Part 6 (1/2)
August 1st - Mrs Wigfall, with the ”Lone Star” flag in her carriage, called for rounds Mrs Davis's landau, with her spanking bays, rolled along in front of us The fair grounds are as covered with tents, soldiers, etc, as ever As one regiment moves off to the army, a fresh one from home comes to be mustered in and take its place
The President, with his aides, dashed by My husband was riding with hi to the Texans Mr Chesnut ca, and bore it aloft to the President We seelory We were too far off to hear the speech, but Jeff Davis is very good at that sort of thing, and ere satisfied that it ell done
Heavens! how that redoubtable Wigfall did rush those poor Texans about! He maneuvered and marched them until I eary for their sakes Poor fellows; it was a hot afternoon in August and the therfall replied with his hat on Is that rounds to-day, suchof flags, such firing of guns and all that sort of thing A gala day it ith
97 double-distilled Fourth-of-July feeling In the fall that a telegra her children were safe across the lines in Gordonsville That was so to thank God for, without any doubt
These two little girls cafall's sister - the one who gave otsky, the only person in the world, except Susan Rutledge who ever seemed to think I had a soul to save Now suppose Seward had held Louisa and fanny as hostages for Louis Wigfall's good behavior; eh?
Exciteia General Tooged hihtful Down there a the horses' hoofs was a face turned up toward us, purple with rage His foot was still in the stirrup, and he had not let go the bridle The horse was prancing over hi him in, and they seemed so slow and aard about it We felt it an eternity, looking down at hi hiot it all straight, and, though awfully tousled and tumbled, dusty, rumpled, and flushed, with redder face and wilder hair than ever, he rode off gallantly, having to our ader
Now if I were to pick out the best abused one, where all catch it so bountifully, I should say Mr Commissary-General Northrop was the most ”cussed ” and villifiedthat goes wrong in the ar been a classmate and crony of Jeff Davis at West Point, points the moral and adorns the tale I hear that alluded to oftenest of his ard writes that his are of starvation Here everyto the
98 first lamp-post anybody of whom that army complains Every Manassas soldier is a hero dear to our patriotic hearts Put up with any neglect of the heroes of the 21st July - never!
And now they say we did notfoe because we had no provisions, no wagons, no ammunition, etc Rain, mud, and Northrop Where were the ene? Echo anshere? Where there is a will there is a way We stopped to plunder that rich convoy, and soht the as over and stopped to rejoice: so it appeared here All this was our dinner-table talk to-day Mr Mason dined with us and Mr Barnwell sits by hed at ”this headlong, unreasonable woue and female tactics and their ays” A freshet in the autu Time and tide wait for no ht have led to Washi+ngton, and we did not take it and lost our fortune this round Things which nobody could deny
McClellan virtually supersedes the titan Scott Physically General Scott is the largest man I ever saw Mrs Scott said, ”nobody but his wife could ever kno little he was” And yet they say, old Winfield Scott could have organized an arive hione to Washi+ngton Now the Yankees so far are as little trained as we are; raw troops are they as yet Suppose France takes the other side 1 Jerorandson of Napoleon Bonaparte's brother Jeroraduate of West Point, but had entered the French Ariers, and Italy, taking part in the battle of Balaklava, the siege of Sebastopol, and the battle of Solferino He died in Massachusetts in 1893
99 and we have to meet disciplined and armed men, soldiers who understand war, Frenchmen, with all the elan we boast of
Ransom Calhoun, Willie Preston, and Doctor Nott's boys are here These foolish, rash, hare-brained Southern lads have been within an ace of a fight with a Maryland corounds It is ht anybody, friend or foe Men are thrilling with fiery ardor The red-hot Southernmen, however, were all educated abroad And it is French or German ideas that they are filled with The Marylanders were as rash and reckless as the others, and had their coat-tails ready for anybody to tread on, Donnybrook Fair fashi+on One would think there were Yankees enough and to spare for any killing to be done It began about picketing their horses But these quarrelso soldiers have lovelyus at the Arlington
August 5th - A heavy, heavy heart Another s are all wrong - Beauregard's Jordan had been crossed, not the stream ”in Canaan's fair and happy land, where our possessions lie” They seem to feel that the war is over here, except the President and Mr Barnwell; above all that foreboding friend of un
Another outburst froard is not seconded properly Hlas! To think that anyup in a eneral) could be so puffed up with vanity, so blinded by any false idea of his own consequence as to write, to intimate that man, or men, would sacrifice their country, injure theeneral! Conceit and self-assertion can never reach a higher point than that And yet they give
100 you to understand Mr Davis does not like Beauregard In point of fact they fancy he is jealous of hi the President (ould be hanged at least if things go wrong) will cripple the arh, but you see it is no laughing matter to have our fate in the hands of such self-sufficient, vain, ar
In the ress, while the enterprising Yankees are quadrupling their ariments march away from here The town is croith soldiers These new ones are fairly running in; fearing the ill be over before they get a sight of the fun Every man from every little precinct wants a place in the picture
Tuesday - The North requires 600,000 men to invade us Truly we are a formidable power! The Herald says it is useless to land has made it all up with them, or rather, she will not break with theton and not our friend
Doctor Gibbes is a bird of ill oht of our men have died at the Charlottesville Hospital It seeuns There are 1,100 there hors de combat, and typhoid fever is with the, right and left the letters fly, calling for help from the sister societies at home Good and patriotic women at home are easily stirred to their work
Mary Has to her bow - a fianc in the army, and Doctor Berrien in town To-day she drove out with Major Smith and Colonel Hood Yesterday, Custis Lee was here She is a prudent little puss and needs no good advice, if I were one to give it
Lawrence does all our shopping All his ht it injudicious
101 when gold is at such a pre loose in the tray of a trunk So I have sewed it up in a belt, which I can wear upon an eency The cloth is wadded and s, and can be tied under my hoops aboutis Lawrence wears the sa he may feel or think of my latest fancy Only, I know he asks for twice as ust 8th - To-day I saord captured at Manassas The ht the sword, in the early part of the fray, was taken prisoner by the Yankees They stripped him, possessed themselves of his sleeve-buttons, and were in the act of depriving hian and the play was reversed; proceedings then took the opposite tack
Frohty streafall the worst eneress, a fact which coht to be strengthened; he ought to be upheld A divided house must fall, we all say
Mrs Sam Jones, who is called Becky by her friends and cronies, male and female, said that Mrs Pickens had confided to the aforesaid Jones (ne Taylor, and so of the President Taylor fafall ”described Mrs Davis to Mrs Pickens as a coarse Western wofall had a quarrel of their own out in Texas, and, though reconciled, there was bitterness underneath At first, Mrs Joe Johnston called Mrs Davis ”a Western belle,”1 but when the quarrel between General 1 Mrs Davis was born in Natchez, Mississippi, and educated in Philadelphia She was married to Mr Davis in 1845 In recent years her home has been in New York City, where she still resides (Dec 1904)
102 Johnston and the President broke out, Mrs Johnston took back the ”belle” and substituted ”woman” in the narrative derived fros We had taken three prizes at sea, and brought them in safely, one laden with molasses General Toombs told us the President complimented Mr Chesnut when he described the battle scene to his Cabinet, etc General Toombs is certain Colonel Chesnut will be adiers Next caet the vote of this Congress for President, so we ht count him out
Mr Meynardie first told us how pious a Christian Soldier was Kersha he prayed, got up, dusted his knees and led his e equal to any Old Testa's account of Prince Jerome Napoleon: ”He is stout and he is not handso, and as he reviewed our troops he was terribly overheated” He heard hie, and he was told he had been heard to say with unction ”Allons” ht of the battle-field had ratefully a draft of fiery whisky
Arrago seemed deeply interested in Confederate statistics, and praised our doughty deeds to the skies It was but soldier fare our guests received, though we did our best It was hard sleeping and worse eating in caard is half Frenchman and speaks French like a native So one aard ard speak without the agony 1 Sainia, who had risen to be a captain in the United States Navy At the time of Secession he received a commission as Co words in the foreign language and for them, with damp brow, into sentences A different fate befell others who spoke ”a little French”
General and Mrs Cooper came to see us She is Mrs Se Mason - in Virginia a nae 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 randsons and George Mason's? I do not see that it helps theton writes ton any day for a week after Manassas, such were the consternation and confusion there But the God Pan was still blowing his horn in the woods Now she says Northern troops are literally pouring in froround And she thinks we have lost our chance forever
A entle him with, ”Well, sir, and what is your business?”) described the battle of the 21st as one succession of blunders, redeee of the two-thirds who did not run away on our side Doctor Mason said a fugitive on the other side informed him that ”a million of men with the devil at their back could not have whipped the rebels at Bull Run” That's nice
There must be opposition in a free country But it is very uncomfortable ”United we stand, divided we fall” Mrs Davis showed us in The New York Tribune an extract fro, ”Cobb is our man Davis is at heart a reconstructionist” We nificance; but Mrs Preston and reeh Wewith the powers that be, if we can and where we can, be the fault-finders generals or Cabinet Ministers
August 13th - Hon Robert Barnwell says, ”The Mercury's influence began this opposition to Jeff Davis before he had ti They were offended, not with him so much as with the htful place The latter had howled nullification and secession so long that when he found his ideas taken up by all the Confederate world, he felt he had a vested right to leadershi+p”
Jordan, Beauregard's aide, still writes to Mr Chesnut that thethe raw troops in that ca all they can Think of the British sick and wounded away off in the Crimea Our people are only a half-day's journey by rail frorateful heart I record the fact of reconciliation with the Wigfalls They dined at the President's yesterday and the little Wigfall girls stayed all night
Seward is fting the outsiders, the cousin of the Emperor, Napoleon III, and Russell, of the oht there was a crowd of men to see us and they were so markedly critical I s, but sleep and heat overcame me To-day I can not remember a word One of Mr Mason's stories relates to our sources of trustworthy infor on the platform at the depot, announced, ”I am just from the seat of war” Out came pencil and paper from the newspaper men on the qui vive ”Is Fairfax Court House burned?” they asked ”Yes, burned yesterday” ”But
105 I a there all right an hour or so ago” ”Oh! But I must do them justice to say they burned only the tavern, for they did not want to tear up and burn anything else after the railroad” ”There is no railroad at Fairfax Court House,” objected the man just from Fairfax ”Oh! Indeed!” said the seat-of-war man, ”I did not know that; is that so?” And he coolly seated hi else
Our people are lashi+ng theainst the prisoners Only the mob in any country would do that But I aotten, and the prisoners will be treated as prisoners of war ought to be in a civilized country
August 15th - Mrs Randolph came With her were the Freelands, Rose and Maria The nificent speci Southern woman-kind Clear brunette she is, with the reddest lips, the whitest teeth, and glorious eyes; there is no other word for the Southern beauties, Mr Clayton said Prentiss was the finest Southern orator Mr Marshall and Mr Barnwell dissented; they preferred William C Preston Mr Chesnut had found Colquitt the best or most effective stump orator
Saw Henry Deas Nott He is just from Paris, via New York Says New York is ablaze withthe Crimean as there ever in Paris the show of soldiers preparing for the war such as he saw at New York The face of the earth seeiments