15 July 1861 – 21 July 1861

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 red.” So he poured me out a glass. I drank it, and it nearly burned up my mouth and throat. It was horrid, but I did not let him see how it annoyed me. I pretended to be glad that any one found me still young enough to play off a practical joke upon me. It was thirty years since I had thought of such a thing. Met Colonel Baldwin in the drawing-room. He pointed significantly to his Confederate colonel’s buttons and gray coat. At the White Sulphur last summer he was a “Union man” to the last point. “How much have you changed besides your coat?” “I was always true to our country,” he said. “She leaves me no choice now.” As far as I can make out, Beauregard sent Mr. Chesnut to the President to gain permission for the forces of Joe Johnston and Beauregard to join, and, united, to push the enemy, if possible, over the Potomac. Now every day we grow weaker and they stronger; so we had better give a telling blow at once. Already, we begin to cry out for more ammunition, and already the blockade is beginning to shut it all out. A young Emory is here. His mother writes him to go back. Her Franklin blood certainly calls him with no uncertain sound to the Northern side, while his fatherland is wavering and undecided, split in half by factions. Mrs. Wigfall says he is half inclined to go. She wondered that he did not. With a father in the enemy’s army, he will always be “suspect” here, let the President and Mrs. Davis do for him what they will. I did not know there was such a “bitter cry” left in me, but I wept my heart away to-day when my husband went off. Things do look so black. When he comes up here he rarely brings his body-servant, a negro man. Lawrence has charge of all Mr. Chesnut’s things—watch, clothes, and two or three hundred gold pieces that lie in the tray of his trunk. All these, papers, etc., he tells Lawrence to bring to me if anything happens to him. But I said: “Maybe he will pack off to the Yankees and freedom with all that.” “Fiddlesticks! He is not going to leave me for anybody else. After all, what can he ever be, better than he is now—a gentleman’s gentleman?” “He is within sound of the enemy’s guns, and when he gets to the other army he is free.” Maria said of Mr. Preston’s man: “What he want with anything more, ef he was free? Don’t he live just as well as Mars John do now?” Mrs. McLane, Mrs. Joe Johnston, Mrs. Wigfall, all came. I am sure so many clever women could divert a soul in extremis. The Hampton Legion all in a snarl—about, I forget what; standing on their dignity, I suppose. I have come to detest a man who says, “My own personal dignity and self-respect require.” I long to cry, “No need to respect yourself until you can make other people do it.”

Beauregard telegraphed yesterday (they say, to General Johnston), “Come down and help us, or we shall be crushed by numbers.” The President telegraphed General Johnston to move down to Beauregard’s aid. At Bull Run, Bonham’s Brigade, Ewell’s, and Longstreet’s encountered the foe and repulsed him. Six hundred prisoners have been sent here. I arose, as the Scriptures say, and washed my face and anointed my head and went down-stairs. At the foot of them stood General Cooper, radiant, one finger nervously arranging his shirt collar, or adjusting his neck to it after his fashion. He called out: “Your South Carolina man, Bonham, has done a capital thing at Bull Run—driven back the enemy, if not defeated him; with killed and prisoners,” etc., etc. Clingman came to tell the particulars, and Colonel Smith (one of the trio with Garnett, McClellan, who were sent to Europe to inspect and report on military matters). Poor Garnett is killed. There was cowardice or treachery on the part of natives up there, or some of Governor Letcher’s appointments to military posts. I hear all these things said. I do not understand, but it was a fatal business. Mrs. McLane says she finds we do not believe a word of any news unless it comes in this guise: “A great battle fought. Not one Confederate killed. Enemy’s loss in killed, wounded, and prisoners taken by us, immense.” I was in hopes there would be no battle until Mr. Chesnut was forced to give up his amateur aideship to come and attend to his regular duties in the Congress. Keitt has come in. He says Bonham’s battle was a skirmish of outposts. Joe Davis, Jr., said: “Would Heaven only send us a Napoleon!” Not one bit of use. If Heaven did, Walker would not give him a commission. Mrs. Davis and Mrs. Joe Johnston, “her dear Lydia,” were in fine spirits. The effect upon nous autres was evident; we rallied visibly. South Carolina troops pass every day. They go by with a gay step. Tom Taylor and John Rhett bowed to us from their horses as we leaned out of the windows. Such shaking of handkerchiefs. We are forever at the windows. It was not such a mere skirmish. We took three rifled cannon and six hundred stands of arms. Mr. Davis has gone to Manassas. He did not let Wigfall know he was going. That ends the delusion of Wigfall’s aideship. No mistake to-day. I was too ill to move out of my bed. So they all sat in my room.