“Well,” I said, as I walked on, “this is a charming adventure and conveys a tolerably good idea of the city of Richmond, after dark, in the year 1864. Our friend Blocque is garroted, and robbed of his ‘honest earnings,’ at one fell swoop by a footpad! The worthy citizen is waylaid; his pockets rifled; his life desolated. All the proceeds of a life of virtuous industry have disappeared. Terrible condition of things!—awful times when a good citizen can not go home to his modest supper of canvas-backs and champagne, without being robbed by——his brother robber!”
Indulging in these reflections, not unaccompanied with smiles, I continued my way, with little fear, myself, of pickpockets or garroters. Those gentry were intelligent. They were never known to attack people with gray coats—they knew better! They attacked the black coats, in the pockets of which they suspected the presence of greenbacks and valuable papers; never the gray coats, where they would find only a frayed “leave of absence” for their pains!
I thus banished the whole affair from my mind; but it had aroused and excited me. I did not feel at all sleepy; and finding, by a glance at my watch beneath a lamp, that it was only half past ten, I resolved to go and ask after the health of my friend, Mr. X——-, whose house was only a square or two off.
This resolution I proceeded at once to carry out. A short walk brought me to the house, half buried in its shrubbery; but as I approached I saw a carriage was standing before the house.
Should I make my visit then, or postpone it? Mr. X——- evidently had company. Or had the carriage brought a visitor to some other member of the household? Mr. X——- was only a boarder, and I might be mistaken in supposing that he was engaged at the moment.
As these thoughts passed through my mind, I approached the gate in the iron railing. The carriage was half hidden by the shadow of the elms, which grew in a row along the sidewalk. On the box sat a motionless figure. The vehicle and driver were as still and silent as if carved out of ebony.
“Decidedly I will discover,” I said, and opening the gate I turned into the winding path through the shrubbery, which led toward the rear of the house; that is to say, toward the private entrance to the room of Mr. X——-.
Suddenly, as I passed through the shadowy shrubs, I felt a hand on my shoulder. I started back, and unconsciously felt for some weapon.
“Don’t shoot me, colonel!” said a voice in the darkness, “I am a friend.”
I recognized the voice of Nighthawk.
“Good heavens! my dear Nighthawk,” I said, drawing a long breath of relief, “you are enough to make Alonzo the Brave, himself, tremble? You turn up everywhere, and especially in the dark! What are you doing here?”
“I am watching, colonel,” said Nighthawk, with benignant sweetness.
“Watching?”
“And waiting.”
“Waiting for whom?”
“For a lady with whom you have the honor of being acquainted.”
“A lady—?”
“That one you last saw in the lonely house near Monk’s Neck. Hush! here she comes.”
His voice had sunk to a whisper, and he drew me into the shrubbery, as a long bar of light, issuing from the door in the rear of the house, ran out into the night.
“I am going to follow her,” whispered Nighthawk, placing his lips close to my ear, “she is at her devil’s work here in Richmond, as Swartz was—.”
Suddenly he was silent; a light step was heard. A form approached us, passed by. I could see that it was a woman, wrapped from head to foot in a gray cloak.
She passed so close to us that the skirt of her cloak nearly brushed our persons, and disappeared toward the gate. The iron latch was heard to click, the door of the carriage to open and close, and then the vehicle began to move.
Nighthawk took two quick steps in the direction of the gate.
“I am going to follow the carriage, colonel,” he whispered. “I have been waiting here to do so. I will tell you more another time. Give my respects to General Mohun, and tell him I am on his business!”
With which words Nighthawk glided into the darkness—passed through the gate without sound from the latch—and running noiselessly, disappeared on the track of the carriage.
I gazed after him for a moment, said to myself, “well this night is to be full of incident!”—and going straight to the door in the rear of the house, passed through it, went to the door of Mr. X——-’s room, and knocked.
“Come in,” said the voice of that gentleman; and opening the door I entered.
Mr. X——- was seated in front of an excellent coal fire, in his great armchair, near a table covered with papers, and between his lips was the eternal cigar.
At sight of me he rose courteously—for he never omitted any form of politeness—and cordially shook my hand.
“I am glad to see you, colonel,” he said. “Just from the army? Have a cigar.”
And he extended toward me an elegant cigar-case full of Havanas, which he took from the table. I declined, informing him that I had been smoking all the evening in the sanctum of the editor of the Examiner.
“Ah! you have been to see Daniel,” said Mr. X——-. “He is a very remarkable man. I do not approve of the course of his paper, and he has attacked me very bitterly on more than one occasion. But I bear no grudge against him. He is honest in his opinions. I admire the pluck of the man, and the splendid pith of his writings.”
“My views accord with your own,” I replied.
“Everybody thinks with us,” said Mr. X——-, puffing at his cigar. “It is only ignoramuses who deny this man’s courage and ability. I have never done injustice to Daniel—and I call that ‘liberal’ in myself, colonel! He has flayed me alive on three or four occasions, and it is not his fault that I am enjoying this excellent Havana.”
“I read the attacks,” I said.
“Were they not fearful?” said Mr. X——-, smiling tranquilly. “After reading them, I regarded myself as a moral and political monster!”
I could not forbear from laughing as the portly statesman uttered the words. He seemed to derive a species of careless enjoyment from the recollection of his “flayings.”
“I expect to talk over these little affairs with Daniel hereafter,” he said. “We shall have a great deal of time on our hands—in Canada.”
And Mr. X——- smiled, and went on smoking. It was the second time he had uttered that phrase—“in Canada.”
I laughed now, and said:—
“You continue to regard Toronto, or Montreal, or Quebec, as your future residence?”
“Yes; I think I prefer Quebec. The view from Cape Diamond is superb; and there is something English and un-American in the whole place, which I like. The Plains of Abraham bring back the history of the past,—which is more agreeable to me at least than the history of the present.”
“You adhere more than ever, I see, to your opinion that we are going to fail?”
“It is not an opinion, my dear colonel, but a certainty.”
My head sank. In the army I had been hopeful. When I came to Richmond, those high intelligences, John M. Daniel and Mr. X——-, did not even attempt to conceal their gloomy views.
“I see you think me a croaker,” said Mr. X——-, tranquilly smoking, “and doubtless say to yourself, colonel, that I am injudicious in thus discouraging a soldier, who is fighting for this cause. A year ago I would not have spoken to you thus, for a year ago there was still some hope. Now, to discourage you—if thinking men, fighting for a principle, like yourself, could be discouraged—would result in no injury: for the cause is lost. On the contrary, as the friend of that most excellent gentleman, your father, I regard it as a sort of duty to speak thus—to say to you ‘Don’t throw away your life for nothing. Do your duty, but do no more than your duty, for we are doomed.’”
I could find no reply to these gloomy words.
“The case is past praying for,” said Mr. X——- composedly, “the whole fabric of the Confederacy at this moment is a mere shell. It is going to crumble in the spring, and another flag will float over the Virginia capitol yonder—what you soldiers call ‘The Gridiron.’ The country is tired. The administration is unpopular, and the departments are mismanaged. I am candid, you see. The days of the Confederacy are numbered, and worse than all, nobody knows it. We ought to negotiate for the best terms, but the man who advises that, will be hissed at and called a ‘coward.’ It is an invidious thing to do. It is much grander to shout ‘Death sooner than surrender!’ I shouted that lustily as long as there was any hope—now, I think it my duty as a statesman, and public functionary, to say, ‘There are worse things than death—let us try and avoid them by making terms.’ I say that to you—I do not say so on the streets—the people would tear me to pieces, and with their sources of information they would be right in doing so.”
“Is it possible that all is lost? That negotiations are our only hope?”
“Yes; and confidentially speaking—this is a State secret, my dear colonel—these will soon be made.”
“Indeed!”
“You think that impossible, but it is the impossible which invariably takes place in this world. We are going to send commissioners to meet Mr. Lincoln in Hampton Roads—and it will be useless.”
“Why?”
“We are going to demand such terms as he will not agree to. The commissioners will return. The war will continue to its legitimate military end, which I fix about the last days of March.”
“Good heaven! so soon!”
“Yes.”
“In three months?”
Mr. X——- nodded.
“General Lee may lengthen the term a little by his skill and courage, but it is not in his power, even, to resist beyond the month of April.”
“The army of Northern Virginia, driven by the enemy!”
“Forced to surrender, or annihilated; and in Virginia—it will never join Johnston. Its numbers are too small to cut a path through the enemy. Grant will be at the Southside road before the first of April; Lee will evacuate his lines, which he will be compelled to hold to the last moment; he will retreat; be intercepted; be hunted down toward Lynchburg, and either surrender, or be butchered. Cheerful, isn’t it?”
“It is frightful!”
“Yes, Lee’s men are starving now. The country is tired of the war, and disgusted with the manner in which we manage things. No recruits are arriving. The troops are not deserting, but they are leaving the army without permission, to succor their starving families. Lee’s last hours are approaching, and we are playing the comedy here in Richmond with an immense appearance of reality; dancing, and fiddling, and laughing on the surface of the volcano. I play my part among the rest. I risk my head more even, perhaps, than the military leaders. I take a philosophic view, however, of the present and future. If I am not hung, I will go to Canada; meanwhile, I smoke my cigar, colonel.”
And Mr. X——- lazily threw away his stump, and lit a fresh Havana. It is impossible to imagine any thing more careless than his attitude. This man was either very brave or frightfully apathetic.
Five minutes afterward, I knew that any thing but apathy possessed him. All at once he rose in his chair, and his eyes were fixed upon me with a glance so piercing and melancholy, that they dwell still in my memory, and will always dwell there.
“I said we were playing a comedy here in Richmond, colonel,” he said, in tones so deep and solemn that they made me start; “I am playing my part with the rest; I play it in public, and even in private, as before you to-night. I sit here, indolently smoking and uttering my jests and platitudes, and, at the moment that I am speaking, my heart is breaking! I am a Virginian—I love this soil more than all the rest of the world—not a foot but is dear and sacred, and a vulgar horde are about to trample it under foot, and enslave its people. Every pulse of my being throbs with agony at the thought! I can not sleep. I have lost all taste for food. One thought alone haunts me—that the land of Washington, Jefferson, Mason, Henry, and Randolph, is to become the helpless prey of the scum of Europe and the North! My family has lived here for more than two hundred years. I have been, and am to-day, proud beyond words, of my birthright! I am a Virginian! a Virginian of Virginians! I have for forty years had no thought but the honor of Virginia. I have fought for her, and her only, in the senate and cabinet of the old government at Washington. I have dedicated all my powers to her—shrunk from nothing in my path—given my days and nights for years, and was willing to pour out my blood for Virginia; and now she is about to be trampled upon, her great statues hurled down, her escutcheon blotted, her altars overturned! And I, who have had no thought but her honor and glory, am to be driven, at the end of a long career, to a foreign land! I am to crouch yonder in Canada, with my bursting brow in my two hands—and every newspaper is to tell me ‘the negro and the bayonet rule Virginia!’ Can you wonder, then, that I am gloomy—that despair lies under all this jesting? You are happy. You go yonder, where a bullet may end you. Would to God that I had entered the army, old as I am, and that at least I could hope for a death of honor, in arms for Virginia!”
The statesman leaned back in his great chair, and was silent. At the same moment a tap was heard at the door; it opened noiselessly, and Nighthawk glided into the apartment.
Under his cloak I saw the gray uniform of a Confederate soldier; in his hand he carried a letter.
Nighthawk saluted Mr. X——- and myself with benignant respect. His quick eye, however, had caught the gloomy and agitated expression of the statesman’s countenance, and he was silent.
“Well,” said Mr. X——-, raising his head, with a deep sigh. Then passing his hand over his face, he seemed to brush away all emotion. When he again looked up, his face was as calm and unmoved as at the commencement of our interview.
“You see I begin a new scene in this comedy,” he said to me in a low tone.
And turning to Nighthawk, he said:—
“Well, you followed that agreeable person?”
“Yes, sir,” said Nighthawk, with great respect.
“She turned out to be the character you supposed? Speak before Colonel Surry.”
Nighthawk bowed.
“I never had any doubt of her character, sir,” he said. “You will remember that she called on you a week ago, announcing that she was a spy, who had lately visited the Federal lines and Washington. You described her to me, and informed me that you had given her another appointment for to-night; when I assured you that I knew her; she was an enemy, who had come as a spy upon us; and you directed me to be here to-night, and follow her, after your interview.”
“Well,” said Mr. X——-, quietly, “you followed her!”
“Yes, sir. On leaving you, after making her pretended report of affairs in Washington, she got into her carriage, and the driver started rapidly, going up Capitol and Grace streets. I followed on foot, and had to run—but I am used to that, sir. The carriage stopped at a house in the upper part of the city—a Mr. Blocque’s; the lady got out, telling the driver to wait, and went into the house, where she staid for about half an hour. She then came out—I was in the shadow of a tree, not ten yards from the spot, and as she got into the carriage, I could see that she held in her hand a letter. As the driver closed the door, she said, ‘Take me to the flag-of-truce bureau, on Ninth Street, next door to the war office.’ The driver mounted his box, and set off—and crossing the street, I commenced running to get a-head. In this I succeeded, and reached the bureau five minutes before the carriage.
“Well, sir, I hastened up stairs, and went into the bureau, where three or four clerks were examining the letters left to be sent by the flag-of-truce boat to-morrow. They were laughing and jesting as they read aloud the odd letters from the Libby and other prisons—some of which, I assure you, were very amusing, sir—when the lady’s footsteps were heard upon the stairs, and she came in, smiling.
“I had turned my back, having given some excuse for my presence to one of the clerks, who is an acquaintance. Thus the lady, who knows me, could not see my face; but I could, by looking out of the corners of my eyes, see her. She came in, in her rich gray cloak, smiling on the clerks, and handing an open letter to one of them, said:—“‘Will you oblige me by sending that to my sister in New York, by the flag-of-truce boat, to-morrow, sir?’
“‘If there is nothing contraband in it, madam,’ said the clerk.
“‘Oh!’ she replied, with a laugh, ‘it is only on family matters. My sister is a Southerner, and so am I, sir. You can read the letter; it is not very dangerous!’
“And she smiled so sweetly that the clerk was almost ashamed to read the letter. He, however, glanced his eye over it, and evidently found nothing wrong in it. While he was doing so, the lady walked toward the mail-bags in which the clerks had been placing such letters as they found unobjectionable, the others being marked, ‘Condemned,’ and thrown into a basket. As she passed near one of the bags, I saw the lady, whom I was closely watching, flirt her cloak, as though by accident, across the mouth of one of the mail-bags, and at the same instant her hand stole down and dropped a letter into the bag. As she did so, the clerk, who had finished reading the other letter, bowed, and said:—-
“‘There is nothing objectionable in this, madam, and it will be sent, of course.’
“‘I was sure of that, sir,’ replied the lady, with a smile. ‘I am very much obliged. Good evening, sir!’
“And she sailed out, all the clerks politely rising as she did so.
“No sooner had the door closed than I darted upon the bag in which I had seen her drop the letter. The clerks wished to stop me, but I informed them of what I had seen. If they doubted, they could see for themselves that the letter, which I had easily found, was not sealed with the seal of the bureau. They looked at it, and at once acknowledged their error.
“‘Arrest her!’ exclaimed one of them, suddenly. The rapid rolling of a carriage came like an echo to his words.
“‘It is useless, gentlemen,’ I said. ‘I know where to find the lady, and will look to the whole affair. You know I am in the secret service, and will be personally responsible for every thing. I will take this letter to the official who directed me to watch the lady who brought it.’
“To this, no objection was made, as I am known at the office. I came away; returned as quickly as possible; and here is the letter, sir.”
With which words Nighthawk drew his hand from under his cloak, and presented the letter to Mr. X——-, who had listened in silence to his narrative.
MR. X——- took the letter, broke the seal, and ran his eye over the contents.
“Decidedly, that woman is a skilful person,” he said; “she fishes in troubled waters with the coolness of an experienced hand.”
And presenting the letter to me, the statesman said:—
“Would you like to see a specimen of the sort of documents which go on file in the departments, colonel?”
I took the letter, and read the following words:—
“RICHMOND, 18 Dec’r, 1864.
“Tell, you know who, that I have just seen the honorable Mr.——-” (here the writer gave the real name and official position of Mr. X——-), “and have had a long conversation with him. He is fully convinced that I am a good Confederate, and spoke without reserve of matters the most private. He is in high spirits, and looks on the rebel cause as certain to succeed. I never saw one more blinded to the real state of things. Richmond is full of misery, and the people seem in despair, but this high official, who represents the whole government, is evidently certain of Lee’s success. I found him in a garrulous mood, and he did not conceal his views. The government has just received heavy supplies from the south, by the Danville railroad—others are coming—the whole country in rear of Sherman is rising—and Lee, he stated, would soon be re-enforced by between fifty and seventy-five thousand men. What was more important still, was a dispatch, which he read me, from England. This startled me. There seems no doubt that England is about to recognize the Confederacy. When he had finished reading this dispatch, on the back of which I could see the English postmark, he said to me—these are his words:—‘You see, things were never brighter; it is only a question of time; and by holding out a little longer, we shall compel the enemy to retire and give up the contest. With the re-enforcements coming, Lee will have about one hundred thousand men. With that force, he will be able to repulse all General Grant’s assaults. Things look dark at this moment, but the cause was never more hopeful.’
“He seemed insane, but I give you his words. It is certain that these are the views of the government, and that our authorities are much mistaken in supposing the Confederacy at its last gasp. It is impossible that the honorable Mr.——- was attempting to deceive me; because I carried him a letter from ——-” (here the writer gave the name of a prominent official of the Confederate Government, which I suppress) “who vouched for me, and declared that I was passionately Southern in my sympathies.
“I shall see the honorable Mr.——- in a day or two again. In the mean while, I am staying, incognita, at the house of our friend, Mr. Blocque, who has afforded me every facility in return for the safeguard I brought him, to protect his property when we occupy Richmond. The city is in a terrible state. Mr. Blocque has just come in, and informs me that he has been garroted near the capitol, and robbed of ten thousand dollars in good money. He is in despair.
“As soon as I have finished some important private business, which keeps me in the Confederate lines, I shall be with ——- again. Tell him to be in good spirits. This city has still a great deal of money hoarded in garrets—and we shall soon be here. Then we can retire on a competence—and when Fonthill is confiscated, we will purchase it, and live in affluence.
I looked at the back of the letter. It was directed to a lady in Suffolk. From the letter, my glance passed to the face of Mr. X——-. He was smiling grimly.
“A valuable document,” he said, “which madam will doubtless duplicate before very long, with additional particulars. I make you a present of it, colonel, as a memorial of the war.”
I thanked him, and placed the letter in my pocket. To-day I copy it, word for word.
Mr. X——- reflected a moment; then he said to Nighthawk:—
“Arrest this woman; I am tired of her. I have no time to waste upon such persons, however charming.”
Nighthawk looked greatly delighted.
“I was going to beg that order of you, sir,” he said, “as the ‘private business’ alluded to in the letter, concerns a friend of mine, greatly.”
“Ah! well, here is the order.”
And taking a pen, Mr. X——- scrawled two lines, which he handed to Nighthawk. A glow of satisfaction came to that worthy’s face, and taking the paper, he carefully placed it in his pocket.
As he did so, the bell in the capitol square struck midnight, and I rose to take my departure.
“Come and see me soon again, colonel,” said Mr. X——-, going to the door with me. He had made a sign to Nighthawk, who rose to go out with me, that he wished him to remain.
“What I have said to you, to-night,” continued the statesman, gravely, “may have been injudicious, colonel. I am not certain of that—but I am quite sure that to have it repeated at this time would be inconvenient. Be discreet, therefore, my dear friend—after the war, tell or write what you fancy; and I should rather have my present views known then, than not known. They are those neither of a time-server, a faint heart, or a fool. I stand like the Roman sentinel at the gate of Herculaneum, awaiting the lava flood that will bury me. I see it coming—I hear the roar—I know destruction is rushing on me—but I am a sentinel on post; I stand where I have been posted; it is God and my conscience that have placed me on duty here. I will stay, whatever comes, until I am relieved by the same authority which posted me.” And with the bow of a nobleman, the gray-haired statesman bade me farewell.
I returned to my lodgings, buried in thought, pondering deeply on the strange scenes of this night of December.
On the next morning I set out, and rejoined the army at Petersburg.
I, too, was a sentinel on post, like the statesman. And I determined to remain on duty to the last.
The months of January and February, 1865, dragged on, sombre and dreary.
Two or three expeditions which I made during that woeful period, gave me a good idea of the condition of the country.
In September, 1864, I had traversed Virginia from Petersburg to Winchester, and had found the people—especially those of the lower Shenandoah Valley—still hopeful, brave, resolved to resist to the death.
In January and February, 1865, my official duties carried me to the region around Staunton; to the mountains west of Lynchburg; and to the North Carolina border, south of Petersburg. All had changed. Everywhere I found the people looking blank, hopeless, and utterly discouraged. The shadow of the approaching woe seemed to have already fallen upon them.
The army was as “game” as ever—even Early’s little handful, soon to be struck and dispersed by General Sheridan’s ten thousand cavalry. Everywhere, the soldiers laughed in the face of death. Each seemed to feel, as did the old statesman with whom I had conversed on that night at Richmond, that he was a sentinel on post, and must stand there to the last. The lava might engulf him, but he was “posted,” and must stand until relieved, by his commanding officer or death. It was the “poor private,” in his ragged jacket and old shoes, as well as the officer in his braided coat, who felt thus. For those private soldiers of the army of Northern Virginia were gentlemen. Noblesse oblige was their motto; and they meant to die, musket in hand!
Oh, soldiers of the army, who carried those muskets in a hundred battles!—who fought with them from Manassas, in 1861, to Appomattox, in 1865—you are the real heroes of the mighty struggle, and one comrade salutes you now, as he looked at you with admiration in old days! What I saw in those journeys was dreary enough; but however black may be the war-cloud, there is always the gleam of sunlight somewhere! We laughed now and then, reader, even in the winter of 1864-’5!
I laugh still, as I think of the brave cannoneers of the horse artillery near Staunton—and of the fearless Breathed, their commander, jesting and playing with his young bull-dog, whom he had called “Stuart” for his courage. I hear the good old songs, all about “Ashby,” and the “Palmetto Tree,” and the “Bonnie Blue Flag”—songs sung with joyous voices in that dreary winter, as in other days, when the star of hope shone more brightly, and the future was more promising.
At Lynchburg, where I encountered a number of old friends, songs still sweeter saluted me—from the lips of my dear companions, Major Gray and Captain Woodie. How we laughed and sang, on that winter night, at Lynchburg! Do you chant your sweet “Nora McShane” still, Gray? And you, Woodie, do you sing in your beautiful and touching tenor to-day,—
Across the years comes once more that magical strain; again I hear your voice, filled with the very soul of sadness, tell how
That seemed strangely applicable to the situation at the time. The memory of our great victories was all that was left to us; and I thought that it was the spirit of grief itself that was singing. Again I hear the notes—but “Nora McShane” breaks in—“Nora McShane,” the most exquisite of all Gray’s songs. Then he winds up with uproarious praise of the “Bully Lager Beer!”—and the long hours of night flit away on the wings of laughter, as birds dart onward, and are buried in the night.
Are you there still, Gray? Do you sing still, Woodie? Health and happiness, comrades! All friendly stars smile on you! Across the years and the long leagues that divide us, I salute you!
Thus, at Staunton and Lynchburg, reader, gay scenes broke the monotony. In my journey toward North Carolina, I found food also, for laughter.
I had gone to Hicksford, fifty miles south of Petersburg, to inspect the cavalry; and in riding on, I looked with curiosity on the desolation which the enemy had wrought along the Weldon railroad, when they had destroyed it in the month of December. Stations, private houses, barns, stables, all were black and charred ruins. The railroad was a spectacle. The enemy had formed line of battle close along the track; then, at the signal, this line of battle had attacked the road. The iron rails were torn from the sleepers; the latter were then piled up and fired; the rails were placed upon the blazing mass, and left there until they became red-hot in the middle, and both ends bent down—then they had been seized, broken, twisted; in a wild spirit of sport the men had borne some of the heated rails to trees near the road; twisted them three or four times around the trunks; and there, as I passed, were the unfortunate trees with their iron boa-constrictors around them—monuments of the playful humor of the blue people, months before.
Hill and Hampton had attacked and driven them back; from the dead horses, as elsewhere, rose the black vultures on flapping wings: but it is no part of my purpose, reader, to weary you with these war-pictures, or describe disagreeable scenes. It is an odd interview which I had on my return toward Petersburg that my memory recalls. It has naught to do with my narrative—but then it will not fill more than a page!
I had encountered two wagons, and, riding, ahead of them, saw a courier of army head-quarters, whose name was Ashe.
I saluted the smiling youth, in return for his own salute, and said:—
“Where have you been, Ashe?”
“To Sussex, colonel, on a foraging expedition.”
“For the general?”
“And some of the staff, colonel.”
Ashe smiled; we rode on together.
“How did you come to be a forager, Ashe?” I said.
“Well this was the way of it, colonel,” he said. “I belonged to the old Stonewall brigade, but General Lee detailed me at the start of the war to shoe the head-quarters horses. It was old General Robert that sent me with these wagons. I was shoeing the general’s gray, and had just pared the hind-hoof, when he sent for me. A man had started with the wagons, and had mired in the field right by head-quarters. So old General Robert says, says he, ‘Ashe, you can get them out.’ I says, ‘General, I think I can, if you’ll give me a canteen full of your French brandy for the boys.’ He laughed at that, and I says, ‘General, I have been with you three years, and if in that time you have ever seen me out of the way, I hope you will tell me so.’ ‘No, Ashe,’ says he, ‘I have not, and you shall have the brandy.’ And his black fellow went into the closet and drew me a canteen full; for you see, colonel, old General Robert always keeps a demijohn full, and carries it about in his old black spring wagon, to give to the wounded soldiers—he don’t drink himself. Well, I got the brandy, and set the boys to work, building a road with pine saplings, and got the wagons out! From that time to this, I have been going with them, colonel, and sometimes some very curious things have happened.”
I assumed that inquiring expression of countenance dear to story-tellers. Ashe saw it, and smiled.
“Last fall, colonel,” he said, “I was down on the Blackwater, foraging with my wagons, for old General Robert, when a squadron of Yankees crossed in the ferryboat, and caught me. I did not try to get off, and the colonel says, says he, ‘Who are you?’ I told him I was only foraging with General Lee’s head-quarters teams, to get something for the old general to eat, as nothing could be bought in Petersburg; and, says I, ‘I have long been looking to be captured, and now the time has come.’ As I was talking, I saw an uncle of mine among the Yankees, and says he, ‘Ashe, what are you doing here?’ ‘The same you are doing there,’ I says; and I asked the colonel just to let me off this time, and I would try and keep out of their way hereafter. He asked me, Would I come down there any more? And I told him I didn’t know—I would have to go where I was ordered. ‘Well,’ says he, ‘you can’t beg off.’ But I says, ‘step here a minute, colonel,’ and I took him to the wagon, and offered him my canteen of brandy. He took three or four good drinks, and then he says, says he, ‘That’s all I want! You can go on with your wagons.’ And I tell you I put out quick, colonel, and never looked behind me till I got back to Petersburg?"{1}
{Footnote 1: In the words of the narrator.}
I have attempted to recall here, reader, the few gleams of sunshine, the rare moments of laughter, which I enjoyed in those months of the winter of 1864-’5.
I shrink from dwelling on the events of that dreary epoch. Every day I lost some friend. One day it was the brave John Pegram, whom I had known and loved from his childhood; the next day it was some other, whose disappearance left a gap in my life which nothing thenceforth could fill. I pass over all that. Why recall more of the desolate epoch than is necessary?
For the rest that is only a momentary laugh that I have indulged in. Events draw near, at the memory of which you sigh—or even groan perhaps—to-day, when three years have passed.
For this page is written on the morning of April 8, 1868.
This day, three years ago, Lee was staggering on in sight of Appomattox.
These letters and figures arouse terrible memories—do they not, reader? You shudder as you return in thought to that epoch, provided always that you then wore the gray, and not the blue. If you wore the blue, you perhaps laugh.
The South had reached, in this month of March, one of those periods when the most hopeful can see, through the black darkness, no single ray of light. Throughout the winter, the government had made unceasing efforts to bring out the resources of the country—efforts honest and untiring, if not always judicious—but as the days, and weeks, and months wore on, it became more and more evident that the hours of the Confederacy were numbered. The project of employing negro troops, which Congress long opposed, had been adopted at last, but only in time to be too late. The peace commissioners had held their interview with Lincoln, but effected nothing. The enemy continually advanced toward the achievement of their end. Sherman had safely made his famous “march to the sea”—Savannah and Charleston had fallen—the western army was about to unite with the army of Grant at Petersburg. There the great game went on, but the end was near. Lee had attempted, late in February, to evacuate his lines, but was overruled. His army was reduced to about forty thousand, while Grant’s numbered about one hundred and fifty thousand. The Confederate troops were almost naked, and had scarce food enough to sustain life. They fought still, in the trenches, along the great line of works, but it was plain, as Lee said, that the line was stretched so far, that a very little more would snap it.
That line extended from the Williamsburg road, east of Richmond to Five Forks, west of Petersburg—a distance of nearly fifty miles. Gradually Grant had pushed westward, until his grasp was now very nearly upon the Southside road. Lee had extended his own thin line to still confront him. The White Oak road, beyond the Rowanty, had been defended by heavy works. The hill above Burgess’s bristled with batteries. The extreme right of the Confederate line rested in the vicinity of Five Forks. Beyond that it could not be extended. Already it began to crack. Along the works stretching from east to west, there was scarce a soldier every ten yards. Grant was only prevented from bursting through by the masterly handling of Lee’s troops—the rapid concentration of masses at the points which he threatened. The cavalry was almost paralyzed. The destruction of the Weldon road southward to Hicksford, in December, had been a death-blow nearly, to that arm of the service. The Confederate cavalry had depended upon it, hauling their forage from Stony Creek Station. Now they had been compelled to go south to Hicksford, the nearest point, fifty miles from Petersburg. The consequence was that Lee’s right was almost undefended by cavalry. Grant’s horsemen could penetrate, almost unchecked, to the Danville and Southside railroads. The marvel was, not that this was effected at the end of March, but that it was not effected a month sooner. But I anticipate.
To glance, for an instant before proceeding, at the condition of the country. It had reached the last point of depression, and was yielding to despair. The government was enormously unpopular—mismanagement had ceased to attract attention. The press roared in vain. The Enquirer menaced the members of Congress from the Gulf States. The Examiner urged that the members of the Virginia Legislature, to be elected in the spring, should be “clothed with the state sovereignty,” to act for Virginia! Thus the executive and legislative were both attacked. The people said, “Make General Lee dictator.” And General ——- wrote and printed that, in such an event, he “had the dagger of Brutus” for Lee. Thus all things were in confusion. The currency was nothing but paper—it was a melancholy farce to call it money. The Confederate note was popularly regarded as worth little more than the paper upon which it was printed. Fathers of families went to market and paid hundreds of dollars for the few pounds of meat which their households required each day. Officers were forced to pay one thousand dollars for their boots. Old saddle-bags were cut up, and the hides of dead horses carried off, to manufacture into shoes. Uniform coats were no longer procurable—the government had to supply them gratis, even to field officers. Lee subsisted, like his soldiers, on a little grease and corn bread. Officers travelling on duty, carried in their saddle-pockets bits of bacon and stale bread, for the country could not supply them. In the homes of the land once overflowing with plenty, it was a question each day where food could be procured. The government had impressed every particle, except just sufficient to keep the inmates alive. What the commissaries had left, the “Yankee cavalry” took. A lady of Goochland said to a Federal officer, “General, I can understand why you destroy railroads and bridges, but why do you burn mills, and the houses over women and children?” The officer bowed, and replied, “Madam, your soldiers are so brave that we can’t beat you; and we are trying to starve you!”
The interior of these homes of the country was a touching spectacle. The women were making every sacrifice. Delicate hands performed duties which had always fallen to menials. The servants had gone to the enemy, and aristocratic young women cooked, washed, swept, and drudged—a charming spectacle perhaps to the enemy, who hated the “aristocracy,” but woeful to fathers, and sons, and brothers, when they came home sick, or wounded. Clothes had long grown shabby, and were turned and mended. Exquisite beauty was decked in rags. A faded calico was a treasure. The gray-haired gentleman, who had always worn broadcloth, was content with patched homespun. It was not of these things that they were thinking, however. Dress had not made those seigneurs and dames—nor could the want of it hide their dignity. The father, and care-worn wife, and daughter, and sister, were thinking of other things. The only son was fighting beside Lee—dying yonder, in the trenches. He was only a “poor private,” clad in rags and carrying a musket—but he was the last of a long line, perhaps, of men who had built up Virginia and the Federal government which he was fighting—he was “only a private,” but his blood was illustrious; more than all, he was the treasure of the gray-haired father and mother; the head of the house in the future; if he fell, the house would fall with him—and it was nearly certain that he would fall!
So they mourned, and looked fearfully to the coming hours, in town and country. In the old homesteads—poverty and despair. In the cities—wasting cares and sinking hearts. More than ever before, all the vile classes of society rioted and held sway. The forestallers and engrossers drove a busy trade. They seemed to feel that their “time was short”—that the night was coming, in which not even rascals could work! Supplies were hoarded, and doled out at famine prices to the famine-stricken community; not supplies of luxuries, but of the commonest necessaries of life. The portly extortioner did not invite custom, either. Once he had bowed and smirked behind his counter when a purchaser entered. Now, he turned his back coldly, went on reading his newspaper, scarce replied to the words addressed to him, and threw his goods on the counter with the air of one reluctantly conferring a favor. Foreboding had entered even the hearts of the forestaller and extortioner. They had sold their souls for gain, and that gain was turning to dross. As at the wave of a magician’s wand, their crisp new “Confederate notes” had become rags. The biter was bit. His gains were to count for nothing. Extortioner and victim were soon to be stripped equally naked—the cold blast of ruin was to freeze both alike. Thus, all things hastened toward the inevitable catastrophe. Brave hearts did not shrink, but they saw ruin striding on. Every thing crumbled—the Confederacy was staggering and gasping in the death agony. Day by day the cause was slowly, but certainly, being lost. Children cried aloud for bread—women moaned, and knelt, and prayed. Their last hope was leaving them. Lee’s army was starving and dying. Hour by hour, nearer and nearer came the roar of the gulf of destruction. A sort of stupor descended. The country—prostrate and writhing—tried to rise, but could not. The government knew not where to turn, or what course to pursue. Grant was growing in strength hourly. Lee’s little force was dwindling. Sherman was streaming through South Carolina. Grant was reaching out toward Five Forks. All-destroying war grinned hideously—on all sides stared gaunt Famine. The air jarred with the thunder of cannon. The days and nights blazed, and were full of wild cries—of shouts, groans, and reverberations. The ground shook—the grave yawned—the black cloud slowly drew on; that cloud from which the thunderbolt was about to fall.
How to describe in a volume like this, now near its end, that terrible state of coma—that approaching cataclysm, in which all things, social, civil, and military were about to disappear! The whole fabric of society was going to pieces; every hour flamed with battles; tragic events jostled each other; blood gushed; a people were wailing; a victorious enemy were rushing on; the whole continent trembled; Lee was being swept away, in spite of every effort which he made to steady his feet—and that torrent was going to engulf a whole nation!
All this I am to describe in the last few pages of this volume! The task is far beyond my strength. In the future, some writer may delineate that hideous dream—to do so to-day, in this year 1868, would tear the stoutest heart.
For myself, I do not attempt it. Were I able to paint the picture, there would be no space. My memoir is nearly ended. The threads of the woof are nearly spun out, and the loom is going to stop. Death stands ready with his shears to cut the ravelled thread, knit up the seam, and put his red label on the fabric!