26 July 1865, South Carolina

'Johnny [Chesnut] took the Yankee captain with him to Knights Hill. That ceremony is necessary when making a contract with plantation hands now. Johnny called, 'Joe'—'William'—'Milly'—

'But is that a lady?'

'What? She was a woman servant.' The lieutenant said, pointing carelessly toward the group of negroes.

'I did not fight for these. I fought for the Union.'

'And I fought to be out of your Union.'

Then said Johnny to me, 'Aunt Mary, after all, the Yankee was not half a bad fellow.'"

July 1865, South Carolina, in the aftermath

"Yesterday there was a mass meeting of negroes, thousands of them were in town, eating, drinking, dancing, speechifying. Preaching and prayers also a popular amusement. They have no greater idea of amusement than wild prayers—unless it be getting married or going to a funeral.
In the afternoon I had some business on our place, the Hermitage. John drove me down. Our people were all at home—quiet, orderly, respectful, and at their usual work. In point of fact things looked unchanged. There was nothing to show that anyone of them had even seen a Yankee or knew that there was one in existence.
'We are in a new St Domingo all the same. The Yankees have raised the devil, and now they cannot guide him.'"

June 1865, in the aftermath

"Captain [Edward] Barnwell came to see us. We had a dinner for them at Mulberry—out of the Bloomsbury air. Stephen Elliot was there. He said when people began at him with Sherman or Potter raids, &c&c, he clapped his hands to his ears. He was so tired of it. ...
He gave us an account of his father's plantation at Beaufort [South Carolina], from which he has just returned.
'Our negroes are living in great comfort. They were delighted to see me and treated me with overflowing affection. They waited on me as before, gave me beautiful breakfasts, splendid dinners, &c&c. But they firmly and respectfully informed me: "We own this land now. Put it out of your head that it will ever be yours again."'"

12 June 1865, South Carolina, the bushwhackers

"I have been ill since I wrote last. Serena's letter.* They have been visited by bushwhackers, the roughs that always follow in the wake of an army.

My sister Kate they forced back against the wall. She had Katie, the baby, in her arms, and Miller, the brave boy, clung to his mother, though he could do no more. They tried to force brandy down her throat. They knocked Mary down with the butt end of a pistol, and Serena they struck with an open hand, leaving the mark on her cheek for weeks. When they struck Mary, Serena seized the captain's arm. 'Do you let your men do that?' And she showed Mary's bleeding head. 'No, no,' he said, 'that's too bad. You keep all together, and I will get them away for tonight, and then you go off at once.' Which they did that night to the Kings—the next day to Greenville. It was too much. It made me ill."

*Serena Miller Williams was a niece of Mary Boykin Chesnut, daughter of MBC's younger sister Catherine "Kate" Miller and David Rogerson Williams II. In June 1865, Serena was sixteen years old.

4 June 1865, South Carolina, coming & going & coming again

"The black ball is in motion. Mrs DeSaussure's cook shook the dust off her feet and departed from her kitchen today, free, she said. The washerwoman packing to go.
Scipio Africanus, the colonel's body servant, is a soldierly looking black creature to delight the eyes of old Frederick William, who liked them giants. We asked him how the Yankees came to leave him.
'Oh, I told them Marster couldn't do without me nohow, and then I carried them some nice hams that they never could have found, they were hid so good.'
Eben* dressed himself in his best and went at a run to meet his Yankee deliverers, so he said. At the gate he met a squad coming in. He had adorned himself with his watch and a chain, like the cordage of a ship, with a handful of gaudy seals. He knew the Yankees came to rob white people, but he thought they came to save niggers.
'Hand over that watch!' Minus his fine watch and chain, Eben returned a sadder and wiser man. He was soon in his shirtsleeves, whistling at his knife board.
'Why? You here? Why did you come back so soon?'
'Well, I thought maybe better stay with ole Marster that give me the watch and not go with them that stole it.'
The watch was the pride of his life. The iron had entered his soul."

*Chesnut slave butler

June 1865, in the aftermath

Ruins of Millwood Plantation, Columbia, South Carolina
(family home of Wade Hampton II, father of Gen. Wade Hampton III)
destroyed by fire during Sherman's occupation in February 1865

"New York Herald today quotes General Sherman, who says, 'Columbia was burnt by Hampton's sheer stupidity.' But then, who burnt everything before they got to Columbia and after the Sherman army left it? We came down, for three days' travel, on a road laid bare by Sherman's torches. There were nothing but smoking ruins left in Sherman's track. That I saw with my own eyes–no living thing left, no house left for man or beast. They who burnt the countryside for a belt of forty miles—did they not burn the town? Hampton's stupidity is an afterthought. This Herald announces that Jeff Davis will be hung at once—not so much for treason as for his assassination of Lincoln. 'Stanton,' the Herald says, 'has all the papers in his hands to convict him.'
The Yankees here say: 'The black man must go—as the red man has gone. This is a white man's country.'
The negroes want to run with the hare but hunt with the hounds. They are charming in their profession to us but declare that they are to be paid in lands and mules for having been slaves—by those blessed Yankees.
'They were so faithful to us—why should the Yankees reward them?'
'It would be by way of punishing the rebels only.'"

1 June 1865, South Carolina

"Went to the Hermitage yesterday (our plantation). Saw no change–not a soul absent from his or her post. I said, 'Good colored folks, when are you going to kick off the traces and be free?'
In their furious emotional way they swore devotion to us to their dying day.
All the same, the minute they see an opening to better themselves they will move on.
William, my husband's foster brother, came up.
'Well, William, what do you want?'
'Only to look at you, Marster—it does me good.' No doubt it paid. Both parties, white and black, talked beautifully."

7 May 1865, 'Mulberry,' South Carolina

"Mrs Bartow drove with me to our house at Mulberry. On one side of the house every window was broken, every bell torn down, every piece of furniture destroyed, every door smashed in. The other side intact.
Maria Whitaker and her mother, who had been left in charge, explained this odd state of things.
'They were busy as beavers. They were working like regular carpenters, destroying everything, when the general came in. He said it was a shame, and he stopped them. Said it was a sin to destroy a fine old house like that whose owner was over ninety years old. He would not have done it for the world. It was wanton mischief.' He told Maria soldiers at such times were so excited, so wild and unruly.
They carried off sacks of our books. Unfortunately there were a pile of empty sacks lying in the garret. Our books, our papers, our letters, were strewed along the Charleston road. Somebody said they found some of them as far away as Vance's Ferry.
This was Potter's raid.* Sherman took only our horses. Potter's raid, which was after Johnston's surrender, ruined us finally, burning our mills and gins and a hundred bales of cotton. Indeed nothing is left now but the bare land and debts made for the support of these hundreds of negroes during the war."

*A Federal expeditionary force under Brig. Gen. Edward E. Potter spent three weeks in April 1865 destroying Confederate supplies and railroad lines around Camden, South Carolina.

2 May 1865, Camden, South Carolina

"Camden. From the roadside near Blackstock.

Since we left Chester—solitude. Nothing but tall blackened chimneys to show that any man has ever trod this road before us.

This is Sherman's track. It is hard not to curse him.

I wept incessantly at first. 'The roses of these gardens are already hiding the ruins,' said Mr C. 'Nature is a wonderful renovator.' He tried to say something.

Then I shut my eyes and made a vow. If we are a crushed people, crushed by aught, I have vowed never to be a whimpering pining slave."

April 1865, in the aftermath

"Mrs Huger says, 'In Richmond a too grateful and affectionate, fat, greasy negro barber threw his arms around a Yankee general and hugged in a close embrace. The Yankee freed himself and shot him dead.'"

23 April 1865, Chester, South Carolina

"And these negroes—unchanged. The shining black mask they wear does not show a ripple of change—sphinxes. [House slave] Ellen has had my diamonds to keep for a week or so. When the danger was over she handed them back to me, with as little apparent interest in the matter as if they were garden peas."

22 April 1865, the Lincoln assassination

"Colonel Cad Jones came with a dispatch, a sealed secret dispatch. It was for General Chesnut. I opened it.

Lincoln—old Abe Lincoln—killed—murdered—Seward wounded!*

Why? By whom? It is simply maddening, all this.

I sent off messenger after messenger for General Chesnut. I have not the faintest idea where he is, but I know this foul murder will bring down worse miseries on us.

Mary Darby says: 'But they murdered him themselves. No Confederates in Washington.'

'But if they see fit to accuse us of instigating it?'

'Who murdered him?'

'Who knows?'

'See if they don't take vengeance on us, now that we are ruined and cannot repel the any longer.'"

*The shooting occurred the evening of 14 April 1865.

April 1865, Chester, South Carolina

"We are going to stay. Running is useless now. So we mean to bide a Yankee raid, which they say is imminent, Why fly? They are everywhere, these Yankees—like red ants—like the locusts and frogs which were the plagues of Egypt."

19 April 1865, Chester, South Carolina

"Just now Mr Clay* dashed upstairs pale as a sheet.
'General Lee has capitulated.'**
I saw it reflected in Mary Darby's face before I heard him. She staggered to the table, sat down, and wept aloud. Clay's eyes were not dry.
Quite beside herself, Mary shrieked, 'Now we belong to negroes and Yankees!' Buck said, 'I do not believe it.'"

*Clement Claiborne Clay, Jr
**At Appomattox Court House on 9 April 1865

7 April 1865, Richmond falls

Richmond, Virginia
April 1865

"Richmond has fallen—and I have no heart to write about it. Grant broke through our lines. Sherman cut through them. Stoneman is this side of Danville.

They are too many for us.

Everything lost in Richmond, even our archives.

Blue-black is our horizon."

A Lincolnton recollection, 1865

"One day Isabella [Martin] and I met Mr Clarke from Columbia, and from him I derived my first real idea of the ruin this war had brought—or Sherman, rather. Mr Clarke all unshaven and shorn was brandishing a chair, holding it aloft, like a banner, by its one remaining rung. 'This is all I have left of my Columbia house and all my earthly possessions!' Mr Clarke was one of the rich men of Columbia."

30 March 1865, Chester, South Carolina

"I said to General Preston, 'I pass my days and nights partly at this window. I am sure our army is silently dispersing. Men are passing the wrong way—all the time they slip by. No songs nor shouts now. They have given the thing up. See for yourself—look there!' For a while the streets were thronged with soldiers, and then they were empty again. The marching now is without tap of drum. I told him of the woman in the cracker bonnet at the depot at Charlotte who signaled to her husband as they dragged him off. 'Take it easy, Jake—you desert again, quick as you kin—come back to your wife and children.' And she continued to yell, 'Desert, Jake! desert agin, Jake!'"

29 March 1865

"My world is now divided—where the Yankees are and where the Yankees are not."

27 March 1865, Chester, South Carolina

"Lee and Johnston have each fought a drawn battle.* Only a few more dead bodies stiff and stark on an unknown battlefield. For we do not so much as know where these drawn battles took place.
One can never exaggerate the horrors of war on one's own soil. You understand the agony, strive as you will to speak, the agony of heart—mind—body.
'A few more men killed.' A few more women weeping their eyes out, and nothing whatever decided by it more than we knew before the battle."

*On 25 March 1865, Robert E. Lee's troops suffered heavy losses in storming and then abandoning Fort Stedman, east of Petersburg, Virginia. A few days earlier, Joseph E. Johnston also sustained many losses when he unsuccessfully attacked one of Sherman's columns at Bentonville, North Carolina. 

March 1865, Lincolnton, North Carolina

"Yarn is our circulating medium. It is the current coin of the realm. At a factory here, Mrs Glover traded off a negro woman for yarn. The woman wanted to go there as a factory hand, so it suited all round. I held up my hands! Mrs Munro said:
'Mrs Glover knows she will be free in a few days. Besides, that's nothing. Yesterday a negro man was sold for a keg of nails.'
'God's will be done,' escaped from Mr Martin's lips, in utter amazement.
'This shows slavery is in its death throes.'
'General C said we were lighthearted at the ruin of the great slave-owners. An unholy joy.'
They will have no negroes now to lord it over. They can swell and peacock about and tyrannize now over only a small parcel of women and children—those only who are their very own family."

5 March 1865, Columbia in ruins

The Burning of Columbia, South Carolina, 1865,
by William Waud for Harper's Weekly

"Columbia is but dust and ashes—burned to the ground. Men, women, and children left there, houseless, homeless, without one particle of food—picking up the corn left by Sherman's horses in their picket ground and parching it to stay their hunger."

26 February 1865, Lincolnton, North Carolina

"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."

25 February 1865, regarding slavery

"Mrs Johnston said she would never own slaves.

'I might say the same thing. I never would. Mr Chesnut does, but he hates slavery, especially African slavery.'

'What do you mean by African?'

'To distinguish that form from the inevitable slavery of the world. All married women, all children, and girls who live in their father's houses are slaves.'"

February 1865, Charleston. Wilmington. Columbia.

Ruins in Columbia, South Carolina, 1865
albumen silver print

"Charleston and Wilmington—surrendered. I have no further use for a newspaper. I never want to see one as long as I live.
Wade Hampton lieutenant general—too late. If he had been Lieutenant general and given the command in South Carolina six months ago, I believe he would have saved us. Achilles was sulking in his tent—at such a time!
Shame, disgrace, beggary—all at once. Hard to bear.
Grand smash—
Rain—rain outside—inside naught but drowning floods of tears.
I could not bear it, so I rushed down in that rainstorm to the Martins. He met me at the door.
'Madame, Columbia is burned to the ground.'
I bowed my head and sobbed aloud.
'Stop that,' he said, trying to speak cheerfully. 'Come here, wife. This woman cries with her whole heart—just as she laughs.' But in spite of his words, his voice broke down—he was hardly calmer than myself."

23 February 1865, Lincolnton, North Carolina, The mercurial General Johnston

Gen. Joseph E. Johnston
(1807-1891)

"...Isabella [Martin] and I were taking a walk. General Joseph E. Johnston joined us. He explained to us all of Lee and Stonewall Jackson's mistakes. He was radiant and joyful. We had nothing to say. How could we? He always impresses me with the feeling that all his sympathies are on the other side. Still, he was neither gruff nor rude today—as he can be when he chooses. He said he was very angry to be ordered to take command again. He might well be in a genuine rage. This on-and-offing is enough to bewilder the coolest head."

16 February 1865, Lincolnton, North Carolina, "those last days"

"My ideas of those last days are confused.
The Martins left Columbia the Friday before I did. And their 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 upstairs 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 only as far as Yorkville. He said it was time to move on. Sherman at Orangeburg was barely a day's journey from Columbia, and that he left a track as bare and blackened as a fire in 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 to that old town—as they have to Charleston and Columbia. Molly, weeping and wailing, came in while we were at table, wiping her red-hot face with her cook's grimy apron. She said I ought to go among our own black people on the plantation. They would take care of me better than anyone else. So I agreed to go to Mulberry or the Hermitage plantation and sent Laurence 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 and 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. I am halfway to Kate at Flat Rock. And there is no Federal army between me and Richmond."

January 1865, Columbia, South Carolina, "Sam" Hood returns

Lt. Gen. John Bell "Sam" Hood
(1831-1879)

" [John Bell] Hood came yesterday. He is staying at the Prestons' with Jack. They sent for us.
What a heart-full greeting he gave us! He can stand well enough without his crutch, but he does very slow walking. How plainly he spoke out these dreadful words: 'My defeat and discomfiture'—'My army is destroyed'—'My losses'—&c&c. He said he had nobody to blame but himself."

January 1865

"... And she picked up her last parcel—and as I followed her and stood at the gate, I cried:

'Stonewall—and Albert Sydney Johnston—death guards their fame. Thank God. They are safe in their graves.'"

January 1865, Columbia, South Carolina

"Yesterday I broke down—gave way to abject terror. The news of Sherman's advance—and no news of my husband. Today—wrapped up on the sofa—too dismal for moaning, even. There was a loud knock. Shawls and all, I rushed to the door. Telegram from my husband.
'All well—be at home on Tuesday.' It was dated from Adams Run.*
I felt as lighthearted as if the war were over.
Then I looked at the date—Adams Run. It ends as it began. Bulls Run—from which their first sprightly running astounded the world. Now if we run—who are to run? They ran full-handed. We have fought until maimed soldiers and women and children are all that is left to run."

*A point on the Charleston and Savannah Railroad about fifty miles west of Charleston.

November 1864, Columbia, South Carolina

"A thousand dollars has slipped through my fingers already this week. At the commissaries I spent five hundred today for sugar, candles, a lamp, &c. Tallow candles are bad enough, but of them there seems to be an end, too. Now we are restricted to smoky terebene lamps—terrabene is a preparation of turpentine. When the chimney of the lamp cracks, as crack it will, we plaster up the place with paper, thick letter paper, preferring the highly glazed kind. In that hunt queer old letters come to light.
No wonder Mr Peterkin said our provisions could be carried in a porte-monnaie, and our money to buy them required a market basket to hold it. If you could see the pitiful little bundles this five hundred dollars bought. . . ."

October 1864, tragedy at Petersburg

"Preston Hampton rode recklessly into the hottest fire.* His father [Cavalry Lt. Gen. Wade Hampton III] sent his brother Wade [IV] to bring him back. Wade saw him reel in the saddle and galloped up to him. General Hampton followed. As young Wade reached him, Preston fell from his horse. And as he stooped to raise him was himself shot down. Preston recognized his father but died without speaking a word. Young Wade, though wounded, held his brother's head up. Tom Taylor and others hurried up. The general took his dead son in his arms, kissed him, and handed his body to Tom Taylor and his friends—made them take care of Wade—and then rode back to his post. At the head of his troops in the thickest of the fray he directed the fight for the rest of the day. Until night he did not know young Wade's fate. He might be dead, too.
Now he says no son of his must be in his command. When Wade recovers he must join some other division.
The agony of that day—and the anxiety and the duties of the battlefield—it is all more than a mere man can bear. ...
Preston was not yet twenty."

*On October 27, Hampton's cavalry prevented Federal troops from flanking the Confederate defenses at Petersburg and severing Richmond's southern lines of communication.

21 September 1864

"The end has come. No doubt of the fact. Our army has so moved as to uncover Macon and Augusta.
We are going to be wiped off the face of the earth.
What is there to prevent Sherman taking General Lee in the rear? We have but two armies. And Sherman is between them now."

September 1864, Atlanta falls

Atlanta, Georgia, Union Depot,
destroyed by Sherman's troops, September 1864

"The battle is raging at Atlanta—our fate hanging in the balance.
Atlanta 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."

19 August 1864, Wayside Hospital, Columbia, South Carolina

"Today we gave wounded men...their breakfast. Those who are able to come to the table do so. The badly wounded remain in wards prepared for them, where their wounds are dressed by nurses and surgeons, and we take bread and butter, beef, ham, &c&c, hot coffee, to them there.
One man had hair as long as a woman's. A vow, he said. He has pledged himself not to cut his hair until war [was] declared [over] and our Southern country free. 
Four of them had made this vow. All were dead but himself. One was killed in Missouri, one in Virginia, and he left one at Kennesaw Mountain. This poor creature had one arm taken off at the socket. When I remarked that he was utterly disabled and ought not to remain in the army, he answered quickly.
'I am First Texas. If old Hood can go with one foot, I can go with one arm. Eh?'"

10 August 1864

"Misery upon misery.
Mobile going as New Orleans went.* Those western men have not held their towns as we have held and hold Charleston, or as the Virginians hold Richmond. And they call us frill-shirt, silk-stocking chivalry, a set of dandy Miss Nancys. They fight desperately in their bloody street brawls. We bear privation and discipline best. Brag is a good dog. Holdfast, a better."

*Victories by U.S. Admiral David Farragut preceded the fall of both New Orleans and Mobile. At the battle of Mobile Bay on August 5, Farragut steamed past Confederate shore batteries to enable Union troops to besiege forts protecting the city.

May 1864, prisoners and mortality

"John Boykin died in a Yankee prison. He had on a heavy flannel shirt. They were lying on an open platform car, on their way to their cold prison on the lakes. A Federal soldier wanted this shirt. Prisoners have no right, so John had to strip it off and hand it to him. So that was his death. In two days he was dead of pneumonia. Maybe frozen to death.
One man said, 'They are taking us there to freeze.' But then their men will find our hot sun in August and July as deadly as their cold Decembers &c&c are to us. Their snow and ice finish our prisoners at a rapid rate, they say. Napoleon's soldiers found out all that in the Russian campaign."

May 1864

"General Lee was to have a grand review the very day we left Richmond, and quantities of people were to go up by rail to see it. Turner McFarland writes, 'They did go, but they came back faster than they went. They found the army drawn up in battle array.'*
How many of the brave and gay spirits that we saw so lately have taken flight—the only flight they know—and their bodies left dead upon the battlefield."

*At Gordonsville, Virginia, on April 29, 1864, General Lee reviewed the First Corps of the Confederate army, commanded by Longstreet. Three days later, Union troops under General Grant crossed the Rapidan River and, on May 5, the battle of the Wilderness began.

24 March 1864, comic relief

"Miss Page Waller married Captain Leigh Page the other day. Now she is Mrs Page Page. Someone said she had turned over a new leaf—still, she was the same Page."

19 March 1864, Richmond, "the toy boy"

"C. C. also told us of a new toy—Fitz Lee's new-found joy—a little negro boy. This toy, when wound up, danced Ethiopian minstrel fashion. Fitz Lee sings corn-shucking tunes and the toy boy dances. C. C. has already made the little black boy two suits of clothes. He is the delight of Richmond salons and is so much handled his dress soon grows shabby."

12 March 1864, Richmond, the truth be told

"Went to see Mrs E of the Treasury. She related with an air of great amusement what she called the first truth ever told in Clarendon. A man said he would not go into the army for fear of being killed.
Then the lamentations of his mother-in-law: 'To have him stay at home—an overseer of negroes—and to give as a reason that he is afraid!'
We admired this lady's delightful candor."

26 February 1864

"Finegan in Florida and Stephen Lee in Mississippi each claim a victory. On account of the latter success, no fears are now felt for Mobile. Our papers are now jubilant. The mud keeps all armies quiet. Beneficent mud! No killed or killing on hand. No rumbling of wagons laden with dead or dying.
We enjoy this reprieve. We snatch a fearful joy. It is a brief interlude of comparative peace."

18 December 1863, Richmond

"[J. C.] came straight home and found the party in full blast.
He did not know a word about it. How could he? It grew up after he left home. I trembled in my shoes.
He behaved beautifully, however.
If he had refused to dine at the president's because he wished to attend a party at my house, he could not have done better. He seemed to enjoy the whole thing amazingly. Played casino with Mrs Lawson Clay, looked after Hood, &c&c.
Today he spoke. I was very penitent, subdued, submissive, humble. And I promised not to do so anymore.
'No more parties,' he said. 'The country is in danger. There is too much levity here.'
So he laid down the law."

9 December 1863, Richmond

James Chesnut, Jr
(1815-1885)

"J. C. laid down the law last night. I felt it to be the last drop in my full cup.
'No more feasting in this house. This is no time for junketing and merrymaking. There is a positive want of proper feeling in the life you lead.'
'And you said you brought me here to enjoy one winter before you took me home and turned my face to a dead wall.'
He is master of the house—to hear is to obey."

5 December 1863, Richmond

"Spent seventy-five dollars today for a little tea and sugar. Have five hundred dollars left. J. C.'s pay has never paid for the rent of our lodgings since the war began."

Stonewall Jackson, in hindsight

Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson
(21 January 1824-10 May 1863)

"And now that they begin to see a few years more of Stonewall Jackson would have freed us from the yoke of the hateful Yankees, they deify him. They are so proud to have been one of the famous Stonewall brigade.
Like to be a brick from that wall.
But to be sure, it was bitter hard work to keep up with Stonewall Jackson, as all know full well who ever served with him. He gave his orders rapidly and distinctly and rode away. Never allowing answer or remonstrance.
'Look here. See that place. Take it.' When you failed, you were apt to be put under arrest. When you reported the place taken, he only said 'Good.'"

28 November 1863, Richmond

"Then I gave a party.
Mrs Davis very witty. Preston girls very handsome. Isabella's fun fast and furious. No party could have gone off more successfully, but J. C. decides we are to have no more festivities. This is not the time or place for such gaieties."

The scent of freedom

"I taught him to read as soon as I could read myself—perched on his knife board. He won't look at me now. He looks over my head—he scents freedom in the air. He was always very ambitious. I do not think he ever troubled books much. But then as my father said, Dick, standing in front of his sideboard, had heard of all subjects of heaven or earth discussed—and by the best heads in our world.
He is proud, too, in his way. Hetty his wife complained the other menservants were so fine in their livery.
'Nonsense, old woman—a butler never demeans himself to wear livery. He is always in plain clothes.' Somewhere he picked up on that.
He is the first negro that I have felt a change in. They go about in their black masks, not a ripple or an emotion showing—and yet on all other subjects except the war they are the most excitable all races. Now, Dick might make a very respectable Egyptian sphinx, so inscrutably silent is he."

The death of Frank Hampton

"Altogether it had been a pleasant day. And as I sat alone, laughing lightly now and then at the memory of some funny story, suddenly a violent ring—and a regular sheaf of telegrams were handed me.
I could not have drawn away in more consternation if they had been a nest of rattlesnakes.
First—[Lt. Col.] Frank Hampton* killed at Brandy Station. Wade telegraphed Mr C to see Robert Barnwell and make necessary arrangements to receive the body. Mr C still at Wilmington. I sent for Preston Johnston, and my neighbor Colonel Patton offered to see that everything proper should be done.

Frank Hampton
(1829-1863)

That afternoon I walked out alone. Willie Munford had shown me where the body—all that was left of Frank Hampton—was to be laid in the Capitol.
Mrs Petticola joined me for a while and then Mrs Singleton. Preston Hampton and Peter Trezevant with myself and Mrs Singleton formed the sad procession which followed the coffin. There was a company of soldiers drawn up in front of the State House porch.
Mrs Singleton said we had better go in and look at him before the coffin was finally closed.
How I wish I had not looked! I remember him so well in all the pride of his magnificent manhood. He died of a saber cut across the face and head and was utterly disfigured. Mrs Singleton seemed convulsed with grief. In all my life I had never seen such bitter weeping. She had her own troubles, but I did not know. We sat for a long time on the front steps of the State House. Everybody had gone. We were utterly alone."

*Frank Hampton was served in the Confederate Army under his older brother General Wade Hampton, Hampton's Legion, 2nd Regiment, South Carolina Cavalry. He was killed during the battle of Brandy Station in Virginia, June 9, 1863.

A picnic, interrupted.

"...up rode [John Darby] in red-hot haste, threw his bridle to one of the men who was holding the horses and came toward us, rapidly clanking his cavalry spurs with a despairing sound. 'Stop! It's all up. We are ordered back to the Rappahannock. The brigade is marching through Richmond now.'
... At the turnpike we stood in the sidewalk and saw ten thousand men march by. We had seen nothing like this before. Hitherto, it was only regiments marching, spic and span in their fresh smart clothes, just from home on their way to the army.
Such rags and tags—nothing alike—most garments and arms taken from the enemy—such shoes! 'Oh our brave boys!' moaned Buck. Such tin pans and pots tied to their waists—bread or bacon stuck on the ends of their bayonets. Anything that could be spiked was bayoneted and held aloft.
They did not seem to know their shabby condition. They laughed and shouted and cheered as they marched by. Not a disrespectful or light word. But they went for the men huddled behind us—who at last seemed trying to be as small as possible and to escape observation in our rear.
'Ladies, send those puny conscripts on to their regiments.'"

John Bell "Sam" Hood

"Nicknames. Buck asked John Darby scornfully, 'Do you think Mamie will marry you?' Striking a majestic attitude, he answers,
'Perseverentia omnia vincit.'
So Buck dubbed him P. V., and P. V. he was to us ever after.
The famous colonel of the Fourth Texas—by name John Bell Hood—him we called Sam, because his classmates at West Point did so still—cause unknown.
P. V. asked if he might bring his general—bragged of him extensively, said he had won his three stars &c under Stonewall's eye and that he was promoted by Stonewall's request.

John Bell "Sam" Hood
(1831-1879)

When he came, with his sad Quixotic face, the face of an old crusader who believed in his cause, his cross, his crown—we were not prepared for that type exactly as a beau idéal of wild Texans. Tall—thin—shy. Blue eyes and light hair, tawny beard and a vast amount of it covering the lower part of his face—an appearance of awkward strength. Someone said that great reserve of manner he carried into ladies' society. Mr Venable added he had often heard of the 'light of battle' shining in a man's eyes. He had seen it once. He carried him orders from General Lee and found [him] in the hottest of the fight. 'The man was transfigured. The fierce light of his eyes—I can never forget.'"

Sally Campbell Buchanan "Buck" Preston

"Buck, the very sweetest woman I ever knew, had a knack of being 'fallen in love with' at sight and of never being 'fallen out of love' with. But then, there seemed a spell upon her lovers—so many were killed or died of the effects of wounds. Ransom Calhoun, Braddy Warwick, Claude Gibson, the Notts.
In Columbia, on hearing the name: 'Shall I answer him? See here.'
Annie, on hearing the name: 'Answer! Did you see the paper today? He is killed.' Annie the practical.
Once she came in and sat on the edge of my bed. In those Columbia days, a cloud had come over her bright face. 'Buck, what makes you so pale, dear—and why have that black mantle around you on this warm day?'
'Why not? I feel so sad—black suits me. Alfred Rhett has killed Cousin Ransom in a duel.' Here she drew the mantle close around her face.

Sally Campbell Buchanan "Buck" Preston
(1842-1880)

... 'What is the matter with Buck? She has been languishing on that sofa, profoundly indifferent to me and the rest of mankind,' said John Darby.
'Don't you know her yet? She would not listen to that poor fellow while he was alive, and now that he is dead she is brokenhearted. Let her alone, she will soon recover,' said Mary C cheerfully.
Johnny was asked if he were not succumbing, too, to Buck's fascinations. It was a road they all traveled.
'No, never.' He looked alarmed at the bare suggestion. 'I dare not. I would prefer to face a Yankee battery. They say So-and-So is awfully in love with Miss S. P. Then I say, look out! You will see his name next in the list of killed and wounded.'
This was very hard on Buck, but our brave young soldiers faced the music gallantly. Let who would die or be killed, there was always a new crop of flourishing dimensions growing vigorously around her. Lovers were never wanting. I think she was loyal to the dead and missing.
The darling! She has her peculiarities. Who can describe her? This I know, I wouldn't have, if I could, anything altered about her mentally, morally, physically. Of how many people can one say that?"

First Lady of the Confederacy

Varina Banks (Howell) Davis
(1826-1906)

"Once for all, let me say—Mrs [Jefferson] Davis has been so kind to me—I can never be grateful enough. Without that I should like her. She is so clever, so brilliant indeed, so warmhearted, and considerate toward all who are around her. After becoming accustomed to the spice and spirit of her conversation, away from her things seem flat and tame for a while."

Regarding slavery and race

"Reading Mrs Stowe or Redpath's John Brown,* one feels utterly confounded at the atrocity of African slavery. We look upon the miserable black race as crushed to earth, habitually knocked down, as John Brown says, 'by an iron shovel or anything that comes handy.' At home we see them, the idlest, laziest, fattest, most comfortably contented peasantry that ever cumbered the earth—and we forget there is anything wrong in slavery at all.
I daresay the truth lies between the two extremes."

*The Public Life of Capt. John Brown (1860) by antislavery journalist James Redpath.

August 1862 - September 1863

"I destroyed all my notes and journal—from the time I arrived in Flat Rock [North Carolina]—during a raid upon Richmond in 1863.* Afterward—I tried to fill up the gap from memory."

*While the battle of Chancellorsville, Virginia, was fought to the north, detachments of U.S. Maj. Gen. George Stoneman's cavalry rode within several miles of Richmond on May 3-4, 1863, in an effort to cut communication lines.

9 July 1862, Columbia, South Carolina

"Table talk today:
This war was undertaken by us to shake off the yoke of foreign invaders. So we consider our cause righteous. The Yankees, since the war has begun, have discovered it is to free the slaves they are fighting—so their cause is noble. They also expect to make the war pay. Yankees do not undertake anything that does not pay. They think we belong to them. We have been good milk cows. Milked by the tariff, or skimmed. We let them have all of our hard earnings. We bore the ban of slavery. They got the money. Cotton pays everybody who handles it, sells it, manufactures it, &c&c—rarely pays the men who make it. Secondhand, they received the wages of slavery. They grew rich, we grew poor. Receiver is as bad as the thief. That applies to us, too—we received these savages they stole from Africa and brought to us in their slave ships. Like the Egyptians, if they let us go, it must be across a red sea of blood."

June 1862, the war according to Mr Venable

Charles Scott Venable
(1827-1900)

"Mr Venable* don't mince matters. 'If we do not [strike] a blow—a blow that will be felt—it will be soon all up with us. The Southwest will be lost to us. We cannot afford to shilly-shally much longer.
'Thousands are enlisting on the other side in New Orleans. [Benjamin] Butler holds out inducements. To be sure, they are principally foreigners who want to escape starvation.
'Tennessee we may count as gone, since we abandoned her at Corinth, Fort Pillow, and Memphis. A man must be sent there—or it is all gone.'
In my heart I feel 'all is gone' now."

*Charles Scott Venable, a Virginian, was present at the bombardment of Fort Sumter in April 1861. At the time he was serving in the South Carolina militia. In Spring 1862 he joined Robert E. Lee's staff and remained with him to Appomattox Court House, earning the moniker "Faithful Old Venable" from Lee himself.

June 1862, regarding Thomas B. Huger

Thomas B. Huger
(d. April 25, 1862)

"Tom Huger* resigned his place in the U.S. Navy and come to us. The Iroquois was his ship in the old navy. They say as he stood in the rigging, after he was shot in the leg, his ship leading the attack upon the Iroquois &c&c, 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 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 U.S.N. attended his funeral."

*Thomas B. Huger served in the U.S. Navy for over 20 years before he resigned his commission in January 1861 after his native state of South Carolina seceded from the Union.  He subsequently became a First Lieutenant in the Confederate Navy. He was mortally wounded while battling Federal Navy ships near Fort Jackson and Fort St Philip on the Mississippi River, and died the following day. 

June 1862, Gen. Winfield Scott (ret.) weighs in

"General Scott on Southern soldiers. He says we have élan, courage, woodcraft, consummate horsemanship, 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—waiting! We can bear pain without a murmur, but we will not submit to be bored, &c&c&c.
Now for the other side. They can wait. They can bear discipline. They can endure forever—losses in battle nothing to them, resources in men and materials of war inexhaustible. And if they see fit they will fight to the bitter end.
Nice prospect for us—as comforting for us as the old man's croak at Mulberry, 'Bad times, worse coming.'
Old Mr Chesnut says, 'We could not have kept slavery here a day, but the powerful government of the U.S.A. protected it for us.'"

June 1862, the concerns of Molly

"Molly all in tears because I asked her if she were going to turn against me.
No, she would follow me to the ends of the earth—that is, she would if it warn't for her children. But this is the reason she was out. Jonathan is her father, and he is driver, headman of the colored people (she never says 'negroes'—the only 'nigger' is the devil—that's her idea). Overseer and Claiborne, head of the plows, connive to cheat master 'outin everything. Marster—the best marster the lord ever send.' So much lying, cheating, on a plantation—no wonder she came back outer sorts. 'Overseer's wife gotten so fat on yo' substance she can't git through the little gate—have to open the wagon gate for her. Sometimes of Sundays two hams is put on their table—de 'oman sho' to die of fat.'
So Molly and I are reconciled, and she is as good and as attentive as ever. All the same, she was awfully stuck up when she first came back."

10 June 1862

"I see one new light breaking in upon the black question.
Even my [house slave] Molly speaks scornfully when she alludes to 'them white people.' She says there is salt enough on the plantation. Master had the [salt] sent to the coast, three days journey—'but we don't git enough. There is plenty of bread—and all the people has fine fat hogs, but you see our people n'usen to salt as much as they choose—and now they will grumble.'
When I told J.C. 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.'
It was a blow. When he went over to the plantation, he came back charmed with their loyalty to them—their affection for him&c&c&c."

9 June 1862

"J.C. traced Stonewall's triumphal career on the map. He has defeated Frémont and taken all of his cannon. Now he is after Shields. The language of the telegram is vague—'Stonewall has taken plenty of prisoners.' Plenty, no doubt of it—enough to spare. We can't feed our own soldiers. How are we to feed prisoners?
A small fray at the Chickahominy. They tried to cross and did not make it out. They lost forty men—we lost two."

*Stonewall Jackson brought his brilliant Valley Campaign of Spring 1862 to a successful conclusion by defeating Frémont on June 8 and James Shields at Port Republic June 9.

2 June 1862, The Battle of Seven Pines

"A battle is said to be raging around Richmond.* I am at the Prestons'. ...
J.C. went off suddenly to Richmond, 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....
Telegraph says Lee** and Davis both on the field. Enemy being repulsed.
Telegraph operator: '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 burying its dead. That looks like a drawn battle."

*The battle of Seven Pines (Fair Oaks), was fought just five miles from Richmond on May 31 and June 1.
**On June 1, 1862, Robert E. Lee assumed field command of the Army of Northern Virginia for the first time.

27 April 1862, New Orleans, the aftermath

"New Orleans gone—and with it the Confederacy. Are we not cut in two? That Mississippi ruins us if lost. The Confederacy done to death by the politicians. What wonder we are lost. Those wretched creatures the Congress and the legislature could never rise to the greatness of the occasion. They seem to think they were in a neighborhood squabble about precedence.
The soldiers have done their duty.

Panoramic view of New Orleans, 1862,
Federal fleet at anchor in the river

All honor to the Army. Statesmen busy as bees about their own places or their personal honor—too busy to see the enemy at a distance. With a microscope they were examining their own interest or their own wrongs, forgetting the interest of the people they represent. They were concocting newspaper paragraphs to injure the government. No matter how vital, nothing—nothing—can be kept from the enemy. They must publish themselves night and day and what they are doing, or the omniscient Buncombe will forget them.
This fall of New Orleans means utter ruin to the private fortunes of the Prestons. Mr P came from New Orleans so satisfied with Mansfield Lovell and the tremendous steam rams he saw there. While in New Orleans, Burnside offered Mr P five hundred thousand dollars, a debt due from him to Mr P, and he refused to take it.* He said the money was safer in Burnside's hand than in his. And so it may prove—ugly as the outlook is now. Burnside is wide awake. He is not a man to be caught napping."

*John S. Preston sold his extensive Louisiana sugar plantations to John Burnside, a New Orleans merchant, in 1857. These holdings helped make Burnside the greatest sugar planter in the state during the 1860s.

14 March 1862, the subject of double standards

"There are no negro marital relations, or the want of them, half so shocking as Mormonism. And yet the U.S.A. makes no bones of receiving Mormons into her sacred heart.
Mr Venable said England held her hand over 'the malignant and the turbaned Turk' to save and protect him, slaves, seraglio, and all. But she rolls up the whites of her eyes at us. When slavery, bad as it is, is stepping out into freedom every moment through Christian civilization.
They do not grudge the Turk even his bag and Bosporus privileges. To a recalcitrant wife it is: 'Here yawns the sick. There yawns the sea'—&c.
And France, the bold, the brave, the ever free—she is not so tenderfoot in Algiers.
But then, 'you are another' argument is a shabby one.
'You see,' says Mary [Preston] sagaciously. 'We are white Christian descendants of Huguenots and Cavaliers, and they expect of us different conduct from mere Turks and Algerian pirates.'"

13 March 1862, upon re-reading Uncle Tom's Cabin

"These negro women have a chance here women have nowhere else. They can redeem themselves. The 'impropers.' They can marry decently—and nothing is remembered against them, these colored ladies. It is not a nice topic, but Mrs [Harriet Beecher] Stowe revels in it. How delightfully pharisaic a feeling it must be, to rise superior and fancy we are so degraded as to defend and like to live with such degraded creatures around us. Such men as Legare [Legree] and his women.

Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1896)
author of Uncle Tom's Cabin,
published 1851 in newspaper installments,
then in 1852 as a two-volume book

The best way to take negroes to your heart is to get as far away from them as possible. As far as I can see, Southern women do all that missionaries could to prevent and alleviate the evils. The social evil has not been suppressed in England or New England, London or Boston. And they expect more virtue from a plantation African than they can practice with all their high moral surroundings—light, education, training, and supports....
There are true, graceful, beautiful mothers of angelic Evas—North as well as South, I daresay. The Northern men and women who came here have always been hardest, for they expect an African to work and behave as a white man. We do not....
Topsys I have known—but none that were beauties—or ill-used. Evas are mostly in the heaven of Mrs Stowe's imagination. People can't love things dirty, ugly, repulsive, simply because they ought, but they can be good to them—at a distance. You see, I cannot rise very high. I can only judge what I see."

10 March 1862, Congaree House, Columbia, South Carolina

"Second year. Confederate independence. I write daily for my own distractions. These memoirs pour servir may some future day afford dates, facts, and prove useful to more important people than I am. I do not wish to harm or to hurt anyone. If any scandalous stories creep in, they are easily burned. It is hard, in such a hurry as things are in, to separate wheat from chaff.
Now I have made my protest and written down my wishes. I can scribble on with a free will and free conscience."

22 February 1862

"What a beautiful [day] for our Confederate president to be inaugurated.* God speed him. God help him. God save him."

*Mary Boykin Chesnut was in Columbia, South Carolina, while writing in her journal on that day. Meanwhile, in Richmond, Virginia, there was a heavy rainstorm for Jefferson Davis's inauguration as president of the permanent government of the Confederate States of America.

25 December 1861 Camden, South Carolina

"The negroes who murdered Mrs Witherspoon were tried by the law of the land and were hung. A man named Wingate, with a John Brown spirit—namely that negroes were bound to rise up and kill women, and his philanthropy taking that turn, he made himself devil's counsel and stood by the negroes clear through. At the hanging he denounced John Witherspoon bitterly. And had high words, too, with George Williams.*
Afterward George Williams, having raised a company, was made captain of it. The men were actually on board the train, and Captain Williams was sitting in a chair, near at hand, ready to jump on when the whistle blew. Wingate came behind him, rested his gun on the back of the chair, and shot him dead. There—before the very faces of his soldiers. It was very hard to rescue Wingate from the hands of George's men, who wanted to shoot him instantly—no wonder. (The people who laud and magnify John Brown's philanthropy must adore Wingate.)"

*George Frederick Williams was Elizabeth "Betsey" Witherspoon's grandson.

27 November 1861, the Northern misperception

"When Mrs Chesnut* married South, her husband was as wealthy as her brothers-in-law, Mr Binney or Mr Stevens. How is it now? Their money has accumulated for their children. Their old man's goes to support a horde of idle dirty Africans—while he is abused and vilified as a cruel slave-owner. I wish his 'Uncle Tom'—for he has one who never tasted calamity in any shape and whose gray hairs are honored, though they frame a black face—could be seen or could be heard as he tells me of 'me & master'—&c&c&c. We are human beings of the nineteenth century—and slavery has to go, of course. All that has been gained by it goes to the North and to negroes. The slave-owners, when they are good men and women, are the martyrs. And as far as I have seen, the people here are quite as good as anywhere else. I hate slavery. I even hate the harsh authority I see parents think it their duty to exercise toward their children.
There now!! What good does it do to write all that? I have before me a letter I wrote to Mr C while he was on our plantation in Mississippi in 1842. It is the most fervid abolition document I have ever read. I came across it, burning letters the other day. That letter I did not burn. I kept it—as showing how we were not as much of heathens as our enlightened enemies think. Their philanthropy is cheap. There are as noble, pure lives here as there—and a great deal more of self-sacrifice. . . ."

*Mary Boykin Chesnut's mother-in-law Mary Bowes Cox Chestnut (1775-1864) was from a prominent Philadelphia family. Also indicated are Philadelphia attorney/legislator Horace Binney and New Jersey entrepreneur Edwin Stevens.

November 1861, the complexities of color

"Martha Adamson is a beautiful mulatress. That is, as good-looking as they ever are to me. I have never seen a mule as handsome as a horse—and I know I never will—no matter how I lament and sympathize with its undeserved mule condition. She is a trained sempstress and 'hired her own time,' as they call it. That is, the owner pays the doctor bill, finds food and clothing, &c. The slave pays his master five dollars a month, more or less, and makes a dollar a day if he pleases.
Martha, to the amazement of everybody, married a coal black negro, son of Dick the barber—that Dick who was set free fifty years ago or more for faithful services rendered Mr Chesnut's grandfather.
When asked in words such as these: 'How could she? She is so nearly white—how could she marry that horrid negro? It is positively shocking!'—answer: 'She inherits the taste of her white father—her mother was black.'
'How coarse you are.'
The son of this marriage, a bright boy called John, is grown—reads and writes—&c&c. The aforesaid Martha is now a widow. Her husband was free though black.
Last night there was a row. John beat a white man who was at his mother's. Poor Martha drinks. John had forbidden Mr T___ to bring whiskey to the house, and he found him seated at the table with his mother, both drunk. So he beat him all the way home to his own house. Verdict of the community: 'Served him right.' [House slave] Maria's word: 'White people say, "Well done! Go it, John—give it to him!"'"

20 November 1861

"England is patting both sides on the back. She loves to see a Kilkenny cat fight. After all, she is not denying for the want of our cotton. She is prospering and pampering her Indian cotton and will magnanimously accept any apology for the Mason and Slidell affair that smart Yankee [Secretary of State William Henry] Seward will tender her."

19 November 1861, The Trent Affair

"Oh, for a growl from the British Lion. Look out for hoarse thunder. I have heard a British goddamn swear on St Catherine docks. I know how thoroughly they can do it.
Slidell and Mason seized under the Meteor Flag of England—and brought back to Fortress Monroe prisoners!*

John Slidell (left) and James Murray Mason, Confederate diplomats,
taken captive by the U.S. Navy while en route to Britain and France

Something good obliged to come out of such a stupid blunder. Yankees must bow their knee to the British—or fight them."

*Taken from the British ship Trent by the U.S.S. San Jacinto near Cuba on 8 November 1861, James Mason and John Slidell arrived at Fort Monroe, Virginia, on 15 November. Many, North and South, believed the incident would bring British recognition of the Confederacy and perhaps war between England and the Union.

17 November 1861, 'Mulberry,' South Carolina

Mulberry Plantation
Kershaw County, South Carolina

"Our life here would be very pleasant if there were no Yankees.
 Old Mr Chesnut's library is on the first floor. My husband's, a beautiful room in the third story, overlooking this beautiful lawn and grand old oaks up here—all is my very own. Here I sit and make shirts for the soldiers, knit, or read or write journal, as I see fit. Under my own vine and fig tree—and none to make me afraid. Out of the way of all callers or intruders—all that goes on downstairs."

12 November 1861

"Went to the turnout at Mulberry for Mr C. Met only Minnie Frierson.* She says they are hanging negroes in Louisiana and Mississippi, like birds in the trees, for an attempted insurrection. But out there they say the same thing of South Carolina, and we know it is as quiet as the grave here and as peaceful, except that one spot—Beaufort. We have no reason to suppose a negro knows there is a war. I do not speak of the war to them. On that subject they do not believe a word you say.
'How do I know that?'
'Watch the sudden deadening of their faces. The utter want of any possible expression as soon as one of these men has in his mouth a word that comes now so often—"Damn Yankee."'"

*Mary Chesnut "Minnie" Frierson was the wife of Sumter District planter James J. Frierson and niece of Mary Boykin Chesnut's husband.

25 October 1861

"Yankees' principal spite to South Carolina—fifteen war steamers have sailed, or steamed out against us. Hot work cut out for us whenever they elect to land.
They hate us, but they fear us, too. They do not move now until the force is immense—'overwhelming' is their word. Enormous preparations, cautious approach are the lessons we taught them at Manassas, Bethel, &c&c. McClellan is to come against us, front and rear.
And now we have many little wars beside the great one.
The Judge raging in tantrums. He speaks to me, but he has ceased to look at me. It is months since I have caught his eye. That means mischief!
The president writes, asking for particulars of that interview 13th July. There were present Col. John S. Preston, General Lee, General Cooper, Mr Chesnut, and the president. General Beauregard says he sent the president by his aide, Colonel Chesnut, a plan of battle which the president rejected.
Are we going to be like the Jews when Titus was thundering against their gates? Quarreling amongst ourselves makes me faint with fear."

21 September 1861

"Poor Cousin Betsey Witherspoon* was murdered! She did not die peacefully, as we supposed, in her bed. Murdered by her own people. Her negroes.
I remember when Dr Keitt was murdered by his negroes. Mr Miles met me and told the dreadful story.
'Very awkward, this sort of thing. There goes Keitt, in the house always declaiming about the "beneficent institution." How now?'
Horrible beyond words.
Her household negroes were so insolent, so pampered and insubordinate, that she lived alone and at home. She knew, she said, that none of her children would have the patience she had with these people who had been indulged and spoiled by her until they were like spoiled children. Simply intolerable.
Mr Chesnut and David Williams have gone over at once." ...

24 September 1861

"Hitherto I have never thought of being afraid of negroes. I had never injured any of them. Why should they want to hurt me? Two-thirds of my religion consists in trying to be good to negroes because they are so in my power, and it would be so easy to be the other thing. Somehow today I feel that the ground is cut away from under my feet. Why should they treat me any better than they have done Cousin Betsey Witherspoon?"

*Elizabeth Boykin "Betsey" Witherspoon was the widow of John Dick Witherspoon, a wealthy planter, lawyer, and state legislator of Darlington District, South Carolina. She was a first cousin of Mary Boykin Chesnut's mother, as well as mother-in-law of a niece of M.B.C.'s husband James Chesnut, Jr.