My very last day’s experience at the Congaree. I was waiting for Mars Jeems in the drawing-room when a lady there declared herself to be the wife of an officer in Clingman’s regiment. A gentleman who seemed quite friendly with her, told her all Mr. Chesnut said, thought, intended to do, wrote, and felt. I asked: “Are you certain of all these things you say of Colonel Chesnut?” The man hardly deigned to notice this impertinent interruption from a stranger presuming to speak but who had not been introduced! After he went out, the wife of Clingman’s officer was seized with an intuitive curiosity. “Madam, will you tell me your name?” I gave it, adding, “I dare say I showed myself an intelligent listener when my husband’s affairs were under discussion.” At first, I refused to give my name because it would have embarrassed her friend if she had told him who I was. The man was Mr. Chesnut’s secretary, but I had never seen him before.
A letter from Kate says she had been up all night preparing David’s things. Little Serena sat up and helped her mother. They did not know that they would ever see him again. Upon reading it, I wept and James Chesnut cursed the Yankees.
Gave the girls a quantity of flannel for soldiers’ shirts; also a string of pearls to be raffled for at the Gunboat Fair. Mary Witherspoon has sent a silver tea-pot. We do not spare our precious things now. Our silver and gold, what are they?—when we give up to war our beloved.
April 2d.—Dr. Trezevant, attending Mr. Chesnut, who was ill, came and found his patient gone; he could not stand the news of that last battle. He got up and dressed, weak as he was, and went forth to hear what he could for himself. The doctor was angry with me for permitting this, and more angry with him for such folly. I made him listen to the distinction between feminine folly and virulent vagaries and nonsense. He said: “He will certainly be salivated after all that calomel out in this damp weather.”
To-day, the ladies in their landaus were bitterly attacked by the morning paper for lolling back in their silks and satins, with tall footmen in livery, driving up and down the streets while the poor soldiers’ wives were on the sidewalks. It is the old story of rich and poor! My little barouche is not here, nor has James Chesnut any of his horses here, but then I drive every day with Mrs. McCord and Mrs. Preston, either of whose turnouts fills the bill. The Governor’s carriage, horses, servants, etc., are splendid—just what they should be. Why not?
April 14th.—Our Fair is in full blast. We keep a restaurant. Our waitresses are Mary and Buck Preston, Isabella Martin, and Grace Elmore.
April 15th.—Trescott is too clever ever to be a bore; that was proved to-day, for he stayed two hours; as usual, Mr. Chesnut said “four.” Trescott was very surly; calls himself ex-Secretary of State of the United States; now, nothing in particular of South Carolina or the Confederate States. Then he yawned, “What a bore this war is. I wish it was ended, one way or another.” He speaks of going across the border and taking service in Mexico. “Rubbish, not much Mexico for you,” I answered. Another patriot came then and averred, “I will take my family back to town, that we may all surrender together. I gave it up early in the spring.” Trescott made a face behind backs, and said: “Lache!”
The enemy have flanked Beauregard at Nashville. There is grief enough for Albert Sidney Johnston now; we begin to see what we have lost. We were pushing them into the river when General Johnston was wounded. Beauregard was lying in his tent, at the rear, in a green sickness—melancholy—but no matter what the name of the malady. He was too slow to move, and lost all the advantage gained by our dead hero.[76] Without him there is no head to our Western army. Pulaski has fallen. What more is there to fall?
April 15th.—Mrs. Middleton: “How did you settle Molly’s little difficulty with Mrs. McMahan, that ‘piece of her mind’ that Molly gave our landlady?” “Oh, paid our way out of it, of course, and I apologized for Molly!”
Gladden, the hero of the Palmettos in Mexico, is killed. Shiloh has been a dreadful blow to us. Last winter Stephen, my brother, had it in his power to do such a nice thing for Colonel Gladden. In the dark he heard his name, also that he had to walk twenty-five miles in Alabama mud or go on an ammunition wagon. So he introduced himself as a South Carolinian to Colonel Gladden, whom he knew only by reputation as colonel of the Palmetto regiment in the Mexican war. And they drove him in his carriage comfortably to where he wanted to go—a night drive of fifty miles for Stephen, for he had the return trip, too. I would rather live in Siberia, worse still, in Sahara, than live in a country surrendered to Yankees.