From flag to flag

No one, who has not had the experience, knows what a litter and indescribable confusion of dirt and débris is left after twenty-four hours’ occupancy of a house and grounds by a host, such as I have attempted to describe. For days the negroes were cleaning up, and restoring some kind of order. We moved around in a melancholy way, ministering to the wants of our reluctant guests as far as we could, and bidding them Godspeed when one by one they recovered sufficient strength to pick up their additional little burden and creep away to join their own friends, and to collect as far as they could the remnants of their scattered (in many instances shattered) belongings, or to erect other hearthstones over the remains of what had once been not only comfortable but luxurious homes.

Though the days were prolonged by our constant anxiety, the remainder of the summer gradually wore away. We stayed quietly at home; the horses, except a small pony, had been given away, and we had no means of locomotion except behind heavy wagon-mules, quite unfit for our landau; and we were reluctant to yield with grace to that order of things, so we kept at home. Books, portraits, and family plate had already been sent to remote places of safety. Poultry was all devoured. Some sheep and cattle remained, perhaps enough to supply the plantation with food for some months longer. So we had nothing tangible to afford us occupation or entertainment; no crop to cultivate, the planted cane having been plowed up by the waters. Corn was put in the ground, but the worms which invariably appear on a submerged field devoured it as fast as it sprouted. The negroes, in a half-hearted way, as if they foresaw the doom that awaited the plantation, repaired only a few bridges, leveled some ruts, and in a listless manner pottered around as though they knew perfectly well “it was no use”; we realized the same, but felt the necessity of furnishing these dependent laborers with occupation.

It is difficult at this distant day for me to realize how isolated we were. Having relied almost entirely on the Mississippi River packets for intercourse with the world beyond, all facilities of communication through that medium were now suspended. The post-office might as well have been closed so far as we were concerned, for no mails were received from, or dispatched to, any point outside of the Federal lines. Near relatives sickened, died, and were buried within a day’s ride of our home, of whose extremity we did not know for weeks—receiving the information then through a casual passer-by. People journeying from point to point avoided towns on the river-bank and sought hospitality at plantation or farm houses. So frequent were the demands made upon Arlington by lonely and forlorn travelers, that a couple of rooms in the rear of the house were set apart for their convenience.

Occasionally small companies of Federals made raids in the neighborhood, under some pretext or other; notice of the intended visit was often mysteriously conveyed to the planter in time for him to prepare.

On one occasion, word was brought to my husband of an intention to search Arlington for arms and accoutrements. Our two soldier brothers had crept home under shadow of night, a few days after the battle, with guns captured on the field; William had secreted them in our attic. As he was absent, I went in search of them. The attic covered the entire house; it was never used, and was not floored. Carefully stepping from beam to beam in the darkness, trusting more to the sense of touch than sight, in search of the guns, by an unlucky step one foot went through lath and plastering. I was alone, and struggled desperately, sinking deeper with every effort, until I was actually in danger of descending bodily into the room below. Finally extricating myself, I hobbled in a very scratched and bruised state down-stairs, to find that the accident had occurred immediately over the bed where one of the sick brothers lay unable to rise, his bed covered with the débris, and he convulsed with laughter. We eagerly watched the small detachment of soldiers approach our gate, and without even pausing, ride by. When we left Arlington, the arms were still secreted in the attic; and as the substantial homestead still stands—dismantled, shutterless, and perhaps in many places floorless though it be—those guns are doubtless lying in some remote corner under the roof, mute witnesses of the horrors of war.

When the Federals left the town I do not remember, but after a while they did leave, and we had something to say about a barren victory, forgetting that Baton Rouge was no strategic point. In those days, to us Baton Rouge was a considerable place, only second in importance to New Orleans, and that city ranked with Richmond in our estimation. One fine day the fleet of gunboats steamed away, accompanied by transports loaded to the edge with their black freight. Negroes from every direction flocked in after the battle, old and young and of both sexes. Some went from Arlington, too; several women, in their eagerness, and desiring to be unencumbered, left their sleeping babies in the cabin beds. The Federals, in acknowledgment of their loyalty, took them to New Orleans, and the general who first gave them the title of contraband must have been well-nigh overwhelmed by the motley crew that hastened to put themselves under his protection.

For many weeks we had not passed beyond our plantation limits. My husband’s business, which formerly took him daily to the little city, was suddenly and disastrously terminated when the Federals took possession. During this depressing interval, General Clark’s wife arrived at Arlington from his plantation in Mississippi, after a six days’ ride through a very rough country. The distracted woman had heard that her husband was seriously wounded—no more; but we were able to comfort her with the assurance that he was alive and in General Butler’s care. It was hard to recognize, in the heart-broken, weary traveler, the robust, cheerful woman, who formed one of the party when we accompanied our delegate husbands to the Democratic Convention at Charleston in April, 1860.

The incidents of those stormy days can never be effaced from my mind. From my favored seat in the gallery I witnessed the proceedings every step of which led to more tumultuous excitement, culminating at last in the disruption of the convention, and opening the way for a momentous future of which we had little conception. How well I remember my intense emotion while leaning over the gallery rail, listening to the roll-call of States to ratify the adoption of the platform, seeing one Southern delegation after another, with a few words of explanatory protest from its chairman, rise and solemnly file out of the hall! How my heart beat at the call “Louisiana!” how intently I listened to catch the words of grand old Governor Mouton, as with French accent, made ten times more unintelligible by his vehement manner and rapid utterance, he explained the attitude of his State! Pointing a tremulous finger at the seated representatives of Louisiana, with emphatic delivery and quivering voice he concluded: “Louisiana instructed her delegation to vote as a unit; two of the number refuse to act with the majority; they can retain their seats, but they have no voice, they can not represent the State.” The impetuous old gentleman descended from the bench on which he stood, to command attention to his remarks, and strode out of the assembly, followed by nine of his confrères. To my unspeakable dismay—for I was too hot-headed to be reasonable amid so much excitement—I saw my husband and his colleague remain seated, the delinquents toward whom the defiant finger of the creole Hotspur had been directed. General Clark’s attitude in the Mississippi delegation was scarcely less conservative than that of my clear-headed husband.

Poor Mrs. Clark was detained several days, until a flag of truce could be obtained from the nearest Confederate post to escort her to New Orleans, and we had ample time to talk over the rush of events since the exciting period when we had last sat side by side.

After the Federals evacuated we were induced to go to Baton Rouge to inquire concerning the welfare of certain friends who had returned to town, and of others who remained during the conflict witnesses of the struggle. Pickets commanded all the approaches during the Federal occupation, and at first only the loyal were permitted to pass. It is needless, perhaps, to say what class composed the “truly loyal,” thus early in the war, in an extreme Southern State. Ignorant and brutal negroes, who for generations had been kept under some kind of control, rushed past the pickets without a challenge, and no doubt contributed no small share to the indiscriminate robbery and devilish destruction which we in our indignation attributed to the common soldiers, who, by the death of General Williams (unfortunately killed in the battle of Baton Rouge), were left under officers certainly unequal to the task of keeping them in subordination. It was only after the place had been sacked—I believe that is the word, though it is scarcely comprehensive enough—that the former residents were allowed to enter and view the abomination of desolation. More than one distressed man returned to his wife, detained at Arlington by the claims of maternity, with a few broken articles or a bag of willfully mutilated clothing, and reported, “This is all I could find at home.”

Several days after the evacuation we ventured to enter the gates of our sweet little city, on errands of mercy, mingled with no little curiosity to see the condition in which it had been left by its unwelcome and turbulent visitors. The tall, broad-spreading shade-trees that lined the streets had been felled and thrown across all the leading thoroughfares, impeding travel so that our landau made many ineffectual attempts to thread its way. At last I descended and walked the dusty, littered, shadeless streets from square to square. Seeing the front door of the late Judge Morgan’s house thrown wide open, and knowing that his widow and daughters, after asking protection for their property of the commanding general, had left before the battle, I entered. No words can tell the scene that those deserted rooms presented. The grand portraits, heirlooms of that aristocratic family, men of the Revolutionary period, high-bred dames of a long-past generation in short bodices, puffed sleeves, towering head-dresses, and quaint golden chains—ancestors long since dead, not only valuable as likenesses that could not be duplicated, but acknowledged works of art—these portraits hung upon the walls, slashed by swords clear across from side to side, stabbed and mutilated in every brutal way! The contents of store-closets had been poured over the floors; molasses and vinegar, and everything that defaces and stains, had been smeared over walls and furniture. Up-stairs, armoires with mirror-doors had been smashed in with heavy axes or hammers, and the dainty dresses of the young ladies torn and crushed with studied, painstaking malignity, while china, toilet articles, and bits of glass that ornamented the rooms were thrown upon the beds and broken and ground into a mass of fragments; desks were wrenched open, and the contents scattered not only through the house, but out upon the streets, to be wafted in all directions; parts of their private letters as well as letters from the desks of other violated homes, and family records torn from numberless bibles, were found on the sidewalks of the town, and even on the public roads beyond town limits!

Judge Morgan’s was the only vacated house I entered. It was enough: I was too heart-sick and indignant to seek another evidence of the lengths to which a conquering army can go in pitiless, unmeaning destruction, when nothing can result from such vandalism but hatred and revenge.

All the devastation that harrowed my soul on that visit was not entirely due to the conquering army. The Confederate attack, on that day so full of sad and tender memories, was made from the rear of the city. The men in gray sprung over the fences and swarmed through the cemeteries, trampled down the graves, rushed over the little crosses and demolished and scattered the larger monuments that marked the resting-place of their own beloved dead, making, in that wild and desperate onslaught, ruins that tender hands and loving hearts have never yet been able to entirely repair.

My husband soon found that the distracted state of the country, the upheaving of the very foundation upon which our domestic life was based, and the idleness into which the negroes lapsed, partly from lack of steady work caused by the destruction of the growing crops, was more than he could endure.

So, in direct violation of military orders issued from headquarters in New Orleans, prohibiting the transfer of slaves from one plantation to another, a number of our negroes were sent to my brother’s plantation, where work was provided for them, by which they could at least earn their food, and at the same time partially relieve us of an element of querulous discontent that was fast becoming dangerous.

Our experience before and after the battle was so painful and harassing as to lead to the determination never again to be placed under the arbitrary rule of the army of occupation, whose frequent arrests and incarcerations in the common jail of unoffending citizens under the most frivolous pretexts, and often with no pretexts at all, made our very lives insecure. Believing that at no distant day we would have to accept the only alternative, voluntary exile, preparations for departure were quietly matured. The landau was exchanged for a rockaway, and this, with the curtains buttoned down, and some alterations in the seats to render a sleeping-place possible, made a reasonably comfortable traveling vehicle. A stout wagon, with a cotton cover, was put in order, to carry food and such articles as were necessary in camping out during a long journey, and six of the best and strongest mules were stabled with their harness hanging beside them for use at a moment’s warning. We did not have long to wait.