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.'"

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.

10 June 1861

"Mr Binney* has written a letter. It is in the Intelligencer. He offers Lincoln life and fortune; all that he has is put at Lincoln's disposal to conquer us.
Queer. We only want to separate from them, and they put such an inordinate value on us, they are willing to risk all—life and limb and all their money—to keep us, they love us so.
Mr Chesnut is accused of firing the first shot. And his cousin, the Reverend ex-West Pointer, writes in a martial fury.
They confounded the best shot made on the island the day of the picnic, with the first shot at Fort Sumter.
That is claimed by Capt. James.** Others say it was one of the Gibbses.
Anderson fired the train which blew up the Union when he slipped into Fort Sumter that night when we expected to talk it over."

*Horace Binney, Philadelphia lawyer and brother-in-law of Mrs James Chestnut, Sr, supported Abraham Lincoln's suspension of the writ of habeas corpus and helped give the measure the legitimacy it badly needed. 
**Capt. George S. James, commanding a mortar battery on James Island, did indeed fire the signal shot at 4:30 a.m. that opened the bombardment.