Colonel Chesnut ninety-three - blind, deaf - apparently as strong as ever, certainly as resolute of will...
Partly patriarch, partly grand seigneur, this old man is of a species that we will see no more. The last of the lordly planters who ruled this Southern world. He is a splendid wreck. His manners are unequaled still, and underneath this smooth exterior - the grip of a tyrant whose will has never been crossed. I will not attempt what Lord Byron says he could not do - "Everybody knows a gentleman when he sees one. I have never met a man who could describe one."...
He don't believe anybody; he don't trust anybody; he has a horror of extravagance; he has a firm and abiding faith in the greatness and power of the North, caught from his wife. Great hospitality and beautiful courtly manners when he was in a good humor; brusque, sneering, snarling, utterly unbearable when angry. Consistent in one thing - I have never hear him use a noble or high or fine sentiment; strictly practical and always with a view to save his property for his own benefit are all the ideas I have ever heard from him."...
Mrs. Chesnut used to tell us that when she met him at Princeton in the nineties of the 18th century, they called him there the Young Prince. He and Mr. John Taylor of Columbia where the first up-country youths whose parents were wealthy enough to send them off to college.
Mary Chesnut's Civil War, ed. C. Vann Woodward (1981) pp. 815-816.
Partly patriarch, partly grand seigneur, this old man is of a species that we will see no more. The last of the lordly planters who ruled this Southern world. He is a splendid wreck. His manners are unequaled still, and underneath this smooth exterior - the grip of a tyrant whose will has never been crossed. I will not attempt what Lord Byron says he could not do - "Everybody knows a gentleman when he sees one. I have never met a man who could describe one."...
He don't believe anybody; he don't trust anybody; he has a horror of extravagance; he has a firm and abiding faith in the greatness and power of the North, caught from his wife. Great hospitality and beautiful courtly manners when he was in a good humor; brusque, sneering, snarling, utterly unbearable when angry. Consistent in one thing - I have never hear him use a noble or high or fine sentiment; strictly practical and always with a view to save his property for his own benefit are all the ideas I have ever heard from him."...
Mrs. Chesnut used to tell us that when she met him at Princeton in the nineties of the 18th century, they called him there the Young Prince. He and Mr. John Taylor of Columbia where the first up-country youths whose parents were wealthy enough to send them off to college.
Mary Chesnut's Civil War, ed. C. Vann Woodward (1981) pp. 815-816.
Colonel Chesnut ninety-three - blind, deaf - apparently as strong as ever, certainly as resolute of will...
Partly patriarch, partly grand seigneur, this old man is of a species that we will see no more. The last of the lordly planters who ruled this Southern world. He is a splendid wreck. His manners are unequaled still, and underneath this smooth exterior - the grip of a tyrant whose will has never been crossed. I will not attempt what Lord Byron says he could not do - "Everybody knows a gentleman when he sees one. I have never met a man who could describe one."...
He don't believe anybody; he don't trust anybody; he has a horror of extravagance; he has a firm and abiding faith in the greatness and power of the North, caught from his wife. Great hospitality and beautiful courtly manners when he was in a good humor; brusque, sneering, snarling, utterly unbearable when angry. Consistent in one thing - I have never hear him use a noble or high or fine sentiment; strictly practical and always with a view to save his property for his own benefit are all the ideas I have ever heard from him."...
Mrs. Chesnut used to tell us that when she met him at Princeton in the nineties of the 18th century, they called him there the Young Prince. He and Mr. John Taylor of Columbia where the first up-country youths whose parents were wealthy enough to send them off to college.
Mary Chesnut's Civil War, ed. C. Vann Woodward (1981) pp. 815-816.
Partly patriarch, partly grand seigneur, this old man is of a species that we will see no more. The last of the lordly planters who ruled this Southern world. He is a splendid wreck. His manners are unequaled still, and underneath this smooth exterior - the grip of a tyrant whose will has never been crossed. I will not attempt what Lord Byron says he could not do - "Everybody knows a gentleman when he sees one. I have never met a man who could describe one."...
He don't believe anybody; he don't trust anybody; he has a horror of extravagance; he has a firm and abiding faith in the greatness and power of the North, caught from his wife. Great hospitality and beautiful courtly manners when he was in a good humor; brusque, sneering, snarling, utterly unbearable when angry. Consistent in one thing - I have never hear him use a noble or high or fine sentiment; strictly practical and always with a view to save his property for his own benefit are all the ideas I have ever heard from him."...
Mrs. Chesnut used to tell us that when she met him at Princeton in the nineties of the 18th century, they called him there the Young Prince. He and Mr. John Taylor of Columbia where the first up-country youths whose parents were wealthy enough to send them off to college.
Mary Chesnut's Civil War, ed. C. Vann Woodward (1981) pp. 815-816.
Inscription
In memory of James Chesnut of Mulberry near Camden, S.C. Born in Camden Feb. 19, 1773 - Died Feb. 17, 1866. His was a massive character of truth, justice, courage and benevolence, S.C.
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