In the meantime we were growing more and more uneasy about Captain Locke. We felt that he was suspected and covertly watched, but he laughed at our fears.
He and I had begun to discuss ways and means of getting back to Virginia. One day, as usual, he was sitting beside me in the parlor after dinner, and, as usual, we were talking together in low tones, and again, as usual, the parlors were full. At one end of the room sat Major Brooks and Colonel Whipple, honoring us now and then with the covert and curious observation to which I could never become hardened. Captain Hosmer was walking restlessly up and down the floor, and casting uneasy glances toward us. He was too much of a gentleman to catechize me about my friend, but I knew he was not only curious but concerned in regard to my intimacy with Captain Locke.
Captain Locke was saying to me that he was in favor of our taking some schooner going down the bay and landing somewhere in Gloucester County, when I became so painfully conscious that the eyes of the enemy were upon us that I could not attend to what he was saying.
“What is the matter with you?” he asked. “You are not thinking at all of what I am saying. I reckon your mind is on Dan Grey.”
“I am thinking about you,” I said, on the verge of tears. “If you are not more careful, you won’t get back home at all, I’m afraid.”
“Why?” he asked innocently, and as if he were the most prudent person in the world.
“Only what Milicent and I have been telling you all along. You come here openly and boldly in the presence of all these Yankees. You visit us, and we feel responsible for any misfortune that might come to you through it. It is well known now, I think, by everybody in the house that we are Southerners and blockade-runners. No one in the house except ourselves and Mrs. Harris knows who you really are. Don’t you suppose people wonder?”
He had been introduced several times to ladies as Mr. Moore, but we had not introduced him generally. We did not know what to do with him. For ourselves, we felt safe by this time, but I never sat on that sofa by Captain Locke’s side without the fear in my heart that a sergeant-at-arms might walk in and lay hands on his shoulder.
“Don’t you see,” I went on, “how Captain Hosmer is watching you?”
For Hosmer was watching him with a scrutiny which could be felt in spite of all his courteous efforts at concealment. “And can’t you see with what suspicious looks those officers across the room regard you?”
“That’s so. You must introduce me to some of these people.”
I was dumfounded. So this was the result of my caution!
“By which of your names shall I call you?” I asked satirically, but the satire was lost on him.
“The last one. That is a good name. It is nearly as common as Smith. Besides, I really have a right to it. I came by it honestly. I have a friend in New York by that name and he has kindly lent it to me for emergencies. So if anybody wants to write or telegraph to New York about it, they will find me all right. My cousin in New York—who really is my cousin many degrees removed—will acknowledge me. He is well known in business circles there.”
“Whom shall I introduce you to?”
“I would rather meet those officers.”
“Good gracious!”
He smiled. “They can give me more, and more accurate, information than anybody else, and of just the kind I want.”
“You are going to get yourself shot before you start home. I won’t be responsible for you.”
“They don’t shoot spies—they hang ’em,” he said cheerfully.
I believe his cheerful ease carried us safely through this conversation under the eyes of the enemy, as it had done before.
“Those gentlemen would hardly think me entitled to the courtesy of a bullet,” he went on with the utmost sang-froid. “A rope is more in accordance with my expectations if I am caught. But I do not expect to be caught. Really, little madam, the frank and open plan is the best. If I were to visit you clandestinely it would create more suspicion. Don’t you see the fact that you haven’t presented me to those gentlemen is in itself suspicious? Call those officers up and do the honors.”
“I will call Captain Hosmer,” I said faintly. “I really haven’t the nerve to summon the other two.—Captain Hosmer!” I called.
He came instantly, and I saw that he was glad to be called.
“Captain Hosmer, let me introduce you to my friend, Mr. Moore.”
“Mr. Moore” rose, and the two gentlemen bowed and shook hands with each other. Then they sat down, the Federal captain on one side of me, the rebel captain on the other, and we had a pleasant chat. Captain Hosmer asked “Mr. Moore” if he was related to Henry P. Moore, of New York, and “Mr. Moore” replied in the affirmative. Captain Hosmer knew this gentleman very well. Captain Locke was introduced to Major Brooks and Colonel Whipple, and it ended by Captain Locke and Schenck’s adjutant walking down the street together. Captain Hosmer and I watched them from the window as they strolled past, smoking their cigars.
“Your friend is a very handsome man,” he said.
“You think so? Dan is ever so much handsomer.”
“No doubt of it,” he laughed.
The next day I said to Captain Locke: “You—you wouldn’t have to use information received from these gentlemen in any way that might ever hurt them, would you? We wouldn’t have to do that, would we?”
“Dear little madam, it is not probable that they will honor me with too much confidence. No hurt could ever come to one who is kind to you through me. My first duty is to the South; so is yours. But honor between man and man is honor, and friendship is friendship, even in war times. In my life it has sometimes been very hard to know the line.”
And there rested on his face at this moment the nearest thing to a shadow that I had ever seen there.
“I don’t want you to think I have been reckless of your safety in coming here to see you. I am quite sure of my ground. You are not involved in any of my operations. And if anything were to happen, I have friends here who could extricate you even if they could not save me. The principal thing I wish to find out, now, from your Federal friends here is how you may get back to Virginia safely—since you will go. If I find out that my attendance on you will be to your disadvantage, little madam, we must give that up.”
It was I who had shown most anxiety that we should go together. While we were talking Captain Hosmer came in, and I made room for him on the other side of me. The two men greeted each other cordially. They had taken a liking to each other, and the rebel captain said to the other:
“My friend here has just been consulting me as to the route she had best take in getting home. I suggested that you might advise her to better purpose.”
“I deplore Miss Duncan’s determination to go,” said Captain Hosmer. “Almost any route is unsafe just now—if possible. However, I will be glad to do anything I can. Have you any plan under consideration?”
“Wait a minute, captain,” I said, rising. “I will go and get a little map I have, and show you the route which Mr. Moore advised me to take.”
I went out, leaving the two officers together. When I returned I resumed my seat between them, spread the map open upon my lap, and they bent over it, Federal and Confederate heads touching, while I traced the route with my finger.
“You see, Mr. Moore thinks I might go down the bay in a schooner and land somewhere here in Gloucester County.”
“No! no! you mustn’t go that way!” exclaimed Captain Hosmer quickly. “You are sure to be taken up if you try that. With all due deference to you, Mr. Moore, my knowledge of the position of our forces convinces me that that is impossible.”
“Of course, as an officer in the army, you must be better informed than I am,” Captain Locke said simply. “That is why I advised Miss Duncan to consult you.”
“Your best plan is to go by Harper’s Ferry. It is a difficult matter to get through anywhere now, but if you get to Virginia at all I think it must be by way of Harper’s Ferry.”
Major Brooks and Colonel Whipple joined us, and the matter ended as on the previous day, by Captain Locke and Colonel Whipple walking off down the street together.
“Moore is a splendid fellow,” Captain Hosmer said to me, when we had the sofa to ourselves. “I am glad you introduced us. Your not doing so looked suspicious, and I was troubled for fear he would get you into some scrape or other.”
Dear, generous fellow, how I hated to deceive him, and how it was on the tip of my tongue to tell him who Captain Locke was, until I remembered what his duty would be if I told him! And Captain Locke’s secret was mine to keep. He had been ready to risk his life rather than leave me alone at Berlin! Then, too, poor fellow, he had such a slender chance, I thought, of getting home alive that not even an enemy would care to make it worse. I used to look at his bonnie white throat and shudder.
“God bless you,” he said to me once, “for all your goodness to a poor, lonely, stray fellow! You shouldn’t be afraid for me. You say your ‘Hail Marys’ for me, you know.”
I had been telling him I was afraid for him, and he had, as usual, tried to reassure me and to laugh me out of it. He was never afraid for himself—I believe he would have stood up to be shot with a laugh on his lips. I wonder if he was laughing when they shot him—my dear, brave friend!
In the meantime we had heard that Mr. Holliway had been arrested in West Virginia, was lying in prison somewhere, and that his friends were trying to get him out, and before I left Baltimore we heard that he had died in prison just as an exchange had been arranged.
My return to Virginia was the subject of daily discussions between me and my two captains, and in this way Captain Locke continued to find out ways that he must not go, and eventually that we must not go together. It was he who first said it.
“I should be no earthly good, but a disadvantage to you, little madam. Hosmer is going to see you through this thing all right.”
Then, seeing my downcast look, he went on cheerily: “I’ll get through somehow all right, sooner or later, and we’ll meet in Old Virginia. Don’t bother your dear little head about me.”
Captain Hosmer tried in vain to dissuade me from going. He felt that the journey under present conditions would be uncomfortable and unsafe, and that it was in every way advisable for me to stay where I was. But I was beginning to be very uneasy about Dan. I had heard from him only once since reaching Baltimore. Then his letters came in a batch, and I received them through the kindly agency of Mr. Cridland, British consul at Richmond, who had been my father’s personal friend and frequent guest, and who had dandled a small person named “Nell” on his knee many times. Captain Hosmer still insisted that I must go by Harper’s Ferry if I went at all, and he said that a pass was necessary.
“How on earth am I to get it?” I asked.
“I must arrange that for you,” he said.
I think one reason that Captain Hosmer was so good to me was because his wife was a Southern woman. Her parents were Southern, her brothers were in the Southern army, and her husband was a Federal officer. They loved each other, but somehow they were separated, she living South with her parents. Under the pressure of the times there was a sectional conscience, and people did things which they did not wish to do, because they thought it was right. I don’t know what I should have done then if I had been situated as Mrs. Hosmer was, but I know that at the present time I should stick to Dan, no matter what flag he fought under. Perhaps we are not as great or good in peace as in war times.
The captain had a beautiful country-seat several miles out of town. We had heard much of this place and its old-time hospitalities; and we also heard that it had been virtually closed since Captain Hosmer’s separation from his wife. The captain went there frequently alone, and occasionally with a few friends, but the place had known no festivity since its mistress had gone away on that visit from which, by the way, she returned before we left Baltimore.
But before she came back there was a stag party at the captain’s country place, given in honor of General Fish, the provost marshal at Baltimore, and other prominent officers.
The next time I saw Captain Hosmer he had a smile for me.
“You will get your passes,” he said. “I have spoken to General Fish for them.”
Milicent had decided that she could not risk little Bobby on such a journey and at this season, but mother was to go with me. The day before we were to start she and I went down to General Fish’s office. He was out, but an orderly told us rather rudely to sit down and wait, which invitation or command we humbly acted upon. Presently General Fish entered. We stated our case.
“We are Southerners, general, and we wish to go south by way of Harper’s Ferry.”
“Mrs. and Miss Duncan, I think you said?”
“Yes, general.”
“You are the ladies I heard of from Captain Hosmer, then?”
We gave him a note from Captain Hosmer.
“Excuse me, ladies, while I read this, and I will see what I can do for you.”
He finished the note and then said:
“That’s all right. I will make out your passes, ladies,” and in a few minutes the important papers were in our hands.
“These will take you to General Kelly at Harper’s Ferry. There my power ends. You will find General Kelly courteous and considerate, though I make no promises for him, understand. I will furnish you an escort to Harper’s Ferry, and an officer will be sent to your boarding-house this afternoon to examine your baggage. Your address, please.” He wrote a few words rapidly, and called the orderly:
“Take that order,” he said.
The orderly saluted and got as far as the door, then he turned.
“Do these women go?” he asked of the general.
“These ladies go. Obey my order, sir!”
Upon which the orderly went quickly about his business.
When the officer came to examine our baggage I was on thorns. I had come north intending to make certain purchases, and I had made them, and the fruit of my money and labors was in those two trunks of mother’s and mine. Mother’s trunk was quite a large one, and both of those honest-looking trunks to which I yielded the keys so freely were crammed with dishonest goods—that is, dishonest according to blockade law. I had paid good gold for them, and anxiety enough, Heaven knows, for them to be properly mine.
I had shoes in the bottom of those trunks, and on top of the shoes cloth made into the semblance of female wear and underwear; and, lastly, I had put in genuine every-day garments. There were handkerchiefs, pins, needles, gloves, thread, and all sorts of odds and ends between the folds of garments, here, there, and everywhere in those trunks. They were as contraband trunks as ever crossed into Dixie. But, again, my Yankee was a gentleman.
“This is an unpleasant duty, miss,” he said when I handed him my keys, “but I will disarrange your property as little as possible. It is only a form.”
The orderly lifted the trays and set them back again, scarcely glancing underneath. What a dear, nice Yankee, I thought! He locked the trunks and sealed them.
“Will those seals be broken anywhere, and my trunks examined again?” I asked in some trepidation—this examination was so satisfactory to me that I wanted it to do for one and all.
“I can not tell, miss. They may be at Harper’s Ferry. But I hardly think so. I think this seal will carry you through.”
The officer who had examined our trunks the previous day took the trunks to the depot in a wagon, mother and I going in a hack. After we got on the train, our officer, Lieutenant Martin, joined us, and made himself very agreeable. The beginning of that journey was most pleasant. The scenery along the road to Harper’s Ferry is at all times beautiful, and as we drew nearer to the ferry our car ran by the side of the Potomac, so that from one window we looked across the river to the Virginia Heights, and from the other to the Heights of Maryland. It was afternoon and growing dark when we reached Harper’s Ferry.
There we found something like a riot going on, shouting and noises of all sorts, and the town full of drunken soldiers. We were told that there had been fighting in the valley, that the Federals had won, and that the men had just been paid off, and were celebrating victory and enjoying pay and booty in regular soldier fashion. Through this shouting, rowdy mob mother and I passed under our Federal escort to the tavern.
When we reached the tavern, a miserable little place full of drunken soldiers, our kind escort told us that his duty was at an end, and that he must take the return train to Baltimore. I think he hated to leave us under such unsafe circumstances, but he scarcely had time to settle us in the reception-room, shake hands, and catch his train. Here mother and I sat, debating what we should do. Of course, we were extremely anxious to get out of the place. We called a waiter and asked him if he could tell us where we could hire a vehicle to take us a part of our journey, or the whole of it. He knew of nothing that we could get. Then we went out on the porch, disagreeable as this was, and made inquiries of everybody who seemed sober enough to answer, but to no purpose. We could find no way of getting out of Harper’s Ferry that night.
Thoroughly frightened, we asked to be shown to the commanding officer of the place, and were ushered into General Kelly’s office, which, fortunately, was attached to the tavern—really a part of it.
General Kelly rose when we entered, saw us seated, and was as courteous as possible, while we stated the case and asked his advice. He heard us patiently, and was very sympathetic.
“I don’t know what to say, ladies. I have no authority to send you on.”
“Then what will we do, general?”
“I can not say. I can, of course, give you passes, but you will find it impossible to hire anything here to travel in just now. The best you could get would be an ox-cart or a broken-down wagon, and the roads are almost impassable for good strong vehicles. And, besides, it is not safe for you to travel except under military escort, which, as I have said, I have no authority to furnish. There has been a great deal of fighting in the valley, and the roads are lined with stragglers. If you were prisoners now I could put you under escort and send you through our lines easy enough, but as it is I don’t see what I can do.”
We felt inclined to cry.
“And this is not a fit place for you to spend the night in, as you can see for yourselves,” he pursued, very much in the manner of a Job’s comforter. “The tavern is thronged with drunken men, and the whole town is overrun with them.”
“Would it not be best for us to return to Baltimore?” we asked humbly. We had almost made up our minds to going back.
“That would be best, certainly—if you can.”
“Why, can’t we go back? We had no idea that we wouldn’t be allowed to go back if we wanted to.”
“Well, you see, ladies, you are in the position of Southerners sent south. The policy of the Government encourages the sending of all Southerners in Maryland south to stay. I am only explaining, that you may understand that it may be difficult for me to assist you, in spite of my willingness to do so. I can not send you back without authority from General Fish. I will telegraph to him at once, and do my best for you. My orderly will see you back to the tavern. And I will notify you when I hear from General Fish.”
So we returned to the reception-room of the tavern. Among the groups thronging the tavern were a few graycoats who had been captured the day before. One of these prisoners, a tall, handsome man, walked restlessly up and down the room where we sat, his guard keeping watch on him. As he passed back and forth I looked at him sorrowfully, putting into my eyes all the sympathy and encouragement I dared.
There was something in his look when he returned mine that made me think he wanted to speak to me. Every time he passed I thought I saw his eyes growing more and more wistful under their drooping lids.
Without seeming to notice him I moved about the room until I got to a window which was in the line of his restless beat. I stood there, my back turned to him, apparently looking out of the window, until I disarmed the suspicion of the guard. Then I settled down into a seat, my side to the window, my back to the guard, my face to the prisoner when the turn in his beat brought him toward me. A swift glance showed him that I was on the alert. Not a muscle of his face changed—he was facing the guard—but when he turned and came back, as he passed me he dropped these words.
“Going south?”
He walked to the end of the room and turned. Coming back, he faced me and the guard. As he passed I said:
“Yes.”
When he came back, he said—always with his head drooped and speaking below his breath and so that his lips could hardly be seen to move:
“Take a message?”
When he passed back I said:
“Yes.”
Returning: “Get word to Governor Vance of North Carolina——”
To the end of his beat, turning and passing again in silence, then as he walked with his back to the guard:
“You saw Charlie Vance here——”
To the end of beat one way, to the end another, and back again:
“Prisoner—captured in fight yesterday——”
Several beats back and forth in silence, then:
“Carried north——”
Again:
“Don’t know where.”
This was the last he had opportunity to say. I saw the orderly coming in. Before Lieutenant Vance was near enough to catch another word from me, the orderly stood before me, a telegram in his hand. It was from General Fish to General Kelly:
“The ladies were sent south at their own request. I decline further connection with the matter.”
“Why—why,” I cried in desperation, “we can’t go south, we can’t go north, and we can’t stay here!”
There was a pert little Yankee in the room who had been watching us for some time. He, like everybody else around us, understood by this time our dilemma.
“I’ll tell you how to get sent on, if you will listen,” he said.
“I will,” I said clearly and firmly, and looking straight into the eyes of Lieutenant Vance, who was then passing close by me.
The little Yankee was staggered by the unnecessary amount of resolution expressed in my reply. I kept my eyes focused on the spot where Mr. Vance had been for some seconds after he had passed. Then I turned to my little Yankee. I had snubbed him severely heretofore, but I was humbled by extremity, and willing enough now to listen if he could tell us how to get away from this place.
“Tell us how we can get sent on,” I asked.
“Just step out there in the street and holler for Jeff Davis, and you’ll get sent on quick enough!”
We withered him with a stare, and then turned our backs on him, and at the same moment two ladies entered the room whom we recognized. They were Mrs. Drummond and Miss Oglesby, whose acquaintance we had made in Baltimore, and they, too, were going south. They explained that they had been in this wretched place since yesterday, and that they were not allowed to return to Baltimore and were unable to go home. They had been out trying to find a conveyance of some sort, but had been able to secure only the promise of an ox-cart, and hearing that we were here had come in to consult with us. During all this time the orderly, whom I had detained, was waiting impatiently. We decided to go with him and make another appeal to General Kelly. Accordingly the whole party filed into General Kelly’s office again.
“What are we to do, general?” I cried out in desperation. “We can’t go back, we can’t go on, and we can’t stay here!”
The kindly general did honor to the stars he wore—he was a gentleman, every inch of him. It happened later that he was captured and held in Libby Prison in Richmond, and I was in Richmond and didn’t know it. I have held a grudge against fate ever since. If I had only known, he would have been reminded by every courtesy that a Southern woman could render of how gratefully his kindness was remembered.
“I hardly hoped for a different answer from General Fish, ladies. The regulations on this point are very stringent. And I can not return you to Baltimore unless you take the oath of allegiance.”
“What?” we asked eagerly.
“If you take the oath of allegiance, I can send you back.”
We decided to do this.
We didn’t know exactly what the oath was, but we thought we could take anything to get us out of our scrape. We told General Kelly we would take it, and we were conducted into another room, which I can only remember as being full of Federal soldiers. We were marched up to a desk where a man began reading the oath to us. It was the famous “ironclad.” We did not wait for him to get through. Without a word each of us turned and marched back into General Kelly’s office, as indignant a set of women as could be found.
He was looking for us—doubtless he knew by previous experience the effect the reading of that oath produced upon Southern women—and he burst out laughing as our procession filed back into his room.
“Why, general,” we began, “we couldn’t take that horrid thing! We are Southerners, and our kinsmen and friends are Southern soldiers.”
“I almost knew you wouldn’t take that oath, ladies, when I sent you there.”
“General,” I said, “this is the most remarkable position I ever knew people to be in—where you can’t go back, and can’t go forward, and can’t stay where you are. I don’t know what you are to do with us, general, unless you hang us to get us out of the way.”
He laughed heartily.
“I must do something a little better than that for you. My orderly will take you back to the tavern, and you will hear from me in an hour.”
We went with Mrs. Drummond and Miss Oglesby to their room. Before the hour was up we were escorted to another interview with General Kelly. The general beamed on us.
“Here is a telegram I received in your absence,” he said, handing it to us:
“Mrs. and Miss Duncan are dear friends of mine. Can you see them through? If not, tell them I will be in Harper’s Ferry to-night. Answer.
“Here is my answer,” said the general:
“Stay where you are. Will see them through all right.
“How could he have found out the trouble we were in?” we asked in wonder.
“I don’t know. News of the fighting in the valley and the condition of things here reached Baltimore soon after you left there. Hosmer perhaps got an idea of your situation through General Fish. He may have gone to Fish’s office to inquire. Hosmer is a capital fellow and an old friend of mine. I had about determined on what to do for you before I heard from him, but I thought it would please you to know of his message. I will ask you to return to the tavern, ladies, and exercise a little further patience. You will hear from me soon.”
This time we waited only a little while before an orderly rapped at the door to say that an ambulance was in waiting for us below. We hurried down with him, and in ten minutes were inside the ambulance, and prisoners of the United States.
Behind us into the ambulance stepped a dashing young officer, all brass buttons and gold lace.
“I am Captain Goldsborough,” he said, saluting, “commissioned by General Kelly to attend you.”
Our escort consisted of five soldiers who followed us, sitting in a wagon on our baggage. That afternoon we passed through Charleston, and Captain Goldsborough pointed out to us the house in which John Brown had lived—an ordinary two-story frame house.
As well as I can remember we reached Berryville about nine o’clock. Our ambulance drew up in front of the tavern, and Captain Goldsborough went in to see about getting accommodations for us. He came out quickly and said, “This is no fit place to-night for you, ladies. I am informed that there is an old couple on the hill who may take us in. I hear, too, that they are good Confederates,” he added mischievously. Of course lights were out and everybody asleep when we drove up, but our driver went in and beat on the door until he waked the old people up. They received us kindly, and the old lady got a supper for us of cold meats and slices of loaf bread, butter, milk, preserves, and hot coffee which she must have made herself as no servants were in the house at that hour; and we had a comfortable room with two beds in it. The old lady came in and chatted with us awhile, telling us all she knew about our army’s movements, and listening eagerly to what people in Maryland had to say about the war. We were very tired, but I am sure it must have been one o’clock when we went to sleep. At daybreak there came a great banging at the front door. Mother put her head out of the front window and inquired who was trying to break the door down.
It was our driver, and there at the gate stood our ambulance. The driver hurried us desperately, saying we had not a moment to lose. The noise had aroused our hosts, and when we got down the old lady had spread us a cold lunch and made us a cup of coffee.
“I was hoping to have you a nice hot breakfast,” she said, “but since you must go in such a hurry this is the best I can do. If I had known you were going to make such an early start I would have got you a hot breakfast somehow.”
We swallowed our food hurriedly, but this did not satisfy our driver. Every few minutes he came down on the door with the butt end of his whip. Finally we left off eating, ran up-stairs, and gathered up our bags. As we hurried down, almost falling over each other in our haste, we saw a magnificent-looking soldier standing in the hall. He was in the full uniform of a colonel of cavalry, glittering with gold lace, with gauntlets reaching his elbows, and high military boots.
“Mrs. Duncan and Miss Duncan, I suppose,” he said with a sweeping bow, “and——”
“Mrs. Drummond and Miss Oglesby,” we said of the ladies who came behind us.
“I am Colonel McReynolds, commandant at this place, and at your service, ladies,” he continued. “I have to apologize for not paying my respects to you last night upon receipt of General Kelly’s letter asking me to take charge of you. The lateness of the hour must be my excuse. At the time Captain Goldsborough presented it I had a number of important despatches to attend to, and I supposed you were tired out and in need of rest.”
We expressed our appreciation of his courtesy and General Kelly’s thoughtfulness.
“What is all this?” he asked, pointing to our ambulance, baggage wagon, and impatient driver.
We explained that they were the conveniences furnished us by General Kelly.
“But you surely do not propose starting off in such weather as this, ladies?”
I have neglected to say that it had been storming since daybreak.
“The driver has been beating on the doors since before day,” somebody said.
“He has, has he? Then he has exceeded his instructions. He had no right whatever to disturb you, ladies. I will see that he is reported.”
He called the driver and reprimanded him sharply.
“Pray don’t feel that you must leave us in such weather as this, ladies,” he continued with the utmost kindness. “Stay here a week if you like. That ambulance and wagon and those men and horses are at your service as long as you choose to keep them here, and we will be glad to do whatever we may for your comfort or pleasure until it suits your own convenience to leave us.”
We hardly knew how to thank this princely young enemy, but we insisted that the driver should not be punished, and that we should be allowed to proceed on our journey, as we were anxious to reach our friends and kindred.
He rode in our ambulance with us to his headquarters, where we were joined by our other charming enemy, and, making our adieux to the gallant and handsome colonel, continued our journey.
During the day something happened to Captain Goldsborough’s watch, and it stopped running, much to his annoyance.
“I should like to know what time it is,” he said.
I pulled my watch out and held it open for him to see the time. I could have told him what hour it was. I don’t know what made me such a reckless little creature in those days. The watch I held to him had a tiny Confederate flag pasted inside. My companions had either secreted their watches or were not traveling with them. I had been urged to do the same, but had openly worn my watch ever since leaving Baltimore. Captain Goldsborough saw the hour, and he saw the flag also. He stared at me in utter amazement.
“You are brave—or reckless,” he said.
“I know this is contraband goods, and, according to your ideas, treasonable. Will you confiscate it?” quietly holding it out again.
His face flushed.
“Not I! but some one else might. You are not prudent to wear that openly.”
And I was so ashamed of myself for hurting his feelings that I made amends in rather too warm terms, I am afraid, considering that he didn’t know I was married and a privileged character.
“You are traveling in the wrong direction, I think, Miss Duncan,” he ventured to say after awhile. “You shouldn’t leave the North and go south now.”
“Why?”
“I—I shouldn’t think you would receive the attention there just now that is your due. You are young and fond of society, I imagine. And—there are so few beaux in the South now—I shouldn’t think you would like that.”
“Really?”
“I mean that I wish you would stay up North where it is pleasanter. It’s so—uncomfortable down South. You are so young, you see, you ought to have a chance to enjoy life a little. I—I wish you were up here—and I could add a little to your happiness. I—I mean,” catching a glance which warned him, “it is must be dull for you in the South—no beaux—no nothing.”
“All the beaux are in the field,” I retorted, “where they ought to be. I wouldn’t have a beau who wasn’t, and if I were a Northern girl I wouldn’t have a man who didn’t wear a uniform—though, I think, it ought to be gray.”
“I expect you have a sweetheart down South whom you expect to see when you get home. That is why your heart has been so set on getting back.”
“If I had a sweetheart down South I couldn’t see him when I got back home, for he would be in the field.”
“So, your sweetheart is a Southern soldier?” wistfully.
“I wouldn’t have a sweetheart who wasn’t a soldier—a Southern soldier.”
In the other side of my watch I had pasted a small picture of Dan in uniform. I opened this side and held it out to my companion.
“That’s my sweetheart’s picture.”
He looked at it long and hard. “A good-looking fellow,” he said, “and I have no doubt a gallant soldier. If I ever meet him in battle—he will be safe from my bullet.”
Behind our wagon all the way from Harper’s Ferry had come a party equipped like ourselves. They were Jews, and, as we were informed, were prisoners of the United States. They had an ambulance like ours, a baggage wagon like ours, and a similar escort of five infantry perched on trunks. Their escort who rode inside, however, was not so attractive as ours. We felt and expressed much commiseration for them because they were prisoners—“those poor Jews,” we called them.
We were all suffering the consequences of late and early hours, and of the worry and excitement at Harper’s Ferry. I felt almost ill, and when Miss Oglesby, whose home was in Winchester, invited us to spend a week with her, we concluded that we would accept her hospitality until better able to continue our journey.
Winchester was the most difficult of all places for Southerners to pass through at this time, and we could not possibly have gotten through if we had been left to our own resources. Milroy was commandant, and his name was a terror. He belonged to the Ben Butler of New Orleans type. Some time near the middle of the day we drew up in front of Milroy’s headquarters. Immediately behind us came the Jews and their belongings. They did not go in with us, and I supposed they were awaiting their turn. General Milroy was absent, off on a fight, and we fell into the hands of his adjutant, a dapper little fellow. We heard him talking to Goldsborough of the recent fight and victory, and heard him making arrangements for our transportation.
Here we thought it proper to inform him that we were going to remain a week in Winchester.
“You can not remain here,” he said. “You go on immediately.”
“Oh, no!” we said, “we’re not going on now. We are going to stop here for a visit and until we are rested.”
“You are prisoners and under orders. You go at once—” he began bruskly.
“Oh, no!” we interrupted, eager to enlighten him, for we saw he had made a very natural mistake. “We are not prisoners. Those poor Jews out there, they are prisoners. We are going to stop here on a little visit.”
“You don’t stop here an hour. This is Miss Oglesby’s destination, and she stops, but the rest of you go on—now.”
He looked as if he thought us demented. Goldsborough kept making faces at us, but we were so anxious to correct the adjutant’s mistake that we had no attention to bestow elsewhere. We thought we had never seen so stupid a man as that adjutant.
“We are not the prisoners,” we insisted. “Those Jews out there——”
Here he told Captain Goldsborough to conduct “these prisoners” down-stairs and into the ambulance provided for them. “You will not go far before you meet a detachment of cavalry on their way to this place,” he informed Captain Goldsborough, and then instructed him to turn back of these a sufficient escort for our party.
We were in a perfect rage as Captain Goldsborough led us down-stairs. We thought Milroy’s adjutant the very rudest and stupidest person we had ever seen.
After leaving the saucy and peremptory adjutant we were shown into the handsomest ambulance I have ever seen. I suppose the one we had been using was returned to Harper’s Ferry or left at Winchester for the horses to rest until Captain Goldsborough’s return. At any rate, we were in new quarters, and very elegant ones they were. The sides and seats were cushioned and padded, and it was really a luxurious coach. It was drawn by four large black horses with coats like silk. There was a postilion on the seat, and beside him sat a small boy who kept peeping behind us and into the woods on all sides, and as far ahead as possible. I didn’t know what he was trying to see or find out, but I came to the conclusion that he was there to “peep” on general principles.
As soon as we were seated we asked Captain Goldsborough what upon earth that impertinent adjutant meant by referring to us as “prisoners,” and ordering us about so.
Whereupon he explained with much embarrassment and many apologies that we were really prisoners—that General Kelly could not have sent us through without the formality of putting us under arrest.
“I wish,” he said in an aside to me, “that I didn’t have to release you.”
Of course we were perfectly satisfied to be General Kelly’s prisoners under such circumstances. In fact, we charged Captain Goldsborough to tell him how nice we thought it was to be put under arrest by him.
We withdrew our charges against the adjutant, and even acknowledged that there was kindness in the pert little Yankee’s telling us to “holler for Jeff Davis and we’d get sent on quick enough.”
Six miles from Winchester we met the detachment of cavalry to which Milroy’s adjutant had referred. It was a magnificent-looking body of men, handsomely uniformed and mounted. As they were about to dash past us Captain Goldsborough halted them, gave an order, and instantly thirty riders wheeled out of line and surrounded the ambulance, the others riding on without a break in their movements. Captain Goldsborough had gotten out of the ambulance some minutes before we met the detachment of cavalry, and was sitting with the driver, having sent the little boy inside. It sounds rather a formidable position for a Southern woman, a blockade-runner, in a Yankee ambulance, and surrounded by thirty Yankees armed to the teeth; but I was never safer in my life. The little boy was in a state of terror that would have been amusing if it had not been pitiful.
“What are all these men around the ambulance for?” I asked. He didn’t look as if he could get his wits together at once.
“Are they afraid we will get away?” I continued.
“Oh, no’m! no’m!” he answered, his eyes as big as saucers. “There’s been lots of fightin’—an’ there’s rebels all along here in the woods—and they’d come out and take this here ambulance an’ these here horses—an’ we all, an’ you all, an’ all of us!”
A novel position, truly, Yankees protecting us against our own soldiers! We met another company of soldiers, and alas! we could turn back none of them. They were not mounted, they were not handsomely uniformed. From the windows of our ambulance we looked out on them with tearful eyes, and waved our handkerchiefs to them; but their heads were bowed, and they did not see us. They would hardly have believed we were prisoners if they had seen us, for our escort of Union cavalry the whole time they guarded us treated us as if we were queens. Not one profane word did we hear—not a syllable that breathed anything but respect and kindly feeling.
At Newtown we were released and were Union prisoners no longer, but Southern travelers close to the Southern lines and on our own responsibility. Captain Goldsborough bade us adieu, saying that he was sorry he could not take us farther, but that his orders compelled him to turn back here, and we poured out our gratitude to him and to Colonel McReynolds and General Kelly by him. He put a little sentiment into a farewell pressure of my hand, and I am afraid I put a great deal too much gratitude and penitence into my eyes. My genius for friendship had asserted itself, and I was fast learning to give him a companion niche in my heart with Captains Hosmer and Locke. Another day with him, and I would have told him I was married, showed him Dan’s picture, bored him with Dan, and found in him all the better friend and good comrade.
Our hearts sank as our gallant bluecoat, our cozy ambulance, and our cavalry guard left us, three lonely women in the tavern at Newtown. We spent the night there, and the next morning secured, with much difficulty, a small, uncovered, one-horse wagon to take us on our journey. We were very much crowded. Our trunks were piled up in it—mother’s, Mrs. Drummond’s, and my own. I made mother as comfortable as possible, and Mrs. Drummond carefully made herself so, while I sat on the seat with the driver, a trunk sticking in my back all the way. I had to sit almost double because of the trunk, the wagon being so small that no other arrangement was possible.
Rain had fallen plentifully here. The day was one of fogs and mists with occasional light showers, the roads were, muddy and seamed with ruts, over which the wagon jogged up and down, and I jogged with it, feeling as if my back would break in two and almost wishing it would and end my misery. About nine of that miserable wet night we hailed with eager, glad, tired hearts and eyes the lights of Woodstock. Here we knew we should find Southern forces encamped, here we knew we should be at home among our own people. Just outside the town a voice rang through the darkness:
“Halt!”
A sentry stood in our path.
“We are Southerners,” we said. “Let us pass.”
“Where are your papers?”
“Papers? We haven’t any papers. We are Southerners, we tell you—Southern ladies, and we are in a hurry, and you must let us pass right now.”
“I can’t do it. Show your papers or turn back.”
We set up a wail.
“Here, we’ve come all the way from Baltimore, and the Yankees have sent us and have brought us all the way in a fine ambulance and cavalry escorts and big horses and gold lace and everything, and now we’ve got home, and our own people won’t let us in! tell us to turn back!”
The sentry seemed impressed. Rags and musket, he was a pathetic if stern figure as he stood in that lonely, muddy road in the glare of our driver’s lantern.
But he was firm. He told us that he was obeying orders and could not let us by since we had no passes.
“I’m so tired, and my back is almost broken with this trunk sticking into it,” I moaned.
“That ain’t comfortable,” he admitted, but his resolute position in the middle of the road showed that we couldn’t pass, all the same.
“Look here,” I said, plucking up some of my accustomed spirit, “do you know that my husband is an officer in the Confederate army? My husband is Captain Grey.”
“Can’t help it. Got to obey orders.”
“And my brother,” said Mrs. Drummond, “is a colonel in the Confederate army. To think that I—I, the sister of Colonel ——, am told that I can’t pass here!”
“Law, ma’am! that’s my colonel!” said the man. “I tell you what I’ll do, ladies. I’ll send a note in to the colonel and see what he says about it.”
So we waited till he found a passer-by who would be a messenger; and then we waited until the messenger replied to the note, and we were permitted to pass.
Soon after we reached the tavern the news of our arrival and exploits got abroad and soon the little tavern parlor was filled with people listening to the tales of the blockade-runners who were just from Yankeeland, bringing a trunk or two full of clothes. The news of our doughty deeds spread from house to house, and soldiers gathered in front of the tavern and gave us ringing cheers, and welcomed us home with all their lung power. Poor, ragged fellows! how I did wish that mother and I had worn home a hundred or two more Balmorals!
The next morning we left Woodstock.
We were traveling now in a comfortable spring wagon, and made good time, reaching Harrisonburg in time to take the train for Staunton.
As we sat in the parlor of the hotel in Staunton who should walk in but an old friend and cousin of Dan’s, Lieutenant Nelson! But he could tell me nothing about Dan—he did not even know where he could be found. This was just before the second battle of the Wilderness, and the cavalry was being shifted constantly from place to place. But if Lieutenant Nelson could tell us nothing, he was greatly interested in our exploits. We told him of the Balmorals with pride.
“And here are two shirts for Dan,” I said, pulling at our long scarfs. “Just think of our getting through with a full uniform—cloth, brass buttons, gold lace, and all!”
As at Woodstock, the story of our prowess spread. It went from one person to another until the soldiers got hold of it, and gathered around the hotel and more ringing cheers were given us.
The next morning we took the train for Richmond—but we did not get there.
At Lindseys Station, just before we reached Gordonsville, a man in the uniform of the Thirteenth got on.
I called him to me.
“Can you tell me where the Thirteenth is?”
“Yes’m. We lef’ ’em ’bout the aige of Culpeper, yistiddy. Lor’m! we’ve had times!”
“What was the matter?”
“We been havin’ a heap o’ fightin’. The kurnel, he warn’t thar at Beverly Ford, an’ we didn’t have but one squadron, an’ the adjutant, he led the charge an’ he sholy come mighty nigh gittin’ killed. Lor’m! what’s the matter with ye?”
“Nothing! Go on! Make haste, tell me—make haste. The adjutant——”
“His horse got shot under him, an’ his courier ridin’ right ’longside o’ him got killed, an’ the adjutant warn’t hurt, not a mite. But, Lor’m! that was sholy a narrer escape! An’ they say that the adjutant’ll git promoted.”
Didn’t I say so? Didn’t I think of that when I got the uniform?
“Thank you,” I said to the man. “You bring me the first news I have had of my husband for a long time.”
“Good gracious! you ain’t our adjutant’s wife?”
“Yes, I am. And I am glad to meet one of his soldiers. And you are the first to tell me good news.”
“Lor’m, now, ain’t I proud o’ that! An’ you our adjutant’s wife. You don’t say! An’ I jes been a-tellin’ you how it was a’mos’ a mi-racle that you warn’t a widder ’oman! An’ you never let on! But I see you changed your face, marm, when I tole ’bout his pretty nigh gitting shot. Yes, marm; the adjutant charged beautiful! he jes rid right squar into ’em, an’ he made the Yankees git!”
“How long do you think the Thirteenth will remain in Culpeper?”
“That I couldn’t say for certain, marm. They mought be thar for a day or two, an’ they mought be thar longer. You can’t always tell much ’bout what the cavalry gwine to do. But we’s sho proud o’ the adjutant, marm. Ginral Lee an’ Ginral Stuart an’ Kunnel Chambliss all give him the praise.”
It was after this battle that Dan was promoted to the rank of major, “for gallant conduct.”
I bade the soldier a hurried good-by and went to the conductor.
“My husband’s regiment is in Culpeper,” I said; “I have just heard it from one of his men, and I want you to put me off at Gordonsville. I have decided not to go on to Richmond, but to take the next train to Culpeper.”
“The next train to Culpeper, ma’am—I think the next train for Culpeper passes Gordonsville at four in the afternoon. There’s no train before that, I know, and I am not sure that there’s one at four. There’s no tavern nor anything to put you down at—I’ll just have to set you out on the roadside.”
And it was on a red roadside that we and our baggage were set down, on a bank of red mud, and there sat we on top of them as the train rolled away. The conductor left us regretfully.
“Maybe you might get accommodations at that house up there, ma’am,” he had said, pointing to the only house in sight, a two-story white dwelling about a quarter of a mile distant. “I don’t know what else you’ll do if that train don’t come along at four.”
This was ten o’clock in the morning. Four o’clock came, but no train. We waited faithfully for it, but it did not come at all. At last we gave up hope and paid a boy to carry our trunks to the house on the hill. I shall never forget our reception at that house. At first they refused to take us at all. After arguing the point with them and placing our necessities before them, and promising to pay them anything they might wish, we were thankful to get a gruff:
“Come in.”
We were shown to a room and shut in like horses. There was not even a fire made for us. We had been warmer sitting on the roadside in the sunshine. I will pass over the supper in silence. We had had no dinner and were hungry, and we ate for our part of that supper the upper crust of a biscuit each. A hard bed, the upper crusts of two biscuits, no fire—this was what we got at that house. The next morning we left before breakfast and went back to our mud-bank in the sun, first asking for our bill and paying it. It was two dollars apiece in gold!
The train came along early, however, and we were on it, and off to Culpeper, all our troubles forgotten, for every mile was bringing us nearer to Dan. As soon as we got off I saw quite a number of soldiers belonging to Dan’s command. Many of them were known to me personally. They came up and welcomed me back to Dixie, and congratulated me on my husband’s gallantry and probable promotion, and I sent word to Dan by them that I was there.
He came—the raggedest, most widowed-looking officer! But weren’t we happy!
“Oh, Dan!” I cried, after the first rapture of greeting, “I got it so it would do for a captain or a major or a colonel or a general. Didn’t I do right?”
“What are you talking about, Nell? Got what?”
He looked as if he feared recent adventures had unsettled my intellect.
“Your uniform, Dan,” I answered, but my countenance fell.
“My—uniform.”
Just like a man! He had forgotten the principal thing—next to seeing mother, of course—that I had gone to Baltimore for.
“Your uniform, Dan. I’ve got it on. Here it is,” and I lifted my skirt and showed him my Balmoral. “Isn’t it a beautiful cloth? And I have kept it just as nice—not a fleck of mud on it. And here are the buttons on my cloak, and I have the gold lace in mother’s satchel, and——”
“Nell, dear, I haven’t time to talk about uniforms now. You will sleep here to-night. To-morrow I will try to get a room for you at Mr. Bradford’s. I will come in the morning or send you word what to do. I am so sorry to go, but I can’t stay a minute longer. Good-by, my darling.”
I was waked the next morning by a voice under my window calling:
“Miss Nell! O Miss Nell!” and looking out I saw Dan’s body-servant, Sam, successor to poor Josh, who had died of smallpox.
“Mars Dan say, I fotch his love to you, an’ tell you you git right on dem nex’ kyars an’ go straight on ter Orange Court-house, case dar’s too much fightin’ ’roun’ here. An’ he gwine notify you dar when you kin come back. But he say dat if you hear dar’s fightin’ ’roun’ Orange Court-house, den you go straight on ter Richmond, an’ don’t you stop untwell you git dar.”
“But I don’t want to go, Sam.”
“But Mars Dan he say tell you p’intedly you mus’.”
“Ain’t he coming to tell me good-by, Sam?”
“Law, Miss Nell! how he gwine do dat when de Yankees is er—overrunnin’ de whole yuth? What’s guine ter become uv de country ef de major leave off fitten de Yankees to humorfy you?”
I could not for the life of me, sad as my heart was, keep from laughing at being taken to task by Sam.
“Is it so bad as that, Sam?”
“Yes’m, dat ’tis! Mars Dan say he ’fraid de Yankees git in de town hyer fo’ night. De Yankees is er pressin’ we all close.”
“I can’t see your master at all before I go, Sam?”
“Law, Miss Nell; ain’t I done tole you dat? De country will go to de dawgs ef de major stop fitten de Yankees to humorfy you.”
“If your master gets hurt, Sam, will you get me word?”
“Law, yes, Miss Nell! I sholy will.”
“And you’ll take care of him, Sam?”
“Dat’s jes what I gwine to do, Miss Nell. Me lef’ de major ef he git hu’t! shuh!”
“Good-by, Sam. Tell your master I’m gone.”
“Yes’m. He’ll sho be p’intedly glad ter heah dat!”
Just fifteen minutes in which to catch the train. We threw things pell-mell into our trunks—there was no vehicle to be had—paid a man to drag them to the depot, and were on our way to Orange in less than half an hour. And I had seen Dan, all told, perhaps fifteen minutes!
At Orange we found everything in confusion, and everybody who could get out leaving the town. The story went that the Yankee cavalry under Stoneman would soon be in possession of it. We were glad enough to keep our seats and go straight through to Richmond, and it was well that we did, for behind us came Stoneman’s cavalry close on our heels and tearing up bridges as they came. The railroad track at Trevillian’s was torn up just after we passed over it. Richmond was in a state of great excitement. Couriers were passing to and fro between the army and the executive offices, stirring news kept pouring in, and the newspapers were in a fever. Tidings from the first battle of the Wilderness began coming in. Lee’s army and “Fighting Joe” Hooker’s were grappling with each other there like tigers in a jungle. Stuart, our great cavalry leader, had caught up Jackson’s mantle as it fell, and was riding around in that valley of death, charging his men to “Remember Jackson!” and singing in that cheery voice of his which only death could drown: “Old Joe Hooker, won’t you Come Out of the Wilderness?” Then came news of victory and Richmond was wild with joy and wild with woe as well. In many homes were vacant chairs because of that battle in the Wilderness, and from Petersburg, twenty miles away, came the sound of mourning, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted because they were not.
It was from Petersburg that I was summoned to Culpeper by Dan, who felt that the army might have a long enough breathing spell there for me to pay him at least a visit. When I got to Mr. Bradford’s, where he had engaged board for me, I found General Stuart’s headquarters in the yard. He and his staff were boarders at Mr. Bradford’s, and I ate at the same table with the flower of the Southern cavalry. Unfortunately for me, Dan’s command was stationed at a distance of several miles, and I could not see as much of him as I had hoped. He met me the day of my arrival, rode by once or twice, took one or two meals with me, and then it seemed that for all I saw of him I might as well have remained in Petersburg.
My seat at table was next to that of General Stuart, and for vis-à-vis I had Colonel John Esten Cooke. Colonel Cooke was a glum old thing, but General Stuart was so delightful that he compensated for everything. In a short time I was completely at my ease with him, and long before he left I had grown to love and trust him.