17 February 1862 – 23 February 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 newspaper. Fort Donelson has fallen, but no men fell with it. It is prisoners for them that we can not spare, or prisoners for us that we may not be able to feed: that is so much to be “forefended,” as Keitt says. They lost six thousand, we two thousand; I grudge that proportion. In vain, alas! ye gallant few—few, but undismayed. Again, they make a stand. We have Buckner, Beauregard, and Albert Sidney Johnston. With such leaders and God’s help we may be saved from the hated Yankees; who knows?

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 post-haste to take Nicholas into co-partnership. So I got up and dressed, late as it was. I felt sure England had sought our alliance at last, and we would make a Yorktown of it before long. Who was it? Will you ever guess?—Artemus Goodwyn and General Owens, of Florida. Just then, Mr. Chesnut rushed in, put out the light, locked the door and sat still as a mouse. Rap, rap, came at the door. “I say, Chesnut, they are calling for you.” At last we heard Janney (hotel-keeper) loudly proclaiming from the piazza that “Colonel Chesnut was not here at all, at all.” After a while, when they had all gone from the street, and the very house itself had subsided into perfect quiet, the door again was roughly shaken. “I say, Chesnut, old fellow, come out—I know you are there. Nobody here now wants to hear you make a speech. That crowd has all gone. We want a little quiet talk with you. I am just from Richmond.” That was the open sesame, and to-day I hear none of the Richmond news is encouraging. Colonel Shaw is blamed for the shameful Roanoke surrender. Toombs is out on a rampage and swears he will not accept a seat in the Confederate Senate given in the insulting way his was by the Georgia Legislature: calls it shabby treatment, and adds that Georgia is not the only place where good men have been so ill used. The Governor and Council have fluttered the dove-cotes, or, at least, the tea-tables. They talk of making a call for all silver, etc. I doubt if we have enough to make the sacrifice worth while, but we propose to set the example.

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 spirit it is all that one could ask. He says, “Our late reverses are acting finely with the army of the Potomac. A few more thrashings and every man will enlist for the war. Victories made us too sanguine and easy, not to say vainglorious. Now for the rub, and let them have it!” A lady wrote to Mrs. Bunch: “Dear Emma: When shall I call for you to go and see Madame de St. André?” She was answered: “Dear Lou: I can not go with you to see Madame de St. André, but will always retain the kindest feeling toward you on account of our past relations,” etc. The astounded friend wrote to ask what all this meant. No answer came, and then she sent her husband to ask and demand an explanation. He was answered thus: “My dear fellow, there can be no explanation possible. Hereafter there will be no intercourse between my wife and yours; simply that, nothing more.” So the men meet at the club as before, and there is no further trouble between them. The lady upon whom the slur is cast says, “and I am a woman and can’t fight!”

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 friends in Columbia. After the dreadful state of the public mind at the escape of one of the prisoners, General Preston was obliged to refuse his request. Mrs. Preston and the rest of us wanted him to say “Yes,” and so find out who in Columbia were his treacherous friends. Pretty bold people they must be, to receive Yankee invaders in the midst of the row over one enemy already turned loose amid us. General Preston said: “We are about to sacrifice life and fortune for a fickle multitude who will not stand up to us at last.” The harsh comments made as to his lenient conduct to prisoners have embittered him. I told him what I had heard Captain Trenholm say in his speech. He said he would listen to no criticism except from a man with a musket on his shoulder, and who had beside enlisted for the war, had given up all, and had no choice but to succeed or die.