A Diary From Dixie Part 4

Charleston people are thin-skinned. They shrink from Russell's touches. I find his criticisms mild. He has a light touch. I expected so much worse. Those Englishmen come, somebody says, with three P's - pen, paper, prejudices. I dread some of those after-dinner stories. As to * * *

61 that day in the harbor, he let us off easily. He says our men are so fine looking. Who denies it? Not one of us. Also that it is a silly impression which has gone abroad that men can not work in this climate. We live in the open air, and work like Trojans at all manly sports, riding hard, hunting, playing at being soldiers. These fine, manly specimens have been in the habit of leaving the coast when it became too hot there, and also of fighting a duel or two, if kept long sweltering under a Charleston sun. Handsome youths, whose size and muscle he admired so much as they prowled around the Mills House, would not relish hard work in the fields between May and December. Negroes stand a tropical or semitropical sun at noon-day better than white men. In fighting it is different. Men will not then mind sun, or rain, or wind.

Major Emory,1 when he was ordered West, placed his resignation in the hands of his Maryland brothers. After the Baltimore row the brothers sent it in, but Maryland declined to secede. Mrs. Emory, who at least is two-thirds of that copartners.h.i.+p, being old Franklin's granddaughter, and true to her blood, tried to get it back. The President refused point blank, though she went on her knees. That I do not believe. The Franklin race are stiff-necked and stiff-kneed; not much given to kneeling to G.o.d or man from all accounts.

If Major Emory comes to us won't he have a good time? Mrs. Davis adores Mrs. Emory. No wonder I fell in love with her myself. I heard of her before I saw her in 1. William H. Emory had served in Charleston harbor during the Nullification troubles of 1831-1836. In 1846 he went to California, afterward served in the Mexican War, and later a.s.sisted in running the boundary line between Mexico and the United States under the Gadsden Treaty of 1853. In 1854 he was in Kansas and in 1858 in Utah. After resigning his commission, as related by the author, he was reappointed a Lieutenant-Colonel in the United States Army and took an active part in the war on the side of the North.

62 this wise. Little Banks told me the story. She was dancing at a ball when some bad accident maker for the Evening News rushed up and informed her that Major Emory had been ma.s.sacred by ten Indians somewhere out West. She coolly answered him that she had later intelligence; it was not so. Turning a deaf ear then, she went on dancing. Next night the same officious fool met her with this congratulation: "Oh, Mrs. Emory, it was all a hoax! The Major is alive." She cried: "You are always running about with your bad news," and turned her back on him; or, I think it was, "You delight in spiteful stories," or, "You are a harbinger of evil." Banks is a newspaper man and knows how to arrange an anecdote for effect.

June 12th. - Have been looking at Mrs. O'Dowd as she burnished the "Meejor's arrms" before Waterloo. And I have been busy, too. My husband has gone to join Beauregard, somewhere beyond Richmond. I feel blue-black with melancholy. But I hope to be in Richmond before long myself. That is some comfort.

The war is making us all tenderly sentimental. No casualties yet, no real mourning, n.o.body hurt. So it is all parade, fife, and fine feathers. Posing we are en grande tenue. There is no imagination here to forestall woe, and only the excitement and wild awakening from every-day stagnant life are felt. That is, when one gets away from the two or three sensible men who are still left in the world.

When Beauregard's report of the capture of Fort Sumter was printed, Willie Ancrum said: "How is this? Tom Ancrum and Ham Boykin's names are not here. We thought from what they told us that they did most of the fighting."

Colonel Magruder1 has done something splendid on the 1. John Bankhead Magruder was a graduate of West Point, who had served in the Mexican War, and afterward while stationed at Newport, R. I., had become famous for his entertainments. When Virginia seceded, he resigned his commission in the United States Army. After the war he settled in Houston, Texas. The battle of Big Bethel was fought on June 10, 1861. The Federals lost in killed and wounded about 100, among them Theodore Winthrop, of New York, author of Cecil Dreeme. The Confederate losses were very slight.

63 peninsula. Bethel is the name of the battle. Three hundred of the enemy killed, they say.

Our people, Southerners, I mean, continue to drop in from the outside world. And what a contempt those who seceded a few days sooner feel for those who have just come out! A Camden notable, called Jim Velipigue, said in the street to-day: "At heart Robert E. Lee is against us; that I know." What will not people say in war times! Also, he said that Colonel Kershaw wanted General Beauregard to change the name of the stream near Mana.s.sas Station. Bull's Run is so unrefined. Beauregard answered: "Let us try and make it as great a name as your South Carolina Cowpens."1 Mrs. Chesnut, born in Philadelphia, can not see what right we have to take Mt. Vernon from our Northern sisters. She thinks that ought to be common to both parties. We think they will get their share of this world's goods, do what we may, and we will keep Mt. Vernon if we can. No comfort in Mr. Chesnut's letter from Richmond. Unutterable confusion prevails, and discord already.

In Charleston a butcher has been clandestinely supplying the Yankee fleet outside the bar with beef. They say he gave the information which led to the capture of the Savannah. They will hang him.

Mr. Petigru alone in South Carolina has not seceded. When they pray for our President, he gets up from his knees. He might risk a prayer for Mr. Davis. I doubt if 1. The battle of the Cowpens in South Carolina was fought on January 17, 1781; the British, under Colonel Tarleton, being defeated by General Morgan, with a loss to the British of 300 killed and wounded and 500 prisoners.

64 it would seriously do Mr. Davis any good. Mr. Petigru is too clever to think himself one of the righteous whose prayers avail so overly much. Mr. Petigru's disciple, Mr. Bryan, followed his example. Mr. Petigru has such a keen sense of the ridiculous he must be laughing in his sleeve at the hubbub this untimely trait of independence has raised.

Looking out for a battle at Mana.s.sas Station. I am always ill. The name of my disease is a longing to get away from here and to go to Richmond.

June 19th. - In England Mr. Gregory and Mr. Lyndsey rise to say a good word for us. Heaven reward them; shower down its choicest blessings on their devoted heads, as the fiction folks say.

Barnwell Heyward telegraphed me to meet him at Kingsville, but I was at Cool Spring, Johnny's plantation, and all my clothes were at Sandy Hill, our home in the Sand Hills; so I lost that good opportunity of the very nicest escort to Richmond. Tried to rise above the agonies of every-day life. Read Emerson; too restless - Mana.s.sas on the brain.

Russell's letters are filled with rubbish about our wanting an English prince to reign over us. He actually intimates that the noisy arming, drumming, marching, proclaiming at the North, scares us. Yes, as the making of faces and turning of somersaults by the Chinese scared the English.

Mr. Binney1 has written a letter. It is in the Intelligencer of Philadelphia. He offers Lincoln his life and fortune; all that he has put at Lincoln's disposal to conquer us. Queer; we only want to separate from them, and 1. Horace Binney, one of the foremost lawyers of Philadelphia, who was closely a.s.sociated with the literary, scientific, and philanthropic interests of his time. His wife was a sister of Mrs. Chesnut, the author's mother-in-law.

65 they put such an inordinate value on us. They are willing to risk all, life and limb, and all their money to keep us, they love us so.

Mr. Chesnut is accused of firing the first shot, and his cousin, an ex-West Pointer, writes in a martial fury. They confounded the best shot made on the Island the day of the picnic with the first shot at Fort Sumter. This last is claimed by Captain James. Others say it was one of the Gibbeses who first fired. But it was Anderson who fired the train which blew up the Union. He slipped into Fort Sumter that night, when we expected to talk it all over. A letter from my husband dated, "Headquarters, Mana.s.sas Junction, June 16, 1861": MY DEAR MARY: I wrote you a short letter from Richmond last Wednesday, and came here next day. Found the camp all busy and preparing for a vigorous defense. We have here at this camp seven regiments, and in the same command, at posts in the neighborhood, six others - say, ten thousand good men. The General and the men feel confident that they can whip twice that number of the enemy, at least.

I have been in the saddle for two days, all day, with the General, to become familiar with the topography of the country, and the posts he intends to a.s.sume, and the communications between them.

We learned General Johnston has evacuated Harper's Ferry, and taken up his position at Winchester, to meet the advancing column of McClellan, and to avoid being cut off by the three columns which were advancing upon him. Neither Johnston nor Beauregard considers Harper's Ferry as very important in a strategic point of view.

I think it most probable that the next battle you will hear of will be between the forces of Johnston and McClellan.

I think what we particularly need is a head in the field - a Major-General to combine and conduct all the forces as well as plan a general and energetic campaign. Still, we have all confidence that we will defeat the enemy whenever and wherever we meet in general engagement. Although the majority of the people * * *

66 just around here are with us, still there are many who are against us.

G.o.d bless you.

Yours, JAMES CHESNUT, JR.

Mary Hammy and myself are off for Richmond. Rev. Mr. Meynardie, of the Methodist persuasion, goes with us. We are to be under his care. War-cloud lowering.

Isaac Hayne, the man who fought a duel with Ben Alston across the dinner-table and yet lives, is the bravest of the brave. He attacks Russell in the Mercury - in the public prints - for saying we wanted an English prince to the fore. Not we, indeed! Every man wants to be at the head of affairs himself. If he can not be king himself, then a republic, of course. It was hardly necessary to do more than laugh at Russell's absurd idea. There was a great deal of the wildest kind of talk at the Mills House. Russell writes candidly enough of the British in India. We can hardly expect him to suppress what is to our detriment.

June 24th. - Last night I was awakened by loud talking and candles flas.h.i.+ng, tramping of feet, growls dying away in the distance, loud calls from point to point in the yard. Up I started, my heart in my mouth. Some dreadful thing had happened, a battle, a death, a horrible accident. Some one was screaming aloft - that is, from the top of the stairway, hoa.r.s.ely like a boatswain in a storm. Old Colonel Chesnut was storming at the sleepy negroes looking for fire, with lighted candles, in closets and everywhere else. I dressed and came upon the scene of action.

"What is it? Any news?" "No, no, only mamma smells a smell; she thinks something is burning somewhere." The whole yard was alive, literally swarming. There are sixty or seventy people kept here to wait upon this household, two-thirds of them too old or too young to be of any use, but families remain intact. The old Colonel has a magnificent voice. I am sure it can be heard for miles. Literally, be was roaring from the piazza, giving * * *

67 orders to the busy crowd who were hunting the smell of fire.

Old Mrs. Chesnut is deaf; so she did not know what a commotion she was creating. She is very sensitive to bad odors. Candles have to be taken out of the room to be snuffed. Lamps are extinguished only in the porticoes, or farther afield. She finds violets oppressive; can only tolerate a single kind of sweet rose. A tea-rose she will not have in her room. She was totally innocent of the storm she had raised, and in a mild, sweet voice was suggesting places to be searched. I was weak enough to laugh hysterically. The bombardment of Fort Sumter was nothing to this.

After this alarm, enough to wake the dead, the smell was found. A family had been boiling soap. Around the soap-pot they had swept up some woolen rags. Raking up the fire to make all safe before going to bed, this was heaped up with the ashes, and its faint smoldering tainted the air, at least to Mrs. Chesnut's nose, two hundred yards or more away.

Yesterday some of the negro men on the plantation were found with pistols. I have never before seen aught about any negro to show that they knew we had a war on hand in which they have any interest.

Mrs. John de Saussure bade me good-by and G.o.d bless you. I was touched. Camden people never show any more feeling or sympathy than red Indians, except at a funeral. It is expected of all to howl then, and if you don't "show feeling," indignation awaits the delinquent.

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VII. RICHMOND, VA.

June 27, 1861 - July 4, 1861 RICHMOND, Va., June 27, 1861. - Mr. Meynardie was perfect in the part of traveling companion. He had his pleasures, too. The most pious and eloquent of parsons is human, and he enjoyed the converse of the "eminent persons" who turned up on every hand and gave their views freely on all matters of state.

Mr. Lawrence Keitt joined us en route. With him came his wife and baby. We don't think alike, but Mr. Keitt is always original and entertaining. Already he p.r.o.nounces Jeff Davis a failure and his Cabinet a farce. "Prophetic," I suggested, as he gave his opinion before the administration had fairly got under way. He was fierce in his fault-finding as to Mr. Chesnut's vote for Jeff Davis. He says Mr. Chesnut overpersuaded the Judge, and those two turned the tide, at least with the South Carolina delegation. We wrangled, as we always do. He says Howell Cobb's common sense might have saved us.

Two quiet, un.o.btrusive Yankee school-teachers were on the train. I had spoken to them, and they had told me all about themselves. So I wrote on a sc.r.a.p of paper, "Do not abuse our home and house so before these Yankee strangers, going North. Those girls are schoolmistresses returning from whence they came."

Soldiers everywhere. They seem to be in the air, and certainly to fill all s.p.a.ce. Keitt quoted a funny Georgia man who says we try our soldiers to see if they are hot * * *

69 enough before we enlist them. If , when water is thrown on them they do not sizz, they won't do; their patriotism is too cool.

To show they were wide awake and sympathizing enthusiastically, every woman from every window of every house we pa.s.sed waved a handkerchief, if she had one. This fluttering of white flags from every side never ceased from Camden to Richmond. Another new symptom - Parties of girls came to every station simply to look at the troops pa.s.sing. They always stood (the girls , I mean) in solid phalanx, and as the sun was generally in their eyes, they made faces. Mary Hammy never tired of laughing at this peculiarity of her sister patriots.

At the depot in Richmond, Mr. Mallory, with Wigfall and Garnett, met us. We had no cause to complain of the warmth of our reception. They had a carriage for us, and our rooms were taken at the Spotswood. But then the people who were in the rooms engaged for us had not departed at the time they said they were going. They lingered among the delights of Richmond, and we knew of no law to make them keep their words and go. Mrs. Preston had gone for a few days to Mana.s.sas. So we took her room. Mrs. Davis is as kind as ever. She met us in one of the corridors accidentally, and asked us to join her party and to take our meals at her table. Mr. Preston came, and we moved into a room so small there was only s.p.a.ce for a bed, wash-stand, and gla.s.s over it. My things were hung up out of the way on nails behind the door.

As soon as my husband heard we had arrived, he came, too. After dinner he sat smoking, the solitary chair of the apartment tilted against the door as he smoked, and my poor dresses were fumigated. I remonstrated feebly. "War times," said he; "n.o.body is fussy now. When I go back to Mana.s.sas to-morrow you will be awfully sorry you snubbed me about those trumpery things up there." So he smoked the pipe of peace, for I knew that his remarks * * *

70 were painfully true. As soon as he was once more under the enemy's guns, I would repent in sackcloth and ashes.

Captain Ingraham came with Colonel Lamar.1 The latter said he could only stay five minutes; he was obliged to go back at once to his camp. That was a little before eight. However, at twelve he was still talking to us on that sofa. We taunted him with his fine words to the the F. F. V. crowd before the Spotswood: "Virginia has no grievance. She raises her strong arm to catch the blow aimed at her weaker sisters." He liked it well, however, that we knew his speech by heart.

This Spotswood is a miniature world. The war topic is not so much avoided, as that everybody has some personal dignity to take care of and everybody else is indifferent to it. I mean the "personal dignity of" autrui. In this wild confusion everything likely and unlikely is told you, and then everything is as flatly contradicted. At any rate, it is safest not to talk of the war.

Trescott was telling us how they laughed at little South Carolina in Was.h.i.+ngton. People said it was almost as large as Long Island, which is hardly more than a tailfeather of New York. Always there is a child who sulks and won't play; that was our role. And we were posing as San Marino and all model-spirited, though small, republics, pose.

1. Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus Lamar, a native of Georgia and of Huguenot descent, who got his cla.s.sical 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.

71 He tells us that Lincoln is a humorist. Lincoln sees the fun of things; he thinks if they had left us in a corner or out in the cold a while pouting, with our fingers in our mouth, by hook or by crook he could have got us back, but Anderson spoiled all.

In Mrs. Davis's drawing-room last night, the President took a seat by me on the sofa where I sat. He talked for nearly an hour. He laughed at our faith in our own powers. We are like the British. We think every Southerner equal to three Yankees at least. We will have to be equivalent to a dozen now. After his experience of the fighting qualities of Southerners in Mexico, he believes that we will do all that can be done by pluck and muscle, endurance, and dogged courage, dash, and red-hot patriotism. And yet his tone was not sanguine. There was a sad refrain running through it all. For one thing, either way, he thinks it will be a long war. That floored me at once. It has been too long for me already. Then he said, before the end came we would have many a bitter experience. He said only fools doubted the courage of the Yankees, or their willingness to fight when they saw fit. And now that we have stung their pride, we have roused them till they will fight like devils.

Mrs. Bradley Johnson is here, a regular heroine. She outgeneraled the Governor of North Carolina in some way and has got arms and clothes and ammunition for her husband's regiment.1 There was some joke. The regimental breeches were all wrong, but a tailor righted that - hind part before, or something odd.

Captain Hartstein came to-day with Mrs. Bartow. Colonel Bartow is Colonel of a Georgia regiment now in 1. 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.

72 Virginia. He was the Mayor of Savannah who helped to wake the patriotic echoes the livelong night under my sleepless head into the small hours in Charleston in November last. His wife is a charming person, witty and wise, daughter of Judge Berrien. She had on a white muslin ap.r.o.n with pink bows on the pockets. It gave her a gay and girlish air, and yet she must be as old as I am.

Mr. Lamar, who does not love slavery more than Sumner does, nor than I do, laughs at the compliment New England pays us. We want to separate from them; to be rid of the Yankees forever at any price. And they hate us so, and would clasp us, or grapple us, as Polonius has it, to their bosoms "with hooks of steel." We are an unwilling bride. I think incompatibility of temper began when it was made plain to us that we got all the opprobrium of slavery and they all the money there was in it with their tariff.

Mr. Lamar says, the young men are light-hearted because there is a fight on hand, but those few who look ahead, the clear heads, they see all the risk, the loss of land, limb, and life, home, wife, and children. As in "the brave days of old," they take to it for their country's sake. They are ready and willing, come what may. But not so light-hearted as the jeunesse dore.

June 29th. - Mrs. Preston, Mrs. Wigfall, Mary Hammy and I drove in a fine open carriage to see the Champ de Mars. It was a grand tableau out 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 * * *

73 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 brus.h.i.+ng flies away and fanning the prostrate Lamar, I reported Mr. Davis's conversation of the night * * *

74 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 a.s.sailed 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 pa.s.sports, 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,1 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 1. 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.

75 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 Was.h.i.+ngton 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,1 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 1. At Camden in August, 1780, was fought a battle between General Gates and Lord Cornwallis, in which Gates was defeated. In April of the following year near Camden, Lord Rawdon defeated General Greene.

76 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.

77

VIII. FAUQUIER WHITE SULPHUR SPRINGS, VA.

July 6, 1861 - July 11, 1861 FAUQUIER WHITE SULPHUR SPRINGS, Va., July 6, 1861. - Mr. Brewster came here with us. The cars were jammed with soldiers to the muzzle. They were very polite and considerate, and we had an agreeable journey, in spite of heat, dust, and crowd. Rev. Robert Barnwell was with us. He means to organize a hospital for sick and wounded. There was not an inch of standing-room even; so dusty, so close, but everybody in tip-top spirits.

Mr. Preston and Mr. Chesnut met us at Warrenton. Saw across the lawn, but did not speak to them, some of Judge Campbell's family. There they wander disconsolate, just outside the gates of their Paradise: a resigned Judge of the Supreme Court of the United States; resigned, and for a cause that he is hardly more than half in sympathy with, Judge Campbell's is one of the hardest cases.

July 7th. - This water is making us young again. How these men enjoy the baths. They say Beauregard can stop the way with sixty thousand; that many are coming.

An antique female, with every hair curled and frizzed, said to be a Yankee spy, sits opposite us. Brewster solemnly wondered "with eternity and the judgment to come so near at hand, how she could waste her few remaining minutes curling her hair." He bade me be very polite, for she would ask me questions. When we were walking away * * *

78 from table, I demanded his approval of my self-control under such trying circ.u.mstances. It seems I was not as calm and forbearing as I thought myself. Brewster answered with emphasis: "Do you always carry brickbats like that in your pocket ready for the first word that offends you? You must not do so, when you are with spies from the other side." I do not feel at all afraid of spies hearing anything through me, for I do not know anything.

But our men could not tarry with us in these cool shades and comfortable quarters, with water unlimited, excellent table, etc. They have gone back to Mana.s.sas, and the faithful Brewster with them to bring us the latest news. They left us in excellent spirits, which we shared until they were out of sight. We went with them to Warrenton, and then heard that General Johnston was in full retreat, and that a column was advancing upon Beauregard. So we came back, all forlorn. If our husbands are taken prisoners, what will they do with them? Are they soldiers or traitors?