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."

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. 

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.

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.

18 August 1861, the subject of desertion

"Two Yankee officers who fought or figured at Manassas have since deserted and come over to us.
I can understand how deserters should be detestable, come they from East or West, North or South.
They, the deserters, are going into our army. General Walker* said, 'If I had a brother killed at Manassas, I could shoot down these two man at sight.'
Mr [Robert Woodward] Barnwell gave that little twittering, nervous laugh of his.
'And then you'd be hanged.'
'Never. Twenty thousand Georgians are here. They would create a counter-revolution before they would permit a hair of my head to be touched.'
Mr Barnwell repeated his offensive little laugh.
'Then you would be hanged. You ought to be hanged if you commit murder.'

This he fired off at regular intervals, and Shot-Pouch Walker literally raved.
'No, no. My Georgians would know the reason why, &c&c.'
Mr Barnwell grew very quiet but continued his fatuous smile and to the last stuck to his original proposition.
'You'd be hanged.'
This made me wretched. Mr Barnwell was right, but why would he say it anymore?
I was so uncomfortable—as soon as silence prevailed, I left the table. I made a good deal of commotion in leaving the table, on purpose—dropped things to be picked up: fan, handkerchief—all to divert them from their madness or folly. And a man is always in such a faze about his dignity—what is due his own self-respect, &c&c&c, and so contemptuous of feminine folly!"

*Brigadier General William Henry Talbot Walker of Georgia received extensive gunshot wounds in both the Seminole and Mexican wars. Each time, doctors held out no hope of recovery. He was subsequently given the nickname "Shot-Pouch."

August 1861, George Mason on slavery

"General and Mrs Cooper came to see us. She is Mrs Smith Lee's sister, Senator Mason's sister.
'Sidney's sister, Pembroke's mother'—&c. 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 institution intended for such people as they were.
Mrs Lee said, 'After all—what good does it do my sons? They are Light Horse Harry Lee's grandsons—and George Mason's. I do not see that it helps them at all.'
When Mrs Lee and the Coopers had gone, what a rolling of eyes and uplifting of hands...."

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.

5 August 1861, Richmond

"Dr Gibbes is a bird of evil omen. Today 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 1100 there hors de combat, and virulent typhoid fever along with them. They want money, clothes, nurses.
So I am writing—right and left the letters fly, calling for help from the sister societies at home. The good and patriotic women at home are easily stirred to this work."

July 1861

"The [New York Daily] Tribune soothes the Yankee self-conceit, which has received a shock—the national vanity, you know—by saying we had 100,000 men on the field at Manassas. We had about 15,000 effective men in all.
And then the Tribune tries to inflame and envenom them against us by telling lies as to our treatment of prisoners.
They say when they come against us next, it will be in overwhelming force."

July 1861, the treatment of prisoners

"The Northern papers say we hung and quartered a Zouave—cut him in 4 pieces—and that we tie prisoners to a tree and bayonet them. In other words, we are savages. It ought to teach us not to credit what our papers say of them. It is so absurd an imagination of evil.
We are absolutely treating their prisoners as well as our own men. It is complained of here. I am going to the hospitals here for the enemy's sick and wounded to see for myself."

July 1861, Robert E. Lee

"This is how I saw Robert E. Lee for the first time. I had heard of him, strange to say, in this wise. Though his family, who then lived at Arlington, called to see me in Washington (I thought because of Mrs Chesnut's intimacy with Nelly Custis in the old Philadelphia days—and Mrs Lee was Nelly Custis's niece), I had not known the head of the Lee family. He was somewhere with the army then.
Last summer at the White Sulphur, Roony Lee* and his wife, that sweet little Charlotte Wickham, was there, and I spoke of Roony with great praise.
Mrs Izard said: 'Don't waste your admiration on him. Wait will you see his father. He is the nearest to a perfect man I ever saw.' 'How?' 'Every way—handsome, clever, agreeable, highbred, &c&c&c.'
Mrs Stanard came for Mrs Preston and me, to drive to the camp. She was in an open carriage. A man riding a beautiful horse joined us. He wore a hat with somehow a military look to it. He sat his horse gracefully, and he was so distinguished at all points that I very much regretted not catching the name as Mrs Stanard gave it to us. He, however, heard ours and bowed as gracefully as he rode, and the few remarks he made to each of us showed he knew all about us.

Robert Edward Lee
(1807-1870)

... To all this light chat did we seriously incline because the man and horse and everything about him was so fine looking. Perfection—no fault to be found if you hunted for one. As he left us, I said, 'Who is it?' eagerly.
'You did not know? Why, it is Robert E. Lee, son of Light Horse Harry Lee, the first man in Virginia'—raising her voice as she enumerated his glories."

*William Henry Fitzhugh "Roony" Lee was the second son of Robert E. Lee.

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."

22 July 1861, First Bull Run

"Mrs Davis came in so softly that I did not know she was here until she leaned over me and said–
'A great battle has been fought–Jeff Davis lead the center,* Joe Johnston the right wing, Beauregard the left wing of the army. Your husband is all right. Wade Hampton is wounded. Colonel Johnson of the Legion is killed–so are Colonel Bee and Colonel Bartow. Kirby Smith is wounded or killed.'
I had no heart to speak. She went on in that desperate calm way to which people betake themselves when under greatest excitement. 'Bartow was rallying his men, leading them into the hottest of the fight–died gallantly, at the head of his regiment.

The Battle of First Bull Run,
fought near Manassas, Virginia, 21 July 1861,
the first major battle of the American Civil War

'The president telegraphs me only that "it is a great victory." General Cooper has all the other telegrams.' Still I said nothing. I was stunned. Then I was so grateful those nearest and dearest to me were safe still.
Then she began in the same concentrated voice to read from a paper she held in her hand.
'Dead and dying cover the field. Sherman's battery taken, Lynchburg regiment cut to pieces. Three hundred of the Legion wounded.'
They got me up. Times were too wild with excitement to stay in bed."

*On 24 July 1861 Mary Chesnut noted, regarding First Bull Run:
"The president took all the credit to himself for the victory—said the wounded roused and shouted for Jeff Davis and the men rallied at the sight of him and rushed on and routed the enemy. The truth is, Jeff Davis was not two miles from the battlefield, but he is greedy for military fame."

16 July 1861, Richmond

"As far as I can make out, Beauregard sent Mr Chestnut to the president to gain permission for the forces of Johnston and Beauregard to join and, united, to push the enemy if possible over the Potomac.
Now every day we grow weaker and they stronger, so we had better give a telling blow at once."