[In Southern Historical Papers, Volume 22, pages 58-59.]
Col. W. R. Aylett tells the following tender story:
Once during the war, when the lines of the enemy 132 separated me from my home, I was an inmate of my brother’s Richmond home while suffering from a wound. As soon as I could walk about a little, my first steps were directed to Seabrook’s Hospital to see some of my dear comrades who were worse wounded than I. While sitting by the cot of a friend, who was soon to “pass over the river and rest under the shade of the trees,” I witnessed a scene that I can hardly ever think of without quickened pulse and moist eye.
A beautiful boy, too young to fight and die, and a member of an Alabama regiment, was dying from a terrible wound a few feet off. His mother had been telegraphed for at his request. In the wild delirium of his dying moments he had been steadily calling for her, “Oh, mother, come; do come quickly!” Then, under the influence of opiates given to smooth his entrance into eternal rest, he dozed and slumbered. The thunders of the great guns along the lines of the immortal Lee roused him up. Just then his dying eyes rested upon one of the lovely matrons of Richmond advancing toward him. His reeling brain and distempered imagination mistook her for his mother. Raising himself up, with a wild, delirious cry of joy, which rang throughout the hospital, he cried: “Oh, mother! I knew you would come! I knew you would come! I can die easy now;” and she, humoring his illusion, let him fall upon her bosom, and he died happy in her arms, her tears flowing for him as if he had been her own son.
[Phoebe Y. Pember.]
A thousand evidences of the loving care and energetic labor of the patient ones at home, telling an affecting story that knocked hard at the gates of the heart, were the portals ever so firmly closed; and with all these came letters written by poor, ignorant ones who often had no knowledge of how such communications should be addressed. 133 These letters, making inquiries concerning patients from anxious relatives at home, directed oftener to my office than my home, came in numbers, and were queer mixtures of ignorance, bad grammar, worse spelling, and simple feeling. However absurd the style, the love that filled them chastened and purified them. Many are stored away, and though irresistibly ludicrous, are too sacred to print for public amusement. In them could be detected the prejudices of the different sections. One old lady in upper Georgia wrote a pathetic appeal for a furlough for her son. She called me “My dear sir,” while still retaining my feminine address, and though expressing the strongest desire for her son’s restoration to health, entreated in moving accents that if his life could not be spared, that he should not be buried in “Ole Virginny dirt”—rather a derogatory term to apply to the sacred soil that gave birth to the Presidents,—the soil of the Old Dominion.
Almost all of these letters told the same sad tale of destitution of food and clothing; even shoes of the roughest kind being either too expensive for the mass or unattainable by the expenditure of any sum, in many parts of the country. For the first two years of the war, privations were lightly dwelt upon and courageously borne, but when want and suffering pressed heavily, as times grew more stringent, there was a natural longing for the stronger heart and frame to bear part of the burden. Desertion is a crime that meets generally with as much contempt as cowardice, and yet how hard for the husband or father to remain inactive in winter quarters, knowing that his wife and little ones were literally starving at home—not even at home, for few homes were left.
[Southern Historical Papers, Volume 19. From the Cosmopolitan, December, 1891; by Edward M. Alfriend.]
For many months after the beginning of the war between the States, Richmond was an extremely gay, 134 bright, and happy city. Except that its streets were filled with handsomely attired officers and that troops constantly passed through it, there was nothing to indicate the horrors or sorrows of war, or the fearful deprivations that subsequently befell it. As the war progressed its miseries tightened their bloody grasp upon the city, happiness was nearly destroyed, and the hearts of the people were made to bleed. During the time of McClellan’s investment of Richmond, and the seven days’ fighting between Lee’s army and his own, every cannon that was fired could be heard in every home in Richmond, and as every home had its son or sons at the front of Lee’s army, it can be easily understood how great was the anguish of every mother’s heart in the Confederate capital. These mothers had cheerfully given their sons to the Southern cause, illustrating, as they sent them to battle, the heroism of the Spartan mother, who, when she gave the shield to her son, told him to return with it or on it.
And yet, during the entire war, Richmond had happy phases to its social life. Entertainments were given freely and very liberally the first year of the war, and at them wine and suppers were graciously furnished, but as the war progressed all this was of necessity given up, and we had instead what were called “starvation parties.”
The young ladies of the city, accompanied by their male escorts (generally Confederate officers on leave) would assemble at a fashionable residence that before the war had been the abode of wealth, and have music and plenty of dancing, but not a morsel of food or a drop of drink was seen. And this form of entertainment became the popular and universal one in Richmond. Of course, no food or wine was served, simply because the host could not get it, or could not afford it. And at these starvation parties the young people of Richmond and the young army officers assembled and danced as brightly and as happily as though a supper worthy of Lucullus awaited them.
The ladies were simply dressed, many of them without jewelry, because the women of the South had given their jewelry to the Confederate cause. Often on the occasion of these starvation parties, some young Southern girl would appear in an old gown belonging to her mother or grandmother, or possibly a still more remote ancestor, and the effect of the antique garment was very peculiar; but no matter what was worn, no matter how peculiarly any one might be attired, no matter how bad the music, no matter how limited the host’s or hostess’s ability to entertain, everybody laughed, danced, and was happy, although the reports of the cannon often boomed in their ears, and all deprivations, all deficiencies, were looked on as a sacrifice to the Southern cause.
I remember going to a starvation party during the war with a Miss M., a sister of Annie Rive’s mother. She wore a dress belonging to her great-grandmother or grandmother, and she looked regally handsome in it. She was a young lady of rare beauty, and as thoroughbred in every feature of her face or pose and line of her body as a reindeer, and with this old dress on she looked as though the portrait of some ancestor had stepped out of its frame.
Such spectacles were very common at our starvation parties. On one occasion I attended a starvation party at the residence of Mr. John Enders, an old and honored citizen of Richmond, and, of course, there was no supper. Among those present was Willie Allan, the second son of the gentleman, Mr. John Allan, who adopted Edgar Allan Poe, and gave him his middle name. About 1 o’clock in the morning he came to one other gentleman and myself, and asked us to go to his home just across the street, saying he thought he could give us some supper. Of course, we eagerly accepted his invitation and accompanied him to his house. He brought out a half dozen mutton chops and some bread, and we had what was to us a royal supper. I spent the night at the Allan home and slept in the same room with Willie Allan. The 136 next morning there was a tap on the door, and I heard the mother’s gentle voice calling: “Willie, Willie.” He answered, “Yes, mother; what is it?” And she replied: “Did you eat the mutton chops last night?” He answered, “Yes,” when she said, “Well, then, we haven’t any breakfast.”
The condition of the Allan household was that of all Richmond. Sometimes the contrasts that occurred in these social gayeties in Richmond were frightful, ghastly. A brilliant, handsome, happy, joyous young officer, full of hope and promise, would dance with a lovely girl and return to his command. A few days would elapse, another “starvation” would occur, the officer would be missed, he would be asked for, and the reply come, “Killed in battle;” and frequently the same girls with whom he danced a few nights before would attend his funeral from one of the churches of Richmond. Can life have any more terrible antithesis than this?
A Georgia lady was once remonstrating with General Sherman against the conduct of some of his men, when she said: “General, this is barbarity,” and General Sherman, who was famous for his pregnant epigrams, replied: “Madame, war is barbarity.” And so it is.
On one occasion, when I was attending a starvation party in Richmond, the dancing was at its height and everybody was bright and happy, when the hostess, who was a widow, was suddenly called out of the room. A hush fell on everything, the dancing stopped, and every one became sad, all having a premonition in those troublous times that something fearful had happened. We were soon told that her son had been killed late that evening, in a skirmish in front of Richmond, a few miles from his home.
Wounded and sick men and officers were constantly brought into the homes of the people of Richmond to be taken care of, and every home had in it a sick or wounded Confederate soldier. From the association thus brought about many a love affair occurred and many a marriage 137 resulted. I know of several wives and mothers in the South who lost their hearts and won their soldier husbands in this way, so this phase of life during the war near Richmond was prolific of romance.
General Robert E. Lee would often leave the front, come into Richmond and attend these starvation parties, and on such occasions he was not only the cynosure of all eyes, but the young ladies all crowded around him, and he kissed every one of them. This was esteemed his privilege and he seemed to enjoy the exercise of it. On such occasions he was thoroughly urbane, but always the dignified, patrician soldier in his bearing.
Private theatricals were also a form of amusement during the war. I saw several of them. The finest I witnessed, however, was a performance of Sheridan’s comedy, of Alabama, played by Mrs. Malaprop. Her rendition of the part was one of the best I ever saw, rivalling that of any professional. The audience was very brilliant, the President of the Confederacy, Mrs. Davis, Judah P. Benjamin, and others of equal distinction being present.
Mrs. Davis is a woman of great intellectual powers and a social queen, and at these entertainments she was very charming. Mr. Davis was always simple, unpretentious, and thoroughly cordial in his manner. To those who saw him on these occasions it was impossible to associate his gentle, pleasing manner with the stern decision with which he was then directing his side of the greatest war of modern times. The world has greatly misunderstood Mr. Davis, and in no way more than in personal traits of his character. My brother, the late Frank H. Alfriend, was Mr. Davis’s biographer, and through personal intercourse with Mr. Davis I knew him well. In all his social, domestic, and family relations, he was the gentlest, the noblest, the tenderest of men. As a father and husband he was almost peerless, for his domestic life was the highest conceivable.
Mr. Davis, at the executive mansion, held weekly receptions, 138 to which the public were admitted. These continued until nearly the end of the war. The occasions were not especially marked, but Mr. and Mrs. Davis were always delightful hosts.
The spectacle presented at the social gatherings, particularly the starvation parties, was picturesque in the extreme. The ladies often took down the damask and other curtains and made dresses of them. My friend, Hon. John S. Wise, formerly of Virginia, now of New York, tells the following story of himself: He was serving in front of Richmond and was invited to come into the city to attend a starvation party. Having no coat of his own fit to wear, he borrowed one from a brother officer nearly twice his height. The sleeves of his coat covered his hands entirely, the skirt came below his knees several inches, and the buttons in the back were down on his legs. So attired, Captain Wise went to the party. His first partner in the dance was a young lady of Richmond belonging to one of its best families. She was attired in the dress of her great-grandmother, and a part of this dress was a stomacher very suggestive in its proportions. Captain Wise relates with exquisite humor that in the midst of the dance he found himself in front of a mirror, and that the sight presented by himself and his partner was so ridiculous that he burst out laughing; and his partner turned and looked at him angrily, left his side and never spoke to him again.
The varied and sometimes handsome uniforms of the Confederate officers commingling with each other and contrasting with the simple, pretty, sometimes antiquated dresses of the ladies, made pictures that were beautiful in their contrasts of color and of tone. An artist would have found these scenes infinite opportunity for his pencil or brush.
I am sure that this phase of social life in Richmond during the war is without parallel in the world’s history. 139 The army officers, of course, had only their uniforms, and the women wore whatever they could get to wear. In the last year of the war, particularly the last few months, the pinch of deprivation, especially as to food, became frightful. There were many families in Richmond that were in well-nigh a starving condition. I know of some that lived for days on pea soup and bread. Confederate money was almost valueless. Its purchasing power had so depreciated that it used to be said it took a basketful to go to market. Of course, the people had very few greenbacks, and very little gold or silver. The city was invested by two armies, Grant’s and Lee’s, and its railroad communications constantly destroyed by the Union cavalry. Supplies of food were very scarce and enormously costly; a barrel of flour cost several hundred dollars in Confederate money, and just before the fall of the Confederacy I paid $500 for a pair of heavy boots. The suffering of this period was dreadful, and when Richmond capitulated many of its people were in an almost starving condition. Indeed, there was little food outside, and the Southern troops were but little better off.
But in April, 1865, the Confederacy ceased to exist; it passed into history, and Richmond was occupied by the Northern army. Many of its people were without food and without money—I mean money of the United States. It was at this period that the colored people of Richmond, slaves up to the time the war ended, but now no longer bondsmen, showed their loyalty and love for their former masters and mistresses. They, of course, had access to the commissary of the United States, and many, very many, of these former negro slaves went to the United States commissary, obtained food seemingly for themselves, and took it in basketfuls to their former owners, who were without food or money. I do not recall any record in the world’s history nobler than this—indeed, equal to it.
These are memories of a dead past, and thank God! 140 we now live under the old flag and in a happy, reunited country, which the South loves with a patriotic devotion unsurpassed by the North itself.
[J. L. Underwood.]
While the patriotic women of New Orleans saw very little of war’s ravages, yet they endured three years of war’s hardships. The Crescent City fell into the hands of the Federals in 1862, Commodore Farragut commanding the navy, and General B. F. Butler the land forces. The latter was made military governor. Farragut carried on war against combatants, and as an officer is to this day respected and honored by the Southern people. Butler carried on war on civilians and against defenceless women. The history of these women cannot be told without telling of their odious military tyrant.
President Davis in his proclamation said:
The helpless women have been torn from their homes and subjected to solitary confinement, some in fortresses and prisons, and one, especially, on an island of barren sand under a tropical sun, have been fed with loathsome rations that had been condemned as unfit for soldiers, and have been exposed to the vilest insults.
Egress from the city has been refused to those whose fortitude could withstand the test, even to lone and aged women and to helpless children; and after being ejected from their homes and robbed of their property, they have been left to starve in the streets or subsist on charity.
But this does not tell half the story. The civilized world stood aghast when General Butler issued his infamous “Order No. 28,” which reads as follows:
As the officers and soldiers of the United States have been subjected to insults from the women (calling themselves ladies) of New Orleans in return for the most scrupulous noninterference and courtesy on our part, it is ordered that hereafter when any female shall by word, gesture, or movement insult or show contempt for any officer or soldier of the United States, she shall be regarded and held liable to be treated as a woman of the town plying her avocation.
By Command of Major General Butler.
Human language cannot describe the cowardice, the meanness, the brutality of such an order. All Europe denounced him, President Davis outlawed him, some of his own Northern newspapers would not at first believe that he had issued such an order.
From that time on the name of “Butler, the Beast,” was fastened to him. In this day we pity women who are in danger of falling into the clutches of the black brute. These women of 1862 were under the heels of a white brute. Every American patriot will hang his head in shame for all time that President Lincoln kept Butler in high military office to the end of the war, and the government never did repudiate his infamous official outrage. Be it recorded to the everlasting honor of the Federal army that none of the soldiers of “The Beast” availed themselves of the license conferred by his order.
[Eggleston’s Recollections, pages 65-66.]
In New Orleans, soon after the war, I saw in a drawing-room, one day, an elaborately framed letter, of which, the curtains being drawn, I could read only the signature, which to my astonishment was that of General Butler.
“What is that?” I asked of the young gentlewoman I was visiting.
“Oh, that’s my diploma, my certificate of good behavior from General Butler;” and taking it down from the wall, she permitted me to read it, telling me at the same time its history. It seems that the young lady had been very active in aiding captured Confederates to escape from New Orleans, and for this and other similar offenses she was arrested several times. A gentleman who knew General Butler personally had interested himself in behalf of her and some friends, and upon making an appeal for their discharge received this personal note from the commanding general, in which he declared his 142 willingness to discharge all the others. “But that black-eyed Miss B.,” he wrote, “seems to me an incorrigible little devil, whom even prison fare won’t tame.” The young lady had framed the note, and she cherishes it yet, doubtless.
Later on Butler was given a command in the East and General Banks put in control at New Orleans. He was clean and soldierly, but more stern and overbearing in some respects than Butler. Dr. Stone, the most prominent citizen of New Orleans, said to the writer in 1863: “We could manage Butler better than we can Banks. We could scare Butler, but we can’t move Banks.” Our poor women, patient and prudent through it all, were out of the fire, but they were in the frying-pan.
We are indebted to the Honorable W. H. Seymour for the following very interesting story:
There was a great stir and intense excitement one time during General Banks’s administration. A number of the “rebels” were to leave for the “Confederacy.” Their friends, amounting to some 20,000 persons, women and children principally, wended their way down to the levee to see them off and to take their last farewell. Such a quantity of women frightened the Federal officials: they were greatly exasperated at their waving of handkerchiefs, their loud calling to their friends, and their going on to vessels in the vicinity.
Orders were given to “stand back,” but no heed was given; the bayonets were pointed at the ladies, but they were not scared. A lady ran across to get a nearer view. An officer seized her by the arm, but she escaped, leaving a scarf in his possession. At last the military received orders to do its duty.
The affair was called the Pocket Handkerchief War and has been put in verse, as follows:
[By Capt. James Dinkins, in New Orleans Picayune; Southern Historical Papers, Volume 31.]
[Fought Friday, February 20, 1863, at the head of Gravier Street.]
Of all the battles modern or old,
By poet sung or historian told;
Of all the routs that ever was seen
From the days of Saladin to Marshall Turenne,
Or all the victories later yet won,
From Waterloo’s field to that of Bull Run;
All, all, must hide their fading light,
In the radiant glow of the handkerchief fight;
And a paean of joy must thrill the land,
When they hear of the deeds of Banks’s band.
’Twas on a levee, where the tide of “Father Mississippi” flows,
Our gallant lads, their country’s pride,
Won this great victory o’er her foes,
Four hundred rebels were to leave
That morning for Secessia’s shades,
When down there came (you’d scarce believe)
A troop of children, wives, and maids,
To wave their farewells, to bid God-speed,
To shed for them the parting tear,
To waft their kisses as the meed of praise to soldiers’ hearts most dear.
They came in hundreds; thousands lined
The streets, the roofs, the shipping, too;
Their ribbons dancing in the wind,
Their bright eyes flashing love’s adieu.
’Twas then to danger we awoke,
But nobly faced the unarmed throng,
And beat them back with hearty stroke,
Till reinforcements came along.
We waited long; our aching sight
Was strained in eager, anxious gaze,
At last we saw the bayonets bright
Flash in the sunlight’s welcome blaze.
The cannon’s dull and heavy roll,
Fell greeting on our gladdened ear,
Then fired each eye, then glowed each soul,
For well we knew the strife was near.
“Charge!” rang the cry, and on we dashed
Upon our female foes,
As seas in stormy fury lashed,
Whene’er the tempest blows.
Like chaff their parasols went down,
As our gallants rushed;
And many a bonnet, robe, and gown
Was torn to shreds or crushed;
Though well we plied the bayonet,
Still some our efforts braved,
Defiant both of blow and threat,
Their handkerchiefs still waved.
Thick grew the fight, loud rolled the din,
When “charge!” rang out again
And then the cannon thundered in,
And scoured o’er the plain.
Down, ’neath the unpitying iron heels of horses children sank,
While through the crowd the cannon
Wheels mowed roads on either flank,
One startled shriek, one hollow groan,
One headlong rush, and then
“Huzza!” the field was all our own,
For we were Banks’s men.
That night, released from all our toils,
Our dangers passed and gone,
We gladly gathered up the spoils
Our chivalry had won!
Five hundred ’kerchiefs we had snatched
From rebel ladies’ hands,
Ten parasols, two shoes (not matched),
Some ribbons, belts, and bands,
And other things that I forgot;
But then you’ll find them all
As trophies in that hallowed spot—
The cradle—Faneuil Hall!
And long on Massachusetts’ shore
And on Green Mountain’s side,
Or where Long Island’s breakers roar,
And by the Hudson’s tide,
In times to come, when lamps are lit,
And fires brightly blaze,
While round the knees of heroes sit
The young of happier days,
Who listen to their storied deeds,
To them sublimely grand,
Then glory shall award its meed
Of praise to Banks’s band,
And Fame proclaim that they alone
(In Triumph’s loudest note)
May wear henceforth, for valor shown,
A woman’s petticoat.
[By J. L. Underwood.]
General Pemberton’s army at Vicksburg surrendered on the 4th of July, 1863. According to the liberal terms, the thirty thousand Confederates were paroled and allowed to march to their homes across the country. It was about a month before the sick and wounded could be removed. They were sent on Federal transports down the Mississippi River by the way of New Orleans and thence across the Gulf of Mexico by Fort Morgan to Mobile.
The first boatload consisted of the sick in the hospital, which was under the charge of Dr. Richard Whitfield, of Alabama. I went to Vicksburg as sergeant major of the Twentieth Alabama Regiment, but, at the request of the Thirtieth Alabama, had been commissioned captain and appointed chaplain of that command a few months before the surrender. On the very evening of the surrender I was taken very sick and for some days lay at the point 145 of death. Under the kind nursing of friends in Vicksburg, and by the good medicines provided by the noble Chaplain Porter, of Illinois, of the Federal army, I began to rally in time to be moved to Dr. Whitfield’s hospital and be put aboard the first boat for home. By the time we reached New Orleans I had nearly recovered my usual strength. At New Orleans we were transferred to a gulf steamer, which lay at the wharf for nearly two days. Soon after our arrival it looked as if the whole population of the Crescent City had crowded down to look at us and they stood there all day to comfort us with their smiles during our stay.
General Banks allowed Dr. Stone and five other physicians to come on our steamer and look after the sick, to furnish coffins for the dead and remove them for burial. No other citizens could pass the sentinels or a rope guard extending about thirty yards from the boat. A detail of Federal soldiers kept all our private Confederates on the boat. There were only three or four Confederate officers and we were allowed full liberty to go to the guard line and talk to the citizens. Very soon the people began to bring such supplies and refreshments as General Banks would allow, and they literally loaded the steamer with all sorts of good things, from hams and pickles down to fans, pipes, and tobacco. Every soldier had enough for his wants and as much as he could take home. Dr. Stone told me that General Banks would not allow his people to do half of what they were anxious to do. He said the people wanted to keep us a while and clothe us in new outfits.
I must just here put on record one of the most touching instances of soldierly generosity and kindness that ever occurred in war. Lieutenant Winslow, of Massachusetts, was in command of the Federal guard on our steamer, and Captain —— in charge of the guard on the wharf. These two gallant young Federal officers, although in full dress uniform, worked like beavers all day under a hot sun, in assisting me to get the refreshments and provisions from the hands of the ladies or 146 servants at the guard line and take them to the boat, there to be handed to our men. The good women thought, of course, we had wounded men among us, but there was not one. An amazing quantity of lint and bandages was sent aboard. In the linen furnished for this purpose were whole garments of the finest fibre of female underwear, most of it all bright and new. Many a rusty Vicksburg soldier that night decked himself in a fine nightrobe with amazingly short sleeves, and many a soldier’s wife accepted for her own use the dainty peace-offering when we reached home. None of these good people, men nor women, were allowed to cheer us. All that they could do was to give us sympathy by their presence and their smiles. I saw the police or the soldiers arrest man after man for some disloyal utterance.
The day we left the throng of beautiful women seemed to extend up and down the levee as far as the eye could reach. As the boat pushed off for Mobile our poor fellows crowded the deck and the excitement on shore grew intense. Neither side could cheer and the tension was painful. Finally the awfully trying stillness was broken by the waving of a little white handkerchief, in a fair woman’s hand.
In a moment thousands of others were to be seen, silently telling us “Good-bye and God bless you.” In a few moments we could see excitement in every face, and presently a little tender woman’s voice screamed out “Hurrah! hurrah!” and then a thousand sweet throats took up the shout. That “Hurrah” from Southern women and those handkerchiefs waved under the point of hostile bayonets told with pathos of a world of patriotism in the breasts of those noble women. We old Confederates were overcome. One grim old North Carolinian, standing by my side, with Federal guards all around us, and the tears streaming down his sun-hardened cheeks, cried out at the top of his voice: “Men, they may kill me, but I tell you I am willing to die a hundred times for such women as them.” We all felt so, and the living veterans feel that way yet.
[Phoebe Y. Pember.]
There was but little sensibility exhibited by soldiers for the fate of their comrades in field or hospital. The results of war are here to-day and gone to-morrow. I stood still, spell-bound by that youthful death-bed, when my painful revery was broken upon by a drawling voice from a neighboring bed, which had been calling me such peculiar names and titles that I had been oblivious to whom they were addressed.
“Look here. I say, Aunty!—Mammy!—You!” Then in despair, “Missus Mauma! Kin you gim me sich a thing as a b’iled sweet pur-r-rta-a-a-tu-ur? I b’long to the Twenty-secun’ Nor’ Ka-a-a-li-i-na Regiment.” I told the nurse to remove his bed from proximity to his dead neighbor, that in the low state of his health from fever the sight might affect his nerves, but he treated the suggestion with contempt.
“Don’t make no sort of difference to me; they dies all around me in the field and it don’t trouble me.”
[In the Rise and Fall of Confederate Government, Volume 2, pages 700-709.]
On June 19, 1864, Major-General Hunter began his retreat from before Lynchburg down the Shenandoah Valley. Lieutenant-General Early, who followed in pursuit, thus describes the destruction he witnessed along the route:
“Houses had been burned, and helpless women and children left without shelter. The country had been stripped of provisions, and many families left without a morsel to eat. Furniture and bedding had been cut to pieces, and old men and women and children robbed of all the clothing they had, except that on their backs. Ladies’ trunks had been rifled, and their dresses torn to pieces in mere wantonness. Even the negro girls had lost their little finery. At Lexington he had burned the Military 148 Institute with all its contents, including its library and scientific apparatus. Washington College had been plundered, and the statue of Washington stolen. The residence of ex-Governor Letcher at that place had been burned by orders, and but a few minutes given Mrs. Letcher and her family to leave the house. In the county a most excellent Christian gentleman, a Mr. Creigh, had been hung, because, on a former occasion, he had killed a straggling and marauding Federal soldier while in the act of insulting and outraging the ladies of his family.”
[J. L. Underwood.]
The patriotic husband was in Lee’s army and had left his wife at home with two little girls and an infant in her arms. The home had fallen within the lines of the Federals and the officers had stationed a guard in the house for her protection. One night a marauding party of bummers, who were fleeing from a party of soldiers seeking to arrest them, came to her house and demanded that she should go and show them the road they wanted to take. The soldier guarding her said they were asking too much and refused to let her go. They shot him down so near her that his blood fell on her dress. She went with her little children in the dark night and showed them the road they asked for, and the poor woman hastened back to her home, only to hear the ruffians coming again. They overtook her in the yard and came with such rough threats that she thought they were going to kill her, and to save her oldest little girl, she tried to conceal her by throwing her into some thick shrubbery. Unfortunately the fall and the excitement inflicted an injury which followed the child all her life. The marauders followed the poor mother into the house and threatened to kill her. But as one of them held a pistol in her face the pursuing party rushed in and an officer knocked 149 the pistol up and shot the ruffian, who proved to be the one who had killed the guard of the home.
Some one wrote to Mr. Turner of the situation of his family. General Lee saw the letter and sent Turner home to remove his little family to a place of safety. This he did, and promptly returned to his post in the army, where he served faithfully to the end of the war and then became a staunch citizen.
[By Walter, a Soldier’s Son; from Mrs. Fannie A. Beer’s Memoirs, pages 293-295.]
My father was once a private soldier in the Confederate army, and he often tells me interesting stories of the war. One morning, just as he was going down town, mother sent me to ask him to change a dollar. He could not do it, but he said,
“Ask your mother how much change she wants?”
She only wanted a dime to buy a paper of needles and some silk to mend my jacket. So I went back and asked for ten cents. Instead of taking it out of his vest pocket, father opened his pocket-book and said,
“Did you say you wanted ten dollars or ten cents, my boy?”
“Why, father,” said I, “who ever heard of paying ten dollars for needles and thread?”
“I have,” said he. “I once heard of a paper of needles, and a skein of silk, worth more than ten dollars.”
His eyes twinkled and looked so pleasant that I knew there was a story on hand, so I told mother and sis’ Loo, who promised to find out all about it. After supper that night mother coaxed father to tell us the story.
We liked it so well that I got mother to write it down for the Bivouac.
After the battle of Chickamauga, one of “our mess” found a needle case which had belonged to some poor fellow, probably among the killed. He did not place much value upon the contents, although there was a paper 150 of No. 8 needles, several buttons, and a skein or two of thread, cut at each end and neatly braided so that each thread could be smoothly drawn out. He put the whole thing in his breast-pocket, and thought no more about it. But one day while out foraging for himself and his mess, he found himself near a house where money could have procured a meal of fried chicken, corn-pone, and buttermilk, besides a small supply to carry back to camp. But Confederate soldiers’ purses were generally as empty as their stomachs, and in this instance the lady of the house did not offer to give away her nice dinner. While the poor fellow was inhaling the enticing odor, and feeling desperately hungry, a girl rode up to the gate on horseback, and bawled out to another girl inside the house,
“Oh, Cindy, I rid over to see if you couldn’t lend me a needle. I broke the last one I had to-day, and pap says thar ain’t nary ’nother to be bought in the country hereabouts!”
Cindy declared she was in the same fix, and couldn’t finish her new homespun dress for that reason.
The soldier just then had an idea. He retired to a little distance, pulled out his case, sticking two needles on the front of his jacket, then went back and offered one of them, with his best bow, to the girl on the horse. Right away the lady of the house offered to trade for the one remaining. The result was a plentiful dinner for himself; and in consideration of a thread or two of silk, a full haversack and canteen. After this our mess was well supplied, and our forager began to look sleek and fat. The secret of his success did not leak out till long afterward, when he astonished the boys by declaring he “had been ‘living like a fighting-cock’ on a paper of needles and two skeins of silk.”
“And,” added father, “if he had paid for all the meals he got in Confederate money, the amount would have been far more than ten dollars.”
I know other boys and girls will think this a queer story, but I hope they will like it as well as mother and Loo and I did.
[Major Robert Stiles, in Four Years Under Marse Robert, pages 349-350.]
There is one feature of our Confederate struggle, to which I have already made two or three indirect allusions, as to which there has been such a strange popular misapprehension that I feel as if there rested upon the men who thoroughly understand the situation a solemn obligation to bring out strongly and clearly the sound and true view of the matter. I refer to an impression, quite common, that the desertions from the Confederate armies, especially in the latter part of the war, indicated a general lack of devotion to the cause on the part of the men in the ranks.
On the contrary, it is my deliberate conviction that Southern soldiers who remained faithful under the unspeakable pressure of letters and messages revealing suffering, starvation, and despair at home displayed more than human heroism. The men who felt this strain most were the husbands of young wives and fathers of young children, whom they had supported by their labor, manual or mental. As the lines of communication in the Confederacy were more and more broken and destroyed, and the ability, both of county and public authorities and of neighbors, to aid them became less and less, the situation of such families became more and more desperate, and their appeals more and more piteous to their only earthly helpers who were far away, filling their places in “the thin gray line.” Meanwhile the enemy sent into our camps, often by our own pickets, circulars offering our men indefinite parole, with free transportation to their homes.
I am not condemning the Federal Government or military authorities for making these offers or putting out these circulars; but if there was ever such a thing as a conflict of duties, that conflict was presented to the private soldiers of the Confederate army who belonged to the class just mentioned, and who received, perhaps simultaneously, one of these home letters and one of these Federal circulars; and if ever the strain of such a conflict 152 was great enough to unsettle a man’s reason and to break a man’s heart strings these men were subjected to that strain.
[J. L. Underwood.]
When Sherman’s army was making its celebrated “march to the sea,” it cut a swath of fire and desolation from Atlanta to Savannah and on through the Carolinas. What food was not seized for the army was consumed by fire. Mills and barns and hundreds of dwellings were consigned to the flames. Most of the people fled from the approach of the Federals and especially were the old men, who might be thought by negroes and bummers to have money concealed on their persons or premises, afraid to fall into their hands. Somewhere not far from Milledgeville, a well-to-do farmer lay hid in the woods where he saw the Federals enter his premises and carry off everything of any use or value. Not a strip of bedding, not an ear of corn, a hough of a cow nor the tail of a pig did they leave him. Before the Yankee brigade got entirely out of sight the old farmer came into his desolate home. One glance at the wreck and away he went in pursuit of the Federals. “Oh, General, General, stop your command,” was the cry. On they marched without hearing him. On he rushed and cried as he ran, “Oh, General, oh, General, stop your command.” Finally when he was nearly out of breath the cry was heard and the brigade halted.
“What’s the matter, man?” said the soldiers, as he passed on by them, his face all flushed with excitement.
“Where’s the General?”
“Yonder he is, sitting on that black horse.”
Everybody stood still to hear the breathless message.
“Oh, General!”
“Well, what’s the trouble, sir?”
“General, your men have been yonder to my house and literally ruined me. They have taken everything I have 153 on God’s earth; they have left me nothing but one old drake, and he says he is very lonesome, and he wishes you would come back and get him.”
This was too much for the soldiers. Up went a shout of laughter and a yell all up and down the lines. The general was completely unhorsed by the desperate drollery of the old farmer, and rolled on the ground. Calling the man to him, he heard more of his story and finally had a list made of all the property which had been taken from him and had it all sent back to him, and the old rebel and the old drake felt better.
I saw much of that old drake’s territory. It was the only drake or fowl of any kind I ever heard of being left by Sherman’s bummers. I was with a cavalry company on Sherman’s flanks or front all the way to Savannah. Miles and miles of smoke from burning houses, barns, and mills could be seen every day and the red line shone by night. He did not burn all the dwellings, but for months and years there stood the lone chimneys of hundreds of once happy homes. These chimneys were called “Sherman’s sentinels.” As he said, “War is hell.” It is hell when conducted on the devil’s plan instead of the principles of civilized warfare. For all time to come the march of Sherman and the burning of the Shenandoah Valley by Sheridan will cause the American patriot, North and South, to hang his head in shame.
The women and children in the burned district were, in many localities, reduced almost to starvation. There is a lady living now near Blakely, Ga., who, as a little girl fourteen years old, walked fifteen miles to bring a half bushel of meal for her mother’s family. Some of the old men were murdered. The body of old Mr. Brewer, of Effingham county, father of Judge Harlan Brewer of Waycross, was never seen by his family after he was made prisoner. The charred remains of a man were found in a burned mill not far away. Sherman was the right man in the right place. He had lived in the South as a teacher and knew her people; and knew that in fair and honorable warfare the South never could be subdued. He knew, too, the devotion of Southern men to 154 home and family, and he knew that the quickest way to thin the lines of Lee and Johnston was to fire the homes and beggar the families of the Confederate soldiers. As soon as I saw the lines of his fire I said confidentially to my captain, “Our men in Virginia can’t stand this. Sherman has whipped us with fire. He drives the women and children out of Atlanta and then burns the country ahead of them. Our cause is lost.” And it was.