Mary Boykin Chesnut’s diary, 1861

The brand-new Confederacy is making or remodeling its Constitution. Everybody wants Mr. Davis to be General-in-Chief or President. Keitt and Boyce and a party…

Find every one working very hard here. As I dozed on the sofa last night, could hear the scratch, scratch of my husband’s pen as he wrote at the table until…

In the drawing-room a literary lady began a violent attack upon this mischief-making South Carolina. She told me she was a successful writer in the magazines of the…

Dined to-day with Mr. Hill from Georgia, and his wife. After he left us she told me he was the celebrated individual who, for Christian scruples, refused to fight a…

Everybody in fine spirits in my world. They have one and all spoken in the Congress to their own perfect satisfaction. To my amazement the Judge took me aside, and,…

The Washington Congress has passed peace measures. Glory be to God (as my Irish Margaret used to preface every remark, both great and small). At last, according to…

We stood on the balcony to see our Confederate flag go up. Roars of cannon, etc., etc. Miss Sanders complained (so said Captain Ingraham) of the deadness of the…

Judge Campbell, of the United States Supreme Court, has resigned. Lord! how he must have hated to do it. How other men who are resigning high positions must hate to…

Mrs. Childs was here to-night (Mary Anderson, from Statesburg), with several children. She is lovely. Her hair is piled up on the top of her head oddly. Fashions…

In full conclave to-night, the drawing-room crowded with Judges, Governors, Senators, Generals, Congressmen. They were exalting John C. Calhoun’s hospitality. He…

I have just come from Mulberry, where the snow was a foot deep—winter at last after months of apparently May or June weather. Even the climate, like everything…

Governor Manning came to breakfast at our table. The others had breakfasted hours before. I looked at him in amazement, as he was in full dress, ready for a ball,…

Met the lovely Lucy Holcombe, now Mrs. Governor Pickens, last night at Isaac Hayne’s. I saw Miles now begging in dumb show for three violets she had in her…

Mr. Hayne said his wife moaned over the hardness of the chaperones’ seats at St. Andrew’s Hall at a Cecilia Ball. She was hopelessly deposited on one for hours.…

The plot thickens, the air is red hot with rumors; the mystery is to find out where these utterly groundless tales originate. In spite of all, Tom Huger came for us…

Yesterday Mrs. Wigfall and I made a few visits. At the first house they wanted Mrs. Wigfall to settle a dispute. “Was she, indeed, fifty-five?” Fancy her face, more…

Anderson will not capitulate. Yesterday’s was the merriest, maddest dinner we have had yet. Men were audaciously wise and witty. We had an unspoken foreboding that…

Nobody has been hurt after all. How gay we were last night. Reaction after the dread of all the slaughter we thought those dreadful cannon were making. Not even a…

I did not know that one could live such days of excitement. Some one called: “Come out! There is a crowd coming.” A mob it was, indeed, but it was headed by…

Home again at Mulberry. In those last days of my stay in Charleston I did not find time to write a word. And so we took Fort Sumter, nous autres; we—Mrs. Frank…

Arranging my photograph book. On the first page, Colonel Watts. Here goes a sketch of his life; romantic enough, surely: Beaufort Watts; bluest blood; gentleman to…

Note the glaring inconsistencies of life. Our chatelaine locked up Eugene Sue, and returned even Washington Allston’s novel with thanks and a decided hint that it…

Here we are once more. Hon. Robert Barnwell came with us. His benevolent spectacles give him a most Pickwickian expression. We Carolinians revere his goodness above…

Virginia Commissioners here. Mr. Staples and Mr. Edmonston came to see me. They say Virginia “has no grievance; she comes out on a point of honor; could she stand…

We have been down from Montgomery on the boat to that God-forsaken landing, Portland, Ala. Found everybody drunk—that is, the three men who were there. At last…

Mrs. Fitzpatrick says Mr. Davis is too gloomy for her. He says we must prepare for a long war and unmerciful reverses at first, because they are readier for war and…

Lunched at Mrs. Davis’s; everything nice to eat, and I was ravenous. For a fortnight I have not even gone to the dinner table. Yesterday I was forced to dine on…

We have come back to South Carolina from the Montgomery Congress, stopping over at Mulberry. We came with R. M. T. Hunter and Mr. Barnwell. Mr. Barnwell has…

They look for a fight at Norfolk. Beauregard is there. I think if I were a man I’d be there, too. Also Harper’s Ferry is to be attacked. The Confederate flag has…

Davin! Have had a talk concerning him to-day with two opposite extremes of people. Mrs. Chesnut, my mother-in-law, praises everybody, good and bad. “Judge not,” she…

Have been looking at Mrs. O’Dowd as she burnished the “Meejor’s arrms” before Waterloo. And I have been busy, too. My husband has gone to join Beauregard, somewhere…

In England Mr. Gregory and Mr. Lyndsey rise to say a good word for us. Heaven reward them; shower down its choicest blessings on their devoted heads, as the fiction…

Last night I was awakened by loud talking and candles flashing, tramping of feet, growls dying away in the distance, loud calls from point to point in the yard. Up…

Mr. Meynardie was perfect in the part of traveling companion. He had his pleasures, too. The most pious and eloquent of parsons is human, and he enjoyed the…

Mrs. Preston, Mrs. Wigfall, Mary Hammy and I drove in a fine open carriage to see the Champ de Mars. It was a grand tableau out there. Mr. Davis rode a beautiful…

Russell abuses us in his letters. People here care a great deal for what Russell says, because he represents the London Times, and the Times reflects the sentiment…

Mr. Brewster came here with us. The cars were jammed with soldiers to the muzzle. They were very polite and considerate, and we had an agreeable journey, in spite…

This water is making us young again. How these men enjoy the baths. They say Beauregard can stop the way with sixty thousand; that many are coming. An antique…

Our battle summer. May it be our first and our last, so called. After all we have not had any of the horrors of war. Could there have been a gayer, or pleasanter,…

We did hear cannon to-day. The woman who slandered Mrs. Davis’s republican court, of which we are honorable members, by saying they—well, were not young; that they…

Now we feel safe and comfortable. We can not be flanked. Mr. Preston met us at Warrenton. Mr. Chesnut doubtless had too many spies to receive from Washington,…

Mr. Chesnut remained closeted with the President and General Lee all the afternoon. The news does not seem pleasant. At least, he is not inclined to tell me any of…

Dined to-day at the President’s table. Joe Davis, the nephew, asked me if I liked white port wine. I said I did not know; “all that I had ever known had been dark…

Beauregard telegraphed yesterday (they say, to General Johnston), “Come down and help us, or we shall be crushed by numbers.” The President telegraphed General…

Mrs. Davis came in so softly that I did not know she was here until she leaned over me and said: “A great battle has been fought. Joe Johnston led the right wing,…

Here Mr. Chesnut opened my door and walked in. Out of the fulness of the heart the mouth speaketh. I had to ask no questions. He gave me an account of the battle as…

Mrs. Davis’s drawing-room last night was brilliant, and she was in great force. Outside a mob called for the President. He did speak—an old war-horse, who scents…

Mrs. Wigfall, with the “Lone Star” flag in her carriage, called for me. We drove to the fair grounds. Mrs. Davis’s landau, with her spanking bays, rolled along in…

Prince Jerome has gone to Washington. Now the Yankees so far are as little trained as we are; raw troops are they as yet. Suppose France takes the other side and we…

A heavy, heavy heart. Another missive from Jordan, querulous and fault-finding; things are all wrong—Beauregard’s Jordan had been crossed, not the stream “in…

To-day I saw a sword captured at Manassas. The man who brought the sword, in the early part of the fray, was taken prisoner by the Yankees. They stripped him,…

Hon. Robert Barnwell says, “The Mercury’s influence began this opposition to Jeff Davis before he had time to do wrong. They were offended, not with him so much as…

Last night there was a crowd of men to see us and they were so markedly critical. I made a futile effort to record their sayings, but sleep and heat overcame me.…

Mrs. Randolph came. With her were the Freelands, Rose and Maria. The men rave over Mrs. Randolph’s beauty; called her a magnificent specimen of the finest type of…

Mr. Barnwell says, Fame is an article usually home made; you must create your own puffs or superintend their manufacture. And you must see that the newspapers print…

Captain Shannon, of the Kirkwood Rangers, called and stayed three hours. Has not been under fire yet, but is keen to see or to hear the flashing of the guns; proud…

Found it quite exciting to have a spy drinking his tea with us—perhaps because I knew his profession. I did not like his face. He is said to have a scheme by which…

A brother of Doctor Garnett has come fresh and straight from Cambridge, Mass., and says (or is said to have said, with all the difference there is between the two),…

Daniel, of The Examiner, was at the President’s. Wilmot de Saussure wondered if a fellow did not feel a little queer, paying his respects in person at the house of…

Mr. Barnwell says democracies lead to untruthfulness. To be always electioneering is to be always false; so both we and the Yankees are unreliable as regards our…

The Terror has full swing at the North now. All the papers favorable to us have been suppressed. How long would our mob stand a Yankee paper here? But newspapers…

Theodore Barker and James Lowndes came; the latter has been wretchedly treated. A man said, “All that I wish on earth is to be at peace and on my own plantation,”…

No more feminine gossip, but the licensed slanderer, the mighty Russell, of the Times. He says the battle of the 21st was fought at long range: 500 yards apart were…

Congress adjourns to-day. Jeff Davis ill. We go home on Monday if I am able to travel. Already I feel the dread stillness and torpor of our Sahara of a Sand Hill…

North Carolina writes for arms for her soldiers. Have we any to send? No. Brewster, the plain-spoken, says, “The President is ill, and our affairs are in the hands…

Mr. Miles says he is not going anywhere at all, not even home. He is to sit here permanently—chairman of a committee to overhaul camps, commissariats, etc., etc. We…

Home again at Mulberry, the fever in full possession of me. My sister, Kate, is my ideal woman, the most agreeable person I know in the world, with her soft, low,…

A painful piece of news came to us yesterday—our cousin, Mrs. Witherspoon, of Society Hill, was found dead in her bed. She was quite well the night before. Killed,…