Joe Miller, but Mr. Barnwell laughed in telling it till he cried. A man was fined for contempt of court and then, his case coming on, the Judge talked such arrant nonsense and was so warped in his mind against the poor man, that the "fined one" walked up and handed the august Judge a five-dollar * * *

111 bill. "Why? What is that for?" said the Judge. "Oh, I feel such a contempt of this court coming on again!"

I came up tired to death; took down my hair; had it hanging over me in a Crazy Jane fas.h.i.+on; and sat still, hands over my head (half undressed, but too lazy and sleepy to move). I was sitting in a rocking-chair by an open window taking my ease and the cool night air, when suddenly the door opened and Captain - - - walked in. He was in the middle of the room before he saw his mistake; he stared and was transfixed, as the novels say. I dare say I looked an ancient Gorgon. Then, with a more frantic glare, he turned and fled without a word. I got up and bolted the door after him, and then looked in the gla.s.s and laughed myself into hysterics. I shall never forget to lock the door again. But it does not matter in this case. I looked totally unlike the person bearing my name, who, covered with lace cap, etc., frequents the drawing-room. I doubt if he would know me again.

August 26th. - The Terror has full swing at the North now. All the papers favorable to us have been suppressed. How long would our mob stand a Yankee paper here? But newspapers against our government, such as the Examiner and the Mercury flourish like green bay-trees. A man up to the elbows in finance said to-day: "Clayton's story is all nonsense. They do sometimes pay out two millions a week; they paid the soldiers this week, but they don't pay the soldiers every week." "Not by a long shot," cried a soldier laddie with a grin.

"Why do you write in your diary at all," some one said to me, "if, as you say, you have to contradict every day what you wrote yesterday?" "Because I tell the tale as it is told to me. I write current rumor. I do not vouch for anything."

We went to Pizzini's, that very best of Italian confectioners. From there we went to Miss Sally Tompkins's hospital, loaded with good things for the wounded. The * * *

112 men under Miss Sally's kind care looked so clean and comfortable - cheerful, one might say. They were pleasant and nice to see. One, however, was dismal in tone and aspect, and he repeated at intervals with no change of words, in a forlorn monotone: "What a hard time we have had since we left home." But n.o.body seemed to heed his wailing, and it did not impair his appet.i.te.

At Mrs. Toombs's, who was raging; so anti-Davis she will not even admit that the President is ill. "All humbug." "But what good could pretending to be ill do him?" "That reception now, was not that a humbug? Such a failure. Mrs. Reagan could have done better than that. "

Mrs. Walker is a Montgomery beauty, with such magnificent dresses. She was an heiress, and is so dissatisfied with Richmond, accustomed as she is to being a belle under different conditions. As she is as handsome and well dressed as ever, it must be the men who are all wrong.

"Did you give Lawrence that fifty-dollar bill to go out and change it?" I was asked. "Suppose he takes himself off to the Yankees. He would leave us with not too many fifty-dollar bills." He is not going anywhere, however. I think his situation suits him. That wadded belt of mine, with the gold pieces quilted in, has made me ashamed more than once. I leave it under my pillow and my maid finds it there and hangs it over the back of a chair, in evidence as I reenter the room after breakfast. When I forget and leave my trunk open, Lawrence brings me the keys and tells me, "You oughten to do so, Miss Mary." Mr. Chesnut leaves all his little money in his pockets, and Lawrence says that's why he can't let any one but himself brush Mars Jeems's clothes.

August 27th. - Theodore Barker and James Lowndes came; the latter has been wretchedly treated. A man said, "All that I wish on earth is to be at peace and on my own plantation," to which Mr. Lowndes replied quietly, "I * * *

113 wish I had a plantation to be on, but just now I can't see how any one would feel justified in leaving the army." Mr. Barker was bitter against the spirit of braggadocio so rampant among us. The gentleman who had been answered so completely by James Lowndes said, with spitefulness: "Those women who are so frantic for their husbands to join the army would like them killed, no doubt."

Things were growing rather uncomfortable, but an interruption came in the shape of a card. An old cla.s.smate of Mr. Chesnut's - Captain Archer, just now fresh from California - followed his card so quickly that Mr. Chesnut had hardly time to tell us that in Princeton College they called him "Sally." Archer he was so pretty - when he entered. He is good-looking still, but the service and consequent rough life have destroyed all softness and girlishness. He will never be so pretty again.

The North is consolidated; they move as one man, with no States, but an army organized by the central power. Russell in the Northern camp is cursed of Yankees for that Bull Run letter. Russell, in his capacity of Englishman, despises both sides. He divides us equally into North and South. He prefers to attribute our victory at Bull Run to Yankee cowardice rather than to Southern courage. He gives no credit to either side; for good qualities, we are after all mere Americans! Everything not "national" is arrested. It looks like the business of Seward.

I do not know when I have seen a woman without knitting in her hand. Socks for the soldiers is the cry. One poor man said he had dozens of socks and but one s.h.i.+rt. He preferred more s.h.i.+rts and fewer stockings. We make a quaint appearance with this twinkling of needles and the everlasting sock dangling below.

They have arrested Wm. B. Reed and Miss Winder, she boldly proclaiming herself a secessionist. Why should she seek a martyr's crown? Writing people love notoriety. It is so delightful to be of enough consequence to be arrested.

114 I have often wondered if such incense was ever offered as Napoleon's so-called persecution and alleged jealousy of Madame de Stal.

Russell once more, to whom London, Paris, and India have been an every-day sight, and every-night, too, streets and all. How absurd for him to go on in indignation because there have been women on negro plantations who were not vestal virgins. Negro women get married, and after marriage behave as well as other people. Marrying is the amus.e.m.e.nt of their lives. They take life easily; so do their cla.s.s everywhere. Bad men are hated here as elsewhere.

"I hate slavery. I hate a man who - You say there are no more fallen women on a plantation than in London in proportion to numbers. But what do you say to this - to a magnate who runs a hideous black harem, with its consequences, under the same roof with his lovely white wife and his beautiful and accomplished daughters? He holds his head high and poses as the model of all human virtues to these poor women whom G.o.d and the laws have given him. From the height of his awful majesty he scolds and thunders at them as if he never did wrong in his life. Fancy such a man finding his daughter reading Don Juan. 'You with that immoral book!' he would say, and then he would order her out of his sight. You see Mrs. Stowe did not hit the sorest spot. She makes Legree a bachelor." " Remember George II. and his likes."

"Oh, I know half a Legree - a man said to be as cruel as Legree, but the other half of him did not correspond. He was a man of polished manners, and the best husband and father and member of the church in the world." "Can that be so?"

"Yes, I know it. Exceptional case, that sort of thing, always. And I knew the dissolute half of Legree well. He * * *

115 was high and mighty, but the kindest creature to his slaves. And the unfortunate results of his bad ways were not sold, had not to jump over ice-blocks. They were kept in full view, and provided for handsomely in his will."

"The wife and daughters in the might of their purity and innocence are supposed never to dream of what is as plain before their eyes as the sunlight, and they play their parts of unsuspecting angels to the letter. They profess to adore the father as the model of all saintly goodness." "Well, yes; if he is rich he is the fountain from whence all blessings flow."

"The one I have in my eye - my half of Legree, the dissolute half - was so furious in temper and thundered his wrath so at the poor women, they were glad to let him do as he pleased in peace if they could only escape his everlasting fault-finding, and noisy bl.u.s.ter, making everybody so uncomfortable." "Now - now, do you know any woman of this generation who would stand that sort of thing? No, never, not for one moment. The make-believe angels were of the last century. We know, and we won't have it."