“To Major General Banks, in Command of U. S. Troops at Simmsport, La.“Dear Sir:“I reside near the head of the Atchafalaya where it first flows out of Old River, and our male friends are all absent. We are all natives of Louisiana, and, though we cannot bid you welcome, we hope and trust we may confide in your protection and in the generosity and honor which belongs to United States officers.“We have no valuable information to give, nor do we think you would ask or require us to betray our own people if we had it in our power. But we can promise to act fairly and honorably, and to do nothing unworthy the high character of Judge Merrick, who is the head of this family. Therefore, we expect to prove ourselves worthy of any generous forbearance you may find it in your power to extend toward defenseless women and children, who appeal thus to your sympathy and manhood; for“‘No ceremony that to great one ’longs,Not the King’s crown, nor the deputed sword,The marshal’s truncheon, nor the judge’s robe,Become them with one-half so good a graceAs mercy does.’“Very respectfully,“Caroline E. Merrick.”
“To Major General Banks, in Command of U. S. Troops at Simmsport, La.
“Dear Sir:
“I reside near the head of the Atchafalaya where it first flows out of Old River, and our male friends are all absent. We are all natives of Louisiana, and, though we cannot bid you welcome, we hope and trust we may confide in your protection and in the generosity and honor which belongs to United States officers.
“We have no valuable information to give, nor do we think you would ask or require us to betray our own people if we had it in our power. But we can promise to act fairly and honorably, and to do nothing unworthy the high character of Judge Merrick, who is the head of this family. Therefore, we expect to prove ourselves worthy of any generous forbearance you may find it in your power to extend toward defenseless women and children, who appeal thus to your sympathy and manhood; for
“‘No ceremony that to great one ’longs,Not the King’s crown, nor the deputed sword,The marshal’s truncheon, nor the judge’s robe,Become them with one-half so good a graceAs mercy does.’
“Very respectfully,“Caroline E. Merrick.”
The result of this letter, which I presented in person, was the following pass:
“Headquarters, Department of the Gulf,19th Army Corps,Simmes’ Plantation, May 19, 1863.“Guards and Patriots:“Pass Mr. Chalfant, Mrs. Merrick, and party, with their carriages and drivers, to their homes, near the head of the Atchafalaya.“Richd. B. Irwin,“A. A. General.”
“Headquarters, Department of the Gulf,19th Army Corps,Simmes’ Plantation, May 19, 1863.
“Guards and Patriots:
“Pass Mr. Chalfant, Mrs. Merrick, and party, with their carriages and drivers, to their homes, near the head of the Atchafalaya.
“Richd. B. Irwin,“A. A. General.”
“Camp Clara, Jackson, Miss., May 31, 1863.—We have good water and our men are improving, but many are ill with typhoid fever”—thus my brother wrote. “The sickness enlists my deepest sympathy. The number of soldiers’ graves is astonishing. From morning until night negroes are constantly digging them for instant use. General Lovell inspected our battery the other day and said he wanted it down on the river; so just as soon as our horses arrive we are to go to work. The men are well drilled, but we lack horses and ammunition. I hear David’s regiment is at Petersburg, Va.”
In Confederate times the people were patient under the sickness in camp, and never a complaint was sent to Richmond about poor food and bad water which caused as many fatalities as powder and ball. Increased knowledge and improved methods of camp sanitation seem almost to justify the indignant protests against embalmed beef and typhoid-breeding water that have been heaped upon Congress and officers of the WarDepartment in the late Spanish-American war. One out of the four of my father’s great-grandsons who enlisted for the Spanish-American struggle lost his life in an unhealthy Florida camp before he could be sent to Cuba. It is plain to every fair-minded investigator that many of these fatalities were due to a lack of those essentials in which every housekeeping woman, by nature and training, is especially qualified. It was a relief to the minds of the mothers of the nation to learn that near the close of the late Cuban conflict a woman had been appointed on the National Military Medical Commission. It is a woman’s proper vocation to care for the sick. Men who would exclude women from the ballot-box on the plea that they only who fight ought to vote, should remember Clara Barton and Florence Nightingale who have served armies so effectually.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning said: “The nursing movement is a revival of old virtues. Since the siege of Troy and earlier we have had princesses binding wounds with their hands. It is strictly the woman’s part, and men understand it so. Every man is on his knees before ladies carrying lint; whereas if they stir an inch as thinkers or artists from the beaten line (involving more good to general humanity than is involved in lint), the very same men would condemn the audacity of the very same women.”
A young naval officer, at my dinner table, once dissented from such views which I had expressed, and of which Bishop Warren of the M. E. Church had heartily approved. “Until women,” said this young officer,“furnish this government for its defense with soldiers and sailors from their own ranks they should be prohibited from voting.” “Dear sir,” I replied, “how many soldiers and sailors does this country now possess in its active service whom the women have not already furnished from their own ranks?”
The young man yielded but was not convinced, even when an eminent physician remarked that he had heard many a young mother say that she would rather march up to the cannon’s mouth than to lie down to meet her peculiar trial. He further stated that when their hour came they were always full of courage, and, in his opinion, their maternity ought to count for something to them of great value in the government.
All men in an army do not fight. No more important branch of the military service existed during the civil war than that which the women of the Confederacy controlled. They planted and gathered and shipped the crops which fed the children and slaves at home and the armies in the field; they raised the wool and cotton that clothed the soldiers and the hogs and cattle that made their meat; they spun and wove the crude product into cloth for the home and the army; their knitting needles clicked until the great surrender, manufacturing all the socks and “sweaters” and comforters which the Confederate soldier-boys possessed—our nearly naked boys toward the last, so often on the march called “Ragged Rebels.”
WAR-MEMORIES: HOW BECKY COLEMAN WASHED HESTER WHITEFIELD’S FACE.
Among the Federal vessels stationed at Red River Landing was the Manhattan, commanded by Captain Grafton, a high-minded officer as the following incident proves. A letter from Laura Ellen to her brother David, dated at Myrtle Grove, records: “Stephen Brown, mother’s head manager on this place, has been very sick. Dr. Archer, who was stopping with us all night, went to see him, and after an examination, reported that he could do nothing to relieve him without chloroform and surgical instruments, both of which were inaccessible and out of the question; and he candidly told mother Stephen could not live twenty-four hours without an operation. Mother, heart-broken and in tears, begged the doctor to tell her to what means she could resort to save so faithful a servant. The doctor said they had everything needful on the Federal gunboats. Mother instantly determined to go to Red River Landing and appeal for help; but she wished Dr. Archer to go with her and explain the case. He objected, saying he had never held any communication with the enemy, and he did not wish to spoil hisrecord with the Confederates. But mother finally induced him to accompany her.
“It seemed to us a forlorn hope. When she started off with Dr. Archer, mother enjoined it upon us to have the best dinner that we could prepare for the officers who were to come back with her, which suggestion we took the liberty of overlooking, as we did not dream she could succeed in such an unheard-of undertaking. When she reached the Mississippi and waved her handkerchief, a tug came from the gunboat to the shore and she asked to see the commanding officer. The tug offered to take mother to the gunboat, but at first objected to the doctor going with her. Finally both went, and were received on the deck of the big warship. Captain Grafton said he feared that any surgeon or officer might be captured, and that he must have a written guarantee against that possibility before he could run such a risk. Mother told him that Captain Collins and his scouts were thirty miles distant; she could only assure him that none who came to her aid would be molested. Dr. Archer supported her opinion; but the captain declined the adventure; whereupon mother burst into tears. ‘Captain Grafton,’ she said, ‘I did not come here to teach you your duty; but I came to perform mine. Now if the negro’s life is not saved, his death will lie at your door, not mine.’ Capt. Grafton replied: ‘Madam, I don’t like you to put it that way!’ Moved by that view or her tears—he sent the tug for the captains of two other gunboats, and the three held a council of war, finally consenting that a surgeon with his assistants and thenecessary equipments should have leave to go provided he would himself assume the responsibility for his absence from the boat, for the military authorities would make no order about it. Thus Dr. Mitchell first came to Myrtle Grove on an errand of mercy.
“None was more surprised than mother herself when Dr. H. W. Mitchell, surgeon of the Manhattan, offered to go with her. It had been eight months since these Federal naval attachés had set foot on land, and apparently they greatly enjoyed the long drive with only a handkerchief for a flag of truce floating from the carriage window. The doctor went to the ‘Quarters’ to see Stephen, and mother flew to the kitchen and dining-room to put forth her rare culinary skill in compensation for our negligence. After dinner we had music, and Dr. Mitchell sang us many new songs, and proved to be very intelligent, entertaining and agreeable. I treated him well, too, as I was bound to do after his kindness. At dinner I had on a homespun dress trimmed with black velvet and Pelican buttons: when they went away I even gave the doctor my hand, ’though always before I had refused to shake hands with a single one of them. Not for anything on earth ‘would I have done as much previously.’”
During the many months that the U. S. gunboat Manhattan remained at Red River Landing, I saw the officers from time to time, and once a crevasse detained Dr. Mitchell for three days in our home. The friendship thus established has outlived the war and proved a source of great pleasure to me; while the sympathythe doctor so kindly extended later, during the bitter reconstruction days, was a solid satisfaction and comfort, for his cultured and experienced mind comprehended both sides of the situation. Devoted to the Union, he yet expressed no inordinate desire to exterminate the South, and never said he would be glad to hang Jefferson Davis. He writes July 30, 1865: “We are all Americans. We speak one language; our flag is the same; we are citizens of the United States. It is the right spirit to recognize no section. If all should uphold the Government faithfully under which we enjoy so many blessings, internal strife in the future will be impossible.”
“Mother says,” the diary continues, “let an army be friend or foe, it takes everything it needs for its subsistence on the march, and starvation is in its track. Brig.-Gen. Grover’s Division camped for two weeks on this plantation, and the General’s own tent was pitched next to our side gate. When some of his staff were here visiting, one of them took baby Edwin in his arms and kissed him. After they had gone I scolded him for kissing a Yankee, and said I was going to tell his ‘Marse Dadles!’ He began to cry and sobbed out, ‘O Sissy, he was a good Yankee!’ They rob the corn-cribs, so it is well they carry off the negroes too. Ours, however, will not go; they have made no preparation to depart, and mother interviews them daily on the subject, but leaves them to decide whether they will ‘silently steal away,’ which is their method of disappearing. Mr. Barbre’s negroes have all gone except two, and Mr.Chalfant’s and Mrs. French’s are preparing to go, so our neighbors are generally upset.”
In a letter of an earlier date Laura Ellen gives an account of Mr. Chalfant coming to me and asking advice as to how the slaves could be prevented from following the army. I had wanted to know of my neighbor if his negroes would take his word on the subject. If so, he might state to them that they might be free just where they were—that it was not necessary they should leave their homes, their little children, their household effects, tools and other “belongings” which could not be carried on the march (to say nothing of the hogs-head of sugar nearly all of them had in their cabins), their poultry, dogs, cows and horses. If it were candidly explained to them that their freedom was to be a certainty, and that they might be hired to work by their old owners, doubtless many would be convinced of the wisdom of remaining at home and taking their chances—all would depend on the confidence the negro had in the master—but they should, in all cases, be left to make their own decision—whether to go or stay. Some of the people who could read should be shown the newspapers,left by the Yankees, wherein it is urged upon the government to put the black men into the army. This should be read to them by one of their own color.
After hearing these views Mr. Chalfant was reported having said: “Mrs. Merrick has more sense about managing the negroes than any man on the river.”
However that may have been, our slaves remained on the place, and many of them and their descendants are yet in the employ of the family. It was consideredby some persons to be treason to the Confederacy to speak of the freedom of the slaves in their presence, as if refusal to acknowledge the emancipation act would avert its going into effect.
This attitude towards their liberty destroyed all confidence in the master’s advice, and so his negroes left him. It was several years before the emancipation of the slave was universally effected, there being secluded places into which the news of freedom percolated slowly, and where slavery existed for some time uninterrupted. In following the army parents often abandoned young children. These were given to anybody who would burden themselves with their care. In many cases the natural guardian never again appeared, and these abandoned ones were practically bond-servants until they learned how to be free of themselves.
Careworn and anxious as we were waiting news of our loved ones in the field and of the cause in which we had risked our all, we were too busy to be sad. Telegraphic communication with the center of war was often cut off for many days. During these agonizing, silent seasons the women drew nearer together, and kept busy scraping lint for the hospitals and converting every woolen dress and every yard of carpet left in the house into shirts and bedding for our boys at the front. We varied the labor of managing plantations with every species of bazaar, supper, candy-pulling and tableaux that would raise a dollar for the army. Then we got all the entertainment we could out of our daily domestic round, as I did out of Becky Coleman, one of my old servants who occasionally relieved the monotony of her“daily round” by coming “to ’nquire ’bout de white folks.” It was October when she made one of these visits, but summer reigned in earth and sky. A noble avenue of black walnuts completely shaded one side of my Myrtle Grove house. The large green nuts were beginning to ripen, for when a branch swayed in the wind one would drop from time to time with such a resounding thump upon the ground that it was a matter for satisfaction when Becky seated herself on the steps of the porch without having encountered a thwack on her head from the missile-dealing trees.
“I hear singing over in the woods,” said I to Becky. “Why are you not at the meeting this evening?”
“Who? me? eh—eh—but may be yo don’ kno’ I dun got my satisfacshun down dar a while ago. I’m better off at home. Hester done got me convinced. Lemme tell you how ’twas. One Sunday ebenin’ I heard tell dar wurs gwine to be er sort er ’sperience praar-meeting down to ole Unk Spencer’s house, en es ’twan’t fer, I jes’ tuk my foot in my han’! I did, en I went dar.
“Well, ev’rything was gwine on reg’lar, en peaceable, widout no kin’ er animosity, plum till dey riz up to sing de very las’hime. De preacher who wus er leadin’ got up den en tuk up dehimebook en gin out:
“‘Ermazin’ grace how sweet de soun’In de beleever’s year!’
“Now, yo knows yo’sef dey ain’t nothin’ tall incitin’ ’bout dat ar’ chune: you knows it; en as fer me, I was jes’ dar er stanin’ up wid de res’, wid my mouf open,jes’ er singin’ fer dear life, never dreamin’ ’bout nothin’ happ’nin’, when heah cum Hester Whitfiel’—coming catter-corner ’cross from de yuther side er de house, wid her han’ h’isted up in de aar, en I ’clar fo’ de Lawd, she hit me er clip rite in my lef’ eye, en mos’ busted it clean outen my haid. It cum so onexpectedlike dat leetle mo’en I would er drap in de flo’. I jes’ felt like I wus shot! Den she had er pa’cel er big brass rings on her han’, en dey cut rite inter my meat!
“I tell yo’, ma’am, I was hurted, I jes’ seed stars, I did! so I up en tole her: ‘’Oman, ef yo got ennything ’g’inst me, why don’t you come out in de big road en gimme er fair fight? Fer Gawd-elmighty’s sake don’ go en make ’ten’ like yo happy, en bus’ my eye open dis heah way.’ Says I, ‘’Ligion ain’t got nuthin’ ter do wid no sich ’havoir; I don’ see no Holy Sperit ’bout it,’ says I. ‘’Twas jes’ de nachul ole saturn what mak’ yo’ do dat, en I jes knows it,’ says I. ‘’Ligion don’ make nobody hurt nothin’,’ says I. Yo reads de Book, Miss Calline, en yo knows I’m speakin’ de salvashun trufe, now ain’t I?
“Den all de folks cum crowdin’ ’roun’ en gethered a holt uv us, en ef dey hadn’t, I lay I woulder stretched her out dar in de flo’, fer I’m de bes’ ’oman—er long ways—en I would er hadherconvinced in no time. But dey all tu’ned in en baig me ter look over it, bein’ es how it happen in meetin’-time; but I tell yo, ma-am, I never look nowhars wid dat eye fer mor’n free weeks. Why, it wus so swole up en sore, I jes’ had ter bandage it wid sassyfras peth and wid slippery ellum poultices day en night, en my eye wus dat red, enbloodshottened, dat I never ’spected to see daylight outen it no mo’; en I clar’ fo’ de Lawd it ain’t, got rite na’chul till yit!
“No longer’n dis very ebenin’ my ole man, Tom, says ter me: ‘I dun seed nuff trouble wid yo, Beck. You needs dem big pop eyes er yone to patch my close, en wuk wid, en I ain’t er gwine to hev no bline ’oman rown’ me,’ says he; ’en I let yo know frum dis out yo don’t go ter no mo’ praar-meetin’s, ’zaminashuns er what-cher-callums; dat’s de long en short uv it!’ says he. ‘Ef you ain’ got sense nuff ter stay away frum dar,’ says he, ‘I’ll insense yo wid my fis’.’ I knows de weight er dat han’ er hisen, en I’m gwine min’ himdistime, ennyhow;” and Becky pointed toward the cabin from whence the sound of singing was wafted on the breeze, saying, “Yes’um, I’m gwine stay away frum dar, fer er fac’!”
“Becky, is such an incident common at your prayer-meetings?” I inquired.
“Why, no, ma’am, nuthin’ like dat never happen to me befo’; yit, I ’members mighty well when Betsy Washin’ton cum thoo’—’fo’ she jined de chu’ch. ’Twas in de meetin’-house, but yo couldn’t onerstan’ one single wud de preacher wus er sayin’, fer she wus jes’ er shoutin’ es loud es she could fer who las’ de longes’—en I onertuk, fool like, to hole her; fer she wus in sich a swivit, we wus feared she’d brek loose en go inter a reg’lar hard fit, so I jes’ grabbed good holt er de ’oman, ’roun’ de wais’, es she wus er hollerin’, en er jumpin’; en when she felt de grip I fotch on her, she tu’n ’roun’, she did, en gethered my sleeve in ’tween herfingers (en she is jes’ es strong es enny mule), en shore’s yore settin’ dar in dat air big cheer, en I’m er stannin’ heah, talkin’ ter yer, she gin me one single jerk, en I ’clar ter Gawd, she tore my whole sleeve outen de arm-hole, en ripped er big slit clean ’cross my coat body! Why I jes’ thought de ’oman wus gwine ter strip me start naiked, rite dar in de meetin’-house! I got dat shame I jes’ let er go, I did, en den went perusin’ roun’ ’mongst de wimmin en borryd er shawl ter kiver me up; en den I moved on todes home.
“But I mus’ let yo know de nex’ time I met up wid Betsy, I washed her face good wid what she dun. I jes’ tole her de nex’ time she got ter shoutin’ ’roun’ me she mout bre’k her neck—I wan’t gwine hole her, I wan’t gwine tech her; ‘fer,’ says I, ‘yo done gone en ’stroyed de bes’ Sunday dress I got, yo is dat,’ says I, ‘fer er fac’!’
“Den Betsy ’lowed she didn’t keer, en dat she didn’t know what she wus er doin’, but I tuk mighty good notice she never made no motion to grab onter Aunt Sally Brown’s co’se homespun gown whenshetuk er tu’n er hol’in uv her. But uv co’se, I heap ruther hev my close tore dan to hev my eye busted out. But dey ain’t no need er airy one bein’ done; en I tole her so, I did dat. ‘Sholey Christians,’ say I, ‘kin ’joy dersef widout hurtin’ nobody, neither tarin’ der close!’ I up en axed her ef she eber knowed de white folks in de big house karyin’ on datterway, en ef she eber seed Miss Marthy er Miss Reeny er cuttin’ up like dat in de white folks’ meetin’-house? Well, she jes’ bust out erlaffiin’ in my face at dat, en she ’lowed niggahs wan’t like white folks nohow.
“‘I knows better’n dat,’ says I. ‘Fer Gawd made us all outen de dus’ er de groun’, bofe de white en de black;’ en, Miss Calline, yo’ ma uster tell me ef I ’haved mysef, en kep’ mysef clean, en never tole no lies, ner ’sturb yuther folks’ things, I wus good es ennybody, en I b’lieves it till yit; dat’s de salvashun trufe, I’m tellin’, white ’oman, it sholey is!
“ButdenBetsy got mad, she did, en gin me er push,—we wus walkin’ ’long de top er de levee—en I wus so aggervated dat I cum back at ’er wid er knock dat made her roll down smack inter de gully. Den she hollered so de men fishin’ unner de river bank cum er runnin’. She had don’ sprain her wris’, en ef her arm had been broke she cudn’t er made no mo’ fuss. Lemme tell yo de trufe! de very nex’ Sunday dey tu’ned us bofe outen de chu’ch case we fit, en I cayn’t go to praar-meetin’ tell I done jine ergin.”
“Well, Becky, you’ve made me forget there is a war and Yankee raids, and I reckon I’ll have to give you a cup of store-coffee for doing it.”
“Thanky, Miss Calline! I’ll be powerful ’bliged ter yo’; en I mus’ be er movin’, en pa’ch dis heah coffee fer my ole mammy’s supper, fer she’s gittin’ monshus tired of tea off dem tater chips what we has ter drink dese days.”
WAR MEMORIES: THE STORY OF PATSY’S GARDEN.
Our vision of the outside world of human affairs was very narrow and circumscribed in those war-times, and my seminary of five young girls was often a victim toennui. No weekly mail, no books, no music, no new gowns from one year’s end to another.
The only vital question was: “What is the war news?” There were also no coffee, no loaf-sugar, no lemons in the house. However, with plenty of milk, eggs and butter, fresh fruit and vegetables, to say nothing of fowls galore, we survived. The girls made cake and candy, so with the abundance of open-kettle brown sugar, we diversified our dailymenuwith many sweet compounds.
The one unfailing source of pleasure was the garden. True, the army at Morganza would send out a raid every fortnight, when fences were broken down and destroyed: then the cows and other cattle would get in and partake of our lettuce and cabbages. But we never gave up; the negroes would drive the marauding cattle out and rebuild the fences every time they were destroyed. On one of these occasions I heard Miss Emma Chalfant say to Uncle Primus: “I shall tell on you when your people come back here; I heard you curseand swear at Mrs. Merrick’s cows this morning—and you call yourself a preacher, too!” “Dese cows and dese Yankees is ’nuff to make ennybody cuss, Miss Emma,” said the negro, as he went along snapping his long whip as he drove the poor animals away from the garden.
Here I am tempted to give the true story of Martha Benton. This girl became positively exhilarated under the influence of perfume and flowers. The delectable odor of Sweet Olive—a mingled essence of peach, pineapple, and orange-flower—produced in her a frenzy of delight. She had been introduced to the exotic floral world by the proprietor of a fine garden where she frequently visited.
Her father could not understand his daughter’s delight in the contemplation of Nature’s beauty; for, as far as these things were concerned, he was afflicted with a total blindness worse than a loss of actual sight. Mr. Benton was fond of fruit but he never noticed or admired the flowers from which the fruit was formed. Nevertheless, he seemed pleased that his neighbor, Mr. Thornton, should be interested in his daughter, and take pleasure in talking with her about his rare plants.
“Miss Patsy,” said Mr. Thornton, “it requires tact and perseverance to grow a perfect lily.”
“I could do it if I had the bulbs,” said the girl.
At the close of the interview, a dozen bulbs and an extensive package of plants were put in the carriage for the young lady to take home, as a compliment to her interest in his favorite pursuit.
Mr. Benton’s front door-yard was given over to hishorses, and sometimes the calves were allowed to share in the rich pasturage it furnished. Several ancient cedar trees, ragged and untrimmed, and two thrifty oaks stood on what should have been a lawn, and a straggling row of pomegranates grew along the line of fence on one side, apparently in defiance of cattle and all other exterminating influences.
On her return home, Patsy displayed her treasures to her mother, and was enthusiastic over her floral prospects.
“Papa,” said she, “you must give me space in the vegetable garden for the present, and Tom must prepare the ground.”
“It is perfect foolishness,” said Mr. Benton. “Old Thornton is such a stuck-up old goose that I hated to make him mad, otherwise I should not have brought these things home with me. The truth is I would not swap a row of cotton-plants in my field for everything that old man has got in all his grounds and greenhouses put together.”
“O father, everything he has is so beautiful!” said Patsy. “The summer-houses are like fairy-land, all covered over with roses and vines.”
“You keep cool, Pat, and don’t set your head on having a flower-garden. Your mother was just like you when I married her. The first thing she did was to set out some rose bushes in the front yard. Soon after she took sick and they all died, and she herself came mighty near doing the same thing; so she gave up the whole business, like a sensible woman. Tom is hoeing potatoes just now, and you must not call himfrom his work to plant this truck, which is of no account anyway. You’d better fling it all in the river. It would be far better than to go out on the damp ground wasting your time and labor.”
“No, indeed,” said Patsy, who had the dauntless energy of a true gardener; “I shall plant them myself—every one!”
She did so, and her treasures made themselves at home in the rich, mellow soil, and throve wonderfully in response to her careful tending. In a short time she gathered roses and violets, and her golden-banded lilies shot up several tall stems crowned with slender, shapely buds, which were watched with great solicitude. Every morning Patsy would say: “They will bloom to-morrow.”
Mr. Benton refused to “consider the lilies” of his daughter except in the light of a nuisance. Only the evening before, he had seen her standing in the bean-arbor with Walter Jones, who seemed lost in his admiration of the girl while she devoured the beauty of the flowers; and Mr. Benton was not happy at the sight.
“It just beats the devil,” he said to himself, “how there is always a serpent getting into a man’s garden to beguile a foolish girl. It ain’t no suitable place anyhow for girls to be dodging around in with their beaux. My mind’s made up,” said he, striking his closed right hand into the open palm of the left. “I’ll wipe out that flower-bed.”
Early the next morning, before the family had risen, Mr. Benton marched into the garden armed with a hoe.He went to the lily-bed and began the work of destruction. Aunt Cindy, the cook, was surprised as she took a view from the kitchen window.
“I ’clar to gracious, de boss is a-workin’ Miss Patsy’s garden!” said she to the housemaid.
“He’s workin’ nuthin’. He’s jes’ a-cuttin’ an’ choppin’ up everything,” said the more observant girl.
“Ef dat ole vilyun is spilen’ dat chile’s gyardin’,” said the cook, “when she fines it out, little Patsy’ll tar up de whole plantation. You listen out when she gits up en comes down-stairs. He ain’t done no payin’ job dis time, I let you know he ain’t dat. Great Gawd,” said she, “Patsy’ll be mad!—eh—eh!”
Jeff Davis, Patsy’s little brother, who was out at the front gate, spied Walter Jones riding past, and called out at the top of his voice, “Come in, old fellow, and take breakfast. Sissy’s asleep yet, but we have killed a chicken, and churned, and opened a keg of nails, and there are three fine cantaloupes in the ice-box.”
Walter could not resist this invitation. He dismounted and joined Mr. Benton on the porch, where that gentleman was sipping a cup of black morning coffee after his labor in the garden.
The dense fog was clearing away, and the sun began to show in the eastern horizon. Patsy came down, and was working up the golden butter, printing it with her prettiest molds. She knew Walter was there. She set on the breakfast table a vase filled with water, and ran out into the garden to get the lilies for a center-piece of beauty and color—for they had actually opened at last.
In a moment everybody was electrified by a terrific scream. The whole family rushed out to see what was the matter. Patsy was wringing her hands and crying. She pointed to the ruined flower-beds, sobbing: “Some wretch has cut up and destroyed all my beautiful flowers!”
“Well,” said Jeff Davis, “it won’t do any good to bellow over it like that, Sis. Breakfast is ready, I tell you. Come to breakfast.”
But Patsy continued weeping and bewailing her loss, regardless of entreaties. She called down some anathemas on the perpetrator of the outrage, which were not pleasant to Mr. Benton’s ears.
“Dry up this minute!” said he. “Icut out those confounded things, and don’t let me hear any more about it. Dry up,” said he, sternly, “and eat your breakfast.”
Neither Patsy nor her mother ate anything, however. They looked through their tears at each other, and were silent, while rebellious indignation filled their hearts. Mr. Benton was angry.
“It is beyond all reason,” said he, “for you to act so because I did as I pleased with my own. Anyhow, I would not give one boy,” looking at Jeff, “for a whole cow-pen full of girls like you,” glancing at Patsy.
Walter was an indignant spectator of this scene, and he wished he could take his sweetheart and fly away with her forever. He took a hasty leave, and Mr. Benton went earlier than usual on his daily round of plantation business.
Her mother soothed Patsy’s feelings as well as she could and counseled patience.
“I hate him, if heismy father,” said the girl.
The mother reminded her of the filial respect due the author of her being.
“I wish I had no father,” she answered perversely.
Mr. Benton rode back of the fields to the woods where the “hands” were cutting timber to complete a fence around the peach orchard. Tom had started in the spring wagon to go three miles down the river for some young trees. Jeff sat on the seat beside Tom. When Mr. Benton returned to go with them to select the trees at the nursery, the horses were apparently restive and rather unmanageable.
“Get down, Jeff,” said Mr. Benton, “and ride my horse, while I show Tom how to drive these horses.”
A moment after, Jeff and his father had exchanged places, and before Mr. Benton had fully grasped the reins, the ponies took fright and ran out of the road. Coming suddenly to a tree which had fallen, they bounded over it, and the vehicle was upset, and Tom and Mr. Benton were violently thrown out. Tom escaped with a few bruises, but Mr. Benton was seriously injured, his arm being dislocated and his leg broken. Jeff went off for the doctor, and Mr. Benton was carried home insensible.
When Patsy saw the men bringing him into the house in this condition, she thought he had been killed, and was filled with heart-breaking grief and remorse. “Poor father!” she cried, “this is my punishment forwishing I had no father this morning. O Lord, forgive me!”
Mr. Benton, however, was not dead. After his injured limbs were set to rights by the surgeon, he was soon in a fair way to recovery. In the meanwhile, Patsy and her mother devoted themselves wholly to ministering to his wants and ameliorating the tedium of his confinement to the house.
“Pat,” said he one day, “you have been a great trouble and expense to me, but when a man is suffering with a lame arm and a broken leg, women are certainly useful to have in the house. You and your mother have waited on me and taken good care of me for many weeks.” He glanced at his spliced leg and his swollen arm, and continued: “I could not do much cutting up things in the garden at this time, Pat, could I? I wish I had let your flower-beds alone. Great Cæsar! didn’t you make a fuss over those lilies, and your mother, too! You both actually cried over that morning’s work.”
“Never mind, father,” said Patsy, reassuringly, “we don’t care now,” and she smiled sweetly and lovingly upon the hard-featured invalid.
He was almost well when he said to her: “You are a good child, and let me tell you, my doctor has fallen in love with you. He told me so. Yes, Pat, he is mashed on you, and intends to ask you to marry him, and you had better give up any foolish notion you may have taken to Walter Jones, and take the doctor. He is the best chance you will ever have. He is doing well in his profession, and besides having a good home to take you to, he belongs to an influential family. All I askof you is to promise me you won’t refuse the doctor. You would be a fool to reject such a man.”
“O father!” said the girl, “don’t ask me to promise anything.”
“I am going to be obeyed in my own house,” said Mr. Benton, flying into a rage, “and if you don’t mind me, I will put you out of doors.”
Patsy was struck with consternation.
The invalid was now able to move around without assistance. Patsy’s heart was full of fear and trembling.
The next morning she did not come down to print the butter or bring her father his early morning coffee. The girl had eloped with Walter Jones.
“This is worse than breaking my leg,” said Mr. Benton, after his first indignation had subsided.
When he could speak calmly about his trouble to his wife, he wondered what made Patsy so thoughtless and undutiful, when she was an only daughter and had everything she wanted.
“She is very much like her father,” said Mrs. Benton, “and she thought marriage would set her free—emancipate her.”
“That’s pure folly,” said Mr. Benton, “for all females are and ought to be always controlled by their male relations. Nothing on God’s earth can emancipate a woman. She only changes masters when she marries and leaves her father’s house.”
“Patsy, then, has changed masters,” said his wife, “and she seems to be very happy—in her own little home.”
“Old woman, don’t get saucy, and I will tell you something,” said he. “I have sent to the city for some flower-garden truck, and Maitre has sent me up fifty dollars’ worth of what he calls first-class stuff on the last boat, and I am going over to give it to Pat to plant. Tom shall do the work for her, too. To tell you the real downright truth, you all made me feel cheap about chopping up her things, and I am going to replace them.”
“Oh, I am so glad!” said Mrs. Benton.
“Yes,” said Mr. Benton, “I am perfectly willing to restore forty times as much as I destroyed. Pat’s a trump, anyhow, and I shall never go back on her for anything she has ever done. You can rely on that for a fact.”
Mr. Benton was a good neighbor of ours and assumed some authority over my household. He never failed to come over immediately whenever we had a visit from one of the gunboats, and to reprove me sharply for having any friendly interviews or even civilities with our “kidney-footed enemies,” as he called them, yet at the same time he would seize upon all the newspapers which these gentlemanly officers had given us, and carry them off for his own delectation, regardless of all objections and expostulations.
HOW WOMAN CAME TO THE RESCUE.
Mary Wall’s letter from Clinton, Louisiana, December 27th, 1863, contains some strong expressions showing the feeling and suffering among women at that period: “You must keep in good heart, my dearest friend, about your son David. I heard he was killed, but I have just seen Mr. Holmes, who has read in a Yankee paper: ‘Capt. Merrick, of Gen. Stafford’s staff, slightly wounded.’ When I heard your boy was killed I felt the blow, and groaned under it, for I know just how the iron hoof of Death tears when it settles down among the heart-strings. When my mother died last year I did not weep so bitterly, for my only disinterested friend was taken from the evil to come; but when my gifted, first-born soldier-boy, Willie—my pride and joy—was laid in a lonely grave, after a mortal gunshot wound, on the Atchafalaya, at Bute la Rose,thatwas my hardest trial. I could not get to him; yet he was decently buried; but of my brother, shot in the fight in Tennessee, we only know that he was killed on the battlefield at Franklin. My son Wesley was reported missing after the fight at Chickamauga; he may be a prisoner. I have heard nothingmore, and my heart stands still when I think he too may have been killed, and his body thrown in some ravine or creek, as the Texans are said sometimes to do when they ‘lose’ their Yankee prisoners on the march. God knows, this is a wicked war! And there is Bowman, my third son; he may be dead, too, for I do not hear a word from him. I try to steady my aching heart, and go my way, and do my work with a quiet face; but often when I am alone I sink down, and the waves go over me. I can pour out my heart to you. I do hope your boy is but ‘slightly wounded,’ so that he may be sent home to stay with you for a long time. May God in mercy spare his life; but do not set your heart on him.”
General Leroy Stafford, on his last visit to his family, stopped at Myrtle Grove and gave me the particulars of the engagement at Payne’s Farm, Virginia, where David was shot, the ball entering his head above the ear and going out on the other side below the ear. He fell from his horse, it was supposed, mortally wounded. By careful medical attention he survived with the loss of the sight of one eye and power of hearing, the drum of one ear being perforated. He suffered temporarily much disfigurement from paralysis of the facial nerve.
When I saw my handsome boy in this condition my distress will not tax the imagination. “O mother,” he said, “you ought not to feel in this way! So many mothers’ boys can never come back to them, and I am alive and getting better every day. If you have felt cramped in expression, or anybody has ever done anything to you which rubbed you up the wrong way, throwdown your gauntlet and I’ll fight your battles for you. Don’t shed tears over me!”
Judge Avery said, referring to David’s own letter from the hospital: “It is the letter of a hero—not one word of complaint in the whole of it.” The surgeon attributed my son’s extraordinary recovery to the purity of blood uncorrupted by the use of tea, coffee, tobacco or alcoholic drinks.
My brother Milton was surrendered with Port Hudson. July 25, 1863, he wrote as follows from Custom House Prison, No. 6, in New Orleans: “About 2,000 of us are confined here. Many have called to see me but only one has succeeded—a young lady who announced herself as my cousin; said she was determined to have some relative here. I never saw her before. The ladies are very kind and contribute to all our wants. Hundreds of them promenade daily before our windows; they look very sweet and lovely to us. Their hearts are all right, but when they motion to us with their fans, or wave their handkerchiefs, the guards take them away. The whole city is overrun with Yankee soldiers, and the citizens have a subdued look. We have no reason to complain of our treatment, and we are not wholly discouraged. General Lee’s successes are favorable to our cause, and I now feel hopeful of a speedy termination of our troubles, though I see no prospect of our release.
“I learn that the Yankees took everything from Mr. Palmer’s near Clinton—negroes, mules, horses, made the old man dig up his buried silver, and so alarmed the old lady that she died of fright. I wish togot back into the field—feel more and more the necessity to establish our independence, for we can never again live at peace with our hated enemy.”
Notwithstanding these things, and that this brother was confined for two years at Johnson’s Island until after the surrender, he has been for years a loyal Republican, and is now an office-holder under Mr. McKinley.
The jayhawkers were a terror in the neighborhood of our Pleasant Hill plantation, where Mr. Merrick spent much of the war period. These guerilla ruffians gave many peaceable families much anxiety even when dwelling hundreds of miles from the seat of war. They were sometimes deserters and always outlaws, but wore the uniform of either army as fitted their purpose, and had no scruples about doing the most lawless and violent deed. At one time it was unsafe to let it be known when the head of the family would go or return, or to allow any plans to leak out, lest a descent should be made on the unprotected home or the equally unprotected absentee. A careful servant, closing the window-blinds at night, would caution Mr. Merrick to keep out of the range of wandering shots which were often fired by these desperadoes at unoffending persons. It has been asserted that the guerillas were a part of the regular Confederate service, whereas they were outlawed by the army and subject to summary discipline if caught.
When the Confederates were about us we enjoyed immunity from terrors. For ten months General Walker’s Division of our army camped on my land. It istrue we divided our stores with them, but the sense of protection was an unspeakable comfort. I had rooms near my house furnished as a hospital, where I nursed friend or foe who came to me sick. Medicines were treasured more than gold; a whole neighborhood felt safer if it were known there was a bottle of quinine in it; drugs were kept buried like silver.
There was much delightful association with the officers and our other friends in the army. Every family had stored away for times of illness or extra occasions little remnants of our former luxuries—wine, tea, coffee. General Dick Taylor was once my guest. While sipping his champagne at dinner he exclaimed: “I’m astonished, madam, that in these times you can be living in such luxury!” I explained that it was the birthday of my daughter Laura for which we had long prepared, and that to honor it I had drawn on my last bottle of wine saved for sickness. I made him laugh by relating that every time there was a raid I got out a bottle of wine, and we all drank in solemn state to keep it from falling into the hands of the Yankees.
General Richard Taylor was the only son of President Zachary Taylor. He married a Louisiana lady and made his home in this State. He won conspicuous success as a brigade commander under Stonewall Jackson, and being placed in command of the Department of Mississippi and Alabama, his brilliant record culminated in the victories of Mansfield and Pleasant Hill. Having beaten General Banks one day at the former place, he pursued him to Pleasant Hill—wheremy husband was during the whole period of active warfare—and defeated him again. He was the idol of the Trans-Mississippi Department—and well he might be, for he alone had redeemed it from utter hopelessness.[1]
[1] Southern Historical Society Papers.
General Polignac was the brave Frenchman who set his men wild with amusement and enthusiasm, by placing his hand on his heart and exclaiming withempressement: “Soldiers, behold your Polignac!” They beheld him and followed him ardently. While partaking of very early green peas and roast lamb at my table, he asked: “Did you raise these peas under glass, madam?” “Look at my broken windows,” I answered, “all over this house, and tell whether I can raise peas under glass when we can’t keep ourselves under it!” With such as we had everybody kept open house while the war lasted. Nobody, high or low, was turned from the door; so long as there was anything to divide, the division went on: all of which has confirmed me in the belief that in proportion as artificial social conditions are removed the divinity in man shines out; and that Bellamy’s vision for humanity need not be all a dream.
The news of Lee’s surrender fell with stunning force, although it had long been feared that the Confederates were nearing the end of their resources. Peace was welcomed by the class of men who had begun to desert the army, because their little children were starving at home; it was also good news to the broad-minded student of history who knew that surrender was theonly alternative for an army overpowered; that the victories of peace embodied the only hope. But there were many who said: “Why not have fought on until all were dead—man, woman and child? What is left to make life worth the living?”
An impression prevailed among the victors of the civil war, that the Southern people were lying awake at night to curse the enemy that had wrought their desolation and impoverishment. Nothing could have been further from the truth. After the first stupefying effects of the surrender, the altered social and domestic conditions engrossed every energy. Every home mourned its dead. Those were counted happy who could lay tear-dewed flowers upon the graves of their soldier-slain—so many never looked again, even upon the dead face of him who had smiled back at them as the boys marched away to the strains of Dixie. The shadow of a mutual sorrow drew Southern women in sympathy and tenderness toward weeping Northern mothers and wives. True men who have bravely fought out their differences cherish no animosities—though still unconvinced.
The women in every community seemed to far outnumber the men; and the empty sleeve and the crutch made men who had unflinchingly faced death in battle impotent to face their future. Sadder still was it to follow to the grave the army of men, of fifty years and over when the war began, whose hearts broke with the loss of half a century’s accumulations and ambitions, and with the failure of the cause for which they had risked everything. Communities were accustomed tolean upon these tried advisers; it was almost like the slaughter of another army—so many such sank beneath the shocks of reconstruction.
It is folly to talk about the woman who stood in the breach in those chaotic days, being the traditional Southern woman of the books, who sat and rocked herself with a slave fanning her on both sides. She was doubtless fanned when she wished to be; but the ante-bellum woman of culture and position in the South was a woman of affairs; and in the care of a large family—which most of them had—and of large interests, she was trained to meet responsibilities. So in those days of awful uncertainties, when men’s hearts failed them, it was the woman who brought her greater adaptability and elasticity to control circumstances, and to lay the foundations of a new order. She sewed, she sold flowers, milk and vegetables, and she taught school; sometimes even a negro school. She made pies and corn-bread, and palmetto hats for the Federals in garrison; she raised pigs, poultry and pigeons; and she cooked them when the darkey—who was “never to wuk no mo’”—left her any to bless herself with; she washed, often the mustered-out soldier of the house filling her tubs, rubbing beside her and hanging out her clothes; and he did her swearing for her when the Yankee soldier taunted over the fence: “Wall, it doo doo my eyes good to see yer have to put yer lily-white hands in the wash-tub!”
As soon as the war was over, my daughter went with her grandmother to visit her father’s relatives in Massachusetts. In letters to her, beginning September16, 1865, I thus described the conditions under which we were living: “The war was prosperity to the state of things which peace has wrought. Society is resolving itself into its original elements. Chaos has come again. St. Domingo is a paradise to this part of the United States, which is cut off from the benefits of government. The negroes who have gained their liberty are more unhappy and dissatisfied than ever before. Poor creatures! their weak brains are puzzling over the great problem of their future. Care seems likely to eat up every pleasure in their bewildered lives. They no longer dance and sing in the quarters at night, but sit about in dejected groups; their chief dissipation is prayer-meeting. It is a dire perplexity that they must pay their doctor’s bills; they resent it as a bitter injustice that ‘Marster’ does not ‘find them’ in medicine and all the ordinary things of living as of old. They say no provision is made for them. They are left to work for white folks the same as ever, but for white folks who no longer care for them nor are interested in their own joys and sorrows. Freedom meant to them the abolition of work, liberty to rove uncontrolled, to drink liquor and to carry firearms. As Rose recently said to me: “I don’t crave fin’ry—jes plenty er good close, en vittles, en I ’spects ter get dese widout scrubbin’ fer ’em,’ ‘Where is de gover’ment?’ they ask anxiously, ‘en de forty acres er lan’, en de mule?’—which each one of them was led to reckon on. They expected a saturnalia of freedom; to be legislators, judges and governors in the land, to live in the white folks’ houses, and to ride in their carriages.They cannot understand a freedom that involves labor and care. They say they were deceived; that white folks still have the upper hand, and ride while they walk. I pity them deeply.
“You know I have never locked up anything. Now I am a slave to my keys. I am robbed daily. Spoons, cups and all the utensils from the kitchen have been carried off. I am now paying little black Jake to steal some of them back for me, as he says he knows where they are. I cannot even set the bread to rise without some of it being taken. All this, notwithstanding the servants are paid wages. It is astonishing that those we have considered most reliable are engaged in the universal dishonesty. I understand they call it ‘sp’ilin’ de ’Gypshuns!’
“The Mississippi river is open;—the boats ply daily up and down, but we have no mail. We are surely treated like stepchildren of the great United States. Already the tax-assessor has come to value our property; the tax-gatherer has collected the national revenues; agents of the Freedman’s Bureau are taking the census of negro children preparatory to forming schools, and Northern land buyers are looking out for bargains in broken-up estates. Is it strange that we ask: ‘Where is the postmaster?’ We have had already too much exclusion from the world in Confederate days. Let us emerge from our former ‘barbarous state of ignorance,’—and let me hear from my absent child in Massachusetts!
“Your father has written from New Orleans as follows: ‘I have extricated my Jefferson City propertyfrom the seizure of the Federals, and have paid $800 to release it, though I think it will cost several hundred more. They—the Federals—burnt the mill mortgaged to me by G. B. M.—and I shall lose $5,000 on that. I think I have done remarkably well to have paid off so many incumbrances, but I wish you to have for the present a rigid management of all matters of expense. I am glad I have a prospect of getting my law library into my possession again. I find four hundred and fifty volumes of it in the quartermaster’s department.
“I can only extricate my affairs by economy on the part of all my family, and am only asking that they show a little patience under our temporary separation. I do not wish them to aid me by earning anything, except it be David, for himself individually; but we shall all be in the city in our own home the sooner by the exercise of present self-denial.
“‘I am glad to learn that the people of the South denounce the assassination of Lincoln,’ for it was a ruinous misfortune to us.
“At present we are living at as little expense as possible with no perceptible income. We are taxed according to the ante-bellum tax lists—including our slaves and property swept off the earth by the armies. A fine sugar estate, near us on the river, worth two hundred thousand dollars, was sold last week for taxes, which were seven thousand five hundred dollars. The whole estate—land, dwelling, sugar house, stock—brought only four thousand dollars. There could scarcely be completer confiscation than these unrighteoustax-sales under which millions of dollars worth of property are advertised for sale.
“I saw a late article in theChicago Timesin which the writer said: ‘You had better be a poor man’s dog than a Southerner now.’ If our negroes are idle and impudent we are not allowed to send them away. If we have crops waiting in the fields for gathering, the hands are all given by the semi-military government ‘passes togo,’ though we pay wages; and (weakly or humanely?) buy food, furnish doctors and wait on the sick, very much in the old way, simply because nature refuses to snap the ties of a lifetime on the authority of new conditions. I have it in mind to make Myrtle Grove a very disagreeable place to some of the most trifling, so that they will get into the humor to hunt a new home.
“General Price said: ‘We played for the negro, and the Yankees fairly won the stake, with Cuffy’s help.’ Let them have him andkeephim! Your father has just had a settlement with his freedmen. They are extremely dissatisfied with the result. Though they acknowledge every item on their accounts, furnished at New Orleans wholesale prices, it is a disappointment not to have a large sum of money for their year’s labor—that, too, after an extravagance of living we have not dared to allow ourselves, and an idleness for which we are like sufferers, as the crop was planted on shares. I am convinced the negroes are too much like children to understand or be content with the share system.
“I have a good cook, but she has acavaliere servente, besides her own husband and children, to provide forout of my storeroom, which she does in my presence very often—though it is not in the bond. Iamimpatient when she takes the butter given her for pastry and substitutes lard; yet I cannot withhold my admiration when I see her double the recipe in order that her own table may be graced with a soft-jumble as good as mine. Somebody has said: ‘By means of fire, blood, sword and sacrifice you have been separated from your black idol.’ It looks to me as if he is hung around our necks like the Ancient Mariner’s albatross. You ridicule President Johnson’s idea of loaning us farming implements. You must not forget who burned ours. We need money, for we have to pay the four years’ taxes on our freed negroes!
“There is bad blood between the races. Those familiar with conditions here anticipate that the future may witness a servile war—a race war—result of military drilling, arming and haranguing the negro for political ends. Secession was a mistake for which you and I were not responsible. But even if our country was wrong, and we knew it at the time—which we did not—we were right in adhering to it. The best people in the South were true to our cause; only the worthless and unprincipled, with rare exceptions, went over to the enemy. We must bear our trials with what wisdom and patience we may be able to summon until our status is fully defined. I cannot but feel, however, that if war measures had ceased with the war, if United States officers on duty here, and the Government at Washington, had shown a friendly desire to bury past animosities and to start out on a real basis of reunion,we should have become a revolutionized, reconstructed people by this time. But certain it is that the enemy—authorities and ‘scalawag’-friends, who now cruelly oppress the whites and elevate the negro over us—are hated as the ravaging armies never were, and a true union seems farther off than ever.”
MISS VINE’S DINNER PARTY AND ITS ABRUPT CONCLUSION.
War is demoralizing, and ever since “our army swore terribly in Flanders,” profanity has been a military sin. In my neighborhood it extended to the women and children who had never before violated the third commandment. I knew a little girl who, having seen a regiment of Federal soldiers marching along the public highway, ran to her mother crying, “The damned Yankees are coming!” She was exempt from reproof on account of the exciting nature of the news. She had doubtless heard the obnoxious word so often in this connection that she deemed it a correct term.
I tried to preserve my own household “pure and peaceable and of good report,” and I plead with my five girls to avoid all looseness of expression. But Fannie Little asked: “Mrs. Merrick, may I not even tell Rose to ‘go to the devil’ when she puts my nightgown where I can’t find it, and makes me wait so long for hot water?”
“No, indeed, my child! Only Christian ministers can speak with propriety of the devil, and use his name on common occasions.”
As a social side-light on these disordered secessionwar-times the following sketch is a true picture. The characters and incidents are real, but the names are assumed. The endeavor to embalm the events in words diverted me in the midst of graver experience during those chaotic days.
Beechwood plantation has a frontage of two miles on the banks of a navigable river. The tall dwelling-house was so surrounded by other buildings, all well constructed and painted white, that the first glance suggested the idea of a village embowered in trees. The proprietorship of a noble estate implies a certain distinction, and in fact the owner of this property had for many years represented his district in Congress. In past as well as present times people manifest a disposition to bestow political honors upon men of prosperity and affluence.
Mr. Templeton, notwithstanding the fact that he possessed an uncommonly large amount of property in land and slaves, was not a giant either in body or in mind. He surely had spoken once in the national Capitol, for was he not known to have sent a printed copy of a speech to every one of the Democratic constituents in the State? In this pamphlet were set forth eloquent and powerful arguments against the unjust discrimination of the specific duties on silk, which he thought operated to the disadvantage and serious injustice of the poor man. He asserted confidently that the poor people would purchase only the heavy, serviceable silken goods, while the rich preferred the lighter and flimsier fabrics, thus paying proportionatelya much smaller revenue to the Government. This proved conclusively that Mr. Templeton never consulted his wife, whose rich dresses were always paid for as the tariff was arranged—ad valorem. His patriotic soul was harrowed and filled with sympathy and sorrow on account of the injustice and hardship thus dealt out to his needy and indigent constituents. We cannot follow this interesting man’s public career, and probably it is customary for great statesmen “to study the people’s welfare” and to have the good of the poor men who vote for them very much upon their disinterested minds.
The Templeton family came originally from that State which furnished to the South, in the hour of trial, some brave soldiers and a good song—“Maryland, my Maryland.” Lavinia, Mr. Templeton’s only daughter, had been educated at the Convent in Emmetsburg, and had returned home after Fort Sumter was fired upon and other disturbances were anticipated. This slender, delicate, little creature was very graceful and pretty, timid as a fawn, and frisky as a young colt. At first she could not be induced to sit at table if there was a young man in the dining-room. She said she preferred to wait, and when she came in afterward for her dinner her brother Frank testified that she always ate an extra quantity to make up for the delay.
Old Miss Eliza thought Vine so lovely and good that she always allowed her to do as she pleased, only enjoining on her to “be a lady.” Miss Eliza was an old-maid cousin who lived in the family, shared the cares and anxieties of the parents, and was greatlyrespected by everybody. She was not a particularly religious person—there not being a church within ten miles—but she was kind, courteous and gentle, and exhibited a great deal of deportment of the very finest quality—as might have been expected from her refined Virginia antecedents. She could not abide that the servants should call Lavinia Templeton “Miss Vine,” but they called her so all the same.
Beaux far and near contended for Lavinia’s regard, and in less than six months after leaving the convent she was married to a young captain newly enlisted in the artillery of the Confederate service. A grand wedding came off where many noteworthy men assembled. While the band played and the giddy dance went on, groups of these consulted about the portentous war clouds. One great man said: “There will be no war; I will promise to drink every drop of blood shed in this quarrel!”
But soon there was a military uprising everywhere. As men enlisted they went into a camp situated less than an hour’s drive from Beechwood. Vine and her lover-husband refused to be separated, so she virtually lived in the encampment. The spotless new tents, with bright flags flying, the young men thronging around the carriages which brought their mothers and sisters as daily visitors, made this camp in the woods a bewitching spot.
Every luxury the country afforded was poured out with lavish hands. Friends, neighbors and loved ones at home skimmed the richest cream of the land for the delectation and refreshment of their dear soldier boys.A young schoolboy, who dined with his brother in camp on barbecued mutton and roast wild turkey with all the accompaniments, wrote to his father that he too was ready to enlist, having now had a perfect insight into soldier life. As this gallant veteran to-day looks at his empty, dangling coat-sleeve and is shown his boyish letter, he smiles a grim smile and says: “Yes, Iwasa fool in those days.” Vine’s husband had a noble figure and was a picture of manly beauty in his new uniform with scarlet facings. To the horror of her woman friends the devoted little wife cut up a costly black velvet gown, and made it into a fatigue jacket for him to wear in camp.
Meanwhile the unexpected happened and we were in the midst of a real, terrible war. Federal military operations extended over the whole country; then appeared a gunboat with its formidable armament, striking a panic into all the white inhabitants. Soldiers advanced to the front, while citizens precipitately retreated to the rear. In trepidation and hot haste planters gathered up their possessions for departure. Slaves, always dearer and more precious to the average Southern heart than either silver or gold, were first collected and assembled with the owners and their families, and then formed large companies of refugees who went forth to look for a temporary home in some less exposed part of the country.
After much deliberation Mr. and Mrs. Templeton, with the little boys and their cumbrous retinue of wagons, horses and slaves, went to Texas, leaving their daughter Vine, Miss Eliza and two faithful servants assole tenants of Beechwood. The expected advance of Federal forces in the spring seemed to justify the reduction of the place to such slender equipment. Meanwhile, Captain Paul had been through a campaign in Virginia. On the very day of the battle of Bethel, Vine clasped a new-born daughter in her arms, and the father requested that its name should be Bethel in commemoration of that engagement. This child was a year old before he saw its face. The time came when Louisiana soil was to be plowed up with military trenches and fortifications, and Captain Paul was ordered to Port Hudson. The siege of that place soon followed.
In the evenings Miss Eliza sat on the gallery holding Bethel in her arms, while Vine rocked little Dan, the baby of seven months, and they would all listen in wistful silence to the volleys of heavy guns sounding regularly and dolefully far down the river. The regular boom of the thundering volleys kept on day and night. The two servants, Becky and Monroe, would occasionally join the group; “Never mind, Miss Vine, don’t you fret,” they would say; “sure, Captain Paul’s all right.” After many weeks of painful suspense and anxiety the shocking news came that Captain Paul had been killed by the explosion of a shell. Vine’s grief was wild. She wept and raved by turn, until Miss Eliza feared she would die. Becky with womanly instinct brought her the children and reminded her that she still had these. “Take them away,” cried Vine, “I loved them only for his sake; children are nothing! Take them out of my sight!Oh! Lord,” she cried, “let us all die and be buried together! Why does anybody live when Paul is dead?—dead, dead, forever!”
Vine put on no mourning in her widowhood, for such a thing as crepe was unattainable in those days. The girls in the neighborhood came and stayed with her by turns, and did all they could to divert her mind from her loss.
In a short time even punctilious Miss Eliza rejoiced to perceive some return of Vine’s former cheerfulness. She said it was sad enough and bad enough to have a horrible war raging and ravaging over the country, without insisting that a delicate young thing like Lavinia should go on forever moping herself to death in unavailing grief. There was no need of anything of the kind. While wishing her niece to avoid “getting herself talked about,” Miss Eliza yet thought it needful, right and proper that she should take some diversion and some healthy amusement. So it came to pass after awhile that one day all the officers and soldiers who were temporarily at home, and all the young ladies living on the river, were invited to dine together at Beechwood.
The day was cool and delightful, with just a tinge of winter in the air. Extensive fields, where hundreds of bales of cotton and thousands of barrels of corn had been grown annually, were now given up to weeds, briars and snakes. Here and there in protected nooks and corners clusters of tall golden-rod or blue and purple wild asters waved their heads. Only one small patch of ripened corn near the dwelling indicated thatthe inhabitants had not entirely forgotten seed-time and might possibly have hope of even a tiny harvest later on.