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I sprang up. And there was Dan, and behind him in the doorway stood a graceful figure in a long wrap. And a face – Milicent’s face – pale and weary, but indescribably lovely and loving, was looking toward me with shining eyes.
“Millie!”
“Nell!”
That was one time I forgot Dan, but he didn’t mind. He stayed with us as long as he could, and after he left Milicent and I talked and talked. Milicent – she was a widow now – had come all the way from Baltimore to see me – she had left mother and Bobby to come to see me! My little bed wasn’t hard any more, my room wasn’t cheerless any more; I didn’t mind having to break the ice for my bath. Ah, me, what a night that was and how happy we were until Dan’s command was moved!
Millie and I – Catholics – wish to pay tribute to the sweet piety of that Protestant home which sheltered us. Every evening the big Bible was brought out and prayers were held, the negro servants coming in to share in the family devotions.
CHAPTER VIII
BY FLAG OF TRUCE
Milicent tells how she got from Baltimore to Dixie
The War Department of the United States issued a notice that on such a date a flag-of-truce boat would go from Washington to Richmond, and that all persons wishing to go must obtain passes and come to that city by a certain date.
I had not heard from my sister, Mrs. Grey, for some time. We were very anxious about her, and I determined to seize this opportunity to get to her.
I was fortunate in making one of a party of three ladies, one of whom was Mrs. Montmorency, the widow of an English officer, and the other Mrs. Dangerfield, of Alexandria, Virginia. On our arrival at Washington late at night, we found all the hotels crowded and were told that it would be impossible to get a room anywhere. Fortunately for us, Mrs. Dangerfield was acquainted with the proprietor of one of the hotels where we inquired, and here, after much difficulty, we secured two small rooms. As he left us the old lady said triumphantly:
“Now, see what’s in a name! If my name hadn’t been Dangerfield none of us could have gotten a place to sleep in to-night.”
The next morning we started for the flag-of-truce boat. Immediately upon our arrival our baggage was weighed and all over two hundred pounds refused transportation. The confusion was indescribable. As soon as the steamer cleared the wharf every stateroom was locked, and the five hundred passengers on board, with the exception of the children, were subjected to a rigid examination – their persons, their clothing, their trunks were all thoroughly searched. We were marched down two by two between guards, and passed into the lower cabin, where four women removed and searched our clothing; our shoes, stockings, and even our hair were subjected to rigid inspection.
Mrs. Dangerfield being the oldest lady on board was by courtesy exempted. As for myself, I fell into the hands of a pleasant woman, who looked ashamed of the office she had to perform. She passed her hand lightly over and within my dress, and over my hair; touched my pockets and satchels, which I willingly showed her, and dismissed me with a smile and the kind remark, “Oh, I know you have nothing contraband,” while around me stood ladies shivering in one garment.
I had tea and sugar, both contraband articles, in a large satchel upstairs in the care of the provost marshal. I out-Yankeed the Yankees this trip. As soon as I had heard that we were to be searched and have our things taken from us, I had walked up to the provost marshal, told him I had tea and coffee – a small quantity of each – and asked to be allowed to use them. In the gruffest manner he bade me bring them immediately to him. My dejected looks must have inspired him with some pity, for when I went off and brought back my satchel and handed it to him, he turned and said in the kindest manner:
“Now I have saved them for you. After the search is over come to me and I will return them to you.”
I thanked him and hurried off to impart the good news to my friend Mrs. Dangerfield. I found her in a most animated discussion with an officer who had just pronounced her camphor-bottle contraband. The old lady was asserting loudly her inability to stand the trip or to live without her camphor-bottle. After much argument and persuasion she was allowed to retain it.
The scenes on deck at this time were too painful to dwell upon. Mothers who had periled everything and spent their last dollar in buying shoes for their children had to see them rudely taken away. Materials for clothing, and pins, needles, buttons, thread, and all the little articles so needful at home and so difficult to obtain in the Confederacy at that time were pronounced contraband. Men went about with their arms filled with plunder taken from defenseless women who stood wringing their hands and pleading, crying, arguing, quarreling.
By this time we were far down the Potomac. Weak, hungry, and seasick, we were glad when dinner-time drew near. The official notice had stated that food would be provided, which we, of course, had construed into three meals a day of good steamboat fare. The bell rang out loudly at last, and we all rushed to the cabin, where to our utter consternation we saw nothing whatever to eat, no set table, and nothing that looked like eating. Coming up the steps was a dirty boathand with a still dirtier bucket and a string of tin cups. He deposited these on a table and then called upon the ladies to help themselves to atrocious coffee, without milk, sugar, or spoons. Down he went again, and came up laden with tin plates piled one on the other, and containing what he called a sandwich. This sandwich was a chunk – not a slice – of bread, spread with dreadful mustard, a piece of coarse ham and another chunk of bread. Each person was generously allowed one of the tin plates and one sandwich. The very thought of swallowing such food was revolting, and more particularly so because we were tantalized with odors of beefsteak and chicken and other appetizing delicacies prepared for the officers’ table.
How thankful I was to the provost for confiscating my tea and coffee and sugar and crackers and ginger-cakes! Each of our party had something to add. Down upon the lower deck we had seen an immense pile of loaves of bread, and near them a large stove. We coaxed the sailor in charge to get us a clean loaf from the center of the pile and to put our tea on his stove to draw. In a few moments we disappeared to enjoy in our stateroom the luxury of a cup of tea! How others fared I do not know. We were the only people, I think, who had saved any tea. Almost every one had brought a few crackers, or cakes of some kind which they had managed to keep, and these they must have lived on with the abominable coffee.
When we reached the boat that morning only one stateroom was vacant, and this we contrived to secure. It was crowded comfort for three persons, but we were thankful. When night came our less fortunate fellow travelers were scattered in every direction on the floor, their only accommodations filthy camp mattresses without sheets, pillows, or covering of any kind except their own cloaks and shawls.
We traveled slowly and cautiously, fearing that in the night our flag might not be distinctly seen and we might be fired upon. The provost and his officers were in most things polite and kind. The men got up a little play between decks for the amusement of the ladies; but our party was too ultra-Southern even to look on.
We remained off Fortress Monroe all night, only starting at daylight for the James River. The trip up the James was accomplished in safety and without incident of special interest, if we except a very sudden and desperate love affair between a Southern girl and a Federal officer and the amusement which it afforded us.
As our boat neared the wharf at City Point, on all sides were heard cries of:
“Here we are in Dixie!”
As soon as we were landed a rush was made for the cars, and after everybody was seated the provost marshal came through bidding us good-by, shaking hands with many and kissing the pretty young girls. He had been very kind, and, as far as lay in his power, had done so much for the comfort of all and for the pleasure of the young people that most of us felt as if we were parting from a friend. Indeed, some were so enthusiastic that before we reached City Point they went among the passengers begging subscriptions to a fund for purchasing the provost a handsome diamond ring as a testimonial. Many, however, refused indignantly, declaring that they did not feel called upon to reward the provost for confiscating every article possible, and for giving us for seven consecutive meals spoiled bacon, mustard, and undrinkable coffee.
In Petersburg little or no preparation had been made for us, although the hotel proprietors knew the truce boat was expected that afternoon at City Point. We were scarcely able to secure an ordinary supper, and had to sleep, eight or ten in a room, on mattresses laid on the floor, and which, though clean and comfortable enough, were without covering. The next day we parted to go in different directions.
CHAPTER IX
I MAKE UP MY MIND TO RUN THE BLOCKADE
Late one day we saw an ambulance driving up to the gate through the pouring rain. A few minutes after, Patsy, the housemaid, came in to say that the adjutant had sent for his wife and her sister. We supposed that the two men with the ambulance were rough and common soldiers – one of them, in fact, the one who had given the message to Patsy, was a negro driver – and sent them around to the kitchen to warm and dry themselves. Very soon Aunt Caroline, the cook and a great authority, came in hurriedly and attacked Mrs. McGuire.
“Law, mistess! Y’all sholy orter ax one er dem men in de house. He sholy orten ter bin sont to de kitchen. He ain’t got no bizness in de kitchen. He’s quality. You orter ax him to come to de parlor. He specks you gwine ter ax him to come to de parlor, case he done bresh hissef up, and he’s puttin’ sweet grease on his har, and he say he kin play on de orgin.”
Such accomplishments as these changed the whole situation. Aunt Caroline was sent to fetch him. When she threw open the door and announced him and he entered, bowing low and gracefully, we could hardly restrain a laugh, for we had a good view of the top of his head, and it was fairly ashine! He was Lieutenant Dimitri of New Orleans, my husband’s courier, who had been sent as our escort. A most efficient and agreeable one he proved.
If I had only been a young lady following my father or brother around, how interesting these memoirs might be made, for Lieutenant Dimitri was only one of many charming men I met. Available heroes pass through, bow, and make their exits. And I am afraid of boring my friends with the one hero who remains because he is my husband; consequently I keep him as modestly as possible in the background. He had risen steadily in rank, and I was proud of him, but I must say that my memory is less vivid as to his deeds of gallantry than it is to what might have been reckoned minor matters by an older woman. The greatest crosses of my life were separation from my mother and sister, telling my husband good-by, and beholding him in a hopelessly shabby uniform. The greatest blessings of my life were found in the little courtesies and kindnesses of life and in getting my husband back to me, safe and sound.
When morning came it was still raining, and the roads in such a condition that Mr. McGuire, fearing our ambulance would break down, opposed our going. But I knew that the men and team must return to camp according to orders, so we started off in spite of the weather and Mr. McGuire’s protest.
We had not gone far when our driver was halted by a vidette who barred the way.
“Is Adjutant Grey’s wife in the ambulance?”
“Yessuh.”
“Turn back. Smallpox ahead.”
The driver turned another road. It was only a short distance before we were halted again.
“Adjutant Grey’s wife in the ambulance?”
“Yessuh, she sho is.”
“Turn around. Smallpox this way.”
“Lord! how is I ter go?” groaned the driver.
At the next fork the driver paused with a look of utter distraction.
“I don’t kyeer whicherway we go, dar’ll be smallpox in de road sayin’ we can’t go datter way.” And he drove recklessly on the way the mules seemed to prefer. The mules struck it.
A vidette halted us again, but it was to say that we were traveling in the right direction and to give minute directions for the rest of our journey. There was a village and its neighborhood to be avoided, and we had to make a wide detour before the driver put us down, according to orders, at Mr. Wright’s.
Dan came in quite soon, looking as shabby as one of his own orderlies, but glad enough to see me. For some time here I was in a fool’s paradise in spite of the war and the fact that mother was far away in Baltimore, ignorant of what might be happening to us, for camp was very near, there were no active hostilities, and Dan came to see me every day.
Then the cavalry received marching orders. The night after I heard it I determined to tell Dan of a decision I had come to. Milicent had not spoken, but I knew the drift of her thoughts and purposes. We had not heard once from mother and Bobby since she left them in Baltimore. Milicent was going to them, and I had made up my mind to go with her. There was no return to Baltimore by flag of truce; the only way to get there was to run the blockade, a most dangerous and doubtful undertaking at this period of the war. But Milicent’s boy was in Baltimore, and mother was there. She had come to me; she would go to them, and I intended to go with her.
My heart was set on seeing mother. To be left alone now by both Milicent and Dan would drive me crazy; for Milicent to run the blockade alone would serve me as ill. Besides, I wanted some things for myself, some pins and needles, and nice shoes and pocket handkerchiefs and a new hat and a new cloak, and I wanted a new uniform for Dan. Dan had had no new uniform since his first promotion, a long time ago. He was an officer of high rank, and he was still wearing his old private’s uniform. He had traveled through rain and snow and mud, and had slept on the ground and fought battles in it. Though I had many times cleaned that uniform, darned it, patched it, turned it, scoured it, done everything that was possible to rejuvenate it, my shabby-looking soldier was a continual reproach to me. When Dan would come to see me I used to make him wrap up in a sheet or blanket while I worked away on his clothes with needle and thread, soap and water and smoothing irons. I was ready to run the blockade for a new uniform for Dan if for nothing else, but to tell him that I was going to run the blockade – there was the rub! Evening came and Dan with it, and the telling had to be done somehow.
“Dan,” I began, patting the various patches on his shabby knee, “I want you to have a new uniform.”
“Wish me a harp and a crown, Nell! One’s about as easy as the other. You’ll have to take it out in wanting, my girl.”
“I expect I could buy Confederate cloth in Baltimore.”
“Maybe – if you were there.”
“Dan, I think I’ll slip across the border and buy you a Confederate uniform, gold lace and all, from a Yankee tradesman, and then slip back here with it, and behold you in all the glory of it. Wouldn’t that be nice, Dan?”
“Rather!”
Dan took in his patches at a glance, perhaps by way of mental comparison between himself in this and himself in the imaginary new uniform. But I saw he did not understand me at all – I had to make things plain.
“Dan,” I said, “I am going to Baltimore.”
“What?” he thundered.
“I am going to run the blockade with Millie.”
“Have you lost your senses?”
“No, Dan. But I’m going to run the blockade with Millie – to get you a new uniform.”
“Nell, don’t be a goose!”
“And some shirts and some socks and some pins and needles – and I want to see mother – and Bobby – and – I’m going.”
“I’m not going to allow you to attempt such a thing!” he said gravely.
“I want to see mother – and to get a new uniform – and other things.”
Dan looked at me as if he thought I was crazy.
“Milicent is going – and I think I ought to go with her.”
“I don’t want Millie to go – I don’t think she ought to try it; and I won’t permit you to go off on such a wild-goose chase.”
I was silent a minute, trying to think how to tell him as respectfully as I could that I differed with him on this point. It all ended by my repeating in a stupid, poll-parrot fashion:
“I’m going with Millie to Baltimore.”
Dan looked at me as if he would like to spank me! Here was his obedient, docile girl-bride blossomed into a contumacious, rebellious wife!
I was ready to cry – nay, I was crying – but I still affirmed that I must go to Baltimore. Dan reasoned and argued, but that didn’t do any good. Then he swore, but swearing didn’t alter the case. The case was, indeed, beyond Dan, but he made a long and hard fight, and didn’t surrender for a long while. I cried all night, and he reasoned all night. When he saw that the case was hopeless, he started us to Petersburg under suitable escort. We had to go first to Petersburg in order to get the money which we wished to take North to exchange for all the goods and chattels we might be able to smuggle South.
Dan detailed a driver and an ambulance for our service and Lieutenant Johnston to act as escort. The morning we started it looked cloudy. Dan tried to dissuade us. I said I had always been a good weather prophet and I didn’t think it would rain. Millie reinforced me.
But when it actually came to telling Dan good-by, I broke down. His threadbare clothes plead with me both ways. I hung around his neck and did so much crying that he got sorry for me and helped me off.
“When I get you a new uniform, Dan – ” I sobbed, as he tucked the old blanket shawl about me where I sat in the ambulance.
“Uniform be – !” growled Dan. Then, seeing my crestfallen look, “I reckon I’ll like it well enough, Nell – when it comes. Good-by, girls. You’re mighty big geese. God bless you! If you change your minds in Petersburg – but, Lord! an earthquake wouldn’t change you! Good-by, my darling – God bless you! I reckon you’ll get along all right.”
The rusty coat-sleeve was out of sight, and I was on my way.
CHAPTER X
I CROSS THE COUNTRY IN AN AMBULANCE AND THE PAMUNKEY ON A LIGHTER
As we traveled along farther and farther from Dan, I kept on crying softly to myself now and then, turning my face from Milicent. Presently her arm stole around me.
“Do you feel so badly, darling?”
“I hate to leave Dan – I can’t bear it!”
“Then we’ll turn back, Nell.”
And our astonished driver and escort received orders to turn back toward camp.
“But in a few days,” I sobbed, “Dan – will – be – gone. And you – will be – gone. And I can’t stand that!”
And to the further confusion of escort, driver, and mules, we were turned again.
“Better not to do dat too offen, lessen we won’t git nowhar!” our driver muttered to himself. “Dese mules is clean upsot in dar min’s.”
I was upset in my mind, too. I continued to cry in a helpless, hopeless fashion, and was feeling that nothing on earth could make me more wretched than I already was when it began raining. Lieutenant Johnston, who had the soul of Mark Tapley, prophesied a shower and refused to leave his seat with the driver, but in a little while he was driven inside with us. It rained harder and harder – it poured. The ambulance began to leak and the straw on the floor got wet. Milicent and I huddled together under the old blanket shawl and drew over that a ragged piece of oilcloth; but the rain soaked through. Where Lieutenant Johnston sat there was a steady dripping, bursting now and then into a stream. But he was not to be daunted by discomforts or difficulties. He invented a trough for carrying off the water by making a dent in his broad-brimmed hat, pulling the brim into a point, and sticking it through a rent in the ambulance cover; and he was so merry over it all, and so convinced that things might be far worse and would soon be much better, that we were beginning to laugh at our own expense, when a sullen rushing and roaring reminded us that the worst of our troubles were still before us. We looked out of our ambulance upon the swollen waters of the Pamunkey River.
The thing on which we were to cross it was moored to the bank by a great chain. It was a lighter crowded with men and horses. There were soldiers at the ends and sides holding long sticks which they used as poles to direct and govern the craft. Our ambulance and mules were driven on along with other teams, and we walked into the midst of rearing and plunging horses, that threatened every minute to back off the lighter into the river and drag us with them, while our craft was making its slow way to the opposite bank.
I stood between two horses that reared and plunged the whole time. The men who held them had hard work to control them, and, I must add, that they swore roundly, and confess that this was the one occasion of my life when I did not undervalue that accomplishment or wish to put any restraint upon its free exercise. The truth is I was so scared that I was ready to help along with either the work or the swearing, if I had only known how.
As one of the men was trying his best to keep the horse he was holding from plunging and kicking itself into the river, or plunging and kicking itself on me, he caught my eye in the middle of an oath, and interrupted himself to begin an apology. The horse took advantage of this to make more vigorous demonstrations.
“Oh! oh!” I cried in terror, “finish – finish what you were saying to the horse! He’s going to jump on me, and I’ll have to say it myself if you don’t!”
I didn’t realize what I was saying until I heard a chuckle from the men within hearing distance. They knew that I was beside myself with terror, and did their best to smother their laughter. But I was past caring for public opinion. I was in an agony of terror. There was no other place for me to stand – horses, kicking, plunging, rearing horses were crowded everywhere. A lighter is the rudest excuse for a boat. Ours was made of planks crossed and nailed together, and between their wide spaces, just under my feet, I saw the swollen waters, upon which we seemed to be tossed, and careened, and whipped about without the control or guidance of those on board. Never before or since, never during any period of the war, was I in such a state of helpless fright as on that day when I crossed the mad Pamunkey on a lighter with swearing men and kicking horses around me and the water bubbling up against my feet.
Appearances to the contrary, our soldiers with the poles were directing our craft and turning the will of the tide to our profit, and at last we were on the shore. Safe in our wet ambulance, we started on our way again. I was never so cold, so wet, so everything wretched in my life, and what should Lieutenant Johnston do but propose to go out of our way to see St. Peter’s Church.
“An old colonial relic,” he said. “You ladies ought not to miss it now that you are so near.”
“I don’t want to see any relics,” I answered promptly. “The only thing I want to see is a fire and something to eat.”
But he would drive out of our way to show us that old church. I was too wretched and miserable to look at it with proper interest. I don’t remember how it looked – I only know that I had to go there and see it whether I would or no. George Washington had done something or other there – got married, I believe. I think the church had some very fine ivy on it, but I am not sure. I thought it was old and small, and that it might do very well in summer, but that under present circumstances Washington himself would forgive me for being wholly in the thought of getting to a fire. Hunger and cold, cramped positions and rain dripping in on me had blunted everything in me except longings for creature comforts. The lieutenant drove all around the church religiously before starting on our way again.
“I don’t believe you saw it at all,” he said to me with real concern.
“Oh, yes, I did!” I answered promptly, terrified lest we should be turned back to look at it again, “I saw it thoroughly.”
Of course, Milicent had looked the old church over and talked intelligently about it, but for the life of me, I couldn’t remember whether it was made of brick or wood. And I didn’t care, either.
The rain had dwindled into a drizzle, night was coming on, and I began to grow more and more anxious to find a stopping-place.
“I do hope we shall get into a place where they keep good fires,” I said. “If we should get into a place where they burn green pine, I should lie down and die. Wet, green pine,” I continued dolorously, “that smokes and never burns, and raw, clammy biscuit is about what we’ll get to-night.”
The lieutenant looked as if he was very sorry for me.
“I wish,” he said unhappily, “I wish I knew how to tell a place where they burn green pine.” Suddenly he brightened.
“I have it!” he exclaimed. “We won’t stop at any house where there isn’t a big wood-pile. We don’t stop anywhere until we find a big white house, a big wood-pile and a nigger chopping wood.”
We passed several dwellings, but the lieutenant wouldn’t stop. “I don’t see any wood-pile,” or “The wood-pile ain’t big enough,” he would say.
At last we came upon what we wanted – a large white house, a wood-pile nearly as high as the house and a negro man chopping wood for dear life.
Through a big front yard full of shrubbery, a wide graveled walk and circular drive-way led up to the house, and in a few minutes our ambulance was in front of the veranda. The lieutenant sprang out and went up the steps.
A gray-headed negro butler answered his knock.
“Wanter see master, sah? Yes, sah. Won’t you step right in, sah?”
“I haven’t time to stop a minute unless I can get lodgings for the night. I have ladies in the ambulance. Ask your master if he will be good enough to see me at the door for a minute.”
Sambo bowed, made haste backward, and almost immediately an old gentleman appeared.
“Certainly, sir, certainly,” he said, interrupting the lieutenant in the middle of his application. “Bring the ladies right in, sir.”
And he helped to bring us in himself. Servants of all kinds appeared as if by magic from all quarters, and took charge of our trunks, satchels, ambulance, and driver.
The Virginia gentleman of those days was hospitable, as men are truthful, for his own sake first. His hospitality was spontaneous, unconscious, and free as heaven itself with its favors. All it asked in return was that you should come when you pleased, go when you pleased, stay as long as you pleased, and enjoy yourself to the top of your bent.
The house was a house of spindle-legged chairs, spindle-legged piano, brass fire-dogs, fine dark woodwork, candelabra of brass and crystal, and tall wax candles. Through the gloom the eyes of old portraits looked down upon us. In the wide fireplace of our bedroom crackled a mighty fire of oak and hickory; over the fire hung a bright brass kettle singing merrily; there were the ever-present fire-dogs and fender of burnished brass, and on the mantle two wax lights burning in silver candlesticks. Two smiling negro maids stood ready to minister to us.
In opposite corners of the room stood two large, canopied, mahogany bedsteads, with great, downy feather-beds and counterpanes, sheets and pillows as white as snow and smelling of lavender. The undiminished length of the table at which we sat down that night bore testimony not only to the good cheer it had given, but to that which it was ready to give. It was of dark rich mahogany, polished to the fineness of a mirror, that reflected the tall silver candlesticks holding wax candles. The silver service and beautiful old china rested on white mats that were not visible except where encircling fringes of gleaming damask suggested nests of snow. On a quaint buffet stood cut-glass decanters holding topaz and ruby wines and brandy and whisky.
The great mahogany sideboard – a small house in itself – nearly reached the ceiling. The upper half was a cabinet with glass doors shaped like the doors of a Gothic cathedral. The lower half had drawers with white knobs, and bellied doors of the most beautiful dark wood, reflecting, like the table, the glow of the wax lights. The glass cabinet glittered with silver and crystal, and here and there was clouded with the rich maroon and saffron of rare old china. Our hostess was a stately and beautiful old lady in black silk (much worn), with fichu and cuffs of real old lace. Our host wore fine black broadcloth, threadbare and of ancient cut.
Such a soft, shining picture as that supper-room was! I wish I could paint it as I saw it that night! And what a delicious supper! There was tea, sure enough; tea of delicious aroma; and sure enough sugar, too, in fine white lumps which had to be picked up with silver tongs. There were little tea-cakes and fairy-like puffs and wafers, and delicious hot rolls! creamy and velvety, and light as a breath.
In crystal dishes gleamed the rich, clear red and amber of preserved fruits, and crystal-clear sweetmeats were set before us in crystal dishes. These were cut in designs of leaf and flower, fish and bird, squirrels, rabbits, and acorns – really too elaborately cut and too beautifully transparent to be eaten. And then there was Virginia fried chicken – of such a delicate rich brown! and such juicy sweetness! At last we each lay covered up in a great downy bed, and went to sleep, and slept as if we never expected to wake up.
