Chapter IV: Part 4

As by that time the food supply of the South was reduced to narrow limits, salt being procured by digging up and boiling the earth from under the smokehouses, browned sweet potatoes cut into bits and toasted serving for coffee, and lumps of sugar being sold at high prices for the hospital fund, it might be thought that our prospect of finding a banquet awaiting us in Richmond was not brilliant. But friends and relations of my Soldier had exerted themselves to do him honor, and the result was such as had not been seen in Virginia for many a day. It was sora season and so generous was the supply that the feast was afterward known as the "wedding sora-supper." The birds had been killed at night with paddles, for the South was not wasting her small store of ammunition on sora with so many more important targets in sight. The birds, killed at Curl's Neck on the James River, and thousands of beaten biscuit, gallons of terrapin stew, and turkeys boned and made into salad by the neighbors and the old plantation servants under the supervision of Mr. and Mrs. Sims, the overseer and his wife at Turkey Island, my Soldier's old colonial home, were sent us as bridal presents. Mrs. Robert E. Lee's gift was a fruit-cake, the making of which she had superintended, and Bishop Dudley's mother sent us a black fruit-cake that had been put away for her own golden wedding.

The only men in civilian evening dress were Mr. Davis and his Cabinet and a few ministers and very old men, for even then we were "robbing the cradle and the grave" to recruit the Army, and the women were sacrificing everything to help. Through kindness of friends in Norfolk a handsome bridal dress, imported for me by Mrs. Boykin, had been smuggled across the line. It was so unusual that after Mrs. Davis had greeted me she looked in astonishment at my costume and said:

"Child, where did you get these clothes?"

Turning to the General, smiling, Mr. Davis asked:

"Where did you get the little lady in the clothes?"

On the other side of the room was the editor of the _Richmond Examiner_, who had been mercilessly assailing the administration. Mrs. Davis called her husband's attention to him but Mr. Davis said:

"Let us not look that way, my dear. We have come to-night to see beautiful things and think pleasant thoughts."

The General's sister invited the President and Mrs. Davis to the dining-room.

"What a time you must have had plucking them," said Mr. Davis when he saw the sora.

"A part of the gift was the preparation of them, even to the last shade of brownness."

My memory of Mr. Davis that evening lingers with special significance because it was the last time that I ever saw real happiness in his earnest face. He was just a free, gallant gentleman that night. As he said, he had come to enjoy. Clouds, public and private, were gathering, and soon enough there was no longer the possibility of forgetting. I saw him often afterward in sadness, but never again with the light of joy on his face.

Perhaps there was never anywhere else so varied a collection of curios for the adornment of the person as I had assembled for a trousseau. I had gowns remodeled from court robes more than a century old, relics of grandmothers and great-grandmothers; frocks of home-woven material, striped with vegetable dyes gathered from the woods, and trimmed with a passementerie made of various kinds of seeds, such as canteloupe, laces knit from fine-spun flax, tatting and crocheted trimmings, and buttons carved from peach-stones.

One of my bonnets was made of the lacy lining that grows on the inside of a gourd, called my dish-cloth bonnet because the soft fabric was used also for the less ornamental kitchen purpose. In the absence of the more widely known varieties of millinery I used the silky milkweed balls for white roses and made bunches of grapes from picked cotton covered with fleek-skin and tinted. A bonnet of gray straw, plaited and dyed by the servants, poke-shaped and with pink roses inside the brim, was especially becoming. My bridal present from my pastor's wife was a very wide collar of tatting and embroidery.

The wedding robe left nothing to be desired, for it was of white satin and exquisite shimmering lace, made at a center of fashion. In passing I may remark that the possession of a real wedding dress, new and stylish, was a distinction that carried with it a sense of obligation to the community at large, and my bridal gown graced a number of weddings after my own. It was last worn by one of the most beautiful girls of the Confederacy who, a few days later, exchanged its snowy folds for the sables of widowhood when the bridegroom was brought home dead from the battlefield. Thus tragically shadowed the dress around which clustered so many happy memories, so many tender sentiments, and so many sorrowful recollections, was laid away with reverent hands, never again to glimmer with soft sheen through the misty folds of the bridal veil.

XVI

BUTLER BOTTLED UP

My Soldier was at this time assigned to the Department of North Carolina, with headquarters at Petersburg, Virginia, commanding all that part of Virginia between James River on the north and Cape Fear River on the south, reaching eastward to the Federal lines around Suffolk and westward to the Black Water and Chowan, including all the troops in that region.

After our bridal visits to kinspeople we returned to Petersburg where we found that our friends, in spite of the restrictions of war, had arranged beautiful rooms for us, decorating them luxuriantly with flowers and fitting them up handsomely.

Among the many who helped to make my life happy in Petersburg was Major Charles Pickett, the General's Assistant Adjutant General (the "Little Major," as he was affectionately called by the soldiers). When my Soldier introduced him to me as his "little brother" he immediately became my "little brother," too, and thus he was in my life and my heart through all the years that he remained on earth. He walked slightly lame from a wound received at Frazier's Farm. So anxious was he to get into the fight that he disobeyed orders to report for staff duty in Richmond and went into the battle instead. When he was shot he begged his comrades not to carry him off the field but to leave him his flag that he might die under its folds. But he lived through what was known among the men as "the battle the little Major fought down at Frazier's Farm," and thus I came into possession of "my little brother." Soon afterward he married Miss Elizabeth Smith of Washington, and brought us a dear sister who was my companion in the rare sunshine and the many storms of war.

All this region was historic and held thrilling memories of the battles of bygone days. As we rode over the ground we talked of the old-time conflicts and my Soldier said that he would have been glad to be in all wars that were for a just cause. I had been taught that the Mexican war was without such justification, and asked his opinion.

"At West Point," he replied, "some of us were reprimanded for expressing a doubt of its justice. I was one of them. After we were in we had to fight it out and as it must be done I wanted to do my share."

It was while my Soldier was stationed at Petersburg that the expedition to North Carolina was projected, involving Newbern and Plymouth. The military history of the movement is given in "Pickett and His Men," but there are certain personal features of the expedition which have been recorded in my memory, for I would not be left behind when the journey to the old North State was made. I went as far as the house of a friend on the Newbern road.

The night was bleak and frigid; we were nearing our stopping place. My Soldier, always solicitous for his men, was discussing with his staff the discomfort to which they would be subjected and the impossibility of alleviating their suffering.

"Poor fellows!" he said. "They will be almost frozen and no wood, and General Lee will not allow us to burn even a single rail. There will be the devil to pay and I powerless to help."

Observing that I had awakened and heard his last remark he turned reprovingly to Captain Bright, saying:

"Bright, how dare you use that gentleman's name in the presence of my wife?"

"Beg your pardon, Sister," said Captain Bright, "I thought you were asleep."

Whatever relation my Soldier might bear to his staff officers, I was always "Sister."

"Don't you think I know your voice, my dear, from Captain Bright's?" I inquired.

"No, little one, you could not possibly know my voice in connection with such words, and you could not think that I would use such language as Bright uses."

"Sister," said Captain Bright, "before the General was married he would not allow any of us to swear at all. He said he would do the swearing for the whole division. Now that he is married we have not only to do all our own swearing but his, too."

Had it not been for the versatile imagination of Colonel Floweree, the Ananias of the Seventh Virginia Regiment, my Soldier and I would probably have fared badly. The hotel was impossible and the community was of Union sentiment. In our connection with the Southern Army we could expect no toleration. In this dilemma Colonel Floweree undertook to grapple with the situation. He learned that the most beautiful and luxurious home in the village was owned by an old Baptist, a power in the church and in the community, who was known to be not unwilling to make an occasional sacrifice of political opinions to religious fraternity. Colonel Floweree called upon the good brother and, with an intonation that he could have learned nowhere but from the pious and hardshell Baptists of that region and period, said:

"My dear Brother, I know what a good Baptist you are and how ready you are to help all your brethren in the Lord. I have my good General, Brother Pickett, out here with his dear pious wife, Sister Pickett, both good Baptists, and I beg you to extend to them the hospitality of your home and entertain them as best you can for the sake of brotherly love."

"If I do," said the old man hesitatingly, "the Yankees may burn my house; but I must take the chances, I cannot let my brethren suffer. Yes, let the good brother and sister come in and share what I have."

We were received with fraternal hospitality, our host shaking hands with us solemnly, saying, "How do you do, Brother Pickett? How are you, Sister Pickett?" in a voice that invested us with the sanctity of the church.

I was interested to observe that our host had but one eye, his wife was cross-eyed, and their daughter was cock-eyed. These optical phenomena were afterward scientifically explained by our Baptist brother.

"I was engaged to a cross-eyed girl," he said, "and my people objected to the marriage. I was about to give it up when one day I was cutting wood and the end of the stick flew up and hit me in the eye and put it out. It was the judgment of the Lord and I repented and married my cross-eyed girl. Then when our girl was born the hand of the accusing angel touched her and she was cock-eyed to keep me in mind of my sin."

Petersburg, the gate to Richmond, was the weakest point of the Confederacy, and my Soldier had explained its position to the authorities in Richmond and asked that provision for its defense should be made. His warning disregarded, he wrote a confidential letter on the subject to General Lee, who sent an officer to Richmond, urging immediate action. Still nothing was done and when, on the 5th of May, Butler with thirty thousand troops moved upon the town, which was defended by only six hundred men (two hundred of whom were ineffective), the government and the country were as much surprised as if they had never heard of the danger.

Though my Soldier had been ordered a few days before to report to the Army of Northern Virginia, he could not leave Petersburg to destruction. In defiance of orders he remained in the beleaguered city. The day after the attack a part of the South Carolina brigade came in and, being placed at Walthall Junction, about six miles from Petersburg, drove back Butler's advance column. Wise's Virginia brigade arrived on the seventh and was sent toward City Point. Then three brigades of Pickett's division began coming in as fast as the crippled express could bring them, and we had eleven pieces of artillery.

We women carried the dispatches, cooked the food and took it to the men at the guns. At train time we would go to the station and send up cheer after cheer of welcome, hoping to blind the Federals to the fact that the cars, returning from their short trip to the country, brought in only the half-starved railroad men. The roar of cannon and the shrieks of shot and shell filled our ears day and night. During the entire week, until Petersburg was safe and General Grant had sent his famous telegram to Mr. Lincoln, "Pickett has bottled up Butler at Petersburg," my Soldier scarcely slept, and I saw him only when I carried to him on the lines a dispatch or his bread and soup and coffee. This telegram so angered Butler that he came up the James River, out of the line of battle, at great expense to the United States Government, and sacked and burned my Soldier's beautiful ancestral home.

The city council of Petersburg voted a resolution of thanks to my Soldier for his brave defense of the city. The people wished to express their gratitude by a gift to me. It was impossible to buy a service of silver, so each brought a fork, a salt-spoon, a pitcher, as the case might be, until more than a thousand pieces were given to me. One woman, having no silver because she had been compelled to sell her household service, brought a pretty gilt-bordered cup. The gifts of affection were of far greater value to me than the most elegant and costly new set of silver could have been and were carefully cherished until, in the fire which marked the surrender of Richmond, they, with all my bridal presents and everything of value, were burned in the warehouse in Richmond where they had been placed for safe-keeping.

One morning in May in the early dawn we rode out of the city of sweet memories and days of terror, pausing to look back at the far-off Church of Saint Paul, new-lit by the rising sun, where we had plighted our troth.

XVII

ON THE LINES

Our next station was on the "Bermuda Hundred" lines near the heart of the storm, but there were rifts of sunshine to break the gloom.

A tent was our first home and later a log cabin. Major Charles Pickett's log cabin near our own had two rooms, a degree of splendor to which no one else attained.

We had friends--such friends as war binds together with links that can never be broken. The wives of many of the officers were there. The few new books we had were exchanged until they were read through and through and almost learned by heart. If one of us fortunately came into possession of a month-old paper it went the rounds and was more eagerly perused than are the morning journals now, just off the press with the news of the hour fresh and hot. We visited, walked, talked, rode and danced half the night away lest it should be over-long and bring darksome dreams. How could we live on the rim of a volcano if we could not dance around its crater?

At the Howlett House not all our evenings were given over to pleasure. The Federals had a theory that business should come first, and would thrust their views upon us at inopportune times, frequently arousing us from slumber. These nocturnal attacks were veritable scenes from the Inferno displayed against the black curtain of night--swords flashing through the darkness, guns thundering across the silence that had brooded over the earth, weapons clashing, the roar of orders sweeping over the field--all the demoniac sounds of battle crashing through a blackness that enshrouded our world. He who has looked upon such a scene needs no fiend of darkness to roll back for him the heavy curtain that hides the world of demons. Even the bravest of the brave doubted their courage in a night attack.

After one of these encounters when the wounded were brought in I saw my Soldier stop beside two of them, one a Federal and the other a Confederate. Pointing to the northern soldier he said:

"Please attend first to our guest, doctor."

Then he gave his handkerchief to serve as a tourniquet to stop the bleeding of the Federal soldier's wound.

It was at the Bermuda Hundred line that I first saw General Grant. My Soldier and I were riding along looking at the Federal gunboats and monitors not more than a few hundred yards from our headquarters when I saw a puff of smoke drifting, scattering, a mere shadow as it floated higher and was lost against the blue sky.

"Look, look!" I exclaimed. "Isn't that beautiful?"

"Dangerously beautiful. It is from a shell. The enemy are firing over there. Come, dear; whip up your horse and let me get you out of this as soon as I can."

"No, indeed," I said. "I'm not a bit afraid, and if I were do you think I would let Pickett's men see me run?"

"Come, dear, please! You are in danger, useless danger, and that is not bravery."

The soldiers did not seem to agree with him, for Corse's Brigade sent up cheer after cheer as we passed. Captain Smith, just then riding across the field, stopped to speak to us.

"The Federals are testing some guns, I think, for the entertainment of visitors," he explained, "and are not firing at us. They are over there to the right of that oak." He handed us his field glass. "Mrs. Grant is standing between those two short, stout men. The one at the left with a cigar in his mouth is Grant. The shorter, stouter one on the right is Ingalls, Grant's Quartermaster-General."

"Yes, that's Rufus. See him laugh, the old rascal!" said my Soldier, a glint of the old-time affection shining in his eyes and vibrating in his voice. He, Grant and Ingalls were old friends, having been comrades in Mexico and the West. "But come, let's ride on."

"Yes," said Captain Smith, "it is not safe here. I would take Mrs. Pickett away. Turn to the left there into that clump of trees."

"Unfortunately, Captain, Mrs. Pickett outranks me; she will not go."

"Permit me, please, Mrs. Pickett, to add my entreaties to those of the General. It really is not safe here."

"Let me get down and try our guns, too, and then I'll go," I answered.

"Not for the world," exclaimed my Soldier. "They are not shooting at us. Mrs. Grant is so kind-hearted that she would not approve of their shooting in this direction if she thought it would interrupt our morning ride. Besides, she is exceedingly cross-eyed and does not know directions."

The Captain saluted my Soldier, lifted his hat to me, suggestively pointed to the grove on our left and rode away. I watched him, admiring his fine horsemanship. Beginning to feel remorseful for my obstinate resistance to his appeal I was about to turn off to the safe path when one of the aimless cannon balls swept across the field and I saw the Captain's horse careering madly along bearing a headless body. Impulsively I sprang from my horse and ran and picked up the poor head, and I solemnly believe that the dying eyes looked their thanks as the last glimmering of life flickered out. Those pathetically grateful eyes have looked at me many times through the mists of vanished years and with them has come the booming of the guns that threw black bars across the sunshine of that far away morning.

The memory of General Grant often came to me afterward associated with that awful sight following my first view of him across the water where he stood peacefully smoking on the slope. The fact that he remembered the old friendship with my Soldier was impressed upon me many times after my view of him through field glasses.

Among the friends whom I often met at this station was General Robert E. Lee. It has been said that our Commanding General never knew or cared what he ate, and it is true that he did not, in comparison with the welfare of his soldiers. Once when he and his staff lunched with us I gave them one of our famous Brunswick stews, made of chicken, a slice of pork, corn, tomatoes and Lima beans, with bay-leaf and onion seasoning, and cooked slowly. It was particularly good this day, as I had received a gift of some smuggled salt and could afford to use it lavishly, and General Lee said the stew was the most delicious thing he had ever tasted. I had just made some walnut pickles of which I was very proud. He praised them and told me that in his house he had them many years old and that the "older they became the better they were."

"But, you know," he said, "I never eat anything good without thinking of the soldiers and their privations."

One evening in Richmond my Soldier and I were invited to spend the evening with Senator and Mrs. Clement C. Clay, and while there General Lee called. We had ice cream made of buttermilk and sweetened with sorghum, and lemonade made with lemons from the conservatory of our hostess. She remarked that she had been saving those lemons for the soldiers in the hospital but that she had more which she would give to them. "If you will be sure not to forget the soldiers," said General Lee, "I will enjoy this lemonade."

The General called me "Sweet Nansemond" because I came from Nansemond County, as did the famous sweet potatoes which the hucksters hawked about the streets, calling out, "Nansemonds! Sweet Nansemonds!" and I rather resented this vegetable suggestion, not liking to be associated with potatoes even in the mind of General Lee.

Though sympathetic and warm-hearted, our General had a natural dignity of manner which, though inspiring confidence, interposed a veil of reserve between him and even his warmest admirers. Years after the war one of my friends who had been an officer in the Army of Northern Virginia, first under General Joe Johnston and then under General Lee, said to me:

"Lee was a great soldier and a good man but I never wanted to put my arms around his neck and kiss him as I wanted to do with Joe Johnston."

With a bit of a jealous feeling for my own Soldier I asked:

"Did you want to do that to General Pickett?"

"To Pickett?--Why, I not only wanted to but I did."

One evening when General Lee, General Beauregard, my Soldier and his Brigade Commanders were studying war-maps in our cabin and confidentially discussing the freeing of the slaves and the enlisting of them as soldiers, General Lee finished by saying:

"Well, gentlemen, we must hope for the best. If we should give up there are many who would feel that we had sold the South--many of our Southern States would think so, for even they have no idea that we have come to the last of our resources and no realization of how starving and poor we are, and, alas, gentlemen, too much of the best blood of the land is being spilled, too many homes being despoiled and made desolate, too many mothers with broken hearts."

Solemnly they shook hands and General Lee and his companions galloped off, my Soldier and I standing in the doorway listening.

"Hear the horses' hoofs saying, 'Blood-blood, Blood-blood,'" said I.

"So they do, little one," answered my Soldier. "Strange--strange I had not thought of that before."

We turned to the map on the floor and rolled up the ways to go and prayed for a miracle to bring success.

XVIII

THE AMENITIES

We were near the Federal lines and the men on the opposing sides enjoyed friendly chats with each other, swapped jokes, bartered tobacco for coffee and exchanged newspapers.

The Federals kept their cattle in a stockade in the rear of their camp. Early one morning they were surprised to see Confederate soldiers running along the line in a manner suggestive of a drove of highly excited cows.

"What's the matter with you, Johnnies, over there?" came the query across the lines. "Are you all crazy?"

The only answer was a vociferous and long-drawn out chorus of "Moo-o-o! Moo-o-o! Moo-o-o!"

Disgusted with the pertinaceous lunacy of their foes the blue-coats gave up the conundrum. A little while later the problem was solved. In the night General J. E. B. Stuart with some of his men had circled the camp and driven off all the Federal cattle, and the "Moo!" of the Confederates was a graphic announcement to the victims of their loss. For a time the "Johnnies" fared sumptuously on steak and roast while the "Yanks" were compelled to forage till they could lay in a new supply of live stock.

The red flag of the politicians never wholly divided the hearts of the soldiers into hostile camps. Not only did the West Pointers retain the comradeship of the old Army days, but the enlisted men shared the friendly sentiment.

In the summer of '63 the Confederate and Federal soldiers doing duty on opposite banks of the Black Water River in Virginia were wont to divert themselves by trading with each other. They had built for their traffic a miniature fleet of rudely but ingeniously carved boats. One of these little vessels would be taken up stream, the current of which was seldom strong, and with rudder fixed it would go down the river with its cargo of sugar and coffee wrapped in the latest newspaper and stored in the scooped deck, and would be grappled and hauled in by the sentry on the opposite side. Back the same trusty little carrier dove would come, laden with plugs of tobacco, wrapped likewise in the latest paper on that side. Cheers and shouts from both lines would greet each cargo as it touched the shore.

One morning a short time after the battle of Gettysburg the Confederates anxiously awaited the return of their little craft. It came and was enthusiastically received, but to their surprise, no answering shout went up from the opposite shore on the landing of the boat. The cargo, much to their disappointment, was wrapped in brown paper.

"Well, we have whipped them Yanks again as sure as guns," they argued sympathetically in explanation of the silence and the brown paper. The vessel was sent back and on the paper in which the cargo was wrapped were these words:

"We-all are so sorry for you-all Yanks, but we won't crow loud, so send along the paper."

The boat returned with the paper, on the margin of which was written:

"'Twas sech darned infernal hard luck in the papers for you Rebs we was 'feared they'd sink the coffee."

In the old Army my Soldier had a dear comrade, at this time a General in the Army of the Potomac. His brother had the misfortune to be captured and put into Libby prison and, in memory of the old friendship, my Soldier secured his release and took him as a guest into our home, the old Pickett mansion in Richmond. In an unaccountable moment of indiscretion he wrote a letter in which he said that the Confederacy was on its last legs, stating that he was in a home of wealth, where there was a house full of servants, and in the morning the basket was sent to market packed full of money and brought back only half full of provisions. This letter fell into the hands of Judge Ould, Commissioner of exchange of prisoners, who immediately reported it and the offending writer was returned to prison. My Soldier's sympathy was not cooled by this unhappy incident, and later he secured permission for me to go to the prison at will and take whatever I could of our scanty store that would be a help or comfort to him--beaten biscuit, eggs, milk or fruit. However unpromising the outlook might be I always managed to find something for him. Every week when I would take him clean linen the other prisoners would cut dice for that which he left off. Of more value than anything else was the gourd of soft soap which I carried to him, for we had no salt to make hard soap. I think he cared more for the human interest that I brought from outdoor life, the glint of sunshine, however dark my own heart might be.

It was thus that I saw the inside of Libby prison. Let no man who did not see Libby prison in the last days of the Confederacy imagine for a moment that he is able to conceive of any fraction of its infernal horror. It is easy to understand that, in a country where the soldiers were starving in the field and families were starving at home, a prison would not be a comfortable place of abode, but it would have to be seen to be in the least appreciated. When I look back through memory at that scene of indescribable wretchedness, unutterable gloom and despair, I can almost envy those whose fancy falls so far short of the reality.

It had been many months since the authorities of the North had set a rigid bar against the exchange of prisoners, involving the reinforcement of the Confederate Army. It was impossible for the South to replace her captured men, while the Federal Army could be easily kept in full force by new recruits. Mr. Davis had vainly pleaded for exchange on the field. He had sent two Federal prisoners to Washington to represent our condition and the impossibility of feeding prisoners in addition to trying to keep our own soldiers from starvation. The stern necessities of war had prevailed against him. The prisoners themselves had given assent to the sad fate that was to be theirs. They had offered their lives for their country. What mattered it whether the supreme sacrifice was accepted in the swift glory of the battle flash or in the long dreary darkness of a hopeless imprisonment.

In my visits to the prison I met and knew other unfortunate ones and am thankful that I was able to minister to some of them. Among my son's and my own best friends in after years were some whom I first met in that awful, woeful place.

Dining with Mr. and Mrs. Beverly Tucker at a hotel in Washington years after the war, I saw a strange gentleman at a table near, gazing so earnestly at me that I said to my host, "Is that gentleman some one whom I should know and speak to?" Mr. Tucker looked up, half inclined to be offended. The stranger rose and came to our table.

"Excuse me," he said, bowing to my host and hostess. Turning to me, his voice trembling, he said, "Forgive this intrusion but I couldn't help it. I want to ask you, please, if you ever gave buttermilk and soft soap, fresh figs, a clean shirt, a world of sunshine and a lot of other things to a poor, wounded, weary, homesick boy in Libby prison? Aren't you the lady? You are; don't you remember me?"

The tears were streaming down his face now as he held out his hand.

"Yes," I said, "I remember; of course, I remember. You are the poor wounded boy the prisoners used to call Little Willie Sourmilk, Little Kentuck, Baby Blue, etc."

"Yes; that's me, and, oh, I am so glad that I have found you at last. Do you know that I have prayed to God every night that I might, and, lady, you never will know what a benediction your visits were to old Libby, and me--oh, you saved my life; I never can forget that first day. It was in June. The roses were in bloom, and such roses! A great bunch was lying on the top of your basket. I was stretched out on the table near the barred window trying to think of old Kentucky and forget my wounds when I heard a voice say, 'Little fellow, would you like to have a beaten biscuit and a glass of buttermilk?' 'Would I? Oh, God, would I?' I said. When you went away you left half the roses on my pillow, and how I watched for your visits after that. I never knew your name, never knew how to find you. To us prisoners you were the Rose Lady."

His tears had washed off the kiss on my hand and I was back again, looking into the wild, harrowing, despairing faces in the dismal tobacco-warehouse prison, all regardless of my host and hostess and the surrounding guests.

"Well, I'll be dogged, Jane," said Mr. Tucker to his dear little wife. "What do you think of this? I always did believe every word of those Ali Baba and Forty Thieves and Magic Lantern tales and this proves them, for they are not a bit stranger than this sour buttermilk story."

The stranger was Colonel William H. Lowdermilk, of Anglim's Bookstore. When later I lost all my worldly goods and was appointed to a desk in the Pension Office, Colonel Lowdermilk, then of the firm of Lowdermilk & Company, Book-Dealers, wrote to the Commissioner of Pensions a strong letter of commendation, in which he told in warmest terms of my care of himself and other Union soldiers in Libby prison, and asked that every courtesy and consideration be shown to me for all time and in every possible way, in sacred memory of the boys in Libby. Throughout his life afterward he was a devoted, loyal friend to me and mine.

I still have the photograph of him taken in his Federal uniform before he was captured.

XIX

THE CLOSING DAYS

The close of the stormy career of the Confederacy was marked in blood by the battle of Five Forks. The end was at hand.

The Army had subsisted on corn for many days. As my Soldier was riding to Sailor's Creek a woman ran out of a house by the roadside and handed him a luncheon wrapped in paper. Passing on, he saw a man lying behind a log; a deserter, he supposed. What did it matter! The poor fellows had fought long enough and hard enough to earn the right to go home. He spoke to the man, who looked up, revealing a boyish face. He was thin and pale, scarcely more than a child.

"Are you wounded, my boy!" asked my Soldier.

"No, General, I am starving, sir," he replied. "I could not keep up any longer and lay down here to die. I couldn't help it, Marse George."

"Here, take this," said my Soldier. "Eat it, and when you are rested and have slept go back home."

The soldier took the luncheon gratefully.

"No, Marse George," he answered, "if I get strength to go on I'll follow you and Marse Robert to the last."

He did follow to the last, being killed a few days later at Sailor's Creek, where the parting salute was fired over the grave of the Confederacy.

"They failed and fell, who bade the sun in heaven to stand,
We failed and fell, who set our bars against the progress of the
stars,
And stayed the march of Motherland."

Many months before the farewell shot, when some one applied to President Lincoln for a pass to go into Richmond, he gravely replied:

"I don't know about that; I have given passes to about two hundred and fifty thousand men during the last two years to go to Richmond, and not one of them has got there yet."

Some of those passes had been used and their bearer had arrived at last, having made the slowest time on record since the first camel bore the pioneer traveler over an Oriental desert. The queen city of the South had fallen. The story of the great nation that had hovered upon the horizon of our visions had been written out to its last sorrowful word.

On the morning of Sunday, April 2, in the holy calm of St. Paul's Church, we had assembled to ask the great Father of Heaven and earth to guard our loved ones and give victory to the cause so dear to us. Suddenly the glorious sunlight was dimmed by the heavy cloud of disappointment, and the peace of God was broken by the deep-voiced bells tolling the death-knell of our hopes.

There was mad haste to flee from the doomed city. President Davis and his Cabinet officers were in the church, and to them the news first came. They hurried to the State House to secure the Confederate archives and retreat with them to some place of safety.

Fear and dread fell over us all. We were cut off from our friends and communication with them was impossible. Our soldiers might have fallen into the hands of the enemy--we knew not. They might have poured out their life-blood on the battlefield--we knew not. In our helpless deserted condition all the world seemed to have been struck with sudden darkness.

The records having been secured, an order was issued to General Ewell to destroy the public buildings. The one thing which could intensify the horrors of our position--fire--was added to our calamities. General J. C. Breckenridge, our Secretary of War, with a wider humanity and a deeper sense of the rights of our people, tried in vain to have this order countermanded, knowing that its execution could in no way injure or impede the victorious army, while it would result in the ruin of many of our own people. The order was carried out with even greater scope than was intended.

The Shockoe warehouse was the first fired, it being regarded as a public building because it contained certain stores belonging to France and England. A breeze springing up suddenly from the south fanned the slowly flickering flames into a blaze and they mounted upward until they enwrapped the whole great building. On the wings of the wind they were carried to the next building and the next, until when the noon hour struck all the city between Seventh and Fifteenth Streets and Main Street and the river was a heap of ashes.

The flames leaped from house to house in mad revel. They stretched out burning arms on all sides and embraced in deadly clasp the stately mansions which had stood in lofty grandeur from the olden days of colonial pride. Soon they became towering masses of fire, fluttering immense flame-banners against the wind, and fell sending up myriads of fiery points into the air, sparkling like blazing stars against the dark curtain that shut out the sky.

A stormy sea of smoke surged over the town--here a billow of blackness of suffocating density--there a brilliant cloud, shot through with crimson arrows. The wind swept on and the ocean of smoke and flame rolled before it in surges of destruction over the once fair and beautiful city of Richmond.

The terrified cries of women and children arose in agony above the roaring of the flames, the crashing of falling buildings, and the trampling of countless feet.

Piles of furniture and wares lay in the streets as if the city had struck one great moving day, when everything was taken into the highways and left there to be trampled to pieces and buried in the mud.

Government stores were thrown out to be destroyed, and a mob gathered around to catch the liquors as they ran in fiery rivers down the streets. Soon intoxication was added to the confusion and uproar which reigned over all. The officers of the law, terror-stricken before the reckless crowd, fled for their lives. The firemen dared not make any effort to subdue the flames, fearing an attack from the soldiers who had executed the order to burn the buildings.

Through the night the fire raged, the sea of darkness rolled over the town, the crowds of men, women and children went about the streets laden with what plunder they could rescue from the flames. The drunken rabble shattered the plate-glass windows of the stores and wrecked everything upon which they could seize. The populace had become a frenzied mob, and the kingdom of Satan seemed to have been transferred to the streets of Richmond.

The fire revealed many things which I should like never to have seen and, having seen, would fain forget.

The most revolting revelation was the amount of provisions, shoes and clothing which had been accumulated by the speculators who hovered like vultures over the scene of death and desolation. Taking advantage of their possession of money and lack of both patriotism and humanity, they had, by an early corner in the market and by successful blockade running, bought up all the available supplies with an eye to future gain, while our soldiers and women and children were absolutely in rags, barefoot and starving. Not even war, with its horrors and helplessness, can divert such harpies from their accustomed methods of accumulating wealth at the expense of those who have spent their lives in less self-seeking ways.

About nine o'clock Monday morning a series of terrific explosions startled our ears, inured as they were to every variety of painful sounds. Every window in our house was shattered and the old plate-glass mirrors built into the walls were broken. We felt as if called upon to undergo a bombardment, in addition to our other misfortunes, but it was soon ascertained that the explosions were from the Government arsenal and laboratory, now caught by the flames. Fort Darling and the rams were blown up.

Every bank was destroyed, the flour-mills had caught fire, the War Department was in ruins, the offices of the _Enquirer_ and _Dispatch_ had been reduced to ashes, the County Court-House, the American Hotel, and most of the finest stores of the city were ruined. The Presbyterian Church had escaped. The flames had passed by Libby Prison, as if even fire realized that it could not add to the horrors of the gloomy place.

While the flames were raging the colored troops of General Weitzel, who had been stationed on the north side of the James a few miles from Richmond, entered the city. As I saw their black faces shining through the gloom of the smoke-shrouded town I could not help thinking that they added the one feature needed, if any there were, to complete the demoniacal character of the scene. They were the first colored troops I had ever seen, and the weird effect produced by their black faces in that infernal environment was indelibly impressed upon my mind.

General Weitzel sent Major E. E. Graves, of his staff, and Major A. H. Stevens, of the Fourth Massachusetts Cavalry, at the head of a hundred mounted men, to reconnoiter the Richmond roads and works. At the fortifications beyond the junction of the Osborne turnpike and New Market road they were met by a flag of truce waved from a dilapidated, old-fashioned carriage drawn by a pair of skeleton-like horses. The truce party consisted of the Mayor of Richmond, Colonel Mayo; Judge Meredith, of the Supreme Court; Mr. James Lyons, one of our most eminent lawyers, and a fourth, whom I do not now recall.

The carriage was probably in the early part of the century what might have been called, if the modern classic style of phraseology had prevailed at that time, a "tony rig." At the period of which I write it had made so many journeys over the famous Virginia roads that it had become a sepulchral wreck of its former self.

There may have been a time when the reminiscences of animals that dragged out from the burning Capital the ruins of the stately chariot were a span of gay and gallant steeds, arching their necks in graceful pride, champing their bits in scorn of the idea that harness made by man could trammel their lofty spirits, pawing the earth in disdain of its commonplace coarseness. If so, the lapse of years and an extended term of Confederate fare had reduced those noble coursers to shambling memories.

What of it? The chariot of state might be the wreck of former grandeur, the horses might be the dimmest of recollections, but was not Mr. Lyons still Mr. Lyons--in all circumstances, the most dignified member of Old Dominion aristocracy? The Mayor turned over the keys of the city and in recognition of the pre-eminence of Mr. Lyons, deputed to him the performance of further ceremonies. With cold and stately formality Mr. Lyons "had the honor" to introduce his companions and to present a paper on which was inscribed:

"It is proper to formally surrender to the Federal authorities the
City of Richmond, hitherto Capital of the Confederate States of
America, and the defenses protecting it."

Major Stevens courteously accepted the surrender on behalf of his Commanding General, to whom the document was transmitted, and proceeded to reduce the newly acquired property to possession by fighting the flames which disputed ownership with him.

Having utilized to good effect what little remnant of the fire department he could find, Major Stevens ordered the Stars and Stripes to be raised over the Capitol. Two soldiers of the Fourth Massachusetts Cavalry, one from Company E and one from Company H, mounted to the summit of the Capitol, and in a few moments, for the first time in more than four years, the National Flag fluttered unmolested in the breezes of the South. The stars of the Union were saluted, while our "warrior's Banner took its flight to meet the warrior's soul."

That flag which almost a century before had risen from the clouds of war, like a star gleaming out through the darkness of a stormy night, with its design accredited to both Washington and John Adams, was raised over Virginia by Massachusetts, in place of the one whose kinship and likeness to the old banner had never been entirely destroyed.

In March, 1861, the Confederate Congress adopted the Stars and Bars--three horizontal bars of equal width, the middle one white, the others red, with a blue union of nine stars in a circle. This was so like the National Flag as to cause confusion. In 1863 this flag was replaced by a banner with a white field, having the battle-flag (a red field charged with a blue saltier on which were thirteen stars) for a union. It was feared that this might be mistaken for a flag of truce, and was changed by covering the outer half of the field with a vertical red bar. This was finally adopted as the flag of the Confederate States of America.

Richmond will testify that the soldiers of Massachusetts were worthy of the honor of first raising the United States flag over the Capitol of the Confederacy, and will also bear witness to the unvarying courtesy of Major Stevens and the fidelity with which he kept his trust.

The day after the fire there was a rap at our door. The servants had all run away. The city was full of northern troops, and my environment had not taught me to love them. With my baby on my arm I answered the knock, opened the door and looked up at a tall, gaunt, sad-faced man in ill fitting clothes, who asked with the accent of the North:

"Is this George Pickett's place?"

"This is General Pickett's home, sir," I replied, "but he is not here."

"I know that, ma'am, I know where George Pickett is," he answered, "but I just wanted to see the place. Down in old Quincy, Illinois, where I used to hear George Pickett whistle the songs of Virginia in his bird-like notes, I have heard him describe his home till in spirit I have been here many a time. I have smelled the multi-flora roses and the Lady Bankshire roses and the golden cluster roses and those great cabbage roses. I have seen the borders of hyacinths in the springtime and the lilies-of-the-valley blooming in the chimney corner, the beds of violets, the rows of beehives and the lily-beds that the bees knew were theirs, had been planted just for them. I have stood under the arbor and gathered those strange green looking grapes that are like the Virginia aristocracy, growing each one on its own individual stem. I think he called them scuppernongs. I have sat on that back porch and listened to the music as his sister Virginia, of whom he was so proud, sang in that glorious voice he told me about, and I have swung in this old swing here while the moon and I watched and waited for the old cat to die. So I wanted to see the place."

I, listening, wondered who he could be, till he finished and then he said:

"I am Abraham Lincoln."

"The President!" I gasped.

"No--no,--just Abraham Lincoln; George Pickett's old friend."

"I am George Pickett's wife and this is his baby," was all I could say.

The baby reached out his arms and Mr. Lincoln took him, a look of tenderness almost divine glorifying that sad face. I have never seen that expression on any other face. My little one opened his mouth and insisted upon giving his father's friend a dewy baby kiss. As he handed my baby back to me Mr. Lincoln shook his long hand at him and said:

"Tell your father, the rascal, that I could almost forgive him anything for the sake of those bright eyes and that baby kiss."

The tones of his deep voice touched all the chords of life to music, and I marveled no more at my Soldier's love for him even through all the bitterness of the years. He turned and went down the steps and out of my life forever, but in my memory that wonderful voice, those intensely human eyes, that strong, sad, tender face have a perpetual abiding place. He seemed to have a cast in his eye that reminded me of the glass eye of Mr. Davis, but as no one has ever mentioned it in describing him it may be that his likeness to Jefferson Davis made me think so, yet I always see that look in his pictures.

Among my treasured possessions are some old letters, written by Mr. Lincoln when practicing law in Springfield, to George Pickett, then a cadet at West Point, where he was placed at the request of Mr. Lincoln. The homely and humorous philosophy of these letters, the honesty which breathes through them, the cheerful outlook upon life, and the ready sympathy of the experienced professional man with the boy just on the threshold of life, looking down the vista of the future to the flashing of swords and the thunder of guns, all bring him before me as a friend.

I look beyond the description he once gave of himself, "Height, six feet, four inches, nearly; lean in flesh, weighing on an average one hundred and eighty pounds; dark complexion, with coarse black hair and gray eyes."

A free-hand sketch like that is easy, but my memory fills the outlines with the subtle beauty of soul, the sunny view of life, the deep, tender sympathy that made up a face of infinite charm which puzzled all artists but revealed itself to the intuitions of a child, causing the babe to raise its little arms to be taken up and its lips to be kissed.

The ways of Abraham Lincoln and George Pickett were widely separated for a time, but were never so far apart that the old love had not full sway. I marveled over it once, but after my own picture of the man was filled out I wondered no more. I think no one who knew and loved Lincoln could be estranged from him, whatever tides of political hostility might roll between.

One afternoon, as we were reading "Les Miserables" upon the veranda, our attention was distracted by a number of soldiers below who were discussing the Emancipation Proclamation and saying all manner of discrediting things about Mr. Lincoln, censuring him as ignorant and despotic, and bringing other unfounded accusations against him. After they were gone my Soldier walked up and down the veranda, whistling "When other friends are 'round thee." Presently, coming back, sitting beside me and taking hold of my hand, he said: