New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1905-04-02

Davis and a BrisadIer-GeneraI in the Confed,
crate Army. Edited by Isabella d. Martin ana
Myrta LOckett Avary. Rmo, pp Al u Apple
ton & Co.
In this diary is preserved the most moving
and vivid record OF the Southern Confederacy
of which have any knowledge. 1t is piece
of social history of inestimable value. 1t in |
terprets 10 posterity the spirit in which the |
Southerners entered upon and struggled through |
the war that ruined them. 1t paints pOignantly |
but with simplicity the wreck of that old world |
which had so much about it that was beautiful |
and noble as we'll as evfl. Students of Ameri- |
can life have often smiled, and with reason, at |
the stilted and extravagant fashion in which the
Southern woman has been described south Of |
Mason and Dixon's line-the unconscious self |
revelations of Mary Chestnut explain. if they do |
not justify such extravaganza For here, we |
cannot but believe is a creature OF a fine type, |
a very woman" a very Beatrice, frank, impet- |
uOus loving. full of sympathy, full Of humor. |
Like her prototype, she had prejudices. and she |
knew little of the Northern people she crii- |
cised severely; but there is less bitterness in
these pages than might have expected. Per-
haps the editors have to that. However
this may be, they have done nothing to injure
the writer's nervous. unconventional style
"a style breathing character and temperament
as the flower breathes fragrance
Mary Chestnut was a child OF the oIdtime dig
rity. tie oIdtime prosperity, Of the South. The
daughter of a Governor of South Carolina, she
the wife Of Senator of the United States,
the daughter-in-law of a venerable magnihco
whose pride was great as his possessions. OF
this worthy she writes in the last year of the
war. when he was nnety-three. blind and deaf,
yet apparently as strong as ever and certainly
as resolute of will:
Partly patriarch partly grand seigneur. this old
is of species that we shall see no nore-the
Southern world but now splendid wreck His
manners uneQualled still, but underneath this
smooth exterior lies the grip of tyraat whose will
African Scipio walks at Colonel Chesnut's side.
He is six feet two black Hercules and as gentle
as dove in all his dealings with his blind old mas
stiel to feel where Is is g9iPg The YANKEES left
essential tn his old master. and they said IF you
want TO stay bad. he must have been good to
made them mad If you praised your MASTER
Sometimes this old man viii stop himself, just as
vent his attempting some feat impossible in his con
hope th4t never say or do anything TnseemIy!
Sometimes think am subject to mental aberra- |
TONS At every football he calls out. Who goes
there?" If laiy's name is given he uncOvers and
stands as, with y hat on until she passes He stu has
Colonel Chestnut came II race that would brook
woman. devil. But then, such manners has he |
they would clear any mans character. if it needed
when she met lin at Princeton the SOS of the
eighteenth century. they called him the young
prince"
The women of this family had as strong wills
as the men-witness that spoiled beauty the /
kinsWoman of this old colonel. who, being for
hidden by her father to marry a handsome dis |
sipated fellow, went up to her room and there
remained, never once coming out of it for forty
years. Her father let her have her own way |
r that. He provided servants to wait upon her !
and every conceivable luxury that she desired |
but neither party would give In
Mrs. Chestnut sat at the cradle of the COnfed- |
eracy-she was in Charleston when her State
seeded and when Sumter was fired upon She !
was staying at Montgomery when Jefferson /
Davis was inaugurated there. She lived either
in Richmond or in Columbia. S. c.. during the
most exciting periods of the war, and she knew
and saw continually most of the chief actors in /
is all the passionate enthusiasm with which the
South rushed into the struggle Some of the
Older men, the politicians, she describes as not
particularly sanguine to their success /
though not without hope Now and again n man
who had just thrown aside his United states
uniform would surprise her by an odd incon-
slstency. There was Captain Ingrahanl-''he is |
South Carolina to the tips of his fingers; vet he
has 1t dyed in the wOolit is part of his nature
to believe the United States navy can whip any
thing in the world OF talks with jefferson
Davis there are many records in this volume |
The author writes concerning one of these in
1861: He laughed at faith in our own