20 February 1865 – 26 February 1865

Isabella has been reading my diaries. How we laugh because my sage divinations all come to naught. My famous “insight into character” is utter folly. The diaries were lying on the hearth ready to be burned, but she told me to hold on to them; think of them a while and don’t be rash. Afterward when Isabella and I were taking a walk, General Joseph E. Johnston joined us. He explained to us all of Lee’s and Stonewall Jackson’s mistakes. We had nothing to say—how could we say anything? He said he was very angry when he was ordered to take command again. He might well have been in a genuine rage. This on and off procedure would be enough to bewilder the coolest head. Mrs. Johnston knows how to be a partizan of Joe Johnston and still not make his enemies uncomfortable. She can be pleasant and agreeable, as she was to my face. A letter from my husband who is at Charlotte. He came near being taken a prisoner in Columbia, for he was asleep the morning of the 17th, when the Yankees blew up the railroad depot. That woke him, of course, and he found everybody had left Columbia, and the town was surrendered by the mayor, Colonel Goodwyn. Hampton and his command had been gone several hours. Isaac Hayne came away with General Chesnut. There was no fire in the town when they left. They overtook Hampton’s command at Meek’s Mill. That night, from the hills where they encamped, they saw the fire, and knew the Yankees were burning the town, as we had every reason to expect they would. Molly was left in charge of everything of mine, including Mrs. Preston’s cow, which I was keeping, and Sally Goodwyn’s furniture. Charleston and Wilmington have surrendered. I have no further use for a newspaper. I never want to see another one as long as I live. Wade Hampton has been made a lieutenant-general, too late. If he had been made one and given command in South Carolina six months ago I believe he would have saved us. Shame, disgrace, beggary, all have come at once, and are hard to bear—the grand smash! Rain, rain, outside, and naught but drowning floods of tears inside. I could not bear it; so I rushed down in that rainstorm to the Martins’. Rev. Mr. Martin met me at the door. “Madam,” said he, “Columbia is burned to the ground.” I bowed my head and sobbed aloud. “Stop that!” he said, trying to speak cheerfully. “Come here, wife,” said he to Mrs. Martin. “This woman cries with her whole heart, just as she laughs.” But in spite of his words, his voice broke down, and he was hardly calmer than myself.

I want to get to Kate, I am so utterly heart-broken. I hope John Chesnut and General Chesnut may at least get into the same army. We seem scattered over the face of the earth. Isabella sits there calmly reading. I have quieted down after the day’s rampage. May our heavenly Father look down on us and have pity. They say I was the last refugee from Columbia who was allowed to enter by the door of the cars. The government took possession then and women could only be smuggled in by the windows. Stout ones stuck and had to be pushed, pulled, and hauled in by main force. Dear Mrs. Izard, with all her dignity, was subjected to this rough treatment. She was found almost too much for the size of the car windows.

The Pfeifers, who live opposite us here, are descendants of those Pfeifers who came South with Mr. Chesnut’s ancestors after the Fort Duquesne disaster. They have now, therefore, been driven out of their Eden, the valley of Virginia, a second time. The present Pfeifer is the great man, the rich man par excellence of Lincolnton. They say that with something very near to tears in his eyes he heard of our latest defeats. “It is only a question of time with us now,” he said. “The raiders will come, you know.” In Washington, before I knew any of them, except by sight, Mrs. Davis, Mrs. Emory, and Mrs. Johnston were always together, inseparable friends, and the trio were pointed out to me as the cleverest women in the United States. Now that I do know them all well, I think the world was right in its estimate of them. Met a Mr. Ancrum of serenely cheerful aspect, happy and hopeful. “All right now,” said he. “Sherman sure to be thrashed. Joe Johnston is in command.” Dr. Darby says, when the oft-mentioned Joseph, the malcontent, gave up his command to Hood, he remarked with a smile, “I hope you will be able to stop Sherman; it was more than I could do.” General Johnston is not of Mr. Ancrum’s way of thinking as to his own powers, for he stayed here several days after he was ordered to the front. He must have known he could do no good, and I am of his opinion. When the wagon, in which I was to travel to Flat Rock, drove up to the door, covered with a tent-like white cloth, in my embarrassment for an opening in the conversation I asked the driver’s name. He showed great hesitation in giving it, but at last said: “My name is Sherman,” adding, “and now I see by your face that you won’t go with me. My name is against me these times.” Here he grinned and remarked: “But you would leave Lincolnton.” That name was the last drop in my cup, but I gave him Mrs. Glover’s reason for staying here. General Johnston had told her this “might be the safest place after all.” He thinks the Yankees are making straight for Richmond and General Lee’s rear, and will go by Camden and Lancaster, leaving Lincolnton on their west flank. The McLeans are kind people. They ask no rent for their rooms—only $20 a week for firewood. Twenty dollars! and such dollars—mere waste paper. Mrs. Munroe took up my photograph book, in which I have a picture of all the Yankee generals. “I want to see the men who are to be our masters,” said she. “Not mine” I answered, “thank God, come what may. This was a free fight. We had as much right to fight to get out as they had to fight to keep us in. If they try to play the masters, anywhere upon the habitable globe will I go, never to see a Yankee, and if I die on the way so much the better.” Then I sat down and wrote to my husband in language much worse than anything I can put in this book. As I wrote I was blinded by tears of rage. Indeed, I nearly wept myself away.

Mrs. Munroe offered me religious books, which I declined, being already provided with the Lamentations of Jeremiah, the Psalms of David, the denunciations of Hosea, and, above all, the patient wail of Job. Job is my comforter now. I should be so thankful to know life never would be any worse with me. My husband is well, and has been ordered to join the great Retreater. I am bodily comfortable, if somewhat dingily lodged, and I daily part with my raiment for food. We find no one who will exchange eatables for Confederate money; so we are devouring our clothes. Opportunities for social enjoyment are not wanting. Miss Middleton and Isabella often drink a cup of tea with me. One might search the whole world and not find two cleverer or more agreeable women. Miss Middleton is brilliant and accomplished. She must have been a hard student all her life. She knows everybody worth knowing, and she has been everywhere. Then she is so high-bred, high-hearted, pure, and true. She is so clean-minded; she could not harbor a wrong thought. She is utterly unselfish, a devoted daughter and sister. She is one among the many large-brained women a kind Providence has thrown in my way, such as Mrs. McCord, daughter of Judge Cheves; Mary Preston Darby, Mrs. Emory, granddaughter of old Franklin, the American wise man, and Mrs. Jefferson Davis. How I love to praise my friends! As a ray of artificial sunshine, Mrs. Munroe sent me an Examiner. Daniel thinks we are at the last gasp, and now England and France are bound to step in. England must know if the United States of America are triumphant they will tackle her next, and France must wonder if she will not have to give up Mexico. My faith fails me. It is all too late; no help for us now from God or man. Thomas, Daniel says, was now to ravage Georgia, but Sherman, from all accounts, has done that work once for all. There will be no aftermath. They say no living thing is found in Sherman’s track, only chimneys, like telegraph poles, to carry the news of Sherman’s army backward. In all that tropical down-pour, Mrs. Munroe sent me overshoes and an umbrella, with the message, “Come over.” I went, for it would be as well to drown in the streets as to hang myself at home to my own bedpost. At Mrs. Munroe’s I met a Miss McDaniel. Her father, for seven years, was the Methodist preacher at our negro church. The negro church is in a grove just opposite Mulberry house. She says her father has so often described that fine old establishment and its beautiful lawn, live-oaks, etc. Now, I dare say there stand at Mulberry only Sherman’s sentinels—stacks of chimneys. We have made up our minds for the worst. Mulberry house is no doubt razed to the ground. Miss McDaniel was inclined to praise us. She said: “As a general rule the Episcopal minister went to the family mansion, and the Methodist missionary preached to the negroes and dined with the overseer at his house, but at Mulberry her father always stayed at the ‘House,’ and the family were so kind and attentive to him.” It was rather pleasant to hear one’s family so spoken of among strangers. So, well equipped to brave the weather, armed cap-a-pie, so to speak, I continued my prowl farther afield and brought up at the Middletons’. I may have surprised them, for “at such an inclement season” they hardly expected a visitor. Never, however, did lonely old woman receive such a warm and hearty welcome. Now we know the worst. Are we growing hardened? We avoid all allusion to Columbia; we never speak of home, and we begin to deride the certain poverty that lies ahead. How it pours! Could I live many days in solitary confinement? Things are beginning to be unbearable, but I must sit down and be satisfied. My husband is safe so far. Let me be thankful it is no worse with me. But there is the gnawing pain all the same. What is the good of being here at all? Our world has simply gone to destruction. And across the way the fair Lydia languishes. She has not even my resources against ennui. She has no Isabella, no Miss Middleton, two as brilliant women as any in Christendom. Oh, how does she stand it! I mean to go to church if it rains cats and dogs. My feet are wet two or three times a day. We never take cold; our hearts are too hot within us for that. A carriage was driven up to the door as I was writing. I began to tie on my bonnet, and said to myself in the glass, “Oh, you lucky woman!” I was all in a tremble, so great was my haste to be out of this. Mrs. Glover had the carriage. She came for me to go and hear Mr. Martin preach. He lifts our spirits from this dull earth; he takes us up to heaven. That I will not deny. Still he can not hold my attention; my heart wanders and my mind strays back to South Carolina. Oh, vandal Sherman! what are you at there, hard-hearted wretch that you are! A letter from General Chesnut, who writes from camp near Charlotte under date of February 28th: “I thank you a thousand, thousand times for your kind letters. They are now my only earthly comfort, except the hope that all is not yet lost. We have been driven like a wild herd from our country. And it is not from a want of spirit in the people or soldiers, nor from want of energy and competency in our commanders. The restoration of Joe Johnston, it is hoped, will redound to the advantage of our cause and the reestablishment of our fortunes! I am still in not very agreeable circumstances. For the last four days completely water-bound. “I am informed that a detachment of Yankees were sent from Liberty Hill to Camden with a view to destroying all the houses, mills, and provisions about that place. No particulars have reached me. You know I expected the worst that could be done, and am fully prepared for any report which may be made. “It would be a happiness beyond expression to see you even for an hour. I have heard nothing from my poor old father. I fear I shall never see him again. Such is the fate of war. I do not complain. I have deliberately chosen my lot, and am prepared for any fate that awaits me. My care is for you, and I trust still in the good cause of my country and the justice and mercy of Cod.” It was a lively, rushing, young set that South Carolina put to the fore. They knew it was a time of imminent danger, and that the fight would be ten to one. They expected to win by activity, energy, and enthusiasm. Then came the wet blanket, the croakers; now, these are posing, wrapping Cæsar’s mantle about their heads to fall with dignity. Those gallant youths who dashed so gaily to the front lie mostly in bloody graves. Well for them, maybe. There are worse things than honorable graves. Wearisome thoughts. Late in life we are to begin anew and have laborious, difficult days ahead. We have contradictory testimony. Governor Aiken has passed through, saying Sherman left Columbia as he found it, and was last heard from at Cheraw. Dr. Chisolm walked home with me. He says that is the last version of the story. Now my husband wrote that he himself saw the fires which burned up Columbia. The first night his camp was near enough to the town for that. They say Sherman has burned Lancaster—that Sherman nightmare, that ghoul, that hyena! But I do not believe it. He takes his time. There are none to molest him. He does things leisurely and deliberately. Why stop to do so needless a thing as burn Lancaster court-house, the jail, and the tavern? As I remember it, that description covers Lancaster. A raiding party they say did for Camden. No train from Charlotte yesterday. Rumor says Sherman is in Charlotte.