6 March 1865 – 12 March 1865

To-day came a godsend. Even a small piece of bread and the molasses had become things of the past. My larder was empty, when a tall mulatto woman brought a tray covered by a huge white serviette. Ellen ushered her in with a flourish, saying, “Mrs. McDaniel’s maid.” The maid set down the tray upon my bare table, and uncovered it with conscious pride. There were fowls ready for roasting, sausages, butter, bread, eggs, and preserves. I was dumb with delight. After silent thanks to heaven my powers of speech returned, and I exhausted myself in messages of gratitude to Mrs. McDaniel. “Missis, you oughtn’t to let her see how glad you was,” said Ellen. “It was a lettin’ of yo’sef down.” Mrs. Glover gave me some yarn, and I bought five dozen eggs with it from a wagon—eggs for Lent. To show that I have faith yet in humanity, I paid in advance in yarn for something to eat, which they promised to bring to-morrow. Had they rated their eggs at $100 a dozen in “Confederick” money, I would have paid it as readily as $10. But I haggle in yarn for the millionth part of a thread. Two weeks have passed and the rumors from Columbia are still of the vaguest. No letter has come from there, no direct message, or messenger. “My God!” cried Dr. Frank Miles, “but it is strange. Can it be anything so dreadful they dare not tell us?” Dr. St. Julien Ravenel has grown pale and haggard with care. His wife and children were left there. Dr. Brumby has at last been coaxed into selling me enough leather for the making of a pair of shoes, else I should have had to give up walking. He knew my father well. He intimated that in some way my father helped him through college. His own money had not sufficed, and so William C. Preston and my father advanced funds sufficient to let him be graduated. Then my uncle, Charles Miller, married his aunt. I listened in rapture, for all this tended to leniency in the leather business, and I bore off the leather gladly. When asked for Confederate money in trade I never stop to bargain. I give them $20 or $50 cheerfully for anything—either sum.

Colonel Childs came with a letter from my husband and a newspaper containing a full account of Sherman’s cold-blooded brutality in Columbia. Then we walked three miles to return the call of my benefactress, Mrs. McDaniel. They were kind and hospitable at her house, but my heart was like lead; my head ached, and my legs were worse than my head, and then I had a nervous chill. So I came home, went to bed and stayed there until the Fants brought me a letter saying my husband would be here to-day. Then I got up and made ready to give him a cheerful reception. Soon a man called, Troy by name, the same who kept the little corner shop so near my house in Columbia, and of whom we bought things so often. We had fraternized. He now shook hands with me and looked in my face pitifully. We seemed to have been friends all our lives. He says they stopped the fire at the Methodist College, perhaps to save old Mr. McCartha’s house. Mr. Sheriff Dent, being burned out, took refuge in our house. He contrived to find favor in Yankee eyes. Troy relates that a Yankee officer snatched a watch from Mrs. McCord’s bosom. The soldiers tore the bundles of clothes that the poor wretches tried to save from their burning homes, and dashed them back into the flames. They meant to make a clean sweep. They were howling round the fires like demons, these Yankees in their joy and triumph at our destruction. Well, we have given them a big scare and kept them miserable for four years—the little handful of us. A woman we met on the street stopped to tell us a painful coincidence. A general was married but he could not stay at home very long after the wedding. When his baby was born they telegraphed him, and he sent back a rejoicing answer with an inquiry, “Is it a boy or a girl?” He was killed before he got the reply. Was it not sad? His poor young wife says, “He did not live to hear that his son lived.” The kind woman added, sorrowfully, “Died and did not know the sect of his child.” “Let us hope it will be a Methodist,” said Isabella, the irrepressible. At the venison feast Isabella heard a good word for me and one for General Chesnut’s air of distinction, a thing people can not give themselves, try as ever they may. Lord Byron says, Everybody knows a gentleman when he sees one, and nobody can tell what it is that makes a gentleman. He knows the thing, but he can’t describe it. Now there are some French words that can not be translated, and we all know the thing they mean—gracieuse and svelte, for instance, as applied to a woman. Not that anything was said of me like that—far from it. I am fair, fat, forty, and jolly, and in my unbroken jollity, as far as they know, they found my charm. “You see, she doesn’t howl; she doesn’t cry; she never, never tells anybody about what she was used to at home and what she has lost.” High praise, and I intend to try and deserve it ever after.

Went to church crying to Ellen, “It is Lent, we must fast and pray.” When I came home my good fairy, Colonel Childs, had been here bringing rice and potatoes, and promising flour. He is a trump. He pulled out his pocket-book and offered to be my banker. He stood there on the street, Miss Middleton and Isabella witnessing the generous action, and straight out offered me money. “No, put up that,” said I. “I am not a beggar, and I never will be; to die is so much easier.” Alas, after that flourish of trumpets, when he came with a sack of flour, I accepted it gratefully. I receive things I can not pay for, but money is different. There I draw a line, imaginary perhaps. Once before the same thing happened. Our letters of credit came slowly in 1845, when we went unexpectedly to Europe and our letters were to follow us. I was a poor little, inoffensive bride, and a British officer, who guessed our embarrassment, for we did not tell him (he came over with us on the ship), asked my husband to draw on his banker until the letters of credit should arrive. It was a nice thing for a stranger to do. We have never lost what we never had. We have never had any money—only unlimited credit, for my husband’s richest kind of a father insured us all manner of credit. It was all a mirage only at last, and it has gone just as we drew nigh to it. Colonel Childs says eight of our Senators are for reconstruction, and that a ray of light has penetrated inward from Lincoln, who told Judge Campbell that Southern land would not be confiscated.

Better to-day. A long, long weary day in grief has passed away. I suppose General Chesnut is somewhere—but where? that is the question. Only once has he visited this sad spot, which holds, he says, all that he cares for on earth. Unless he comes or writes soon I will cease, or try to cease, this wearisome looking, looking, looking for him.