A Diary from Dixie: As written by Mary Boykin Chesnut, wife of James Chesnut, Jr., United States Senator from South Carolina, 1859-1861, and afterward an Aide to Jefferson Davis and a Brigadier-General in the Confederate ArmyChesnut, Mary Boykin
History
A Diary from Dixie: As written by Mary Boykin Chesnut, wife of James Chesnut, Jr., United States Senator from South Carolina, 1859-1861, and afterward an Aide to Jefferson Davis and a Brigadier-General in the Confederate Army
Chesnut, Mary Boykin
Chesnut, Mary Boykin, 1823-1886 -- Diaries; Confederate States of America -- History -- Sources; Southern States -- Biography; United States -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865 -- Personal narratives, Confederate
In Camden I found myself in a flurry of women. “Traitors,” they cried.
“Spies; they ought to be hanged; Davin is taken up, Dean and Davis are
his accomplices.” “What has Davin done?” “He’ll be hanged, never you
mind.” “For what?” “They caught him walking on the trestle work in the
swamp, after no good, you may be sure.” “They won’t hang him for that!”
“Hanging is too good for him!” “You wait till Colonel Chesnut comes.” “He
is a lawyer,” I said, gravely. “Ladies, he will disappoint you. There
will be no lynching if he goes to that meeting to-day. He will not move a
step except by habeas corpus and trial by jury, and a quantity of bench
and bar to speak long speeches.”
Mr. Chesnut did come, and gave a more definite account of poor Davin’s
precarious situation. They had intercepted treasonable letters of his at
the Post Office. I believe it was not a very black treason after all. At
any rate, Mr. Chesnut spoke for him with might and main at the meeting.
It was composed (the meeting) of intelligent men with cool heads. And
they banished Davin to Fort Sumter. The poor Music Master can’t do much
harm in the casemates there. He may thank his stars that Mr. Chesnut gave
him a helping hand. In the red hot state our public mind now is in there
will be a short shrift for spies. Judge Withers said that Mr. Chesnut
never made a more telling speech in his life than he did to save this
poor Frenchman for whom Judge Lynch was ready. I had never heard of Davin
in my life until I heard he was to be hanged.
Judge Stephen A. Douglas, the “little giant,” is dead; one of those
killed by the war, no doubt; trouble of mind.
Charleston people are thin-skinned. They shrink from Russell’s touches.
I find his criticisms mild. He has a light touch. I expected so much
worse. Those Englishmen come, somebody says, with three P’s—pen, paper,
prejudices. I dread some of those after-dinner stories. As to that
day in the harbor, he let us off easily. He says our men are so fine
looking. Who denies it? Not one of us. Also that it is a silly impression
which has gone abroad that men can not work in this climate. We live in
the open air, and work like Trojans at all manly sports, riding hard,
hunting, playing at being soldiers. These fine, manly specimens have been
in the habit of leaving the coast when it became too hot there, and also
of fighting a duel or two, if kept long sweltering under a Charleston
sun. Handsome youths, whose size and muscle he admired so much as they
prowled around the Mills House, would not relish hard work in the fields
between May and December. Negroes stand a tropical or semitropical sun at
noon-day better than white men. In fighting it is different. Men will not
then mind sun, or rain, or wind.
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