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.'"

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."

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."

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.

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

"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.

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."

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."

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 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.'"

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.

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.

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.

23 August 1861, Richmond

"Have been with Mrs Randolph to all the hospitals.
I can never again shut out of view the sights I saw of human misery. I sit thinking, shut my eyes, and see it all. Thinking—yes, and there is enough to think about now, God knows. Gillands was the worst. Long rows of ill men on cots. Ill of typhoid fever, of every human ailment—dinner tables, eating, drinking, wounds being dressed—all horrors, to be taken in at one glance. That long tobacco house!...
Then we went to the St Charles. Horrors upon horrors again—want of organization. Long rows of them dead, dying. Awful smell, awful sights.
A boy from home had sent for me. He was lying in a cot, ill of fever. Next him a man died in convulsions while we stood there.
I was making arrangements with a nurse, hiring him to take care of this lad. 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 the carriage at the door at the hospital.
Fresh air, I dare say, brought me to. First of all we had given our provisions to our Carolinians at Miss Sally Tompkins's. There they were, nice and clean and merry as grigs.
As we drove home, we brought the doctor 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.'
We saw among the wounded at the Federal hospital a negro soldier. He was with the others, on equal terms—and a sister was nursing him."

August 1861, Sally Louisa Tompkins

"Went to Miss Sally Tompkins's hospital.* There I was rebuked. I deserved it.
Me: 'Are there any Carolinians here?'
Miss T: 'I never ask where the sick and wounded come from.'"

Sally Louisa Tompkins
(1833-1916)

*After the Battle of First Bull Run, Sally Louisa Tompkins outfitted an old Richmond house as a hospital at her own expense. When the government took over private hospitals, she was allowed to maintain hers. Jefferson Davis commissioned her a captain, making Tompkins the only woman known to hold military rank in the Confederacy.

24 July 1861, Richmond

"Here Mr Chesnut opened my door—and walked in. Of the fullness of the heart the mouth speaketh. I had to ask no questions. He gave me an account of the battle as he saw it.... Told what regiments he was sent to bring up. 

Thomas Jonathan "Stonewall" Jackson
(1824-1863)

He took orders to Colonel Jackson—whose regiment stood so stock-still under fire they were called a stone wall.* Also, they called Beauregard 'Engine' and Johnston 'Marlboro' (s'en va—en guerre.) Mr C rode with Lay's cavalry after the retreating enemy, in the pursuit, they following them until midnight. There then came such a rain—rain such as only known in semitropical lands."

*For this stand, Thomas Jonathan Jackson, a former West Pointer and instructor at Virginia Military Institute, received a promotion to brigadier general as well as his enduring nickname: "Stonewall."