A Diary From Dixie, Chapter 04

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IV. CAMDEN, S. C.

April 20, 1861 - April 23, 1861

        CAMDEN, S. C., April 20, 1861. - 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 Hampton, and others - in the passageway of the Mills House between the reception-room and the drawing-room, for there we held a sofa against all comers. All the agreeable people South seemed to have flocked to Charleston at the first gun. That was after we had found out that bombarding did not kill anybody. Before that, we wept and prayed and took our tea in groups in our rooms, away from the haunts of men.

        Captain Ingraham and his kind also took Fort Sumter - from the Battery with field-glasses and figures made with their sticks in the sand to show what ought to be done.

        Wigfall, Chesnut, Miles, Manning, took it rowing about the harbor in small boats from fort to fort under the enemy's guns, with bombs bursting in air.

        And then the boys and men who worked those guns so faithfully at the forts - they took it, too, in their own way.

        Old Colonel Beaufort Watts told me this story and many more of the jeunesse dorée under fire. They took the fire easily, as they do most things. They had cotton bag bomb-proofs at Fort Moultrie, and when Anderson's shot knocked them about some one called out "Cotton is falling." Then down went the kitchen chimney, loaves of

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bread flew out, and they cheered gaily, shouting, "Breadstuffs are rising."

        Willie Preston fired the shot which broke Anderson's flag-staff. Mrs. Hampton from Columbia telegraphed him, "Well done, Willie!" She is his grandmother, the wife, or widow, of General Hampton, of the Revolution, and the mildest, sweetest, gentlest of old ladies. This shows how the war spirit is waking us all up.

        Colonel Miles (who won his spurs in a boat, so William Gilmore Simms 1 said) gave us this characteristic anecdote. They met a negro out in the bay rowing toward the city with some plantation supplies, etc. "Are you not afraid of Colonel Anderson's cannon?" he was asked. "No, sar, Mars Anderson ain't daresn't hit me; he know Marster wouldn't 'low it."

        I have been sitting idly to-day looking out upon this beautiful lawn, wondering if this can be the same world I was in a few days ago. After the smoke and the din of the battle, a calm.

        April 22d. - 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 the tips of his fingers; chivalry incarnate. He was placed in charge of a large amount of money, in bank bills. The money belonged to the State and he was to deposit it in the bank. On the way he was obliged to stay over one night. He put the roll on a table at his bedside, locked himself in, and slept the sleep of the righteous. Lo, next day when he awaked, the money was gone. Well! all who knew him believed him innocent, of course. He searched and they searched, high and low, but to no purpose. The money had vanished. It was a damaging story, 
1. William Gilmore Simms, the Southern novelist, was born in Charleston in 1806. He was the author of a great many volumes dealing with Southern life, and at one time they were widely read.
 

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in spite of his previous character, and a cloud rested on him.

        Years afterward the house in which he had taken that disastrous sleep was pulled down. In the wall, behind the wainscot, was found his pile of money. How the rats got it through so narrow a crack it seemed hard to realize. Like the hole mentioned by Mercutio, it was not as deep as a well nor as wide as a church door, but it did for Beaufort Watts until the money was found. Suppose that house had been burned or the rats had gnawed up the bills past recognition?

        People in power understood how this proud man suffered those many years in silence. Many men looked askance at him. The country tried to repair the work of blasting the man's character. He was made Secretary of Legation to Russia, and was afterward our Consul at Santa Fe de Bogota. When he was too old to wander far afield, they made him Secretary to all the Governors of South Carolina in regular succession.

        I knew him more than twenty years ago as Secretary to the Governor. He was a made-up old battered dandy, the soul of honor. His eccentricities were all humored. Misfortune had made him sacred. He stood hat in hand before ladies and bowed as I suppose Sir Charles Grandison might have done. It was hard not to laugh at the purple and green shades of his overblack hair. He came at one time to show me the sword presented to Colonel Shelton for killing the only Indian who was killed in the Seminole war. We bagged Osceola and Micanopy under a flag of truce - that is, they were snared, not shot on the wing.

        To go back to my knight-errant: he knelt, handed me the sword, and then kissed my hand. I was barely sixteen and did not know how to behave under the circumstances. He said, leaning on the sword, "My dear child, learn that it is a much greater liberty to shake hands with a lady than to kiss her hand. I have kissed the Empress of Russia's hand

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and she did not make faces at me." He looks now just as he did then. He is in uniform, covered with epaulettes, aigulettes, etc., shining in the sun, and with his plumed hat reins up his war-steed and bows low as ever.

        Now I will bid farewell for a while as Othello did to all the "pomp, pride, and circumstance of glorious war," and come down to my domestic strifes and troubles. I have a sort of volunteer maid, the daughter of my husband's nurse, dear old Betsy. She waits on me because she so pleases. Besides, I pay her. She belongs to my father-in-law, who has too many slaves to care very much about their way of life. So Maria Whitaker came, all in tears. She brushes hair delightfully, and as she stood at my back I could see her face in the glass. "Maria, are you crying because all this war talk scares you?" said I. "No, ma'am." "What is the matter with you?" "Nothing more than common." "Now listen. Let the war end either way and you will be free. We will have to free you before we get out of this thing. Won't you be glad?" "Everybody knows Mars Jeems wants us free, and it is only old Marster holds hard. He ain't going to free anybody any way, you see."

        And then came the story of her troubles. "Now, Miss Mary, you see me married to Jeems Whitaker yourself. I was a good and faithful wife to him, and we were comfortable every way - good house, everything. He had no cause of complaint, but he has left me." "For heaven's sake! Why?" "Because I had twins. He says they are not his because nobody named Whitaker ever had twins."

        Maria is proud in her way, and the behavior of this bad husband has nearly mortified her to death. She has had three children in two years. No wonder the man was frightened. But then Maria does not depend on him for anything. She was inconsolable, and I could find nothing better to say than, "Come, now, Maria! Never mind, your old Missis and Marster are so good to you. Now let us

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look up something for the twins." The twins are named "John and Jeems," the latter for her false loon of a husband. Maria is one of the good colored women. She deserved a better fate in her honest matrimonial attempt. But they do say she has a trying temper. Jeems was tried, and he failed to stand the trial.

        April 23d. - 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 should be burned; at least it should not remain in her house. Bad books are not allowed house room, except in the library under lock and key, the key in the Master's pocket; but bad women, if they are not white, or serve in a menial capacity, may swarm the house unmolested; the ostrich game is thought a Christian act. Such women are no more regarded as a dangerous contingent than canary birds would be.

        If you show by a chance remark that you see some particular creature, more shameless than the rest, has no end of children, and no beginning of a husband, you are frowned down; you are talking on improper subjects. There are certain subjects pure-minded ladies never touch upon, even in their thoughts. It does not do to be so hard and cruel. It is best to let the sinners alone, poor things. If they are good servants otherwise, do not dismiss them; all that will come straight as they grow older, and it does! They are frantic, one and all, to be members of the church. The Methodist Church is not so pure-minded as to shut its eyes; it takes them up and turns them out with a high hand if they are found going astray as to any of the ten commandments.