Tea and Angst were per­va­sive through­out Charleston on April 13, as the city grap­pled with the heavy ten­sion in the air. Despite the relief expe­ri­enced the pre­vi­ous evening when it was report­ed that no Con­fed­er­ate troops had been injured dur­ing the bom­bard­ment, the real­i­ty of the ongo­ing con­flict remained unde­ni­able. The day began with a burst of sun­light after the morn­ing rain, which only illu­mi­nat­ed the ris­ing columns of black smoke from Fort Sumter. The Union fleet’s inac­tion, with ships sta­tioned just off­shore, ignit­ed the anger of the onlook­ers who believed that their ene­mies’ fail­ure to engage was a sign of cow­ardice. While the city could not escape the stark real­i­ty of war, there was a strange jux­ta­po­si­tion of cel­e­bra­to­ry fire­works and omi­nous can­non fire, mark­ing the frag­ile hope for peace and the harsh truth of the nation’s divi­sions.

Inside the Mills House hotel, the wom­en’s usu­al rou­tines were com­plete­ly dis­rupt­ed by the chaos out­side. Despite the usu­al morn­ing activ­i­ties, such as break­fast and tea, the con­stant bar­rage of artillery pre­vent­ed them from par­tak­ing in a prop­er meal. Instead, the women’s frag­ile attempts to car­ry on their nor­mal rou­tines were replaced by tea trays deliv­ered through­out the cor­ri­dors, a token ges­ture to main­tain some sense of order in the midst of chaos. The enslaved Black ser­vants con­tin­ued to pro­vide ser­vice, but Mary not­ed their indif­fer­ent demeanor, which con­trast­ed sharply with the ner­vous ener­gy of the women around them. Their appar­ent calm­ness caused Mary to ques­tion whether they were numb to the vio­lence sur­round­ing them or if, per­haps, they held a dif­fer­ent under­stand­ing of the sit­u­a­tion.

Mary’s con­ver­sa­tions with Mrs. Wig­fall and oth­ers revealed that dif­fer­ent women coped with the ris­ing ten­sion in unique ways. Some turned inward, retreat­ing to their rooms, while oth­ers, like Mary, found com­fort in the com­pa­ny of famil­iar faces, shar­ing cups of tea and qui­et­ly dis­cussing the tur­moil they faced. Faith and prayer offered a small solace to the women, with many find­ing com­fort in the hope that divine favor would be grant­ed to their side, yet pri­vate­ly, Mary observed that the doubt in their hearts could not be erased by sim­ple prayers. Amidst the storm of uncer­tain­ty, the fig­ure of Louisa Hamil­ton emerged as a wel­come dis­trac­tion, her light­heart­ed excite­ment over her hus­band’s inven­tion of a float­ing bat­tery momen­tar­i­ly lift­ing the spir­its of those around her. Still, the over­whelm­ing cloud of war hung heavy, and Louisa’s sto­ries about her baby, who mim­ic­ked the sound of the boom­ing can­non, under­scored the deep­en­ing divide between inno­cence and the impend­ing con­flict.

The calm demeanor of the enslaved work­ers pro­vid­ed a sharp con­trast to the ris­ing ten­sion of the day, with their mut­ed reac­tions sug­gest­ing either an acute aware­ness of their own posi­tion or an eerie detach­ment from the chaos unfold­ing around them. As Mary observed the seren­i­ty with which they moved through the hotel, she couldn’t help but won­der what lay behind their seem­ing­ly pas­sive accep­tance. Were they unaf­fect­ed by the events around them, or was their sto­icism a reflec­tion of their long-stand­ing sub­mis­sion to the vio­lence of their cir­cum­stances? This dis­so­nance between the women’s anx­i­ety and the ser­vants’ indif­fer­ence pro­vid­ed a sub­tle reminder of the inequities that shaped Charleston’s soci­ety.

Just as the women tried to nav­i­gate the over­whelm­ing atmos­phere of war and uncer­tain­ty, the entrance of Colonel Man­ning brought anoth­er lay­er of com­plex­i­ty to their day. His grandiose tales of brav­ery and pride in the face of con­flict were deliv­ered with an air of boast­ful con­fi­dence, leav­ing the women both intrigued and repelled. His exag­ger­at­ed sto­ries about being under fire and his proud recount­ing of his own val­or stood in stark con­trast to the pal­pa­ble anx­i­ety in the air. While the women were drawn into his tales, their under­ly­ing fear of what the future held was hard to ignore. This moment encap­su­lat­ed the emo­tion­al tur­bu­lence of Charleston’s res­i­dents as they grap­pled with the volatile mix of pride, fear, and hope, each feel­ing the weight of the war in dif­fer­ent ways. With each pass­ing moment, the women and their fam­i­lies felt the ever-loom­ing pres­ence of the con­flict, not just on the bat­tle­field but in every con­ver­sa­tion, every look, and every hes­i­tant step tak­en amid the uncer­tain­ty of war.