Showing posts with label Hetty Cary. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hetty Cary. Show all posts

Wednesday, April 20, 2016

Diary of Judith Brockenbrough McGuire: March 12, 1865

A deep gloom has just been thrown over the city by the untimely death of one of its own heroic sons. General John Pegram fell while nobly leading his brigade against the enemy in the neighbourhood of Petersburg. But two weeks before he had been married in St. Paul's Church, in the presence of a crowd of relatives and friends, to the celebrated Miss H. C., of Baltimore. All was bright and beautiful. Happiness beamed from every eye. Again has St. Paul's, his own beloved church, been opened to receive the soldier and his bride — the one coffined for a hero's grave, the other, pale and trembling, though still by his side, in widow's garb.

SOURCE: Judith W. McGuire, Diary of a Southern Refugee, During the War, p. 341

Thursday, July 9, 2015

Diary of Mary Boykin Chesnut: February 9, 1864

This party for Johnny was the very nicest I have ever had, and I mean it to be my last. I sent word to the Carys to bring their own men. They came alone, saying, “they did not care for men.” “That means a raid on ours,” growled Isabella. Mr. Lamar was devoted to Constance Cary. He is a free lance; so that created no heart-burning.

Afterward, when the whole thing was over, and a success, the lights put out, etc., here trooped in the four girls, who stayed all night with me. In dressing-gowns they stirred up a hot fire, relit the gas, and went in for their supper; réchauffé was the word, oysters, hot coffee, etc. They kept it up till daylight.

Of course, we slept very late. As they came in to breakfast, I remarked, “The church-bells have been going on like mad. I take it as a rebuke to our breaking the Sabbath. You know Sunday began at twelve o'clock last night.” “It sounds to me like fire-bells,” somebody said.

Soon the Infant dashed in, done up in soldier's clothes: “The Yankees are upon us!” said he. “Don't you hear the alarm-bells? They have been ringing day and night!” Alex Haskell came; he and Johnny went off to report to Custis Lee and to be enrolled among his “locals,” who are always detailed for the defense of the city. But this time the attack on Richmond has proved a false alarm.

A new trouble at the President's house: their trusty man, Robert, broken out with the smallpox.

We went to the Webb ball, and such a pleasant time we had. After a while the P. M. G. (Pet Major-General) took his seat in the comfortable chair next to mine, and declared his determination to hold that position. Mr. Hunter and Mr. Benjamin essayed to dislodge him. Mrs. Stanard said: “Take him in the flirtation room; there he will soon be captured and led away,” but I did not know where that room was situated. Besides, my bold Texan made a most unexpected sally: “I will not go, and I will prevent her from going with any of you.” Supper was near at hand, and Mr. Mallory said: “Ask him if the varioloid is not at his house. I know it is.” I started as if I were shot, and I took Mr. Clay's arm and went in to supper, leaving the P. M. G. to the girls. Venison and everything nice.

SOURCE: Mary Boykin Chesnut, Edited by Isabella D. Martin and Myrta Lockett Avary, A Diary From Dixie, p. 286-7

Saturday, June 27, 2015

Diary of Mary Boykin Chesnut: January 16, 1864

A visit from the President's handsome and accomplished secretary, Burton Harrison. I lent him Country Clergyman in Town and Elective Affinities. He is to bring me Mrs. Norton's Lost and Saved.

At Mrs. Randolph's, my husband complimented one of the ladies, who had amply earned his praise by her splendid acting. She pointed to a young man, saying, “You see that wretch; he has not said one word to me!” My husband asked innocently, “Why should he? And why is he a wretch?” “Oh, you know!” Going home I explained this riddle to him; he is always a year behindhand in gossip. “They said those two were engaged last winter, and now there seems to be a screw loose; but that sort of thing always comes right.” The Carys prefer James Chessnut to his wife. I don't mind. Indeed, I like it. I do, too.

Every Sunday Mr. Minnegerode cried aloud in anguish his litany, “from pestilence and famine, battle, murder, and sudden death,” and we wailed on our knees, “Good Lord deliver us,” and on Monday, and all the week long, we go on as before, hearing of nothing but battle, murder, and sudden death, which are daily events. Now I have a new book; that is, the unlooked-for thing, a pleasing incident in this life of monotonous misery. We. live in a huge barrack. We are shut in, guarded from light without.

At breakfast to-day came a card, and without an instant's interlude, perhaps the neatest, most fastidious man in South Carolina walked in. I was uncombed, unkempt, tattered, and torn, in my most comfortable, worst worm wadded green silk dressing-gown, with a white woolen shawl over my head to keep off draughts. He has not been in the war yet, and now he wants to be captain of an engineer corps. I wish he may get it! He has always been my friend; so he shall lack no aid that I can give. If he can stand the shock of my appearance to-day, we may reasonably expect to continue friends until death. Of all men, the fastidious Barny Heywood to come in. He faced the situation gallantly.

SOURCE: Mary Boykin Chesnut, Edited by Isabella D. Martin and Myrta Lockett Avary, A Diary From Dixie, p. 277-8

Friday, June 26, 2015

Diary of Mary Boykin Chesnut: January 15, 1864

What a day the Kentuckians have had! Mrs. Webb gave them a breakfast; from there they proceeded en masse to General Lawton's dinner, and then came straight here, all of which seems equal to one of Stonewall's forced marches. General Lawton took me in to supper. In spite of his dinner he had misgivings. “My heart is heavy,” said he, “even here. All seems too light, too careless, for such terrible times. It seems out of place here in battle-scarred Richmond.” “I have heard something of that kind at home,” I replied. “Hope and fear are both gone, and it is distraction or death with us. I do not see how sadness and despondency would help us. If it would do any good, we would be sad enough.”

We laughed at General Hood. General Lawton thought him better fitted for gallantry on the battle-field than playing a lute in my lady's chamber. When Miss Giles was electrifying the audience as the Fair Penitent, some one said: “Oh, that is so pretty!” Hood cried out with stern reproachfulness: “That is not pretty; it is elegant.”

Not only had my house been rifled for theatrical properties, but as the play went on they came for my black velvet cloak. When it was over, I thought I should never get away, my cloak was so hard to find. But it gave me an opportunity to witness many things behind the scenes — that cloak hunt did. Behind the scenes! I know a little what that means now.

General Jeb Stuart was at Mrs. Randolph's in his cavalry jacket and high boots. He was devoted to Hetty Cary. Constance Cary said to me, pointing to his stars, “Hetty likes them that way, you know — gilt-edged and with stars.”

SOURCE: Mary Boykin Chesnut, Edited by Isabella D. Martin and Myrta Lockett Avary, A Diary From Dixie, p. 276-7

Wednesday, June 24, 2015

Diary of Mary Boykin Chesnut: January 12, 1864

To-night there will be a great gathering of Kentuckians. Morgan gives them a dinner. The city of Richmond entertains John Morgan. He is at free quarters. The girls dined here. Conny Cary came back for more white feathers. Isabella had appropriated two sets and obstinately refused Constance Cary a single feather from her pile. She said, sternly: “I have never been on the stage before, and I have a presentiment when my father hears of this, I will never go again. I am to appear before the footlights as an English dowager duchess, and I mean to rustle in every feather, to wear all the lace and diamonds these two houses can compass” — (mine and Mrs. Preston's). She was jolly but firm, and Constance departed without any additional plumage for her Lady Teazle.

SOURCE: Mary Boykin Chesnut, Edited by Isabella D. Martin and Myrta Lockett Avary, A Diary From Dixie, p. 276

Saturday, June 20, 2015

Diary of Mary Boykin Chesnut: January 8, 1864

Snow of the deepest. Nobody can come to-day, I thought. But they did! My girls, first; then Constance Cary tripped in — the clever Conny. Hetty is the beauty, so called, though she is clever enough, too; but Constance is actually clever and has a classically perfect outline. Next came the four Kentuckians and Preston Hampton. He is as tall as the Kentuckians and ever so much better looking. Then we had egg-nog.

I was to take Miss Cary to the Semmes's. My husband inquired the price of a carriage. It was twenty-five dollars an hour! He cursed by all his gods at such extravagance. The play was not worth the candle, or carriage, in this instance. In Confederate money it sounds so much worse than it is. I did not dream of asking him to go with me after that lively overture. “I did intend to go with you,” he said, “but you do not ask me.” “And I have been asking you for twenty years to go with me, in vain. Think of that!” I said, tragically. We could not wait for him to dress, so I sent the twenty-five-dollar-an-hour carriage back for him. We were behind time, as it was. When he came, the beautiful Hetty Cary and her friend, Captain Tucker, were with him. Major von Borcke and Preston Hampton were at the Cary's, in the drawing-room when we called for Constance, who was dressing. I challenge the world to produce finer specimens of humanity than these three: the Prussian von Borcke, Preston Hampton, and Hetty Cary.

We spoke to the Prussian about the vote of thanks passed by Congress yesterday — “thanks of the country to Major von Borcke.” The poor man was as modest as a girl — in spite of his huge proportions. “That is a compliment, indeed!” said Hetty. “Yes. I saw it. And the happiest, the proudest day of my life as I read it. It was at the hotel breakfast-table. I try to hide my face with the newspaper, I feel it grow so red. But my friend he has his newspaper, too, and he sees the same thing. So he looks my way — he says, pointing to me — ‘Why does he grow so red? He has got something there!’ and he laughs. Then I try to read aloud the so kind compliments of the Congress — but — he — you — I can not —“ He puts his hand to his throat. His broken English and the difficulty of his enunciation with that wound in his windpipe makes it all very touching — and very hard to understand.

The Semmes charade party was a perfect success. The play was charming. Sweet little Mrs. Lawson Clay had a seat for me banked up among women. The female part of the congregation, strictly segregated from the male, were placed all together in rows. They formed a gay parterre, edged by the men in their black coats and gray uniforms. Toward the back part of the room, the mass of black and gray was solid. Captain Tucker bewailed his fate. He was stranded out there with those forlorn men, but could see us laughing, and fancied what we were saying was worth a thousand charades. He preferred talking to a clever woman to any known way of passing a pleasant hour. “So do I,” somebody said.

On a sofa of state in front of all sat the President and Mrs. Davis. Little Maggie Davis was one of the child actresses. Her parents had a right to be proud of her; with her flashing black eyes, she was a marked figure on the stage. She is a handsome creature, and she acted her part admirably. The shrine was beautiful beyond words. The Semmes and Ives families are Roman Catholics, and understand getting up that sort of thing. First came the “Palmers Gray,” then Mrs. Ives, a solitary figure, the loveliest of penitent women. The Eastern pilgrims were delightfully costumed; we could not understand how so much Christian piety could come clothed in such odalisque robes. Mrs. Ould, as a queen, was as handsome and regal as heart could wish for. She was accompanied by a very satisfactory king, whose name, if I ever knew, I have forgotten. There was a resplendent knight of St. John, and then an American Indian. After their orisons they all knelt and laid something on the altar as a votive gift.

Burton Harrison, the President's handsome young secretary, was gotten up as a big brave in a dress presented to Mr. Davis by Indians for some kindness he showed them years ago. It was a complete warrior's outfit, scant as that is. The feathers stuck in the back of Mr. Harrison's head had a charmingly comic effect. He had to shave himself as clean as a baby or he could not act the beardless chief, Spotted Tail, Billy Bowlegs, Big Thunder, or whatever his character was. So he folded up his loved and lost mustache, the Christianized red Indian, and laid it on the altar, the most sacred treasure of his life, the witness of his most heroic sacrifice, on the shrine.

Senator Hill, of Georgia, took me in to supper, where were ices, chicken salad, oysters, and champagne. The President came in alone, I suppose, for while we were talking after supper and your humble servant was standing between Mrs. Randolph and Mrs. Stanard, he approached, offered me his arm and we walked off, oblivious of Mr. Senator Hill. Remember this, ladies, and forgive me for recording it, but Mrs. Stanard and Mrs. Randolph are the handsomest women in Richmond; I am no older than they are, or younger, either, sad to say. Now, the President walked with me slowly up and down that long room, and our conversation was of the saddest. Nobody knows so well as he the difficulties which beset this hard-driven Confederacy, he has a voice which is perfectly modulated, a comfort in this loud and rough soldier world. I think there is a melancholy cadence in his voice at times, of which he is unconscious when he talks of things as they are now.

My husband was so intensely charmed with Hetty Cary that he declined at the first call to accompany his wife home in the twenty-five-dollar-an-hour carriage. He ordered it to return. When it came, his wife (a good manager) packed the Carys and him in with herself, leaving the other two men who came with the party, when it was divided into “trips,” to make their way home in the cold. At our door, near daylight of that bitter cold morning, I had the pleasure to see my husband, like a man, stand and pay for that carriage! To-day he is pleased with himself, with me, and with all the world; says if there was no such word as “fascinating” you would have to invent one to describe Hetty Cary.

SOURCE: Mary Boykin Chesnut, Edited by Isabella D. Martin and Myrta Lockett Avary, A Diary From Dixie, p. 272-5

Thursday, June 4, 2015

Diary of Mary Boykin Chesnut: December 2, 1863

Bragg begs to be relieved of his command. The army will be relieved to get rid of him. He has a winning way of earning everybody's detestation. Heavens, how they hate him! The rapid flight of his army terminated at Ringgold. Hardie declines even a temporary command of the Western army. Preston Johnston has been sent out post-haste at a moment's warning. He was not even allowed time to go home and tell his wife good-by or, as Browne, the Englishman, said, “to put a clean shirt into his traveling bag.” Lee and Meade are facing each other gallantly.1

The first of December we went with a party of Mrs. Ould's getting up, to see a French frigate which lay at anchor down the river. The French officers came on board our boat. The Lees were aboard. The French officers were not in the least attractive either in manners or appearance, but our ladies were most attentive and some showered bad French upon them with a lavish hand, always accompanied by queer grimaces to eke out the scanty supply of French words, the sentences ending usually in a nervous shriek. “Are they deaf?” asked Mrs. Randolph.

The French frigate was a dirty little thing. Doctor Garnett was so buoyed up with hope that the French were coming to our rescue, that he would not let me say “an English man-of-war is the cleanest thing known in the world.” Captain said to Mary Lee, with a foreign contortion of countenance, that went for a smile, “I's bashlor.” Judge Ould said, as we went to dinner on our own steamer, “They will not drink our President's health. They do not acknowledge us to be a nation. Mind, none of you say ‘Emperor,’ not once.” Doctor Garnett interpreted the laws of politeness otherwise, and stepped forward, his mouth fairly distended with so much French, and said: “Vieff l'Emperor.” Young Gibson seconded him quietly, “À la santé de I'Empereur. But silence prevailed. Preston Hampton was the handsomest man on board — “the figure of Hercules, the face of Apollo,” cried an enthusiastic girl. Preston was as lazy and as sleepy as ever. He said of the Frenchmen: “They can't help not being good-looking, but with all the world open to them, to wear such shabby clothes!”

The lieutenant's name was Rousseau. On the French frigate, lying on one of the tables was a volume of Jean Jacques Rousseau's works, side by side, strange to say, with a map of South Carolina. This lieutenant was courteously asked by Mary Lee to select some lady to whom she might introduce him. He answered: “I shuse you,” with a bow that was a benediction and a prayer.

And now I am in a fine condition for Hetty Cary's starvation party, where they will give thirty dollars for the music and not a cent for a morsel to eat. Preston said contentedly, “I hate dancing, and I hate cold water; so I will eschew the festivity to-night.”

Found John R. Thompson at our house when I got home so tired to-night. He brought me the last number of the Cornhill. He knew how much I was interested in Trollope's story, Framley Parsonage.
_______________

1 Following the battle of Gettysburg on July 1st, 2d, and 3d, of this year, there had occurred in Virginia between Lee and Meade engagements at Bristoe's Station, Kelly's Ford, and Rappahannock Station, the latter engagement taking place on November 7th. The author doubtless refers here to the positions of Lee and Meade at Mine Run, December 1st. December 2d Meade abandoned his, because (as he is reported to have said) it would have cost him 30,000 men to carry Lee's breastworks, and he shrank from ordering such slaughter.

SOURCE: Mary Boykin Chesnut, Edited by Isabella D. Martin and Myrta Lockett Avary, A Diary From Dixie, p. 259-60

Wednesday, May 27, 2015

Diary of Mary Boykin Chesnut: September 10, 1863

CAMDEN, S. C. — It is a comfort to turn from small political jealousies to our grand battles — to Lee and Kirby Smith after Council and Convention squabbles. Lee has proved to be all that my husband prophesied of him when he was so unpopular and when Joe Johnston was the great god of war. The very sound of the word convention or council is wearisome. Not that I am quite ready for Richmond yet. We must look after home and plantation affairs, which we have sadly neglected. Heaven help my husband through the deep waters

The wedding of Miss Aiken, daughter of Governor Aiken, the largest slave-owner in South Carolina; Julia Rutledge, one of the bridesmaids; the place Flat Rock. We could not for a while imagine what Julia would do for a dress. My sister Kate remembered some muslin she had in the house for curtains, bought before the war, and laid aside as not needed now. The stuff was white and thin, a little coarse, but then we covered it with no end of beautiful lace. It made a charming dress, and how altogether lovely Julia looked in it! The night of the wedding it stormed as if the world were coming to an end — wind, rain, thunder, and lightning in an unlimited supply around the mountain cottage.

The bride had a duchesse dressing-table, muslin and lace; not one of the shifts of honest, war-driven poverty, but a millionaire's attempt at appearing economical, in the idea that that style was in better taste as placing the family more on the same plane with their less comfortable compatriots. A candle was left too near this light drapery and it took fire. Outside was lightning enough to fire the world; inside, the bridal chamber was ablaze, and there was wind enough to blow the house down the mountainside.

The English maid behaved heroically, and, with the aid of Mrs. Aiken's and Mrs. Mat Singleton's servants, put the fire out without disturbing the marriage ceremony, then being performed below. Everything in the bridal chamber was burned up except the bed, and that was a mass of cinders, soot, and flakes of charred and blackened wood.

At Kingsville I caught a glimpse of our army. Longstreet's corps was going West. God bless the gallant fellows! Not one man was intoxicated; not one rude word did I hear. It was a strange sight — one part of it. There were miles, apparently, of platform cars, soldiers rolled in their blankets, lying in rows, heads all covered, fast asleep. In their gray blankets, packed in regular order, they looked like swathed mummies. One man near where I sat was writing on his knee. He used his cap for a desk and he was seated on a rail. I watched him, wondering to whom that letter was to go — home, no doubt. Sore hearts for him there.

A feeling of awful depression laid hold of me. All these fine fellows were going to kill or be killed. Why? And a phrase got to beating about my head like an old song, “The Unreturning Brave.” When a knot of boyish, laughing, young creatures passed me, a queer thrill of sympathy shook me. Ah, I know how your home-folks feel, poor children! Once, last winter, persons came to us in Camden with such strange stories of Captain ——, Morgan's man; stories of his father, too; turf tales and murder, or, at least, how he killed people. He had been a tremendous favorite with my husband, who brought him in once, leading him by the hand. Afterward he said to me, “With these girls in the house we must be more cautious.” I agreed to be coldly polite to ——. “After all,” I said, “I barely know him.”

When he called afterward in Richmond I was very glad to see him, utterly forgetting that he was under a ban. We had a long, confidential talk. He told me of his wife and children; of his army career, and told Morgan stories. He grew more and more cordial and so did I. He thanked me for the kind reception given him in that house; told me I was a true friend of his, and related to me a scrape he was in which, if divulged, would ruin him, although he was innocent; but time would clear all things. He begged me not to repeat anything he had told me of his affairs, not even to Colonel Chesnut; which I promised promptly, and then he went away. I sat poking the fire thinking what a curiously interesting creature he was, this famous Captain, when the folding-doors slowly opened and Colonel Chesnut appeared. He had come home two hours ago from the War Office with a headache, and had been lying on the sofa behind that folding-door listening for mortal hours.

“So, this is your style of being ‘coldly polite,’” he said. Fancy my feelings. “Indeed, I had forgotten all about what they had said of him. The lies they told of him never once crossed my mind. He is a great deal cleverer, and, I dare say, just as good as those who malign him.”

Mattie Reedy (I knew her as a handsome girl in Washington several years ago) got tired of hearing Federals abusing John Morgan. One day they were worse than ever in their abuse and she grew restive. By way of putting a mark against the name of so rude a girl, the Yankee officer said, “What is your name?” “Write ‘Mattie Reedy’ now, but by the grace of God one day I hope to call myself the wife of John Morgan.” She did not know Morgan, but Morgan eventually heard the story; a good joke it was said to be. But he made it a point to find her out; and, as she was as pretty as she was patriotic, by the grace of God, she is now Mrs. Morgan! These timid Southern women under the guns can be brave enough.

Aunt Charlotte has told a story of my dear mother. They were up at Shelby, Ala., a white man's country, where negroes are not wanted. The ladies had with them several negroes belonging to my uncle at whose house they were staying in the owner's absence. One negro man who had married and dwelt in a cabin was for some cause particularly obnoxious to the neighborhood. My aunt and my mother, old-fashioned ladies, shrinking from everything outside their own door, knew nothing of all this. They occupied rooms on opposite sides of an open passage-way. Underneath, the house was open and unfinished. Suddenly, one night, my aunt heard a terrible noise — apparently as of a man running for his life, pursued by men and dogs, shouting, hallooing, barking. She had only time to lock herself in. Utterly cut off from her sister, she sat down, dumb with terror, when there began loud knocking at the door, with men swearing, dogs tearing round, sniffing, racing in and out of the passage and barking underneath the house like mad. Aunt Charlotte was sure she heard the panting of a negro as he ran into the house a few minutes before. What could have become of him? Where could he have hidden? The men shook the doors and windows, loudly threatening vengeance. My aunt pitied her feeble sister, cut off in the room across the passage. This fright might kill her!

The cursing and shouting continued unabated. A man's voice, in harshest accents, made itself heard above all: “Leave my house, you rascals!” said the voice. “If you are not gone in two seconds, I'll shoot!” There was a dead silence except for the noise of the dogs. Quickly the men slipped away. Once out of gunshot, they began to call their dogs. After it was all over my aunt crept across the passage. “Sister, what man was it scared them away?” My mother laughed aloud in her triumph, “I am the man,” she said.

“But where is John?” Out crept John from a corner of the room, where my mother had thrown some rubbish over him. “Lawd bless you, Miss Mary opened de do' for me and dey was right behind runnin' me —“ Aunt says mother was awfully proud of her prowess. And she showed some moral courage, too!

At the President's in Richmond once, General Lee was there, and Constance and Hetty Cary came in; also Miss Sanders and others. Constance Cary1 was telling some war anecdotes, among them one of an attempt to get up a supper the night before at some high and mighty F. F. V.'s house, and of how several gentlefolks went into the kitchen to prepare something to eat by the light of one forlorn candle. One of the men in the party, not being of a useful temperament, turned up a tub and sat down upon it. Custis Lee, wishing also to rest, found nothing upon which to sit but a gridiron.

One remembrance I kept of the evening at the President's: General Lee bowing over the beautiful Miss Cary's hands in the passage outside. Miss ––– rose to have her part in the picture, and asked Mr. Davis to walk with her into the adjoining drawing-room. He seemed surprised, but rose stiffly, and, with a scowling brow, was led off. As they passed where Mrs. Davis sat, Miss –––, with all sail set, looked back and said: “Don't be jealous, Mrs. Davis; I have an important communication to make to the President.” Mrs. Davis's amusement resulted in a significant “Now! Did you ever?'”

During Stoneman's raid, on a Sunday I was in Mrs. Randolph's pew. The battle of Chancellorsville was also raging. The rattling of ammunition wagons, the tramp of soldiers, the everlasting slamming of those iron gates of the Capitol Square just opposite the church, made it hard to attend to the service.

Then began a scene calculated to make the stoutest heart quail. The sexton would walk quietly up the aisle to deliver messages to worshipers whose relatives had been brought in wounded, dying, or dead. Pale-faced people would then follow him out. Finally, the Rev. Mr. Minnegerode bent across the chancel-rail to the sexton for a few minutes, whispered with the sexton, and then disappeared. The assistant clergyman resumed the communion which Mr. Minnegerode had been administering. At the church door stood Mrs. Minnegerode, as tragically wretched and as wild-looking as ever Mrs. Siddons was. She managed to say to her husband, “Your son is at the station, dead!” When these agonized parents reached the station, however, it proved to be some one else's son who was dead — but a son all the same. Pale and wan came Mr. Minnegerode back to his place within the altar rails. After the sacred communion was over, some one asked him what it all meant, and he said: “Oh, it was not my son who was killed, but it came so near it aches me yet!”

At home I found L. Q. Washington, who stayed to dinner. I saw that he and my husband were intently preoccupied by some event which they did not see fit to communicate to me. Immediately after dinner my husband lent Mr. Washington one of his horses and they rode off together. I betook myself to my kind neighbors, the Pattons, for information. There I found Colonel Patton had gone, too. Mrs. Patton, however, knew all about the trouble. She said there was a raiding party within forty miles of us and no troops were in Richmond! They asked me to stay to tea — those kind ladies — and in some way we might learn what was going on. After tea we went out to the Capitol Square, Lawrence and three men-servants going along to protect us. They seemed to be mustering in citizens by the thousands. Company after company was being formed; then battalions, and then regiments. It was a wonderful sight to us, peering through the iron railing, watching them fall into ranks.

Then we went to the President's, finding the family at supper. We sat on the white marble steps, and General Elzey told me exactly how things stood and of our immediate danger. Pickets were coming in. Men were spurring to and from the door as fast as they could ride, bringing and carrying messages and orders. Calmly General Elzey discoursed upon our present weakness and our chances for aid. After a while Mrs. Davis came out and embraced me silently.

“It is dreadful,” I said. “The enemy is within forty miles of us — only forty!” “Who told you that tale?” said she, “They are within three miles of Richmond!” I went down on my knees like a stone. “You had better be quiet,” she said, “The President is ill. Women and children must not add to the trouble.” She asked me to stay all night, which I was thankful to do.

We sat up. Officers were coming and going; and we gave them what refreshment we could from a side table, kept constantly replenished. Finally, in the excitement, the constant state of activity and change of persons, we forgot the danger. Officers told us jolly stories and seemed in fine spirits, so we gradually took heart. There was not a moment's rest for any one. Mrs. Davis said something more amusing than ever: “We look like frightened women and children, don't we?”

Early next morning the President came down. He was still feeble and pale from illness. Custis Lee and my husband loaded their pistols, and the President drove off in Dr. Garnett's carriage, my husband and Custis Lee on horseback alongside him. By eight o'clock the troops from Petersburg came in, and the danger was over. The authorities will never strip Richmond of troops again. We had a narrow squeeze for it, but we escaped. It was a terrible night, although we made the best of it.

I was walking on Franklin Street when I met my husband. “Come with me to the War Office for a few minutes,” said he, “and then I will go home with you.” What could I do but go? He took me up a dark stairway, and then down a long, dark corridor, and he left me sitting in a window, saying he “would not be gone a second”; he was obliged to go into the Secretary of War's room. There I sat mortal hours. Men came to light the gas. From the first I put down my veil so that nobody might know me. Numbers of persons passed that I knew, but I scarcely felt respectable seated up there in that odd way, so I said not a word but looked out of the window. Judge Campbell slowly walked up and down with his hands behind his back — the saddest face I ever saw. He had jumped down in his patriotism from Judge of the Supreme Court, U. S. A., to be under-secretary of something or other — I do not know what — C. S. A. No wonder he was out of spirits that night!

Finally Judge Ould came; him I called, and he joined me at once, in no little amazement to find me there, and stayed with me until James Chesnut appeared. In point of fact, I sent him to look up that stray member of my family.

When my husband came he said: “Oh, Mr. Seddon and I got into an argument, and time slipped away! The truth is, I utterly forgot you were here.” When we were once more out in the street, he began: “Now, don't scold me, for there is bad news. Pemberton has been fighting the Yankees by brigades, and he has been beaten every time; and now Vicksburg must go!” I suppose that was his side of the argument with Seddon.

Once again I visited the War Office. I went with Mrs. Ould to see her husband at his office. We wanted to arrange a party on the river on the flag-of-truce boat, and to visit those beautiful places, Claremont and Brandon. My husband got into one of his “too careful” fits; said there was risk in it; and so he upset all our plans. Then I was to go up to John Rutherford's by the canal-boat. That, too, he vetoed “too risky,” as if anybody was going to trouble us!
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1 Miss Constance Cary afterward married Burton Harrison and settled in New York where she became prominent socially and achieved reputation as a novelist.

SOURCE: Mary Boykin Chesnut, Edited by Isabella D. Martin and Myrta Lockett Avary, A Diary From Dixie, p. 240-8