From flag to flag

On the fourth day at noon we camped amid sand and prickly-pear, to brush up and make ourselves presentable to appear before strangers. An hour afterward we drove into the scattering town of Laredo, amid the plaudits of numberless little, half-naked muchachos who never had seen an ambulance, never had seen anything but themselves and the muddy river, and at long intervals a lonely wagon. So they hung on to the traces, ran by the wheels, and caught on behind, at the imminent risk of bodily injury. If they had ever heard of Queen Victoria, they might have thought she was coming to town, for I was the first white woman and my attendant the first black one the generation had seen.

I often think of the days we spent in quaint Laredo—of the old priest who three times a day solemnly issued from his adobe hut and tolled off the hours from the big, harsh-sounding bell that surmounted a tall staff beside the little mud-covered church—of the courtesy and kindness of the women who brought me almost daily presents of little loaves of bread, alas! full of caraway-seed, but sweet and warm from the adobe ovens that were scattered at convenient distances through the village—of the men, wrapped in blankets like Indians, standing aside and giving me a courteous, deep salaam, sombrero in hand, when necessity compelled me to take the quart-cup and go to the public pen for goat’s milk—of the dexterous manner with which said goats were milked, all herded in a crowded pen: the milker fastened his eye on a certain nanny, made a rapid dart, caught her by the left hind-foot, which he secured under his right arm, thereby lifting the struggling creature quite off her legs; with a quick stoop and a few lightning strokes the cup foamed over and Mrs. Goat was released. This trick was repeated with an accuracy and dexterity quite bewildering. All the animals looked alike to me, but the milker never seemed to make the mistake of catching the same one twice. I sometimes stood and watched the whole process, until the froth and foam of my cup settled down, revealing very little milk. Daily I went to the pen, both because I could ask for it in their mixture of Spanish and Indian, and because Delia with her ebony face was such a curiosity as to excite a commotion every time she stepped out of the house, and therefore she was reluctant to go. I need not tell of the hours I sat at the only window of our temporary home, and wrote letters that were never sent, or made entries in a diary that was subsequently lost, while a crowd of inquisitive urchins gathered about, until I was forced to retreat inside and put the writing away; nor of days that I wandered to the bluff, and met long processions of women returning from the river, with curiously shaped jars of water deftly balanced on their heads, or suspended by one hand over the shoulder, and watched other women washing clothes without soap or hot water, by spreading them on rocks over which the waters of the river lapped, and beating and turning and beating them again with queer wooden mallets, while the naked children paddled in and out, diving, ducking, floating, and splashing around as though water was their native element; nor of other days when I stood on the bank to see the long-expected cotton-wagons cross the ford to the Mexican side; nor of the startling rumor that the Federals, who seemed to be sweeping over the country like a swarm of locusts, were rapidly marching up the Rio Grande!

The alarm was premature, but we immediately crossed into Mexico. My husband’s first business venture, when still a youth, was the superintendence of a “stage line” in the West, for which he had a “mail contract.” In Laredo he found one of his old employés, who had drifted there after the war with Mexico, married an olive beauty, and settled down to a life of masterly inactivity. Through his kindly offices we had been able to obtain quite comfortable quarters, but when we crossed to “foreign parts” were not so well housed, albeit we found more life and animation. The frolicsome men of American Laredo, to avoid conscription had emigrated also. Here they amused themselves with feats of horseback-riding and lofty tumbling, some of which were quite astonishing. It was a frequent exploit for a rider to lean over and pick a silver dollar from the ground while his horse was in full gallop under whip and spur. During the annual festival of their patron saint, “Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe,” we walked through the plaza, filled with gaily decked booths, and saw both men and women win and lose bags of money at the gambling-tables with a sang-froid that indicated familiarity with the game.

The repeated rumors of Federal advance soon caused the order to be issued to close the custom-house at Laredo and open one at Piedras Negras, still farther up the Rio Grande, and on the Mexican side of the river, to which point all cotton-trains were now directed. Our Confederate official procured from the Governor of the State of Nuevo Leon an armed escort, and we eagerly embraced the opportunity of safe convoy through that wild and lawless region by joining his party. I presume there were valuables, perhaps specie, in his train, from the extraordinary precautions observed against attack. Away in front of our cortège, the striped serape of the Mexican captain was always visible, fluttering in the wind, as he rode rapidly forward reconnoitring the country, while we followed in single file, surrounded by his armed men. It was a four-days’ journey, if my memory serves me. Sometimes we halted in the middle of the day, scarcely having scored a dozen miles, and sometimes rode until quite dark, in order to avoid dangerous and exposed camping-places.

Arrived at Piedras Negras, the party was directed to the only public building in the town, to which it had been assigned by the courtesy of the Mexican governor, and I believe, also, the only one that boasted a fireplace, a tiny grate in an inconvenient corner, that could hold about two chips and a handful of coals. The weather, though late in December, gave no indications, however, that even a small fire would be necessary for our comfort. The building consisted of one long, narrow room, with a small window, innocent of glass at one end, and two doors opening on opposite sides, one to the narrow, sandy lane that represented a street, and the other to an uninclosed yard, at the extreme end of which a dead dog lay swollen to the size of a calf, but so pure was the air, no odor from the disgusting object—which, of course, was now quickly removed—had invaded the premises. Our building was stucco, with some attempt at ornamentation, in the way of whitewashed walls, with daubs of blue here and there. The floor, of Mother Earth, well trodden and quite smooth, was tesselated with an ever-moving panorama of fleas; here we spread the wagon-cover, and upon some rough boxes, collected with no small cost of energy and money, was placed our still comfortable though long-used ambulance-mattress. Chairs were so scarce that none could be procured; fortunately, I had retained in all our wanderings a little splint-bottomed rocking-chair, brought from Arlington, and this was doubly appreciated as the “woman in the case” was comfortably provided for (when we left Mexico, for the last time, I gave that chair to a friend, and twenty years after, in New Orleans, sat in it again). The scarcity of furniture arose from the fact that the natives, even when in comfortable circumstances, slept on rawhides spread upon the floor, and squatted about in uncomfortable attitudes, oblivious of the luxury of chairs.

In these quarters we remained two months. The accommodating collector gave the room to us entirely at night, but during the day it was his office. There he had a table for his papers and a store-box to sit on, and there he dispatched his business as “collector of the customs for the Confederate States.” That high-sounding title meant a great deal to us then, empty as it is now. Here teamsters were paid for hauling Government cotton to the Rio Grande, and here permits were granted for various purposes. The collector made me feel very important at first, but I was fearfully burdened afterward by his appointing me custodian of the specie. There was no bank, of course, nor any other place of deposit for valuables in Piedras Negras, as the natives to the manor born could carry on their persons without effort everything they owned, clothes and all.

Mexican silver dollars arrived in stout coffee-sacks, consigned to the Confederate officer, to pay cartage. I opened and emptied my only trunk, and the money was rattled in like stones turned from a wheelbarrow, until the trunk was full to bursting; then I locked it, sat on it during the day, and slept on it at night, as it was dragged under the lower edge of our mattress at bed-time. I was almost afraid to wink, the responsibility of my charge so overwhelmed me. Rapidly those clumsy dollars were paid out to big-booted, red-shirted men, with pistols in their belts and fire in their eyes, who tied them in coarse handkerchiefs and heavy stockings, though mostly in bags made of pantaloon-legs. In very many instances the men, not yet ready to start on the home journey—though I was an entire stranger—begged me to keep their bags until called for.

Then traders on their own business intent, Jews, and that class of men of peace always found where there is a chance of money-making, came out of the Confederacy to Piedras Negras, with their precious bags of hoarded gold, en route for the interior of Mexico, to purchase goods.

These wary men quickly learned there was an American woman in town who could be persuaded to take care of their money till they were ready to start. So to the office they came, with courteous though cautious manner, casting keen glances at my face and around the room, asking occasional questions as to its being lonesome in there, if I never went out to walk, or left the place for any length of time. Then they would slyly bring out the inevitable bag from a deep pocket and ask me to keep it “till to-morrow,” adding they had to sleep in their wagons, where it was not safe to keep valuables. Two months I sat on money, slept on money, watched by money, not knowing the amount, the names, nor often the faces even of the trusting depositors.

It was not always spring-like and balmy on that sandy bank. One night we were roused by a knock at the back door, with news that Mr. W—— was frozen stiff in his wagon! There was a shuffling and a rush in the intense cold, the door hastily opened and as rapidly closed on the “good collector,” in a very dazed and half-frozen condition, his overcoat and blanket wrapped about him, yet so benumbed and helpless that he could only move by the aid of two men who supported him. Laying him on the floor, before the “two chips and a handful of coals,” we retired once more to bed. Then came a big bump at the front door. We thought it was a belated native, and that he might as well go home; but another bump and a sharp rattle gave positive indications that he was going no farther. To my husband’s call, “Who’s there?” came the chattering utterance: “Simmes, just arrived; let me in for Heaven’s sake! I’ve got lumbago, and can’t stay out here!” So poor Mr. Simmes was admitted, and, wrapped up like a mummy, he lay as close to the fire as he could. The next morning, when I awoke, our thawed guests had departed. I arose, shook out my skirts, and the toilet was complete.

The provisions were frozen, eggs were solid, so was the fresh beef, and they had to be brought inside and thawed before the fire. The cold was accompanied by high winds, that blew the fine sand in blinding clouds up the narrow streets, drifting it into every crack and crevice of the house, though the shutters were tightly closed, so that a candle was needed all that day. Delia brought the kitchen-utensils inside to prepare our meals, yet, notwithstanding all these precautions, sand sifted into the coffee-pot and over the food, making everything gritty.

In the midst of our work, one of the depositors called to say that a friend of his was ill in a wagon outside. We immediately thawed some eggs, and with a cup of milk made the invalid the most attractive delicacy that the circumstances would admit, and sent it, with the promise of some beef-tea in an hour or two.

During the following day the wind subsided, the room was cleared of the sandy dust, that covered everything with a whitish coat, and we were soon again quite comfortable.

Later we went into Texas for several months’ sojourn, fording the Rio Grande in a terrible wind-storm. The blinding sand swept in great gusts over the river and down the level, desolate road, whirled through the ambulance in stinging blasts, and blew into the faces of the frightened mules. Starting in the forenoon after a hurried, unsatisfactory, gritty breakfast, a floundering drive of ten miles brought us to the chaparral, where we were obliged to halt and camp. The personnel of the party was the most agreeable we had met in all our camping experiences. Besides a very jovial, entertaining physician from New Orleans, there were two intelligent, genial young Englishmen, members of commercial houses in London, regular cockneys, on their first trip through a rough country; everything new and novel was attractive to them, and even exceedingly unpleasant occurrences were accepted with good-nature.

We halted with dry and parched throats by a brackish well, the water of which was scarcely fit to cleanse our faces from the gritty dust, and still less desirable for making coffee, though improvised filtration somewhat improved it. While a fire was kindling, and preparations for dinner were being made, our doctor in utter despair was heard to exclaim, “I would give a thousand dollars for a good drink of brandy!” to which I promptly replied, “There’s a whole bottle of cognac in my trunk to be had for less than that.” My husband, knowing full well the importance of keeping a small supply on hand, looked very anxious, and shook his head; but the offer was renewed, only exacting the promise, as it was a full bottle, the cork never having been disturbed, that the contents should be equally divided among all the gentlemen. Of course, the proposition met with universal approval, and the doctor, with smacking lips, readily accepted the conditions. To the insinuation that the existence of the brandy was a myth, the ready reply came, “The collector gave me a bottle full of brandy on New Year’s, with the injunction not to open it except in dire emergency. That time has come.” From my trunk in the wagon was then produced, amid the intense hilarity of the crowd, a dainty toy-bottle holding perhaps a wine-glass of liquor, and the disappointed doctor was compelled to fulfill the agreement, by which each gentleman of the party received about “forty drops.”

Following the old routine of travel and camping-out, I often became stiff and weary from the tedious rides, and found the change to a brisk walk very refreshing. When the teams rested beside a stream or well at noon, I frequently walked long distances on the lonely and desolate roads before the ambulance overtook me. We halted on the pebbly bank of the Frio to rest and refresh the mules and soak the wheels, whose tires in the long, dusty drive had become loose and unsafe. I walked up the road, perhaps a mile, enjoying the quiet and relief which a change of locomotion afforded. Suddenly was perceived at the top of a slight rise a “solitary horseman” slowly approaching. While I was still looking at him, uncertain what to do, he sprung from his horse, and advanced with rapid steps, leading the animal by the bridle.

Having been so often warned of the hazard incurred by these lonely walks, I was paralyzed with alarm, till the spell was broken by the familiar voice of Mr. Crossan, our commissary and chef of months ago: “Mrs. ——! I would have known that bonnet on Mount Ararat!”

We found San Antonio to be the most attractive and interesting town we had visited in all our journeyings. Though laid out with some regularity, and ornamented by several modern structures, its narrow streets, many low stone houses, quaint churches, and busy plaza, mark its Spanish origin.

The San Antonio River, clear as crystal, heads from two springs a short distance above the town, and through its tortuous channel and irrigating canals the water is carried in easy access to most of the houses. The missions are curiosities. Those of Conception, San José, San Juan, and La Espada, are within a couple of miles of the city. Although now in dilapidated condition, they bear full evidence of the substantial architecture and elaborate finish of the immense establishments erected nearly two centuries ago to extend the power and authority of the Roman Catholic Church.

Here stands the Alamo, celebrated in the history of Texan independence as the scene of the desperate struggle between the Mexican army under General Santa Anna and one hundred and fifty Texans, in which every one of the latter was slaughtered, among them the eccentric Davy Crockett and the heroic Bowie.

San Antonio was now the business point to which all the wagon-trains from Mexico converged. Hundreds of huge Chihuahua wagons were to be seen “parked” with military precision outside the city, waiting their turn to enter the grand plaza, deliver their packages of goods, and load with cotton for their outward trip. Everything was hurry, bustle, and confusion. The major-domo, urging his train of wagons through the streets, was loud and vociferous in his language, and each driver and outrider added copiously to the babel of tongues. Merchants of every clime were here, anxious to sell or exchange for cotton, or to procure transportation for their goods far into the interior of Louisiana and Arkansas.

Hearing there were men in town with a miscellaneous assortment of dry-goods, with a friend I went to the warehouse where they were stored to make some purchases. We were told “the goods were not even to be opened in San Antonio. They were imported especially for the Louisiana trade.” We implored the privilege of buying some much-needed articles, and at last moderated the request to “just one set of knitting-needles.” The Jew was polite, but inexorable; he protested “he did not own the goods—they were simply in his keeping; the owner lived in Shreveport; there were no knitting-needles in the stock that he knew of; and really the ladies could not be accommodated; he had not the power.” My disappointed friend exclaimed, “Well, Mrs.—-, we will have to give it up!” Quick as thought the man turned his searching eyes to my face. “Are you the lady who was in Piedras Negras last January?” I gave an assenting nod. “I was the sick man you made custard and soup for. You and your friend can have anything you want.” A box was quickly opened, and not only knitting-needles but handkerchiefs were selected. We took only what was absolutely required, for we expected to pay at least five dollars for a set of knitting-needles, and perhaps as much for each handkerchief. We thankfully helped ourselves, and, when we offered to pay, the grateful Jew declined, saying: “But for your kindness to a person you never knew or saw, I might have been buried in the sand at Piedras Negras; a few paltry needles and handkerchiefs are little to give in return for your goodness to me. Only,” he added, as with protestations and thanks we retired, “don’t tell anybody, for I can not open my goods here.”

All household and family goods were scarce during the war, even in Texas, that had Rio Grande facilities not enjoyed by the other Southern States, as the great bulk of the importations were specially adapted to army purposes. The difficulty of procuring stockings, handkerchiefs, articles of prime necessity, was very great; those for whom I helped to provide wore for two years home-made stockings, knit of heavy cotton yarn; and I recall cutting up my only silk dress—a brown India silk, with white dots—to supply the demand for handkerchiefs, making my husband a coat of a linen sheet, and helping a friend rip up a calico bed-comfort that she might make a dress of the material. Even planters, with large tracts of land and abundant supply of workmen, often suffered for the necessaries of life other than those they could raise on the plantation. Through Southern Texas, where our wanderings led us, railroads were few and the service poor. The “Houston and Beaumont” afforded a fair specimen of the entire system. Many plantations were situated twenty miles and more from any railroad or navigable stream, and often half that distance from a town or post-office. I spent weeks with a family that could not procure salt to put up their meat, and were reduced to the necessity of utilizing the dirt-floor of their smoke-house, which was rich in saline properties from the accumulation during a series of years of the waste salt and drippings. First leaching the earth (in the old-fashioned way of making lye from ashes), then, by evaporating the brine, sufficient salt was procured to cure a small amount of bacon. Neither lamp-oil nor candles could be purchased; candle-molds and the material to make them were extremely scarce, so that families were compelled to exercise their ingenuity in home production to meet the necessity. The dainty young ladies who played brilliant sonatas on jangling pianos, filled the house with melodious song, and read Racine and Molière in the original, spent hours over the boiling fat, striving with patient perseverance to make symmetrical tallow-dips, that for lack of adequate supply of candlesticks would probably shine from the necks of black glass bottles. The energetic mother, with broad, flattened stick carefully tested the soap during the process of manufacture, and succeeded in obtaining a fair saponaceous compound, which had often to be used in such a crude, immature state that it damaged the linens and faded the colored garments. On wash-stands in numberless houses little saucers of soft-soap were placed for toilet-use, salt being too precious for even a few grains to be spared to harden this domestic production.

Home-made looms were built in many back rooms, and housewives who had indistinct recollections of the industry, as practiced by their grandmothers, or a theoretical knowledge of the handicraft, labored to help black “mammy” recall the forgotten art of weaving cotton cloth for plantation use.

Many a young girl stepped back and forth to the whirring music of a big old spinning-wheel, while others with clumsy, clattering cards, costing fifty dollars the pair, laboriously prepared the fleecy cotton rolls.

A needle dropped or mislaid was searched after for hours; if one was broken, its irreparable loss was lamented. Needles, pins, hair-pins, and such insignificant articles, so common in every household that no reckoning is made of the number used and wasted, rapidly became very scarce, and occasionally vanished entirely, leaving an “aching void.” Tooth-brushes were replaced by twigs of shrubs, nicely peeled, and the ends chewed into brushes. Often one comb did duty for a whole family, the aid of a hair-brush being entirely dispensed with. Breakage of china or glassware was a household calamity, and, with the heedless, scatter-brain darkies who handled such valuables, one of painful frequency. Alas! it was so easy to wear out, lose, and destroy insignificant articles that could not be replaced! Garments were often patched and darned until the original material was so merged in repairs as to lose its identity. A member of the household, the winter we spent in Houston, was a valued friend of my father. Week by week I put his garments through such a series of metamorphoses that, when his wife arrived, in the spring, she could not tell his linen clothes from the cotton!

Wheat-flour was brought in limited quantities from Northern Texas, mostly for army use; very little was offered for sale, and then at such extravagant prices that hundreds of families were for months entirely deprived of its use, and, without having made the experiment, it is difficult to realize what an indispensable household article it is. “Corn-meal pound-cake” was one of our table luxuries; it is doubtful if even Marian Harland ever had a recipe that was so frequently copied and used: it required a peck of coarse, country-ground meal (the only kind to be had) passed through a wire sieve, a piece of tarlatan, and finally several thicknesses of muslin, to obtain a pound of corn-flour fine enough for the cake.

We stopped at many houses where there was no sweetening for coffee—and such coffee; or rather such substitutes! Peanuts, sweet-potatoes, rye, beans, peas, and corn-meal were used; the latter was the favorite at the taverns, all of them wretched imitations, though gulped down, when chilly and tired, for lack of anything better—a hot, sickening drink, entirely devoid of the stimulating, comforting effects of the genuine article.

Tea-drinkers fared no better: weak decoctions of sage or orange-leaves served for those dependent on the cheering cup, and could only be taken in moderation, as both are powerful sudorifics. Bitter willow-bark extracts and red-pepper tea were used as substitutes for quinine by the poor, shaking ague-patients who lived near miasmatic bayous and swamps.

Paper became so scarce that many newspapers suspended publication entirely, while others reduced the size of their issues to the minimum that would contain war and other topics of vital interest. When the supply of white paper was exhausted, various grades of brown wrapping-paper met the necessity, and as a final resort, in some instances, wall-paper, figured on one side, came into use. Reports of battles, with long lists of killed, wounded, and missing, indistinctly printed on the uneven surface of this coarse, colored paper, passed from hand to hand until worn out.

Confederate notes so rapidly depreciated, their purchasing power was reduced to a minimum. In the interior of the country, where these notes were current, there were scarcely any goods. San Antonio, the chief trading-point of Texas, had a working population of thrifty Germans, who cultivated market-gardens and raised poultry. This shrewd class, and the ease-loving Mexicans, refused to accept any currency other than specie in exchange for goods or labor; and buyers whose purses did not contain the genuine article had to lead lives of great self-denial. Women whose husbands, in the army or Confederate Congress, were paid in the depreciated paper currency, fared very badly. I recall meeting, in those trying days, a very bright, intelligent woman, born in the “White House” and educated in Europe, whose husband represented the State of Texas in the Confederate Congress at Richmond, and hearing her say that her “gude man’s” monthly salary was not sufficient to supply her table with vegetables for a week! Nothing remarkable was said or thought of one family in Houston who paid five dollars every day for a measure of Irish potatoes for their dinner, as it was understood that they brought a whole bed-tick stuffed with Confederate money from Louisiana! I remember well paying thirty dollars for a pair of flimsy, paper-sole Congress shoes, that were not fit to be seen after ten days’ wear. My crowning extravagance was the last purchase made in that currency, when ninety dollars was paid for one yard and a half of common blue cotton denims, to make little Henry a pair of pantaloons! He often says, with a quaint smile, that he once owned a ninety-dollar pair of trousers, and wishes he had them now, but, alas! they were too greatly needed to keep—he had to put them on in a hurry, such was his emergency.