A Diary From Dixie (Civil War Memoir). Mary Boykin Chesnut
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there. Mr. Davis rode a beautiful gray horse, the Arab Edwin de Leon brought him from Egypt. His worst enemy will allow that he is a consummate rider, graceful and easy in the saddle, and Mr. Chesnut, who has talked horse with his father ever since he was born, owns that Mr. Davis knows more about horses than any man he has met yet. General Lee was there with him; also Joe Davis and Wigfall acting as his aides.
Poor Mr. Lamar has been brought from his camp - paralysis or some sort of shock. Every woman in the house is ready to rush into the Florence Nightingale business. I think I will wait for a wounded man, to make my first effort as Sister of Charity. Mr. Lamar sent for me. As everybody went, Mr. Davis setting the example, so did I. Lamar will not die this time. Will men flatter and make eyes, until their eyes close in death, at the ministering angels? He was the same old Lamar of the drawing-room.
It is pleasant at the President's table. My seat is next to Joe Davis, with Mr. Browne on the other side, and Mr. Mallory opposite. There is great constraint, however. As soon as I came I repeated what the North Carolina man said on the cars, that North Carolina had 20,000 men ready and they were kept back by Mr. Walker, etc. The President caught something of what I was saying, and asked me to repeat it, which I did, although I was scared to death. "Madame, when you see that person tell him his statement is false. We are too anxious here for troops to refuse a man who offers himself, not to speak of 20,000 men." Silence ensued - of the most profound.
Uncle H. gave me three hundred dollars for his daughter Mary's expenses, making four in all that I have of hers. He would pay me one hundred, which he said he owed my husband for a horse. I thought it an excuse to lend me money. I told him I had enough and to spare for all my needs until my Colonel came home from the wars.
Ben Allston, the Governor's son, is here - came to see me; does not show much of the wit of the Petigrus; pleasant person, however. Mr. Brewster and Wigfall came at the same time. The former, chafing at Wigfall's anomalous position here, gave him fiery advice. Mr. Wigfall was calm and full of common sense. A brave man, and without a thought of any necessity for displaying his temper, he said: "Brewster, at this time, before the country is strong and settled in her new career, it would be disastrous for us, the head men, to engage in a row among ourselves."
As I was brushing flies away and fanning the prostrate Lamar, I reported Mr. Davis's conversation of the night before. "He is all right," said Mr. Lamar, "the fight had to come. We are men, not women. The quarrel had lasted long enough. We hate each other so, the fight had to come. Even Homer's heroes, after they had stormed and scolded enough, fought like brave men, long and well. If the athlete, Sumner, had stood on his manhood and training and struck back when Preston Brooks assailed him, Preston Brooks's blow need not have been the opening skirmish of the war. Sumner's country took up the fight because he did not. Sumner chose his own battle-field, and it was the worse for us. What an awful blunder that Preston Brooks business was!" Lamar said Yankees did not fight for the fun of it; they always made it pay or let it alone.
Met Mr. Lyon with news, indeed - a man here in the midst of us, taken with Lincoln's passports, etc., in his pocket - a palpable spy. Mr. Lyon said he would be hanged - in all human probability, that is.
A letter from my husband written at Camp Pickens, and saying: "If you and Mrs. Preston can make up your minds to leave Richmond, and can come up to a nice little country house near Orange Court House, we could come to see you frequently while the army is stationed here. It would be a safe place for the present, near the scene of action, and directly in the line of news from all sides." So we go to Orange Court House.
Read the story of Soulouque,47 the Haytian man: he has wonderful interest just now. Slavery has to go, of course, and joy go with it. These Yankees may kill us and lay waste our land for a while, but conquer us - never!
July 4th. - Russell abuses us in his letters. People here care a great deal for what Russell says, because he represents the London Times, and the Times reflects the sentiment of the English people. How we do cling to the idea of an alliance with England or France! Without France even Washington could not have done it.
We drove to the camp to see the President present a flag to a Maryland regiment. Having lived on the battlefield (Kirkwood), near Camden,48 we have an immense respect for the Maryland line. When our militia in that fight ran away, Colonel Howard and the Marylanders held their own against Rawdon, Cornwallis, and the rest, and everywhere around are places named for a doughty captain killed in our defense - Kirkwood, De Kalb, etc. The last, however, was a Prussian count. A letter from my husband, written June 22d, has just reached me. He says:
"We are very strongly posted, entrenched, and have now at our command about 15,000 of the best troops in the world. We have besides, two batteries of artillery, a regiment of cavalry, and daily expect a battalion of flying artillery from Richmond. We have sent forward seven regiments of infantry and rifles toward Alexandria. Our outposts have felt the enemy several times, and in every instance the enemy recoils. General Johnston has had several encounters - the advancing columns of the two armies - and with him, too, the enemy, although always superior in numbers, are invariably driven back.
"There is great deficiency in the matter of ammunition. General Johnston's command, in the very face of overwhelming numbers, have only thirty rounds each. If they had been well provided in this respect, they could and would have defeated Cadwallader and Paterson with great ease. I find the opinion prevails throughout the army that there is great imbecility and shameful neglect in the War Department.
"Unless the Republicans fall back, we must soon come together on both lines, and have a decided engagement. But the opinion prevails here that Lincoln's army will not meet us if they can avoid it. They have already fallen back before a slight check from 400 of Johnston's men. They had 700 and were badly beaten. You have no idea how dirty and irksome the camp life is. You would hardly know your best friend in camp guise."
Noise of drums, tramp of marching regiments all day long; rattling of artillery wagons, bands of music, friends from every quarter coming in. We ought to be miserable and anxious, and yet these are pleasant days. Perhaps we are unnaturally exhilarated and excited.
Heard some people in the drawing-room say: "Mrs. Davis's ladies are not young, are not pretty," and I am one of them. The truthfulness of the remark did not tend to alleviate its bitterness. We must put Maggie Howell and Mary Hammy in the foreground, as youth and beauty are in request. At least they are young things - bright spots in a somber-tinted picture. The President does not forbid our going, but he is very much averse to it. We are consequently frightened by our own audacity, but we are wilful women, and so we go.
45. Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus Lamar, a native of Georgia and of Huguenot descent, who got his classical names from his father: his father got them from an uncle who claimed the privilege of bestowing upon his nephew the full name of his favorite hero. When the war began, Mr. Lamar had lived for some years in Mississippi, where he had become successful. as a lawyer and had been elected to Congress. He entered the Confederate Army as the Colonel of a Mississippi regiment. He served in Congress after the war and was elected to the United States Senate in 1877. In 1885 he became Secretary of the Interior, and in 1888, a justice of the United States Supreme Court.
46. Bradley Tyler Johnson, a native of Maryland, and graduate of Princeton, who had studied law at Harvard. At the beginning of the war he organized a company at his own expense in defense of the South. He was the author of a Life of General Joseph E. Johnston.
47. Faustin Elie Soulouque, a negro slave of Hayti, who, having been freed, took part in the insurrection against the French in 1803, and rose by successive steps until in August, 1849, by the unanimous action of the parliament, he was proclaimed emperor.
48. At Camden in August, 1780, was fought a battle between General