Chapter XI: Part III: Nineteenth Century (1)

_ROBERT E. LEE_

In 1791, Light-Horse Harry Lee became Governor of Virginia. While he was in Richmond he had the opportunity to visit the plantations along the James River.

When Harry rolled up before Shirley in all the trappings of a Virginia governor, it is not surprising that the young daughter of the house saw in him her "heart's desire."

But Charles Carter did not see Harry through his daughter's rosy vision. He saw him as a widower who was seventeen years older than Ann, and as a soldier who had been disillusioned by war and had not adjusted to peace.

However, Harry won his suit and carried the happy Ann back with him to Stratford. Ann was a brunette of medium height and twenty years old. Little else is known about her except that she was good.

Ann's first impression of the Lee mansion must have been a gloomy one. Gayety had left Stratford with Matilda. The musicians had long since been gone, and the blooded horses. The windows once so brightly lighted were dark, and with no voices and laughter to fill the house, one could hear the wolves howling at night in the forest. This remote fortress in the fastness of the Northern Neck was different from anything that this great-granddaughter of King Carter had ever known. Shirley had been warm and happy.

Harry had no taste or ability as a farmer, and even if he had, Westmoreland County was now losing ground as a tobacco country. At first Ann may have traveled to Richmond with her husband and visited Shirley, for Harry was thrice elected to the governorship of Virginia. But as the years went by, Ann and her small children were more and more alone at Stratford. As his political career waned, Harry stayed away from home more and more, chasing various "will o' the wisps" which he believed would recoup his fortune.

Sometimes Ann stayed at Stratford as long as six months at a time without going anywhere to visit, or without seeing her social equals. Still, Ann wrote a friend that she was too busy to be bored. We can imagine her moving about the house, sometimes carrying a charcoal brazier with her into the living room, to warm her frail body or to give the illusion of warmth.

Into this sombre setting was born, on January 19, 1807, a new baby. He was christened: Robert Edward Lee. He was born in the southeast bedroom of Stratford, the same room in which the other great Lee men had been born.

The nursery was probably the coziest room at Stratford in those days. Ann's one known accomplishment was singing, so we can picture her there as she sang to the new baby while she rocked him in his wooden cradle, and watched the flames in the fireplace as they illuminated the guardian cherubs on the iron fireback. Perhaps those days with her children were not unhappy. She taught her boys to be "honorable and correct" and to "practice the most inflexible virtue."

Meanwhile, Harry's last wild speculations had ended in his complete financial ruin. Ann and the children were now living on a trust fund left to them by her father, Charles Carter, when he died in 1806.

One day, when Robert was not yet four years old, a carriage stood in front of Stratford, waiting to take the family for their last ride down the driveway. Stratford had been left to Matilda's son, Henry, and he had now come of age and was ready to take over the estate. Harry and his family traveled to Alexandria where they moved into a smaller house.

A legend says that when everything was ready for departure little Robert could not be found. He was finally discovered in the nursery saying good-bye to the two cherubs on the fireback.

After this Harry had still greater misfortunes. His body was broken and maimed for life. In 1813, when Robert was six years old, his father left Virginia, bound for the British West Indies, seeking health and a new grip on life. He spent the next five years wandering about among the islands. In 1818, he sailed for home but became so ill that he was put off at one of the islands. There he found the family of his old friend, General Greene. He was tenderly cared for by them during his final illness. He died there and was buried in their family burying ground on Cumberland Island, off the coast of Georgia.

NOTE: In 1913 the body of General Henry (Light-Horse Harry) Lee
was brought from Cumberland Island and placed in the Chapel at
Lexington, Virginia, beside that of his famous son, Robert E.
Lee.

_SMITH POINT LIGHT_

For many years the watermen of the Chesapeake "steered by the stars," by trees, and by a lighted window here and there.

One of the earlier government lighthouses on Chesapeake Bay was the Smith Point Light located at the mouth of the Potomac on Smith Point, Northumberland County.

There seem to be no available records concerning the erection of this lighthouse. In an 1804 issue of _Blunt's American Coast Pilot_ reference is made to a lighthouse having been "erected lately on Smith Point." This establishes the date of its erection as prior to 1804.

In the 1833 issue of the same book there is a small drawing of the lighthouse at Smith Point which shows a tower with a house close by. These structures appeared to be situated on the tip end of a point with a gently sloping hill, or bank, in the rear. The picture shows a lighthouse with the same general appearance as the first government lighthouse at Cape Henry at the entrance to the Chesapeake, built in 1791. The Smith Point tower, however, was round instead of octagonal.

According to older natives of the region who remembered the original lighthouse at Smith Point, it was a round tower built of sandstone blocks, approximately sixty or seventy feet high. A spiral inside stairway with stone steps led up to the lantern at the top.

The sandstone blocks for the tower at Cape Henry had been brought from abroad as ballast in ships. The same thing may have been true of the sandstone blocks of which Smith Point lighthouse was built.

The light at Cape Henry first consisted of oil lamps burning, in turn, whale oil, colza (cabbage) oil, lard oil, and finally kerosene after the discovery of petroleum in Pennsylvania in 1859. The same type of lamps and fuel were doubtless used at Smith Point.

The keeper's house at Smith Point, according to tradition, was located thirty or forty yards back of the tower. It was a brick story-and-a-half house with outside chimneys on each end and an ell in the back. There were fireplaces in every room and a dark underground room which was referred to in later years as the "dungeon."

When this early lighthouse was built there were still a few pirates lurking about the Bay.

_THE RAIDERS_

Frightening rumours must have flown up and down the Northern Neck in the early part of the year of 1813.

In June, 1812, Congress had declared war against Great Britain. The Virginia militia had been called out to drill, and to prepare to defend Washington if necessary. The sound of drum and fife was heard once more in the countryside. Brass buttons were polished and firelocks were put in good shooting condition.

Now, in February of 1813, Admiral George Cockburn of the British Navy had entered the Chesapeake with a flotilla of two brigs, several tenders and a force of land troops.

Along the grapevine ran the news that Admiral Cockburn was directing his efforts principally against the citizens. The farmhouses and plantations along the waterfront were being plundered and burned and the cattle were being driven away or slaughtered. While the planters were away with the militia some of their families had taken refuge with their tenants who lived in the forest.

Naval battles were taking place in the rivers. In April, the U. S. S. _Dolphin_ was captured in the Rappahannock by the British ship _St. Domingo_. In July a battle was fought in the Yeocomico, a tributary of the Potomac. The U. S. S. _Asp_, a three-gun sloop, was at that time overpowered by five British barges.

Troops were stationed at Windmill Point, at the mouth of the Rappahannock, in November, 1813. Here, April 23, 1814, the British made a landing and pillaged a vessel. They were driven off by militia stationed across the creek. It was perhaps on this same trip that the raiders visited Corotoman.

The crew went ashore and made themselves at home in the old house built by John Carter, while the officers took over the home built later by his son, King Carter. The well-stocked wine cellar and an abundance of fine Rappahannock oysters furnished the ingredients, tradition says, for an all-night party.

In August, 1814, reinforcements consisting of many vessels of war and a large number of troops arrived in the Chesapeake from Europe. Of this force several frigates and bomb vessels were ordered to ascend the Potomac.

At this time the shores of the Potomac were ravaged and a number of fine and ancient homes were burned. Washington city was captured and burned, and President Madison and his wife Dolly were forced to seek refuge in Virginia.

In October, 1814, a force of British troops came up the Coan River and marched to Heathsville. This force with some mounted troops continued their march up through the Neck, pillaging, burning and destroying as they went. At North Farnham Church, in Richmond County, a skirmish was fought between the raiders and the Virginia militia, leaving bullet holes in the walls of the church to mark the battle.

In September, 1814, the British were on their way to bombard the city of Baltimore. The Sunday before at their camp on Tangier Island, in the Chesapeake Bay, they had been warned of their coming defeat by Joshua Thomas, the Methodist "Parson of the Islands."

At Fort McHenry the "Parson's" prophecy came true, and at the same time an immortal song was born--"The Star-Spangled Banner."

_STEAMBOATS_

The _Chesapeake_ was the first steamboat on Chesapeake Bay. She made her first run in 1813. The next steamer to make her debut was the _Washington_, on the Potomac, in 1815. The next year the _Virginia_ started running from Norfolk to Richmond.

From then on until the Civil War the steamboat business expanded. All the bay and river boats had both freight and passenger services to Baltimore, Washington or Norfolk. These services were interrupted by the war.

During the Civil War, according to several unpublished letters of that period, the steamboats _George C. Peabody_ and _North Point_ collided in the Potomac on the night of August 13, 1862. Of the three or four hundred persons on board the two boats only one hundred were saved.

After the Civil War the steamboat services were restored.

When the first steamboat ran up the Rappahannock, Bewdley was used as a landing place. This Lancaster County home belonged to the Ball family, relatives of George Washington's mother. When passengers awaited the arrival of the boat at Bewdley, a white flag was raised as a signal by day, and at night a light was placed in one of the many dormer-windows.

_HANNAH AND THE FALLING STARS_

It was Hannah's custom to get up before daybreak. She was a sixteen-year-old Negro girl of Northumberland County. On this particular morning she was to get the scare of her life. She started to go to the well for a bucket of fresh water but when she stepped outside she dropped her bucket and ran to her mistress screaming: "The stars are all falling down!" Needless to say the whole plantation was aroused to watch the strangest phenomenon they had ever beheld.

Hannah was not the only person who was scared or bewildered that morning. Throughout the eastern part of North America people were exclaiming: "it is snowing fire," "the end of the world has come," "the sky is on fire," "the Judgment Day is here!"

What Hannah and the others had witnessed was the Leonid shower of November 12-13, 1833, which lasted from midnight until day. People of that time were generally uninformed about meteoric showers. It was a topic of comment and speculation for many generations.

Hannah lived many years to tell of the time when she saw "the stars fall." She outlived most of her children and those who were living at the time of her death were too feeble to attend her funeral. She was buried in a quiet spot among the pines on the banks of the Great Wicomico River. Her tombstone bears this inscription: "Hannah Crocket, 1817-1933, Age 116 yrs."

_DEAR TO HIS HEART ..._

Near the beginning of the Civil War, General Robert E. Lee's daughter visited Stratford. The great manor no longer belonged to the Lee family. She wrote to her father who was in the South at that time, and described her visit to his childhood home. He answered her as follows:

"I am much pleased at your description of Stratford and your visit. It is endeared to me by many recollections and it has always been a great desire of my life to be able to purchase it. Now that we have no other home, and the one we so loved (Arlington) has been so foully polluted, the desire is stronger with me than ever. The horse-chestnut you mention in the garden was planted by my mother. I am sorry the vault is so dilapidated. You did not mention the spring, one of the objects of my earliest recollections."

On Christmas Day, 1861, General Lee wrote his wife: "In the absence of a home I wish I could purchase Stratford. That is the only other place that I could go to, now accessible, that would inspire me with feelings of pleasure and local love. You and the girls could remain there in quiet. It is a poor place, but we could make enough bread and bacon for our support and the girls could weave us clothes."

General Robert E. Lee's desire was never fulfilled.

_THE BLOCKADE_

From time to time various writers have stated that the isolated Northern Neck of Virginia was "out of bounds" or "bypassed" in the Civil War. Despite these statements, which so lightly dismiss the Neck during the war years, natives of that region, did not spend that time in the carefree, unmolested state thus implied.

All able-bodied men of the Neck were away on the battlefields. Anxiety for them, and for the South, hung like a pall over the remaining population. More tangible worries beset them also.

Although the bordering waters of the Potomac, Rappahannock and Chesapeake were rich with food, when the Virginians tried to take the oysters, crabs and fish, a tug from the Federal flotilla which patrolled these waters would come "steaming out to hasten them home, with sometimes a six-pound shot sent after them for emphasis."

The women, girls, old men and boys raised what they could, but many fields, once lush with corn, tobacco, sugar cane and other crops, now lay barren save for sedge and pine seedling. Many of the men had ridden away to war on the horses. The people at home gave as much as they could of what they could raise to the men at the front.

The Federal gunboats shelled homes and landed soldiers who carried off everything they could find. Many are the tales that lingered on in the Neck about the geese that were struck down by swords, the bowls of milk that were lifted to mouths and gulped down, the firkins of butter that were carried away by soldiers who thrust their arms elbow deep in the butter and carried it off that way, the cattle that were slaughtered before the hungry eyes of the natives, the churches that were profaned--the list could go on and on. And there were some instances when the invaders were kind, or fair.

The resourceful women of the Neck invented substitutes for lost luxuries. Tea was brewed from sassafras, wheat, sage or mullein; coffee was concocted from sweet potatoes and other things. Sorghum and honey served for sugar. They got out the discarded spinning-wheels and looms and revived those skills. They carded, spun and wove the wool from their sheep. Polk berries and walnut hulls were used as dyes, and a special mixture of plants produced a shade that would pass as Confederate gray. The latter was used to dye garments made of the homespun so that there was always a new suit ready for the soldier when he came home on furlough. Thorns were used for pins, and seeds such as persimmon had holes bored in them and were used for buttons.

In spite of these and other ingenious substitutes the supplies of food and clothing had been very nearly exhausted by 1862. Thus, the natives of the Northern Neck were driven to running the blockade.

At that time Hampton Roads was blockaded by Union naval forces, and the rivers were patrolled by them. Maryland, just across the Potomac from the Neck, was divided territory. Leonardtown, in southern Maryland, was a trading center for the blockade runners from the Neck.

On the Virginia side of the Potomac, Kinsale in Westmoreland County, situated on an estuary called Yeocomico River, was one point of departure and arrival. This village had become quite cosmopolitan, for the country people were not the only ones who ran the blockade. Strangers from the North and South--merchants, speculators, adventurers, Northern draft dodgers, Southern sympathizers from the North, pro-Unionists trying to reach the North, even ladies, usually married women traveling with their husbands--all rubbed elbows in Kinsale. And there was at least one blockade-runner among them who dodged the tugs on the Potomac and blistered his hands on the muffled oars for no more serious reason than romance.

A steady stream of canoes from Maryland sneaked through to the Neck bringing quinine and other drugs, food, and Southern sympathizers. They landed anywhere in the Northern Neck.

The rivers were probably dark, for by the latter part of April, 1861, practically all lights in the lighthouses and lightships had been extinguished, removed or destroyed, from the Chesapeake to the Rio Grande by the Southerners.

_THE HOME GUARD_

Though no major battles were fought in Northumberland County during the Civil War, it was the scene of a number of skirmishes which were never recorded in history.

The geographical position of this county in the tip end of the Neck and surrounded on three sides by water isolated it from the main stream of the war, but made it vulnerable to enemy naval raiders. Also, small groups of Union cavalry rode through the Neck from time to time looking for deserters from their own army and for Confederate soldiers who might be at home on furlough. Homes were looted.

A Federal flotilla was stationed across the Potomac at Piney Point, Maryland, and although this river was not formally blockaded during the war, it was patrolled, and the smaller rivers were patrolled from time to time. Many of the homes adjacent to the shoreline were shelled by these boats. The crew often landed and raided farms and houses.

For the purpose of keeping these raiders away and defending the women and children, a home guard was organized. (They were probably organized in all the counties of the Neck.) Since the able-bodied men of Northumberland were away on the battlefields, this group was composed of teen-aged boys and old men.

Except traditionally, very little has been known about this organization. A notarized statement written by a former member of the Northumberland Home Guard, sheds some light on their activities. It is as follows:

"I'm going to try and write something in regard to the Home
Guard to which I belonged but hardly know what to write. I was
only a boy then, and as to giving dates, I couldn't tell you
what month or even the year we organized but we didn't organize
untill those Yankee raids began to take place. The Gun Boats
would come in the rivers and land soldiers, go to the farm
Houses and carry off anything they wanted, so we organized to
try and keep off those raids and defend the Women and children
while the men-folks were in the War. Our Company, I suppose was
what you might call an independent company, don't think the
Confederate Government ever furnished us with anything except
Guns and ammunition. I think they permitted us to organize.

"We had several skirmishes with the raiders, one in the
vicinity of Lotsburg where we captured a Horse and perhaps
killed the rider. His fellow soldiers got Him away but we got
the Horse. After getting their wounded or dead comrad aboard
ship they left. On another occasion at Glebe Point on the Great
Wicomico River, we opened fire on a Gun Boat that was going up
the river. She stoped immediately and turned around and went on
down the River. We kept up our fire untill she was out of
Gunshot. They gave us a severe shelling of shrapnell but shot
too high, didn't kill anyone. I heard one Horse was killed. And
at another time on Raisons Creek we captured a little Picket
Boat No. 2. She carried one brass cannon and a crew of seven
men. One man was shot in the leg. The Captain of the Boat gave
up His Sword and revolver to our Captain. We sent the Prisoners
to Richmond and Burned the Boat."

(Signed) Bertrand B. Haynie
Apr 7--1927

Further data are added concerning this organization by Rev. C. T. Thrift, who spent his boyhood at Wicomico Church, Northumberland County. He writes:

"Many Yankee gunboats came in the Great Wicomico River from
time to time. Marauding parties landed and did much pillaging.
Poultry and pigs and other things were taken. The women and
children were frightened not a little.

"One such boat came in and anchored on the Wicomico side
between Rowe's landing and Blackwell's Wharf. A band of
pillagers landed and took what they wanted and then returned to
their boat. Young ... had hidden himself while the band was at
the home where he lived. He waited until they had left the
shore. Then he took an old rifle and crept down to the water's
edge, hiding in the bushes. The captain greeted his marauders
upon their return and stood leaning against the deckhouse
sunning himself.

"Young ... raised his rifle aimed carefully and fired. The
bullet struck the captain in the forehead, killing him
instantly. Panic ensued on board, for they had no idea where
the shot came from nor did they have any idea how large a force
might be attacking. There was no time to be lost for they
needed to go and they could not stand on the order of their
going.

"So they unfastened the end of the anchor chain at the capstan
and fled, leaving the chain and the anchor in the mud of the
river bottom. He said (many years later) that he supposed this
was still where it was left. He had thought of going there to
search for it but he had never done so."

Young ..., tradition says, was a member of the Northumberland Home Guard.

_THE MYSTERY OF HORSE POND_

When the Yankee gunboats patrolled the waters surrounding the Northern Neck during the Civil War they found the entrance to Little Wicomico River--where the Potomac and Chesapeake meet. They entered through its natural channel which was open then and quite deep.

Men went ashore to hunt for provisions--vegetables from the gardens, eggs, milk and freshly made butter. Even preserves and jellies from the shelves of the good housewives of Little Wicomico. They searched for men who might be at home, too.

One day near the beginning of the war, a small sailing vessel, probably twenty-two feet in length, and with several persons on board, came into Little Wicomico. She sailed in through the channel with the stone tower lighthouse on Smith Point to her right and Tranquility Farm to her left. She passed through Rock Hole, by tiny Bamboozle Island and around Gough's Point. It was straight sailing then with Ellyson Creek to the right and Sharps Creek to the left.

When the boat passed the tract of land between Sharps Creek and Horse Pond those on board were too far away to note the face of a woman pressed to a window pane of the house on the left bank of the River.

The woman, Sardelia, watched the boat with interest for it was a strange boat, and no doubt with a little uneasiness since those were dark times. Any unfamiliar boat was cause for alarm.

To Sardelia's surprise the boat dropped anchor just beyond her house and abreast of a strip of woodland near the pond where the horses drank. She saw the persons on board go ashore and enter the woods. After a short while they came out, boarded their boat, headed out of the River and sailed out of sight.

Sardelia called her little girl, Florence, and together they hurried through their barn-yard and into the woods. They found the place where the men had come ashore, their footprints on the sand, broken bushes and bruised foliage in the woods, but they could find no clue to the mysterious mission. Sardelia finally gave up her search and sat down under the big water oak tree there in the woods to ponder what she had seen.

Nearly four years later, after the close of the war, Sardelia again saw almost an exact re-enactment of the same scene she had witnessed before. The same boat came into the River, stopped at the same place and the persons on board went ashore and disappeared into the woods. After a short while they boarded their boat and sailed away--for the last time, so far as Sardelia ever knew.

Sardelia again hastened to the woods. This time her search was not in vain. About forty feet back from the shore amidst the trees she found a newly dug hole. It had been hastily and loosely refilled with earth.

This called for more than one period of meditation under the water oak tree. Who were they? Why did they select this particular spot to bury whatever they had buried? (The island at the mouth of the River would have been a perfect setting for buried treasure.) Why did they come into an inhabited area--almost in the barn-yard? Were they evading Federal gunboats? Or, perhaps they were from the North themselves. Did they come from one of the islands in the Chesapeake? And what did they bury?

Tales of buried treasure circulated around Little Wicomico for a long time, although many who lived close by never knew how it all started. The woods became haunted, too, especially the big water oak. But the haunts must not have been too bad because Uncle Zeke, a respected colored man, lived peacefully for many years in his little house in the woods by Horse Pond.

_SCHOONER IN A MILL-POND_

On November 18, 1863, Abraham Lincoln passed through Baltimore on his way to dedicate a battlefield cemetery at Gettysburg.

At least one Virginian, happened to be in the city on that same day also. Captain Jehu, who hailed from the lower Northern Neck, was in Baltimore on business. His schooner, _Pioneer_, lay at a city dock, unloaded of her cargo of wood and ready for the return trip home, but the Captain was having difficulty in getting his money for the wood.

Nerves were tense in Baltimore on that day. Maryland was officially a neutral state but her loyalties were divided. Matters were very bad with the Confederate army near the end of 1863, and Captain Jehu was a Virginian. He finally settled for part of a load of lime in payment for the wood and sailed back down the Chesapeake as fast as the wind would carry him.

When he arrived home he found that matters were even worse there. Word had spread that the Yankees were burning boats. Watermen were carrying their boats to the heads of the rivers in a desperate attempt to save them--perhaps they would be overlooked there, or the waters would be too shallow for gunboats.

Captain Jehu unloaded the lime and sailed the _Pioneer_, in company with a number of other boats, far up the Great Wicomico River to a place called Betts' Landing. The other boats were left by their owners to take their chances there on the mud flats where the water was only two or three feet deep, but Captain Jehu was not satisfied. He loved the _Pioneer_; she was like a part of him, and besides that, if the war ever got over, he had to make a living for his wife and children. In desperation he thought of an idea that he might have laughed at in ordinary times.

Captain Jehu sailed the _Pioneer_ on to Public Landing at the very head of the River. He waited there until the tide was at its full height, then cautiously he floated the seventy-five-foot schooner through the almost hidden entrance to a mill-pond.

Once the schooner was well inside the pond Captain Jehu took down the sails and bundled them up and carried them ashore and hid them in a nearby barn.

He then did something that any waterman would hate to do--he bored a hole in the bottom of his boat.

Captain Jehu went ashore again and started walking toward Burgess Store, which was quite a distance. He had heard that men were being recruited there for the Confederate army. He was in his late thirties and he had a wife and several small children depending on him, but men were desperately needed to fight and the time had come when he was needed even more on the battlefield than at home. He joined the army that day.

While in the Confederate army, Captain Jehu was taken prisoner by the enemy and carried to Point Lookout, Maryland. There in a log pen he had plenty of time to look up at the stars by which he had steered so many times and to wonder what it was all about anyhow. He had not heard from his family for so long--he didn't even know if they were still living. His thoughts probably wandered to his early life.

He had been cast out of his home by a cruel stepmother when he was twelve years old, and had found refuge on a schooner that freighted lumber from the river heads of the Northern Neck to Baltimore and Philadelphia. He was too young to do much but he had helped with the cooking. This was done in a fireplace which was in the cabin and was the only source of heat on the "wood lugger." The fireplace was made of brick and the chimney protruded through the top of the cabin.

Those were hard days too. No doubt he thought of the proud day when he finally owned his own schooner, the _Pioneer_. And how was she faring now? Was she still sinking into the mire of the mill-pond or was she just another charred skeleton?

At last an eternity at Point Lookout came to an end. The prisoners were herded on board an old tub of a steamer and carried to Richmond where they were to be exchanged for Federal prisoners in Libby Prison.

When Captain Jehu arrived at Libby Prison he was too weak to get in line for mess. A big Irishman took pity on him, covered him with a blanket where he lay on the floor and brought him his own rations. The food tasted good after the maggoty fat back he had been living on at Point Lookout, but the steaming coffee was the thing that revived him.

Meanwhile, back in the Northern Neck, Captain Jehu's family was having a hard time. His wife, who "never weighed more than a hundred pounds in her life," raised what she could to feed her children. She grew cotton and spun and wove it and made clothes for them. In the winter, and winters were very cold in the Neck then, she went into the woods and cut enough cordwood to keep them warm. In the words of one of her sons, "She got along any way she could."

One day, some time after the close of the war, Captain Jehu arrived home, having walked all the way from Newport News. His wife didn't recognize him and one of his small sons ran away and hid in the woods all day thinking that he was a Yankee. He wore Yankee breeches and jacket with nothing underneath. Years later one of Captain Jehu's sons described the return of his soldier-father: "An awful-looking object came walking home. He was hairy as a monkey, lousy, barefoot, and had lost interest in everything."

The happiness of being at home again and the necessity of making a living must have aroused Captain Jehu's interest before very long. The first thing he did was to go up the Great Wicomico River to look for his boat. When he reached Betts' Landing he found a graveyard of blackened ribs sticking out of the water. The Yankees had done a thorough job there.

It must have been with great trepidation that he once more entered the mill-pond. But there--hidden among the cattails and deep in the mud--lay the _Pioneer_.

At low tide he shoveled the mud out of his boat, plugged up the hole and bailed her out. He then floated her out of the pond on high tide and carried her down the River to a place called Deep Landing, where he cleaned her up and got ready for the sea once more. (He found the sails safe in the barn, where muskrats had nested in the folds.)

After the _Pioneer_ was put in shape again Captain Jehu freighted lumber in her for twenty years.

_WAR BONNETS_

Shopping trips to Baltimore were curtailed by the Civil War. Even if it had been possible to slip through the Federal patrol, Confederate money was of little value.

Women who still wanted bonnets for themselves and for their daughters were forced to be resourceful. The most practical substitute they could find for straw was the corn-shuck. They picked the shucks in the early fall while they were still green and put them aside to work on during the lonely winter evenings beside the fireplace.

By that time the shucks were dry and stiff but the women soaked them in water until they were pliable. Long strips were plaited and sewed around and around together to form crown and brim. The finished product was trimmed with a feather plucked from the barn-yard rooster, or with some natural material, such as dried grasses, gum balls, sea shells or small pine cones.

One corn-shuck hat, made for a "Confederate bride" of the Neck, was trimmed with flowers made of small white feathers. Each flower was centered with a bit of gold from a raveled Confederate epaulette.

_AMANDA AND THE YANKEES_

On an April day in 1864 a young couple on horseback traveled down a muddy Northern Neck road. Once they paused by the wayside to drink from a spring that bubbled conveniently near, and toward evening they drew rein under a giant mulberry tree at the head of a lane where gateposts with acorn finials marked the entrance. From this vantage spot a cabin roof showed here and there at the edge of the woods, and open fields enclosed by zig-zag chestnut rail fences could be pointed out and called by name--Upper Field, Lower Field, Middle Field, Back Field and Shelly Bank.

The house at the end of the lane could be glimpsed through its grove of locusts, paper mulberry and towering ailanthus. It was a typical early Tidewater Virginia house--story-and-a-half, without dormers. Three or four brick outside chimneys and a small entrance porch were the outstanding features. It was flanked on the right by a barn, cornhouse and tobacco house, and on the left by a smokehouse, off kitchen, laundry house and small sheds.

In the background water gleamed where Cockerell's Creek meandered into one of its many coves, and finally trickled up on either side to form marshes, lush with wild flags and the foliage of wild lilies and mallows.

The couple were bride and groom and this was the bride's first view of her future home, Pleasant Grove. The groom had little time to familiarize his new wife with his ancestral acres as he was a Confederate soldier and the honeymoon must end when his furlough ended, which was soon.

When the bridegroom went back to join Lee's dwindling forces, the bride took up her new duties as mistress of Pleasant Grove. She was alone except for the servants. How many stayed on after the war started, tradition does not say. Amanda was well versed in the art of housekeeping, thanks to the rigid early training of her mother. There was plenty to do. The groom was an orphan and an only child and he had been living in solitary freedom for some time before the war. She was too busy at first to be lonely.

The central passage, paneled to chair rail height and plastered above, was as dark as night when all the doors were closed. If she opened the heavy front door she could look out and see the little porch with its built-in benches on each side that looked something like short church pews. The yard was enclosed with a horizontal plank fence and the gateposts had small acorns to match the larger ones on the Outer Gate. They were always called the Outer and Inner Gates.

The rooms of the house, like the fields, were named. Besides the doors to the parlor and dining-room which opened from the passage, there was a small door which opened to reveal a narrow twisted stairway which led up to the Big Room and the Little Room.

The shed addition on the rear was two steps lower than the main house. There Amanda found the Chamber Room, the Middle Room and the Back Room. All walls were of white-washed plaster and the floors and woodwork were of heart pine. (The house was built of heart pine and put together with hand-made nails. The cornhouse was fastened together with wooden pegs.)

Amanda had fun exploring the old house and bringing it back to life once more. One day she was dusting the clock on the dining-room mantel when she discovered that it hid the opening to a secret metal box built in the chimney. A hiding place for valuables! A lot of good that did her. Confederate notes were of little value and the tobacco which she used in place of money couldn't be hidden there.

Amanda finally chose the Chamber Room as her bedroom, because it was usually full of sunlight, had a cozy fireplace and a view of the creek and garden. At the back of the house there was a combination garden of flowers, herbs, vegetables and fruit trees, laid out in the English manner. A walk down the center led to the Creek. Trees grew on both sides of the Creek and Amanda's view ended where the Creek disappeared around a point. She wondered what was on the other side and if the water was deep enough for a Yankee gunboat.

One afternoon Amanda was taking a nap in the Back Room when she was suddenly and violently awakened by a great noise. The whole house seemed to be shaking. Her eardrums felt like they would burst. After the noise had subsided and the house became still and she had gotten her wits together again she ventured outside. The frightened negroes pointed to a jagged hole in the underpinning under the Back Room and a fragment of cannon ball lying nearby.

After the gunboat's rude salutation, Amanda was not surprised when one day she looked up the lane and saw a number of Federal soldiers on horseback turning in at the Outer Gate. She went out on the porch and waited for them.

Many years later Hannah, one of the servants, described the incident. Through the cracks in the cornhouse where she was hiding Hannah saw the soldiers dismount. Two of them went to the porch where "Missus" was waiting. They talked some, then "Missus" went in the house and the men who had talked with her sat down on the porch. The other soldiers sprawled on the grass under the trees. Pretty soon she heard "Missus" call so she "snuck" out of the cornhouse.

"Hannah," said "Missus," "they are going to stay to dinner so we must hurry and cook a good meal. Kill some chickens, put those ducks that are already dressed in the oven and get a ham out of the meat house."

Hannah remonstrated. "Stay to dinner, all dem men and dem wearing blue coats, too!" But "Missus" was determined. "They are hungry, Hannah, and I invited them. Besides, if they get a good dinner maybe they'll go away and not burn the house or take the tobacco."

Such a dinner! Baked duck, chicken, fried ham, batter bread and hot biscuits--more things than Hannah could remember--and little glasses of wine to "top off wid." After dinner the soldiers went out in the yard again. A fat old goose came wandering around and one of the men took out his sword and was about to cut off its head, but "de boss" who had talked most with "missus" told him to put up his sword.

The officer no doubt felt mellow and relaxed after the good meal. After resting awhile they all rode away in high good humour, waving warm good-byes.

Thus the goose was saved. When a tired Confederate soldier came walking home from Appomattox after the war had ended he found everything intact as he had left it.

_THE HORSEHAIR RING_

When in the beginning of May, 1864, General Lee permitted General Grant to cross the Rapidan without molestation in order to lure him into the Wilderness, where it would be impossible for the Federals to use their artillery, he intended to destroy the Federal Army in the depths of that "bewildering thicket" by a surprise attack where Grant would be forced to fight at a great disadvantage.

The woods were very thick--so dense that a regimental commander could not see the whole of his line at the same time, and in many instances the only guides were the points of the compass.

The battle was raging on May 6. In a bulletin sent to the Secretary of War at the close of that day, General Lee stated: "Our loss in killed is not large, but we have many wounded, most of them slightly, artillery being little used on either side."

General Grant's army had suffered severely, and he had become convinced that it was useless to try to drive Lee from his position. He decided to move his army southward to Spotsylvania Court House and get between Lee and Richmond.

During the afternoon of May 7, Grant sent his trains off in the direction of Spotsylvania Court House, which was only fifteen miles distant, and ordered the army to prepare to follow at nightfall.

Among Grant's wounded men there was by some mistake a wounded Confederate soldier. Perhaps the color of his home-made uniform, dyed with a brew of herbs and vegetables concocted by his wife was not too accurate a shade of Confederate gray, especially when obscured by the blood and filth of the long battle. Whatever the reason may have been, he was carried along by the enemy with their own wounded men.

Near Spotsylvania Court House a home was commandeered by the Federals for their wounded, but when the Confederate's uniform was recognized, he was left lying in the yard.

The lady of the house saw him there. She dared not take him inside, but she made a pallet on the ground for him, and stayed by him, and comforted him as best she could.

The soldier was still conscious. He told her of his wife, her name and where she lived, of his children, and of a ring in his pocket. He told her that when he was holding the horses one day while a battle was in progress, he had plucked some hairs from the mane of a horse and fashioned a ring as a gift for his wife. It was a crude thing, he said, entirely lacking in beauty, but he had woven his love into it. He hoped that in some way it could be conveyed to her.

The woman promised the dying man that his wish would be carried out, having faith that in some way she could fulfill her promise.

Satisfied by her promise, the soldier died quietly there on the pallet, toward evening of May 7, 1864.

The woman covered his body and left him there until nightfall. Under cover of darkness she returned with a woman servant, and together they laboriously dug a grave for him there in her yard. Before laying him to rest she searched his pockets and found the ring and two Confederate notes for fifty cents each, both issued April 6, 1863. Two Confederate notes and a ring made of horse-hair--the total possessions on his person.

The ring, as the soldier had said, was lacking in beauty, but it was skillfully made. He had fastened together a circle of horse-hair about the size of a slender woman's finger, then he had covered it by weaving a few strands of the hair around it, making a sort of button-hole stitch on both edges.

After the war had ended the woman managed in some way to fulfill her promise. She wrote the soldier's widow a letter telling her the details of her husband's death and enclosed the contents of his pockets. Whether the postal system had been restored in the region where the letter traveled, or whether it was conveyed by hand, is not known, but it did finally reach its destination.

As soon as it was possible, relatives of the bereaved family, an old man and a small boy, made a long, weary and sad journey by ox-cart from their home in the lower Northern Neck, through Fredericksburg to Spotsylvania Court House, a distance of more than a hundred miles, for the purpose of transporting the remains of their kinsman back to his homeland. When this mission was accomplished, the remains of the young Confederate sergeant were laid to rest in the family burial ground, near Burgess Store, in Northumberland County.

For many years the soldier's widow and the loyal Southern lady corresponded. Although they never did meet, their spirits were bound together by that common denominator--war.

_MIRACLE AT KETCHUM'S CAMP_

Toward the close of the Civil War the fortunes of the lower Northern Neck like those of the entire South were low. This section was then so isolated that news from the battlefields was long in coming, and usually bad when it did arrive. Food was meager and monotonous and, despite the ingenious efforts of the women, could only be stretched so far.

As another war Christmas approached there was little heart to make merry, but for the sake of the children the older people felt that an appearance of festivity was necessary. A fowl of some sort was killed and dressed and hung in the cold smokehouse in readiness for its last minute stuffing. The tree had been selected but would not be cut until late Christmas Eve. Some chose a holly, because it needed less trimming and the berries held up for quite a while in the poorly heated rooms, but cedar was still the favorite. The little ones were stringing long garlands of holly berries and popcorn and making ornaments from whatever they could find.

On the night of December the twenty-third, the small spark of Christmas spirit that had been kindled was dampened by a terrific storm that raged over the Chesapeake, dashing huge breakers against the beach and shaking and rattling the houses along its shoreline, like some monster bent on destruction. By morning the wind and waves had subsided leaving a chill gray atmosphere that warned of a snow-storm in the making.

It is the natural thing for people who live close to the water to scan the horizon the last thing before retiring and the first thing upon arising, so on this bleak Christmas Eve it was not long after dawn when residents along that section of the Bay between Smith Point and Taskmakers Creek had observed two dark objects drifting toward shore near a spot later known as Ketchum's Camp. In those uncertain days anything unusual was viewed with great alarm. Not long before this, one of the houses along this same stretch of beach had been fired upon by an enemy gunboat and saved only because two daughters of the house had waved a sheet on a pole and implored the officers who came ashore to cease firing.

Now, as the alarm went out members of the Home Guard swiftly assembled with their miscellaneous firearms ready for action. These fiery lads were sometimes overzealous in their defense tactics so on this day they were restrained by their elders until the objects drifted in so close that all could see that they were nothing but clumsy unmanned boats of the scow type.

The boys and a few very old men who were there hastened out in small boats to the stranded vessels. As they pulled back the tarpaulin coverings they could scarcely believe their eyes when they saw that both boats were loaded with provisions. After much discussion, they concluded that these must be Federal supply boats which had broken loose during the storm while being towed up the Bay. Of course, the idea that they were putting one over on the Yankees appealed to the Home Guard even more than the food. They hastily and joyfully began the task of transporting the windfall to shore. By midafternoon the beach was lined with people who had learned the good news through the grapevine.

A nondescript crowd they were, but representative of the countryside at that time. Very old men, children and boys were there but the majority were women of all ages. The clothes of every one were knitted and homespun, their main virtue being warmth. They had come on foot, on horseback, in carriages and wagons. Their faces were alight with the thought of real coffee and tea on Christmas morning after months of nauseous brews made from sweet potatoes, wheat or sage, sweetened with sorghum. Real white loaf sugar! Their eyes glistened with delight--or maybe, tears. Bacon, too, and flour and molasses! Plenty for all. They did not doubt that this was a miracle.

The children jumped and screamed in ecstatic anticipation of the wonderful Christmas to come. Snow began to fall but now it was not the dreaded stuff that makes the woes of the poor greater, but, instead, it was the beautiful, dream-making substance that belongs to Christmas. It fell softly on the loaded vehicles and on the heads of those who knelt with one accord on the lonely sand beach and gave thanks to God.

_Note_: This spot which was called Ketchum's Camp soon after
the Civil War, because a sawmill camp was located there, has in
recent years been known as Chesapeake Estates, a summer cottage
area.

_DESPERATE PASSAGE_

It was April of the year 1865, and Lee had already surrendered his army at Appomattox.

On the night of April 22nd a row-boat moved cautiously across the Potomac in the direction of the Virginia shore. This was the second time, it is believed, that the two men in the boat had tried to make the river crossing from Maryland to Virginia. The night before they had failed because it had been too dark and the tide had been too strong. The past eight days had doubtless seemed like an eternity to them.

Now they could see the Virginia shore and the dim outline of a landing but the thin youth at the oars did not head for the public wharf. He rowed on until he came to a smaller landing which belonged to a private home. They landed there, at Upper Machodoc Creek near what later became Dahlgren, in King George County.

The younger man helped his passenger out of the boat and together they approached the house on the bank of the creek, knocked on the door and asked for lodging for the night. The mistress of the house could doubtless see that the dark handsome man in the muddy Confederate uniform was badly in need of rest. Tradition says that she took them in for the night.

The next morning the two men left the Quesenberry home. The older man was limping badly and seemed to be in much pain. That day they traveled slowly on foot over back roads.

Toward dusk they came to a home set in a grove of beautiful trees. It was Cleydael, the residence of Doctor R. H. Stuart. Tradition says that the men knocked on the back door and asked for food and aid.