Transcriber's Note:

Inconsistent hyphenation and spelling in the original document have been preserved. Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.

The following variant spellings were found by readers and retained:

• mits should possibly be mitts
• Courtland and Cortlandt
• ante-bellum and antebellum
• practise and practice
• McIlwane and McIlwaine
• gray and grey
• Bremer and Brémer

MY DAY
REMINISCENCES OF A LONG LIFE

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
NEW YORK · BOSTON · CHICAGO
ATLANTA · SAN FRANCISCO

MACMILLAN & CO., Limited
LONDON · BOMBAY · CALCUTTA MELBOURNE

THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd.
TORONTO

Mrs. Roger A. Pryor.

MY DAY

REMINISCENCES OF A LONG
LIFE

BY
MRS. ROGER A. PRYOR
AUTHOR OF "REMINISCENCES OF PEACE AND WAR,"
"THE MOTHER OF WASHINGTON AND HER
TIMES," ETC.

ILLUSTRATED

NEW YORK
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1909
All rights reserved

Copyright, 1909,
By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.

Set up and electrotyped. Published October, 1909.

Norwood Press
J. S. Cushing Co.—Berwick & Smith Co.
Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.

To the Memory of
My Son
Theodorick Bland Pryor

I stood at dawn by a limitless sea

And watched the rose creep over the gray;

Till the heavens were a glowing canopy!

This was my day!

The pale stars stole away, one by one—

Like sensitive souls from the presence of Pride:

The moon hung low, looking back, as the sun

Rose over the tide.

And he, like a King, came up from the Sea!

He opened my rose—unfettered my song—

And quickened a heart to be true to me

All the day long.

The soul that was born of a song and flower

Of tender dawn-flush, and shadowy gray,

Was strengthened by Love for a bitter hour

That chilled my day.

I had dwelt in the garden of the Lord!

I had gathered the sweets of a summer day:

I was called to stand where a flaming sword

Turned every way.

It spared not the weak—nor the strong—nor the dear;

And following fast, like a phantom band,

Famine and Fever and shuddering Fear

Swept o'er the land.

They whispered that Hope, the angel of light,

Would spread her white wings and speed her away;

But she folded me close in my longest night

And darkest day.

As of old, when the fire and tempest had passed,

And an earthquake had riven the rocks, the Word

In a still small voice rose over the blast—

The Voice of the Lord.

And the Voice said: "Take up your lives again!

Quit yourselves manfully! Stand in your lot!

Let the Famine, the Fever, the Peril, the Pain,

Be all forgot!

"Weep no more for the lovely, the brave,

The young head pillowed on a blood-stained sod;

The daisy that grows on the soldier's grave

Looks up to God!

"The soul of the patriot-soldier stands

With a mighty host in eternal calm,

And He who pressed the sword to his hands

Has given the Palm."

And now I stand with my face to the west,

Shading mine eyes, for my glorious sun

Is splendid again as he sinks to his rest—

His day is done.

I have lost my rose, forgotten my song,

But the true heart that loved me is mine alway;

The stars are alight—the way not long—

I had my day!

November 8, 1908.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

MY DAY

CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTORY

I am constrained to encourage a possible reader by assuring him that I have no intention whatever of writing strictly an autobiography. Nothing in myself nor in my life would warrant me in so doing.

I might, perhaps, except the story of the Civil War, and my part in the trials and sorrows of my fellow-women, but this story I have fully and truly told in my "Reminiscences of Peace and War."

My countrymen were so kind to these first stories that I feel I may claim some credentials as a "babbler of Reminiscences." Besides, I have lived in the last two-thirds of the splendid nineteenth century, and have known some of the men and women who made that century notable. And I would fain believe with Mr. Trollope that "the small records of an unimportant individual life, the memories which happen to linger in the brain of the old like bits of drift-wood floating round and round in the eddies of a back-water, can more vividly than anything else bring before the young of the present generation those ways of acting and thinking and talking in the everyday affairs of life which indicate the differences between themselves and their grandfathers."

But I shall have more than this "floating driftwood" to reward the reader who will follow me to the end of my story!

Writers of Reminiscences are interested—perhaps more interested than their readers—in recalling their earliest sensations, and through them determining at what age they had "found themselves"; i.e. become conscious of their own personality and relation to the world they had entered.

Long before this time the child has seen and learned more perhaps than he ever learned afterwards in the same length of time. He has acquired knowledge of a language sufficient for his needs. His miniature world has been, in many respects, a foreshadowing of the world he will know in his maturity. He has learned that he is a citizen of a country with laws,—some of which it will be prudent to obey,—such as the law against taking unpermitted liberties with the cat, or touching the flame of the candle; while other laws may be evaded by cleverness and discreet behavior. He finds around him many things; pictures on walls, for instance, that may be admired but never touched,—other lovely things that may be handled and even kissed, but must be returned to mantels and tables,—and yet others, not near as delightful as these, "poor things but his own," to be caressed or beaten, or even broken at his pleasure. He has learned to indulge his natural taste for the drama. His nurse covers her head with a paper and becomes the dreadful, groaning villain behind it, while the baby girds himself for attack, tears the disguise from the villain, and shouts his victory. As he learns the names and peculiarities of animals, the scope of the drama widens. He is a spirited horse, snorting and charging along, or—if his picture-books have been favorable—a roaring lion from whom the nurse flees in terror. Of the domestic play there is infinite variety—nursing in sickness, the doctor, baby-tending, cooking,—and once, alas! I heard a baby girl of eighteen months enact a fearful quarrel between man and wife, ending firmly "I leave you! I never come back!"

These natural tendencies of children would seem to prove that the soul or mind of man can be "fetched up from the cradle"—a phrase for which I am indebted to one of my contemporaries, Mr. Leigh Hunt, who in turn quoted it as a popular phrase in his late (and my early) day. But with the single exception of the spoken language all these childish plays have been successfully taught to our humble brothers; to our poor relation the monkey, the dog, elephant, seal, canary bird—even to fleas. All these are capable of enacting a short drama. The elephant, longing for his bottle, never rings his bell too soon. The dog remembers his cue, watches for it, and never anticipates it. The seal, more wonderful than all, born as he has been without arms or legs, mounts a horse for a ride, and waits for his umbrella to be poised on his stubby nose. Even the creature whose name is a synonym for vulgar stupidity has been taught to indicate with porcine finger the letters which spell that name.

With these and other animals we hold in common our faculty of imitation, our memory, affection, antipathy, revenge, gratitude, passionate adoration of one special friend, and even the perception of music—the infant will weep and the poodle howl in response to the same strain in a minor key—and yet, notwithstanding this common lot, this common inheritance, there is born for us and not for them a moment when some strange unseen power breathes into us something akin to consciousness of a living soul.

Having no past as a standard for the reasonable and natural, nothing surprises children. They are simply witnesses of a panorama in the moving scenes of which they have no part. When I was three years old, I visited my grandfather in Charlotte County. The Staunton River wound around his plantation and I was often taken out rowing with my aunts. One day the canoe tipped and my pretty Aunt Elizabeth fell overboard. Without the slightest emotion I saw her fall, and saw her recovered. For aught I knew to the contrary it was usual and altogether proper for young ladies to fall in rivers and be fished out by their long hair. But another event, quite ordinary, overwhelmed me with the most passionate distress. Having, a short time before, advanced a tentative finger for an experimental taste of an apple roasting for me at my grandfather's fire, I was prepared to be shocked at seeing a colony of ants rush madly about upon wood a servant was laying over the coals. My cries of distress arrested my grandfather as he passed through the room. He quickly ordered the sticks to be taken off, and calling me to a seat in front of him, said gravely: "We will try these creatures and see if they deserve punishment. Evidently they have invaded our country. The question is, did they come of their own accord, or were they while enjoying their rights of life and liberty, captured by us and brought hither against their will?" My testimony was gravely taken. I was quite positive I had seen the sticks, swarming with ants, laid upon the fire. "Uncle Peter," who had brought in the wood, was summoned and sharply cross-questioned. Nothing could shake him. To the best of his knowledge and belief, "them ants nuvver come 'thouten they was 'bleeged to," and so, as they were by this time wildly scampering over the floor, they were gently admonished by a persuasive broom to leave the premises. Uncle Peter was positive they would find their way home without difficulty, and I was comforted.

I remember this little incident perfectly; I can see my dear grandfather, his white hair tied with a black ribbon en queue, advancing his stick like a staff of office. I claim that then and there—three years old—I found myself, "fetched up my soul" from somewhere, almost "from the cradle," inasmuch as I had pitied the unfortunate, unselfishly espoused his cause, and won for him consideration and justice.

Writers of fiction are supposed to present, as in a mirror, the truth as it is found in nature. They are fond of hinting that at some moment in the early life of every individual something occurs which foreshadows his fate, something which if interpreted—like the dreams of the ancient Hebrews—would tell us without the aid of gypsy, medium, or clairvoyant the things we so ardently desire to know. In Daniel Deronda, Gwendolyn, in her moment of triumph, touches a spring in a panel, which, sliding back, reveals a picture,—the upturned face of a drowning man. In Lewis Rand, Jacqueline, the bride of half an hour, hears the story of a duel—and the pistol-shot echoes ever after through her brain, filling it with insistent foreboding.

We might recall illustrations of similar foreshadowing in real life. For instance, Jean Carlyle, six years old, beautiful and vivid as a tropical bird, stands before an audience to sing her little song; and waits in vain for her accompanist. Finally she throws her apron over her head and runs away in confusion. She was prepared, she knew her part; but the support was lacking, the accompaniment failed her. It was not given to him who told the story to perceive the prophecy!

Were I fanciful enough to fix upon one moment as prophetic of my life—as a key-note to the controlling principle of that life—I might recall the incident in my grandfather's room, when I ceased to be merely an inert absorber of light and warmth and comfort, and became aware of the pain in the world—pain which I passionately longed to alleviate.

CHAPTER II

I had a childless aunt, who annually came up from her home in Hanover to spend part of the summer with my parents and my grandfather. She begged me of my mother for a visit, meant to be a brief one, and as she was greatly loved and respected by her people, I was permitted to return with her.

There were no railroads in Virginia at that time. All journeys were made in private conveyances. The great coach-and-four had disappeared after the Revolution. The carriage and pair, with the goatskin hair trunk strapped on behind, or—in case the journey were long—a light wagon for baggage, were now enough for the migratory Virginian.

He lived at home except for the three summer months, when it was his invariable rule to visit Saratoga, or the White Sulphur, Warm, and Sweet Springs, of Virginia, making a journey to the latter, in something less than a week, now accomplished from New York in eight or nine hours.

The carriage on high springs creaked and rocked like a ship at sea. Fortunately, it was well cushioned and padded within—and furnished at the four corners with broad double straps through which the arms of the passenger could be thrust to steady himself withal. He needed them in the pitching and jolting over the rocks and ruts of dreadful roads. Inside each door were ample pockets for sundry comforts—biscuits, sandwiches, apples, restorative medicines and cordials, books and papers. A flight of three or four carpeted steps was folded inside the door. Twenty-five miles were considered "a day's journey," quite enough for any pair of horses. At noon the latter were rested under the shade of trees near some spring or clear brook, the carriage cushions were laid out, and the luncheon! Well, I cannot presume to be greater than the greatest of all our American artists,—he who could mould a hero in bronze and make him live again; and hold us, silent and awed, in the presence of the mysterious and unspeakable grief of a woman in marble! Has he not confessed that although he remembers an early perception of beauty in sky and sea, and field and wood—the memory that has followed him vividly through life is of odors from a baker's oven, and from apples stewing in a German neighbor's kitchen? Hot gingerbread and spiced, sugared apples! I should say so, indeed!

In just such a carriage as I have described, I set forth with my strange aunt and uncle—a little three-and-a-half-year-old! At night we slept in some country tavern, surrounded by whispering aspen trees. A sign in front, swung like a gibbet, promised "Refreshment for man and beast." Invariably the landlord, grizzled, portly, and solemn, was lying at length on a bench in his porch or lounging in a "split-bottom chair" with his feet on the railing. He had seen our coming from afar. He was eager for custom, but he had dignity to maintain. Lifting himself slowly from his bench or chair, he would leisurely come forward, and hesitatingly "reckon" he could accommodate us. I was mortally afraid of him! Sinking into one of his deep feather beds, I trembled for my life and wept for my mother.

Finally one night, wearied out with the long journey, we turned into an avenue of cedars and neared our home. My aunt and uncle, on the cushions of the back seat, little dreamed of the dire resolve of the small rebel in front. Like the ants, I had been brought, against my will, to a strange country. I silently determined I would not be a good little girl. I would be as naughty as I could, give all the trouble I could, and force them to send me home again. But with the morning sun came perfect contentment, which soon blossomed into perfect happiness. From my bed I ran out in my bare feet to a lovely veranda shaded by roses. On one of the latticed bars a little wren bobbed his head in greeting, and poured out his silver thread of a song. Gabriella, the great tortoise-shell cat, with high uplifted tail, wooed and won me; and when Milly, black and smiling, captured me, it was to introduce me to an adorable doll and a little rocking-chair.

From that hour until I married I was the happy queen of the household, the one whose highest good was wisely considered and for whose happiness all the rest lived.

The bond between my aunt and her small niece could never be sundered, and as she was greatly loved and trusted, and as many children blessed my own dear mother, I was practically adopted as the only child of my aunt and uncle, Dr. and Mrs. Samuel Pleasants Hargrave.

CHAPTER III

The general impression I retain of the world of my childhood is of gardens—gardens everywhere; abloom with roses, lilies, violets, jonquils, flowering almond-trees which never fruited, double-flowering peach trees which also bore no fruit, but were, with the almond trees, cherished for the beauty of their blossoms. And conservatories! These began deep in the earth and were built two stories high at the back of the house. They were entered by steps going down and only thus were they entered. Windows opened into them from the parlor (always "parlor,"—not drawing-room) or from my lady's chamber. On the floor were great tubs of orange and lemon trees and the gorgeous flowering pomegranate. Along the walls were shelves reached by short ladders, and on these shelves were ranged cacti, gardenias (Cape Jessamine, or jasmine, as we knew this queen of flowers), abutilon, golden globes of lantana, and the much-prized snowy Camellia Japonica, sure to sent packed in cotton as gifts to adorn the dusky tresses of some Virginia beauty, or clasp the folds of her diaphanous kerchief. These camellias, long before they were immortalized by the younger Dumas, were reckoned the most poetic and elegant of all flowers—so pure and sensitive, resenting the profanation of the slightest touch. No cavalier of that day would present to his ladye faire the simple flowers we love to-day. These would come fast enough with the melting of the snows early in February.

I have never forgotten the ecstasy of one of these early February mornings. Mittened and hooded I ran down the garden walk from which the snow had been swept and piled high on either side. Delicious little rivers were running down and I launched a mighty fleet of leaves and sticks. Suddenly I beheld a miracle. The snow was lying thickly all around, but the sun had melted it from a south bank, and white violets—hundreds of them—had popped out. I spread my apron on the clean snow and filled it with the cool, crisp blossoms. Running in exultant I poured my treasure into my dear aunt's lap as she sat on a low chair which brought my head just on a level with her bosom. Ah! Like St. Gaudens, I remember the gingerbread and apples!—but I remember the violets also!

I can see myself in the early hot summer, sent forth to breathe the cool air of the morning. What a paradise of sweets met my senses! The squares, crescents, and circles edged with box, over which an enchanted glistening veil had been thrown during the night; the tall lilacs, snowballs, myrtles, and syringas, guarding like sentinels the entrance to every avenue; the glowing beds of tulips, pinks, purple iris, "bleeding hearts," flowering almond with rosy spikes, lily-of-the-valley! I scanned them all with curious eyes. Did I not know that the fairies, riding on butterflies, had visited each one and painted it during the night? Did I not know that these same fairies had hung their cups on the grass, and danced so long that the cups grew fast to the blades of grass and became lilies-of-the-valley? I knew all this—although my dear aunt never approved of fairy tales and gave me no fairy-tale books. Cousin Charles believed them; moreover, I had a charming picture of a fairy, riding on a butterfly. Of course they were true.

But I always hurried along, with small delay, among the flower beds. I knew where the passion-vine had dropped golden globes of fruit during the night—and I knew well where the cool figs, rimy with the early dew, were bursting with scarlet sweetness. Tell me not of your acrid grape-fruit, or far-fetched orange, wherewithal to break the morning fast! I know of something better. Alas! neither you nor I can ever again—except in fancy—cool our lips with the dew-washed fruits of an "old Virginia" garden.

It seems to me that the life we led at Cedar Grove and Shrubbery Hill was busy beyond all parallel. Everything the family and the plantation needed was manufactured at home, except the fine fabrics, the perfumes, wines, etc., which were brought from Richmond, Baltimore, or Philadelphia. Everything, from the goose-quill pen to carpets, bedspreads, coarse cotton cloth, and linsey-woolsey for servants' clothing, was made at home. Even corset-laces were braided of cotton threads, the corset itself of home manufacture.

Miss Betsey, the housekeeper, was the busiest of women. Besides her everlasting pickling, preserving, and cake-baking, she was engaged, with my aunt, in mysterious incantations over cordials, tonics, camomile, wild cherry, bitter bark, and "vinegar of the four thieves," to be used in sickness.

The recipe for the latter—well known in Virginia households a century ago—was probably brought by Thomas Jefferson from France in 1794. He was a painstaking collector of everything of practical value. To this day there exists in the French druggists' code a recipe known as the "Vinaigre des Quatre Voleurs"; and it is that given by condemned malefactors who, according to official records still existing in France, entered deserted houses in the city of Marseilles during a yellow fever epidemic in the seventeenth century and carried off immense quantities of plunder. They seemed to possess some method of preserving themselves from the scourge. Being finally arrested and condemned to be burned to death, an offer was made to change the method of inflicting their punishment if they would reveal their secret. The condemned men then confessed that they always wore over their faces handkerchiefs that had been saturated in strong vinegar and impregnated with certain ingredients, the principal one being bruised garlic.

The recipe, still preserved in the Randolph family of Virginia, is an odd one—with a homely flavor—hardly to be expected of a French formula. It requires simply "lavender, rosemary, sage, wormwood, rue and mint, of each a large handful; put them in a pot of earthenware, cover the pot closely, and put a board on the top; keep it in the hottest sun two weeks, then strain and bottle it, putting in each a clove of garlic. When it has settled in the bottle and becomes clear, pour it off gently; do this until you get it all free from sediment. The proper time to make it is when herbs are in full vigor, in June."

Only a housewife, who lived in an age of abundant leisure, could afford to interest herself for two weeks in the preparation of a bottle of the "Vinegar of the Four Thieves." The housekeeper of to-day can steep her herbs, then strain them through one of the fine sieves in her pantry, the whole operation costing little labor and time, with perhaps as good results. If she is inclined to make the experiment, she will achieve a decoction which has the merit at least of romance, the secret of its combination having been purchased by sparing the lives of four distinguished Frenchmen, with the present practical value of providing a refreshing prophylactic for the sick room,—provided the lavender, rosemary, sage, wormwood, rue, and mint completely stifle the clove of garlic!

Pepper and spices were pounded in marble mortars. Sugar was purchased in the bulk—in large cones wrapped in thick blue paper. This was broken into great slices, and then subdivided into cubes by means of a knife and hammer.

Sometimes a late winter storm would overtake the new-born lambs, and they would be found forsaken by the flock. The little shivering creatures would be brought to a shelter, and fed with warm milk from the long bottles, in which even now we get Farina Cologne. Soft linen was wrapped around the slender neck, and my dear aunt fed the nurslings with her own white hands. How the lambkins could wag their tiny tails! and how they grew and prospered!

All the fine muslins of the family, my aunt's great collars, and the ruffles worn by my uncle, my Cousin Charles, and myself, were carefully laundered under my aunt's supervision. Dipped in pearly starch, they were "clapped dry" in our own hands, ironed with small irons, and beautifully crimped on a board with a penknife. Fine linen was a kind of hall-mark by which a gentleman was "known in the gates when he" sat "among the elders of the land."

I was intensely interested in all this busy life—and always eager to be a part of it.

There was nothing I had not attempted before I rounded my first decade,—churning, printing the butter with wooden moulds, or shaping it into a bristling pineapple; spinning on tiptoe at the great wheel—we had no flax-wheels—and even once scrambling up to the high seat of the weaver and sending the shuttle into hopeless tangles. "Ladies don't nuvver do dem things" sternly rebuked Milly. "Lemme ketch you ergin at dat business, an' 'twont be wuf while for Marse Chawles to baig for you."

The inconsistencies as to proprieties puzzled me then and have puzzled me ever since.

"Why mustn't I spin and churn, Milly?" I insisted. "Ain't I done tole you? Ladies don't nuvver do dem things."

"Then why can I help with the laces and muslins?"

"Cause—ladies does do dem things."

And so I became an expert blanchisseuse de fin, as it was the one household industry allowed my caste.

There was no railroad to bring us luxuries from the nearest town—Richmond—twenty-five miles distant, and we depended upon the little covered cart of Aunt Mary Miller. Aunt Mary and her husband, Uncle Jacob, were old family servants who had been given their freedom. They lived at the foot of a hill near our house, and down the path, slippery with fallen pine needles, I was often sent with Milly to summon Uncle Jacob, who was the coachman. He was very old, and gray, and always unwilling to "hitch up de new kerridge in dis bad weather." He would stand on the lawn and scan the horizon in every direction—and a dim, distant haze was enough to daunt him. Aunt Mary was allowed to collect eggs, poultry, and peacock's feathers from the neighbors, take them down to Richmond to her waiting customers, and return with sundry delightful things,—Peter Parley's books, a wax doll, oranges and candy for me, and wonderful stories of the splendors she had seen. She had other stories than these. One night "a hant" had walked around her cart and "skeered" her old horse "pretty nigh outen his senses"; as to herself, "Humph, I'se used to hants." "Where, Aunt Mary, tell me," I begged. With a furtive glance lest my elders would hear, she answered:—

"I ain't sayin' nothin'. Don't you go an' say I tole you anythin'. Jes you run down to the back of the gyardin as fur as the weepin' willer an' you'll know."

Of course I knew already what I should find beneath the willow. I had often stood at the foot of the two long white slabs and read: "Sacred to the Memory of Charles Crenshaw" and "Sacred to the Memory of Susannah Crenshaw." I knew their story. This had been their home. The brother had died early, and for love of him the sister had broken her heart. My sweet great-aunt Susannah! Had she not left a lovely Chinese basket—which I was to inherit—full of curious and precious things; a carved ivory fan, necklace, pearls, and amethysts, and a treasure of musk-scented yellow lace? Aunt Mary shook her head when I announced scornfully that I wasn't afraid of my Aunt Susannah.

"I ain't talkin'! Miss Susannah used to war blue satin high-heeled slippers. You jes listen! Some o' dese dark nights you'll hear sump'n goin' 'click, click.'"

"I know, Aunt Mary. That's the death-head moth. Milly says it won't hurt anybody, without you meddle with it."

"Humph! Milly! I seed hants befo' her mammy was bawn! I tells you it's Miss Susannah comin' on her high heels to see if you meddlin' with her things. I knowed Miss Susannah! she was monsous particlar. She ain't nuvver goin' to let you war her things."

I was a wretched child for a long time after this. Whenever I retired into the inner chambers of my imagination—as was my wont when grown-up people talked politics, or religion, or slavery—I found my pretty fairies all fled, and in their places hollow-eyed goblins and ghosts. If my gentle Aunt Susannah was permitted to come back to her home, how about all the others who had lived there? My aunt coming for her final good-night kiss would uncover a hot face, to be instantly recovered upon her departure. Par parenthèse, I never did wear Aunt Susannah's jewels. All disappeared mysteriously except the chain of lovely beads. These I wore. One night I slept in them and the next morning they were gone. Whither? Ah, you must call up some one of those long-time sleepers. According to latter-day lights, they may "come when you do call." They may know. I never did know.

CHAPTER IV

No house in Virginia was more noted for hospitality than my uncle's. I remember an ever coming and going procession of Taylors, Pendletons, Flemings, Fontaines, Pleasants, etc. These made small impression upon me. Men might come and men might go, but my lessons went on forever; writing, geography, and much reading. I had Mrs. Sherwood's books. I wonder if any present-day child reads "Little Henry and his Bearer," or Miss Edgeworth's "Rosamond," or "Peter Parley's Four Quarters of the Globe"! Hannah More was the great influence with my aunt and her friends. "Thee will be a second Hannah More" was the highest praise the literary family at Shrubbery Hill could possibly give me. Mr. Augustine Birrell could never have written his sarcastic review of her in my day. It would not have been tolerated. From Miss Edgeworth, Cowper, Burns, St. Pierre, my aunt read aloud to me. On every centre table, along with the astral lamp, lay a sumptuous volume in cream and gold. This was the elegant annual "Friendship's Offering," containing the much-admired poems of one Alfred Tennyson, collaborating with his brother Charles. Miss Martineau was much discussed and was distinctly unpopular. Stories were told of her peculiarities, her ignorance of the etiquette of polite society at the North. When she was in Washington in 1835, was invited by Mrs. Samuel Harrison Smith to an informal dinner at five o'clock. Mrs. Smith had requested three friends to meet her, and had arranged for "a small, genteel dinner." She had descended to the parlor at an early hour to arrange some flowers, when her daughter informed her that Miss Martineau and her companion, Miss Jeffrey, had arrived, and were upstairs in her bedroom, having requested to be shown to a chamber. Mrs. Smith wrote to Mrs. Kirkpatrick: "I hastened upstairs and found them combing their hair! They had taken off their bonnets and large capes. 'You see,' said Miss Martineau, 'we have complied with your request and come sociably to spend the day with you. We have been walking all the morning; our lodgings were too distant to return, so we have done as those who have no carriages do in England when they go to pass a social day.' I offered her combs, brushes, etc., but showing me the enormous pockets in her French dress she said that they were provided with all that was necessary, and pulled out nice little silk shoes, silk stockings, a scarf for her neck, little lace mits, a gold chain, and some other jewellery, and soon, without changing her dress, was prettily equipped for dinner or evening company. It was a rich treat to hear her talk when the candles were lit and the curtains drawn. Her words flow in a continuous stream, her voice is pleasing, her manners quiet and ladylike." She was thought to be unfriendly to the South—which I have the best of reasons for believing was true. All this I heard with unheeding ears, but a delicious, memorable hour awaited me. Some guest had brought her maid, and from her I heard a wonderful fairy-godmother story,—of one Cinderella, whose light footstep would not break a glass slipper.

Uncle Remus had not yet dawned upon a waiting world of children, but Cowper had written charmingly about hares and how to domesticate them. I had a flourishing colony of "Little Rabs." Some of my humble friends were domiciled in the small playhouse built for me in the garden. Into this sacred refuge, ascended by a flight of tiny steps, even Gabriella was forbidden to enter. I could just manage to stand under the low ceiling. There I entertained a strange company. I had no toys of any description, and only one doll, which was much too fine for every day. Flowers and forked sticks served for the dramatist personæ of my plays.

I had never heard of Æsop or of Aristophanes, but it was early given to me to discern the excellent points of frogs. I caught a number of them on the sandy margin of a little brook which ran at the bottom of the garden, and Milly helped me to dress them in bits of muslin and lace. Their ungraceful figures forbade their masquerading as ladies,—a frog has "no more waist than the continent of Africa,"—but with caps and long skirts they made admirable infants, creeping in the most orthodox fashion. Of course their prominent eyes and wide mouths left something to be desired; but these were very dear children, over whose mysterious disappearance their adoptive mother grieved exceedingly. Could it be that snakes—but no! The suggestion is too awful!

My aunt had a warm affection for a kinswoman who lived seven or eight miles from us. This lady's gentleness and sweetness made her a welcome visitor, and I never tired of hearing her talk, albeit her manner was tinged with sadness. She grieved over the disappearance, years before, of a dear young brother. He had simply dropped out of sight—her "poor Brother Ben!" This was a great mystery which she often discussed with my aunt, and which delightfully stirred my imagination.

One night late in summer a cold storm of rain and wind howled without and beat against the window-panes. A fire was kindled on the hearth, and around it the family gathered for a cosey evening. Suddenly some one saw a face pressed against the window, and hastened to open the door to the benighted visitor. There, dripping upon the threshold, stood a wretched-looking man. It was Brother Ben!

He carried a bundle of blankets on his back which he proceeded to unwind, revealing at last two tiny Indian girls! The frightened little creatures clung to him closely, and only after being brought to the fire and fed on warm milk were sufficiently reassured to permit him to explain himself. With one on each knee, "Brother Ben" told his story. He had run away to escape the restraints of home and had found his way to the wild Western country beyond the Ohio. Friendly Indians had sheltered and succored him, and he had finally married a young daughter of their chief. When his children were born, he "came to himself." He could not endure the prospect of rearing them among savages, and so had stolen them from their mother's wigwam during her temporary absence, and was well on his way before his theft was discovered. For days and nights he was in the wilderness, fording rivers, climbing mountains, hiding under the bushes at night. Finally he overtook a party of homeward-bound huntsmen, and in their company succeeded in reaching his sister's door.

I never knew what became of him, but the children were adopted by their aunt as her own. They were queer little round creatures, knowing no word of English, but affectionate and docile. I was much with them, delighting to teach them. I cared no more for Gabriella nor my rabbits and frogs. I thought no more of fairies and midnight apparitions. Here was food enough for imagination, different from anything I had ever dreamed of,—romance brought to my very door.

Without doubt the Indian mother, far away towards the setting sun, wept for her babes, but nobody, excepting myself, seemed to think of her. Could I write to her? Could I, some day, find a huntsman going westward and send her a message? She might even come to them! Some dark night I might see her dusky face pressed against the window-pane, peering in!

As time wore on, the children grew to be great girls, and their Indian peculiarities of feature and coloring became so pronounced that they were constantly wounded by being mistaken for mulattoes. There was no school in Virginia where they could be happy. No lady would willingly allow her little girls to associate with them. Evidently there was no future for them in Virginia. Finally their aunt found through our Quaker friends an excellent school, I think in Ohio, and thither the little wanderers were sent, were kindly treated, were educated, and grew up to be good women who married well.

My aunt made many long journeys—across the state to the White Sulphur Springs of which I remember nothing but crowds and discomfort—to Amherst, where my father lived, to Charlotte to visit my grandfather, and to Albemarle to visit friends among the mountains. She joined house-parties for a few weeks every summer; and one of these I, then a very little child, can perfectly recollect.

The country house, like all Virginia houses, was built of elastic material capable of sheltering any number of guests, many of whom remained all summer. Indeed, this was expected when a visit was promised. "My dear sir," said the master of Westover to a departing guest who had sought shelter from a rain-storm, "My dear sir, do stay and pay us a visit."

The guest pleaded business that forbade his compliance. "Well, well," said Major Drewry, "if you can't pay us a visit, come for two or three weeks at least."

"Week ends" were unknown in Virginia, and equally out of the question an invitation limited by the host to prescribed days and hours. Sometimes a happy guest would ignore time altogether and stay along from season to season. I cannot remember a parallel case to that of Isaac Watts, who, invited by Sir Thomas Abney to spend a night at Stoke Newington, accepted with great cheerfulness and staid twenty years, but I do remember that an invitation for one night brought to a member of our family a pleasant couple who remained four years. Virginia was excelled, it seems, by the mother country.

At this my first house-party there were many young people—among them the famous beauty, Anne Carmichael, and the then famous poet and novelist, Jane Lomax. These, with a number of bright young men, made a gay party. Every moonlight night it was the custom to bring the horses to the door-steps, and all would mount and go off for a visit to some neighbor. I was told, however, that the object of these nocturnal rides was to enable Miss Lomax to write poetry on the moon, and I was sorely perplexed as to the possibility, without the longest kind of a pen, of accomplishing such a feat. I spent hours reasoning out the problem, and had finally almost brought myself to the point of consulting the young lady herself,—although I distinctly thought there was something mysterious and uncanny about her,—when something occurred which strained relations between her and myself.

An uninteresting bachelor from town had appeared on the scene, to the chagrin of the young people, whose circle was complete without him. He belonged to the class representing in that day the present-day "little brothers of the rich," often the most agreeable relations the rich can boast, but in this case decidedly the reverse.

It was thought that the present intruder was "looking for a wife,"—he had been known to descend upon other house-parties without an invitation,—and it was deliberately determined to give him the most frigid of cold shoulders. Our amiable hostess, however, emphatically put a stop to this. I learned the state of things and resented it. "Old True," as he was irreverently nicknamed, was a friend of mine. I resolved to devote myself to him, and to espouse his cause against his enemies.

One day when the young ladies were together in my aunt's room there was great merriment over the situation in regard to "old True," and many jests to his disadvantage related and laughed over. To my great delight Miss Lomax presently announced: "Now, girls, this is all nonsense! Mr. Trueheart is a favorite of mine. I shall certainly accept him if he asks me."

I believed her literally. I saw daylight for my injured friend, and immediately set forth to find him. He was sitting alone under the trees, on the lawn, and welcomed the little girl tripping over the grass to keep him company. On his knee I eagerly gave him my delightful news, and saw his face illumined by it. I was perfectly happy—and so, he assured me, was he!

That evening my aunt observed an unwonted excitement in my face and manner—and after feeling my pulse and hot cheeks decided I was better off in bed, and sent me to my room, which happened to be in a distant part of the house. To reach it I had to go through a long, narrow, dark hall. I always traversed this hall at night with bated breath. Tiny doors were let into the wall near the floor, opening into small apertures then known by the obsolescent name of "cuddies." I was afraid to pass them. So far from the family, nobody would hear me if I screamed. Suppose something were to jump out at me from those cuddies!

In the middle of this fearsome place I heard quick steps behind. Before I could run or scream, strong fingers gripped my shoulders and shook me, and a fierce whisper hissed in my ear—"You little devil!"

It was the poetess—the lady who wrote verses on the moon! "Old True" had suffered no grass to grow under his feet!

He left early next morning and so did we—my aunt perceiving that the excitement of the gay house-party was not good for me.

I learned there were other things besides hot roast apples to be avoided. Fingers might be burned by meddling with people's love affairs.

We were not the only guests who left the hospitable, gay, noisy, sleep-forbidding house. Our host had an eccentric sister whom we all addressed as "Cousin Betsey Michie," and who had left her own home expressly to spend a few weeks here with my aunt, to whom she was much attached. When "Cousin Betsey" discovered our intended departure, she ordered her maid "Liddy" to pack her trunk,—a little nail-studded box covered with goatskin,—and insisted upon claiming us as her guests for the rest of the season.

"Cousin Betsey" was to me a terrible old lady,—large, masculine, "hard-favored," and with a wart on her chin. I wondered what I should do, were she ever to kiss me,—which she never did,—and had made up my mind to keep away from her as far as possible. I owed her nothing, I reasoned, as she was not really my cousin. She used strong language, and was intolerant of all the singing, dancing, and midnight rides of the young people. Her room was immediately beneath mine. But the night before, lying awake after my startling interview with the poetess, I had heard the galloping horses of the party returning from a midnight visit to "Edgeworth," and the harsh voice of Cousin Betsey calling to her sister: "Maria, Maria! Don't you dare get out of bed to give those scamps supper—a passel of ramfisticated villains, cavorting all over the country like wild Indians."

A peal of musical laughter, and "Oh, Cousin Betsey!" was the answer of a merry horsewoman below.

As we heard much about Johnsonian English from Cousin Betsey, it was reasonable to suppose, my aunt thought, that the startling word was classic.

One evening while we were her guests she suddenly asked if I could write. I was about to give her an indignant affirmative, when my aunt interrupted, "Not very well." She knew I should be pressed into service as a secretary.

"She ought to learn," said Cousin Betsey. "My own writing is more like Greek than English since my eyes fail me. Maria Gordon has been copying for me, but such fantastic flourishes! It will be Greek copied into Sanskrit if she does it. Well, what can the child do? Come here, miss. Are your hands clean? Ah! Wash them again, honey; you must help Liddy make the Fuller's pies for my dinner-party to-morrow."

I was aghast! But I found the "Fuller's pies" were quite within my powers. "Pie" was not the American institution, but the bird supposed to hide itself in its nest. "Je m'en vais chercher un grand peut-estre. Il est au nid de la pie," says Rabelais. As to my hands—I feel persuaded that Cousin Betsey's guests would have been reassured could they have known to a certainty the old lady had not prepared them with her own! A glass bowl was placed before me forthwith,—a bowl of boiling water, some almonds and raisins. "Liddy" blanched the almonds in the hot water and instructed me to press each one neatly into a large raisin, which, puffing out around the nut, made it resemble an acorn, or, to the instructed, a nest. These were the "pies" (birds in a nest), and very attractive they were, piled in the quaint old bowl with its fine diamond cutting. As to the "Fuller" thus immortalized, I looked him up, furtively, in the great Johnson's Dictionary which lay in solitary grandeur upon a table in the old lady's bedroom. Finding him unsatisfactory, I concluded Dr. Johnson was not, after all, the great man Cousin Betsey would have me believe. She quoted him on all occasions as authority upon all subjects. Boswell's Life of him, "Rasselas," "The Journey to the Hebrides," and "The Rambler" held places of honor upon the shelves of her small bookcase. "Read these, child," she reiterated, "and you need read nothing else. They will teach you to speak and write English,—you need no other language,—and everything else you need know except sewing and cooking." I soon became interested in her own literary work. She was, at the moment, engaged in writing a novel, "Some Fact and Some Fiction," which was to appear serially in the Southern Literary Messenger. I listened "with all my ears" to her talk concerning it with my aunt. It was to be a satire upon the affectations of the day—especially upon certain innovations in dress and custom brought by her cousin "Judy," the accomplished wife of our late Minister to France, Mr. Rives, and transplanted upon the soil of Albemarle County; also the introduction of Italian words to music in place of good old English. The heroine was exquisitely simple, her muslin gown clasped with a modest pearl brooch and a rose-geranium leaf. Her language was fine Johnsonian English—a sort of vitalized "Lucilla," like the heroine in Miss Hannah More's "Cœlebs." As to the Italian words for music, I blithely committed to memory this sarcastic travesty, sung for me in Cousin Betsey's sonorous contralto:—

The Frog he did a'courting ride,

Rigdum bulamitty kimo—

With sword and buckler by his side—

Rigdum bulamitty kimo.

(Chorus)

Kimo naro, delta karo!

Kimo naro, kimo!

Strim stram promedidle larabob rig

Rigdum bulamitty kimo!

This was deemed a clever satire on the unintelligible Italian words of recent songs, and ran through several verses, describing the Frog's courtship of Mistress Mouse, who seems to have been a fair lady with domestic habits who lived in a mill and was occupied with her spinning.

I was full of anticipation on the great day of the dinner-party. Mrs. Rives, Ella Page her niece, and little Amélie Rives—named for her godmother the queen of France—were the only invited guests. The house was spick and span. I filled a bowl with damask roses from the garden, sparing the microphylla clusters that hung so prettily over the front porch. The dinner was to be at two o'clock.

A few minutes before two a sable horseman galloped up to the door, dismounted, and, scraping his foot backward as he bared a head covered with gray wool, presented a note which my aunt read aloud:—

"Castle Hill, Wednesday noon.

"Dear Cousin Betsey:—I know you will be amiable enough to pardon me when I tell you how désolée I am to find the hours have flown unheeded by, and we are too late for your dinner! The young ladies and I were reading Byron together, and you know how

"'Noiseless falls the foot of time

That only treads on flowers.'

I am sure you forgive us, and hope you will prove it by asking us again.

"Your affectionate cousin,
"Judith Rives."

There was an ominous pause—and then the old dame said, in her sternest magisterial manner:—

"Tell Judy Rives to read Byron less—and Lord Chesterfield more." Turning to my aunt after the dignified old servitor had bowed himself out, she said, with fine scorn: "There's no use in telling her to read Dr. Samuel Johnson! 'Désolée,' forsooth!—and 'the foot of time'! That sounds like that idiot, Tom Moore."

I had a very good time at Cousin Betsey's. I helped to pick the berries and gather the eggs from the nests in the privet hedge. Also for several days I had a steady diet of "Fuller's pies."

As to the novel, if it appeared at all it fell upon the public ear with a dull thud. Still, Cousin Betsey must have been, in her way, a great woman, for it was of her that Thomas Jefferson exclaimed, "God send she were a man, that I might make her Professor in my University."

CHAPTER V

Something akin to the tulip mania of Holland possessed the Southern country in the early thirties. The Morus multicaulis, upon the leaves of which the silkworm feeds, can be propagated from slips or cuttings. These cuttings commanded a fabulous price. To plant them was to lay a sure foundation for a great fortune.

My uncle visited Richmond at a time when the mania had reached fever-heat. Men hurried through the streets, with bundles of twigs under their arms, as if they were flying from an enemy. All over the city auction sales were held, and fortunes lost or gained—as they are to-day in Wall Street—with the fluctuations of the market. "I saw old Jerry White running with a bundle of sticks under his arm as if the devil were after him," said my uncle,—lazy, rheumatic old Jerry, who had not for years left his chimney corner in winter, or the bench upon which he basked like a lizard in summer, except to eat and sleep!

Long galleries, roofed with glass, were hastily erected all over the country, the last year's eggs of the Bombyx mori obtained at great price, and the freshly gathered leaves of the Morus multicaulis laid in readiness for their hatching.

My uncle ridiculed this madness, although as a physician it interested him. "It does people good to stir them up," he declared. "It wakes up their livers and keeps them out of mischief. It is a fine tonic. They will need no bark and camomile while the fever lasts."

We made a pilgrimage to the distant farm of one of the maniacs. With my narrow skirts drawn closely around me, I tiptoed gingerly along the aisles dividing the long tables, and saw the hideous, grayish yellow, three-inch worms—each one armed with a rhinoceros-like horn on his head—devouring leaves for dear life. They had need for haste. Their time was short. Think of the millions of brave men and fair ladies who were waiting for the strong, shining threads it was their humble destiny to spin! Meanwhile, the lazy moths, their raison d'être having been accomplished, enjoyed in elegant leisure the evening of their days of beneficence. I saw the ease with which their spider-web thread was caught in hot water, and wound in balls as easily as I wound the wools for my aunt's knitting.

Nothing came of it all! In time all the Morus multicaulis was dug up, and good, sensible corn planted in its stead. Old Jerry found again his warm seat by the ingleside, where doubtless he

"backward mused on wasted time,"

and many a better man than poor Jerry was stricken with amazement at his own folly. Does not Morus come from the Greek word for "fool"?

Next to his Bible and the Westminster Catechism, my uncle pinned his faith to the Richmond Whig. Henry Clay was his idol. To make Henry Clay President of the United States was something to live for. When the great man passed through Virginia, all Hanover went to Richmond to do him honor, ourselves among the number. He was a son of Hanover, the "Mill boy of the Slashes." The old Mother of Presidents could, never fear, give yet another son to the country! No living man except Webster equalled him in all that the world holds essential to greatness—none was as dear to the mass of people. And yet neither could be elected to the post of Chief Magistrate of those adoring people!

Clay, at the time he visited Richmond, was confident he would win this honor. My uncle resolved I should see "the next President." A procession of citizens was to conduct him to a hall where a banquet awaited him. My uncle found a vacant doorstep on the line of march, and there we awaited the great man's coming. "Ah, there he comes!" exclaimed my uncle. "Look well, little girl! You may never again see the greatest man in the world." But to look was impossible. The crowd thronged us, and my uncle caught me to a vantage-ground on his shoulder. A tumbling sea of hats was all I could see! Presently a space appeared in the procession, and a tall man on the arm of another looked up with a rare smile to the small maiden, lifted his hat, and bowed to her! My uncle never allowed me to forget that one supreme moment in my child-life. To this day I cannot look at the fine bronze statuette of Henry Clay in my husband's library without a sensation born of the pride of that hour.

I am afraid the small maiden dearly loved glory! Nobody would ever have guessed the ambitious little heart beating, the next winter, under the cherry merino; nor the conscious lips deep in her poke-bonnet that followed the prayers at church and implored mercy for a miserable sinner! For she had, during that glorious summer, another shining hour to remember. Those penitent lips had been kissed by a great man all the way from England—a man who had kissed the hand of a queen! She had a dim apprehension of virtue through the laying on of hands in church. What, then, might not come in the way of royal attribute from the laying on of lips!

Great thoughts like these so swelled my bosom that I was fain to reveal them to my little Quaker cousin at Shrubbery Hill. She received them gravely. "Oh, Sara Agnes," she ventured, "I am afraid thee is going to be one of the world's people!" All the same she had just dressed her doll Isabella in black silk, with a lace mantilla! The Princess Isabella, born, like myself, in 1830, was even then known as the future queen of Spain. It was an age of young queens.

Among the strangers from abroad who found their way to Virginia, none was more honored in Hanover than the Quaker author and philanthropist, Joseph John Gurney. He was the brother of Elizabeth Fry, who gave her life to the amelioration of the prison horrors of England.

My uncle entertained Dr. Gurney. The house was filled with guests to its utmost capacity. A picture of the long dining-tables rises before me—the gold-and-white best service, the flowers—and the sweetest flower of all, my young aunt. She was tall and graceful and very beautiful,—with large gray eyes, dark curls framing her face, delicate features, a lovely smile! She wore a narrow gown of pearl silk, the "surplice" waist belted high, and sleeves distended at the top by means of feather cushions tied in the armholes. I remember my uncle ordered the dinner to be served quietly and in a leisurely manner. "These Englishmen eat deliberately," he said. "Only Americans bolt their food."

In the evening, after the dinner company had left, a small party gathered around the astral lamp in the parlor, and Dr. Gurney drew forth his scrap-book and pencils, and began, as he talked, to retouch sketches he had made during his journey. The parlor was simply furnished. The Virginian of that day seemed to attach small importance to the style of his furniture. His chief pride was in his table, his fine wines, his horses and equipage, and the perfect comfort he could give his guests. There was no bric-a-brac, there were no pictures or brackets on the wall. "I have now," said an artist to me, "seen everything hung on American walls except buckwheat cakes! I have seen the plate in which they were served."

This parlor at Cedar Grove admitted but one picture—a fine copy over the mantel of the School of Athens, which my cousin Charles had brought as a present for my aunt, when he last returned from abroad. She was not responsible for the taste of this inherited home, which she had not tenanted very long. The walls of the parlor were papered with a wonderful representation of a Venetian scene—printed at intervals of perhaps four or more feet. There was a castle with turrets and battlements; and a marble stair, flanked with roses in pots, descending into the water. Down this stair came the most adorable creature in the world,—roses on her brocade gown, roses on her broad hat,—and at the foot of the stair a cavalier, also adorable, extended his hand to conduct her to the gondola in waiting. In the distance were more castles, more sea, more gondolas.

In this room the distinguished stranger met the company convened in his honor. If he gasped or shuddered at the ornate walls, he gave no sign. The little girl on the ottoman in the chimney corner, permitted to sit up late because of the rare occasion, listened with wide eyes to conversation she could not understand. Weighty matters were discussed,—for all the world was alive to the question which had to be met later,—the possibility of freeing the slaves under the present constitutional laws. This was a small gathering of the wise men of our neighborhood—come to consult a wise man from the country that had met and solved a similar problem. Perhaps all of these men had, like my uncle, given freedom to inherited slaves.

Presently I found myself, as I half dreamed in the corner, caught up by strong arms to the bosom of the great man himself. Bending over the sleepy head, he whispered a strange story—how that, far away across the seas, there was once a little girl "just like you" who loved her play, and loved to sit up and hear grown people talk—how a lady came to her one day and said, "My child, you must study and learn to deny yourself much pleasure, for soon you will be the queen of England"—how the little girl neither laughed nor cried, but said, "I will be good"—how time had gone on, and she had kept her promise and was now grown up to be a lovely lady; and sure enough, just a little while ago had been crowned queen—and how everybody was glad, because they knew, as she had been a good child, she would be a good queen.

That was a long time ago. Many things have happened and been forgotten since then; the Venetian lady and her cavalier have sailed away in unknown seas; the good Englishman has long since gone to his rest; the queen has won, God grant, an immortal crown, having lived to be old, never forgetting all along her life her promise; and the little girl has lived to be old, too! She has dreamed many dreams, but none more beautiful than the one she probably dreamed that night,—all roses and castles and gondolas, and a gracious young queen lovelier than all the rest.

Thus passed the first eight years of my life. Compared with those that followed, they were years of absolute serenity and happiness. They were not gay. This was the time when people who "feared God and desired to save their souls" felt bound to forsake the Established Church, many of whose clergy had become objects of disgust rather than of reverence. Dissenters and Quakers lived all around us; my uncle and aunt were Presbyterians, and I heard little but sober talk in my early years. Sometimes we attended the silent meetings of the Quakers, and sometimes old St. Martin's, to which many of our Episcopal friends belonged. Extreme asceticism, however, was as far from the temper of my aunt and uncle as was the extreme of dissipation. They were strict in the observance of the Sabbath and of all religious duties. Temperance in speech and living, moderation, serenity,—these ruled the life at Cedar Grove.

And so, although I cannot claim that

"There was a star that danced,

And under it I was born,"

I look back with gratitude unspeakable to a beautiful childhood, and bless the memory of those who suffered no "shapes of ill to hover near it," and mar its perfect innocence.

CHAPTER VI

When it was found that a refined and intelligent society was inclined to crystallize around the court green of Albemarle County, it became imperative to choose a fitting name for a promising young village.

In 1761 there was a charming princess of Mecklenburg-Strelitz; intelligent, amiable, and only seventeen years of age. She had stepped forth from the conventional ranks of the young noblewomen of her day, and written a spirited letter to Frederick the Great, in which she entreated him to stop the ravages of war then desolating the German States. She had painted in vivid colors the miseries resulting from the brutality of the Prussian soldiery.

It appears that this letter reached the eyes of the Prince of Wales. He fell in love with the letter before he ever knew the writer. In the same year that he, as George III, ascended the throne of England, the lovely Charlotte, Princess of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, became his wife. Charlottesville, then, was a name of happy omen for the pretty little town, and in three more years a county was created, it would seem, expressly that it might be called "Mecklenburg," and yet again a slice taken from another county to form the county of Charlotte. The colony of Virginia was strewn thickly with the names of royal England: King and Queen, Charles City,—Charlestown,—King George, King William, William and Mary, Prince Edward, Princess Anne, Caroline, Prince George, Henrico, Prince William. No less than four rivers were named in honor of the good Queen Anne: Rapidan, North Anna, South Anna, Rivanna. We might almost call the roll of the House of Lords from a list of Virginia counties.

Twenty-four years after the Princess Charlotte had become a queen, Mrs. Abigail Adams, as our minister's wife, was presented at the Court of St. James. Alas for time,—and perhaps for prejudice,—she found, in place of the charming princess, an "embarrassed woman, not well-shaped nor handsome, although bravely attired in purple and silver." The interview was cold and stilted, but all the "embarrassment" was on the part of royalty.

There had been a recent unpleasantness between John Bull and Brother Jonathan; King George, however, brave Briton as he was, broke the ice, and startled Mrs. Adams by giving her a hearty kiss! She could not venture, however, to remind the queen that we had named counties in her honor. She might, in her present state of mind, have deemed it an impertinence on our part.

Residence of Dr. S. P. Hargrave.

I am so impatient under descriptions of scenery, that I do not like to inflict them upon others. But I wish I could stand with my reader upon the elliptic plain formed by cutting down the apex of Monticello. He would, I am sure, appreciate the fascination of mountain, valley, and river which drew the first settlers, and later the Randolphs, Gilmers, William Wirt, and Thomas Jefferson, to the region around Charlottesville. On the east the almost level scene is bounded by the horizon, and on the west the land seems to billow onward, wave after wave, until it rises in the noble crests of the Blue Ridge Mountains. A mist of green at our feet is pierced here and there by the simple belfries of the village churches, and a little farther on, glimpses appear of the classic Pantheon and long colonnades of the University of Virginia. Imagination may fill in this picture, but reality will far exceed imagination, especially if the happy moment is caught at sunset when the mountains change color, from rose through delicate shadings to amethyst, and finally paint themselves deep blue against the evening sky. Then, should that sky chance to be veiled with light, fleecy clouds all flame and gold—but I forbear!

This was the spot chosen by my aunt as the very best for my education and my social life. The town was small in the forties, indeed, is not yet a city. It is described at that time as having four churches, two book-stores, several dry-goods stores, and a female seminary. The family of Governor Gilmer lived on one of the little hills, Mr. Valentine Southall on another, and we were fortunate enough to secure a third, with a glorious view of the mountains and with grounds terraced to the foot of the hill. Large gardens, grounds, and ornamental trees surrounded all the houses. The best of these were of plain brick of uniform unpretentious architecture, comfortable, and ample. A small brick building at the foot of our lawn was my uncle's office, and behind it, on my tenth birthday, he made me plant a tree.

The "Female Seminary" had been really the magnet that drew my dear aunt. It was a famous school, presided over by an excellent and much-loved Presbyterian clergyman. There it was supposed I should learn everything my aunt could not teach me.

Behold me, then, on a crisp October morning wending my way to the great brick hive for girls. I was going with my aunt to be examined for admission. Her thoughts were, doubtless, anxious enough about the creditable showing I should make. Mine were anxious, too. I was conscious of a linen bretelle apron under my pelisse, and my mind was far from clear about the propriety of so juvenile a garment. Suppose no other girl wore bretelle aprons!

However, when we marched up the broad brick-paved walk and ascended the steps of the great building, whose many windows seemed to stare at us like lidless eyes, bretelle aprons sank into insignificance.

The room into which we were ushered seemed to be filled with hundreds of girls, and the Reverend Doctor's desk on a platform towered over them. He was most affable and kind. The examination lasted only a few minutes, a list of books was given me, and a desk immediately in front of the principal assigned me. Books were borrowed from some other girl, the lessons for the next day pointed out, and my school life began.

Remember, I had not yet planted my tenth birthday tree. These were the books deemed suitable for my age,—Abercrombie's "Intellectual Philosophy," Watts on the "Improvement of the Mind," Goldsmith's "History of Greece," and somebody's Natural Philosophy.

I worked hard on these subjects with the result that, as I could not understand them, I learned by rote a few words in answer to the questions. A bright, amiable little scrap of a girl, who always knew her lessons, volunteered to assist me. If any collector of old books should happen to find a volume of Watts on the Mind, much thumbed, and blotted here and there with tears, and should see within the early pages pencilled brackets enclosing the briefest possible answer to the questions, that book, those tears, were mine; and the brackets are the loving marks made by Margaret Wolfe, whose memory I ever cherish.

"What is Logic?" questions the teacher's guide at the bottom of the pages.

"Logic," answers Dr. Watts (in conspicuous pencilled brackets), "is the art of investigating and communicating Truth."

I had been struggling with Dr. Watts, Abercrombie, et al., for several months, when my aunt reluctantly realized that, however admirable the school might be for others, I was not improving in mind or health. As soon as she arrived at this conclusion, she decided to experiment with no more large female seminaries, but to educate me, as best she could, at home.

At the same time I know that my dear aunt suffered from the overthrow of all her plans for my education. She had, for my sake, made great sacrifices in leaving her inherited home. These sacrifices were all for naught. She must have felt keen disappointment, and regret at the loss, toil, expense,—and, above all, my worse than wasted time.

Yet, after all, my time at school may not have been utterly thrown away! The experience may have borne fruit that I know not of. Moreover, I had learned something! I learned that Logic is the art of investigating and communicating Truth!

CHAPTER VII

Masters were found in a preparatory school for my home education. Happy to escape from the schoolroom, I worked as never maiden worked before, loving my summer desk in the apple tree in the garden, loving my winter desk beside the blazing wood in my uncle's office, passionately loving my music, and interested in the other studies assigned me. With no competitive examinations to stimulate me, I yet made good progress. Before I reached my thirteenth year, I had learned to read French easily. I had wept over the tender story of Picciola and the sorrows of Paul and Virginia. I had sailed with Ulysses and trod the flowery fields with Calypso. My aunt had beguiled me into a course of history by allowing me as reward those romances of Walter Scott which are founded on historical events. My love of music and desire to excel in it made me patient under the eccentric itinerant music teacher, the one pioneer apostle of classic music in all Virginia, who was known, more than once, to arrive at midnight and call me up for my lesson; and who, while other maidens were playing the "Battle of Prague" and "Bonaparte crossing the Rhine," or singing the campaign songs of the hero of the log cabin, taught me to love Beethoven and Liszt, and to discern the answering voices in that genius, then young, whose magic music fell not then, nor ever after, upon unheeding ears. I had read with my aunt selections all the way from "The Faerie Queene" through the times of later queens,—Elizabeth and Anne,—and had made a beginning with the queen for whom I had a sentiment, and who has given her name to so fair an age of fancy and of elegant writing. Alas, for the mental training I might have had through the study of mathematics! Were it not that the lack of this training must be apparent to all who are kind enough to listen to my story, I might quote Joseph Jefferson, as Mr. William Winter reports him: "Why, look at me! I seem to have managed pretty well, but I couldn't for the life of me add up a column of figures." The only figures I know anything about are figures of speech. Fortunately, I have had little use for addition. My knowledge has been quite sufficient for my needs.

My French teacher, Mr. Mertons,—a square-shouldered, spectacled German, with an upright shock of coarse black hair, literally pounded the French language into me. With a grammar held aloft in his left hand, he emphasized every rule with his right fist, coming down hard on my aunt's mahogany. If success is to be measured by results, I can only say that, although I perceived some charm in Mme. de Sévigné and in Dumas, I was rather dense with Racine and Molière; and as to the spoken language! I can usually manage to convey, by gesture and deliberate English, a twilight glimmer of my meaning in talking to a polite Frenchman, but blank darkness descends upon him when I speak to him in "a French not spoken in France." The gift for "divers kinds of tongues" was not bestowed upon me.

The music teacher deserves more than a passing notice. He was unique. Mr. William C. Rives found him somewhere in France, and promised him a large salary if he would come to America, live near or in Charlottesville, and teach his daughter Amélie. He was the incarnation of thriftlessness; with no polish of manner, no idea of business, or order, or of the necessity of paying a debt, but he was also the incarnation of music! My uncle again and again satisfied the sheriff and released him from bonds. Finally, he could not appear in town at all by daylight, and often arrived at midnight for my lesson. Gladly my aunt would rise and dress to preside over it. My teacher would disappear before the dawn. He owed money all over town which he had not the faintest intention of ever paying. More than once his defenceless back could have borne witness to a creditor's outraged feelings. But he was resourceful. Thereafter he carried all his music, a thick package, in a case sewed to the lining of his coat. His back, rather than his breast, needed a shield. It was amusing to see him pack himself up, as it were, before venturing into the open.

But with all this, we prized him above rubies. He was a brilliant pianist, a great genius; had studied with Liszt, early appreciated Chopin, adored Beethoven. One of his animated lessons would leave me in a state "which fiddle-strings is weakness to express my nerves," and yet no summons to duty ever thrilled me with pleasure like his "Koom on ze biahno." Once there, absolute fidelity to the composer's writing and the position of my hands exacted all my attention. The margins of my music were liberally adorned with illustrations of my fist—a clumsy bunch with an outsticking thumb.

I always felt keenly the charm of music, even when it was beyond my comprehension. One day, happening to look up from his own playing, he detected tears in my eyes. He was enraged in three languages. "Himmel! Zis is not bathétique! Zis is scherzo! Eh, bien! I blay him adagio." And under shut teeth a sibilant whisper sounded very much like "imbécile," as he hung his head to one side, arched his brows, and drawled out the theme in a ridiculous manner. Once I was so carried away by a delicious passage I was playing that I diminished the tempo, that the linked sweetness might be long drawn out. He literally danced! He beat time furiously with both hands. "Ach! is it you yourselluf, know bedder zan ze great maestro," and sweeping me from the piano stool he rendered the passage properly.

One summer my aunt, in order that I might have lessons, took board in a country place where he lived. I was pleasing myself one day with a little German song I had smuggled from town:—

"The church bells are ringing, the village is gay,

And Leila is dressed in her bridal array.

She's wooed, and she's won

By a proud Baron's son,

And Leila, Leila, Leila's a Lady!"

Proceeding gayly with the chorus, and exulting in Leila's ladyship and good fortune, I was startled by thunderous claps through the house. Mr. Meerbach was fleeing to his own room, slamming the doors between himself and my uneducated voice!

Of course he lost his scholars. At last only Amélie Rives, Jane Page, Eliza Meriwether, and myself remained. We had to make up his salary among us. "I hope you'll study, dear," said my kind uncle; "I am now giving eight dollars apiece for your lessons." Jane Page played magnificently. This rare young genius, a niece of Mrs. William C. Rives, died young. The rest of us played well, too. My teacher wished to take me to Richmond to play for Thalberg his own difficult, florid music, and was terribly chagrined at my aunt's refusal to permit me to go.

The little Episcopal church and rectory were just across the street, and the rector, Mr. Meade, allowed me free access to the gallery, where I delighted to practise on the small pipe organ. I was just tall enough to reach the foot notes. The church was peculiarly interesting from the fact that Thomas Jefferson, who is supposed to have been a free thinker, had insisted upon building it and had furnished the plans for it. Before it was built, services were held in the Court House, which Mr. Jefferson regularly attended, bringing his seat with him on horseback from Monticello, "it being," says Bishop Meade, "of some light machinery which, folded up, was carried under his arm and, unfolded, served for a seat on the floor of the Court House."

I was thirteen years old when Mr. Meade sent for me one evening to come to him in his vestry room. He told me that the Episcopal Convention was to meet in his church in two days, and he had just discovered that Miss Willy (the organist) had arranged an entire new service of chants and hymns. He had requested her not to use it, urging that his father the bishop, the clergy, and all his own people knew and loved the old tunes, and could not join in the new. Miss Willy had indignantly resented his interference and threatened to resign, with all her choir, unless he yielded. "I shall certainly not yield," said the rector. "I have told her that I know a little girl who will be glad to help me. Now I wish you to play for the convention, beginning day after to-morrow (Sunday), and every evening during its session. This will give you evening services all the week, beginning with three on Sunday. I will see that familiar hymns are selected, and you need chant none of the Psalms except the Benedictus and Gloria in Excelsis."

I began, "Oh, I'm afraid—" "No," said Mr. Meade, "you're not afraid; you are not going to be afraid. Just be in your place fifteen minutes before the time, and draw the curtain between you and the audience. I shall send you a good choir."

I practised with a will next day. On the great day, when I passed the sable giant, Ossian, pulling away at the rope under the belfry, and heard the solemn bell announcing that my hour had come, my heart sank within me. But Ossian gave me a glittering smile which showed all his magnificent ivories. He was grinning because he was going to pump the organ for such a slip of a lass as I!

On arriving at the organ gallery, I found my choir,—several ladies whom I knew, and a group of fine-looking students from the University. They looked down kindly on the small organist, with her hair hanging in two braids down her back. I resolutely kept that small back to the drawn curtain! Only the tip of one of Miss Willy's nodding plumes, and I should have been undone!

All went well. The singing was fine from half a dozen manly throats, supplementing two or three female voices and my own little pipe. I was soon lost to my surroundings in the enjoyment of my work. When, on the last day, the good bishop asked for the grand old hymn, "How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord," it thrilled my soul to hear the church fill with the triumphant singing of the congregation, led by little me and my improvised choir.

CHAPTER VIII

The society of Charlottesville in the forties was composed of a few families of early residents and of the professors at the University. Governor Gilmer, Secretary of the Navy in Tyler's time, Mr. Valentine Southall of an old Virginia family, and himself eminent in his profession of the law, Dr. Charles Carter, Professor Tucker, William B. Rogers, Dr. McGuffey, Dr. Cabell, Professor Harrison,—all these names are well known and esteemed to this day. There were young people in these families, and all them were my friends. Along the road I have travelled for so many years I have met none superior to them and very few their equals.

My special coterie was a choice one. It included, among others, Lizzie Gilmer (the lovely) and her sisters; beautiful Lucy Southall; Maria Harrison and her sweet sister Mary, both accomplished in music and literature; Eliza Rives and Mary McGuffey. James Southall, William C. Rives, Jr., George Wythe Randolph, Jack Seddon, Kinsey Johns, Professor Schéle de Vere, John Randolph Tucker, St. George Tucker—these were habitués of my home, and all apparently interested in me and in my music. To each name I might append a list of honors won, at the bar, in literature, and in the army. I have survived them all—and I kept the friendship of each one as long as he lived. The customs in entertaining differed from those in vogue at the present day. Afternoon teas, which had been fashionable during the Revolution—tea then being a rare luxury—had not survived until the forties. Choice Madeira in small glasses, and fruit-cake were offered to afternoon callers. The cake must always be au naturel if served in the daytime. Cake iced—in evening dress—was only permissible at the evening hour.

Dinner-parties demanded a large variety of dishes. They were not served à la Russe. Two table-cloths were de rigueur for a dinner company. One was removed with the dishes of meat, vegetables, celery, and many pickles, all of which had been placed at once upon the table. The cut-glass and silver dessert dishes rested on the finest damask the housewife could provide. This cloth removed, left the mahogany for the final walnuts and wine.

Three o'clock was a late hour for a dinner-party—the ordinary family dinner was at two. The large silver tureen, which is now enjoying a dignified old age on our sideboards, had then place at the foot of the table. After soup, boiled fish appeared at the head.

An interview has been preserved between a Washington hostess of the time and Henry, an "experienced and fashionable" caterer. Upon being required to furnish the smallest list of dishes possible for a "genteel" dinner-party of twelve persons, he reluctantly reduced his menu to soup, fish, eight dishes of meat, stewed celery, spinach, salsify, and cauliflower. "Potatoes and beets would not be genteel." The meats were turkey, ham, partridges, mutton chops, sweetbreads, oyster pie, pheasants, and canvas-back ducks. "Plum-pudding," suggested the hostess. "La, no, ma'am! All kinds of puddings and pies are out of fashion." "What, then, can I have at the head and foot of the table?" asked the hostess. "Forms of ice-cream at the head, and at the foot a handsome pyramid of fruit. Side dishes, jellies, custards, blanc-mange, cakes, sweetmeats, and sugar-plums." "No nuts, raisins, figs?" "Oh, no, no, ma'am, they are quite vulgar!"

For the informal supper-parties, to which my aunt was wont to invite the governor and Mrs. Gilmer, Mr. and Mrs. Southall, Professor and Mrs. Tucker, the table was amply furnished with cold tongue, ham, broiled chickens or partridges, and pickled oysters, hot waffles, rolls and muffins, very thin wheaten wafers, green sweetmeats, preserved peaches, brandied peaches, cake, tea, and coffee; and in summer the fruits of the season. These suppers made a brave showing with the Sheffield candelabra and bowls of roses. Ten years later these "high teas" were quite out of fashion, and would, by a modern "fashionable caterer," be condemned as "vulgar." There was a crusade against all card-playing and dancing. The pendulum was swinging far back from an earlier time when the punchbowl and cards ruled the evening, and the dancing master held long sessions, travelling from house to house. To have a regular dancing party, with violins and cotillon, was like "driving a coach-and-six straight through the Ten Commandments!" My aunt, however, had the courage of her convictions, and allowed me small and early dances in our parlor, with only piano music. Old Jesse Scott lived at the foot of the hill—but to the length of introducing him and his violin we dared not go. As it was, after our first offence, a sermon was preached in the Presbyterian church against the vulgarity and sin of dancing. My aunt listened respectfully but continued the dance she deemed good for my health and spirits.

The noblest of men, and one of my uncle's dearest friends, was Thomas Walker Gilmer, Secretary of the Navy during Tyler's administration. He was killed on the Potomac by the bursting of a gun on trial for the first time. My uncle and aunt went immediately to Washington to bring him home. No man had ever been so loved and esteemed by all who knew him. I have never seen such grief, as the sorrow of his wife. She had been a brilliant member of the Washington society, noted for ready wit and repartee. Never, as long as she lived, did she reënter social life. With her orphaned children she lived on "The Hill" very near us. These children were a part of our family always.

As time went on, and we grew tall,—Lizzie and I,—students from the University found us out, and had permission to visit us. Lizzie, three years my senior, became engaged to St. George Tucker, one of our choice circle. When more visitors called on Lizzie than she could well entertain in an evening, it was her custom to send Susan, a little pet negress whom she had taught to read, running down the hill with, "Please, Miss Hargrave, please, ma'am, Miss Lizzie say she certn'ly will be glad if you let Miss Sara come up an' help 'er with her comp'ny." My aunt could never deny her anything. I was too young, much too young, but we took our lives very naturally and unconsciously, accepting a guest and doing our best for him, whether he was old or young. We were never announced as débutantes. No Rubicon flowed across our path,—on one side pinafores and long braids, on the other purple-and-fine-linen and elaborate coiffure,—the which if stepped across at an entertainment ushered us into society.

Lizzie and I felt that we were young hostesses, and took pains to be, according to our lights, ceremonious and conventional in our behavior. Some one or two of our guests was sure to be George Gordon, or James Southall, or "Jim" White, or "Sainty" Tucker, who were as brothers to us; and very watchful and strict were these boy chaperons! The great anxiety was lest our visitors should stay too late. So my aunt and Mrs. Gilmer carefully timed the burning of a candle until ten o'clock, and all candles thereafter were cut that length. When they began to flicker in the sockets, good nights were expected.

Mrs. Gilmer's large house was divided in the middle by a hall extending to a door in the rear. On one side were the bedrooms of the family, on the other the parlors and dining-room. She spent her evenings in a darkened room, just across the hall from the parlor, and although she had not the heart to mingle with us, we knew she was near.

One night we had a number of guests, among them a stranger, Mr. Tebbs, brought by one of our own band who had introduced him and then left, Mr. Tebbs remarking that he too must soon leave, as a friend was down town waiting for him. The candles burned low, and we allowed long pauses in conversation, vainly hoping the stranger would depart. Presently the knocker sounded an alarum, and little Susan hurried from her mistress's room to answer it. We distinctly heard her announce, "Dish yer's a letter, Miss Ann," and Mrs. Gilmer's languid reply, "Light a candle and read it to me." We essayed to drown Susan's voice, for I was quite sure it was a peremptory order for me to come home, but it rang out clearly and deliberately, "Tebbs, you damn rascal! Are you going to stay at Mrs. Gilmer's all night!" To make matters worse, Susan immediately appeared with the note for the blushing Mr. Tebbs, who then and there bade us a long farewell. We never saw him more! A delicious little story was told with keen relish by Juliet, the fifteen-year-old daughter. She had, as she thought, "grown up," while her mother lived in seclusion, and had a boy-lover of her own. Sitting, after hours, one moonlight night on the veranda under her mother's window, the anxious youth was moved to seize the propitious moment and declare himself. Juliet wished to answer correctly, and dismiss him without wounding him. She assured him "Mamma would never consent." A voice from within decided the matter: "Accept the young man, Juliet, if you want to—I've not the least objection—and let him run along home now. Be sure to bolt the door when you come in!" Evidently Mrs. Gilmer had small respect for boy-lovers; and wished to go to sleep.

The Gilmer home was full of treasures of books and pictures. We turned over the great pages of Hogarth and the illustrations of Shakespeare, very much to the damage of these valuable books. Choice old Madeira was kept in the cellar, to which we had free access, mixing it with whipped cream or mingling it with ice, sugar and nutmeg whenever we so listed. A great gilded frame rested against the wall, from which some large painting had been removed. Over this we stretched a netting and inaugurated tableaux vivantes, of which we never wearied. I was always Rowena, to whom Lizzie, as Rebecca the Jewess, gave her jewels. One of the Gilmer boys made an admirable Dr. Primrose, another Moses, whom we dressed for the fair, and the other children were flower girls, nuns, or pilgrims with staff and shell.

When one questions the possibility of this large family living for several years without a head and moving about decorously and systematically, we must not forget the family butler, Mandelbert, and his wife, Mammy Grace. Both were long past middle age. They simply assumed the care of their broken-hearted mistress and her children, ruling the house with patient wisdom and kindness. Mammy Grace, so well known fifty years ago in Virginia, was peculiar in her speech, retaining the imagery of her race and nothing of its dialect. She was straight and tall and always carefully dressed. She wore a dark, close-fitting gown, which she called a "habit," a handkerchief of plaid madras crossed upon her bosom, an ample checked apron, and a cap with a full mob crown like Martha Washington's. When she dropped her respectful "curtsey," her salutation, "Your servant, master," was less suggestive of deference than of dignified self-respect. Her one fault was that, like her mistress, she never knew when the children were grown. This was sometimes embarrassing. As surely as 8 o'clock Saturday night came, one after the other would be called from the parlor, and would obey instantly, for fear she would add more than a hint of the thorough, personally superintended bath which awaited each one.

Mandelbert was superb, tall, gray, and very stately. He had been born and trained in the family, a model, distingué-looking servant. Mammy Grace lived to an honored old age, but a liberal use of fine old Madeira proved the reverse of the modern lacteal remedy for old age. In a few years there was no more wine in the cellar—and no more Mandelbert.

The grandmother of the Gilmer children was Mrs. Ann Baker, a lovely old lady who wore a Letitia Ramolino turban, with little curls sewn within its brim. She had been a passenger on James Rumsey's boat in 1786 at Shepherdstown, when he was the first to succeed by steam alone in propelling a vessel against the current of the Potomac, and "at the rate of four or five miles an hour!" She was a lovely, cultivated old lady, the widow of a distinguished man. I cannot be quite sure,—all witnesses are gone,—but I have a distinct impression I was told that General Washington was a passenger with Mrs. Baker on James Rumsey's boat.

CHAPTER IX

The year after my fifteenth birthday was destined to be an eventful one to me. In May of that year I wrote a letter to my aunt, Mrs. Izard Bacon Rice, who lived at "The Oaks" in Charlotte County. This letter, the earliest extant of my girlhood, has recently been placed in my hands, and I venture to hope I may be pardoned for inserting the naïve production here; not for any intrinsic merit, but because of the light it reflects upon my development and associations at the age of fifteen,—a light not to be acquired by mere recollection, as a photograph of the person must be more lifelike than a sketch from memory.

"Charlottesville, May 25, 1845.

"My dear Aunt: I think that I have fully tested the truth of the old saying, viz. 'Hope deferred maketh the heart sick,' for I have hoped and hoped in vain for an answer to my last letter, and since it does not make its appearance, I write to request an explanation.

"I received a letter from Willie (Carrington) this morning, and was rejoiced to hear that you still intend coming to Charlottesville 'some of these times,' and that she thinks of coming also. I am overjoyed at the idea of seeing my dear little Henry, and Tom in a few weeks. Willie says that Henry is beautiful, and that Tom has become quite a famous beau, improved wonderfully in gallantry, etc. I anticipate a great many long, pleasant walks with him, though I am afraid he will not like Charlottesville, as he will find no rabbits' tracks or partridges here. I hope you will come the first of June and stay a long while with us.

"Aunt Mary has been very unwell for a long time, but I am in hopes that she is getting a little better. I think your visit will improve her wonderfully. We are all as busy as we can be: aunt and uncle in the garden and yard, and I studying my French lessons, sewing, reading, and housekeeping for Aunt Mary when she is sick. I am very disconsolate at the thought of losing my most intimate friend (Lizzie Gilmer) for a few months. She is going to Staunton, and I expect to miss her very much. We have a very quiet time now—as most of my acquaintances were sent off at the late disturbances at the University, and I can study, undisturbed by company. I scarcely visit any one except Lizzy, and receive more visits from her than any one else, as she comes every day, and frequently two or three times a day. I am going to spend my last evening with her this evening, as she leaves to-morrow. I am very sorry that Willie will not see her, as I know they would like each other.

"Who do you think I have had a visit from? No less a personage than Dr. Schéle de Vere, professor of modern languages at the University. He has called on me twice, but I, unfortunately, was not at home once when he called. He is a German (one of the nobility), and speaks our language shockingly, and is such an incessant chatterer that he gives me no possible chance of wedging in a syllable. He walked with me from church last Sunday, and jabbered incessantly, much to the amusement of the congregation in general, but particularly of two little boys who walked behind us. When he parted with us, he asked uncle's permission to visit us, which was granted; and he seemed very grateful, and said he 'would have de pleasure den of sharing de doctor's hospitality and hearing some of Miss Rice's fine music.' But what mortifies me beyond measure is that he treats me as a little child, and inquires most affectionately about my progress in music, etc. He is not so much older than I am, either, as he is only twenty-one, so I think he might be more respectful in his demeanor. What do you think of it all? He plays very well on the piano, and has heard the best performers in Europe, so I feel very reluctant to play for him. The first time he heard me play, he wanted to applaud me as they do at concerts, but he was checked by one of the company, who intimated to him that it was not customary in this country, so he contented himself with clapping his hands several times.

"I have neither time nor paper for much more, so good-by. Aunt Mary joins me in love and a kiss to all grandfather's household and to Tom, Henry, and Uncle Izard.

"Yours affectionately,
"Sara A. Rice.

"P.S. I send my best respects to Lethe, Viny, and Aunt Chany, and my love to all the ducks, geese, chickens, turkeys, and Tom's dogs.

"Yours affectionately,
"Sara A. Rice."

This sixty-four-year-old letter was beautifully written with a quill pen, clear and distinct without an erasure, blotted with sand from a perforated box, without envelope, and sealed with wax. Written in figures upon the envelope was "Uncle Sam's" receipt for prepaid postage, 12½ cents, no stamps having then been issued by him.

Fanciful seals and motto wafers were in high favor among romantic young people. "L'amitié c'est l'amour sans ailes" was a prime favorite; also a maiden in a shallop looking upward to a star, the legend "Si je te perds je suis perdu." The most delicate refusal to a lover on record was the lady's card, "With thanks," sealed with a bird in flight and "Liberty is sweet!"

The "disturbances of late," for which my friends were "suspended for a month," were not of a serious nature. They were only the midnight pranks of mischievous boys, such as hyphenating the livery-stable's name "Le Tellier" to read "Letel-Liar," drawing his "hacks" to the doors of the citizens, placing the undertaker's sign over the physician's office, driving Mr. Schéle's ponies, and leaving on their flanks the painted words "So far for to-day," the phrase with which he invariably ended his lectures. It remained later for the student in whom I was most interested to excel them all. He drove a flock of sheep one dark night up the rotunda stairs to the platform on the roof, and then shut down the trap-door. A plaintive good-morning-bleating welcomed faculty and students next day. Needless to say, the valiant shepherd was "suspended."

Late in the summer of this year another large convention of clergymen, Presbyterian this time, was held at Charlottesville. No good hotel could be found anywhere in Virginia. The landlord was ruined by the hospitality of the citizens. As soon as a pleasant stranger "put up" at a public house, he was claimed as a guest by the first man who could reach him.

When large religious or political or literary meetings convened in our town, my uncle would send to the chairman asking for the number of guests we could entertain. Until they arrived, we were as much on the qui vive as if we had bought numbers in a lottery.

On this occasion, Lizzie and I were in great grief. She had been away from town for two months, and was now to make me a long visit. We had made plans for a lovely week. Now the house would be filled with clergymen,—no music, no visitors (and Lizzie was engaged), no "fun"! My aunt sympathized with us, and fitted up a small room at the far end of the hall, moved in the piano and guitar, and bade us make ourselves at home.

We were seated at church behind a row of the grave and reverend seniors, when Dr. White leaned over our pew and said to one of them, "I'm glad to tell you I can send you to Dr. Hargrave's. He will take fine care of you."

"But," demurred the reverend gentleman, "I have my son with me."

"Take him along! There's plenty of room," replied the doctor.

Lizzie gave me a despairing glance. Now we are ruined, we thought. A dreadful small boy to be amused and kept out of mischief.

That afternoon we were condoling with each other in our little city of refuge, when the opening front door revealed among our guests a slender youth, who, upon being directed to his room, sprang up the stairs two or three steps at a time.

"Mercy!" said I. "Worse and worse! There's no hope for us! A strange young man to be entertained in our little parlor!" My aunt entering just then, we confided our miseries to her. "Never mind, Lizzie," she said, "Sara shall keep him in the large room. She must bring down all her prettiest books and pictures and arrange a table in a corner for his amusement. He will not be here much of the time. He has to go to church with his father, you know."

The name of this unwelcome intruder was Roger A. Pryor. He made himself charming. I had not yet tucked up my long braids, but he treated me beautifully. He was so alert, so witty, so amiable, that he was unanimously voted the freedom of our sanctum. He entered with glee into our schemes for self-defence. Running out to a shrub on the lawn, he returned with a handful of "wax berries," gravely explained, "ammunition," and proceeded to test the range of the missile. Just then one of the enemy, the great Dr. Plumer, entered the hall, and the soft berry neatly reached his dignified nose. His Reverence gave no sign of intelligence. He had been a boy himself!

St. George Tucker took an immense fancy to our new ally. He found a great deal to say to me. How glad was I that my aunt had given me a new rose-colored silk bonnet from Mme. Viglini's.

The week passed like a dream. When the stage drew up at midnight to take our guest to the railroad, seven miles distant, we were both very triste at parting.

He was sixteen years old, was to graduate next summer at Hampden Sidney College, and come the session afterward to our University. I hoped all would go well with him; and after the winding horn of the stage was quite out of hearing, I,—well, I had been taught early to entreat the Father of all to take care of my friends. There could be no great harm in including him by name, nor yet in adding to my petition the words "for me!"

I suppose I may have seemed a bit distrait after this incident, for my uncle, who was always devising occupation for me, insisted upon my writing a story. I liked to please him, and I surprised him by producing a love story. I think I called it "The Birthnight Ball." I remember this quotation, which I considered quite delicate and suggestive:—

"The stars, with vain ambition, emulate her eyes." That is all I remember of my story. My uncle sent it to the Saturday Evening Post in Philadelphia and it was accepted, the editor proposing, as I was a young writer, to waive the honorarium! I was only too glad to accept the honor.

In the autumn my uncle took us on a long journey to Niagara Falls and the Northern Lakes. In New York we stopped at the Astor House on Broadway, and my room looked into the park then opposite, where scarlet flamingoes gathered around a fountain. We walked in the beautiful Bowling Green Park, then the fashionable promenade, took tea with the Miss Bleeckers on Bleecker Street, and bought a lovely set of turquoises, a jewelled comb, and a white topaz brooch from Tiffany's. Moreover, my seat at table was near that of John Quincy Adams, now an aged man, paralytic, and almost incapable of conveying his food to his lips. He was charmingly cheerful, and courteous to a sweet-faced lady who attended him.

I think we took the canal-boat in Schenectady which was to convey us across the state of New York.

My uncle had been beguiled in New York by a flaming pictorial advertisement of palatial packet-boats, drawn by spirited horses galloping at full speed. When we entered our little craft, we found it so crowded that we were wretchedly uncomfortable. Possibly, in our ignorance, we had not taken the fine packet of the advertisement. Our own boat crawled along at a snail's pace, making three or four miles an hour. Many of the passengers left it every morning, preferring to walk ahead and wait for us until night. We made the journey in five or six days. The heat, the discomfort, the mosquitoes! Who can imagine the misery of that journey? Fresh from the mountains and gorgeous sunsets of Albemarle, we found little to admire in the scenery.

As to the Falls, which we had come so far to see—they and their entourage made me ill. It was all so weird and strange; the dark forests of evergreen, pine, and spruce; the sullen Indians, squatted around blankets, embroidering with beads and porcupine quills; the hapless little Indian babies strapped to boards and swinging in the trees, and over all, the heavy roar of the waters. The immensity of their power filled me with terror. I longed to get away from the awful spectacle.

The best part of a journey is the home-coming. The dear familiar house,—we never knew how good it was,—the welcome of affectionate, cheerful servants; the dogs beside themselves with joy, the perfect peace, leisure, relaxation! Flowers, fruit, and much accumulated mail awaited us. My keen eye detected a large-enveloped paper from Philadelphia, and my nimble fingers quickly abstracted it, unperceived, from the miscellaneous heap, and consigned it to a bureau drawer in my room, the key of which went into my pocket.

In the privacy of my bedtime hour—having bolted the door—I drew it forth. Oh, what inane foolishness! What sad trash! Tearing it into strips, I lighted each one at my candle and saw the whole burned—burned to impalpable smoke and degraded dust and ashes; consigned then and there to utter oblivion!

My uncle often wondered why the story had not appeared. There was a perilous moment when he threatened to write to the publishers, but I persuaded him to be patient and dignified about it, and the matter, after a while, was forgotten. Never was an uncle so managed by a young girl!

I think my great card with him was my interest in his office work. Physicians compounded and prepared their own prescriptions sixty-five years ago. He delighted in me when I donned my ample apron and, armed with scales and spatula, gravely assumed the airs of a physician's assistant. I knew all his professional manœuvres to satisfy hypochondriac old gentlemen and nervous old ladies. I learned to make the innocuous pills which "helped" them "so much," and the carminative for the aching little stomachs of the babies. Great have been the strides since then in the noblest of all professions!

Mrs. Fanny Bland Randolph.

Just here I venture to illustrate some of the radical changes in the practice of medicine by extracts from a letter written by Dr. Theodorick Bland to his sister, Fanny Bland Randolph. The letter is copied from the original in the possession of the late Joseph Bryan of Richmond, Virginia.

The treatment in 1840 differed in no material particular from that of 1771, when Dr. Bland prescribed—regretting the necessity of "absent treatment"—to his sister's husband, John Randolph, as follows:—

"I take Mr. Randolph's case to be a bilious intermittent, something of the inflammatory kind, which, had he been bled pretty plentifully in the beginning, would have intermitted perfectly; but unless his pulse is hard and, as it were, laboring and strong, I would not advise that he should now be bled; but if they are strong and his head-ache violent, and the weight of the stomach great, let him lose about six ounces of blood from the arm, and if he is much relieved from that, and his pulse rises and is full and strong after it, a little more may be taken. Let his body be kept open by Glysters, made with chicken water, molasses, decoction of marsh-mallows and manna, given once, twice or three times,—nay, even four times a day if occasion requires, and let him have manna and cream of tartar dissolved in Barley Water,—one ounce of manna and a half ounce of Cream of Tartar to every pint. Of this let him drink plentifully, but prior to this, after bleeding (should bleeding be necessary) let him take a vomit of Ipecac, four grains every half hour until he has four or five plentiful vomits, drinking plentifully of Camomile Tea (to three or four pints at intervals) to work it off. Should the pain in the head be violent and the eyes red and heavy, let his temples be cupped or leeches applied to his temples, which operation may be repeated every day, if he find relief from it, for two or three days. If the manna, Cream of Tartar and Glysters be not effectual, let him take fifteen grains of rhubarb and as many of Vitriolated Tartar, repeating the dose, twice or three times at six or eight hours intervals. Should he have any catching of the nerves, let one of the powders be given every four hours in a spoonful of jalop or pennyroyal water. Should he be delirious, sleepy, or dozing in a half kind of a sleep, his pulse small and quick, put blisters to his back, arms and legs, and leeches and cupping to his temples. If his skin should be hot, dry and parched after he has taken his vomit or before, let him be put in a tub of warm water with vinegar in it, up to his arm-pits and continue in it as long as he can bear it, first wetting his head therein. He may, now and then, drink a little claret-whey and have his tongue sponged with sage-tea, honey and vinegar. Dear Fanny, with sincere wishes for his safe and speedy recovery, and love to him and your dear little ones,

"Your affectionate brother,
"T. Bland."

It is difficult to imagine that one of the "dear little ones" was John Randolph of Roanoke—that incarnation of genius and outrageous temper. His father survived Dr. Bland's treatment only a few years. Still, fidelity to historic truth impels me to state that we have no evidence that the doctor was in league with Henry St. George Tucker, who almost immediately married the widow!

CHAPTER X

Many of the best types of purely American society could have been found in the forties in the towns of the country. Now everybody, high and low, rich and poor, seeks a home in the cities. It is not without reason that all classes should flock to the metropolis. There wealth can be enjoyed, poverty aided, talent appreciated; but there individual influence is almost lost. The temptation to self-assertion, repugnant as it is to refined feeling, is almost irresistible. Men and women must assert themselves or sink into oblivion. Nobody has time to climb the rickety stairs to find the genius in the attic. Nobody looks for the statesman among the serene adherents to the "Simple Life." Had Cincinnatus lived at this day, he would have ploughed to the end of his furrow. Nobody would have interrupted him.

The absence of all the hurry and fever of life made the little town of Charlottesville an ideal home before the cataclysm of 1861. The professors at the University could live, in the moderate age, upon their modest salaries, and have something to spare for entertaining. The village contingent was refined, amiable, and intelligent. Staunton sent us, every winter, her young ladies, the daughters of Judge Lucas Thompson, all of whom were finally absorbed by the descendants of Charles Carroll, of Carrollton, Maryland. From the neighborhood on the Buck-mountain Road came the family of William C. Rives, twice our envoy to the Court of Versailles, and many times sent to the Senate of the United States. The "gallant Gordons, many a one," the Randolphs and Pages, and Mr. Stevenson, late Minister to England,—all these lived near enough to be neighbors and visitors. Across Moore's Creek, at the foot of Monticello, was the house of Mr. Alexander Rives. There lived my sweet friend and bridesmaid, Eliza Rives, and there I could call for a glass of lemonade when on my way to Monticello, guiding, as I often did, some stranger-guest to visit the home of Thomas Jefferson. We would pass through the straggling bushes of Scottish broom which bordered the road—planted originally by Mr. Jefferson himself—pause at the modest monument over his ashes, and reverently ponder the inscription thereon. In his own handwriting, among his papers, had been found the record he desired—not that he had been Minister to France and Secretary of State, not that he had been twice President of the United States, but simply,—

"Here lies buried Thomas Jefferson, Author of the Declaration of American Independence, of the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom, and Father of the University of Virginia."

A few steps through the woods would bring us to the plateau commanding the noble view I have tried to describe. I loved the spot, the glorious mountains, the glimpse at our feet of the Greek temple in its sacred grove, the atmosphere of mystery and romance. Once I saw a solitary fleur-de-lis unfurling its imperial banner on the site of the abandoned garden. Once I was permitted, in the absence of the owner, to explore an upper floor in the villa, and was startled by a white, strained face gleaming out from a dim alcove. This was the bust of Voltaire. A happy, happy young girl was I on these rides, mounted on my own horse, Phil Duval, and not unconscious of my becoming green cloth habit, green velvet turban, and long green feather, fastened with a diamond buckle—as I believed it to be!

University of Virginia.

Young girls reared in a university town and admitted to the friendship of the professors' families must be dull indeed if they absorb nothing from the literary atmosphere. My dear aunt was an accomplished English scholar. Her father had been the friend and neighbor of Patrick Henry, her husband had been one of John Randolph's physicians. My close friends, the Gilmers, Southalls, and the daughters of Professor Harrison, all had brothers who were students, and we strove to keep pace with these fine young fellows and meet them on English ground at least.

We had no circulating library in Charlottesville, and depended upon the mails for our current literature. We saw Graham's Magazine from Philadelphia, the Home Journal from New York, the Southern Literary Messenger from Richmond. Dickens's novels reached us from London, issued then in monthly sections, and we impatiently awaited them. "Oh, Sara, have you been introduced to Mr. Toots?" wrote Maria Gordon; "he is so much in love with Florence Dombey, he 'feels as if somebody was a-settin' on him!'"

We liked Dickens better than Walter Scott. We found the remarks of Captain Clutterbuck and the Rev. Dryasdust hard to bear, barring the door to the enchanted palace until they had their say. To be sure, Dickens could be tiresome too, pausing in the middle of an exciting story while somebody—the "stroller" or the "bagman"—related something wholly irrelevant. To my mind, a story within a story was a nuisance. It was like a patch on a garment. The garment might be homespun and the patch satin, but it was a blemish, nevertheless, something put on to help a weak place. I skipped these stories then and skip them now!

As to Thackeray, I blush to say we did not appreciate him when he appeared as "Michael Angelo Titmarsh." But we all knew Becky! She was only a sublimated little Miss Betsy Stevens, a ragged mountain woman who sold peaches on a small commission, and who, like Becky, having "no mamma" or other asset, lived by her wits.

Perhaps in our estimation of Thackeray we were guided somewhat by his own countrymen. An English paper fell in our hands which was not at all respectful to "Chawls-Yellowplush-Angelo-Titmarsh-Jeames-William-Makepeace-Thackeray, Esquire of London Town in old England." Such ridicule would soon settle him! No man could survive it.

None of the visiting authors deigned to call on us,—Thackeray, Dickens, Miss Martineau,—all passed us by. True, Frederika Bremer condescended to spend a night with her compatriot, Mr. Schéle de Vere, en route to the South, where she was to find little to admire except bananas. Mr. Schéle invited a choice company to spend the one evening Miss Bremer granted him. Her novels were extremely popular with us. Every one was on tiptoe of pleased anticipation. While the waiting company eagerly expected her, the door opened—not for Miss Bremer, but her companion, who announced:—

"Miss Bremer, she beg excuse. She ver tired and must sleep! If she come, she gape in your noses!"

Alas for tourist's help in the translating books! "Face" and "nose," "gape" and "yawn," although not synonymic, bear at least a cousinly relation to each other.

The beautiful Christian custom of lighting a Christmas tree—bringing "the glory of Lebanon, the fir tree, the pine tree, and the box," to hallow our festival—had not yet obtained in Virginia. We had heard much of the German Christmas tree, but had never seen one. Lizzie Gilmer, who was to marry a younger son of the house, was intimate with the Tuckers, and brought great reports of the preparation of the first Christmas tree ever seen in Virginia.

I had not yet been allowed to attend the parties of "grown-up" people, but our young friend John Randolph Tucker was coming of age on Christmas Eve, and great pressure was brought to bear upon my aunt to permit me to attend the birthday celebration. This was a memorable occasion. "Rare Ran Tucker" was a prime favorite with the older set, handsome, distingué, and already marked for the high place he attained later on the honor roll of his country.

My aunt could not persist in her rules for me, and I was permitted, provided I went as "a little girl in a high-necked dress," to accompany Lizzie. My much-discussed gown was of blue silk, opening over white, and laced from throat to hem with narrow black velvet! Never, never was girl as happy! The tree loaded with tiny baskets of bonbons, each enriched with an original rhyming jest or sentiment, was magnificent, the supper delicious, the speeches and poems from the two old judges (Tucker) were apt and witty. I went as a little girl—a close bud—but no "high-necked" gown ever prisoned a happier heart.

It seems to me, as I look back, that my University friends, Mr. Schéle de Vere, James Southall, William C. Rives, Jr., George Wythe Randolph, Roger Pryor, et al., felt all at once a very kind interest in my education. They sent me no end of books. The last presented me with a gorgeous Shakespeare, also Macaulay's "Essays," Hazlitt's "Age of Elizabeth" and Leigh Hunt's "Fancy and Imagination," and came himself to read them to me, along with Shelley, Keats, Byron, and Coleridge. Mr. Schéle sent me much music and French literature, he also coming to read the latter with me. William C. Rives loved my music, to which he could listen by the hour. I kept the friendship of these brilliant men as long as they lived. Only two lived to be old.

The Tuckers were a family of literary distinction—One of the happiest and wittiest of them was my dear Lizzie's husband, St. George Tucker. Anything, everything, would provoke a pun, a parody, or a graceful rhyme.

When it was proposed to change the name of "Competition"—a court-house village in the county of Pittsylvania—to "Chatham," he produced a pencil and paper, and in a moment gave:—

"Illustrious Pitt, how glorious is thy fame,

When Competition dies in Chatham's name."

He was a friend of G. P. R. James, whom he once surprised eating a very "ripe" cheese.

"You see, Tucker, I am, like Samson, slaying my thousands."

"And with the same weapon?" inquired St. George.

We had a delightful addition to our society in Powhatan Starke, who came from the Eastern Shore, and spent a year first as a guest of the Southalls, and later of all of us. He seemed to have been created for the express purpose of making people happy. He would have us all convulsed with laughter while he held the woollen skeins for my aunt's knitting. He taught me on the piano waltzes not to be found in the books; and the polka, a new dance with picturesque figures just then introduced. He joined in and enhanced every scheme for pleasure, and would finally spend half the night serenading us. "The serenade," according to a recent definition, "is a cherished courtship custom of primitive societies." Courtship had nothing to do with it in 1847. It was only a delicate compliment to ladies who had entertained the serenaders. Four or five voices in unison would sing such songs as "Oft in the Stilly Night," "The Last Rose of Summer," "Eileen Aroon," "Flow Gently, Sweet Afton," and one voice render Rizzio's lovely song:—

"Queen of my soul whose starlit eyes

Are all the light I seek,

Whose voice in sweetest melodies

Can love or pardon speak;

I yield me to thy soft control

Mary—Mary—Queen of my soul!

(Chorus) Mary! Mary! Queen of my soul!"

With the first twang of the guitar strings we would slip from our beds, find our shawls and slippers, and creep downstairs. Crouched close to the door, we would listen for Vive l'amour, the song always concluding the serenade:—

"Let every bachelor fill up his glass,

Vive la Compagnie!

And drink to the health of his favorite lass,

Vive la Compagnie!"

And just here, rising as it were to a question of privilege concerning individual rights, let me solemnly assure my reader that I do not plagiarize from "Trilby." The low-hanging fruit of Mr. Du Maurier's bountiful orchard is to be desired to make wise the daughters of Eve, but this Eve has no occasion to rob it. Au contraire! Powhatan Starke had brought this song from Paris in the forties and sung it for us twenty years before, according to Du Maurier, the "genteel Carnegie" had given it in his hiccupy voice to the Laird, Taffy, Little Billie, Dodor, Zouzou, and the rest.

Personally, I should like to help myself with both hands to the clever things the young authors are writing. But I am "proud, tho' poor!" Besides, I should be found out!" Mon verre n'est pas grand, mais je bois dans mon verre."

I know, I have heard, but one verse of this immortal song. All the rest were freshly made, whether at dinner, evening party, or moonlight serenade, to suit the company and the occasion. The chorus, as rendered by Carnegie the genteel, was:—

"Veeverler, Veeverler, veverler vee

Veverler Companyee."

But my friend twenty years before respected it enough to be accurate:—

"Vive! Vive! Vive l'amour

Vive la compagnie!"

Only he, like les autres, sometimes dropped his "r's." They were all nice in their pronunciation. They gave to the broad "a" its fullest due.

"E'en the slight hahbell raised its head

Elahstic from her ahry tread!"

exclaimed George Gordon, as one of the maidens tripped across the lawn. But even he was sometimes indifferent to the rights, as a terminal, of the letter "r"; for only as a terminal does the Southern tongue utterly scorn it. When but a lisping infant, a possible orator was drilled in the test words:—

"Around the rugged rocks

The ragged rascal ran,"

and taught to roll the elusive consonant to the utmost limit.

But I must linger no longer in this enchanted valley among the mountains. A long road lies before me. I must pass swiftly on. With just such trifling events I might fill my book. Dear to every heart are the annals of its youth; before we enter the vast world of—

"Effort, and expectation and desire—

And something evermore about to be."

We cherish the sweet nothings of a happy time as we preserve dried rose-leaves. Mayhap through their faint fragrance we may dream the rose!

It was a busy time as well as a happy time. I was helping Mrs. William C. Rives build a church; I was hemstitching all the ruffles for Thomasia Woodson's trousseau; I was playing waltzes, ad infinitum, at the house-parties in Charlotte—the Henrys and Carringtons—and singing campaign songs, to the great delight of my dear grandfather, in honor of my old friend, Henry Clay, whom we were once more trying to make our President:—

"Get out o' the way, you're all unlucky;

Clear the track for old Kentucky!"

(And just here I wish to record the fact that only once in all my life did my old grandfather ever reprove me. I had committed a flagrant act of lèse majestie. I had put a nightcap on the bust of Patrick Henry!)

But my dear aunt's invitations, written on paper embossed with an orange-blossom and tied with white satin ribbon, were now issued for my wedding.

I had begun my acquaintance with the young man known now as "the General," or "the Judge," by beseeching God to take care of him. According to my Presbyterian training, I was taught that every prayer must be followed by efforts for its fulfilment. It was clearly my duty "to take care of him." He needed it.

CHAPTER XI

Two years after our marriage, my husband was seriously ill from an affection of the throat, and consulted Dr. Green, an eminent specialist of Philadelphia. He was ordered to a warmer climate, and forbidden to speak in or out of court. The tiny law office at a corner of the court green in Charlottesville was abandoned, and we hastened to Petersburg, near his birthplace. As it was absolutely impossible for him to exist without occupation, he purchased a newspaper, sallied forth one morning to solicit subscribers for "The South Side Democrat," and before a week's end was justified in beginning its issue.

This step determined his career in life. He did not practise law until he came to New York in 1865.

At the age of twenty-two he became an enthusiastic editor. The little South Side Democrat soon evinced pluck and spirit. Its youthful editor sailed his small craft right into the troubled sea of politics, local and national, to sink or swim according to its merits and the wisdom of its pilot. It was loved of the gods, with the inevitable result,—but not until he left it.

Stephen A. Douglas.

I remember our first meeting with Stephen A. Douglas, so soon to become a conspicuous figure in our political history. He had just returned from Europe, and was passing through Petersburg with his first wife (Miss Martin of North Carolina), and of course glad to talk with the editor of a Democratic paper, aspiring as he did to the highest office in the country. He was thirty-nine years old, and below the average height. But the word insignificant could never have been applied to him. There was something in his air, his carriage, that forbade it. His massive head, his resolute face, more than compensated for his short stature.

He has always been accused of rude, unconventional manners. He was enough of a courtier to inform me that I resembled the Empress Eugénie.

To us he took the trouble to be charming, talked of his European experience—of everything, in fact, except the perilous stuff burning in his own bosom, his hunger for the presidency. Like my editor, he had been admitted to the bar before he had reached his majority. The parallel was to appear again later. Mr. Douglas also had been a representative in Congress at thirty.

My husband was a delegate to the Democratic Convention that nominated Franklin Pierce in 1852, and Mr. Douglas suffered himself to be a candidate.

The "Little Giant" received at first only 20 votes, but he steadily increased until Virginia cast her 15 votes for Mr. Pierce, after which there was "a stampede" which decided the matter. Some writer reminded Douglas that vaulting ambition overleaps itself, but added dryly, "Perhaps the little Judge never read Shakespeare and does not think of this."

An interesting event in Petersburg was a brief visit from Louis Kossuth en route to the Southern and Western cities, his avowed purpose being "to invoke the aid of the great American republic to protect his people; peaceably, if they may, by the moral influence of their declarations; but forcibly, if they must, by the physical power of their arm—to prevent any foreign interference in the struggle to be renewed for the liberties of Hungary."

Our Congress, it will be remembered,[1] had, after Kossuth's defeat and his detention in Turkey—whither he had fled for refuge—directed the President to offer one of the ships of our Mediterranean squadron to bring him and his suite to our country. The Turkish government had no especial use for Governor Kossuth as a guest or as a captive, and accordingly he landed from the steamer Vanderbilt which had been sent with a committee to meet him, at New York quarantine, December 5, 1851, at one o'clock in the morning. Early as was the hour, a great crowd collected on shore to greet him. A salute of twenty-one guns and an address of welcome from the health-officer at once assured him that he came to us, not to be pitied as a defeated refugee, but to receive all honor due a conquering hero. As his boat steamed by, Governor's Island gave him a salute of thirty-one guns, New Jersey one hundred and twenty, and New York,—but we know how New York can behave! Steamers, great and small, whistled, pistols and guns were fired, Hungarian cheers were shouted, and our Stars and Stripes took into close embrace the Hungarian flag. We know New York hospitality, and her enthusiasm, nay, crazy excitement when something, anything, novel and interesting happens.

When Kossuth reached Castle Garden, the unhappy mayor essayed in vain to read his speech. Speech, indeed! A hundred thousand throats were aching with a speech, and they delivered it with a roar!

"There was," says a reporter, "a continuous roar of cheers like waves on the shore." Every house was decorated; and as the hero passed, mounted on Black Warrior, a horse which had borne conquerors in many Florida and Mexican wars, the street was jammed with enthusiastic people, and the windows alive with women and children. Never, since the landing of Lafayette, had New York so abandoned herself to enthusiasm. The story is too long—of the speeches, processions, dinners, receptions, fire-works, etc.—to be repeated fully in these pages.

Of course, the little South Side Democrat threw up its cap with the rest. Kossuth, when he reached the town, had already received honors of which his wildest fancy never dreamed, and we did our best to echo them according to our ability. There were several ladies in his suite to whom I paid my respects (I am not sure his wife was among them), and the only impression they made upon me was one of extreme weariness. They spoke English fairly well, but were too utterly worn out to exhibit the least animation. Kossuth spoke English perfectly. He had a long talk with my young editor, to whom he gave a huge cigar, which was never reduced to ashes! But after he left, the South Side Democrat came to its senses (having never utterly lost them), and expressed a decided opinion in favor of the non-intervention of this country in the affairs of Hungary, giving good reasons therefor. Kossuth, when the paper was handed him, read the editorial carefully, and exclaimed, "So young, and yet so depraved!" adding, with his usual tact, "I mean, of course, politically!"

But even at this highest pinnacle of glory in New York, when an editorial banquet was given him at The Astor by George Bancroft, William Cullen Bryant, Henry J. Raymond, Parke Godwin, Henry Ward Beecher, Charles A. Dana, and others, Mr. Webster had coldly declined attendance.

His letter was received with hisses and groans. "Kossuth," said Mr. Webster, in a private letter from Washington, "is a gentleman in appearance and demeanor, is handsome enough in person, evidently intellectual and dignified, amiable and graceful in his manners. I shall treat him with all personal and individual respect; but if he should speak to me of the policy of 'intervention,' I shall have ears more deaf than adders'."

The Senate, the President, Congress, all received him cordially. He dined at the White House; was treated with the utmost distinction, and a seat of honor assigned him on the floor of the Senate; but before he left Washington, every one except himself knew that his mission had failed. He soon discovered it, and appealed no longer for intervention but for money. He complained bitterly at Pittsburg that he had received little but costly banquets and foolish parades. The net amount of the contributions to his cause was less than $100,000, and according to his statement at Pittsburg, only $30,000 remained for the purchase of muskets. We had expressed with enthusiasm our appreciation of his patriotism, courage, and devotion. We had entertained him en prince. We had added a substantial gift. It was not enough.

The citizens of New York very soon calmed down, and by the middle of January the name of Kossuth was rarely mentioned. When Congress came to audit his hotel bill, it fairly gasped! The retainers of the poor refugee had not been poor livers. They had occupied luxurious apartments, and proved beyond a shadow of doubt the Hungarian appreciation of old Madeira and champagne. No one, however, could accuse the hero himself of excess. Still, all at once, he seemed less of a hero.

One unprejudiced looker-on in Vienna, Ampère, wrote of Kossuth at the editorial dinner, "He has the bad taste to love fanciful dress, wore a lévite of black velvet, and seemed to me much less imposing than when he harangued, leaning upon his sword, in the hall at Castle Garden." Ampère also philosophizes upon our American enthusiasm,—"the only lively amusement of the multitude in a country where one has little to amuse one. It is without consequence and without danger, simply to let out the steam (à lâcher la vapeur), not to cause explosions but to prevent them."

"The American likes excitement," says Bryce in 'The American Commonwealth,' "but he is shrewd and keen; his passion seldom obscures his reason; he keeps his head when a Frenchman, or an Italian, or even a German, would lose it. Yet he is also of an excitable temper, with emotions capable of being quickly and strongly stirred. He likes excitement for its own sake, and goes wherever he can find it."

The Kossuth episode vividly illustrated this! Sic transit gloria—be it prince or patriot!

My young editor had soon to leave the South Side Democrat under the care of a foster-father. He was summoned to Washington—lured less by a fine salary than the larger field—to edit with John W. Forney the Washington Union, then the national Democratic organ. It was desired that one of the two editors should be from the South. Mr. Forney represented the North.

CHAPTER XII

We had the good fortune to secure pleasant rooms in the large boarding-house of Mrs. Tully Wise, sister of Henry A. Wise of Virginia. Mrs. Wise had a number of agreeable people in her house: Professor and Mrs. Spenser Baird of the Smithsonian Institution; Professor Baird's assistants,—Mr. Turner, an Englishman, and a Swiss naturalist whom Professor Baird addressed as "George,"—Mr. James Heth, Commissioner of Pensions, and his family; Commodore Pennock and his wife, sister of Mrs. (Admiral) Farragut, and others. I must not forget Miss Dick, whose rooms were above mine, and who hovered around like the plump, busy little bird that she was. A long table in the dining-room was filled with "new" people—desirable possibly, but not known by us. There were the nouveau riche party from New York, the tall, angular, large-limbed, passée young woman and her fat mamma; there were the well-groomed government clerk and his stylish young wife; a French count, a German baron; a physician (Dr. McNalty), and a beautiful dark-eyed young lady who always wore a camellia in her dusky hair, Miss —well, let her be "Miss Vernon," with her father. Lesser lights plenty—a large number in all.

Then Mrs. Wise herself gathered pleasant men and women around her. In her little parlor we met Dr. Yelverton Garnett, our devoted friend in all his after life—Mrs. Garnett, daughter of Henry A. Wise, and a charming young sister, Annie Wise. Our hostess was a widow, well born and good, who was educating, alone and unaided, five splendid boys, who lived to reward her by their own worth and success.

We were made thoroughly comfortable, and I soon learned that the "man behind the gun," to whom it behooved me to be civil, was the head waiter, Patrick, tall, black, stern, and unyielding. No use in trying blandishments on Patrick! If one were starved, having overstayed appointed hours, she must fast until the next meal or find refreshment elsewhere. I once complained to Mrs. Wise,—that I lost the sweetest hour in the late afternoon for my stroll on Pennsylvania Avenue; and represented the perfect ease with which Patrick could keep my tea for me. She listened with sympathy to the oft-told tale.

"Well, you know, my dear," she said kindly, "Patrick—now you know Patrick is so good! There's nobody like Patrick! He has some trouble, with all those strangers to serve. I know you would like to help Patrick! Yes, to be sure, it would seem to be a simple thing to set aside a biscuit and bit of cold tongue for you, and keep the kettle hot on the hearth,—but you see Patrick,—well, he is so good, you'll not have the heart to trouble him! And dear! I think you will yourself choose to be indoors early here in Washington."

The one who was "dear" was Mrs. Wise—the noblest and best of women.

Very soon I found that with all these pieces upon the board, a lively game might be expected. Miss Dick, whose brother was employed by the government, soon enlightened me: the rich New York girl wanted a title. She was "trying to catch" the baron, and would succeed, "as nobody else wanted either of them." Miss Vernon was dying for love of Dr. McNalty. She was going into a decline. Probably the doctor was ignorant of the state of things. Such a beautiful girl—a perfect lady! Somebody ought to speak to the doctor. She, (Miss Dick) couldn't. Nobody would listen to an old maid—"perhaps you, Mrs. Pryor"—("Oh, mercy, no")—well, then, poor girl! The French count was flirting with the wife of the government clerk. Her husband would find her out, never fear! There was danger of a hostile meeting before the winter was over. Then that hateful old Dr. Todkin, with his straw-colored wig! To be sure, she and some others liked the parlors kept dark—but what business had he to say he hoped some lady would come who "liked the light and could bear the light!" Such Dutch impertinence!

I received these confidences of Miss Dick in my own rooms, for I soon learned, with Mrs. Baird and Mrs. Heth, that the public drawing-room was no place for me.

"Gossip!" said they. "It has gone beyond gossip! The air is thick with something worse. You might cut it with a knife."

But it was not long before we had a ripple in our own calm waters. On one side of me at our round table sat Mr. George, the eccentric, small, intense Swiss naturalist, who amused me much by affecting to be a woman-hater.

"Not that they concern me," he said, "but,—well, I find fishes more interesting. I understand them better."

Beside my husband was placed our special pet, Maria Heth, taken under our wing in the absence of her parents, neither of whom ever appeared. The circle was completed by Professor and Mrs. Baird, little Lucy Baird, and Mr. Turner. In course of time my right-hand man fell into silence, broken by long-drawn sighs. I supposed he had lost a "specimen," or failed to find enough bones in some fish he was to classify, or maybe heard bad news from home, or belike had a toothache; so, after a few essays on my part to encourage him, I let him alone. Presently his place at the board was vacant. Things went on in this way until one morning, early, Maria Heth knocked at my door.

"I am troubled about Mr. George," she said. "I am sorry to worry you, but I'm afraid there's no help for it. Mamma is too nervous to hear unpleasant things, and I'm afraid of exciting papa."

"Come to the point, Maria! Mr. George, you say! Well, then, what about Mr. George?"

"Well, you know he's been missing nearly a week. It was no business of mine. I had no dream I had anything to do with it. But see what he has written me! 'This comes to you from a broken-hearted man. Forget him! You will meet him no more on earth. Perhaps—yonder! George.'"

Questioning Maria further, she confessed that on the day Mr. George disappeared, she received from him a passionate love-letter. She had answered him curtly. Yes,—she certainly had told him what she thought of his impertinence. "Of course, I am distressed, but what could I do," said the poor child. "You know my brother! Richard would have been enraged. I had to settle him once for all to save trouble."

I went immediately to Mrs. Baird with my information. She, too, had become anxious at the sudden disappearance of the young naturalist. He had not been seen at the Institution, and investigation revealed the fact that he had not occupied his rooms. Professor Baird was deeply concerned, and a vigorous search was made for the missing man.

Upon returning from my walk that evening, I found a note on my table from Mrs. Baird. The runaway had been found. It would be unnecessary to drag the river or notify the police. He was discovered in the upper chamber of an humble lodging-house, very limp and penitent, but "clothed and in his right mind." He had not been drinking, he had not been in the river. I never knew what Professor Baird did to him—pulled him out of bed, very likely, and shook him into his senses. So we lost Mr. George (whose surname I dare not reveal), and he was doubtless mightily strengthened in his opinion of women—not to be understood by him and not, by any means, comparable to fishes.

Perhaps I should not leave the dramatis personæ of our boarding-house "in the air." Before I left Mrs. Wise, the baron was safely moored into harbor by the tall young lady from New York. The government clerk had openly insulted the French count, and it was supposed a challenge had passed between them. Evidently nothing had come of it. If they fought, it was a bloodless battle. The exquisite Miss Vernon had reappeared, thinner, paler, but radiant and beautiful exceedingly. Miss Dick was puzzled. Perhaps the girl had "gotten over it," like a sensible woman. Perhaps she had not been ill at all—only hysterical. It was not impossible she might have feigned illness "to bring him around." These were some of the solutions of the problem that occurred to Miss Dick.

I could have enlightened her. One evening, Dr. McNalty, whom I knew but slightly, spoke to me in the hall. He had a soft white parcel in his hand and seemed embarrassed and agitated. He begged me to do him a great kindness—would I see Miss Vernon—not send a messenger, see her myself and give her some camellias from him. Possibly there might be some message from her. He would await my return.

Would I? I flew on the wings of hope and keen interest. I comprehended the situation. Of course there had been a misunderstanding. Possibly his letters had been returned and unopened. Only a desperate necessity could have nerved him to appeal to me—almost a stranger. I rose to the occasion, and when I was admitted to Miss Vernon's room, I was prepared to be an eloquent advocate, should circumstances encourage and justify me.

When I returned to Dr. McNalty, I bore a message. She had laid the camellias against her lovely cheek and said, "Tell him his flowers are whispering to me."

I hope my reader will appreciate my reticence in ending this little story just here. If, as Talleyrand declared, "a man who suppresses a bon mot deserves canonization," is there no nimbus for the woman who, for truth's sake, suppresses the dénouement of a love story? The temptation is great to amplify a little, embroider a little—but then I should have to reckon with my conscience, with the certainty of being worsted.

As a matter of fact, I know only this of the young woman I am constrained to call Miss Vernon. Her true name was one well and honorably known in history. She was the most beautiful of all dark-eyed women I have ever known—of course the blue-eyed angels are exceptional—and her manners and attire were as elegant as her person. She wore rich velvet, then much in vogue, and only one jewel:—

"On her fair breast a sparkling cross she wore

Which Jews might kiss and infidels adore."

I never knew the end of the romance in which I bore a small part. I never even knew of what whisperings camellias are capable. Had they been violets—or roses, or lilies of the valley—but big white camellias! I only know she recovered and that Dr. McNalty thanked me warmly for my small service. That is all.

CHAPTER XIII

Mr. Fillmore was a fine type of the kind of man Americans love to raise to the highest office in their gift. He had not been a mill boy, nor lived in a log-cabin, nor split rails (which was to his discredit), but he had been an apprentice to a wool-carder in Livingston County, New York. Afterward he had worked in a lawyer's office all day and studied at night. He had had no patron. He was essentially a self-made man. When, by the death of President Taylor, he became President of the United States, he fitted into the place as if he had made himself expressly for it.

According to Ampère, who observed us so narrowly in 1852, "M. Fillmore avait un cachet de simplicité digne et bienveillante, qui me semble faire de lui le type de ce que doit être un président Américain."

But nobody said any of those fine things about dear Mrs. Fillmore. The cachet de simplicité she certainly possessed, but she wore it with a difference. In a President it was admirable, in a beautiful woman it would have been adorable. It stamped plain, unhandsome, ungraceful Mrs. Fillmore as ordinary, commonplace. She was the soul of kindness. "She has no manner," said a woman of fashion. "She is absolutely simple. It is not good form to be so motherly to her guests. Why, what do you think she said to me at the last levee? 'You look pale and ill, my dear! Pray find a seat.' Think of that! Haven't I a right to look pale and ill, I wonder!"

"She meant to be kind," I ventured. "Should she have permitted you to faint on the floor?"

"Kind, indeed! It was her duty, if she thought me 'gone off in my looks,' to tell me how well I was looking! I should have been all right after that. As it was, I came straight home and went to bed."

I fairly revelled in the music I could now hear. From a famous musician, Mr. Palmer, I took lessons again. He was a notable character—a splendid musician, and a welcome guest at Mr. Corcoran's and other houses, where he amused the company with tricks of legerdemain. He afterward became the celebrated "Heller," the prince of legerdemain and clairvoyance. The elder Booth, Hackett, and Anna Cora Mowatt introduced me to the fascinations of the stage. Nothing to my mind had ever been, could ever be, finer than their Hamlet, Falstaff, and Parthenia. The Armstrongs gave me carte blanche to their box at the theatre, and I saw everything. I wonder if any one at the present day remembers the Ravel brothers and their matchless pantomimes! Mrs. Baird made a party, taking little Lucy to see "Jocko." Not a word was spoken in the play; not an eye was dry in the house.

One evening an agreeable Frenchman whom we knew joined us in our box, and seeking an opportunity, whispered to me, "Madame, will you grant me a favor? There—in the parquette, second from the front, voyez-vous? A lady en chapeau bleu?"

"Yes, yes, I see! Who is she?"

"Madame" (tragically), "that demoiselle with the young man is fiancée to my friend!"

"And you are perhaps jealous!"

"Ah, mais non, Madame! I have this moment said to my friend, 'Regardez votre fiancée.' He has responded, 'C'est vrai! It is custom of this country.'"

"And what then?" I asked.

"Oh!" shrugging his shoulders in scorn not to be expressed in words, "I say, 'Eh bien, Emil. If you satisfy, I very well satisfy!' But, pardon, Madame, is it convenable in this country for demoiselle to appear at theatre with young gentleman without chaperon?"

I found refuge in ignorance: "I am sure I cannot say. You see I am from Virginia. I haven't been long in Washington, and customs here may differ from manners in my home."

I was a proud woman when Mr. Pierce sent for my young editor to read with him his inaugural address. These were mighty political secrets, not to be shared with Miss Dick, and thus published to her little boarding-house world. I felt that I belonged, not to that nor to any other small world. I belonged to the nation; and strange to say, that impression (or must I say delusion?) never left me in my darkest, most obscure days. Mr. Pierce liked my young editor. We adored him! Only since we lost him have we learned of his many mistakes, vacillation, weakness, unpopularity; nothing of these appeared in 1852. He had been a fine politician, had served his country "with bravery and credit," enlisting as a private in the Mexican War. "His integrity was above suspicion, and he was deeply religious." It is quite certain he did not desire the nomination. There was nobody in his family to exult over his promotion, no son, no daughter to blossom with new beauty because of the splendid stem on which she grew. Only a sick, broken-hearted wife, too feeble to endure the exactions of social life, too sad to take part in anything outside her own room. She did not even attempt it. It was at once understood that our republican court was such only in name. In name only did Mrs. Pierce appear in its annals. I never saw her. I never saw any one who had seen her. We thought of her as a Mater Dolorosa, shrouded in deepest mourning, and we gave her a sacred place in our hearts.

I cannot close my records of this, my earliest experience of Washington life, without remembering with gratitude all I owe to the friendship and wisdom of the discreet, cultured women who felt an early interest in me, guiding and instructing me. Mrs. Spenser Baird, Mrs. Garnett(née Wise), lovely Annie Wise, and Maria Heth, these were my intimate friends. Mrs. Garnett, a lovely Christian woman, watched me closely and restrained me in my natural desire for beautiful raiment. I once confessed to her, almost with tears, that Léonide Delarue had beguiled me into giving forty dollars for a bonnet, whereupon she produced pencil and paper and proved that the material (exclusive of a bit of superfluous point-lace) could be obtained for ten dollars. The young English queen, it was said, could make her own bonnets. But I could not succeed as a milliner. I had some talent, but not in that line. However, that I might please and surprise Mrs. Garnett and also imitate the Queen, when the time came for me to indulge myself in a winter bonnet (we did not call them hats—they weren't hats!), I essayed the "creation" of one with velvet, satin, and feathers galore. It was a dreadful failure! I took it to Madame Delarue's and begged her to tell me what ailed it.

"Mon Dieu!" she exclaimed, throwing up her hands in despair, "pesante."

I gave away my "creation" to somebody in my service—anybody who would condescend to accept it. Mrs. Garnett felt I could hardly afford to try again. She knew, however, how important to me as a young politician's wife would be the virtue of economy. It is not written in the stars that an honest politician can ever be rich. A great evening reception was to be given by some magnate at which my young editor consented to be present. He secretly visited Harper's fine store and brought home a lovely "bertha" for me made of three rows of point-lace. I gasped! But I was prudent. I accepted it with apparent pleasure, went to Harper's, found it had been charged, and effected its return. But here was a dilemma. I was to attend the reception. I was to wear evening dress and a beautiful "bertha." "Have you not imitation lace?" I inquired.

Harper had,—and the imitation was good,—the price of plenty of it ten dollars. I guiltily made the exchange, took a searching look at my model, and perfectly copied it.

That evening, brave in my counterfeit presentment I stood under a blaze of light with my intimates, Mrs. Clay, Mrs. Fitzpatrick, and others around me. My editor approached and was complimented upon my appearance. "Ah, but," he said, in the pride of his young heart, "if I can only keep it up! Why, Mrs. Clay, that bit of lace cost me hundreds of dollars!" I caught the wondering eyes of my fully instructed friends, gave them an imploring glance—and when the boastful young fellow departed, told them my story. They said I was a very silly woman.

Mr. Fillmore's tastes had been sufficiently ripened to enable him to gather around him men of literary taste and attainment. John P. Kennedy, a man of elegant accomplishments, was Secretary of the Navy. Washington Irving was often Mr. Kennedy's guest. We knew these men, and among them none was brighter, wittier, or more genial than G. P. R. James, the English novelist whose star rose and set before 1860. He was the most prolific of writers, "Like an endless chain of buckets in a well," said one; "as fast as one is emptied, up comes another."

We were very fond of Mr. James. One day he dashed in, much excited:—

"Have you seen the Intelligencer? By George, it's all true! Six times has my hero, a 'solitary horseman,' emerged from a wood! My word! I was totally unconscious of it! Fancy it! Six times! Well, it's all up with that fellow. He has got to dismount and enter on foot—a beggar, or burglar, or pedler, or at best a mendicant friar."

"But," suggested one, "he might drive, mightn't he?"

"Impossible!" said Mr. James. "Imagine a hero in a gig or a curricle!"

"Perhaps," said one, "the word 'solitary' has given offence. Americans dislike exclusiveness. They are sensitive, you see, and look out for snobs."

He made himself very merry over it; but the solitary horseman appeared no more in the few novels he was yet to write.

One day, after a pleasant visit from Mr. James and his wife, I accompanied them at parting to the front door, and found some difficulty in turning the bolt. He offered to assist, but I said no—he was not supposed to understand the mystery of an American front door.

Having occasion a few minutes afterward to open the door for another departing guest, there on his knees outside was Mr. James, who laughingly explained that he had left his wife at the corner, and had come back to investigate that mystery. "Perhaps you will tell me," he added, and was much amused to learn that the American door opened of itself to an incoming guest, but positively refused, without coaxing, to let him out. "By George, that's fine!" he said, "that'll please the critics in my next." I never knew whether it was admitted, for I must confess that, even with the stimulus of his presence, his books were dreary reading to my uninstructed taste.

A very lovely and charming actress was prominent in Washington society at this time,—the daughter of an old New York family, Anna Cora (Ogden) Mowatt. She was especially interesting to Virginians, for she had captivated Foushee Ritchie, soon afterward my husband's partner on the editorship of the Richmond Enquirer. Mr. Ritchie, a confirmed old bachelor, had been fascinated by Mrs. Mowatt's Parthenia (in "Ingomar"), and was now engaged to her. He proudly brought to me a pair of velvet slippers she had embroidered for him, working around them as a border a quotation from "Ingomar":—

"Two souls with but a single thought,

Two hearts that beat as one."

CHAPTER XIV

I was peacefully enjoying a cup of tea with Mrs. Arnold Harris, when her father, old General Armstrong, entered, and brought me the astounding news that my husband had resigned his position as editor of the Washington Union.

"Oh, that boy! He thinks he knows more about foreign politics than I do."

I was very fond of the General, who had always treated me in a fatherly and most kind manner. But of course I could not hear my husband discussed, even by him, so I expressed polite regrets and hastened home. It was too true! The junior partner had published in the Union a very strong article, taking the part of Russia in the Crimean War, and General Armstrong had wished him to disavow it "upon further consideration." He had refused, and declared he must write according to his convictions or not at all. The matter might possibly have been adjusted, had not the General, with more zeal than discretion, remonstrated with him upon the ground that he should "think twice before giving up a large salary."

There is a very ugly word in the English language of which I, as a child, stood in mortal fear. I had then never read that word anywhere except in the Bible or my Catechism. I had never heard it except in the pulpit. I had an idea that the devil, in whose personality I believed, but of whom I had never thought enough to be afraid, might appear at any moment in connection with that inviting word, if uttered out of church.

Only lately has it been shorn of its terrors by being left out root and branch in the revision of the Bible. Now, although offensive to ears polite, it is no longer supposed to imperil the safety of the soul. Unless refined taste forbids, it may in seasons of peculiar vexation of spirit—à lâcher la vapeur—be applied to things inanimate: to a "spot" that will not "out," to tiresome "iteration," to "faint praise," or, on general principles, suitably preface the pronoun "it," but never to living individuals! That would be uncivil to a degree—highly imprudent, and likely to result unpleasantly. There can be no doubt of the fact that it contains certain mysterious elements of relief and comfort, else why its frequent use by men and not infrequent use by some women?

At the time of which I am writing it was to me still a desperate word of evil source and evil omen. Even now the cells of my brain respond with a shudder when I hear it.

You can then imagine the shock I sustained when I learned my husband's reply to the good old General's overture.

"What did you say?" I had sternly demanded.

"Well, if you will have it—I said, 'damn the money!'"

We did not leave Washington immediately. My editor knew he could make good his position in regard to Russia in her quarrel with England, and Mr. Gales offered him the columns of the National Intelligencer for that purpose. He wrote a long and able defence of Russia. Caleb Cushing met him afterward and congratulated him on an article which was, he said, "unanswered and unanswerable."

He was fascinated with editorial life, immediately bought an interest in the Richmond Enquirer, and became co-editor with William F. Ritchie. We had inaugurated President Pierce, whose friendship promised much. I had made charming friends in Washington,—Mrs. Gales and Mrs. Seaton, Mrs. Crittenden, beautiful Adele Cutts (afterward Mrs. Douglas), Mrs. "Clem" Clay, and other charming wives of the representatives in Congress. But I was not sorry to leave the city. My dear Blue Mountains were awaiting me. For years I could never return to them without a swelling heart. I was going back for a long visit to my aunt and the baby girl I had lent her (to keep her own dear heart from breaking when I left her), and I had a splendid boy to show my friends in Charlottesville—the old people only—for all my confrères had married and taken wing.

It was not long before Mr. Pierce sent my husband on a special mission to Greece. I could not accompany him. I could not travel with my babies—there were now three—nor could I leave them with my delicate aunt. I went with him as far as Washington, where we spent one day and night. A dinner had been arranged to witness the unfolding of a superb specimen of the Agave Americana, supposed to be over fifty years old, and which now, for the first time in the memory of the present generation, had suddenly thrown up a great stalk crowned with a bud nearly a foot long.

We did not attend the dinner, but at midnight, upon answering a knock at the door, there stood a man bearing in his arms the splendid flower. A thick fringe of narrow, pure white petals formed a rosette, and from the centre rose a plume of golden stamens. I was resolved this midnight beauty should not discover the dawn which signals the closing of its petals, so I placed it in the ample fireplace, made a framework of canes, parasols, and umbrellas around it and covered the whole with a blanket. In the morning I peeped in. It presented a tightly twisted spike, having entered upon another long sleep of fifty years, more or less. It was this flower that my husband, with outrageous American boasting, described to Queen Mathilde of Greece as an ordinary floral production of this country, not to be confounded with the commonplace night-blooming Cereus, and fired an ambition in her soul that could hardly have been gratified.

While my husband was absent on his mission, President Pierce spent one day in Charlottesville to visit the tomb and home of Jefferson, the father of his political party. We were then at my aunt's country place, and the President wrote to me regretting he could not go out to see me, and inviting me to spend the one evening of his stay with him and a few friends at his hotel.

I had a delightful evening. He expressed the warmest friendship for the young ambassador to Greece, and presented me with two beautiful books, bound sumptuously in green morocco and inscribed in his own fine handwriting, from my "friend Franklin Pierce." Those valued books were taken from me when our house was sacked in 1865. They possibly exist somewhere! certainly in the grateful memory of their first owner.

The President had the courtesy to express pleasure in my piano playing. I made him listen to Thalberg's "La Stranièra," Henselt's "Gondola," and "L'Elisir d'Amour"; and I left him with an impression that has never been lost, of his kindness of heart, his captivating voice and manner.

My husband's letters from Greece and from Egypt were extremely interesting, and I preserved them for publication in book form. Alas! they, too, were lost in 1865. Unable to encumber myself when I fled before the bullets in 1865, I sent my little son back under cover of night to draw the box containing them to some safe place away from the buildings and burn them. Thus I lost all records of our active life in Virginia before the eve of surrender, except those preserved in the files of Northern papers.

Passage was taken in the Pacific for my husband's return, and I went down to Petersburg that I might be with his family to meet him. The Pacific was long overdue before we would acknowledge to each other that we were anxious,—I can hear now, as then, cries of the newsboys, "Here's the New York Herald, and no news of the Pacific,"—repeating like a knell of despair, as they ran down the streets, "No news of the Pacific! No news of the Pacific!" At last, when the strain was almost unbearable, my father, Dr. Pryor, ran home with the paper in his hand: "A printed list of the passengers, my dear! Roger's name is not among them!"

It had pleased God to deliver him. He had taken passage on the Pacific and sent his baggage ahead of him. When he reached Marseilles, he found his trunks and packages had been opened,—a discourtesy to an ambassador,—and he remained a few days to obtain redress, allowing the Pacific to sail without him. That ill-starred steamer never reached home. The story of her fate is held where so many secrets, so many treasures lie—in the bosom of the great deep.

I have told elsewhere something of my husband's residence at Athens. It suffices to state here that he accomplished the object of his mission to the satisfaction of his government, and to his own pleasure and profit. He brought me many beautiful pictures and carvings for the home we now made in Richmond, to say nothing of corals, amber, mosaics, curios, and antiques, silks, laces, velvets, perfumes, etc., to my great content. Soon after his return, the President offered him the mission to Persia, which he declined. We found a pleasant house in Richmond, with ample grounds on either side for the flowers I adored. There we set up our Lares and Penates—happy housekeepers, intent on hospitality.

The great day arrived for our first large dinner-party. Although only men were present, they were friends and neighbors, and I presided; with my courtly uncle, Dr. Thomas Atkinson, at my right hand. We furnished our dinners from our own kitchens in Richmond. In every respect—so my uncle assured me—my first venture was a success. Soup, fish, roast, game, and salad with the perfection of chill demanded by a self-respecting salad. Presently I saw one of the waiters whisper to the host, and an expression of alarm pass over his face. The bread had "given out"! I had not imagined the enormous consumption of bread of which a wine-bibber could be capable. Passing around to the head of the table, the dire story was repeated to me, and it was well I had a physician at my right hand! Utter collapse threatened his young hostess. As to the young host, he rose nobly to the occasion. "Ah! no bread! Then we must eat cake!" Thenceforth at all our dinners a skeleton entered our closet—if an empty bread-tray might be dignified into a skeleton. At every dinner and supper we gave, my husband stood in mortal terror lest the bread should give out—as it really did in very truth not many years later.

I was very fond of a little factotum of my cook, whom I promoted from the kitchen to my personal service. As no bell or knocker could reach the ear in the regions allotted the servants, George was invested in white linen, and with a primer for his entertainment and culture was stationed at the door during visiting hours. He found it difficult to keep awake. My French teacher would throw up his hands when he passed out, "Mon Dieu! Comme il dorme!" If you have ever seen Valentine's bust of the Nation's Ward, you have seen George; asleep, with his head on his bosom and his spelling-book on the floor. He was of a blackness not to be illustrated by the ace of spades, a crow's wing, or any other sable bird or object, and this circumstance, enhancing the purity of his white linen, made him an attractive and interesting object. George had no imagination. He was nothing if not literal. At one time ice was scarce in Richmond. The water of the James was a rich old-gold color from the mud of the red-clay regions through which some of its tributaries ran, but it was considered wholesome. We filtered it for drinking and for tea through a great Vesuvius stone. Some of the old residents were wont to declare they preferred it to the clear water of the springs,—several of which were in the parks of the city,—complaining that the spring water "lacked body." At the time of the ice famine we filled tubs with this cool, muddy water, and in it kept our bottles of milk. George once brought for my admiration some fine lettuce the cook had bought from a cart.

"Put it in water!" I ordered. Soon afterwards, he entered with several bottles of milk—which I also told him to "put in water." What was my dismay when the cook rushed to my room in great heat:—

"I knowed that fool nigger would give you trouble!"

"Why, what's the poor child done?"

"Po' chile! Little devil, I call him! He's done po'ed out all the baby's milk in that yaller water, and seasoned it with lettuce leaves!"

We found the society of Richmond delightful. Southern society has often been described, its members praised or blamed, criticised or admired, according to the point of view; sometimes commended as "stately but condescending, haughty but jovial," possessing high self-appreciation, not often indulging in distasteful egotism; fast friends, generous, hospitable; considering conversation an art to be studied, and fitting themselves with just so much knowledge of literature, science, and art, as might be indispensable for conversation; but withal "cultured, educated men of the world who would meet any visitor on his own favorite ground."

Richmond society has always claimed a certain seclusiveness for itself—not exclusiveness—for nobody properly introduced could visit Richmond without having a dinner or evening party given in his honor. "Taken in?"—of course the entertainers were sometimes "taken in"! That did not signify once in a while.

I remember a portly dame with two showy daughters, always handsomely attired, who managed, at some watering-place, to find favor in the eyes of one of our citizens and obtained an invitation, which was eagerly accepted, to make him a visit. An evening party was given to introduce them. I had my doubts after a conversation with Madame Mère—and expressed them, to the disgust of one of my friends. "Impossible," she said, coolly. After they left, Mr. Price, our leading merchant, presented a large bill for female fineries with which he had unhesitatingly credited Madame, who had departed with her daughters to parts unknown. It was promptly, and without a grimace, paid by their deluded host. I could remember the sweetly apologetic way in which Madame had told me she feared her "girls were a bit overdressed for the small functions in Richmond. In New York, now! But here, of course, there need be no such display as in New York!"

No amusement, except an occasional song from an obliging guest, was provided for our evening parties. Conversation and a good supper, with the one-and-only Pizzini to the fore—this was inducement enough. Not quite as spirituelle as Lady Morgan, we required something more than a lump of sugar to clear the voice. And Pizzini's suppers! His pyramids of glacé oranges, "non pareil," and spun sugar; his ices, his wine jellies, his blanc manges and, ye gods! his terrapin, pickled oysters, and chicken salad! We assembled not much later than nine, and remained as long as it pleased us. Sometimes we acted—"The Honeymoon," or some other little play; Anna Cora Mowatt (Mrs. Ritchie) gave charming tableaux, with recitations; but usually we talked and talked and talked! "Art of conversation?" I suspect art has nothing to do with conversation. When it becomes art, it ceases to be conversation. We did not gossip, either. Personalities were quite, quite out of the question. Our hosts knew to perfection the art of entertaining.

Sometime in the fifties, Charles Astor Bristed wrote his book, entitled, "The Upper Ten Thousand of New York." It appears the world was waiting for some such work. The theme rippled from shore to shore, until within the past few years it seems to have expired with the myth of the Four Hundred. N. P. Willis (wasn't he a bit of a snob himself?) caught with avidity the new departure in Mr. Bristed's book, and eternally harped upon it. From 1852 until the war, and afterward, until the subsidence of the Four Hundred ripple, we have heard a great deal about classes, society; and finally, American manners came to the fore as a subject of journalistic interest. "American manners! Are they improving in grace or dignity?" The question was put to a number of men and women whose experience and frankness could be relied upon. The answers, except for one, were vague and cautious. Nobody likes to appear as a satirist or cynic—and yet nobody is willing to acknowledge that he knows nothing better than what appears at present to be the standard of good breeding, by comparison with the standard twenty or more years ago.

The one honest man revealed by the lamp-light of the inquiring editor remembered the chapter allotted to a contributor in the preparation of "a history of Ireland." The subject of the chapter was dictated—"The Snakes of Ireland"—and it appeared with that heading. It was brief and to the point—"There are no Snakes in Ireland."

"American manners?" answered the one honest man; "there aren't any." "American manners," said George William Curtis, "where do you find them? If high society be the general intercourse of the highest intelligence with which we converse,—the festival of Wit and Beauty and Wisdom,—we do not find it at Newport. Fine society is a fruit that ripens slowly. We Americans fancy we can buy it."

Foreigners have never ceased to comment upon American manners. The subject in the fifties seems to have been of inexhaustible interest. "There's no use," said Max O'Rell, "in forever gazing at the Upper Ten Thousand. They are alike all over the world. It is the million that differ and are interesting." Marion Crawford said: "The Upper Ten can never fraternize with artists, poets, and inventors. These take no account of wealth or of any position not won by absolute genius or merit, treating such position, indeed, with ill-concealed contempt."

Thackeray liked to be agreeable to the people who made his lectures profitable, but he complains of the "uncommon splendatiousness" of Americans. "But I haven't been in Society yet," he wrote, in 1852; "I haven't met the Upper Ten." Another English writer went farther—much farther—but we forbear. Now these harsh judgments were exclusively of manners in New York, Newport, and Washington. No Curtis, Bristed, or Willis ever, to my knowledge, visited Richmond. Thackeray, Max O'Rell, and Ampère never thought us worth while—so our delightful small society, which had ripened slowly and took no account of wealth, and which could really have furnished a modicum of "Wit, beauty, and Wisdom" for Curtis's "festival," was unrepresented. As to the criticisms of our elder brother across the water, as long as he sends his sons to America to find the mothers of the future peers of his realm, the edge is blunted of his strictures upon American society and manners.

CHAPTER XV

William Walker, the "Grey-eyed Man of Destiny," who was in 1854 more talked about than any other man in the country, was our guest for several days in Richmond. Whether he came to accept a dinner given him by the city, or whether the dinner was the result of the visit, I cannot remember. Although we knew him to be an interesting character, we were unprepared for the throng that filled our house every day while he was with us. Beginning early in the day, they poured in until night, and remained, spellbound by the magnetism of this wonderful man. As we could not invite them to leave for the three o'clock dinner (the dinner-hour in Virginia varied then to suit individual convenience), I took counsel of my blessed old negro cook, and following her advice, I spread a table every day with cold dishes,—tongue, ham, chickens, birds, salads, etc.,—to which all were made welcome. The sideboard ably supplemented this informal meal. Old Madeira could be had in those days, and in lieu of the cocktail of the present time, we brewed an appetizer, crowned with "the herb that grows on the grave of good Virginians."

The Richmond market was insufficient for sudden demands. We depended largely upon the small, covered country carts, intercepting them as they passed on their way to the grocers', who bartered things dry and liquid for the farmers' poultry, eggs, and butter. At this time of my distress, no carts hove in sight, but I knew a grocer with a noble soul,—one Mark Downey,—to whom I made a personal appeal, and he promised to send me, daily, everything he could gather, from a roasting pig to a reed-bird. My good cook rose to the occasion: "Ain't that Gin'al gone yet?" was her morning salutation, hastily adding, "Nem-mine, honey! We-all kin git along."

In some of the biographical sketches of William Walker I find him painted as little better—in fact, no better—than a pirate; a man of an unbounded stomach for power and place, regarding as nothing life, property, or his own word, and finally, justly forsaken and punished. Others present him to posterity as a scholar, an author, a graduate of colleges, a student at Heidelberg, also a hero of the first water, brave beyond compare; a maker of republics, statesman, dictator,—in all things fearless and dashing. When I turn to the storehouse of my own memory, I find a modest, courtly gentleman, with a strong but not ungentle face:—

"The mildest mannered man

That ever scuttled ship or cut a throat."

Of course I could not appear in the crowd that hung upon his lips all day, but when we gathered around the evening lamp he was never too weary to talk to me—but not about his conquests nor his ambitions. For a woman's ear he had gentler themes than these. One night I startled my husband by asking, "What church do you belong to, General?"

William Walker.

"I have recently become a Catholic," he answered gravely; "it is the faith for a man like me! I have seen the poor wounded fellows die with great serenity after the ministration of their priest."

I recall a striking remark by the General to my husband. He said men are commonly equally courageous, the difference between them being that one man, from keener sensibility, sees a danger of which another is stolidly insensible. The former is really courageous, while the latter is indifferent from lack of apprehension. Himself incapable of fear, a higher authority on the subject cannot be imagined.

When he took leave of us, he gave me a perfect ambrotype picture of himself, probably the only genuine one extant. "Here I am, Madam, and I've always been called an ugly fellow." I ventured the usual deprecatory remark, but he shook his head:—

"I'm afraid there's no doubt about it! On my way here I heard a man close to my car-window sing out, 'Whar's the Gray-eyed Man of Destiny?' As he was close to me, I leaned out and said in a low tone, 'Here, my friend!' 'Friend nothin,' he sneered; 'an' you'd better take in your ugly mug.'"

He looked back from the carriage that took him to the depot and answered my waving handkerchief: "Good-by, good-by, dear lady! I'm going to make Nicaragua a nice place, fit for you!"

Just as we were about to engage in our own life-and-death struggle, we heard he had been betrayed, as Napoleon was betrayed, by the English, to whom, after defeat, he had fled for protection, and had met his death bravely.

His dream had been to win Nicaragua, as Houston had won Texas, and then annex it to the United States, thus strengthening the power of the South.

I have been told that many superstitions and legends have sprung up in Nicaragua and Honduras to cluster around the memory of William Walker, but in none is there a firmer belief than that his ghost appears on the anniversary of his death, and will so appear until he is avenged. A Tennessee boy, William G. Erwin, now helping to superintend the digging of the Panama Canal, has told the legend, in Senator Taylor's magazine, from which I select a few verses:—

"One night each year in Honduras, they clear the roads for his ghost,

Their long dead Gringo President—who rides with his phantom host.

He sweeps o'er the land in silence and the cowering natives hide,

From the Wraith of William Walker—who haunts the land where he died.

"Thus it was the wild tale started—that when dying on the sand,

Walker smiled and sternly told them, 'Till avenged I'll haunt your land!'

And now on snow-white stallion once a year at midnight's spell,

Across the land from sea to sea—rides the form that all know well.

"His head is high, his blade is bare, his white steed spurns the ground,

A phantom troop charge close behind—but all make never a sound;

While his blood cries yet for vengeance against this murderous herd—

He will ever come to warn them, that the day is but deferred.

"To the sons of old Honduras as they view him through the gloom,

The Gray-eyed Man of Destiny looks the Avatar of Doom;

In his face they read a warning like the writing on the wall,

'Tis, 'Beware, one day the Gringos will avenge their chieftain's fall!'"

My husband entered with great zeal and efficiency into the fight against "The Know-nothing party," or, as they proudly styled themselves, the "American party."

The principles of this party were naturally evolved from the fact that the ignorant foreign vote was influencing elections[2] in the cities, that votes were freely sold, and that drunken aliens frequently had charge of the polls. The mythical order of Washington in a time of peculiar danger was remembered:

"Put none but Americans on guard to-night!"

It seemed reasonable and fitting that Americans, who had won this country from the savage, and fought all its early battles with the French and English, should govern the country they had redeemed. One thing led to another, until it was resolved to form a secret society, with the view of excluding all foreigners and many Roman Catholics from any part in the councils of the nation.

This, briefly, seems to have been at the root of the great Know-nothing movement. The immediate and practical aim in view was that foreigners and Catholics should be excluded from all national, state, county, and municipal offices; that strenuous efforts should be made to change the naturalization laws, so that the immigrant could not become a citizen until a resident of twenty-one years in this country. My husband at once perceived the pernicious tendency of the movement, which was sweeping the Northern states with resistless force. Secret lodges were formed everywhere, secret ceremonies inaugurated—grip, passwords, and signs. The country was in a ferment of excitement, followed by outrageous lawlessness. Bands of women made raids on bar-rooms and smashed the glasses, broke the casks, and poured the liquor into the streets. Our one exemplar of similar enterprises should have lived in those days! Garrison burned the Constitution of the United States at an open-air meeting in Framingham, Massachusetts; and the crowd, in spite of a few hisses, shouted "Amen." A mob broke into the enclosure around the Washington Monument, and broke the beautiful block of marble from the Temple of Concord at Rome, which had been sent by the pope as a tribute to Washington. A street preacher, styling himself the Angel Gabriel, incited a crowd at Chelsea, Massachusetts, to deeds of violence. They smashed the windows of the Catholic church, tore the cross from the gable and shivered it to atoms. These were only a few of the outrages growing out of the excitement engendered by the Know-nothing party.

The Enquirer always claimed the credit of unearthing and exposing the signals, passwords, and ceremonies of the society. "I don't know" was one of the answers to the "grip" when brother met brother, and hence the popular name of the organization. Though Virginia had but few Catholics and few immigrants, yet, upon principle, she withstood and stayed the Know-nothing torrent that had hitherto swept over every other state.

Party feeling ran high during the election of a Virginia governor, and the junior editor of the Enquirer bore his part boldly and with vigor. For the first few years of his editorial life he devoted himself to study, confining himself closely to his office. A contemporary writer says of him: "Pryor evidently studied the highest standards in his reading, and his editorials were a revelation of strength and purity in classic English. It was impossible, however, for a man of his tastes and force not to drift into politics outside of the sanctum of his paper, and the public soon recognized him as one of the ablest and most eloquent speakers upon the hustings and in the bitter discussions that marked the proceedings of every gathering of the people in those years. In the mutterings and threatenings of the storm that was soon to break in fury upon a hitherto peaceful and peace-loving land, he found abundant opportunity for the cultivation and display of those rare powers of oratory in debate which subsequently forced him to the front of the forum."[3] I can only add to this tribute from a candid historian of the time one observation—the success was great: the memory of it sweet, but—it was bought with a price! The stern price of unremitting labor and self-abnegation.

It was a terrible time in Virginia. Henry A. Wise was the Anti-Know-nothing candidate for governor, and hard and valiant was the fight my husband made for his election. It involved him in two duels—not bloodless, but, thank God, not fatal. It is unnecessary to allude to my own fearful anxiety. It will be understood by all women who, like myself, have been and are sufferers from the false standard demanded by the "code of honor," in countries where, to ignore it, would mean ruin and disgrace. We were most devoted adherents of Mr. Wise, and ready to go to the death in his defence, standing as he did in the front, as we believed, of the battle for right, justice, and humanity. Finally, he was triumphantly elected, the pestilent society quenched, and comparative peace for a brief period reigned in Virginia.

The Democratic party was grateful for my husband's hard work, and gave him a beautiful service of silver, inscribed with the appreciation of the party for his "brilliant talents, eminent worth, and distinguished service."

Not long afterward he became the editor of The Richmond South, for which I had the honor to select a motto—"Unum et commune periclum una salus." Perhaps a pen picture of my "Harry Hotspur," as he was called, may amuse those whose kind eyes follow his venerable figure as it passes to-day. "The day after our arrival at the Red Sweet Springs we noticed among a crowd of gentlemen a face which strikingly contrasted with the faces around him. He was a slight figure, with a set of features remarkable for their intellectual cast; a profusion of dark hair falling from his brow in long, straight masses over the collar of his coat gave a student-like air to his whole appearance. We unconsciously rose to our feet on hearing his name, and found ourselves in the actual presence of the far-famed editor of the South and in such close vicinity, too! Why, our awe increased almost to trepidation; we felt as if locked in a vault full of inflammable gas, likely to explode with the first light introduced into it. Indeed, five minutes wore away in preliminary explanations before we could be brought to identify the youthful person before us—who might pass for a student of divinity or a young professor of moral philosophy—with the fiery and impetuous editor of the Richmond South. He is, we believe, considered one of the ablest political writers in all the South, and his articles were said to be highly influential in the late party controversy. For ourselves we regard with admiration," etc. "His young family cannot fail to create an immediate interest in the eyes of the most casual observer.... And then his beautiful, noble-looking children; they might serve as models for infant Apollos, such as Thorwaldsen or Flaxman might have prayed for."

They were lovely—my boys—my three little boys!

CHAPTER XVI

A bit of paper, yellow and crumbling from age, has recently been sent to me by the son of an old Charlottesville friend. The tiny scrap has survived the vicissitudes of fifty-one years, and because of the changes it has seen and the dangers it has passed, if for nothing more, it deserves preservation. It marks an important era in our life, although it contains only this:—

"Charlottesville, July 1, 1858.

"Dear Mrs. Cochran:—

"May I have your receipt for brandy-peaches? You know Roger is speaking all over the country, trying to win votes for a seat in Congress. I'm not sure he will be elected—but I am sure he will like some brandy-peaches! If he is successful, they will enhance the glory of victory—if he is defeated, they will help to console him.

"Affectionately,
"S. A. Pryor."

In this campaign my husband established his reputation as an orator. He was canvassing the district of his kinsman, John Randolph of Roanoke, and old men who heard his speeches did not hesitate to declare him the equal of the eccentric but eloquent Randolph. I always like to quote directly from the journals of the day,—I like my countrymen to tell my story,—and happily, although I lost all memoranda, some old men have written since the war of the noted Virginians whom they knew in the fifties. One from a North Carolina paper I have preserved, but lost the precise date.

"The late Rev. Thos. G. Lowe, of Halifax, was the greatest natural orator North Carolina ever produced. He was silver-tongued and golden-mouthed, a cross between Chrysostom and Fénelon. He was, besides, a very earnest Whig in his politics. On one occasion, in 1860, we knew him to go from Halifax to Henderson, a distance of some sixty miles, to hear Pryor speak. We asked him what he thought of the Virginian. His reply was, 'You think I didn't stand up in a hot sun three mortal hours just to hear him abuse my party? He is wonderful, with the finest vocabulary I have ever known.' Charles Bruce, Esq., of Charlotte, Virginia, told us, in 1870, that when Pryor spoke at Charlotte Court House, he saw elderly gentlemen who had ridden forty miles in their carriages to hear him, and who said to each other, after the great orator had concluded his masterly effort, 'We have had no such speaking in Virginia since John Randolph's day.'"

Another from the old district writes, July 9, 1891:—

"Of all the men I ever heard speak, Pryor made the strongest impression on me. Young, enthusiastic, brilliant; with a not unbecoming faith in a capacity of high order, he might reasonably have aspired to the loftiest dignities. He was a born orator; thorough master of those rare persuasive powers that captivate and lead multitudes. His figure was erect and finely proportioned, his gestures easy and graceful, his features mobile and expressive of every shade of emotion. But the charm of his oratory lay in his wonderfully organized vocal apparatus, which he played upon with the skill of a musical expert. No speaker of the present time can claim to rival him in the easy flow of rhetoric that sparkled through his harmoniously balanced periods, except, probably, Senator Daniel. While listening to him, the Richard Henry Lee of Wirt's graphic portraiture seemed to move and speak in every tone and gesture."

Another for the Richmond Times-Democrat of November 2, 1902, writes:—

"A famous orator of the antebellum period was Roger A. Pryor, who still survives. He had a poetic imagination, which is the basis of all true oratory. His vocabulary, though florid, was superb, and kept company with the airy creatures of his exuberant imagination. He rarely spoke but to evolve a beautiful figure, and in his political campaigns for Congress, in the now Fourth Virginia district, he frequently soared above the comprehension of his audience, whose reading was limited. He combined a logical mind with his poetic fancy, and the effect and product of his thought were striking and impressive, illustrating the aphorism that the poet always sees most deeply into human nature. Pryor had the face, the figure, the dramatic air, the attitude, and the vocabulary. When we saw him last summer at the White Sulphur, he looked the grave and dignified jurist, in contrast with the typical politician and editor of the fire-eating school of fifty years ago."

While all these fine speeches were delighting our Democratic friends, I was very happy with my dear aunt at her country place, Rock Hill, near Charlottesville. There my dear son Roger was born—now my only son. The house, like a small Swiss chalet, was perched lightly on the side of an elevation that well deserved its name. From the crest of the hill there was a noble view of the Blue Mountains, and of sunsets indescribable. To the little boy and girl who spent their childhood at this place it soon became enchanted ground. A quarry, from which stone had been taken for building the house, was the cave of Bunyan's giants, Pope and Pagan, who "hailed the Christians as they passed, saying, 'Turn in hither'"; two crayfish that lived in the great spring under the Druidical oaks were the genii of the fountain; the corn-field was a mighty forest to be entered with fear because of the Indians and wild beasts therein.

These two children, Gordon and her brother, Theodorick, fourteen months younger, were blessed in having my own dear aunt's care and teaching from their infancy until they were aged respectively nine and ten years. They were not at first "remarkable" children. They were not infant phenomena, subjected to the perilous applause of admiring friends and kindred. They were normal in every respect—clean-blooded, sturdy, and wholesome; with good appetites, cool heads, and quick perceptions. They became, under the care of their wise preceptor, unusually interesting and intelligent children. My aunt adored the children, firmly believing that, however degeneracy might have impaired the human race in its progress of evolution,—these two at least had been made in God's image. In the words of their nurse, she "tuned them as if they were little harps—just to see how sweet the music could be!" They studied together—Gordon understanding that she must encourage the little brother, and read to him until he could read himself. In summer the schoolroom was sometimes al fresco, even drawing upon the knotted branches of the cherry tree for desks!

Gordon read very well at the age of three. She was also taught, before she could read, to point out rivers and cities on a map. Before he was four, Theodorick could read also. The children never had a distasteful task. I heard a great scholar say that all learning could be made charming to a young mind. The aunt of these children made their lessons a reward. "Now be good when you dress, and you may have a lesson," or "if Gordon and Theo don't ask for anything, I will give them a lesson right after dinner." The lessons, through the teacher's skill and patience, were made delightful. At once they were given paper and pencils, colored and plain, and both wrote before they were five. Their teacher disapproved of gory tales of giants and hobgoblins. Instead of these, they had histories quite as thrilling, and stories of the animal kingdom, with which they lived in perfect amity and kinship. They never had caged birds, but ducks and chickens, dogs small and great, cats and kittens, were all regarded as part of the family, and bore historic names. Theo once picked up (he was three) a small chicken, whereupon the mother hen rose to his shoulders and administered a good spanking with her wings. A servant, with great heat, belabored the hen; and Theo checked his sobs to entreat for her, explaining, "she didn't like for me to love her little white chicken." The hen, forsooth, was jealous! He once caught a bee in his hand and received a stinging rebuke. "How could you be so silly?" exclaimed his little sister. "Not at all," said Theo; "I have often done the same thing—but this little fellow," he added affectionately, "this little fellow had a brier in his tail!"

Their aunt hesitated whether she should tell them harrowing stories from history, but experiment proved, however, that the heroic held for them such fascination that they lost sight completely of the pain or suffering attending it. They adored the men and women who died bravely, but had their favorites. Lady Jane Grey was not one, nor Mary Queen of Scots (perhaps because of their ruffs), but they worshipped Marie Antoinette and Charles I. They had a very high regard for honor and fair dealing. Theo was a little over three years when he complained to me of his little sister, "I just laid my head on the stool and let her chop it off—because I am Charles I—and now she is Marie Antoinette, and when I am ready to cut off her head, she screams and runs away." His sense of justice was outraged, but the little sister's vivid imagination made her nervous, notwithstanding the fact that a cushion was the guillotine! Having observed that a large knotted stick was treated with respect, and travelled, to my inconvenience, with Theo on several journeys, I essayed to throw it away. With great dignity he gravely informed me, "This is Rameses III." Not only was it one of the Egyptian kings, but the richest of them all. I wish I could follow these two fascinating children beyond their babyhood, but I cannot venture! I dare not!

Late in the autumn I left Rock Hill to visit my uncle at the Oaks in Charlotte. I had travelled alone from Richmond to Mossingford, ten or twelve miles from my uncle's house, and there old Uncle Peter met me with the great high-swung chariot and a hamper well filled with broiled partridges, biscuits, cakes, and fruit. The rain had poured a steady flood for several days, but to my joy the clouds were now rolling away in heavy masses, and the sun shining hotly on the water-soaked earth.

"We got to hurry, Mistis," said the old coachman, as we prepared to enjoy an al fresco luncheon; "the cricks was risin' mighty fas' when I come along fo' sun-up dis mornin'."

"But we don't have to cross the river, Uncle Peter?"

"Gawd A'mighty, no," exclaimed the old man. "Ef'n I had to cross Staunton River, I'd done give clean up, fo' I see you! When we git home, we'll fine out what ole Staunton River doin'. I lay she's jes' a'bilin'!"

"Well, then there is some danger?"

"Who talkin' 'bout danger? De kerridge sets mighty high. No'm, der ain't no danger, but I ain't trustin' dem cricks. I knows cricks! Dee kin swell deeself up as big's a river in no time!"

We had not gone far before we were overtaken by a mud-splashed horseman, who arrested our horses and spoke in a low tone to the driver. Presently he appeared at the carriage window. "This is Mrs. Pryor? You remember Mr. Carrington? I hope I see you well, Madam. I am on my way to vote for your husband—or rather, help elect him. We have a fine day; the polls need not be kept open to-morrow. But I must hasten on. We will soon have the pleasure of congratulating our congressman."

"One moment, please, Mr. Carrington! Are the creeks too high for us to cross?"

"I think not, Madam. The carriage hangs high, and Peter knows all about freshets. Good morning."

There were swollen streams for us to cross. Several of them had overflowed the meadows until they looked like lakes. At one or two the water flowed over the floor of the carriage, and we gathered our feet under us on the seats. My little Theo enjoyed it, but my poor nurse was ashen from terror. Very wet, very cold, and very grateful were we when at night we reached our haven. My dear uncle, Dr. Rice, was already there, with cheering news from the polls.

The next morning we looked out upon a turbid yellow sea. The Staunton had sustained her reputation, overflowed her low banks, and spread herself generously over the face of the earth. It was a week or more before my husband was assured of his election. He spent the intervening days of rest sleeping—like the boy he was!

Several years later, when he was reëlected, we were in Richmond with my little family. Gordon and the two little boys were keen politicians. Of course I was now too busy a mother to concern myself with politics, as was my wont in the earlier days. Moreover, I knew my congressman would be reëlected. I was pretty sure by this time that he would always be elected—so the day passed serenely with me. I was overwhelmed with dismay when one of his friends called after the polls closed at sunset, and informed me that a torch-light procession would reach our house about eight o'clock, and would expect to find it illuminated.

"Illuminated!" I exclaimed. "And pray with what? There are not half a dozen candles in the house, and the stores are all closed. Besides, the baby will be asleep. It is bad for babies to be waked out of their first sleep."

My friend did not contradict me, but in the evening he sent a bushel of small turnips and a box of candles, with a note telling me to cut a hole in the turnips, insert a candle, and they would answer my purpose admirably. Everybody went to work with a will, and when the crowd, shouting and cheering, surrounded us, every window-pane blazed a welcome into the happy faces. My young congressman made one of his charming speeches, and then—the lights went out on the last election he was destined to celebrate! True, he was twice after elected to Congress—in the Confederate States; for the South had need of him in her legislative hall as well as in the field. In both he gave her all his heart and soul and strength, but the days were too sad for illuminations in his honor.

My story has now reached the period at which my "Reminiscences of Peace and War" begin. I shall not relate the political history of the period—which has been better told by others than I can hope to tell it. I shall endeavor to bring forward some things that were omitted in my late book, but in narrating the incidents of the Civil War and the preceding life in Washington, I may in some measure repeat myself. For this I have a valid excuse. Apologizing for quoting himself from a former book on Edmund Burke, John Morley remarks: "Though you may say what you have to say well once, you cannot so say it twice." Lord Morley strengthens his position by a quotation in Greek, which, unhappily, remains Greek to me, and I therefore cannot avail myself of its help, but I am glad to be sustained by his example. Besides, what says Oliver Wendell Holmes? "It is the height of conceit for an author to be afraid of repeating himself—because it implies that everybody has read—and remembers—what he has said before."

CHAPTER XVII

Washington was like a great village in the days of President Pierce and President Buchanan. My own pride in the federal city was such that my heart would swell within me at every glimpse of the Capitol: from the moment it rose like a white cloud above the smoke and mists, as I stood on the deck of the steamboat (having run up from my dinner to salute Mount Vernon), to the time when I was wont to watch from my window for the sunset, that I might catch the moment when a point on the unfinished dome glowed like a great blazing star after the sun had really gone down. No matter whether suns rose or set, there was the star of our country,—the star of our hearts and hopes.

When our friends came up from Virginia to make us visits, it was delightful to take a carriage and give up days to sight-seeing; to visit the White House and Capitol, the Patent Office, with its miscellaneous treasures; to point with pride to the rich gifts from crowned heads which our adored first President was too conscientious to accept; to walk among the stones lying around the base of the unfinished monument and read the inscriptions from the states presenting them; to spend a day at the Smithsonian Institution, and to introduce our friends to its president, Mr. Henry; and to Mr. Spenser Baird and Mr. George, who were giving their lives to the study of birds, beasts, and fishes,—finding them, as Mr. George still contended, "so much more interesting than men," adding hastily, "We do not say ladies," and blushing after the manner of cloistered scholars; to hint of interesting things about Mr. George, who was a melancholy young man, and who had, as we know, sustained a great sorrow.

Washington in 1845.

Then the visits to the galleries of the House and Senate Chamber, and the honor of pointing out the great men to our friends from rural districts; the long listening to interminable speeches, not clearly understood, but heard with a reverent conviction that all was coming out right in the end, that everybody was really working for the good of his country, and that we belonged to it all and were parts of it all.

This was the thought behind all other thoughts which glorified everything around us, enhanced every fortunate circumstance, and caused us to ignore the real discomforts of life in Washington: the cold, the ice-laden streets in winter; the whirlwinds of dust and driving rains of spring; the swift-coming fierceness of summer heat; the rapid atmospheric changes which would give us all these extremes in one week, or even one day, until it became the part of prudence never to sally forth on any expedition without "a fan, an overcoat, and an umbrella."

The social life in Washington was almost as variable as the climate. At the end of every four years the kaleidoscope turned, and lo!—a new central jewel and new colors and combinations in the setting. But behind this "floating population," as the political circles were termed, there was a fine society in the fifties of "old residents" who held themselves apart from the motley crowd of office-seekers. This society was sufficient to itself, never seeking the new, while accepting it occasionally with discretion, reservations, and much discriminating care. The sisters, Mrs. Gales and Mrs. Seaton, wives of the editors of the National Intelligencer, led this society. Mrs. Gales's home was outside the city, and thence every day Mr. Gales was driven in his barouche to his office. His paper was the exponent of the Old Line Whigs (the Republican party was formed later), and in stern opposition to the Democrats. It was, therefore, a special and unexpected honor for a Democrat to be permitted to drive out to "the cottage" for a glass of wine and a bit of fruit-cake with Mrs. Gales and Mrs. Seaton. Never have I seen these gentlewomen excelled in genial hospitality. Mrs. Gales was a handsome woman and a fine conversationalist. She had the courteous repose born of dignity and intelligence and a certain reticence which makes for distinction. She was literally her husband's right hand,—he had lost his own,—and was the only person who could decipher his left-hand writing. So that when anything appeared from his pen it had been copied by his wife before it reached the type-setter. A fine education this for an intelligent woman; the very best schooling for a social life including diplomats from foreign countries, politicians of diverse opinions, artists, authors, musicians, women of fashion, to entertain whom required infinite tact, cleverness, and an intimate acquaintance with the absorbing questions of the day.

Of course the levees and state receptions, which were accessible to all, required none of these things. The rôle of hostess on state occasions could be filled creditably by any woman of ordinary physical strength, patience, self-control, who knew when to be silent.

Washington society, at the time of which I write, was comparatively free from non-official men of wealth from other cities who, weary with the monotonous round of travel,—to the Riviera, to Egypt, to Monte Carlo,—are attracted by the unique atmosphere of a city holding many foreigners, and devoted not to commercial but to social and political interests. The doors of the White House and Cabinet offices being open on occasions to all, they have opportunities denied them in their own homes. Society in Washington in the fifties was peculiarly interesting in that it was composed exclusively of men whose presence argued them to have been of importance at home. They had been elected by the people, or chosen by the President, or selected among the very best in foreign countries, or they belonged to the United States Army or Navy service, or to the descendants of the select society which had gathered in the city early in its history.[4]

As I had come to Washington from Virginia, where everybody's great-grandfather knew my great-grandfather, where the rules of etiquette were only those of courtesy and good breeding, I had many a troubled moment in my early Washington life, lest I should transgress some law of precedence, etc. I wisely took counsel with one of my "old residents," and she gave me a few simple rules whereby the young chaperon of a very young girl might be guided: "My dear," said this lady, "my dear, you know you cannot always have your husband to attend you. It will be altogether proper for you to go with your sister to morning and afternoon receptions. When you arrive, send for the host or the master of ceremonies, and he will take you in and present you. Of course, your husband will take you to balls; if he is busy, you simply cannot go! I think you would do well to make a rule never, under any circumstances, to drive in men's carriages. There are so many foreigners here, you must be careful. They never bring their own court manners to Washington. They take their cue from the people they meet. If you are high and haughty, they will be high and haughty. If you are genially civil but reserved, they will be so. If you talk personalities in a free and easy way, they will spring some audacious piece of scandal on you, and the Lord only knows where they'll end."

Now, it so happened that I had just received a request from a Frenchman who had brought letters to be allowed to escort Madame and Mademoiselle to a fête in Georgetown. We were to drive through the avenue of blossoming crab-apples, and rendezvous at a spring for a picnic. I forget the name of our hostess, but she had arranged a gay festival, including music and dancing on the green. I had accepted this invitation and the escort of M. Raoul, and received a note from him asking at what hour he should have the honor, etc., and I immediately ran home and wrote that "Madame would be happy to see M. Raoul à trois heures"—and that Madame asked the privilege of using her own horses, etc. I made haste to engage an open carriage, and congratulated myself on my clever management.

The afternoon was delicious. Monsieur appeared on the moment, and we waited for my carriage. The gay equipages of other members of the party drove up and waited for us. Presently, rattling down the street, came an old ramshackle "night-hawk," bearing the mud-and-dust scars of many journeys, the seats ragged and tarnished, raw-boned horses with rat-eaten manes and tails, harness tied with rope,—the only redeeming feature the old negro on the box, who, despite his humiliating entourage, had the air of a gentleman.

What could I do? There was nothing to be done!

Monsieur handed me in without moving a muscle of his face, handed in my sister, entered himself, and spoke no word during the drive. He conducted us gravely to the place of rendezvous, silently and gravely walked around the grounds with us, silently and gravely brought us home again.

I grew hot and cold by turns, and almost shed tears of mortification. I made no apology—what could I say? Arriving at my own door, I turned and invited my escort to enter. He raised his hat, and with an air of the deepest dejection, dashed with something very like sarcastic humility, said he trusted Madame had enjoyed the afternoon,—thanked her for the honor done himself,—and only regretted the disappointment of the French Minister, the Count de Sartiges, at not having been allowed to serve Madame with his own state coach, which had been placed at his disposal for Madame's pleasure!

As he turned away, my chagrin was such I came very near forgetting to give my coachman his little "tip."

I began, "Oh, Uncle, how could you?" when he interrupted: "Now Mistis, don't you say nothin'; I knowed dis ole fune'al hack warn't fittin' for you, but der warn't nar another kerridge in de stable. De boss say, 'Go 'long, Jerry, an' git er dar!'—an' I done done it! An' I done fotch 'er back, too!"

I never saw M. Raoul afterward. There's no use crying over spilt milk, or broken eggs, or French monsieurs, or even French counts and ministers. I soon left for Virginia, and to be relieved of the dread of meeting M. Raoul softened my regret at leaving Washington.

I am sorry I cannot, at length, describe the brilliant society of Washington during the few years preceding the Civil War. I have done this elsewhere, and need not repeat it here. But for the anxieties engendered by the exciting questions of the day, my own happiness would have been complete. I found and made many friends. My husband was appreciated, my children healthy and good, my home delightful. Many of the brilliant men and women assembled in Washington were known to me more or less intimately, and everybody was kind to me. President Buchanan early noticed and invited me. "The President," said Mr. Dudley Mann, "admires your husband and wonders why you were not at the levee. He has asked me to see that you come to the next one." I once ventured to send him a Virginia ham, with directions for cooking it. It was to be soaked overnight, gently boiled three or four hours, suffered to get cold in its own juices, and then toasted. This would seem simple enough, but the executive cook disdained it, perhaps for the reason that it was so simple. The dish, a shapeless, jelly-like mass, was placed before the President. He took his knife and fork in hand to honor the dish by carving it himself, looked at it helplessly, and called out, "Take it away! Take it away! Oh, Miss Harriet! You are a poor housekeeper! Not even a Virginia lady can teach you."

The glass dishes of the épergne contained wonderful "French kisses"—two-inch squares of crystallized sugar wrapped in silver paper, and elaborately decorated with lace and artificial flowers. I was very proud at one dinner when the President said to me, "Madam, I am sending you a souvenir for your little daughter," and a waiter handed me one of those gorgeous affairs. He had questioned me about my boys, and I had told him of my daughter Gordon, eight years old, who lived with her grandmother. "You must bring her to see Miss Harriet," he had said—which, in due season, I did; an event, with its crowning glory of a checked silk dress, white hat and feather, which she proudly remembers to this day. Having been duly presented at court, the little lady was much "in society," and accompanied me to many brilliant afternoon functions.

She was a thoughtful listener to the talk in her father's library, and once, when an old politician spoke sadly of a possible rupture of the United States, surprised and delighted him by slipping her hand in his and saying, "Never mind! United will spell Untied just as well"—a little mot which was remembered and repeated long afterward.

An interesting time was the arrival in Washington of the first Japanese Embassy that visited this country. All Washington was crazy over the event. I have told elsewhere of my own childish behavior upon that occasion—when, not having much of a head to speak of, I lost the little I had. Having already cared for the health of my soul by honest confession, I need not repeat it here. I was nervous lest the Japanese dignitaries should recognize me as the effusive lady who had met them en route, but I carefully avoided wearing in their presence the bonnet and gown they had seen, and if they remembered they gave no sign.

Washington lost its head! There was something ridiculous in the way it behaved. So many fêtes were given to the Japanese, so many dinners, so many receptions, we were worn out attending them. "I don't know what we have come here for," said one senator to another; "there's nothing whatever done at the House." "I know," his friend replied; "we came here to wait on the Japanese at table."

At the end of one of the balls given them I had seated myself at the door of an anteroom, while my husband was struggling for his carriage in the street. Across the room Miss Lane, with her party, also waited. A young man whom I had seen in society, but whose name I had not heard, approached me, and commenced a harangue of tender sympathy for my neglected position,—so young, so fair, so innocent! Oh, where, where was the miscreant who should protect me? Why, why could I not have been given to one who could have appreciated me—whose life and soul would have been mine, and more in the same strain. I did not, in accordance with stage proprieties, exclaim, "Unhand me, villain!" At first I affected not to hear, but finally rose, crossed the room, and joined Miss Lane. She had not heard, and I did not deem the incident, although novel and most annoying, important enough for inquiry. I did not know him, there was no need for investigation—no call for pistols and coffee.

A few days after I saw him again at the Baron de Limbourg's garden-party. I had joined with Lord Lyons and the Prince de Joinville in the toast to Miss Lane, pledged in the famous thousand-dollar-a-drop "Rose" wine, and was again in the foyer waiting for my carriage when my would-be champion again approached me. "Mrs. Pryor," he said in calm, measured tones, "I am Lieutenant —. I feel perfectly sure you will grant my request. Take my arm and go with me to speak to Miss Lane." I instantly divined his intention. Walking up to Miss Harriet, he said penitently: "Miss Lane, you witnessed my intrusion upon Mrs. Pryor the other evening and her exquisite forbearance. In your presence I humbly beg her pardon." He had, poor fellow, found General Cass's wines too potent for him. He had "lost his head"—that was all. I knew somebody whose head had been by no means a sure fixture without the excuse of General Cass's fine wines. Dear Miss Lane, so thoroughly equipped for her high position by her residence at the court of St. James, had only kindness then and ever for the wife of the young Virginia congressman. Years afterward, when both our heads were gray, we talked together of these amusing little events in our Washington life.

Memory lingers upon the delightful friends who made my Washington life beautiful: Miss Lane, Mrs. Douglas, Lady Napier, Mrs. Horace Clarke (née Vanderbilt), lovely Mrs. Cyrus H. M'Cormick, Mrs. Yulee, the Ritchies, the Masons, Secretary Cass's family, Mrs. Canfield, Mrs. Ledyard, and my prime favorite, Lizzie Ledyard. Ah! they were charming and kind! Even after social lines were strictly drawn between North and South, I had the good fortune to retain my Northern friends. All this I love to remember and would enjoy writing all over again, were it possible twice to give time to social records. Nor can I pause to do more than hint at the spirit of the Thirty-sixth Congress, the struggles, vituperation, intemperate speech, honest efforts of the wise members.

The nomination of Lincoln and Hamlin on a purely sectional platform aroused such excitement all over the land that the Senate and House of Representatives gave themselves entirely to speeches on the state of the country. Read at this late day, many of them appear to be the high utterances of patriots, pleading with each other for forbearance. Others exhausted the vocabulary of coarse vituperation. "Nigger thief," "slave-driver" were not uncommon words. Others still, although less unrefined, were not less abusive. Newspapers no longer reported a speech as calm, convincing, logical, or eloquent—these were tame expressions. The terms now in use were: "a torrent of scathing denunciation," "withering sarcasm," "crushing invective," the orator's eyes the while "blazing with scorn and indignation." Young members ignored the salutation of old senators. Mr. Seward's smile after such a rebuff was maddening! No opportunity for scornful allusion was lost. My husband was probably the first congressman to wear "the gray," a suit of domestic cloth having been presented to him by his constituents. Immediately a Northern member said, in an address on the state of the country, "Virginia, instead of clothing herself in sheep's wool, had better don her appropriate garb of sackcloth and ashes." In pathetic contrast to these scenes were the rosy, cherubic little pages, in white blouses and cambric collars, who flitted to and fro, bearing, with smiling faces, dynamic notes and messages from one representative to another. They represented the future which these gentlemen were engaged in wrecking—for many of these boys were sons of Southern widows, who even now, under the most genial skies, led lives of anxiety and struggle. Thoroughly alarmed, the women of Washington thronged the galleries of the House and the Senate-chamber. From morning until the hour of adjournment we would sit spellbound, as one after another drew the lurid picture of disunion and war.

When my husband's time came to speak on "the state of the country," he entreated for a pacific settlement of our controversy. "War," he urged, "war means widows and orphans." The temper of the speech was all for peace. He made a noble appeal to the North for concession. He prophesied (the dreamer) that the South could never be subdued by resort to arms! My Northern friends were prompt to congratulate me upon his speech on "the state of the country," and to praise it with generous words as "calm, free from vituperation, eloquent in pleading for peace and forbearance."

The evening after this speech was delivered we were sitting in the library, on the first floor of our home, when there was a ring at the door-bell. The servants were in a distant part of the house, and such was our excited state that I ran to the door and answered the bell myself. It was snowing fast, a carriage stood at the door, and out of it bundled a mass of shawls and woollen scarfs. On entering, a man-servant commenced unwinding the bundle, which proved to be the Secretary of State, General Cass! We knew not what to think. He was seventy-seven years old. Every night at nine o'clock it was the custom of his daughter, Mrs. Canfield, to wrap him in flannels and put him to bed. What had brought him out at midnight? As soon as he entered, before sitting down, he exclaimed: "Mr. Pryor, I have been hearing about secession for a long time—and I would not listen. But now I am frightened, sir, I am frightened! Your speech in the House to-day gives me some hope. Mr. Pryor! I crossed the Ohio when I was sixteen years old with but a pittance in my pocket, and this glorious Union has made me what I am. I have risen from my bed, sir, to implore you to do what you can to avert the disasters which threaten our country with ruin."

We had this solemn warning to report to our Southern friends who assembled many an evening in our library: R. M. T. Hunter, Muscoe Garnett, Porcher Miles, L. Q. C. Lamar, Boyce, Barksdale of Mississippi, Keitt of South Carolina, with perhaps some visitors from the South. Then Susan would light her fires and show us the kind of oysters that could please her "own white folks," and James would bring in lemons and hot water, with some choice brand of old Kentucky.

These were not convivial gatherings. These men held troubled consultations on the state of the country,—the real meaning and intent of the North, the half-trusted scheme of Judge Douglas to allow the territories to settle for themselves the vexed question of slavery within their borders, the right of peaceable secession. The dawn would find them again and again with but one conclusion,—they would stand together: "Unum et commune periclum una salus!" But Holbein's spectre was already behind the door, and had marked his men! In a few months the swift bullet for one enthusiast; for another (the least considered of them all), a glorious death on the walls of a hard-won rampart—he the first to raise his colors and the shout of victory; for only one, or two, or three, that doubtful boon of existence after the struggle was all over; for all survivors, memories that made the next four years seem to be the sum of life,—the only real life,—beside which the coming years would be but a troubled dream.

The long session did not close until June, and in the preceding month Abraham Lincoln was chosen candidate by the Republican party for the presidency. Stephen A. Douglas was the candidate of the Democrats. The South and the "Old Line Whigs" also named their men. The words "irrepressible conflict" were much used during the ensuing campaign.

The authorship of these words has always been credited to Mr. Seward. Their true origin may be found in the address of Mr. Lincoln, delivered at Cincinnati, Ohio, in September, 1859. On page 262 of the volume published by Follett, Foster, and Company in 1860, entitled "Political Debates between Hon. Abraham Lincoln and Hon. Stephen A. Douglas," may be found the following extract from Mr. Lincoln's speech:—

"I have alluded in the beginning of these remarks to the fact that Judge Douglas has made great complaint of my having expressed the opinion that this government 'cannot endure permanently half slave and half free.' He has complained of Seward for using different language, and declaring that there is an 'irrepressible conflict' between the principles of free and slave labor. [A voice, "He says it is not original with Seward. That is original with Lincoln.">[ I will attend to that immediately, sir. Since that time Hickman of Pennsylvania expressed the same sentiment. He has never denounced Mr. Hickman; why? There is a little chance, notwithstanding that opinion in the mouth of Hickman, that he may yet be a Douglas man. That is the difference! It is not unpatriotic to hold that opinion, if a man is a Douglas man.

"But neither I, nor Seward, nor Hickman is entitled to the enviable or unenviable distinction of having first expressed that idea. That same idea was expressed by the Richmond Enquirer in Virginia, in 1856, quite two years before it was expressed by the first of us. And while Douglas was pluming himself that in his conflict with my humble self, last year, he had 'squelched out' that fatal heresy, as he delighted to call it, and had suggested that if he only had had a chance to be in New York and meet Seward he would have 'squelched' it there also, it never occurred to him to breathe a word against Pryor. I don't think that you can discover that Douglas ever talked of going to Virginia to 'squelch' out that idea there. No. More than that. That same Roger A. Pryor was brought to Washington City and made the editor of the par excellence Douglas paper, after making use of that expression, which in us is so unpatriotic and heretical."

On November 6, 1860, Mr. Lincoln was elected President of the United States. On the following December 20 we heard that South Carolina had seceded from the Union. We were all, at the time the news arrived, attending the wedding of Mr. Bouligny and Miss Parker. The ceremony had taken place, and I was standing behind the President's chair when a commotion in the hall arrested his attention. He looked at me over his shoulder and asked if I supposed the house was on fire.

"I will inquire the cause, Mr. President," I said. I went out at the nearest door, and there in the entrance hall I found Mr. Lawrence Keitt, member from South Carolina, leaping in the air, shaking a paper over his head, and exclaiming, "Thank God! Oh, thank God!" I took hold of him and said: "Mr. Keitt, are you crazy? The President hears you, and wants to know what's the matter."

"Oh!" he cried, "South Carolina has seceded! Here's the telegram. I feel like a boy let out from school."

I returned, and bending over Mr. Buchanan's chair, said in a low voice: "It appears, Mr. President, that South Carolina has seceded from the Union. Mr. Keitt has a telegram." He looked at me, stunned for a moment. Falling back and grasping the arms of his chair, he whispered, "Madam, might I beg you to have my carriage called?" I met his secretary and sent him in without explanation, and myself saw that his carriage was at the door before I reëntered the room. I then found my husband, who was already cornered with Mr. Keitt, and we called our own carriage and drove to Judge Douglas's. There was no more thought of bride, bridegroom, wedding-cake, or wedding breakfast.

This was the tremendous event which was to change all our lives,—to give us poverty for riches, mutilation and wounds for strength and health, obscurity and degradation for honor and distinction, exile and loneliness for inherited homes and friends, pain and death for happiness and life.

Apprehension was felt lest the new President's inaugural might be the occasion of rioting, if not of violence. We Southerners were advised to send women and children out of the city. Hastily packing my personal and household belongings to be sent after me, I took my little boys, with their faithful nurse, Eliza Page, on board the steamer to Acquia Creek, and, standing on deck as long as I could see the dome of the Capitol, commenced my journey homeward. My husband remained behind, and kept his seat in Congress until Mr. Lincoln's inauguration. He described that mournful day to me,—differing so widely from the happy installation of Mr. Pierce; "o'er all there hung a shadow and a fear." Every one was oppressed by it, and no one more than the doomed President himself.

We were reunited a few weeks afterward at our father's house in Petersburg; and in a short time my young congressman had become my young colonel—and congressman as well, for as soon as Virginia seceded he was elected to the Provisional Congress of the Confederate States of America, and was commissioned colonel by Governor Letcher.

We bade adieu to the bright days,—the balls (sometimes three in one evening), the round of visits, the levees, the charming "at homes." The setting sun of such a day should pillow itself on golden clouds, bright harbingers of a morning of beauty and happiness. Alas, alas! "whom the gods destroy they first infatuate."

The fate of Virginia was decided April 15, when President Lincoln demanded troops for the subjugation of the seceding states of the South. The temper of Governor Letcher of Virginia was precisely in accord with the spirit that prompted the answer of Governor Magoffin of Kentucky to a similar call for state militia, "Kentucky will furnish no troops for the wicked purpose of subduing her sister Southern states!" Until this call of the President, Virginia had been extremely averse from secession, and even though she deemed it within her rights to leave the Union, she did not wish to pledge herself to join the Confederate States of the South. Virginia was the Virginian's country. The common people were wont to speak of her as "The Old Mother,"—"the mother of us all," a mother so honored and loved that her brood of children must be noble and true.

Her sons had never forgotten her! She had fought nobly in the Revolution and had afterward surrendered, for the common good, her magnificent territory. Had she retained this vast dominion, she could now have dictated to all the other states. She gave it up from a pure spirit of patriotism,—that there might be the fraternity which could not exist without equality,—and in surrendering it she had reserved for herself the right to withdraw from the confederation whenever she should deem it expedient for her own welfare. There were leading spirits who thought the hour had come when she might demand her right. She was not on a plane with the other states of the Union. "Virginia, New York, and Massachusetts had expressly reserved the right to withdraw from the Union, and explicitly disclaimed the right or power to bind the hands of posterity by any form of government whatever."[5]

A strong party was the "Union Party," sternly resolved against secession, willing to run the risks of fighting within the Union for the rights of the state. This spirit was so strong that any hint of secession had been met with angry defiance. A Presbyterian clergyman had ventured, in his morning sermon, a hint that Virginia might need her sons for defence, when a gray-haired elder left the church, and turning at the door, shouted, "Traitor!" This was in Petersburg, near the birthplace of General Winfield Scott.

And still another party was the enthusiastic secession party, resolved upon resistance to coercion; the men who could believe nothing good of the North, should interests of that section conflict with those of the South; who cherished the bitterest resentments for all the sneers and insults in Congress; who, like the others, adored their own state and were ready and willing to die in her defence. Strange to say, this was the predominating spirit all through the country, in rural districts as well as in the small towns and the larger cities. It seemed to be born all at once in every breast as soon as Lincoln demanded the soldiers.

When it was disclosed that a majority of the Virginia Convention opposed taking the state out of the Union, the secessionists became greatly alarmed; for they knew that without the border states, of which Virginia was the leader, the cotton states would be speedily crushed. They were positively certain, however, that in the event of actual hostilities Virginia would unite with her Southern associates. Accordingly, it was determined to bring a popular pressure to bear upon the government at Montgomery to make an assault on Fort Sumter. To that end my husband went to Charleston, and delivered to an immense and enthusiastic audience a most impassioned and vehement speech, urging the Southern troops to "strike a blow," and assuring them that in case of conflict, Virginia would secede "within an hour by Shrewsbury clock." The blow was struck; Mr. Lincoln called upon Virginia for a quota of troops to subdue the rebellion, and the state immediately passed an ordinance of secession. Here, in substance, is my husband's Charleston speech, as reported at the time by the New York Tribune:—

"Mr. Roger A. Pryor, called by South Carolina papers the 'eloquent young tribune of the South,' was on Wednesday evening serenaded at Charleston. In response to the compliment he made some remarks, among which were the following: 'Gentlemen, for my part, if Abraham Lincoln and Hannibal Hamlin were to abdicate their office to-morrow, and were to give to me a blank sheet of paper whereupon to write the conditions of reannexation to the Union, I would scorn the privilege of putting the terms upon paper. [Cheers.] And why? Because our grievance has not been with reference to the insufficiency of the guarantees, but the unutterable perfidy of the guarantors; and inasmuch as they would not fulfil the stipulations of the old Constitution, much less will they carry out the guarantees of a better Constitution looking to the interests of the South. Therefore, I invoke you to give no countenance to any idea of reconstruction. [A voice, "We don't intend to do anything of the kind.">[ It is the fear of that which is embarrassing us in Virginia, for all there say if we are reduced to the dilemma of an alternative, they will espouse the cause of the South against the interests of the Northern Confederacy. If you have any ideas of reconstruction, I pray you annihilate them. Give forth to the world that under no circumstances whatever will South Carolina stay in political association with the Northern states. I understand since I have been in Charleston that there is some little apprehension of Virginia in this great exigency. Now I am not speaking for Virginia officially; I wish to God I were, for I would put her out of the Union before twelve o'clock to-night. [Laughter.] But I bid you dismiss your apprehensions as to the old Mother of Presidents. Give the old lady time. [Laughter.] She cannot move with the agility of some of the younger daughters. She is a little rheumatic. Remember she must be pardoned for deferring somewhat to the exigencies of opposition in the Pan Handle of Virginia. Remember the personnel of the convention to whom she intrusted her destinies. But making these reservations, I assure you that just so certain as to-morrow's sun will rise upon us, just so certain will Virginia be a member of the Southern Confederation. We will put her in if you but strike a blow. [Cheers.] I do not say anything to produce an effect upon the military operations of your authorities, for I know no more about them than a spinster. I only repeat, if you wish Virginia to be with you, strike a blow!'"

The effect, however, of the speech was not merely the adoption of the ordinance of secession by Virginia. In precipitating the assault upon Sumter the speech had another and now little known consequence.

It must be borne in mind that when only South Carolina had seceded, the Republican party, with the assent of the President-elect, had proffered to the South a compromise in these terms: "The Constitution shall never be altered so as to authorize Congress to abolish or interfere with slavery in the states."[6] Of course, no Southern state would oppose a proposition which for the first time made slavery eo nomine an institution under federal protection, and guaranteed it perpetual existence in the slave-holding states. Equally evident was it that a measure supported by Lincoln and the entire Republican party would prevail in every Northern state. The mere pendency, then, of such an overture, if not intercepted in its passage by an act of hostility between the seceded states and the federal government, would have certainly bound the border states to the Union, and have insured the miscarriage of the secession movement.

Had not the attack on Sumter been made at the critical moment, the Republican compromise, as already intimated, would have prevailed, and slavery have been imbedded in the Constitution and fastened upon the country beyond the chance of removal,—except by revolution, or the voluntary renunciation of its cherished interests by the slave-holding South. The latter alternative is an inconceivable possibility; and hence, but for the "blow" which prompted hostilities and prevented a pacific solution, slavery would exist to-day as a recognized institution of the republic.

I do not pretend that this consummation was desired or anticipated by the Virginia secessionist, but affirm only that he "builded better than he knew," and that but for his act the nation would not now be free from the reproach of human slavery.

CHAPTER XVIII

The "overt act," for which everybody looked, had been really the reënforcement by federal troops of the fort in Charleston harbor. When Fort Sumter was reduced by Beauregard, "the fight was on." My husband, with other gentlemen, was deputed by General Beauregard to demand the surrender of the fort, and in case of refusal which he foresaw, to direct the commandant of the battery, Johnson, to open fire. When the order was delivered to the commandant, he invited my husband to fire the first shot; but this honor my husband declined, and instead suggested the venerable Edmund Ruffin, an intense secessionist, for that service. It was the prevalent impression at the time that Mr. Ruffin did "fire the first gun"; at all events he fired, to him, the last; for on hearing of Lee's surrender, Cato-like, he destroyed himself.

Fort Sumter was reduced on April 12, and Virginia was in a wild state of excitement and confusion. On May 23 Virginia ratified an ordinance of secession, and on the early morning of May 24 the federal soldiers, under the Virginian, General Winfield Scott, crossed the Potomac River and occupied Arlington Heights and the city of Alexandria. "The invasion of Virginia, the pollution of her sacred soil," as it was termed, called forth a vigorous proclamation from her governor and a cry of rage from her press. General Beauregard issued a fierce proclamation, tending to fire the hearts of the Virginians with indignation. "A reckless and unprincipled host," he declared, "has invaded your soil," etc. Virginia needed no such stimulus. The First, Second, and Third Virginia were immediately mustered into service, and my husband was colonel of the Third Virginia Infantry. He was ordered to Norfolk with his regiment to protect the seaboard. I was proud of his colonelship, and much exercised because he had no shoulder-straps. I undertook to embroider them myself. We had not then decided upon the star for our colonels' insignia, and I supposed he would wear the eagle like all the colonels I had ever known. No embroidery bullion was to be had, but I bought heavy bullion fringe, cut it in lengths, and made eagles, probably of some extinct species, for the like were unknown in Audubon's time, and have not since been discovered. However, they were accepted, admired, and, what is worse, worn.

My resolution was taken. I steadily withstood all the entreaties of my friends, and determined to follow my husband's regiment through the war. I did not ask his permission. I would give no trouble. I should be only a help to his sick men and his wounded. I busied myself in preparing a camp equipage—a field stove with a rotary chimney, ticks for bedding, to be filled with straw or hay or leaves, as the case might be, and a camp chest of tin utensils, strong blankets, etc. A tent could always be had from Major Shepard, our quartermaster. News soon came that the Third Virginia had been ordered to Smithfield. McClellan was looking toward the peninsula, and Major-general Joseph E. Johnston was keeping an eye on McClellan.

When I set forth on what my father termed my "wild-goose chase," I found the country literally alive with troops. The train on which I travelled was switched off again and again to allow them to pass. My little boys had the time of their lives, cheering the soldiers and picnicking at short intervals all day. But I had hardly reached Smithfield before the good people of the town forcibly took my camp equipage from me, stored it, and installed me in great comfort in a private house. My colonel soon left me to take his seat in the Confederate Congress along with Hon. William C. Rives and others of our old friends. I was left alone at Smithfield, not la fille du régiment, but la mère! I heard daily from all the sick men in winter quarters, and ministered to them according to my ability. The camp fascinated me. Picturesque huts were built of pine with the bark on, and in clearings here and there brilliant fires of the resinous wood were constantly burning. I knew many of the officers, and from them soon learned that the deadly foe at home was more to be dreaded than the foe in front. Smithfield was noted for its Virginia hams, its fine fish, its mullets that would leap into the fisherman's boat while he lazily enjoyed his brier-root, its great sugary "yams," as the red sweet-potato was called. It was noted as well for the excellence of its brandy. My colonel issued stern orders that no intoxicating liquors were to be sold to his soldiers. Every man who went on leave to the town was inspected on his return. But drunken men gave trouble in the camp, and it was discovered that brandy was smuggled in the barrels of the muskets, and in yams, hollowed out and innocently reposing at the bottom of baskets.

Thereupon one morning Smithfield was in an uproar, negroes screaming and running about with pails to be filled, tipsy pigs staggering along the streets. A squad of soldiers had been ordered out from camp, had entered every store, and emptied the contents of every cask into the gutters. A drunken brawl had occurred in camp, and one soldier had killed another!

The soldier was arrested and imprisoned. Later the prisoner was tried and acquitted,—his own colonel argued in his defence,—and completely sobered, he made a good soldier. The prompt act of the commanding officer was salutary. There was no more trouble—no more muskets loaded with inflammable stuff, no more yams flavored with brandy.

When the colonel was attending the session of Congress, Theo, not yet ten years old, was often mounted on a barrel, in his little linen blouse, to drill the Third Virginia! He had studied military tactics, Hardee and Jomini, with his father. Lying before me as I write is his own copy of Jomini's "L'Art de la Guerre," in which he proudly wrote his name. An event of personal interest was the presentation to the colonel of a blue silken flag, made by the ladies of Petersburg. The party came down the river in a steamboat, and I have before my reminiscent eyes an interesting picture of my colonel, as he stood with his long hair waving in a stiff breeze, listening to the brave things the dear women's spokesman said of their devotion to him and to their country. This flag is somewhere, to-day, in that country, but not in the home of the man who had earned and owned it. It is of heavy blue silk; on one side the arms of the state of Virginia, on the other Justice with the scales. In the upper left-hand corner is the word "Williamsburg," room being left for the many other battles in store for the young colonel.

Things were going on beautifully with us when I one day received a peremptory official order to change my base—to leave Smithfield next morning before daybreak! The orderly who brought it to me looked intensely surprised when I calmly said: "Tell the colonel it is impossible! I can't get ready by to-morrow to leave."

"Madam," said the man, gravely, "it is none of my business, but when Colonel Pryor gives an order, it is wise to be a strict constructionist."

My colonel had returned suddenly; when I, in an open wagon, was on my way next morning at sunrise to the nearest depot, he and his men were en route to the peninsula. They gave McClellan battle May 5 at Williamsburg,—"Pryor and Anderson in front,"—captured four hundred unwounded prisoners, ten colors, and twelve field-pieces, slept on the field of battle, and marched off next morning at their convenience. My colonel personally ministered to the wounded prisoners, and General McClellan recognizes this service in his "own story." After this he was promoted, and my bristling eagles retired before the risen stars of the brigadier-general.

The news of his probable promotion reached me at the Exchange Hotel in Richmond, whither I had gone that I might be near headquarters and thus learn the earliest tidings from the peninsula. There he joined me for one day. We read with keen interest the announcement in the papers that his name had been sent in by the President for promotion. Mrs. Davis held a reception at the Spotswood Hotel on the evening following this announcement, and we availed ourselves of the opportunity to make our respects to her.

A crowd gathered before the Exchange to congratulate my husband, and learning that he had gone to the Spotswood, repaired thither, and with shouts and cheers called him out for a speech. This was very embarrassing, and he fled to a corner of the drawing-room and hid behind a screen of plants. I was standing near the President, trying to hold his attention by remarks on the weather and kindred subjects of a thrilling nature, when a voice from the street called out: "Pryor! General Pryor!" I could endure the suspense no longer, and asked tremblingly, "Is this true, Mr. President?" Mr. Davis looked at me with a benevolent smile and said, "I have no reason, madam, to doubt it, except that I saw it this morning in the papers;" and Mrs. Davis at once summoned the bashful colonel: "What are you doing lying there perdu behind the geraniums? Come out and take your honors."

Following fast upon the battle after which General Johnston ordered "Williamsburg" to be painted on his banner, my general fought the battle of "Fair Oaks" or "Seven Pines"—and in June the Seven Days' battle around Richmond. The story of these desperate battles has been told many times by the generals who fought them. "Pryor's Brigade" was in the front often; in the thick of the fight always. I myself saw my husband draw his sword, and give the word of command "Head of column to the right" as he entered the first of these battles.

I spent the time nursing the wounded in Kent and Paine's Hospital in Richmond, and have told elsewhere the pathetic story of my experience as hospital nurse. For the needs of that stern hour my dear general gave himself—and his wife gave herself. Every linen garment I possessed, except one change, every garment of cotton fabric, all my table-linen, all my bed-linen, even the chintz covers for furniture,—all were torn into strips and rolled for bandages for the soldiers' wounds.

When the fight was over, a gray, haggard, dust-covered soldier entered my room, and throwing himself upon the couch, gave way to the anguish of his heart—"My men! My men! They are almost all dead!"

Thousands of Confederate soldiers were killed or wounded. Richmond was saved! "I am in hopes," wrote General McClellan to his Secretary of War, "the enemy is as completely worn out as I am."

He was! General Lee realized that his men must have rest. My husband was allowed a few days' respite from duty. Almost without a pause he had fought the battles of Williamsburg, Seven Pines, Mechanicsville, Gaines's Mill, Frazier's Farm, and Malvern Hill. He had won his promotion early, but he had lost the soldiers he had led, the loved commander who appreciated him, had seen old schoolmates and friends fall by his side,—the dear fellow, George Loyal Gordon, who had been his best man at our wedding,—old college comrades, valued old neighbors.

Opposed to him in battle, then and after, were men who in after years avowed themselves his warm friends,—General Hancock, General Slocum, General Butterfield, General Sickles, General Fitz-John Porter, General McClellan, and General Grant. They had fought loyally under opposing banners, and from time to time, as the war went on, one and another had been defeated; but over all, and through all, their allegiance had been given to a banner that has never surrendered,—the standard of the universal brotherhood of all true men.

I cannot omit a passing tribute to the heroic fortitude and devotion of the Richmond women in the time of their greatest trial. These were the delicate, beautiful women I had so admired when I lived among them. Not once did they spare themselves, or complain, or evince weakness, or give way to despair. The city had "no language but a cry." Two processions unceasingly passed along the streets; one the wounded borne from the battlefield; the other the cheering men going to take their places at the front. Within the hospitals all that devotion could suggest, of unselfish service, gentle ministration, encouragement, was done by the dear women. Every house was open for the sick and wounded. Oh, but I cannot again tell it all! Sacredly, tenderly I remember, but to-day it seems so cruel, so unnecessary, so wicked! I cannot dwell upon it!

One beautiful memory is of the unfailing kindness and loyalty of the negroes. In the hospitals, in the camps, in our own houses, they faithfully sympathized with us and helped us. Not only at this time, but all during the war, they behaved admirably. The most intense secessionist I ever knew was my general's man, John. Early in the day the black man elected for himself an attitude of quiescence as to politics, and addressed himself to the present need for self-preservation.

It was "Domingo," one of the cooks of our brigade at Williamsburg, that originated the humorous description of a negro's self-appraisement and sensations in battle, so unblushingly quoted afterward by a certain "Cæsar" in northern Virginia. A shell had entered the domain of pots and kettles, and created what Domingo termed a "clatteration." He at once started for the rear.

"What's de matter, Mingo?" asked a fellow-servant, "whar you gwine wid such a hurrification?"

"I gwine to git out o' trouble—dar whar I gwine! Dar's too much powder in dem big things. Dis chile ain't gwine bu'n hisself! An' dar's dem Minnie bullets, too, comin' frew de a'r, singin': 'Whar is you? Whar is you?' I ain't gwine stop an' tell 'em whar I is! I'se a twenty-two-hundurd-dollar nigger, an' I'se gwine tek keer o' what b'longs to marster, I is!"

A story was related by a Northern writer of an interview with a negro who had run the blockade and entered the service of a Federal officer. He was met on board a steamer, after the battle of Fort Donelson, on his way to the rear, and questioned in regard to his experience of war.

"Were you in the fight?"

"Had a little taste of it, sah."

"Stood your ground, of course."

"No, sah! I run."

"Not at the first fire?"

"Yes, sah! an' would a' run sooner ef I knowed it was a-comin'!"

"Why, that wasn't very creditable to your courage, was it?"

"Dat ain't in my line, sah,—cookin's my perfeshun."

"But have you no regard for your reputation?"

"Refutation's nothin' by de side o' life."

"But you don't consider your life worth more than other people's, do you?"

"Hit's wuth mo' to me, sah!"

"Then you must value it very highly."

"Yas, sah, I does,—mo'n all dis wuld! Mo' dan a million o' dollars, sah. What would dat be wuth to a man wid de bref out o' 'im? Self-perserbashun is de fust law wid me, sah!"

"But why should you act upon a different rule from other men?"

"'Cause diffunt man set diffunt value 'pon his life. Mine ain't in de market."

"Well, if all soldiers were like you, traitors might have broken up the government without resistance."

"Dat's so! Dar wouldn't 'a' been no hep fer it. But I don't put my life in de scale against no gubberment on dis yearth. No gubberment gwine pay me ef I loss mehsef."

"Well, do you think you would have been much missed if you had been killed?"

"Maybe not, sah! A daid white man ain' much use to dese yere sogers, let alone a daid niggah; but I'd a missed mehsef pow'ful, an' dat's de pint wid me."

CHAPTER XIX

On the 13th of August, 1862, McClellan abandoned his camp at Harrison's Landing and retired to Fortress Monroe. General Lee withdrew all his troops from Richmond but two companies of infantry left behind to protect the city in case of cavalry raids. General Jackson joined General Lee, and the battle known as the second Manassas was fought. Wilcox, Pryor, and Featherstone were again to the front, and at one time when the desperate struggle of this hard-fought battle was at its height, and the situation augured adversely to the Southern troops, it was General Pryor's privilege to suggest that several batteries should be rushed to an advantageous position and a raking fire be opened upon the enemy's flank which nothing could withstand. Within fifteen minutes the aspect of the field was changed. On the plateau occupied by the Federals stood the Henry house, celebrated in all history as the spot where Jackson's Brigade, "standing like a stone wall," had, a year before, earned the name for their commander which has become immortal.

I think it was early in September, 1862, that General Lee announced to President Davis that he proposed entering Maryland with his army. Before he could receive an answer the Southerners were crossing the Potomac singing "Maryland, my Maryland," and in a few days Jackson reached Frederick. "My Maryland" was earnestly invited and positively declined to rid her "shores" of "the despot's heel." The despot's hand could pay in good greenbacks for her wheat and flour and cattle, while these new fellows had only Confederate money. The governor and leading professional men were all loyal to the Union. The farmers drove their herds into Pennsylvania, and in the mills the sound of the grinding was not low—it ceased altogether. The Confederates might defeat Pope and McClellan in the battle-field; the farmer proved himself master of the situation in the wheat-field.

My general was in Frederick with his brigade, and incidentally saw and heard nothing of the touching occurrence commemorated by Whittier. The Quaker poet was a romancer! I use no harsher term. I am perfectly willing Barbara Frietchie's "old gray head" should forever wear the crown he placed upon it, but I cannot brook "the blush of shame" over Stonewall Jackson's face. Blush he often did,—for he was as delicate as a woman,—but blush for shame, never! Rhodes says: "His riding through the streets gave an occasion to forge the story of Barbara Frietchie. It is a token of the intense emotion which clouds our judgment of the enemy in arms. Although Stonewall Jackson, not long before, was eager to raise the black flag, he was incapable of giving the order to fire at the window of a private house for the sole reason that there 'the old flag met his sight,' and it is equally impossible that a remark of old Dame Barbara, 'Spare your country's flag,' could have brought 'a blush of shame' to his cheek. Jackson was not of the cavalier order, but he had a religious and chivalrous respect for women." He goes on to state that a woman, not Barbara Frietchie, waved a flag as Jackson passed to which he paid no attention. Also, that when he had passed through Middletown, two pretty girls had waved Union flags in his face. "He bowed and raised his hat, and turning with his quiet smile to his staff, said: 'We evidently have no friends in this town.'"

On September 15 the battle-line, with my husband's division (Longstreet's), was drawn up in front of Sharpsburg (or Antietam), and again Pryor, Wilcox, and Featherstone were well to the front. My husband commanded Anderson's division at Antietam, General Anderson having been wounded. This battle is quoted, along with the battle of Seven Pines, as one of the most hotly contested of the war. Sorely pressed at one time, General Pryor despatched an orderly to General Longstreet with a request for artillery. The latter tore the margin from a newspaper and wrote: "I am sending you the guns, dear General. This is a hard fight, and we had better all die than lose it." At one time during the battle the combatants agreed upon a brief cessation, that the dead and wounded of both sides might be removed. While General Pryor waited, a Federal officer approached him.

"General," said he, "I have just detected one of my men in robbing the body of one of your soldiers. I have taken his booty from him, and now consign it to you."

Without examining the small bundle—tied in a handkerchief—my husband ordered it to be properly enclosed and sent to me. The handkerchief contained a gold watch, a pair of gold sleeve-links, a few pieces of silver, and a strip of paper on which was written, "Strike till the last armed foe expires," and signed "A Florida Patriot." There seemed to be no clew by which I might hope to find an inheritor for these treasures. I could only take care of them.

I brought them forth one day to interest an aged relative, whose chair was placed in a sunny window. "I think, my dear," she said, "there are pin-scratched letters on the inside of these sleeve-buttons." Sure enough, there were three initials, rudely made, but perfectly plain.

Long afterward I met a Confederate officer from Florida who had fought at Antietam.

"Did you know any one from your state, Captain, who was killed at Sharpsburg?"

"Alas! yes," he replied, and mentioned a name corresponding exactly with the scratched initials.

The parcel, with a letter from me, was sent to an address he gave me, and in due time I received a most touching letter of thanks from the mother of the dead soldier.

In August I had left my Gordon, Theo, and Mary with my dear aunt, who had been compelled to abandon her mountain home and now lived near "The Oaks" in Charlotte County. There was no safety any longer except in the interior, far from the railroads. Even there raiding companies of cavalry dashed through the country bringing terror and leaving a desert as far as food was concerned.

For myself, as I could not go northward with my soldiers, I could at least keep within the lines of communication, and I selected a little summer resort, "Coyners," in the Blue Ridge Mountains on the line of the railroad. There I found General Elzey,—who had fought gallantly at Bull Run and elsewhere,—with his face terribly wounded and bandaged up to his eyes. He had been sent to the rear with a physician for rest and recovery. His brilliant wife was with him; also his aid, Captain Contee, and his young bride, who had crossed the Potomac in an open boat to join him and redeem her pledge to marry him. We were joined by Mrs. A. P. Hill, General and Mrs. Wigfall and a lovely daughter who has recently given to the world an interesting story of her war recollections. The small hotel spanned a little green valley at its head, and stretching behind was a velvet strip of green, a spring and rivulet in the midst, and a mountain ridge on either side. I had a tiny cottage with windows that opened against the side of the hill (or mountain), and lying on my bed at night, the moon and stars, as they rose above me, seemed so near I could have stretched a long arm and picked them off the hill-top!

Strenuous as were the times, awful the suspense, the vexed questions of precedence, relative importance, rankled in the bosoms of the distinguished ladies in the hotel. One after another would come out to me: "I'd like to know who this Maryland woman is that she gives herself such airs;" or, "How much longer do you think I'll stand Dolly Morgan? Why, she treats me as though she were the Queen of Sheba." I could only reply with becoming meekness: "I'm sure I don't know! I am only a brigadier, you know—the rest of you are major-generals—I am not competent to judge."

Nature had done everything for our happiness. The climate was delicious; the valley was carpeted with moss and tender grass, and thickly gemmed with daisies and purple asters. Before sunrise the skies, like all morning skies seen between high hills, looked as if made of roses. A short climb would bring us to a spot where the evening sky and mountain would be bathed in golden glory. But oh, the anguish of anxiety, the terror, the dreams at night of battle and murder and sudden death!

My little Roger was desperately ill at this place, and for many days I despaired of his life. General Elzey's physician gave me no hope. He counselled only fortitude and resignation. The dear friend of my girlhood, George Wythe Randolph, was Secretary of War. I wrote him a letter imploring, "Send my husband to me, if but for one hour." He answered, "God knows I long to help and comfort you! but you ask the impossible." I soon knew why. My general was at the front!

Not until late—long after every guest had departed—was I able to travel with my invalid son. Upon arriving in Charlottesville, he had a relapse of typhoid fever and was ill unto death for many weeks. Meanwhile his father was ordered to the vicinity of Suffolk to collect forage and provisions from counties near the Federal lines.

The enemy destined to conquer us at last—the "ravenous, hunger-starved wolf"—already menaced us. General Longstreet had learned that corn and bacon were stored in the northeastern counties of North Carolina, and he sent two companies of cavalry on a foraging expedition to the region around Suffolk.

"The Confederate lines," says a historian, "extended only to the Blackwater River on the east, where a body of Confederate troops was stationed to keep the enemy in check." That body was commanded by General Pryor, now in front of a large Federal force to keep it in check while the wagon trains sent off corn and bacon for Lee's army. This was accomplished by sleepless vigilance on the part of the Confederate general. The Federal forces made frequent sallies from Suffolk, but were always driven back with loss. It is amusing to read of the calmness with which his commanding officers ordered him to accomplish great things with his small force.

"I cannot," says General Colston, "forward your requisition for two regiments of infantry and one of cavalry: it is almost useless to make such requisitions, for they remain unanswered. You must use every possible means to deceive the enemy as to your strength, and you must hold the line of the Blackwater to the last extremity." General French writes: "If I had any way to increase your forces, I should do so, but I have to bow to higher authority and the necessities of the service. But you must annoy the villains all you can, and make them uncomfortable. Give them no rest. Ambush them at every turn."

General Pryor did not dream I would come to his camp at Blackwater. He supposed I would find quarters among my friends, but I had now no home. Our venerable father had sent his family to the interior after the battles around Richmond, had given up his church in Petersburg, and, commending the women, old men, and children to the care of a successor, had entered the army as chaplain, "where," as he said, "I can follow my own church members and comfort them in sickness, if I can do no more."

As soon as the position of our brigade was made known to me, I drew forth the box containing the camp outfit, packed a trunk or two, and took the cars for the Blackwater. The terminus of the railroad was only a few miles from our camp. The Confederate train could go no farther because of the enemy. The day's journey was long, for the passenger car attached to the transportation train was dependent upon the movements of the latter. The few passengers who had set forth with me in the morning had left at various wayside stations, and I was now alone. I had no idea where we should sleep that night. I thought I would manage it somehow—somewhere.

We arrived at twilight at the end of our journey. When I left the car, my little boys gathered around me. There was a small wooden building near, which served for waiting-room and post-office. The only dwelling in sight was another small house, surrounded by a few bare trees. My first impression was that I had never before seen such an expanse of gray sky. The face of the earth was a dead, bare level, as far as the eye could reach; and much, very much, of it lay under water. I was in the region of swamps, stretching on and on until they culminated in the one great "Dismal Swamp" of the country. No sounds were to be heard, no hum of industry or lowing of cattle, but a mighty concert rose from thousands, nay millions, of frogs.

"Now," thought I, "here is really a fine opportunity to be 'jolly'! Mark Tapley's swamps couldn't surpass these." But all the railroad folk were departing, and the postmaster was preparing to lock his door and leave also. I liked the looks of the little man, and ventured:—

"Can you tell me, sir, where I can get lodging to-night? I am Mrs. Pryor—the general's wife, and to-morrow he will take care of me."

My little man did not belie his looks. He took me in his own house, and next day my general, at his invitation, made the house his headquarters.

My stay on the Blackwater was most interesting, but I cannot repeat the story here. Suffice it to say that our safety so near the enemy's lines—he was just across the Blackwater—was purchased by eternal vigilance.

Towards the last of January we had a season of warm, humid weather. Apparently the winter was over; the grass was springing on the swamp, green and luxurious, and the willows swelling into bud. There were no singing birds on the Blackwater as early as January 28, but the frogs were mightily exercised upon the coming of spring, and their nightly concerts took on a jubilant note.

One day I had a few moments' conversation with my husband about army affairs, and he remarked that our Southern soldiers were always restless unless they were in action. "They never can stand still in battle," he said; "they are willing to yell and charge the most desperate positions, but if they can't move forward, they must move backward. Stand still they cannot."

I thought I could perceive symptoms of restlessness on the part of their commander. Often in the middle of the night he would summon John, mount him, and send him to camp, a short distance away; and presently I would hear the tramp, tramp of the general's staff-officers, coming to hold a council of war in his bedroom. On the 28th of January he confided to me that on the next day he would make a sally in the direction of the enemy. "He is getting entirely too impudent," said he; "I'm not strong enough to drive him out of the country, but he must keep his place."

I had just received a present of coffee. This was at once roasted and ground. On the day of the march fires were kindled before dawn under the great pots used at the "hog-killing time" (an era in the household), and many gallons of coffee were prepared. This was sweetened, and when our men paused near the house to form the line of march, the servants and little boys passed down the line with buckets of the steaming coffee, cups, dippers, and gourds. Every soldier had a good draught of comfort and cheer. The weather had suddenly changed. The great snow-storm that fell in a few days was gathering, the skies were lowering, and the horizon was dark and threatening.

After the men had marched away, I drove to the hospital tent and put myself at the disposal of the surgeon. We inspected the store of bandages and lint, and I was intrusted with the preparation of more.

Meanwhile John, who was left behind, indemnified himself for the loss of the excitement of the hour by abusing "the nasty abolition Yankees," singing:—

"Jeff Davis is a gent'man,

An' Linkum is a fool!

Jeff Davis rides a fine white horse,

An' Linkum rides a mule," etc.

He was not the only one of the nation's wards who held the nation in contempt—root and branch, President and people. The special terms in which he loved to designate them were in common use among his own race. Some of the expressions of the great men I had known in Washington were quite as offensive and not a bit less inelegant, although framed in better English. I never approved of "calling names," for higher reasons than the demands of good taste. I had seen what comes of it, and I reproved John for teaching them to my little boys. "No'm," said John, crestfallen, "I won't say nothin'; I'll just say the Yankees are mighty mean folks."

My dear general found the enemy at the "Deserted House"; and there gave them battle. He may tell his own story:—

"Carrsville, Isle of Wight, January 30, 1863.

"To Brigadier-general Colston, "Petersburg, Va.

"General: This morning at four o'clock the enemy under Major-general Peck attacked me at Kelley's store, eight miles from Suffolk. After three hours' severe fighting we repulsed them at all points and held the field. Their force is represented by prisoners to be between ten and fifteen thousand. My loss in killed and wounded will not exceed fifty—no prisoners. I regret that Colonel Poage is among the killed. We inflicted a heavy loss on the enemy.

"Respectfully,
"Roger A. Pryor,
"Brigadier-general Commanding."

On February 2 the general thus addressed his troops:—

"The brigadier-general congratulates the troops of this command on the results of the recent combat.

"The enemy endeavored under cover of night to steal an inglorious victory by surprise, but he found us prepared at every point, and despite his superior numbers, greater than your own in the proportion of five to one, he was signally repulsed and compelled to leave us in possession of the field.

"After silencing his guns and dispersing his infantry, you remained on the field from night until one o'clock, awaiting the renewal of the attack, but he did not again venture to encounter your terrible fire.

"When the disparity of force between the parties is considered, with the proximity of the enemy to his stronghold, and his facilities of reënforcements by railway, the result of the action of the 30th will be accepted as a splendid illustration of your courage and good conduct."

One of the "enemy's" papers declared that our force was "three regiments of infantry, fourteen pieces of artillery, and about nine hundred cavalry!"

The temptation to "lie under a mistake" was great in those days of possible disaffection, when soldiers had to believe in their cause in order to defend it. One of the newspaper correspondents of the enemy explained why we were not again attacked after the first fight. He said: "Some may inquire why we did not march forthwith to Carrsville and attack the rebels again. The reasons are obvious. Had he went [sic] to Carrsville, Pryor would have had the advantage to cut off our retreat. The natives know every by-path and blind road through the woods and are ever ready to help the rebels to our detriment. Pryor can always cross the Blackwater on his floating bridge. It is prudent to allow an enemy to get well away from his stronghold the better to capture his guns and destroy his ammunition," etc.

Another paper declares he was heavily reënforced at Carrsville.

Another records: "The rebels have been very bold in this neighborhood. Pryor has been in the habit of crossing the Blackwater River whenever he wanted to. Our attacking him this time must have been a real surprise to him. We took a large number of prisoners!"

He continued the indulgence of this habit until spring, receiving from his countrymen unstinted praise for his protection of that part of our state, and for the generous supplies he sent all winter to Lee's army.

CHAPTER XX

As for myself, when my general was no longer needed on the Blackwater, the camp chest and I and the little boys took the road again. We wandered from place to place, and at last were taken as boarders, invited by a farmer, evidently without the consent of his wife. There I was, of all women made most miserable. The mistress of the house had not wanted "refugees." Everything combined to my discomfort and wretchedness, and my dear general, making me a flying visit from Richmond where he was detained on duty, counselled me to go still farther into the interior to an old watering place, the "Amelia Springs" kept by a dear Virginia woman, Mrs. Winn. I had no sooner arrived and been welcomed by a number of refugee women, and a host of children when my three little boys developed whooping-cough, and were strictly quarantined in a cottage at the extreme edge of the grounds. The little hotel and cottages were filled with agreeable women, but everything was so sad, there was no heart in any one for gayety of any kind. One evening the proprietor proposed that the ballroom be lighted and a solitary fiddler, "Bozeman,"—who was also the barber,—be installed in the musician's seat and show us what he could do. Young feet cannot resist a good waltz or polka, and the floor was soon filled with care-forgetting maidens—there were no men except the proprietor and the fiddler. Presently a telegram was received by the former. We huddled together under the chandelier to read it. Vicksburg had fallen! The gallant General Pemberton had been starved into submission. Surely and swiftly the coil was tightening around us. Surely and swiftly would we, too, be starved into submission.

My general was in Richmond serving on a court-martial, when the news from Gettysburg reached the city. Every house was in mourning, every heart broken. He called upon President and Mrs. Davis, and was told that the President could receive no one, but that Mrs. Davis would be glad to see him. The weather was intensely hot, and he felt he must not inflict a long visit; but when he rose to leave, Mrs. Davis, who seemed unwilling to be left alone, begged him to remain. After a few minutes the President appeared, weary, silent, and depressed. Presently a dear little boy entered in his night-robe, and kneeling beside his father's knee, repeated his evening prayer of thankfulness and of supplication for God's blessing on the country. The President laid his hand on the boy's head and fervently responded, "Amen." The scene recurred vividly, in the light of future events, to my husband's memory. With the coming day came the news of the surrender of Vicksburg,—news of which Mr. Davis had been forewarned the evening before,—and already the Angel of Death was hovering near to enfold the beautiful boy and bear him away from a world of trouble. The long, sultry nights were spent by me in nursing my little boys through their distressing whooping-cough paroxysms. I was sleeping after a wakeful night, when I heard, as in a dream, my dear general's voice. I opened my heavy eyes to see him seated beside me. He earnestly entreated me to bear with patience the news he brought me—first that he must return in an hour to catch a train back to Richmond, and then that he had resigned his commission as brigadier-general and was en route to join General Fitz Lee's cavalry as a private. I have told the story of the events which culminated in this unprecedented act of a brigadier-general, and I fear I have not time or space to repeat it here. Briefly, Congress having recommended that regiments should be enlisted under officers from their own states,—in order to remedy, if possible, the disinclination to reënlist for the war,—there was a general upheaval and change throughout the entire army during the autumn of 1862. The Second, Fifth, and Eighth Florida regiments of General Pryor's Brigade were assigned to a Florida brigadier, the Fourteenth Alabama and the Fifth North Carolina to officers from their respective states. He was, in consequence of this order of Congress, left without a brigade. He was positively assured of a permanent command. "I regretted," wrote General Lee, November 25, 1862, "at the time, the breaking up of your brigade, but you are aware that the circumstances which produced it were beyond my control. I hope it will not be long before you will be again in the field, that the country may derive the benefit of your zeal and activity." He had a right to expect reward for his splendid service on the Blackwater. He had never ceased all winter to remind the Secretary of War of his promise to give him a permanent command. He felt that he had earned it. He had fought many battles,—Williamsburg, Seven Pines, Mechanicsville, Gaines's Mill, Frazier's Farm, the second Manassas, and Sharpsburg, besides the fight at the Deserted House on the Blackwater.

He now wrote, April 6, 1863, an almost passionate appeal to the President himself, imploring that he be sent into active service, and not be "denied participation in the struggles that are soon to determine the destinies of my country. If I know myself," he added, "it is not the vanity of command that moves me to this appeal. A single and sincere wish to contribute somewhat to the success of our cause impels me to entreat that I may be assigned to duty. That my position is not the consequence of any default of mine you will be satisfied by the enclosed letter from General Lee." The letter was followed by new promises. It was supplemented by General Pryor's fellow-officers, who not only urged that the country should not lose his services, but designated certain regiments which might easily be assigned to him. The President wrote courteous letters in reply, always repeating assurances of esteem, etc., and continuing to give brigades to newer officers. The Richmond Examiner and other papers now began to notice the matter and present General Pryor as arrayed with the party against the administration. This being untrue, he was magnanimous enough to contradict. On March 17, 1863, the President wrote to him the following:—

"General Roger A. Pryor:

"General: Your gratifying letter on the 16th inst., referring to an article in the Examiner newspaper which seems to associate you with the opposition to the administration, has been received.

"I did not see the article in question, but I am glad it had led to an expression so agreeable. The good opinion of one so competent to judge of public affairs, and who has known me so long and closely, is a great support in the midst of many and arduous trials.

"Very respectfully and truly yours,
"Jefferson Davis."

Among the letters sent to Mr. Davis in General Pryor's behalf was one from General Lee and one from General Jackson, both of which unhappily remained in the President's possession, no copies having been kept by General Pryor.

As time went on, my husband waited with such patience as he could command. Finally he resigned his commission as brigadier-general and also his seat in Congress, and entered General Fitzhugh Lee's cavalry as a private soldier. His resignation was held a long time by the President, "in the hope it would be reconsidered," and repeatedly General Pryor was "assured of the President's esteem," etc. General Jackson, General Longstreet, General A. P. Hill, General D. H. Hill, General Wilcox, General George Pickett, General Beauregard, were all his devoted friends. Some of them had, like General Johnston and General McClellan, similar experience.

It was a bitter hour for me when my general followed me to the Amelia Springs with news that he had entered the cavalry as a private. "Stay with me and the children," I implored.

"No," he said, "I had something to do with bringing on this war. I must give myself to Virginia. She needs the help of all her sons. If there are too many brigadier-generals in the service,—it may be so,—certain it is there are not enough private soldiers."

But his hour had passed. He kissed his sleeping boys and hurried off to the stage that was to take him to the depot. There John was waiting with his horses (he never accepted anything but a soldier's ration from the government), and they were off to join Fitzhugh Lee.

The Divinity that "rules our ends, rough hew them as we may," was guiding him. I look back with gratitude to these circumstances,—then so hard to bear,—circumstances to which, I am persuaded, I owe my husband's life. Even were it otherwise, God forbid I should admit into my bosom hard thoughts of any man.

General Lee welcomed him in hearty fashion:—

"Headquarters, August 26, 1863.

"Honorable, General, or Mr.: How shall I address you? Damn it, there's no difference! Come up to see me. Whilst I regret the causes that induced you to resign your position, I am glad that the country has not lost your active services, and that your choice to serve her has been cast in one of my regiments.

"Very respectfully,
"Fitz Lee."

As a common soldier in the cavalry service, General Pryor was assigned the duties of his position, from not one of which did he ever excuse himself.

Having no longer a home of my own, it was decided that I should go to my people in Charlotte County. One of my sons, Theo, and two of my little daughters were already there, and there I expected to remain until the end of the war.

But repeated attempts to reach my country home resulted in failure. Marauding parties and guerillas were flying all over the country. There had been alarm at a bridge over the Staunton near "The Oaks," and the old men and boys had driven away the enemy. I positively could not venture alone.

So it was decided that I should return to my husband's old district, to Petersburg, and there find board in some private family.

I reached Petersburg in the autumn and wandered about for days seeking refuge in some household. Many of my old friends had left town. Strangers and refugees had rented the houses of some of these, while others were filled with the homeless among their own kindred. There was no room anywhere for me, and my small purse was growing so slender that I became anxious. Finally my brother-in-law offered me an overseer's house on one of his "quarters." The small dwelling he placed at my disposal was to be considered temporary only; some one of his town houses might soon be vacant. When I drove out to the little house, I found it hardly better than a hovel. We entered a rude, unplastered kitchen, the planks of the floor loose and wide apart, the earth beneath plainly visible. There were no windows in this smoke-blackened kitchen. A door opened into a tiny room with a fireplace, window, and out-door of its own; and a short flight of stairs led to an unplastered attic, so that the little apartment was entered by two doors and a staircase. It was already cold, but we had to beat a hasty retreat and sit outside while a negro boy made a "smudge" in the house, to dislodge the wasps that had tenanted it for many months. My brother had lent me bedding for the overseer's pine bedstead and the low trundle-bed underneath. The latter, when drawn out at night, left no room for us to stand. When that was done, we had all to go to bed. For furniture we had only two or three wooden chairs and a small table. There were no curtains, neither carpet nor rugs, and no china. There was wood at the woodpile, and a little store of meal and rice, with a small bit of bacon in the overseer's grimy closet. This was to be my winter home.

Petersburg was already virtually in a state of siege. Not a tithe of the food needed for its army of refugees could be brought to the city. Our highway, the river, was filled, except for a short distance, with Federal gunboats. The markets had long been closed. The stores of provisions had been exhausted, so that a grocery could offer little except a barrel or two of molasses made from the domestic sorghum sugar-cane, an acrid and unwholesome sweet used instead of sugar for drink with water or milk and for eating with bread. The little boys at once began to keep house. They valiantly attacked the woodpile, and found favor in the eyes of Mary and the man, whom I never knew as other than "Mary's husband." He and Mary were left in charge of the quarter and had a cabin near us.

I had no books, no newspapers, no means of communicating with the outside world; but I had one neighbor, Mrs. Laighton, a daughter of Winston Henry, granddaughter of Patrick Henry. She lived near me with her husband—a Northern man. Both were very cultivated, very poor, very kind. Mrs. Laighton, as Lucy Henry,—a brilliant young girl,—I had last seen at one of her mother's gay house-parties in Charlotte County. We had much in common, and her kind heart went out in love and pity for me. Her talk was a tonic to me. It stimulated me to play my part with courage, seeing I had been deemed worthy, by the God who made me, to suffer in this sublime struggle for liberty. She was as truly gifted as was ever her illustrious grandfather. To hear her was to believe, so persuasive and convincing was her eloquence.

I had not my good Eliza Page this winter. She had fallen ill. I had a stout little black girl, Julia, as my only servant; but Mary had a friend, a "corn-field hand," "Anarchy," who managed to help me at odd hours. Mrs. Laighton sent me every morning a print of butter as large as a silver dollar, with two or three perfect biscuits, and sometimes a bowl of persimmons or stewed dried peaches. She had a cow, and churned every day, making her biscuits of the buttermilk, which was much too precious to drink.

A great snow-storm overtook us a day or two before Christmas. My little boys kindled a roaring fire in the cold, open kitchen, roasted chestnuts, and set traps for the rabbits and "snowbirds," which never entered them. They made no murmur at the bare Christmas; they were loyal little fellows to their mother. My day had been spent in mending their garments,—making them was a privilege denied me, for I had no materials. I was not "all unhappy!" The rosy cheeks at my fireside consoled me for my privations, and something within me proudly rebelled against weakness or complaining.

The flakes were falling thickly at midnight on Christmas Eve when I suddenly became very ill. I sent out for Mary's husband and bade him gallop in to Petersburg, three miles distant, and fetch me Dr. Withers. I was dreadfully ill when he arrived, and as he stood at the foot of my bed, I said to him: "It doesn't matter much for me, Doctor! But my husband will be grateful if you keep me alive."

When I awoke from a long sleep, he was still standing at the foot of my bed where I had left him—it seemed to me ages ago! I put out my hand and it touched a little warm bundle beside me. God had given me a dear child!

The doctor spoke to me gravely and most kindly. "I must leave you now," he said, "and, alas! I cannot come again. There are so many, so many sick. Call all your courage to your aid. Remember the pioneer women, and all they were able to survive. This woman," indicating Anarchy, "is a field-hand, but she is a mother, and she has agreed to help you during the Christmas holidays—her own time. And now, God bless you, and good-by!"

I soon slept again, and when I awoke, the very Angel of Strength and Peace had descended and abode with me. I resolved to prove to myself that if I was called to be a great woman, I could be a great woman. Looking at me from my bedside were my two little boys. They had been taken the night before across the snow-laden fields to my brother's house, but had risen at daybreak and had "come home to take care" of me!

My little maid Julia left me Christmas morning. She said it was too lonesome, and her "mistis" always let her choose her own places. I engaged "Anarchy" at twenty-five dollars a week for all her nights. But her hands, knotted by work in the fields, were too rough to touch my babe. I was propped up on pillows and dressed her myself, sometimes fainting when the exertion was over.

I was still in my bed three weeks afterward, when one of my boys ran in, exclaiming in a frightened voice, "Oh, mamma, an old gray soldier is coming in!" He stood—this old gray soldier—and looked at me, leaning on his sabre.

"Is this the reward my country gives me?" he said; and not until he spoke did I recognize my husband. Turning on his heel, he went out, and I heard him call:—

"John! John! Take those horses into town and sell them! Do not return until you do so—sell them for anything! Get a cart and bring butter, eggs, and everything you can find for Mrs. Pryor's comfort."

He had been with Fitz Lee on that dreadful tramp through the snow after Averill. He had suffered cold and hunger, had slept on the ground without shelter, sharing his blanket with John. He had used his own horses, and now if the government needed him, the government might mount him. He had no furlough, and soon reported for duty; but not before he had moved us, early in January, into town—one of my brother-in-law's houses having been vacated at the beginning of the year. John knew his master too well to construe him literally, and had reserved the fine gray, Jubal Early, for his use. That I might not again fall into the sad plight in which he had found me, he purchased three hundred dollars in gold, and instructed me to prepare a girdle to be worn all the time around my waist, concealed by my gown. The coins were quilted in; each had a separate section to itself, so that with scissors I might extract one at a time without disturbing the rest.

CHAPTER XXI

Early in June the two armies of Grant and Lee confronted each other at Petersburg. My dear general had bidden a silent and most sad farewell to his little family and gone forth to join his company, when my father entered with great news. "I have just met General Lee in the street." "Passing through?" I asked. "Not at all! The lines are established just here and filled with his veterans." My general soon reëntered joyfully. He would now be on duty near us.

The next Sunday a shell fell in the Presbyterian Church opposite our house. From that moment we were shelled at intervals, and very severely. There were no soldiers in the city. Women were killed on the lower streets, and an exodus from the shelled districts commenced at once.

As soon as the enemy brought up his siege guns of heavy artillery, they opened on the city with shell without the slightest notice, or without giving opportunity for the removal of non-combatants, the sick, the wounded, or the women and children. The fire was at first directed toward the Old Market, presumably because of the railroad depot situated there, about which the soldiers might be supposed to collect. But the guns soon enlarged their operations, sweeping all the streets in the business part of the city, and then invading the residential region. The steeples of the churches seemed to afford targets for their fire, all of them coming in finally for a share of the compliment.

To persons unfamiliar with the infernal noise made by the screaming, ricocheting, and bursting of shells, it is impossible to convey an adequate idea of the terror and demoralization which ensued. Some families who could not leave the besieged city dug holes in the ground, five or six feet deep, covered with heavy timber banked over with earth, the entrance facing opposite the batteries from which the shells were fired. They made these bomb-proofs safe, at least, and thither the family repaired when heavy shelling commenced. General Lee seemed to recognize that no part of the city was safe, for he immediately ordered the removal of all the hospitals, under the care of Petersburg's esteemed physician, Dr. John Herbert Claiborne. There were three thousand sick and wounded, many of them too ill to be moved. Everything that could run on wheels, from a dray to a wheelbarrow, was pressed into service by the fleeing inhabitants of the town. A long, never ending line passed my door until there were no more to pass.

The spectacle fascinated my children, and they lived in the open watching it. One day my little friend Nannie with my baby, nearly as large as herself, in her arms, stood at the gate when a shell fell some distance from them. A mounted officer drew rein and accosted her. "Whose children are these?"

"This is Charles Campbell's daughter," said little Nannie, "and this"—indicating the baby—"is General Pryor's child."

"Run home with General Pryor's baby, little girl, away from the shells," he said, and turning as he rode off, "My love to your father. I'm coming to see him."

"Who is that man?" little Nannie inquired of a bystander.

"Why, don't you know? That's General Lee!"

We soon learned the peculiar deep boom of the one great gun which bore directly upon us. The boys named it "Long Tom." Sometimes for several weeks "Long Tom" rested or slept—and would then make up for lost time. And yet we yielded to no panic. The children seemed to understand that it would be cowardly to complain. One little girl cried out with fright at an explosion, but her aunt, Mrs. Gibson, called her and said: "My dear, you cannot make it harder for other people! If you feel very much afraid, come to me, and I will take you in my arms, but you mustn't cry."

Charles Campbell, the historian, lived near us, at the Anderson Seminary. He cleared out the large coal cellar, which was fortunately dry, spread rugs on the floor, and furnished it with lounges and chairs. There we took refuge in utter darkness when the firing was unbearable. My next-door neighbor, Mr. Thomas Branch, piled bags of sand around his house and thus made it bomb-proof. One day a shell struck one of my chimneys and buried itself, hissing, at the front door. Away we went to Mr. Campbell's bomb-proof cellar, and there we remained until the paroxysmal shelling ceased.

One night, after a long, hot day, we were so tired we slept soundly. I was awakened by Eliza Page, standing trembling beside me. She pulled me out of bed and hurriedly turned to throw blankets around the children. The furies were let loose! The house was shaking with the concussion from the heavy guns. We were in the street, on our way to our bomb-proof cellar, when a shell burst not more than twenty-five feet before us. Fire and fragments rose like a fountain in the air and fell in a shower around us. Not one of my little family was hurt—and strange to say, the children were not terrified!

Another time a shell fell in our own yard and buried itself in the earth. My baby was not far away in her nurse's arms. The little creature was fascinated by the shells. The first word she ever uttered was an attempt to imitate them. "Yonder comes that bird with the broken wing," the servants would say. The shells made a fluttering sound as they traversed the air, descending with a frightful hiss. When they exploded in mid-air, a puff of smoke, white as an angel's wing, would drift away, and the particles would patter down like hail. At night the track of the shell and its explosion were precisely similar to our Fourth of July rockets, except that they were fired, not upward, but in a slanting direction,—not aimed at the stars, but aimed at us! I never felt afraid of them! I was brought up to believe in predestination. Courage, after all, is much a matter of nerves. My neighbors, Mr. and Mrs. Gibson, Mrs. Meade, and Mr. and Mrs. Campbell, agreed with me, and we calmly elected to remain in town. There was no place of safety accessible to us. Mr. Branch removed his family, and, as far as I knew, none other of my friends remained throughout the summer.

Not far from our own door ran a sunken street, with the hill, through which it was cut, rising each side of it. Into this hill the negroes burrowed, hollowing out a small space, where they sat all day on mats, knitting, singing, and selling small cakes made of sorghum and flour, and little round meat pies.

The antiphonal songs, with their weird melody, still linger in my memory. At night above the dull roar of the guns, the keen hiss of the shells as they fell, the rattle and rumble of the army wagons, a strong voice from the colony of hillside huts would ring out:—

The sorghum cakes were made to perfection in our own kitchen, but the meat pies were fascinating. I might have been tempted to invest in them but for a slight circumstance. I saw a dead mule lying on the common, and out of its side had been cut a very neat, square chunk of flesh!

With all our starvation we never ate rats, mice, or mule meat. We managed to exist on peas, bread, and sorghum. We could buy a little milk, and we mixed it with a drink made from roasted and ground corn. The latter, in the grain, was scarce. Mr. Campbell's children picked up the grains wherever the army horses were fed, washed, dried, and pounded them for food.

My little boys never complained, but Theo, who had insisted upon returning to me from his uncle's safe home in the country, said one day: "Mamma, I have a queer feeling in my stomach! Oh, no! it doesn't ache the least bit, but it feels like a nutmeg grater."

Poor little laddie! His machinery needed oiling. And pretty soon his small brother fell ill with fever. My blessed Dr. Withers obtained a permit for me to get a pint of soup every day from the hospital, and one day there was a joyful discovery. In the soup was a drumstick of chicken!

"I cert'nly hope I'll not get well," the little man shocked me by saying.

"Oh, is it as bad as that?" I sighed.

"Why," he replied, "my soup will be stopped if I get better!"

Just at this juncture, when things were as bad as could be, my husband brought home to tea the Hon. Pierre Soulé, General D. H. Hill, and General Longstreet. I had bread and a little tea, the latter served in a yellow pitcher without a handle. Mrs. Meade, hearing of my necessity, sent me a small piece of bacon. I had known Mr. Soulé in Washington society—of all men the most fastidious, most polished. When we assembled around the table, I lifted my hot pitcher by means of a napkin, and offered my tea, pure and simple, allowing the guests to use their discretion in regard to a spoonful or two of dark brown sugar.

"This is a great luxury, madam," said Mr. Soulé, with one of his gracious bows, "a good cup of tea."

We talked that night of all that was going wrong with our country, of the good men who were constantly relieved of their commands, of all the mistakes we were making.

"Mistakes!" said General Hill, bringing his clenched fist down upon the table, "I could forgive mistakes! I cannot forgive lies! I could get along if we could only, only ever learn the truth, the real truth." But he was very personal and used much stronger words than these.

The pictures my general had brought from Europe had been sent early from Washington to Petersburg, and I had opened one of the boxes which contained a large etching of Michelangelo's "Last Judgment." General Longstreet stood long before this picture, as it hung in our living room. Turning to Mr. Soulé and General Hill he exclaimed: "Oh, what does it all signify? Here is the end for every one of us!"—the end of all the strife, the bloodshed, the bitterness—the final victory or defeat.

They talked and talked, these veterans and the charming, accomplished diplomat, until one of them inquired the hour. I raised a curtain.

"Gentlemen," I said, "the sun is rising. You must now breakfast with us." They declined. They had supped!

In the terrible fight at Port Walthall near Petersburg, my husband rendered essential service. Among the few papers I preserved in a secret drawer of the only trunk I saved, were two, one signed Bushrod Johnson, the other D. H. Hill. The latter says: "The victory at Walthall Junction was greatly due to General Roger A. Pryor. But for him it is probable we might have been surprised and defeated." The other from General Johnson runs at length: "At the most critical juncture General Roger A. Pryor rendered me most valuable service, displaying great zeal, energy, and gallantry in reconnoitring the positions of the enemy, arranging my line of battle, and rendering successful the operations and movements of the conflict." At General Johnson's request my husband served with him during the midsummer. Such letters I have in lieu of medal or ribbon,—a part only of much of similar nature; but less was given to many a man who as fully deserved recognition.

Having been in active service in all the events around Petersburg, my husband was now requested by General Lee to take with him a small squad of men, and learn something of the movements of the enemy.

"Grant knows all about me," he said, "and I know too little about Grant. You were a school-boy here, General, and have hunted in all the by-paths around Petersburg. Knowing the country better than any of us, you are the best man for this important duty."

Accordingly, armed with a pass from General Lee, my husband set forth on his perilous scouting expeditions, sometimes being absent a week at a time. During these scouting trips he had had adventures, narrow escapes, and also some opportunities for gratifying, what has ever been the controlling principle of his nature, the desire to help the unfortunate. Once he brought me early in the morning three or four prisoners under guard, and as he passed me on his way to snatch an hour's sleep, he calmly ordered, "Be sure to feed them well."

I find in an unpublished diary of Charles Campbell, the historian, this item: "I met Mrs. Pryor on her way to the commissary, with a small tin pail in her hand. She said she was going for her daily ration of meal." This "daily ration" for which I paid three dollars was all I had, except beans and sorghum, and John openly rebelled when ordered to serve it in loaves to my prisoners. However, he was overruled, and with perfect good humor my little boys acquiesced, gave up their own breakfast, and served the prisoners.

No farmer dared venture within the lines—no fish were in the streams, no game in the woods around the town. The cannonading had driven them away. There was no longer a market in Petersburg. I once, under shell fire, visited the Old Market. At the end of a table upon which cakes and jugs of sorghum molasses were exhibited, an aged negro offered a frozen cabbage!

The famine moved on apace, but its twin sister, fever, rarely visited us. Never had Petersburg been so healthy. Every particle of animal or vegetable food was consumed, and the streets were clean. Flocks of pigeons would follow the children who were eating bread or crackers. Finally the pigeons vanished, having been themselves eaten. Rats and mice disappeared. The poor cats staggered about the streets, and began to die of hunger. At times meal was the only article attainable, except by the rich. An ounce of meat daily was considered an abundant ration for each member of the family. To keep food of any kind was impossible—cows, pigs, bacon, flour, everything was stolen, and even sitting hens were taken from the nest.

In the presence of such facts as these General Lee was able to report that nearly every regiment in his army had reënlisted—and for the war! And very soon he also reported that the army was out of meat and had but one day's rations of bread! One of our papers copied the following from the Mobile Advertiser:—

General Robert E. Lee in 1861.

"In General Lee's tent meat is eaten but twice a week, the general not allowing it oftener, because he believes indulgence in meat to be criminal in the present straitened condition of the country. His ordinary dinner consists of a head of cabbage boiled in salt water and a pone of corn bread. Having invited a number of gentlemen to dine with him, General Lee, in a fit of extravagance, ordered a sumptuous repast of bacon and cabbage. The dinner was served, and behold, a great sea of cabbage and a small island of bacon, or 'middling,' about four inches long and two inches across. The guests, with commendable politeness, unanimously declined the bacon, and it remained in the dish untouched. Next day General Lee, remembering the delicate titbit which had been so providentially preserved, ordered his servant to bring that 'middling.' The man hesitated, scratched his head, and finally owned up:—

"'Marse Robert,—de fac' is,—dat ar middlin' was borrowed middlin'. We-all didn' have no middlin'. I done paid it back to de place whar I got it fum.'

"General Lee heaved a sigh of disappointment, and pitched into the cabbage."

Early in the autumn flour sold for $1500 a barrel, bacon $20 a pound, beef ditto, a chicken could be bought for $50, shad $5.50 a pair—the head of a bullock, horns and all, could be purchased, as a favor, from the commissary for $5. Groceries soared out of sight. I once counted in a soldier's ration eight grains of coffee! Little by little I drew from the belt of gold I wore around my waist, receiving towards the last one hundred dollars for one dollar in gold. These were anxious times, difficult times—but they were not the worst times! We still had hope. Any day, any hour might bring us victory and consequently relief. We had the blessed boon of comradeship. Una et commune periclum, una salus! Noble spirits were all around us, strong in faith and hope. Discouraging words were never uttered when we talked together.

My neighbor, Mrs. Meade and her daughters, were delightful friends, cheerful always. Soldiers were not allowed to wander about the streets, but one day I saw Mary Meade pause at her gate, just across the narrow street, and speak to one of them. "Do you know what he was asking me?" she ran over to say. "Isn't it too funny? A soldier with his gun on his shoulder wanted to know if we kept a dog, and if he could safely take a drink from the well!" A number of Englishmen hung about our camps near the close of the war. They were very agreeable, and while with us intensely Southern. I delighted in one who had hired rooms in Mrs. Meade's "office" opposite. He was so ardent a secessionist we honored him with the usual Southern title of "Colonel." He came over one morning in great indignation: "Oh, I say, it's a bit beastly of General Grant to frighten Mrs. Meade! It's a jolly shame to fire big shells into a lady's garden."

"What would you do, Colonel, if your chimney should be knocked off as mine was last week?"

"Well,"—thoughtfully,—"I guess I'd toddle."

The time came when I felt that I could no longer endure the strain of being perpetually under fire, and to my great relief, my brother-in-law, Robert McIlwaine, removed his family to North Carolina, and placed Cottage Farm, three miles distant from the city, at my disposal. He had left a piano and some furniture in the house, and was glad to have me live in it. I had been in this refuge only a few days, happy in the blessed respite from danger, when I learned that General Lee had established his headquarters a short distance from us.

The whole face of the earth seemed to change immediately. Army wagons crawled unceasingly in a fog of dust along the highroad, just in front of our gate. All was stir and life in the rear, where there was another country road, and a short road connecting the two passed immediately by the well near our house. This, too, was constantly travelled; the whir of the well-wheel never seemed to pause, day or night. We soon had pleasant visitors, General A. P. Hill, Colonel William Pegram, General Walker, General Wilcox, and others. General Wilcox, an old friend and comrade, craved permission to make his headquarters on the green lawn in the rear of the house, and my husband rejoiced at his presence and protection for our little family.

In less than twenty-four hours I found myself in the centre of a camp. The white tents of General Wilcox's staff-officers were stretched close to the door. "We are here for eight years—not a day less," said my father, and he fully believed it. This being the case, we brought all our boxes from town, unpacked the library and set it up on shelves, unpacked and hung our pictures. I hung the "Madonna della Seggiola" over the mantel in the parlor and Guido's "Aurora" over the piano. There was a baby house in one of the boxes and a trunk of evening dresses at which I did not even glance, but stored in the cellar. Everything looked so cosey and homelike, we were happier than we had been in a long time. That my infant should not starve, I bought a little cow, Rose, from a small planter in the neighborhood, for a liberal sum in gold from my belt. "We mus' all help one another these times," he observed complacently. Rose was a great treasure. My general's horse, Jubal Early, was required to share his rations with her—indeed, poor Jubal's allowance of corn was sometimes beaten into hominy for all of us. John at once built a shelter close to his own room for Rose, "'cause I knows soldiers! They gits up fo' day and milk yo' cow right under yo' eyelids. When we-all was in Pennsylvania, the ole Dutch farmers used to give Gen'al Lee Hail Columbia 'cause his soldiers milked their cows. But Lawd! Gen'al Lee couldn' help it! He could keep 'em from stealin' horses, but the queen of England herself couldn' stop a soldier when he hankers after milk. An' he don't need no pail, neither; he can milk in his canteen an' never spill a drop."

John and the boys were in fine spirits. They laid plans for chickens, pigeons, and pigs—none of which were realized, except the latter, which I persuaded a butcher to give me for one or two of the general's silk vests. As we were to be here "for eight years, no less," it behooved me to look after the little boys' education. School books were found for them. I knew "small Latin and less Greek," but I gravely heard them recite lessons in the former; and they never discovered the midnight darkness of my mind as to mathematics. As to the pigs, I had almost obtained my own consent to convert them into sausages when I was spared the pain of signing their death warrant by their running away!

I knew nothing of the strong line of fortifications which General Grant was building at the back of the farm, fortifications strengthened by forts at short intervals. Our own line—visible from the garden—had fewer forts, two of which, Fort Gregg and Battery 45, protected our immediate neighborhood. These forts occasionally answered a challenge, but there was no attempt at a sally on either side.

The most painful circumstance connected with our position was the picket firing at night, incessant, like the dropping of hail, and harrowing from the apprehension that many a man fell from the fire of a picket. But, perhaps to reassure me, Captain Lindsay and Captain Clover, of General Wilcox's staff, declared that "pickets have a good time. They fire, yes, for that is their business; but while they load for the next volley, one will call out, 'Hello, Reb,' be answered, 'Hello, Yank,' and little parcels of coffee are thrown across in exchange for a plug of tobacco." After accepting this fiction I could have made myself easy, but for my constant anxiety about the safety of my dear general. He was now employed day and night, often in peril, gleaning from every possible source information for General Lee. While absent on one of these scouting trips, he once met a lady who, with her children, was vainly trying to pass through the lines that she might return to her home at the North. Two years ago he received the following pleasant letter:—

"Representative Hall,
"29th Session
"Nebraska Legislature.

"Lincoln, 3/19th, 1907.

"My dear Judge Pryor,

"I cannot resist the desire I have to write you concerning an incident of the war, in which you played such a noble and splendid part. You may have forgotten Mrs. Mary C. Burgess, whom, with three little children, you escorted with much personal risk through from the Confederate picket line to the Union line. You took two scouts. Each took a child on his horse, Mrs. Burgess walking. You stopped in a ravine and told Mrs. Burgess to go into the open field to the right where she would see a man on a gray horse to the left, she to signal this man, who would command her to come to him. She did so, and then came back after the children. You bade Mrs. Burgess good-by. She took the children and went again to the man on horseback. He took her to General Meade's headquarters, where she got orders to go to City Point, where she was detained two weeks, General Grant being absent, and she could go no farther without General Grant's orders. You will remember how Mrs. Burgess was sent to Mrs. Cumming's house with an escort of cavalry and infantry with a flag of truce. They were suspicious of the attention paid Mrs. Burgess, and at first were inclined to treat her as a spy. But after many hardships Mrs. Burgess finally reached New York and friends. Mrs. Burgess is my mother-in-law; is living with me; is the same dignified, cultivated lady whom you may remember. She is now in her seventy-fourth year. The splendid acts of kindness shown by you to her and the three children no doubt saved their lives. Mother Burgess sits here and wants you to know you occupy a lifelong place in her memory. For myself and all the family, I wish to say to you, Judge Pryor, that the English language does not contain words to express our admiration for your bravery, and our thankfulness to you for protecting the lone woman and children and the magnificent chivalry that prompted you like a true knight, which you are, to go to their rescue. I hope to have the honor and pleasure of seeing you and shaking your hand. With kindest of personal regard to you and all dear to you, I beg to remain,

"Yours sincerely,
"H. C. M. Burgess,
"1568 South 20th St.
"Lincoln, Neb."

CHAPTER XXII

The morning of November 29, 1864, found me comfortably seated at my breakfast table with my little boys and my small brother, Campbell Pryor. My venerable father, Dr. Pryor, had departed on his daily rounds to visit the sick and wounded in the hospitals, and my husband was away on special duty for General Lee. John had reported early with one cupful of milk—all that little Rose, with her slender rations, was capable of yielding. This we had boiled with parched corn and sweetened with sorghum molasses. With perfect biscuits well beaten but unmixed with lard or butter we made a breakfast with which we were contented. I indulged myself in a long letter to my dear aunt, telling her of our comfortable home and the prospect of comparative quiet with the army soon to go into winter quarters. I had addressed my letter and was about to seal it when General Wilcox entered, and gently told me that my husband had been captured the day before!

I remember perfectly that I sat for a moment stunned into silence, and then quietly stamped my letter! I would spare my aunt the sad news for a while. In a few minutes clanking spurs at the door announced the presence of a staff-officer.

"Madam," he said respectfully, "General Lee sends you his affectionate sympathies." Through the window I saw General Lee on his horse, Traveller, standing at the well. He waited until his messenger returned—I was too much overcome to speak—and then rode slowly towards the lines.

I had small hope of the speedy exchange promised me by General Wilcox. From day to day he reported the efforts made for my husband's release and their failure. General Lee authorized a letter to General Meade, detailing the circumstances of his capture and requesting his release. General Meade promptly refused to release him.

We naturally looked to the enemy for all information, and although my husband had written me a pencilled note at City Point on the inside of a Confederate envelope, and had implored his guard (a Federal officer) to have it inserted in a New York paper, I did not receive it until thirty-one years afterward. We soon had news, however, through a despatch from the Northern army to the New York Herald. The paper of November 30, 1864, contained the following:—

"Yesterday a rebel officer made his appearance in front of our lines, waving a paper for exchange. The officer in charge of the picket, suddenly remembering that Major Burrage, of the Thirty-sixth Massachusetts, was taken prisoner some time since by the enemy while on a similar errand, 'gobbled' the rebel, who proved to be the famous Roger A. Pryor, ex-member of Congress and ex-brigadier-general of Jeff Davis's army. He protested vehemently against what he styled 'a flagrant breach of faith' on our part. He was assured he was taken in retaliation for like conduct on the part of his friends, and sent to General Meade's headquarters for further disposition."

Press despatch to Herald, November 30, from Washington: "Roger A. Pryor has been brought to Washington and committed to the old Capitol Prison." Later a personal through the New York News reached me: "Your husband is in Fort Lafayette, where a friend and relative is permitted to visit him, (signed) Mary Rhodes." From an enormous quantity of letters, newspaper extracts, book notices, military reports, etc., describing his capture written by the men who made it and witnessed it, I select an interesting one, not hitherto published, which my husband received recently through my brother, the Mayor of Bristol.

"Bristol, Tenn., July 10, 1908.

"Hon. W. L. Rice,
"Bristol, Va.

"My dear Mayor:—

"I very cheerfully comply with your request to give you a short sketch of the circumstances which led to my selection as the Officer to convey Gen. R. A. Pryor to Fort Warren, Mass., in 1864. As an aid to my memory I have hunted over my old Army papers, and have found the original Order from the Military Governor of Washington, D.C., and also the receipt given me by Gen. Pryor for money which I turned over to him, on delivering him to the Commandant of Fort Lafayette, N. Y. Harbor, to which place my orders were afterwards changed and which papers I herewith attach.

"In November of 1864 my Regiment, the 39th Mass., was serving in the defences of Washington, and I had been detailed as an Aid on the staff of Gen. Martindale, then Commanding the Military District of Washington. Having received a Leave of Absence to visit my home in Mass., Col. T. McGowan, then Adjt. General of the District, kindly offered to place a prisoner in my charge and thus save to me my transportation. I did not know who my prisoner was to be, until my orders were received, and naturally felt pleased to find that my charge was to be Gen. Roger A. Pryor, whom I had known by reputation from my boyhood up.

"Though my Orders read that I was to assist Brig. General Wessels, I saw nothing of that gentleman until after General Pryor and myself had reached and taken seats in the train. Then Gen. Wessels made himself known, and asked an introduction to Gen. Pryor.

"It was 9.30 at night when left Washington, and we did not reach New York until daylight next morning. When I received my prisoner at the Old Capitol Prison, I recall that the Supt., one Colonel Wood advised me to iron my charge, alleging that he was a dangerous man; but this I refused to do, taking only Gen. Pryor's verbal parole that he would not attempt to escape while in my custody. This Gen. Pryor cheerfully gave, and religiously kept while with me. On arrival at Jersey City we became in some way separated from Gen. Wessels, and crossed over by the Cortlandt Street Ferry to New York. As the hour was early we stopped for breakfast at the Courtland Street Hotel, then quite a pretentious Hostelry. After breakfast, and while preparing to leave the Hotel for the Qr. Mas. Gen. Dept. where I was to find my orders and transportation, I was surprised to find that the Rotunda of the Hotel was packed, evidently with friends of Gen. Pryor and for a short time it looked as if my prisoner would be taken from me, but the Gen. directing me to take his arm, we passed through without trouble. At the Quarter Master Genl's I found my orders changed, and I was directed to convey my prisoner to Fort Lafayette New York Harbor in place of Fort Warren Boston Harbor. On arrival at Fort Lafayette we found Brig. Gen. Wessels awaiting us, and with him we proceeded across the ferry turning over our prisoner to Major Burke, Commandant at that Fort, taking his receipt therefor.

"At this distance of time (44 years) it would seem that these occurrences must have passed from my memory, but I remember with distinctness the appearance of the General, the incident at the Old Capitol, the crowd in the Rotunda of the Cortlandt Hotel, the miraculous passage through the sea of 'Red' faces therein, and the appearance of Major Paddy Burke (a very old Officer of the Old Army) to whose custody I transferred my charge. I recall also the kind expressions of regard uttered by General Pryor as we shook hands at parting and the promise he extracted that should it be my fate to be wounded or a prisoner in Richmond, during the war, that I would make myself known to his family there residing, who would respond to any appeal made by me. It was my fortune to pass through the remaining months of the war without being captured, and never severely wounded, so I did not have to call on the generosity of a gallant foe, and I presume the memory of that journey to New York, and the memory of the stripling Officer who accompanied him on that journey, long ago passed from Judge Pryor's memory, but I recall it as a pleasant episode in a boy's life and I would wish, that in writing to the Judge, you would kindly convey to him my sincere congratulations on the honors he has attained, and the respect and love which he has received in his declining years, and with kindest wishes to yourself, believe me,

"Very truly yours,
"Wm. G. Sheen."

WGS-OMH

Mr. Sheen kindly sent my brother the order to which he alludes:—

"Headquarters Military District of Washington

"PROVOST MARSHAL'S OFFICE

"Washington, D.C., Nov. 29th, 1864.

"Special Orders
No. 217

"Extract

"It is hereby Ordered! That Brigadier Gen'l, H. W. Wessels assisted by Lieut. Wm. G. Sheen will proceed to Old Capital Prison and taken in charge the following named prisoner:

"Roger A. Pryor 7th Va: Car

and deliver him together with the accompany papers to the Commanding Officer at Fort Warren Boston Harbor take a receipt therefore and report action at these Head Quarters.

"The Quartermaster Department will furnish the necessary transportation.

"By Command of Col. M. N. Wiservell,
"Military Governor.
"Geo. R. Walbridge,
"Capt & Asst Pro. Marshal."

It will be perceived by the above that the Federal officers granted their captured private the honor of escort by a Federal general—Brigadier-general H. W. Wessels—and were inclined to confer upon him the further distinction of "irons."

While he was detained in Washington, Major Leary (or Captain) discovered a plot to assassinate him, which he revealed to the prisoner, arranging for his greater safety. Before he reached Fort Lafayette it appears he was threatened with assassination and also rescue. Some kind friend in Washington thrust into his overcoat pocket a bottle of brandy. It was taken from him when his pockets were searched, along with his letters and pistols, but returned by a Federal officer, who remarked,—recognizing the touch of nature which establishes the kinship of all men in all nations,—"Keep it, General! There's an almighty sight of comfort in a bottle of brandy." The pistols were not returned and, along with an army cape, are preserved—I have understood—in a museum of war relics at Concord, Mass.

A month elapsed before all the forms required by military law could be observed in sending the letters of prisoners through the lines. At last Colonel Ould forwarded to me a brief assurance of my dear captive's welfare. He was confined in a casemate with twelve other prisoners. A grate held a small quantity of coal, and on this fire the captive soldiers cooked their slender rations of meat. Their bread was furnished them from a baker. They lay upon straw mats on the floor. They were glad of the rule compelling them to fetch up their fuel from the coal cellar, as it gave opportunity for exercise. Once daily they could walk upon the ramparts, and my husband's eyes turned sadly to the dim outlines of the beautiful city where he had often been an honored guest. The veil which hid from him so much of the grief and struggle of the future hid also the reward. Little did he dream he should administer justice on the supreme bench of the mist-veiled city.

The captives had no material except coal and water, but of the former they manufactured seal rings (to be set when they regained their liberty), inlaying a polished ebony surface with bits from a silver coin to represent tiny Confederate flags. One of these was given to my general, and lost in the great hour of losses. With the coal as a pencil, the prisoners indulged in caricatures of the commandant. Every morning a fresh picture on the whitewashed wall met his eye: "Burk as a baby," "Burk in his first pants," "Burk in love," etc., etc. The reward was the commandant's face when he saw them.

After my husband's release, his place in the casemate was filled by a "stylish" young officer who refused, absolutely, to submit to the degradation of bringing up his quota of the coal.

"And so," said "old Burk," "you are too great a man, are you, to fetch your coal? I had General Pryor here. He brought up his coal! I think, sir, you'll bring up yours!"

Before I take leave of my dear captive for the winter, I must record his unvarying fortitude under much physical discomfort, cold, and food which almost destroyed him. On the 20th of December, I received a brief note from Fort Lafayette: "My philosophy begins to fail somewhat. In vain I seek some argument of consolation. I see no chance of release. The conditions of my imprisonment cut me off from every resource of happiness."

I learned afterward that he was ill, and often under the care of a physician during the winter, but he tried to write as encouragingly as possible. In February, however, he failed in health and spirits.

"I am as contented as is compatible with my condition. My mind is ill at ease from my solicitude for my family and my country. Every disaster pierces my soul like an arrow; and I am afflicted with the thought that I am denied the privilege of contributing even my mite to the deliverance of—. How I envy my old comrades their hardships and privations! I have little hope of an early exchange, and you may be assured my mistrust is not without reason. Except some special instance be employed to procure my release, my detention here will be indefinite. I cannot be more explicit. While this is my conviction, I wish it distinctly understood that I would not have my government compromise any scruple for the sake of my liberation. I am prepared for any contingency—am fortified against any reverse of fortune."

The problem now confronting me was this: how could I maintain my children and myself? My husband's rations were discontinued. I sent my general's horse far into the interior, to be boarded with a farmer for his services, as I had no possible means of feeding him. My only supply of food was from my father's ration as chaplain. I had a part of a barrel of flour which a relative had sent me from a county now cut off from us. Quite a number of my old Washington servants had followed me, to escape the shelling, but they could not, of course, look to me for their support. My household included Eliza Page, Aunt Jinny, and Uncle Frank (old people and old settlers), and our faithful John. I frankly told John and Eliza my condition, but they elected to remain.

One day John presented himself with a heart-broken countenance and a drooping attitude of deep dejection. He had a sad story to tell. The agent of the estate to which he belonged was in town, and John had been commissioned to inform me that all the slaves belonging to the estate were to be immediately transferred to a Louisiana plantation for safety. Those of us who had hired these servants by the year were to be indemnified for our loss.

"How do you feel about it, John?" I asked.

The poor fellow broke down. "It will kill me," he declared. "I'll soon die on that plantation."

All his affectionate, faithful service, all his hardships for our sakes, rushed upon my memory. I bade him put me in communication with the agent. I found that I could save the boy only by buying him! A large sum of gold was named as the price. I unbuckled my girdle and counted my handful of gold—one hundred and six dollars. These I offered to the agent (who was a noted negro trader), and although it was far short of his figures, he made out my bill of sale receipted. Remembered to-day, this seems a wonderful act on my part. At the time it was the most natural thing in the world!

John soon appeared with smiling face and informed me with his thanks that he belonged to me!

"You are a free man, John," I said. "I will make out your papers and I can easily arrange for you to pass the lines."

"I know that," he said. "Marse Roger has often told me I was a free man. I never will leave you till I die. Papers, indeed! Papers nothing! I belong to you—that's where I belong."

All that dreadful winter he was faithful to his promise, cheerfully bearing, without wages, all the privations of the time. Sometimes when the last atom of food was gone, he would ask for money, sally forth with a horse and a light cart, and bring in peas and dried apples. Once a week we were allowed to purchase the head of a bullock, horns and all, from the commissary for the exclusive use of the servants—I would have starved first—and a small ration of rice was allowed us by the government. A one-armed boy, Alick, who had been reared in my father's family, now wandered in to find his old master, and installed himself as my father's servant.

The question that pressed upon me day and night was: "How, where, can I earn some money?" to be answered by the frightful truth that there could be no opening for me anywhere, because I could not leave my children.

One wakeful night, while I was revolving these things, a sudden thought darted, unbidden, into my sorely harassed mind:—

"Why not open the trunk from Washington? Something may be found there which can be sold."

At an early hour next morning John and Alick brought the trunk from the cellar. Aunt Jinny, Eliza, and the children gathered around. It proved to be full of my old Washington finery. There were a half-dozen or more white muslin gowns, flounced and trimmed with valenciennes lace, many yards; there was a rich bayadere silk gown trimmed fully with guipure lace; a green silk dress with gold embroidery; a blue-and-silver brocade,—these last evening gowns. There was a paper box containing the shaded roses I had worn to Lady Napier's ball, the ball at which Mrs. Douglas and I had dressed alike in gowns of tulle. Another box held the garniture of green leaves and gold grapes which had belonged to the green silk, and still another the blue-and-silver feathers for the brocade. An opera cloak trimmed with fur; a long purple velvet cloak; a purple velvet "coalscuttle" bonnet, trimmed with white roses; a point-lace handkerchief; valenciennes lace; Brussels lace; and in the bottom of the trunk a package of ciel blue zephyr, awakening reminiscences of a passion which I had cherished for knitting shawls and "mariposas" of zephyr,—such was the collection I discovered.

I ripped all the lace from the evening gowns and made large collars and undersleeves then in vogue. John found a closed dry-goods store willing to sell clean paper boxes.

My first instalment was sent to Price's store in Richmond and promptly sold. I sold the silk gowns minus the costly trimming; but when I had stripped the muslin flounces of lace, behold raw edges that no belle, even a Confederate, could have worn. I rolled the edges of these flounces—there were ten or twelve on some of the gowns—and edged them with a spiral line of blue zephyr. I embroidered a dainty vine of blue forget-me-nots on bodice and sleeves, with a result simply ravishing!

After I had converted all my laces into collars, cuffs, and sleeves, and had sold my silk gowns, opera cloak, and point-lace handkerchiefs, I devoted myself to trimming the edges of the artificial flowers, and separating the long wreaths and garlands into clusters for hats and bouquets de corsage.

Eliza and the children delighted in this phase of my work, and begged to assist,—all except Aunt Jinny.

"Honey," she said, "don't you think, in these times of trouble, you might do better than tempt them po' young lambs in Richmond to worship the golden calf and bow down to mammon? We prays not to be led into temptation, and you sho'ly is leadin' 'em into vanity."

"Maybe so, Aunt Jinny, but I must sell all I can. We have to be clothed, you know, war or no war."

"Yes, my chile, that's so; but we're told to consider the lilies. Gawd Almighty tells us we must clothe ourselves in the garment of righteousness, and He—"

"You always 'pear to be mighty intimate with God A'mighty," interrupted Eliza, in great wrath. "Now you just run 'long home an' leave my mistis to her work. How would you look with nothin' on but a garment of righteousness?"

When I had stripped the pretty silk gowns of their trimmings, what could be done with the gowns themselves? Finally I resolved to embroider them. The zeal with which I worked knew no pause. I needed no rest. General Wilcox, who was in the saddle until a late hour every night, said to me, "Your candle is the last light I see at night—the first in the morning."

"I should never sleep," I told him.

One day I consulted Eliza about the manufacture of a Confederate candle. We knew how to make it—by drawing a cotton rope many times through melted wax, and then winding it around a bottle. We could get the wax, but our position was an exposed one. Soldiers' tents were close around us, and we scrupulously avoided any revelation of our needs, lest they should deny themselves for our sakes. Eliza thought we might avail ourselves of the absence of the officers, and finish our work before they returned. We made our candle behind the kitchen; but that night, as I sat sewing beside its dim, glowworm light, I heard a step in the hall, and a hand, hastily thrust out, placed a brown paper parcel on the piano near the door. It was a soldier's ration of candles!

Of course I could not find shoes for my boys. I made little boots of carpet lined with flannel for my baby. A pair lasted just three days. A large bronze morocco pocket-book fell into my hands, of which I made boots for my little Mary. Alick,—prowling about the fields to gather the herb "life everlasting," of which we made yeast,—found two or three leather bags, and a soldier shoemaker contrived shoes for each of my boys.

My own prime necessity was for the steel we women wear in front of our stays. I suffered so much for want of this accustomed support, that Captain Lindsay had a pair made for me by the government gunsmith—the best I ever had.

The time came when the salable contents of the Washington trunk were all gone. I then cut up my husband's dress-coat, and designed well-fitting ladies' gloves, with gauntlets made of the watered silk lining. Of an interlining of gray flannel I made gray gloves, and this glove manufacture yielded me hundreds of dollars. Thirteen small fragments of flannel were left after the gloves were finished. Of these, pieced together, I made a pair of drawers for my Willy,—my youngest boy.

The lines around us were now so closely drawn that my father returned home after short absences of a day or two. But we were made anxious, during a heavy snow early in December, by a more prolonged absence. Finally he appeared, on foot, hatless, and exhausted. He had been captured by a party of cavalrymen. He had told them of his non-combatant position, but when he asked for release, they shook their heads. At night they all prepared to bivouac upon the ground; assigned him a sheltered spot, gave him a good supper and blankets, and left him to his repose. As the night wore on and all grew still, he raised his head cautiously to reconnoitre, and to his surprise found himself at some distance from the guard—but his horse tied to a tree within the circle around the fire. My father took the hint and walked away unchallenged, "which proves, my dear," he said, "that a clergyman is not worth as much as a good horse in time of war."

CHAPTER XXIII

In the colony escaped from the shells and huddled together around General Lee were two very humble poor women who often visited me. One of them was the proud owner of a cow, "Morning-Glory," which she contrived to feed from the refuse of the camp kitchens, receiving in return a small quantity of milk, to be sold at prices beyond belief. I never saw Morning-Glory, but I often heard her friendly echo to the lowing of my little Rose, morning and evening. Being interpreted, it might have been found to convey an expression of surprise that either was still alive, so slender was their allowance of food.

One day I espied, coming down the dusty road, the limp, sunbonneted figure of Morning-Glory's mistress. She sank upon the nearest chair, pushed back her calico bonnet, and revealed a face blurred with tears and hair dishevelled beyond the ordinary.

"Good morning, Mrs. Jones! Come to the fire! It's a cold morning."

"No'm, I ain't cole! It's—it's" (sobbing)—"it's Mornin'-Glory!"

"Not sick? If she is, I'll—"

"No'm, Mornin'-Glory ain't never goin' to be sick no mo'."

"Oh, Mrs. Jones! Not dead!"

"Them pickets kep' me awake all las' night, an' I got up in the night an' went out to see how Mornin'-Glory was gettin' on, an' she—she—she look at me jus' the same! An' I slep' soun' till after sun-up, and when I got my pail an' went out to milk her—thar was her horns an hufs!"

The poor woman broke down completely in telling me the ghastly story. "Oh, how wicked! How was it possible to take her off and nobody hear?" I exclaimed in great wrath.

"I don't know, Mis' Pryor, nothin' but what I tells you. Talk to me 'bout Yankees! Soldiers is soldiers, an' when you say that, you jus' as well say devils is devils."

My other poor neighbor had long been a pensioner on my father. She was a forlorn widow with many children, hopeless and helpless. My father was in despair when she turned up "to git away from the shellin'." She found a small untenanted house near us and set up an establishment which was supported altogether by boarding an occasional soldier on sick leave, and taking his rations as her pay. Like Mrs. Jones, she was a frequent visitor to my fireside. One morning, after some unusual demonstrations of coy shyness, she blurted out: "I knows fo' I begin what you goin' to say! You goin' to tell me Ma'y Ann is a fool, an' I won't say you ain't in the rights of it."

"Well, what is Mary Ann's folly? I thought she had grown up to be a sensible girl."

"Sensible! Ma'y Ann! Them pretty gals is never sensible! No'm. Melissy Jane is the sensible one o' my chillun. I tole Ma'y Ann she didn't have nothin' fitten to be ma'ied in, an' she up an' say she know Mis' Pryor ain' goin' to let one o' her pa's chu'ch people git ma'ied in rags."

"I certainly will not, Mrs. Davis! Mary Ann, I suppose, is to marry the soldier you've been taking care of. Tell her she may look to me for a wedding-dress. When is it to be?"

"Just as Dr. Pryor says—to-morrow if convenient."

I immediately overhauled the bundle of Washington finery and found a lavender Pina, or "pineapple" muslin, not yet prepared for sale. This was a delicate gown, trimmed with lavender silk, and with angel sleeves lined with white silk. This I sent to the prospective bride—considering her needs and station, a most unsuitable wedding garment, but all I had! I managed to make a contribution to the wedding supper, a large pumpkin I extorted from John, who had "found" it. Melissy Jane, homely enough to be brilliantly "sensible," appeared to take charge of the present,—the most slatternly, unlovely, and altogether unpromising of the poor white class I had ever seen; and my father, in view of the great good fortune coming to the forlorn family in the acquisition of an able-bodied, whole-hearted Confederate soldier, made no delay in performing the marriage ceremony. About a week afterward Mrs. Davis, limper than ever, more depressed than ever, reappeared.

"I hope nobody's sick?" I inquired.

"No'm, the chilluns is as peart as common. Ma'y Ann don't seem no ways encouraged. 'Pears like she's onreconciled." "Why, what ails poor Mary Ann?"

"Yas'm—he's lef' her! Jus' took hisself off and never say nuthin'. We-all don't even know what company owns him."

"Mrs. Davis!" I exclaimed, in great indignation, "this is not to be tolerated. That man is to be found and made to do his duty. I can manage it!"

"I don't know as I keers to ketch 'im," sighed the poor woman. "Ef you capters them men erginst ther will, they'll git away ergin—sho! Let 'im go long! He ain't paid me a cent or a ration of meat an' meal sence he was ma'ied. Anyhow," she proudly added, "Ma'y Ann is ma'ied! Folks can't fling it up to 'er now as she's a ole maid,"—which proves that maternal ambitions are peculiar to no condition of life.

Looking back, and living over again these stern times, it seems to me little short of a miracle that we actually did exist upon the slender portion of food allotted us. We could rarely see, from one day to another, just how we were to be fed. "Give us this day our daily bread"—this petition was our sole reliance. And as surely as the day would come,

"He that doth the ravens feed,

Yea, providently caters for the sparrow,"

would prove to us that we were of more value in His sight than many sparrows.

General Lee passed my door every Sunday morning on his way to a little wooden chapel nearer his quarters than St. Paul's Church. I have a picture of him in my memory, in his faded gray overcoat and slouch hat, bending his head before the sleet on stormy mornings. Sometimes his cousin, Mrs. Banister, could find herself warranted by circumstances to invite him to dine with her. Once she received from a country friend a present of a turkey, and General Lee consented to share it with her. She helped him at dinner to a moderate portion, for there was only one turkey—like Charles Lamb's hare—and many friends! Mrs. Banister observed the general laying on one side of his plate part of his share of the turkey, and she regretted his loss of appetite. "Madam," he explained, "Colonel Taylor is not well, and I should be glad to be permitted to take this to him."

After an unusually mild season, John bethought himself of the fishes in the pond and streams, but not a fishhook was for sale in Richmond or Petersburg. He contrived, out of a cunning arrangement of pins, to make hooks, and sallied forth with my boys. But the water was too cold, or the fish had been driven down-stream by the firing. The usual resource of the sportsman with an empty creel—a visit to the fishmonger—was quite out of the question. There was no fishmonger any more.

Under these circumstances you may imagine my sensation at receiving the following note:—

"My dear Mrs. Pryor: General Lee has been honored by a visit from the Hon. Thomas Connolly, Irish M.P. from Donegal. "He ventures to request you will have the kindness to give Mr. Connolly a room in your cottage, if this can be done without inconvenience to yourself."

Certainly I could give Mr. Connolly a room; but just as certainly I could not feed him! The messenger who brought me the note hastily reassured me. He had been instructed to say that Mr. Connolly would mess with General Lee. I turned Mr. Connolly's room over to John, who soon became devoted to his service. The M.P. proved a most agreeable guest, a fine-looking Irish gentleman with an irresistibly humorous, cheery fund of talk. He often dropped in at our biscuit toasting, and assured us that we were better provided than the commander-in-chief.

"You should have seen 'Uncle Robert's' dinner to-day, madam! He had two biscuits, and he gave me one."

Another time Mr. Connolly was in high feather.

"We had a glorious dinner to-day! Somebody sent 'Uncle Robert' a box of sardines."

General Lee, however, was not forgotten. On fine mornings quite a procession of little negroes, in every phase of raggedness, used to pass my door, each one bearing a present from the farmers' wives of buttermilk in a tin pail for General Lee. The army was threatened with scurvy, and buttermilk, hominy, and every vegetable that could be obtained was sent to the hospital.

Mr. Connolly interested himself in my boys' Latin studies. "I am going home," he said, "and tell the English women what I have seen here: two boys reading Cæsar while the shells are thundering, and their mother looking on without fear."

"I am too busy keeping the wolf from my door," I told him, "to concern myself with the thunderbolts."

The wolf was no longer at the door! He had entered and had taken up his abode at the fireside. Besides what I could earn with my needle, I had only my father's army ration to rely upon. My faithful John foraged right and left, and I had reason to doubt the wisdom of inquiring too closely as to the source of an occasional half-dozen eggs or small bag of corn. This last he would pound on a wooden block for hominy. Meal was greatly prized for the reason that wholesomer bread could be made of it than of wheaten flour,—meal was no longer procurable, but we were never altogether without flour. As I have said, we might occasionally purchase for five dollars the head of a bullock from the commissary, every other part of the animal being available for army rations. By self-denial on our own part we fondly hoped we could support our army and at last win our cause. We were not, at the time, fully aware of the true state of things in the army. Our men were so depleted from starvation that the most trifling wound would end fatally. Gangrene would supervene, and then nothing could be done to prevent death. Long before this time, at Vicksburg, Admiral Porter found that many a dead soldier's haversack yielded nothing but a handful of parched corn. We were now enduring a sterner siege. The month of January brought us sleet and storm. Our famine grew sterner every day. Seasons of bitter cold weather would find us without wood to burn, and we had no other fuel. I commenced cutting down the choice fruit trees in the grounds,—and General Wilcox managed to send me a load of rails from a fence, hitherto spared by the soldiers. Poor little Rose could yield only one cupful of milk, so small was her ration; but we never thought of turning the faithful animal into beef. The officers in my yard spared her something every day from the food of their horses.

The days were so dark and cheerless, the news from the armies at a distance so discouraging, it was hard to preserve a cheerful demeanor for the sake of the family. And now began the alarming tidings, every morning, of the desertions during the night. General Wilcox wondered how long his brigade would hold together at the rate of fifty desertions every twenty-four hours!

The common soldier had enlisted, not to establish the right of secession, not for love of the slave,—he had no slaves,—but simply to resist the invasion of the South by the North, simply to prevent subjugation. The soldier of the rank and file was not always intellectual or cultivated. He cared little for politics, less for slavery. He did care, however, for his own soil, his own little farm, his own humble home, and he was willing to fight to drive the invader from it. Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation did not stimulate him in the least. The negro, free or slave, was of no consequence to him. His quarrel was a sectional one, and he fought for his section.

In any war the masses rarely trouble themselves about the merits of the quarrel. Their pugnacity and courage are aroused and stimulated by the enthusiasm of their comrades or by their own personal wrongs and perils.

Now, in January, 1865, the common soldier perceived that the cause was lost. He could read its doom in the famine around him, in the faces of his officers, in tidings from abroad. His wife and children were suffering. His duty was now to them; so he stole away in the darkness, and in infinite danger and difficulty found his way back to his own fireside. He deserted, but not to the enemy.

But what shall we say of the soldier who remained unflinching at his post knowing the cause was lost for which he was called to meet death? Heroism can attain no loftier height than this. Very few of the intelligent men of our army had the slightest hope, at the end, of our success. Some, like Mr. William C. Rives, had none at the beginning.

One night all these things weighed more heavily than usual upon me,—the picket firing, the famine, the military executions, the dear one "sick and in prison." I sighed audibly, and my son Theodorick, who slept near me, asked the cause, adding, "Why can you not sleep, dear mother?"

"Suppose," I replied, "you repeat something for me."

He at once commenced, "Tell me not in mournful numbers"—and repeated the "Psalm of Life." I did not sleep; those were brave words, but not strong enough for the situation.

He paused, and presently his young voice broke the stillness:—

"Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless His holy name"—going on to the end of the beautiful psalm of adoration and faith which nineteen centuries have decreed to be in very truth a Psalm of Life.

That General Lee was acutely sensible of our condition was proved by an interview with General Gordon. Before daylight, on the 2d of March, General Lee sent for General Gordon, who was with his command at a distant part of the line. Upon arriving, General Gordon was much affected by seeing General Lee standing at the mantel in his room, his head bowed on his folded arms. The room was dimly lighted by a single lamp, and a smouldering fire was dying on the hearth. The night was cold, and General Lee's room chill and cheerless.

"I have sent for you, General Gordon," said General Lee, with a dejected voice and manner, "to make known to you the condition of our affairs and consult with you as to what we had best do. I have here reports sent in from my officers to-night. I find I have under my command, of all arms, hardly forty-five thousand men. These men are starving. They are already so weakened as to be hardly efficient. Many of them have become desperate, reckless, and disorderly as they have never been before. "It is difficult to control men who are suffering for food. They are breaking open mills, barns, and stores in search of it. Almost crazed from hunger, they are deserting in large numbers and going home. My horses are in equally bad condition. The supply of horses in the country is exhausted. It has come to be just as bad for me to have a horse killed as a man. I cannot remount a cavalryman whose horse dies. General Grant can mount ten thousand men in ten days and move round your flank. If he were to send me word to-morrow that I might move out unmolested, I have not enough horses to move my artillery. He is not likely to send me any such message, although he sent me word yesterday that he knew what I had for breakfast every morning. I sent him word I did not think that this could be so, for if he did he would surely send me something better.

"But now let us look at the figures. As I said, I have forty-five thousand starving men. Hancock has eighteen thousand at Winchester. To oppose him I have not a single vidette. Sheridan, with his terrible cavalry, has marched unmolested and unopposed along the James, cutting the railroads and the canal. Thomas is coming from Knoxville with thirty thousand well-equipped troops, and I have, to oppose him, not more than three thousand in all. Sherman is in North Carolina with sixty-five thousand men. So I have forty-five thousand poor fellows in bad condition opposed to one hundred and sixty thousand strong and confident men. These forces added to General Grant's make over a quarter of a million. To prevent them all from uniting to my destruction, and adding Johnston's and Beauregard's men, I can oppose only sixty thousand men. They are growing weaker every day. Their sufferings are terrible and exhausting. My horses are broken down and impotent. General Grant may press around our flank any day and cut off our supplies."

As a result of this conference General Lee went to Richmond to make one more effort to induce our government to treat for peace. It was on his return from an utterly fruitless errand that he said:—

"I am a soldier! It is my duty to obey orders;" and the final disastrous battles were fought.

It touches me to know now that it was after this that my beloved commander found heart to turn aside and bring me comfort. No one knew better than he all I had endeavored and endured, and my heart blesses his memory for its own sake. At this tremendous moment, when he had returned from his fruitless mission to Richmond, when the attack on Fort Steadman was impending, when his slender line was confronted by Grant's ever increasing host, stretching twenty miles, when the men were so starved, so emaciated, that the smallest wound meant death, when his own personal privations were beyond imagination, General Lee could spend half an hour for my consolation and encouragement.

Cottage Farm being on the road between headquarters and Fort Gregg,—the fortification which held General Grant in check at that point,—I saw General Lee almost daily going to this work or to Battery 45. I was, as was my custom, sewing in my little parlor one morning, about the middle of March, when an orderly entered, saying:—

"General Lee wishes to make his respects to Mrs. Pryor." The general was immediately behind him. His face was lighted with the anticipation of telling me his good news. With the high-bred courtesy and kindness which always distinguished his manner, he asked kindly after my welfare, and taking my little girl in his arms, began gently to break his news to me:—

"How long, madam, was General Pryor with me before he had a furlough?"

"He never had one, I think," I answered.

"Well, did I not take good care of him until we camped here so close to you?"

"Certainly," I said, puzzled to know the drift of these preliminaries.

"I sent him home to you, I remember," he continued, "for a day or two, and you let the Yankees catch him. Now he is coming back to be with you again on parole until he is exchanged. You must take better care of him in future."

I was too much overcome to do more than stammer a few words of thanks.

Presently he added, "What are you going to say when I tell the general that in all this winter you have never once been to see me?"

"Oh, General Lee," I answered, "I had too much mercy to join in your buttermilk persecution!"

"Persecution!" he said; "such things keep us alive! Last night, when I reached my headquarters, I found a card on my table with a hyacinth pinned to it, and these words: 'For General Lee, with a kiss!' Now," he added, tapping his breast, "I have here my hyacinth and my card—and I mean to find my kiss!"

He was amused by the earnest eyes of my little girl, as she gazed into his face.

"They have a wonderful liking for soldiers," he said. "I knew one little girl to give up all her pretty curls willingly that she might look like Custis! 'They might cut my hair like Custis's,' she said. Custis! whose shaven head does not improve him in any eyes but hers."

His manner was the perfection of repose and simplicity. As he talked with me, I remembered that I had heard of this singular calmness. Even at Gettysburg and at the explosion of the crater he had evinced no agitation or dismay. I did not know then, as I do now, that nothing had ever approached the anguish of this moment, when he had come to say an encouraging and cheering word to me, after abandoning all hope of the success of the cause.

After talking awhile and sending a kind message to my husband, to greet him on his return, he rose, walked to the window, and looked over the fields,—the fields through which, not many days afterward, he dug his last trenches!

I was moved to say, "You only, General, can tell me if it is worth my while to put the ploughshare into those fields."

"Plant your seeds, madam," he replied; sadly adding, after a moment, "The doing it will be some reward."

I was answered. I thought then he had little hope. I now know he had none.

He had already, as we have seen, remonstrated against further resistance—against the useless shedding of blood. His protest had been unheeded. It remained for him now to gather his forces for endurance to the end.

Twenty days afterward his headquarters were in ashes; he had led his famished army across the Appomattox, and telling them they had done their duty and had nothing to regret, he had bidden them farewell forever.

CHAPTER XXIV

The day drew near when the husband and father of our little family was to be restored to his own home and his own people. Paroled, and not yet exchanged, we could hope for a brief visit from him. John was in a great state over the possibilities of a welcoming banquet. Peas, beans, flour, sorghum molasses,—these in small quantity he might hope to command. A nourishing soup could be made of the peas, and if only he could "find" an egg, he could mix it with sorghum and bake it in an unshortened open crust for dessert. But the meat course!

Just at this critical moment a hapless duck ventured too near John's acquisitive hand while he was on one of his prowling expeditions. This he perfectly roasted and presented to me to be sacredly kept until the general's arrival. Accordingly I hid it away in a small safe with wire-netting doors, and judiciously covered it over with a cloth lest some child or visitor should be led into irresistible temptation.

We were all expectation and excitement when a lady drove up and asked for shelter, as she had been "driven in from the lines." Shelter and lodging I could give by spreading quilts on the parlor floor—but, alas, my duck! Must my precious duck be sacrificed upon the altar of hospitality? I peeped into the little safe to assure myself that I could manage to keep it hidden, and behold, it was gone! Not until next day, when it was placed before my husband with a triumphant flourish (our unwelcome guest had departed), did I discover that John had stolen it! "Why, there's the duck!" I exclaimed.

"'Course here's the duck!" said John, respectfully. "Ducks got plenty of sense. They knows as well as folks when to hide."

We found our released prisoner pale and thin, but devoutly thankful to be at home. Mr. Connolly and the officers around us called in the evening, keenly anxious to hear his story and heartily expressing their joy at his release. My friends in Washington had wished to send me some presents, but my husband declined them, accepting only two cans of pineapple. Mr. Connolly sent out for the "boys in the yard" and assisted me in dividing the fruit into portions, so each one should have a bit. It was served on all the saucers and butter plates we could find, and Mr. Connolly himself handed the tray around, exclaiming, "Oh, lads! it is just the best thing you ever tasted!" Then each soldier brought forth his brier-root and gathered around the traveller for his story. His story was a thrilling one—of his capture, his incarceration, his comrades; finally of the unexpected result of the efforts of his ante-bellum friends, Washington McLean and John W. Forney, for his release.

It was ascertained by these friends in Washington that he was detained as hostage for the safety of some Union officer whom the Confederate government had threatened to put to death. This situation of affairs left General Pryor in a very dangerous position. Southern leaders were inclined to take revenge upon some prominent Union soldiers in their prisons, and Stanton stood ready to take counter-revenge upon the body of "Harry Hotspur." Washington McLean, the editor and proprietor of the Cincinnati Enquirer, had met my husband while he was in Congress, and learned "to like and love him," as one expressed it. Realizing the gravity of his friend's situation, Mr. McLean, having first approached General Grant, who positively refused to consider General Pryor's release, resolved to appeal to Mr. Stanton. He found Mr. Stanton in the library of his own home, with his daughter in his arms, and the following conversation ensued:—

"This is a charming fireside picture, Mr. Secretary! I warrant that little lady cares nothing for war or the Secretary of War! She has her father, and that fills all her ambition."

"You never said a truer word, did he, pet?" pressing the curly head close to his bosom.

"Well, then, Stanton, you will understand my errand. There are curly heads down there in old Virginia weeping out their bright eyes for a father loved just as this pretty baby loves you."

"Yes, yes! Probably so," said Stanton.

"Now—there's Pryor—"

But before another word could be said, the Secretary of War pushed the child from his knee and thundered:— "He shall be hanged! Damn him!"

But he had reckoned without his host when he supposed that Washington McLean would not appeal from that verdict. Armed with a letter of introduction from Horace Greeley, Mr. McLean visited Mr. Lincoln. The President remembered General Pryor's uniformly generous treatment of prisoners who had, at various times, fallen into his custody, especially his capture at Manassas of the whole camp of Federal wounded, surgeons and ambulance corps, and his prompt parole of the same. Mr. Lincoln listened attentively, and after ascertaining all the facts, issued an order directing Colonel Burke, the commander at Fort Lafayette, to "deliver Roger A. Pryor into the custody of Colonel John W. Forney, Secretary of the Senate, to be produced by him whenever required."

Armed with this order, Mr. McLean visited Fort Lafayette, where he found his friend in close confinement in the casemate with other prisoners. Mr. McLean immediately secured his release and accompanied him to Washington and to Colonel Forney's house.

As is now well known, even a presidential command did not stand in the way of Stanton's vengeance. When he learned of General Pryor's release, his rage was unbounded, and he immediately issued orders to seize the prisoner wherever found, and announced his intention of hanging him, as a response to the threats of the Southern leaders. Colonel Forney was advised of this condition of affairs, and at his request his secretary, John Russell Young, afterwards Minister to China, went to the offices of the various Washington newspapers and gave each journal a brief account of how General Pryor had passed through Washington that evening, and under parole had entered into the rebel lines. As a matter of fact, he was at that time in Colonel Forney's house, and remained there for two more days. Stanton, however, was made to believe that his prey had escaped him, and therefore abandoned his hunt.

At that time John Y. Beall, a Confederate officer, was confined with General Pryor, having been, it was supposed, implicated in a conspiracy to set fire to hotels and museums in New York, derail and fire railroad trains. Young Beall protested innocence, but finally he was arrested, tried by court-martial, and sentenced to be hanged. He belonged to an influential Southern family, and was held in high esteem south of Mason and Dixon's line. Some of the officials of the Confederacy served notice on Secretary of War Stanton that if Beall was hanged, they would put the rope around the necks of a number of prominent Northern soldiers who at that time were in their custody. But the stern Stanton was relentless, and he only sent back word that if the threat was carried into execution, he would hang Pryor. Mr. McLean became interested in young Beall's fate, and suggested that if General Pryor would make a personal appeal in his behalf to President Lincoln, his execution might probably be prevented. To that end, Mr. McLean telegraphed a request to Mr. Lincoln, that he accord General Pryor an interview, to which a favorable response was promptly returned. The next evening General Pryor, with Mr. McLean and Mr. Forney, called at the White House, and were graciously received by the President. General Pryor at once opened his intercession in behalf of Captain Beall; but although Mr. Lincoln evinced the sincerest compassion for the young man and an extreme aversion to his death, he felt constrained to yield to the assurance of General Dix, in a telegram just received, that the execution was indispensable to the security of the Northern cities. Mr. Lincoln then turned the conversation to the recent conference at Hampton Roads, the miscarriage of which he deplored with the profoundest sorrow. He said that had the Confederate government agreed to the reëstablishment of the Union and the abolition of slavery, the people of the South might have been compensated for the loss of their negroes and would have been protected by a universal amnesty, but that Mr. Jefferson Davis made the recognition of the Confederacy a condition sine qua non of any negotiations. Thus, he declared, would Mr. Davis be responsible for every drop of blood that should be shed in the further prosecution of the war, a futile and wicked effusion of blood, since it was then obvious to every sane man that the Southern armies must be speedily crushed. On this topic he dwelt so warmly and at such length that General Pryor inferred that he still hoped the people of the South would reverse Mr. Davis's action, and would renew the negotiations for peace. Indeed, he declared in terms that he could not believe the senseless obstinacy of Mr. Davis represented the sentiment of the South. It was apparent to General Pryor that Mr. Lincoln desired him to sound leading men of the South on the subject. Accordingly, on the general's return to Richmond, he did consult with Senator Hunter and other prominent men in the Confederacy, but with one voice they assured him that nothing could be done with Mr. Davis, and that the South had only to await the imminent and inevitable catastrophe.

The inevitable catastrophe marched on apace.

On the morning of April 2 we were all up early that we might prepare and send to Dr. Claiborne's hospital certain things we had suddenly acquired. An old farmer friend of my husband had loaded a wagon with peas, potatoes, dried fruit, hominy, and a little bacon, and had sent it as a welcoming present. We had been told of the prevalence of scurvy in the hospitals, and had boiled a quantity of hominy, and also of dried fruit, to be sent with the potatoes for the relief of the sick.

My husband said to me at our early breakfast:—

"How soundly you can sleep! The cannonading was awful last night. It shook the house."

"Oh, that is only Fort Gregg," I answered. "Those guns fire incessantly. I don't consider them. You've been shut up in a casemate so long you've forgotten the smell of powder."

Our father, who happened to be with us that morning, said:—

"By the bye, Roger, I went to see General Lee, and told him you seemed to be under the impression that if your division moves, you should go along with it. The general said emphatically: 'That would be violation of his parole, Doctor. Your son surely knows he cannot march with the army until he is exchanged.'"

This was a great relief to me, for I had been afraid of a different construction.

After breakfast I repaired to the kitchen to see the pails filled for the hospital, and to send Alick and John on their errand.

Presently a message was brought me that I must join my husband, who had walked out to the fortification behind the garden. I found a low earthwork had been thrown up during the night still nearer our house, and on it he was standing. My husband held out his hand and drew me up on the breastwork beside him. Negroes were passing, wheeling their barrows, containing the spades they had just used. Below was a plain, and ambulances were collecting and stopping at intervals. Then a slender gray line stretched across under cover of the first earthwork and the forts. Fort Gregg and Battery 45 were belching away with all their might, answered by guns all along the line. While we gazed on all this, the wood opposite seemed alive, and out stepped a division of bluecoats—muskets shining and banners flying in the morning sun. My husband exclaimed: "My God! What a line! They are going to fight here right away. Run home and get the children in the cellar."

When I reached the little encampment behind the house, I found the greatest confusion. Tents were struck, and a wagon was loading with them.

Captain Glover rode up to me and conjured me to leave immediately. I reminded him of his promise not to allow me to be surprised.

"We are ourselves surprised," he said; "believe me, your life is not safe here a moment." Tapping his breast, he continued, "I bear despatches proving what I say."