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 runs 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 God, 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 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 glass was all to be washed. Then the brass 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, blushing violently, refused to let me have Ellen make her some biscuit. I went home and sent her some biscuit all the same.
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.