A Diary From Dixie Part 19

Flirtation is the business of society; that is, playing at * * *

339 love-making. It begins in vanity, it ends in vanity. It is spurred on by idleness and a want of any other excitement. Flattery, battledore and shuttlec.o.c.k, how in this game flattery is dashed backward and forward. It is so soothing to self-conceit. If it begins and ends in vanity, vexation of spirit supervenes sometimes. They do occasionally burn their fingers awfully, playing with fire, but there are no hearts broken. Each party in a flirtation has secured a sympathetic listener, to whom he or she can talk of himself or herself - somebody who, for the time, admires one exclusively, and, as the French say, excessivement. It is a pleasant, but very foolish game, and so to bed.

Hood and Thomas have had a fearful fight, with carnage and loss of generals excessive in proportion to numbers. That means they were leading and urging their men up to the enemy. I know how Bartow and Barnard Bee were killed bringing up their men. One of Mr. Chesnut's sins thrown in his teeth by the Legislature of South Carolina was that he procured the promotion of Gist, "State Rights" Gist, by his influence in Richmond. What have these comfortable, stay-at-home patriots to say of General Gist now? "And how could man die better than facing fearful odds," etc.

So Fort McAlister has fallen! Good-by, Savannah! Our Governor announces himself a follower of Joe Brown, of Georgia. Another famous Joe.

December 19th. - The deep waters are closing over us and we are in this house, like the outsiders at the time of the flood. We care for none of these things. We eat, drink, laugh, dance, in lightness of heart.

Doctor Trezevant came to tell me the dismal news. How he piled on the agony! Desolation, mismanagement, despair. General Young, with the flower of Hampton's cavalry, is in Columbia. Horses can not be found to mount them. Neither the Governor of Georgia nor the Governor of South Carolina is moving hand or foot. They have given * * *

340 up. The Yankees claim another victory for Thomas.1 Hope it may prove like most of their victories, brag and bl.u.s.ter. Can't say why, maybe I am benumbed, but I do not feel so intensely miserable.

December 27th. - Oh, why did we go to Camden? The very dismalest Christmas overtook us there. Miss Rhett went with us - a brilliant woman and very agreeable. "The world, you know, is composed," said she, "of men, women, and Rhetts" (see Lady Montagu). Now, we feel that if we are to lose our negroes, we would as soon see Sherman free them as the Confederate Government; freeing negroes is the last Confederate Government craze. We are a little too slow about it; that is all.

Sold fifteen bales of cotton and took a sad farewell look at Mulberry. It is a magnificent old country-seat, with old oaks, green lawns and all. So I took that last farewell of Mulberry, once so hated, now so beloved.

January 7th. - Sherman is at Hardieville and Hood in Tennessee, the last of his men not gone, as Louis Wigfall so cheerfully prophesied.

Serena went for a half-hour to-day to the dentist. Her teeth are of the whitest and most regular, simply perfection. She fancied it was better to have a dentist look in her mouth before returning to the mountains. For that look she paid three hundred and fifty dollars in Confederate money. "Why, has this money any value at all?" she asked. Little enough in all truth, sad to say.

Brewster was here and stayed till midnight. Said he must see General Chesnut. He had business with him. His "me and General Hood" is no longer comic. He described Sherman's march of destruction and desolation. "Sherman leaves a track fifty miles wide, upon which there 1. Reference is here made to the battle between Hood and Thomas at Nashville, the result of which was the breaking up of Hood's army as a fighting force.

341 is no living thing to be seen," said Brewster before he departed.

January 10th. - You do the Anabasis business when you want to get out of the enemy's country, and the Thermopylae business when they want to get into your country. But we retreated in our own country and we gave up our mountain pa.s.ses without a blow. But never mind the Greeks; if we had only our own Game c.o.c.k, Sumter, our own Swamp Fox, Marion. Marion's men or Sumter's, or the equivalent of them, now lie under the sod, in Virginia or Tennessee.

January 14th. - Yesterday I broke down - gave way to abject terror under the news of Sherman's advance with no news of my husband. To-day, while wrapped up on the sofa, too dismal even for moaning, there was a loud knock. Shawls on and all, just as I was, I rushed to the door to find a telegram from my husband: "All well; be at home Tuesday." It was dated from Adam's Run. I felt as lighthearted as if the war were over. Then I looked at the date and the place - Adam's Run. It ends as it began - in a run -Bull's Run, from which their first sprightly running astounded the world, and now Adam's Run. But if we must run, who are left to run? From Bull Run they ran full-handed. But we have fought until maimed soldiers, women, and children are all that remain to run.

To-day Kershaw's brigade, or what is left of it, pa.s.sed through. What shouts greeted it and what bold shouts of thanks it returned! It was all a very encouraging noise, absolutely comforting. Some true men are left, after all.

January 16th. - My husband is at home once more - for how long, I do not know. His aides fill the house, and a group of hopelessly wounded haunt the place. The drilling and the marching go on outside. It rains a flood, with freshet after freshet. The forces of nature are befriending us, for our enemies have to make their way through swamps.

A month ago my husband wrote me a letter which I promptly suppressed after showing it to Mrs. McCord. He * * *

342 warned us to make ready, for the end had come. Our resources were exhausted, and the means of resistance could not be found. We could not bring ourselves to believe it, and now, he thinks, with the railroad all blown up, the swamps made impa.s.sable by the freshets, which have no time to subside, so constant is the rain, and the negroes utterly apathetic (would they be so if they saw us triumphant?), if we had but an army to seize the opportunity we might do something; but there are no troops; that is the real trouble.

To-day Mrs. McCord exchanged $16,000 in Confederate bills for $300 in gold - sixteen thousand for three hundred.

January 17th. - The Bazaar for the benefit of the hospitals opens now. Sherman marches constantly. All the railroads are smashed, and if I laugh at any mortal thing it is that I may not weep. Generals are as plenty as blackberries, but none are in command.

The Peace Commissioner, Blair, came. They say he gave Mr. Davis the kiss of peace. And we send Stephens, Campbell, all who have believed in this thing, to negotiate for peace. No hope, no good. Who dares hope?

Repressed excitement in church. A great railroad character was called out. He soon returned and whispered something to Joe Johnston and they went out together. Somehow the whisper moved around to us that Sherman was at Branchville. "Grant us patience, good Lord," was prayed aloud. "Not Ulysses Grant, good Lord," murmured Teddy, profanely. Hood came yesterday. He is staying at the Prestons' with Jack. They sent for us. What a heartfelt greeting he gave us. He can stand well enough without his crutch, but he does very slow walking. How plainly he spoke out dreadful words about "my defeat and discomfiture; my army destroyed, my losses," etc., etc. He said he had n.o.body to blame but himself. A telegram from Beauregard to-day to my husband. He does not know whether Sherman intends to advance on Branchville, Charleston, or Columbia.

343 Isabella said: "Maybe you attempted the impossible," and began one of her merriest stories. Jack Preston touched me on the arm and we slipped out. "He did not hear a word she was saying. He has forgotten us all. Did you notice how he stared in the fire? And the lurid spots which came out in his face and the drops of perspiration that stood on his forehead?" "Yes. He is going over some bitter scene; he sees Willie Preston with his heart shot away. He sees the panic at Nashville and the dead on the battlefield at Franklin." "That agony on his face comes again and again," said tender-hearted Jack. "I can't keep him out of those absent fits."

Governor McGrath and General Winder talk of preparations for a defense of Columbia. If Beauregard can't stop Sherman down there, what have we got here to do it with? Can we cheek or impede his march? Can any one?

Last night General Hampton came in. I am sure he would do something to save us if he were put in supreme command here. Hampton says Joe Johnston is equal, if not superior, to Lee as a commanding officer.

My silver is in a box and has been delivered for safe keeping to Isaac McLaughlin, who is really my beau-ideal of a grateful negro. I mean to trust him. My husband cares for none of these things now, and lets me do as I please.

Tom Archer died almost as soon as he got to Richmond. Prison takes the life out of men. He was only half-alive when here. He had a strange, pallid look and such a vacant stare until you roused him. Poor pretty Sally Archer: that is the end of you.1 1. Under last date entry, January 17th, the author chronicles events of later occurrence; it was her not infrequent custom to jot down happenings in dateless lines or paragraphs. Mr. Blair visited President Davis January 12th; Stephens, Hunter and Campbell were appointed Peace Commissioners, January 28th.

344

XIX. LINCOLNTON, N. C.

February 16,1865 - March 15,1865 Lincolnton, N.C., February 16, 1865. - A change has come o'er the spirit of my dream. Dear old quire of yellow, coa.r.s.e, Confederate home-made paper, here you are again. An age of anxiety and suffering has pa.s.sed over my head since last I wrote and wept over your forlorn pages.

My ideas of those last days are confused. The Martins left Columbia the Friday before I did, and 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 up-stairs 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 were to go only as far as Yorkville. He said it was time to move on. Sherman was at Orangeburg, barely a day's journey from Columbia, and had left a track as bare and blackened as a fire leaves on 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 against that old town, as they have against Charleston and Columbia. Molly, weeping and wailing, came in while we were at table. Wiping her red-hot face with the cook's grimy ap.r.o.n, she said I ought to go among our own black people on the plantation; they would take care of me better than any one else. So I agreed to go to Mulberry or * * *

345 the Hermitage plantation, and sent Lawrence down 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, 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, am half-way to Kate at Flat Rock, and there is no Federal army between me and Richmond.

As soon as my mind was finally made up, we telegraphed to Lawrence, who had barely got to Camden in the wagon when the telegram was handed to him; so he took the train and came back. Mr. Chesnut sent him with us to take care of the party.

We thought that if the negroes were ever so loyal to us, they could not protect me from an army bent upon sweeping us from the face of the earth, and if they tried to do so so much the worse would it be for the poor things with their Yankee friends. I then left them to s.h.i.+ft for themselves, as they are accustomed to do, and I took the same liberty. My husband does not care a fig for the property question, and never did. Perhaps, if he had ever known poverty, it would be different. He talked beautifully about it, as he always does about everything. I have told him often that, if at heaven's gate St. Peter would listen to him a while, and let him tell his own story, he would get in, and the angels might give him a crown extra.

Now he says he has only one care - that I should be safe, and not so hara.s.sed with dread; and then there is his blind old father. "A man," said he, "can always die like a patriot and a gentleman, with no fuss, and take it coolly. It is hard not to envy those who are out of all this, their difficulties ended - those who have met death gloriously on the battle-field, their doubts all solved. One can but do his best and leave the result to a higher power."

346 After New Orleans, those vain, pa.s.sionate, impatient little Creoles were forever committing suicide, driven to it by despair and "Beast" Butler. As we read these things, Mrs. Davis said: "If they want to die, why not first kill 'Beast' Butler, rid the world of their foe and be saved the trouble of murdering themselves?" That practical way of removing their intolerable burden did not occur to them. I repeated this suggestive anecdote to our corps of generals without troops, here in this house, as they spread out their maps on my table where lay this quire of paper from which I write. Every man Jack of them had a safe plan to stop Sherman, if - Even Beauregard and Lee were expected, but Grant had double-teamed on Lee. Lee could not save his own - how could he come to save us? Read the list of the dead in those last battles around Richmond and Petersburg1 if you want to break your heart.

I took French leave of Columbia - slipped away without a word to anybody. Isaac Hayne and Mr. Chesnut came down to the Charlotte depot with me. Ellen, my maid, left her husband and only child, but she was willing to come, and, indeed, was very cheerful in her way of looking at it.

"I wan' travel 'roun' wid Missis some time - stid uh Molly goin' all de time."

A woman, fifty years old at least, and uglier than she was old, sharply rebuked my husband for standing at the car window for a last few words with me. She said rudely: "Stand aside, sir! I want air!" With his hat off, and his grand air, my husband bowed politely, and said: "In one moment, madam; I have something important to say to my wife."

She talked aloud and introduced herself to every man, 1. Battles at Hatchen's Run, in Virginia, had been fought on February 5, 6, and 7, 1865.

347 claiming his protection. She had never traveled alone before in all her life. Old age and ugliness are protective in some cases. She was ardently patriotic for a while. Then she was joined by her friend, a man as crazy as herself to get out of this. From their talk I gleaned she had been for years in the Treasury Department. They were about to cross the lines. The whole idea was to get away from the trouble to come down here. They were Yankees, but were they not spies?

Here I am broken-hearted and an exile. And in such a place! We have bare floors, and for a feather-bed, pine table, and two chairs I pay $30 a day. Such sheets! But fortunately I have some of my own. At the door, before I was well out of the hack, the woman of the house packed Lawrence back, neck and heels: she would not have him at any price. She treated him as Mr. F.'s aunt did Clenman in Little Dorrit. She said his clothes were too fine for a n.i.g.g.e.r. "His airs, indeed." Poor Lawrence was humble and silent. He said at last, "Miss Mary, send me back to Mars Jeems." I began to look for a pencil to write a note to my husband, but in the flurry could not find one. "Here is one," said Lawrence, producing one with a gold case. "Go away," she shouted, "I want no n.i.g.g.e.rs here with gold pencils and airs." So Lawrence fled before the storm, but not before he had begged me to go back. He said, "if Mars Jeems knew how you was treated he'd never be willing for you to stay here."

The Martins had seen my, to them, well-known traveling case as the hack trotted up Main Street, and they arrived at this juncture out of breath. We embraced and wept. I kept my room.

The Fants are refugees here, too; they are Virginians, and have been in exile since the second battle of Mana.s.sas. Poor things; they seem to have been everywhere, and seen and suffered everything. They even tried to go back to their own house, but found one chimney only standing * * *

348 alone; even that had been taken possession of by a Yankee who had written his name upon it.

The day I left home I had packed a box of flour, sugar rice, and coffee, but my husband would not let me bring it. He said I was coming to a land of plenty - unexplored North Carolina, where the foot of the Yankee marauder was unknown, and in Columbia they would need food. Now I have written for that box and many other things to be sent me by Lawrence, or I shall starve.

The Middletons have come. How joyously I sprang to my feet to greet them. Mrs. Ben Rutledge described the hubbub in Columbia. Everybody was flying in every direction like a flock of swallows. She heard the enemy's guns booming in the distance. The train no longer run, from Charlotte to Columbia. Miss Middleton possesses her soul in peace. She is as cool, clever, rational, and entertaining as ever, and we talked for hours. Mrs. Reed was in a state of despair. I can well understand that sinking of mind and body during the first days as the abject misery of it all closes in upon you. I remember my suicidal tendencies when I first came here.

February 18th. - Here I am, thank G.o.d, settled at the McLean's, in a clean, comfortable room, airy and cozy. With a grateful heart I stir up my own bright wood fire My bill for four days at this splendid hotel here was $240 with $25 additional for fire. But once more my lines have fallen in pleasant places.

As we came up on the train from Charlotte a soldier took out of his pocket a filthy rag. If it had lain in the gutter for months it could not have looked worse. He unwrapped the thing carefully and took out two biscuits of the species known as "hard tack." Then he gallantly handed me one and with an ingratiating smile asked me "to take some." Then he explained, saying, "Please take these two; swap with me; give me something softer that I can eat; I am very weak still." Immediately, for his benefit, my basket of * * *

349 luncheon was emptied, but as for his biscuit, I would not choose any. Isabella asked, "But what did you say to him when he poked them under your nose?" and I replied, "I held up both hands, saying, 'I would not take from you anything that is yours - far from it! I would not touch them for worlds.' "

A tremendous day's work and I helped with a will; our window gla.s.s was all to be washed. Then the bra.s.s andirons were to be polished. After we rubbed them bright how pretty they were.

Presently Ellen would have none of me. She was scrubbing the floor. "You go - dat's a good missis - an' stay to Miss Isabella's till de flo' dry." I am very docile now, and I obeyed orders.

February 19th. - The Fants say all the trouble at the hotel came from our servants' bragging. They represented us as millionaires, and the Middleton men servants smoked cigars. Mrs. Reed's averred that he had never done anything in his life but stand behind his master at table with a silver waiter in his hand. We were charged accordingly, but perhaps the landlady did not get the best of us after all, for we paid her in Confederate money. Now that they won't take Confederate money in the shops here how are we to live? Miss Middleton says quartermasters' families are all clad in good gray cloth, but the soldiers go naked. Well, we are like the families of whom the novels always say they are poor but honest. Poor? Well-nigh beggars are we, for I do not know where my next meal is to come from.

Called on Mrs. Ben Rutledge to-day. She is lovely, exquisitely refined. Her mother, Mrs. Middleton, came in. "You are not looking well, dear? Anything the matter?" "No - but, mamma, I have not eaten a mouthful to-day. The children can eat mush; I can't. I drank my tea, however." She does not understand taking favors, and, blus.h.i.+ng violently, refused to let me have Ellen make her some biscuit. I went home and sent her some biscuit all the same.

350 February 22d. - Isabella has been reading my diaries. How we laugh because my sage divinations all come to naught. My famous "insight into character" is utter folly. The diaries were lying on the hearth ready to be burned, but she told me to hold on to them; think of them a while and don't be rash. Afterward when Isabella and I were taking a walk, General Joseph E. Johnston joined us. He explained to us all of Lee's and Stonewall Jackson's mistakes. We had nothing to say - how could we say anything? He said he was very angry when he was ordered to take command again. He might well have been in a genuine rage. This on and off procedure would be enough to bewilder the coolest head. Mrs. Johnston knows how to be a partizan of Joe Johnston and still not make his enemies uncomfortable. She can be pleasant and agreeable, as she was to my face.

A letter from my husband who is at Charlotte. He came near being taken a prisoner in Columbia, for he was asleep the morning of the 17th, when the Yankees blew up the railroad depot. That woke him, of course, and he found everybody had left Columbia, and the town was surrendered by the mayor, Colonel Goodwyn. Hampton and his command had been gone several hours. Isaac Hayne came away with General Chesnut. There was no fire in the town when they left. They overtook Hampton's command at Meek's Mill. That night, from the hills where they encamped, they saw the fire, and knew the Yankees were burning the town, as we had every reason to expect they would. Molly was left in charge of everything of mine, including Mrs. Preston's cow, which I was keeping, and Sally Goodwyn's furniture.

Charleston and Wilmington have surrendered. I have no further use for a newspaper. I never want to see another one as long as I live. Wade Hampton has been made a lieutenant-general, too late. If he had been made one and given command in South Carolina six months ago I believe he would have saved us. Shame, disgrace, beggary, all * * *

350a RUINS OF MILLWOOD, WADE HAMPTON'S ANCESTRAL HOME.

From a Recent Photograph.

351 have come at once, and are hard to bear - the grand smas.h.!.+ Rain, rain, outside, and naught but drowning floods of tears inside. I could not bear it; so I rushed down in that rainstorm to the Martins'. Rev. Mr. Martin met me at the door. "Madam," said he, "Columbia is burned to the ground." I bowed my head and sobbed aloud. "Stop that!" he said, trying to speak cheerfully. "Come here, wife," said he to Mrs. Martin. "This woman cries with her whole heart, just as she laughs." But in spite of his words, his voice broke down, and he was hardly calmer than myself.

February 23d. - I want to get to Kate, I am so utterly heart-broken. I hope John Chesnut and General Chesnut may at least get into the same army. We seem scattered over the face of the earth. Isabella sits there calmly reading. I have quieted down after the day's rampage. May our heavenly Father look down on us and have pity.

They say I was the last refugee from Columbia who was allowed to enter by the door of the cars. The government took possession then and women could only be smuggled in by the windows. Stout ones stuck and had to be pushed, pulled, and hauled in by main force. Dear Mrs. Izard, with all her dignity, was subjected to this rough treatment. She was found almost too much for the size of the car windows.

February 25th. - The Pfeifers, who live opposite us here, are descendants of those Pfeifers who came South with Mr. Chesnut's ancestors after the Fort Duquesne disaster. They have now, therefore, been driven out of their Eden, the valley of Virginia, a second time. The present Pfeifer is the great man, the rich man par excellence of Lincolnton. They say that with something very near to tears in his eyes he heard of our latest defeats. "It is only a question of time with us now," he said. "The raiders will come, you know."

In Was.h.i.+ngton, before I knew any of them. except by * * *

352 sight, Mrs. Davis, Mrs. Emory, and Mrs. Johnston were always together, inseparable friends, and the trio were pointed out to me as the cleverest women in the United States. Now that I do know them all well, I think the world was right in its estimate of them.

Met a Mr. Ancrum of serenely cheerful aspect, happy and hopeful. "All right now," said he. "Sherman sure to be thrashed. Joe Johnston is in command." Dr. Darby says, when the oft-mentioned Joseph, the malcontent, gave up his command to Hood, he remarked with a smile, "I hope you will be able to stop Sherman; it was more than I could do." General Johnston is not of Mr. Ancrum's way of thinking as to his own powers, for he stayed here several days after he was ordered to the front. He must have known he could do no good, and I am of his opinion.

When the wagon, in which I was to travel to Flat Rock, drove up to the door, covered with a tent-like white cloth, in my embarra.s.sment for an opening in the conversation I asked the driver's name. He showed great hesitation in giving it, but at last said: "My name is Sherman," adding, "and now I see by your face that you won't go with me. My name is against me these times." Here he grinned and remarked: "But you would leave Lincolnton."

That name was the last drop in my cup, but I gave him Mrs. Glover's reason for staying here. General Johnston had told her this "might be the safest place after all." He thinks the Yankees are making straight for Richmond and General Lee's rear, and will go by Camden and Lancaster, leaving Lincolnton on their west flank.

The McLeans are kind people. They ask no rent for for their rooms - only $20 a week for firewood. Twenty dollars! and such dollars - mere waste paper.

Mrs. Munroe took up my photograph book, in which I have a picture of all the Yankee generals. "I want to see the men who are to be our masters," said she. "Not mine" I answered, "thank G.o.d, come what may. This * * *

353 was a free fight. We had as much right to fight to get out as they had to fight to keep us in. If they try to play the masters, anywhere upon the habitable globe will I go, never to see a Yankee, and if I die on the way so much the better." Then I sat down and wrote to my husband in language much worse than anything I can put in this book. As I wrote I was blinded by tears of rage. Indeed, I nearly wept myself away.

February 26th. - Mrs. Munroe offered me religious books, which I declined, being already provided with the Lamentations of Jeremiah, the Psalms of David, the denunciations of Hosea, and, above all, the patient wail of Job. Job is my comforter now. I should be so thankful to know life never would be any worse with me. My husband is well, and has been ordered to join the great Retreater. I am bodily comfortable, if somewhat dingily lodged, and I daily part with my raiment for food. We find no one who will exchange eatables for Confederate money; so we are devouring our clothes.

Opportunities for social enjoyment are not wanting. Miss Middleton and Isabella often drink a cup of tea with me. One might search the whole world and not find two cleverer or more agreeable women. Miss Middleton is brilliant and accomplished. She must have been a hard student all her life. She knows everybody worth knowing, and she has been everywhere. Then she is so high-bred, high-hearted, pure, and true. She is so clean-minded; she could not harbor a wrong thought. She is utterly unselfish, a devoted daughter and sister. She is one among the many large-brained women a kind Providence has thrown in my way, such as Mrs. McCord, daughter of Judge Cheves; Mary Preston Darby, Mrs. Emory, granddaughter of old Franklin, the American wise man, and Mrs. Jefferson Davis. How I love to praise my friends!

As a ray of artificial suns.h.i.+ne, Mrs. Munroe sent me an Examiner. Daniel thinks we are at the last gasp, and now * * *

354 England and France are bound to step in. England must know if the United States of America are triumphant they will tackle her next, and France must wonder if she will not have to give up Mexico. My faith fails me. It is all too late; no help for us now from G.o.d or man.

Thomas, Daniel says, was now to ravage Georgia, but Sherman, from all accounts, has done that work once for all. There will be no aftermath. They say no living thing is found in Sherman's track, only chimneys, like telegraph poles, to carry the news of Sherman's army backward.

In all that tropical down-pour, Mrs. Munroe sent me overshoes and an umbrella, with the message, "Come over" I went, for it would be as well to drown in the streets as to hang myself at home to my own bedpost. At Mrs. Munroe's I met a Miss McDaniel. Her father, for seven years, was the Methodist preacher at our negro church. The negro church is in a grove just opposite Mulberry house. She says her father has so often described that fine old establishment and its beautiful lawn, live-oaks, etc. Now, I dare say there stand at Mulberry only Sherman's sentinels -stacks of chimneys. We have made up our minds for the worst. Mulberry house is no doubt razed to the ground.

Miss McDaniel was inclined to praise us. She said: "As a general rule the Episcopal minister went to the family mansion, and the Methodist missionary preached to the negroes and dined with the overseer at his house, but at Mulberry her father always stayed at the 'House,' and the family were so kind and attentive to him." It was rather pleasant to hear one's family so spoken of among strangers.

So, well equipped to brave the weather, armed cap-a-pie, so to speak, I continued my prowl farther afield and brought up at the Middletons'. I may have surprised them for "at such an inclement season" they hardly expected a visitor. Never, however, did lonely old woman receive such a warm and hearty welcome. Now we know the worst. Are * * *

355 we growing hardened? We avoid all allusion to Columbia; we never speak of home, and we begin to deride the certain poverty that lies ahead.

How it pours! Could I live many days in solitary confinement? Things are beginning to be unbearable, but I must sit down and be satisfied. My husband is safe so far. Let me be thankful it is no worse with me. But there is the gnawing pain all the same. What is the good of being here at all, Our world has simply gone to destruction. And across the way the fair Lydia languishes. She has not even my resources against ennui. She has no Isabella, no Miss Middleton, two as brilliant women as any in Christendom. Oh, how does she stand it! I mean to go to church if it rains cats and dogs. My feet are wet two or three times a day. We never take cold; our hearts are too hot within us for that.

A carriage was driven up to the door as I was writing. I began to tie on my bonnet, and said to myself in the gla.s.s, "Oh, you lucky woman!" I was all in a tremble, so great was my haste to be out of this. Mrs. Glover had the carriage. She came for me to go and hear Mr. Martin preach. He lifts our spirits from this dull earth; he takes us up to heaven. That I will not deny. Still he can not hold my attention; my heart wanders and my mind strays back to South Carolina. Oh, vandal Sherman! what are you at there, hard-hearted wretch that you are! A letter from General Chesnut, who writes from camp near Charlotte under date of February 28th: "I thank you a thousand, thousand times for your kind letters. They are now my only earthly comfort, except the hope that all is not yet lost. We have been driven like a wild herd from our country. And it is not from a want of spirit in the people or soldiers, nor from want of energy and competency in our commanders. The restoration of Joe Johnston, it is hoped, will redound to the advantage of our cause and the reestablishment of our fortunes! I * * *

356 am still in not very agreeable circ.u.mstances. For the last four days completely water-bound.

"I am informed that a detachment of Yankees were sent from Liberty Hill to Camden with a view to destroying all the houses, mills, and provisions about that place. No particulars have reached me. You know I expected the worst that could be done, and am fully prepared for any report which may be made.

"It would be a happiness beyond expression to see you even for an hour. I have heard nothing from my poor old father. I fear I shall never see him again. Such is the fate of war. I do not complain. I have deliberately chosen my lot, and am prepared for any fate that awaits me. My care is for you, and I trust still in the good cause of my country and the justice and mercy of G.o.d."

It was a lively, rus.h.i.+ng, young set that South Carolina put to the fore. They knew it was a time of imminent danger, and that the fight would be ten to one. They expected to win by activity, energy, and enthusiasm. Then came the wet blanket, the croakers; now, these are posing, wrapping Csar's mantle about their heads to fall with dignity. Those gallant youths who dashed so gaily to the front lie mostly in b.l.o.o.d.y graves. Well for them, maybe. There are worse things than honorable graves. Wearisome thoughts. Late in life we are to begin anew and have laborious, difficult days ahead.

We have contradictory testimony. Governor Aiken has pa.s.sed through, saying Sherman left Columbia as he found it, and was last heard from at Cheraw. Dr. Chisolm walked home with me. He says that is the last version of the story; Now my husband wrote that he himself saw the fires which burned up Columbia. The first night his camp was near enough to the town for that.