If Albert Sidney Johnston had lived! Poor old General Lee has no backing. Stonewall would have saved us from Antietam. Sherman will now catch General Lee by the rear, while Grant holds him by the head, and while Hood and Thomas are performing an Indian war-dance on the frontier. Hood means to cut his way to Lee; see if he doesn’t. The “Yanks” have had a struggle for it. More than once we seemed to have been too much for them. We have been so near to success it aches one to think of it. So runs the table-talk.
Next to our house, which Isabella calls “Tillytudlem,” since Mr. Davis’s visit, is a common of green grass and very level, beyond which comes a belt of pine-trees. On this open space, within forty paces of us, a regiment of foreign deserters has camped. They have taken the oath of allegiance to our government, and are now being drilled and disciplined into form before being sent to our army. They are mostly Germans, with some Irish, however. Their close proximity keeps me miserable. Traitors once, traitors forever.
Jordan has always been held responsible for all the foolish proclamations, and, indeed, for whatever Beauregard reported or proclaimed. Now he has left that mighty chief, and, lo, here comes from Beauregard the silliest and most boastful of his military bulletins. He brags of Shiloh; that was not the way the story was told to us.
A letter from Mrs. Davis, who says: “Thank you, a thousand times, my dear friend, for your more than maternal kindness to my dear child.” That is what she calls her sister, Maggie Howell. “As to Mr. Davis, he thinks the best ham, the best Madeira, the best coffee, the best hostess in the world, rendered Columbia delightful to him when he passed through. We are in a sad and anxious state here just now. The dead come in; but the living do not go out so fast. However, we hope all things and trust in God as the only one able to resolve the opposite state of feeling into a triumphant, happy whole. I had a surprise of an unusually gratifying nature a few days since. I found I could not keep my horses, so I sold them. The next day they were returned to me with a handsome anonymous note to the effect that they had been bought by a few friends for me. But I fear I can not feed them. Strictly between us, things look very anxious here.”
November 6th.—Sally Hampton went to Richmond with the Rev. Mr. Martin. She arrived there on Wednesday. On Thursday her father, Wade Hampton, fought a great battle, but just did not win it—a victory narrowly missed. Darkness supervened and impenetrable woods prevented that longed-for consummation. Preston Hampton rode recklessly into the hottest fire. His father sent his brother, Wade, to bring him back. Wade saw him reel in the saddle and galloped up to him, General Hampton following. As young Wade reached him, Preston fell from his horse, and the one brother, stooping to raise the other, was himself shot down. Preston recognized his father, but died without speaking a word. Young Wade, though wounded, held his brother’s head up. Tom Taylor and others hurried up. The General took his dead son in his arms, kissed him, and handed his body to Tom Taylor and his friends, bade them take care of Wade, and then rode back to his post. At the head of his troops in the thickest of the fray he directed the fight for the rest of the day. Until night he did not know young Wade’s fate; that boy might be dead, too! Now, he says, no son of his must be in his command. When Wade recovers, he must join some other division. The agony of such a day, and the anxiety and the duties of the battle-field—it is all more than a mere man can bear.
Another letter from Mrs. Davis. She says: “I was dreadfully shocked at Preston Hampton’s fate—his untimely fate. I know nothing more touching in history than General Hampton’s situation at the supremest moment of his misery, when he sent one son to save the other and saw both fall; and could not know for some moments whether both were not killed.”
A thousand dollars have slipped through my fingers already this week. At the Commissary’s I spent five hundred to-day for candles, sugar, and a lamp, etc. Tallow candles are bad enough, but of them there seems to be an end, too. Now we are restricted to smoky, terrabine lamps—terrabine is a preparation of turpentine. When the chimney of the lamp cracks, as crack it will, we plaster up the place with paper, thick old letter-paper, preferring the highly glazed kind. In the hunt for paper queer old letters come to light.
Sherman, in Atlanta, has left Thomas to take care of Hood. Hood has thirty thousand men, Thomas forty thousand, and as many more to be had as he wants; he has only to ring the bell and call for them. Grant can get all that he wants, both for himself and for Thomas. All the world is open to them, while we are shut up in a bastile. We are at sea, and our boat has sprung a leak.
November 17th.—Although Sherman[126] took Atlanta, he does not mean to stay there, be it heaven or hell. Fire and the sword are for us here; that is the word. And now I must begin my Columbia life anew and alone. It will be a short shrift.