Mr. Venable, of Lee’s staff, was at our party, so out of
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spirits. He knows everything that is going on. His depression bodes us no good. To-day, General Hampton sent James Chesnut a fine saddle that he had captured from the Yankees in battle array.
Mrs. Scotch Allan (Edgar Allan Poe’s patron’s wife) sent me ice-cream and lady-cheek apples from her farm. John R. Thompson,1 the sole literary fellow I know in Richmond, sent me Leisure Hours in Town, by A Country Parson.
My husband says he hopes I will be contented because he came here this winter to please me. If I could have been satisfied at home he would have resigned his aide-de-campship and gone into some service in South Carolina. I am a good excuse, if good for nothing else.
Old tempestuous Keitt breakfasted with us yesterday. I wish I could remember half the brilliant things he said. My husband has now gone with him to the War Office. Colonel Keitt thinks it is time he was promoted. He wants to be a brigadier.
Now, Charleston is bombarded night and day. It fairly makes me dizzy to think of that everlasting racket they are beating about people’s ears down there. Bragg defeated, and separated from Longstreet. It is a long street that knows no turning, and Rosecrans is not taken after all.
November 30th. – Anxiety pervades. Lee is fighting Meade. Misery is everywhere. Bragg is falling back before Grant.2 Longstreet, the soldiers call him Peter the Slow, is settling down before Knoxville.
1. John R. Thompson was a native of Richmond and in 1847 became editor of the Southern Literary Messenger. Under his direction, that periodical acquired commanding influence. Mr. Thompson’s health failed afterward. During the war he spent a part of his time in Richmond and a part in Europe. He afterward settled in New York and became literary editor of the Evening Post.
2. The siege of Chattanooga, which had been begun on September 21st, closed late in November, 1863, the final engagements beginning on November 23d, and ending on November 25th. Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge were the closing incidents of the siege. Grant, Sherman, and Hooker were conspicuous on the Federal side and Bragg and Longstreet on the Confederate.
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General Lee requires us to answer every letter, said Mr. Venable, and to do our best to console the poor creatures whose husbands and sons are fighting the battles of the country.
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.
1. Following the battle of Gettysburg on July 1st, 2d, and 3d, of this year, there had occurred in Virginia between Lee and Made 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.
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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, “À 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.
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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 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 as 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
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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!’ “