The tallow candles were lighted on each side of my bureau—the time came when I remembered those two tallow candles as a piece of reckless and foolish extravagance—when there was a rap at my door and Mrs. Rixey entered to ask if I would share my room with a lady who had come unexpectedly. A heavy snow was falling, and the wind was blowing it into drifts. The idea of sending anybody out in such weather was not to be thought of for a moment, so saying yes I hurried through with my dressing and went down to the parlor. Mrs. Rixey’s house was filled with Confederates who were there either because it was near the army or because they were awaiting an opportunity to run the blockade. Our evenings were always gay, and when I entered the parlor this evening there was as usual a merry party, and, also as usual, there were several officers of rank in the room. I was so busy-sending messages to mother and Milicent by a little lady who meant to run the blockade to Baltimore as soon as possible, that I did not catch my roommate’s name when Mrs. Rixey introduced her.
She seemed to be nineteen, or, perhaps, twenty—rather young, I thought, to be traveling alone. True, I was not older, but then I was married, which made all the difference in the world. What made her an object of special interest to every woman present, was that she was exceedingly well dressed. It had been a long, long time since we had seen a new dress! She was a brilliant talker, and soon everybody in the room was attracted to her, especially the men. She talked chiefly to the men—indeed, I am afraid she did not care particularly for the women—and at first we were a little piqued; but when we found that she was devoted to The Cause we were ready to forgive her anything. She soon let us know that she had come directly from Washington, where she had been a prisoner of the United States. She showed us her watch and told us how the prisoners in Washington had made the money up among themselves and presented it to her just before she left. I wish I had listened better to her account of her prison life and her adventures; but I was on the outer rim of the charmed circles, my head was full of Milicent and mother, Dan was at camp, and I couldn’t see him. I got sleepy, slipped quietly out of the room, and went upstairs and to bed. My roommate undressed and got to bed so quickly that night that I did not wake. The next morning when the maid came in to make the fire, we woke up face to face in the same bed, and then she told me that her name was Belle Boyd, and I knew for the first time that my bedfellow was the South’s famous female spy. When we got up she took a large bottle of cologne and poured it into the basin in which she was going to bathe. It was the first cologne I had seen for more than a year, and it was the last I saw until I ran the blockade.
That day, while we were at dinner, a servant, behind my chair, whispered:
“Somebody out dar wan’ ter see you right erway, mistis—er solger.”
When I went out into the hallway, there stood the most abject, pitiable-looking creature—a soldier, ragged and footsore! He was at the end of the hall farthest from the dining-room, and looked as if he didn’t wish to attract attention.
He wore gray trousers patched with blue—or were they blue patched with gray?—and a jacket which had as much Federal blue as Confederate gray in it. From the color of his uniform, he belonged equally to both armies. His trousers were much too short for him, and altogether too small. His shoes were heavy brogans twice too large for him, and tied on with strings. He was without socks and his ankles showed naked and sore between trousers and shoes. He had on a bedticking shirt, a tobacco-bag of bedticking hung by a string from a button of his shirt—a button which, by the way, was doing more than double duty—and an old slouch hat was pulled over his face.
“You wanted to see me, sir?” I asked, stopping at a short distance from him.
He looked up quickly.
“How do you do, Nell?” he said. “I got leave to come from camp to see you to-day. My company got in from Maryland yesterday.”
“Dick!” I cried in amazement; and then I burst into tears. Dick, our dandy, to look like this! Laughter mingled with weeping.
“Good gracious, Nell! what is the matter?” he said.
“Dick, Dick, how you look!”
“Hush, Nell! Good gracious! You’ll have everybody in the dining-room out here to look at me.”
Then I began to beg incoherently that he would go in and dine with me. I think Dick was hungry, but he was not that hungry. In his present garb starvation would not have driven him into a dining-room where ladies were. He looked toward the door with abject terror, and tried to hide himself behind the hat-rack. I was puzzled to know what I should do with him. As a young lady was my roommate it was out of the question to take him to my room, and he positively refused to go into the parlor. While we debated, the dining-room door opened and the ladies filed out into the hall. Unkempt, unshorn, patched, ragged, and dirty, a very travesty of his former foppish self, Dick went through the introductions with what grace he might.
Fortunately my friends who surrounded him were in sympathy with the threadbare Confederate soldier, and ready to help him to the extent of their power. One friend, whose husband had a shirt to spare, gave that to him; another lady found him a pair of socks; some one else contributed a pair of homespun drawers. I was drawn aside and consulted as to the best and most graceful way of conveying these presents to him. They feared that he might be wounded and insulted if the matter were not delicately managed. But Dick was past all that. He accepted the goods the gods provided in the spirit in which they were bestowed, and was radiant with his good luck, and with gratitude to the fair donors. While we held council he had been in Mrs. Rixey’s and Miss Boyd’s hands, and had had a good dinner.
As he stood in the hall ready to go back to camp, Belle Boyd came down the staircase, carrying a large new blanket shawl.
“You must let me wrap you up, lieutenant,” she said, putting the shawl around Dick’s shoulders and pinning it together.
Dick blushed and demurred. A shawl like that was too much—it was a princely gift, a fortune.
“I can’t let you go back to camp in this thin jacket,” she said, “while I have this shawl. It is serving our country, lieutenant, while it protects her soldier from the cold. I may need it? No, no, I can get others where this one came from.”
There was nothing for him to do but to accept it. He looked at me with something of his old humor in his eyes as he started off.
“I’ll be sure to come to see you again, Nell,” he said.
After he left the house we saw him stoop, take off his shoes, and walk off with them in his hands. His feet left marks of blood in the snow. Shoes had been dealt out to the army only that morning, and his feet were so sore that his heavy, ill-fitting brogans were unendurable.
I have heard of many generous deeds like this done by Belle Boyd. Once, when riding out to review some troops near Winchester, she met a soldier, a mere boy, trudging along painfully on his bare feet. She took off her own shoes and made him put them on; they were fine cloth gaiters laced at the side, and trimmed with patent leather. Some one remonstrated; the shoes would not last the boy long enough to pay for her sacrifice.
“Oh,” she said, “if it rests his poor young feet only a little while, I am repaid. He is not old enough to be away from his mother.”
She did not spend another night with us. She seemed to feel that she had the weight of the Confederacy on her shoulders, and took the afternoon train for Richmond.
Not long after this I had to give up my room to Governor Bailey of Florida and his family. They had come on in search of their son, whom they had for months believed to be dead, and who, they had only recently learned, was alive and in the mountains near Culpeper Court-house.
It seems that young Bailey had been shot at the battle of Cedar Mountain and left on the field for dead. An old negro, his body-servant, had carried him off by stealth to a hut in the woods, and there, with such simple resources as he had, had dressed and bandaged the wound. The hut was a mere shell of a house, a habitation for bats and owls; it had been unused so long that no paths led to it, and Uncle Reuben’s chief object in carrying his master there was to hide him from the Yankees. He had no medicine, no doctor, no help, the master was ill for a long time from his wounds and with a slow fever, and through it all Uncle Reuben never left him except at night to forage for both. Food in the Confederacy was far from plentiful, and under the circumstances almost impossible to get. The hardships they endured seem inconceivable to-day. Afraid to show himself lest in doing so he should turn his master over into the hands of the dreaded Yankees, the faithful old servant saw no way of communicating with the family. He was in a strange country; he could not leave his charge, alone and desperately ill, long enough to seek advice and assistance, and, besides, how was he to know the friend who would help him from the man who might betray him? He knew but one token—the Confederate uniform, and that was not always to be trusted, for spies wore it.
Confederate troops must have passed near his hiding-place several times, but in his anxiety to save his master from the Federals, the negro hid him from the Confederates as well.
It happened at last that a party of skirmishers who had frequently deployed along the obscure roads intersecting the country, noticed, rising from the depths of the forest, a thin streak of smoke suggesting deserters or spies, and began to investigate. So, it happened that they came upon the hut, and a poor, old, half-starved negro watching what seemed to be little more than a human skeleton. When convinced that his discoverers were really Confederates, his joy and eagerness knew no bounds.
“Ef any uv you gentlemen will jes send a ’spatch to Ole Marster,” he said tremulously, “Ole Marster’ll be hyer toreckly. He’ll be hyer jes ez quick ez de kyars kin git him hyer. We ain’t got no money. But Ole Marster’ll pay fur de ’spatch jes ez soon ez he comes. Ole Marster’s rich. He’ll pay fur anything anybody do fur Mars Hugh, an’ be thankful ter do it. Ole Marster’ll come arter Mars Hugh jes ez quick ez I kin git him word. He’ll pay anybody fur evvything.”
The soldiers hardly knew what to do; perhaps they never considered that they could do anything but what they did: ride away and leave behind them the pair in the hut. Perhaps, poor fellows, there was nothing else they could do. Comfortable hospitals for Southern soldiers were scarce, and the Confederate soldier had little to give to any one, even to his sick comrade.
The negro, the guardian in this instance, was not anxious to have his charge moved. His whole concern was “to git word to Ole Marster.”
“I kin take kyeer uv him,” he insisted, “jes lak I bin doin’ ’twell Ole Marster come. Den he’ll know what to do. Mars Hugh ain’t fitten to move now. Ef twarn’t done jes right, he couldn’t stan’ it, case he’s too weakly. ’Twon’t do fur no strange folks to tech him nor ’sturb him, lessen dey knows how. Mars Hugh jes same ez er baby.”
They gave the negro the rations they had with them, and the whisky in their canteens—it was all they had to give except their scant clothes—and rode on to Culpeper Court-house, where one of them sent the despatch to “Ole Marster,” according to the directions Uncle Reuben had given. And our Florida party was “Ole Marster” and his wife, and poor Hugh Bailey’s young wife and her uncle.
It was well into the night after their arrival when four soldiers carried up to my room a stretcher holding a skeleton of a man. A gaunt, ragged old negro followed.
The next day the party started for home, but they never got poor Hugh as far as Florida. They stopped in Richmond at the Exchange, and there Hugh Bailey died the next day.
And now began for me the nursing in hospital wards that made up so large a part of our lives during the war.
“Jeter shot, perhaps fatally. Go to the hospital and see what you can do for him. I have telegraphed to his wife and mother.
The orderly who brought me this message from my husband said that Captain Jeter’s command had been in a skirmish that day, and that the captain had fallen, mortally wounded, it was thought.
I went to him at once. He was lying unconscious across the bed as if he had fallen or been dropped there, dressed in full uniform with his coat buttoned up to his throat, breathing stertorously, and moaning. There was a small black hole in his temple. I thought he must be uncomfortable with his clothes on, and proposed to the nurse that we should try to undress him, but she said he was dying and it would only disturb him. All that day and until late that night I stayed with him, changing the towels on his head, wiping the ooze from his lips, listening to that agonizing moaning, and thinking of the wife and mother who could not reach him. About ten o’clock he seemed to be strangling.
“It’s phlegm in his throat,” the nurse said. She ran her finger down his throat, pulling out a quid of tobacco that had been in his mouth when he was shot and that had lain there ever since.
He died at midnight, and his mother came the next day at noon. I don’t know which was the hardest to stand, her first burst of agony or her endless questions when she could talk.
“Did he suffer much, Nell?”
“Not much, I think. He was unconscious from the time he was shot.”
“Nell, did he send me any message? Did he call for me?”
“He was unconscious,” I repeated gently, “and we must be thankful that he was. If he had been conscious he would have suffered more.”
“Yes, yes; I reckon I am thankful. I don’t know how I am now. But I’m trying to submit myself to the will of the Lord. Nellie, you don’t know what a sweet baby he was! the prettiest little fellow! as soon as he could walk, he was always toddling after me and pulling at my skirts.”
I turned my head away.
“Last night I dozed for a minute and I dreamed about him. He was my baby again, and I had him safe in my arms, and there never had been any war. But I didn’t sleep much. I couldn’t come as soon as I got the telegram. I had to wait for a train. And I was up nearly all night cooking things to bring him.”
She opened her basket and satchel and showed me. They were full of little cakes and crackers, wine jellies and blanc-mange, and other delicacies for the sick.
“Do you think if I had gotten here in time he could have eaten them?” she asked wistfully.
“He could not eat anything,” I said, choking back my tears.
“You don’t think he was hungry at all, Nell? The soldiers have so little to eat sometimes—and I have heard it said that people are sometimes hungry when they are dying.”
“Dear Mrs. Jeter, he looked well and strong except for the wound. You know the troops had just returned from the valley, where they had plenty to eat.”
“I am glad of that. I was just getting a box ready to send him full of everything I thought he would like. And I had some clothes for him. I began making the clothes as soon as I heard the troops had come back to Culpeper. You say he was wounded in the head?”
Neither of us closed our eyes that night. She walked the floor asking the same questions over and over again, and I got so I answered yes or no just as I saw she wanted yes or no and without regard to the truth.
Several months after this I saw Captain Jeter’s widow. She was surrounded by his little children—none of them old enough to realize their loss.
“Nell,” she said, “you remember the day in Petersburg when we stood together and watched the troops start off for Norfolk—and everybody was cheering?”
“Yes.”
“Well, war does not look to me now as it did then. God grant it may spare your husband to you, Nell!”
I shivered.
I called on another widowed friend. Her husband—a captain, too—had been sent home, his face mutilated past recognition by the shell that killed him. Her little ones were around her, and the captain’s sword was hanging on the wall. When I spoke to her of it as a proud possession, her eyes filled. His little boy said with flashing eyes:
“It’s my papa’s s’ode. I wants to be a man. An’ I’ll take it down and kill all the Yankees!”
“H-sh!” his mother put her hand over his mouth. “God grant there may be no war when you are a man!” she said fervently.
“Amen!” I responded.
“Oh, Nell,” she said, “when it’s all over, what good will it do? It will just show that one side could fight better than the other, or had more money and men than the other. It won’t show that anybody’s right. You can’t know how it is until it hits you, Nell. I’m proud of him, and proud of his sword; I wouldn’t have had him out of it all. I wouldn’t have had him a coward. But oh, Nell, I feel that war is wrong! I’m sorry for every Northern woman who has a circle like this around her, and a sword like that hanging on her wall.”
The little boy put his arm around her neck. “Mamma,” he said, “are you sorry for the Yankees?”
“My dear,” she said, “I am sorry for all little boys who haven’t got a papa, and I’m sorry for their mammas. And I don’t want you ever to kill anybody.”
Our troops had to get out of winter quarters before they were well settled in them. I am not historian enough to explain how it was, but the old familiar trip “On to Richmond” had been started again, Burnside directing it. Every new Federal commander-in-chief started for Richmond as soon as he was in command. There was a popular song called “Richmond is a Hard Road to Travel.” They always found it so, though they got there eventually.
The cavalry, as usual, were on the wing first. General Rooney (W. H. F.) Lee’s division was sent to Fredericksburg in November, I think. My husband, of course, went with it. I was to go to Richmond and wait until I heard whether it would be safe for me to join him.
From Richmond I ran over to Petersburg, saw many old friends and ran back to Richmond again, fearful lest a message should come from Dan and I should miss it. I looked for a telegram every day, and kept my trunk packed. It was well that I did.
One morning my door was burst open unceremoniously and Dan rushed in.
“Ready to go, Nell?”
“Yes.”
“Come. Now.”
I put on my bonnet, caught up my satchel, stuffed brush, tooth-brush, and comb into it and was ready. Dan had stepped into the hall to call a porter to take the trunk down. We followed it, jumped into the omnibus, and it rolled off—all this in about five minutes from the time he burst my door open. On the omnibus, among other passengers, was a gentleman who had a brother in Dan’s command. This gentleman had so many questions to ask about the army, and so many messages to send his brother that Dan and I hardly exchanged a dozen sentences before we were at the depot. He established me in my seat, got my baggage checked, sat down, and then exclaiming:
“Good gracious! I forgot that bundle for General Lee. It’s on top of the omnibus, Nell. I’ll be back in a minute,” and darted off.
At the next station, when the conductor came for my ticket, I said:
“See my husband, please. He must be in the smoking-car.”
A gentleman across the aisle remarked:
“Excuse me, madam, but I think the gentleman who came in with you got left. I saw him get off the omnibus with a bundle in his hand and run after the car, but he missed it.”
“Then I don’t know what to do,” I said in despair to the conductor. “I haven’t a ticket, and I haven’t any money.”
“Where are you going?” he asked kindly.
“I don’t know!” I gasped.
The conductor looked blank. I explained the manner of my starting to him.
“Do you know where your husband’s command is stationed?”
“No, I don’t know that either. You see,” I explained, “as he belongs to the cavalry it is much harder to keep up with his whereabouts than if he were in the infantry.”
“What division is he in?”
“General Rooney Lee’s.”
“Do you know what brigade?”
“Chambliss’s.”
“All right. I know what to do with you, then. You stop at Milford. Your husband will come on the freight this afternoon—at least, that’s what I expect him to do. Your best plan is to wait at Milford for him.”
When we reached Milford the conductor took me out and introduced me to the landlord of the tavern, and I was shown into what I suppose might be called by grace the reception-room. It was literally on the ground floor, being built on native brown earth. The ceiling was low, the room was full of smoke, and rough-looking men sat about with pipes in their mouths. I asked for a private room, and was shown into one upstairs, but this was so cold that I went out into the porch which overhung the street and walked up and down in the sun to keep myself warm. Very soon the gong sounded for dinner. I went down, sat with a rough crowd around a long table, swallowed what I could, and went back to my promenade on the porch. After a time an ambulance drove up and stopped under the porch, and an orderly sang out:
“Adjutant of the Thirteenth here?”
I leaned over the railing.
“I am his wife,” I said.
He saluted. “Can you tell me where the adjutant is, ma’am?”
“He will be here on the next train.”
“That might be midnight, ma’am, or it might be to-morrow. My orders were to meet the adjutant here about this time.”
“The adjutant got left by the regular passenger. But a freight was to leave Richmond soon after the passenger, and the adjutant will come on that.”
“The freight?” the orderly looked doubtful. “Maybe so.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Well, ma’am, all trains are uncertain, and freight trains more so. And sometimes freight trains are mighty pertickular about what kind of freight they carry.”
I laughed, but the orderly did not see the point. Dan’s body-servant was to drive the ambulance back, so the orderly, turning it over to a man whom he picked up in the tavern, went back to camp according to instructions. As soon as he was out of sight I began to repent. If Dan shouldn’t come on that freight, what would I do with myself and that strange man and the ambulance and the mules? It was getting late when the welcome sound of a whistle broke upon my ear and the freight came creeping in. On the engine beside the engineer stood my husband, with that abominable little bundle of General Lee’s in his hand.
“Josh got left somewhere,” Dan said of his servant, “the man will have to drive.”
At last we were off, Dan and I sitting comfortably back in the ambulance. I was very cold when I first got in, but he wrapped me up well in the blanket and I snuggled up against him, and began to tell him how nice and warm he was, and how thankful I was that there was no possibility of his getting left from me between here and camp.
“I had a time of it to come on that freight,” he said.
“The orderly said you would.” I repeated the orderly’s remark, and Dan laughed.
“He told the truth. I had to do more swearing to the square inch than I have been called upon to do for some time. I knew you didn’t even know where you were going, and that I must get here to-night. As soon as I heard about the freight, I went to the conductor. He said passengers couldn’t be taken on the freight, it was against orders. ‘I belong to the army as you see,’ I urged, ‘I am an officer and it is important for me to rejoin my command.’ He insisted still that I couldn’t go, that it was against orders. I told him that it was a bundle for General Lee that had got me left, and I pictured your predicament in moving colors. He was obdurate. ‘If the freights begin to take passengers,’ he said, ‘there would soon be no room for any other sort of freight on them.’ I felt like kicking him. It was then that I told him that orders were not made for fools to carry out, and the swearing began. I threatened to report him. He looked uneasy and was ready to make concessions which politeness had not been able to win, but I walked off. Evidently, like a mule, he respected me more for cursing him. I had my plan laid. Just as the train moved out of the station I swung on to the engine, and politely introduced myself to the engineer. He had overheard my conversation with the conductor—the first part of it, not the part where the swearing came in—and he invited me to get off the engine. While we were debating the engine was traveling. I saw that he was about to stop it.
“Quick as a flash I had my pistol at his head.
“‘Now,’ I said, ‘drive on with this engine, or I’ll kill you and run it myself!’ I am not telling you all the words I used, Nell, you’ll forgive me this time, I had to get to you, and honest English is wasted on fools and mules. ‘Hold off!’ he said, ‘and don’t put that d—d thing so close to my head, and you can ride up here and be d—d to you.’ The invitation was not very polite, but I accepted it. I gave him some good tobacco, and we got to be friends before I got off.”
The short day was done. I was tired and warm and sleepy and went to sleep while Dan was talking. I don’t know how long I had dozed when the driver doubled up suddenly and turned head over heels backward into my lap. I struggled from under him, and Dan gave him a push that helped to free me and at the same time jumped on to the driver’s seat and caught up the lines.
“Lord-a-mussy on me!” I heard the man groaning, “dat ar d—n mu-el! she have kicked me in de pit er my stummick!”
He gathered himself together in a corner of the ambulance, and continued to express forcible opinions of the mule.
“Dan,” I said, “please get away from there! That mule might kick you.”
“Don’t be silly, Nell! Somebody’s got to drive.”
“But, Dan, if you get kicked, you can’t drive.”
“I won’t get kicked. I know how to talk to a mule. Just shut your ears, Nell, if you don’t want to hear me. I’ve got to convince this mule. She’s just like that engineer and conductor. As soon as I get through giving her my opinion in language she can understand, she’ll travel all right.”
Presently Dan called out: “You can unstop your ears now, Nell—I think she understands.”
“Dan,” I said, “are you cold out there?”
“Not a bit of it! This isn’t anything to a soldier. But a soldier’s wife, eh, Nell? Getting to be rather hard lines, isn’t it?”
“Dan,” I said, my teeth chattering, “don’t it seem that I have had more adventures in one day than I am entitled to?”
“Rather! By the way, Josh got on that same freight. How he managed it, the Lord only knows! Worked himself in with the brakeman, I suppose. But he got off—to look around, I reckon—just like him!—at some station before Milford and got left. He’ll come straggling into camp to-morrow. You see there’s another accident you can credit your account with. Josh could have driven these mules instead of that fool white man over there who don’t know what to do with a mule. Then I would have been back there entertaining you, and you would have been complimenting me by going to sleep.” He drove on singing:
We caught up with another ambulance. In it were an army friend of Dan’s with his wife, and she proved the straw that broke the back of my endurance. She played the martyr. She had rugs, and shawls, and blankets. I cross-examined her and made her show that she hadn’t been left on a car by herself without a ticket or a cent of money, and with no knowledge of where she was going, that the driver of her ambulance hadn’t been kicked in the stomach and tumbled himself backward into her lap and nearly broken her bones, and that my case was far worse than hers. But in spite of it, she complained of everything, and had Dan and her husband sympathizing so with her that they had no time to sympathize with me. I sat, almost frozen, huddled up in the one shawl that answered for shawl, blanket, and rug, and tried to keep my teeth from chattering and myself from hating that whining Mrs. Gummidge of a woman.
At last our ambulance drew up in front of the Rev. Mr. McGuire’s, where we were to stop. There was a hot supper ready, in parlor and dining-room cheerful flames leaped up from hickory logs on bright brass fire-dogs, and our welcome was as cheery as the glow of the fire. As our ambulance had driven into the gate a few minutes in advance of the other, and as Dan had also engaged board for me several days before, I had a right to the first choice of rooms. One of these was large with a bright fire burning in the fireplace, and a great downy feather-bed on the four-poster; the other was small, and had neither fireplace nor feather-bed. Of course “Mrs. Gummidge” got the best room. Dan had to go back to camp. I slept on my hard bed in my cold room and cried for Milicent and mother; and the next morning I broke the ice in my bowl when I went to take my bath. I was very, very miserable that morning. I was not out of my twenties, I had been a spoiled child, I had not seen Milicent or mother since my marriage, I had nearly lost my husband, and I had been ill unto death. Following my husband around as I did, I yet saw very little of him, and I endured hardships of every sort. I was in the land of war, and in spite of all his efforts to protect me life was full of fears and horrors. I do not mean that it was all woe. There were smiles, and music, and laughter, too; my hosts were kind, Dan came over from camp whenever he could, and life was too full of excitement ever to be dull. During the day I managed fairly well—it was at night that the horrors overwhelmed me. My room was cheerless, my bed was hard and cold—I wanted Milicent, I wanted mother. I felt that the time had come when I must see them and I couldn’t: there was no way! The longing grew upon me the more I struggled against it, until there was no risk I would not have run to see them. I was sitting in the parlor one night thinking with indescribable longing of the happy, care-free days in Norfolk, and seeing dissolving pictures of home in the hickory fire. Tears were rolling down my cheeks, for while I was living over those dear old days I was living in the present, too. Suddenly I heard a voice in the hall—Dan’s and another’s!
I sprang up. And there was Dan, and behind him in the doorway stood a graceful figure in a long wrap. And a face—Milicent’s face—pale and weary, but indescribably lovely and loving, was looking toward me with shining eyes.
“Millie!”
“Nell!”
That was one time I forgot Dan, but he didn’t mind. He stayed with us as long as he could, and after he left Milicent and I talked and talked. Milicent—she was a widow now—had come all the way from Baltimore to see me—she had left mother and Bobby to come to see me! My little bed wasn’t hard any more, my room wasn’t cheerless any more; I didn’t mind having to break the ice for my bath. Ah, me, what a night that was and how happy we were until Dan’s command was moved!
Millie and I—Catholics—wish to pay tribute to the sweet piety of that Protestant home which sheltered us. Every evening the big Bible was brought out and prayers were held, the negro servants coming in to share in the family devotions.
The War Department of the United States issued a notice that on such a date a flag-of-truce boat would go from Washington to Richmond, and that all persons wishing to go must obtain passes and come to that city by a certain date.
I had not heard from my sister, Mrs. Grey, for some time. We were very anxious about her, and I determined to seize this opportunity to get to her.
I was fortunate in making one of a party of three ladies, one of whom was Mrs. Montmorency, the widow of an English officer, and the other Mrs. Dangerfield, of Alexandria, Virginia. On our arrival at Washington late at night, we found all the hotels crowded and were told that it would be impossible to get a room anywhere. Fortunately for us, Mrs. Dangerfield was acquainted with the proprietor of one of the hotels where we inquired, and here, after much difficulty, we secured two small rooms. As he left us the old lady said triumphantly:
“Now, see what’s in a name! If my name hadn’t been Dangerfield none of us could have gotten a place to sleep in to-night.”
The next morning we started for the flag-of-truce boat. Immediately upon our arrival our baggage was weighed and all over two hundred pounds refused transportation. The confusion was indescribable. As soon as the steamer cleared the wharf every stateroom was locked, and the five hundred passengers on board, with the exception of the children, were subjected to a rigid examination—their persons, their clothing, their trunks were all thoroughly searched. We were marched down two by two between guards, and passed into the lower cabin, where four women removed and searched our clothing; our shoes, stockings, and even our hair were subjected to rigid inspection.
Mrs. Dangerfield being the oldest lady on board was by courtesy exempted. As for myself, I fell into the hands of a pleasant woman, who looked ashamed of the office she had to perform. She passed her hand lightly over and within my dress, and over my hair; touched my pockets and satchels, which I willingly showed her, and dismissed me with a smile and the kind remark, “Oh, I know you have nothing contraband,” while around me stood ladies shivering in one garment.
I had tea and sugar, both contraband articles, in a large satchel upstairs in the care of the provost marshal. I out-Yankeed the Yankees this trip. As soon as I had heard that we were to be searched and have our things taken from us, I had walked up to the provost marshal, told him I had tea and coffee—a small quantity of each—and asked to be allowed to use them. In the gruffest manner he bade me bring them immediately to him. My dejected looks must have inspired him with some pity, for when I went off and brought back my satchel and handed it to him, he turned and said in the kindest manner:
“Now I have saved them for you. After the search is over come to me and I will return them to you.”
I thanked him and hurried off to impart the good news to my friend Mrs. Dangerfield. I found her in a most animated discussion with an officer who had just pronounced her camphor-bottle contraband. The old lady was asserting loudly her inability to stand the trip or to live without her camphor-bottle. After much argument and persuasion she was allowed to retain it.
The scenes on deck at this time were too painful to dwell upon. Mothers who had periled everything and spent their last dollar in buying shoes for their children had to see them rudely taken away. Materials for clothing, and pins, needles, buttons, thread, and all the little articles so needful at home and so difficult to obtain in the Confederacy at that time were pronounced contraband. Men went about with their arms filled with plunder taken from defenseless women who stood wringing their hands and pleading, crying, arguing, quarreling.
By this time we were far down the Potomac. Weak, hungry, and seasick, we were glad when dinner-time drew near. The official notice had stated that food would be provided, which we, of course, had construed into three meals a day of good steamboat fare. The bell rang out loudly at last, and we all rushed to the cabin, where to our utter consternation we saw nothing whatever to eat, no set table, and nothing that looked like eating. Coming up the steps was a dirty boathand with a still dirtier bucket and a string of tin cups. He deposited these on a table and then called upon the ladies to help themselves to atrocious coffee, without milk, sugar, or spoons. Down he went again, and came up laden with tin plates piled one on the other, and containing what he called a sandwich. This sandwich was a chunk—not a slice—of bread, spread with dreadful mustard, a piece of coarse ham and another chunk of bread. Each person was generously allowed one of the tin plates and one sandwich. The very thought of swallowing such food was revolting, and more particularly so because we were tantalized with odors of beefsteak and chicken and other appetizing delicacies prepared for the officers’ table.
How thankful I was to the provost for confiscating my tea and coffee and sugar and crackers and ginger-cakes! Each of our party had something to add. Down upon the lower deck we had seen an immense pile of loaves of bread, and near them a large stove. We coaxed the sailor in charge to get us a clean loaf from the center of the pile and to put our tea on his stove to draw. In a few moments we disappeared to enjoy in our stateroom the luxury of a cup of tea! How others fared I do not know. We were the only people, I think, who had saved any tea. Almost every one had brought a few crackers, or cakes of some kind which they had managed to keep, and these they must have lived on with the abominable coffee.
When we reached the boat that morning only one stateroom was vacant, and this we contrived to secure. It was crowded comfort for three persons, but we were thankful. When night came our less fortunate fellow travelers were scattered in every direction on the floor, their only accommodations filthy camp mattresses without sheets, pillows, or covering of any kind except their own cloaks and shawls.
We traveled slowly and cautiously, fearing that in the night our flag might not be distinctly seen and we might be fired upon. The provost and his officers were in most things polite and kind. The men got up a little play between decks for the amusement of the ladies; but our party was too ultra-Southern even to look on.
We remained off Fortress Monroe all night, only starting at daylight for the James River. The trip up the James was accomplished in safety and without incident of special interest, if we except a very sudden and desperate love affair between a Southern girl and a Federal officer and the amusement which it afforded us.
As our boat neared the wharf at City Point, on all sides were heard cries of:
“Here we are in Dixie!”
As soon as we were landed a rush was made for the cars, and after everybody was seated the provost marshal came through bidding us good-by, shaking hands with many and kissing the pretty young girls. He had been very kind, and, as far as lay in his power, had done so much for the comfort of all and for the pleasure of the young people that most of us felt as if we were parting from a friend. Indeed, some were so enthusiastic that before we reached City Point they went among the passengers begging subscriptions to a fund for purchasing the provost a handsome diamond ring as a testimonial. Many, however, refused indignantly, declaring that they did not feel called upon to reward the provost for confiscating every article possible, and for giving us for seven consecutive meals spoiled bacon, mustard, and undrinkable coffee.
In Petersburg little or no preparation had been made for us, although the hotel proprietors knew the truce boat was expected that afternoon at City Point. We were scarcely able to secure an ordinary supper, and had to sleep, eight or ten in a room, on mattresses laid on the floor, and which, though clean and comfortable enough, were without covering. The next day we parted to go in different directions.
Late one day we saw an ambulance driving up to the gate through the pouring rain. A few minutes after, Patsy, the housemaid, came in to say that the adjutant had sent for his wife and her sister. We supposed that the two men with the ambulance were rough and common soldiers—one of them, in fact, the one who had given the message to Patsy, was a negro driver—and sent them around to the kitchen to warm and dry themselves. Very soon Aunt Caroline, the cook and a great authority, came in hurriedly and attacked Mrs. McGuire.
“Law, mistess! Y’all sholy orter ax one er dem men in de house. He sholy orten ter bin sont to de kitchen. He ain’t got no bizness in de kitchen. He’s quality. You orter ax him to come to de parlor. He specks you gwine ter ax him to come to de parlor, case he done bresh hissef up, and he’s puttin’ sweet grease on his har, and he say he kin play on de orgin.”
Such accomplishments as these changed the whole situation. Aunt Caroline was sent to fetch him. When she threw open the door and announced him and he entered, bowing low and gracefully, we could hardly restrain a laugh, for we had a good view of the top of his head, and it was fairly ashine! He was Lieutenant Dimitri of New Orleans, my husband’s courier, who had been sent as our escort. A most efficient and agreeable one he proved.
If I had only been a young lady following my father or brother around, how interesting these memoirs might be made, for Lieutenant Dimitri was only one of many charming men I met. Available heroes pass through, bow, and make their exits. And I am afraid of boring my friends with the one hero who remains because he is my husband; consequently I keep him as modestly as possible in the background. He had risen steadily in rank, and I was proud of him, but I must say that my memory is less vivid as to his deeds of gallantry than it is to what might have been reckoned minor matters by an older woman. The greatest crosses of my life were separation from my mother and sister, telling my husband good-by, and beholding him in a hopelessly shabby uniform. The greatest blessings of my life were found in the little courtesies and kindnesses of life and in getting my husband back to me, safe and sound.
When morning came it was still raining, and the roads in such a condition that Mr. McGuire, fearing our ambulance would break down, opposed our going. But I knew that the men and team must return to camp according to orders, so we started off in spite of the weather and Mr. McGuire’s protest.
We had not gone far when our driver was halted by a vidette who barred the way.
“Is Adjutant Grey’s wife in the ambulance?”
“Yessuh.”
“Turn back. Smallpox ahead.”
The driver turned another road. It was only a short distance before we were halted again.
“Adjutant Grey’s wife in the ambulance?”
“Yessuh, she sho is.”
“Turn around. Smallpox this way.”
“Lord! how is I ter go?” groaned the driver.
At the next fork the driver paused with a look of utter distraction.
“I don’t kyeer whicherway we go, dar’ll be smallpox in de road sayin’ we can’t go datter way.” And he drove recklessly on the way the mules seemed to prefer. The mules struck it.
A vidette halted us again, but it was to say that we were traveling in the right direction and to give minute directions for the rest of our journey. There was a village and its neighborhood to be avoided, and we had to make a wide detour before the driver put us down, according to orders, at Mr. Wright’s.
Dan came in quite soon, looking as shabby as one of his own orderlies, but glad enough to see me. For some time here I was in a fool’s paradise in spite of the war and the fact that mother was far away in Baltimore, ignorant of what might be happening to us, for camp was very near, there were no active hostilities, and Dan came to see me every day.
Then the cavalry received marching orders. The night after I heard it I determined to tell Dan of a decision I had come to. Milicent had not spoken, but I knew the drift of her thoughts and purposes. We had not heard once from mother and Bobby since she left them in Baltimore. Milicent was going to them, and I had made up my mind to go with her. There was no return to Baltimore by flag of truce; the only way to get there was to run the blockade, a most dangerous and doubtful undertaking at this period of the war. But Milicent’s boy was in Baltimore, and mother was there. She had come to me; she would go to them, and I intended to go with her.
My heart was set on seeing mother. To be left alone now by both Milicent and Dan would drive me crazy; for Milicent to run the blockade alone would serve me as ill. Besides, I wanted some things for myself, some pins and needles, and nice shoes and pocket handkerchiefs and a new hat and a new cloak, and I wanted a new uniform for Dan. Dan had had no new uniform since his first promotion, a long time ago. He was an officer of high rank, and he was still wearing his old private’s uniform. He had traveled through rain and snow and mud, and had slept on the ground and fought battles in it. Though I had many times cleaned that uniform, darned it, patched it, turned it, scoured it, done everything that was possible to rejuvenate it, my shabby-looking soldier was a continual reproach to me. When Dan would come to see me I used to make him wrap up in a sheet or blanket while I worked away on his clothes with needle and thread, soap and water and smoothing irons. I was ready to run the blockade for a new uniform for Dan if for nothing else, but to tell him that I was going to run the blockade—there was the rub! Evening came and Dan with it, and the telling had to be done somehow.
“Dan,” I began, patting the various patches on his shabby knee, “I want you to have a new uniform.”
“Wish me a harp and a crown, Nell! One’s about as easy as the other. You’ll have to take it out in wanting, my girl.”
“I expect I could buy Confederate cloth in Baltimore.”
“Maybe—if you were there.”
“Dan, I think I’ll slip across the border and buy you a Confederate uniform, gold lace and all, from a Yankee tradesman, and then slip back here with it, and behold you in all the glory of it. Wouldn’t that be nice, Dan?”
“Rather!”
Dan took in his patches at a glance, perhaps by way of mental comparison between himself in this and himself in the imaginary new uniform. But I saw he did not understand me at all—I had to make things plain.
“Dan,” I said, “I am going to Baltimore.”
“What?” he thundered.
“I am going to run the blockade with Millie.”
“Have you lost your senses?”
“No, Dan. But I’m going to run the blockade with Millie—to get you a new uniform.”
“Nell, don’t be a goose!”
“And some shirts and some socks and some pins and needles—and I want to see mother—and Bobby—and—I’m going.”
“I’m not going to allow you to attempt such a thing!” he said gravely.
“I want to see mother—and to get a new uniform—and other things.”
Dan looked at me as if he thought I was crazy.
“Milicent is going—and I think I ought to go with her.”
“I don’t want Millie to go—I don’t think she ought to try it; and I won’t permit you to go off on such a wild-goose chase.”
I was silent a minute, trying to think how to tell him as respectfully as I could that I differed with him on this point. It all ended by my repeating in a stupid, poll-parrot fashion:
“I’m going with Millie to Baltimore.”
Dan looked at me as if he would like to spank me! Here was his obedient, docile girl-bride blossomed into a contumacious, rebellious wife!
I was ready to cry—nay, I was crying—but I still affirmed that I must go to Baltimore. Dan reasoned and argued, but that didn’t do any good. Then he swore, but swearing didn’t alter the case. The case was, indeed, beyond Dan, but he made a long and hard fight, and didn’t surrender for a long while. I cried all night, and he reasoned all night. When he saw that the case was hopeless, he started us to Petersburg under suitable escort. We had to go first to Petersburg in order to get the money which we wished to take North to exchange for all the goods and chattels we might be able to smuggle South.
Dan detailed a driver and an ambulance for our service and Lieutenant Johnston to act as escort. The morning we started it looked cloudy. Dan tried to dissuade us. I said I had always been a good weather prophet and I didn’t think it would rain. Millie reinforced me.
But when it actually came to telling Dan good-by, I broke down. His threadbare clothes plead with me both ways. I hung around his neck and did so much crying that he got sorry for me and helped me off.
“When I get you a new uniform, Dan—” I sobbed, as he tucked the old blanket shawl about me where I sat in the ambulance.
“Uniform be ——!” growled Dan. Then, seeing my crestfallen look, “I reckon I’ll like it well enough, Nell—when it comes. Good-by, girls. You’re mighty big geese. God bless you! If you change your minds in Petersburg—but, Lord! an earthquake wouldn’t change you! Good-by, my darling—God bless you! I reckon you’ll get along all right.”
The rusty coat-sleeve was out of sight, and I was on my way.
As we traveled along farther and farther from Dan, I kept on crying softly to myself now and then, turning my face from Milicent. Presently her arm stole around me.
“Do you feel so badly, darling?”
“I hate to leave Dan—I can’t bear it!”
“Then we’ll turn back, Nell.”
And our astonished driver and escort received orders to turn back toward camp.
“But in a few days,” I sobbed, “Dan—will—be—gone. And you—will be—gone. And I can’t stand that!”
And to the further confusion of escort, driver, and mules, we were turned again.
“Better not to do dat too offen, lessen we won’t git nowhar!” our driver muttered to himself. “Dese mules is clean upsot in dar min’s.”
I was upset in my mind, too. I continued to cry in a helpless, hopeless fashion, and was feeling that nothing on earth could make me more wretched than I already was when it began raining. Lieutenant Johnston, who had the soul of Mark Tapley, prophesied a shower and refused to leave his seat with the driver, but in a little while he was driven inside with us. It rained harder and harder—it poured. The ambulance began to leak and the straw on the floor got wet. Milicent and I huddled together under the old blanket shawl and drew over that a ragged piece of oilcloth; but the rain soaked through. Where Lieutenant Johnston sat there was a steady dripping, bursting now and then into a stream. But he was not to be daunted by discomforts or difficulties. He invented a trough for carrying off the water by making a dent in his broad-brimmed hat, pulling the brim into a point, and sticking it through a rent in the ambulance cover; and he was so merry over it all, and so convinced that things might be far worse and would soon be much better, that we were beginning to laugh at our own expense, when a sullen rushing and roaring reminded us that the worst of our troubles were still before us. We looked out of our ambulance upon the swollen waters of the Pamunkey River.
The thing on which we were to cross it was moored to the bank by a great chain. It was a lighter crowded with men and horses. There were soldiers at the ends and sides holding long sticks which they used as poles to direct and govern the craft. Our ambulance and mules were driven on along with other teams, and we walked into the midst of rearing and plunging horses, that threatened every minute to back off the lighter into the river and drag us with them, while our craft was making its slow way to the opposite bank.
I stood between two horses that reared and plunged the whole time. The men who held them had hard work to control them, and, I must add, that they swore roundly, and confess that this was the one occasion of my life when I did not undervalue that accomplishment or wish to put any restraint upon its free exercise. The truth is I was so scared that I was ready to help along with either the work or the swearing, if I had only known how.
As one of the men was trying his best to keep the horse he was holding from plunging and kicking itself into the river, or plunging and kicking itself on me, he caught my eye in the middle of an oath, and interrupted himself to begin an apology. The horse took advantage of this to make more vigorous demonstrations.
“Oh! oh!” I cried in terror, “finish—finish what you were saying to the horse! He’s going to jump on me, and I’ll have to say it myself if you don’t!”
I didn’t realize what I was saying until I heard a chuckle from the men within hearing distance. They knew that I was beside myself with terror, and did their best to smother their laughter. But I was past caring for public opinion. I was in an agony of terror. There was no other place for me to stand—horses, kicking, plunging, rearing horses were crowded everywhere. A lighter is the rudest excuse for a boat. Ours was made of planks crossed and nailed together, and between their wide spaces, just under my feet, I saw the swollen waters, upon which we seemed to be tossed, and careened, and whipped about without the control or guidance of those on board. Never before or since, never during any period of the war, was I in such a state of helpless fright as on that day when I crossed the mad Pamunkey on a lighter with swearing men and kicking horses around me and the water bubbling up against my feet.
Appearances to the contrary, our soldiers with the poles were directing our craft and turning the will of the tide to our profit, and at last we were on the shore. Safe in our wet ambulance, we started on our way again. I was never so cold, so wet, so everything wretched in my life, and what should Lieutenant Johnston do but propose to go out of our way to see St. Peter’s Church.
“An old colonial relic,” he said. “You ladies ought not to miss it now that you are so near.”
“I don’t want to see any relics,” I answered promptly. “The only thing I want to see is a fire and something to eat.”
But he would drive out of our way to show us that old church. I was too wretched and miserable to look at it with proper interest. I don’t remember how it looked—I only know that I had to go there and see it whether I would or no. George Washington had done something or other there—got married, I believe. I think the church had some very fine ivy on it, but I am not sure. I thought it was old and small, and that it might do very well in summer, but that under present circumstances Washington himself would forgive me for being wholly in the thought of getting to a fire. Hunger and cold, cramped positions and rain dripping in on me had blunted everything in me except longings for creature comforts. The lieutenant drove all around the church religiously before starting on our way again.
“I don’t believe you saw it at all,” he said to me with real concern.
“Oh, yes, I did!” I answered promptly, terrified lest we should be turned back to look at it again, “I saw it thoroughly.”
Of course, Milicent had looked the old church over and talked intelligently about it, but for the life of me, I couldn’t remember whether it was made of brick or wood. And I didn’t care, either.
The rain had dwindled into a drizzle, night was coming on, and I began to grow more and more anxious to find a stopping-place.
“I do hope we shall get into a place where they keep good fires,” I said. “If we should get into a place where they burn green pine, I should lie down and die. Wet, green pine,” I continued dolorously, “that smokes and never burns, and raw, clammy biscuit is about what we’ll get to-night.”
The lieutenant looked as if he was very sorry for me.
“I wish,” he said unhappily, “I wish I knew how to tell a place where they burn green pine.” Suddenly he brightened.
“I have it!” he exclaimed. “We won’t stop at any house where there isn’t a big wood-pile. We don’t stop anywhere until we find a big white house, a big wood-pile and a nigger chopping wood.”
We passed several dwellings, but the lieutenant wouldn’t stop. “I don’t see any wood-pile,” or “The wood-pile ain’t big enough,” he would say.
At last we came upon what we wanted—a large white house, a wood-pile nearly as high as the house and a negro man chopping wood for dear life.
Through a big front yard full of shrubbery, a wide graveled walk and circular drive-way led up to the house, and in a few minutes our ambulance was in front of the veranda. The lieutenant sprang out and went up the steps.
A gray-headed negro butler answered his knock.
“Wanter see master, sah? Yes, sah. Won’t you step right in, sah?”
“I haven’t time to stop a minute unless I can get lodgings for the night. I have ladies in the ambulance. Ask your master if he will be good enough to see me at the door for a minute.”
Sambo bowed, made haste backward, and almost immediately an old gentleman appeared.
“Certainly, sir, certainly,” he said, interrupting the lieutenant in the middle of his application. “Bring the ladies right in, sir.”
And he helped to bring us in himself. Servants of all kinds appeared as if by magic from all quarters, and took charge of our trunks, satchels, ambulance, and driver.
The Virginia gentleman of those days was hospitable, as men are truthful, for his own sake first. His hospitality was spontaneous, unconscious, and free as heaven itself with its favors. All it asked in return was that you should come when you pleased, go when you pleased, stay as long as you pleased, and enjoy yourself to the top of your bent.
The house was a house of spindle-legged chairs, spindle-legged piano, brass fire-dogs, fine dark woodwork, candelabra of brass and crystal, and tall wax candles. Through the gloom the eyes of old portraits looked down upon us. In the wide fireplace of our bedroom crackled a mighty fire of oak and hickory; over the fire hung a bright brass kettle singing merrily; there were the ever-present fire-dogs and fender of burnished brass, and on the mantle two wax lights burning in silver candlesticks. Two smiling negro maids stood ready to minister to us.
In opposite corners of the room stood two large, canopied, mahogany bedsteads, with great, downy feather-beds and counterpanes, sheets and pillows as white as snow and smelling of lavender. The undiminished length of the table at which we sat down that night bore testimony not only to the good cheer it had given, but to that which it was ready to give. It was of dark rich mahogany, polished to the fineness of a mirror, that reflected the tall silver candlesticks holding wax candles. The silver service and beautiful old china rested on white mats that were not visible except where encircling fringes of gleaming damask suggested nests of snow. On a quaint buffet stood cut-glass decanters holding topaz and ruby wines and brandy and whisky.
The great mahogany sideboard—a small house in itself—nearly reached the ceiling. The upper half was a cabinet with glass doors shaped like the doors of a Gothic cathedral. The lower half had drawers with white knobs, and bellied doors of the most beautiful dark wood, reflecting, like the table, the glow of the wax lights. The glass cabinet glittered with silver and crystal, and here and there was clouded with the rich maroon and saffron of rare old china. Our hostess was a stately and beautiful old lady in black silk (much worn), with fichu and cuffs of real old lace. Our host wore fine black broadcloth, threadbare and of ancient cut.
Such a soft, shining picture as that supper-room was! I wish I could paint it as I saw it that night! And what a delicious supper! There was tea, sure enough; tea of delicious aroma; and sure enough sugar, too, in fine white lumps which had to be picked up with silver tongs. There were little tea-cakes and fairy-like puffs and wafers, and delicious hot rolls! creamy and velvety, and light as a breath.
In crystal dishes gleamed the rich, clear red and amber of preserved fruits, and crystal-clear sweetmeats were set before us in crystal dishes. These were cut in designs of leaf and flower, fish and bird, squirrels, rabbits, and acorns—really too elaborately cut and too beautifully transparent to be eaten. And then there was Virginia fried chicken—of such a delicate rich brown! and such juicy sweetness! At last we each lay covered up in a great downy bed, and went to sleep, and slept as if we never expected to wake up.