]> The War-Time Journal of a Georgia Girl, 1864-1865: Electronic Edition. Eliza Frances Andrews, b. 1840 Funding from the Library of Congress/Ameritech National Digital Library Competition supported the electronic publication of this title. Text scanned (OCR) by Claire LaForce Text encoded by Teresa Church and Natalia Smith First edition, 1997. ca. 800K Academic Affairs Library, UNC-CH University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1997.

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 Call number 973.78 A56 (Wilson Annex, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) The War-Time Journal of a Georgia Girl, 1864-1865 Andrews, Eliza Frances, b. 1840 New York D. Appleton and Company 1908

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 Library of Congress Subject Headings, 21st edition, 1998 English Andrews, Eliza Frances, b. 1840 -- Diaries. Girls -- Georgia -- Wilkes County -- Diaries. Women -- Georgia -- Wilkes County -- Diaries. Upper class -- Georgia -- Wilkes County -- History -- 19th century. Wilkes County (Ga.) -- Biography. Georgia -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865 -- Personal narratives. United States -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865 -- Personal narratives, Confederate. 1997-10-18, Natalia Smith, project editor, finished TEI-conformant encoding and final proofing. 1997-10-01, Teresa Church finished TEI/SGML encoding 1997-05-10, Claire LaForce finished scanning (OCR) and proofing.

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Eliza Frances Andrews From a photograph taken in 1865[Frontispiece Image]

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 THE WAR-TIME JOURNAL OF A GEORGIA GIRL 1864-1865 BY ELIZA FRANCES ANDREWS ILLUSTRATED FROM CONTEMPORARY PHOTOGRAPHS NEW YORK D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 1908 COPYRIGHT, 1908, BY D. APPLETON AND COMPANY Published September, 1908 TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION . . . .1 I. ACROSS SHERMAN'S TRACK . . . .19 II. PLANTATION LIFE . . . .57 III. A RACE WITH THE ENEMY . . . .129 IV. THE PASSING OF THE CONFEDERACY . . . .175 V. IN THE DUST AND ASHES OF DEFEAT . . . .218 VI. FORESHADOWINGS OF THE RACE PROBLEM . . . .279 VII. THE PROLOGUE TO RECONSTRUCTION . . . .336 CONCLUSION . . . .385 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS ELIZA FRANCES ANDREWS . . . .Frontispiece PHOTOGRAPH OF THE ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT OF THE DIARY . . . .22 METTA ANDREWS . . . .44 A GROUP OF CONFEDERATE CHILDREN . . . .80 A BELLE OF THE CONFEDERACY IN EVENING DRESS . . . .96 FROM BEYOND THE BLOCKADE . . . .110 JULIA, DAUGHTER OF MRS. TROUP BUTLER . . . .126 WAR-TIME FASHIONS . . . .134 JUDGE GARNETT ANDREWS, 1827 . . . . 176 MRS. GARNETT ANDREWS, NÉE ANNULET BALL, 1827 . . . .180 THE OLD BANK BUILDING IN WASHINGTON, GA., 1865 . . . .202 MRS. SARAH ANN (HOXEY) BROWN . . . .260 A GROUP OF CONFEDERATE OFFICERS . . . .286 A GROUP OF CONFEDERATE BELLES . . . . 298 SURVIVORS OF JUDGE ANDREWS'S HOUSEHOLD SERVANTS, PHOTOGRAPHED, 1903 . . . .348 HAYWOOD, THE OLD HOME OF JUDGE GARNETT ANDREWS, ERECTED IN 1794 OR 1795 . . . .376 THE WAR-TIME JOURNAL OF A GEORGIA GIRL INTRODUCTION

To edit oneself after the lapse of nearly half a century is like taking an appeal from Philip drunk to Philip sober. The changes of thought and feeling between the middle of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century are so great that the impulsive young person who penned the following record and the white-haired woman who edits it, are no more the same than were Philip drunk with the wine of youth and passion and Philip sobered by the lessons of age and experience. The author's lot was cast amid the tempest and fury of war, and if her utterances are sometimes out of accord with the spirit of our own happier time, it is because she belonged to an era which, though but of yesterday, as men count the ages of history, is separated from our own by a social and intellectual chasm as broad almost as the lapse of a thousand years. In the lifetime of a single generation the people of the South have been called upon to pass through changes that the rest of the world has taken centuries to accomplish. The distance between the armor-clad knight at Acre and the “embattled farmers” at Lexington is hardly greater than that between the feudal aristocracy which dominated Southern sentiment in 1860, and the commercial plutocracy that rules over the destinies of the nation to-day.

Never was there an aristocracy so compact, so united, so powerful. Out of a population of some 9,000,000 whites that peopled the Southern States, according to the census of 1850, only about 300,000 were actual slaveholders. Less than 3,000 of these— men owning, say, over 100 negroes each, constituted the great planter class, who, with a small proportion of professional and business men affiliated with them in culture and sympathies, dominated Southern sentiment and for years dictated the policy of the nation. The more prominent families all over the country knew each other by reputation, if not by actual contact, and to be a member of the privileged few in one community was an ex-officio title to membership in all. To use a modern phrase, we were intensely “class conscious” and this brought about a solidarity of feeling and sentiment almost comparable to that created by family ties. Narrow and provincial we may have been, in some respects, but take it all in all, it is doubtful whether the world has ever produced a state of society more rich in all the resources for a thoroughly wholesome, happy, and joyous life than existed among the privileged “4,000” under the peculiar civilization of the Old South—a civilization which has served its purpose in the evolution of the race and passed away forever. So completely has it vanished that the very language in which we used to express ourselves is becoming obsolete. Many of our household words, among them a name scarcely less dear than “mother,” are a dead language. Others have a strangely archaic sound to modern ears. When the diary was written, women were still regarded as “females,” and it was even permissible to have a “female acquaintance,” or a “male friend,” when distinction of sex was necessary, without being relegated forthwith to the ranks of the ignobile vulgus. The words “lady” and “gentleman” had not yet been brought into disrepute, and strangest of all, to modern ears, the word “rebel,” now so bitterly resented as casting a stigma on the Southern cause, is used throughout the diary as a term of pride and affectionate endearment.

It is for the sake of the light it throws on the inner life of this unique society at the period of its dissolution —a period so momentous in the history of our country—that this contemporaneous record from the pen of a young woman in private life, is given to the public. The uncompromising attitude of the writer's father against secession removed him, of course, from all participation in the political and official life of the Confederacy, and so this volume can lay claim to none of the dignity which attaches to the utterances of one narrating events “quorum párs magna fui.” But for this reason its testimony will, perhaps, be of more value to the student of social conditions than if it dealt with matters pertaining more exclusively to the domain of history. The experiences recounted are such as might have come at that time, to any woman of good family and social position; the feelings, beliefs, and prejudices expressed reflect the general sentiment of the Southern people of that generation, and this is my apology for offering them to the public. As an informal contemporaneous record, written with absolutely no thought of ever meeting other eyes than those of the author, the present volume can claim at least the merit of that unpremeditated realism which is more valuable as a picture of life than detailed statistics of battles and sieges. The chief object of the writer in keeping a diary was to cultivate ease of style by daily exercise in rapid composition, and, incidentally, to preserve a record of personal experiences for her own convenience. This practice was kept up with more or less regularity for about ten years, but the bulk of the matter so produced was destroyed at various times in those periodical fits of disgust and self-abasement that come to every keeper of an honest diary in saner moments. The present volume was rescued from a similar fate by the intercession of a relative, who suggested that the period dealt with was one of such transcendent interest, embracing the last months of the war and the equally stormy times immediately following, that the record of it ought to be preserved along with our other war relics, as a family heirloom. So little importance did the writer attach to the document even then, that the only revision made in changing it from a personal to a family history, was to tear out bodily whole paragraphs, and even pages, that were considered too personal for other eyes than her own. In this way the manuscript was mutilated, in some places, beyond recovery. The frequent hiatuses caused by these elisions are marked in the body of the work by the usual signs of ellipsis.

The original manuscript was written in an old day-book fished out of some forgotten corner during the war, when writing paper was as scarce as banknotes, and almost as dear, if measured in Confederate money. The pale, home-made ink, never too distinct, at best, is faded after nearly fifty years, to a light ocher, but little darker than the age-yellowed paper on which it was inscribed. Space was economized and paper saved by writing between the closely-ruled lines, and in a hand so small and cramped as to be often illegible, without the aid of a lens. The manuscript suffered many vicissitudes, the sheets having been torn from the covers and crumpled into the smallest possible space for better concealment in times of emergency.

As a discourager of self-conceit there is nothing like an old diary, and I suppose no one ever knows what a full-blown idiot he or she is capable of being, who has not kept such a living record against himself. This being the case, the gray-haired editor may be pardoned a natural averseness to the publication of anything that would too emphatically “write me down an ass” —to borrow from our friend Dogberry—though I fear that in some of the matter retained in the interest of truth, I have come perilously near to that alternative.

But while the “blue line” has been freely used, as was indispensable in an intimate private chronicle of this sort, it has not been allowed to interfere in any way with the fidelity of the narrative. Matter strictly personal to the writer—tiresome reflections, silly flirtations, and the like—has been omitted, and thoughtless criticisms and other expressions that might wound the feelings of persons now living, have been left out or toned down. Connectives, or other words are supplied where necessary for clearness; where more particular information is called for, it is given in parentheses, or in the explanatory notes at the heads of the chapters. Even the natural temptation to correct an occasional lapse into local barbarisms, such as “like” for “as,” “don't” for “doesn't,” or the still more unpardonable offense of applying the terms “male” and “female” to objects of their respective genders, has been resisted for fear of altering the spirit of the narrative by too much tampering with the letter. For the same reason certain palpable errors and misstatements, unless of sufficient importance to warrant a note, have been left unchanged—for instance, the absurd classing of B. F. Butler with General Sherman as a degenerate West Pointer, or the confusion between fuit Ilium and ubi Troja fuit that resulted in the misquotation on page 190. For my “small Latin,” I have no excuse to offer except that I had never been a school teacher then, and could enjoy the bliss of ignorance without a blush. As to the implied reflection on West Point, I am not sure whether I knew any better at the time, or not. Probably I did, as I lived in a well-informed circle, but my excited brain was so occupied at the moment with thoughts of the general depravity of those dreadful Yankees, that there was not room for another idea in it.

Throughout the work none but real names are employed, with the single exception noted on page 105. In extenuation of this gentleman's bibulous propensities, it must be remembered that such practices were much more common in those days than now, and were regarded much more leniently. In fact, I have been both surprised and shocked in reading over this story of a bygone generation, to see how prevalent was the use of wines. and other alcoholic liquors, and how lightly an occasional over-indulgence was regarded. In this respect there can be no doubt that the world has changed greatly for the better. When “gentlemen,” as we were not afraid to call our men guests in those days, were staying in the house, it was a common courtesy to place a bottle of wine, or brandy, or both, with the proper adjuncts, in the room of each guest, so that he might help himself to a “night-cap” on going to bed, or an “eye-opener” before getting up in the morning. It must also be taken into account that at this particular time men everywhere were ruined, desperate, their occupation gone, their future without hope, the present without resources, so that they were ready to catch at any means for diverting their thoughts from the ruin that enveloped them. The same may be said of the thoughtless gayety among the young people during the dark days preceding the close; it was a case of “eat, drink, and be merry, for to-morrow we die.”

In the desire to avoid as far as possible any unnecessary tampering with the original manuscript, passages expressive of the animosities of the time, which the author would be glad to blot out forever, have been allowed to stand unaltered—not as representing the present feeling of the writer or her people, but because they do represent our feelings forty years ago, and to suppress them entirely, would be to falsify the record. While recognizing the bad taste of many of these utterances, which “Philip sober” would now be the first to repudiate, it must be remembered that he has no right to speak for “Philip drunk,” or to read his own present feelings into the mind of his predecessor. The diary was written in a time of storm and tempest, of bitter hatreds and fierce animosities, and its pages are so saturated with the spirit of the time, that to attempt to banish it would be like giving the play of Hamlet without the title-role. It does not pretend to give the calm reflections of a philosopher looking back dispassionately upon the storms of his youth, but the passionate utterances of stormy youth itself. It is in no sense a history, but a mere series of crude pen-sketches, faulty, inaccurate, and out of perspective, it may be, but still a true picture of things as the writer saw them. It makes no claim to impartiality; on the contrary, the author frankly admits that it is violently and often absurdly partisan—and it could not well have been otherwise under the circumstances. Coming from a heart ablaze with the passionate resentment of a people smarting under the humiliation of defeat, it was inevitable that along with the just indignation at wrongs which ought never to have been committed, there should have crept in many intemperate and indiscriminate denunciations of acts which the writer did not understand, to say nothing of sophomorical vaporings calculated now only to excite a smile. Such expressions, however, are not to be taken seriously at the present day, but are rather to be regarded as a sort of fossil curiosities that have the same value in throwing light on the psychology of the period to which they belong as the relics preserved in our geological museums have in illustrating the physical life of the past. Revolutions never take place when people are cool-headed or in a serene frame of mind, and it would be as dishonest as it is foolish to deny that such bitternesses ever existed. The better way is to cast them behind us and thank the powers of the universe that they exist no longer. I cannot better express this feeling than in the words of an old Confederate soldier at Petersburg, Va., where he had gone with a number of his comrades who had been attending the great reunion at Richmond, to visit the scene of their last struggles under “Marse Robert.” They were standing looking down into the Crater, that awful pit of death, lined now with daisies and buttercups, and fragrant with the breath of spring. Tall pines, whose lusty young roots had fed on the hearts of dead men, were waving softly overhead, and nature everywhere had covered up the scars of war with the mantle of smiling peace. I paused, too, to watch them, and we all stood there awed into silence, till at last an old battle-scarred hero from one of the wiregrass counties way down in Georgia, suddenly raised his hands to heaven, and said in a voice that trembled with emotion: “Thar's three hundred dead Yankees buried here under our feet. I helped to put 'em thar, but so help me God, I hope the like 'll never be done in this country again. Slavery's gone and the war's over now, thank God for both! We are all brothers once more, and I can feel for them layin' down thar just the same as fur our own.”

That is the sentiment of the new South and of the few of us who survive from the old. We look back with loving memory upon our past, as we look upon the grave of the beloved dead whom we mourn but would not recall. We glorify the men and the memories of those days and would have the coming generations draw inspiration from them. We teach the children of the South to honor and revere the civilization of their fathers, which we believe has perished not because it was evil or vicious in itself, but because, like a good and useful man who has lived out his allotted time and gone the way of all the earth, it too has served its turn and must now lie in the grave of the dead past. The Old South, with its stately feudal régime, was not the monstrosity that some would have us believe, but merely a case of belated survival, like those giant sequoias of the Pacific slope that have lingered on from age to age, and are now left standing alone in a changed world. Like every civilization that has yet been known since the primitive patriarchal stage, it was framed in the interest of a ruling class; and as has always been, and always will be the case until mankind shall have become wise enough to evolve a civilization based on the interests of all, it was doomed to pass away whenever changed conditions transferred to another class the economic advantage that is the basis of all power. It had outlived its day of usefulness and was an anachronism in the end of the nineteenth century—the last representative of an economic system that had served the purposes of the race since the days when man first emerged from his prehuman state until the rise of the modern industrial system made wage slavery a more efficient agent of production than chattel slavery.

It is as unfair to lay all the onus of that institution on the Southern States of America as it would be to charge the Roman Catholic Church with the odium of all the religious persecutions of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The spirit of intolerance was in the air; everybody persecuted that got the chance even the saints of Plymouth Rock, and the Catholics did the lion's share only because there were more of them to do it, and they had more power than our Protestant forefathers.

In like manner, the spirit of chattel slavery was in the race, possibly from its prehuman stage, and through all the hundreds of thousands of years that it has been painfully traveling from that humble beginning toward the still far-off goal of the superhuman, not one branch of it has ever awakened to a sense of the moral obliquity of the practice till its industrial condition had reached a stage in which that system was less profitable than wage slavery. Then, as the ethical sentiments are prone to follow closely the line of economic necessity, the conscience of those nations which had adopted the new industrialism began to awaken to a perception of the immorality of chattel slavery. Our Southern States, being still in the agricultural stage, on account of our practical monopoly of the world's chief textile staple, were the last of the great civilized nations to find chattel slavery less profitable than wage slavery, and hence the “great moral crusade” of the North against the perverse and unregenerate South. It was a pure case of economic determinism, which means that our great moral conflict reduces itself, in the last analysis, to a question of dollars and cents, though the real issue was so obscured by other considerations that we of the South honestly believe to this day that we were fighting for States Rights, while the North is equally honest in the conviction that it was engaged in a magnanimous struggle to free the slave.

It is only fair to explain here that the action of the principle of economic determinism does not imply by any means that the people affected by it are necessarily insincere or hypocritical. As enunicated by Karl Marx, under the cumbrous and misleading title of “the materialistic interpretation of history,” it means simply that the economic factor plays the same part in the social evolution of the race that natural selection and the survival of the fittest are supposed to play in its physical evolution. The influence of this factor is generally so subtle and indirect that we are totally unconscious of it. If I may be pardoned an illustration from my own experience, I remember perfectly well when I myself honestly and conscientiously believed the institution of slavery to be as just and sacred as I now hold it to be the reverse. It was according to the Bible, and to question it was impious and savored of “infidelity.” Most of my contemporaries would probably give a similar experience. Not one of us now but would look upon a return to slavery with horror, and yet not one of us probably is conscious of ever having been influenced by the economic factor!

The truth of the matter is that the transition from chattel to wage slavery was the next step forward in the evolution of the race, just as the transition from wage slavery to free and independent labor will be the next. Some of us, who see our own economic advantage more or less clearly in this transformation, and others who do not see it so clearly as they see the evils of the present system, are working for the change with the zeal of religious enthusiasts, while the capitalists and their retainers are fighting against it with the desperation of the old Southern slaveholder against the abolitionist. But here, in justice to the Southerner, the comparison must end. He fought a losing battle, but he fought it honestly and bravely, in the open—not by secret fraud and cunning. His cause was doomed from the first by a law as inexorable as the one pronounced by the fates against Troy, but he fought with a valor and heroism that have made a lost cause forever glorious. He saw the civil fabric his fathers had reared go down in a mighty cataclysm of blood and fire, a tragedy for all the ages—but better so than to have perished by slow decay through ages of sloth and rottenness, as so many other great civilizations of history have done, leaving only a debased and degenerate race behind them. It was a mediæval civilization, out of accord with the modern tenor of our time, and it had to go; but if it stood for some outworn customs that should rightly be sent to the dust heap, it stood for some things, also, that the world can ill afford to lose. It stood for gentle courtesy, for knightly honor, for generous hospitality; it stood for fair and honest dealing of man with man in the common business of life, for lofty scorn of cunning greed and ill-gotten gain through fraud and deception of our fellowmen—lessons which the founders of our New South would do well to lay to heart.

And now I have just a word to say on a personal matter—a solemn amende to make to the memory of my dear father, to whose unflinching devotion to the Union these pages will bear ample testimony. While I have never been able to bring myself to repent of having sided with my own people, I have repented in sackcloth and ashes for the perverse and rebellious spirit so often manifested against him. How it was that the influence of such a parent, whom we all loved and honored, should have failed to convert his own children to his way of thinking, I do not myself understand, unless it was the contagion of the general enthusiasm around us. Youth is impulsive, and prone to run with the crowd. We caught the infection of the war spirit in the air and never stopped to reason or to think. And then, there were our soldier boys. With my three brothers in the army, and that glorious record of Lee and his men in Virginia, how was it possible not to throw oneself heart and soul into the cause for which they were fighting so gallantly? And when the bitter end came, it is not to be wondered at if our resentment against those who had brought all these humiliations and disasters upon us should flame up fiercer than ever. In the expression of these feelings we sometimes forgot the respect due to our father's opinions and brought on scenes that were not conducive to the peace of the family. These lapses were generally followed by fits of repentance on the part of the offender, but as they led to no permanent amendment of our ways, I am afraid, that first and last, we made the old gentleman's life a burden to him. In looking back over the sufferings and disappointments of those dreadful years the most pathetic figure that presents itself to my memory is that of my dear old father, standing unmoved by all the clamor of the times and the waywardness of his children, in his devotion to the great republic that his father had fought for at Yorktown. I can see now, what I could not realize then, that the Union men in the South—the honest ones, I mean, like my father—sacrificed even more for their cause than we of the other side did for ours. These men are not to be confounded with the scalawags and traitors who joined the carpet-baggers in plundering their country. They were gentlemen, and most of them slaveholders, who stood by the Union, not because they were in any sense Northern sympathizers, but because they saw in division death for the South, and believed that in saving her to the Union they were saving her to herself. They suffered not only the material losses of the war, but the odium their opinions excited; and worst of all, the blank disillusionment that must have come to them when they saw their beloved Union restored only to bring about the riot and shame of Reconstruction. My father died before the horrors of that period had passed away; before the strife and hatred he so bitterly deplored had begun to subside; before he could have the satisfaction of seeing his grandson fighting under the old flag that his father had followed and that his sons had repudiated. Which of us was right? which was wrong? I am no Daniel come to judgment, and happily, there is in my mind no reason to brand either side as wrong. In the clearer understanding that we now have of the laws of historical evolution, we know that both were right, for both were struggling blindly and unconsciously in the grasp of economic tendencies they did not understand, towards a consummation they could not foresee. Both were helpless instruments of those forces that were hurrying our nation forward another step in its evolutionary progress, and whatever of praise or blame may attach to either side for their methods of carrying on the struggle, the result belongs to neither; it was simply the working out of that natural law of economic determinism which lies at the root of all the great struggles of history.

And now that we have learned wisdom through suffering; now that we have seen how much more can be accomplished by peaceful coöperation under the safe guidance of natural laws, than by wasteful violence, we are prepared to take our part intelligently in the next great forward movement of the race—a movement having for its object not merely a closer union of kindred states, but that grander union dreamed of by the poet, which is to find its consummation in

“The parliament of man, the federation of the world.” CHAPTER I ACROSS SHERMAN'S TRACK December 19-24, 1864

EXPLANATORY NOTE.—At the time of this narrative, the writer's eldest sister, Mrs. Troup Butler, was living alone with her two little children on a plantation in Southwest Georgia, between Albany and Thomasville. Besides our father, who was sixty-two when the war began, and a little brother who was only twelve when it closed, we had no male relations out of the army, and she lived there with no other protector, for a good part of the time, than the negroes themselves. There were not over a hundred of them on the place, and though they were faithful, and nobody ever thought of being afraid on their account, it was lonely for her to be there among them with no other white person than the overseer, and so the writer and a younger sister, Metta, were usually sent to be her companions during the winter. The summers she spent with us at the old home.

But in the fall of 1864, while Sherman's army was lying around Atlanta like a pent-up torrent ready to burst forth at any moment, my father was afraid to let us get out of his sight, and we all stood waiting in our defenseless homes till we could see what course the destroying flood would take. Happily for us it passed by without engulfing the little town of Washington, where our home was situated, and after it had swept over the capital of the State, reaching Milledgeville November 23d, rolled on toward Savannah, where the sound of merry Christmas bells was hushed by the roar of its angry waters.

Meanwhile the people in our part of Georgia had had time to get their breath once more, and began to look about for some way of bridging the gap of ruin and desolation that stretched through the entire length of our State. The Georgia Railroad, running from Atlanta to Augusta, had been destroyed to the north of us, and the Central of Georgia, from Macon to Savannah, was intact for only sixteen miles; that part of the track connecting the former city with the little station of Gordon having lain beyond the path of the invaders. By taking advantage of this fragment, and of some twelve miles of track that had been laid from Camack, a station on the uninjured part of the Georgia railroad, to Mayfield, on what is now known as the Macon branch of the Georgia, the distance across country could be shortened by twenty-five miles, and the wagon road between these two points at once became a great national thoroughfare.

By the middle of December, communication, though subject to many difficulties and discomforts, was so well established that my father concluded it would be practicable for us to make the journey to our sister. We were eager to go, and would be safer, he thought, when once across the line, than at home. Sherman had industriously spread the impression that his next move would be on either Charleston or Augusta, and in the latter event, our home would be in the line of danger. Southwest Georgia was at that time a “Land of Goshen” and a “city of refuge” to harassed Confederates. Thus far it had never been seriously threatened by the enemy, and was supposed to be the last spot in the Confederacy on which he would ever set foot—and this, in the end, proved to be not far from the truth.

So then, after careful consultation with my oldest brother, Fred, at that time commandant of the Georgia camp of instruction for conscripts, in Macon, we set out under the protection of a reliable man whom my brother detailed to take care of us. It may seem strange to modern readers that two young women should have been sent off on such a journey with no companion of their own sex, but the exigencies of the times did away with many conventions. Then, too, the exquisite courtesy and deference of the Southern men of that day toward women made the chaperon a person of secondary importance among us. It was the “male protector” who was indispensable. I have known matrons of forty wait for weeks on the movements of some male acquaintance rather than take the railroad journey of fifty miles from our village to Augusta, alone; and when I was sent off to boarding school, I remember, the great desideratum was to find some man who would pilot me safely through the awful difficulties of a railroad journey of 200 miles. Women, young or old, were intrusted to the care of any man known to their family as a gentleman, with a confidence as beautiful as the loyalty that inspired it. Under no other social régime, probably, have young girls been allowed such liberty of intercourse with the other sex as were those of the Old South—a liberty which the notable absence of scandals and divorces in that society goes far to justify.

Dec. 24, 1864, Saturday.—Here we are in Macon at last, and this is the first chance I have had at my journal since we left home last Monday. Father went with us to Barnett, and then turned us over to Fred, who had come up from Augusta to meet us and travel with us as far as Mayfield. At Camack, where we changed cars, we found the train literally crammed with people going on the same journey with ourselves. Since the destruction of the Georgia, the Macon & Western, and the Central railroads by Sherman's army, the whole tide of travel between the eastern and western portions of our poor little Confederacy flows across the country from Mayfield to Gordon. Mett and I, with two other ladies, whom we found on the train at Camack, were the first to venture across the gap—65 miles of bad roads and worse conveyances, through a country devastated by the most cruel and wicked invasion of modern times.

As we entered the crowded car, two young officers gave up their seats to us and saw that we were made comfortable while Fred was out looking after the baggage. Near us sat a handsome middle-aged gentleman in the uniform of a colonel, with a pretty young girl beside him, whom we at once spotted as his bride. They were surrounded by a number of officers, and the bride greatly amused us, in the snatches of their conversation we overheard, by her extreme bookishness. She was clearly just out of school. The only other lady on the car was closely occupied with the care of her husband, a wounded Confederate officer, whom we afterwards learned was Maj. Bonham, of South Carolina.

It is only eleven miles from Camack to Mayfield, but the road was so bad and the train so heavy that

PHOTOGRAPH OF THE ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT OF THE DIARY

we were nearly two hours in making the distance. Some of the seats were without backs and some without bottoms, and the roadbed so uneven that in places the car tilted from side to side as if it was going to upset and spill us all out. We ate dinner on the cars —that is, Fred ate, while Metta and I were watching the people. The weather was very hot, and I sweltered like a steam engine under the overload of clothing I had put on to save room in my trunk. At three o'clock in the afternoon we reached Mayfield, a solitary shanty at the present terminus of the R. R. Fred had sent Mr. Belisle, one of his men, ahead to engage a conveyance, and he met us with a little spring wagon, which he said would take us on to Sparta that night for forty dollars. It had no top, but was the choice of all the vehicles there, for it had springs, of which none of the others could boast. There was the mail hack, which had the advantage of a cover, but could not carry our trunks, and really looked as if it were too decrepit to bear the weight of the mail bags. We mounted our little wagon, and the others were soon all filled so full that they looked like delegations from the old woman that lived in a shoe, and crowds of pedestrians, unable to find a sticking place on tongue or axle, plodded along on foot. The colonel and his wife were about to get into a rough old plantation wagon, already overloaded, but Fred said she was too pretty to ride in such a rattle-trap, and offered her a seat in ours, which was gladly accepted. We also made room for Dr. Shine, one of the officers of their party, who, we afterwards found out, was a friend of Belle Randolph.

About a mile from Mayfield we stopped at a forlorn country tavern, where Fred turned us over to Mr. Belisle, and went in to spend the night there, so as to return to Augusta by the next train. I felt rather desolate after his departure, but we soon got into conversation with the colonel and his bride, the gentlemen who were following on foot joined in, and we sang rebel songs and became very sociable together. We had not gone far when big drops of rain began to fall from an angry black cloud that had been gradually creeping upon us from the northwest. The bride raised a little fancy silk parasol that made the rest of us laugh, while Metta and I took off our hats and began to draw on shawls and hoods, and a young captain, who was plodding on foot behind us, hastened to offer his overcoat. When we found that he had a wounded arm, disabled by a Yankee bullet, we tried to make room for him in the wagon, but it was impossible to squeeze another person into it. Ralph, the driver, had been turned afoot to make room for Dr. Shine, and was walking ahead to act as guide in the darkness.

Just after nightfall we came to a public house five miles from Sparta, where the old man lives from whom our wagons were hired, and we stopped to pay our fare and get supper, if anybody wanted it. He is said to be fabulously rich, and owns all the land for miles around, but he don't live like it. He is palsied and bed-ridden, but so eager after money that guests are led to his bedside to pay their reckoning into his own hands. Mett and I staid in the wagon and sent Mr. Belisle to settle for us, but the gentlemen of our party who went in, said it was dreadful to see how his trembling old fingers would clutch at the bills they paid him, and the suspicious looks he would cast around to make sure he was not being cheated. They could talk of nothing else for some time after they came out. We stopped at this place nearly an hour, while the horses were being changed and the drivers getting their supper. There was a fine grove around the house, but the wind made a dismal howling among the branches, and ominous mutterings of distant thunder added to our uneasiness. Large fires were burning in front of the stables and threw a weird glare upon the groups of tired soldiers gathered round them, smoking their pipes and cooking their scanty rations, and the flashing uniforms of Confederate officers, hurrying in and out, added to the liveliness of the scene. Many of them came to our wagon to see if they could do anything for us, and their presence, brave fellows, gave me a comfortable feeling of safety and protection. Dr. Shine brought us a toddy, and the colonel and the captain would have smothered us under overcoats and army blankets if we had let them.

When the horses were ready, we jogged on again towards Sparta, which seemed to recede as we advanced. Dr. Shine, who was driving, didn't know the road, and had to guide the horses by Ralph's direction as he walked ahead and sung out: “Now, pull to de right!” “Now, go straight ahead!” “Take keer, marster, dar's a bad hole ter yo' lef',” and so on, till all at once the long-threatened rain began to pour down, and everything was in confusion. Somebody cried out in the darkness; “Confound Sparta! will we never get there?” and Ralph made us all laugh again with his answer:

“Yessir, yessir, we's right in de subjues er de town now.” And sure enough, the next turn in the road revealed the lights of the village glimmering before us. We drove directly to Mr. William Simpson's, and when Metta and I had gotten out, the wagon went on with its other passengers to the hotel. We met with such a hearty reception from Belle and her mother that for the moment all our troubles were forgotten. A big, cheerful fire was blazing in the sitting-room, and as I sank into a soft easy chair, I felt my first sensation of fatigue.

Next morning the sky was overcast, everything outside was wet and dripping and a cold wind had sprung up that rattled the naked boughs of a great elm, heavy with raindrops, against our window. As soon as the houseboy had kindled a fire, Mrs. Simpson's maid came to help us dress, and brought a toddy of fine old peach brandy, sweetened with white sugar. I made Mett take a big swig of it to strengthen her for the journey, as she seemed very weak; but not being accustomed to the use of spirits, it upset her so that she couldn't walk across the floor. I was frightened nearly out of my wits, but she soon recovered and felt much benefited by her unintentional spree, at which we had a good laugh.

We had a royal breakfast, and while we were eating it, Mr. Belisle, who had spent the night at the hotel, drove up with a four-mule wagon, in which he had engaged places for us and our trunks to Milledgeville, at seventy-five dollars apiece. It was a common plantation wagon, without cover or springs, and I saw Mr. Simpson shake his head ominously as we jingled off to take up more passengers at the hotel. There were several other conveyances of the same sort, already overloaded, waiting in front of the door, and a number of travelers standing on the sidewalk rushed forward to secure places in ours as soon as we halted. The first to climb in was a poor sick soldier, of whom no pay was demanded. Next came a captain of Texas Rangers, then a young lieutenant in a shabby uniform that had evidently seen very hard service, and after him our handsome young captain of the night before. He grumbled a little at the looks of the conveyance, but on finding we were going to ride in it, dashed off to secure a seat for himself. While we sat waiting there, I overheard a conversation between a countryman and a nervous traveler that was not calculated to relieve my mind. In answer to some inquiry about the chances for hiring a conveyance at Milledgeville, I heard the countryman say:

“Milledgeville's like hell; you kin get thar easy enough, but gittin' out agin would beat the Devil himself.”

I didn't hear the traveler's next remark, but it must have been something about Metta and me, for I heard the countryman answer:

“Ef them ladies ever gits to Gordon, they'll be good walkers. Sherman's done licked that country clean; d—n me ef you kin hire so much as a nigger an' a wheelbarrer.”

I was so uneasy that I asked Mr. Belisle to go and question the man further, because I knew that after her long attack of typhoid fever, last summer, Metta couldn't stand hardships as well as I could. When the captain heard me he spoke up immediately and said:

“Don't give yourselves the slightest uneasiness, young ladies; I'll see that you get safe to Gordon, if you will trust to me.”

He spoke with an air of authority that was reassuring, and when he sprang down from the wagon and joined a group of officers on the sidewalk, I knew that something was in the wind. After a whispered consultation among them, and a good deal of running back and forth, he came to us and said that they had decided to “press” the wagon in case of necessity, to take the party to Gordon, and all being now ready, we moved out of Sparta. We soon became very sociable with our new companions, though not one of us knew the other even by name. Mett and I saw that they were all dying with curiosity about us and enjoyed keeping them mystified. The captain said he was from Baltimore, and it was a sufficient introduction when we found that he knew the Elzeys and the Irwins, and that handsome Ed Carey I met in Montgomery last winter, who used to be always telling me how much I reminded him of his cousin “Connie.” Just beyond Sparta we were halted by one of the natives, who, instead of paying forty dollars for his passage to the agent at the hotel, like the rest of us, had walked ahead and made a private bargain with Uncle Grief, the driver, for ten dollars. This “Yankee trick” raised a laugh among our impecunious Rebs, and the lieutenant, who was just out of a Northern prison, and very short of funds, thanked him for the lesson and declared he meant to profit by it the next chance he got. The newcomer proved to be a very amusing character, and we nicknamed him “Sam Weller,” on account of his shrewdness and rough-and-ready wit. He was dressed in a coarse home-made suit, but was evidently something of a dandy, as his shirt-front sported a broad cotton rude edged with home-made cotton lace. He was a rebel soldier, he said: “Went in at the fust pop and been a-fightin' ever since, till the Yankees caught me here, home on furlough, and wouldn't turn me loose till I had took their infernal oath—beg your pardon, ladies —the jig's pretty nigh up anyway, so I don't reckon it'll make much diff'rence.”

He told awful tales about the things Sherman's robbers had done; it made my blood boil to hear them, and when the captain asked him if some of the rascals didn't get caught themselves sometimes—stragglers and the like—he answered with a wink that said more than words:

“Yes; our folks took lots of prisoners; more'n'll ever be heard of agin.”

“What became of them?” asked the lieutenant.

“Sent 'em to Macon, double quick,” was the laconic reply. “Got 'em thar in less'n half an hour.”

“How did they manage it?” continued the lieutenant, in a tone that showed he understood Sam's metaphor.

“Just took 'em out in the woods and lost 'em,” he replied, in his jerky, laconic way. “Ever heerd o' losin' men, lady?” he added, turning to me, with an air of grim waggery that made my flesh creep—for after all, even Yankees are human beings, though they don't always behave like it.

“Yes,” I said, “I had heard of it, but thought it a horrible thing.”

“I don't b'lieve in losin' 'em, neither, as a gener'l thing,” he went on. “I don't think it's right principul, and I wouldn't lose one myself, but when I see what they have done to these people round here, I can't blame 'em for losin' every devil of 'em they kin git their hands on.”

“What was the process of losing?” asked the captain. “Did they manage the business with fire-arms?”

“Sometimes, when they was in a hurry,” Mr. Weller explained, with that horrible, grim irony of his, “the guns would go off an' shoot 'em, in spite of all that our folks could do. But most giner'ly they took the grapevine road in the fust patch of woods they come to, an' soon as ever they got sight of a tree with a grape vine on it, it's cur'ous how skeered their hosses would git. You couldn't keep 'em from runnin' away, no matter what you done, an' they never run fur before their heads was caught in a grape vine and they would stand thar, dancin' on nothin' till they died. Did you ever hear of anybody dancin' on nothin' before, lady?”—turning to me.

I said he ought to be ashamed to tell it; even a Yankee was entitled to protection when a prisoner of war.

“But these fellows wasn't regular prisoners of war, lady,” said the sick soldier; “they were thieves and houseburners,”—and I couldn't but feel there was something in that view of it.*

*In justice to both sides, it must be understood that the class of prisoners here referred to were stragglers and freebooters who had wandered off in search of plunder, and probably got no worse than they deserved when they fell into the hands of the enraged country people, who were naturally not inclined to regard the expropriation of their family plate and household goods and the burning of their homes as a part of legitimate warfare. There were doubtless many brave and honorable men in Sherman's army who would not stoop to plunder, and who did the best they could to keep from making war the “hell” their leader defined it to be, but these were not the kind who would be likely to get “lost.” Those readers who care to inform themselves fully on the subject, are referred to the official correspondence between Gen. Sherman and Gen. Wade Hampton in regard to the treatment of “foragers.”

About three miles from Sparta we struck the “Burnt Country,” as it is well named by the natives, and then I could better understand the wrath and desperation of these poor people. I almost felt as if I should like to hang a Yankee myself. There was hardly a fence left standing all the way from Sparta to Gordon. The fields were trampled down and the road was lined with carcasses of horses, hogs, and cattle that the invaders, unable either to consume or to carry away with them, had wantonly shot down to starve out the people and prevent them from making their crops. The stench in some places was unbearable; every few hundred yards we had to hold our noses or stop them with the cologne Mrs. Elzey had given us, and it proved a great boon. The dwellings that were standing all showed signs of pillage, and on every plantation we saw the charred remains of the gin-house and packing-screw, while here and there, lone chimney-stacks, “Sherman's Sentinels,” told of homes laid in ashes. The infamous wretches! I couldn't wonder now that these poor people should want to put a rope round the neck of every red-handed “devil of them” they could lay their hands on. Hay ricks and fodder stacks were demolished, corn cribs were empty, and every bale of cotton that could be found was burnt by the savages. I saw no grain of any sort, except little patches they had spilled when feeding their horses and which there was not even a chicken left in the country to eat. A bag of oats might have lain anywhere along the road without danger from the beasts of the field, though I cannot say it would have been safe from the assaults of hungry man. Crowds of soldiers were tramping over the road in both directions; it was like traveling through the streets of a populous town all day. They were mostly on foot, and I saw numbers seated on the roadside greedily eating raw turnips, meat skins, parched corn—anything they could find, even picking up the loose grains that Sherman's horses had left. I felt tempted to stop and empty the contents of our provision baskets into their laps, but the dreadful accounts that were given of the state of the country before us, made prudence get the better of our generosity.

The roads themselves were in a better condition than might have been expected, and we traveled at a pretty fair rate, our four mules being strong and in good working order. When we had made about half the distance to Milledgeville it began to rain, so the gentlemen cut down saplings which they fitted in the form of bows across the body of the wagon, and stretching the lieutenant's army blanket over it, made a very effectual shelter. Our next halt was near a dilapidated old house where there was a fine well of water. The Yankees had left it, I suppose, because they couldn't carry it away. Here we came up with a wagon on which were mounted some of the people we had seen on the cars the day before. They stopped to exchange experiences, offered us a toddy, and brought us water in a beautiful calabash gourd with a handle full three feet long. We admired it so much that one of them laughingly proposed to “capture” it for us, but we told them we didn't care to imitate Sherman's manners. A mile or two further on we were hailed by a queer-looking object sitting on a log in the corner of a half-burnt fence. It was wrapped up in a big white blanket that left nothing else visible except a round, red face and a huge pair of feet. Before anybody could decide whether the apparition was a ghost from the lower regions or an escaped lunatic from the state asylum in his nightgown, Sam Weller jumped up, exclaiming:

“Galvanized, galvanized! Stop, driver, a galvanized Yankee!”*

As soon as Uncle Grief had brought his mules to a halt, the strange figure shuffled up to the side of the wagon and began to plead piteously, in broken Dutch, * Prisoners or deserters from the other side who enlisted in our army, were called “galvanized Yankees.” to be taken in. He was shaking with a common ague fit, and though we couldn't help feeling sorry for him, he looked so comical as he stood there with his blanket drawn round him like a winding sheet and his little red Dutch face peering out at us with such an expression of exaggerated and needless terror, that it was hard to repress a smile. The captain was about to order Uncle Grief to drive on without taking any further notice of him, but Sam Weller assured us that the country people would certainly hang him if they should catch him away from his command. They were too exasperated to make any distinction between a “galvanized” and any other sort of a Yankee—and to tell the truth, I think, myself, if there is any difference at all, it is in favor of those who remain true to their own cause. The kind-hearted lieutenant took his part, Mett and I seconded him, and the poor creature was allowed to climb into our wagon, where he curled himself up on a pile of fodder beside our sick soldier, who didn't seem to relish the companionship very much, though he said nothing. But Sam Weller couldn't let him rest, and immediately began to berate him for his imprudence in straggling off from his command at the risk of getting himself hanged, and to entertain him with enlivening descriptions of the art of “dancin' on nothin'” and the various methods of getting “lost.” All at once he came to a sudden stop in his tirade, and asked,

“Iss you cot any money, Wappy?”

“Nein, ich cot no more ash den thaler,” quaked Hans.

Then, pulling a fat roll of change bills out of his pocket, he (“Sam”) handed them to the Dutchman, saying:

“Well, here's shin-plasters enough to cover you better than that there blanket, if you want them.”

Hans grabbed the money, which was increased by small contributions from the rest of us—not that we thought his enlistment in the Confederate army counted for anything, but we felt sorry for him, because he was “sick and a stranger.” After all, what can these ignorant foreigners be expected to know or care about our quarrel?

Soon after this we came to a pretty, clear stream, where Uncle Grief stopped to water his horses and we decided to eat our dinner. Those of our companions who had anything to eat at all, were provided only with army rations, so Mett and I shared with them the good things we had brought from home. We offered some to Hans, and this started Sam off again:

“Now, Wappy, see that!” he cried. “The rebel ladies feed you; remember that the next time you go to burn a house down, or steal a rebel lady's watch! I say,” he shouted, putting his lips to Hans's ear, as the Dutchman seemed not to understand, “remember how the rebel ladies fed you, when you turn Yank agin and go to drivin' women out-o'-doors and stealin' their clothes.”

Fortunately for “Wappy's” peace of mind he didn't know enough English to take in the long list of Yankee misdeeds that Sam continued to recount for his benefit, although he assured us that he could “unterstant vat man say to him besser als he could dalk himselbst.” The captain suspected him of putting on, and laughed at Metta and me for wasting sympathy on him, but the lieutenant shared our feelings, and I liked him for it.

Just before reaching Milledgeville, Sam Weller got down to walk to his home, which he said was about two miles back from the highway. “Come, Wappy,” he said, as he was climbing down, “if you will go home with me, I will take care of you and put you in a horspittle where you won't be in no danger of gittin' lost. Can you valk doo milsh?”

Hans replied in the affirmative, and scrambled down with a deal of groaning and quaking. Sam and the lieutenant assisted him with much real gentleness, and when he was on the ground, he tried to make a speech thanking the “laties unt shentlemansh,” but it was in such bad English that we couldn't understand.

“Now, don't lose the poor wretch,” I said to Mr. Weller, as they moved off together.

“No, no, miss, I won't do that,” he answered in a tone of such evident sincerity that I felt Hans was safe in the care of this strange, contradictory being, who could talk so like a savage, and yet be capable of such real kindness.

Before crossing the Oconee at Milledgeville we ascended an immense hill, from which there was a fine view of the town, with Gov. Brown's fortifications in the foreground and the river rolling at our feet. The Yankees had burnt the bridge, so we had to cross on a ferry. There was a long train of vehicles ahead of us, and it was nearly an hour before our turn came, so we had ample time to look about us. On our left was a field where 30,000 Yankees had camped hardly three weeks before. It was strewn with the débris they had left behind, and the poor people of the neighborhood were wandering over it, seeking for anything they could find to eat, even picking up grains of corn that were scattered around where the Yankees had fed their horses. We were told that a great many valuables were found there at first,—plunder that the invaders had left behind, but the place had been picked over so often by this time that little now remained except tufts of loose cotton, piles of half-rotted grain, and the carcasses of slaughtered animals, which raised a horrible stench. Some men were plowing in one part of the field, making ready for next year's crop.

At the Milledgeville Hotel, we came to a dead halt. Crowds of uniformed men were pacing restlessly up and down the galleries like caged animals in a menagerie. As soon as our wagon drew up there was a general rush for it, but our gentlemen kept possession and told Mett and me to sit still and hold it while they went in to see what were the chances for accommodation. After a hurried consultation with the other gentlemen of our party, they all collected round our wagon and informed us that they had “pressed” it into service to take us to Gordon, and we were to go on to Scotsborough that night. When all the baggage was in, the vehicle was so heavily loaded that not only the servants had to walk, but the gentlemen of the party could only ride by turns, one or two at a time. Our sick soldier was left at the hospital, and the bride's big trunks, that I wouldn't have believed all the women in the Confederacy had clothes enough to fill, were piled up in front to protect us against the wind. Uncle Grief looked the embodiment of his name while these preparations were going on, but a tip of ten dollars from each of us, and the promise of a letter to his master relieving him from all blame, quickly overcame his scruples.

Night closed in soon after we left Milledgeville, and it began to rain in earnest. Then we lost the road, and as if that were not enough, the bride dropped her parasol and we had to stop there in the rain to look for it. A new silk parasol that cost four or five hundred dollars was too precious to lose. The colonel and the captain went back half a mile to get a torch, and after all, found the parasol lying right under her feet in the body of the wagon. About nine o'clock we reached Scotsborough, the little American “Cranford,” where the Butlers used to have their summer home. Like Mrs. Gaskell's delightful little borough, it is inhabited chiefly by aristocratic widows and old maids, who rarely had their quiet lives disturbed by any event more exciting than a church fair, till Sherman's army Marched through and gave them such a shaking up that it will give them something to talk about the rest of their days. Dr. Shine and the Texas captain had gone ahead of the wagon and made arrangements for our accommodation. The night was very dismal, and when we drew up in front of the little inn, and saw a big lightwood fire blazing in the parlor chimney, I thought I had never seen anything so bright and comfortable before. When Mrs. Palmer, the landlady, learned who Metta and I were, she fairly hugged us off our feet, and declared that Mrs. Troup Butler's sisters were welcome to her house and everything in it, and then she bustled off with her daughter Jenny to make ready their own chamber for our use. She could not give us any supper because the Yankees had taken all her provisions, but she brought out a jar of pickles that had been hidden up the chimney, and gave us the use of her dining table and dishes—such of them as the Yankees had left—to spread our lunch on. While Charles and Crockett, the servants of Dr. Shine and the colonel, were unpacking our baskets in the dining-room, all our party assembled in the little parlor, the colonel was made master of ceremonies, and a general introduction took place. The Texas captain gave his name as Jarman; the shabby lieutenant in the war-worn uniform—all honor to it—was Mr. Foster, of Florence, Ala.; the Baltimorean was Capt. Mackall, cousin of the commandant at Macon, and the colonel himself had been a member of the Confederate Congress, but resigned to go into the army, the only place for a brave man in these times. So we all knew each other at last and had a good laugh together over the secret curiosity that had been devouring each of us about our traveling companions, for the last twenty-four hours. Presently Crockett announced supper, and we went into the dining-room. We had some real coffee, a luxury we owed the bride, but there was only one spoon to all the company, so she arranged that she should pour out the coffee, I should stir each cup, and Mett pass them to the guests, with the assurance that the cup was made sweeter “by the magic of three pair of fair hands.” Then Mrs. Palmer's jar of pickles was brought out and presented with a little tableau scene she had made up beforehand, even coaching me as to the pretty speeches I was to make. I felt very silly, but I hoped the others were too hungry to notice.

Supper over, we returned to the parlor, and I never spent a more delightful evening. Riding along in the wagon, we had amused ourselves by making up impromptu couplets to “The Confederate Toast,” and now that we were comfortably housed, I thanked Capt. Jarman and Dr. Shine for their efforts, in a pair of impromptu verses to the same air. This started up a rivalry in verse-making, each one trying to outdo the other in the absurdity of their composition, and some of them were very funny. When we broke up for the night, there were more theatricals planned by the bride, who disposed a white scarf round her head, placed Metta and me, one on each side of her, so as to make a sort of tableau vivant on the order of a “Three Graces,” or a “Faith, Hope, and Charity” group, and backed slowly out of the room, bowing and singing, “Good Night.” She really was so pretty and girlish that she could carry off anything with grace, but I hadn't that excuse, and never felt so foolish in my life.

Mrs. Palmer's chamber, in which Metta and I were to sleep, was a shed room of not very inviting aspect, but the poor woman had done her best for us, and we were too tired to be critical. When I had put my clothes off and started to get into bed, I found there was but one sheet, and that looked as if half of Sherman's army might have slept in it. Mett was too dead sleepy to care; “Shut your eyes and go it blind,” she said, and suiting the action to the word, tumbled into bed without looking, and was asleep almost by the time she had touched the pillow. I tried to follow her example, but it was no use. The weather had begun to turn very cold, and the scanty supply of bedclothes the Yankees had left Mrs. Palmer was not enough to keep me warm. Then it began to rain in torrents, and presently I felt a cold shower bath descending on me through the leaky roof. Metta's side of the bed was comparatively dry, and she waked up just enough to pull the cotton bedquilt that was our only covering, over her head, and then went stolidly to sleep again. Meanwhile the storm increased till it was terrible. The rain seemed to come down in a solid sheet, and I thought the old house would be torn from its foundations by the fierce wind that swept over it. The solitary pine knot that had been our only light went out and left us in total darkness, but I was getting so drenched where I lay that I was obliged to move, so I groped my way to an old lounge that stood in a somewhat sheltered corner by the fireplace, and covered myself with the clothing I had taken off. The lounge was so narrow that I couldn't turn over without causing my cover to fall over on the floor, so I lay stiff as a corpse all night, catching little uneasy snatches of sleep between the wildest bursts of the storm. Early in the morning Mrs. Palmer and Jenny came in with bowls and pans to put under the leaks. There were so many that we were quite shingled over, as we lay in bed, with a tin roof of pots and pans, and they made such a rattling as the water pattered into them, that neither of us could sleep any more for laughing. The colonel had given us instructions over night to be ready for an early start, so when another pine knot had been lighted on the hearth, we made haste to dress, before it burned out.

Mrs. Palmer had contrived to spread us a scanty breakfast of hot waffles, fresh sausages, and parched wheat coffee. But the bride, as is the way of brides, was so long in getting ready that it was nearly ten o'clock before we started on our journey. It had stopped raining by this time, but the weather was so cold and cloudy that I found my two suits of clothing very comfortable. A bitter wind was blowing, and on all sides were to be seen shattered boughs and uprooted trees, effects of the past night's storm. The gentlemen had had all the baggage placed in front, and the floor of the wagon covered with fodder, where we could sit and find some protection from the wind. I should have felt tolerably comfortable if I had not seen that Metta was feeling ill, though she kept up her spirits and did not complain. She said she had a headache, and I noticed that her face was covered with ugly red splotches, which I supposed were caused by the wind chapping her skin. We put our shawls over our heads, but the wind played such antics with them that they were not much protection. The bride, instead of crouching down with us, mounted on top of a big trunk, the coldest place she could find, and cheered us with the comforting announcement that she was going to have pneumonia. It was beautiful to see how the big, handsome colonel devoted himself to her, and I half suspect that was at the bottom of her pneumonia scare—at least we heard no more of it. I offered her some of our brandy, and the doctor made her a toddy, but she couldn't drink it because it was grape and not peach. Everybody seemed disposed

METTA ANDREWS (Mrs. T.M. Green)From a photograph taken in 1872

to be silent and out of sorts at first, except Metta and me, who had not yet had adventures enough to surfeit us, and we kept on talking till we got the rest of them into a good humor. We made the gentlemen tell us what their various professions were before the war, and were delighted to learn that our dear colonel was a lawyer. We told him that our father was a judge, and that we loved lawyers better than anybody else except soldiers, whereupon he laughed and advised the other gentlemen, who were all unmarried, to take to the law. I said that about lawyers for the doctor's benefit, because he looked all the time as if he were afraid one of us was going to fall in love with him. I laughed and told Mett that it was she that scared him, with her hair all cropped off from fever, and that dreadful splotched complexion. He heaped coals of fire on my head soon after, when I was cowering down in the body of the wagon, nearly dead with cold, by inviting me to get out and warm myself by taking a walk. My feet were so cold that they felt like lifeless clods and I could hardly stand on them when I first stepped to the ground, but a brisk walk of two miles warmed me up so pleasantly that I was sorry when a succession of mud holes forced me to get back into the wagon.

About noon we struck the Milledgeville & Gordon R.R., near a station which the Yankees had burnt, and a mill near by they had destroyed also, out of pure malice, to keep the poor people of the country from getting their corn ground. There were several crossroads at the burnt mill and we took the wrong one, and got into somebody's cornfield, where we found a little crib whose remoteness seemed to have protected it from the greed of the invaders. We were about to “press” a few ears for our hungry mules, when we spied the owner coming across the fields and waited for him. The captain asked if he would sell us a little provender for our mules, but he gave such a pitiful account of the plight in which Sherman had left him that we felt as mean as a lot of thieving Yankees ourselves, for having thought of disturbing his property. He was very polite, and walked nearly a mile in the biting wind to put us back in the right road. Three miles from Gordon we came to Commissioners' Creek, of which we had heard awful accounts all along the road. It was particularly bad just at this time on account of the heavy rain, and had overflowed the swamp for nearly two miles. Porters with heavy packs on their backs were wading through the sloughs, and soldiers were paddling along with their legs bare and their breeches tied up in a bundle on their shoulders. They were literal sans culottes. Some one who had just come from the other side advised us to unload the wagon and make two trips of it, as it was doubtful whether the mules could pull through with such a heavy load. The Yankees had thrown dead cattle in the ford, so that we had to drive about at random in the mud and water, to avoid these uncanny obstructions. Our gentlemen, however, concluded that we had not time to make two trips, so they all piled into the wagon at once and trusted to Providence for the result. We came near upsetting twice, and the water was so deep in places that we had to stand on top of the trunks to keep our feet dry.

Safely over the swamp, we dined on the scraps left in our baskets, which afforded but a scanty meal. The cold and wind had increased so that we could hardly keep our seats, but the roads improved somewhat as we advanced, and the aspect of the country was beautiful in spite of all that the vandalism of war had done to disfigure its fair face. Every few hundred yards we crossed beautiful, clear streams with luxuriant swamps along their borders, gay with shining evergreens and bright winter berries. But when we struck the Central R.R. at Gordon, the desolation was more complete than anything we had yet seen. There was nothing left of the poor little village but ruins, charred and black as Yankee hearts. The pretty little dépot presented only a shapeless pile of bricks capped by a crumpled mass of tin that had once covered the roof. The R.R. track was torn up and the iron twisted into every conceivable shape. Some of it was wrapped round the trunks of trees, as if the cruel invaders, not satisfied with doing all the injury they could to their fellowmen, must spend their malice on the innocent trees of the forest, whose only fault was that they grew on Southern soil. Many fine young saplings were killed in this way, but the quickest and most effective method of destruction was to lay the iron across piles of burning cross-ties, and while heated in the flames it was bent and warped so as to be entirely spoiled. A large force is now at work repairing the road; as the repairs advance a little every day, the place for meeting the train is constantly changing and not always easy to find. We floundered around in the swamps a long time and at last found our train in the midst of a big swamp, with crowds of people waiting around on little knolls and islands till the cars should be opened. Each group had its own fire, and tents were improvised out of shawls and blankets so that the scene looked like a gypsy camp. Here we met again all the people we had seen on the train at Camack, besides a great many others. Judge Baker and the Bonhams arrived a few minutes behind us, after having met with all sorts of disasters at Commissioners' Creek, which they crossed at a worse ford than the one we had taken. We found a dry place near the remains of a half-burned fence where Charles and Crockett soon had a rousing fire and we sat round it, talking over our adventures till the car was ready for us. There was a great scramble to get aboard, and we were all crowded into a little car not much bigger than an ordinary omnibus. Mett and I were again indebted to the kindness of soldier boys for a seat. We had about the best one in the car, which is not saying much, with the people jostling and pressing against us from the crowded aisle, but as we had only 16 miles to go, we thought we could stand it with a good grace. Metta's indisposition had been increasing all day and she was now so ill that I was seriously uneasy, but all I could do was to place her next to the window, where she would not be so much disturbed by the crowd. We steamed along smoothly enough for an hour or two, until just at nightfall, when within two miles of Macon, the train suddenly stopped and we were told that we should have to spend the night there or walk to town. The bridge over Walnut Creek, which had been damaged by Stoneman's raiders last summer, was so weakened by the storm of the night before that it threatened to give way, and it was impossible to run the train across. We were all in despair. Metta was really ill and the rest of us worn out with fatigue and loss of sleep, besides being half famished. Our provisions were completely exhausted; the fine grape brandy mother had put in the basket was all gone—looted, I suppose, by the servants—and we had no other medicine. A good many of the men decided to walk, among them our lieutenant, who was on his way home, just out of a Yankee prison, and eager to spend Christmas with his family. The dear, good-hearted fellow seemed loath to leave us in that plight, and offered to stay and see us through, if I wanted him, but I couldn't impose on his kindness to that extent. Besides, we still had the captain and the colonel, and all the rest of them, and I knew we would never lack for attention or protection as long as there was a Confederate uniform in sight. Capt. Jarman and Dr. Shine joined the walkers, too, in the vain hope of sending an engine, or even a hand-car for us, but all their representations to Gen. Cobb and the R.R. authorities were fruitless; nothing could be done till morning, and a rumor got out among us from somewhere that even then there would be nothing for it but to walk and get our baggage moved as best we might. For the first time my spirits gave way, and as Metta was too ill to notice what I was doing, I hid my face in my hands and took a good cry. Then the captain came over and did his best to cheer me up by talking about other things. He showed me photographs of his sisters, nice, stylish-looking girls, as one would expect the sisters of such a man to be, and I quite fell in love with one of them, who had followed him to a Yankee prison and died there of typhoid fever, contracted while nursing him. As soon as it became known that Metta was sick, we were overwhelmed with kindness from all the other passengers, but there was not much that anybody could do, and rest, the chief thing she needed, was out of the question. At supper time the conductor brought in some hardtack that he had on board to feed the workmen, and distributed it among us. I was so hungry that I tried to eat it, but soon gave up, and my jawbones are sore yet from the effort. But the provisions that we had shared with our companions on the journey proved to be bread cast on the waters that did not wait many days to be returned. I had hardly taken my first bite of hardtack when Judge Baker invited Metta and me to share a nice cold supper with him; the bride offered us the only thing she had left—some real coffee, which the colonel had boiled at a fire kindled on the ground outside—and two ladies, strangers to us, who had got aboard at Gordon, sent us each a paper package containing a dainty little lunch of cold chicken and buttered biscuit. But Metta was too ill to eat. She had a high fever, and we both spent a miserable, sleepless night.

At last day began to break, cold, clear, and frosty, and with it came travelers who had walked out from Macon bringing confirmation of the report that no arrangements would be made for carrying passengers and their baggage to the city. This news made us desperate. The men on board swore that the train should not move till some provision was made for getting us to our destination. This made the Gordon passengers furious. They said there were several women among them who had walked out from the city (two of them with babies in their arms), and the train should go on time, come what would. Our men said there were ladies in the car, too; we had paid our fare to Macon, and they intended to see that we got there. Each party had a show of right on its side, but possession is nine points of the law, and this advantage we determined not to forego. The Gordon passengers began to crowd in on us till we could hardly breathe, and Capt. Mackall, in no gentle terms, ordered them out. High words passed, swords and pistols were drawn on both sides, and a general fight seemed about to take place. Mett and I were frightened out of our wits at the first alarm and threw our arms about each other. I kept quiet till I saw the shooting about to begin, and then, my nerves all unstrung by what I had suffered during the night, I tuned up and began to cry like a baby. It was well I did, for my tears brought the men to their senses. Judge Baker and Col. Scott interfered, reminding them that ladies were present, and then arms were laid aside and profuse apologies made for having frightened us. Both parties then turned their indignation against the railroad officials, and somebody was making a bluster about pitching the conductor into the creek, when he appeared on the scene and appeased all parties by announcing that a locomotive and car would be sent out to meet the passengers for Macon on the other side of the creek and take us to the city. In the meantime, we were tantalized by hearing the whistles of the different trains with which we wished to connect, as they rolled out of the dépot in Macon.

It was eight o'clock before our transfer, consisting of an engine and a single box-car, arrived at the other end of the trestle, and as they had to be unloaded of their freight before we could get aboard, it was nearly ten when we reached Macon. But as soon as they were heard approaching, we were so glad to get out of the prison where we had spent such an uncomfortable night that we immediately put on our wraps and began to cross the tottering trestle on foot. It was 80 feet high and half a mile long, over a swamp through which flowed Walnut Creek, now swollen to a torrent. Part of the flooring of the bridge was washed down stream and our only foothold was a narrow plank, hardly wider than my two hands. Capt. Mackall charged himself with my parcels, and Mr. Belisle was left to look after the trunks. Strong-headed men walked along the sleepers on either side, to steady any one that might become dizzy. Just behind Metta, who followed the captain and me, hobbled a wounded soldier on crutches, and behind him came Maj. Bonham, borne on the back of a stout negro porter. Last of all came porters with the trunks, and it is a miracle to me how they contrived to carry such heavy loads over that dizzy, tottering height.

Once across the bridge we disposed ourselves wherever we could find a firm spot—a dry one was out of the question. When Metta drew off her veil and gloves, I was terrified at the looks of her hands and face. We were both afraid she had contracted some awful disease in that dirty car, but the captain laughed and said he knew all about army diseases, and thought it was nothing but measles. When we got to Macon, Dr. Shine further relieved my mind by assuring me it was a mild case, and said she needed only a few days' rest.

We reached the dépot just ten minutes after the South-Western train had gone out, so we went to the Lanier House, and I at once sent Mr. Belisle for Brother Troup, only to learn that he had gone on the very train we had missed, to spend Christmas at his plantation.

It was delightful to get into clean, comfortable quarters at the Lanier House. Metta got into bed and went right off to sleep, and I lay down for awhile, but was so often disturbed by friendly messages and inquiries that I got up and dressed for dinner. I put on my pretty flowered merino that had been freshened up with black silk ruchings that completely hid the worn places, and the waist made over with Elizabethan sleeves, so that it looked almost like a new dress, besides being very becoming, as the big sleeves helped out my figure by their fullness. I frizzed my hair and put on the head-dress of black velvet ribbon and gold braid that Cousin Sallie Farley gave me. I think I must have looked nice, because I heard several people inquiring who I was when I went into the dining-room. I had hardly put in the last pin when a servant came to announce that Mr. Charles Day, Mary's father, had called. He was the only person in the drawing-room when I entered and made a very singular, not to say, striking appearance, with his snow-white hair framing features of such a peculiar dark complexion that he made me think of some antique piece of wood-carving. The impression was strengthened by a certain stiffness of manner that is generally to be noticed in all men of Northern birth and education. Not long after, Harry Day called. He said that Mary* was in Savannah, cut off by Sherman so that they could get no news of her. He didn't even know whether mother's invitation had reached her.

Gussie and Mary Lou Lamar followed the Days, and I was kept so busy receiving callers and answering inquiries about Mett that I didn't have time to find out how tired and sleepy I was till I went to bed. Judge Vason happened to be at the hotel when we arrived, and insisted that we should pack up and go with him to Albany next day and stay at his house till we were both well rid of the measles—for it stands to reason that I shall take it after nursing Metta. He said that it had just been through his family from A to Z, so there was no danger of our communicating it to anybody there. Then Mrs. Edward Johnston came and proposed taking us to her house, and on Dr. Shine's advice I decided to accept this invitation, as it would hardly be prudent for Metta to travel in her present condition, and we could not get proper attention for her at the hotel. I could not even get a chambermaid without going the whole length of the corridor * This attractive and accomplished young woman afterwards became the wife of Sidney Lanier, America's greatest poet. to ring the bell and waiting there till somebody came to answer it.

The colonel and his party left on the one o'clock train that night for Columbus, where they expect to take the boat for Apalachicola. After taking leave of them I went to bed, and if ever any mortal did hard sleeping, I did that night. Next day Mr. Johnston called in his carriage and brought us to his beautiful home on Mulberry St., where we are lodged like princesses, in a bright, sunny room that makes me think of old Chaucer's lines that I have heard Cousin Liza quote so often:

“This is the port of rest from troublous toile, The world's sweet inne from paine and wearisome turmoile.”

[NOTE.—Several pages are torn from the manuscript here.— AUTHOR.]

 CHAPTER II PLANTATION LIFE January 1—April 3, 1865

EXPLANATORY NOTE.—During the period embraced in this chapter the great black tide of destruction that had swept over Georgia turned its course northward from Savannah to break a few weeks later (Feb. 17) in a cataract of blood and fire on the city of Columbia. At the same time the great tragedy of Andersonville was going on under our eyes; and farther off, in Old Virginia, Lee and his immortals were struggling in the toils of the net that was drawing them on to the tragedy of Appomattox. To put forward a trivial narrative of everyday life at a time when mighty events like these were taking place would seem little less than an impertinence, did we not know that it is the ripple mark left on the sand that shows where the tide came in, and the simple undergrowth of the forest gives a character to the landscape without which the most carefully-drawn picture would be incomplete.

On the other hand, the mighty drama that was being enacted around us reflected itself in the minutest details of life, even our sports and amusements being colored by it, as the record of the diary will show. The present chapter opens with allusions to an expedition sent out by Sherman from Savannah under Gen. Kilpatrick, having for its object the destruction of the Stockade at Andersonville, and release of the prisoners to wreak their vengeance on the people whom they believed to be responsible for their sufferings. The success of this movement was frustrated only by the incessant rains of that stormy winter, which flooded the intervening country so that it was impossible for even the best equipped cavalry to pass, and thus averted what might have been the greatest tragedy of the war.

It is not my purpose to dwell upon public events in these pages, nor to revive the dark memories of Andersonville, but a few words concerning it are necessary to a clear understanding of the allusions made to it in this part of the record, and to a just appreciation of the position of the Southern people in regard to that deplorable episode of the war. Owing to the policy of the Federal Government in refusing to exchange prisoners, and to the ruin and devastation of war, which made it impossible for the Confederate government to provide adequately for its own soldiers, even with the patriotic aid of our women, the condition of our prisons was anything but satisfactory, both from lack of supplies and from the unavoidable over-crowding caused by the failure of all efforts to effect an exchange. Mr. Tanner, ex-Commander of the G. A. R., who is the last person in the world whom one would think of citing as a witness for the South, bears this unconscious testimony to the force of circumstances that made it impossible for our government to remedy that unhappy situation:

“It is true that more prisoners died in Northern prisons than Union prisoners died in Southern prisons. The explanation of this is extremely simple. The Southern prisoners came North worn and emaciated—half starved. They had reached this condition because of their scant rations. They came from a mild climate to a rigorous Northern climate, and, although we gave them shelter and plenty to eat, they could not stand the change.”

This argument, intended as a defense of the North, is a boomerang whose force as a weapon for the other side it is unnecessary to point out. Whether the conditions at Andersonville might have been ameliorated by the personal efforts of those in charge, I do not know. I never met Capt. Wirz, but I do know that had he been an angel from heaven, he could not have changed the pitiful tale of suffering from privation and hunger unless he had possessed the power to repeat the miracle of the loaves and fishes. I do know, too, that the sufferings of the prisoners were viewed with the deepest compassion by the people of the neighborhood, as the diary will show, and they would gladly have relieved them if they had been able. In the fall of 1864, when it was feared that Sherman would send a raid to free the prisoners and turn them loose upon the defenseless country, a band of several thousand were shipped round by rail to Camp Lawton, near Millen, to get them out of his way. Later, when he had passed on, after destroying the railroads, these men were marched back overland to Andersonville, and the planters who lived along the road had hampers filled with such provisions as could be hastily gotten together and placed before them. Among those who did this were my sister, Mrs. Troup Butler, and her neighbors, the Bacons, so frequently mentioned in this part of the diary. My sister says that she had every drop of milk and crabber in her dairy brought out and given to the poor fellows, and she begged the officer to let them wait till she could have what food she could spare cooked for them. This, however, being impossible, she had potatoes and turnips and whatever else could be eaten raw, hastily collected by the servants and strewn in the road before them. I have before me, as I write, a very kind letter from an old Union soldier, in which he says that he was one of the men fed on this occasion, and he adds: “I still feel thankful for the help we got that day.” He gives his name as S. S. Andrews, Co. K, 64th Ohio Vols., and his present address as Tularosa, Mexico.

But it is hardly to be expected that men half-crazed by suffering and for the most part ignorant of their own government's responsibility in the matter, should discriminate very closely in apportioning the blame for their terrible condition. Accustomed to the bountiful provision made for its soldiers by the richest nation in the world, they naturally enough could not see the tragic humor of their belief, when suddenly reduced to Confederate army rations, that they were the victims of a deliberate plot to starve them to death!

Another difficulty with which the officers in charge of the stockade had to contend was the lack of a sufficient force to guard so large a body of prisoners. At one time there were over 35,000 of them at Andersonville alone— a number exceeding Lee's entire force at the close of the siege of Petersburg. The men actually available for guarding this great army, were never more than 1,200 or 1,500, and these were drawn from the State Reserves, consisting of boys under eighteen and invalided or superannuated men unfit for active service. At almost any time during the year 1864-1865, if the prisoners had realized the weakness of their guard, they could, by a concerted assault, have overpowered them. At the time of Kilpatrick's projected raid, their numbers had been reduced to about 7,500, by distributing the excess to other points and by the humane action of the Confederate authorities in releasing, without equivalent, 15,000 sick and wounded, and actually forcing them, as a free gift, upon the unwilling hospitality of their own government.

But even allowing for this diminution, the consequences of turning loose so large a body of men, naturally incensed and made desperate by suffering, to incite the negroes and ravage the country, while there were only women and children and old men left on the plantations to meet their fury, can hardly be imagined, even by those who have seen the invasion of an organized army. The consternation of my father, when he found that he had sent us into the jaws of this danger instead of the security and rest he had counted on, cannot be described. Happily, the danger was over before he knew of its existence, but communication was so slow and uncertain in those days that a long correspondence at cross purposes ensued before his mind was set at rest.

It may seem strange to the modern reader that in the midst of such tremendous happenings we could find it in our hearts to go about the common business of life; to laugh and dance and be merry in spite of the crumbling of the social fabric about us. But so it has always been; so it was “in the days of Noe,” and so, we are told, will it be “in the end of the world.” Youth will have its innings, and never was social life in the old South more full of charm than when tottering to its fall. South-west Georgia, being the richest agricultural section of the State, and remote from the scene of military operations, was a favorite resort at that time for refugees from all parts of the seceded States, and the society of every little country town was as cosmopolitan as that of our largest cities had been before the war. The dearth of men available for social functions that was so conspicuous in other parts of the Confederacy remote from the seat of war, did not exist here, because the importance of so rich an agricultural region as a source of food supply for our armies, and the quartering of such large bodies of prisoners at Andersonville and Millen, necessitated the presence of a large number of officers connected with the commissary and quartermaster's departments. These were, for the most part, men who, on account of age, or chronic infirmity, or injuries received in battle, were unfit for service in the field. There were large hospitals, too, in all the towns and villages to which disabled soldiers from the front were sent as fast as they were able to bear the transportation, in order to relieve the congestion in the neighborhood of the armies. Those whose wounds debarred them from further service, and whose homes were in possession of the enemy, were received into private houses and cared for by the women of the South till the end of the war.

My sister's white family at the time of our arrival consisted of herself and two little children, Tom and Julia, and Mr. Butler's invalid sister, Mrs. Julia Meals, a pious widow of ample means which it was her chief ambition in life to spend in doing good. The household was afterwards increased by the arrival of Mrs. Julia Butler (also called in the diary, Mrs. Green Butler) the widow of Mr. Greenlee Butler, who had died not long before in the army. He was the elder and only brother of my sister's husband. Col. Maxwell, of Gopher Hill, was an uncle of my brother-in-law, the owner of several large plantations, where he was fond of practicing the old-time Southern hospitality. The “Cousin Bolling” so frequently mentioned, was Dr. Bolling A. Pope, a stepson of my mother's youngest sister, Mrs. Alexander Pope, of Washington, Ga., the “Aunt Cornelia” spoken of in a later chapter. He was in Berlin when the war began, where he had spent several years preparing himself as a specialist in diseases of the eye and ear, but returned when hostilities began, and was assigned to duty as a surgeon. The Tallassee Plantation to which reference is made, was an estate owned by my father near Albany, Ga., where the family were in the habit of spending the winters, until he sold it and transferred his principal planting interests to the Yazoo Delta in Mississippi. Mt. Enon was a little log church where services were held by a refugee Baptist minister, and, being the only place of worship in the neighborhood, was attended by people of all denominations. The different homes and families mentioned were those of well-known planters in that section, or of refugee friends who had temporarily taken up their abode there.

Jan. 1st, 1865. Sunday. Pine Bluff.—A beautiful clear day, but none of us went to church. Sister was afraid of the bad roads, Metta, Mrs. Meals, Julia and I all sick. I think I am taking measles.

Jan. 1, Wednesday.—I am just getting well of measles, and a rough time I had of it. Measles is no such small affair after all, especially when aggravated by perpetual alarms of Yankee raiders. For the last week we have lived in a state of incessant fear. All sorts of rumors come up the road and down it, and we never know what to believe. Mett and I have received repeated letters from home urging our immediate return, but of course it was impossible to travel while I was sick in bed, and even now I am not strong enough to undertake that terrible journey across the burnt country again. While I was ill, home was the one thought that haunted my brain, and if I ever do get back, I hope I will have sense enough to stay there. I don't think I ever suffered so much before in all my life, and dread of the Yankees raised my fever to such a pitch that I got no rest by night or day. I used to feel very brave about Yankees, but since I have passed over Sherman's track and seen what devastation they make, I am so afraid of them that I believe I should drop down dead if one of the wretches should come into my presence. I would rather face them anywhere than here in South-West Georgia, for the horrors of the stockade have so enraged them that they will have no mercy on this country, though they have brought it all on themselves, the cruel monsters, by refusing to exchange prisoners. But it is horrible, and a blot on the fair name of our Confederacy. Mr. Robert Bacon says he has accurate information that on the first of December, 1864, there were 13,010 graves at Anderson. It is a dreadful record. I shuddered as I passed the place on the cars, with its tall gibbet full of horrible suggestiveness before the gate, and its seething mass of humanity inside, like a swarm of blue flies crawling over a grave. It is said that the prisoners have organized their own code of laws among themselves, and have established courts of justice before which they try offenders, and that they sometimes condemn one of their number to death. It is horrible to think of, but what can we poor Confederates do? The Yankees won't exchange prisoners, and our own soldiers in the field don't fare much better than these poor creatures. Everybody is sorry for them, and wouldn't keep them here a day if the government at Washington didn't force them on us. And yet they lay all the blame on us. Gen. Sherman told Mr. Cuyler that he did not intend to leave so much as a blade of grass in South-West Georgia, and Dr. Janes told sister that he (Sherman) said he would be obliged to send a formidable raid here in order to satisfy the clamors of his army, though he himself, the fiend Sherman, dreaded it on account of the horrors that would be committed. What Sherman dreads must indeed be fearful. They say his soldiers have sworn that they will spare neither man, woman nor child in all South-West Georgia. It is only a question of time, I suppose, when all this will be done. It begins to look as if the Yankees can do whatever they please and go wherever they wish—except to heaven; I do fervently pray the good Lord will give us rest from them there.

While I was at my worst, Mrs. Lawton came out with her brother-in-law, Mr. George Lawton, and Dr. Richardson, Medical Director of Bragg's army, to make sister a visit. The doctor came into my room and prescribed for me and did me more good by his cheerful talk than by his prescription. He told me not to think about the Yankees, and said that he would come and carry me away himself before I should fall into their hands. His medicine nearly killed me. It was a big dose of opium and whisky, that drove me stark crazy, but when I came to myself I felt much better. Dr. Janes was my regular physician and had the merit of not giving much medicine, but he frightened me horribly with his rumors about Yankee raiders. We are safe from them for the present, at any rate, I hope; the swamps of the Altamaha are so flooded that it would take an army of Tritons to get over them now.

All this while that I have been sick, Metta has been going about enjoying herself famously. There is a party at Mr. Callaway's from Americus, which makes the neighborhood very gay. Everybody has called, but I had to stay shut up in my room and miss all the fun.... Brother Troup has come down from Macon on a short furlough, bringing with him a Maj. Higgins from Mississippi, who is much nicer than his name. He is a cousin of Dr. Richardson. The rest of the family were out visiting all the morning, leaving me with Mrs. Meals, who entertained me by reading aloud from Hannah More. As my eyes are still too weak from measles for me to read much myself, I was glad to be edified by Hannah More, rather than be left to my own dull company. The others came back at three, and then, just as we were sitting down to dinner, the Mallarys called and spent the rest of the day. We ate no supper, but went to bed on an eggnog at midnight.

Jan. 12, Thursday. - The rest of them out visiting again all the morning, leaving me to enjoy life with Mrs. Meals and Hannah More. The Edwin Bacons and Merrill Callaway and his bride were invited to spend the evening with us and I found it rather dull. I am just sick enough to be a bore to myself and everybody else. Merrill has married Katy Furlow, of Americus, and she says that soon after my journey home last spring she met my young Charlestonian, and that he went into raptures over me, and said he never was so delighted with anybody in his life, so it seems the attraction was mutual. I have a letter from Tolie; she is living in Montgomery, supremely happy, of course, as a bride should be. She was sadly disappointed at my absence from the wedding. The city is very gay, she says, and everybody inquiring about me and wanting me to come. If I wasn't afraid the Yankees might cut me off from home and sister, too, I would pick up and go now. Yankee, Yankee, is the one detestable word always ringing in Southern ears. If all the words of hatred in every language under heaven were lumped together into one huge epithet of detestation, they could not tell how I hate Yankees. They thwart all my plans, murder my friends, and make my life miserable.

Jan. 13th, Friday.—Col. Blake, a refugee from Mississippi, and his sister-in-law, Miss Connor, dined with us. While the gentlemen lingered over their wine after dinner, we ladies sat in the parlor making cigarettes for them. The evening was spent at cards, which bored me not a little, for I hate cards; they are good for nothing but to entertain stupid visitors with, and Col. Blake and Miss Connor do not belong in that category. Mett says she don't like the old colonel because he is too pompous, but that amuses me,—and then, he is such a gentleman.

The newspapers bring accounts of terrible floods all over the country. Three bridges are washed away on the Montgomery & West Point R.R., so that settles the question of going to Montgomery for the present. Our fears about the Yankees are quieted, too, there being none this side of the Altamaha, and the swamps impassable.

Jan. 14th, Saturday.—Brother Troup and Maj. Higgins left for Macon, and sister drove to Albany with them. She expects to stay there till Monday and then bring Mrs. Sims out with her. We miss Maj. Higgins very much; he was good company, in spite of that horrible name. Jim Chiles called after dinner, with his usual budget of news, and after him came Albert Bacon to offer us the use of his father's carriage while sister has hers in Albany.

Father keeps on writing for us to come home. Brother Troup says he can send us across the country from Macon in a government wagon, with Mr. Forline for an escort, if the rains will ever cease; but we can't go now on account of the bad roads and the floods up the country. Bridges are washed away in every direction, and the water courses impassable.

Jan. 15th, Sunday.—Went to church at Mt. Enon with Albert Bacon, and saw everybody. It was pleasant to meet old friends, but I could not help thinking of poor Annie Chiles's grave at the church door. One missing in a quiet country neighborhood like this makes a great gap. This was the Sunday for Dr. Hillyer to preach to the negroes and administer the communion to them. They kept awake and looked very much edified while the singing was going on, but most of them slept through the sermon. The women were decked out in all their Sunday finery and looked so picturesque and happy. It is a pity that this glorious old plantation life should ever have to come to an end.

Albert Bacon dined with us and we spent the afternoon planning for a picnic at Mrs. Henry Bacon's lake on Tuesday or Wednesday. The dear old lake! I want to see it again before its shores are desecrated by Yankee feet.

I wish sister would hurry home, on account of the servants. We can't take control over them, and they won't do anything except just what they please. As soon as she had gone, Mr. Ballou, the overseer, took himself off and only returned late this evening. Harriet, Mrs. Green Butler's maid, is the most trifling of the lot, but I can stand anything from her because she refused to go off with the Yankees when Mrs. Butler had her in Marietta last summer. Her mother went, and tried to persuade Harriet to go, too, but she said: “I loves Miss Julia a heap better'n I do you,” and remained faithful. Sister keeps her here because Mrs. Butler is a refugee and without a home herself.

Jan. 16, Monday.—Sister has come back, bringing dear little Mrs. Sims with her. Metta and I are to spend next week in Albany with Mrs. Sims, if we are not all water-bound in the meantime, at Pine Bluff. The floods are subsiding up the country, but the waters are raging down here. Flint River is out of its banks, the low grounds are overflowed, and the backwater has formed a lake between the negro quarter and the house, that reaches to within a few yards of the door. So much the better for us, as Kilpatrick and his raiders can never make their way through all these floods.

Sister is greatly troubled about a difficulty two of her negroes, Jimboy and Alfred, have gotten into. They are implicated with some others who are accused of stealing leather and attacking a white man. Alfred is a great, big, horrid-looking creature, more like an orang-outang than a man, though they say he is one of the most peaceable and humble negroes on the plantation, and Jimboy has never been known to get into any mischief before. I hope there is some mistake, though the negroes are getting very unruly since the Yankees are so near.

Jan. 17, Tuesday.—The river still rising and all the water-courses so high that I am afraid the stage won't be able to pass between Albany and Thomasville, and we sha'n't get our mail. There is always something the matter to keep us from getting the mail at that little Gum Pond postoffice. Mrs. Sims is water-bound with us, and it is funny to hear her and Mrs. Meals, one a red-hot Episcopalian, the other a red-hot Baptist, trying to convert each other. If the weather is any sign, Providence would seem to favor the Baptists just now.

Mrs. Sims almost made me cry with her account of poor Mary Millen—her brother dead, their property destroyed; it is the same sad story over again that we hear so much of. This dreadful war is bringing ruin upon so many happy homes.

Jan. 19, Thursday.—I suffered a great disappointment to-day. Mrs. Stokes Walton gave a big dining —everybody in the neighborhood, almost everybody in the county that is anybody was invited. I expected to wear that beautiful new dress that ran the blockade and I have had so few opportunities of showing. All my preparations were made, even the bows of ribbon pinned on my undersleeves, but I was awakened at daylight by the pattering of rain on the roof, and knew that the fun was up for me. It was out of the question for one just up from an attack of measles to risk a ride of twelve miles in such a pouring rain, so I had to content myself to stay at home with the two old ladies and be edified with disquisitions on the Apostolic Succession and Baptism by Immersion. They are both good enough to be translated, and I can't see why the dear little souls should be so disturbed about each other's belief. Once, when Mrs. Meals left the room for some purpose, Mrs. Sims whispered to me confidentially: “There is so little gentility among these dissenters—that is one reason why I hate to see her among them.” I could hardly keep from laughing out, but that is what a good deal of our religious differences amount to. I confess to a strong prejudice myself, in favor of the old church in which I was brought up; still I don't think there ought to be any distinction of classes or races in religion. We all have too little “gentility” in the sight of God for that. I only wish I stood as well in the recording Angel's book as many a poor negro that I know.

About noon a cavalryman stopped at the door and asked for dinner. As we eat late, and the man was in too big a hurry to wait, sister sent him a cold lunch out in the entry. It was raining very hard, and the poor fellow was thoroughly drenched, so after he had eaten, sister invited him to come into the parlor and dry himself. It came out, in the course of conversation, that he was from our own part of Georgia, and knew a number of good old Wilkes County families. He was on his way to the Altamaha, he said, and promised to do his best to keep the raiders from getting to us.

Jan. 21, Saturday. Albany, Ga.—I never in all my life knew such furious rains as we had last night; it seemed as if the heavens themselves were falling upon us. In addition to the uproar among the elements, my slumbers were disturbed by frightful dreams about Garnett. Twice during the night I dreamed that he was dead and in a state of corruption, and I couldn't get anybody to bury him. Col. Avery and Capt. Mackall were somehow mixed up in the horrid vision, trying to help me, but powerless to do so. In the morning, when we waked, I found that Metta also had dreamed of Garnett's death. I am not superstitious, but I can't help feeling more anxious than usual to hear news of my darling brother.

The rain held up about dinner time and Mrs. Sims determined to return to Albany, in spite of high waters and the threatening aspect of the sky. We went five miles out of our way to find a place where we could ford Wright's Creek, and even there the water was almost swimming. Mett and I were frightened out of our wits, but Mrs. Sims told us to shut our eyes and trust to Providence,—and Providence and Uncle Aby between them brought us through in safety. At some places in the woods, sheets of water full half a mile wide and from one to two feet deep were running across the road, on their way to swell the flood in Flint River. Sister sent a negro before us on a mule to see if the water-courses were passable. We had several bad scares, but reached town in safety a little after dark.

Jan. 22—The rains returned with double fury in the night and continued all day. If “the stars in their courses fought against Sisera,” it looks as if the heavens were doing as much for us against Kilpatrick and his raiders. There was no service at St. Paul's, so Mrs. Sims kept Metta and me in the line of duty by reading aloud High Church books to us. They were very dull, so I didn't hurt myself listening. After dinner we read the Church service and sang hymns until relieved by a call from our old friend, Capt. Hobbs.

Jan. 24, Tuesday.—Mr. and Mrs. Welsh spent the evening with us. Jim Chiles came last night and sat until the chickens crowed for day. Although I like Jimmy and enjoy his budget of news, I would enjoy his visits more if he knew when to go away. I never was so tired and sleepy in my life, and cold, too, for we had let the fire go out as a hint. When at last we went to our room I nearly died laughing at the way Metta had maneuvered to save time. She had loosened every button and string that she could get at without being seen, while sitting in the parlor, and had now only to give herself a good shake and she was ready for bed.

We spent the morning making calls with Mrs. Sims, and found among the refugees from South Carolina a charming old lady, Mrs. Brisbane. Though past fifty, she is prettier than many a woman of half her years, and her manners would grace a court. Her father was an artist of note, and she showed us some beautiful pictures painted by him. After dinner we enjoyed some Florida oranges sent by Clinton Spenser, and they tasted very good, in the absence of West India fruit.

Jan. 25, Wednesday.—Dined at Judge Vason's, where there was a large company. He is very hospitable and his house is always full of people. Albert Bacon came in from Gum Pond and called in the afternoon, bringing letters, and the letters brought permission to remain in South-West Georgia as long as we please, the panic about Kilpatrick having died out. I would like to be at home now, if the journey were not such a hard one. Garnett and Mrs. Elzey are both there, and Mary Day is constantly expected. I have not seen Garnett for nearly three years. He has resigned his position on Gen. Gardiner's staff, and is going to take command of a battalion of “galvanized Yankees,” with the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel. I don't like the scheme. I have no faith in Yankees of any sort, especially these miserable turncoats that are ready to sell themselves to either side. There isn't gold enough in existence to galvanize one of them into a respectable Confederate.

Jan. 27, Friday.—Mett and I were busy returning calls all the morning, and Mrs. Sims, always in a hurry, sent us up to dress for Mrs. Westmoreland's party as soon as we had swallowed our dinner, so we were ready by dusk and had to sit waiting with our precious finery on until our escorts came for us at nine o'clock. Mrs. Sims is one of these fidgety little bodies that is always in a rush about everything. She gallops through the responses in church so fast that she always comes out long ahead of everybody else, and even eats so fast that Metta and I nearly choke ourselves trying to keep up with her. We hardly ever get enough, as we are ashamed to sit at table too long after she has finished. I tried one day, when I was very hungry, to keep up with her in eating a waffle, but before I had got mine well buttered, hers was gone. She is such a nice housekeeper, too, and has such awfully good things that it is tantalizing not to be able to take time to enjoy them.

The party was delightful. Albany is so full of charming refugees and Confederate officers and their families that there is always plenty of good company, whatever else may be lacking. I danced three sets with Joe Godfrey, but I don't like the square dances very much. The Prince Imperial is too slow and stately, and so complicated that the men never know what to do with themselves. Even the Lancers are tame in comparison with a waltz or a galop. I love the galop and the Deux Temps better than any. We kept it up till two o'clock in the morning, and then walked home.

While going our rounds in the morning, we found a very important person in Peter Louis, a paroled Yankee prisoner, in the employ of Capt. Bo