[Let me insert here now, much later, all I know of that brave spirit, George Cuthbert. While I was living in the winter of 1863 at the corner of Clay and Twelfth Streets in Richmond, he came to see me. Never did man enjoy life more. The Preston girls were staying at my house then, and it was very gay for the young soldiers who ran down from the army for a day or so. We had heard of him, as usual, gallantly facing odds at Sharpsburg.[92] And he asked if he should chance to be wounded would I have him brought to Clay Street.
He was shot at Chancellorsville,[93] leading his men. The surgeon did not think him mortally wounded. He sent me a message that “he was coming at once to our house.” He knew he would soon get well there. Also that “I need not be alarmed; those Yankees could not kill me.” He asked one of his friends to write a letter to his mother. Afterward he said he had another letter to write, but that he wished to sleep first, he felt so exhausted. At his request they then turned his face away from the light and left him. When they came again to look at him, they found him dead. He had been dead for a long time. It was bitter cold; wounded men lost much blood and were weakened in that way; they lacked warm blankets and all comforts. Many died who might have been saved by one good hot drink or a few mouthfuls of nourishing food.
One of the generals said to me: “Fire and reckless courage like Captain Cuthbert’s are contagious; such men in an army are invaluable; losses like this weakened us, indeed.” But I must not linger longer around the memory of the bravest of the brave—a true exemplar of our old régime, gallant, gay, unfortunate.—M. B. C.]
August 8th.—Mr. Daniel Blake drove down to my sister’s in his heavy, substantial English phaeton, with stout and strong horses to match. I went back with him and spent two delightful days at his hospitable mansion. I met there, as a sort of chaplain, the Rev. Mr. ——. He dealt unfairly by me. We had a long argument, and when we knelt down for evening prayers, he introduced an extemporaneous prayer and prayed for me most palpably. There was I down on my knees, red-hot with rage and fury. David W. said it was a clear case of hitting a fellow when he was down. Afterward the fun of it all struck me, and I found it difficult to keep from shaking with laughter. It was not an edifying religious exercise, to say the least, as far as I was concerned.
Before Chancellorsville, was fatal Sharpsburg.[94] My friend, Colonel Means, killed on the battle-field; his only son, Stark, wounded and a prisoner. His wife had not recovered from the death of her other child, Emma, who had died of consumption early in the war. She was lying on a bed when they told her of her husband’s death, and then they tried to keep Stark’s condition from her. They think now that she misunderstood and believed him dead, too. She threw something over her face. She did not utter one word. She remained quiet so long, some one removed the light shawl which she had thrown over her head and found she was dead. Miss Mary Stark, her sister, said afterward, “No wonder! How was she to face life without her husband and children? That was all she had ever lived for.” These are sad, unfortunate memories. Let us run away from them.
What has not my husband been doing this year, 1862, when all our South Carolina troops are in Virginia? Here we were without soldiers or arms. He raised an army, so to speak, and imported arms, through the Trenholm firm. He had arms to sell to the Confederacy. He laid the foundation of a niter-bed; and the Confederacy sent to Columbia to learn of Professor Le Conte how to begin theirs. He bought up all the old arms and had them altered and repaired. He built ships. He imported clothes and shoes for our soldiers, for which things they had long stood sorely in need. He imported cotton cards and set all idle hands carding and weaving. All the world was set to spinning cotton. He tried to stop the sale of whisky, and alas, he called for reserves—that is, men over age, and he committed the unforgivable offense of sending the sacred negro property to work on fortifications away from their owners’ plantations.