He very good-naturedly changed the subject, which was easy just then, for a delicious supper was on the table ready for us. But Doctor Gibbes began anew the fighting. He helped me to some pâté – “Not foie gras,” said Madame Togno, “pâté perdreaux.” Doctor Gibbes, however, gave it a flavor of his own. “Eat it,” said he, “it is good for you; rich and wholesome; healthy as cod-liver oil.”
A queer thing happened. At the post-office a man saw a small boy open with a key the box of the Governor and the Council, take the contents of the box and run for his life. Of course, this man called to the urchin to stop. The urchin did not heed, but seeing himself pursued, began tearing up the letters and papers. He was caught and the fragments were picked up. Finding himself a prisoner, he pointed out the negro who gave him the key. The negro was arrested.
Governor Pickens called to see me to-day. We began with Fort Sumter. For an hour did we hammer at that fortress. We took it, gun by gun. He was very pleasant and friendly in his manner.
James Chesnut has been so nice this winter; so reasonable and considerate – that is, for a man. The night I came from Madame Togno’s, instead of making a row about the lateness of the hour, he said he was “so wide awake and so hungry.” I put on my dressing-gown and scrambled
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some eggs, etc., there on our own fire. And with our feet on the fender and the small supper-table between us, we enjoyed the supper and glorious gossip. Rather a pleasant state of things when one’s own husband is in good humor and cleverer than all the men outside.
This afternoon, the entente cordiale still subsisting, Maum Mary beckoned me out mysteriously, but Mr. Chesnut said: “Speak out, old woman; nobody here but myself.” “Mars Nathum Davis wants to speak to her,” said she. So I hurried off to the drawing-room, Maum Mary flapping her down-at-the-heels shoes in my wake. “He’s gwine bekase somebody done stole his boots. How could he stay bedout boots?” So Nathan said good-by. Then we met General Gist, Maum Mary still hovering near, and I congratulated him on being promoted. He is now a brigadier. This he received with modest complaisance. “I knowed he was a general,” said Maum Mary as he passed on, “he told me as soon as he got in his room befo’ his boy put down his trunks.”
As Nathan, the unlucky, said good-by, he informed me that a Mr. Reed from Montgomery was in the drawingroom and wanted to see me. Mr. Reed had traveled with our foreign envoy, Yancey. I was keen for news from abroad. Mr. Reed settled that summarily. “Mr. Yancey says we need not have one jot of hope. He could bowstring Mallory for not buying arms in time. The very best citizens wanted to depose the State government and take things into their own hands, the powers that be being inefficient. Western men are hurrying to the front, bestirring themselves. In two more months we shall be ready.” What could I do but laugh? I do hope the enemy will be considerate and charitable enough to wait for us.
Mr. Reed’s calm faith in the power of Mr. Yancey’s eloquence was beautiful to see. He asked for Mr. Chesnut. I went back to our rooms, swelling with news like a pouter pigeon. Mr. Chesnut said: “Well! four hours – a call
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from Nathan Davis of four hours!” Men are too absurd! So I bear the honors of my forty years gallantly. I can but laugh. “Mr. Nathan Davis went by the five-o’clock train,” I said; “it is now about six or seven, maybe eight. I have had so many visitors. Mr. Reed, of Alabama, is asking for you out there.” He went without a word, but I doubt if he went to see Mr. Reed, my laughing had made him so angry.
At last Lincoln threatens us with a proclamation abolishing slavery1 – here in the free Southern Confederacy; and they say McClellan is deposed. They want more fighting -I mean the government, whose skins are safe, they want more fighting, and trust to luck for the skill of the new generals.
March 28th. – I did leave with regret Maum Mary. She was such a good, well-informed old thing. My Molly, though perfection otherwise, does not receive the confidential communications of new-made generals at the earliest moment. She is of very limited military information. Maum Mary was the comfort of my life. She saved me from all trouble as far as she could. Seventy, if she is a day, she is spry and active as a cat, of a curiosity that knows no bounds, black and clean; also, she knows a joke at first sight, and she is honest. I fancy the negroes are ashamed to rob people as careless as James Chesnut and myself.
One night, just before we left the Congaree House, Mr. Chesnut had forgotten to tell some all-important thing to
1. The Emancipation proclamation was not actually issued until September 22, 1862, when it was a notice to the Confederates to return to the Union, emancipation being proclaimed as a result of their failure to do so. The real proclamation, freeing the slaves, was delayed until January 1,1863, when it was put forth as a war measure. Mrs. Chesnut’s reference is doubtless to President Lincoln’s Message to Congress, March 6, 1862, in which he made recommendations regarding the abolition of slavery.
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Governor Gist, who was to leave on a public mission next day. So at the dawn of day he put on his dressing-gown and went to the Governor’s room. He found the door unlocked and the Governor fast asleep. He shook him. Half-asleep, the Governor sprang up and threw his arms around Mr. Chesnut’s neck and said: “Honey, is it you?” The mistake was rapidly set right, and the bewildered plenipotentiary was given his instructions. Mr. Chesnut came into my room, threw himself on the sofa, and nearly laughed himself to extinction, imitating again and again the pathetic tone of the Governor’s greeting.
Mr. Chesnut calls Lawrence “Adolphe,” but says he is simply perfect as a servant. Mary Stevens said: “I thought Cousin James the laziest man alive until I knew his man, Lawrence.” Lawrence will not move an inch or lift a finger for any one but his master. Mrs. Middleton politely sent him on an errand; Lawrence too, was very polite; hours after, she saw him sitting on the fence of the front yard. “Didn’t you go?” she asked. “No, ma’am. I am waiting for Mars Jeems.” Mrs. Middleton calls him now, “Mr. Take-it-Easy.”
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
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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.”