A BELLE OF THE FIFTIES: MEMOIRS OF MRS. CLAY OF ALABAMA
Part 3 of 7 Parts

This file is part of the DCGenWeb Archives Project:
http://www.usgwarchives.net/dc/dcfiles.htm

*********************************************
http://www.usgwarchives.net/dc/dcfiles.htm
http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm
*********************************************

Contributed to The USGenWeb Archives Project by:
Kelly Mullins (kellyj@snowcrest.net)
May 17, 2000


==============================================================================

A Belle of the Fifties. Memoirs of Mrs. Clay, of Alabama, covering Social and
Political Life in Washington and the South, 1853-66. Put into narrative form
by Ada Sterling. Illustrated from contemporary portraits. 
New York, Doubleday, Page & Company, 1905. Published: September, 1904


Begin Part 3

        A most amusing metrical farce, "Pocahontas," was given
during the winter of '57-58, which set all Washington a-laughing.
In the cast were Mrs. Gilbert, and Brougham, the comedian and
author. Two of the ridiculous couplets come back to me, and, as
if it were yesterday, revive the amusing scenes in which they
were spoken.

        Mrs. Gilbert's role was that of a Yankee schoolma'am,
whose continual effort it was to make her naughty young Indian
charges behave themselves. "Young ladies!" she cried, with that
inimitable austerity behind which one always feels the actress's
consciousness of the "fun of the thing" which she is dissembling,

            "Young Ladies! Stand with your feet right square!
             Miss Pocahontas! just look at your hair!"

        and as she wandered off, a top-knot of feathers waving
over her head, her wand, with which she had been drilling her
dually maidens, held firmly in hand, she cut a pigeon-wing

Page 104

that brought forth a perfect shout of laughter from the audience.

        This troupe appeared just after the Brooks-Sumner
encounter, of which the capital talked still excitedly, and the
comedian did not hesitate to introduce a mild local allusion
which was generally understood. Breaking upon her as Pocahontas
wept, between ear-splitting ties of woe at the bier of Captain
Smith, he called out impatiently,

              "What's all this noise? Be done! Be done!
               D'you think you are in Washington?"

        Mr. Thackeray's lecture on poetry was a red-letter
occasion, and the simplicity of that great man of letters as he
recited "Lord Lovel" and "Barbara Allen" was long afterward a
criterion by which others were judged. Notable soloists now and
then appeared at the capital, among them Ap Thomas, the great
Welsh harpist, and Bochsa, as great a performer, whose concerts
gained so much in interest by the singing of the romantic French
woman, Mme. Anna Bishop. Her rendering of "On the Banks of the
Gaudalquiver" made her a great favourite and gave the song a
vogue. That musical prodigy, Blind Tom also made his appearance
in ante-bellum Washington, and I was one of several ladies of the
capital invited by Miss Lane to hear him play at the White House.
Among the guests on that occasion were Miss Phillips of Alabama
and her cousin Miss Cohen of South Carolina, who were brilliant
amateur players with a local reputation. They were the daughter
and niece, respectively, of Mrs. Eugenia Phillips, who, less than
two years afterward, was imprisoned by the Federal authorities
for alleged assistance to the newly formed Confederate
Government.

        At the invitation of Miss Lane, the Misses Phillips and
Cohen took their places at the piano and performed a

Page 105

brilliant and intricate duet, during which Blind Tom's face
twitched with what, it must be confessed, were horrible grimaces.
He was evidently greatly excited by the music he was listening
to, and was eager to reproduce it. As the piece was concluded, he
shuffled about nervously. Seeing his excitement, one of the
pianistes volunteered to play with him and took her seat at the
instrument. Desiring to test him, however, in the second
rendering, the lady cleverly, as she supposed, elided a page of
the composition; when, drawing himself back angrily, this
remarkable idiot exclaimed indignantly, "You cheat me! You cheat
me!"

        While a visit to the dentist, be he never so famous, may
hardly be regarded as among the recreations of Congressional
folk, yet a trip to Dr. Maynard, the fashionable operator of that
day, was certainly among the luxuries of the time; as costly, for
example, as a trip to New York, to hear sweet Jenny Lind. Dr.
Maynard was distinctively one of Washington's famous characters.
He was not only the expert dentist of his day, being as great an
element in life at the capital as was Dr. Evans in Paris, but he
was also the inventor of the world-renowned three-barrelled rifle
known as the Maynard. His office was like an arsenal, every inch
of wall-space being taken up with glittering arms.

        A peculiarity of Dr. Maynard was his dislike for the
odour of the geranium, from which he shrank as from some deadly
poison. Upon the occasion of one necessary visit to him, unaware
of this eccentricity, I wore a sprig of that blossom upon my
corsage. As I entered the office the doctor detected it.

        "Pardon me, Mrs. Clay," he said at once, "I must ask you
to remove that geranium!" I was astonished, but of course the
offending flower was at once detached and discarded; but so
sensitive were the olfactories of the doctor, that before he
could begin his operating, I was

Page 106

obliged to bury the spot on which the blossom had lain under
several folds of napkin.

        Dr. Maynard was exceedingly fond of sleight of hand, and
on one occasion bought for his children an outfit which Heller
had owned. In after years the Czar of Russia made tempting offers
to this celebrated dentist, with a view to inducing him to take
up his residence in St. Petersburg, but his Imperial allurements
were unavailing, and Dr. Maynard returned again to his own orbit.

        A feature of weekly recurrence, and one to which all
Washington and every visitor thronged, was the concert of the
Marine Band, given within the White House grounds on the green
slope back of the Executive Mansion overlooking the Potomac.
Strolling among the multitude, I remember often to have seen Miss
Cutts, in the simplest of white muslin gowns, but conspicuous for
her beauty wherever she passed. Here military uniforms glistened
or glowed, as the case might be, among a crowd of black-coated
sight-seers, and one was likely to meet with the President or his
Cabinet, mingling democratically with the crowd of smiling
citizens.

        At one of these concerts a provincial visitor was
observed to linger in the vicinity of the President, whom it was
obvious he recognised. Presently, in an accession of sudden
courage, he approached Mr. Pierce, and, uncovering his head
respectfully, said, "Mr. President, can't I go through your fine
house? I've heard so much about it that I'd give a great deal to
see it."

        "Why, my dear sir!" responded the President, kindly,
"that is not my house. It's the people's house. You shall
certainly go through it if you wish!" and, calling an attendant,
he instructed him to take the grateful stranger through the White
House.

        The recounting of that episode revives the recollection
of another which took place in the time of President Buchanan,
and which was the subject of discussion for

Page 107

full many a day after its occurrence. It was on the occasion of
an annual visit of the redmen, always a rather exciting event in
the capital.

        The delegations which came to Washington in the winters
of '54-58 numbered several hundred. They camped in a square in
the Barracks, where, with almost naked bodies, scalps at belt and
tomahawks in hand they were viewed daily by crowds of curious
folk as they beat their monotonous drums, danced, or threw their
tomahawks dexterously in air. Here and there one redskin, more
fortunate than the rest, was wrapped in a gaudy blanket, and many
were decked out with large earrings and huge feather-duster head-
dresses. A single chain only separated the savages from the
assembled spectators, who were often thrown into somewhat of a
panic by the sullen or belligerent behaviour of the former. When
in this mood, the surest means of conciliating the Indians was to
pass over the barrier (which some spectator was sure to do) some
whisky, whereupon their sullenness immediately would give place
to an amiable desire to display their prowess by twirling the
tomahawk, or in the dance.

        To see the copper-hued sons of the Far West, clad in
buckskin and moccasins, paint and feathers, stalking about the
East Room of the White House at any time was a spectacle not
easily to be forgotten; but, upon the occasion of which I write,
and at which I was present, a scene took place, the character of
which became so spirited that many of the ladies became
frightened and rose hurriedly to withdraw. A number of chiefs
were present, accompanied by their interpreter, Mr. Garrett of
Alabama, and many of them had expressed their pleasure at seeing
the President. They desired peace and goodwill to be continued;
they wished for agricultural implements for the advancement of
husbandry among their tribes; and grist mills, that their squaws

Page 108

no longer need grind their corn between stones to make "sofky"
(and the spokesman illustrated the process by a circular motion
of the hand). In fact, they wished to smoke the Calumet pipe of
peace with their white brothers.

        Thus far their discourse was most comfortable and
pleasing to our white man's amour propre; but, ere the last
warrior had ceased his placating speech, the dusky form of a
younger redskin sprang from the floor, where, with the others of
the delegation, he had been squatting. He was lithe and graceful
as Longfellow's dream of Hiawatha. The muscles of his upper body,
bare of all drapery, glistened like burnished metal. His
gesticulations were fierce and imperative, his voice strangely
thrilling.

        "These walls and these halls belong to the redmen!" he
cried. "The very ground on which they stand is ours! You have
stolen it from us and I am for war, that the wrongs of my people
may be righted!"

        Here his motions became so violent and threatening that
many of the ladies, alarmed, rose up instinctively, as I have
said, as if they would fly the room; but our dear old Mr.
Buchanan, with admirable diplomacy, replied in most kindly
manner, bidding the interpreter assure the spirited young brave
that the White House was his possession in common with all the
people of the Great Spirit, and that he did but welcome his red
brothers to their own on behalf of the country. This was the gist 
of his speech, which calmed the excitement of the savage, and
relieved the apprehension of the ladies about.

        A conspicuous member of the delegation of '54-55 was the
old chief Apothleohola, who was brought to see me by the
interpreter Garrett. His accumulated wealth was said to be
$80,000, and he had a farm in the West, it was added, which was
worked entirely by negroes. Apothleohola was a patriarch of his
tribe, some eighty years of age, but erect and powerful still.
His face on 

Page 109

the occasion of his afternoon visit to me was gaudy with paint,
and he was wrapped in a brilliant red blanket, around which was a
black border; but despite his gay attire there was about him an
air of weariness and even sadness.

        While I was still a child I had seen this now aged
warrior. At that time, five thousand Cherokees and Choctaws,
passing west to their new reservations beyond the Mississippi,
had rested in Tuscaloosa, where they camped for several weeks.
The occasion was a notable one. All the city turned out to see
the Indian youths dash through the streets on their ponies. They
were superb horsemen and their animals were as remarkable. Many
of the latter, for a consideration, were left in the hands of the
emulous white youth of the town. Along the river banks, too,
carriages stood, crowded with sight-seers watching the squaws as
they tossed their young children into the stream that they might
learn to swim. Very picturesque were the roomy vehicles of that
day as they grouped themselves along the leafy shore of the Black
Warrior, their capacity tested to the fullest by the belles of
the little city, arrayed in dainty muslins, and bonneted in the
sweet fashions of the time.

        During that encampment a redman was set upon by some
quarrelsome rowdies, and in the altercation was killed. Fearing
the vengeance of the allied tribes about them, the miscreants
disembowelled their victim, and, filling the cavity with rocks,
sank the body in the river. The Indians, missing their companion,
and suspecting some evil had befallen him, appealed to Governor
C. C. Clay, who immediately uttered a proclamation for the
recovery of the body. In a few days the crime and its
perpetrators were discovered, and justice was meted out to them.
By this prompt act Governor Clay, to whose wisdom is accredited
by historians the repression of the

Page 110

Indian troubles in Alabama in 1835-'37, won the goodwill of the
savages, among whom was the great warrior, Apothleohola.

        It was at ex-Governor Clay's request I sent for the now
aged brave. He gravely inclined his head when I asked him whether
he remembered the Governor. I told him my father wished to know
whether the chief Nea Mathla still lived and if the brave
Apothleohola was happy in his western home. His sadness deepened
as he answered, slowly, "Me happy, some!"

        Before the close of his visit, Mr. Garrett, the
interpreter, asked me if I would not talk Indian to his charge.
"You must know some!" he urged, "having been brought up in an
Indian country!"

        I knew three or four words, as it happened, and these I
pronounced, to the great chief's amusement; for, pointing his
finger at me he said, with a half-smile, "She talk Creek!"

        A few days after this memorable call, I happened into the
house of Harper & Mitchell, then a famous drygoods emporium in
the capital, just as the old warrior was beginning to bargain,
and I had the pleasure and entertainment of assisting him to
select two crepe shawls which he purchased for his daughters at
one hundred dollars apiece!

        It was my good fortune to witness the arrival of the
Japanese Embassy, which was the outcome of Commodore Perry's
expedition to the Orient. The horticulturist of the party, Dr.
Morrow, of South Carolina, was a frequent visitor to my parlours,
and upon his return from the East regaled me with many amusing
stories of his Eastern experiences. A special object of his visit
to Japan was to obtain, if possible, some specimens of the world-
famous rice of that country, with which to experiment in the
United States. Until that period our native rice was inferior;
but, despite every effort made and inducement

Page 111

offered, our Government had been unable to obtain even a kernel
of the unhusked rice which would germinate.

        During his stay in the Orient, Dr. Morrow made numberless
futile attempts to supply himself with even a stealthy pocketful
of the precious grain, and in one instance, he told us,
remembering how Professor Henry had introduced millet seed by
planting so little as a single seed that fell from the wrappings
of a mummy,* he had offered a purse of gold to a native for a
single grain; but the Japanese only shook his head, declining the
proposition, and drew his finger significantly across his throat
to indicate his probable fate if he were to become party to such
commerce.

        On the arrival of the Japanese embassy in Washington, to
the doctor's delight, it was found that among the presents sent
by the picturesque Emperor of Japan to the President of the
United States was a hogshead of rice. Alas! the doctor's hopes
were again dashed when the case was opened, for the wily donors
had carefully sifted their gift, and, though minutely examined,
there was not in all the myriad grains a single kernel in which
the germinal vesicle was still intact!

        The arrival of the browned Asiatics was made a gala
occasion in the capital. Half the town repaired to the Barracks
to witness the debarkation of the strange and gorgeously
apparelled voyagers from the gaily decorated vessel. Their
usually yellow skins, now, after a long sea-trip, were burned to
the colour of copper; and not stranger to our eyes would have
been the sight of Paul du Chaillu's newly discovered gorillas,
than were these Orientals as they descended the flag-bedecked
gangplanks and passed out through a corridor formed of eager
people, crowding curiously to gaze at them. Some

* This story, though quite commonly repeated, has been rather
effectually disproved by scientists. It obtained currency for
many years, however. A. S.

Page 112

of the Japanese had acquired a little English during the journey
to America, and, as friendly shouts of "Welcome to America"
greeted them, they nodded cordially to the people, shaking hands
here and there as they passed along, and saying, to our great
amusement, "How de!"

        Dr. Morrow had brought a gift to me from the East, a
scarf of crêpe, delicate as the blossom of the mountain laurel,
the texture being very similar to that of the petals of that
bloom, and, to do honour to the occasion, I wore it conspicuously
draped over my corsage. Observing this drapery, one of the
strangers, his oily face wreathed in smiles, his well-pomatumed
top knot meantime giving out under the heat of a scorching sun a
peculiar and never-to-be-forgotten odour, advanced toward me as
our party called their welcome, and, pointing to my beautiful
trophy, said, "Me lakee! me lakee!" Then, parting his silken robe
over his breast, he pulled out a bit of an undergarment (the
character of which it required no shrewdness to surmise) which
proved identical in weave with my lovely scarf! Holding the bit
of crêpe out toward us, the Oriental smiled complacently, as if
in this discovery we had established a kind of preliminary
international entente cordiale!

        This same pomatum upon which I have remarked was a source
of great chagrin to the proprietor of Willard's Hotel, who, after
the departure of his Oriental visitors, found several coats of
paint and a general repapering to be necessary ere the pristine
purity of atmosphere which had characterized that hostelry could
again be depended upon not to offend the delicate olfactories of
American guests.

        During the stay of this embassy, its members attracted
universal attention as they strolled about the streets or
drawing-rooms which opened for their entertainment. Their
garments were marvellously rich and massed with elaborate
ornamentation in glistening silks and gold

Page 113

thread. They carried innumerable paper handkerchiefs tucked away
somewhere in their capacious sleeves, the chief purpose of these
filmy things seeming to be the removal of superfluous oil from
the foreheads of their yellow owners. A happy circumstance; for,
having once so served, the little squares were dropped forthwith
wherever the Oriental happened to be standing, whether in street
or parlour, and the Asiatic dignitary passed on innocently
ignorant alike of his social and hygienic shortcoming.

        It was no uncommon thing during the sojourn of these
strangers at the capital, to see some distinguished Senator or
Cabinet Minister stoop at the sight of one of these gauzy trifles
(looking quite like the mouchoir of some fastidious woman) and
pick it up, only to throw it from him in disgust a moment later.
He was fortunate when his error passed unseen by his confrères;
for the Japanese handkerchief joke went the round of the capital,
and the victim of such misplaced gallantry was sure to be the
laughing-stock of his fellows if caught in the act.

        The most popular member of this notable commission was an
Oriental who was nicknamed "Tommy." He had scarce arrived when he
capitulated to the charms of the American lady; in fact, he
became so devoted to them that, it was said, he had no sooner
returned to Japan than he paid the price of his devotion by the
forfeit of his head in a basket!

Page 114

CHAPTER VIII
THE BRILLIANT BUCHANAN ADMINISTRATION

        THE advent of Lord and Lady Napier was practically
coincident with the installation of Miss Harriet Lane at the
White House, and, in each instance, the entrée of Miss Lane and
Lady Napier had its share in quickening the pace at which society
was so merrily going, and in accentuating its allurements. Miss
Lane's reign at the White House was one of completest charm.
Nature, education and experience were combined in the President's
niece in such manner as eminently to qualify her to meet the
responsibilities that for four years were to be hers. Miss Lane
possessed great tact, and a perfect knowledge of Mr. Buchanan's
wishes. Her education had been largely directed and her mind
formed under his careful guardianship; she had presided for
several years over her uncle's household while Mr. Buchanan
served as Minister to England. The charms of young womanhood
still lingered about her, but to these was added an aplomb rare
in a woman of fifty, so that, during her residence in it, White
House functions rose to their highest degree of elegance; to a
standard, indeed, that has not since been approached save during
the occupancy of the beautiful bride of President Cleveland.
        Miss Lane's entrance into life at the American capital,
at a trying time, served to keep the surface of society in
Washington serene and smiling, though the fires of a volcano
raged in the under-political world, and the vibrations of
Congressional strife spread to the furthermost ends of the
country the knowledge that the Government

Page 115

was tottering. The young Lady of the White House came to her new
honours with the prestige of Queen Victoria's favour. In her
conquest of statesmen, and, it was added, even in feature, she
was said to resemble the Queen in her younger days. Miss Lane was
a little above the medium height, and both in colour and physique
was of an English rather than an American type - a characteristic
which was also marked in the President. The latter's complexion
was of the rosiest and freshest, and his presence exceedingly
fine, notwithstanding a slight infirmity which caused him to hold
his head to one side, and gave him a quizzical expression that
was, however, pleasing rather than the contrary.

        In figure, Miss Lane was full; her complexion was clear
and brilliant. In her cheeks there was always a rich, pretty
colour, and her hair, a bright chestnut, had a glow approaching
gold upon it. She had a columnar, full neck, upon which her head
was set superbly. I thought her not beautiful so much as handsome
and healthful and good to look upon. I told her once she was like
a poet's ideal of an English dairymaid, who fed upon blush roses
and the milk of her charges; but a lifting of the head and a
heightening of the pretty colour in her cheeks told me my bucolic
simile had not pleased her.

        Of the Napiers it may be said that no ministerial
representatives from a foreign power ever more completely won the
hearts of Washingtonians than did that delightful Scotch couple.
In appearance, Lady Napier was fair and distinctly a patrician.
She was perhaps thirty years of age when she began her two-years'
residence in the American capital. Her manner was unaffected and
simple; her retinue small. During the Napiers' occupancy, the
British Embassy was conspicuous for its complete absence of
ostentation and its generous hospitality. Their equipages were of
the handsomest,

Page 116

but in no instance showy, and this at a period when Washington
streets thronged with the conspicuous vehicles affected by the
foreign Legations. Indeed, at that time the foreigner was as
distinguished for his elaborate carriages as was the Southerner
for his blooded horses. *

        Lady Napier's avoidance of display extended to her
gowning, which was of the quietest, except when some great public
function demanded more elaborate preparation. On such occasions
her laces - heirlooms for centuries - were called into
requisition, and coiffure and corsage blazed with diamonds and
emeralds. Her cozy at-homes were remarkable for their informality
and the ease which seemed to emanate from the hostess and
communicate itself to her guests. A quartette of handsome boys
comprised the Napier family, and often these princely little
fellows, clad in velvet costumes, assisted their mother at her
afternoons, competing with each other for the privilege of
passing refreshments. At such times it was no infrequent thing to
hear Lady Napier compared with "Cornelia and her Jewels."

        Lord Napier was especially fond of music, and I recall an
evening dinner given at this embassy to Miss Emily Schaumberg, of
Philadelphia, in which that lady's singing roused the host to a
high pitch of enthusiasm. Miss Schaumberg was a great beauty, as
well as a finished singer, and was most admired in the capital,
though she stayed but a very short time there.

        A ball or formal dinner at the British Embassy (and

* A notable vehicle of this sort was purchased in Philadelphia by
Mrs. Clay, at a cost of $1,600, and was carried to Alabama,
where, among the foliaged avenues of beautiful Huntsville, it
attracted universal attention. It was a capacious and splendid
equipage, lined with amber satin, and was drawn by the high-bred
horses, "Polk" and "Dallas." From Mrs. Clay's possession this
gorgeous landau passed into that of Governor Reuben Chapman, and,
in the course of years, by various transfers, into the hands of a
station hackman, of colour! A. S.

Page 117

these were not infrequent) was always a memorable event. One met
there the talented and distinguished; heard good music; listened
to the flow of wholesome wit; and enjoyed delectable repasts.
Early in 1859 the Napiers gave a large ball to the young Lords
Cavendish and Ashley, to which all the resident and visiting
belles were invited; and, I doubt not, both lords and ladies were
mutually delighted. Miss Corinne Acklin, who was under my wing
that season (she was a true beauty and thoroughly enjoyed her
belleship), was escorted to supper by Lord Cavendish, and,
indeed, had the lion's share of the attentions of both of the
visiting noblemen, until our dear, ubiquitous Mrs. Crittenden
appeared. That good lady was arrayed, as usual, with remarkable
splendour and frankly décolleté gown. She approached Miss Acklin
as the latter, glowing with her triumphs, stood chatting
vivaciously with her lordly admirers. "Lady" Crittenden smilingly
interrupted the trio by whispering in the young lady's ear,
though by no means sotto voce: "Present me to Lord Ashley, my
dear. Ashley was my second husband's name, you know, and maybe
they were kin!"

        "I thought her so silly," said the pouting beauty
afterward. "She must be almost sixty!" But Mrs. Crittenden's
kindly inquiry was not an unnatural one, for, as the rich widow
Ashley, whose husband's family connections in some branches were
known to be foreign, she had been renowned from Florida to Maine
for years before she became Mrs. Crittenden.

        At the home of the Napiers one frequently met Mr. Bayard,
between whom and the English Ambassador there existed a close
intimacy. Mr. Bayard was the most unobtrusive of men, modesty
being his dominant social characteristic. When I visited England
in 1885, I had a signal testimony to Lord Napier's long-continued
regard for the great Delaware statesman. During my

Page 118

stay in London, the former Minister constituted himself cicerone
to our party, and, upon one memorable afternoon, he insisted upon
drinking a toast with us.

        "Oh, no!" I demurred. "Toasts are obsolete!"

        "Very well, then," Lord Napier declared. "If you won't, I
will. Here's to your President, Mr. Cleveland! But," he continued
with a suddenly added depth, "Were it your Chevalier Bayard, I
would drink it on my knee!"

        Upon my return to America I had the pleasure of shouting
to Mr. Bayard, then Secretary of State, a recital of this great
tribute. He had now grown very deaf, but my words reached him at
last, and he smiled in a most happy way as he asked, almost
shyly, but with a warm glance in the eye, despite his effort to
remain composed, "Did Napier really say that?"

        A feeling of universal regret spread over the capital
when it became known that the Napiers were to return to England;
and the admiration of the citizens for the popular diplomat
expressed itself in the getting-up of a farewell ball, which, in
point of size, was one of the most prodigious entertainments ever
given in Washington. One group of that great assemblage is
vividly before me. In it the young James Gordon Bennett, whom I
had seen in earlier days at a fashionable water-cure (and whose
general naughtiness as a little boy defies description by my
feeble pen), danced vis-à-vis, a handsome, courtly youth, with
his mother and Daniel E. Sickles.

        During the Pierce administration the old-fashioned
quadrilles and cotillions, with an occasional waltz number, were
danced to the exclusion of all other Terpsichorean forms; but in
the term of his successor, the German was introduced, when Miss
Josephine Ward, of New York, afterward Mrs. John R. Thomson, of
New Jersey, became prominent as a leader.

        When I review those brilliant scenes in which passed and
smiled, and danced and chatted, the vast multitude

Page 119

of those who called me "friend," the army of those now numbered
with the dead - I am lost in wonder! My memory seems a
Herculaneum, in which, let but a spade of thought be sunk, and
some long-hidden treasure is unearthed. I have referred to the
citizens of Washington. The term unrolls a scroll in which are
listed men and women renowned in those days as hostesses and
entertainers. They were a rich and exclusive, and, at the same
time, a numerous class, that gave body to the social life of the
Federal City. Conspicuous among these were Mrs. A. S. Parker and
Mrs. Ogle Tayloe. The home of the former was especially the
rendezvous of the young. In the late fifties and sixties it was a
palatial residence, famous for its fine conservatories, its
spacious parlours, and glistening dancing floors. To-day, so
greatly has the city changed, that what is left of that once
luxurious home has been converted into small tenements which are
rented out for a trifle to the very poor. At the marriage of Mrs.
Parker's daughter, Mary E., in 1860, to Congressman J. E.
Bouligny, of Louisiana, crowds thronged in these now forgotten
parlours. The President himself was present to give the pretty
bride away, and half of Congress came to wish Godspeed to their
fellow-member.

        The home of Mr. and Mrs. Ogle Tayloe was a museum of
things rare and beautiful, vying in this respect with the
Corcoran Mansion and the homes of the several members of the
Riggs family. One of its treasured mementos was a cane that had
been used by Napoleon Bonaparte. Mrs. Tayloe belonged to a New
York family; the Tayloes to Virginia. She was a woman of fine
taste and broad views, a very gracious hostess, who shrank from
the coarse or vulgar wherever she detected it. When Washington
became metamorphosed by the strangers who poured into its
precincts following the inauguration of Mr. Lincoln in 1861, the
Tayloe Mansion was shrouded,

Page 120

its pictures were covered, and its chandeliers wound with
protective wrappings. Entertaining there ceased for years. "Nor
have I," said Mrs. Tayloe to me in 1866, "crossed the threshold
of the White House since Harriet Lane went out."

        At the Tayloe home I often exchanged a smile and a
greeting with Lilly Price, my hostess's niece, who, when she
reached womanhood, was distinguished first as Mrs. Hamersley, and
afterward as Lillian, Duchess of Marlborough. At that time she
was a fairy-like little slip of a schoolgirl, who, in the
intervals between Fridays and Mondays, was permitted to have a
peep at the gay gatherings in her aunt's home. Many years
afterward, being a passenger on an outgoing steamer, I learned
that Mrs. Hamersley, too, was on board; but before I could make
my presence known to her, as had been my intention, she had
discovered me and came seeking her "old friend, Mrs. Clay," and I
found that there lingered in the manner of the brilliant society
leader, Mrs. Hamersley, much of the same bright charm that had
distinguished the little Lilly Price as she smiled down at me
from her coign of vantage at the top of the stairway of the
Tayloe residence.

        But the prince of entertainers, whether citizen or
official, who was also a prince among men, the father of
unnumbered benefactions and patron of the arts, was dear Mr.
Corcoran. When my thoughts turn back to him they invariably
resolve themselves into

        "And, lo! Ben Adhem's name led all the rest."

        Throughout our long acquaintance Mr. Corcoran proved
himself to be what he wrote himself down, "one of the dearest
friends of my dear husband." He was already a widower when,
shortly after our arrival in Washington, I met him; and, though
many a well-known beauty would have been willing to assume his
distinguished name, my own conviction is that Mr. Corcoran never

Page 121

thought of marriage with any woman after he committed to the
grave the body of his well-beloved wife, Louise Morris, daughter
of the brave Commodore.

        Mr. Corcoran was a tall and handsome man, even in his old
age. In his younger days his expression was the most benignant I
have ever seen, though in repose it was tinged with a peculiar
mournfulness. The banker's weekly dinners were an institution in
Washington life. During each session he dined half of Congress,
to say nothing of the foreign representatives and the families of
his fellow-citizens.

        Evening dances were also of frequent occurrence at the
Corcoran Mansion, the giving of which always seemed to me proof
of the host's large and great nature; for Louise Corcoran, his
daughter, afterward Mrs. Eustis, was a delicate girl, who, owing
to some weakness of the heart, was debarred from taking part in
the pleasures of the dance. Nevertheless, Mr. Corcoran opened his
home to the young daughters of other men, and took pleasure in
the happiness he thus gave them. The "Greek Slave," now a
principal object of interest in the Corcoran Art Gallery, was
then an ornament to the banker's home, and stood in an alcove
allotted to it, protected by a gilded chain.

        The hospitality of Mr. Corcoran's home, which Senator
Clay and I often enjoyed, was a synonym for "good cheer" of the
most generous and epicurean sort. I remember an amusing meeting
which my husband and I had one evening with Secretary Cobb. It
took place on the Treasury pavement. Recognising us as we
approached, the bland good humour which was habitual to the
Secretary deepened into a broad smile.

        "Ah, Clay!" he said to my husband, pulling down his vest
with a look of completest satisfaction, "Been to Corcoran's.
Johannisberg and tarrepin, sir! I wish," and he gave his
waistcoat another pull, glancing up

Page 122

significantly at the tall stone pile before us, "I wish the
Treasury were as full as I!"

        Mr. Corcoran was famous for his Johannisberg, and I
recall a dinner at his home when, being escorted to the table by
the Danish Minister, who had somewhat the reputation of a
connoisseur, our host and my companion immediately began a
discussion on the merits of this favourite wine, which the
Minister declared was of prime quality, and which, if I remember
rightly, Mr. Corcoran said was all made on the estate of the
Prince de Metternich. When the Minister announced his approval,
our host turned quietly to me and said, sotto voce, "I hoped it
was pure. I paid fifteen dollars for it!"

        I wish it might be said that all the lavish hospitality
of that incomparable gentleman had been appreciated with never a
record to the contrary to mar the pleasure he gave; but it must
be confessed that the host at the capital whose reputation for
liberality extends so widely as did Mr. Corcoran's runs the risk
of entertaining some others than angels unaware. The receptions
at the Corcoran residence, as at the White House and other famous
homes, were occasionally, necessarily, somewhat promiscuous.
During the sessions of Congress the city thronged with visitors,
many of them constituents of Senators and Congressmen, who came
to Washington expecting to receive, as they usually did receive,
social courtesies at the hands of their Representatives. Many
kindly hosts, aware of these continually arising emergencies,
gave latitude to Congressional folk in their invitations
sufficient to meet them.

        At the Corcoran receptions, a feature of the decorations
was the elaborate festooning and grouping of growing plants,
which were distributed in profusion about the banker's great
parlours. Upon one occasion, in addition to these natural
flowers, there was displayed a handsome épergne, in which was
placed a most realistic bunch of

Page 123

artificial blooms. These proved irresistibly tempting to an
unidentified woman visitor; for, in the course of the afternoon,
Mr. Corcoran, moving quietly among his guests, saw the stranger
take hold of a bunch of these curious ornaments and twist it
violently in an effort to detach it from the rest. At this
surprising sight Mr. Corcoran stepped to the lady's side, and
said with a gentle dignity: "I would not do that, Madam. Please
desist. The blossoms are not real. They are rare, however, and
have been brought from Europe only by the exercise of the
greatest care!"

        "Well! If they have? What's that to you?" snapped the
lady defiantly.

        "Nothing, Madam!" he responded, quietly. "Except that I
am Mr. Corcoran!"

        Fortunately, not all strangers who were so entertained
were of this unpleasant sort. Sometimes the amusement the more
provincial afforded quite out-balanced the trouble their
entertainment cost our resident representatives. I remember an
occasion on which I, acting for my husband, was called upon to
show a young woman the sights of the capital. She was the
daughter of an important constituent. One morning, as I was about
to step into the calash of a friend who had called to take me for
a drive, a note was handed to me. It read: "My dear Mrs. Clay: I
hope you will recall my name and, in your generosity of heart,
will do me a favour. My daughter, is passing through Washington
and will be at the - Hotel for one day," naming that very day!
"She is very unsophisticated and will be most grateful for
anything you can do toward showing her the sights of the
capital," etc., etc.

        As I knew I might command the services of my escort for
the morning (he was a Mr. Parrish, recently from the mines of
Africa, and in Washington for the purpose of securing our
Government's aid in pressing certain of his

Page 124

claims against a foreign power), I proposed that we proceed at
once to the - Hotel and take the young woman with us on our
drive. To this a kind consent was given, and in a short time I
had sent my card to the young stranger. I found her a typical,
somewhat callow schoolgirl, over-dressed and self-conscious, who
answered every question in the most agitated manner, and who
volunteered nothing in the way of a remark upon any subject
whatsoever, though she assented gaspingly to all my questions,
and went with a nervous alacrity to put on her hat when I invited
her to accompany us upon our drive.

        We began our tour by taking her directly to the Capitol.
We mounted to the dome to view the wonderful plan of the
Government City; thence to the House and the Senate Chamber, and
into such rooms of state as we might enter; and on to the
Government greenhouses, with their horticultural wonders. We
paused from time to time in our walk to give the young lady an
opportunity to admire and to consider the rare things before her
- to remark upon them, if she would; but all our inviting
enthusiasm was received in dull silence.

        Failing to arouse her interest in the gardens, we next
directed our steps to the Smithsonian Institution, where corridor
after corridor was explored, in which were specimens from the
obscurest corners of the earth, monsters of the deep, and tiny
denizens of the air, purchased at fabulous sums of money, but now
spread freely before the gaze of whomsoever might desire to look
upon them. The Smithsonian Institution, at that time still a
novelty even to Washingtonians, has ever been to me a marvellous
example of man's humanity to man. I hoped it would so reveal
itself to my whilom protégée.

        Alas for my hopes! Her apathy seemed to increase. We
arrived presently at the Ornithological Department. A multitude
of specimens of the feathered tribes were

Page 125

here, together with their nests and eggs; still nothing appeared
to interest my guest or lessen what I was rapidly beginning to
regard as a case of hebetude, pure and simple. I was perplexed;
Mr. Parrish, it was plain, was bored when, arriving almost at the
end of the cases, to my relief the girl's attention seemed
arrested. More, she stood literally transfixed before the nest of
the great Auk, and uttered her first comment of the day:

        "Lor'!" she said, in a tone of awestruck amazement, "What
a big egg!"

Page 126

CHAPTER IX
A CELEBRATED SOCIAL EVENT

        EARLY in the season of 1857-'58 our friend Mrs. Senator
Gwin announced her intention of giving a ball which should
eclipse every gathering of the kind that had ever been seen in
Washington. Just what its character was to be was not yet
decided; but, after numerous conferences with her friends in
which many and various suggestions were weighed, the advocates
for the fancy ball prevailed over those in favour of a
masquerade, to which, indeed, Senator Gwin himself was averse,
and these carried the day.

        Surely no hostess ever more happily realised her
ambitions! When the function was formally announced, all
Washington was agog. For the ensuing weeks men as well as women
were busy consulting costumers, ransacking the private
collections in the capital, and conning precious volumes of
coloured engravings in a zealous search for original and accurate
costuming. Only the Senators who were to be present were exempt
from this anticipatory excitement, for Senator Gwin, declaring
that nothing was more dignified for members of this body than
their usual garb, refused to appear in an assumed one, and so set
the example for his colleagues.

        As the time approached, expectation ran high. Those who
were to attend were busy rehearsing their characters and urging
the dressmakers and costumers to the perfect completion of their
tasks, while those who were debarred deplored their misfortune. I
recall a pathetic lament from my friend Lieutenant Henry Myers,
who was

Page 127

obliged to leave on the United States ship Marion on the fourth
of April (the ball was to occur on the ninth), in which he
bemoaned the deprivations of a naval officer's life, and
especially his inability to attend the coming entertainment.

        When the evening of the ball arrived there was a flutter
in every boudoir in Washington, in which preparation for the
great event was accelerated by the pleasurable nervousness of
maid and mistress. Mrs. Gwin's costume, and those of other
leading Washingtonians, it was known, had been selected in New
York, and rumours were rife on the elegant surprises that were to
be sprung upon the eventful occasion.

        With Senator Clay and me that winter were three charming
cousins, the Misses Comer, Hilliard and Withers. They
impersonated, respectively, a gypsy fortune-teller, a
Constantinople girl, and "Titania"; and, to begin at the last (as
a woman may do if she will), a wonderful "Titania" the tiny Miss 
Withers was, robed in innumerable spangled tulle petticoats that
floated as she danced, her gauze wings quivering like those of a
butterfly, and her unusually small feet glistening no less
brilliantly with spangles.

        "Miss Withers, yon tiny fairy," wrote Major de Havilland,
who in his "Metrical Glance at the Fancy Ball" immortalised the
evening, "as 'Titania' caused many a Midsummer Night's Dream."
Miss Hilliard, whose beauty was well set off in a costly and
picturesque costume of the East, owed her triumph of the evening
to the kindness of Mrs. Joseph Holt, who had bought the costume
(which she generously placed at my cousin's disposal) during a
tour of the Orient. So attractive was my cousin's charming array,
and so correct in all its details, that as she entered Mrs.
Gwin's ballroom, a party of Turkish onlookers, seeing the
familiar garb, broke into applause.

Page 128

        Miss Comer in a brilliant gown that was plentifully
covered with playing-cards, carried also a convenient pack of the
same, with which she told fortunes in a mystifying manner, for I
had coached her carefully in all the secrets of the day. I must
admit she proved a clever pupil, for she used her knowledge well
whenever an opportunity presented, to the confusion of many whose
private weaknesses she most tormentingly exposed.

        My chosen character was an unusual one, being none other
than that remarkable figure created by Mr. Shillaber, Aunt Ruthy
Partington. It was the one character assumed during that
memorable evening, by one of my sex, in which age and personal
attractions were sacrificed ruthlessly for its more complete
delineation.

        I was not the only one anxious to impersonate the quaint
lady from Beanville, over whose grammatical faux pas all America
was amusing itself. Ben Perley Poore no sooner heard of my
selection of this character than he begged me to yield to him,
but I was not to be deterred, having committed to heart the whole
of Mrs. Partington's homely wit. Moreover, I had already, the
previous summer, experimented with the character while at Red
Sweet Springs, where a fancy ball had been given with much
success, and I was resolved to repeat the amusing experience at
Mrs. Gwin's ball.

        Finding me inexorable, Mr. Poore at last desisted and
chose another character, that of Major Jack Downing. He made a
dashing figure, too, and we an amusing pair, as, at the "heel of
the morning," we galoped wildly over Mrs. Gwin's wonderfully
waxed floors. The galop, I may add in passing, was but just
introduced in Washington, and its popularity was wonderful.

        If I dwell on that evening with particular satisfaction,
the onus of such egotism must be laid at the door of my
flattering friends; for even now, when nearly twoscore years and
ten have passed, those who remain of that

Page 129

merry assemblage of long ago recall it with a smile and a tender
recollection. "I can see you now, in my mind's eye," wrote
General George Wallace Jones, in 1894; "how you vexed and
tortured dear old President Buchanan at Doctor and Mrs. Gwin's
famous fancy party! You were that night the observed of all
observers!" And still more recently another, recalling the scene,
said, "The orchestra stopped, for the dancers lagged, laughing
convulsively at dear Aunt Ruthy!"

        Nor would I seem to undervalue by omitting the tribute in
verse paid me by the musical Major de Havilland:

              "Mark how the grace that gilds an honoured name,
               Gives a strange zest to that loquacious dame
               Whose ready tongue and easy blundering wit
               Provoke fresh uproar at each happy hit! 
               Note how her humour into strange grimace
               Tempts the smooth meekness of yon Quaker's face. *
               ...................
               But - denser grows the crowd round Partington;
               'T'were vain to try to name them one by one." **

        It was not without some trepidation of spirit that I
surrendered myself into the hands of a professional maker-up of
theatrical folk and saw him lay in the shadows and wrinkles
necessary to the character, and adjust my front-piece of grey
hair into position; and, as my conception of the quaint Mrs.
Partington was that

* A reference to Mrs. Emory, a notably attractive member of 
Washington society.

** Nevertheless, the chronicler named in rapid succession as
among Mrs. Clay's attendants, Lord Napier, sir William Gore
Ouseley, K.C.B., and many prominent figures in the capital. "Mrs.
Senator Clay," he added in prose, "with knitting in hand, snuff-
box in pocket, and 'Ike the Inevitable' by her side, acted out
her difficult character so as to win the unanimous verdict that
her personation of the loquacious malapropos dame was the leading
feature of the evening's entertainment. Go where she would
through the spacious halls, a crowd of eager listeners followed
her footsteps, drinking in her instant repartees, which were
really superior in wit and appositeness, and, indeed, in the vein
of the famous dame's cacoethes, even to the original contribution
of Shillaber to the nonsensical literature of the day." A. S.

Page 130

of a kindly soul, I counselled the attendant - a Hungarian
attache of the local theatre - to make good-natured vertical
wrinkles over my brow, and not horizontal ones, which indicate
the cynical and harsh character.

        My disguise was soon so perfect that my friend Mrs. L. Q.
C. Lamar, who came in shortly after the ordeal of making-up was
over, utterly failed to recognise me in, the country woman before
her. She looked about the room with a slight reserve aroused by
finding herself thus in the presence of a stranger, and asked of
Emily, "Where is Mrs. Clay?" At this my cousins burst into merry
laughter, in which Mrs. Lamar joined when assured of my identity.

        Thus convinced of the success of my costume, I was glad
to comply with a request that came by messenger from Miss Lane,
for our party to go to the White House on our way to Mrs. Gwin's,
to show her our "pretty dresses," a point of etiquette
intervening to prevent the Lady of the White House from attending
the great ball of a private citizen. Forthwith we drove to the
Executive Mansion, where we were carried sans cérémonie to Miss
Lane's apartments. Here Mrs. Partington found herself in the
presence of her first audience. Miss Lane and the President
apparently were much amused at her verdancy, and, after a few
initiative malapropisms, some pirouettes by "Titania" and our
maid from the Orient, done to the shuffling of our little
fortune-teller's cards, we departed, our zest stimulated, for the
Gwin residence.

        My very first conquest as Mrs. Partington, as I recall it
now, was of Mrs. Representative Pendleton, whom I met on the
stairs. She was radiantly beautiful as the "Star-Spangled
Banner," symbolising the poem by which her father, Francis Scott
Key, immortalised himself. As we met, her face broke into a smile
of delicious surprise.

Page 131

        "How inimitable!" she cried. "Who is it? No! you shan't
pass till you tell me!" And when I laughingly informed her in
Aunt Ruthy's own vernacular, she exclaimed: "What! Mrs. Clay?
Why! there isn't a vestige of my friend left!"

        My costume was ingeniously devised. It consisted of a
plain black alpaca dress and black satin apron; stockings as blue
as a certain pair of indigos I have previously described, and
large, loose-fitting buskin shoes. Over my soft grey front piece
I wore a high-crowned cap, which, finished with a prim ruff, set
closely around the face. On the top was a diminutive bow of
narrowest ribbon, while ties of similarly economical width
secured it under the chin. My disguise was further completed by a
pair of stone-cutter's glasses with nickel rims, which entirely
concealed my eyes. A white kerchief was drawn primly over my
shoulders, and was secured by a huge medallion pin, in which was
encased the likeness, as large as the palm of my hand, of "my
poor Paul."

        On my arm I carried a reticule in which were various
herbs, elecampane and catnip, and other homely remedies, and a
handkerchief in brilliant colours on which was printed with
fearless and emphatic type the Declaration of Independence. This
bit of "stage property" was used ostentatiously betimes,
especially when Aunt Ruthy's tears were called forth by some sad
allusion to her lost "Paul." In my apron pocket was an antique
snuff-box which had been presented to me, as I afterward told
Senator Seward, by the Governor of Rhode Island, "a lover of the
Kawnstitution, Sir."

        But, that nothing might be lacking, behind me trotted my
boy "Ike," dear little "Jimmy" Sandidge (son of the member from
Louisiana), aged ten, who for days, in the secrecy of my parlour,
I had drilled in the aid he was to lend me. He was a wonderful
little second, and the

Page 132

fidelity to truth in his make-up was so amusing that I came near
to losing him at the very outset. His ostentatiously darned
stockings and patched breeches, long since outgrown, were a
surprising sight in the great parlours of our host, and Senator
Gwin, seeing the little urchin who, he thought, had strayed in
from the street, took him by the shoulder and was about to lead
him out when some one called to him, "Look out, Senator! You'll
be getting yourself into trouble! That's Aunt Ruthy's boy, Ike!"

        Mrs. Partington was not the only Yankee character among
that throng of princes and queens, and dames of high degree, for
Mr. Eugene Baylor, of Louisiana, impersonated a figure as amusing
- that of "Hezekiah Swipes," of Vermont. He entered into his part
with a zest as great as my own, and kept "a-whittlin' and a-
whittlin' jes' as if he was ter hum!" For myself, I enjoyed a
peculiar exhilaration in the thought that, despite my amusing
dress, the belles of the capital (and many were radiant beauties,
too) gave way before Aunt Ruthy and her nonsense. As I observed
this my zeal increased, and not even Senator Clay, who feared my
gay spirits would react and cause me to become exhausted, could
prevail upon me to yield a serious word or one out of my
character throughout the festal night. If I paid for it, as I
did, by several days' retirement, I did not regret it, since the
evening itself went off so happily.

        Mrs. Gwin, as the Queen of Louis Quatorze, a regal lady,
stood receiving her guests with President Buchanan beside her as
Aunt Ruthy entered, knitting industriously, but stopping ever and
anon to pick up a stitch which the glory of her surroundings
caused her to drop. Approaching my hostess and her companion, I
first made my greetings to Mrs. Gwin, with comments on her
"invite," and wondered, looking up at the windows, if she "had

Page 133

enough venerators to take off the execrations of that large
assemblage"; but, when she presented Mrs. Partington to the
President, "Lor!" exclaimed that lady, "Air you ralely 'Old
Buck'? I've often heern tell o' Old Buck up in Beanville, but I
don't see no horns!"

        "No, Madam," gravely responded the President, assuming
for the nonce the cynic, "I'm not a married man!"

        It was at this memorable function that Lord Napier (who
appeared in the character of Mr. Hammond, the first British
Minister to the United States) paid his great tribute to Mrs.
Pendleton. Her appearance on that occasion was lovely. She was
robed in a white satin gown made dancing length, over which were
rare lace flounces. A golden eagle with wings outstretched
covered her corsage, and from her left shoulder floated a long
tricolour sash on which, in silver letters, were the words "E
Pluribus Unum." A crown of thirteen flashing stars was set upon
her well-poised head, and a more charming interpretation in dress
of the national emblem could scarcely have been devised.

        Ah! but that was a remarkable throng! My memory, as I
recall that night, seems like a long chain, of which, if I strike
but a single link, the entire length rattles! Beautiful Thérèse
Chalfant Pugh as "Night" - what a vision she was, and what a
companion picture Mrs. Douglas, who, as "Aurora," was radiant in
the pale tints of the morning! There were mimic Marchionesses,
and Kings of England and France and Prussia; White Ladies of
Avenel and Dukes of Buckingham, Maids of Athens and Saragossa,
gypsies and fairies, milkmaids, and even a buxom barmaid;
Antipholus himself and the Priestess Norma, Pierrots and Follies,
peasants and Highland chiefs moving in heterogeneous fashion in
the great ballrooms.

        Barton Key, as an English hunter, clad in white satin

Page 134

breeks, cherry-velvet jacket, and jaunty cap, with lemon-
coloured high-top boots, and a silver bugle (upon which he blew
from time to time) hung across his breast, was a conspicuous
figure in that splendid happy assemblage, and Mlle. de Montillon
was a picture in the Polish character costume in which her mother
had appeared when she danced in a Polonaise before the Empress at
the Tuilleries.

        Sir William Gore Ouseley, the "Knight of the Mysterious
Mission," attracted general attention in his character of Knight
Commander of the Bath. The Baroness de Staeckl and Miss Cass were
models of elegance as French Court beauties, and Mrs. Jefferson
Davis as Mme. de Staël dealt in caustic repartee as became her
part, delivered now in French and again in broken English, to the
annihilation of all who had the temerity to cross swords with
her.

        Among the guests "our furrin relations" were numerously
represented, and I remember well the burst of laughter which
greeted Mrs. Partington when she asked Lady Napier, with a
confidential and sympathetic air, "whether the Queen had got
safely over her last encroachment." Incidentally she added some
good advice on the bringing up of children, illustrating its
efficacy by pointing to Ike, whom she "was teaching religiously
both the lethargy and the cataplasm!"

        My memories of Mrs. Gwin's ball would be incomplete did I
not mention two or more of Aunt Ruthy's escapades during the
evening. The rumour of my intended impersonation had aroused in
the breast of a certain Balimorean youth the determination to
disturb, "to break up Mrs. Clay's composure." I heard of the
young man's intention through some friend early in the evening,
and my mother-wit, keyed as it was to a pitch of alertness,
promptly aided me to the overthrow of the venturesome hero. He
came garbed as a newsboy, and, nature having provided him with
lusty lungs, he made amusing announcements

Page 135

as to the attractions of his wares, at the most unexpected
moments. Under his arm he carried a bundle of papers which he
hawked about in a most professional manner. At an unfortunate
moment he walked hurriedly by as if on his rounds, and stopping
beside me he called out confidently, "Baltimore Sun! Have a
'Sun,' Madam?"

        "Tut, tut! Man!" said Mrs. Partington, horrified. "How
dare you ask such a question of a virtuous female widow woman?"
Then bursting into sobs and covering her eyes with the broad text
of the "Declaration of Independence," she cried, "What would my
poor Paul think of that?" To the hilarious laughter of those who
had gathered about us, the routed hero retreated hastily, and,
for the remainder of the evening, restrained by a wholesome
caution, he gave Aunt Ruthy a wide berth.

        Such kind greetings as came to this unsophisticated
visitor to the ball! "You're the sweetest-looking old thing!"
exclaimed "Lushe" Lamar before he had penetrated my disguise.
"I'd just like to buss you!"

        I had an amusing recontre with Senator Seward that
evening. That this pronounced Northerner had made numerous
efforts in the past to meet me I was well aware; but my Southern
sentiments were wholly disapproving of him, and I had resisted
even my kinder-hearted husband's plea, and had steadily refused
to permit him to be introduced to me. "Not even to save the
Nation could I be induced to eat his bread, to drink his wine, to
enter his domicile, to speak to him!" I once impetuously
declared, when the question came up in private of attending some
function which the Northern Senator was projecting.

        At Mrs. Gwin's ball, however, I noticed Mr. Seward
hovering in my neighbourhood, and I was not surprised when he,
"who could scrape any angle to attain an end," as my cousin Miss
Comer said so aptly, finding none

Page 136

brave enough to present him, took advantage of my temporary
merging into Mr. Shillaber's character, and presented himself to
"Mrs. Partington." He was very courteous, if a little uncertain
of his welcome, as he approached me, and said, "Aunt Ruthy, can't
I, too, have the pleasure of welcoming you to the Federal City?
May I have a pinch of snuff with you?" It was here that Mrs.
Partington reminded him that the donor of her snuff-box "loved
the Kawnstitewtion." I gave him the snuff and with it a number of
Partingtonian shots about his opinions concerning "Slave
Oligawky," which were fearless even if "funny," as the Senator
seemed to find them, and I passed on. This was my first and only
meeting with Mr. Seward. *

        I was so exhilarated at the success of my rôle that I had
scarce seen our cousins during the evening (I am sure they
thought me an ideal chaperone), though I caught an occasional
glimpse of the gauzy-winged "Titania," and once I saw the equally
tiny Miss Comer go whirling down the room in a wild galop with
the tall Lieutenant Scarlett, of Her Majesty's Guards, who was
conspicuous in a uniform as rubescent as his patronymic. And I
recall seeing an amusing little bit of human nature in connection 
with our hostess, which showed how even the giving of this superb
entertainment could not disturb Mrs. Gwin's perfect oversight of
her household.

        The "wee sma' hours" had come, and I had just finished
complimenting my hostess on her "cold hash and cider," when the
butler stepped up to her and, in discreet pantomime, announced
that the wine had given out.

* While this playful exchange of ideas was going on, Senator Clay
stood near his Northern confrere, with whom his relations were
always courteous and kindly. At Mrs. Clay's parting sally,
Senator Seward turned to the lady's husband and remarked, "Clay,
she's superb!" "Yes." replied Senator Clay, "when she married me
America lost its Siddons!" A. S.

Page 137

        Then she, Queen for the nonce of the most magnificent of
the Bourbons, did step aside and, lifting her stiff moiré skirt
and its costly train of cherry satin (quilled with white, it
was), did extract from some secret pocket the key to the wine
cellar, and pass it right royally to her menial. This functionary
shortly afterward returned and rendered it again to her, when, by
the same deft manipulation of her rich petticoats, the implement
was replaced in its repository, and the Queen once more emerged
to look upon her merrymakers.

        For years Mrs. Gwin's fancy ball has remained one of the
most brilliant episodes in the annals of ante-bellum days in the
capital. For weeks after its occurrence the local photograph and
daguerreotype galleries were thronged with patrons who wished to
be portrayed in the costumes they had worn upon the great
occasion; and a few days after the ball, supposing I would be
among that number, Mr. Shillaber sent me a request for my
likeness, adding that he "would immortalise me." But, flushed
with my own success, and grown daring by reason of it, I replied
that, being hors de combat, I could not respond as he wished. I
thanked him for his proffer, however, and reminded him that the
public had anticipated him, and that by their verdict I had
already immortalised myself!

Page 138

CHAPTER X
EXODUS OF SOUTHERN SOCIETY FROM THE FEDERAL CITY

        IN the winter of '59 and '60 it became obvious to
everyone that gaiety at the capital was waning. Aside from public
receptions, now become palpably perfunctory, only an occasional
wedding served to give social zest to the rapidly sobering
Congressional circles. Ordinary "at-homes" were slighted. Women
went daily to the Senate gallery to listen to the angry debates
on the floor below. When belles met they no longer discussed
furbelows and flounces, but talked of forts and fusillades. The
weddings of my cousin, Miss Hilliard, in 1859, and of Miss
Parker, in 1860, already described, were the most notable,
matrimonial events of those closing days of Washington's
splendour.

        To Miss Hilliard's marriage to Mr. Hamilton Glentworth,
of New York, which occurred at mid-day at old St. John's, and to
the reception that followed, came many of the Senatorial body and
dignitaries of the capital. A procession of carriages drawn by
white horses accompanied the bridal party to the church, where
the celebrated Bishop Doane, of New Jersey, performed the
ceremony. The bride's gown and that of one of the bridesmaids
were "gophered," this being the first appearance of the new
French style of trimming in the capital. One of the bridesmaids,
I remember, was gowned in pink crêpe, which was looped back with
coral, then a most fashionable garniture; the costume of another
was of embroidered tulle caught up with bunches of grapes; and
each of the

Page 139

accompanying ushers - such were the fashions of the day - wore
inner vests of satin, embroidered in colour to match the gown of
the bridesmaid alloted to his charge.

        Notable artists appeared in the capital, among them
Charlotte Cushman, and there were stately, not to say stiff and
formal, dinners at the British Embassy, now presided over by Lord
Lyons. This Minister's arrival was looked upon as a great event.
Much gossip had preceded it, and all the world was agog to know
if it were true that feminine-kind was debarred from his menage.
It was said that his personally chartered vessel had conveyed to
our shores not only the personages comprising his household, but
also his domestics and skilful gardeners, and even the growing
plants for his conservatory. It was whispered that when his
Lordship entertained ladies his dinner-service was to be of solid
gold; that when gentlemen were his guests they were to dine from
the costliest of silver plate. Moreover, the gossips at once set
about predicting that the newcomer would capitulate to the charms
of some American woman, and speculation was already rife as to
who would be the probable bride.

        Lord Lyons began his American career by entertaining at
dinner the Diplomatic Corps, and afterward the officials of our
country, in the established order of precedence, the Supreme
Court, the Cabinet, and Senate circles leading, according to
custom. His Lordship's invitations being sent out alphabetically,
Senator Clay and I received a foreign and formidable card to the
first Senatorial dinner given by the newly arrived diplomat. My
husband's appearance at this function, I remember, was
particularly distinguished. He was clad in conventional black,
and wore with it a cream-coloured vest of brocaded velvet; yet,
notwithstanding my wifely pride in him, we had what almost
amounted to a disagreement

Page 140

on our way to the famous feast. We drove to Lord Lyons's domicile
with Senator and Mrs. Crittenden, and my perturbation furnished
them with much amusement. For some reason or for lack of one I
was obsessed by a suspicion that the new Minister, probably being
unaware of the state of feeling which continually manifested
itself between Northern and Southern people in the capital, might
assign to me, as my escort to table, some pronounced Republican.

        "What would you do in that event?" asked Senator Clay.

        "Do?" I asked, hotly and promptly. "I would refuse to
accept him!"

        My husband's voice was grave as he said, "I hope there
will be no need!"

        Arriving at the Embassy, I soon discovered that, as had
been rumoured, the maid ordinarily at hand to assist women guests
had been replaced by a fair young English serving-man, who took
charge of my wraps, and knelt to remove my overshoes with all the
deftness of a practiced femme de chambre. These preliminaries
over, I rejoined my husband in the corridor, and together we
proceeded to our host, and, having greeted him, turned aside to
speak to other friends.

        Presently Senator Brown, Mr. Davis's confrère from
Mississippi, made his way to me. Senator Brown was one of the
brightest men in Congress. As he approached, my misgivings
vanished and I smiled as I said, "Ah! you are to be my gallant
this evening!"

        "Not so," replied he. "I'm to go in with Mme. - and shall
be compelled to smell 'camphired' cleaned gloves for hours!"

        He left my side. Presently he was replaced by Mr. Eames,
ex-Minister to Venezuela. Again I conjectured him to be the man
who was destined to escort me; but, after the exchange of a few
words, he, too, excused

Page 141

himself, and I saw him take his place at the side of his rightful
partner. In this way several others came and went, and still I
stood alone. I wondered what it all meant, and gave a despairing
look at my husband, who, I knew, was rapidly becoming as
perturbed as was I. Presently the massive doors slid apart, and a
voice proclaimed, "Dinner, my Lord!" Now my consternation gave
way to overwhelming surprise and confusion, for our host,
glancing inquiringly around the circle, stepped to my side, and,
bowing profoundly, offered his arm with, "I have the honour,
Madam!" Once at the table, I quickly regained my composure,
assisted, perhaps, to this desirable state, by a feeling of
triumph as I caught from across the table the amused glance of my
erstwhile companion, Mrs. Crittenden.

        Lord Lyons's manner was so unconstrained and easy that I
soon became emboldened to the point of suggesting to him the
possibility of some lovely American consenting to become
"Lyonised." His Lordship's prompt rejoinder and quizzical look
quite abashed me, and brought me swiftly to the conclusion that I
would best let this old lion alone; for he said, "Ah, Madam! do
you remember what Uncle Toby said to his nephew when he informed
him of his intended marriage?" Then, without waiting for my
assent, he added, "Alas! alas! quoth my Uncle Toby, you will
never sleep slantindicularly in your bed more!"

        I had an adventure at a ball in 1859, which, though
unimportant in itself, turns a pleasing side-light upon one of
the more courteous of our political opponents. A dance had been
announced, the music had begun, and the dancers had already taken
their places, when my partner was called aside suddenly.
Something occurred to detain him longer than he had expected, and
the time for us to lead having arrived, there was a call for the
missing gallant, who was nowhere to be seen. I looked about
helplessly,

Page 142

wondering what I was to do, when Anson Burlingame, who was
standing near, seeing my dilemma, stepped promptly forward, and,
taking my hand in most courtly manner, he said, "Pardon me,
Madam!" and led me, bewildered, through the first steps of the
dance!

        Lost in amazement at his courtesy, I had no time to
demur, and, when we returned to my place, the delinquent had
reappeared. Bowing politely, Mr. Burlingame withdrew. The
circumstance caused quite a ripple among those who witnessed it.
Those who knew me best were amused at my docility in allowing
myself thus to be led through the dance by a rank Abolitionist;
but many were the comments made upon "Mr. Burlingame's audacity
in daring to speak to Mrs. Clement Clay!"

        Such were the scenes, both grave and gay, that preceded
what was surely the saddest day of my life - January 21, 1861 -
when, after years of augmenting dissension between the Sections,
I saw my husband take his portfolio under his arm and leave the
United States Senate Chamber in company with other no less
earnest Southern Senators. For weeks the pretense of amity
between parties had ceased, and social formalities no longer
concealed the gaping chasm that divided them. When the members of
each met, save for a glare of defiance or contempt, each ignored
the other, or, if they spoke, it was by way of a taunt or a
challenge. Every sentence uttered in Senate or House was full of
hot feeling born of many wrongs and long-sustained struggle. For
weeks, men would not leave their seats by day or by night, lest
they might lose their votes on the vital questions of the times.
At the elbows of Senators, drowsy with long vigils, pages stood,
ready to waken them at the calling of the roll.

        Not a Southern woman but felt, with her husband, the
stress of that session, the sting of the wrongs the Southern
faction of that great body was struggling to right. For

Page 143

forty years the North and the South had striven for the balance
of power, and the admission of each new State was become the
subject of bitter contention. There was, on the part of the
North, a palpable envy of the hold the South had retained so long
upon the Federal City, whether in politics or society, and the
resolution to quell us, by physical force, was everywhere
obvious. The face of the city was lowering, and some of the North
agreed with us of the South that a nation's suicide was about to
be precipitated.

        Senator Clay, than whom the South has borne no more self-
sacrificing son, nor the Nation a truer patriot, was an ill man
as that "winter of national agony and shame" (vide the Northern
witness, Judge Hoar) progressed. The incertitude of President
Buchanan was alarming; but the courage of our people to enter
upon what they knew must be a defense of everything they held
dear in State and family institution rose higher and higher to
meet each advancing danger. The seizure by South Carolina of
United States forts that lay, a menace, within her very doorway,
acted like a spur upon the courage of the South.

        "We have been hard at work all day," wrote a defender of
our cause from Morris Island, January 17, 1861 "helping to make,
with our own hands, a battery, and moving into place some of the
biggest guns you ever saw, and all immediately under the guns of
old Anderson. * He fired a shell down the Bay this afternoon to
let us know what he could do. But he had a little idea what we
can do from his observation of our firing the other morning, **
at the 'Star of the West,' all of which he saw, and he thought we
had ruined the ship, as Lieutenant Hall represented in the city
that morning.... We learn to-day that in Washington they are
trying to

* Major Anderson, in command at Fort Sumter.

** January 9, 1861.

Page 144

procrastinate. That does not stop our most earnest preparation,
for we are going to work all night to receive from the steamboat
three more enormous guns and place them ready to batter down Fort
Sumter, and we can do it. We hope the other points are as forward
in their preparations as we are. If so, we can smoke him out in a
week. We are nearest to him, and he may fire on us to-night, but
if he were to kill everybody in the State, and only one woman was
left, and she should bear a child, that child would be a
secessionist. Our women are even more spirited than we are,
though, bless the dear creatures, I have not seen one in a long
time."

        Yet, despite these buoyant preparations for defense,
there was a lingering sentiment among us that caused us to
deplore the necessity that urged our men to arms. My husband was
exceedingly depressed at the futility of the Peace Commission,
for he foresaw that the impending conflict would be bloody and
ruinous. One incident that followed the dissolution of that body
impressed itself ineradicably upon my mind. Just after its close
ex-President Tyler came to our home. He was now an old man and
very attenuated. He was completely undone at the failure of the
Peace men, and tears trickled down his cheeks as he said to
Senator Clay, indescribable sadness, "Clay, the end has come!"

        In those days men eyed each other warily and spoke
guardedly, save to the most tried and proved friend. One evening
early in 1861, Commander Semmes, U. S. N., called upon us, and
happened to arrive just as another naval officer, whose name I
have now forgotten, was announced. The surprise that spread over
the faces of our visitors when they beheld each other was great,
but Senator Clay's and my own was greater, as hour after hour was
consumed in obvious constraint. Neither of the officers appeared
to be at ease, yet for hours neither seemed to desire to relieve
the situation by taking his

Page 145

departure. Midnight had arrived ere our now forgotten guest rose
and bade us "good night." Then Commander Semmes hastened to
unbosom himself. He had resolved to out-sit the other gentleman
if it took all night.

        "As my Senator, Mr. Clay," he said, "I want to report to
you my decision on an important matter. I have resolved to hand
in my resignation to the United States Government, and tender my
services to that of the Confederate States. I don't know what the
intention of my brother officer is, but I could take no risk with
him," he added. Many a scene as secret, as grave, and as
"treasonable," took place in those last lowering weeks.

        I have often mused upon the impression held by the
younger generation of those who were adverse to the South, viz.:
that she "was prepared for the war" into which we were
precipitated practically by the admission of Kansas; that our
men, with treasonable foresight, had armed themselves
individually and collectively for resistance to our guileless and
unsuspicious oppressors. Had this been true, the result of that
terrible civil strife would surely have been two nations where
now we have one. To the last, alas! too few of our people
realised that war was inevitable. Even our provisional Secretary
of War for the Confederate States, * early in '61 publicly
prophesied that, should fighting actually begin, it would be over
in three months! It must be apparent to thinkers that such gay
dreamers do not form deep or "deadly plots."

        Personally I knew of but one man whose ferocity led him
to collect and secrete weapons of warfare. He was Edmund Ruffin,
of Virginia, with whom I entered into collusion. For months my
parlour was made an arsenal for the storing of a dozen lengthy
spears. They were handsome weapons, made, I suspect, for some
decorative purpose, but I never knew their origin nor learned of

* General L. Pope Walker.

Page 146

their destination. On them were engraved these revolutionary
words:

        "Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck the flower of
safety."

        As Senator Clay's unequivocal position as a Southern man
was everywhere understood, our parlours were frequently the
gathering-place of statesmen from our own section and such others
as were friendly to our people and believed in our right to
defend the principles we had maintained since the administration
of the first President of the United States. Among the last
mentioned were Senators Pendleton and Pugh, and the ardent member
of Congress from Ohio, Mr. Vallandigham. Often the "dread arms"
deposited by Mr. Ruffin proved a subject of conjecture and mirth,
with which closed some weightier conversation. As the day drew
near, however, for the agreed upon withdrawal of our Senators the
tension under which all laboured made jests impossible, and keyed
every heart to the utmost solemnity. Monday, January 21st, was
the day privately agreed upon by a number of Senators for their
public declaration of secession; but, as an example of the
uncertainty which hobbled our men, until within a day or two of
the appointed time several still awaited the instructions from
their States by which their final act must be governed. Early on
Sunday morning, January 20th, my husband received from a
distinguished colleague the following letter:

                   "WASHINGTON, Saturday night, January 19, 1861.

        "My Dear Clay: By telegraph I am informed that the copy
of the ordinance of secession of my State was sent by mail to-
day, one to each of two branches of representation, and that my
immediate presence at - is required. It thus appears that - was
expected to present the paper in the Senate and some one of the
members to do so in the House. All have gone save me, I, alone,
and I am called away. We have piped and they would not dance, and
now the devil may care.

Page 147

        "I am grieved to hear that you are sick, the more so that
I cannot go to you. God grant your attack may be slight."

        And now the morning dawned of what all knew would be a
day of awful import. I accompanied my husband to the Senate, and
everywhere the greeting or gaze of absorbed, unrecognising men
and women was serious and full of trouble. The galleries of the
Senate, which hold, it is estimated, one thousand people, were
packed densely, principally with women, who, trembling with
excitement, awaited the denouement of the day. As, one by one,
Senators David Yulee, Stephen K. Mallory, Clement C. Clay,
Benjamin Fitzpatrick, and Jefferson Davis rose, the emotion of
their brother Senators and of us in the galleries increased; and,
when I heard the voice of my husband, steady and clear,
notwithstanding his illness, declare in that Council Chamber:

        "Mr. President, I rise to announce that the people of
Alabama have adopted an ordinance whereby they withdraw from the
Union, formed under a compact styled the United States, resume
the powers delegated to it, and assume their separate station as
a sovereign and independent people," it seemed as if the blood
within me congealed.

        As each Senator, speaking for his State, concluded his
solemn renunciation of allegiance to the United States, women
grew hysterical and waved their handkerchiefs, encouraging them
with cries of sympathy and admiration. Men wept and embraced each
other mournfully. At times the murmurs among the onlookers grew
so deep that the Sergeant-at-Arms was ordered to clear the
galleries; and, as each speaker took up his portfolio and gravely
left the Senate Chamber, sympathetic shouts rang from the
assemblage above. Scarcely a member of that Senatorial body but
was pale with the terrible significance of the hour. There was
everywhere a feeling of suspense, as if, visibly, the pillars of
the temple were

Page 148

being withdrawn and the great Government structure was tottering;
nor was there a patriot on either side who did not deplore and
whiten before the evil that brooded so low over the nation.

        When Senator Clay concluded his speech, many of his
colleagues, among them several from Republican ranks, came
forward to shake hands with him. For months his illness had been
a theme of public regret and apprehension among our friends. "A
painful rumour reached me this morning," wrote Joseph Holt to me
late in 1860, "in relation to the health of your excellent
husband.... While I hope sincerely this is an exaggeration,
yet the apprehensions awakened are so distressing, that I cannot
resist the impulse of my heart to write you in the trust that
your reply will relieve me from all anxiety. It is my earnest
prayer that a life adorned by so many graces may be long spared
to yourself, so worthy of its devotion, and to our country, whose
councils so need its genius and patriotism.... Believe me most
sincerely your friend, Joseph Holt."

        In fact, the news of Senator Clay's physical sufferings
had been telegraphed far and near, and, merged with the fear for
our country, there was, in my own heart, great anxiety and
sadness for him. Our mail was full of inquiries as to his
welfare, many from kindly strangers and even from States that
were bitterly inimical to our cause. One of these came from the
far North, from one who signed himself, "A plain New Hampshire
minister, Henry E. Parker." Nor can I refrain from quoting a
portion of his letter, which bears the never-to-be-forgotten date
of January 21st, 1861. He wrote as follows:

        "I am utterly appalled at this projected dissolution of
our Government. To lose, to throw away our place and name among
the nations of the earth, seems not merely like the madness of
suicide, but the very blackness of annihilation. If this thing
shall be accomplished, it will be, to

Page 149

my view, the crime of the nineteenth century; the partition of
Poland will be nothing in comparison ... .

        "Born and educated as we are at the North, sensible men
at the South cannot wonder at the views we entertain, nor do
sensible men at the North think it strange that, born and
educated as the Southerner is, he should feel very differently
from the Northerner in some things; but why should not all these
difficulties sink before our common love for our common country?"

        Why, indeed! Yet the cry of "disunion" had been heard for
forty years * and still our Southern men had forborne, until the
party belligerents, whose encroachments had now, at last, become
unbearable, had begun to look upon our protests as it were a mere
cry of "wolf." Of those crucial times, and of that dramatic scene
in the United States Senate, no Southern pen has written in
permanent words; and such Northern historians as Messrs. Nicolay
and Hay elide, as if their purpose were to obscure, the
deliberate and public withdrawal of those representatives, our
martyrs to their convictions, their institutions and their
children's heritages; and would so bury them under the sweeping
charges of "conspiracy" and "treason" that the casual reader of
the future is not likely to realise with what candour to their
opponents, with what dignity to themselves, out of what loyalty
to their States, and yet again with what grief for the nation and
sacrifice of life-time associations, the various seceding
Senators went out at last from that august body!

        For months the struggle of decades had been swiftly
approximating to its bloody culmination. Our physical prosperity,
no less than the social security we enjoyed, had caused us to
become objects of envy to the rough elements

* "Talk of disunion, threats of disunion, accusations of
intentions of disunion lie scattered plentifully through the
political literature of the country from the very formation of
the Government," say Messrs. Nicolay and Hay. See vol. II, page
296, of "Abraham Lincoln." Also, "Benson's Thirty Years' View."
Vol. II, page 786.

Page 150

in the new settlements, especially of the Northwest. * So
inimical was the North to us that though the South was the
treasury of the nation; though she had contributed from her
territory the very land upon which the Federal City was built;
though her sons ranked among the most brilliant of whom the young
Republic could boast - it was impossible for the South to get an
appropriation of even a few hundred thousand dollars, to provide
for the building of a lighthouse on that most dangerous portion
of the Atlantic coast, the shore of North Carolina!

        An era of discovery and expansion preceded the outbreak
of the war. By means of costly embassies to the Eastern
countries, new avenues of commerce had been opened. The
acquisition of Cuba and of the Mexican States became an ambition
on the part of Mr. Buchanan, who was anxious to repeat during his
Administration the successes of his predecessors, Presidents
Fillmore and Pierce. So long ago as '55, the question of the
purchase of the island of St. Thomas from the Danish Government
was a subject that called for earnest diplomacy on the part of
Mr. Raasloff, the Danish Minister; and the gold fever which made
Northern adventurers mad carried many to rifle the distant
Pacific coast of its treasures. By this time the cotton gin had
demonstrated its great worth, and the greed of acquisition saw in
our cotton fields a new source of envy, for we had no need to dig
or to delve - we shook our cotton plants and golden dollars
dropped from them. Had the gathering of riches been our object in
life, men of the South had it in their power to have rivalled the
wealth of the fabled Midas; but, as was early observed by a
statesman who never was partisan, the "Southern statesmen went
for the honours and the Northern for the benefits." In
consequence, wrote Mr. Benton (1839),

* This fact is emphasised by Messrs. Nicolay and Hay. See vol. I,
page 142, "Abraham Lincoln."

Page 151

"the North has become rich upon the benefits of the Government;
the South has grown lean upon its honours."

        From the hour of this exodus of Senators from the
official body, all Washington seemed to change. Imagination can
scarcely conjure up an atmosphere at once so ominous and so sad.
Each step preparatory to our departure was a pang. Carriages and
messengers dashed through the streets excitedly. Farewells were
to be spoken, and many, we knew, would be final. Vehicles
lumbered on their way to wharf or station filled with the baggage
of departing Senators and Members. The brows of hotel-keepers
darkened with misgivings, for the disappearance from the Federal
City of the families of Congressional representatives from the
fifteen slave- holding States made a terrible thinning out of its
population; and, in the strange persons of the politicians,
already beginning to press into the capital, there was little
indication that these might prove satisfactory substitutes for us
who were withdrawing.

        "How shall I commence my letter to you?" wrote the wife
of Colonel Philip Phillips to me a month or two after we had left
Washington. "What can I tell you, but of despair, of broken
hearts, of ruined fortunes, the sobs of women, and sighs of men!
 ... I am still in this horrible city ... but, distracted as I
am at the idea of being forced to remain, we feel the hard
necessity of keeping quiet ... For days I saw nothing but
despairing women leaving [Washington] suddenly, their husbands
having resigned and sacrificed their all for their beloved
States. You would not know this God-forsaken city, our beautiful
capital, with all its artistic wealth, desecrated, disgraced with
Lincoln's low soldiery. The respectable part [of the soldiers]
view it also in the same spirit, for one of the Seventh Regiment
told me that never in his life had he seen such ruin going on as
is now enacted in the halls of our once honoured Capitol! I
cannot but

Page 152

think that the presentiment that the South would wish to keep
Washington must have induced this desecration of all that should
have been respected by the mob in power. ... The Gwins are the
only ones left of our intimates, and Mrs. G- is packed up ready
to leave. Poor thing! her eyes are never without tears. ...
There are 30,000 troops here. Think of it! They go about the
avenue insulting women and taking property without paying for it.
. . .Such are the men waged to subjugate us of the South. We hear
constantly from Montgomery. Everything betokens a deep, abiding
faith in the cause.

        "I was told that those giant intellects, the Blairs, who
are acting under the idea of being second Jacksons, wishing to
get a good officer to do some of their dirty work (destroying
public property), wished Colonel Lee sent for. 'Why, he has
resigned!' 'Then tell Magruder!' 'He has resigned, too.' 'General
Joe Johnston, then!' - 'He, too, has gone out!' 'Smith Lee?'
Ditto!

        "'Good God!' said Blair. 'Have all our good officers left
us?'

        "I hear these Blairs are at the bottom of all this war
policy. Old Blair's country place was threatened, and his family,
including the fanatical Mrs. Lee, had to fly into the city. This
lady was the one who said to me that 'she wished the North to be
deluged with the blood of the South ere Lincoln should yield one
iota!'

        "Do not believe all you hear about the Northern sympathy
for Lincoln. The Democrats still feel for the South. If Congress
does not denounce Lincoln for his unlawful and unconstitutional
proceedings, I shall begin to think we have no country!"

Page 153

CHAPTER XI
WAR IS PROCLAIMED

        UPON leaving the Federal capital we proceeded to the home
of Senator Clay's cousin, Doctor Thomas Withers, at Petersburg,
Va. My husband's health, already feeble, had suffered greatly
from the months of strife which culminated in the scenes through
which we had just passed, and we had scarcely arrived in
Petersburg when a serious collapse occurred. Mr. Clay now became
so weakened that fears were reiterated by all who saw him that he
could not survive. I was urged to take him at once to Minnesota,
the attending physicians all agreeing that this was the one
experiment in which lay a chance for prolonging his life. In
those days the air of that far western State was supposed to have
a phenomenally curative effect upon the victims of asthma, from
which for years Mr. Clay had suffered an almost "daily death." In
the present acute attack, his body sick and his heart sore from
our late ordeals, fearful of the danger of delay, I at once put
into execution plans for the northward trip in which lay even a
slender hope for his recovery. No one who had witnessed my
husband's dignified withdrawal from the Senate, who had heard his
firm utterance of what was at once a challenge to arms and a
warning that Alabama would defend her decision to stand alone,
would have recognised the invalid now struggling for his life
against the dread disease. He was extremely emaciated.

        "When I last saw you," wrote John T. Morgan * from

* Now United States Senator from Alabama.

Page 154

camp, some months later, "your health scarcely justified the hope
that you would become one of the first Senators in a new
Confederacy. I was grieved that when we came to meet the great
struggle in Alabama you were not permitted to aid us further than
by your counsels and recorded opinions. I rejoice that you are
again our representative in a Senate where the South is not to be
defended against foes within her own bosom, but to reap the
advantage of the wisdom and experience of her own statesmen."

        My brother-in-law, Hugh Lawson Clay, afterward Colonel on
the staff of our friend, General E. Kirby Smith, hurried,
therefore, from Alabama to accompany us upon the slow journey
made necessary by Mr. Clay's extreme weakness.

        In due time we arrived at the International Hotel, St.
Paul. Here, though our stay was short, we had an unpleasant
experience, a single one, due to sectional feeling. Having safely
bestowed Mr. Clay in his room, our brother made his way to the
drug-store, which, as we entered, we had observed was below the
hotel, to purchase a necessary restorative for my husband. While
waiting there for the wrapping of the medicine, two young men
entering met, and one exclaimed to the other:

        "Here's a good chance! Clay, the fire-eating Senator from
Alabama, is in this house. Let's mob him!"

        My brother, both indignant and surprised, was also
fearful lest they should carry out their threat and thereby work
incalculable evil to our invalid. He turned promptly and
addressed them:

        "Mr. Clay, of whom you speak," he said, "is my brother,
and, it may be, a hopeless invalid. He is here seeking health.
You can molest him only through me!"

        But now a second surprise met him, for the two youths
began a very duet of apology, declaring they "had only been
joking." They meant no offense, they said, and,

Page 155

in fact, themselves were democrats. Feeling, they continued, was
at high tide, and it was the fashion of the times to denounce the
South. Upon this frank acknowledgment the trio shook hands and
parted, nor did Senator Clay and I hear of the altercation until
the next day, when it was repeated to us by a kind friend, Mr.
George Culver, at whose home, in St. Paul, we lingered for
several weeks. Here the wonderful climate appreciably restored
the invalid, and Mr. Clay was soon able to move about, and added
to his weight almost visibly.

        In the meantime, the news of the gathering together of
armies, both North and South, came more and more frequently.
Everywhere around us preparations were making for conflict. The
news from the seceding States was inspiring. My husband's
impatience to return to Alabama increased daily, stimulated, as
it was, by the ardour of our many correspondents from Montgomery
and Huntsville, civil and military.

        "I was improving continuously and rapidly," he wrote to
our friend E. D. Tracy, "when Lincoln's proclamation and that of
the Governor of Minnesota reached me, and I think I should have
been entirely restored to health in a month or two had I remained
there with an easy conscience and a quiet mind. But after those
bulletins, the demonstrations against the "Rebels" were so
offensive as to become intolerable. So we left on the 22d
[April], much to the regret of the few real friends we found or
made. Many, with exceeding frankness, expressed their deep sorrow
at our departure, since I was improving so rapidly; but, while
appreciating their solicitude for me, I told them I preferred
dying in my own country to living among her enemies."

        Shortly after the breaking up of the ice in Lake
Minnetonka, we bade farewell to the good Samaritans at St. Paul
and took passage on the Grey Eagle. She was a celebrated boat of
that day, and annually took the prize

Page 156

for being the first to cut through the frozen waters. I have
never forgotten the wonders and beauties of that trip, beginning
in the still partially ice-locked lake, and progressing gradually
until the emerald glories of late April met us in the South! It
was on this journey that we caught the first real echoes of the
booming guns of Fort Sumter. The passengers on board the Grey
Eagle discussed the outlook with gravity. To a friendly lady,
whose sympathies were aroused on behalf of my husband, still pale
and obviously an invalid, I remember expressing my sorrows and
fears. I think I wept, for it was a time to start the tears; but
her reply checked my complainings.

        "Ah, Mrs. Clay!" she said, "think how my heart is riven!
I was born in New Orleans and live in New York. One of my sons is
in the Seventh New York Regiment, and another in the New Orleans
Zouaves!"

        At Cairo, already a great centre of military activity for
the Federals, we caught a first gleam of the muskets of United
States soldiery. A company was drawn up in line on the river
bank, for what purpose we did not know, but we heard a rumour
that it had to do with the presence on the boat of the Southern
Senator Clay, and I remember I was requested by an officer of the
Grey Eagle to place in my trunk my husband's fine Maynard rifle,
which had been much admired by our fellow passengers, and which
once had been shot off during the trip, to show its wonderful
carrying tower. Needless to say, the possibly offending firearm
was promptly put away. After a short colloquy between the captain
of the vessel and the military officer, who appeared to catechise
him, the Grey Eagle again swung out on the broad, muddy river,
and turned her nose toward Memphis. Now, as we proceeded down the
important water-course, at many a point were multiplying
evidences that the fratricidal war had begun.

Page 157

        Memphis, at which we soon arrived, and which was destined
within a year to be taken and held by our enemy, was now
beautiful with blossoms. Spirea and bridal wreaths whitened the
bushes, and roses everywhere shaking their fragrance to the
breezes made the world appear to smile. My heart was filled with
gratitude and joy to find myself once more among the witchery and
wonders of my "ain countree"; where again I might hear the
delightful mockery of that "Yorick of the Glade," whose bubbling
melody is only to be heard in the South land! It was a wonderful
home-coming for our invalid, too eager by much to assume his
share of the responsibilities that now rested upon the shoulders
of our men of the South. A period of complete physical weakness
followed our arrival in Mr. Clay's native city, a busy political
and military centre in those early days.

        We spent our summer in "Cosy Cot," our mountain home, set
upon the crest of Monte Sano, which overlooks the town of
Huntsville below, distant about three miles; nor, save in the
making of comparatively short trips, did we again leave this
vicinity until Mr. Clay, his health improved, was called to take
his seat in the Senate of the new Confederate Government, at
Richmond, late in the following autumn. In the meantime Senator
Clay had declined the office of Secretary of War in Mr. Davis's
Cabinet, privately proffered, believing his physical condition to
be such as to render his assumption of the duties of that
department an impossibility. In his stead he had urged the
appointment of Leroy Pope Walker, our fellow-townsman and long-
time friend, though often a legal and political opponent of my
husband.

        Now, at the time of our return, Secretary Walker was at
the side of our Executive head, deep in the problems of the
military control of our forces. Communications between Huntsville
and Montgomery, where the provisional Government temporarily was
established, were

Page 158

frequent. A special session of Congress was sitting, and every
one identified with our newly formed Legislature at the little
capital was alert and eager in perfecting our plans for defense.
We were given a side glimpse of our President's personal activity
in the following letter received a few days after our return to
Alabama:

MONTGOMERY, Alabama, May 10, 1861.

        " ... Mr. Davis seems just now only conscious of things
left undone, and to ignore the much which has been achieved.
Consequently, his time seems all taken up with the Cabinet,
planning (I presume) future operations. ... Sometimes the
Cabinet depart surreptitiously, one at a time, and Mr. Davis,
while making things as plain as did the preacher the virtues of
the baptismal, finds his demonstrations made to one weak, weary
man who has no vim to contend. To make a long story short he
overworks himself and all the rest of mankind, but is so far
quite well, though not fleshily inclined.

        "There is a good deal of talk here of his going to
Richmond as commander of the forces. I hope it may be done, for
to him military command is a perfect system of hygiene. ... .
There have been some here who thought, with a view to the
sanitary condition, that the Government had better be moved to
Richmond, and also that it would strengthen the weak-fleshed but
willing-spirited border States. ... This is a very pretty
place, and, were not the climate as warm as is the temperament of
the people, it would be pleasant; but nearly all my patriotism
oozes out, not unlike Bob Acres' courage, at the pores, and I
have come to the conclusion that Roman matrons performed their
patriotism and such like duties in the winter. I wish your health
would suffice for you to come and see the Congress. They are the
finest-looking set of men I have ever seen collected together -
grave, quiet and thoughtful-looking men, with an air of
refinement which makes my mind's picture gallery a gratifying
pendant to Hamlin, Durkee Doolittle, Chandler, etc ... .

        "The market is forlorn, but then we give our best and a
warm welcome. If you are able to come and make us a visit, we
will have the concordances of Washington and Montgomery. ...
Mrs. Mallory is in town on a short visit, Mrs. Fitzpatrick and
the Governor, Mrs. Memminger, Constitution

Page 159

Brown and his wife, Mr. and Mrs. Toombs (the latter is the only
person who has a house). I could gossip on ad infinitum ... ."

        In Huntsville a feeling of diligence in preparation was
everywhere evident. Our historic little town was not only in the
direct line of travel between larger cities, and therefore a
natural stopping place for travellers; but, by reason of the many
legal and political lights residing there, and because of its
being the county seat of one of the most affluent counties in
northern Alabama, was, and is, a town of general interest
throughout the State. Almost in an unbroken line, the United
States Senators of northern Alabama have been citizens of my
husband's native town.

        Situate among the low hills that separate the higher
points of the Cumberland range, Huntsville smiles up at the sky
from a rare amphitheatre, hollowed in the cedar-covered
mountains. It is in the heart of one of the most fertile portions
of the Tennessee Valley. Within an hour's swift ride, the
Tennessee flood rolls on its romantic way, and as near in another
direction is the forked Flint River, every bend along its leafy
edges a place of beauty. Up hill and down dale, ride wherever one
will, may be seen the hazy tops of mountains, disappearing in the
blue ether, and intervening valleys yellow with corn or white
with cotton, or green with the just risen grain. In the summer
the sweetness of magnolia and jasmine, of honeysuckle and mimosa,
scents the shady avenues along which are seen, beyond gardens and
magnolia trees, the commodious town houses of the prosperous
planters. Among these affluent surroundings a high public spirit
had been nourished. Here the first State Legislature of Alabama
was convened and that body met which formed the State
Constitution. The simple structure in which those early statesmen
gathered (being, in general, representatives from the families of

Page 160

Virginia and the Carolinas) stood yet intact in the early part of
1903. The first newspaper printed in Alabama, yclept the Madison
Gazette, was published in Huntsville, and Green Academy (taking
its name from the rich sward that surrounded it), a renowned
institution of learning, was long a famous feature of Twickenham
Town, by which name Huntsville was once known.

        In the early days of the township's existence, a hot
contest continued for years to wage between the followers of two
of its richest settlers as to the future appellation of the
pretty place. The friends of Colonel Pope, who had contributed
from the very centre of his plantation the square upon which was
built the County Court House, for a time overbore the opposing
parties and named the town in honour of the birthplace of the
immortal poet; but, though this choice was ratified by
legislative act, the adherents of the pioneer, John Hunt, refused
to yield their wishes. Mr. Hunt had discovered the site of the
town while still the valley was part of the Territory of
Mississippi. Lured by the deer he was stalking, he had come upon
the big spring, gushing with limpid waters. Here he pitched his
tent, and, gathering others about him, he fostered the building
of the town which, until the contest that arose with the
aristocratic Colonel Pope, was known as Huntsville. For two
years, until the original name was restored by a second act of
Legislature, the little city was known as "Twickingham Town," and
to many of its old families this name remains so dear that among
themselves it still continues to be affectionately applied.

        Half the youth of Alabama in that early day delved in the
classics under the guidance of the studious professors of Green
Academy. It was situated in a large plot of ground which
commanded a view of the mountain. Its site was given to the town
by Judge William Smith (the warm friend of Andrew Jackson) on the
condition that it should be used only for a building for
educational

Page 161

purposes forever. This distinguished judge was, I think, the only
man until Roscoe Conkling to refuse a seat on the Supreme Court
Bench of the United States. *

        The charms and fascinations and general winsomeness of
the girls of the lovely vale, even in that early period, in a
measure may be imagined from the references to them in the
following letter, written to Clement C. Clay, Jr., by this time
entered at the State University at Tuscaloosa:

FEBRUARY 2, 1833.

        "My Dear Clement: Richard Peete, Jere Clemens, Richard
Perkins, Withers Clay, John E. Moore ** and myself are in a class
reading Horace and Graeca Majora. Clio is nearly broken up, and I
fear it will never be revived, as the members do nothing but walk
with the girls, nor do they appear to think of anything else. The
girls in this town are the most jealous little vixens that ever
breathed. I would advise you as a friend (for I have gone through
the fiery ordeal, and should know something of the character of
woman) to keep a respectful distance from the fair ones; for, if
you mingle with them at all, you will be persuaded to mingle with
them more and more. How much I would give if they would never
harass me more!"

        The roll of Huntsville's prominent men includes a
peculiarly large number of names that have been potent in State
and National capitals, in civil and in military life. Scarcely a
stone in its picturesque "God's Acre" but bears a name familiar
to the Southern ear. From under the low hill on which the
columned Court House and historic National Bank building stand,
the Big Spring gushes, which has had its part in swelling the
city's

* Judge Smith was the grandfather of Mrs. Meredith Calhoun, who,
with her husband, played a brilliant part in Paris society when
Eugénie's triumphs were at their height. A. S.

** John E. Moore became celebrated on the bench. He declined the
office of territorial judge, offered him by President Pierce, but
was serving as judge in a military court when he died, in 1864.
He was a brother of Colonel Sydenham Moore, who fell at the
battle of Seven Pines. A. S.

Page 162

fame. Where its source lies none can say, though myths are plenty
that tell of subterranean caves through which it passes, and
which gleam with stalactite glories. Trickling freely from the
sides of the mountain beyond are numerous medicinal springs, and
silver streams thread their way among the valleys; but nowhere
within the Tennessee region exists a flow that at all may be
compared with Huntsville's "Big Spring." If Hygeia still
exercises her functions, her modern home is surely here. The flow
of clear limestone water as it issues from the rocks is
wonderfully full and seemingly boundless. Since the founding of
the town the spring has supplied all the needs of the residents,
and that of armies camped about it. So late as 1898 its splendid
daily yield of twenty-four million gallons influenced the present
Government to locate in and about the pretty city, while awaiting
the development of the Cuban War, an army of twenty thousand men.

        In the sixties the spring was already famous. From time
immemorial the pool below it had served the same purpose for the
negroes about as did the River Jordan for the earlier Christians,
and a baptism at the Big Spring, both impressive and ludicrous,
was a sight never to be forgotten. The negroes came down the
hill, marching with solemn steps to weird strains of their own
composing, until they reached the edge of the stream that forms
below the spring. Here the eager candidates for immersion were
led into the water, when, doused for a moment, they would come up
again shrieking shrilly a fervent Hallelujah! As a rule, two
companions were stationed near to seize the person of the
baptised one as it rose, lest in a paroxysm of religious fervour
he should harm himself or others. As the baptisms, always
numerous, continued, the ardour of the crowd of participants and
onlookers was sure to augment, until a maniacal mingling of
voices followed, that verged toward

End of Part 3