Diary of Mary Boykin Chesnut: December 19, 1864

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

_______________

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.

SOURCES: Mary Boykin Chesnut, Edited by Isabella D. Martin and Myrta Lockett Avary, A Diary From Dixie, p. 339-40

Diary of Mary Boykin Chesnut: November 25, 1864

Sherman is thundering at Augusta's very doors. My General was on the wing, somber, and full of care. The girls are merry enough; the staff, who fairly live here, no better. Cassandra, with a black shawl over her head, is chased by the gay crew from sofa to sofa, for she avoids them, being full of miserable anxiety. There is nothing but distraction and confusion. All things tend to the preparation for the departure of the troops. It rains all the time, such rains as I never saw before; incessant torrents. These men come in and out in the red mud and slush of Columbia streets. Things seem dismal and wretched to me to the last degree, but the staff, the girls, and the youngsters do not see it.

Mrs. S. (born in Connecticut) came, and she was radiant. She did not come to see me, but my nieces. She says exultingly that “Sherman will open a way out at last, and I will go at once to Europe or go North to my relatives there.” How she derided our misery and “mocked when our fear cometh.” I dare say she takes me for a fool. I sat there dumb, although she was in my own house, I have heard of a woman so enraged that she struck some one over the head with a shovel. To-day, for the first time in my life, I know how that mad woman felt. I could have given Mrs. S. the benefit of shovel and tongs both.

That splendid fellow, Preston Hampton; “home they brought their warrior, dead,” and wrapped in that very Legion flag he had borne so often in battle with his own hands.

A letter from Mrs. Davis to-day, under date of Richmond, Va., November 20, 1864. She says: “Affairs West are looking so critical now that, before you receive this, you and I will be in the depths or else triumphant. I confess I do not sniff success in every passing breeze, but I am so tired, hoping, fearing, and being disappointed, that I have made up my mind not to be disconsolate, even though thieves break through and steal. Some people expect another attack upon Richmond shortly, but I think the avalanche will not slide until the spring breaks up its winter quarters. I have a blind kind of prognostics of victory for us, but somehow I am not cheered. The temper of Congress is less vicious, but more concerted in its hostile action." Mrs. Davis is a woman that my heart aches for in the troubles ahead.

My journal, a quire of Confederate paper, lies wide open on my desk in the corner of my drawing-room. Everybody reads it who chooses. Buck comes regularly to see what I have written last, and makes faces when it does not suit her. Isabella still calls me Cassandra, and puts her hands to her ears when I begin to wail. Well, Cassandra only records what she hears; she does not vouch for it. For really, one nowadays never feels certain of anything.

SOURCES: Mary Boykin Chesnut, Edited by Isabella D. Martin and Myrta Lockett Avary, A Diary From Dixie, p. 334-5

Captain William D. Sedgwick to his Cousin, June 5, 1862

Headquarters Division,

Near Fair Oaks Station, June 5, 1862.

My dear cousin:

The General asks me to write you a short account of our recent battle, he himself being too much engrossed by the various occurrences constantly demanding his attention as commanding officer to find time to write you at sufficient length. I do it very gladly, for though it is so long since I have seen you that my recollections of you, though very pleasant, are somewhat vague, both my Aunt Catherine's great affection for you, and my own well-deserved affection for your brother the General, lead me to regard the writing to you as a very pleasant task. Saturday, about noon, a firing heavier, closer, and more sustained than that which we have been so long accustomed to hear roused us all. General Kearny, who had just stopped to make a call on the General, remounted his horse and galloped off in great haste to his own command. After the interchange of a few despatches from Heintzelman to Sumner, and Sumner to headquarters, we got under arms and marched as rapidly as possible, crossing the Chickahominy River and swamp over a bridge we had recently built, but which recent heavy rains had in great part carried away. To get through our artillery seemed impossible. Men went in up to their waists; horses floundered and fell down. Three pieces only of the leading one of our four batteries could be dragged through in time to assist in resisting the first attack that awaited us.

About four o'clock, having marched about three and one half miles over roads which, when not swamp, were all deep mud, we formed line in a bog and pushed forward on to the crest of a higher piece of ground. Our regiments were soon ranged on two sides of a rectangle facing two sides of a wood. The enemy, who had previously utterly routed Casey's division on the other side of the railroad track, driving them out of their camp and capturing many guns, advanced upon us along and through the woods, and came up in great numbers and with their best troops, including their boasted Texas Brigade and Hampton Legion, North and South Carolinians, Georgians, Mississippians, and Tennesseeans. By a little before five o'clock our whole lines were blazing, the enemy having come up to within one hundred and fifty, and in some instances, in their endeavour to take our artillery, which was doing savage execution, up to within twenty yards.

Their attack was so fierce that for a few moments we were uneasy lest our men should give way; but they held their ground as steadily as veterans and fired better than the enemy, whose attention was divided by a regard for protection of their own persons by the cover of the woods, from which, indeed, they rushed out several times, but only to fall back again. We have buried about two hundred of their dead and attended, say, one hundred of their wounded prisoners, besides capturing a considerable number. These prisoners say that Davis, Lee, Johnston, Magruder, and Floyd were all on the field near Fair Oaks Station, and had assured their troops of an easy victory. They had declared it impossible that we should succeed in crossing with any of our artillery. Magruder recognized his old battery, now commanded by Lieutenant Kirby and beautifully worked (all the pieces came up during the fight), and swore he would have it, but finally gave it up, saying, “All hell can't stand such a fire as that!” Some of the prisoners were much afraid that we would butcher them, but the greater number appeared to have learned that their newspaper accounts of our cruelties were lies, and had no fears. I have seen a good many terrible sights, bad wounds, mangled bodies, but I dare say you would not thank me for giving you any details. A regiment of another division fighting alongside of us captured an omnibus and some buggies in which some “ladies” of Richmond had driven out to see the Yankees whipped.

The next morning we expected the enemy to renew the attack with strong reinforcements, and were up after bivouacking under a tree. In the meantime Richardson's division, which followed us, and the remainder of our artillery had come up. They did not attack as early as we expected, and when they did (about half-past seven) Richardson's division bore the brunt of the fight, assisted by only a portion of General Sedgwick's command. This second battle was fought chiefly on our left, and, though very fierce, lasted but a few hours. We again drove them back, and since then they have appeared disinclined to make any general attack, though they “feel” us occasionally, but very cautiously.

Heavy rains since Sunday have rendered all the bridges below us impassable, and we have to depend upon the railroad bridge. We have now got up pretty much all our stores and effects by rail to Fair Oaks, and are ready for future developments. The ground, just now, is so universally wet and heavy that I should say no grand movement is likely to be made on either side. I need not tell you that the General rode into and through showers of bullets as imperturbably as if they were so many hailstones. Looking at him half persuaded me that there was no danger, though it seemed, now and then, as if our not being touched was almost equivalent to riding through a hail-storm without encountering a pellet. Our men behaved so well that the General and General Sumner expressed the highest satisfaction with them. Hereafter he will feel much of the same confidence in them which they so justly repose in him.

Hoping that I may have an opportunity to become reacquainted with you after this war is over,

I am, very sincerely,

Your affectionate cousin,

Wm. D. Sedgwick

SOURCE: George William Curtis, Correspondence of John Sedgwick, Major-General, Volume 2, p. 57-62

Diary of Mary Boykin Chesnut: July 16, 1861

Dined to-day at the President's table. Joe Davis, the nephew, asked me if I liked white port wine. I said I did not know; “all that I had ever known had been dark red.” So he poured me out a glass. I drank it, and it nearly burned up my mouth and throat. It was horrid, but I did not let him see how it annoyed me. I pretended to be glad that any one found me still young enough to play off a practical joke upon me. It was thirty years since I had thought of such a thing.

Met Colonel Baldwin in the drawing-room. He pointed significantly to his Confederate colonel's buttons and gray coat. At the White Sulphur last summer he was a “Union man” to the last point. “How much have you changed besides your coat?” “I was always true to our country,” he said. “She leaves me no choice now.”

As far as I can make out, Beauregard sent Mr. Chesnut to the President to gain permission for the forces of Joe 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. Already, we begin to cry out for more ammunition, and already the blockade is beginning to shut it all out.

A young Emory is here. His mother writes him to go back. Her Franklin blood certainly calls him with no uncertain sound to the Northern side, while his fatherland is wavering and undecided, split in half by factions. Mrs. Wigfall says he is half inclined to go. She wondered that he did not. With a father in the enemy's army, he will always be “suspect” here, let the President and Mrs. Davis do for him what they will.

I did not know there was such a “bitter cry” left in me, but I wept my heart away to-day when my husband went off. Things do look so black. When he comes up here he rarely brings his body-servant, a negro man. Lawrence has charge of all Mr. Chesnut's things — watch, clothes, and two or three hundred gold pieces that lie in the tray of his trunk. All these, papers, etc., he tells Lawrence to bring to me if anything happens to him. But I said: “Maybe he will pack off to the Yankees and freedom with all that.” “Fiddlesticks! He is not going to leave me for anybody else. After all, what can he ever be, better than he is now — a gentleman's gentleman?” “He is within sound of the enemy's guns, and when he gets to the other army he is free.” Maria said of Mr. Preston's man: “What he want with anything more, ef he was free? Don't he live just as well as Mars John do now?”

Mrs. McLane, Mrs. Joe Johnston, Mrs. Wigfall, all came. I am sure so many clever women could divert a soul in extremis. The Hampton Legion all in a snarl — about, I forget what; standing on their dignity, I suppose. I have come to detest a man who says, “My own personal dignity and self-respect require.” I long to cry, “No need to respect yourself until you can make other people do it.”

SOURCE: Mary Boykin Chesnut, Edited by Isabella D. Martin and Myrta Lockett Avary, A Diary From Dixie, p. 84-5

From The Potomac

WASHINGTON, March 11. – Official information to-day reports that the enemy were encamped back off and below Occoquan.  They have retreated destroying everything they could not carry on their backs.  They left on Saturday, our troops took possession this morning and were welcomed by a part of the inhabitants with great joy.  Every boat in the vicinity and everything that would float had been destroyed.

The rebels told the villagers that they were going to fall back to the Rappahannock.

A call of the Government on the militia of the State for 10,000 men was proclaimed on the streets of Occoquan on the 9th inst., by an official who immediately departed.

Nearly all the able bodied men of the village left with the rebel army.  A few refused to go.

The rebel force which has thus retreated was composed of three Louisiana, one Mississippi, and the Hampton Legion.

Com. Vanderbilt gave notice to-day to the Postmaster General that they would carry the Central American and the south Pacific mails in his line steamers provided he could be protected against parties who were carrying the California mails over his line for which w receives no payment.

– Published in The Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, March 15, 1862, p. 4

From Washington

WASHINGTON, March 11.

The National Intelligencer of this morning asserts, in positive terms, that we occupy Centerville, and that the rebels have evacuated Manassas.  The Intelligencer adds – This News was confirmed by intelligence received at headquarters last night.

A dispatch from Fort Monroe this morning announces that everything is quite there and at Newport News.

Manassas has been evacuated by the rebels, and our forces have taken peaceable possession.  There has been no other news of public interest this morning.

The Supreme Court will not hear the argument of any case after Thursday, the 20^th inst., or any motion after the 21^st, the Court intending to adjourn on the 25^th of March.

WASHINGTON, March 11.

The whole fortifications of Manassas were abandoned, and everything burned.  Full particulars will be sent as soon as received.

WASHINGTON, March 11.

The President will probably sign the new article of war to-day.  It forbids officers of the army and navy from returning fugitive slaves to their masters.

Lieut. Warden, the gallant commander of the Monitor, is here, and is rapidly recovering from his wounds.

Official information to-day reports that the enemy formerly encamped back of and below Occoquan, have retreated, destroying everything they could not carry on their back.  They left on Saturday.  Our troops took peaceable possession this morning, and were welcomed by a part of the inhabitants with great goy.  Every boat in the vicinity and everything that would float had been destroyed.  The rebels told the villagers they were going to fall back on the Rappahannock.

A call from the Governor of Virginia on the militia of the State for one thousand men, was proclaimed on the streets of Occoquan on the 9^th inst., by an officer, who immediately departed.  Nearly all the able-bodied men of the village left with the rebel army; a few refused to go.

The rebel force which has thus retreated was composed of three Texas, one Georgia and one Miss. regiment, and the Hampton legion.

Com. Vanderbilt gave notice to-day to the Postmaster General that he would carry the Central American and the South Pacific mails on his line of steamers, provided he could be protected against parties who were smuggling the California mails over his lines, for which he received no payment.

– Published in The Davenport Daily Gazette, Davenport, Iowa, Wednesday Morning, March 12, 1862, p. 1