Mary Gay - Life in Dixie during the War, 1861-1862-1863-1864-1865

I am asked to write a few words of introduction to these reminiscences of a lady who, in the pleasant afternoon of a life devoted to deeds of mercy and charity, turns fondly and sympathetically to the past. But there is nothing to be said. What word of mine could add to the interest that inheres in this unpretentious record of a troubled and bloody period? The chronicle speaks for itself, especially to those who remember something of those wonderful days of war. It has the charm and the distinction of absolute verity, a quality for which we may look in vain in more elaborate and ambitious publications. Here indeed, is one of the sources from which history must get its supplies, and it is informed with a simplicity which history can never hope to attain.

We have here reproduced in these records, with a faithfulness that is amazing, the spirit of those dark days that are no more. Tragedy shakes hands with what seems to be trivial, and the commonplaces of every-day life seem to move forward with the gray battalions that went forth to war.

It is a gentle, a faithful and a tender hand that guides the pen – a soul nerved to sacrifice that tells the tale. For the rest, let the records speak for themselves.

Joel Chandler Harris.

By way of preface to “Life in Dixie During the War,” I scarcely know what to say. I have long felt that it was the duty of the South to bequeath to posterity the traditions of that period; for if we do it not ourselves they will be swallowed up in oblivion. Entertaining this opinion, I have essayed the task of an individual effort, and hope that others may follow my example.

No woman who has seen what I have seen, and felt what I have felt, would be apt to write with less asperity; and yet, now that we have come back to the United States, and mean to stay in it, let the provocation to depart be what it may, I would not put into practice an iota of the war-time feeling. In thus expressing myself, I am sure I represent every Christian in my own beautiful Southland.

There was one for whom these sketches would have had a special interest. An inspiring motive for writing them was that they would be read by my nephew, Thomas H. Stokes, of Atlanta, the only child of the brother so often mentioned. But, ere he had had more than a glimpse of them, he was called away by an Inscrutable Providence, in his pure and beautiful young manhood, as we trust to a Land of Peace more in keeping with his noble, true, and tender heart, than earth with its sin and strife. “Blessed are the pure in heart; for they shall see God.”

Mary A. H. Gay.

Decatur, Georgia.

The tocsin of war has resounded from Mason and Dixon’s line to the Gulf of Mexico, from the snow-crested billows of the Atlantic to the tranquil waves of the Pacific.

War! War! War! is the battle cry of a people, who, long suffering and patient, but now, goaded to desperation and thoroughly exasperated, are determined, at all hazards, to protect the rights for which their forefathers fought, bled and died; and which their own Thomas Jefferson embodied in an instrument of writing which, for beauty of diction and wisdom of thought, will go sounding down the corridors of time, so long as time itself shall last – unequaled, unparalleled; and which was adopted without a dissenting voice by the ablest convocation of men ever assembled in national councils as their declaration of human rights and liberties.

Thus, under auspices favorable to the happy and speedy development of a new and glorious country, commenced the government of the freest and happiest people on earth, under the administration of George Washington – an administration which caught the eye of the world and called forth its admiration; and which the most censorious never had the temerity to attack; an administration which secured for the country the alluring title, “The land of the free and the home of the brave.” And its fame went abroad in story and in song, and every nation on earth sought its blessings and advantages, and it grew to be a mighty country.

Coeval with the settlement of this beautiful continent by the white man, there came, or rather, there was brought, a race of people which needed the fostering care as well as the strong arm of slavery to kindle the latent spark of intellectual fire which had smoldered for centuries, in, as President Cleveland would say, “innocuous desuetude.”

This race of people came not as pioneers in the building up of this great nation, but as a menial race, sold into bondage by their own kith and kin, and not to be endowed with elective franchise nor representation in its councils. It was held in bondage alike in Massachusetts and in South Carolina. Under the auspices of slavery, it became a powerful factor in the building up of the staple industries of the country – the Southern portion of it directly, the Northern portion indirectly, and it received in return more than any other people in bondage has ever received – as a usual thing, good wholesome food, comfortable homes and raiment, and tender treatment in sickness. When they failed to receive these benefits, their masters were improvident and careless alike of the comfort of their own wives and children, and they, too, showed hard usage and neglect. This is not said by way of apology for any treatment received at the hands of Southern slaveholders by this vassal race. I repeat that no people held in bondage ever received so many benefits.

Slavery, as all other institutions, had its evils, and those evils were far greater to the slaveholder than to the slaves. Climatic and other considerations rendered the system of slavery unprofitable in the Northern States of this great and growing republic, and the men at the helm of their respective governments agitated the subject of emancipation.

Having given themselves time to bring the greater number of their slaves South and sell them, they nominally freed the others by legislative enactment; and by this great and magnanimous action, there were so few left that to this day, as attested by Northern tourists, a “darkey,” or a “colored person,” is an object of curiosity and great interest.

The country, North and South, was too prosperous. The agitators could stand it no longer. Discord and strife took the place of harmony and peace in the halls of congress, and in the senate chamber of the United States. Men who could in no other way acquire prominence, became conspicuous as champions of an “oppressed and down trodden race,” and were swift to slander the white people of the South. Our slaves were taught that murder, rapine, arson, and every species of wickedness known in the catalogue of crime which, in any way, could weaken, yea, destroy the South, was service most acceptable.

The country was in the clutches of an organized mob, determined to precipitate it into the jaws of dissolution. By way of confirming this statement the following resolutions are reproduced.

These resolutions were adopted by a large and representative body of men at Worcester, Massachusetts, soon after Fremont’s defeat in 1856, and long before Governor Gist of South Carolina, and other Southern leaders, began to take measures for a peaceable separation, rather than to be forcibly expelled:

“ Resolved , That the meeting of a state disunion convention, attended by men of various parties and affinities, gives occasion for a new statement of principles and a new platform of action.

“ Resolved , That the conflict between this principle of liberty and this fact of slavery has been the whole history of the nation for fifty years, while the only result of this conflict has thus far been to strengthen both parties, and prepare the way of a yet more desperate struggle.