21 December 1863 – 27 December 1863

Joe Johnston has been made Commander-in-chief of the Army of the West. General Lee had this done,’tis said. Miss Agnes Lee and “little Robert” (as they fondly call General Lee’s youngest son in this hero-worshiping community) called. They told us the President, General Lee, and General Elzey had gone out to look at the fortifications around Richmond. My husband came home saying he had been with them, and lent General Lee his gray horse. Mrs. Howell, Mrs. Davis’s mother, says a year ago on the cars a man said, “We want a Dictator.” She replied, “Jeff Davis will never consent to be a Dictator.” The man turned sharply toward her “And, pray, who asks him? Joe Johnston will be made Dictator by the Army of the West.” “Imperator” was suggested. Of late the Army of the West has not been in a condition to dictate to friend or foe. Certainly Jeff Davis did hate to put Joe Johnston at the head of what is left of it. Detached from General Lee, what a horrible failure is Longstreet! Oh, for a day of Albert Sidney Johnston out West! And Stonewall, could he come back to us here! General Hood, the wounded knight, came for me to drive. I felt that I would soon find myself chaperoning some girls, but I asked no questions. He improved the time between Franklin and Cary Streets by saying, “I do like your husband so much.” “So do I,” I replied simply. Buck was ill in bed, so William said at the door, but she recovered her health and came down for the drive in black velvet and ermine, looking queenly. And then, with the top of the landau thrown back, wrapped in furs and rugs, we had a long drive that bitter cold day. One day as we were hieing us home from the Fair Grounds, Sam, the wounded knight, asked Brewster what are the symptoms of a man’s being in love. Sam (Hood is called Sam entirely, but why I do not know) said for his part he did not know; at seventeen he had fancied himself in love, but that was “a long time ago.” Brewster spoke on the symptoms of love: “When you see her, your breath is apt to come short. If it amounts to mild strangulation, you have got it bad. You are stupidly jealous, glowering with jealousy, and have a gloomy fixed conviction that she likes every fool you meet better than she does you, especially people that you know she has a thorough contempt for; that is, you knew it before you lost your head, I mean, before you fell in love. The last stages of unmitigated spooniness, I will spare you,” said Brewster, with a giggle and a wave of the hand. “Well,” said Sam, drawing a breath of relief, “I have felt none of these things so far, and yet they say I am engaged to four young ladies, a liberal allowance, you will admit, for a man who can not walk without help.” Another day (the Sabbath) we called on our way from church to see Mrs. Wigfall. She was ill, but Mr. Wigfall insisted upon taking me into the drawing-room to rest a while. He said Louly was there; so she was, and so was Sam Hood, the wounded knight, stretched at full length on a sofa and a rug thrown over him. Louis Wigfall said to me: “Do you know General Hood?” “Yes,” said I, and the General laughed with his eyes as I looked at him; but he did not say a word. I felt it a curious commentary upon the reports he had spoken of the day before. Louly Wigfall is a very handsome girl.

As we walked, Brewster reported a row he had had with General Hood. Brewster had told those six young ladies at the Prestons’ that “old Sam” was in the habit of saying he would not marry if he could any silly, sentimental girl, who would throw herself away upon a maimed creature such as he was. When Brewster went home he took pleasure in telling Sam how the ladies had complimented his good sense, whereupon the General rose in his wrath and threatened to break his crutch over Brewster’s head. To think he could be such a fool—to go about repeating to everybody his whimperings. I was taking my seat at the head of the table when the door opened and Brewster walked in unannounced. He took his stand in front of the open door, with his hands in his pockets and his small hat pushed back as far as it could get from his forehead. “What!” said he, “you are not ready yet? The generals are below. Did you get my note?” I begged my husband to excuse me and rushed off to put on my bonnet and furs. I met the girls coming up with a strange man. The flurry of two major-generals had been too much for me and I forgot to ask the new one’s name. They went up to dine in my place with my husband, who sat eating his dinner, with Lawrence’s undivided attention given to him, amid this whirling and eddying in and out of the world militant. Mary Preston and I then went to drive with the generals. The new one proved to be Buckner, who is also a Kentuckian. The two men told us they had slept together the night before Chickamauga. It is useless to try: legs can’t any longer be kept out of the conversation. So General Buckner said: “Once before I slept with a man and he lost his leg next day.” He had made a vow never to do so again. “When Sam and I parted that morning, we said: ‘You or I may be killed, but the cause will be safe all the same.’” After the drive everybody came in to tea, my husband in famous good humor, we had an unusually gay evening. It was very nice of my husband to take no notice of my conduct at dinner, which had been open to criticism. All the comfort of my life depends upon his being in good humor.