XXXVICUBAN DAYS IN WAR TIMES
Not a Confederate who was stranded in Havana in the ’60’s but can recall with grateful feelings the only hotel there kept by an American woman and kept on American lines. Every Confederate drifted under that roof-tree. If he possessed the wherewithal he paid a round sum for the privilege. If he was out of pocket, and I could name a score who were not only penniless but baggageless, he was quite welcome, well cared for and in several instances clothed! Some, notwithstanding her “positive orders,†exposed themselves to night air, when mosquitoes were most in evidence, and came in with headache and yellow fever. They were cared for and nursed back to health. No one knew better than Mrs. Brewer how to manage such cases. I could call the roll of the guests who came—and went, some to Canada, some to Mexico: Gen. and Mrs. Toombs of Georgia, Gen. Magruder, Gen. Fry and his beautiful wife, who was a Micou of Alabama; Commodore Moffitt and Ex-Gov. Moore ofLouisiana; Major Bloomfield and his wife—some of us still remember Bloomfield. He had for years a blank-book and stationery shop in New Orleans. I have one of his books now, a leather-bound ledger. He was in service on somebody’s staff. There were some not of the army, but on business bent, blockade running and so on.
My gracious! I can’t begin to tell of the crowd that promenaded the galleries andazoteaof Hotel Cubano toward the end of the war. They all talked and talked fight, the ex-army men declaring they would not return to their homes with sheathed swords. Alas! They did, though. Before their talks came to an end the Confederacy did. J. P. Benjamin arrived on a sailboat with Gen. Breckinridge. They were wise as owls and had nothing to say. I remember the news came of the assassination of President Lincoln while a large party of the braves were dining at our house—on thecerroof Havana. Some of them were jubilant, but a quiet word from Gen. Breckinridge: “Gentlemen, the South has lost its best friend,†and a quieter word from Mr. Benjamin: “We will let the painful subject drop,†acted as a quietus for our boisterous guests....
But I must not wander from our hostess of Hotel Cubano. A strange mixture was she of parsimonyand prodigality, vindictiveness and gratitude, a grand woman withal, capable of doing heroic things. She knew intimately and had entertained the family of Pierre Soulé, who tarried at the Cubano en route to Spain, when Soulé was minister. The Slidells also were her friends, Jeff Davis’ family and scores of other prominent people. She made the first donation of $500 to the Jefferson Davis Monument Association. With vigorous, watchful management she accumulated a large fortune in Havana, though she maintained a host of parasites, poor relatives from the States. She had four girls at one time belonging to her kindred who were too poor to educate them. But her business methods were too queer and unconventional for words. She had leased the large hotel long before the war in the United States, for what was, even in those dull days in Havana, considered a low sum, for the chance of making it pay was a trifle against her. She kept it American style—had batter cakes and mince pies—so that, though her prices were, as we say now, “the limit,†every refugee and newspaper correspondent who was sick of garlic and crude oil diet, felt he had to live at the American hotel. Havana was then the refuge of defaulters and others of lax business methods, there being no extradition treaty between the United States and Spain.
In Cuba when you rent a house, you pay by the month, and so long as you meet the payments, you cannot be dispossessed. (I do not know what the law may be now; I write of forty years ago.) Not long after Mrs. Brewer’s venture proved a success, the owner tried every possible way to make her throw up the lease. Anyone knowing Mrs. Brewer as I did, could well understand there was no coercing her. She maintained her rights, paying rent with utmost promptness, and when paper currency made its unwelcome advent and was legally declared of equal value with gold, the payments were made in paper. That currency depreciated steadily and so greatly, too, that Mrs. Brewer told me the rent of her basement to the German consulate for storage purposes, which rent she exacted in gold, was, when exchanged for paper currency, sufficient to pay the rent of her entire building. When I remonstrated with her as being unjust, she explained that all the years she had occupied the building the owner refused to make necessary repairs and alterations. She had been compelled to put in modern plumbing, repairs, painting—in fact, everything—at her own expense, and now she was simply reimbursing herself. When she amassed a fortune, tired of the life, she threw up the lease, returned to the United States and a few years ago died at an advanced age. Herprevious history is like a “story told by night.â€
She was the wife of a United States army officer, stationed at Charleston, who eloped with his wife’s seamstress. She did not know nor did she take steps to inform herself, where they fled. He had cashed his bank account and gone. In her shameful abandonment she took passage on the first vessel leaving port for foreign lands. She arrived, a young, deserted wife, in Havana, years before I knew her, homeless and friendless, and was removed from the schooner on which she made the voyage from Charleston ill of yellow fever. When she was ready to leave the hospital, it was found not only the small amount of money in her purse, but her jewelry as well, was barely sufficient to pay her expenses. When she recovered, she speedily found work in Havana, sewing in the house of a Spanishmarquesa, who became deeply interested in the case of the forlorn woman, eventually assisting her in getting an independent start at keeping a boarding house for foreigners in the city who chafed at Cuban cooking.
A proposition had been made to Mrs. Brewer by two or three American refugees to keep house for them, they to furnish everything, but the generousmarquesavetoed the plan and offered to finance a better scheme. So Mrs. Brewer rentedand furnished a small house, and the men came to her as boarders, thereby placing herself in a more independent position. From that small beginning sprung the largest, best equipped and most expensive—for her charges were exorbitant—hostelry in the island. Meanwhile the kindlymarquesawent her way gaily in the fashionable wealthy society of Havana, Mrs. Brewer working and managing, toiling and accumulating in her own domain. They rarely met.
When my family went to Cuba it was to escape from war troubles at home. We sought for rest and peace, but it was not long before we felt we may have “jumped from the frying pan into the fire.†Rebellion soon became rife on the island. We, being neutrals, had occasional visits from both parties of the guerilla type. The captains-general sent at frequent intervals from the mother country ruled with severity.
One morning while I was visiting Mrs. Brewer, themarquesacalled, in a terrible state of mind. Her young son, an only child, had been arrested, imprisoned and sentenced to be executed as a rebel sympathizer. She declared to Mrs. Brewer that she and her friends were powerless to do anything in the case, and she implored Mrs. Brewer’s assistance. It was grand to see how the Americanwoman responded. “Go to your home, possess your soul in peace, if you can. I will intercede with the Captain-general.†She did, too. As I remember, Mr. Henry Hall was the American consul. A messenger was sent with flying feet to summon him. By the time she had dressed herself in her finest finery and decked her person with all the jewels she could muster and had her carriage and liveried coachman ready, Mr. Hall had put on his official dress, both knowing how important it was to create an impression on the wily Spaniard. They looked as if they might be more than count and countess, marquis andmarquesathemselves.
Arriving at the palace, our consul obtained immediate access to the potentate. Mrs. Brewer was introduced with a flourish, and she at once proceeded to tell her story. She told of the extreme youth of the prisoner, too immature to be a volunteer on either side, too inexperienced to have any opinion, and so on, imploring him to spare the life of “an only son, and his mother a widow.†The stern old man only shook his head and repeated that his orders were absolute and unchangeable. Mrs. Brewer fell upon her knees before him, declaring she would not rise until he at least commuted the sentence to banishment to Spain. She told him her own story; how she, a friendless woman, had been succored andcomforted and assisted by the boy’s mother years before. She had been grateful, but had never had the opportunity to prove the depth of her gratitude.
I was still at Hotel Cubano, waiting, oh, so anxiously, to know the result of the mission, when Mrs. Brewer returned radiant. She had gone from the palace with the sentence of banishment in her hand to themarquesa’shome. The young boy sailed the following day to Spain. Mr. Hall told me afterwards he had never witnessed such a scene; had never heard such an impassioned appeal. “It would,†he said, “have moved an image of stone.â€