Mrs. Ould read us a letter from Richmond. How horrified they are there at Joe Johnston"s retreating. And the enemies of the War Department accuse Walker of not sending General Johnston ammunition in sufficient quant.i.ties; say that is the real cause of his retreat. Now will they not make the ears of that slow-coach, the Secretary of War, buzz?
Mrs. Preston"s maid Maria has a way of rushing in - "Don"t you hear the cannon?" We fly to the windows, lean out to our waists, pull all the hair away from our ears, but can not hear it. Lincoln wants four hundred millions of money and men in proportion. Can he get them? He will find us a heavy handful. Midnight. I hear Maria"s guns.
We are always picking up some good thing of the rough Illinoisan"s saying. Lincoln objects to some man - "Oh, he is too interruptious "; that is a horrid style of man or * * *
79 woman, the interruptious. I know the thing, but had no name for it before.
July 9th. - Our battle summer. May it be our first and our last, so called. After all we have not had any of the horrors of war. Could there have been a gayer, or pleasanter, life than we led in Charleston. And Montgomery, how exciting it all was there! So many clever men and women congregated from every part of the South. Mosquitoes, and a want of neatness, and a want of good things to eat, drove us away. In Richmond the girls say it is perfectly delightful. We found it so, too, but the bickering and quarreling have begun there.
At table to-day we heard Mrs. Davis"s ladies described. They were said to wear red frocks and flats on their heads. We sat mute as mice. One woman said she found the drawing-room of the Spotswood was warm, stuffy, and stifling. "Poor soul," murmured the inevitable Brewster, "and no man came to air her in the moonlight stroll, you know. Why didn"t somebody ask her out on the piazza to see the comet?" Heavens above, what philandering was done in the name of the comet! When you stumbled on a couple on the piazza they lifted their eyes, and "comet" was the only word you heard. Brewster came back with a paper from Washington with terrific threats of what they will do to us. Threatened men live long.
There was a soft, sweet, low, and slow young lady opposite to us. She seemed so gentle and refined, and so uncertain of everything. Mr. Brewster called her Miss Albina McClush, who always asked her maid when a new book was mentioned, "Seraphina, have I perused that volume?"
Mary Hammy, having a fianc in the wars, is inclined at times to be sad and tearful. Mrs. Preston quoted her negro nurse to her: "Never take any more trouble in your heart than you can kick off at the end of your toes."
July 11th. - We did hear cannon to-day. The woman who slandered Mrs. Davis"s republican court, of which we * * *
80 are honorable members, by saying they - well, were not young; that they wore gaudy colors, and dressed badly - I took an inventory to-day as to her charms. She is darkly, deeply, beautifully freckled; she wears a wig which is kept in place by a tiara of mock jewels; she has the fattest of arms and wears black bead bracelets.
The one who is under a cloud, shadowed as a Yankee spy, has confirmed our worst suspicions. She exhibited unholy joy, as she reported seven hundred sick soldiers in the hospital at Culpeper, and that Beauregard had sent a flag of truce to Washington.
What a night we had! Maria had seen suspicious persons hovering about all day, and Mrs. Preston a ladder which could easily be placed so as to reach our rooms. Mary Hammy saw lights glancing about among the trees, and we all heard guns. So we sat up. Consequently, I am writing in bed to-day. A letter from my husband saying, in particular: "Our orders are to move on," the date, July 10th. "Here we are still and no more prospect of movement now than when I last wrote to you. It is true, however, that the enemy is advancing slowly in our front, and we are preparing to receive him. He comes in great force, being more than three times our number."
The spy, so-called, gave us a parting shot: said Beauregard had arrested her brother in order that he might take a fine horse which the aforesaid brother was riding. Why? Beauregard, at a moment"s notice, could have any horse in South Carolina, or Louisiana, for that matter. This man was arrested and sent to Richmond, and "will be acquitted as they always are," said Brewster. "They send them first to Richmond to see and hear everything there; then they acquit them, and send them out of the country by way of Norfolk to see everything there. But, after all, what does it matter? They have no need for spies: our newspapers keep no secrets hid. The thoughts of our hearts are all revealed. Everything with us is open and aboveboard.
81 "At Bethel the Yankees fired too high. Every daily paper is jeering them about it yet. They"ll fire low enough next time, but no newspaper man will be there to get the benefit of their improved practise, alas!"
82
IX. RICHMOND, VA.
July 13, 1861 - September 2, 1861 RICHMOND, Va., July 13,1861. - Now we feel safe and comfortable. We can not be flanked. Mr. Preston met us at Warrenton. Mr. Chesnut doubtless had too many spies to receive from Washington, galloping in with the exact numbers of the enemy done up in their back hair.
Wade Hampton is here; Doctor Nott also - Nott and Glyddon known to fame. Everybody is here, en route for the army, or staying for the meeting of Congress.
Lamar is out on crutches. His father-in-law, once known only as the humorist Longstreet, 1 author of Georgia Scenes, now a staid Methodist, who has outgrown the follies of his youth, bore him off to-day. They say Judge Longstreet has lost the keen sense of fun that illuminated his life in days of yore. Mrs. Lamar and her daughter were here.
The President met us cordially, but he laughed at our sudden retreat, with baggage lost, etc. He tried to keep us from going; said it was a dangerous experiment. Dare say he knows more about the situation of things than he chooses to tell us.
To-day in the drawing-room, saw a vivandire in the 1. Augustus Baldwin Longstreet had great distinction in the South as a lawyer, clergyman, teacher, journalist, and author, and was successively president of five different colleges. His Georgia Scenes, a series of humorous papers, enjoyed great popularity for many years.
83 flesh. She was in the uniform of her regiment, but wore Turkish pantaloons. She frisked about in her hat and feathers; did not uncover her head as a man would have done; played the piano; and sang war-songs. She had no drum, but she gave us rataplan. She was followed at every step by a mob of admiring soldiers and boys.
Yesterday, as we left the cars, we had a glimpse of war. It was the saddest sight: the memory of it is hard to shake off - sick soldiers, not wounded ones. There were quite two hundred (they said) lying about as best they might on the platform. Robert Barnwell1 was there doing all he could. Their pale, ghastly faces! So here is one of the horrors of war we had not reckoned on. There were many good men and women with Robert Barnwell, rendering all the service possible in the circ.u.mstances.
Just now I happened to look up and saw Mr. Chesnut with a smile on his face watching me from the pa.s.sageway. I flew across the room, and as I got half-way saw Mrs. Davis touch him on the shoulder. She said he was to go at once into Mr. Davis"s room, where General Lee and General Cooper were. After he left us, Mrs. Davis told me General Beauregard had sent Mr. Chesnut here on , some army business.
July 14th. - Mr. Chesnut remained closeted with the President and General Lee all the afternoon. The news does not seem pleasant. At least, he is not inclined to tell me any of it. He satisfied himself with telling me how sensible and soldierly this handsome General Lee is. General Lee"s military sagacity was also his theme. of course the President dominated the party, as well by his weight of brain as by his position. I did not care a fig for a description of the war council. I wanted to know what is in the wind now?
1. Rev. Robert Barnwell, nephew of Hon. Robert Barnwell, established in Richmond a hospital for South Carolinians.
84 July 16th. - Dined to-day at the President"s table. Joe Davis, the nephew, asked me if I liked white port wine. I said I did not know; "all that I had ever known had been dark red." So he poured me out a gla.s.s. I drank it, and it nearly burned up my mouth and throat. It was horrid, but I did not let him see how it annoyed me. I pretended to be glad that any one found me still young enough to play off a practical joke upon me. It was thirty years since I had thought of such a thing.
Met Colonel Baldwin in the drawing-room. He pointed significantly to his Confederate colonel"s b.u.t.tons and gray coat. At the White Sulphur last summer he was a "Union man" to the last point. "How much have you changed besides your coat?" "I was always true to our country," he said. "She leaves me no choice now."
As far as I can make out, Beauregard sent Mr. Chesnut to the President to gain permission for the forces of Joe Johnston and Beauregard to join, and, united, to push the enemy, if possible, over the Potomac. Now every day we grow weaker and they stronger; so we had better give a telling blow at once. Already, we begin to cry out for more ammunition, and already the blockade is beginning to shut it all out.
A young Emory is here. His mother writes him to go back. Her Franklin blood certainly calls him with no uncertain sound to the Northern side, while his fatherland is wavering and undecided, split in half by factions. Mrs. Wigfall says he is half inclined to go. She wondered that he did not. With a father in the enemy"s army, he will always be "suspect" here, let the President and Mrs. Davis do for him what they will.
I did not know there was such a "bitter cry" left in me, but I wept my heart away to-day when my husband went off. Things do look so black. When he comes up here he rarely brings his body-servant, a negro man. Lawrence has charge of all Mr. Chesnut"s things - watch, * * *
85 clothes, and two or three hundred gold pieces that lie in the tray of his trunk. All these, papers, etc., he tells Lawrence to bring to me if anything happens to him. But I said: "Maybe he will pack off to the Yankees and freedom with all that." "Fiddlesticks! He is not going to leave me for anybody else. After all, what can he ever be, better than he is now - a gentleman"s gentleman?" "He is within sound of the enemy"s guns, and when he gets to the other army he is free." Maria said of Mr. Preston"s man: "What he want with anything more, ef he was free? Don"t he live just as well as Mars John do now?"
Mrs. McLane, Mrs. Joe Johnston, Mrs. Wigfall, all came. I am sure so many clever women could divert a soul in extremis. The Hampton Legion all in a snarl - about, I forget what; standing on their dignity, I suppose. I have come to detest a man who says, "My own personal dignity and self-respect require." I long to cry, "No need to respect yourself until you can make other people do it."
July 19th. - Beauregard telegraphed yesterday (they say, to General Johnston), "Come down and help us, or we shall be crushed by numbers." The President telegraphed General Johnston to move down to Beauregard"s aid. At Bull Run, Bonham"s Brigade, Ewell"s, and Longstreet"s encountered the foe and repulsed him. Six hundred prisoners have been sent here.
I arose, as the Scriptures say, and washed my face and anointed my head and went down-stairs. At the foot of them stood General Cooper, radiant, one finger nervously arranging his shirt collar, or adjusting his neck to it after his fashion. He called out: "Your South Carolina man, Bonham, has done a capital thing at Bull Run - driven back the enemy, if not defeated him; with killed and prisoners," etc. , etc. Clingman came to tell the particulars, and Colonel Smith (one of the trio with Garnett, McClellan, who were sent to Europe to inspect and report on military matters). Poor Garnett is killed. There was cowardice * * *
86 or treachery on the part of natives up there, or some of Governor Letcher"s appointments to military posts. I hear all these things said. I do not understand, but it was a fatal business.
Mrs. McLane says she finds we do not believe a word of any news unless it comes in this guise: "A great battle fought. Not one Confederate killed. Enemy"s loss in killed, wounded, and prisoners taken by us, immense." I was in hopes there would be no battle until Mr. Chesnut was forced to give up his amateur aideship to come and attend to his regular duties in the Congress.
Keitt has come in. He says Bonham"s battle was a skirmish of outposts. Joe Davis, Jr., said: "Would Heaven only send us a Napoleon!" Not one bit of use. If Heaven did, Walker would not give him a commission. Mrs. Davis and Mrs. Joe Johnston, "her dear Lydia," were in fine spirits. The effect upon nous autres was evident; we rallied visibly. South Carolina troops pa.s.s every day. They go by with a gay step. Tom Taylor and John Rhett bowed to us from their horses as we leaned out of the windows. Such shaking of handkerchiefs. We are forever at the windows.
It was not such a mere skirmish. We took three rifled cannon and six hundred stands of arms. Mr. Davis has gone to Mana.s.sas. He did not let Wigfall know he was going. That ends the delusion of Wigfall"s aideship. No mistake to-day. I was too ill to move out of my bed. So they all sat in my room.
July 22d. - Mrs. Davis came in so softly that I did not know she was here until she leaned over me and said: "A great battle has been fought.1 Joe Johnston led the right 1. The first battle of Bull Run, or Mana.s.sas, fought on July 21, 1861, the Confederates being commanded by General Beauregard, and the Federals by General McDowell. Bull Run is a small stream tributary to the Potomac.
87 wing, and Beauregard the left wing of the army. Your husband is all right. Wade Hampton is wounded. Colonel Johnston of the Legion killed; so are Colonel Bee and Colonel Bartow. Kirby Smith1 is wounded or killed."
I had no breath to speak; she went on in that desperate, calm way, to which people betake themselves under the greatest excitement: "Bartow, rallying his men, leading them into the hottest of the light, died gallantly at the head of his regiment. The President telegraphs me only that "it is a great victory." General Cooper has all the other telegrams."
Still I said nothing; I was stunned; then I was so grateful. Those nearest and dearest to me were safe still. She then began, in the same concentrated voice, to read from a paper she held in her hand: "Dead and dying cover the field. Sherman"s battery taken. Lynchburg regiment cut to pieces. Three hundred of the Legion wounded."
That got me up. Times were too wild with excitement to stay in bed. We went into Mrs. Preston"s room, and she made me lie down on her bed. Men, women, and children streamed in. Every living soul had a story to tell. "Complete victory," you heard everywhere. We had been such anxious wretches. The revulsion of feeling was almost too much to bear.
To-day I met my friend, Mr. Hunter. I was on my way to Mrs. Bartow"s room and begged him to call at some other time. I was too tearful just then for a morning visit from even the most sympathetic person.
A woman from Mrs. Bartow"s country was in a fury because they had stopped her as she rushed to be the first to tell Mrs. Bartow her husband was killed, it having been 1. Edmund Kirby Smith, a native of Florida, who had graduated from West Point, served in the Mexican War, and been Professor of Mathematics at West Point. He resigned his commission in the United States Army after the secession of Florida.
88 decided that Mrs. Davis should tell her. Poor thing! She was found lying on her bed when Mrs. Davis knocked. "Come in," she said. When she saw it was Mrs. Davis, she sat up, ready to spring to her feet, but then there was something in Mrs. Davis"s pale face that took the life out of her. She stared at Mrs. Davis, then sank back, and covered her face as she asked: "Is it bad news for me?" Mrs. Davis did not speak. "Is he killed?" Afterward Mrs. Bartow said to me: "As soon as I saw Mrs. Davis"s face I could not say one word. I knew it all in an instant. I knew it before I wrapped the shawl about my head."
Maria, Mrs. Preston"s maid, furiously patriotic, came into my room. "These colored people say it is printed in the papers here that the Virginia people done it all. Now Mars Wade had so many of his men killed and he wounded, it stands to reason that South Carolina was no ways backward. If there was ever anything plain, that"s plain."
Tuesday. - Witnessed for the first time a military funeral. As that march came wailing up, they say Mrs. Bartow fainted. The empty saddle and the led war-horse - we saw and heard it all, and now it seems we are never out of the sound of the Dead March in Saul. It comes and it comes, until I feel inclined to close my ears and scream.
Yesterday, Mrs. Singleton and ourselves sat on a bedside and mingled our tears for those n.o.ble spirits - John Darby, Theodore Barker, and James Lowndes. To-day we find we wasted our grief; they are not so much as wounded. I dare say all the rest is true about them - in the face of the enemy, with flags in their hands, leading their men. "But Dr. Darby is a surgeon." He is as likely to forget that as I am. He is grandson of Colonel Thomson of the Revolution, called, by way of pet name, by his soldiers, "Old Danger." Thank Heaven they are all quite alive. And we will not cry next time until officially notified.
July 24th. - Here Mr. Chesnut opened my door and * * *
89 walked in. Out of the fulness of the heart the mouth speaketh. I had to ask no questions. He gave me an account of the battle as he saw it (walking up and down my room, occasionally seating himself on a window sill, but too restless to remain still many moments) ; and told what regiments he was sent to bring up. He took the orders to Colonel Jackson, whose regiment stood so stock still under file that they were called a "stone wall." Also, they call Beauregard, Eugene, and Johnston, Marlboro. Mr. Chesnut rode with Lay"s cavalry after the retreating enemy in the pursuit, they following them until midnight. Then there came such a fall of rain - rain such as is only known in semitropical lands.
In the drawing-room, Colonel Chesnut was the "belle of the ball"; they crowded him so for news. He was the first arrival that they could get at from the field of battle. But the women had to give way to the dignitaries of the land, who were as filled with curiosity as themselves - Mr. Barnwell, Mr. Hunter, Mr. Cobb, Captain Ingraham, etc.
Wilmot de Saussure says Wilson of Ma.s.sachusetts, a Senator of the United States,1 came to Mana.s.sas, en route to Richmond, with his dancing shoes ready for a festive scene which was to celebrate a triumph. The New York Tribune said: "In a few days we shall have Richmond, Memphis, and New Orleans. They must be taken and at once." For "a few days" maybe now they will modestly subst.i.tute "in a few years."
They brought me a Yankee soldier"s portfolio from the battle-field. The letters had been franked by Senator 1. Henry Wilson, son of a farm laborer and self-educated, who rose to much prominence in the Anti-Slavery contests before the war. He was elected United States Senator from Ma.s.sachusetts in 1855, holding the office until 1873, when he resigned, having been elected Vice-President of the United States on the ticket with Ulysses S. Grant.
90 Harlan.1 One might shed tears over some of the letters. Women, wives and mothers, are the same everywhere. What a comfort the spelling was! We had been willing to admit that their universal free-school education had put them, rank and file, ahead of us literarily, but these letters do not attest that fact. The spelling is comically bad.
July 27th. - Mrs. Davis"s drawing-room last night was brilliant, and she was in great force. Outside a mob called for the President. He did speak - an old war-horse, who scents the battle-fields from afar. His enthusiasm was contagious. They called for Colonel Chesnut, and he gave them a capital speech, too. As public speakers say sometimes, "It was the proudest moment of my life." I did not hear a great deal of it, for always, when anything happens of any moment, my heart beats up in my ears, but the distinguished Carolinians who crowded round told me how good a speech he made. I was dazed. There goes the Dead March for some poor soul.
To-day, the President told us at dinner that Mr. Chesnut"s eulogy of Bartow in the Congress was highly praised. Men liked it. Two eminently satisfactory speeches in twenty-four hours is doing pretty well. And now I could be happy, but this Cabinet of ours are in such bitter quarrels among themselves - everybody abusing everybody.
Last night, while those splendid descriptions of the battle were being given to the crowd below from our windows, I said: "Then, why do we not go on to Washington?" "You mean why did they not; the opportunity is lost." Mr. Barnwell said to me: "Silence, we want to listen to the speaker," and Mr. Hunter smiled compa.s.sionately, "Don"t ask awkward questions."
Kirby Smith came down on the turnpike in the very nick of time. Still, the heroes who fought all day and 1. James Harlan, United States Senator from Iowa from 1855 to 1865. In 1865 he was appointed Secretary of the Interior.
91 held the Yankees in check deserve credit beyond words, or it would all have been over before the Joe Johnston contingent came. It is another case of the eleventh-hour sc.r.a.pe; the eleventh-hour men claim all the credit, and they who bore the heat and brunt and burden of the day do not like that.
Everybody said at first, "Pshaw! There will be no war." Those who foresaw evil were called ravens, ill-foreboders. Now the same sanguine people all cry, "The war is over" - the very same who were packing to leave Richmond a few days ago. Many were ready to move on at a moment"s warning, when the good news came. There are such owls everywhere.
But, to revert to the other kind, the sage and circ.u.mspect, those who say very little, but that little shows they think the war barely begun. Mr. Rives and Mr. Seddon have just called. Arnoldus Van der Horst came to see me at the same time. He said there was no great show of victory on our side until two o"clock, but when we began to win, we did it in double-quick time. I mean, of course, the battle last Sunday.
Arnold Harris told Mr. Wigfall the news from Washington last Sunday. For hours the telegrams reported at rapid intervals, "Great victory," "Defeating them at all points." The couriers began to come in on horseback, and at last, after two or three o"clock, there was a sudden cessation of all news, About nine messengers with bulletins came on foot or on horseback - wounded, weary, draggled, footsore, panic-stricken - spreading in their path on every hand terror and dismay. That was our opportunity. Wigfall can see nothing that could have stopped us, and when they explain why we did not go to Washington I understand it all less than ever. Yet here we will dilly-dally, and Congress orate, and generals parade, until they in the North, get up an army three times as large as McDowell"s, which we have just defeated.
92 Trescott says this victory will be our ruin. It lulls us into a fool"s paradise of conceit at our superior valor, and the shameful farce of their flight will wake every inch of their manhood. It was the very fillip they needed. There are a quieter sort here who know their Yankees well. They say if the thing begins to pay - government contracts, and all that - we will never hear the end of it, at least, until they get their pay in some way out of us. They will not lose money by us. Of that we may be sure. Trust Yankee shrewdness and vim for that.
There seems to be a battle raging at Bethel, but no mortal here can be got to think of anything but Mana.s.sas. Mrs. McLean says she does not see that it was such a great victory, and if it be so great, how can one defeat hurt a nation like the North.
John Waties fought the whole battle over for me. Now I understand it. Before this n.o.body would take the time to tell the thing consecutively, rationally, and in order. Mr. Venable said he did not see a braver thing done than the cool performance of a Columbia negro. He carried his master a bucket of ham and rice, which he had cooked for him, and he cried: "You must be so tired and hungry, marster; make haste and eat." This was in the thickest of the fight, under the heaviest of the enemy"s guns.
The Federal Congressmen had been making a picnic of it: their luggage was all ticketed to Richmond. Cameron has issued a proclamation. They are making ready to come after us on a magnificent scale. They acknowledge us at last foemen worthy of their steel. The Lord help us, since England and France won"t, or don"t. If we could only get a friend outside and open a port.
One of these men told me he had seen a Yankee prisoner, who asked him "what sort of a diggins Richmond was for trade." He was tired of the old concern, and would like to take the oath and settle here. They brought us handcuffs found in the dbacle of the Yankee army. For whom * * *
93 were they? Jeff Davis, no doubt, and the ringleaders. "Tell that to the marines." We have outgrown the handcuff business on this side of the water.
Dr. Gibbes says he was at a country house near Mana.s.sas, when a Federal soldier, who had lost his way, came in exhausted. He asked for brandy, which the lady of the house gave him. Upon second thought, he declined it. She brought it to him so promptly he said he thought it might be poisoned; his mind was; she was enraged, and said: "Sir, I am a Virginia woman. Do you think I could be as base as that? Here, Bill, Tom, disarm this man. He is our prisoner." The negroes came running, and the man surrendered without more ado.
Another Federal was drinking at the well. A negro girl said: "You go in and see Missis." The man went in and she followed, crying triumphantly: "Look here, Missis, I got a prisoner, too!" This lady sent in her two prisoners, and Beauregard complimented her on her pluck and patriotism, and her presence of mind. These negroes were rewarded by their owners.
Now if slavery is as disagreeable to negroes as we think it, why don"t they all march over the border where they would be received with open arms? It all amazes me. I am always studying these creatures. They are to me inscrutable in their way and past finding out. Our negroes were not ripe for John Brown.
This is how I saw Robert E. Lee for the first time: though his family, then living at Arlington, called to see me while I was in Washington (I thought because of old Colonel Chesnut"s intimacy with Nellie Custis in the old Philadelphia days, Mrs. Lee being Nelly Custis"s niece), I had not known the head of the Lee family. He was somewhere with the army then.
Last summer at the White Sulphur were Roony Lee and his wife, that sweet little Charlotte Wickam, and I spoke of Roony with great praise. Mrs. Izard said: "Don"t waste * * *
94 your admiration on him; wait till you see his father. He is the nearest to a perfect man I ever saw." "How?" "In every way - handsome, clever, agreeable, high-bred."
Now, Mrs. Stanard came for Mrs. Preston and me to drive to the camp in an open carriage. A man riding a beautiful horse joined us. He wore a hat with something of a military look to it, sat his horse gracefully, and was so distinguished at all points that I very much regretted not catching his name as Mrs. Stanard gave it to us. He, however, heard ours, and bowed as gracefully as he rode, and the few remarks he made to each of us showed he knew all about us.
But Mrs. Stanard was in ecstasies of pleasurable excitement. I felt that she had bagged a big fish, for just then they abounded in Richmond. Mrs. Stanard accused him of being ambitious, etc. He remonstrated and said his tastes were "of the simplest." He only wanted "a Virginia farm, no end of cream and fresh b.u.t.ter and fried chicken - not one fried chicken, or two, but unlimited fried chicken."
To all this light chat did we seriously incline, because the man and horse and everything about him were so fine-looking; perfection, in fact; no fault to be found if you hunted for it. As he left us, I said eagerly, "Who is he?" "You did not know! Why, it was Robert E. Lee, son of Light Horse Harry Lee, the first man in Virginia," raising her voice as she enumerated his glories. All the same, I like Smith Lee better, and I like his looks, too. I know Smith Lee well. Can anybody say they know his brother? I doubt it. He looks so cold, quiet, and grand.
Kirby Smith is our Blcher; he came on the field in the nick of time, as Blcher at Waterloo, and now we are as the British, who do not remember Blcher. It is all Wellington. So every individual man I see fought and won the battle. From Kershaw up and down, all the eleventh-hour men won the battle; turned the tide. The Marylanders - * * *
94a A GROUP OF CONFEDERATE GENERALS. "STONEWALL" JACKSON. ROBERT E. LEE. JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. PIERRE G. T. BEAUREGARD. JOHN B. HOOD. ALBERT SIDNEY JOHNSTON.
95 Elzey & Co. - one never hears of - as little as one hears of Blcher in the English stories of Waterloo.
Mr. Venable was praising Hugh Garden and Kershaw"s regiment generally. This was delightful. They are my friends and neighbors at home. I showed him Mary Stark"s letter, and we agreed with her. At the bottom of our hearts we believe every Confederate soldier to be a hero, sans peur et sans reproche.
Hope for the best to-day. Things must be on a pleasanter footing all over the world. Met the President in the corridor. He took me by both hands. "Have you breakfasted?" said he. "Come in and breakfast with me?" Alas! I had had my breakfast.
At the public dining-room, where I had taken my breakfast with Mr. Chesnut, Mrs. Davis came to him, while we were at table. She said she had been to our rooms. She wanted Wigfall hunted up. Mr. Davis thought Chesnut would be apt to know his whereabouts. I ran to Mrs. Wigfall"s room, who told me she was sure he could be found with his regiment in camp, but Mr. Chesnut had not to go to the camp, for Wigfall came to his wife"s room while I was there. Mr. Davis and Wigfall would be friends, if - if - The Northern papers say we hung and quartered a Zouave; cut him into four pieces; and that we tie prisoners to a tree and bayonet them. In other words, we are savages. It ought to teach us not to credit what our papers say of them. It is so absurd an imagination of evil. We are absolutely treating their prisoners as well as our own men: we are complained of for it here. I am going to the hospitals for the enemy"s sick and wounded in order to see for myself.
Why did we not follow the flying foe across the Potomac? That is the question of the hour in the drawing-room with those of us who are not contending as to "who took Rickett"s Battery?" Allen Green, for one, took it. Allen told us that, finding a portmanteau with nice clean * * *
96 shirts, he was so hot and dusty he stepped behind a tree and put on a clean Yankee shirt, and was more comfortable.
The New York Tribune soothes the Yankee self-conceit, which has received a shock, by saying we had 100,000 men on the field at Mana.s.sas; we had about 15,000 effective men in all. And then, the Tribune tries to inflame and envenom them against us by telling lies as to our treatment of prisoners. They say when they come against us next it will be in overwhelming force. I long to see Russell"s letter to the London Times about Bull Run and Mana.s.sas. It will be rich and rare. In Washington, it is crimination and recrimination. Well, let them abuse one another to their hearts" content.