One day General Stuart asked me in a teasing way:
“You wouldn’t really like to see Dan Grey, would you?”
“Oh, but I would, general,” I said, in too dead earnest to give raillery for raillery.
“I don’t believe you really want to see Dan Grey.”
“Well, I don’t, then,” a bit sullenly.
“What a pity! You might see him now, if you really wanted to.”
I wouldn’t notice such a frivolous remark.
Dinner over, we went out on the veranda, as usual, and General Stuart dropped into a chair beside me.
“I really thought you rather liked Dan Grey, but it seems I was mistaken. And you really don’t want to see him? Sad—I must tell him and condole with him.”
I tried to bury myself in a book I was reading, and to pay no attention to him. A miserable old book it was—Children of the Abbey, or something like it—that I had picked up somewhere at Mr. Bradford’s. Hereafter, if I write “Aunt Sally’s” instead of Mr. Bradford’s, please understand that one and the same place is meant. Aunt Sally was Mr. Bradford’s wife, and I reckon the first term best describes the place.
“You wouldn’t really rather have Dan Grey sitting here in this chair beside you than me?” continued my tease.
I lifted to him eyes wet with vexation and longing.
“I’ll make you smile now!” he said. “Do you want to see Dan?”
“Yes, I do. I want to see him dreadfully, but I am not going to tell you so again.”
“You will if I command you to, won’t you? If you are in the cavalry I am your superior officer, you know. I can even make Dan mind what I say, can’t I? If you are refractory, I can command Dan to bring you to terms.”
“I’d like to see Dan do it! You may be commander-in-chief of the cavalry, but you aren’t commander-in-chief of me—you or Dan either.”
“It seems not,” he commented meekly. “You are the most insubordinate little rebel I ever saw. I have a great mind to court-martial you—no, I believe I’ll send for Dan and let him do it.”
He called a courier, and wrote a despatch in regular form, ordering Major Dan Grey to report at once to General Stuart. Then he added a little private note to Dan which had for a postscript:
“That will bring him in a hurry!” laughed Stuart.
The courier, not knowing but that the fate of the Confederacy depended upon that despatch, put spurs to his horse, galloped down the road and out of sight. I suppose he ran his horse all the way, and that Dan ran his all the way back, for before General Stuart left the veranda Dan galloped into the yard.
“I’ll get the first kiss!” said General Stuart, still teasingly.
He leaped from the porch and ran across the yard, I tearing after him. I caught up and passed him, and looking back at him from Dan’s arms, into which I had stumbled, breathless and panting, I laughed out: “I can beat the Yankees getting out of your way!”
Perhaps this race and General Stuart’s love of teasing may seem undignified conduct for the chief of the Southern cavalry, but it is history and it is fun, and those who knew him did not fail in respect to Stuart. Many of us loved the ground he walked on. His boyish spirits and his genial, sunny temperament helped to make him the idol of the cavalry and the inspiration of his soldiers, and kept heart in them no matter what happened.
That was a lovely evening. General Stuart had Sweeny, his banjo-player, in. Sweeny was a dignified, solemn-looking man, but couldn’t he play merry tunes on that banjo, and sad ones too! making you laugh and cry with his playing and his singing.
That was one of his mournful favorites. And you heard the jingle of spurs in his rollicking:
We called for “Old Joe Hooker, won’t you Come Out of the Wilderness?” and “O Johnny Booker, help this Nigger!” and “O Lord, Ladies, don’t you mind Stephen!” and “Sweet Evelina,” and—oh! I can’t remember them all, but if you choose to read Esten Cooke, he will tell you all about Sweeny’s songs and banjo. Stuart sang “The Dew is on the Blossom” and “The Bugles sang Truce.” He made Sweeny give, twice over, “Sweet Nellie is by my Side,” and sat himself down beside me, and tried to tease Dan because he sat at table with me every day and Dan couldn’t. In spite of everything I was very happy in those old days at the Bradfords’! I was not yet out of my teens, you know; so I hope I was not very much to blame because I was always ready for a romp across that lawn at Mr. Bradford’s with the commander-in-chief of the Southern cavalry. His was the gentlest, merriest, sweetest-tempered soul I ever knew. He was always ready to sympathize with me, to tease me, and to help me. Whenever he teased me out of conceit with myself or him, he always would put me in a good humor by saying nice things about Dan, or sending a courier after him.
He had an idea that I was very plucky, and in after days when I was ready to show the white feather, Dan would shame me by asking, “What would General Stuart say?”
Mr. Bradford and his wife, “Aunt Sally,” were characters. Mr. Bradford was a very quiet, peaceable man; Aunt Sally was strong-minded, and had a tongue and mind of her own. Mr. Bradford had a good deal of property and stayed out of the army to take care of it. I think Aunt Sally made him stay out of the war for this reason, but she made home about as hot for him as the field would have been. I can’t think he stayed at home to keep out of war, for he was in war all the time. Aunt Sally continually twitted him with staying at home, although she made him do it. She was always sure to do this when the table was filled with Confederate officers.
“The place for a man,” she would say, “is on the field. Just give me the chance to fight! Just give me the chance to fight, and see where I’ll be!”
And General Stuart would convulse me by whispering: “I don’t think she needs a chance to fight, do you?”
Sometimes when Aunt Sally’s harangue would begin the general would whisper, “Aunt Sally’s getting herself in battle array,” or “The batteries have limbered up,” or “Aunt Sally’s scaled the breastworks,” and Mr. Bradford’s meek and inoffensive face would make the situation funnier. He would mildly help the boarders to the dish in front of him and endeavor feebly to turn the conversation into a peaceful and safe direction, though this never had the slightest effect upon his belligerent wife.
One day—it was about the time of Stuart’s historical grand review—Mr. Bradford invited all the cavalry generals whose forces were stationed around us to dine with the commander-in-chief of the cavalry. He would never have dared to do this if Aunt Sally had been at home, but Aunt Sally at this auspicious moment was in Washington, where we all hoped the fortunes of war and shopping would keep her indefinitely. Her niece, Miss Morse, and I sat down, the only ladies present, at a table with eighteen Confederate generals. Miss Molly and I were at first a trifle embarrassed at being the only ladies, but they were all refined and well-bred, and soon put us at our ease. General Wade Hampton led me in to dinner, and I sat between him and General Ramseur. General Ramseur was young and exceedingly handsome, and a paralyzed arm which was folded across his breast made him all the more attractive.
“If you sit next me, Mrs. Grey,” he said with a little embarrassment, “you will have to cut up my dinner for me. I am afraid that will be putting you to a great deal of trouble. Perhaps I had better change my seat.”
“Oh, no!” I said, “I will be very glad—if I can be satisfactory.”
He smiled. “Thank you. I am always both glad and sorry to impose upon a lady this service. I am sorry, you know, to tax a lady with it, but then, she always does it better than a man.”
I had been studying his face, and now, for want of something more sensible I said:
“If I am to feed you, General Ramseur, I must measure your mouth.”
It happened that there was dead silence at the table when this silly speech of mine was made. Everybody was listening.
“Madam,” said the handsome general, blushing and smiling, “I am entirely willing that you should.”
I caught a mischievous light in General Stuart’s merry eyes, and blushed furiously. Then I followed his laugh, and the whole table roared.
“I will tell Dan Grey!” cried Stuart.
“I will tell Dan Grey!” ran around the table like a chorus.
But I fed my handsome general all the same.
It was while I was at Mr. Bradford’s that one of the most stirring events in Confederate history occurred. This was the trampling down of John Minor Botts’s corn. Very good corn it was, dropped and hilled by Southern negroes and growing on a large, fine plantation next to Mr. Bradford’s; and a very nice gentleman Mr. Botts was, too; but a field of corn, however good, and a private citizen, however estimable, are scarcely matters of national or international importance. The trouble was that John Minor Botts was on the Northern side and the corn was on the Southern side, and that Stuart held a grand review on the Southern side and the corn got trampled down. The fame of that corn went abroad into all the land. Northern and Southern papers vied with each other in editorials and special articles, families who had been friends for generations stopped speaking and do not speak to this day because of it, more than one hard blow was exchanged for and against it, and it brought down vituperation upon Stuart’s head. And yet I was present at that naughty grand review—afterward writ in letters of blood upon hearts that reached from Virginia to Florida—and I can testify that General Stuart went there to review the troops, not to trample down the corn.
Afterward John Minor Botts came over to see General Stuart and to quarrel about that corn. All that I can remember of how the general took Mr. Botts’s visit and effort to quarrel was that Stuart wouldn’t quarrel—whatever it was he said to Mr. Botts he got to laughing when he said it. Our colored Abigail told us with bated breath that “Mr. Botts ripped and rarred and snorted, but Genrul Stuart warn’t put out none at all.”
There had been many reviews that week, all of them merely by way of preparation and practise for that famous grand review before the battle of Brandy or Fleetwood, but it is only of this particular grand review I have many lively memories. Aunt Sally was away, and we attended it in state. Mr. Bradford had out the ancient and honorable family carriage and two shadowy horses, relics of days when corn was in plenty and wheat not merely a dream of the past, and we went in it to the review along with many other carriages and horses, whose title to respect lay, alas! solely in the past.
That was a day to remember! Lee’s whole army was in Culpeper. Pennsylvania and Gettysburg were before it, and the army was making ready for invasion. On a knoll where a Confederate flag was planted and surrounded by his staff sat General Lee on horseback; before him, with a rebel yell, dashed Stuart and his eight thousand cavalry. There was a sham battle. Charging and countercharging went on, rebels yelled and artillery thundered. Every time the cannons were fired we would pile out of our carriage, and as soon as the cannonading ceased we would pile back again. General Stuart happened to ride up once just as we were getting out.
“Why don’t you ladies sit still and enjoy the fun?” he asked in amazement.
“We are afraid the horses might take fright and run away,” we answered.
I shall never forget his ringing laugh. Our lean and spiritless steeds had too little life in them to run for anything—they hardly pricked up their ears when the guns went off.
How well I remember Stuart as he looked that day! He wore a fine new uniform, brilliant with gold lace, buff gauntlets reaching to his elbows, and a canary-colored silk sash with tasseled ends. His hat, a soft, broad-brimmed felt, was caught up at the side with a gold star and carried a sweeping plume; his high, patent-leather cavalry boots were trimmed with gold. He wore spurs of solid gold, the gift of some Maryland ladies—he was very proud of those spurs—and his horse was coal black and glossy as silk. And how happy he was—how full of faith in the Confederacy and himself!
My own cavalry officer was there, resplendent in his new uniform—I had had it made up for him in Richmond. Dan was very proud of the way I got that uniform. He was almost ready to credit himself with having put me up to running the blockade! He told General Stuart its history, and that is how a greatness not always easy to sustain had been thrust upon me. General Stuart thought me very brave—or said he thought so. The maneuvers of Dan’s command were on such a distant part of the field that I could not see him well with the naked eye, and General Stuart lent me his field-glasses. The next morning, just as gray dawn was breaking, some one called under my window, and gravel rattled against the pane. I got up and looked out sleepily. My first thought was that it might be Dan. There was not enough light for me to see very well what was happening on the lawn, but I could make out that the cavalry were mounted and moving, and under my window I saw a figure on horseback.
“Is that Mrs. Grey?”
“Yes. What is the matter?”
“General Stuart sent me for his field-glasses. I am sorry to disturb you, but it couldn’t be helped.”
I tied a string around the glasses and lowered them.
“What’s the matter? Where is the cavalry going?”
“To Brandy Station. Reckon we’ll have some hot fighting soon,” and the orderly wheeled and rode away.
I stayed up and dressed, and thought of Dan, and wished I could know if he was to be in the coming engagement, and that I could see him first. But I didn’t see him all day.
In forty-eight hours we knew that the surmise of the orderly was correct—there was enough fighting. The first cannon-ball which tore through the air at Brandy was only too grave assurance of the fact. All day men were hurrying past the house, deserters from both armies getting away from the scene of bloodshed and thunder as quickly as possible. Then came the procession of the dead and wounded, some in ambulances, some in carts, some on the shoulders of friends.
In the afternoon we began to hear rumors giving names of the killed and wounded. I listened with my heart in my throat for Dan’s name, but I did not hear it. I heard no news whatever of him all day—all day I could only hope that no news was good news, and all day that ghastly procession dragged heavily by. Among names of those killed I heard of Colonel Sol Williams. A day or two before the battle of Brandy he had returned from a furlough to Petersburg, where he had gone to marry a lovely woman, a friend of mine. The day before he was killed he had sat at table with me, chatting pleasantly of mutual friends at home from whom he had brought messages, brimful of happiness, and of the charming wife he had won! As the day waned I sat in my room, wretched and miserable, thinking of my friend who was at once a wife and a widow, and fearing for myself, whose husband even at that moment might be falling under his death wound. I was aroused by hearing the voices of men, subdued but excited, on the stairway leading to my room. I ran out and saw several men of rank and Mr. Bradford on the stairway talking excitedly, and I heard my name spoken.
“What’s the matter, gentlemen?” I asked with forced calmness.
They looked up at me in a stupid, masculine sort of way, as if they had something disagreeable to say and didn’t want to say it. I could shake those men now, when I think of how stupid they were! They were listening to Mr. Bradford, and I don’t think they really caught my question, nor did my manner betray to them how fast my heart was beating, but they were stupid, nevertheless. I could hardly get the next words out:
“Is Dan hurt?”
This time my voice was so low that they did not hear it at all.
“For God’s sake, gentlemen,” I cried out, “tell me if my husband is wounded or dead.”
“Neither, madam!” several voices answered instantly, and the officer nearest me, thinking I was going to fall, sprang quickly to my side. I gathered myself together, and they told me their business, and I saw why my presence had embarrassed them—they wanted my room for the wounded. A funny thing had happened, incongruous as it was, in their telling me that my fears for Dan were groundless. When I asked, “Is Dan hurt?” one of them had answered, “No, ma’am; it’s General Rooney Lee;” and I had said, “Thank God!” I can’t describe the look of horror with which they heard me.
“These gentlemen,” began Mr. Bradford, who was always afraid to speak his mind, “wanted to bring General Lee here, and I didn’t have a place to put him, and I was telling ’em that I thought that—maybe—you would give him your room. I could fix up a lounge for you somewhere.”
“Of course I will! I shall be delighted to give up my room, or do anything else I can for General Lee.”
I busied myself getting my room ready for General “Rooney,” but he was not brought to Mr. Bradford’s, after all; his men were afraid that he might be captured too easily at Mr. Bradford’s. As night came on the yard filled up with soldiers. In the lawn, the road, the backyard, the porches, the outhouses, everywhere, there were soldiers. You could not set your foot down without putting it on a soldier; if you thrust your hand out of a window you touched a soldier’s back or shoulder, his carbine or his musket. The place was crowded not only with cavalry, but with infantry and artillery, and still they kept on coming. I had not heard from Dan. It was late supper-time. I had no heart for supper, and I felt almost too shaken to present myself at the table, but as I passed the dining-room in my restless rovings I saw General Stuart’s back, and went in and sat by him.
“General,” I said, “can you tell me anything of Dan?”
“He is neither killed nor wounded. I know that much. Is not that enough?”
“Yes, thank God!
“Oh, general! I wish this war was over!” I said again.
“I, too, my child!” He spoke with more than Stuart’s sadness and gravity, then, remembering himself, he added quickly in his own cheery fashion, “But we’ve got to whip these Yankees first!”
He finished his cup of coffee (the kind in common use, made of corn which had been roasted, parched, and ground), and then went on telling me about Dan.
“He has borne himself gallantly, as he always does, and as you know without my telling you. I don’t know where he is, but he will be along presently.”
And at that moment Dan walked in, without a coat, and with the rest of that new uniform a perfect fright. He was covered with dust and ashes and gunpowder, and he looked haggard and jaded. He sat down between General Stuart and me, too tired to talk; but after eating some supper, he felt better, and began discussing the battle and relating some incidents. He took a card out of his pocket and handed it to General Stuart.
“A Federal officer who is about done for, poor fellow, handed me that just now. I don’t know the name. He couldn’t talk.”
“I do!” General Stuart exclaimed, with quick, strong interest. “Where did you see him? This is the name of one of my classmates at West Point.”
“I saw him on the roadside as I came on to supper. While riding along I heard a strange sound, something like a groan, yet different from any groan I ever heard—the strangest, most uncanny sound imaginable. I dismounted and began to look around for it, and I found a Yankee soldier lying in a ditch by the roadside. I couldn’t see that any legs or arms were broken, nor that he was wounded at all. I felt him all over, and asked what was the matter. He didn’t speak, and I saw that he had been trying to direct my attention to his face. He tried very hard to speak, but only succeeded in emitting the strange sound I had heard before; and on examining his face closely, and moving the whiskers aside, I found that he was shot through both jaws. He made the same noise again, put his hand in his pocket, and gave me this card, with another pitiful effort to speak. I put my coat under his head, laid some brush across the ditch to hide him, and promised to go back for him in an ambulance.”
“Thank you, in my own behalf!” General Stuart said warmly.
“Perhaps, poor fellow,” said Dan, “he took chances on that card’s reaching you. Seeing my uniform of major of cavalry, he may not have considered it impossible that you should hear of his condition through me.”
“When you have finished your supper, major, we will go after him.”
Tired as they both were, they went out and attended personally to the relief of the poor fellow by the roadside. General Stuart had everything done for him that was possible, smoothed his last moments, and grieved over him as deeply as if his classmate had not been his enemy.
Another sad thing among the sorrows of that supper was when Colonel Sol Williams’s brother-in-law, John Pegram, came in, and sat down in our midst. General Stuart went up to him, and wrung his hand in a silence that even the dauntless Stuart’s lips were too tremulous at once to break. When he could speak he said:
“I grieve for myself as for you, lieutenant, but it was a death that any one of us might be proud to die.”
Even then the shadow and glory of his own death was not far from him.
Colonel Williams had been Lieutenant Pegram’s superior officer as well as brother-in-law. It had been his sorrowful lot to take the body of his colonel on his horse in front of him, and carry it to a house where it could be reverently cared for until he could send it home to bride and kindred. He had cut a lock of hair from the dead, and when the troops went off to Pennsylvania, he gave it to me for his sister. I shall never forget that supper hour, or how the unhappy young fellow looked when he came in among us after his ride with the dead, and I shall never forget how I felt about that poor young Federal soldier who was wounded in the jaws and couldn’t speak, and how I felt about the women who loved him far away; I began to feel that war was an utterly unjustifiable thing, and that the virtues of valor, loyalty, devotion which it brings out had better be brought out some other way. If General Rooney Lee didn’t take my room, I gave it up all the same. Two wounded men were put into it. There were a number of wounded men in the house, and, of course, everybody gave way to their comfort. All but my two were removed in a day or two, but here these two were, and here they were when Aunt Sally came home. Her homecoming was after a fashion that turned our mourning into righteous and wholesome wrath. We were sitting on the porch one afternoon, free and easy in our minds and believing Aunt Sally away in distant Washington, when we noted a small object far off down the road. As it crawled nearer and nearer we perceived that it was an ox-cart; we saw the driver, and behind him somebody else sitting on a trunk.
“Good gracious! that’s Aunt Sally!” cried Mr. Bradford in consternation.
We were all dreadfully sorry, but it couldn’t be helped.
She climbed off the cart at the gate, and called for some negro to come get her trunk. Mr. Bradford had already found one, and was running to the rescue. In fact he had been running in a half dozen different directions ever since he had spied Aunt Sally. He looked as if his wits had left him and as if he were racing around in a circle.
“You orter been on hand to he’p me off o’ that kyart,” she told him. “It do look like when a man’s wife’s been away this long time he might be on hand to he’p her off the kyart.”
As she came up the walk she said the yard looked awful torn and “trompled down”; that she was afraid she would find it so soon as she heard that the place had been camping ground for the whole army and her away and nobody there to manage the army as she could have done. She greeted me and her niece, and in the same breath told her niece that there was some mud on the steps which ought to be washed off. Then she went into the house, taking off her things and remarking on “things that ought to be done.” Presently there was a great stir in the house; she had found out the wounded men. She commented on their presence in such a loud voice that we heard it on the porch, and the men themselves must have heard it.
“Just like Mr. Bradford! If I had been here it wouldn’t have happened. The idea! Turning the house into a hospital! I won’t have it! Nobody knows who they are. I can’t have ’em on my best beds, and between my best sheets and blankets. Dirty, common soldiers! I never heard of such a thing!”
And she got them out before supper.
There was an office in the yard and she had them taken to this. They had to be carried past us, and I can see them now, poor, mortified, shame-faced fellows! I was as afraid of Aunt Sally as of a rattlesnake, but I think I could have shaken her then!
Little it was that I saw of Dan or any of my army friends after the battle of Brandy. The cavalry was too busy watching Hooker’s, while our infantry was pushing on toward Pennsylvania, to spare any time to lighter matters. Every day the boys in gray marched by on their way North.
I watched from the porch and windows if by any means I might catch sight of Dan. But his way did not lie by Bradford’s. One morning, however, I saw General Stuart riding by at the head of a large command. I thought they were going to stop and camp at Mr. Bradford’s, perhaps, but I was mistaken. As soon as I saw that they were going by without stopping, I ran to the fence and beckoned to General Stuart. He had seen me on the porch, and rode up to the fence at once.
“Aren’t you going to stop at all?” I asked.
“Not to-day. In fact we’re off for some time now.”
“Is Dan going?”
“Yes. He’s ahead now with General Chambliss.”
“Am I not to see him at all, General Stuart?” I said, trying hard to keep my lip from quivering—I had a reputation to keep up with him.
But he saw the quiver.
“You can go on with the army if you want to,” he said in quick sympathy. “I will give you an ambulance. You can carry your own maid along, have your own tent, and have your husband with you. I will do anything I can for your comfort. You would nurse our poor fellows when they get hurt, and be no end of good to us. But it would be awfully hard on you.”
“I wouldn’t mind the hardships,” I answered, “but you know Dan won’t let me go. I have begged him several times to let me live in camp with him. I could nurse the sick and wounded, and take care of him if he was shot, and I wouldn’t be a bit of trouble; and I could patch for the soldiers. Oh, I’d love to do it! If you come up with him, General Stuart, ask him to let me go, and if he says yes, send the ambulance.”
“I’ll promise him what I promised you,” he said, smiling kindly. “Good-by now. I’ll ride on and send him back to say good-by to you, if I can manage it. Then you can talk him into letting you come with us.”
I climbed up on the fence to shake hands with him and to say good-by, and I had another word for him. Beneath my dress and next my skin was a little Catholic medal which had been blessed by my confessor. It hung around my neck by a slender chain. I unclasped the chain, drew forth the medal and gave it to him, my eyes brimming with tears.
“It has been blessed by Father Mulvey,” I said. “Wear it about your neck. Maybe it will bring you back safe.”
I was leaning upon the horse’s neck, crying as if my heart would break. General Stuart’s own eyes were dim.
“Good-by,” I said, “and if you can send Dan back I thank you for us both—I thank you anyway for thinking of it; but—the South and his duty first. Good-by, and God bless you, General Stuart!”
That was the last time I ever saw him, the last time that knightly hand clasped mine. Before he rode away he said some cheerful, hopeful words, and looked back at me with the glint of merry mischief in his eyes, threatening to tell Dan Grey that I was losing my good repute for bravery. Dan did not come back to say good-by. I had a little note which he contrived to send me in some way. It was only a hasty scrawl, full of good-bys and God bless yous.
After saying good-by to General Stuart I returned to the house. Esten Cooke sat at a table writing. He was preparing some official papers for General Stuart, I think, and had been left behind for that purpose. I understood him to answer one of my questions to the effect that he was going to follow the cavalry presently.
“Colonel Cooke,” I asked humbly enough, for I was ready then to take information and advice from anybody, “how long do you think it will be before the army comes back?”
“Can’t say, madam.”
“Would you advise me to wait here until its return?”
“Can’t say, madam.”
“Would you advise me to go to Richmond?”
“Madam, I would advise you to go to Richmond.”
“You think then it will be some time before the army returns?”
“I can’t say, madam?”
I felt like shaking him and asking: “What can you say?” He may have been a brave soldier and written nice books and all that, but I think John Esten Cooke was a very dull, disagreeable man.
I waited several days, but as I got nothing further from Dan than the little note—which was bare of advice because, perhaps, he didn’t have time to write more, and because he may not have known how to advise me—I took John Esten Cooke’s advice and went to Richmond. I stopped there only a very short time, and then went on to Petersburg, where mother was. Reunion with her was compensation for many troubles, and then, too, she needed me. She had not heard from Milicent since my departure for Culpeper. Then a letter had reached us through the agency of Mr. Cridland, in which Milicent had stated her purpose of coming to us as soon as she could get a pass—a thing it was every day becoming more difficult to secure—for she was determined upon reaching us before the cold weather came again. Since that letter there had been absolute silence.
Then came upon us that awful July of 1863, and the battle of Gettysburg, the beginning of the end. Virginians fell by hundreds in that fight, and Pickett’s charge goes down to history along with Balaklava and Thermopylæ. There were more vacant chairs in Virginia, already desolate—there were more broken hearts for which Heaven alone held balm. “When Italy’s made, for what good is it done if we have not a son?” Again the angel of death had passed me by. But my heart bled for my friends who were dead on that red field far away—for my friends who mourned and could not be comforted.
One of our wounded, whose father brought him home to be nursed, bore to me a letter from my husband and a package from General Stuart. The package contained a photograph of himself that he had promised me, and a note, bright, genial, merry, like himself. That picture is hanging on my wall now. On the back is written by a hand long crumbled into dust, “To her who in being a devoted wife did not forget to be a true patriot.” The eyes smile down upon us as I lift my little granddaughter up to kiss my gallant cavalier’s lips, and as she lisps his name my heart leaps to the memory of his dauntless life and death.
He was shot one beautiful May morning in 1864 while trying to prevent Sheridan’s approach to Richmond. It was at Yellow Tavern—a dismantled old tavern not many miles from the Confederate capital—that he fell, and Colonel Venable, who was serving with him at the time and near him when he fell, helped, if I remember aright, to shroud him. When he told me what he could of General Stuart’s last hours, he said:
“There was a little Catholic medal around his neck, Nell. Did you give him that? We left it on him.”
And so passes from this poor history my beloved and loyal friend, my cavalry hero and good comrade. Virginia holds his dust sacred, and in history he sits at the Round Table of all true-souled and gentle knights.
I passed May and a part of the summer of 1863 in fruitless efforts to get a pass to Virginia. This was when the Civil War was at its whitest heat, and I was in the city of Baltimore, where a word was construed into treason, and messages and letters were contrived to and from the South only by means of strategy. One by one my plans failed. Then came the battle of Gettysburg, and as I heard of our reverses I felt an almost helpless lethargy stealing over me—as if I should never see Nell or mother again. How long the war would last, and what would be the end of it none could tell. Nell and mother were in a besieged country, and the blockade between us seemed an impassable wall. The long silence was becoming unbearable as I slowly realized that it might become the silence of death and I not know.
At last came news which I thought affected them, and which startled me into instant energy.
One morning my friend, Miss Barnett, a beautiful girl, rushed into my room, and, throwing herself on the floor beside me, began telling me with sobs and tears that my brother-in-law, Major Grey, or his brother Dick, was a prisoner in the Old Capitol at Washington. She begged me to go at once and see what I could do. If I could not find some way of helping the prisoner to freedom, I could at least add to his comfort in prison.
“You could at least show him that he was remembered,” she said. “You could take some little delicacies which would be grateful to a prisoner. I will help you to get them up.”
Poor Isabelle! It was one of the tragedies of the war. She was too wretched to attempt any concealment.
“You see, if I had any right to go myself I would not ask you to go for me. If I were even engaged to him—but I am not. You see, it couldn’t be. But, O Millie! I wish there wasn’t any war that I might be my love’s betrothed and go to him!”
For a minute her proposition daunted me. To rush into Washington, a Southern woman, alone and unprotected; to be surrounded on all sides by the Government officials and spies whose business it was to watch and report every careless word and act of any one who was known to be interested in the South or in Southerners—the undertaking seemed desperate. But there were Isabelle’s tearful eyes, and there was the fear that Nell’s husband might be the prisoner. I determined to make the trip at all hazards.
Together we made purchases of what we considered the most tempting delicacies to take to an invalid or prisoner. There were cheeses, crackers, oranges, lemons, jellies; and we did not forget to add to our stock wine, whisky, pipes, and tobacco. Isabelle herself sent a box of fine cigars, a costly gift, for the war with the Southern States affected the price of tobacco.
The next morning I started off by myself to Washington in fear and trembling. Taking a hack there, and trusting to a kind Providence for guidance and protection, I drove first to the office of the provost marshal for a permit. On entering his office, to my consternation I recognized in him the judge-advocate under whose protection our truce boat had gone to Richmond not many months before with the distinct understanding that her passengers were not to return from Dixie while the war lasted. But it was too late to retreat. Rallying all my courage and self-control I greeted him as a stranger, asking whether or not I was addressing Judge Turner. Answered in the affirmative, I requested permission to visit the prisoners in the Old Capitol.
While I was talking he looked up and a glance almost of recognition lighted his face. It was succeeded by a more scrutinizing regard as I stood in perfectly assumed unconsciousness before him. Bowing, he asked me to be seated, and to repeat my petition. Others were waiting their turn, and his answer was prompt:
“Certainly, madam. You can see the two prisoners mentioned, or any one you wish, and take with you what you please.”
An easy job certainly!
My heart grew light; I arose to go, thanking the judge cordially.
He said: “One moment, madam.”
I went back, and he handed me a pen, ink, and slip of paper, saying:
“Just sign this, please. It is of no consequence at all—a mere matter of form—only you can not see your friends without it.”
There spread out before me was the ironclad oath!
Without a moment’s hesitation I replied:
“The oath, Judge Turner! Am I to sign that? I can not! and never will!”
He smiled apologetically and said:
“It is of no consequence—only a little form that we have to insist on. Sign it, and you can go to your friends.”
“If it is of no consequence to your side, provost, why should it be of so much to mine that I can not see my friends without it?”
He smiled, and still held the pen out to me.
“No! never!” I said.
“Then I can not help you. I am sorry. You must apply at military headquarters.”
He kindly directed me to the same. I hurried down the steps, jumped into my hack, and drove quickly to the War Department. Here I made my request again and again met with the same polite consent backed with the oath. Again I refused and turned to go, when one of the officers kindly suggested:
“Make application to the officer at the Old Capitol. He may permit you to see the prisoners without oath, though I fear not.”
As there was not much time left before my train would start for Baltimore, I urged my driver to do his best, and we sped on in haste until we stopped before the gloomy, formidable-looking prison of the Old Capitol. With the permission of the guard I entered. The officer in command received me with kindness and courtesy, and with his consent I was about to ascend the stairs when he extended his hand, saying:
“The oath, if you please. I presume you took it at the War Department, and have your pass.”
Again I was foiled. This was my last chance. There was no use pleading, and I was in despair. I leaned on a chair to rest a moment before leaving the room, defeated. I had not a word to say, and I did not say a word. I suppose my deep dejection touched him. I was about to go when he said with great kindness:
“Wait here near these steps. I will send up an order, and if he is there, he can come to the railing and you can speak to him, and send him anything you wish. But you can not go up.”
An orderly ascended with the message, and I waited at the steps, watching anxiously for Dan or Dick to appear at the railing. I did not have many minutes to wait. The orderly returned with the reply that Lieutenant—not Major—Grey had been exchanged that very morning, and was now on his way home. Happy for Nell and Isabelle and myself, I poured out my thanks to the officer in command for helping me to such good news, and asked his permission to send the large basket of good things I had brought to the other prisoners. He gave it, and I saw the orderly again mount the stairs, burdened this time with good wishes and my still more substantial and acceptable offering. As I went out, passing again through the prison gates, my driver whispered in the most excited manner:
“Lady! lady! do take care! The prisoners are all at the windows, and if you look up or speak to them we will both be arrested instantly.”
I seated myself quickly, and then, in spite of all fears and warnings, glanced up, to see the windows filled with faces, and hands and handkerchiefs waving to me inside the bars. As we dashed forward, I leaned out of the window waving my handkerchief in vigorous response. In the excitement, the enthusiasm of the moment, I lost all sense of fear or danger—my whole heart was with those desolate, homesick Confederates behind the bars. Fortunately the driver was frightened out of his wits and drove like mad, or we should never have gotten to the train in time.
I had been fortunate enough to find in my driver a strong, if secret, sympathizer with the South. As I bade him good-by, and thanked him for the care and promptness with which he had carried me about, and for his unheeded warning as well, he said:
“Oh, lady, lady, you ran a great risk when you waved that handkerchief! I saw it and drove as fast as I could to get you away from there. It is a wonder we were not arrested.”
I stepped on the car, and was taking my seat, when a hand lightly touched my shoulder from behind, and I heard myself arrested by a name that was not mine. Behind me stood a sergeant in the United States uniform, who informed me that I was his prisoner.
I tried to shrink away from him.
“That is not my name,” I said.
Still he kept that light grip on my shoulder. I felt sick. The day had been a long one of exercise and excitement. I had eaten nothing since my early breakfast of a cracker and a cup of coffee, and I was physically weak. The terror of the situation, the full foolhardiness of my undertaking flashed upon me. Alone in Washington, not a friend near, and under arrest! For an instant everything whirled around me, and I fell back against the breast of the sergeant; but as instantly I pulled myself together and stood erect.
“You are mistaken,” I said quietly, “I am not the person you have mentioned.”
And I threw back my heavy mourning veil and looked my captor full in the face.
“Ain’t you? It’s widow’s weeds this time!”
These words were spoken sarcastically by a man in civilian dress who was with the sergeant—a detective, I suppose.
“I am Mrs. Milicent Duncan Norman, of Baltimore,” I said firmly. “You can telegraph to No. — Charles Street and see. You will please remove your hand,” I continued. “If necessary I will go with you, but I am not the person you wish to arrest. You are making a mistake.”
I turned my face full to the light, and stood, calm and composed, though my knees were trembling under me, and I felt as if I should faint. I saw Bobby at home waiting for me!
“I must stay over if you insist,” I repeated, “but I hope you will permit me to convince you of your mistake. It would be extremely inconvenient to me to be detained here. I left Baltimore this morning, and my little boy has been without me all day. He will cry himself sick if I don’t get home to-night.”
In spite of all I could do my lips quivered.
“I am sorry, madam,” said my sergeant, more respectfully than he had hitherto spoken, “but you will have to come with me. If it is as you say, you can telegraph and satisfy the authorities very quickly.”
My arrest had attracted some attention. I saw that people in the car were gathering around me, and I saw curiosity in some faces, sympathy in some, but among all those faces none that I knew. This was my first visit to Washington, and there was not a soul to identify me. There was nothing to do but to go and telegraph—if they would let me. I would have to miss my train. Bobby was watching from the window for me this very minute—Bobby would cry all night. I told the sergeant that I would go, and tried to follow him, and then everything grew dark around me, my head whirled, and I dropped across the seat nearest me.
I could not have been unconscious more than a second. The kind gentleman over whose seat I had fallen had caught me, and was slapping my face with a wet handkerchief, and assuring the sergeant that he knew by my face that I was perfectly harmless and ought not to be arrested, that he would bet anything on it, when a new passenger hurriedly entered the car and brushed squarely up against us.
The sergeant was saying: “We must hurry,” and offering me his arm very courteously. “You will feel better when you get out in the air. And you will perhaps come out all right, and be able to go on to-morrow.”
The newcomer looked over the sergeant’s shoulder and saw me.
“Milicent!” he said, and clasped my hands.
It was a dear friend whom I had known in my girlhood days as Captain Warren.
“What is all this?” he asked quickly of the sergeant.
The sergeant was staggered, the little man in civilian’s clothes cringed, the old man who had offered to bet on me was in the majority.
“We must get out of this, commodore,” said the sergeant quickly, “the car is moving.”
The commodore got out with us, lifted me bodily off the train, and then, as we stood together, while the sergeant explained, supported me with his arm. I was too weak and ill to hear their talk. I think I was very nearly in a faint while I stood, or tried to stand upright beside him.
He told me afterward that I had been arrested by mistake for some famous political spy in petticoats. He answered for me, made himself responsible in every way, lifted me into a carriage, and told the driver where to take us. I was too nearly dead to listen to what he said. As the carriage whirled along I tried to sit up, to lift my head, but every time I attempted it I grew blind and sick.
“I would not try to sit up just yet, Mrs. Norman,” he said very kindly. “In a few minutes, perhaps, you can do so without risk, but I’d be very quiet now. In a little while I will hand you over to my wife—she is a wonderful nurse.”
“My little boy is looking out of the window for me, waiting for me; he has been by himself all day,” I sobbed.
“Ah! I am so sorry you have had this annoyance and detention. I wish I had boarded the car earlier; you should have gone on if I had. I was outside talking with some friends, and I did not jump on the train until she was about to move off, but I can telegraph to your friends, and you can go on to-morrow.”
The ride in the open air had revived me, and I found now that I could sit up without fainting.
“You were going to Baltimore to-night,” I said. “I am putting you to so much trouble.”
“None at all. And if you were”—with a tremor in his voice—“I should be glad of it. Can you sit up? Ah! I am so glad you are better. When I first took you into this carriage I was afraid I would have to stop with you at the first doctor’s office. We are nearly home now.”
“You are very good,” I said, still too weak not to speak with tears in my voice.
“I am fortunate—but too much at your expense, I am afraid. You forget how large my debt is. I shall never forget the old days in Norfolk and the kindness that was shown me by you and yours. I owe you a great deal, Mrs. Norman, as yourself and as your father’s daughter. I shall never forget his charming hospitality. I am sorry you can’t go on to Baltimore, but I am glad of my opportunity.”
“That is a nice way to put it, commodore.”
“A true way to put it, Mrs. Norman. Please don’t be too sorry. Where is Nell?—Mrs. Grey, I suppose I should say. I can’t think of the saucy little fairy who used to sit on my knee as a madam.”
“I don’t know just where Nell is, or how. The fortunes of war have separated me from her, and mother as well.”
“And you are alone, without kindred, in Baltimore?”
“Yes, except my baby. I wish you could see Bobby—he is so sweet!”
“He must be.”
“He has Nell’s eyes and her golden curls—you remember?”
“Too well!”
“And her saucy sweet ways—wilful and almost bad—if he were not so sweet and true. But I tire you. Mothers who talk about their babies bore people. I make many good resolves not to talk Bobby, and, break every one.”
“You could never tire me. I am charmed to hear about your boy. Maybe you can find him a little sweetheart in my house. Here we are.”
He lifted me out of the carriage and led me into the house.
“This is an old friend of mine, dear,” he said to his wife. “She is sick and in trouble, and I have brought her to you. Her father’s home used to be my home in Norfolk. Mrs. Norman is Miss Duncan that was.”
She had heard of me. He began to explain how he had met me, but she interrupted.
“I will come back and hear,” she said, “when I have made Mrs. Norman comfortable. She looks worn-out. I must take her to her room and see what I can do to make her more at ease.” While she was talking she had me in a chair, holding my hand, and giving me a glass of wine.
Commodore Warren took my Baltimore address, and went out saying he would send the telegrams at once—a special one to Bobby all by himself.
Then Mrs. Warren saw me to my room. As we passed through hallways and up the stairs, our feet sank into soft, thick carpets that gave back no sound. Through an open doorway I caught a glimpse of her own exquisite chamber and of a cozy nursery where children’s gowns were laid out for the night. Everywhere around me were evidences of wealth, luxury, and refinement.
After a little rest I felt better.
As I went down to dinner I heard the street door open, and Commodore Warren’s voice in the hall.
Then children’s voices:
“Papa! papa!”
He was taking his children in his arms and kissing them, and I heard the glad murmur of his wife’s welcome.
Together they took me in to their table, and showered upon me courtesies and loving-kindness. Such a delightful dining-room it was—such lovely appointments and such perfect serving! and such charming hosts they made! The children are beautiful and well trained. They were brought into the parlor after dinner, and made great friends with me. You know children always like me, Nell. This trio took possession of me. They hovered around me, leaned against me, climbed into my lap, and the youngest went to sleep in my arms, her soft golden head nestled under my chin. We decided that she is to be Bobby’s sweetheart. Their parents were afraid that I was not strong enough for such demonstrations, but I begged that they would not interrupt the little people, whose caresses really did me a world of good. But the commodore called the nurse when the baby dropped to sleep, and she took it to the nursery, the other children following her. By this time I was quite myself. A telegram had come from Isabelle, saying she was with Bobby and that Bobby was comforted.
Commodore and Mrs. Warren suggested that we should go to the opera. It was rather late to start, but the carriage would take us in a few minutes, and we should not miss more than the first act. A great singer was to be heard, and the commodore remembered that I was fond of music. When I objected on the score that I was not in opera dress and that my wardrobe was in Baltimore, they explained that they kept a private box, and that I could hear without being distinctly visible—if I was not too fatigued to think of going.
“Oh, no!” I said. “You know I love opera, and, thanks to you both, I am entirely rested and comfortable about Bobby.”
Mrs. Warren ran up-stairs to dress while the carriage was being made ready. As for me, there was nothing to do but to put on my bonnet and cloak, so I sat still, and Commodore Warren drew up a chair in front of the sofa where I sat.
“This is like old times,” he said.
I tried to keep them back, but somehow I felt the tears starting to my eyes.
He got up and walked to the other end of the room, and brought a book of drawings of queer places and people he had seen in his journeys around the world. While he was showing them to me he remarked:
“I’ve a box somewhere of curious toys picked up in various parts of the world at different times, and I think Master Bobby would be interested in them. We’ll get Mrs. Warren to look it up, and I’ll ask you to be kind enough to take it to him with my compliments. It may—in a measure—recompense him for his mother’s absence to-night.”
“Bobby will be delighted—if he is not robbing your children.”
“My children,” he laughed, “have a surfeit of toys from the four corners of the earth. They have almost lost appreciation of such things. By the way, has Nell”—he caught himself with a laugh—“Mrs. Grey, I should say, any little ones of her own?”
“Bobby is the only baby in the family; but he is enough to go around.”
“I remember with profound gratitude the many expressions I used to receive of Nell’s regard in those old days, and seeing you brings them back. Oh, forgive me—I know there have been many changes.”
“Don’t apologize,” I said, smiling; “I am always glad to have old days and old friends recalled. Usually it does not shake me even to talk about father—it’s a pleasure to think people remember him. In the first part of this evening I had not quite recovered from my arrest. But Richard is himself again now. I haven’t forgotten how to be happy, and I’m going to enjoy this opera.” And I did enjoy it.
Mrs. Warren took me to my train in her carriage; and there he met us to say good-by to me, and to tell me that he would see that I had a pass to Norfolk in a day or two. They both saw me comfortably seated, and after farewells were said and he had seen his wife to her carriage he stepped back on the cars with a handful of flowers for me.
“Is there nothing,” he asked, “nothing that I can do for you? If you are ever in any trouble when I can help you, won’t you let me know?”
I bowed my head.
“And Bobby—if there is ever anything I can do for your child, you will let me know?”
“Good-by,” he said, “it is good to meet old friends and find that neither time nor war changes them. Good-by—we shall see you again some day.”
Isabelle was very happy when I told her that Dick was safe, and now that it was over she regretted having sent me into such dangers and tribulations.
“I ought to have gone,” she said. “I could have taken the oath, you see, if they had asked me. And then, well, papa is known there, but—I couldn’t ask papa to help Dick. He wouldn’t have done anything for him.”
Milicent always came as a soul comes.
The day after we got the batch of letters the door opened softly, and there she stood, holding Bobby by the hand. She had come so quietly that we did not know it until she stood in our midst. But Bobby was a veritable piece of flesh and blood. As soon as he saw it was grandma and auntie, he made a bound for us, and overwhelmed us with his noisy and affectionate greetings, while his mother submitted to being loved and kissed, and in her quiet way loved and kissed back again. Then she told us how she had come from Norfolk to Petersburg. It was a long, dreary trip.
“I went on a flag-of-truce train to Suffolk. Dr. Wright’s family were on the train, and I spent the night with them. Bobby burned his throat at supper by swallowing tea too hot for him, and he did not rest well in the early part of the night and slept late the next day, and I was very anxious about him. This, and the difficulty in getting a conveyance, kept me at Dr. Wright’s until the afternoon. By that time I had secured a mule-cart to take me to Ivor Station, on the Norfolk and Petersburg Railroad. Ivor, you know, is not more than twenty-five miles from Suffolk by the direct route, but the route we had to take for safety, as far as the Yankees and mud were concerned, was longer, and our one mule went slowly.
“The first afternoon we traveled till late in the night. Bobby would insist on driving the mule, and the driver humored him. In spite of the pain in his throat, he stood up against my knee and held the lines until, poor little tired fellow! he went to sleep holding them. I drew him on to my lap, covered him up, and we went on, the old negro, old mule, and baby all asleep. At last we stopped at a farmhouse to feed the mule. The woman who lived there asked me in. I laid Bobby down on her bed, dropped across it, and in five minutes was asleep myself. I don’t know how many other people slept in that bed that night, but I know that the old woman, Bobby, and I slept in it. When I woke up it was several hours after daylight. Our breakfast the next morning was a typical Confederate breakfast. My hostess gave me a drink made of parched wheat and corn which had been ground, a glass of milk, and some corn bread and bacon, and I enjoyed the meal and paid her cheerfully.
“We reached Ivor late that afternoon, my driver got his fee and departed, and Bobby and I were left to wait for the train. But we were not the only persons at the station; two other women were waiting at Ivor. If those two women could have had their way there would never have been another sunset on this earth. Their two sons were to be shot at sundown—they were watching for the sun to go down. Up and down, up and down, they walked in front of a tent where their sons under military guard awaited execution, and as they walked their eyes, swift and haggard, shifted from tent to sky and back again from sky to tent. As my train moved out of the station I glanced back. They were walking with feverish haste, and the sun hung low in the heavens.”
“Hush, hush!” I cried, “I can’t stand another word—I shall dream of those women all night. Tell me how you got here at last!”
“When I reached Pocahontas I meant to go to Jarrett’s, and stop until I could find out where you were, but while I was looking around for a carriage who should I come upon but John, our old hackman. He told me that you were both out here at Uncle William’s, and I made him drive me out.”
Soon after my sister’s arrival we moved into town and boarded at Miss Anne Walker’s, an old historic house then facing Washington Street, which runs east and west, paralleling the railroad at Jarrett’s Hotel—or rather where Jarrett’s used to stand—an ugly old hotel in the heart of the town. It was beside this railroad that I ran bareheaded along Washington Street some months later to get out of the way of the Yankee cannon. I was at Miss Anne’s when Dan gave me leave to visit him at Charlottesville. His headquarters was a small cottage in sight of the university and of my window. He came home every night—home was a student’s room in the university—and very often I went with him in the morning to his cottage.
One morning as I sat in the cottage, turning a pair of Dan’s old trousers, the door opened, and a fine-looking cavalry officer entered. Surprised to find a lady in occupation, he lifted his hat and started to withdraw. Then he hesitated, regarding me in a confused, doubtful fashion. Whereupon I in my turn began to stare at him.
“Isn’t this John—John Mason?” I asked suddenly.
“That is my name,” with a sweeping bow. “And are you not my old friend, Miss Nellie Duncan, of Norfolk?”
“Yes,” I answered smiling, “but you know I have a third name now.”
“Of course. Unpleasant facts are always hard to remember. I heard of your marriage, certainly, but for the moment the remembrance of it escaped me. You are here with the major?”
The last time I had seen John was on that day which closed the chapter of my happy girlhood in Norfolk. He had been with me when the telegram came telling us that father could not live, and from that day to this I had never seen him until he surprised me patching Dan’s old trousers in the cottage at Charlottesville.
He took the chair opposite, and began talking about the work I was doing and the evidence it bore to my being a good wife. But so far from being pleased I was very much mortified, for the old trousers were in a dreadful state of wear and tear, and he was resplendent in a new uniform. But after a while we dropped the trousers, and got on the subject of Norfolk and old times, and had quite a pleasant chat till my husband came in and he and John turned their attention to business.
I was seeing more of my husband than at any previous or later period of the war, and having altogether a delightful time. One of the things I enjoyed most were our horseback rides.
Dan had two horses for his own use—Tom Hodges, his old army horse, and Nellie Grey, a fine new mare that he had christened for me. When his horse was shot under him in that charge which has been mentioned before, the people of his native town had sent him Nellie Grey in its stead. Nellie was a beautiful creature, docile but very spirited, and I was not often trusted to ride her unless Dan himself was along. Tom Hodges was not so handsome, but he was a horse of decorous ideas and steadfast principles.
I remember well my first ride on Nellie Grey. I had the reputation of being an excellent horsewoman, and Dan wanted to show me off. He was inordinately proud of me, to my great delight, but I could have dispensed with the form his vanity took on that day.
As we rode in an easy canter down University Avenue he gave Nellie Grey a cut, without my knowledge, that sent her off like the wind in a regular cavalry gallop.
Well, I kept my seat—somehow—and I brought her to her senses and a standstill, and then I looked back to see Dan beaming with pride and pleasure.
“What is the matter with this horse?” I asked. “She’s a fool!”
Then Dan told me of that secret cut.
“I knew just what she would do,” he said, “and I knew what you’d do. I wanted to show the boys over there what pluck my wife’s got.”
“Dan,” I said solemnly, “it’s not Nellie Grey that’s the fool.”
I was breathless and vexed, and I had to use the strongest language at my command to express my opinion of Nellie Grey, but it wasn’t strong enough to express my feelings toward Dan! I simply had to look my thoughts!
“You see, wifie,” he went on apologetically, “you did look so pretty and plucky that you ought to have seen yourself.”
Sam had gone home on a furlough, and in his place Dan had a very magnificent body-servant named Napoleon Bonaparte, and an under-boy named Solomon. Napoleon Bonaparte brushed the major’s boots, and Solomon brushed Napoleon’s. Napoleon Bonaparte was a bright mulatto, Solomon was as black as tar. It was Napoleon Bonaparte’s business to supply my room with wood, but this task he delegated to Solomon. Whatever menial work the major ordered Napoleon Bonaparte to do, Napoleon turned over to Solomon. “Solomon,” he said, “was nothin’ but a free nigger nohow.” It came to pass finally that Solomon, ostensibly hired to one master, in reality served two. Of course, Napoleon Bonaparte feathered his own nest and worked things so that the major was really paying two men to do the work of one. When the major could not ride with me, he sent Napoleon Bonaparte to act as groom. This Napoleon Bonaparte esteemed an honor, and he only appointed Solomon in his stead when he himself was in demand as equerry for the major. Napoleon always elected to follow the major in such case, as that was higher employment in his eyes than riding behind me. One morning I stood waiting in my habit a long time for the horses. At last when they appeared Solomon came on a sorry mount, leading Tom Hodges. The procession moved at a snail’s pace, and Solomon looked dreadfully glum.
“What makes you so late?” I asked impatiently.
“Dunno ’zackly, marm. Evvybody in de camp got de debbul in ’em. Major, he got de debbul in him! ’Poleon Bonaparte, he got de debbul in him. An’ evvybody got de debbul in ’em!”
“There seem to have been a great many devils in camp. Wasn’t there one to spare for you, Solomon?”
“Nor’m, I ain’t had no debbul in me—me an’ Tom Hodges. We’s been de onliest peaceable people in camp. Ef I hadn’t er kep’ de peace, me an’ ’Poleon Bonaparte would ha’ fit, sho!”
“I should think you would like to fight Napoleon—I should, if I were you.”
“Nor’m, I don’ b’lieve in no fightin’—’cep’in’ ’tis ter fit de Yankees. I’m er peaceable man, I is.”
I told Dan what a bad report Solomon had made out against him.
He laughed. “Solomon has the grumps this morning. He seemed to have quite a time with your namesake, as well as with the rest of us. Napoleon Bonaparte sent him to rub Nellie Grey down and saddle her for me. The mare threw her head up and jerked him about a little, and we could hear him saying: ‘Whoa! Nellie Grey, whoa! You got de debbul in you too! Who-a, Nellie Grey!’ Between the two of them I am having rather a hard time lately,” said Dan. “Solomon blames ’Poleon Bonaparte directly for all the hard times he has, and me indirectly. If something isn’t done as it should be, and I take Napoleon to task, he lays it thick and hard on Solomon. Solomon did have a time of it at camp this morning. You see, ’Poleon Bonaparte is very particular about the way the horses are kept, but he makes Solomon do all the rubbing down, and Solomon doesn’t understand how to manage horses and is a little afraid of them. ’Poleon Bonaparte found fault with his job this morning, and made him rub Nellie Grey down twice. It naturally occurred to Nellie that so much rubbing meant an opportunity for playing. Black Solomon really was the good angel at camp, for before he and Nellie Grey got us to laughing, swearing had been thick enough to cut with a knife. I had turned loose on ’Poleon, and ’Poleon had turned loose on Solomon.”