One called Judy Bradly, a one-eyed virago, who played the fiddle at all the Sandhill dances and fandangoes, made a deep impression on my youthful mind. Her list of requests was always rather long, and once my grandmother grew restive and actually hesitated. “Woman, do you mean to let me starve?” she cried furiously. My grandmother then attempted a meek lecture as to the duty of earning one’s bread. Judy squared her arms akimbo and answered, “And pray, who made you a judge of the world? Lord, Lord, if I had ‘er knowed I had ter stand all this jaw, I wouldn’t a took your ole things,” but she did take them and came afterward again and again.
June 27th. – An awful story from Sumter. An old
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gentleman, who thought his son dead or in a Yankee prison, heard some one try the front door. It was about midnight, and these are squally times. He called out, “What is that?” There came no answer. After a while he heard some one trying to open a window and he fired. The house was shaken by a fall. Then, after a long time of dead silence, he went round the house to see if his shot had done any harm, and found his only son bathed in his own blood on his father’s door-step. The son was just back from a Yankee prison – one of his companions said – and had been made deaf by cold and exposure. He did not hear his father hail him. He had tried to get into the house in the same old way he used to employ when a boy.
My sister-in-law in tears of rage and despair, her servants all gone to “a big meeting at Mulberry,” though she had made every appeal against their going. “Send them adrift,” some one said, “they do not obey you, or serve you; they only live on you.” It would break her heart to part with one of them. But that sort of thing will soon right itself. They will go off to better themselves – we have only to cease paying wages – and that is easy, for we have no money.
July 4th. – Saturday I was in bed with one of my worst headaches. Occasionally there would come a sob and I thought of my sister insulted and my little sweet Williams. Another of my beautiful Columbia quartette had rough experiences. A raider asked the plucky little girl, Lizzie Hamilton, for a ring which she wore. “You shall not have it,” she said. The man put a pistol to her head, saying, “Take it off, hand it to me, or I will blow your brains out.” “Blow away,” said she. The man laughed and put down his pistol, remarking, “You knew I would not hurt you.” “Of course, I knew you dared not shoot me. Even Sherman would not stand that.”
There was talk of the negroes where the Yankees had been – negroes who flocked to them and showed them where
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SARSFIELD, NEAR CAMDEN, S. C.
Built by General Chesnut after the War, and the Home of himself and Mrs. Chesnut until they Died.
From a Recent Photograph.
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silver and valuables had been hid by the white people. Ladies’-maids dressed themselves in their mistresses’ gowns before the owners’ faces and walked off. Now, before this every one had told me how kind, faithful, and considerate the negroes had proven. I am sure, after hearing these tales, the fidelity of my own servants shines out brilliantly. I had taken their conduct too much as a matter of course. In the afternoon I had some business on our place, the Hermitage. John drove me down. Our people were all at home, quiet, orderly, respectful, and at their usual work. In point of fact things looked unchanged. There was nothing to show that any one of them had even seen the Yankees, or knew that there was one in existence.
July 26th. – I do not write often now, not for want of something to say, but from a loathing of all I see and hear, and why dwell upon those things?
Colonel Chesnut, poor old man, is worse – grows more restless. He seems to be wild with “homesickness.” He wants to be at Mulberry. When there he can not see the mighty giants of the forest, the huge, old, wide-spreading oaks, but he says he feels that he is there so soon as he hears the carriage rattling across the bridge at the Beaver Dam.
I am reading French with Johnny – anything to keep him quiet. We gave a dinner to his company, the small remnant of them, at Mulberry house. About twenty idle negroes, trained servants, came without leave or license and assisted. So there was no expense. They gave their time and labor for a good day’s feeding. I think they love to be at the old place.
Then I went up to nurse Kate Withers. That lovely girl, barely eighteen, died of typhoid fever. Tanny wanted his sweet little sister to have a dress for Mary Boykin’s wedding, where she was to be one of the bridesmaids. So Tanny took his horses, rode one, and led the other thirty miles in the broiling sun to Columbia, where he sold the led horse and came back with a roll of Swiss muslin. As he entered
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the door, he saw Kate lying there dying. She died praying that she might die. She was weary of earth and wanted to be at peace. I saw her die and saw her put in her coffin. No words of mine can tell how unhappy I am. Six young soldiers, her friends, were her pall-bearers. As they marched out with that burden sad were their faces.
Princess Bright Eyes writes: “Our soldier boys returned, want us to continue our weekly dances.” Another maiden fair indites: “Here we have a Yankee garrison. We are told the officers find this the dullest place they were ever in. They want the ladies to get up some amusement for them. They also want to get into society.”
From Isabella in Columbia: “General Hampton is home again. He looks crushed. How can he be otherwise? His beautiful home is in ruins, and ever present with him must be the memory of the death tragedy which closed forever the eyes of his glorious boy, Preston! Now! there strikes up a serenade to General Ames, the Yankee commander, by a military band, of course. . . . Your last letters have been of the meagerest. What is the matter?”
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
August 2d. – Dr. Boykin and John Witherspoon were talking of a nation in mourning, of blood poured out like rain on the battle-fields-for what? “Never let me hear that the blood of the brave has been shed in vain! No; it sends a cry down through all time.”
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INDEX
ADAMS, JAMES H., 26.
Adger, Mrs. John B., 396.
Aiken, Gov. William, his style of living, 253.
Aiken, Miss, her wedding, 240- 241.
Alabama, the, surrender of, 314.
Alabama Convention, the, 15.
Alexandria, Va., Ellsworth killed at, 58.
Allan, Mrs. Scotch, 258.
Allston, Ben, his duel, 66; a call from, 73.
Allston, Col., 234.
Allston, Washington, 46.
Anderson, Gen. Richard, 49, 225.
Anderson, Major Robert, 5; his mistake, 34; fired on, in Fort Sumter, 35; when the fort surrendered, 39; his flagstaff, 43; his account of the fall of Fort Sumter, 48; offered a regiment, 50, 119.
Antietam, battle of, 213.
Archer, Capt. Tom, a call from, 113; his comments on Hood, 318; his death, 343.
Athens, Ga., the raid at, 322.
Atlanta, battle of, 326.
Auzé, Mrs. – , her troubled life, 179.
BAILEY, GODARD, 388, 389.
Baldwin, Col. – ,84.
Baltimore, Seventh Regiment in, 41; in a blaze, 47.
Barker, Theodore, 112.
Barnwell, Edward, 316.
Barnwell, Mrs. Edward, 208; and her boy, 253-254.
Barnwell, Mary, 194, 316.
Barnwell, Rev. Robert, establishes a hospital, 83; back in the hospital, 172; sent for to officiate at a marriage, 185, 194; his death, 238.
Barnwell, Mrs. Robert, her death, 239.
Barnwell, Hon. Robert W., sketch of, 10, 47; on Fort Sumter, 50, 57, 77; at dinner with, 98; and the opposition to Mr. Davis, 104; on fame, 106; on democracies, 110, 160; as to Gen. Chesnut, 163.
Barron, Commodore Samuel, 101; an anecdote of, when a middy, 120-122; a prisoner, 124.
Bartow, Col. – 2; and his wife, 71; killed at Bull Run, 87; eulogized in Congress, 90.
Bartow, Mrs. – , hears of her husband’s death, 87-88; her husband’s funeral, 88; a call on, 146, 162; in one of the departments, 166; her story of Miss Toombs, 193, 199, 204; goes to Mulberry, 386.