[2] This and other French names to be met with in this Diary are of Huguenot origin.
[3] A reference to what was known as “the Bluffton movement” of 1844, in South Carolina. It aimed at secession, but was voted down.
[4] Francis W. Pickens, Governor of South Carolina, 1860-62. He had been elected to Congress in 1834 as a Nullifier, but had voted against the “Bluffton movement.” From 1858 to 1860, he was Minister to Russia. He was a wealthy planter and had fame as an orator.
[5] The Convention, which on December 20, 1860, passed the famous Ordinance of Secession, and had first met in Columbia, the State capital.
[6] Robert Anderson, Major of the First Artillery, United States Army, who, on November 20, 1860, was placed in command of the troops in Charleston harbor. On the night of December 26th, fearing an attack, he had moved his command to Fort Sumter. Anderson was a graduate of West Point and a veteran of the Black Hawk, Florida, and Mexican Wars.
[7] A native of Georgia, Howell Cobb had long served in Congress, and in 1849 was elected Speaker. In 1851 he was elected Governor of Georgia, and in 1857 became Secretary of the Treasury in Buchanan’s Administration. In 1861 he was a delegate from Georgia to the Provisional Congress which adopted the Constitution of the Confederacy, and presided over each of its four sessions.
[8] Andrew Bary Moore, elected Governor of Alabama in 1859. In 1861, before Alabama seceded, he directed the seizure of United States forts and arsenals and was active afterward in the equipment of State troops.
[9] Robert Toombs, a native of Georgia, who early acquired fame as a lawyer, served in the Creek War under General Scott, became known in 1842 as a “State Rights Whig,” being elected to Congress, where he was active in the Compromise measures of 1850. He served in the United States Senate from 1853 to 1861, where he was a pronounced advocate of the sovereignty of States, the extension of slavery, and secession. He was a member of the Confederate Congress at its first session and, by a single vote, failed of election as President of the Confederacy. After the war, he was conspicuous for his hostility to the Union.
[10] Robert Woodward Barnwell, of South Carolina, a graduate of Harvard, twice a member of Congress and afterward United States Senator. In 1860, after the passage of the Ordinance of Secession, he was one of the Commissioners who went to Washington to treat with the National Government for its property within the State. He was a member of the Convention at Montgomery and gave the casting vote which made Jefferson Davis President of the Confederacy.
[11] Alexander H. Stephens, the eminent statesman of Georgia, who before the war had been conspicuous in all the political movements of his time and in 1861 became Vice-President of the Confederacy. After the war he again became conspicuous in Congress and wrote a history entitled “The War between the States.”
[12] Benjamin H. Hill, who had already been active in State and National affairs when the Secession movement was carried through. He had been an earnest advocate of the Union until in Georgia the resolution was passed declaring that the State ought to secede. He then became a prominent supporter of secession. He was a member of the Confederate Congress, which met in Montgomery in 1861, and served in the Confederate Senate until the end of the war. After the war, he was elected to Congress and opposed the Reconstruction policy of that body. In 1877 he was elected United States Senator from Georgia.
[13] Governor Herschel V. Johnson also declined, and doubtless for similar reasons, to accept a challenge from Alexander H. Stephens, who, though endowed with the courage of a gladiator, was very small and frail.
[14] It was at this Congress that Jefferson Davis, on February 9, 1861, was elected President, and Alexander H. Stephens Vice-President of the Confederacy. The Congress continued to meet in Montgomery until its removal to Richmond, in July, 1861.
[15] Stephen R. Mallory was the son of a shipmaster of Connecticut, who had settled in Key West in 1820. From 1851 to 1861 Mr. Mallory was United States Senator from Florida, and after the formation of the Confederacy, became its Secretary of the Navy.
[16] John Archibald Campbell, who had settled in Montgomery and was appointed Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court by President Pierce in 1853. Before he resigned, he exerted all his influence to prevent Civil War and opposed secession, although he believed that States had a right to secede.
[17] Mrs. Chesnut’s father was Stephen Decatur Miller, who was born in South Carolina in 1787, and died in Mississippi in 1838. He was elected to Congress in 1816, as an Anti-Calhoun Democrat, and from 1828 to 1830 was Governor of South Carolina. He favored Nullification, and in 1830 was elected United States Senator from South Carolina, but resigned three years afterward in consequence of ill health. In 1835 he removed to Mississippi and engaged in cotton growing.
[19] Joseph B. Kershaw, a native of Camden, S. C., who became famous in connection with “The Kershaw Brigade” and its brilliant record at Bull Run, Fredericksburg, Chickamauga, Spottsylvania, and elsewhere throughout the war.
[20] Colonel Chesnut, the author’s father-in-law, was born about 1760. He was a prominent South Carolina planter and a public-spirited man. The family had originally settled in Virginia, where the farm had been overrun by the French and Indians at the time of Braddock’s campaign, the head of the family being killed at Fort Duquesne. Colonel Chesnut, of Mulberry, had been educated at Princeton, and his wife was a Philadelphia woman. In the final chapter of this Diary, the author gives a charming sketch of Colonel Chesnut.
[21] John Lawrence Manning was a son of Richard I. Manning, a former Governor of South Carolina. He was himself elected Governor of that State in 1852, was a delegate to the convention that nominated Buchanan, and during the War of Secession served on the staff of General Beauregard. In 1865 he was chosen United States Senator from South Carolina, but was not allowed to take his seat.
[22] Son of Langdon Cheves, an eminent lawyer of South Carolina, who served in Congress from 1810 to 1814; he was elected Speaker of the House of Representatives, and from 1819 to 1823 was President of the United States Bank; he favored Secession, but died before it was accomplished—in 1857.
[23] William Henry Trescott, a native of Charleston, was Assistant Secretary of State of the United States in 1860, but resigned after South Carolina seceded. After the war he had a successful career as a lawyer and diplomatist.
[24] James Louis Petigru before the war had reached great distinction as a lawyer and stood almost alone in his State as an opponent of the Nullification movement of 1830-1832. In 1860 he strongly opposed disunion, although he was then an old man of 71. His reputation has survived among lawyers because of the fine work he did in codifying the laws of South Carolina.
[25] John Hugh Means was elected Governor of South Carolina in 1850, and had long been an advocate of secession. He was a delegate to the Convention of 1860 and affixed his name to the Ordinance of Secession. He was killed at the second battle of Bull Run in August, 1862.
[26] James H. Adams was a graduate of Yale, who in 1832 strongly opposed Nullification, and in 1855 was elected Governor of South Carolina.
[27] Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard was born in New Orleans in 1818, and graduated from West Point in the class of 1838. He served in the war with Mexico; had been superintendent of the Military Academy at West Point a few days only, when in February, 1861, he resigned his commission in the Army of the United States and offered his services to the Confederacy.
[28] Louis Trezevant Wigfall was a native of South Carolina, but removed to Texas after being admitted to the bar, and from that State was elected United States Senator, becoming an uncompromising defender of the South on the slave question. After the war he lived in England, but in 1873 settled in Baltimore. He had a wide Southern reputation as a forcible and impassioned speaker.
[29] The annual balls of the St. Cecilia Society in Charleston are still the social events of the season. To become a member of the St. Cecilia Society is a sort of presentation at court in the sense of giving social recognition to one who was without the pale.
[30] Charles Cotesworth Pinckney was a brigadier-general in the Revolution and a member of the Convention that framed the Constitution of the United States. He was an ardent Federalist and twice declined to enter a National Cabinet, but in 1796 accepted the office of United States Minister to France. He was the Federalist candidate for Vice-President in 1800 and for President in 1804 and 1808. Other distinguished men in this family were Thomas, Charles, Henry Laurens, and Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, the second.
[31] Caroline Hampton, a daughter of General Wade Hampton, of the Revolution, was the wife of John S. Preston, an ardent advocate of secession, who served on the staff of Beauregard at Bull Run and subsequently reached the rank of brigadier-general.
[32] William Howard Russell, a native of Dublin, who served as a correspondent of the London Times during the Crimean War, the Indian Mutiny, the War of Secession and the Franco-German War. He has been familiarly known as “Bull Run Russell.” In 1875 he was honorary Secretary to the Prince of Wales during the Prince’s visit to India.
[33] The “Sally Baxter” of the recently published “Thackeray Letters to an American Family.”
[34] 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.
[35] Wade Hampton was a son of another Wade Hampton, who was an aide to General Jackson at the battle of New Orleans, and a grandson of still another Wade Hampton, who was a general in the Revolution. He was not in favor of secession, but when the war began he enlisted as a private and then raised a command of infantry, cavalry, and artillery, which as “Hampton’s Legion” won distinction in the war. After the war, he was elected Governor of South Carolina and was then elected to the United States Senate.
[36] John Hemphill was a native of South Carolina, who had removed to Texas, where he became Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the State, and in 1858 was elected United States Senator.
[37] Matthias Ward was a native of Georgia, but had removed to Texas in 1836. He was twice a delegate to National Democratic Conventions, and in 1858 was appointed to fill a vacancy from Texas in the United States Senate, holding that office until 1860.
[38] Mrs. Johnston was Lydia McLane, a daughter of Louis McLane, United States Senator from Delaware from 1827 to 1829, and afterward Minister to England. In 1831 he became Secretary of the Treasury and in 1833 Secretary of State. General Joseph E. Johnston was graduated from West Point in 1829 and had served in the Black Hawk, Seminole, and Mexican Wars. He resigned his commission in the United States Army on April 22, 1861.
[39] Mr. Hunter was a Virginian. He had long served in Congress, was twice speaker of the House, and in 1844 was elected a United States Senator, serving until 1861. He supported slavery and became active in the secession movement. At the Charleston Convention in 1860, he received the next highest vote to Stephen A. Douglas for President.
[40] Ephraim Elmer Ellsworth was a native of Saratoga County, New York. In 1860 he organized a regiment of Zouaves and became its Colonel. He accompanied Lincoln to Washington in 1861 and was soon sent with his regiment to Alexandria, where, on seeing a Confederate flag floating from a hotel, he personally rushed to the roof and tore it down. The owner of the hotel, a man named Jackson, met him as he was descending and shot him dead. Frank E. Brownell, one of Ellsworth’s men, then killed Jackson.
[41] William H. Emory had served in Charleston harbor during the Nullification troubles of 1831-1836. In 1846 he went to California, afterward served in the Mexican War, and later assisted in running the boundary line between Mexico and the United States under the Gadsden Treaty of 1853. In 1854 he was in Kansas and in 1858 in Utah. After resigning his commission, as related by the author, he was reappointed a Lieutenant-Colonel in the United States Army and took an active part in the war on the side of the North.
[42] John Bankhead Magruder was a graduate of West Point, who had served in the Mexican War, and afterward while stationed at Newport, R. I., had become famous for his entertainments. When Virginia seceded, he resigned his commission in the United States Army. After the war he settled in Houston, Texas.
The battle of Big Bethel was fought on June 10, 1861. The Federals lost in killed and wounded about 100, among them Theodore Winthrop, of New York, author of Cecil Dreeme. The Confederate losses were very slight.
[43] The battle of the Cowpens in South Carolina was fought on January 17, 1781; the British, under Colonel Tarleton, being defeated by General Morgan, with a loss to the British of 300 killed and wounded and 500 prisoners.
[44] Horace Binney, one of the foremost lawyers of Philadelphia, who was closely associated with the literary, scientific, and philanthropic interests of his time. His wife was a sister of Mrs. Chesnut, the author’s mother-in-law.
[45] Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus Lamar, a native of Georgia and of Huguenot descent, who got his classical names from his father: his father got them from an uncle who claimed the privilege of bestowing upon his nephew the full name of his favorite hero. When the war began, Mr. Lamar had lived for some years in Mississippi, where he had become successful as a lawyer and had been elected to Congress. He entered the Confederate Army as the Colonel of a Mississippi regiment. He served in Congress after the war and was elected to the United States Senate in 1877. In 1885 he became Secretary of the Interior, and in 1888, a justice of the United States Supreme Court.
[46] Bradley Tyler Johnson, a native of Maryland, and graduate of Princeton, who had studied law at Harvard. At the beginning of the war he organized a company at his own expense in defense of the South. He was the author of a Life of General Joseph E. Johnston.
[47] Faustin Elie Soulouque, a negro slave of Hayti, who, having been freed, took part in the insurrection against the French in 1803, and rose by successive steps until in August, 1849, by the unanimous action of the parliament, he was proclaimed emperor.
[48] At Camden in August, 1780, was fought a battle between General Gates and Lord Cornwallis, in which Gates was defeated. In April of the following year near Camden, Lord Rawdon defeated General Greene.
[49] Augustus Baldwin Longstreet had great distinction in the South as a lawyer, clergyman, teacher, journalist, and author, and was successively president of five different colleges. His Georgia Scenes, a series of humorous papers, enjoyed great popularity for many years.
[50] Rev. Robert Barnwell, nephew of Hon. Robert Barnwell, established in Richmond a hospital for South Carolinians.
[51] The first battle of Bull Run, or Manassas, fought on July 21, 1861, the Confederates being commanded by General Beauregard, and the Federals by General McDowell. Bull Run is a small stream tributary to the Potomac.
[52] Edmund Kirby Smith, a native of Florida, who had graduated from West Point, served in the Mexican War, and been Professor of Mathematics at West Point. He resigned his commission in the United States Army after the secession of Florida.
[53] Henry Wilson, son of a farm laborer and self-educated, who rose to much prominence in the Anti-Slavery contests before the war. He was elected United States Senator from Massachusetts in 1855, holding the office until 1873, when he resigned, having been elected Vice-President of the United States on the ticket with Ulysses S. Grant.
[54] James Harlan, United States Senator from Iowa from 1855 to 1865. In 1865 he was appointed Secretary of the Interior.
[55] Jerome Napoleon Bonaparte, a grandson of Napoleon Bonaparte’s brother Jerome and of Elizabeth Patterson of Baltimore. He was a graduate of West Point, but had entered the French Army, where he saw service in the Crimea, Algiers, and Italy, taking part in the battle of Balaklava, the siege of Sebastopol, and the battle of Solferino. He died in Massachusetts in 1893.
[56] Mrs. Davis was born in Natchez, Mississippi, and educated in Philadelphia. She was married to Mr. Davis in 1845. In recent years her home has been in New York City, where she still resides (Dec. 1904).
[57] Samuel Barron was a native of Virginia, who had risen to be a captain in the United States Navy. At the time of Secession he received a commission as Commodore in the Confederate Navy.
[58] The reference is to John Bright, whose advocacy of the cause of the Union in the British Parliament attracted a great deal of attention at the time.
[59] James Murray Mason was a grandson of George Mason, and had been elected United States Senator from Virginia in 1847. In 1851 he drafted the Fugitive Slave Law. His mission to England in 1861 was shared by John Slidell. On November 8, 1861, while on board the British steamer Trent, in the Bahamas, they were captured by an American named Wilkes, and imprisoned in Boston until January 2, 1862. A famous diplomatic difficulty arose with England over this affair. John Slidell was a native of New York, who had settled in Louisiana and became a Member of Congress from that State in 1843. In 1853 he was elected to the United States Senate.
[60] The battle of Rich Mountain, in Western Virginia, was fought July 11, 1861, and General Garnett, Commander of the Confederate forces, pursued by General McClellan, was killed at Carrick’s Ford, July 13th, while trying to rally his rear-guard.
[61] William Lowndes Yancey was a native of Virginia, who settled in Alabama, and in 1844 was elected to Congress, where he became a leader among the supporters of slavery and an advocate of secession. He was famous in his day as an effective public speaker.
[62] By reason of illness, preoccupation in other affairs, and various deterrent causes besides, Mrs. Chesnut allowed a considerable period to elapse before making another entry in her diary.
[63] Fort Donelson stood on the Cumberland River about 60 miles northwest of Nashville. The Confederate garrison numbered about 18,000 men. General Grant invested the Fort on February 13, 1862, and General Buckner, who commanded it, surrendered on February 16th. The Federal force at the time of the surrender numbered 27,000 men; their loss in killed and wounded being 2,660 men and the Confederate loss about 2,000.
[64] General Burnside captured the Confederate garrison at Roanoke Island on February 8, 1862.
[65] Nashville was evacuated by the Confederates under Albert Sidney Johnston, in February, 1862.
[66] Richard, Lord Lyons, British minister to the United States from 1858 to 1865.
[67] Lord Russell was Foreign Secretary under the Palmerston administration of 1859 to 1865.
[68] Mary McDuffie was the second wife of Wade Hampton.
[69] The Merrimac was formerly a 40-gun screw frigate of the United States Navy. In April, 1861, when the Norfolk Navy-yard was abandoned by the United States she was sunk. Her hull was afterward raised by the Confederates and she was reconstructed on new plans, and renamed the Virginia. On March 2, 1862, she destroyed the Congress, a sailing-ship of 50 guns, and the Cumberland, a sailing-ship of 30 guns, at Newport News. On March 7th she attacked the Minnesota, but was met by the Monitor and defeated in a memorable engagement. Many features of modern battle-ships have been derived from the Merrimac and Monitor.
[70] On March 7 and 8, 1862, occurred the battle of Pea Ridge in Western Arkansas, where the Confederates were defeated, and on March 8th and 9th, occurred the conflict in Hampton Roads between the warships Merrimac, Cumberland, Congress, and Monitor.
[71] Louisa Susanna McCord, whose husband was David J. McCord, a lawyer of Columbia, who died in 1855. She was educated in Philadelphia, and was the author of several books of verse, including Caius Gracchus, a tragedy; she was also a brilliant pamphleteer.
[72] John D. Floyd, who had been Governor of Virginia from 1850 to 1853, became Secretary of War in 1857. He was first in command at Fort Donelson. Gideon J. Pillow had been a Major-General of volunteers in the Mexican War and was second in command at Fort Donelson. He and Floyd escaped from the Fort when it was invested by Grant, leaving General Buckner to make the surrender.
[73] Joseph Le Conte, who afterward arose to much distinction as a geologist and writer of text-books on geology. He died in 1901, while he was connected with the University of California. His work at Columbia was to manufacture, on a large scale, medicines for the Confederate Army, his laboratory being the main source of supply. In Professor Le Conte’s autobiography published in 1903, are several chapters devoted to his life in the South.
[74] New Madrid, Missouri, had been under siege since March 3, 1862.
[75] The Emancipation Proclamation was not actually issued until September 22, 1862, when it was a notice to the Confederates to return to the Union, emancipation being proclaimed as a result of their failure to do so. The real proclamation, freeing the slaves, was delayed until January 1, 1863, when it was put forth as a war measure. Mrs. Chesnut’s reference is doubtless to President Lincoln’s Message to Congress, March 6, 1862, in which he made recommendations regarding the abolition of slavery.
[76] The battle of Shiloh, or Pittsburg Landing, in Tennessee, eighty-eight miles east of Memphis, had been fought on April 6 and 7, 1862. The Federals were commanded by General Grant who, on the second day, was reenforced by General Buell. The Confederates were commanded by Albert Sidney Johnston on the first day, when Johnston was killed, and on the second day by General Beauregard.
[77] New Orleans had been seized by the Confederates at the outbreak of the war. Steps to capture it were soon taken by the Federals and on April 18, 1862, the mortar flotilla, under Farragut, opened fire on its protecting forts. Making little impression on them, Farragut ran boldly past the forts and destroyed the Confederate fleet, comprising 13 gunboats and two ironclads. On April 27th he took formal possession of the city.
[78] The Siege of Yorktown was begun on April 5, 1862, the place being evacuated by the Confederates on May 4th.
[79] The battle of Williamsburg was fought on May 5, 1862, by a part of McClellan’s army, under General Hooker and others, the Confederates being commanded by General Johnston.
[80] General Benjamin F. Butler took command of New Orleans on May 2, 1862. The author’s reference is to his famous “Order No. 28,” which reads: “As the officers and soldiers of the United States have been subject to repeated insults from the women (calling themselves ladies) of New Orleans, in return for the most scrupulous non-interference and courtesy on our part, it is ordered that hereafter when any female shall by word, gesture, or movement, insult or show contempt for any officer or soldier of the United States she shall be regarded and held liable to be treated as a woman of the town plying her vocation.” This and other acts of Butler in New Orleans led Jefferson Davis to issue a proclamation, declaring Butler to be a felon and an outlaw, and if captured that he should be instantly hanged. In December Butler was superseded at New Orleans by General Banks.
[81] The Battle of Fair Oaks or Seven Pines, took place a few miles east of Richmond, on May 31 and June 1, 1862, the Federals being commanded by McClellan and the Confederates by General Joseph E. Johnston.
[82] Fort Pillow was on the Mississippi above Memphis. It had been erected by the Confederates, but was occupied by the Federals on June 5, 1862, the Confederates having evacuated and partially destroyed it the day before. On June 6, 1862, the Federal fleet defeated the Confederates near Memphis. The city soon afterward was occupied by the Federals.
[83] Corinth was besieged by the Federals, under General Halleck, in May, 1862, and was evacuated by the Confederates under Beauregard on May 29th.
[84] She lost her life in the Windsor Hotel fire in New York.
[85] This must be a reference to the Battle of Seven Pines or to the Campaign of the Chickahominy, up to and inclusive of that battle.
[86] The battle of Secessionville occurred on James Island, in the harbor of Charleston, June 16, 1862.
[87] Malvern Hill, the last of the Seven Days’ Battles, was fought near Richmond on the James River, July 1, 1862. The Federals were commanded by McClellan and the Confederates by Lee.
[88] The first battle of the Chickahominy, fought on June 27, 1862. It is better known as the battle of Gaines’s Mill, or Cold Harbor. It was participated in by a part of Lee’s army and a part of McClellan’s, and its scene was about eight miles from Richmond.
[89] Henry M. Rice, United States Senator from Minnesota, who had emigrated to that State from Vermont in 1835.
[90] Of ameliorations in modern warfare, Dr. John T. Darby said in addressing the South Carolina Medical Association, Charleston, in 1873: “On the route from the army to the general hospital, wounds are dressed and soldiers refreshed at wayside homes; and here be it said with justice and pride that the credit of originating this system is due to the women of South Carolina. In a small room in the capital of this State, the first Wayside Home was founded; and during the war, some seventy-five thousand soldiers were relieved by having their wounds dressed, their ailments attended, and very frequently by being clothed through the patriotic services and good offices of a few untiring ladies in Columbia. From this little nucleus, spread that grand system of wayside hospitals which was established during our own and the late European wars.”
[91] Flat Rock was the summer resort of many cultured families from the low countries of the South before the war. Many attractive houses had been built there. It lies in the region which has since become famous as the Asheville region, and in which stands Biltmore.
[92] The battle of Sharpsburg, or Antietam, one of the bloodiest of the war, was fought in western Maryland, a few miles north of Harper’s Ferry, on September 16 and 17, 1862, the Federals being under McClellan, and the Confederates under Lee.
[93] The battle of Chancellorsville, where the losses on each side were more than ten thousand men, was fought about fifty miles northwest of Richmond on May 2, 3, and 4, 1863. The Confederates were under Lee and the Federals under Hooker. In this battle Stonewall Jackson was killed.
[94] During the summer of 1862, after the battle of Malvern Hill and before Sharpsburg, or Antietam, the following important battles had taken place: Harrison’s Landing, July 3d and 4th; Harrison’s Landing again, July 31st; Cedar Mountain, August 9th; Bull Run (second battle), August 29th and 30th, and South Mountain, September 14th.
[95] Clement Baird Vallandigham was an Ohio Democrat who represented the extreme wing of Northern sympathizers with the South. He was arrested by United States troops in May, 1863, court-martialed and banished to the Confederacy. Not being well received in the South, he went to Canada, but after the war returned to Ohio.
[96] Vicksburg surrendered on July 4, 1863. Since the close of 1862, it had again and again been assaulted by Grant and Sherman. It was commanded by Johnston and Pemberton, Pemberton being in command at the time of the surrender. John C. Pemberton was a native of Philadelphia, a graduate of West Point, and had served in the Mexican War.
[97] Hood was a native of Kentucky and a graduate of West Point.
[98] Drury’s Bluff lies eight miles south of Richmond on the James River. Here, on May 16, 1864, the Confederates under Beauregard repulsed the Federals under Butler.
[99] The battle of Brandy Station, Va., occurred June 9, 1863.
[100] George S. Stoneman, a graduate of West Point, was now a Major-General, and Chief of Artillery in the Army of the Potomac. His raid toward Richmond in 1863 was a memorable incident of the war. After the war, he became Governor of California.
[101] Miss Constance Cary afterward married Burton Harrison and settled in New York where she became prominent socially and achieved reputation as a novelist.
[102] The battle of Chickamauga was fought on the river of the same name, near Chattanooga, September 19 and 20, 1863. The Confederates were commanded by Bragg and the Federals by Rosecrans. It was one of the bloodiest battles of the war; the loss on each side, including killed, wounded, and prisoners, was over 15,000.
[103] John C. Breckinridge had been Vice-President of the United States under Buchanan and was the candidate of the Southern Democrats for President in 1860. He joined the Confederate Army in 1861.
[104] Braxton Bragg was a native of North Carolina and had won distinction in the war with Mexico.
[105] John R. Thompson was a native of Richmond and in 1847 became editor of the Southern Literary Messenger. Under his direction, that periodical acquired commanding influence. Mr. Thompson’s health failed afterward. During the war he spent a part of his time in Richmond and a part in Europe. He afterward settled in New York and became literary editor of the Evening Post.
[106] The siege of Chattanooga, which had been begun on September 21st, closed late in November, 1863, the final engagements beginning on November 23d, and ending on November 25th. Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge were the closing incidents of the siege. Grant, Sherman, and Hooker were conspicuous on the Federal side and Bragg and Longstreet on the Confederate.
[107] Following the battle of Gettysburg on July 1st, 2d, and 3d, of this year, there had occurred in Virginia between Lee and Meade engagements at Bristoe’s Station, Kelly’s Ford, and Rappahannock Station, the latter engagement taking place on November 7th. The author doubtless refers here to the positions of Lee and Meade at Mine Run, December 1st. December 2d Meade abandoned his, because (as he is reported to have said) it would have cost him 30,000 men to carry Lee’s breastworks, and he shrank from ordering such slaughter.
[108] Burton Harrison, then secretary to Jefferson Davis, who married Miss Constance Cary and became well known as a New York lawyer. He died in Washington in 1904.
[109] Simon B. Buckner was a graduate of West Point and had served in the Mexican War. In 1887 he was elected Governor of Kentucky and, at the funeral of General Grant, acted as one of the pall-bearers.
[110] John H. Morgan, a native of Alabama, entered the Confederate army in 1861 as a Captain and in 1862 was made a Major-General. He was captured by the Federals in 1863 and confined in an Ohio penitentiary, but he escaped and once more joined the Confederate army. In September, 1864, he was killed in battle near Greenville, Tenn.
[111] Judah P. Benjamin, was born, of Jewish parentage, at St. Croix in the West Indies, and was elected in 1852 to represent Louisiana in the United States Senate, where he served until 1861. In the Confederate administration he served successively from 1861 to 1865 as Attorney-General, Secretary of War, and Secretary of State. At the close of the war he went to England where he achieved remarkable success at the bar.
[112] The New York Hotel, covering a block front on Broadway at Waverley Place, was a favorite stopping place for Southerners for many years before the war and after it. In comparatively recent times it was torn down and supplanted by a business block.
[113] General Polk, commanding about 24,000 men scattered throughout Mississippi and Alabama, found it impossible to check the advance of Sherman at the head of some 40,000, and moved from Meridian south to protect Mobile. February 16, 1864, Sherman took possession of Meridian.
[114] Colonel Ulric Dahlgren was a son of the noted Admiral, John H. Dahlgren, who, in July, 1863, had been placed in command of the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron and conducted the naval operations against Charleston, between July 10 and September 7, 1863. Colonel Dahlgren distinguished himself at Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, and Gettysburg. The raid in which he lost his life on March 4, 1864, was planned by himself and General Kilpatrick.
[115] During the month of May, 1864, important battles had been fought in Virginia, including that of the Wilderness on May 6th-7th, and the series later in that month around Spottsylvania Court House.
[116] The battle of Stony Creek in Virginia was fought on June 28-29, 1864.
[117] General Johnston in 1863 had been appointed to command the Army of the Tennessee, with headquarters at Dalton, Georgia. He was to oppose the advance of Sherman’s army toward Atlanta. In May, 1864, he fought unsuccessful battles at Resaca and elsewhere, and in July was compelled to retreat across the Chattahoochee River. Fault was found with him because of his continual retreating. There were tremendous odds against him. On July 17th he was superseded by Hood.
[118] Raphael Semmes was a native of Maryland and had served in the Mexican War. The Alabama was built for the Confederate States at Birkenhead, England, and with an English crew and English equipment was commanded by Semmes. In 1863 and 1864 the Alabama destroyed much Federal shipping. On June 19, 1864, she was sunk by the Federal ship Kearsarge in a battle off Cherbourg. Claims against England for damages were made by the United States, and as a result the Geneva Arbitration Court was created. Claims amounting to $15,500,000 were finally awarded. This case has much importance in the history of international law.
[119] The battle of Mobile Bay, won under Farragut, was fought on August 5, 1864.
[120] On July 22d, Hood made a sortie from Atlanta, but after a battle was obliged to return.
[121] General Forrest made his raid on Memphis in August of this year.
[122] General McPherson was killed before Atlanta during the sortie made by Hood on July 22d. He was a native of Ohio, a graduate of West Point, and under Sherman commanded the Army of the Tennessee.
[123] After the battle, Atlanta was taken possession of and partly burned by the Federals.
[124] During the summer and autumn of 1864 several important battles had occurred. In addition to the engagements by Sherman’s army farther south, there had occurred in Virginia the battle of Cold Harbor in the early part of June; those before Petersburg in the latter part of June and during July and August; the battle of Winchester on September 19th, during Sheridan’s Shenandoah campaign, and the battle of Cedar Creek on October 19th.
[125] After the war, Dr. Darby became professor of Surgery in the University of the City of New York; he had served as Medical Director in the Army of the Confederate States and as Professor of Anatomy and Surgery in the University of South Carolina; had also served with distinction in European wars.
[126] General Sherman had started from Chattanooga for his march across Georgia on May 6, 1864. He had won the battles of Dalton, Resaca, and New Hope Church in May, the battle of Kennesaw Mountain in June, the battles of Peach Tree Creek and Atlanta in July, and had formally occupied Atlanta on September 2d. On November 16th, he started on his march from Atlanta to the sea and entered Savannah on December 23d. Early in 1865 he moved his army northward through the Carolinas, and on April 26th received the surrender of General Joseph E. Johnston.
[127] Reference is here made to the battle between Hood and Thomas at Nashville, the result of which was the breaking up of Hood’s army as a fighting force.
[128] Under last date entry, January 17th, the author chronicles events of later occurrence; it was her not infrequent custom to jot down happenings in dateless lines or paragraphs. Mr. Blair visited President Davis January 12th; Stephens, Hunter and Campbell were appointed Peace Commissioners, January 28th.
[129] Battles at Hatchen’s Run, in Virginia, had been fought on February 5, 6, and 7, 1865.
[130] The reference appears to be to General Edward E. Potter, a native of New York City, who died in 1889. General Potter entered the Federal service early in the war. He recruited a regiment of North Carolina troops and engaged in operations in North and South Carolina and Eastern Tennessee.
[131] John Taylor was graduated from Princeton in 1790 and became a planter in South Carolina. He served in Congress from 1806 to 1810, and in the latter year was chosen to fill a vacancy in the United States Senate, caused by the resignation of Thomas Sumter. In 1826 he was chosen Governor of South Carolina. He died in 1832.
[132] Fort Duquesne stood at the junction of the Monongahela and Alleghany Rivers. Captain Trent, acting for the Ohio Company, with some Virginia militiamen, began to build this fort in February, 1754. On April 17th of the same year, 700 Canadians and French forced him to abandon the work. The French then completed the fortress and named it Fort Duquesne. The unfortunate expedition of General Braddock, in the summer of 1755, was an attempt to retake the fort, Braddock’s defeat occurring eight miles east of it. In 1758 General Forbes marched westward from Philadelphia and secured possession of the place, after the French, alarmed at his approach, had burned it. Forbes gave it the name of Pittsburg.
[133] Elizabeth K. Adger, wife of the Rev. John B. Adger, D. D., of Charleston, a distinguished Presbyterian divine, at one time a missionary to Smyrna where he translated the Bible into the Armenian tongue. He was afterward and before the war a professor in the Theological Seminary at Columbia. His wife was a woman of unusual judgment and intelligence, sharing her husband’s many hardships and notable experiences in the East.
[134] Mr. Davis, while encamped near Irwinsville, Ga., had been captured on May 10th by a body of Federal cavalry under Lieutenant-Colonel Pritchard. He was taken to Fortress Monroe and confined there for two years, his release being effected on May 13, 1867, when he was admitted to bail in the sum of $100,000, the first name on his bail-bond being that of Horace Greeley.
[135] Simon Cameron became Secretary of War in Lincoln’s Administration, on March 4, 1861. On January 11, 1862, he resigned and was made Minister to Russia.
