"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.
