Mary Boykin Chesnut’s diary, 1862

Had an appetite for my dainty breakfast. Always breakfast in bed now. But then, my Mercury contained such bad news. That is an appetizing style of matutinal…

A crowd collected here last night and there was a serenade. I am like Mrs. Nickleby, who never saw a horse coming full speed but she thought the Cheerybles had sent…

What a beautiful day for our Confederate President to be inaugurated! God speed him; God keep him; God save him! John Chesnut’s letter was quite what we needed. In…

While Mr. Chesnut was in town I was at the Prestons. John Cochran and some other prisoners had asked to walk over the grounds, visit the Hampton Gardens, and some…

Congress and the newspapers render one desperate, ready to cut one’s own throat. They represent everything in our country as deplorable. Then comes some one back…

They have taken at Nashville more men than we had at Manassas; there was bad handling of troops, we poor women think, or this would not be. Mr. Venable added…

Mary Preston went back to Mulberry with me from Columbia. She found a man there tall enough to take her in to dinner—Tom Boykin, who is six feet four, the same…

Mrs. Middleton was dolorous indeed. General Lee had warned the planters about Combahee, etc., that they must take care of themselves now; he could not do it.…

Second year of Confederate independence. I write daily for my own diversion. These mémoires pour servir may at some future day afford facts about these times and…

A freshman came quite eager to be instructed in all the wiles of society. He wanted to try his hand at a flirtation, and requested minute instructions, as he knew…

In the naval battle the other day we had twenty-five guns in all. The enemy had fifty-four in the Cumberland, forty-four in the St. Lawrence, besides a fleet of…

Mr. Chesnut fretting and fuming. From the poor old blind bishop downward everybody is besetting him to let off students, theological and other, from going into the…

Thank God for a ship! It has run the blockade with arms and ammunition. There are no negro sexual relations half so shocking as Mormonism. And yet the United States…

When we came home from Richmond, there stood Warren Nelson, propped up against my door, lazily waiting for me, the handsome creature. He said he meant to be heard,…

Back to the Congaree House to await my husband, who has made a rapid visit to the Wateree region. As we drove up Mr. Chesnut said: “Did you see the stare of…

My war archon is beset for commissions, and somebody says for every one given, you make one ingrate and a thousand enemies. As I entered Miss Mary Stark’s I…

He who runs may read. Conscription means that we are in a tight place. This war was a volunteer business. To-morrow conscription begins—the dernier ressort. The…

The Merrimac is now called the Virginia. I think these changes of names so confusing and so senseless. Like the French “Royal Bengal Tiger,” “National Tiger,” etc.…

I was asked to the Tognos’ tea, so refused a drive with Mary Preston. As I sat at my solitary casemate, waiting for the time to come for the Tognos, saw Mrs.…

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…

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…

Our Fair is in full blast. We keep a restaurant. Our waitresses are Mary and Buck Preston, Isabella Martin, and Grace Elmore.

Trescott is too clever ever to be a bore; that was proved to-day, for he stayed two hours; as usual, Mr. Chesnut said “four.” Trescott was very surly; calls himself…

Mrs. Middleton: “How did you settle Molly’s little difficulty with Mrs. McMahan, that ‘piece of her mind’ that Molly gave our landlady?” “Oh, paid our way out of…

Have been ill. One day I dined at Mrs. Preston’s, pâté de foie gras and partridge prepared for me as I like them. I had been awfully depressed for days and could…

On April 23, 1840, I was married, aged seventeen; consequently on the 31st of March, 1862, I was thirty-nine. I saw a wedding to-day from my window, which opens on…

Doleful dumps, alarm-bells ringing. Telegrams say the mortar fleet has passed the forts at New Orleans. Down into the very depths of despair are we.

New Orleans gone and with it the Confederacy. That Mississippi ruins us if lost. The Confederacy has been done to death by the politicians. What wonder we are lost.…

A grand smash, the news from New Orleans fatal to us. Met Mr. Weston. He wanted to know where he could find a place of safety for two hundred negroes. I looked into…

The last day of this month of calamities. Lovell left the women and children to be shelled, and took the army to a safe place. I do not understand why we do not…

Mine is a painful, self-imposed task: but why write when I have nothing to chronicle but disaster? So I read instead: First, Consuelo, then Columba, two ends of the…

Mr. Chesnut says he is very glad he went to town. Everything in Charleston is so much more satisfactory than it is reported. Troops are in good spirits. It will…

Norfolk has been burned and the Merrimac sunk without striking a blow since her coup d’état in Hampton Roads. Read Milton. See the speech of Adam to Eve in a new…

The enemy are landing at Georgetown. With a little more audacity where could they not land? But we have given them such a scare, they are cautious. If it be true, I…

Betsey, recalcitrant maid of the W.’s, has been sold to a telegraph man. She is as handsome as a mulatto ever gets to be, and clever in every kind of work. My Molly…

A battle is said to be raging round Richmond. I am at the Prestons’. James Chesnut has gone to Richmond suddenly on business of the Military Department. It is…

Doctor John Cheves is making infernal machines in Charleston to blow the Yankees up; pretty name they have, those machines. My horses, the overseer says, are too…

Battles occur near Richmond, with bombardment of Charleston. Beauregard is said to be fighting his way out or in. Mrs. Gibson is here, at Doctor Gibbes’s. Tears are…

Beauregard retreating and his rear-guard cut off. If Beauregard’s veterans will not stand, why should we expect our newly levied reserves to do it? The Yankee…

Paul Hayne, the poet, has taken rooms here. My husband came and offered to buy me a pair of horses. He says I need more exercise in the open air. “Come, now, are…

Cheves McCord’s battery on the coast has three guns and one hundred men. If this battery should be captured John’s Island and James Island would be open to the…

When we read of the battles in India, in Italy, in the Crimea, what did we care? Only an interesting topic, like any other, to look for in the paper. Now you hear…

General Gregg writes that Chickahominy was a victory manqué, because Joe Johnston received a disabling wound and G. W. Smith was ill. The subordinates in command…

New England’s Butler, best known to us as “Beast” Butler, is famous or infamous now. His amazing order to his soldiers at New Orleans and comments on it are in…

Decca’s wedding. It took place last year. We were all lying on the bed or sofas taking it coolly as to undress. Mrs. Singleton had the floor. They were engaged…

All things are against us. Memphis gone. Mississippi fleet annihilated, and we hear it all as stolidly apathetic as if it were a story of the English war against…

Mr. Chesnut, having missed the Secessionville fight by half a day, was determined to see the one around Richmond. He went off with General Cooper and Wade Hampton.…

I forgot to tell of Mrs. Pickens’s reception for General Hampton. My Mem dear, described it all. “The Governess” (“Tut, Mem! that is not the right name for her—she…

We went in a body (half a dozen ladies, with no man on escort duty, for they are all in the army) to a concert. Mrs. Pickens came in. She was joined soon by…

Victory! Victory heads every telegram now; one reads it on the bulletin-board. It is the anniversary of the battle of Fort Moultrie. The enemy went off so quickly,…

First came Dr. Trezevant, who announced Burnet Rhett’s death. “No, no; I have just seen the bulletin-board. It was Grimké Rhett’s.” When the doctor went out it was…

No more news. It has settled down into this. The general battle, the decisive battle, has to be fought yet. Edward Cheves, only son of John Cheves, killed. His…

Mem says she feels like sitting down, as an Irishwoman does at a wake, and howling night and day. Why did Huger let McClellan slip through his fingers? Arrived at…

Drove out with Mrs. “Constitution” Browne, who told us the story of Ben McCulloch’s devotion to Lucy Gwynn. Poor Ben McCulloch—another dead hero. Called at the…

Gunboat captured on the Santee. So much the worse for us. We do not want any more prisoners, and next time they will send a fleet of boats, if one will not do. The…

My husband has come. He believes from what he heard in Richmond that we are to be recognized as a nation by the crowned heads across the water, at last. Mr. Davis…

At McMahan’s our small colonel, Paul Hayne’s son, came into my room. To amuse the child I gave him a photograph album to look over. “You have Lincoln in your book!”…

Halcott Green came to see us. Bragg is a stern disciplinarian, according to Halcott. He did not in the least understand citizen soldiers. In the retreat from Shiloh…

Jackson has gone into the enemy’s country. Joe Johnston and Wade Hampton are to follow. Think of Rice, Mr. Senator Rice, who sent us the buffalo-robes. I see from…

Being ill I left Mrs. McMahan’s for Flat Rock. It was very hot and disagreeable for an invalid in a boarding-house in that climate. The La Bordes and the McCord…

Mr. Daniel Blake drove down to my sister’s in his heavy, substantial English phaeton, with stout and strong horses to match. I went back with him and spent two…