A Diary From Dixie by Mary Boykin Miller Chesnut.

December 24th.—As we walked, Brewster reported a row he had had with General Hood. Brewster had told those six young ladies at the Prestons’ that “old Sam” was in the habit of saying he would not marry if he could any silly, sentimental girl, who would throw herself away upon a maimed creature such as he was. When Brewster went home he took pleasure in telling Sam, how the ladies had complimented his good sense, whereupon the General rose in his wrath and threatened to break his crutch over Brewster’s head. To think he could be such a fool—to go about repeating to everybody his whimperings.

I was taking my seat at the head of the table when the door opened and Brewster walked in unannounced. He took his stand in front of the open door, with his hands in his pockets and his small hat pushed back as far as it could get from his forehead.

“What!” said he, “you are not ready yet? The generals are below. Did you get my note?” I begged my husband to excuse me and rushed off to put on my bonnet and furs. I met the girls coming up with a strange man. The flurry of two major-generals had been too much for me and I forgot to ask the new one’s name. They went up to dine in my place with my husband, who sat eating his dinner, with Lawrence’s undivided attention given to him, amid this whirling and eddying in and out of the world militant. Mary Preston and I then went to drive with the generals. The new one proved to be Buckner,[1] who is also a Kentuckian. The two men told us they had slept together the night before Chickamauga. It is useless to try: legs can’t any longer be kept out of the conversation. So General Buckner said: “Once before I slept with a man and he lost his leg next day.” He had made a vow never to do so again. “When Sam and I parted that morning, we said: ‘You or I may be killed, but the cause will be safe all the same.'”

After the drive everybody came in to tea, my husband in famous good humor, we had an unusually gay evening. It was very nice of my husband to take no notice of my conduct at dinner, which had been open to criticism. All the comfort of my life depends upon his being in good humor.

[1] Simon B. Buckner was a graduate of West Point and had served in the Mexican War. In 1887 he was elected Governor of Kentucky and, at the funeral of General Grant, acted as one of the pall-bearers.

December 21st.—Joe Johnston has been made Commander-in-chief of the Army of the West. General Lee had this done, ’tis said. Miss Agnes Lee and “little Robert ” (as they fondly call General Lee’s youngest son in this hero-worshiping community) called. They told us the President, General Lee, and General Elzey had gone out to look at the fortifications around Richmond. My husband came home saying he had been with them, and lent General Lee his gray horse.

Mrs. Howell, Mrs. Davis’s mother, says a year ago on the cars a man said, “We want a Dictator.” She replied, “Jeff Davis will never consent to be a Dictator.” The man turned sharply toward her “And, pray, who asks him? Joe Johnston will be made Dictator by the Army of the West.” “Imperator” was suggested. Of late the Army of the West has not been in a condition to dictate to friend or foe. Certainly Jeff Davis did hate to put Joe Johnston at the head of what is left of it. Detached from General Lee, what a horrible failure is Longstreet! Oh, for a day of Albert Sidney Johnston out West! And Stonewall, could he come back to us here!

General Hood, the wounded knight, came for me to drive. I felt that I would soon find myself chaperoning some girls, but I asked no questions. He improved the time between Franklin and Cary Streets by saying, “I do like your husband so much.” “So do I,” I replied simply. Buck was ill in bed, so William said at the door, but she recovered her health and came down for the drive in black velvet and ermine, looking queenly. And then, with the top of the landau thrown back, wrapped in furs and rugs, we had a long drive that bitter cold day.

One day as we were hieing us home from the Fair Grounds, Sam, the wounded knight, asked Brewster what are the symptoms of a man’s being in love. Sam (Hood is called Sam entirely, but why I do not know) said for his part he did not know; at seventeen he had fancied himself in love, but that was “a long time ago.” Brewster spoke on the symptoms of love: ”When you see her, your breath is apt to come short. If it amounts to mild strangulation, you have got it bad. You are stupidly jealous, glowering with jealousy, and have a gloomy fixed conviction that she likes every fool you meet better than she does you, especially people that you know she has a thorough contempt for; that is, you knew it before you lost your head, I mean, before you fell in love. The last stages of unmitigated spooniness, I will spare you,” said Brewster, with a giggle and a wave of the hand. ”Well,” said Sam, drawing a breath of relief, “I have felt none of these things so far, and yet they say I am engaged to four young ladies, a liberal allowance, you will admit, for a man who can not walk without help.”

Another day (the Sabbath) we called on our way from church to see Mrs. Wigfall. She was ill, but Mr. Wigfall insisted upon taking me into the drawing-room to rest a while. He said Louly was there; so she was, and so was Sam Hood, the wounded knight, stretched at full length on a sofa and a rug thrown over him. Louis Wigfall said to me: “Do you know General Hood?” “Yes,” said I, and the General laughed with his eyes as I looked at him; but he did not say a word. I felt it a curious commentary upon the reports he had spoken of the day before. Louly Wigfall is a very handsome girl.

December 19th.—A box has come from home for me. Taking advantage of this good fortune and a full larder, have asked Mrs. Davis to dine with me. Wade Hampton sent me a basket of game. We had Mrs. Davis and Mr. and Mrs. Preston. After dinner we walked to the church to see the Freeland-Lewis wedding. Mr. Preston had Mrs. Davis on his arm. My husband and Mrs. Preston, and Burton Harrison and myself brought up the rear. Willie Allan joined us, and we had the pleasure of waiting one good hour. Then the beautiful Maria, loveliest of brides, sailed in on her father’s arm, and Major John Coxe Lewis followed with Mrs. Freeland. After the ceremony such a kissing was there up and down the aisle. The happy bridegroom kissed wildly, and several girls complained, but he said: “How am I to know Maria’s kin whom I was to kiss? It is better to show too much affection for one’s new relations than too little.”

December 14th.—Drove out with Mrs. Davis. She had a watch in her hand which some poor dead soldier wanted to have sent to his family. First, we went to her mantua-maker, then we drove to the Fair Grounds where the band was playing. Suddenly, she missed the watch. She remembered having it when we came out of the mantua-maker’s. We drove back instantly, and there the watch was lying near the steps of the little porch in front of the house. No one had passed in, apparently; in any case, no one had seen it.

Preston Hampton went with me to see Conny Cary. The talk was frantically literary, which Preston thought hard on him. I had just brought the St. Denis number of Les Miserables.

Sunday, Christopher Hampton walked to church with me. Coming out, General Lee was seen slowly making his way down the aisle, bowing royally to right and left. I pointed him out to Christopher Hampton when General Lee happened to look our way. He bowed low, giving me a charming smile of recognition. I was ashamed of being so pleased. I blushed like a schoolgirl.

We went to the White House. They gave us tea. The President said he had been on the way to our house, coming with all the Davis family, to see me, but the children became so troublesome they turned back. Just then, little Joe rushed in and insisted on saying his prayers at his father’s knee, then and there. He was in his night-clothes.

December 10th.—Mrs. Davis and Mrs. Lyons came. We had luncheon brought in for them, and then a lucid explanation of the chronique scandaleuse, of which Beck J. is the heroine. We walked home with Mrs. Davis and met the President riding alone. Surely that is wrong. It must be unsafe for him when there are so many traitors, not to speak of bribed negroes. Burton Harrison[1] says Mr. Davis prefers to go alone, and there is none to gainsay him.

My husband laid the law down last night. I felt it to be the last drop in my full cup. “No more feasting in this house,” said he. “This is no time for junketing and merrymaking.” “And you said you brought me here to enjoy the winter before you took me home and turned my face to a dead wall.” He is the master of the house; to hear is to obey.

[1] Burton Harrison, then secretary to Jefferson Davis, who married Miss Constance Cary and became well known as a New York lawyer. He died in Washington in 1904.

December 9th.—” Come here, Mrs. Chesnut,” said Mary Preston to-day, ” they are lifting General Hood out of his carriage, here, at your door.” Mrs. Grundy promptly had him borne into her drawing-room, which was on the first floor. Mary Preston and I ran down and greeted him as cheerfully and as cordially as if nothing had happened since we saw him standing before us a year ago. How he was waited upon! Some cut-up oranges were brought him. “How kind people are,” said he. “Not once since I was wounded have I ever been left without fruit, hard as it is to get now.” “The money value of friendship is easily counted now,” said some one, “oranges are five dollars apiece.”

December 5th.—Wigfall was here last night. He began by wanting to hang Jeff Davis. My husband managed him beautifully. He soon ceased to talk virulent nonsense, and calmed down to his usual strong common sense. I knew it was quite late, but I had no idea of the hour. My husband beckoned me out. “It is all your fault,” said he. “What?” “Why will you persist in looking so interested in all Wigfall is saying? Don’t let him catch your eye. Look into the fire. Did you not hear it strike two?”

This attack was so sudden, so violent, so unlooked for, I could only laugh hysterically. However, as an obedient wife, I went back, gravely took my seat and looked into the fire. I did not even dare raise my eyes to see what my husband was doing—if he, too, looked into the fire. Wigfall soon tired of so tame an audience and took his departure.

General Lawton was here. He was one of Stonewall’s generals. So I listened with all my ears when he said: ”Stonewall could not sleep. So, every two or three nights you were waked up by orders to have your brigade in marching order before daylight and report in person to the Commander. Then you were marched a few miles out and then a few miles in again. All this was to make us ready, ever on the alert. And the end of it was this: Jackson’s men would go half a day’s march before Peter Longstreet waked and breakfasted. I think there is a popular delusion about the amount of praying he did. He certainly preferred a fight on Sunday to a sermon. Failing to manage a fight, he loved best a long Presbyterian sermon, Calvinistic to the core.

“He had shown small sympathy with human infirmity. He was a one-idea-ed man. He looked upon broken-down men and stragglers as the same thing. He classed all who were weak and weary, who fainted by the wayside, as men wanting in patriotism. If a man’s face was as white as cotton and his pulse so low you scarce could feel it, he looked upon him merely as an inefficient soldier and rode off impatiently. He was the true type of all great soldiers. Like the successful warriors of the world, he did not value human life where he had an object to accomplish. He could order men to their death as a matter of course. His soldiers obeyed him to the death. Faith they had in him stronger than death. Their respect he commanded. I doubt if he had so much of their love as is talked about while he was alive. Now, that they see a few more years of Stonewall would have freed them from the Yankees, they deify him. Any man is proud to have been one of the famous Stonewall brigade. But, be sure, it was bitter hard work to keep up with him as all know who ever served under him. He gave his orders rapidly and distinctly and rode away, never allowing answer or remonstrance. It was, ‘Look there—see that place—take it!’ When you failed you were apt to be put under arrest. When you reported the place taken, he only said, ‘Good!’”

Spent seventy-five dollars to-day for a little tea and sugar, and have five hundred left. My husband’s pay never has paid for the rent of our lodgings. He came in with dreadful news just now. I have wept so often for things that never happened, I will withhold my tears now for a certainty. To-day, a poor woman threw herself on her dead husband’s coffin and kissed it. She was weeping bitterly. So did I in sympathy.

My husband, as I told him to-day, could see me and everything that he loved hanged, drawn, and quartered without moving a muscle, if a crowd were looking on; he could have the same gentle operation performed on himself and make no sign. To all of which violent insinuation he answered in unmoved tones: “So would any civilized man. Savages, however—Indians, at least—are more dignified in that particular than we are. Noisy, fidgety grief never moves me at all; it annoys me. Self-control is what we all need. You are a miracle of sensibility; self-control is what you need.” “So you are civilized!” I said. ”Some day I mean to be.”

December 4th.—My husband bought yesterday at the Commissary’s one barrel of flour, one bushel of potatoes, one peck of rice, five pounds of salt beef, and one peck of salt—all for sixty dollars. In the street a barrel of flour sells for one hundred and fifteen dollars.

December 2d.—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, “Á la santé de l’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.